Yes, but it's not that the MR would block the unnatural effect - the MR would block the additional force applied by the sharpened edge. That is the crux of how my rules get around much of the common MR weirdness.
No - the sword would not cut like a mundane sword, it would be weakened by the magic and do less damage. This is why the idea of the force applied is important. The MR acts like a form of magical armour suffusing the magus - and armour never increases force or damage applied to the protected individual, it only decreases it. In other words, MR does not weaken magic (hence will not affect the magic making the sword blunt) it weakens the force applied by magic or magical alterations - the ability to cut, break, damage, bend, restrain, alter, move, grow etc. (hence having no effect on a magically blunted sword).
This is only partly true of my solution. For one thing, it's important to note there is nothing "intelligent" about this MR in discerning beneficial effects and negative effects, just as there is nothing intelligent about mundane armour - both of them simply reduce the force applied to the individual (armour does this for mundane attacks, MR for magic).
Second, my proposed MR does block many beneficial effects. It would not block the blunted sword, but it will block any spell cast directly on the magus, including healing spells or enhancement spells (except for personal range, as per the standard rules). And any beneficial effect which applies force to the magus to work (e.g., by applying force to his body to heal a wound) will be blocked.
From my perspective, this range of things covered and not covered feels intuitively like what MR should do, and without any weird side effects like pink dot.
Thanks again @Whitescar for your reply.
It seems to make sense.
If an eneny grog attacks the protagonist magus with...something harmless...a huge knackwurst (we play in the Rhine Tribunal..), but the grog's magus transforms the sausage into a weapon...MR blcoks the additional force. Protagonist is whacked by a sausage, annoying but hardly deadly.
If the enemy grog instead attacks with a weapon, which the protagonist magus before impact transforms into the aforementioned knackwurst, then it also attacks like in the above example. Because the unnatural transformation did not result in additional force, but less than if kept as a mundane weapon.
Technicallity- a magically sharpened sword does not apply more force, it concentrates the same force into less area to produce greater cutting pressure. That may seem like nitpicking, and potentially in conflict with aristotilian descritions (I'm not certain) but the fundamental concept of what happens when magic is used to concentrate natural forces is one that remains- if I use ReIg to focus the heat from a dozen bonfires into a single point, the energy is natural, the application is not.
I like your solution, it makes logical sense and seems playable.
So what about a mind-controlled mundane being ordered to attack you?
If you "resist" the effect, the being still attacks you but you sense that something is wrong?
I like that.
Also, the invisible arrow might be sensed, because it is magically enhanced, right? But by then it's too late to do something about it. And if you do survive, you know the attack was unnatural. And that seems like a useful consolation prize
Yes, I'm aware I'm not using "force" in any technical or scientifically correct way, but it's an intuitive way that I think is perfectly in-keeping with the medieval paradigm.
Yes, I think assuming the being's body came close enough (rather than just a weapon it was holding) you could sense it was under a magical effect.
In this case, isn't the important question whether or not there is a valuable painting hidden in said knockwurst - and if it's the genuine article or a forgery?
