Object Maintains Constant Effect

Hello All,

I've been haunted with this question for too long. Can't land a definitive answer. What happens to an effect that is Sun,2 charges with the environmental trigger for the true constant effect that does not fluctuate at sunrise/sunset, if the target of the effect is out of range?

For example, A wand that causes a target to become a dwarf.

MuCo 16 - Touch | Sun | Ind | - Wand of Dwarfism, Magical Object
Once turned into a dwarf, the wand maintains the effect until its master decides to release you or it is dispelled. This spell has no effect on Dwarves. Even if the ward has more than 2 charges per day, it can only maintain constantly the effect on one target at a time. The other charges to be used to transform people on an adhoc basis.
(Touch +1 | Sun +2 | Ind +0 | Base 3 (Size -2), +3 linked trigger, +3 6 times/day)

W

The true constant effect happens once and then never again. It doesn't get cast repeatedly (each sunrise/sunset).

The effect you describe is not a true constant effect, though. True constant effects don't have such release conditions. If you check ArM5, you'll see the intent was to have those done via the device maintaining concentration on D: Concentration effects.

Is this definitive? I've always thought there must be a reason for all the sunrise/sunset etc. material in the definition, rather than the alternative of just writing "Constant: +14".

Yes, it's definitive. You could house rule otherwise.

No, I like it this way.

Look up the relevant texts (underscores are mine).

So the text understands 'truely constant effect' as 'there are no "flickers"'. And still has the item react to the environmental trigger to recast its effect, for which the target must be well defined, within Range, and its Magic Resistance - if there is one - overcome anew. This Range is Touch for the wand of dwarfism in William's OP.

In particular, the ArM p.99 box Constant Effect Devices are no means to introduce a spell Duration Forever to ArM5 p.112.

Cheers

No. The recasting is your own misinterpretation (and a misinterpretation I had made before). The book does not actually say that. Rather, it says the result is a "truly constant effect." This was later clarified when HP came out (though I was slow to pick up on it).

Please provide the link to your quote. In context, David Chart could mean something completely different from your reading, which - if it were right - would require an erratum for ArM5 p.99.

Certainly, constant (merriam-webster.com/dictionary/constant ) does not mean permanent or not needing recasting.

Cheers

That would be a pretty difficult interpretation. I presented your argument. David Chart said I was wrong because constant effects are "not actually cast twice a day." That sums it up entirely.

No link, but here is the full text about Anointing the King up to that point (continues beyond it with other issues).

Take a look at Anointing the King. The MuVi effect is only 1/day, yet it always works. I thought this was an error and was told I was wrong. Why? If the constant effect is really recast each sunrise/sunset, then the MuVi effect must be 2/day to affect both castings. But the other effect is not really recast each sunrise/sunset. Note this very important line: "the other effect is not actually cast twice a day."

I agree about "constant." "Constant" could mean recurring. But it does not imply recurring. That is the misinterpretation I had made in the past and you are still making. David Chart's statement fits ArM5 p.99 perfectly, so there is no need for an erratum. Your interpretation also fits ArM5 p.99, so it's a quite reasonable misinterpretation. But yours would require an erratum for HP p.##, an erratum which David Chart refused to issue because there is no error there.

Also, there is an additional problem with the interpretation that constant really fires off 2/day: in many circumstances it would not be constant without more uses/day. For example, in the summers I commonly experience multiple sunrises/sunsets in a day. This is very easy to have happen when you frequently criss-cross a valley or similar lined up north-south.

But, ultimately, when it comes down to it, we have David's statement that Hermetic constant effects are "not actually cast twice a day." This fits both ArM5 and HP, and it avoids the non-constant constant effect due to multiple sunrises/sunsets.

No. You provide a statement without a link, that nobody can verify. Concluding RAW from this (like in Object Maintains Constant Effect ) is taking the argument from authority (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_ ... ty#General ) a little bit too far. Rules come from the books and troupe decisions.

But let's analyze the text you give now. It is about the HP p.97f MuVi spell Passing the Reins of Corpus - passing control of a spell to another person, in this case a ghost - invested into a device and applied to the HP p.101 effect The Rising of the King in the same device.

