Spell Advice Sought: Air Bubble

This spell is an effort to breath underwater using Aurum/Aquam (and avoid the MuCo(An) canon solution).

Bubble of Air
ReAu(Aq) 15
Forms a bubble of the existing air around the caster's head which she can then breath (assuming the original air is good to breath), regardless of quality or presence of outer air. Can work under water, or in areas of gas or smoke. Can also create a moveable globe-sample of a captured gas or liquid.
(Base 2, +1 Touch, +2 Sun, Individual, +1 Re Req, +1 complexity)(The complexity is in part a balancing factor, because of the flexibilty of this effect - that's not the issue.)

The question is - Would it be possible to cast this on another person, to allow them to have a Hermetic deep-see helmet as well? It could be cast, but then how would the spell effect be attached to that target, to move around with them? (Short of Tethered effects). If they stayed within sight of the caster, perhaps - but technically she'd have to move the effect around as they moved - impractical at best.

(For those new to the system, "the target" of this spell is the Air/Water that forms the bubble, not the person it surrounds. So the Bubble has to be controlled, and another person is only accidentally in the equation.)

I guess my question may be more theoretical, whether this sort of "second hand" effect is even possible, and/or how it would be achieved.

Also whether the air would get "stale", as approp to the recent AM concept of natural law. (Not hard to add a Creo requisite, but if it's not necessary...)

(Also, for those who may not know, I tend to stay fairly close to canon/RAW on my spells - so advice to "just wing it" isn't what I'm looking for, thanks anyway. If I just wanted to do that, I wouldn't ask.) 8)

You are good as far as I can tell. The spell is range touch, and touch is described as "The magus or anything he touchs, whether a person or thing". Second, "A spell that has a continuing effect remains in effect even if the caster moves out of range." This is page 111 of core book. Cover your covenant if you want to..........

No, that doesn't work. Not that easy.

The caster drops the effect on the head of a companion. And the companion walks into the water. And the effect... stays right where it was cast - what is moving it? No Rego-type movement there - that would have to be controlled by the Caster, right?

That's the problem. Mundanes can't control an effect, and the effect isn't attached to the mundane. The target is the air, it has nothing to do with the person except by accident of location when cast.

Let's try a diff example. You Creo/Rego a small, Charlie-Brown type storm cloud, to rain on someone. No bigger than a large dog, it hovers over them and rains. But then they move. Unless controlled by the caster, how does the cloud know to follow them? How is a Creo Aurum spell suddenly attached to something Corpus?

Just because an effect is cast in the same location as something else, there's no reason to assume the two become attached.

See the problem?

(edit - unless one could rationalize that the rego creates a "collar" that goes around the neck - that might do it in this case.)

It is called magic for something. Handwave a little. It feels good. :slight_smile:

Cheers,
Xavi

<Tries to handwave Xavi's answer away... it doesn't feel good> :laughing:

I'm fairly comfortable with the idea of a hermetic spell targeting 'the air/water around this person's head' as the target of a spell, as opposed to 'this random static unmoving blob of air/water'.

I think the issue is similar to the 'what happens if people walk in and out of a boundary you've cast a spell effect on that has some duration?' One interpretation has people entering the area suffering the effects of the spell and people leaving the area escaping the effects, while another interpretation has the effects lasting for the full duration on (and only on) the people that were originally in the area. It seems like the sort of thing where you have to specify per spell, rather than something that you can make a general rule on, as there are uses for both applications and no good reasons to rule them out.

Obviously I don't understand you. Lets try from the beginning. Why do you want to make a static bubble around someone's head, as opposed to making a bubble around someone's head? The second one would appear to be the spell you have written. The first one needs target : part, if I understand you correctly, since you are only affecting part of the air.

He is right, it should be T: Part, because you are not affecting the entirety of the air. Just a spherical shaped portion of it. And the +1 for complexity should allow you to do what you want. Did you target the air around someone's head or a static portion of air 5 and a half feet above a certain point of ground? The "air around your head" moves with you (though the gasses that comprise that air are constatly shifting and moving, that is outside of paradigm I believe).

Part of what air? The entirety of the air in the world?

Unfortunately, this "target" is not a weather phenomenon. But as usual, MM, you miss the point. Some things don't change. :unamused:

I've never heard a suggestion of the belief that the air someone breaths stays with them and is carried around - I think that's complete gibberish of your own manufacture

I don't - but I don't believe that it moves by itself - do you?

The spell, as described, creates a "sealed" globe of air - great. So far, so good.

If that sealed globe of air is cast around someone's head, then that's where it is.

If their head then moves outside that globe, what causes it to be dragged along with their head? It's only air, not a glass globe or a helmet.

Example 1: A mage casts a large cloud of fog around a person. The person moves. Does the fog move with them? (Not in my understanding.)
Example 2: A mage adds Rego to the same effect as example 1, and now creates a could of fog in a defined globe around a person, that doesn't mingle with the normal air as example 1 would. The person moves. Why would this effect be different than example 1?

I just want to note that Creo Ignem to create an outline of fire around a sword blade (Blade of the Virulent Flame) does not appear to result in an outline of fire hanging in mid-air after you move the sword. Even though fire is an ephemeral thing, much as air is, it appears Creo spells can 'attach' such things to a surface, though at least with Creo Ignem it appears to require an additional magnitude (it uses the 'unnatural shape' guideline rather than the standard guideline)

Well, your first spell seems to do what you want without effort. You cast a spell, range touch, which creates a bubble of air around the thing touched for duration sun. Boom, airhelmet for the day and all canon. You didn't like that, and I'm trying to figure out why. That's where the "part" comes in. You seemed to want to make a different spell, on that affects part of the air, turning that part into a bubble, which could be used to breathe into and out of, with the mage controlling the bubble. Why are you wanting to do it the hard way?

