I'm getting confused about mystical creature's Might Score. This topic has probably already been posted on this forum in the past but can't find it
A mystical creature has a Might Score, a Might Pool and a Magic Resistance.
The Magic Resistance is equal to the Might Score. The Might Pool is maximum equal to the Might Score and drops with powers spent by the creature.
Suppose a creature loses Might points because of a Perdo Vim spell which penetrates his Magic Resistance. How are the Magic Resistance and the Might Pool affected ?
Let's take an example : a Magus encounters a infernal wolf of Infernal Might 20 in a forest. The wolf has thus a Magic Resistance of 20. Assume the wolf is fresh so that his Might Pool is also equal to 20.
The magus launches a PeVi 10 spell which penetrates. The Infernal Might of the wolf then drops to 10.
Does the Magic Resistance of the wolf now equals 20 or 10 ? Same question for the Might Pool.
Suppose the Wolf escapes before he is destroyed by a second PeVi 10 spell. Will he somehow regain the lost 10 Might points or will he stay with his (new) 10 Might Score ?
And what about the vis in the wolf ? They were 4 pawns (one per magnitude) in the wolf. After the PeVi 10 spells, are they still 4 pawns of vis or only 2 ?
Note that the effective Magic Resistance of the wolf could be different depending on the local aura. As he is an infernal creature he gets a bonus to his Magic Resistance in infernal auras and a penalty in other sorts of auras. But if there is no local aura, then yes his Magic Resistance will be 20.
Magic Resistance is now 10 (possibly modified by aura).
Might Pool now has a maximum of 10. So if he had more Might Pool than 10 it drops to 10. If the wolf had already spent Might Pool on activating apowers, and so had less than 10 left in his Pool then it would not drop further.
Generally, he does not gain the lost 10 Might, he is now a Might 10 creature.
He could increase his Might Score over a long time using the techniques in RoP:Magic. And I suppose it is possible for him to have some kind of supernatural power that restores his Might.
IIRC the rules are a bit vague on this. In my saga we play that the vis disappears proportionately to the Might Score loss --- so after the Might Score is reduced from 20 to 10 the vis in the wolf is reduced from 4 pawns to 2 pawns. This means that PeVi type spells are not always the best solution to nuking criters, because you don't get any vis from their corpse. Other people's sagas may vary.
My reading of such things would be that a creature's Magic Might Score doesnt change - only its Magic Might Pool changes - you are basically nuking its 'magic' reserves, not its inheritnet magical nature - I would suggest that a Wolf with a Might Score of 20 descirbes its Essential Nature, and so Hermetic magic can not effect that, it can only effect its Pool, which is different.
OtOH - if you go the other way, warding spells are really really good - once you start hitting a criter with PeVi spells, if wont be able to punch through most wards - an example would be multicasting a PeVi 10 Oblivion spell - if you can punch through a critters magic resistence, you will absolutely nuke its remaining resistance and any chnace of getting past a ward (especailly useful are personal wards....) - it was from this that I assumed that magic resistance didnt reduce....
I'm not sure I see why it should work better. If you want to destroy the creature, take away it's Might Score. If you want to tire the creature, take away it's Might Pool.
See, I don't want to destroy or tire it. Maybe my players do. But anyway, I want the creature to have some staying power. I want it to be easier to ward against than simply destroy. I want PeVi spells to just drain the pool, the beast can escape and recover, and I don't want players reducing Resistance by simple PeVi spells. And sometimes it is the Player Character with the might score. I want it to be a little more fair and even on them as well.
But in any case, I know what is RAW and what is merely preference. However, I am advocating that others adapt a similar HR, because it simply works a lot better that way.
Ah, so the escape route is the selling point. I understand. I don't think it's a big enough selling point for me, given that there are plenty of other creature-specific ways to "escape". And if you can't destroy a magical spirit with Perdo Vim, I'm not sure what you can destroy it with.
Richard Love's answer seems counteruntuitive to me at first BUT
a) it is the RAW
b) confirmed by the errata of the 5th edition
c) confirmed by the description of the Demon's Eternal Oblivion spell in Promises Promises (altough it is 4th edition ...)
It also seems consistent to me as everything is linked to the Might Score (which is supposed not to be fixed) : Magic Resistance, Might Pool, amount of vis, ...
However, Mystical Creatures can be more easily defeated if PeVi spells make their Magic Resistance drop !
Let's take an unusual example :
A medium Magus is fighting an evil Dragon of Magic Might 50. The Magus manages (by a super stress die roll) to penetrate the Magic Resistance of the Dragon with a PeVi 20 spell. The Dragon has now a Magic Resistance of 30 ... I fear the Dragon won't last long now he is so much weakened in his Might.
