And if he does allow it there will be the 3 levels for the environmental trigger - but I think the lab total copes with that.
My example was extreme to make the point. Now that that's understood, let's look at someone who just knows the basics. Let's take a beginner, someone who has trained for a season, versus an expert. Then we can skew the blade's trajectory with only forces normal to its motion that don't alter the beginner for the beginner's thrust. Assume the expert's weapon Ability is equal to the beginner's Finesse. It is very common for beginners like this to be at least a 30 if not closer to 60 cm off with their strike when moving at combat speeds. Here are two sample diagrams (the person's body is and the sword is | or \ in the diagram, while the target is X):
Edit: I had to add periods for spacing. The spaces disappeared in the post.
Expert
X
|
|
|
Beginner
X
.
..
...
...
...
...
...
Both of them are right on target (equal totals from Abilities, Characteristics, rolls, etc). But should they do the same amount of damage with equal accuracies this way? The beginner's arm isn't lengthening at quite the right time (thus the shorter body diagram), which is extremely common in beginners. Also you can see that the beginner's body will not be properly driving the blade into the target. Additionally, the beginner is probably landing on his feet slightly off-time, which can remove a huge amount of what the body adds to the thrust; this is extremely common in beginners, too. I just don't see how you get equal damage without a component of the Rego force tangential to the motion of the blade.
Chris
I would accept encountering magic resistance as an Environmental Trigger. That seems to fit the rules for Environmental Triggers well. I'd still have an issue with it having failed to penetrate prior to not needing to, but if your SG let's that go this should help.
Chris
I'm not sure I would allow encountering magical resistance as a viable environmental trigger. Mostly because as MR stops intellego effects from working on those protected so it seems to have an obscuring effect as far as hermetic magic goes. I'ld also be truly terrified at the type of traps you could build with this effect. Remember anything you can make your enemies can make as well.
I have a problem with the adding of Finesse score to the combat stats of the sword.
Are there any RAW spells that do this?
For a ReTe 05 spell , this seems way too much.
I think you need an Intellego effect for arrow parry and the sword does not have any magical senses.
I would also be interested in seeing the Lab Total for creating this item.
It's the wielder who sees the incoming arrow, what the sword does is improve the response time and precision to give him a fighting chance to parry it under combat conditions.
Base 2 slightly unnatural movement*, +2 affects metal, +1 duration.
Extras: Only useable by OOH quaesitors**, 24 times per day.
Triggered when sword is drawn or combat stance taken.
*moving like a sword in the hand but better
**Fixed list as known by Marcus to be active 1 year before play begins.
Have you considered how hard it is to maintain concentration during melee combat. I'd expect having to roll a 9 or better on a concentration check every round to keep this effect going. If you get hit then thats a 12 as per the concentration table pg 82. Even with an average concentration+stamina of say 5 your going to drop the spell almost one out of every three rounds. Your also rolling more stress dies every round which means more chances to botch. Throw onto that the fact that the story guide might think the situation is disaster prone enough to warrant extra botch dice.
I just think there are better ways to get what you want.
Items of Virtue HoH: MC
Item quality ArM C&G
Rune Magic Ancient Magic & HMRE
Alchemical steel A&A
Or think about enchanting armor or a shield you magic those to hell and gone and not have to worry about magic resistance.
There was a character in my last saga who's talisman was his shield. It was all but indestructible (made of steel and muto'd) and enchanted with rego so that it was light as a feather to the wielder but immobile to anyone else. The front could glow as bright as the sun so anyone in combat with him took penalties. We had a Verditius in the saga so it was an item of virtue as well. He was also working on putting an enchantment on it that destroyed any weapon on contact except for his sword. The bonuses he had in melee combat where obscene and none of them relied on penetrating his opponents MR.
Melee combat is what the effect is designed to do so it doesn't force concentration rolls as a distraction.
If I was building a melee specialist wizard I would definitely have done things differently. If I had any of those supplements I would have considered those options. The character favours Rego Terram and dresses in grey cloak and sword (for the Dresdenverse Warden look) so I applied the one to the other in what seemed like a straightforward way, thinking I was carefully avoiding the magic resistance pitfall, and ran into the Red Dot.
