CrVi 50 - Touch | Sun | Ind | - Coating the Intangible Substrate of Magic
Creates a Shell of Magic over an effect of up to level 40. The shell is intended to protect from dispelling magics, that which, it is meant to protect. Effects like wind of mundane silence only work if it is able to dispel the shell 1st. Laszlo of Ex Miscellanea used this effect to prevent the dispelling of some of his low level effects after a plan his his failed thanks to a well placed spontaneous dispelling effect.
(Touch +1 | Sun +2 | Ind +0 | Base 40 (general +1))
The idea popped up today ... wonder what you will all think.
CrVi base hides it from Intellego spells, it does not protect it directly. For a ward, you'd need Rego and it seems there are no Vim guidelines for that.
I don't think this would help in any way against WoMS, since it affects any and all spells in the T:Room, hidden or not.
We agree that there isn't a guideline for this type of effect. We also agree that a similar effect could be designed in ReVi. We even agree that there is a guideline in CrVi to hide magical effects. We disagree on if there is one or multiple ways of skinning a cat.
I argue that if a CrVi effect can prevent InVi effects from getting through, it can be designed to prevent other effects such as dispelling effects from getting through. I think the "hiding shells" effects in CrVi are the closest guidelines to the effect described in CtISoM.
We can ask if the effect breaks a limit of magic? I haven't found one yet. If not, which Te(s)Fo(s) are best suited? CrVi, thats how I would design it. How do you envision it?
I don't think this spell skins a cat. It might cover a spell that does, however.
From what I see, you are suggesting a new guideline, a spell that makes another spell "stronger". Does this covering spell need to penetrate? Should the covering spell have the same range, duration and target as the covered spell?
I've been asking myself the penetration question. Wards need to penetrate. MuVi effects need greater casting totals (if not cooperating). CrVi masking shells don't need to penetrate?
I think the shell would interact with a spell (dispelling effect), which typically does not have any resistance so I'm leaning toward yes it needs to penetrate but rarely relevant.
Duration wise, yes. I'm not a big fan of the mom duration CrVi shell rituals. So as a formulaic effect, definitively needs a duration to have the protective shell effect.
Range ... as the MuVi meta magics. Self cast can be touch, the others need to reach the spell being "shelled"
Wizard's Boost (MuVi Gen) can add an extra 5 levels of power to a spell, up to its level. Wouldn't those extra 5 levels also make the boosted spell harder to dispel?
The spell description goes on to mention beyond the 10 different Form versions, there are additional Wizard's Boost spells that affect Range, Duration and Target.
So, would it then be possible to use this spell as a starting point and produce a variant Wizard's Boost that specifically boosts the target spell's level for dispelling purposes only? The number of extra levels would be up for debate, but maybe +10 levels, up to its level, instead of the normal +5.
It seems like the CrVi guideline might be a viable path, given that "Hermetic magic cannot affect an unsensed target without an Arcane Connection" (AM5 pg.80). If you can't find the spell, you can't dismantle it.
Room target spells might or might not get around this, depending on whether you see unravelling magics as a precise operation or an energy blast. I'd probably interpret them as precise operations, to keep things interesting if for no other reason.
Then you may need to re-read the definition of T: Room, ArM5, p. 113.
The caster must be able to sense the room, but then everything which is a valid target for the spell and inside that room, is subject to that spell.
Worse yet, while Unravelling are probably precise operations (they require knowledge of the target effect's type), WoMS fairly explicitly isn't. It uses a different guideline, which is non-selective.
Sorry.
I'm wondering if he is going for more of an ablative armor effect. Different in concept from a ReFo ward which I see as more of a hard deflecting armor. But, Noble's Parma, would seem to work the same mechanically.
At the very least, putting a high level shell over an item could fool the caster of the WoMS into not even bothering, assuming he's measuring the strength of the spell he needs to cast.
Probably a better method is to create an item that casts the effect and is checking to ensure that the effect is up and running. This would prove problematic even to the caster of WoMS who could defeat the CrVi effect in the OP.
WoMS I agree with you on. Non-specific PeVi effects such as that are less effective than precise ones, so the defense is still of some value.
