you would not generally add two base guidelines together.
Your spell starts at the higher guideline. If you add an effect that allows the spell to do something significant it normally could not, add a magnitude.
I'd say that in this case, Perdo Corpus should allow you to choose to eradicate a person completely. Some SGs might not be so giving, I suppose. If, for example, you wanted it to kill a person and then decay the body to make it unrecognizable or preserve the body ala an ice house or perhaps mummification (a better choice as most Perdo spells are momentary), maybe that's grounds for a +1 magnitude?
Thanks for catching that. The original notes I had for the spell did note that, but I must have missed it when I was entering it into Metacreator. I'll correct that on my file and in the thread.
Atalanta Viatrix of Tremere thanks you, I am sure!
So if you cast a PoF at 9 below spell level, you reduce damage by 9 then? If Penetration 10 is part of the formula, if its cast successfully, you get 10 Penetration+ any casting total above spell level.
Otherwise it gets rather odd with spells overall as normally, the "set" parts of a spell cant be changed.
No because, damage is set by the spell design. But Penetration calculated by: Casting Total + Penetration Bonus – Spell Level.
Building a Penetration Bonus into the spell, doesn't change this.
Yes, exactly. And if the Casting Total is less than the Spell Level there will be a negative component in here, because (Casting Total - Spell Level) is a negative number.
Thats what i cant agree with(although ill add that i dont support the idea anyway), because once you make it part of the "formula" itself, you "set it in stone".
You seem to be arguing about an alternative version where the level 20 version is the level 10 version but always has a Penetration of 10 regardless of the result of the Penetration calculation formula. I don't think that was the intent of the OP. The original intent seems to be that the +10 Penetration bonus built into the spell was just added into the normal Penetration formula along with other Penetration bonuses. This would have no effect, as I have said (except sometimes cost fatigue and make the spell more challenging to invent).
Your version would not be a good idea because it is even more at variance with the actual rules and it would also mean that the character could not add to the Penetration by using vis, rolling well on the Casting die, or collecting Arcane Connections. So, he would only be at an advantage by inventing the level 20 version if he was going to have difficulty casting the level 10 version --- which would normally mean that inventing the level 20 version would also be problematic.
The core book simply has no option to build penetration into the spell effects. The whole added or not added to the basic casting total is a moot point: you can't do it, so we can argue around it over and over again and the result will be a tie regardless of what we say
If (and only if) we accept that you could build a +10 penetration into the spell, I think DW75 would be on the clear, though. You do not subtract damage, range or target from the spell effect if you do not reach its level when casting. So, if you have a +10 penetration as one of the effects of the spell you do not reduce it even if you fail by 10 points or less. You get 0 penetration from your casting roll (NOT negative penetration) plus +10, to end up with a net +10 penetration
Moreover, Penetration Bonus is clearly defined as the Penetration Ability score, or a multiplier of it when you have an Arcane connection.
There's nothing that would stop from house-ruling this in, but as your TeFo goes up the built-in Penetration becomes useless. Transferring that spell creation effort into Mastery and talisman would yield more, permanently. If you want a nice HR for weak character, allow magi to add new form and materials to their already attuned talismans.
Otherwise there´s no reason for doing it. As i´ve written it, you sacrifice a level of fatigue to gain a few points of penetration. And once you have raised casting total just a few points, the spell becomes irrelevant anyway.
Yes i know. I already said its not a good idea, and while it doesnt seem to break the rules, it does a pretty good dance show on the line of doing so. It has SOME potential use, but very limited and ineffective use of time.
A better comparison might be that you do a Level 21 spell with +1 Penetration instead of a level 20 spell, to always get a minimal functional Penetration. Only need a Casting total of 11 for it to "always" succeed.
More trouble than its worth 99% of the time. So i dont actually think there is a need to ban the idea.
Well, there are other things not mentioned in the core book that can be done anyway... :mrgreen:
If its not in the rules, its not decided either way!
Yeah, and if you happen to get above the spell level, any penetration from that would be added as normal to that integrated into the spell.
But as it becomes slower to invent and its usefulness is both limited and gets superceeded relatively quickly, its rather suboptimal even if it has some small use.
Mmm, that reminds me, due to what Richard said, when casting a normal spell, casting total below spell level, does the difference count negatively against the Penetration Score Ability or not? Ie, is it always zero penetration if the difference is higher than PN Score or is it equal to PN Score?
Not sure if i ever needed to deal with this situation...
We have always played that your penetration is 0 + pentration ability. Dunno if that is RAW, though (and we do not care much about it, really, since penetration will suck anyway).
Thats how i´ve done it as well, but RLs assumption of counting negative as well made me realise that i cant think of anywhere this is actually stated.
And low penetration will still be enough to go through 0 MR, something im not totally unused to seeing.
