Ok it has +1 magnitude modifier for size, meaning it can affect 10 cubic paces of stone or 1 cubic pace metal. Spells says it shatters barriers or walls up to one foot thick, but no mention of the area of the hole? By dividing the volume (theoretically) affected of 10 cu pa stone or 1 cu pa metal by the thickness of ~0,33 paces you get a wall size of 33 square paces of stone or 3,3 square paces of metal. Oh, and why one foot thick? I bet this is a legacy...why not just allow for it to shatter thicker walls by creating smaller holes, to keep the volume constant?
But if this isn't the entire wall or barrier a T: Ind spell shouldn't be able to work, right? As T:Part it affects the same volumes/areas as Ind, but it allows one to shatter a small part of a large wall.
Sure the spell become 1 magnitude higher, but what the hey! it is a good one, it's even as flexible as to affect either stone or metal not just the one.
Drop Mr. Chart an email, raise it as possible errata. That's what I'd do, but its your find so you may as well go ahead and do so. There's a sticky thread up there somewhere with details on how to do this.
I agree that in some circumstances a Part version would be more practical and flexible --- in which case, your magus can invent it. However, there is no need for errata. The RAW Obliteration of the Metallic Barrier is a perfectly valid spell.
The RAW spells are not intended to always be the "best" possible spell. They are just examples. Inventing "better" versions is left as something for the player characters to do. For example, in a similar vein, practically every Voice Range spell would be "better" as a Sight Range version.
My bad for skim-reading and not doing my research. I thought you'd highlighted a discrepency between the spell description and the way the spell was built.
Richard's comment cleared that up, and he's absolutely right. Ignore my earlier comment.
Yes, it's a perfectly valid spell. That's why I didn't errata it. Design and calculations are correct, however not optimal. I just wondered if anybody else had some oppinions about this.
I don't presume to find many metal doors in the 1220s, but 3,3 sq paces would cover even quite large ones. A modern day standard door is less than 2 m2.
But will anything but a free standing wal section count as an individual? The wall of a room is part of the whole structure, the city wall is much parger than 33 sq paces and most likely a lot thicker than 1 foot.
As written I just don't see much practical use. So I think I'll enhance the standard version of it to Part in my vision of the setting.
However I really like the mechanics of this spell! it does not disintegrate the stone, or pulverize it. It blows it to shards and peppers anyone stading behind it. And I'd gladly 'pay' for a Rego requisite for this.
Huh, never thought of it that way.
The description says it "Shatters a barrier of metal or stone..." that sounds like a structural object to me, not something worn.
Why a full foot of thickness then? Why +1 size?
The fragments explode inwards, to the opposite side of the caster, why not out (or both ways) to hit the enemy's friends?
Works fine against armour though, I'll have to remember that - for a certain magus skilled in Terram. Or so his sodales think.
I just thought that was fancy description. Making a metal object explode in the opposite direction of the magus is something one of our characters (jerbiton knight) used to do all the time. makes for nice effects on enemy knights. Even with the padding, it shreds the armor, leaves it useless and the enemy warrior wounded and encumbered by a disfuntional heap of leather and metal that used to be an armor. It is not something to affect the FRIENDS of the enemy warrior, but himself since the explosuion of the armor is INWARDS.
It does. I didn't notice it until one day I was hunting for a nice effect to invest into a mace. And then it hit me...
Multifunctionality?
because that might well hurt the magus' friends (well, grogs) also in the melee.
EDIT: OK, my 3rd edition book has the spell with R: Reach and an otherwise identical description.
That would leave the caster within the area affected by any such spray, unless he'd decided to use Vis to extend the range (Ah, 3rd edition ).
And indeed my corebook stll has it as being R: Touch, which should really answer your question I think
Right!
Yes, my grogs who're in melêe with the guy! Stop being so selfish you blaggard! It's bad for turb morale!
Then compare to your Soak...
Great idea for an effect set into a mace though
Yep, multiple redundancy, like we engineers like.
Yes "Reach: Something you could touch, but don't need to"...I remember that one from 4th ed
D'oh, it certainly is
What, Grogs can die during stories? I had not noticed, after all it almost never happens...But if it does I hear there is a book you could use to design new ones with...
yes, yes - I get it - the spell is fine as it stands...except for busting a hole in a wall larger than a garden enclosure.
I've always seen it as something to blast through metal doors or stone barriers (the classic large stone rolled in front of a cave/tomb, for example).
I know that metal doors (while not impossible) wouldn't be very common/likely in historic/mundane 1220. But they are perfectly probable in a Hermetic fortress.
).
