The counter-argument would be that the Mino' is sealed off from air. While the mud doesn't effect it directly, neither can the Mino get the mundane air that it needs to live.
???
No diff than the Mino.
But I cross-edited in my answer to that above, while you posted this. Repeated here:
If a creature is impervious to small spells (ie, med-high MR), should a small spell that creates (magical!) water be able to drown that creature? I'd lean towards "no", not even if the Minotaur was unconscious and held under. Maybe there's an arcane connection to the air it needs to breathe, dunno, not my job - but the more I think about it, the more I feel that small spells just shouldn't effect it directly, regardless.
Without coming up with specific examples, I feel that if this were allowed, the clever player would then come up with some more "instant death" cantrips of relatively low magnitude, and completely ignore the MR 200 that the dragon might have, or the Parma 10 of the Archmage.
The fact that this works fine on mundanes doesn't bother me. It's getting around the MR that does.
So, for me, you could seal the magical Mino' in a Creo'd tomb of magical stone for Moon duration, but it would still be able to breathe at the end of it (starvation... that's another issue, and debatable for Magical Creatures.) For me, the term "hermetically sealed" just has nothing to do with Hermetic magic.
(D- Heh, looking at your signature, I guess I have to admit that you have won this discussion! )
But isn't this just punishing the character for being creative with Muto? If he did a PeTe to create a hole, and a ReAq to fill the hole from the nearby lake, the Mino drowns, right?
What if it was a bridge over a chasm?
You could MuHe the bridge to be made of papyrus which crumbles under the Mino's weight, but he doesn't get hurt from the fall? Or doesn't fall?
Of you could ReHe the bridge and shake the Mino off, and he dies from the fall?
How about I use Rego to collapse a house on a Mino, and it dies, but if I use CeIg to burn the house until it collapses, and do not penetrate, the Mino is somehow OK? I know he does not get burned, but he can get crushed.
I would think that the water in the hole will not hurt the mino, but the lack of air will. MR keeps magic out, right? I do not think MR does acrobatics to keep any side effects from the presence of something that happens to be magic from hurting you. I think, to say the Mino does not asphyxiate in the magical water (not drown) is giving MR too much "brains".
It's just a very easy guaranteed kill (lvel 15 MuTe) leaving PeCo, CrIg, and many others quite in the dust, not to mention being unrestricted by size issues and MR. Is it really "creative" to have bad guy #108 once again buried alive by a spell most magi can cast out of apprenticeship? I think it's kinda lame, actually.
The other situations you describe are much more situationally dependent--and as they are dependent on surroundings, they're creative and interesting, and also generally harder in terms of difficulty or requiring more time to manifest. Any SG who puts a big bad guy on a bridge must be hoping the players use the bridge to effect. Burning buildings are very nice (and create other problems). Water broght over from a ReAq doesn't need to penetrate--it's natural (and that would require a lake nearby and would be actually rather hard to pull off depending on the sistance and size of the hole, and the combo requires 4 arts instead of 2).
I agree with your criticism on MR and making it "too smart." I think I'm back to the minotaur walking on water because that's simplest and as the spell does not penetrate, I think it's most fair.
No, it's stopping the Player from seeing an inviting loophole and running wild thru the open door. It's establishing a boundary, and no amount of creativity is allowed to break that interpretation of the rules.
Be creative in killing mundanes, but don't try to get around MR by confusing mundane material effects with magical.
Of course- it's not magical water, why not?
However, if you tried to Rego a blast of the same non-magical water, it would jet towards the Mino' and splash around him, as if he were an immovable object. Then it'd get its feet wet. (How is this confusing you?)
Is magically-created water the same as mundane water? No. How? Um... in many ways... but we both know it's not identical, so... who can say?
Please. This is very different. The bridge isn't hurting the Mino, the lack of a bridge is- and that's fine. Nothing magical going on here, just your usual Wile E. Coyote long drop.
Slow down, you're panicking.
The rule, as I'm interpreting it, is simple: If it's magical, it doesn't directly hurt the Magical Creature unless it penetrates MR.
If you use Rego to collapse a house, the Rego part doesn't add anything to the force/weight of the material, but the house, being mundane, still hurts some. Just as if you t-ported a handy mundane boulder over its head and let it fall naturally - the non-magical boulder falls, bonk!, no prob.
Identically, if you use CrIg to set the house on fire, the CrIg part does nothing, but as the house begins to burn on its own, that mundane fire soon becomes a real threat, just as if you'd lit a fast-growing bonfire. A huge CrIg that caused the house to burst into flames would still give the Mino a little time to get out, as the only heat that is immediately present is magical, and the mundane heat (from the successive mundane burning) takes a short while to build up.
