Hi there
I have an idea for a NPC that is basically invisible/impervious to magic. I am sure I have read about such a character idea somewhere. I plan for it to be an inconspicuous servant that ends up being the only guy that knows what is going on in the area after some Mentem magicians blast at each other liberally. Would you accept such a Major immunity? Could it be Magic in general or should I restrict it to Mentem stuff? Thx 
Would your opinion change if it was a PC?
Cheers,
Xavi
I think there is an example Major Immunity to Mind-affecting Magic, or something very similar. I think magic is too general, but this might suit your purposes. I think it's in Rival Magic in the section about the guys related to some giant monster things. I'm far from my books so that's the best I can do.
Chris
HoH:TL, under the Mercere chapter, has a Major (Heroic) Virtue "Invisible to Magic" which allows a character, by concentrating, to be effectively "invisible" (and thus immune) to Intellego magic and magic affecting him directly (as opposed to magic creates and/or directs something like a rock or a fire to affect the character).
The difficulty of the concentration roll grows in proportion to the magnitude of the effect -- and very quickly, in fact: to avoid a level 25 spell one needs a roll of 18+. I'm not sure I like this mechanic; I would have made the difficulty proportional to Penetration, so that subtle effects and/or ones produced by more powerful wielders of magic would be more difficult to evade.
Immunity to A SORT of magic, yes. Invisible to magic, yes. Completely immune i would be wary of even if it was one of my Greater Flaws(ie worth two Major).
Of course it also depends on how strict your interpretation of it is. If you still allow indirect effects, then as a Major Flaw it may be acceptable(or in this case, if he´s immune against sideeffects of people flinging mentem around but not specifically at the people affected, you could do it the opposite way and have him immune against all indirect magic effects and still be affected by anything that specifically targets him).
Possibly worth bearing in mind that "Immunity to Magic" duplicates the effect Magic Resistance.
Especially, in character, someone who is "immune to (certain values of) magic" looks like somebody who has a high Magic Resistance (high relative to the incoming effects, anyway). So, if the individual is not a Hermetic magus, in-character, the following thoughts may occur to magi:
a) this is a hedge wizard who has developed Parma Magica (or something similar), he's a threat to the Order, or
b) this is a demon, or
c) things with magic resistance often have vis in them --- let's kill it and harvest the vis!
I am searching for something that grants infinite magic resistance. That is immunity to me, not magic resistance. It is similar, but not the same A kind of "magic does not recognize you exist, so you are not affected by it. You are totally unaffected by magic regardless of penetration values. However, if magic crashes a building on you, well, good luck surviving the +40 damage.
Xavi
Ultimately this is your NPC and things don't need to balance out. Give the NPC whatever is needed. But I would recommend against creating it as a single Major Immunity because doing so will throw off the scale of Major Immunity, which is a scale the PCs use, too. Better to give him thirty Major Immunities if you really want to worry about the mechanics so much.
Chris
Perhaps, but in character I don't think a magus can distinguish between a target who is unaffected by an effect because its Magic Resistance was merely higher than the effect Penetration, and a character who has "infinite" Magic Resistance.
The characters should just treat the "immune" character as somebody with "high" Magic Resistance.
The story concept goes more along the magi detecting a void, an area of total lack of magic, if they cast an intellego spell at the guy. For someone that relies on magic that can be more scary than a Might 100 creature. It does not matter much that a cook with a kitchen knie can dispatch it: it seems dangerous to the magi. If they only cast POF at him, yeah, it might seem them same (but then I might have to think of ways to make the fact that the magic refuses to affect it more visible) but any intellego spell will show an empty magical area.
The more I think about it the more a Major virtue (or flaw) seems OK.
Xavi
The Ghuzz are a race of Magic Humans in Persia (Cradle and the Crescent, chapter 8) descended from Gog and/or Magog. They have a Greater Immunity to mental manipulation, meaning that they cannot be controlled through Leadership, Charm, or Folk Ken, through Virtues such as Inspirational, or even through ReMe or Entrancement.
Perhaps this is what you are remembering?
Mark
Yes, Mark, that's the one I was remembering so poorly. Thanks.
Chris
Truth be told, I absolutely hate total immunities. I prefer huge resistances, if only because, at least theoretically, they can be beaten.
I also think that this guy wouldn't live free for long once discovered, and am totally with Richard Love on this. He would either be killed, or captured and studied. Would you leave this guy out in the wild?
