ReIm/PeCo against second sight

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Hi,
Something the players evoked last session which they may try to do: tired of confronting people with second sight, they discussed and thought that if second sight see illusions spells and through magical concealmets, it wouldn't show a missing species.

I read the second sight virtue again in DE: "You are able to see through illusionary concealment and disguise, including invisibility, and can also see naturally invisible things such as spirits and the boundaries between regio levels (see page 420). The Ease Factor to see through illusionary concealment is normally equal to 6 + the magnitude of the might of the creature responsible for the effect, or 6 + the magnitude of a Hermetic spell. In general, this Virtue allows you to see through Hermetic concealment effected with Imaginem, but not other Forms. The Magic Resistance, if any, of the concealed creature does not interfere with your Second Sight. If something is actually transformed, for example by a MuCo spell, you cannot determine the genuine form. The Ease Factor to see a naturally invisible thing is normally 9, and the Ease Factor for seeing regio levels is specified on page 421. All Second Sight rolls are Perception + Second Sight, and they are almost always simple rolls. Specialties: regiones, invisible things, illusory disguises, faeries, ghosts. (Supernatural)"

I'm quite wondering if a "rego imaginem spell which move your species" is making you invisible (not really, you are visible just not on the right spot) nor it's a illusionary disguise.

Obviously I think that second sight would pierce through a image of the wizard's thorn if needed, but here it's not the image they would send, but the body without the species.
From what i remember, they think of letting the image in the lab, "fixed" and move with their body.

I'm thinking that it's some sort of "hermetic concealment" for their body and would not work against second sight. Also their body will still cast a shadow, as with any PeIm spell but they may think of using a PeCo destroying their opacity for that issue.

Subquestion: if a magus use a PeCo, and destroys its opacity, would the body still emit species? reading HOH:S I think yes: "Species are particles that are continuously emitted from objects, and that, when they strike the sense organs of the body, evoke a response."
Glass would emit species, so I assume a "transparent" magus would too, even if hardly perceptible (which is dependent on a Per+Awareness roll)

Thank you for your comments,
Exar.

2

A transparent magus would, in my opinion, be like colored glass- not necessarily difficult to see but easy to see through.

Whether it would only be the color that is normally on the surface or if every single organ would be visible but transparent as well is another issue, but one that could certainly make the study of anatomy significantly easier...

3

It seems to me your players are trying to play with words and are completely missing the point of what Second Sight is. Substituting PeCo to avoid PeIm won't change a thing. Using ReIm to avoid PeIm won't change a thing either.

4

While I agree for ReIm (and it is the heart of my question here because I felt like that but was quite pondering if everyone agreed), for PeCo I disagree. PeCo is not an illusion nor a concealment. It's destroying a property of the body, something that second sight cannot do anything against (as it cannot pierce through MuCo spells or heartbeast).

5

Second Sight sees spirits. Spirits don't have an active PeIm to be invisible, they naturally are. Also, frankly, destroying a body's ability to emit species isn't something that would float at my table in Perdo Corpus. Even if it did, there is no functional difference between not having the ability to emit species and destroying all the species you emit with Perdo Imaginem. In both cases, there are no species for Second Sight to get. Second Sight sees you because you're there, even if invisible. It doesn't care if your invisibility is natural or the result of a spell.

6

Well maybe not at your table but since the guideline appeared in the core book (I just checked if it was already there or if it came with a supplement before 2010) it has been envisionned for such use, but as the guideline is extremly high it has never really been used because it's either a ritual (which lowers interest) or personal sun, or touch dia/conc which is not very effective during a session.

On a meta level, second sight is already one of the most powerful virtues of the game (because it doesn't need to penetrate at the opposite of hermetic magic and can spot demons while Intellego magic cannot) I'll never extend what it can do. it's already enough.

7

That varies on the realm of the Second Sight. If it's magical, it has the same inherent limitation of hermetic magic vs the infernal.

There is nothing to extend. That's what Second Sight does.

8

Second sight can do this: " You are able to see through illusionary concealment and disguise, including invisibility, and can also see naturally invisible things"

It cannot see magic, so why would second sight spot that someone is under a PeCo destroying opacity effect?
For what "destroying opacity" do related to species, I asked and the answer of silveroak seems pretty interesting: "A transparent magus would, in my opinion, be like colored glass- not necessarily difficult to see but easy to see through." . The main advantage is now that being not opaque, you do not leave a shadow moving against any fire source (patrolling guard etc.)

