Muto Effects and Shape and Materials Bonuses

Games Discussion Ars Magica
21

I have to say that what callen says makes sense.

Let's say that we create a spell version of Ward Against Heat and Flames that has a Moon duration. That spell should have it's effect until the moon rises and sets, per the description of Moon duration. There's no implication anywhere that I can see that says that your protection from flames will flicker at sunrise and sunset during the course of your Moon duration.

Or let's take a different example where the flicker might matter more. Say I develop a disguise spell that will make me look and sound like someone else for Moon duration. I develop this spell so that I won't be in trouble if I'm engaging in the impersonation at exactly sunrise or sunset. Again, there's no hint anywhere in the rules that this illusion should flicker at sunrise or sunset. In fact, I designed the spell to have Moon duration just to avoid problems at sunrise and sunset.

So, what if I design a version of Maintaining the Demanding Spell at Moon duration? The effect of that spell is to maintain the concentration of another spell for its duration (Moon, in this example). Just like the two above spells should not flicker at sunrise and sunset, so to should this one not flicker either. I'm not sure why this spell effect should be treated differently than any other spell effect just because it involves concentration.

The fact that there is a mechanism for devices maintaining concentration should not alter the working of a mechanism for a spell effect maintaining concentration. Yes, the rules say that when a device maintains concentration, there is a need to "renew" the concentration at sunrise and sunset, which may cause flicker. But there is no such rule saying that a Moon duration spell effect should flicker at sunrise andsunset. Quite the opposite, as callen points out. The rules specifically say that the spell effect is maintained throughout the Moon duration (i.e., until the moon rises and sets).

Now, taking a step forward, we can look at what happens when the Maintaining the Demanding Spell effect is put into an item. That might seem to cause you to interpret the effect as flickering at sunrise and sunset, just like a spell effect whose concentration is maintained by a device. But I think that's not the case.

Looking at our first two example, let's see how those would take effect if in a device. If I went to the effort (+3 magnitudes) to make either effect (heat protection or illusion) Moon duration, then they would last for a Moon whether I cast them or invoked them from a device. In each case, the duration of the spell effect is Moon. The source of the spell effect is irrelevant. Each should last until the moon rises and sets without any flicker.

So too with Maintain the Demanding Spell in a device. Once more, it's the spell effect, not the device that's maintaining the spell. And in this case, the spell effect is duration Moon.

Remember, our hypothetical magus has worked up an effect that's two magnitudes higher than Concentration. Even counting the +5 for the device maintaining the concentration, the Moon effect is still a full magnitude higher than the Concentration effect. It ought to be better; it took more effort to create.

In any case, that's my interpretation.

22

I'm not saying that. A Moon-duration Maintaining the Demanding Spell won't flicker on a daily basis. The spell being maintained by Maintaining the Demanding Spell will flicker, because what MtDS does, in the text, is convert the duration of that maintained spell to Concentration and maintain the concentration for the user, exactly as the modified enchantment effect does.

Why should maintained concentration effects flicker daily? Beats me, but they do. I find it consistent to have the spell and the enchantment effect behave similarly.

23
24

Since the spell as written is duration Diam, the sunset issue doesn't arise and won't be specifically mentioned.

BTW, does anyone know the rationale for effect-maintained Concentration duration flickering daily? Seems like just one of those things.

25

Your original argument relied on exactly that, and your further explanation nearly explicitly stated that. If the flicker only shows up as the duration ends, then your earlier argument doesn't hold at all. Look at what you wrote about a Moon-duration Maintaining the Demanding Spell before:

You were pretty clear that "regardless of duration" the Moon-duration version would "flicker in the same way" (which is at sunrise/sunset) as the item maintaining concentration. If you weren't making the Moon-duration version flicker on a daily basis, why did you write "regardless of duration" when explaining the daily flicker? Also, if you weren't talking about sunrise/sunset flicker for the Moon-duration version, then your argument is nonsensical because I specifically said to use a Moon-duration version.

You're now saying my method doesn't have the flicker issue you said it originally had. So now we don't have disagreement there. So, with the current-state interpretation, we can enchant with whatever bonuses we want.

I don't see the point of this quote. You are using a logical if statement to imply its converse, and that absolutely does not work logically. If this spell is active, then it will automatically maintain the spell. This does not imply the spell can only be maintained if this spell is active. The core book even specifically brings this up. As long as the magus is concentrating on the spell, it's being maintained. This does not violate your quote. Meanwhile, that maintenance effect can fall, and the spell can still be maintained by the magus.

That is, unless Concentration-duration spells being maintained by the casting magus flicker at sunrise/sunset. So, again, you have been implying Concentration-duration spells maintained by the casting magus must flicker at sunrise/sunset, and I continue to ask, "Why?"

