question on "Hunter's Sense" InAn

The base Individual for Animal is Size +1.
Can this Intellego spell detect horses of Size +2?

See ArM5 p.113 box Targets and Sizes:

However, the size of the target does make a difference to the level of the spell, with the sole exception of Intellego magic.

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I thought there was a rule like that, but I never seem to be able to find it when I look.

Next question feels like it should be trickier. Since the Range is Hearing, you are potentially examing sonic species and interpolating information about the source. Hence the animal's magic resistance doesn't need to be penetrated ?

Hunter's Sense with T: Hearing provides a Magical Sense.

In general (ArM5 p.114):

Magical senses must penetrate the Magic Resistance of creatures sensed, ...

There is some magic - e.g. Second Sight - that is not resisted, and this can lead to an Hermetic Breakthrough Sense of the Mystic allowing Sense magic that needs not penetrate (HMRE p.52f).

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Here is a topic where where I discussed Intelligo spells. Just posting a link to avoid repeating all the info.

As I see it, this is very much a YMMV issue.

If you look at all the explanation for species in A&A, a lot of spells shouldn't be resisted, since they don't work by extromission (I believe that's the term?): Whether you're here or not, the target emits species, sounds...
Exemple 01: A magus is alone in a room. You use magic to create a mirror, which reflects his image. Whether the mirror is here or not, he sheds mundane species, which the mirror reflects to you: You wouldn't require it to penetrate to reflect a visible magus.
Exemple 02: You enter the room, and see the magus with your eyes, who receive his mundane species, even if you're under, say, endurance of the berserker (which would require you to penetrate to punch him). Move your sight 1 pace apart. He still sheds non-magical species, which are still received by your sight.

However, published exemples are not so clear, and sometimes assume that spells that move around your mundane senses work by extromission, which contradicts whole other sections of the game and/or make other spells, like "The Face in the Mirror", generally assumed to work as they are, require to penetrate.
However, this has the merit of not requiring you to think about species and stuff.

Personally, I'm partial to the "If it captures shed species, it doesn't need to penetrate", for 3 reasons:

  • Consistency of the setting
  • It makes the "no scrying" part of the code all the more important, since it is easier to scry
  • It makes Intellego effects to detect scrying much more important, whereas, in game, people just rely on their parma.
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You mean emission theory? No need for it.

If you move or modify species by Hermetic magic (like in HP p.84 Fingers for Eyes), the emitter's MR resists. Just like she resists having her image moved or distorted by ArM5 p.146 Disguise of the Transformed Image and Illusion of the Shifted Image, because by ArM5 p.86 "An illusion cast of the maga fails" if she resists.

Well, yes and no :wink:

I meant, indeed, emission theory, which, in Ars Magica, isn't how mundane senses operate: If no one is looking at you, you still emit species, for exemple. No Invisible Boy in Ars Magica :wink:

So (aside invisibility, blindness...) it doesn't matter whether you or the person seeing are under a magical effect or protected by MR: You shed species, which are not magical (that, btw, the whole point why illusions aren't resisted), and are perceived.
If the person seeing you moves her point of view a few feets appart, you still emit those species, which are still received.

This is quite different from targeting someone with magic: the target(s) and Target are different, although I suppose that, theoretically speaking, you could contruct an illusory "cage" around someone that projected an illusion of them to people outside the "cage" without having to penetrate, not unlike you don't have to penetrate to create an illusory wall next to someone.

To finish, I'd like to post a few examples which, hopefully, should clarify things:

InIm spell, range voice, target hearing, to hear from a point you designate.
This is not a Magical Sense, that gives you additional perceptions: You are just moving around a mundane sense (Your hearing).
It shouldn't be resisted (this just receives sounds that are emited), unless the point is covered by MR or inside an aegis: targets are the point and your hearing, Target is your hearing.

InCo spell, range per, target vision, to see people's bodies regardless of illusions, shapeshifts or cover
This is an example of a "Magical Sense". This takes information that isn't transmited otherwise and transmits it through your vision: Target is your vision (this also acts not unlike like the range of the effect), targets are you and the people you perceive.