On the other hand, if the Magic Resistance is fixed, the Magus was lucky to penetrate the Dragon's Magic Resistance one time, but the probability that it would happen again is small.
Any thoughts ? (cause I'm getting more confused now) What is more fun to you ? :mrgreen:
Yep, that's the tricky part I'm stuck with
And what about the vis in a Mystical Creature ? Is it somehow linked to the Might Score, is it fixed or not ?
A Pe specific spell will destroy the score/creature
Linked to this would be following
ReVi can ward out magical effects from creatures of various realms (aegis is exception as it was a major breakthrough shared with the order, other major breakthroughs can perhaps make other exceptions but have players research them)
Re is needed to ward out the creature physically and prevent it from entering.
So DEO is a PeVi since Vi is the form for demons will destroy their might. A faerie of the mountains will have its pool destroyed by PeVI but it takes PeTe to destroy it (Even as ReTe is how you ward against it.).
Suddenly now you no longer can have a Vim specialist that can ward out every creature and destroy every creature without needing to study the other forms. You want to ward or kill a faerie of the forest, learn He.
I always have an escape route.
But anyway, my isue is reducing the Score and Magic Resistance. PeVi can blast the whole pool away, and the spirit is "killed" when that pool reaches 0 or lower. Just like Wounds. Take a hit and survive, the wounds will heal. Loose to much, you die and there is no amount of healing that will save you.
I disagree ... A PeVi spell reduces a target's Might Score. But I also think you need the PeVi for the right Realm, that is you can learn 4 types of PeVi spells :
A PeVi spell will do magical damage (reducing the Might Score) whether PeForm will do physical damage (PeAn for a Infernal wolf e.g.).
I also disagree ... according to this, if the spirit uses all its powers so that his Might Pool drops to 0 without being hit in anyway he is "killed" ? This looks like suicide ...
Nah, just tired. Like Fatigue Loss. If he spends himself to zero, then he just goes inert temporarilly. But this makes him very easy to kill.
Don't spend all your might in one place
Yes this is exactly the way that it works. This is a feature, not a bug. If you want to kill a dragon (using PeVi), a good strategy is to use low level but high penetration spells that chip away at its Magic Score in order to reduce its Might Resistance.
However if you play that the vis in the creature disappears along with its Might Score, then you might want to try some other strategy, that kills the dragon without destroying its Might. The lower the amount of vis in your saga then the more important a consideration this is.
Also, note that because a creature's penetration with its powers is based on its Might Score, once you knock a bit of Might off the creature, your magi might well be able to easily resist the creatures supernatural powers.
The game is about powerful magi. The rules reflect the fact that Hermetic magi are good at magic and that magic is good for dealing with situations that involve the supernatural.
No, the RAW for Demon's Eternal Oblivion is that Might Score is reduced. The RAW for such things is either Might Score or Might Pool. See RoP:TI for the Might Pool one. There's also a guideline for reducing magic resistance and another for penetration in ArM5, but those are a little different in style.
Personally, I don't see how the guideline for Demon's Eternal Oblivion works. It can reduce Might Pool, does reduce Penetration, and does reduce magic resistance. That makes that guideline something like 2-3 times as powerful as other similar guidelines.
You are right it is possible to build a PeVi spell to nuke Might Pool instead of Might Score. However, DoE is built using the guideline that nukes Might Score.
I think a lot of you have misread the question. I answered not using different guidelines, but using the guidelines requested (perhaps accidentally). A whole bunch of others have accidentally narrow the existing guidelines. Let me rephrase things. The original question was:
The OP doesn't mention Demon's Eternal Oblivion nor even the ArM5 guidelines. A whole bunch of you have made one or both of those assumptions and answered based upon that error. It may even be that that was the intent of the OP, but it wasn't written. A number of posts now have written that RAW for PeVi Might reduction is that it reduces the Might Score. That is not the case. I am trying to correct it. There are two guidelines, one for Might Score and one for Might Pool. That is the RAW for one of the two guidelines, but that is not the RAW for Might reduction in general.
A correct answer to the original post would have been something like: There are two guidelines available; the results depend on which guideline is used to make the spell. The spell can be designed to target either Might Score or Might Pool. Spells that target the Might Score do [the things you all said]. Spells that target the Might Pool only lower the Might Pool itself and have no effect on Magic Resistance, Penetration, etc.
What is more fun to you ? :mrgreen:
I always have an escape route.