For purposes of Spell Mastery, does magic resistance include Parma?
So, if I have Pilum of Fire mastered with magic resistance; I have Parma 4; and I have Ignem 8.
Do I have:
((8/5)+(4x5))*2 = 44 resistance?
OR:
((8/5)*2) + (4x5) = 24 resistance?
From reading, the later seems more likely to me - the Parma appears to be an addendum to your MR rather an an intrinsyc part of it.
Comments?
Y.
You double the form resistance...
so..
Ignem 82=16
plus
Parma 45=20
Total = 36
versus Pilum of Fire* or similar spell..
IIRC
Ah, I had misread that. the 1/5th Form Bonus (pg77) is only for soak, not for resistance. thanks for pointing that out. 
Y.
In both of these equations you're confusing magic restitance based on your form with the form bonus used for resisting non-magical effects.
For computing your magic resistance, you add your form score to your magic resistance, not your form bonus.
Page 87 says "your magic resistance is doubled"
so the answer is (Parma * 5 (20) + form (8)) *2= 56
This differs from Urien's answer but it aggrees with my book. So, Urien, is there an errata that I should know about?
Well..
Parma of 4. This means 4 multiplied by 5 giving a bonus of 20 to Magic Resistance. (simple enough)
Ignem (Form) is doubled versus the mastered spell (or similar) so...
8 times 2 equals 16.
Adding it all together...
20+16=36...
Versus the Mastered spell (or similar)
I take this from this perspective (the area IS open to debate..)
Page 85:
Parma Magica-
I take the section that says that Parma "adds to the resistance" as meaning your Magic Resistance is your FORM score. Parma is a ritual/spell that you cast on yourself every day. Parma is also a generic resistance...it covers all the forms. The Mastered spell only covers ONE form (typically)...I therefore take it to mean that the Parma is NOT doubled..only the Form.
From a purely game balance standpoint, IMO, doubling the Parma is way out of proportion with the experience needed to master a spell...Consider: It takes five points to Master 'Pillum of Fire' (One season, easy). If you take the basic Parma of 1 as a base, it requires 10 exp to raise Parma to 2. It requires 30 to raise it from 5 to 6. Raising it from 5 to 6 only increases your resistance by 5. Mastering that spell instead, would raise your total Parma resistance from 25 to 50. The NET effect of that is the same as adding 200 exp to Parma. That seems a little out of proportion to the 5 exp that you need to master a spell.
Of course, if you can direct me to an example somewhere that refutes this, I would appreciate it.
(I know of several games where this is being done, and I am sure the SG will be happy to know that they are doing it wrong. 
)
The mastery only doubles against one spell, so your example kinda misses the point... And that purely apart from the fact that you're picking random numbers for your example... Say my magus, with a parma of 1, wanted to learn magic resistance mastery for his lamp without flame, he allready has lvl 2 mastery in that spell, so that would require 15 xp. He has 5 in ignem, so as a comparison he would have to spend 25 xp on parma. Offcourse, the cheap mastery effect wouldn't protect him from anything other than spells that make him glow, but it is cheaper, right?
Not sure if you read the Spell Mastery properly. It gives you resistance to that spell and any Similar Spell. So, if you master PoF with Magic Resistance, then you resist any CrIg damage spell.
And it seemed to me that spending 5xp to double your Parma against all CrIg damage seemed extreme.
Clearly you're not reading the similar spells definition in the same way I have.
A spell counts as similar if it only differs in one parameter (range, duration or target) and has precisley the same effect or has the same parameters as the original spell and has an effect that is nearly the same.
Magic resitance mastery in pillum of fire will not increase your resistance against even one of the other Cr Ig spells in the fifth ed book much less all Creo Ignem damage.
No, not really...
I didn't miss the point at all.
I learn a spell. (Pillum of Fire)
For one season of work (easy enough to get this much) I can get 5 exp in Mastery of that Spell. For that little effort, all PoF cast at me, I have doubled my Form Resistance.
Seems fairly simple to me...but you are complicating things to your ends here...If you have a Parma of 1, I would bet that you dont have a Mastery (or would not get a Mastery) of 3 in a spell...
So lets assume that you have a 1 in mastery...(easily doable in a beginning Magus)
Form: 10 (good specialization)
Parma : 1* 5 = +5
Total resistance is as follows versus the spell:
(My example): 25
Eriks Example: 30
Okay thats not too bad...
Now lets look at a Magus of advanced years...