Yeah, I can see that, but I wouldn't let it happen. Seems like a cheap work-around MR to me.
It has nothing to do with MR consciousness. It's a combination of game balance (which is no trivial matter!) and a simple ruling that magically created water (or other substances) can't easily smother a magical creature within it. The air it needs passes thru, or something.
How does magic work? Just fine, thanks for asking. Now penetrate the MR, or leave me alone.
You're applying modern rationalizations of the situation to magical ones- and they don't have to apply. Can, but don't have to. The dealbreaker for me is not the explanation, but the game balance. Would a huge magical fire necessarily smother the Mino', by using all the air? Nope. So why does the water have to smother it? It doesn't have to. It could, but it doesn't have to. And I'd rule that it doesn't.
My rationale of the "arcane connection" to the air it needs is just that- a rationale, to make the players feel better about the ruling. Nothing in the RAW specifically about that, but the alternatives open a can of worms that I, as the SG for my Saga, would not like to see opened. This "drowning minotaur" thing is only one simple example- to take your premise to an extreme, to work around Parma, could well be fatal to a saga.
It's a spell that only works on dirt-based ground, that can be dodged and that doesn't work too well against large foes (too big to fit in the hole).
Besides I'd love to see you use this against Earth elementals, ghosts, flyers of any kind etc...
Basicly it's a nice little trap spell, and if you feel that it's overpowered, simply declare that such a transformation takes more than a single round...
Wonderful. This is a great solution. I'd go for that.
While I respect your view on this, I have to disagree with you. Why? Because the explanation, in my book is just as important, if not more, than game balance. Game balance has a lot of possible variables influencing it. Among others who you play with, and RPGs IMO, espescially ones with troupe-style play and alpha/beta storyguides shouldn't be relegated to SGs keeping the players from exploiting loopholes and players trying to find them. If a loophole is found, like the pink-dot or the mud-breathing mino, the explanation is what maintains suspension of disbelief.
If suspension of disbelief cannot be maintained after fixing an exploit that upsets game balance then that's a real problem. If something like this occurs and players start questioning the logic (yes, logic, while magic isn't realistic , the whole point of hermetic theory is that it's logical) of magic, the SG has to have an explanation to maintain suspension of disbelief. The phrase "because I say so" is, IMO, the gravest taboo in RPGs. The SG should never use it and the players should never force him to.
Personally, I think the mud-breathing mino is a real problem. MR has to be clarified and maybe reworked. I'll probably have to call my players over for the almost-annual debate-session on magic theory.
Just to point out that from now on whenI think of Crete I will envision the minotaur with scubadiving equipment. Quite funny, actually.
I agree with Cucu. My players have ggone for the ReTe Boulder of Death path to deal with magical creatures so this has not really come up IMS, but it could have. Now they are deciding how to get past the earth elemental that is immune to boulder damage to get to that nice jyuicy vis source.
Ulf- really? After the explanation to HKD? Okay, one more time...
The boulder is "real", not magicked, not magical. It's magically moved above the target, but then let fall naturally - all the damage is, therefore, "natural", and there is no magic involved in the impact between boulder and target. Just as if someone had pushed it off a wall, or it had fallen from a cliff- the magic moved it up there, but the fall and impact, Mass x Acceleration, is perfectly natural. The target is crushed by the natural impact of a natural boulder, so no MR is involved.
The mud/water is magical. By it's nature, that interacts with Magic Resistance at some level. And that can, possibly, require an interpretation as to how that interaction proceeds.
That is how they differ. (Clearer than mud?)
I don't disagree- but just because one thing is "more important", that doesn't mean you can ignore the other. They're both important enough to be deal breakers, imo (and probably yours?). So, both need to be considered.
I worried that some of the above discussion completely overlooked the issue of balance in their enthusiasm to suggest quick, "logical" fixes.
This is not StoryGuide fiat, no mandate of " 'Shut up!', he explained". This is an interpretation, and while not the obvious one (which might be something like: "the magical water doesn't enter the Mino's lungs, but does block all air"), it does follow a logic - "that 'Parma' prevents attacks like this, therefore, it doesn't work for some reason."
Me, I don't need a great reason why it doesn't work, I just have to understand that it doesn't. The fact that I am able to suggest one non-intuitive reason doesn't mean the logic behind the reasoning is flawed.
