I just pooted a rainbow for you, PB. 
It smells like roses, too!
Sorry to hear about that. Something is out there.
I actually prefer this option to the ReVi + Penetration vs Level of Aegis option, because this does away with my concern about protection vs interaction.
See, was that so hard? Now, what else do we have to fight about? 
I prefer the simplicity and not relying on two Arts and another ability to figure something out. I can live with it.
Okay, now that that whole kerfuffle is behind is, I just want to make sure I'm understanding the sequence of events correctly.
- Most of the magi of Gallus Florensis line up and take the oath of loyalty.
- Tektonius notices that Iudicium looks quite tired after administering the oath.
- Goliard revokes our invitation, and our parmas go down.
- Cygna feels a Mentem effect bounce off her form bonus (I believe she's the only one with a Mentem of at least 15).
- Cygna scowls, says nothing, and resolves to talk to Draag when she can.
- Goliard hands the magi of Gallus Florensis new casting tokens.
- Goliard also states that any other GF magi need to come take the oath, as well as any new members that we gain in the next seven years.
- Tektonius asks about future casting tokens, and is told by Goliard that they would be happy to provide them annually.
- After Gallus Florensis leaves, Tektonius asks if they had a spell cast on them (?), and if anyone else noticed how tired Iudicium looked.
- Cygna confirms that she felt a spell bounce off her Mentem, but doesn't know what it is.
- Less than an hour later, Tribunal reconvenes and votes are taken on various matters.
More like this:
[]Most of the magi of Gallus Florensis line up and take the oath of loyalty.[/:m]
[]Goliard revokes our invitation, and our parmas go down.[/:m]
[]Cygna feels a Mentem effect bounce off her form bonus (I believe she's the only one with a Mentem of at least 15).[/:m]
[]Cygna scowls, says nothing, and resolves to talk to Draag when she can.[/:m]
[]Goliard hands the magi of Gallus Florensis new casting tokens.[/:m]
[]Goliard also states that any other GF magi need to come take the oath, as well as any new members that we gain in the next seven years.[/:m]
[]Tektonius notices that Iudicium looks quite tired.[/:m
[]Tektonius asks about future casting tokens, and is told by Goliard that they would be happy to provide them annually.
[]After Gallus Florensis leaves, Tektonius asks if they had a spell cast on them (?), and if anyone else noticed how tired Iudicium looked.[/:m]
[]Cygna confirms that she felt a spell bounce off her Mentem, but doesn't know what it is.[/:m]
[]Less than an hour later, Tribunal reconvenes and votes are taken on various matters.[/*:m]
Something I've been considering is that "No Familiar" is a lot more punitive than I think it should be. It wasn't a big deal in previous editions, I think, because I don't recall anything about a familiar's Might protecting its magus. (Maybe it's just been too long, though.)
I'm trying to think of some way that a magus' talisman could be used to provide some kind of "back-up MR" in instances where a magus' Parma is down. Best idea I've had thusfar is that the talisman attunement turns the item into a Magic Thing, with some amount of Might that can protect its magus. I don't have any idea how to figure what kind of might your talisman might get, though.
Anyone have any ideas?
Also, I just realized that Attravere wasn't affected by Iudicium's oathbinding. When his Parma went down, he was still protected by Sanno's MR.
Well...
It says that the "magus may choose to use the familiars Magic Resistance..." I think that choice should be similar to surpressing, dismissing or initiating Parma Magica. It should require concentration and time. It should not be automatic or always on as a backup, pick whichever is greater, if one goes down the other is still there type of situation. That's extremely powerful. It's a choice and it takes some time to switch between the two, perhaps a concentration roll, too. So, in this instance of being surprised, it's possible that Attravere could be affected.
No.
No No No No.
Same thoughts, completely.
This is a major change to the rules, with huge consequences to the setting. Parma is THE reason why the OOH is successful, since it allow magi to ignore the gift's effects. If the aegis cancels it, it means that, unless visitors are always handed out a token, they'll suffer the gift's effects.
Moreso, not only is the computing counter-intuitive and a huge headache, it does put us back to 4ed and the absolute need to upgrade Rego and Vim, which was THE reason why Parma became an ability.
In fact, it is worse, since you need to also upgrade your parma. Moreso, it means that, unless they're ReVi monsters, the "combat magi" are, in fact, the more vulnerable to Aegis, since they'll have the highest parma. So while you could have a flambeau be all CrIg + Parma, he now needs to be Cr, Ig, A little parma, Re and Vi. And he needs higher ReVi totals that before, too.
Errr.... No.