That being said (and taking into account my first point), here's how I would approach it: Give him a Personnal Power, at cost 0, cast each round, that casts a PeVi effect that dispell effects under a given level (using the same guideline that Wind of Mundane Silence)
This won't protect him against Momentary spells (which, IMO, is a good feature), nor against the more powerful one, won't protect him against other realms, too, but it means that most spells will only affect him an instant, and then be dispelled. Which I like.
Of course, he'll accrue warping, although, since the effect is "designed for him", no more than with a LR.
You can double that with Invisible to magic if you want.
Yes, but how does that look different, in-character, to failing to penetrate Magic Resistance with the detection effect?
Yup.
When casting in Intellego spell at someone with MR, you sense nothing, he just doesn't register.
If you sense "an area devoid of magic", then you're sensing something and he does register, he just registers differently.
Consider an InCo warning spell, telling you when something Corpus-based comes near you (similar to the shrieking InMe spell). If he sneaks up on you but doesn't register (like 1), he can stab you. But if you suddenly feel an "area devoid of magic" coming up from behind, won't you turn and face him?
That you feel nothing is not necessarily true. IMS it is more along that you feel you hit resistance. Like you hit a wall with your spell. An armor that does not allow you to see what is inside. In this case you would feel that your spell entered The Nothingness. Much scarier that hitting a wall.
In any case it is a NPC concept. Someone that will be in the court of the local noble and be aware of the raging battle between a mentem court magician and a demon while the rest of the court is oblivious to it (saga seed in 1.0 version, so it might be a demon and an angel, or a fae and an angel or something like that). He will have A LOT of info, but the characters will be unable to screen his brain and project it in an IMAX screen to get all the data they need. Why would a personal servant to the count go out by himself in the wild anyway? He has been an urban character all his life after all, and the fae annoy him like everybody else, hiding his stuff and dropping stuff on his head. Nothing to prevent that.
Cheers,
Xavi
Which comes back to what Richard Love said. When you cast a spell and it is resisted, do you have a feedback? For, say, offensive spells, no. You just know it doesn't work. For Intellego spells, neither: you just know it didn't worked.
As an aside, a word of warning.
Feel free to disregard it, because, well, your players might be different enough, but IMO, here's a reason why you should also consider it: I absolutely HATE when some "normal" NPC (I mean, not a god or else, but a human just like them) gets, "because he's a NPC", some awesome power or ability I could never take at chargen, nor develop into play. In my sentiment, this goes right there with being overshadowed by the awesome NPC-GM. I resent this as very, very unfair, and like, both as a player and a GM, my non-divine NPCs to play by the same rules than the PCs. To know that "Oh, this concept is so cool, why didn't I think of it" instead of "Oh, this concept is cool, too bad I can't do it because it is powered by GMium"
This is also why, in my post above, I tried to fit it into the rules. So that a player doesn't feel cheated, and, should he like the concept and, at a later time, choose to do something similar, he could and feel he got a fair deal.
Hell, do him as a magic human! This'll be close enough for all intent and purposes, since he'll have MR. You can even combne it with what I wrote above.
I know what you mean and feel sympathy for the thought. However, we dislike ROP:M deeply when it comes to rules and have banned it from our ME except for the enrichment rules. I will try to fin a way to fit it in, but I am not that cpncerned about it. besides, I would allow any of the members of my troupe to take this as a major virtue anyway. It is not like he is immortal or anything. He is just not there according to magic after all Collateral spells and any kind of mundane action (as well as divine actions, for sure) will detect/affect him anyway. Dunno in your sagas, but in mine if the first (generally, low level) spell does not affect something/someone and the players want to see it neutralized/dead they auto-switch to indirect spells without stopping to check if it has a might score of 15 or 300. There will be time for that.
Xavi
Lol... Somewhat, inadvisable is what I would call that...
To Curses or something like that maybe, for Example Iron Weapons are one Major too... Damage Hermetic Spells could be, since that is a Major Focus too, but it should be affectd by Magical ills and others effects related.
Perhaps, but in the context you gave: there is a (non-hostile?) survivor of some apparent magical/supernatural catastrophe.
Presumably, the idea is that investigating PCs are going to question this survivor. In my experience, magi PCs are highly likely to attempt to augment questioning with some combination of truth-detection, mind-reading, and memory aids. Any such effects are going to fail on the immune character, which is going to look to the PCs exactly like the survivor has Magic Resistance in excess of the Penetration that the PCs are generating. Quite what the PCs do about that will depend on the detailed circumstances...