It really depends on the magic sword. Items of Quality produced by Verditus aren't affected by MR and getting +4 to Attack is basically the same thing as +4 to damage - in fact it's better, because it can build up as attack advantage, something damage bonus can't do.
A suggestion for another system:
Parma prevents magic from affecting you (or your personal gear), in that Aristotelian meaning of altering your properties.
- Directly-controlled objects (Rego) don't impact you, stopping or diverting as they do. As actually having an impact would meaning changing your properties.
- Spells that target you fail to affect you you. So do spells that affect the Room and so on.
- Fire's heat fails to affect you. So does a poison's bite, an acid's burn, and so on.
- Hands of grasping earth find no purchase on you. They cannot affect your properties.
Yet,
- A sword with a pink dot will pierce you. The pink dot does not affect you, it's the sword that does.
- An invisible arrow will pierce you. For the same reason.
- A miniaturized boulder will hit you as a pebble. The MR doesn't suppress damage, it just prevents it from affecting you.
- An indirect spell, such as raising a boulder over your head and dropping it, will work as normal. The spell doesn't affect you, it's the boulder that does.
I can't see the difference between this and my system, except that instead of saying it cancels damage and fatigue loss, you say that fire, poison, acid and hands of grasping earth have no effect. I can't get the distinction clear in my mind. Are you saying that a blade enchanted to be impossibly sharp would penetrate, but the sharpness wouldn't, because the sword is what is affecting you? I'm not sure. It seems to me that you either have the pink dot problem, or what you are suggesting is essentially the same as mine but phrased a bit differently and perhaps harder to adjudicate, but I may be misunderstanding it.
Regarding the degree of causal separation, I would say something like if the caster would in theory be able to cast a touch spell on the thing that was causing magical damage/fatigue loss, that damage/fatigue loss is cancelled. So a person made stronger who punched the caster would not cause any extra damage, but if they hit the caster with an axe (1 degree of separation), they would.
(Or another way of doing it, with slightly different results, could be: imagine the exact same event had happened but without any magical effects - any damage or fatigue loss beyond what that natural event would have caused is cancelled. In other words, remove all magic from the equation at the point the magus gets damaged, and not before - what are the results? Unlike the above, this would cover someone with strength increase hitting them with an axe)
The (ArM5 p.85 f) Parma protects some space around the magus, and the air in that space: "Magic resistance keeps magic away from the maga, her clothing, and other items that are very close to her.". That leaves him time and room to cast a spell for breaking the entrapping material or moving him out.
Roughly like this:
If your Parma lets the magical water - because 'harmless' - surround the magus, drench his clothes and enter his mouth, that little spell is a sure killer, though.
Great, that's the kind of thing I'm after. However, I don't think this is correct. A person in water rises naturally to the surface, the water would have to change back to dirt incredibly fast to change before the caster's head bobbed out, meaning when it changed to dirt his head and (if he realised what might happen) his arms would both be out of the dirt. And if the water changed back fast enough to prevent that, then the magus in the standard rules would also be dead, as there would be no time to cast a spell.
So let's assume the magus was wearing something so heavy he sank, which is unlikely, given magi's dislike for encumbrance, but anyway. Now in that case maybe the magus under my rules would die, but the magus in standard would not. But by now it seems like such a fringe case I'm not sure I'm bothered by it. I'm happier with it than pink dot, which is the alternative (for reasons given in my earlier post above).
I also wonder if there is a way round it. So, what about this:
- Any thing that is actively magically-controlled (Rego) will be physically blocked from reaching you, stopping or being diverted about an inch from your body. (this is standard rules in 5th ed., but thanks to YR7 for clarifying wording)
- Any spells or spell effects which target the magus, or something of which the magus is a part (e.g., a group or room) have no effect on the magus (again, standard rules).
- Any damage or damage bonus or loss of fatigue levels caused by a magical effect is reduced to zero ( Non-standard , but this is the part that seems to solve many problems)
- If something with an active magical effect comes within an inch of the magus and fails to penetrate, the magus will become aware that the entity is under an active magical effect (e.g., poison made to look like water, or a deadly snake turned into a scarf. Non-standard ).
- Addition: If anything under an active magical effect enters the magus' mouth or nose, any magic is suppressed/dispelled. (And/or, just to really drive it home: As long as PM operates, no magical effect can inhibit a magus' ability to cast spells).
This now means the magus would be able to speak under the water as no water would enter his nose or mouth, and so he could cast a spell to save himself.
