Quick question: Is a Minor Magical Focus - Teleportation niche enough to qualify?
I initially wanted to take transportation and teleportation, but I think that would be too broad for a minor magical focus.
cheers
A while back, we permitted Teleportation as a minor focus.
Due to a Twilight episode, this was later expanded to include Transportation, and declared a Major Focus.
I think that Teleportation is slightly on the broad side for a minor focus, and Transportation may be a tad too broad for a major focus (even if applied very strictly, e.g. no transporting anger from one target to another nor transporting species from a distant locale, it's definitely more versatile than direct damage).
However, one-effect-across-all-forms tends to be less useful than all-effects-on-a-subset-of-a-form, both because it's often less versatile and because one needs to be a form generalist to really take advantage of it. So I'd probably allow teleportation of physical stuff to be a minor focus and transportation of physical stuff a major focus.
I'd allow it.
Ariane of Jerbiton on page 79 of Through the Aegis has it as a Major Focus, but the books have been known to be too harsh with focus fields. And she only has two spells that benefit from the focus, which doesn't say "major" to me.
It covers several forms, it can be used for attacks, easily ReCo someone 50 paces, 150 feet in the air, and takes +75 falling damage.
It's extremely strong for a minor. Not saying it is a major, because I'm not so sure it is a major.
My initial thought would be "Sure, Minor." But in thinking about it - Yeah, that's probably a bit too powerful for a minor, as it includes Summoning Airy spirits, ghosts, elementals, and faries, the like. (As they exist in the material world.)
I'd say a subset of it (Teleport living thing) would be a minor, though. As would "teleport non-living thing". That being said, "teleport spirit" is a subset of Rego Vim, and pretty weak as minors go.
But as Jonathan.Link implied, I'm kind of stuck between minor and major. If it were possible, I'd want it to be a 2 point virtue, rather than a 1 or a 3. (But we're not on that system any more. Alas.)
EDIT - I would consider "Summoning" to be a good Minor, however - as it's basically one-way teleportation. You could summon spirits, people, dogs, etc - but using that as a weapon is a bit more difficult. (You could summon someone OVER a pit of spikes, I suppose. But Summon kind of implies that the result is right in your hand, or really close by. So no summoning someone eighty feet in the air, unless you yourself are up there as well.)
I'm inclined to go with major, if there's no limiting adjectives to "teleportation". It's just too easily manipulated for advantage by a clever player to leave that open-ended without a significant cost, IMO.
Target: Part teleportation spells would be nasty, messy killers, especially with the extra Penetration available due to higher casting totals. Teleport someone's heart 5 paces is what, ReCo 25, with Voice range? Actually, ripping any Target in half (or pieces) is potentially a lot easier. What about vis? Can you harvest vis from a target via teleportation?
Can you teleport species? If yes, to what effect?
There's also how it could affect the availability of Portals in a saga.
It just doesn't seem minor without some sort of qualifier(s).
Those would probably fall under Perdo Corpus, with a Rego requisite. so base 30 (killing wound - severing a limb is only PeCo20, but this seems to fall in line with the former guideline), +1 for complexity (you get half of the body next to you - minor utility). +2 for voice puts it up to 45.
So, a bit pricey, for what you get out of it. That being said, your point is well-made: it's pretty easy to include teleportation as a special effect (to use HERO terms) that causes a wide variety of effects. So what you end up with is a +5 difficulty "it's done by teleportation!" modifier that allows you to add x2 your lowest score to a number of techniques.
- A number of different ways to attack someone
- A number of different ways to ward something (teleportation wards, basically)
- Some forms of Healing ("teleport demons of disease out of this body")
- Sufficiently advanced Transportation
- summoning and banishing
- Scrying (teleporting species) - this alone would cover a good portion of "what is happening now, over there?" Intelligo magic.
- detection of all of the above.
...yeah, this is starting to sound more and more like a major, to me.
