Many new spells to discuss about

Of course, pardon my sloppy language.

Paper Trap(ReVi30, Touch, Sun, Individual, Base 15, Tethered)
This spell binds another spell up to level 25 to a small piece of paper with a small piece of thread attached to it. It works like Supperessing the Wizards Handywork. The caster usually ignites the thread with a small flame and with some experience with this he can estimate the time in which the flame reach the paper (and destroy it) very exactly. If the paper beginns to burns (or is destroyed in any other way, perhaps with a throwing knife) it is destroyed like a magical item and the spell dimish.
These spell can be used to lay timed traps (which cant be of momentary duration) for an enemy that is chasing you. Some magi give them to their grogs in order to lay traps for them which can be used without any magi in reach. But of course the magi have to be in the place in order to cast a spell that can be supressed.

Hellfire(CrIg25, Touch, Diameter, Individual, Size +2, Base 10)
This spell is often used within a paper trap. It creates a big fire of a diameter of 2,5 paces (a normal fire should have a diameter of 0,25 paces) that deals 15 to everyone and lasts for two minutes.

Smoke Bomb(CrAu5, Touch, Diameter, Individual, Base 3)
This spell works like Wreaths of Foul Smoke.

Trap Pit(PeTe20, Touch, Sun, Part, Base 3, Size +1)
This spell works like Pit of Gaping Earth.

I like these spells, but they feel a little "Japanese" to me. That may just be my limited understanding, but I would be leery of a normal string burning at a constant rate, I don't think "fuses" are in medieval Europe yet. I would have no problem with a magically created or perfected string burning at a very constant rate, however.

The base Ignem Individual is a "large campfire or fire in the hearth of a great hall"...at least a pace in diameter, maybe 2, in my opinion.

By the way, this is perefect for some Hedge Wizard in my game. Consider is stolen :slight_smile:

Hrm I wonder if this spell is needed... with Thethered magic this could work well without a spell like Supressing the Wizards Handiwork... damn I LOVE Tethered magic... I think I will allow my players to use this ability as a normal part of hermetic magic. :slight_smile:

(And yes I watched too much Naruto episodes. g)

Lost Love, Lost Heart(ReCo40, Voice, Momentary, Part, base 15, +2 for a gruesome effect)
This gruesome spell teleports the heart of a human only 50 paces away into the casters hand.
The +2 magnitudes are for game balance so that a ReCo isnt better than a PeCo spell.

I think it would depend on environmental conditions, such as wind.

You mean heart, right? (Though teleporting a hearth, or more likely the fire from the hearth, might be very useful for a magus with strong Rego and poor Creo.) In order to affect a heart, you need to sense it, or have an Arcane Connection. You would only be able to see someone's heart if things have already become gruesome, or by using Intellego. Depending on the storyguide, feeling/hearing a person's pulse might also count, and fresh blood might generously be deemed an AC to the heart. On the whole, it would be easier to teleport someone's head.

That aside, I'm skeptical whether a firmly-attached part can be moved without first separating it from the rest of the object. Have you found any examples of this in the published spells? I'm inclined to say you need an additional (rather strong) Rego effect to rip the heart out, or Perdo to cut it loose.

A heart is a Part of a human body(and the spell have a Part Target), like its blood, its eyes or its skin... you dont have to sense the heart in order to affect it (like you dont need to sense the eyes of someone you want to change or a heart you want to Perdo, according to the official spell Clenching Grasp of the Crushed Heart) and there is no rule against affecting a non-movable Part of something or any special rules for teleport spells. So it it is not against the rules it is according to the rules. :wink:
And a +2 magnitude could well serve as an extra power to forcefully remove somthing very good connected to something.
And even it is not possible... then such a spell would teleport heads instead of hearts. :smiley:

I certainly agree in the skepticism toward this spell. Though I think the name and visual effect is as neat as it is gruesome. I would allow such a spell as a Perdo spell with a base level of 30 (Kill a Person). Add a Rego requisite to get the heart into your hand and some magnitudes to cover the range, target etc.

