Yeah, yeah, yeah - I'm still doing background research for next session.
Can they detect magic? According to RoP:I, they get the equivalent of Second Sight while in spiritual form (to sense spirits, but I'd imagine it also has its other uses). But there's no real indication that they get Magical Sensitivity, or anything like that. But I would think that all supernatural creatures could have some form of it - but I'm not seeing anything that indicates that they can.
Can they see through Perdo Intelligo effects? I'm guessing "yes" - they can see through illusions, and PeIm, despite it's LACK of species, kind of counts. (At least it does for Second Sight.)
I'm guessing it also works on Perdo Vim - In context, I'm considering having my PC use an Intangible Tunnel to cast a Ritual Demon's Eternal Oblivion, and I didn't want the demon to be aware of it as it was happening. So I was thinking of having Mask the Odor of Magic up, but I'm guessing that wouldn't work - but if they can't specifically detect magic, then it's a non-issue.
How much (Infernal reputation) XP do you get for defeating a demon? RoP:I just says "demon hunters Infernal Ranking increases whenever they defeat a demon" - OK, by how much? According to the core book, it's 1 reputation xp point per notable activity. However, HoH:TL has the Bonisagus House reputation system, which is dependent on what specifically you do. My thought is "It depends on the power and influence of the demon" - ie, on their own infernal rank. So... the infernal rank itself? I know, I know - it's dependent on the story, and all. Mainly I'm looking for a guideline, here.
Unless the demon in question has a specific power to detect magic I doubt it can. And I don't recall demons having such a power as their standard powers (those all demons have). But if you want the specific demon in question can have this power.
I assume you meant 'Perdo Imaginem', and Second Sight allows to some degree to not be fooled by Imaginem effects.
I don't see Second Sight working to detect Vim effects. But again, specific demons may have this power if you want.
If the magi have ACs to the demon, could it perhaps work both ways? They risk the demon affecting them?
Flambeau Acclaim grant Might/5 exp in Rep for destroying and killing things. This escalates quite fast (just remember to not allow all magi to get full exp for all creatures, they must share!). But this also has mechanics for degrading, you lose Acclaim for not doing anything.
Hm... Well, there's a story seed on pg. 83 that has a demon perceiving a tunnel and creating his own in response. So I'm guessing that goes along with the "give the demon any power you want" question - probably in the "this entity can perform any hermetic effect, at the cost of 1 magic might per use", or something like that.
IMO, even if the demon is unable to perceive the tunnel*, he'll certainly feel that its might is being targeted.
Consider a mundane, that you target through an invisible tunnel with "The Wound that Weeps" multiple times. He won't perceive the tunnel, but the blood loss, the wound and the pain will be quite apparent to him.
One could argue that Second Sight allows you to. I haven't dwelled on this, and thus have no opinion, but keep this in mind.
Hm.... not quite sure what you're saying here. The issue I'm having isn't about the target sensing the damage or even the ability to do damage to something that isn't directly targeted by the Tunnel - I do agree that the target could sense the fact that their might is being bled off. Rather, it's sensing the Tunnel itself - in order to cast Hermetic magic, you need to have the target available. Which, for ritual magic, means you need to have the tunnel open for quite a few minutes without anything coming through it. Which is a somewhat dangerous thing to do, IMO.
As such, I'm trying to figure out if demons, by the RAW, can sense magical hermetic effects. Obviously, a specific "demon of magic" could probably do so, just like the "angel of magic" in the example in the core rulebook can. But beyond that? I'm not sure.
Firstly, the only Arcane Connection you can use against a demon is its True Name. Everything else is simply ephemeral matter pulled together by the spiritual form.
Secondly, why would you use a ritual? Its very inefficient, risky and expensive. The way to kill a demon isn't with one big Demon's Eternal Oblivion, but with a lot of small ones (e.g. level 10) and the "multicast" mastery. This is faster, gives you more chances to penetrate, and requires much lower casting totals.
Because the Arcane connection isn't to the Demon - it's to the blood (of a grog) that he's carrying. Which normally wouldn't be helpful (except as a connection to destroy the blood itself). However, Hermetic Projects details using an arcane connection to indirectly target everything near the connection via Open the Intangible Tunnel, using R:Touch, T: Group - this directly catches the blood, and anything touching the blood - in this case, the demon.