InMe spell, range voice, target hearing, to hear the thoughts of people around a point you designate, as if spoken out loud.
Likewise, this is a Magical Sense, that will need to penetrate (both the point you designate, and the persons you're listening to).
People don't naturally emit their thoughts around: The spell fetches them, at a range aking to your hearing range, and transmits them to you through that medium. The Target may be hearing, but the targets are the persons whose thoughts you are listening to and the point you designate.

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By definition on ArM5 p.113f Magical Senses, T: Hearing does not move your sense of hearing, but adds additional perception - in this case hearing from a different place - and overlays it on your mundane hearing. So the spell copies sound that you can only hear from another place. We know (p.114), that:

Magical senses must penetrate the Magic Resistance of creatures sensed, ...

So the creature sensed by magically copying its audible image resists.

A CrTe spell just creating a mirror, which then reflects certain mundane species by mundane means, does not have such issues. A maga you see in that mirror does not resist this with her Parma.

Does that help?

What he is talking about is in HoH:S, p. 61~65, not the main book. It clears things up.

Magic Senses detect things which are not carried by natural (ie" mundane") species. Anything dealing with natural, non-magical species (which includes illusions) are not resisted by the Parma Magica, because their species are not magical. All the natural species shed by something with MR are unprotected by that MR.

What you are arguing for would also for example require a light spell to penetrate the MR of a Magus for them to be able to use the illumination.

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Where does that come from precisely?

If you use a spell with T: Hearing (that is, a Magical Sense), and then define what you detect as something, what you could detect if you were in another place, that doesn't change the use of T: Hearing.

You could instead just move your hearing to that different place - but would not use T: Hearing then. An example is ArM5 p.144 Haunt of the Living Ghost.
So moving your hearing is possible by other means than a spell with T: Hearing, but still by InIm (with perhaps some Re). It is apparently that much feared by Hermetic magi, that tmk all the Formulaic spells listed as doing so also move an image of the hearing magus alongside his point of hearing (p.144):

.Because other magi can see you, this spell is not held to constitute scrying by magic.

I do imagine a variant Hermetic spell, which just moves a magus' point of hearing and seeing. In our saga a magus has such a spell - and has left a permanent AC to him at a very well reputed mystery cult he is a member of: The Mystic Fraternity of Samos (TMRE p.126ff). He still has to keep on the straight and narrow with this, of course.

But you must, if the magus intend to illuminate themselves (not really required if you are just trying to read a book you are holding).

Light isn't a species. Species aren't light.

There is another interpretation.

InIm has guidelines to move a sense. Pretty low IIRC
But what is the Target? How do you build such a spell?
If you use Individual, you can move any sense for the same "cost".
The other interpretation, used in canonical spells (like palm of seeing), is to target the sense instead. IIRC still, these spells do require to penetrate, but IMO, that's due to the dualism I talked about earlier.

Note that If you refuse the "target a sense" interpretation and just use T: Ind to move any sense, the rationale still holds: By A&A, HoH:S and the way the world works, it shouldn't need to penetrate.

You're speaking of Haunt of the Living Ghost. Note that it is a legacy spell.
Serf's parma, but IIRC, it has 2 components:

  • A CrIm one to create your image. Note that, being Creo, you are under to obligation to transmit your image.
  • An InIm one to perceive from there (Still IIRC, handled by casting requisites).
    You are under no obligation to combine the 2.
    You could just use the InIm part. If you rule it needs to penetrate to see and hear, then Haunt of the Living Ghost also needs it.

Put it another way.
Forget everything I said.
Do a magically created creature need to penetrate to see or ear a magus?
If not, does it need to penetrate to transmit to you what it is perceiving?
If not, does an invisible flying eye need to penetrate? What if it is also immaterial?
And then, how is moving one of your mundane senses other there different from that?
Whether created or moved by magic at a place that is covered by MR, no mundane sense should have to penetrate, because, canonically, they don't work by extromission: they receive species which are not protected by MR, and Palm of Seeing should be errataed that way.
If not, still logically, magically created animals would require penetration to see, and the same probably goes for people under, say, endurance or the berserker.

