Lesser Enchanted Device: Bead of Importunate Query
This item is a small unremarkable glass bead, usually kept wrapped in wool in a leather pouch.
Importunate Query
InCo(An)35
R: Per, D: Mom, T: Vision
Base 4 to sense very general information about a body, +4 Vision, +1 Animal requisite, +10 unlimited uses.
The effect is triggered whenever the device is exposed to light, even starlight. It detects whether there are any people or animals within sight.
Note the item has no way of reporting this information.
This device seems quite pointless, but it serves a sometimes helpful purpose in attracting or distracting mystical creatures. When exposed to light, the bead repeatedly checks for people and animals, with the result that any person or animal with magic resistance senses an insistent pinging. Most find this irritating, and those that are able to locate the device are likely to approach and investigate it or retreat, depending on their temperament. The constant probing also makes it harder for the victims to sense further Intellego spells and other subtle magics impinging on their resistance.
They're not the target of the spell, the bead is, being granted the ability to detect people and animals. Creatures with MR will simply not show up to its sense.
Similarly, if you were to cast a high-level sense spell, the things you look at wouldn't get warped by your gaze.
I can think of countless reason to why someone would want to destroy the magic in an item without destroying the item itself.
And even if not, most magi do not have mastery of all Arts, which is why a competent PeVi magus would prefer quickly inventing a Disenchant spell with wich he would be very effecient (high Penetration)rather than using multiple seasons inventing a PeTe with which he would not be as effecient.
Erik you don't say it explicitly, but am I wrong to believe you are talking about the InVi Guidelines?
If so, I agree. And it would ameliorate my concerns. I even recommended something alike it in an earlier post.
The Vim guidelines on detecting Might (and in fact even detecting magi!) as written compare a creature's Might with the detection of a spell with the same level calculating for residue etc. In short that the more Might the easier to detect with InVi.
Using either the RAW or your idea the main problem is that since there is no mention of a exception from the MR rules then either such spell would have to penetrate to attack. My suggestion is then that since the spell itself is designed to 'probe' for MR and if you want to have easier detection then you might aswell house rule that such a spell doesn't need to penetrate. Then it is easy doable and it stays within the realm of vim. All are happy.
Well yes. Perhaps not countless, but a few. But is Excalibur as vulnerable to a simple PeTe spell as a rusty dagger? Can your magically well-equipped grog be left naked as easily by magic as his less fortunate comrade? Can the shield with a level 70 ward against heat and flames be destroyed as easily by PeTe/He as its mundane counterpart?
Can you create Excalibur with Hermetic Magic?
Is the Shield with the Level 70 Ward just a normal shield with a spell on it?
If we start giving MR to things , it merely adds another level of complexity.
PeVi spells are used first to destroy the MR.
Then other spells as normal.
I am all onboard with that, but I was responding to your explanation of the Disenchant spell, not the notion of giving items MR.
Your, and Xavi's, arguments in favour of giving items MR rings true and they add to the myth. I am however still not decided. I think it might cause more problems then it might solve, but I am not certain.
Perhaps an item-only effect that grants magical resistance at personal range?
Much like how you can imbue a magic item with Penetration, perhaps it should cost extra levels of effect (possibly with requisites, or more likely as a separate spell effect - thus limiting resistance to greater items) to grant magic resistance. Back-figuring the guidelines from 4th edition when granting magic resistance to anything was easily possible would give appropriate guidelines for this I believe.
Certainly I had no problem with this in fourth edition. I don't think that you'll run into any problems by allowing it.
Fifth edition strives to make the Parma a more special thing and as a result I'm confident that you'll not see anything like this in fifth edition published material. (aside from the hermetic breakthoughs in HoH:TL)
One option for giving the item magic resistance that is within the rules as presented in the published material is to use the Merinita house mystery of Animae magic to enchant a constant duration effect into an item that changes the enchanted item into a faerie.