Hmmm - good point.

(Did you have to quote my entire post to make it?) 8)

But by the RAW, it's a cheat - nothing addresses a mundane object moving magical forms around with them.

This may be one of the things that are not really addressed by the RAW, and the legacy spells have never been tightened up to address the subtle discrepancy.

Sax - You say "boom, Airhelmet", and I say "boom, magical sphere of air unconnected to any person."

Are you missing, ignoring or dismissing the distinction that Ejidoth grasps? Because that's the crux of the problem in my view.

Do the two "fog" spells in my example work differently in your understanding of the rules, and if so, why?

Mundane things are not moving magical effects around, the magic is, for the duration, affecting the Target, as is canon. If I understand what you are saying, the spell, as designed, will give one thing a air bubble. It can not be transferred to another object, it stays with the Target.

<crosspost - see above, esp - again - the examples of the fogs>

And the target is the air. So what does "the air" have to do with the movement of a person who happened to be there? Isn't that person "a mundane thing"?

The Rego is keeping the shape. Rego isn't moving anything anywhere - or if it is, where? How is the Rego magic synchronized to the person's head?

What target? The person?! The target of the spell is the air. Aurum. That's the problem - there is no Corpus involved here.

Can a mage Rego a rock to stick to a person, all day long, after leaving the caster's sight? If so, then it's solved - if not, then one of us is missing something.

No, the thing touched (person, rock, etc) is the target. The spell causes a bubble of air around the target. You could make the air the target, which would require part and give you the problems with following. Thus the confusion. You wrote the first spell (create a bubble of air around a target), which works just fine, but seem to have another spell (move air to a point you desire) in mind.

Certainly a ReTe spell, attach rock to target, range touch, duration sun, will work all day without supervision from the casting mage. Ongoing spells effect the target until the duration is over.

There is no specific rule I can quote for this, but the sheer variety of spells helps to support it...

Basically, it seems reasonable that the air bubble could work both ways... certainly neither one outright breaks any Limits, and there are precedents, even if it relies a bit on a legacy spell/guideline. So... allow it to work both ways. Just require the spell designer to pick which when making the spell.
I think this isn't a house rule or an actual rule, just a suggestion on how to interpret the rules as written to allow them to work better with the examples and encourage player spell-crafting creativity and a rich variety of possible spells. Or something like that.

Also, sorry for the full-quote thingy earlier. I mostly just lurk around here. Having questions about Elementalist weirdness pulled me out of hiding, but I'm still unused to the forum posting stuff.

No prob - I just found it funny. :wink:

And yeah, I can see it both ways myself - which is why I asked.

Looking over the spells, the closest is Cloak of Fire, which drops flame onto a person and they have to live with it for Dur:Diam. I think that's a legacy spell from way back - 3rd ed at least. So it doesn't mean it's in step with the 5th ed mechanics, just that it was a cool and classic effect and they didn't want to dump it. Any time you start to look at those too closely, you risk warping. 8)

Sax-
Maybe Part is more accurate - it's part of a breeze, which is an individual - sure. Now - we create a Part of a breeze, Creo Rego Aurum. Aurum - the Air, is the Target of the Creo technique. Target:Part. Part of the air, Aurum. And how is that associated with the person, now that it's a Part? Part of a person? No - Part of the Air. Part or not, it doesn't change the issue.

Huh? How could it not be the target? It's an Aurum spell - what else is it targeting?

Oh, now I see. Sorry - I thought you understood the Rules as Written.

Because, since when does Aurum target a person? Or Terram?

We aren't talking about who or what an effect may be aimed at, we're talking about the Target of the magic - as in the Form that the Technique operates upon.

So read the book, and get any other system out of your head, and understand that in Pilum of Fire (CrIg), the Creo targets the Ignem, the fire that's created, and not the sorry sucker downrange. And in this Rego Aurum effect, similarly, the target is the air. Nothing else is possible for an Aurum spell to affect, in any way. Really. :wink:

I usually blame 'legacy spells' on experimentation side effects and modified effects, or on the weird Insight lab texts you get when integrating old traditions, such as the various traditions that were combined to form the basis of the Order.
But cloak of flame and blade of the virulent flame both rely on a guideline built specifically for that purpose right in the Creo Ignem guidelines list, which suggests that it was intentional that hermetic magic allow that, and it seems to unnecessarily cut off a large number of options to say that it can't. The +1 magnitude implicit in the Creo Ignem guidelines suggests similar should be required for 'unnatural effect' when using other guidelines, of course.

"+1 Complexity" is a standard hand-wave solution to a lot of problems like this, and more than one canon spell enjoys its generously undefined umbrella. I was just hoping to avoid that if it was possible.

I think I am accurate in my understanding of the rules. Target can refer to the either the material affected by the spell or the target of the spell. Rewrite your spell to affect target : room. Does it not become clear that the "target" is the room you cast the spell at, not the air affected by the spell? Page 133, "A spell with target Room is useless if there is no Room containing the targets; it cannot a "roughly room-sized volume" in open space.". Even your example is tricky as it is Target : individual, and speaks of the damage done to the individual it hits. I think it is clear that the amounts given for "individual" at the front of each form is there for a base-line amount created by Creo spells, not to imply that there are no other targets. Obviously you don't read it that way.