The Wizard's Sidestep?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
21

More than three years later and still no consensus on this? Wow, it's surprising this has never really been an issue, given it concerns invisible magi as well. Okay, so here's my take on handling this spell (judging as a storyguide as well as a player with a character who uses this spell)...

Problem #1: Being targeted by spells
The basic assumption of auto-hit spells is rather problematic, especially in this regard. While Wizard's Sidestep gives you a (rather massive) bonus against attacks that you can defend against (which would obviously include aimed spells), it's not an automatic defense success (unless it's the first attack on you). So saying that all non-aimed spells automatically miss would make this spell far more useful and powerful against magic than against mundane attacks. Since this is not in the description, it can be assumed that this was not the intention. (Also let me take this opportunity to complain about the lack of description for the necessity of "sensing" a target - the basic assumption seems to be "see", but this would punish blind magi even further. Touch can obviously be substituted, but what about hearing, smell, or (gasp!) taste?)
So, as a solution I'd suggest staging non-aimed spells against invisible or "shifted" targets up to aimed spells. The target would get a defense/evasion roll in this case, but no bonus for his concealement (the negation of the auto-hit should be benefit enough). Normally aimed spells still have to deal with the defense bonus.

Problem #2: Sidestep vs. Invibility
While Hermetic invisibility explicitly leaves the target with a shadow, Wizard's Sidestep makes no mention of this. Yet following the established metaphysics, the original body still blocks the light and thus throws a shadow. Should Wizard's Sidestep thus use the advanced rules for invisibility as explained in Houses of Hermes: Societates? This would also balance Wizard's Sidestep against invisiblity in combat.

22

Well, if you aim at the image, the image is the target and you cannot hit the magus. I would rather roll Perception to locate him using HoH:S as the "hit" required to sense him this turn. The Gruach could hit the hidden magus by describing the image, maybe even on the first hit, but anything else does require sensing.

I think so. You always miss until you realize he is invisible, and then you use HoH:S to hit/locate him.

23

In my saga we use Wizard's Sidestep a lot (or some magi do, anyway).

We just rule that it has its written effect on "visually" aimed attacks (missile and melee weapons, plus Aimed spells) --- i.e. first "hit" misses, target has a +9 Dfn bonus --- and that it has no effect on stuff that is not aimed (mostly non-Aimed spells).

As long as you refrain from trying to think through the logic of this, it works well and is quick and easy to adjudicate in-play.

24

/Agree

IIRC, this is relatively easy, easier than using melee weapons, at least. Especially since you know he's around here.

25

I see this entirely differently to most of you.

I'd rule that wizards side (WS) step gives you NO defence against auto-hit magic such as wound that weeps (WtW) or Pilum of Fire (PoF).

My reasoning is thus. When you cast WS, you do not hide your species as you do with invisibilty, nor do you create new ones. You merely shift where your species come from. Thus anyone seeing you (shifted) images IS seeing and thus sensing you and you are at no advantage avoiding their magic.

Compare this to a voice range spell targeted on a foe hiding behind a tapestry. The foe is running his mouth off but cannot be seen. He is sensed (by sound) and can be targeted and hit by the magic, the tapestry (that is between magus and foe) is simply not a barrier. The spell meets the two criteria, range (voice) and sensed (heard).

In WS you are still seen by anyone, the mystic link that allows the magic to hit without a targeting roll (e.g. as used in PoF or WtW) does not care that your fleshy corpus is actually two paces to the left, the link has been forged, you are in range and sensed, ergo, the spell hits.

Now invisibility is different. With that you ARE removing your image by destroying your species. You cannot be sensed (by sight), unless your shadow is seen. If your shadow IS seen, then a magus can infer that he has sensed you (i.e. he knows exactly where you are) and he goes back to being able to hit you with his spells.

This makes sense to me, it also means that WS is not a 10 point magic blocker. Its already an insanely good spell and should absolutely not be able to make a mage immune to being targeted.

