I think spells, powers, device effects, etc. that are activated inside a foreign Aegis should all be treated in the same way (sort of) - casting total is reduced if there is a casting total, otherwise penetration is reduced. (Reducing casting total will automatically reduce penetration, but may also cause the spell to fail completely)
This way they will all work (mechanically) in exactly the same way as if you are in a hostile Aura. That makes it easier to remember the rules if nothing else, and is aesthetically pleasing.
If the effect of an Aegis in Supernatural abilities is considered too harsh (due to the relatively low scores of Abilities), then the same is probably true for hostile Auras as well.
I was thinking a similar thing but using Penetration as a proxy for casting total for items and such where if the Pen is reduced to -11 or lower it does not fire and I was definitely thinking this should be the case with foreign auras as well. That said that deviates strongly from how RAW currently stand so may be best as a house rule. But then I’m not much of a fan of crafter-type characters and the only Items I ever want to produce are low-ish level stuff for one’s lab and Talismans. This would, in my view, have the added benefit of requiring penetration just to have dependable magic items for use while traveling.
Actually, I really hope we can get a unified treatment of all effects "attacked" by the Aegis: incoming, local, spells, device effects, creature powers, supernatural abilities without a casting total (e.g. Purifying Touch) etc. etc. One rule to rule them all!
And I agree that the most elegant solution is to subtract (some multiplier of?) the Aegis Level from the penetration of any "foreign" effect, and to dispel the effect if the resulting penetration is (sufficiently?) negative.
This would require errata, but oh, it would be so worth it!
A higher than normal Perception score, Puissant Awareness and Keen Vision all cover this. I don't think it's necessary at all to make this into a power, especially for things that are not intrinsically magical but cover what the magic character's body can achieve on its own, none of which are suppressed by the Aegis. If I built a human with stone skin, I don't give him a constant personal power of MuCo(Te) variety to improve soak, I give him tough and the improved soak quality. This conversation may be beyond the scope of the aegis thread, frankly, because this problem you perceive with how the aegis works say a lot more about how you design a character than it really says anything about the aegis. If as a storyteller, you decide it's better to handwave a given power as a physical effect because you made a design decision that could have been handled differently to achieve the same result rather than redesign the character, honestly I see no problem with it, but it shouldn't affect how the aegis works in the core rules. Just remember you have alternatives when you design new characters. If you chose to give the Gorgon that power so that it cost might points to use... I think you pretty much decided it was supernatural and not a mundane ability of the magic human's physical form.
As far as how I would handle things, I agree with you. The issue is not how we would handle these things, but how the game does handle these things. I'm not talking about things in the abstract here. Look at the gorgon's powers in RoP:F p.70. Or look at the dragon mostly on p.76 of RoP:M. Should it suddenly not be able to breathe like a fish because it crosses the AotH boundary?
The reason this is not beyond the scope is because this is how the game operates and interacts with the AotH. We're talking about this very interaction here. I had the same issue with mundane animals, and those have been fixed in the errata now. Maybe that is the better way to address these things. That would be up to David to change. Until such a change, these things are part of the RAW workings of AotH.
Thank you for quoting the pages, as that helped me realize you were talking about a character published in the books, not one you made for your home game. I think we'd still be okay for the Gorgon here, because the asteriks points out how the Dozens of Eyes power isn't really a power, it's a natural ability derived from the Hybrid form. So I don't read Dozens of Eyes* and Venomous Bite* any differently than I do Venomous Bite from the adder's description in the book of mundane beasts. They are not paid for with a personal power virtue.
Arkliss would lose his Lung of the fish power, yes. I don't see that as necessarily wrong, because it may be this dragon has no gills and his water-breathing power is purely magical, functioning exactly like the spell.
All right, I'll disentangle myself from the world of lesson plans, examination schedules, and classroom goals long enough to attempt to provide my opinion, for what it's worth. I'm not going to worry about RAW or answering specific questions (though I expect I'll get to all of ezzelino's queries regardless). I'm just going to throw my pair of cents in and let people make of it what they will.
Here, then, is how I'd prefer the Aegis to work. It may be useful to note at the outset that I like the notion of the Aegis affecting the fluid vis of an area, thereby acting more like an aura than a ward.
I like how the Aegis currently works with respect to spells cast into its effect from outside its boundaries. This makes sense to me, and I see no reason why these spells can't be ablated by the Aegis without penetrating the caster's Magic Resistance. I see it as being very similar to the Parma Magica and warding spells in that regard.
I also like the current mechanics regarding spells cast within the Aegis. If the Aegis acts like an aura--albeit a very powerful and highly irregular one--then, again, I see no reason why this needs to penetrate anyone's Magic Resistance. (I do think that RAW implies, thoughnotstrongly, that it does need to penetrate, but I'm not talking about RAW.) For clarity's sake, I see this not as the Aegis directly affecting the caster, but as it ablating any spell that the caster attempts to create. And, I have no problem with the weird nature of the Aegis acting contrary to the Vim guidelines, so long as this is explicitlystated in whatever end product comes out of this discussion.
Therefore, I think that spells that are cast prior to entering the Aegis ought to be ablated without need for penetration as they enter the Aegis, even if they are Personal spells whose effects never reach beyond the caster's Parma Magica (or any other form of Magic Resistance, for that matter). Yes, this is beyond what a normal aura does, but the Aegis is not a normal aura and I prefer the Aegis to be a strong defense rather than a costly method for keeping annoyances and vermin at bay.
So much for spells. Onto enchanted items.
