I was thinking about personal wards recently, and realized that you can use them maliciously, wards vs humans preventing the aid of injured enemies, wards that prevent an enemy from eating or drinking(on their person or their stores. Theyre perhaps not the most powerful tool here, since they can mostly be dispelled without too much difficulty, probably the malicious ward against humans on an injured enemy wizard or magus is the stand out here, what with hermetic magic's occasional difficulties actually killing an enemy directly.
I wonder a bit about penetration here, presumably you must still penetrate the Target's(capital T) magic resist regardless of your opinion ward mr stuff, this entity is unambiguously havingna spell cast on it. Anyway, one assumes that the normal ward mr rules are at least a little obviated in this specific instance, you are just casting a spell on a guy, so i would assume you get to use sympatheic magic &c. For the initial penetration at least.
Anyway thats all.
Note that personal wards are one-way! If a target is warded against cheese, you cannot pummel him with a round of cheese, but he can still bite into one.
Casting magic does not differentiate if a spell is helpful or not for the target, so regardless of the intent, a spell must always penetrate the target resistance, whether it is healing, warding or a pilum. So if you ward a person to prevent anybody to reach her, you must penetrate the target MR.
Then the ward will work like any other ward: some wards prevent any non-magic creature or item of the appropriate form, some prevent against magical creature, then it is a comparison ward level vs Might (p124, Re Aq Ward against Faeries of the Waters as reference).
Since a mage (usually) does not have might, a ReCo ward against magical creature from Corpus does not affect them. Base on the Animal guideline (p120) a ReCo base 2, should be enough to prevent any non-magical human to affect the warded target, and MR or Parma does not circumvent the ward (Circle of Human Wardin ReCo 5, base 2, +1 Touch, +2 Ring).
Personal Wards are tricky to use offensively in most cases. Someone warded against water could still themselves manipulate water (move container of it, swim, drink). However if the Target is unconscious such a ward would prevent others from pouring water into their mouth.
@Ezechiel3571 The ReCo Base for warding against humans is 15, you can not side step that by using a modified ReAn Base. All spells published using something less that 15 have errata.
My mistake! Completely missed it when I looked for it.
@ezzelino do you have a reference for that? This is a slightly different position than the one im familiar with
@Ezechiel3571 regarding your first two paragraphs, you should reread my last one more closely, this is acknowledged
@InfinityzeN ditto previous, im interested in how this line of argument is constructed, also either way yr not getting into yr sacks of grain until you call the wizard over or convince some woodland creatures to give you a hand
Wards "protect the target from things of the appropriate Form" (ArM5 p.114), not the other way round.
There are many similar references spread all over the place; in fact, this is exactly how Magic Resistance is worded and works.
You could do deathtraps though.
Get a huge slab of stone and place it on your enemy who is warded against stone until sunset. At sunset, splat.
Do you expect me to talk?
No magi Vinculum, I expect you to die.
Have you considered the core spell Ward Against Wood? What happens if you want to grab a wooden spoon or tap your foot on a wooden floor?
This falls under my "Magic isn't stupid" rule. While that is never written in RAW, I believe the principal is generally used in the game.
Warding is about protection. Pushing against something, generally the ward won't stop it. I say generally, because I know an edge case rules abuser is waiting to catch me out.
If a person warded against wood is pushed in to a sharpened stake, the stake would be pushed back. Does this contradict the wood floor situation? Yes, and that's because magic isn't stupid.
How is being suspended slightly above a normal, wooden floor you're walking on protecting you? If you're knowingly contradicting a canonical statement, then you're in house-rule territory, right? I'm not saying it's wrong to house-rule this way, but we shouldn't provide house rules as canonical answers, right? And it's not like this is the only canonical ward that would prevent intended contact by the warded person.
One of the ReHe warding spells explicitly mentions throwing the mage's staff away: repel the wooden shafts
That's my point. I say, and I believe the rules say, a ward is about protection.
An edge case rules lawyer will try to say if the ward repels the wooden stake, to be consistent the magi should hover above the wooden floor, because wood is repelled.
I am saying the magi doesn't hover above the wooden floor, because the ward is about protection.
Oh, we know that's not a standard for a ward in ArM5. After all, we use circular wards to keep things in or out, even if it isn't protecting anything from being damaged. Right?
In this case, the core spell is rather explicit, and it's not the only core ward that prevents you from touching the thing you're warded against. Take a look at Ward Against Heat and Flames. Now, I do think Ward Against Heat and Flames has problems with the full pace, but even if that were reduced to just beyond your body the issue here would remain the same. And Medusa mentioned Repel the Wooden Shafts. We've got three canonical spells so far.
I don't have the book with me at the moment.
Does the spell make the wooden staff fly from the mage's hand, or does the mage have to discard wooden objects to allow the spell to work?
I disagree. Magic is stupid. Or at least it is not smart enough to make intelligent decisions.
Magic that protects against wood can't tell the difference between threatening and non-threatening wood, it will stop the wood equally well in both cases.
No heat can affect the target. None? Duration sun. That means the target dies of hypothermia.
This spell shows some degree of nuance in the interpretation of ward spells is required.
Oh, and here is another one: Wrappings of Metaphysical Iron. It's rather specifically commonly being used to prevent faeries from touching/manipulating/taking things rather than preventing them from harming those things. Yes, it prevents harm, too. I don't buy an intelligent spell that knows whether the faerie is yanking your arm to stop you from falling over a cliff or yanking your arm to pull you over.
If you're going to go into real-world physics and bodies, you might want to look up what you're talking about. You're basically saying this spell requires such nuance because you don't know how peoples' bodies and heating work. I'm not trying to be rude; I'm just pointing out that your statement is based on a drastic misconception of how this works in the real world.
Imo its almost always better to stick with the "spell is dumb, so it has weird side effects" because its more gamable, you know?