IMO, teleporting the heart out of a victim is impossible without an Arcane Connection. T:Part allows one to target part of something else, but that Part must still be perceived or somehow sensed, like all targets.
Circling back, I wonder if we could consider it a minor if it only affected recipients other than the caster, mMF (Teleport other). I thought of making it similar to mMF Self transformation, because it seemed to be a good fit, but limiting the teleporting oneself seemed very limiting, to limiting for a minor focus. Then it occurred to me that teleporting anyone but the caster might be a good fit. It loses a lot of versatility by not affecting the caster, but one can still do some pretty fantastic things like, teleporting grogs out of harms way with fast cast voice versions of Wizard's Leap, and one can also use it against opponents (my corpus specialist will soon be inventing the spell described above). Further, one can take advantage of the ReTe guidelines presented in Magi of Hermes for transporting other things.
If you're gonna allow all that, sure.
But I don't think moving spirits or species around is teleportation. Teleportation, to my understanding, is only for matter and energy.
So that shuts down 3, 5, 6, and maybe 7. Combine that with a conservative understanding of Rego Corpus, which disallows heart-teleporting shenanigans, and I think it's a fair minor.
And I think you should use that conservative understanding of Rego Corpus, since otherwise Rego becomes way more destructive than Perdo. Clenching Grasp of the Crushed Heart is level 40. It shouldn't be possible to make an equivalent spell at level 20ish in a supposedly less destructive Art combination.
It is more of an understandable no of the Limit of Arcane connection and how it works with T:Part. It would apply to a vein of silver covered by 6 feet of rock, too.
My intended uses was for the Magi and friends and objects. Ie. A spell to summon tools and gear to him from remote locations. And obviously to get back from those places.
None of the species or spirit aspects factored into my plans and I'd happily exclude them.
Well, the example above is at voice range, and the exact spell was chopping the person in half and then teleporting half the body to your side. So it's a visual sight confirmation on their upper torso.
For the heart, you're allowed to have "strong indirect evidence of existence" - ie, if you hear an invisible person, or if you see their footprints stop at a given location, you can target where you think they are. However, that's directly targeting an area you THINK the target is in. You can fully perceive the area in which you're casting the effect into - you just can't see the target.
That being said, if you want ONLY their heart, then yeah: the area in which the heart exists is hidden by the skin and rib cage (in the same way that a draped sheet can prevent a visual sight confirmation for a PIllum of Flame) - The spell would have to be "just teleport the center mass of their chest, where their heart would probably be". 99% of the time you'll get their heart (plus bits of other things), and the other time you'll get a softball-sized chunk of their torso. Of course - either way, it's a perdo corpus kill (assuming there's no additional weirdness going on.)
Well, at that point you're going to have to define "teleportation". To me, it means "movement without crossing the space in between". If you're using a general dictionary definition (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleportation) that's fine - but it comes from a sci-fi paradigm, where "matter or energy" is all that exists. As such, that's probably not the best definition for Mythic Europe.
Even if you restrict it to that, that leaves you with faries and airy spirits (ie, magical spirits that are currently embodied - elementals and the like) - which is still covers a nice chunk of ReVi summons.
Yep. That's why the example I gave was a PeCo, with a Rego requisite. And why it was a lvl 45 spell. (Basically the spell you describe, with a +1 magnitude for the rego effect.)
No, you are not. You have to perceive the target, which in this case is a human heart.
What do you mean 99% of the time? IF a spell is successfully cast, and it penetrates, then it works, 100% of the time.
But it isn't a perdo corpus skill, if you ReCo a T:Part targeted on the heart. I'm just saying that you can't target the heart on a person's heart without an AC.
Why would someone use a Perdo Corpus with a Rego requisite for a higher level, even more difficult to cast spell, it's obviously a cosmetic effect, of the already canon Clenching Grasp of the Crushed Heart, which is PeCo 40, T:Ind and just kills the person targeted.