I think effects created by magic items should have to penetrate the Aegis just like spells cast from outside its boundary. If they can't penetrate, the effect fizzles. This includes spells cast into the Aegis from outside, spells cast from inside the Aegis, and spells cast outside that are subsequently brought inside the Aegis.
Now creatures.
Having the Aegis act as a boundary to all creatures with Might less than or equal to the Aegis is find by me. For consistency's sake, I'd prefer that the Aegis not need to penetrate the creatures' Might. As stated before, I don't see the Aegis as anything approaching a normal ward.
To borrow David's language, I think an intuitive approach should be taken for what powers of Might-y creatures should be resisted. Anything that makes a creature what it is shouldn't be affected. The gorgon keeps her hair of snakes and her many, many eyes. The fire elemental still burns people when it touches them. The transformed Bjornaer shouldn't be forced back to his human form when crossing into an Aegis, though he should have a hard time abandoning his beast form afterward. And so on.
I would also like to add to the Aegis a defense equal to that which affects externally cast spells against those powers of creatures with Might that make intuitive sense. A dragon's fiery breath, then, would need to penetrate the Aegis, whether it was launched from within or without its borders. (The gorgon's stoning gaze is debatable; is it a power that she projects, or is it just the natural side-effect of her hideous face?)
Onto odd cases. I'm doing a lot more thinking as I write on these, so half-baked ideas are definitely in the offing.
For powers that are based on an Ability, such as Enchanting Music and Entrancement, I would prefer following the rule for the Aegis's effect on the Heartbeast (HoH:MC p. 22)--though Characteristics other than Stamina should be allowed as appropriate. That said, I would prefer that purely sensory powers like Sense Holiness and Unholiness not be affected by the Aegis. Is this inconsistent? Maybe, I haven't thought overly much on this one.
For powers that are not based on an Ability, such as Skinchanger, I suggest that they simply fail to work just like an item that had no penetration. I'm not sure, however, that I want the Aegis to act as a safe space for lycanthropes and other cursed people. That seems contrary to telling good stories about and with characters who chose those Story Flaws. And, I'm sure there are plenty of possibilities I haven't considered on this one.
As for the cords of a familiar, I would first say that a token presented to a magus is also presented to his familiar by default, and vice versa. This should apply whether or not the two are on the same side of the Aegis's boundary. Otherwise, I think I'd treat any bond powers the way I would any other spell. That is, they'd have to penetrate the Aegis to function if they operated across its boundary or within its confines. Again, there are probably reasons this is sub-optimal that I haven't thought of.
I have no real preference nor opinion on whether an Aegis has the ability to remove the Parma Magica. I can see both sides on this one. The same is true of Longevity Rituals. Though, if the Aegis can strip a magus's Parma and LR in one go, then it's one heck of a deterrent.
If you've stuck with me this far, then kudos to you! Hopefully, I've managed to contribute something to the conversation somewhere in there. Back I go to updating syllabi....
Yes! Thanks for the detailed analysis! One thing that struck me is this:
I have to agree, in the following sense.
I think AotH should have to penetrate the MR of individuals in order to affect them (and effects "attached" to them). BUT, if the opposite were true, for consistency I would not require AotH to penetrate in order to keep out Might-y beings.
Paradoxically, keeping Might-y beings out is the only part of AotH that really works like the Parma Magica - passively keeping stuff out rather than actively dispelling/destroying it. I think it might be interesting to imagine how the Aegis would look like if it really operated on "Parma Principles" (of course, Parma Magica keeps only supernatural effects out, not creatures, but ...). I think that:
Penetration of AotH would become irrelevant (save possibly in relation to metamagic affecting it?)
Might-y creatures would be kept out if of insufficient Might compared to the AotH Level. Note 1!
Any supernatural effect, and anything "attached" to it, would be kept out if of insufficient penetration compared to the AotH Level, just like what happens with Parma Magica. No dispelling! This also means that a high-Might creature with a low-penetration pink dot would be kept out, and that magi with Parma Magica active would be kept out. A bit weird, but consistent with how Parma Magica works, and keeps gorgons out without depriving them of their eyes.
How about stuff originating inside the AotH? Well, what happens if a magus with MR swallows an enchanted device that tries to activate in his stomach? I think that the device needs to penetrate the MR in order to produce an effect. If so, then any creature/enchanted device/other source of "mystical stuff" would also need to penetrate the AotH in order to have any effect (though if penetrate it did, it would be at full power). Parma has no penetration, so it would be un-raisable.
And what about stuff that's in the AotH when it's raised (or when an invitation is withdrawn)? Here the comparison with Parma Magica is tricky. It would not be dispelled. I think it would be allowed to move towards the edge of the Boundary, and then out of it, but not in the other direction.
While a departure from the RAW, this does seem a clean and conceptually "correct" solution to me; I would have no objection whatsoever to lack of penetration requirements. Any "ensemble" of supernatural power (say, a supernatural creature with an active power and a spell on it) is not "disassembled" but is kept out unless every part of the ensemble overcomes the Aegis. It's a more defensively powerful Aegis, but one that cannot be used offensively (as the current one can, particularly if no penetration is required - remember that you can suspend an Aegis "inside" a Wizard's Ward so it triggers instantaneously).
I think we'd still be okay for the Gorgon here, because the asteriks points out how the Dozens of Eyes power isn't really a power, it's a natural ability derived from the Hybrid form. So I don't read Dozens of Eyes* and Venomous Bite* any differently than I do Venomous Bite from the adder's description in the book of mundane beasts. They are not paid for with a personal power virtue.