An idea I've had for an item is proving troublesome to our troupe.
My character, Santiago Ex Flambeau, is a Bride of Mithras that needs a truth spell. Being a flambeau with a mean streak and a fondness of ignem, he has come up with the following spell.
Firey Breath of the Spoken Lie
This spell is essentially 'Frosty Breath of the Spoken Lie' in its purpose, but instead of just steamy breath, the unfortunate victim breathes fire and this inflicts a hugely painful medium would as it burns their mouth.
As a bride of Mithras, he wants to put this spell into a magical lantern. It offers him the opportunity to use the lamp as a status symbol whilst actually having a practicle use as well as give him the opportunity to bequeth it to the Mithranians in his will.
This is the tricky part. What I'd like is to be able to have the effect work on a room target. Essentially, anyone that is in a room with the lamp will breathe fire if they lie. Is this 'aura' beyond hermetic skill? Any thoughts?
Have to check the rules,.. but if your SG insists on you not being able to effect anyone in the room, change target to group. (10 people) or size +1 (100 people)...
By the way: don't use any penetration! Otherwise you might get into trouble for spying on your sodales using magic as well as attacking them.
And still unfocused use may be dangerous when hurting another maga's apprentice. That maga might declare a war on you....
So may be it is best not to use it untargeted...
The simple option is to take the extra level bump and use a non-standard target.
Target illumination souds like a pretty cool break through to put in my list of stuff that the Bonisagus discovered but never got properly distributed throughout the order.
In principle, a Room target with Touch range (and a InMe(req: Cr,Ig) effect) should allow the lamp to work on everyone in the room. (Well, you might want to bump a size magnitude or two, if you're expecting very big rooms).
I'd prefer Erik's version, however, of affecting anyone illuminated by it. I'd say it's equivalent to the Voice range (15 paces), plus one magnitude for being an nonstandard target, and I'll allow another magnitude to bring it to "shout" range (50 paces). Feels much more right.
A medieval "room" of 15 paces (22 meters) would already be a sizeable hall in most manors and 50 paces (75 meters) would equate to a throne room or slightly less than the internal area of the naves of many medieval churches. To suggest that one lamp could illuminate such an area is stretching it a bit
Otherwise I like the "illumination" range concept. One might also conceive of a non-standard Range "Occupant" for spells with Room target. Then you wouldnt have to worry if the light touches them but whether they can simply see the light (even from the shadows).
I hate the "pace" term. I read it as "meter", based e.g. on "A base Boundary... is one hundred paces (three hundred feet)" (ArM5 p. 113). So a 15 paces range would suffice for a room 30 meters across (706 square meters circle) and as high, certainly a huge hall by any standard. You'd only need to increase the range for truly immense rooms (as large as 35 by 35 meters square room - 1225 square meters), probably only relevant in majestic magical covenants, or cathedrals.
Sure, one can take that approach, and I often do. But any magic lamp capable of illuminating a 75 pace area is going to be more in the order of a sodium arc lamp and likely to blind anyone within the immediate vicinity of its radiance lol.
Not only would their mouth be be burnt but their retinas too (and without needing any additional effects instilled) lol.
I'm sorry you "hate" the term "pace". I'm also sorry that the Ars CR writiers decided to misrepresent the term rather than apply its legitimate historical value of 1.46 meters (or at very least round off to 1.5 m). There is nothing remotely difficult in multiplying the pace notation by 1.5 IMO, but to each there own I suppose.
I am well acquainted with the wiki article. True there were differing measurements for the "pace" but given that the Order of Hermes is a legacy of Roman traditions not Byzantine nor British/Norman (as a whole that is) it is perfectly logical to surmise that it would apply the Romanesque sense of the term.
Thats my thinking on the matter at any rate.
Btw: The Roman Pace is 5 feet, 1.46-48 meters, the Byzantine was half a Roman pace. Likely if the British pace was longer it was closer to the true Roman pace.
I'll repeat my comment from another thread that I think it's easiest to consider it a 'hermetic pace', of sorts. The Order of Hermes has a Roman lineage, so it used a familiar unit name, but because a somewhat different length kept coming up (especially in Individual-sizes for spells) they called that their 'pace'.
...Or not. But that explanation satisfies me at least somewhat, and works for my players.
Whatever works for you then. Id rather not skimp on distances when it comes to spell effect ranges. Better the spell that goes 75 meters (50 paces) than one that goes 50 meters (50 pseudo paces), IMO.
Well, I'm always in favor of weakening magic Or in this case, I prefer generally to go with what the authors meant, seeing no reason to extend the (already respectable) ranges of Hermetic magic.
So the 1 pace = 1 meter suits me just fine^^
