Parma vs the elements

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

EDIT - just to make it clear: this is a followup on the magical sword thread. I am using mind experiments to understand how Parma works. Please share your RAW-ish interpretations.

Aquam - Suppose that you ReAq a large globe of water and settle it down on a Parma-protected magus. As the globe touches his head, his hair will get wet if the water is non-magical. Once it covers his head, he will start to suffocate.

Auram - If you do the same with poison gas, he will be poisoned if non-magical but suffocate otherwise.

Ignem - If you do the same with fire but fast enough that the flame doesn't die, his hair and clothes will get singed if the fire is non-magical.

Terram - With earth, he may get dirty but will suffocate anyway.

Rego - Now that the magus is full enclosed in whatever element, you ReAq the globe sideway. The magus stands there, maybe wet/singed/poisoned/dirty, but never pushed in any direction.

Muto - Now, you Muto'd your globe into pure air. Because it is magical, the magus will only suffocate until the globe is removed.

Are these scenarii the only correct interpretation or are there others?

2

Two things. Are you using magic to aim at the mage? If yes (no "roll to hit") then parma applies. If no, then yes, except for "Second Parma", ie, form score bonus of the mage in question. A mage with a Ignem score of 30 gets a +6 to all fire effects, magic and other, and will probably laugh at your little ball of flame.

3

Unless the Spell penetrates , the water will simply fall to the ground , not stay in a globe around his head.
The rest of the Rego-ed non-magical water stays in the globe shape , outside the Parma.
Would you make the magus roll for "soak"?

As above , unless the gas is lighter than air , it sinks also.
It may still do damage if inhaled.

Don't forget to add magnitude/s for control depending on the damage of the fire.

Unless it is something more solid than sand or dirt , the magus simply walks through the globe unimpeded.

He will never be fully enclosed in any element , unless the spell penetrates.
The element inside the Parma simply falls to the ground as it would normally do.

As with all the others , there will still be a gap between the globe of whatever and the physical body of the magus within the Parma.
Parma is underneath the magus as well , if he is standing on the ground , or any other surface.
You can never get a 100% total "Hermetically"-sealed globe.

4

Laugh but still suffocate, yes. Well, he could just walk out of it any time he wants.

Still, complete immersion quadruple the damage bonus. Mere boiling water would get +12 in that case. Burning clothes would be more, if you can get the non-magical fire to last long enough for that. In fact, a globe of non-magical embers would BBQ a mage real fast, form bonus or not.

5

I am not sure of which school you are.

  • Will the Rego spell be dispelled upon contact with the Parma?
  • Will the Parma create a hole through which all the water will escape?
  • Will the Parma only distort the shape of the globe?
6
7

Ok.
So the magus and the ground will get wet if the water is non-magical and the globe will lose a man-sized volume of water. If the magus moves through the globe, more water will fall.

This is an interesting concept. It means every drop of water is independently held by the ReAq spell and is released as it come in contact with the Parma Magica.

Obviously, this does not apply if the water was CrAq before being ReAq. In this case, the globe will distort, no?

8

Parma doesn't "dispel" effects. It provides resistance to the magus. PeVi does the "dispelling."

In your example, my troupe would rule that the magus isn't touched by the material in question. It wouldn't alter the shape of the effect, except to avoid the magus if he chose to pass through it. If you tried to move the ReXx sphere at the magus and failed to penetrate his Parma, the sphere would just go around him. That's something I think you're not considering.

Or are you saying that you pull this sphere together with the magus in its center?

It seems what you're trying for is a variant of the pink dot. (Oh, god no, please, not the dot.) There are plenty of ways around the Parma, and they're covered in HoH:S pretty clearly. If you're magically holding something together in an unnatural way-- the sphere of water, for instance-- then if it doesn't Penetrate, it doesn't affect the magus. The ReXx attacks that ignore Parma (particularly the ReTe described in HoH:S) are described as (essentially) using magic to fling something at someone. That's not what you're describing, or if you mean to, I'm not getting that.

-Ben.

9
10

I am not considering anything, I am trying to understand Parma Magica and what are the different interpretations. See it as a followup on the Magic sword thread.

I am not quite sure of which school you too are.

  • Will the globe stay spherical and be unable to go down on his head?
  • Will the globe fit him like a glove?
    I believe you are saying the globe will fit the magus like a glove, but not stop him in any way. If the magus is unaffected although completely encased in water, he will be able to breathe easily. This seems to imply the Parma extends from his body as far as necessary to make him unaffected.

There's also some incoherency, as ReAq "a jet of normal water" will make him wet by RAW while you seem to say he will not be touched by the material in question.