Darius of Flambeau-
Form:(Corpus) 15
Parma: 5+1 Specialty in Corpus (eliminated for arguement sake)
Mastery 2 (Clenching Grasp of the Crushed Heart)
My example:
Form: 152=30
Parma: 55=25
Resistance would be 55
versus the spell.
Eriks Example:
Form: 15
Parma 25
Total would be 80
Big difference.
And he is only 87 years old.
Now if the first Magus were to learn "Twist of the Tongue", it would cost him one season (5 exp) to Master it.
To Raise his Parma, would cost him 10 exp. Maybe one season, maybe two. If he had a Mastery already it works out the same. Okay, again thats not bad. Its pretty balanced...but its a starting Magus, so such things tend to be.
Darius:
...Learns the same spell (yeah he has it already). Five Exp to Master it.
If he wished to raise the Mastery because he has it..10 exp. Not too bad.
To raise his Parma:
25 Exp.
Eriks example Doubles the Parma...(versus that spell)...thats a HUGE jump in resistance. I feel doing it this way is unbalancing...hence my ORIGINAL question.
(Erik, please don't take all this as a dis...I am trying to work this out using your example)
ok....
Erik I agree with your assessment of similar spells..(though one of my SG takes the 'other' approach...
Well that's your choice. It might be useful if you were invisible...
I can see an argument that the ability is too powerful and that doubling the form resitance is a better choice. But I don't see how that interpretation falls out from the rules as written.
I've no books here at work, but I'd wager that "magic resitance" is defined in the magic chapter in such a way that it includes parma and form resistance.
If one sticks to a relatively restrictive definition of similar spells (which I think is waranted from the rules of the lab chapter) the argument regarding the power of this option probably wouldn't be sufficently persuasive to warrant a change in the rules. (Especially when you consider that the intersection of spell mastery and magic resitance has got to be one of the roughest things for new players to get their heads around)
It says Magic Resistance, I also interpret that as your total magic resistance, not just your Form score. Yes, Parma is doubled. Yes, that means that the spell will have a VERY hard time to get through.
What does it mean? That if you're going to declare a Wizard's War on a battle-oriented magus, you'd better have some original spells he won't have resistance mastery in. I see that as desirable. Standard spells are easy to get texts for, which means they're also easy to guard against.
Consider:
What you are talking about is an 'arms race'. This makes lab texts of offensive spells usless...in the long run anyway...if you want to live.
Only against other magi. The spells are still perfectly good for blowing up the local Duke's retinue.
It takes at least two seasons for someone to gain immunity to an offensive spell. One season to learn it and one season to practive it enough to gain a level of spell mastery. It only takes one season for a magus of comparable power to learn another spell.
Consider a magus who knows pillum of fire, cloak of flame, and a target group creo ignem spell (the name of the spell included in the core book escapes me at the moment) if you are worried about this character you need to spend a year and a half in study and practice in order to gain protection from his spells. Of course once you've done this you'll be pretty well prepaired for defending yourself against the most common spells thrown by other creo ignem casters but after a year and a half perhasp you ougth to be. I have a creo ignem magus in my game at the moment and in addition to pillum of fire and trial of the living pyre (from the spells wiki) he has two level 50 creo ignem spells only one of which anyone else has ever seen a lab text for, and he has a pointy little level 15 spell to beat exceptionally high magic resistances which he also created himself.
In my experience, characters tend to develop new spells in their strogest arts (because they can do it quickly without having to get a lab text) and they also tend to use attack spells in their strongest arts (because they need the penetration). These two tendencies combine to prevent spell defence mastery from being an overpowering force.
No one has taken this yet in my game (not even the flawless caster) but then again we haven't had any magi versus magi conflict that escalated to actually having magi casting spells at one another.
I suppose I am reading that differently than you:
So, Pof and BoAF have same R,D,T and a similar effect (damage). So matering one will give resistance to the other.
Arc of Fiery Ribbons and PoF have same R, D and Effect with different Target.
I suppose that one could rule that +20 dmg and +15 dmg are different effects in which case AoFR would not be resisted by a mastered PoF but mastering PoF will still protect you from any CrIg with Voice,Mom,Ind that does straight damage.
You know I had writtena serf's parma into that post butthen erased it becauseI was so sure. Suits me right.
It even gets worse in the next paragraph;
I'll concede that getting the spell mastery special ability in magic resistance for a creo ignem spell is exceedingly powerful as listed. I'm now thinking that I'll adopt "add the form score to resistance twice" as a house rule.