There certainly is a rule against it! Rego (p. 78.): "The Art of Rego allows a maga to change the state of a thing to some other state that the individual thing can naturally have." I would say that no matter the Part Target, the beating heart of a living man can without doubt never in a natural state be in your hand. So acording to the the rules it seems to be against the rules...

Reading just that line I would have guessed it was a muto description...
Granted the heart won't be unnaturally beating while in your hand (the spell never says it will), but it could easily end up in you hand naturally.

Is 50 paces normal voice range? (no book here) Otherwise I see no problem with this

Voice Range is 15 paces , 50 if shouting.
(Base 15 ReCo allows instant transport up to 50 paces of the target)

The guidelines for Rego Craft magic may be useful here.
(Covenants page 49)
Consider the Craft Skill in this case to be Medicine or Chirurgy.
A Finesse roll has to be made.
The Ease Factor is always +03 higher than the actual ease factor for the skill.
Decide how difficult it would be to remove someones heart manually.

Base 15 for PeCo only allows for things like inflicting a Heavy Wound.
Base 30 is Kill a person.
Why is this spell better or more useful than
Clenching Grasp of the Crushed Heart? (page 133)

No it could not! And beating or not - a living man's heart does not belong naturally in your hand. To rule so is to me nothing but munchkin abuse to achieve a cool effect. The spell is doable, but the main Technique is Perdo, it has a Rego requisite and the base level is higher if you want to kill a person, resulting in a higher final level of the spell.

Doing direct damage to anything is Perdo. Why would you ever learn Perdo if you could use Rego to rip off peoples arms, legs or rip out their heart, and still do all the other stuff that Rego does. The Arts have to be mutual exclusive. Even if you can come close to achieving solutions with different Arts.

Pure intimidation :smiling_imp:

It is because you can acheive similar solutions with different arts that this is possible. In this case Corpus is the main factor in the spell, the way you effect that heart is all technique and can be varied based on the strength of the caster

Consider the following...
Mundanly: I remove someones heart, with a direct result being that they die.
Muto: I change their herat to stone...they die
Rego: As mentioned above.... they die
Perdo: CLENCHING GRASP OF THE CRUSHED HEART
R: Voice, D: Mom, T: Ind
When casting this spell, you make a clenching motion with your hand. The victim doubles over and dies at once.
(Base 30, +2 Voice)

No where does this target the heart besides the name. You are removing the life from the entire body....they die

Essentially the rego is a called shot where the perdo is the entire person so the extra magnitudes are justified

I agree that direct damage should be easiest with perdo and would definately require the "fudge factor" to make the level comparable. But We'll just have to agree to disagree that perdo is required

Although you can come very close - you cannot, in terms of the effect, achieve similar solutions with different Arts.

What you can and cannot do with mundane is no arguement. You can build a tower with mundane means or torture people, kill then and cut out their hearts, but that has no what so ever impact on what magical Arts you would do to copy those things.

No you certainly cannot - it is in direct contradition with the RAW (p. 78 ): "Thus Muto magic can neither injure nor kill someone directly". You could turn the whole person into stone and then throw her from a cliff, or turn her into a fish and watch her suffocate - but neither of those are what you are aiming for.

As stated above, I disagree.

Yes Perdo can directly injure or kill people. That is what it does - the extent of the possible damage is determined by the base level, but the actual effect, in terms of description, might be very specific.

No matter how you put this spell together you will need perdo - If you included Perdo in the description I would have no objections.

The way I see the "fudging" involved in this, you might aswell reduce the Arts to a handfull. Or maybe to just one - the Ars. And then we might aswell ignore specialisation and introduce character levels instead. "How many years are you out of apprenticeship?".... "okay, then you are able to do it."

Ok after beeing back from some long journeys I will finaly answer to you posts. :slight_smile:

It is true the whole thing with the Rego duidelines is not very clearly writen or though I think: is it normal for a human to fly/levitate or to teleport or is it realy that natural for a piece of iron to become Excalibur?

Lets assume that at least every change that could be done with tools is something you can make with rego magic. So the idea with a RegoCorpus medicine-skill sounds good but also powerful for me. I Think it would be easy, even for an one-armed, blind men with a skill of 0, to cut a heart or an eye out of a human body... with a Voice spell this would lead to ReCo killing spells at a very, very low magnitude with a required Finess+Int roll of 3+...