And, I already demonstrated that ReCo Base 15, R:Voice +2, will teleport a target straight up in the air, 50 paces, 150 feet, which results in +75 falling damage. That's the killing spell for a teleporter... I now have an image of Jason Statham playing this character...
No, you are not. You have to perceive the target, which in this case is a human heart.
What do you mean 99% of the time? IF a spell is successfully cast, and it penetrates, then it works, 100% of the time.
But it isn't a perdo corpus skill, if you ReCo a T:Part targeted on the heart. I'm just saying that you can't target the heart on a person's heart without an AC.
Why would someone use a Perdo Corpus with a Rego requisite for a higher level, even more difficult to cast spell, it's obviously a cosmetic effect, of the already canon Clenching Grasp of the Crushed Heart, which is PeCo 40, T:Ind and just kills the person targeted.
And, I already demonstrated that ReCo Base 15, R:Voice +2, will teleport a target straight up in the air, 50 paces, 150 feet, which results in +75 falling damage. That's the killing spell for a teleporter... I now have an image of Jason Statham playing this character...
Much like there are InTe spells to sense that buried vein of silver, an InCo sensory magic spell should be able to sense the heart for targeting purposes without an AC.
There's another thing a teleportation focus would be great for - snatching ACs.
No, you have to perceive the area in which you are going to cast the spell. That's how you can hit invisible targets with area-effect spells. (Hoh:S, pg. 32)
So, for example - if you created a group effect "tear their hearts out", then you'd be able to target an entire group without seeing their hearts.
Because not everyone's heart is in the exact same place. Mostly it's in the center of the chest, but for some folks it's different. (It's a medical condition, I believe.) As such, if your PeCo(re) effect is "Take a softball-sized chunk out from the center of their chest, where the heart normally is", then you'll almost always get the heart - but not necessarily. But regardless, you'll still probably kill the person.
ReCo is "command/control a body part in a way that isn't covered by the other Techniques." It directly does damage and makes things worse, so it's PeCo. You happen to teleport the heart into your hand afterwards, so there's a +1 ReCo requisite. But if that's not enough - severing a body part is explicitly covered by PeCo - so therefore it's over there, anyway. (Unless you plan on arguing that "severing a limb" and "removing an organ" are substantively different, and as such should be covered by a different TeFo.)
I suppose if you wanted to keep the person alive (while sill holding their heart in your hand) that would be covered by the lvl 20 PeCo guideline, In that sense, you're Removing an organ (PeCo), but basically putting mini-teleportation gates in the veins feeding into and out of the heart, which continues to pump blood through them (Rego requisite). In that sense - nothing has changed. The heart is just in a different location, but continuing to do its job. (Similar to how ReIm can move someone's appearance across the room, but still have it act normally.) Once the spell expired, it would teleport back into the chest of the victim, none the worse for wear.
Because you get their heart at the end. Because wizards be crazy. Or because it's cool. Or because the magi in question could, and had the reqs for it. Or any other number of reasons.
Yes. You did. Which is countered by an effect (slow hover/flight) I personally have on in the talisman or in the Familiar of every single wizard I have ever created, for that exact reason. (Plus, the ability to slowly fly/hover is useful in a wide range of scenarios). As such, perhaps a wizard would prefer to have something else at their disposal. EDIT - and yes, I know that wizards rarely attack each other - so this would probably be used against grogs or humanoid faries or something. If you prefer something more focused, consider the "take their heart, but leave them alive" effect - that's very much a teleportation spell, and not something covered by the traditional PeCo kill spells. The point here is to show that "Teleportation" really isn't just a minor focus.
So if it has to be major, then can it contain all the tangential and edge cases mentioned here are still qualify as a major magical focus?
e.g. Is it reasonable to include the summoning of spirits in teleportation?
I like the idea of teleporting people into the air so they fall and die, but...+75 damage seems like way too much. Seriously, being eaten by a dragon is way less damaging than that. And falling 150 feet is actually survivable.
If it's major, I'd say yes.
But if it's minor, I'd say no.