Similar Spells

Games Discussion Ars Magica
42

I like flexibility in Hermetic magic. So I would prefer less strict reading on this then its the same if they are mechanically the same.

Basically a spell that creates 1 ton of earth and another that creates up to 100 tons are similar even though Size might be different.

A spell that heals 1 damage and another that heals 10 damage can be considered similar though the damage differs.

A spell that can create light like a candle and another than can create light like the sun are similar.

I see a fire spell that creates 5 points of damage and a fire spell that creates 50 points of damage as similar.

A spell that creates +1 Int and another that creates +3 Int are similar, even though the int bonus is different.

A spell that targets me and one that lets me target another person or a a group is similar.

I say this because thematically the whole thing about Ars Magica is that the spells are 'scientific'. Every spell has formula and documentation and references to esoterica. There is math and graphs and underlying theorems.

The spell notes for a spell that creates light like a torch and another that creates light like the sun will share similar notes up to a point. But that point is enough to allow some connections.

In an actual gaming sense I say let logic apply in those cases where things might go wonky if the effect is applied.

2 Likes
43

I would only allow that if they either affect the same Characteristic at different r/d/t or different Characteristics at the same r/d/t. I think it is pretty clear in RAW that similar spells can only differ on one axis.

44

Agreed.

45

Hi,

I recommend a rule that says that no spells are similar.

Yes, I understand this means that I recommend getting rid of the rules for similar spells and dropping the concept entirely, which is not what was asked for. But this discussion serves as supporting material for my point of view. Similar spell rules create complexity that really does not add very much. New paragraph

One person's cosmetic difference is another person's intrinsic difference. For example, if I have one spell that creates a dog with some set of stats, and another spell that creates a different animal, say a wolf, with the exact same stats, is it cosmetic or the spell similar? How about if I have a peridot corpus spell that kills someone by exploding his lungs and then another one that turns his brain into goo? The difference is might seem cosmetic, but if I have a focus on brains rather than lungs, we see a rather non-cosmetic mechanical difference. If the target somehow does not have a brain but does have lungs, we see yet another non-cosmetic difference. A spell that creates a blue fire that does plus 20 damage seems identical to a spell that creates a red fire that does + 20 damage, except that the latter does nothing in a fairy realm where nothing red can exist. So cosmetic is not all that cosmetic after all.

Is a spell that increases intelligence by +1 similar to one that increases it by plus two? This difference is less cosmetic, and still can be construed as similar. Never mind what happens when I have a spell that increases intelligence to +7, which changes the technique from Creo to muto if I remember correctly. But they are so similar!

I have not even waited into the argument about spell guidelines, or should I say arguments?

Spell similarity is one of those old-timey corner case rules that seem so cool and so reasonable but just cause trouble, and is another thing on the checklist of things to be remembered. New paragraph

If we really need a rule here, what about the simpler girls for magic items? A mogulous games a bonus to a spell of some technique and form equal to the magnitude of the highest spell he knows of that technique and form. Not as specific but much easier to adjudicate, which is not to say that I recommend it. New paragraph

Anyway, new paragraph Ken

1 Like
46

Overwa,

I see this in many of your posts - is there any reason you literally write "new paragraph" at the end your paragraphs?

47

Hi,

I don't write it. Google voice recognition writes it. By arm is unfortunately injured and I am not typing. Sometimes Google recognizes my request for a new paragraph and sometimes it does not and then just type the text. Some of my other interesting phrasing can also be attributed to Google voice recognition.

Anyway, new paragraph can

8 Likes
48

All illusion spells have the same effect, because the only differences between illusions are cosmetic. That's what an illusion is, after all.

Great! What does Euclid have to say about whether Infernal Might Strippers are similar to Faerie Might Strippers? What about when they are at different ranges?

The idea behind my suggestion comes from operationalism and instrumentalism in the philosophy of science. The intent is the same as ErikT's, but without loading so much importance onto "cosmetic". (Appearance is cosmetic for Ignem, but not for Imaginem. And probably not when one Ignem spell creates red light and another blue light.)

Does the difference make a difference to any target? If so, the spells are actually different. If not, they are actually the same. This is not going to slice things exactly as the old intuitive division did, but people do not agree about the old intuitive division.

This is really pushing the edge of errata, but it would be nice to clarify this if we can.

I don't see how they would cease to be the same effect. Are you referring to the "bypass Magic Resistance" point? That can be explicitly excepted, because it's well-defined, and is, intuitively, not a feature of the spell.

I'm still working on this, and I may well give up and just delete Adaptive Casting.