As for the precise ones, as I say that depends on how you interpret the effect. Does the PeVi blast through the room as WoMS or does it focus in on a specific effect and delicately unravel it?
I re-read what you wrote after posting the above, and I must start out with an apology.
I'd somehow come to believe that you were specifically refering to WoMS in the (below) quoted bit. You were not, and I made an over-strong statement. My bad.
Assuming these are unravellings, designed for ie. a specific hermetic Art, which happens to correspond to the concealed effect, that's actually a good question.
By pure RAW, I'd argue that they would still be targetted and affected, simply because they are in the room.
Aestethically, I much prefer the 'precise operation' interpretation.
Aegis of the Hearth seems to be the closest existing effect to what you describe. Things within the Aegis are protected by it from incoming effects like Winds of Mundane Silence unless the effect first penetrates the Aegis.
Also, the existing ReVi guideline "sustain or suppress a spell cast by another with level less than half the (level + 5 mag.) of the Vim spell" (ArM5, p 161), seems to kind of do what you want. You want to suppress the effect of a spell like Winds of Mundane Silence. The trouble being that you want to cast it in advance, to suppress an effect yet to be cast, rather than as a "reaction" to an on-going effect. I think that one way to do what you want within RAW is to have something like a Watching Ward that is waiting for a dispelling effect, and when one occurs it releases another effect that attempts to suppress the effect on the target of the dispelling effect.
Alternatively, it could be some innovation based upon Aegis of the Hearth that (with different Duration and Target) only protects against dispelling magic. By RAW that would be a breakthrough.
Either way, it smells like a ReVi effect to me. It's a ward against dispel.
That was in my mind when I was writing my earlier post, actually.
I still think, as I did then, that T:Room vs. unsensed demons is against the spirit of the game. I'm not really sure whether that would also apply in other cases, like the CrVi shell. The shell defense feels right but also feels like it could lead to a slippery slope of creating overly potent antimagical defenses.
Generally I like to be strict about the requirement to sense targets and dislike workarounds to it.
We use this a lot in play. When a demon gets tricky, the magi try to trick/tempt the demon into a room, which they then "exorcise" using a Room target PeVi spell. Cue subsequent paranoia about whether the demon of interest was actually in the room.
In play, it feels like Demons Being Tricky, and it feels like Magi Responding By Being Very Clever With Magic And A Plan. With some potential for A Clever Demon To Nonetheless Outsmart The Magi.
This seems pretty much the spirit of the game to me?
Unfortunately, the RAW also seems to allow casting PeVi or even more unthematic spells like the MuVi[Infernal] "make infernal beings turn into something visible" demon detector spell we discussed on here in the past without any of the clever trickery and without anything that resembles a ritual of exorcism. It ends up being a video game sort of "blast magic all over in case demons are around" effect.
Drawing the line between the two situations is the problem.
The magi still need to persuade the demons to get into the room, somehow.
It doesn't seem terribly offensive to the spirit of the game (to me) if magi who are paranoid about demons are "constantly" spamming spells to force demons hiding in the corner of the room to materialise. Magi are meant to be weird and are meant to "solve" their problems with spells.
It also doesn't seem terribly effective, unless the Story is mostly a dungeon crawl filled with Demons Which The Magi Are Not Meant To Defeat With Magic. That seems to be more against the spirit of the game, than the idea that magi shouldn't be spamming spells around.
It could be T:Structure if the Magi were skilled enough. Demons don't spend all their time outside.
Think about a magic item with unlimited uses that uses MuVi or ReVi with T:Structure to effectively detect all infernal beings in a Covenant or a castle. If one agrees that defeating demonic indetectability is useful, then a little thought about Targets is all that it takes to make that possible.
The mysterious undetectable nature of demons is their most interesting feature, to me. Take that away and they're just a bunch of one-track baddies.
Generally spamming magic around like dungeon crawlers on steroids is a quick ticket to trouble for Magi, who will either cause collateral damage in ways that anger the powers that be or will break the Code on scrying. Vi spells directed at the Infernal are the exception, since they're unlikely to harm innocents and any magus dealing with the Infernal has forfeited immunity.