In case of this spell I think a Finess+Int roll for cutting the heart free of 9+ seams reasonable (only 9+ because you doesnt need to think about harming or wounding something and +2 magnitudes for such an additional effect seams reasonable too.

Another important thing is the power level of this spell and of another ReCo spell that is a ReCo45 spell (unlimited teleportation on Voice range). With such a spell you could not only teleport you and your group (with warping) to every point in Europe to which you have an ArcCon, you can also teleort foes into vulcanos, 1000 paces under water, 1000 paces in the air, into a cage in your home lab, into a absolutly deadly trap or acid or something in your home lab/torture room and such things. And all these many more and different uses for only one magnitude more than a "normal" instant kill spell.

I think this spell I created is not only well balanced, it also fits into the 5 Techniques very well. Bit perhaps I think this because I dislike to boooooring Perdo Technique since 4th edition.

But I have some new ideas already :smiley:

Teleporting yourself and your allies and foes on personal, Touch, Voice and Sight range is a normal thing that doesnt need any new spells or discussions aboput. But what about spells that "summon" something via a ReCo/An/Te/whatever spell to the caster? Perhaps even without a Momentary duration. This spells would be ritual spells becaus eof their minimum level of 55, but you can make items with it and ignore the requirement for ritual spells.

For the next two spells I assumed that a ReCo spell and a simular spell that teleports beeings affected with other forms are of the same magnitude, if you disagree with this these items are of course not possible.

Ring of the Servants, one of Verditius rings
This small, iron ring with three small rubys and te Verditius elder rune for Rego inside of it is always warm and somethimes you can see red fire inside the gems. The origin of this is a myth but some say the original lab text is from Hephaistos himself and was a gift to Verditius. Under the three rubys there are 3 tiny parts of Hephaistos constructions, made to unlimited arcane connections by Verditius.

To activate the ring you only need to call the name of the servant you want to summon very clear and with the Order "Serve me now!". After this one of the following golem or automata lke creations of Hephaistos itself is summuned instantly near to the magus.

The Iron Drake, the Maiden of Steel and the Stead of Silver. The first one is a huge size +5 drake made of steel with hot magma in his veins and big, metalic wings and enough place on his back to transport a small house. The second is a intelligent lady with a legendary beauty (indead the original lady was Aphrodite, Hephaistos wife), a fine sense of humor and a perfect voice. The last one transport the magi or serve him as a more than perfect horse of war. All these creations are only summoned and diddnt obey the user of this ring instantly. But every Verditius can rely on an old pact made between verditius and the old pagan god. But only a Primi of this house (or a direct ancestor of Verditius) can control them perfectly. Only one of the servants can serving the magi, if another one is called the first one disappears. The working spell is a ReTe85 spell with Concentration, Arcane Connection, Individual and Size +4 a Penetration of 52, 4 uses/day and a concentrqtion holding item for a final level of 115. Insanely this is only a lesser device, so it was created in only a single season...

Staff of the Fire Lord
This long staff consists of oak wood, is covered with runes and gems and seems very old. It was once the talisman of an archmage of house Flambeau. In addition to the two spells I describe many more effects are placed in it.
Calling the Fire (ReAn120, Concentration, Arcane Connection, Individual, Size +5, Penetration 52, 4 uses/day, holds concentation)
This spell summons the powerful dragon Stellatus, one of his scales is inside the staff. If the concentration is broken the dragon is simply summoned back to the place from where he came.
Hells Servant (ReMe85, Sun, Arcane Connection, Individual, Penetration 52, 2 uses/day, holds concentation)
This spell is "always on" and makes the dragon to a perfect servant for the staffs wielder.

The one-armed blind man with skill 0 and no tools except teeth , being able to do this in 30 seconds (for a heart)
to an unconscious , immobile person with their ribs broken open ,
might be Ease Factor 03.
:stuck_out_tongue:

Rego Craft spells are always +03 to the base ease factor of the relevant skill.
It would be 06+ at least on a Dex + Finesse roll.