49

What about just keeping the old ArM5 p.101 division requiring troupe adjudication, and Adaptive Casting for either spells with General guidelines plus ArM5 spell descriptions under General header or Similar spells?

How fine a comb do ArM5 rules need?

EDIT: Also, using a finer comb for errataing than was used for first editing a book is a recipe for disaster.

50

The funny thing with that rationale is that moving a base effect from individual to part with flexible formulaic or muto vim is likely to make a lot of difference for the target. But anyway. I digress.

51

No, I think he's referring to the fact that Range moves from Per to Touch, and effect moves from grog-warping to grog non-warping (how can you affect a grog with a R:Per spell? MuVi the target, without altering the effect).

52

Let me start by saying mine was a light-hearted joke. I meant no offense.

Let me add that your attempt to provide an operative definition (a true Aristotelian, eh?) was immediately very clear; that I find it a very good attempt, in the sense that it found a very sweet spot between clarity and conciseness on the one hand, and adherence to "intuition" on the other; and that I am generally very fond in real-life of that approach.

That said, even in the real world operative definitions sometimes fall short, because of noise and other issues carrying out the experiment. This is truer in an imaginary world, which lacks an implacably coherent nature always yielding the same results. It is even truer in a game world, where the experiment is almost inevitably insufficiently detailed so as not to bore players.

Was your effort successful? For what's worth, I am somewhat inclined to say it was. I am not complletely happy with it, but I am not really unhappy. I think it's an improvement over the current wording and I cannot find a better solution without departing significantly from where you stand.

In this sense, let me look at two alternative solutions.
You jokingly asked how the Elements of Euclid would rule on the issue. I believe they would say that two spells are similar if they share the same primary Form and Technique :slight_smile: (note that this essentially one of Ovarwa's proposals). It's phenomenally clean and clear, and if it is perhaps somewhat generous compared to intuition, it is not overly so in the grand scheme of things. But somehow it ends up being utterly boring in my view, and thus worse than yours for a game (incidentally, I do not think the Elements are boring, I think they are the most beautiful work of all antiquity).

At my gaming table, we assume two spells "have the same effect" if they "have the same primary effect" as per the Superficially change a spell MuVi guideline. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem! Note that this would be an operative definition in game, but of course it leads to circularity because of the need to adjudicate MuVi spells. This is too vague for official rules in my view, and so probably worse than yours. But at our gaming table it somehow works - we always seem to find a consensus on this pretty quickly, and if it ain't broken why fix it?

53

I'm generally in favor of deleting Adaptive Casting, I think.

  1. The current state of affairs, with similarity being left to troupe interpretation and the general advice to rule generously, is perfectly fine given the extremely small Similar Spell bonuses for lab work.
  2. Basing Adaptive Casting on spell similarity puts powerful enough consequences on it to require clear and specific guidelines or else endless arguments at the table and a giant opportunity for shameless munchkinry.
  3. The attempt to nail down clear and specific guidelines has essentially failed; no consensus has arisen after weeks of discussion; even most of the ideas that have been proposed were done so seemingly with an air of "I don't actually like this, but it's the best I can think of and perhaps it will spark further discussion".
  4. The requirement for similarity-based Adaptive Casting (clear rules for it) cannot be met. Therefore, Adaptive Casting as proposed cannot work in play. The existing state of Adaptive Casting also cannot work. Deletion remains the best of an unusually bad lot of options.
1 Like
55

I fear I am in agreement on this.

Adaptive Casting is a bit too powerful to be based on something so loosely defined as similar spells - and I suspect basing it on similar spells would make it too broadly applicable even if "similar spell" was nailed down hard. Nailing down "similar spells" in a good way does seem to be highly difficult though.

The percieved need for Adaptive Casting or something like it, is very much one of mere perception though.

Just about nobody thinks it is strange that Mastering Pilum of Fire won't help with casting Ball of Abysmal Flame. They are two different spells after all.
But many people (including me) think it feels odd that Mastering Demon's Eternal Oblivion lvl20 won't help with Demon's Eternal Oblivion lvl 35. Intuitively it feels like these are the "same" spell, only at different levels - despite the rules being clear that they are actually two distinct spells.

I think the mistake was the introduction of General spells (as opposed to general guidelines) once upon a time, but trying to fix that is far beyond the scope of a simple errata.