You don't need the Aegis to cancel the Parma for a magical effect to have enough Penetration to affect the PCs.
And if the penetration is low and you thus needs the parma to be brought down? There are perfectly RAW magical effects that can do that, like Wind of Mundane Silence. And with an invested item, it can have a Huge penetration.
You could also have the NPCs ask us to lower our Parma, either upfront, or under a false pretense (Like saying they want to cast a Frosty Breath to make sure we mean the truth when pledging)
So the only thing you have to retcon for it to work is the details, and who is affected. Like, say, it has Pen 30, who can resist?
Exactly.
Hiems has spends many seasons increasing his parma in a violent tribunal, where conflict exists between hermetic magi, all so that he could be able to protect his sodales (especially cygna) against magical attacks, and this now suddenly proves to be a MAJOR error, since it means he have no chance at all to keep it in any hostile aegis.
To tell the truth, I feel quite cheated. This is EXACTLY the kind of situation why I chose "mentem" as the parma specialty for Hiems AND why I had him work on his parma. He's supposed to have Mentem MR 48, vs Cygna's 28, and she resists while he gets affected? Well, fuck.
I'll tell you, you feel like quitting because we don't like that you sprang on us a major change to the rule rather than using the (at least) 2 ways your mentem effect could have worked in RAW?
Well, I won't, but I feel like quitting because (and this is not the first time!), although you can be a great storyteller there's no solid ground in this saga rules-wise, which there's nothing I can trust. Hell, I just discovered that one of my character's major strength was in fact his major weakness. I had no problem for him to be affected if his parma proved insufficient, really (I know this, because, until peregrine recalled the rules, I wrote in that way). But this unnecessary change, done like that???
Ok, probably not the best day for me to write this, but I really, really feel cheated.
Yes, it is.
And the magi have no way to know this, not until they run some magical examinations.
I haven't read the parma/aegis discussion as thoroughly, and I want to be careful about stepping on a landmine and hurting feelings. Plus at the same time offer perhaps a method for the plot to advance, as apparently this instance was important for that. I truly want to help and not make it look like I'm ganging up, taking sides or hurting feelings. If these suggestions don't work, just say they don't work.
- For the Parma/Aegis thing, I won't discuss the rules permutations and such but mainly go with story, internal consistency and history. The Aegis was created by the first Primus of Bonisagus based off the research of parma. If at the time it was created it had the ability to knock out the parma I would think Trianoma (who was still around) would have told him to go back and tinker with it to leave the parma intact, otherwise Tribunal meetings and friendly visits would be impossible. So, they go back to the drawing board and either tinkered with Aegis and Parma or both, and now the two work in harmony, and all future copies of Aegis as well as methods of teaching parma include these 'patches' so that this cannot be exploited. Since it's a Rego Vim affect anyway it's not as consistent that it can knock out or suppress parma IMO the way Perdo Vim can.
This is the method I use whenever someone thinks of some clever way to use parma as a weapon against its user, such as Muto Aquam on poison to turn it to water and have the magus drink it and die. Basically the magi over at Microsoft..er Bonisagus make a patch for it and send out the latest modifications to the parma to prevent that. The parma isn't smart or intuitive, but the creators of it are. The writers of the game have often stated that the Parma is not meant to hurt the user beyond the user's inability to shut it off if they are unconscious and thus resist helpful spells.
- For the plot device, some needed to be aware of a mentem affect that hit them and they resisted while others were unaware. A magic item with a high penetration and a target of Group should be able to do that and still affect the exact same people that were affected and fail against those it didn't affect. Blackthorn has the time, resources and talent to make one, and certainly has the motivation to do it, and since they have home turf advantage could pull it off without anyone noticing the attempt (beyond an affect hitting their parma, if that). Have that cause the same affect that was intended. Or one of their council knows the spell, can cast it without words or gestures and might have any number of non-AC bonuses that help penetrate, perhaps even has a magical discovery called 'Vow' similar to the Faerie Magic durations and targets, only this gives the benefit of an AC when casting on someone speaking an oath or vow; something like that
But something that's rules and story consistent can be used that doesn't turn so many conventions around.
I hope this was helpful, Sinmore would likely have been affected either way, and she already responded in character about it, and I'm ok with the results of whatever affect was placed on her and hope we can continue.
Hi all. You may have noticed I'm getting really bad at posting frequency. I'm sorry. I have been having some trouble following a bit of the plot and similar things, while being distracted by my other computer-time hobbies. Then when I did check on the message boards I kept running into the endlessly growing discussion about the Parma/Aegis mess, and it made me turn away again to 'read later', which I never got to. I'll catch up on that all today and get as much done as I can before my DnD game tonight.