Final point. As someone noticed, WS does NOT move your shadow, only your species. Therefore, anyone seeing your shadow could still target you with targeted spells (i.e. bouldering dropping spells) or in combat, although I'd give the defending magus a small bonus (maybe +3) for still being hard to exactly pinpoint.

26

This is discuted. Last time was on Ranulf thread, IIRC.

A normal CrIg, sure! The flame is created where you stand.
But a pilum? Maybe, maybe not.
Sometimes, the cosmetic effects, while cool and flavorful, have an incidence on how the spell conforms.

For exemple, in response to a PoF, some magi will erect a stone barrier that'll block the pilum, while others will block it with a sprout of water. Yet, these can only work if the physical world interferes and the fire jet is "real". OTOH, these would be useless against a spell that, cosmetically, created fire where you stood.
Similarly, Frosty breath of the spoken lie, an InMe spell, can be fooled by altering the purely cosmetic mist coming from the mouth (Serf's parma, I believe this is clearly written somewhere in the corebook)

Moreso, I'm a little uncomfortable about the implications of this "mystic link" reasonning. Because it seems to me that, if the spell strikes, not what you think is the target, but rather the species creator, then, if you use ReIm to swap your image with that of a grog, any spell cast at you will, in fact, be sensing him, and thus target him through that "mystic link", making you largely invulnerable to magic. You are not the target sensed, he is! :wink:

Sure, it's only lvl 10. But a personnal Veil of Invisibility is not much harder, and is more powerful, even regarding magic. There, contrary to invisibility, you instantly know there is someone, and can only get fooled once at best. Afterwards, a magus will easily find his true target (he doesn't care about penalties to hit, any good enough roll will suffice) and destroy it. And that's assuming he targets by sight: The spell doesn't transfer sounds, IIRC, so one could target "there" based on his ennemy's voice.

The shadow bit, OTOH, is entirely valid. As far as I can tell, any "autohit" spell would work fine, and aimed ones... I'd probably refer to HoH: S on missile weapons.

27

According to the Limit of Arcane Connection, the caster needs to sense the target to cast a spell at something. Auto hit spells and the term target having multiple meanings within Ars Magica muddies the water a bit. So, IMO, a spell like Wizard's Sidestep creates another image, they have to be able to identify which image to target, and there is no way to know which image is the real one. The only way you could cast a Pilum of Fire automatically is if 1) you had an AC to the caster of the Wizard's Sidestep and had invented a version of Pilum of Fire that works at Arcane Connection range. Otherwise, you have to choose which image to target and have a 50-50 shot of getting it correct.

28

/Agree too.

Lets also keep in mind that WS is a good spell but it is easilly dispelled or seen through depending on being a PeVi or InCo / InIm oriented or any usual means that defeats invisibility (sand in the air, magical dust, infrared vision, shadows,etc)

W

29

I'm inclined to agree, if you target the wrong thing, you are still targeting that thing, whether it is an image, ghost, fire, rock, person, ext, the tangibility of your target should also make no difference. Magic is not telepathic and cannot target an intended target despite yourself. A good example is that you cannot target someone through a intangible tunnel just because you know they are there, you must be able to perceive them. Or better example might be, you cannot target someone who is hiding in a room because you guess they are in the room with you, if you hear them or see them you can, but you can't just go from room to room in a castle and cast a spell until it hits the thief you think is there. Even if your target and an illusion are standing next to one another you cannot be sure that one is real and your magic will not do that for you. This would be a great reason to use a arcane connection spell. The other issue with ruling that it hits the intended target is that you are opening up the possibility of using an illusion as an arcane connection. What if the person using the illusion is not even in the room with you, does it still hit the intended target? If a person is disguised as your enemy to confuse you will your Ball of Abysmal Flame hit the decoy or the real guy because he is your "intended target"?

Cheers

30

Well, the problem with that is that in the current edition, and arguably before, the words have no particular meaning or bearing on the event of the spellcasting.