We may disagree on how to build an inim spell to move your hearing afar, but we may be able to reach some sort of consensus on the rest, if only "There are inconsistencies, with advantages and disavantages to both, you could decide 2 ways, and I chose this one" (which, in short, is how I see it, as outlined in my first post on this thread)

Am I clearer?

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You can, indeed, move any sense with the same cost (the same guideline is used to move any sense). But the target isn't Individual. What you must target are the species being generated elsewhere. The target are the sensed species.

So, for example, take The Ear for Distant Voices and Prying Eyes. Both use T:Room, because they target the species inside said room.

Palm of Hearing and Palm of Seeing are weird, because they use sense Targets. A R:Touch, T:Vision spell should give a magical sense to a person you touch (and would require a Mu requisite, mind you, as per core rulebook). I'd treat them as non-standard spells or just disregard their existence entirely.


This discussion is interesting. Maybe it would be better, if it is to continue, to move it to a new thread?

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Have a look at ArM5 p.145 The Ear for Distant Voices and Summoning the Distant Image. So the usual Target is the creature, thing or space - e. g. T: Room - you sense.

Yep. That cost inceases, if you wish to use more than one sense.

What is Palm of Seeing, and from where? HP p.84 Fingers for Eyes does have a T: Room - and still must penetrate the MR of creatures in that space. Using T: Hearing to "target the sense" is just creative misreading of ArM5 p.113f Magical Senses.

This is not clear: see Fingers for Eyes.

But looking at the suspicion of magi displayed around Haunt of the Living Ghost and Image from the Wizard Torn, as well as the availability of the spell (ArM5 p.157) The Invisible Eye Revealed, it makes sense to allow no MR against scrying spells just establishing or shifting a point of observation without magically moving or changing observed images and species. This of course excludes Magical Senses. We play it that way.

Of course, getting - e. g. with The Invisible Eye Revealed and some subsequent quaesitorial InVi - found out as the caster of such a spell by a magus caught in it means trouble at the next Tribunal meeting.

This touches on the problem of not allowing MR to block scrying, parts of the setting as written make no sense because one can not cast a scrying spell forcelessly to any effect (in order to not see any magi who might be in the area) and, therefore, risk scrying charges any time you use a scrying spell. Yes, it is inconsistent with how creating species and most other illusions work, ignoring MR, but just as they needed to interpret illusions in this way to make playing illusionists a viable option they need to allow MR to block scrying to keep an Intellego magus a viable option for play. Invisibility is a wholly separate issue since it destroys the affected thing’s species at the source it has no need to ignore MR of the viewer and scrying on an invisible person will also not see that thing just like every mundane in the room with it.

Least that is how I see it.

There are scrying spells that are explicitly flagged to be resisted by MR - like Fingers for Eyes and all Magical Senses. And there are those for which MR is implicitly excluded - which explains how careful certain scrying magi should tread, not to violate their Oath and fall for the fear or politics of their sodales.

I do still assess InIm magic as verrry valuable option in the arsenal of Hermetic magi.

That is not my reading of the Scrying bit in the Guernicus chapter or the Forceless Casting inset in same chapter. In particular this paragraph of the legal ramifications of scrying:

When using scrying spells in mundane society cau-tious magi usually cast without Penetration (see Forceless Casting insert). In this way even if a magus is accidental-ly caught within a target, his privacy is usually protected. However, this is not absolutely safe. Redcaps have no magic resistance and they enjoy the full protection of the Code. In fact, the privacy of Redcaps is particularly sensi-tive as they often know a great many secrets of other magi. If a Redcap is caught by a scrying spell, the Tribunal will presume intent and the caster would need to convince them otherwise. If there was no intent, but secrets were revealed, damages will be awarded. If there was no intent or secrets revealed the case is trivial.

This does neither say nor imply, that all InIm scrying spells can be cast forcelessly and thus be resisted.

It, along with the Forceless casting inset, implies it works anytime a caster might be picked up in a spell that directly targets another person or an area.

EDIT: The way Invisible Eye Revealed works also implies there is something noticeable at the victim of the scrying whether you are the primary target or merely visible from the point targeted by the scrying.