It doesn't matter what the effect is designed for concentrating to maintain an effect requires a roll. It's like saying it's not distracting to use your cell phone while driving as long as your using a gps navigation app.
You completely ignored my comparison to a similar ReTe effect using the same base 02 guideline.
I don't see any numbers for a Lab Total.
(i can work it out , i was wanting to see what was used originally)
Can you explain , using any rules from RAW or spell guidelines , how the sword improves response time?
Just saying that it does , explains nothing of how the effect works.
To be blunt , i think your sword effect is out and out wrong , using the base 02 guideline.
I think Ravenscroft is right. It does seem to fit the base 3 guideline a lot better. The base 2 seems to be for minimal acceleration and for no opposed resistance. Base 3 does seem better.
Chris
The guidelines for ReTe in my book say nothing about speed and accelleration, it's 1 move dirt in a natural fashion, 2 move dirt in a slightly unnatural fashion, 3 move dirt in a very unnatural fashion.
The natural movement of a sword in the hand is agile and quick in attack and defense, that's how it is designed, that's why it gives form bonuses to attack and defense. Exaggerating this makes it a slightly unnatural movement. Base of 3 is enough to command explosions, waves and creeping chasms from inert dirt. A base of 3 would be enough to make the blade fly, or whip and coil like an enraged serpent.
I do agree that the unseen arm is exceptionally weedy OTOH this effect is clearly applying smaller forces than the unseen porter. Anyway action at a distance is more unnatural than action in the hand.
AM5 page 82 column 3 paragraph 4. You are wrong.
I think the difference is how we're all viewing "natural" versus "unnatural." The guidelines don't help there at all. That's why we were using the example spells to gauge what is considered natural versus unnatural. Until agreement is established on those terms, it's hard to agree on the guidelines. Here's my interpretation:
Natural - likely to happen in nature with a small tweak to get it started: Causing a rock on a hill to roll down the hill. Causing a loose branch caught in other branches on a tree to fall out of the branches. Causing something to fall of the edge of a table. Cause a ball to roll slowly across a level floor.
Slightly Unnatural - likely to happen in nature with a medium to large momentary tweak to get it started or likely to happen with a bunch of small tweaks: Toss something small upward. Make something slide across a floor. Levitate a feather or leaf.
Very Unnatural - needing continuous significant external tweaking: Playing a song on an instrument. Carrying heavy things around.
That's covered by R: Voice and is entirely separate from the natural/unnatural fashion guideline. You are confounding the two.
I agree with noliar on this one, mostly. If the point was that in combat other things will happen that will require Concentration checks, then yes. But the act of swinging the sword alone should not require any concentration checks. However, being damaged, moving while swinging the sword, etc. should require such checks.
Chris
I might argue that conjuring a ball of heatless fire (for example) at touch range is no less unnatural than conjuring the ball 15 paces away even though it is a magnitude easier but that moving an object in ones own hand is less unnatural than doing it at distance. However, I'll just admit that I pulled that argument out of my arse instead!
Sorry , but movement of a sword in your hand is not natural to the dirt (upgraded to metal).
What bonus would a sword get , using your interpretation , with a mere +01 base guideline increase to 03.
If i worked it out correctly , you need a Lab Total of 36 to make your sword.
Base 03 will make it ReTe 10 , adding +10 to the Lab Total for a far superior sword at a mere +01 pawn of vis.
Unseen Arm uses base 02 , same as your spell effect.
Unseen Porter uses base 03.
All other Rego Terram spells using base 03 , have a size modifier included or a Muto requisite.
The other two ReTe spells using base 02 , The Forgiving Earth & Unyielding Earth ,
do not appear to encourage the use of finesse as a bonus to weapon stats.
The Rego Terram Guidelines insert on page 155:
ReTe guidelines, HoH:S p38
Another nail in the coffin.
I freely admit I wasn't remembering the rule on page 82 so I was wrong. You wouldn't need to roll just for wielding the sword, but I agree with Callen. An effect can be designed to "wield a sword" but not "for combat". So taking damage or running from one foe to another would require concentration checks. Also one might say that trying to use two abilities at once namely single weapon and finesse is not something this exception covers.