We imagine people say "Creo Ignem", but, no, they don't, in this edition. Or, at least, there's no requirement for them to do so. They can say whatever they like, and it can be pure nonsense, and it still works. I tried writing some stuff based the other way (my wife speaks sign language, and it seemed to me that the signs your magus makes with his hands need to mean something, or how does quick cast counterspelling work? and from that I had thei dea that learning higher Arts was based on knowing better words to say and think), but, no. The actions you make with your hands, and the words you speak, have no reflection in the greater reality. They are purely personal to you.

So, voice range tells you how far the magic carries, but you don't need to verbally designate a target.

31

I think the words and gestures DO matter, otherwise you invalidate the obfuscation mastery and also the rules for fast cast responses, requiring a responding magus to determine the effect every time.

32

According to Ancient Magic all hermetic magic is by default cast in Latin. You need a minor breakthrough to cast by speaking another language. (Though you can always cast silently.)

33

The Sundered Eagle suggests Greek is used in the Theban Tribunal...

34

I think the key issue here is the meaning of being able to "sense" the target; the rules are not very clear on this issue.

I do not think that being able to perceive the species of the target is enough to qualify as "sensing" the target; otherwise, having the target's smelly socks would qualify. In our troupe we decided that, very roughly, you must be able to appraise the target's approximate position from direct perception through your senses (rather than from logical deduction). The line is sometimes very fine (e.g. an invisible, inaudible, odor-free target leaving footprints in the mud) but in practice we seem to reach consensus pretty much in every situation.

35

You're confusing Wizard's Sidestep. Wizard's Sidestep moves your image to another location than yours, and each time your image is hit, it shifts away again. So there is only one image to target to begin with.

Wait, what? Where's that from? I thought the Intangible Tunnel even explicitely allowed the target to affect the caster as long as it knew the tunnel was there, even when not knowing who was behind it? Effectively you're casting spells on one end of the tunnel (which you can "sense"), not on the actual target on the other side.

Agreed. Given the ramifications of this definition, I think it would be hard to find something that works with all of 5th edition as written. But this should be a major point to be clarified in a possible future edition since it would most likely change a lot.

36

...because they've already made the minor breakthrough to adapt to Greek.

Mark

37

Busted! :smiley: I didn't read the text of the spell, Wizard's Sidestep, and I'll be honest, I haven't used it. So, I went to read it. I think aimed, given the game definition of aiming spells is a poor choice of words in the fluff text of the spell, and I would tend to treat it as such. A magus casting Pilum of Fire on another magus who has previously cast Wizard's Sidestep, without knowing that the image isn't real is going to initially target the image. He has no basis or knowledge that the magus is in another location, and the spell that he's flinging doesn't have that knowledge, so to correct my language from above:
So, IMO, a spell like Wizard's Sidestep creates another image, they have to be able to identify that the image isn't legitimate, and they have to find where the magus is actually hiding. Given that Pilum of Fire is created at a specific location and that the throwing it like a pila is a cosmetic effect it still means that the magus casting PoF needs to know where to cast it. To mimic the +9 defense, I'd probably require a Perception roll against an ease factor of 6 to successfully toss a PoF to the correct location.

38

I suppose that is a reasonable interpretation, although it's not explicitly stated anywhere. It's definitely a new can of worms that's been opened... :smiley:

39

It is explicitly stated in Sundered Eagle, on the same page that introduces Greek as the Hermetic language of the tribunal (page 29, which coincidentally also is the page in Ancient Magic that mentions other languages are possible as a lesser breakthrough :smiley:).

P.S.: Busted again? :wink:

40

Not really. I searched the text for breakthrough and couldn't find it. When pointed in the direction you indicated and read both pieces, the most telling statement was:

So, it's research and experimentation without any risk, and there's very little motivation (unless someone wants to obfuscate their spells), which they could just adopt obfuscation mastery...