The Rising of the King is an ArM5 p.99 box constant effect, about which the unverifiable David Chart only says "Because the other effect is not actually cast twice a day. It's a constant effect, so it's one effect. If the initial casting is changed to transfer control, that applies to the effect for as long as it continues." In a colloquial fashion this says only, that for purposes of control by a MuVi effect in the same device the constant effect in a device remains controlled by it as long as the device maintains it. The MuVi effect could just link into the regular recasting of the constant effect. Nothing more.

So even if the tidbit "not actually cast twice per day" is made in a colloquial situation by David Chart, you should not derive from it a rules statement "never recast, but maintained forever", and then come up with Object Maintains Constant Effect .

Starting from there, you will soon need to determine, just when the sun rises in a subterranean lab. So you provide an argument here, that magic depends on astronomical sunrise and sunset.

Cheers

A Mutant could have a Harnessed spell invested into an item to allow the magus to turn it off at any time.

While I cannot provide a link, I have posted this multiple times to the forums, and never once has David Chart refuted it. Also, if you check the errata, you'll see the corrections to the effect. Neither guarantees anything from your end, but they both support what I've said substantially.

No. This requires 2/day. The effect is 1/day. Your interpretation does not work with the RAW there. And while fixing other parts of the spell, that was not changed. So your interpretation does not fit RAW even after RAW have been checked for errors on that point. If not agreeing with verifiably verified RAW is insufficient for you, this conversation is pointless because then we have no basis for anything.

That's a pretty weird argument. As I have not seen the other such postings on this forum, it is quite possible that he hasn't either.

But if your other postings had the tone of Object Maintains Constant Effect , you should also think about the position you try to put David Chart in. You claim to have had an exchange with him colloquially and without possibility of verification, and then publicly derive sweeping statements about RAW from it, which he might never have intended?

Shouldn't you have asked him for permission first, before you used that exchange in such a way? Don't you feel, that you have committed repeated indiscretions?

Certainly, just ignoring indiscretions in public is a good reaction - and I might have done so myself had I known earlier. But now the djinn is out of the bottle. You are a customer of Atlas on an Atlas Forum, so you can get away with a lot.

It doesn't, if you read unverifiable David Chart in the way I proposed in Object Maintains Constant Effect and you deleted: "In a colloquial fashion this says only, that for purposes of control by a MuVi effect in the same device the constant effect in a device remains controlled by it as long as the device maintains it."

Cheers

Feels like we have strayed a bit from the original post.

We know that when an object maintains concentration for you, that you still need to concentrate at sunrise/sunset to maintain the effect. This is another situation where I find myself unclear as to if the target needs to be in range for the effect to be maintained or not?

Another way to ask the question is: Do constant effects need to remain in range to be constant?

W

I would say yes. The item is maintaining the effect, so the target needs to be within range. It isn't a permanent duration effect originating from the device, but it is a single effect. The only way to cancel the effect, other than PeVi, would seem to be to move the device out of range and wait for sunrise/set.

One reason for doing constant as 2/day, environmental trigger, Sun, is that it means you cannot have a device with unlimited use constant effects in them. A constant effect can only affect one target at a time. (That means that the design in the first post won't work.)

This may not be entirely consistent throughout the line, because I don't think anyone has asked the question exactly this way before.

Thank-you Mr. Chart

Definitive answer found.

W

So now what we really have is single effect triggering 2/day based on sunrise/sunset. This is good because it's how I believe nearly everyone has read it. It's also good because it's more consistent with RoP:M. That's what One Shot is saying. It's the reasoning I was using when I submitted errata...

The question was asked slightly differently, and the answer was the opposite. To my knowledge, there is exactly one effect in the books that has specifically addressed this issue (based on uses instead of Range, but the same issue), and the way it addressed it is quite different. The way you are now writing it, The Anointing of the King (HP p.101-102) needs to happen 2/day because the permanent effect really does retrigger each sunrise/sunset and MuVi is based on the triggering/casting, not the duration of the effect that is triggered/cast. Without 2/day the whole thing will actually only be functional half of the time, not functioning as designed. Could we please go back and change the erratum on this to make it 2/day? Then the only example in the published material will actually be in agreement with what you're saying and how most of us read things instead of being in stark disagreement.