Why doesn't the issue arise with Diameter duration??? You can cast a Diameter-duration a round or two or a few before the sunset/sunrise trigger occurs and have it go right through that trigger. Making it fall due to this flicker before the Diameter duration ends would violate the statement in this spell that it lasts for the duration of the spell.

26

You're not following me.

Maintaining the Demanding Spell of Moon duration does not flicker daily.

The spell affected (maintained) by Maintaining the Demanding Spell will flicker daily because Maintaining the Demanding Spell is written to have the same effect on that spell as if to bestow Concentration Duration with Item Maintains Concentration, which flickers.

27

That seems to me to be an interpretation that is not supported by the core rules.

As I see it. the rules describe several ways to maintain concentration on a Concentration duration effect:
(1) The caster can maintain concentration directly using his or her Concentration ability.
(2) The caster can use the spell Maintaining the Demanding Spell, which maintains the spell effect for the duration of the Maintaining the Demanding Spell effect.
(3) If it's in a device or bound to a familiar bond, the the device or the bond can maintain concentration on the effect.

In the case of #3, flicker may occur. I say "may" because based on my review of the situation, there is some disagreement about whether flicker occurs even in this situation. (The description of the operation of a device maintaining concentration states that the effect will "start to" wear off and that the user must concentrate to "perpetuate" the effect. Some have interpreted this as indicating flicker occurs. Others have interpreted it as not causing flicker.) Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that flicker occurs in case #3. There's still nothing in the rules that says that it should occur in situations #1 or #2 as well.

I don't think anyone is implying that it should happen in station #1 when a magus is maintaining the spell effect directly. In other words when a magus maintains concentration directly over sunrise/sunset, the spell should not start to fade somehow causing flicker as the caster re-ups the concentration. Nothing in the rules implies that it does, and so the reasonable interpretation is that it does not. The fact that there are another ways of maintaining concentration does not imply that the rules for either way of maintaining concentration should apply to #1.

So, I would argue (as callen does) that just because #2 and #3 both disclose ways of maintaining concentration does not in any way imply that the rules applying to #3 should also apply to #2. The authors of the the spell Maintaining the Demanding Spell could have said that when the spell crosses a sunrise/sunset that it somehow requires added concentration from the caster to maintain the spell. They did not. In fact, such an interpretation seems, to me, to run entirely counter to the purpose of the spell, i.e., to maintain the concentration of a spell so that the caster doesn't have to. If you said that contrary to what the spell was designed for, it actually does require some concentration on the part of the caster, at least if it crosses a sunrise/sunset boundary, that would seem very strange to me. It would also seem very strange to me if you argued that a diameter duration MtDS cast just before sunrise/sunset flickered just because it happened to cross the sunrise/sunset boundary. It would likewise seem strange to me if you argued that a diameter duration MtDS cast over the sunrise/sunset boundary did not cause flicker, but a MtDS cast with a Moon duration did.

What I must conclude from the rules is that situations #1 and #2 do not begin to fade at sunrise/sunset and do not require any added concentration. As a result, there is no possibility of flicker.

28

Yes. Maintaining the Demanding Spell is cast upon a spell with duration Concentration and "maintains" that spell even after the caster stops concentrating.

This is exactly what the enchantment effect modifier does.

I suggest that the similarity between these two extends beyond the general to the exact, such that if one "flickers", so does the other. Certainly maintaining a magical effect via formulaic spell is more similar to maintaining the effect via enchanted device than either is to actively maintaining the effect through real personal concentration.

29

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this issue.

I don't feel that just because they achieve similar effects that they must necessarily both suffer the same restrictions. They are two different effects. One involves a device maintaining an effect, while the other involves a spell maintaining an effect. Spells have a natural duration that you achieve by increasing the complexity of the spell. Having a longer duration is harder to achieve and is supposed to give you a better effect. Devices maintaining concentration, on the other hand, do not have an inherent duration, and so they added a specific limitation on how long a device can maintain a spell effect without there having to be some input from the device user. Otherwise it could be interpreted as being infinite in duration, which I suspect the authors determined would be too long. No such dilemma is confronted with Maintaining the Demanding Spell, since as a spell it has an inherent duration. It will end in a diameter, at sunrise/sunset, at moonrise/moonset, or at the end of a year, as determined by the spell's duration. As a result, it can't be interpreted as infinite in duration, and needs no special rule restricting its duration.

I also think it relevant that the description of a device maintaining concentration specifically identifies a limitation regarding sunrise/sunset, while the spell description for MtDS does not.

Then again, I'm of the opinion that devices maintaining spell effects don't have flicker at all. So I suspect we're in disagreement about a number of things.