As far as the actual design of the effect goes I don't think 02 is an unreasonable base effect. I tend to judge natural and unnatural based on how weird it looks to the viewer. However I definitely think this is one of those effects that should get extra levels tacked on for complexity. What this spell seems to be trying to accomplish is pretty darn complex.
A hand held but self-wielding sword that uses finesse instead of single weapon would be complex on it's own. But I'd probably go along with it with a small say +2 complexity increase. I think that keeps in line with other spells particularly craft magic spells.
But a sword that uses finesse as a bonus to three different combat totals (attack, defense, and initiative) with out imparting any force to drive the blade just steer it. Plus it also allows the wielder to block arrows. That would probably earn at least a +4 complexity adjustment in my book. BTW how does the enchantment help the user move the blade fast enough to block arrows and give it a healthy initiative bonus by just providing guidance.
Plus you have the whole cancels itself before hitting a target that has MR only to turn back on when a combat stance is reasumed. I just think combat is way to abstracted in this game to allow effects like that to work in the span of one round.
Noliar, magic in ars magica does not tend to work that way. At leazst as far as we interpret it IMS. You cannot rego ON and OFF at will to pass over magical resistance. Either your sword is being guided by magic or it is not. If it is guided by magic, it is resisted. If it is not, it is not resisted but then you need other forms to improve its effectiveness against stuff with magic resistance 
I agree it is annoying that excalibur would suck against a hermetic magis or a dragon, but then excalibur NEVER went against a dragon or a dude with magic resistance as frar as I know (and it might bhave been a vitki weapon anyway). I am ranting now....
What I am trying to say is that your desired effect is not kosher as per the rules as written IMO. However, to each one his own, so if your troupe agrees with this spell, go ahead!!! We do that all the time. Half of the spells and effects of our mages we use would not get thumbs up from this forum. Not that we care much about it.
Now, if you want the spell to be "kosher" per the RAW, that is another matter. You can take 2 approaches:
-
Get your mage be a better fighter. In that case i would not enchant the sword, but a pair of gloves that give his hand AND prevent his wrists from dislocating. ReAn(Co) effect. The sword is strictluy mundane, so no resistance applies. The gloves have the additional effect that you can detect wards by touch if you give them a penetration of 0.
-
Make the sword something that would pass through the tough hide of Satan with ease. That means boosting penetration OR srtealing the weapon from a vitki. I suppose the later is not whart you are after, so I would make a small effect thast allows tyou to cast the spell with AMAZING penetration. Say, +50 penetration. Since it is a magic item, that should not be that difficult. There is a thread about thre abuse of item expiry limit that could help you in designing a 70 year duration sword that could cut through the queen of winter's MR with ease.
In this second case I would simpky make the sword wierld herself, with a cosmetic item that makes it look like you wield it (while you are truly casting spells). ReTe effect. extremely unnatural effect.
Hope that helps
Cheers,
Xavi
"Give me a lever long enough and somewhere to stand and I can move the earth".
The point is that if you start going that consistently then it is reasonable to have clever people like mages take the most advantage of it. This would the focus how mages interact with things and deal with problems in a way that is not shown in the books.
Then your players are playing idiots and not people who should be trying to do things as effectively and efficiently as possible. There are reasons why weapons all over the world are very similar, it is because they all sought to be as effective as possible given the restrictions the rules(physics in this case) placed on them. Any combative character who would not try pink dot defenses is a fool.
I mean if you were planing a modern game and a character had the option of taking a gun to a fight or a dull rock and choose the dull rock, he would be an idiot right?
In our saga, I tried a kind of pink dot. The SG modified parma so that it lets object go but not magic.
I tried the "okay then I give poison Muto'ed in water. He will drink his water, but the Muto will be gone and he will drink poison". The parma rang because the muto didn't penetrate (of course since it was a very old archmagus I was trying to kill for gauntlet) and the magus let his drink fall and the parma stopped ringing.
So finally, it is SG's (or troupe) decision. Logic and arguments don't really matter if he (they) has (have) his (their) opinion.
I don't think that people who don't try (or try not) to go for the limits of the rules are idiots. Because you know, here, this is a game.