In plain day, it becomes a challenge for the magus: everyone can see the "colored glass" but he must create the conditions where nobody notices it. A spell of invisibility is now really good because there is no shadow anymore to make you visible. Obviously the second sight users are, again, a chore to deal with. So against second sight users you will probably want to create the level 50 version of a PeIm, or even better put a a higher version in a talisman, or if you can, a charged item. Because most do not really care to have a base roll of more than 10+ die, and I notice that in DE this has been edited to say the roll is "almost always" simple roll (which make one of the most glaring issue disappear: players RE-rolling their low second sight +stress until the moment they succeed, which made the SG handle all those rolls to avoid this, but which made it very annoying for the SG which had to remember which magus is able to do what).

Obviously all that is useless against a blind person able to spot you by sound; against magi using InAu or even heat-vision which is one spell my magus did invent using his strength in Ignem and lack of Imaginem. But most magi do not really bother and would consider this combination enough to be useable.

9

This is a part where I apparently misunderstood you. I conflated your question about emitting species with the Perdo Corpus effect you were talking about, and I thought you were arguing for a Perdo Corpus effect making you invisible in lieu of Perdo Imaginem. Which is why I said it wouldn't fly at my table. No, destroying opacity is fine, and yes, second sight won't help you spot the mage per se. But you're in a situation where the mundane eye can see you already (perhaps with a penalty of some kind).

10

My understanding is that Secondf Sight uses extramission while normal sight is intromission. So any use of Imaginem has no impact.

"If something is actually transformed, for example by a MuCo spell, you cannot determine the genuine form", so making yourself transparent with MuCo seems doable.

11

Oh okay it is clear now. No problem, sometimes my english is not good at all since i'm not a native and our misunderstanding is quite benign here.

12

is "becoming transparent" really in the muto domain? I know muto is quite a wild card, because in the end, everything is muto in the world, but Creo and Perdo exist and Muto shouldn't take what they can do.

If "transparency" is the destruction of opacity, shouldn't it remain in Perdo?
And if it's another thing... what?

Also if PeCo put that at base 40, muto shouldn't put it at base 2 (or 3 i don't remember). Perdo is not creo nor rego = the most useful techniques (intellego being in his own league of use), and has already few utilities in game.

13

There are lots of cases where Techniques overlap, often with radically different costs for effects that work out the same way. PeCo can destroy your body's property of having weight, Tesco can move your body around ignoring its weight.

14

My opinion is similar to Tugdual's: Second Sight has nothing to do with species, and Imaginem can't stop it. It's explicit that SS lets you see things like spirits and regio boundaries that are inherently invisible (as in, they do not issue species at all). It's also explicit that SS lets you hear the speech of ghosts, so it's not even sight-only!

I will accept that most people with SS interpret most of what they learn from it through their sense of vision. Which means that you could overload their vision with CrIm to the level that it becomes harder for them to understand what SS is telling them.

15

I'm not sure about Muto vs Perdo, but both might work. I was vaguely expecting MuCo(Au) to give you transparency of air, that was but one way to skin a cat.

16

A Window of Singular Direction (MuTe 10) (HoH:TL p.141)

17

I get this, and I like a lot about it. It would make sense of a lot of things, and I've been hungry for a clear solution to the species / Second Sight / See in Darkness issues. But we also know this is incorrect. Imaginem certainly can stop Second Sight. A high-enough magnitude Imaginem effect will stop it. It's Magic Resistance that doesn't stop Second Sight.

18

Can you demonstrate your claim?

19

Sure. It's nothing strange, just what the Ability says:

You are able to see through illusionary concealment and disguise, including invisibility, and can also see naturally invisible things such as spirits and the boundaries between regio levels (see page 420). The Ease Factor to see through illusionary concealment is normally equal to 6 + the magnitude of the might of the creature responsible for the effect, or 6 + the magnitude of a Hermetic spell. In general, this Virtue allows you to see through Hermetic concealment effected with Imaginem, but not other Forms. The Magic Resistance, if any, of the concealed creature does not interfere with your Second Sight... rolls are Perception + Second Sight, and they are almost always simple rolls.

As you can see, if the magnitude of the Imaginem spell is high enough, the person with Second Sight just won't be able to see through it as their Perception + Second Sight + 10 + Aura adjustment just won't get there. Do note I said "can" rather than "will" or "does." It's conditional on it being strong enough. But we can clearly see that "Imaginem can't stop it" is incorrect. Also, as Imaginem is adjusting species and this affects Second Sight, Second Sight clearly has something to do with species.

You'll also notice it's specified that it's Magic Resistance that doesn't interfere with Second Sight.

20

That's a clear evidence, along with the "no magic resistance".

OTOH, this could be an A&A common sense issue, where your eyes receive both set of data but the "truthiness" of the Imaginem spell drowns out your Second Sight perception.

That alternative does not resolve the extramission vs MR point, but it leaves some door open.