Yep. That's the level of the spell he's using. Unfortunately, it's a standard "t:Individual" DEO (that the magi does know), which isn't T:Group. So, either the magi needs to spont a lvl 20 Muto Vim spell, to change it to R:Touch, T:Group, (Major change: +2 magnitudes), or else they need to straight-out spont a new version of DEO - either way, that' probably going to be at least 40 levels of sponting going on. The magi in question isn't quite that good at Muto Vim or Perdo Vim (he's a Rego Vim expert.)
Also, because he's a ReVi expert, he can throw up (Ceremonially) pretty high Circular Ward vs. Demons - so it's not THAT risky. Which is why the ceremonial option is even being considered. But that takes time, which is why I was wondering about hiding the other end of the tunnel.
Now, his casting totals for both PeVi and ReVi are currently 34 - and it looks like the targets for sponting the spell I described is going to be 40 (for the MuVi) or 54 (for a touch/group lvl 10 with 17 penetration + 3 Penetration ability). He might pull off the Muto, with Loud Voices + Gestures + Confidence, but doing either Ritually would be much more likely.
Now, if the demon can't see the tunnel, then the magi can use a ReVim "create timed effect" to cast the modified/sponted DEO multiple times, and then have them all go off simultaneously - but if the demon can see the tunnel, then it's not going to work.
I didn't have problems with these, save what, IMO, is a major NO, and that's the officialisation of low-level PeIg "lose 1 fatigue level" spell as draining multiple fatigue levels when multicast, making it even more superior to all damage spells than it was before. Which sucks big time, IMO: I want my flambeau to throw PoF at their ennemies, not lvl 05 PeIg spells.
That, and, in may book, if a colder spell damages you, piling on cold spells should do more damage, not fatiguing you more*
This is when considering this that I first had my HR about multicast: increase the damaging effect by one magnitude per copy, so that a PeIg "drain fatigue" spell multicast 3 time won't drain 3 fatigue levels, but do +10 damage.
Are you sure about this? If so, this seems very, very wrong, since it directly contradicts the Core definition of Group. I can buy Room of Structure targets, but certainly not Group, at least not in this case (this would work for a Group of Grogs, though)
Yes. He is sure. This - the use of T: Group/Room/Structure etc. was the specific thing I was complaining about.
Or rather, there are (I think) 3 specific bulletponts on that page that I not only disagree with, but consider directly wrong - even if they are currently published.
The Hermetic Projects rules are just saying that you can use a Group target spell down an Intangible Tunnel to target a Group that includes the target of the Intangible Tunnel. But the Group has to still obey all the normal rules for a Group target. So, if you have an Arcane Connection to a grog, then you can open up a tunnel to him and perhaps target a Group of grogs that includes the original grog. However, a demon holding the hand of a grog doesn't form a Group of demons, which is what they would need to be in order to be targeted by a Group target version of Demon's Eternal Oblivion.
I'm not sure I follow you. If that flambeau is strong enough to penetrate with CrIg20 PoF, it's a breeze to use some PeIg5. Are you saying it should be a breeze to knock enemies down?
No, he's saying that a (apparently intended) consequence of the Parma Magica is that low level, high penetration effects are the most effective ways to deal with opponents who have high Magic Resistance.
On the other hand, if your random Flambeau if sufficiently capable to Penetrate a given opponent's Magic Resistance with a CrIg20 PoF (i.e. he is a specialist, or the opponent is weak), then he is free to do so. No one is stopping him.
Hm... well, the target is actually a blood sample that the grog gave to a demon - the arcane connection used to reach that blood sample was, in fact, a bit of the blood sample that was given to the demon (flecks of blood on the Grog's hand that didn't make it into the sacrificial bowl, flecks of blood on the ground around the bowl, etc.) It's also some gold that originally was the blood sample, that the demon transformed into gold gave back to the grog as "payment".
So it's a blood sample being held by a demon, and the mage has an arcane connection to the blood sample. Originally, the plan was just to create an Intangible Tunnel, and then cast a touch-range PeVi effect that reduces the efficacy of Arcane connections (because the magi doesn't want one of his grogs to be magically linked to a demon) - then the thought was "hey, can I target the demon through the blood sample that he's holding?"