I'm not entirely sure it's necessary, because I think the whole "change the ground underneath a magus who is weighed down with something into water for a very short time so it changes back and traps them" is such a specific set of conditions I could happily allow it.
Can you come up with any more general way the same idea can be applied? Any way that shows how it creates a broader weakness in the magus' PM rather than a single weakness under a specific set of conditions?
Actually, I think I like that alternative to the last bullet point quite a lot. It covers paralysis by magical gas as well. Although for clarity I'd revise it to:
- No magical effect can restrain a magi's voluntary movements, or inhibit a magus' ability to cast spells.
That seems pretty good to me, but I'm sure I've missed something...
I've considered further, and come up with a new version of the ruleset that might be the best yet. This is only thanks to everyone who has pointed out problems so far - so thanks to all of you. I realised that most of the things I wanted PM to do could be grouped together under an umbrella of "force exerted by magic", which would also include the Rego protection in standard PM. So I decided to see if I could capture that in the ruleset, and therefore streamline it and make it more cohesive. This is what I've come up with:
Unless penetrated, magic resistance has three effects:
- Any spells or spell effects which target you, or something of which you are a part (e.g., a group or room) have no effect on you (exactly as in standard 5th ed. rules).
- Magic resistance reduces the force applied by any magic that reaches you to a negligible or non-existent amount. In this case, it does not dispel the magic, but it nullifies any coercive or harmful force exerted on you by the magic. Something akin to a magical armour that suffuses a magus.
- It makes you aware when something under the influence of an active magical effect comes within one inch you.
For the second point, āforce appliedā is defined as the act of gripping, controlling, inhibiting, harming or weakening the caster, or ābreaking intoā his mind, emotions or body. Any magical effect that does one of these things will have that aspect nullified. Examples:
- Magically-caused damage or fatigue will be nullified, including bonuses applied to damage caused by mundane means. The additional force created by the magical effect, in order to induce damage, is nullified. A sword covered in magical fire or a magically-sharpened edge will cause normal, mundane damage. A sword created by magic will stop on contact with the caster's body/clothes - its entire force nullified. A man with magically enhanced strength who punches you will only cause damage from his mundane strength - the extra force from magical enhancement will be nullified. The same man hitting you with a mundane sword won't cause extra damage, because the additional magical force of propelling the axe will be nullified. If the same man pushed a boulder from a cliff onto your head, you would take full damage from the boulder, because none of the force that reached you was magical in nature - it was the natural force from falling. (In game terms, this is easy to adjudicate - has the man's Strength made a difference to the amount of damage suffered (not whether it was suffered)? If the answer if yes, his mundane Strength should be used unless the effect penetrates PM - see below, this italicised part needs more thought).
- Anything that is actively magically-controlled or propelled (Rego) will be physically blocked from reaching you, stopping or being diverted about an inch from your body ā the force of propulsion is nullified.
- Any magically-controlled or created entity (unless it is now mundane through a ritual) will be able to exert no force on you, becoming weak when it gets next to you. So, magically-controlled vines that attempt to wrap around you will quickly fall away; magical water will exert no pressure on your body, or be able to enter your body or restrict your breathing in any way; and a magical wind cannot knock you over or unbalance you.
So the idea of magic resistance negating the force applied seems to suddenly link a whole load of apparently different protections together under one guiding concept, while avoiding pink dot and boulder.
Please go ahead attack this with the same vigour as the previous iteration, so I can continue to assess it and identify problems. Right now, to me, this seems quite clear, concise, fairly easy to adjudicate, quite comprehensive in the protection it offers, and avoids the pink dot and boulder problem. That seems too good to be true so I'm probably wrong on at least one of those - see if you can discover which and let me know!
EDIT: The italicised bit about the enhanced strength needs some thought and clarification, but mainly because I'm not sure how this works in the standard PM rules - if a man with enhanced strength throws a mundane rock at a magus, what happens? And if the same man hits him with a mundane sword?
Note, that (ARM5 p.113f) Magical Sense spells do target the receiver of the sense. That sense still needs to penetrate the MR of what is sensed, though.
Your above phrasing prevents the latter: a being no longer resists being sensed with its MR. That would require rewriting Hermetic case law and etiquette about scrying (e. g. HoH:TL p.52 Scrying and p.72 box Forceless Casting). Intended or just overlooked?
Interesting point. I hadn't thought of it. But I've just read through the rules for magic resistance in ArM5 (pp.85,86) and found nothing that refers to scrying or being sensed by magic, so that's probably why I've missed it. So if you're correct, the fact that it is missing from the standard MR rules would suggest the Hermetic case law and etiquette must already have to be rewritten anyway, which can't be right?