Thank you for the translation.
In case anyone's interested, I uploaded my "Claudia's Seasonal Planner" chart to googledocs. That way, anyone who wants to can check to see what seasons she's free to help in the lab. (I also put the link in her character sheet.)
Out of curiosity, does Claudia have any desire for personal time?
I don't think so, beyond what's required by her faith. The normal one-day-a-week in Covenants. It's possible a story may come up for her that would require her to do something, but since the accident she doesn't really have anything to live for beyond helping others.
So we're clear, a MuCo spell cast with 0 Pen inside a foreign aegis, would in fact be dispelled.
Are you saying it would or are you saying he is saying it would, because that's not how I read what The Fixer wrote. If that's how you see it, then you need to do some additional House Rule revising. Raw states "Magi who were not invovled in the ritual and who cast spells within the Aegis must subtract half the level of the Aegis from all their CTs." So now, what is required to cast a spell in a foreign Aegis?
Make it a device that casts Wind of Mundane silence and be done with it, seriously. It is 10 times simpler to say Wind of Mundane Silence brought down Parma Magica than fiddling with the Aegis rules is. It's a rabbit hole that appears to have no end to satisfy a plot point you need to move the story forward. Wind of Mundane Silence in a device can establish the same plot point, without the associated cosmological effects on your game world. The device could have been operated by someone else, and happened concurrent to rescending the Aegis to make it appear that the Aegis blew the parma away.
Consider this Quaesitor visiting, if we are kings in our Aegis, we just don't allow him in. Yes, that creates other difficulties, but the world as it exists given the Aegis rules makes the wizard in their castle an extremely difficult foe to face, and requires bringing in an extremely powerful Quaesitor to do this.
I'm saying that, as per the spell description, a spell cast by a device foreign to the aegis will be resisted by the aegis (that is to say, that the spell must penetrate the aegis). Therefore, by definition, per RAW, a spell cast with 0 penetration by a device foreign to an aegis, will not be successful.
Fixer said that a spell cast with 0 penetration by a foreign device would not be dispelled by an Aegis. I corrected him by pointing him to the exact wording of the spell description which says, "actually, you're wrong."
A House Rule is something that's not EXACTLY WHAT IS WRITTEN IN THE RULE BOOK. A spell cast with 0 penetration within a foreign aegis will be resisted by the aegis, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT THE SPELL DESCRIPTION SAYS IT DOES. That's not a fucking House Rule, that's right there, in the 5th edition book, on page 161, top paragraph of the middle column.
A TOKEN. YOU NEED A GODDAMN TOKEN. Or the ability to cast the spell with sufficient CT. EXACTLY AS PER THE RAW. Again, not a House Rule, BECAUSE THAT'S HOW THE SPELL IS WRITTEN.
No. It's been settled a week ago, and I AM done with it, but Fixer's posting schedule makes for delayed reaction time.
I am not going to buff the saga's antagonists any more than they already are. I can't tack another 30 years onto any of Blackthorn's magi without playing with Final Twilight, and in any case, your characters are expected to be able to overcome them eventually. You want the incredibly powerful magi to be incredibly powerfuller? Well, tough shit.
This is the end of this discussion because I am sick and tired of it, and thoroughly, utterly disgusted.
You're entirely capable of doing so. If you, as players, are interested in the kind of story that will result from the ramifications of knowingly, willfully impeding an official Quaesitorial investigation of diabolism, you're welcome to do so.
Note that the only way this world deviates from the RAW is in the warding effect of the Aegis, and in no other way. I have ruled that Parma Magica is a magical effect (you know, it does have "magical" right there in its name) and thus is subject to the RAW requirement that foreign magical effects must penetrate the Aegis.
I don't know how to put this any clearer: This discussion is closed. If you don't like it, I have no fucks left to give.
Aegis has multiple components. There is the component that resists spells that are cast from without, and that does require penetration. However, what I quoted is what happen when Magi not part of the ritual cast spells within the Aegis. If my CT is sufficient to cast the spell, within an Aegis where I haven't been invited in, under RAW the spell goes off. Under your House Rule, you need to extend it and revise it to require it to have penetration in excess of the Aegis level to go off. Does it also get halved? See what I mean about this being a rabbit hole? Your ruling has far reaching consequences, and as I said, makes Aegis of the Hearth supreme.
Spells you bring in from outside must penetrate, as per the RAW.
Spells you cast from within take a penalty to the casting total, as per the RAW.
End of discussion. If you're still confused, read the spell description. It's on page 161.