As a bjornear one of my favourite tricks is turning into my heartbeast (a bear) and disembowling the mages I don't like. Saves messing around with that annoying parma they all like to wear.
However I also have a spell (Ryce's Angry Giant) to grow bigger (20 feet tall, higher soak, higher damage etc), but as this is a magical effect, I now bounce off parma.
So I want to redesign my Angry Giant spell, but now with added penetration.
however..
We're not sure whether adding penetration to the spell design will actually get me past parma.
As it's a spell cast on me, would penetration just get it past my own parma, and have no ongoing effect for when I want to stick my giant claws through the next mage that annoys me?
Or would it provide that level of ongoing penetration to my giant bear form?
Penetrating with this spell would be no different than penetrating with a Pilum of Fire. You wouldn't have to redesign the spell or anything, merely take note of the casting total and subtract the spell's level.
The main thing you might have a problem with could be using the Penetration options, such as Arcane Connections as that person might be the Target of your claws, he wouldn't be the Target of the spell which would be Personal.
Yes, it would determine whether your character's claws penetrate the magic resistance of his victims as well as whether the spell affects him in the first place (Personal range spells don't need to penetrate, Touch and above do).
you need some slip on claws to use when your larger. These would be mundane and not need penetration. But you'd still get the soak and damage bonus (damage from a large chunk of metal rathar than a medium sized paw)
If all the magic done to increase abilities is personal, and is by increasing his size (and the increase to stats and damage is because of increase is size) then there is no actual magical aspect of his attack to be resisted by the parma. All that is attacking are the mundane bear claws which happen to be bigger than usual.
No, I think you'll find that the bear is under the influence of a spell and is considered "magical". Things that are magical are potentially stopped by a parma magica.
So as his sodalis, if my mage was to learn the spell and cast it on himself, he could get similar bonuses to his damage if he were magically made into a giant, but using a mundane big stick to smack people with?
Sorry, but this debate interests me. What about a mage casting a spell to boost his strength and size who throws a completely mundane rock at someone. If he hadn't cast the spell he wouldn't even be able to throw the rock. Does the parma stop the rock? Or just reduce the damage caused by it? Or does the rock being mundane and operating under the laws of physics not be effected by parma as it has nothing at all magic on it?
If it does stop or slow it, then how can that be explained. Does someone under the effect of a spell cause any object he touches to be considered tainted by magic, and the magic cause friction?
As I understand Mythic Europe "physics", there is no such thing as inertia: an object moves because it is under the effect of some "force". If the "force" ceases to apply, the object stops - this is why Parma completely stops things that get moved by Rego. If you shoot an arrow, the force that is moving the arrow is what causes it to wound you.
In that respect, if the rock thrower's strength is magical in origin, Parma would probably stop the rock. It is a different issue if you use magic to bring the rock over your target's head and then let it drop, since the propensity for objects to fall is due to their essential nature.
And for purely game balance reasons, I wouldn't allow someone with magically enhanced strength to bypass parma just because he's wielding a mundane club or wearing mundane gloves...
In my view, if the magic makes any difference as to how the action is resolved, Parma blocks it. Modifying the damage from an attack certainly is significant.
In what way is a rock raised above someone's head and falling, about to hit someone's head when the parma touches it different from a thrown rock, about to hit someone's head when the parma touches it? Gravity effects both of them. Countermagic effects both of them. And I will respectfully choose to disagree with you, the laws of physics will remain the same as reality in any game I run no matter what the action of magic.
Magic, the way I view it, temporarily interrupts the natural laws by its application, not by its absence. Cancelling magic on a rock that was fired off solely by rego magics should not stop the rock dead, to do so would need as powerful a rego terram working in reverse. As long as no active magics are currently at work on an object, the effect of previous magics that have ceased should not be reversed. What's done is done, what doing can be stopped. It should especially not stop a rock thrown solely by muscle, that no spell has ever touched the rock.
To use a modern comparison, take as the rock a car, magic is someone stepping on the accelerator to send it off. Parma magica is someone else removing that foot from the accelerator. Now the laws of nature work as per usual, which means the rock will be affected by gravity and by air friction etc.
That might not be the game rules, but in this case I could not care less what the rules are.
Of course, your game is your game and you can apply modern or medieval thought to it as you wish. For the vanilla style of play, medival paradigm wins and the rock is stopped.
I agree with everything but this. There is no inertia, when magic stops acting on it, the magically propelled item stops, and Parma would protect it. But if someone is magically strong, I would allow them to whack a magus with a thrown rock or a wielded club. While it does seem like a cheap way to circumvent the Parma, it really isn't.
It's not easy or cheap magic to increase someone's stats, and then there's the fact that for explanatory purposes, the Parma is thought of as a field just off of the Magus's skin. Any magic that tries to cross it is potentially blocked. In the case of a magically strong Grog wielding a mundane stone or sword, what magic is crossing the Parma? No more magic is crossing the Parma than when a wizard uses ReTe to lift a rock over his target's head and dropping it.
If the Grog punched or tried to grapple the wizard I'd say the Parma would work, even if there were gloves. Just as the Parma can't protect an outstretched staff, a spell that increases strength shouldn't affect an outstetched or released weapon.
THe easiest way to explain it, is that anything currently under the effects of magic, cannot cross parma (without penetrating).
If you are under the efects of a spell (say stat boos) you cannot cross parma, but if your sword is not under the effects of a spell, it can.
Simmilar with rocks, if you use Re/Te to "shoot" a stone, it is being propelled with magic and won't cross parma. If levitate a stone above a target, then cancel the spell to drop it on him, you don't need to penetrate (no longer under the effects of magic), however, you do need a Finnesse roll to aim.
degamer is right, read the "species" section fo your book.
If whatever has to cross into or touch the parma is not itself magical, is not affected by the Parma. IF it has a magical affect inon it then it is.
A hurled rock is a mundane rock no mattrer how you look at it, unless it is hurled via magic, or has been artifically changed by magic to it;s current size. In which case magic is active upon the object, and subject to Parma.
And yeah, it is possible to magically hurl a rock. use finesse, and "let go" of the rock in mid-flight and smash someone upside the head with it without the ned to worry with Parma. (No magic on the item when it hits the parma)
You're correct except for the last part. 'Letting go' of the magic means the rock drops immediately, it doesn't carry on its trajectory. There is no inertia in the medieval paradigm, so the force propelling it (magic) is the only thing moving it, when it's gone it stops immediately. Unless you let it go over their head or something, this wouldn't work.
Forgive me for being stupid then, but not knowing all the ins and outs of the medieval paradigm, what was the force involved when someone throws a rock physically if not inertia.
They were well aware that the force that was exerted on any object to get it moving - by say a catapult or bow happened only while it was in contact with that object. So what kept it moving according to the paradigm?
Seriously though, they did know of mechanical force for crossbows and catapults, and muscle power for things that are thrown. This is still a few hundred years before Newton's theories, so they basically assume all forces are visible, or because God wills things to fall. Others say the item 'want' to fall. When the rock is hurled by whatever means, the force that launches it is the same thing that is keeping it moving. It will do that until it runs out of that initial force or strikes something.