If some extra facet of MR was added in some later book to cover scrying, then that's okay - it can just be added to mine too.
It is in the core book already: ArM5 p.113f, as I wrote above.
Ah, well yes I saw that, because you referenced it. But that doesn't mention scrying specifically, and it's not the rules about MR, which are on pp.85, 86, and it is those rules that I am suggesting replacing. You seem to be saying that those MR rules are missing something on scrying/magical senses, which is only included in the later section on magical senses, and you seem to be right on that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. So if I've got this right your original comment was essentially saying, "By the way, the standard 5th guidelines for MR neglect to include magical senses, which is only mentioned much later on page 113. So maybe while you're revising the standard rules you could correct that omission and add it in?"
If so, thanks for that, I can include it in mine and avoid the same error. But perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, and you are saying there is some way my MR guidelines prevent the MR working against magical senses in a way I haven't realised?
Scrying is covered indeed by (ArM5 p.85) "Magic resistance keeps magic away from the maga, her clothing, and other items that are very close to her."
This covers the (ArM5 p.113f) magical senses, as long as you do not reduce that magic resistance to just "Any spells or spell effects which target you, or something of which you are a part". With your change, you have excluded the magical senses and their explicit (p.114) "Magical senses must penetrate the Magic Resistance of creatures sensed.".
Modifying basic Magic Resistance rules in Ars Magica is verrry complicated and error-prone.
You really should have absorbed Hermetic Magic and the Order of Hermes before doing so, and at least have fully agreed with your troupe, that you will tinker with all the rest of the supernatural in Mythic Europe, as it occurs in your saga.
Scrying is covered indeed by (ArM5 p.85) "Magic resistance keeps magic away from the maga, her clothing, and other items that are very close to her.
How does this cover scrying? If use a spell to look into a room, and the magus is in the room, I don't need to penetrate MR to see the magus, do I? It seems like it might cover the magical senses thing, but not very obviously, so, as you correctly pointed out, that is an omission in the standard guidelines that is only referred to on page 113.
This covers the (ArM5 p.113f) magical senses, as long as you do not reduce that magic resistance to just "Any spells or spell effects which target you, or something of which you are a part". With your change, you have excluded the magical senses and their explicit (p.114) "Magical senses must penetrate the Magic Resistance of creatures sensed.".
I see - because essentially the magic flows from the caster to the creatures being sensed? But this is clearly so non-obvious that the standard rules had to highlight it specifically under magical senses. So couldn't I just add an extra part to mine saying that PM prevents a magus being sensed by magic? That seems very simple to do?
Modifying basic Magic Resistance rules in Ars Magica is verrry complicated and error-prone.
You really should have absorbed Hermetic Magic and the Order of Hermes before doing so, and at least have fully agreed with your troupe, that you will tinker with all the rest of the supernatural in Mythic Europe, as it occurs in your saga.
I don't find is that complicated actually, and no more error-prone than the standard rules, which throw up questions and inconsistencies all the time (as is clear from any AM forum). But maybe that's because I have a lot of game design experience.
And (perhaps related to that) I'm perfectly happy to tinker with the rest of the supernatural as necessary, but I don't think much of that will be required. Can you give any examples of the kind of thing you're thinking of that aren't solved by adding an extra clause to my MR rules? Or can you think of a way that my suggestion of adding the clause "MR prevents the magus being detected by magic" doesn't solve the problem?
Thanks.
I was trying to provide a single rule that leads to all the desired ramifications. For example, the implication of nullifying damage exists in both our versions - the difference is that I use only a single rule, without needing to point that MR affects damage specifically.
MR prevents active magic from changing your properties (including your personal gear). That's it.
A list of examples of MR protecting you will now include
- A spell that targets you directly, as Curse of Circe.The spell is active magic, so it cannot affect you.
- A spell that targets a Group or Room etc, as Ward Against the Curious Scullion (ReCo T:Room).
- A spell that creates a magical medium that does damage, as Ball of Abysmal Flame. Since the created thing is magic, any direct effects it has are effects of magic and as such blocked by MR.
- A spell that changes a medium so that it would cause damage, as *Edge of the Razor". The supernatural edge is a magical property, and as such cannot affect you.
- A spell that tries to move something into you, as Wield the Invisible Sling. The movement & impetus (momentum) of the object is a magical property/effect, and as such cannot affect you.
