The rules for covering others with your Parma Magica state that the protection lasts for as long as one person can see the othet. Does this mean...
A) as long as any two members of the group can see one another? or...
B) that another memeber of the group must be able see you inorder to keep your protection? or...
C) that all members of the group must be able to see each other.
I favor player power, so I lean towards A or B. But what if the original magus sharing his Parma can no longer be seen?
I'd be leaning toward a hub and spoke model win the magus at the hub, this requiring either that he see the protected persons or that they see him. Grogs seeing one another would not count.
Yeah, but the rules do not specifically state the magus though, just that one member must see the other. Like I said, I prefer to err on the side of the players, and I have already established that grogs seeing one another counts. If one grog can no longer be seen, he exits the protection.
But I am guessing that, from your response, that if the magus can no longer be seen and he cannot see any of his protectorate, then the covering is gone. Would this be a fair ruling?
I would also note that (I feel) just because the protection might be rescinded from the protected does not mean the strength of the magus' parma is restored. One would need to perform the ritual to invoke the parma again to have a full strength parma.
I would say that the nature of the parma-sharing rules make me think that most magi would teach the parma to their apprentices early, so as to keep them safer-- even though it is a violation of the code. It safeguards the apprentice when the master is away and ensures that the apprentice has some level of survivability on his own. Is it something that could get your magus in trouble with the Tribunal? Quite feasibly, but given the investment of time and energy involved with an apprentice, I'd call it an acceptable risk.
Personally, with what I imagine House Tytalus apprenticeships to be, I would expect most Tytali apprentices know the parma before Gauntlet, if only so they can make apprenticeship harder.
I'd really rather have them stick around the mage, either watching over him or being watched over by him, rather than having a long meandering string of grogs (ugh, my mobile's spellchecker proposed 'grits'), though your solution sounds fair enough. They can still end up in an easily disrupted formation.
Really, I think it depends on what your view of the magic theory is in relation to parma-- is each member of the ritual an arcane connection to the others, such that as long as the magus sees one of the grogs and the grogs can see at least one member of the protected group, all are protected?
Or is the magus' gift the source of the protection, and when a member of the ritual leaves the vision of the magus, the protection is rescinded?
Both seem valid and open to interpretation... if anything, the ability to extend the parma to someon and have that person completely leave the magus' sight is an interesting breakthrough possibility-- one I'd probably consider minor.
I think at sharing parma as a sort of circle spell, with the difference that the limit of the circle will be the line of sight with the magus who cast the ritual (so I'm agree with Leonis_Bjornaer).
“You must touch each person to start the protection, and it lasts as long as at least one character can see the otherâ€.
That is pretty clear and generous. If everyone was invisible in separate rooms, including the magus but excepting two grogs looking at each other, then the coverage continues.
What is of further interest is that it doesn’t say that subjects have to be willing to accept your protection. All it requires is a simple touch, either innocuous or conspicuous, gentle or forceful, willing or not. This is evidence of the inherit selfish and self preserving nature of magi, for a simple willingness to humble themselves and cover the mundanes they meet with their Parma would do wonders for their social interactions.
Sweet gods, if you wanted to force the Magus to perform his Parma again, that's going to make sharing your Parma Magica utterly useless.
"So I'm going to give you nearly nonexistant Magic Resistance in return for greatly reducing my own, but if I so much as sneeze you'll lose it and I'll be stuck with the crappy Resistance until I have a few minutes to myself to restore my protection."
Sharing Parma Magica is, for all but the most skilled at it, already a losing proposition against all but the weakest of penetrations (and for training and social purposes.) That sort of restriction is going to reduce it to one-in-a-million situations.
Of course, this requires convincing said mundanes to let you touch them for 2 minutes while you do some odd ritual. The gift does make that kind of hard .
Making parma work as long as you are in Voice range is much simpler and clearer here. Never thought much about this issue myself in any case. It has never been an issue IMS
Oops! I am only half-right once again. I read too fast, and the key word is on a line break. Easy to miss. It does in fact say “with their consentâ€. I also try not to reprint the rules word for word in open forum . I have a Perpetual Smurf Parma to guard me against accidents like that.
But it does say “You must touch each person to start the protection, and it lasts as long as at least one character can see the otherâ€. So the two requirements to begin protection are Consent and Touch. This can be short and simple, though one presumes that they need to know what they are consenting to, not just simply allowing themselves to be touched. Interesting, this means you cant protect babies or others you cannot communicate with. But presuming the person knows what is up, it can be done with a nod and a high-five.
It goes on to say that the magus can cancel the protection at any time over any distance, and while protecting others, his score is reduced three points. I would then take that to mean that once a magus is a gain not protecting others because he withdrew it (or no one can see anyone), then he is no longer under this condition and has his full protection.
Also, one misconception about Parma is you need a score of at least 3 to protect someone. No true, you can protect one other person at a score of 1, and you each have a Magic resistance of 0. Your score does not go negative.
No he cannot. One person must be able to see at least one other person. If shared with a third person that can see, then they are fine.
Yep.
Actually, thats the way I would go too. They don't have to be staring at each other. But if all are invisible/in pitch darkness/blind; then I can't help them.
Me? Over in Andorra, Octavian wants me to shut down Inigo's protection of the grogs because he turned invisible! That's why i started this thread tobegin with. I keep telling him that the grogs could still see each other, so the protection is still good, and he thinks I am too soft
Ad it's Killer DM, get it right
Old old school Dragon Magazine terminology.
I'm arguing that the spirit of the rule is that there are essentially two parties in Parma Magica: The caster (magus) and the recipient(s). Do the recipients participate and work the ritual? I'd say no as they are more the target of the ritual. What you are arguing is the literal meaning. The point of contention is that it is my belief the intention of the writer(s) is that to sustain the parma magica on the recipients, either party must see the other party I.E caster sees the recipient, recipient sees the caster, or both mutually see each other.
As for the circumstances of this particular case it's more than just "going invisible". The recipients are in a house, and the caster is invisible, flying through the air to get a bird's eye view of a village at one point. So there's a question of going invisible and not being seen and the possibility of intervening obstacles such as walls and a roof.
.
. I have a Perpetual Smurf Parma to guard me against accidents like that.
