Hello all,
Core book states that both bindees ignore the others resistance when one tries to affect the other.
A magus can hence spont a spell to help his familiar without having to worry about MR and vice versa. What about activating an object?
Will an object activated by the familiar bypass the magus' MR?
w
Why would it?
If I understand things correctly, the answer to your question would be no.
Effects that originate from the familiar or the caster will automatically bypass the magic resistance of the other, but effects that originate from an object or item will not.
The familiar bond proper is an 'object', whose enchantments should affect both magus and familiar bypassing magic resistance.
Cheers
So if I use a case limit where a magus holding his talisman trying to use one of its effects on his familiar will need to overcome its MR.
Are we all aligned with the above statement?
Guess my uncertainty lied within is the reason why MR is bypassed simply due to the type of arcane connection the bond is and as such, shouldn't both users be able to use it for all effects for which they try to channel through the bond AC...
W
I think the question is too general. If the familiar activates a magical trap I would not expect that to bypass MR any more than it would if the magus activated it.
If the familiar is intentionally using a magic item towards the magus, I would expect this to be the same as if the familiar had cast the spell themselves.
I wouldn't. The item doesn't suddenly gain the ability to ignore MR just because a friendly is using it. If I hold a magic item in my own hand it must still penetrate.
Frack, technically, if I cast R: Touch (or greater) spells on my self I will have to penetrate my own Parma Magica, unless I take the effort to lower it.
And an Item is, in Ars Magica, a seperate caster. It does not give you the ability to cast a spell, it gives you the option of causing the object to "cast a spell".
Correct.
And if the effect isn't designed with R: Personal (and it isn't, if it can target the Familiar, it would have to penetrate the magus' own MR should he wish to use it on himself.
The Talisman is protected by the owner's MR, and can affect the creator with R: Personal effect, thus avoiding MR but otherwise it's just a magic item.
In this context, and AC is an AC is an AC. The 'bypassing' is a feature of the bond.
Think of stories speaking of the wizard 'putting a piece of his soul' into a beast. Obviously, that's not what happens, since Hermetic Magic doesn't affect souls, but it's perhaps a way to understand the Bond.
I was under the impression that you could allow a spell to bypass your MR, for example if you were casting on yourself, or if someone else were trying to heal you.
Not quite.
RAW, you can concentrate to lower your parma for a time, but it is literally lowering it. For that time period, you have no parma, and you have to spend some of your energy in keeping it lowered, meaning concentration checks for spellcasting.
The magic resistance thing is actually quite fun.
If a character is rendered incapable of concentrating effectively, they lose the ability to lower their parma for friendly spells; even their own.
If your parma magica is going 'ping ping ping' while you're in an infernal regio, do you ever want to lower it?
You could be subject to a low level, but high penetration, illusion that your parma magica is pinging?
I can't imagine any demon would have a Power like that, as it's not functionally any more useful than going the actual "pelt with low-Penetration Powers" route. I suppose it might be useful for an especially slothful demon who just wants to be able to use his Power once and leave it to itself... Or it could be a natural regio effect, but I don't like the idea of something unintentionally targeting magi so specifically.
Going onto another tangent...
The RAW is a bit more nuanced. It lowers your Parma and your form resistance. There's been ample debate that individuals without Parma can't voluntarily lower their resistance, which is important for friendly creatures of might and apprentices.
It also means casting a spell upon yourself with a lowered Parma requires a bit more concentration than a lot of magi can muster: a Very Hard Sta+Concentration ability roll of casting another spell while maintaining another. So, while magi can cast touch range spells on themselves, it's actually not easy, or it shouldn't be based on the RAW. We can imagine that an average magus will have a Sta +Concentration of around 6 (Sta 2, Concentration 3, spells specialty), it means that about ~8 times in 10 the concentration roll will fail, which means the spell fails. Since most spell failures cause fatigue, I'd probably put fatigue on the magus in this case, too.
And then I would add to that, because it's strongly implied, "bypassing any resistance due to their shared bond." It's certainly the intent that powers put into the bond act upon the magus or familiar as if there weren't any resistances that need to be overcome. And in a situation where a familiar can't lower resistance, as I suggested above, then it becomes difficult to put spells into the bond that affect the familiar, due to the need to add penetration. Certainly Mental Communication spell becomes much, much harder, and for the magus may actually change has his mentem and parma scores change.
I can't imagine any demon would have a Power like that, as it's not functionally any more useful than going the actual "pelt with low-Penetration Powers" route. I suppose it might be useful for an especially slothful demon who just wants to be able to use his Power once and leave it to itself... Or it could be a natural regio effect, but I don't like the idea of something unintentionally targeting magi so specifically.
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Demon? What demon? I could see Hermetic Magi doing this.
Well, there's also that extending Parma requires consent, some sort of a weird "lowering".
I take it to mean something like, they are willing to let the magus touch them to extend it, which requires consent... it's an artifact of circumstance, perhaps more than actual necessity....