- A punch from a Strength-enhanced wizard - you won't suffer the extra damage due to the enhanced Strength. The extra movement/impetus of the punch is magical, and as a magical property it cannot affect you.
A list of examples of MR failing to protect you would now include
- Drinking poison Mutoed to become non-poisonous. Your parma won't stop the a thing that happens to have a magical property from entering your body, it will only prevent that magical property from affecting you. In this case, the non-poisonou property isn't even trying to affect you. Once the Mutoed spell expires, the liquid will turn to poison, and poison you.
- A flaming sword will still impale you. The magical flames won't harm you, but the mundane sword still will.
- A pink dotted pike will still spear you. The pink dot never even tried to affect you, so your MR didn't need to protect you from it, but even if it did that won't affect the motion of the spear.
- Invisible arrows will still pierce you. Your MR doesn't stop the arrows from entering your body.
- A rock dropped on you from overhead will crush you. It moves mundanely.
- A sword wielded by a Strength-boosted character will do you full damage. The Strength is magical, but the power it grants to the swing is already a mundane property (not active magic), and MR doesn't protect from those.
This doesn't precisely do what your system does, so presumably doesn't do quite what you want. But it IS a simple single rule that gives quite-good results. So I thought I'd suggest it. I think having a single rule is rather elegant, and it seems to solve most problems.
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There would be the Supernatural Ability (ArM5 p.67) Second Sight, where: "The Magic Resistance, if any, of the concealed creature does not interfer with your Second Sight." Of course, Second Sight does detect concealment by magic, not simply the magus proper - but you need to make sure to keep these two issues apart cleanly in your wording.
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Yes, I see, thanks. That's helpful.
I think I understand it better now. Yes, it's similar to my emphasis on force of the magic in my last post (I think that was partly inspired by more reflection on what you'd written). I feel one issue with it may be I am not sure what "changing your properties" would include - is a vine holding your leg changing your properties because you now have the property "cannot move leg?" But if so, is a vine near your leg changing your properties because you now have the property "vine near leg"?
In any case, I think your version and my emphasis on force achieve similar results, and it may be down to which the SG feels they can interpret with least ambiguity. My other clauses - detect magical effect when it comes within an inch; spells targeted have no effect; and (thanks to OneShot) direct magical detection is prevented - could all be appended to yours just as easily.
And I'd be grateful if anyone can clarify, but in the standard 5th rules is this a correct interpretation regarding strength enhancement:
If a man with enhanced strength hits a magus with an axe or throws a rock at the magus, PM does nothing, but if the man punches the magus, the man's fist will be blocked entirely. Is that correct?
Yes, that's correct.
Edit: It was pointed out to me recently that Wings of the Soaring Winds cannot work, as the winds would be blocked by your Parma.... so, yes, the core rules can have strange consequences....
Yes, I hadn't thought of that, either! So it becomes a pointless spell, unless the caster can penetrate their own PM, or concentrate on suppressing PM and maintaining the spell at the same time...
Makes me think in my saga I might just let magi drop their PM whenever they like, so that they can cast spells like this - they just have to hope they don't get hit by a magical fireball while doing so.
I personally dislike parma magica in general or as anything other than a kind of all-around armor bonus. But I do like your Aristotelian logic.
(Personally, I just use parma as an excuse to let players avoid being affected by things that would hurt their feelings or character concept. Like the X card in some of those new games.)
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To summarise (and perhaps conclude this thread) here are the final rules I have come up with and will be using in my saga. At some point I may report back on how it goes.
Unless penetrated, magic resistance has four effects: (I actually think 1 and 2 could potentially be combined into one, but for clarity I have included them both)
- Any spells targeted at you or at something of which you are a part (e.g., a group or room), do not affect you. [exactly as in ArM5 RAW]
- Magic resistance nullifies the force applied by any magic that reaches you. In this case, it does not dispel the magic, but it nullifies any force exerted on you by the magic. Something akin to a magical armour that suffuses a magus.
- Any magic that attempts to extract information directly from you fails to do so. This means, for example, that magic cannot read your thoughts, or sense where you are or what your state of consciousness is. It does not stop magic from obtaining information about you by indirect means, such as from other entities (e.g., asking a tree if you passed by), or from affecting something around you that is concealing you (such as an illusion concealing you - see Second Sight in ArM5).
- It makes you aware when something under the influence of an active magical effect comes within one inch of you.