Ever read "Alice in Wonderland"? That world has a logic to it - [u]a[/u] logic - not yours, not mine, but a logic all their own. If we apply our narrow preconceptions to it, try to make it work like our world works, then it's illogical; but when those inhabitants apply their logic to Alice's thinking, she's illogical. They have their world that works fine for them, and we don't need to understand it to see the patterns. Once we begin to see those patterns, and accept them, the logic begins to seep through, even if it's still clearly not "our" logic.
Magic can be seen the same way. To say "You can't smother a creature w/ Magic Resistance with a tiny spell" follows ~a~ logic. Magic water is different from mundane water- who's to say that the differences have to be predictable and intuitive? It's magic! For this solution to the problem (a problem that you admit still bothers you), it just requires that your players think outside the box, and accept an unusual logic, that magical water and mundane water don't work the same when Magic Resistance is involved.
That's not perfectly intuitive, but it's as logical as dirt turned into magical water. Or as logical as the speed of light having a relationship to how much something weighs. It's magic. How does it work? Just fine.
Other solutions may well exist, but, for me, I haven't seen a convincing argument why this one doesn't work, except, perhaps, that the Players can't understand it, or won't accept it. That would be a different problem.
(Excuse my poor english)
My view on this is :
To a medieval point of view, animals and humans don't extract anything from air, they just need some. This is why a living being suffocate in the absence of air, not because of oxygen lacks, but because of air lacks.
Therefore, if the Minotaur has access to even a little air, he can breath.
The fact is his MR stop magically transformed water at a fraction of inch from his skin. In his mouth, there is air, so in this "bubble" of MR, a living beaing can breath.
In the medieval logic, it's possible. And we know that in Ars Magica, it's this logic that prevalues (example with diseases).
Popov, if I could sum up an argument that well, my posts would be 1/4 as long.
Well said!
Mario-
Wait a minute! Are we now agreeing?
A death in an hour or ten is not the same as a relatively "instant death" by smothering. There is a huge diff between the time someone has to act when they are "buried alive", and that someone has to when they are smothered.
As with any Troupe, a SG has to take their Players into consideration- to rule that the "magical mud" kills the Mino by the end of the day (about the same as being "buried alive"?), that wouldn't bother me, nor my general reasoning, even a little.
And it would mean that any mage worth their salt could have ample time to get out of the "trap", which is one of the "dealbreakers" I had mentioned.
Of course, a magical mud that lasts Sun is another magnitude than one that lasts Diam, so now we might be starting to talk a spell that might be of significant Magnitude anyway.
Popov has a good point. The water is not reaching the Mino, so he still has just a little air. So he would not be totally smothered by the water; there is a thin bubble of air surrounding him. Damn I hate being wrong, but I think I was. Wow, I was applying modern though to the idea. I have no problem ignoring momentum when a Rego'ed rock hits MR and stops cold, I have no problem ignoring colored light when discussing visual species or explaining why you cannot CrIm light, but I was working under the assumption that a lack of oxygen having anything to do with suffocation in this line of thought.
So the Mino would probably be stuck in the hole until the spell lapsed, at which point he would be pushed back out of the hole. I do not think he would walk over it like Jesus.
I still think changing a chasm-spanning bridge to papyrus is a good one though.
Sorry, I'm coming late to the party on this one...
Earth turns to water. Monster falls in the water. Water can't in itself "drown" the monster.
But... where does the air come from that the monster needs to breathe? Can the air somehow magically get through all that water just because the monster has a might score? Would it not suffocate?
Apologies if this has been addressed in the previous three pages...
The explanation would be that the MR keeps a small "bubble" around the creature with MR, and the magical-quasi-water would never get that close. The air would exist in that gap between the creature's skin and the water.
No we don't agree--I am just pointing out why I find this flaw in the rules to be too appalling and complex (and too easy to circumvent MR). So I say the Minotaur walks on the water, similar to the Rulebook example of a magic bridge. This action is instead of sinking like in the Rulebook example of a magic mud pit--the rules never account for submersion and suffocation in a magical matrix. It is also clear to me you are a player, not a SG who needs to design interesting situations for players to overcome.
I don't think magic earth or water should be able to suffocate and kill a creature without penetration: yet if the victim sinks, the magic earth or water clearly should be able cause death without penetration--else we get into this horrible arm twisting of logic that I really do not enjoy at all. Medieval people understood that being buried alive would result in death: the little space of air argument doesn't work for me as it's just about the same amount of air as someone buried alive.
Don't forget about replacing Minotaur Mathew with Crusader Kristoff or ArchMagus Abe (or any other enemy with MR), who very well may not be able to dig themselves out with a bit of finessing on the part of the SG.