Now, in reading through the Hermetic Project rules again - the only thing the rules say is that you can cast a R: Touch, T:Group/Room or T:Structure spell through it - with all the limitations that "T:Group/Room/Structure" implies.
However, in reading through the limitations of T:Group - the 5th edition merely says "a close group of individuals or objects". Is that an inclusive or exclusive OR? If it's exclusive, then yes - you can only target a close group of individuals, or a close group of objects.
But if it's inclusive, then you could target a group of objects and individuals: is, the grog, the barrel the grog is touching, and the mouse climbing up the side of the barrel. Thus, if it's inclusive, then it seems reasonable that you could target the blood sample, and anything the blood sample is touching.
Also - I'm not seeing anything in the description of demon's Eternal Oblivion that says you can target only demons with it - it's only EFFECTIVE against demons, but I don't see anything restricting you from (say) casing it on a large group of things that seem human, and identifying a demon by the one that starts screaming. Otherwise, that would imply that DEO has some sort of implied Intelligo effect built in that can determine if what you're casting at is a demon or not.
Or is this the other way around? Ie, if there is anything in your group that is not affected by the Form of the spell (like, say, a blood sample or a grog in a Demon's Eternal Oblivion effect), then the entire spell will fail? In which case, the spell doesn't detect if it can succed - it can only detect if something fails due to form incompatibility.
However, now that I think about it a bit more, the "target" in this particular arcane connection is about an ounce or so of blood. There's a significant size mismatch between what its touching and its own arcane-connection-size. Thus, "Group" may simply be too small to affect the demon, as that only grants a x10 size bonus.
The problem is that the lvl 05 is vastly superior.
Ok, it already has better penetration. By 15 points, which is far from negligeable.
It can also be used to simply incapacitate someone you don't want to wound.
It ignores most, of not all, form of armor, contrary to PoF.
That's already a lot.
But if you add mastery? Mastery 3 is enough to dispatch any human in 2 turns, mastery 5 in one turn. And it works even better against Dragons and similarly powerful creatures with good soak: Even assuming you penetrate, 05 PoF do little or nothing against their Soak. A Mastery 04 PeIg spell drains 04 fatigue per round. How many creatures can lose 08 fatigue levels (02 rounds) and still stand?
So not only does this make little sense (more cold by the guidelines = more damage, more cold through multicast = more fatigue lost), but it also makes a base 04 spell a lot better than a base 10 one. IMO, the only advantage the first effect should have over the second is Penetration.
It's possibly arguable whether that actually is an Arcane Connection, but that is a bit irrelevant.
Perhaps, but not with just any old effect. It has to be an effect with Group target that in fact targets the group.
The clearest example is where there is Demon A, Demon B, and a grog.
Say, you have an Arcane Connection to the grog, and the grog is holding hands with the demons. You can open an Intangible Tunnel to the grog. You can attempt to cast a Demon's Eternal Oblivion (down the Tunnel) on the grog, which would fizzle, because the grog is not a demon. You can attempt to cast a Group variant, Demon's Eternal Oblivion (down the Tunnel) on the grog, which would fizzle, because the grog is not a member of a group of demons.
Alternatively, say, you have an Arcane Connection to Demon A (i.e. her True Name), and this demon is holding hands with the other demon and the grog. You can open an Intangible Tunnel to Demon A. You can attempt to cast a Demon's Eternal Oblivion (down the Tunnel) on Demon A, which would damage her Might (if it Penetrates, etc), because Demon A is a demon. You can attempt to cast a Group variant, Demon's Eternal Oblivion (down the Tunnel) on Demon A, which would damage her Might and also that of Demon B (if it Penetrates, etc), because Demon A is a member of a group of demons which includes Demon B (and it would not affect the grog because is not a member of a group of demons).
An additional question is whether or not you can cast a Group target effect on a group if you can only perceive some members of the group. This is a question that arises regardless of whether or not an Intangible Tunnel is involved. For example, can you target a group of knights with a Group variant Crystal Dart if you can only see one knight and the others are hiding behind a wall? I don't believe that this question is very clearly resolved in RAW. However, if you do need to be able to perceive all the members of the group, then you simply need to first cast a suitable sense perception spell down the Tunnel (which may or may not be difficult if some of things you are trying to perceive are demons).