Defining "Force Applied"
āForce appliedā is defined as the act of gripping, controlling, inhibiting, enhancing, harming, weakening, or sticking to or clinging to the caster, or ābreaking intoā his mind, emotions or body. Any magical effect that does one of these things will have that aspect nullified. Examples:
- Damage or fatigue directly caused by a magical effect will be nullified, including bonuses applied to damage caused by mundane means. The additional force created by the magical effect, in order to induce damage, is nullified. A sword covered in magical fire or a magically-sharpened edge will cause normal, mundane damage. A sword created by magic will stop on contact with the caster's body/clothes - its entire force nullified.
- A man with magically enhanced strength who punches you will only cause damage from his mundane strength - the extra force from magical enhancement will be nullified. The same man hitting you with a mundane sword would cause extra damage, because by being exerted through the sword the magical effect is no longer directly causing the damage, and the force has become mundane in nature.
- Anything that is actively magically-controlled or propelled (Rego) will be physically blocked from reaching you, stopping or being diverted about an inch from your body ā the magical force of propulsion is nullified.
- Any magically-controlled or created entity (unless it is now mundane through a ritual) will be able to exert no force on you, becoming weak when it gets next to you. So, magically-controlled vines that attempt to wrap around you will quickly fall away; magical water will exert no pressure on your body and will not even be able to stay on your skin or clothes, or be able to enter your body or restrict your breathing in any way; and a magical wind cannot knock you over or unbalance you.
What this means for common critiques of magic resistance:
- No pink dot problem. The pink dot is not exerting any force on you, and even if it was, it would only be the pink dot that was nullified ā the mundane sword would do damage as normal.
- No boulder problem. A small pebble turned into a huge boulder and dropped on your head would do the same damage as the small pebble would have done (none). As in the standard ArM5 rules, a huge boulder lifted above your head and dropped would do full damage, as by that point everything that hits you is mundane (the boulder itself and its propulsion). A magically created boulder would no damage.
- No poison-wine weakness. If wine is turned into poison or poison turned into wine you will sense (as pick it up or move it to your mouth) that it is under a magical effect, so you will probably avoid drinking it. If it is wine turned to magical poison, then even if you do drink it, it will not harm you.
- No "ground turned to water, then change it back and entomb the magus" weakness. You will fall into the water, but it will not be able to drown you, restrict you, stop you casting spells, or make you wet, and you can move in it easily and freely (to get out, for example).
This ruleset does have one weakness in MR compared to standard ArM5, which is the invisible arrow attack (arrows made invisible will injure the magus). However, a mundane arrow shot at the magus from behind, or while he/she is distracted, would also injure or kill, so I don't think this is a very strong weakness, and easily worth it to remove all the common critiques of how MR works.
If anyone else tries out these rules, I'd love to hear how it goes. Thanks to everyone who provided feedback - as you can see, I think everyone who critiqued my ideas has had an influence on the final ruleset.
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Very interesting @Whitescar
I've been trying to follow this thread, but there is a lot of text and lots of good questions and arguments.
What about 'unnatural changes'? How does your solution work with Muto effects: magically sharpened swords, a staff growing thorns etc.
My initial idea was that MR would block the unnatural effect, temporarily removing the magic, but the mundane attack affects the magus. So the magically sharpened sword, with insufficient Pen for the dragon, would not be useless but just mundane and not sharper then normal. This also defises the Pink Dot, since the effect is suppressed.
But there is the case of one of the Magi of Hermes who deliberately uses Muto (non-Momentarily) rather than Perdo forcelessly to warp and dull a sword, in order to ensure it can't touch him. That ting kind of ruined my solution, as it was. Because should the dulled sword, with insufficient Penetration, just revert to normal for a moment and cut like a mundane sword?
I could live with that maybe, I mean sometimes desirable effcts can't affect a magus, because they can't Penetrate his MR. The knocked out magus can't be healed. Tha magus busy in combat doesn't have time to suppress his PM for the spontaneous boosting magis his sodales casts etc.
So casting a spell on an enemy, to make him less efficient in combat, won't help you if you can't Penetrate your own MR. it just seems counter-intuitive, I would have thought the focus was for YOUR magic to Penetrate THE ENEMY'S resistance, not in any way your own.
As I discussed with @Tellus I can't have MR protect against harmful effects and not beneficial ones. Not if I want some logical definition, than it'd have to be some story-drama-based definition which protects against harm.
My main gripe is with an irelevant, cosmetic effect turning PM into a force field. Magic is either Resisted or Aimed, very few things let you ignore both demands. But defensively it annoys me how easy it is to gain immunity.