I may completely misunderstand what you are trying to say, but hey, anything to make it clear. :smiley:

11

I'm seeing your effect isn't just "move a torrent of water," as suggested in ArM5, page 85, right column. It's more of a:

Neptune's Prison ReAq 30 (Base 10+1 voice + 1 concentration + 2 very unnatural) (but I'd be willing to accept a Base of 5 if the couldn't move quickly)
Coalesce and hold a sphere of water with a radius of ~5 feet. (1.5ish paces) Move it at your direction for as long as you maintain concentration. It swirls and spins with an internal current.

Sure, I guess it could just pass over the magus if it failed to Penetrate, leaving him unharmed and may or may not make him wet. It might lose a little volume. Both points are totally cosmetic and I guess I'd worry about it if the story needed me to worry about it. I could also have it slide around him, never touching him, if it failed to Penetrate. Neither one matters, because if the effect fails to Penetrate, then it doesn't effect the magus.

The globe does what ever you want it to do, distorting, not distorting, losing volume, fitting or not fitting. Regardless of what it does, it doesn't affect the magus if it doesn't Penetrate.

Sure, it can get the magus wet, if that fits. But in that case, that's normal behavior for what is essentially a magically thrown bucket of water. You're not describing that, at least not to me-- I'm seeing something like the sphere of water in HP:5 and the brawl in the Ministry of Magic, that's why I'm providing a sample spell for us to discuss. If you just want to magically throw a bucket of water with the crazy intense force to cause damage, then sure, it makes sense for the magus to get wet if the effect doesn't Penetrate. If you wanted to fling the water and make a targeting roll, then I'd warrant that the water isn't resisted and doesn't need to Penetrate, but I'd also say you'd need to lobbing more than a cubic pace to do more than knock the wizard prone and that judgement would likely be completely troupe dependent

But all of this wanders into odd, undefined territory, unless you want to get crazy mathematical-- and some people enjoy that.

What is it you want to figure out? Can you kill a magus by deprivation if you throw a sphere of magically-controlled-yet-mundane element over him and hold it there?

I guess? Maybe? If he just sits there when you do it, but I don't think I'd let it happen as a Storyguide. Really? That's your plan? Put the equivalent of a pillow over him if he can't move, so he smothers? Otherwise, the benefits for form base bonuses are there in ArM5, page 78.

-Ben.

12

Hmm, if you have an actual spell keeping the water in a sphere, the spell itself will keep the magus out since it would distort the sphere. Unless your spell is specifically designed to hold the sphere around a foreign object (in this case the magus). And the magus can just walk out unless you direct the spell to follow.

But as far as Parma Magica is concerned, you are correct, in this and most of your other examples. The only one I'm not too sure of is the one about air, since I'm not too sure about what the medieval paradigm know about air and breathing. Obviously the magus needs to breath to stay alive, but I think he might breath poisonous air just fine, as long as the poison fails to penetrate: the poison cannot affect him, so why couldn't he breathe it ? Suffocating implies that he cannot breathe in the medieval paradigm, not that the air lacks the oxygen we know he actually needs.

13

Ill probably have to lean towards, "they´re all incorrect".

You describe using Rego to actively hold the materials around the target magi, this means parma always protects.

If you take a sphere of nonmagical water, place it around the magi, the magi wont be afffected by it. IF you then release the water, the magi gets splashed by it as if you drop a huge bucket of water over him.
The magi will NOT get wet by the water as long as its held there by magic.

14

Laws of vacuum: If the magus breaths in, something must enter. The water cannot enter: There is a vacuum. If the air outside the poison cloud or water can penetrate the cloud or water, it will rush in to fill the vacuum, allowing the magus to breath through the water or poison.

A MuAu will not work, I think, because the body uses the basic elemental air to create the composite of the human body. The Muto Auram enchantment changes the air, so the body will breath it in and the Parma will simply cancel the Muto effect as it touches the body. At least, that's how I'd SG it.

If you had an Impermiable substance, like Rock, that might be a different story, and I'd allow it to block air from entering.

15

Tough ones, as often with MR...

First, the elements being magical or not don't matter at all: As long as they're under the influence of a Rego spell, they're as resisted as if created by Rego.

The globe touches his hair and stop there, blocked by MR. It doesn't descend further. If you relinquish your control, the water falls to the ground.
So no, it doesn't come to cover his head, it stops once it touches the magus.

Idem

Non, because the magus was never enclosed in the globe in the first place.

Of course, if the magus is in noixious gases and you change them to air through parma, it is then resisted, although this changes little. But this is the hardest part, and the more prone to magus-killing spells IMO