Spell Deflection

[Christian_Andersen (Christian Rosenkjaer Andersen)]

@One Shot

@Christian Andersen

Overall Vim magic used to affect other magics have guidelines in two types:

• Universal guidelines, which will affect anything but is hard (like Winds of Mundane Silence)
• Specific guidelines, which require a specific tradition (e.g. Hermetic or Gruagach) as well as type (e.g. Terram or Cursing) to be specified, but thay are much easier than the universal ones (like Unravelling the Fabric of [form])

Until now I had not noticed or even suspected that Muto Vim could not also do this. For me it seems an error, and I'd like to ignore that single sentence, and take a cue fro Rego or Perdo guidelines.

The line

@ArM5 p.159

These spells can only be used on Hermetic magic

was always in ArM5, both in 1st and 2nd 'Printing', and never was errataed. I also never doubted its necessity.

MuVi spells do intricately interfer with magic being worked by others: they do not just extend, tunnel, block, ward off or delete it, but either cooperate or barge in on it. To do so, you need to have the proper tools, and the proper understanding of the others' operations. Both are limited to Hermetic Magic here.
This means for example, that - no matter how powerful an Hermetic MuVi magus you are - you cannot cast a MuVi spell on a Bjornaer changing into heartbeast form and thereby modify the beast she turns into. If you are a Bjornaer yourself, you might understand, why Hermetic magic just cannot do this. Otherwise you barge in on magic you do not understand, and your MuVi spell just doesn't take hold on it.

There is a problem with the (ArM5 p.159f) section on MuVi: it was written extremely concisely, and then errataed twice. This was likely done to limit space for a single Form-Technique combination. Every phrase in its guideline and spells had to carry a lot of weight from the beginning. When the text later was found insufficient in several aspects, the errata didn't make it any more readable.
So I advise newbie players to just skip MuVi, and still don't know whether the effort to understand and integrate it with a saga is worth its benefits. But house-ruling parts of it whenever they come up in your saga is really asking for trouble "with a firm voice and bold gestures".

Cheers

That the sentence

@ArM5 p.159

These spells can only be used on Hermetic magic

is not IMHO any solid argument. THat a thing has not been changed through the editions does not mean it has actually been reviewed and actively and deliberately included for a good reason. There is plenty of wierd legacy stuff still around. And I see no reason or argument in Hermetic Magic Theory why Muto VIm shoudl work differently that Rego or Perdo, why it should be limited to only this tradition.

However Muto Vim is fundamentally different than the Rego and Perdo: Where Rego and Perdo Vim have "binary guidelines" with either a universal-but-hard or a very-specific-but-easier way of deflecting or dispelling either works or it doesn't.
Muto Vim guidelines instead differ over the size of changes, and has three different guidelines for this (greater changes needs Cr or Pe req), and they don't mention whether spells need to be Form-specific at all. But the example spell Mirror of Opposition is Form specific, while Shroud Magic, Sorcerer's Fork isn't. Wizard's Boost is Form-specific (and don't get started on the whole "Boost".
If Muto is going to work in the same way as Pe or Re the guidelines need to be worked through, with a universal versus specific distinction. And a spell like the one I suggested earlier should numbers-wise be the Form/Tradition specific version and the universal version needs to be significantly harder - like Winds of Mundane Silence is harder than Unravelling the Fabric of [Form].
And this would make Muto VIm spells to return a spell to the caster really, really hard as formulaic since they will either be high level or so specific you'd need a whole array of spells in order to eb prepared. Or you'd need to do them Spontaneously - which is also very difficult.

The easiest thing would be to simply accept Muto VIm as a way to boost own spells and let sleeping dogs lie. And if facing a hostile wizard instead deflect or unravel, or simply rely on a good Parma Magica and learn offensive magics.

I wholeheartedly agree that this concept is so difficult and needing so much specialization that unless it is a major focus point of the saga the character is severely limited in all other areas.