56

I’m in favor of keeping adaptive casting in pretty much its current form, only works for spells based on general guidelines. My reading of it is it also requires the same RDTs but that the base level can change. I’m also in favor of keeping similar spell bonuses. Both can perhaps use some slight fixes or examples. Some of these may be:
-Can spells that provide a numeric bonus (recovery roll, damage, wounds might even possibly be considered in this category) that increases with magnitude but are current defined at specific magnitudes be considered General Guidelines? I don’t really care either way but if it is explicitly set as not general or general then we know.
-for similar spells based on general guidelines explicitly stating it is only considered same effect at the same base, otherwise it is a closely related effect and for similar spell bonus you can only get the bonus for different RDTs at that base or, if using a different level base of that guideline, by using the same RDTs.
-I think including Size increases as part of RDTs fixes some issues here.

I’m sure there are others but I like adaptive casting and similar spell bonuses but I think making it work for any similar spell makes it too broad and makes adjudication more complex in a way that won’t improve play.

1 Like
57

Not a fan of getting rid of adaptative casting.

1 Like
58

On second thought - keep Adaptive Casting as it is - working on General spells and only on General spells.
Yes, yes, as it is worded it doesn't really fit into the existing rules since it talks about "same spell" even though a General spell at different levels are actually separate spells, but I think we all understand what is meant.
There is also the problem that if Adaptive Casting can be used on a spell will then depend very much how a spell was written. This is not ideal, but is it a big problem? I doubt it.

In short, unless one tries to pick them apart, the current rules work pretty well even if far from perfect.

Second best would to just remove Adaptive Casting.

As I said earlier, the best would be to entirely remove the entire concept of General spells, thereby removing a bunch of confusion as well as much of the percieved need for Adaptive Casting. This would be a big change though.

59

Getting rid of adaptive casting does not help much. I think that instead of fixing this or that definition, we should probably take a much more holistic approach, since "similar", "same", "same effect", "same primary effect" etc. appear explicitly or implicitly in many many places, including labwork, Muto Vim effects, several mastery abilities, books on spell mastery (Tractatus on Aegis of the Hearth Q11 vs. Tractatus on "base level 40, +2 size" Aegis of the Hearth Q7).

I think the basic concepts are:

exactly the same effect -- something like David Chart's definition should work.
the same primary effect -- this is needed for "half magnitude" MuVi: sigil, tailoring for warping, as well as "secondary functions" like adding a Rego requisite to a Creo spell to avoid being harmed by what's created.
scaled up - only changing purely quantitative parameters like damage, bonuses, size - but not RDT. Multiple versions of General spells are scaled up, but they are not the sole sets of spells that are scaled up versions of one another. Yes, PoF and BoAF are scaled-up.
closely related -- any of the above, or same or "sufficiently close" guideline, as per current definition under Similar Spells. Any reasonably coherent set of effects that is less than half of the typical minor focus.

Personally, I think there should be a single spell mastery ability for all scaled-up versions of exactly the same effect. This would mean that adaptive casting is automatic, that you do not have to relearn you mastery of the Aegis when your covenant grows (and you have to learn a new Aegis), and that it's realistic that you could find a book written by someone else that helps you master your base level 35, +2 size, Aegis.
Sure, it means that mastery of PoF translates into mastery of BoAF, but would that be bad? An Ignem specialist who devotes his time to learning a different "attack" spell for every heat intensity is already sacrificing a lot of time, for relatively little gain. Allowing mastery of the lesser spells to translate into mastery of the greater ones encourages taking mastery early, and having a lot more fun with it.

3 Likes
60

Yes.

The problem is that the fineness of the comb has not been completely consistent across the line, which is unsurprising with 40 supplements. When two books do not quite match up, as with Adaptive Casting, you have a problem. ("General spell" was not really designed to bear real in-fiction weight, so asking it to do so creates problems.)

1 Like
61

Likewise.

More generally, I think there is a meta-problem here.

There really is a problem with deciding what counts as a similar spell, and this does cause issues when it comes up in a game.

However, it doesn't come up that often, so most troupes do not need to resolve it. In this respect, it is very different from "what does Parma defend against?".

Solving the problem is not at all straightforward, and would require quite a lot of text. It might also break existing sagas and published material.

While I would, as a matter of temperament, like to pin this down, I am starting to suspect that that would be the wrong choice from a strategic line management perspective. (I only took the Minor version of the Personality Flaw, so I am allowed to ignore it if it is going to cause trouble.)

This discussion is not closed, but as I am tending towards not changing anything because the problem is not big enough to justify the necessary changes, if you think it should be changed, you might want to post examples to convince me that it's a bigger problem than I currently think.

3 Likes
62

For what it's worth, the Similar Spells question also affect another mastery: Resistance Mastery.
This has ripple effects on Hermetic Projects, which recommands learning and mastering for Resistance similar spells.