Salve Soldales!
Thank you for your amazing support and feedback so far, I really apprciate it!
I was reading The Intangible Assasin chapter of Hermetic Projects, and I seem so recall almost all the sample spells require you to perceive the intangible tunnel before you can target it; What if you just wiped all the Vim effects on you at once, would that get rid of the tunnel targeting you without the delay of casting something so you can detect it?
Something like this:
Snapping the Threads of Vim PeVi Gen
Range personal, Duration Momentary, Target Group
This spell will Dispel all Vim effects currently on the target with a level less than the level + 2 Magnitudes of the Vim spell + a stress die (no botch).
(Base effect, +2 Group)
basically the group is 'All Vim Spells targeting me', and yes, this will also hit your own spells.
OR should it be Target individual, with +2 for complexity?
ALSO does it need to penetrate?
My thought is to spont and/or fastcast this if you think you are being targeted by a tunnel.
I don't think you need Group to target all of the Vim spells targetting you. I don't see why you'd need extra levels for complexity either - you're just doing a Personal range version of Unravelling the Fabric of Vim.
At Personal range you wouldn't need to penetrate. If you were trying to cast it on yourself at Touch range you would need to penetrate. The slight concern I do have here is the erratum:
Personal (p. 111): Replace the description with the following:"The spell only affects the caster, defined in the same way as an Individual Target. Personal Range spells can never have a container Target (such as Circle, Room, or Structure)."
Do "the spells on the caster" count as "the caster" for Vim Individual purposes? The Vim section does say "The Individual Target for a Vim spell can refer to either an individual spell, or an individual object or person", so probably?
Obviously the spell only works if the tunnel is actually to you, rather than just near you, and you really don't want to botch.
The Base Individual notes for the Vim Form has language that is directly applicable to this question.
Therefore you do not have to be able to perceive an Intangible Tunnel to be able to dispel it, unless you want/need for some reason to cast the spell directly on the Tunnel effect itself. You can however cast your dispel on whatever the Tunnel effect is connected to (on either end I would say) and Vim dispel should take effect normally on any/all suitable effects that are active.
The Individual target for a Vim spell can refer to either an individual spell, or an individual object or person, and similarly for Group. If the target is an object or person, the Vim spell will affect any suitable magic affecting that person, not just one spell.
So you can do Personal to target yourself, and if you target yourself it affects all suitable magic affecting you. So Personal / Individual works for this purpose.
So taking into account feedback from this thread the spell gets better:
For Example:
Snapping the Threads of Vim PeVi 5
Range Personal, Duration Momentary, Target Individual
This spell will Dispel all Vim effects currently on the caster with a level less than 25 + a stress die (no botch).
(Base effect)
You do not need Group, though it doesn't look like you have it factored into your effective level regardless. The effect will attempt affect (and dispel) any and all Hermetic Vim effects active on the target when it takes effect itself. It is wise to be aware of what else it could dispel when you cast something like that. For the basic intended purpose of protecting from Intangible Tunnels, this will end any current one that is active and falls within the level limit.
Note however there is nothing preventing the caster of the Tunnel effect from just ... casting it again. And since it is a Formulaic Spell that doesn't take very long. If you want to protect yourself for longer than the single instance you will need something with a duration of some sort added to the build. There are various ways you could do this, in order to ensure you have a longer window of protection in which you can't be targeted with Tunnels.
The implications of such effects are that the low level Tunnels that can penetrate well are easily dispelled ... if they are noticed before they deliver the intended spells. The very low level necessary makes it fairly easy for any serious Vim specialist to design both the Tunnels ... and also the dispels. Higher level tunnels are understandably harder to penetrate with ... but also generally benefit from Arcane Connections to assist with penetration.
I think the Intangible Assassin material does a decent job of laying out some of the possibilities of Tunnels yet it does get a few things wrong (such as the base individual of Vim implications brought up here).
A common trick is to actually target a Tunnel at some object rather than a person. Depending on what the object is, a spell like the proposed 'Snapping the Threads of Vim' is completely worthless. Tunnel spells against objects can often be higher level since they do not have to penetrate MR, though having low level versions as well to get through AotH is important if you plan on using them against other Magi.
If you are going to fight against someone who uses Tunnels, then you need some means to detect them and effective spells you can cast through them. As Vortigern points out, just dispelling a Tunnel is not an effective defense. You knock it down, they just cast it again the next round. You need an ongoing effect if dispelling them is your idea for defense.
Very interesting using the Familiar Bond for such an effect. And really ... it could be used by either party, so it would also protect the Familiar? Add magnitudes and you could fairly quickly scale up to the point where you force any potentially successful Tunnel to be a Ritual. That would make casual attacks via Tunnels functionally impossible.
Edit: One thing to note however. As designed this effect is a general Vim dispel, so ... it would also dispel any other Vim magic you might be trying to use when it is active. The ability to make it selective (to design it to dispel say only Tunnel/Conduit effects) would be debatable (some might say contentious) but probably a desirable design element to add if permitted.
I would say that is perfectly acceptable and would therefore work on any conduit effects, hermetic or not, similar to how The Heathen Witch Reborn (HoH:S p129) works on any shapechanging effect except Heartbeast.
Putting permanent PeVi effects into your familiar bond seems like an amazingly bad idea to me.
Or did you mean enchanting it into the familiar bond, with D: Momentary so that it is permenently available?
Note, a PeVi General invested in the bond to dispel vim effects also targets the Parma which would be counter productive I think. Typically, invested Pevi effects lose the +die and gain +5 instead which means that if your Parma holds up the 1st casting, you should be ok.
In general I would concur with this type of design as it still conforms to the guideline stipulation of a "specific type" of effect. I have however had people argue against various cases of this in the past so it stands out to me at times as "contentious" in specific instances.
An enchantment with a linked trigger. One constant or item maintains concentration spell to detect the presence of arcane tunnels and one PeVi spell to shut them when they are detected.
Give the effect a duration? There are lots of ways to design effects with a duration greater than momentary? I'm not sure I understand what the question is here.
However long a dispel effect is active it will continue to dispel other appropriate effects that attempt to affect its Target. This is because of the functioning of the Base Individual of Vim, that I mentioned earlier. Each such effect does not only affect/dispel one effect but anything/everything that is applicable, and that should continue for the duration.
I concur with this. The Parma Magica is a specific magical discovery/ritual that has never been fully integrated into Hermetic Magic. It does not therefore fall under the auspices of "Hermetic Vim Magic" and thus isn't affected by a dispel that targets such magic. You can however design specific dispels that specifically dispel Parma Magica. There are canon examples of such spells and them being necessary to affect the Parma.
Note a general dispel effect however can dispel a Parma, though obviously far less efficiently.
