do they have to penetrate resistance because they are effects not spells and hence not excluded by the exception in ArM5 85 above?
If this is just unfortunate wording does that warrant an errata? If this distinction is indeed relevant, should this be made explicit in ArM5 98 and hence warrant an errata either way?
The topic came up in a discussion involving Touch range effects triggered during combat, potentially via InMe based linked trigger (ArM5 99).
This doesn't seem to consider talismans either (which would again allow Personal range.
While I suspect that talismans weren't sufficiently considered in the quoted places, this might indeed be an indicator that actually my understanding is wrong. As mentioned already I'd consider an errata a good thing in either case to clarify how it is meant to be.
THe comment from p 99 you quoted is related to normal invested devices. Talisman are a special kind of invested device, if you want your talisman to read your thought, you can use the normal way. Or you can use the fact that talisman is special and downgrade the range to personal to lower the magnitude of the effect. Do what's best for you.
Item effects and being powers are designed as spells. For invested items the core book even says they "mimic the power of spells" (ArM5 p.95-96). While effects aren't spells (so not cast the same way, but created in the lab), "an effect is like a spell, and must be fully defined, as a spell is" and "you must design the effect carefully, as if inventing a new spell" and "the effect is based on the spell guidelines" (ArM5 p.98). I think those are sufficient to say you follow the normal Hermetic guidelines for building spells, and Range (which includes Personal) is a part of that (ArM5 p.111). Do we also need to redefine all the Ranges, Targets, Durations, etc. for items as well? After all, effects aren't spells and those are nearly all defined for spells or coming from a magus. Or is this a case where we'd be accepting so many other things that are written for spells work with items and for some reason just not accepting this one?
Talismans' R: Personal is an exception to the normal rules just as it's an exception to the rules about how Parma Magic protects items you hold and just how it extends your touch. It would be a pain to go and edit every statement in spell descriptions, magic resistance statements, and R: Personal statements to take Talismans into account. It's far easier to make a one-paragraph statement within the section on Talismans to show how they are exceptions to certain normal rules.
I wouldn't mind either way. My intuition without any errata was indeed that talismans are different regarding range of trigger effects and magic resistance. It's just that OneShot thought differently and came up with a very "close to the text" interpretation that would have a maga resist range personal effects in a talisman.
But, following that, we would have to go back and issue errata for nearly every Range, Duration, and Target as well as piles of spell descriptions. The rules say items use spell guidelines. The spells section says Range is part of the guidelines. Personal is one of the spell ranges, and it bypasses magic resistance. There is no need for errata.
What would you think of the following conversation?
Seller: "This Prius C comes in [color list]"
Buyer: "What colors dose the Prius V come in?"
Seller: "It comes in the same colors as the Prius C."
Buyer: "I said Prius V, not Prius C." (disgruntled that the question hasn't been answered)
Sure, the colors were described for the C, but the question was answered by saying for the V they're the same. Same thing here. All those guidelines were written for spells, including Personal and what it does. Then the books say to use the spell guidelines for item effects. What would not follow logically would be if R: Personal from items did not bypass magic resistance. That would need errata. But that's not the case and so there is no error to correct.