I see no need to control PRISON OF FLAMES after casting: it stays in place and burns who touches it.
UNSEEN ARM can move something only, while the magus is within - casting - Range.
So how would the breeze know whom to follow?
More in detail:
The breeze would stay where it is without any control and still blow: as long as no stronger wind moves it away, that is.
But if you order a breeze magically to follow somebody, who then moves out of - casting - Range, you cannot control it any more, and so it would not follow that somebody any further.
House rules with your troupe are OK as always: just make sure the clever gamer in it does not argue, that the COAT OF FLAMES can follow its victim/recipient as well out of - casting - Range.
I'd only expect "moving out of range" to be an issue if the spell was cast with Concentration duration - otherwise, you've given the spell an initial instruction ("e.g. cling to this person") and it's going to keep following it until the duration ends.
Concentration duration spells you can cancel at will, and you have to make concentration rolls to juggle doing anything else at the same. Other spells you don't have to make concentration rolls, which suggests to me that there isn't any material input from the original caster after the initial casting.
No, that means you cannot make active changes to it, not that the spell fails to continue in its function. This is consistently stated in the rules. Note that that would disagree with the wording of this spell. Here is a really great canon spell that demonstrates what I'm saying:
Mastering the Unruly Beast
...R: Touch...
...You can only issue new commands while touching the animal, but the ani- mal will carry them out without requiring con- stant contact...
Indeed: a spell that is not controlled does not in general cease to function: that would make it D: Concentration. Otherwise it just does not change how it operates.
And then you need to determine, what an active change is. If a magical nettle is attached to your trousers, I would agree that remaining attached is not an active change. If a breeze is following a person, which changes direction, speed etc., and has to contend with other currents of air to boot, then following it requires active changes.
That is a good example. An animal has at least Cunning, and if you set its animal mind by magic to a task, it continues performing it. If you wish to change its animal mind, you need to control the spell once more and thus need to touch the animal again.
A spell itself typically has no Cunning, and needs to be told every change in its operation. Of course, a spell's changes in operation are nowhere in Ars exactly defined - so there is room for house rules.
My clothing needs to remain attached and move along with all sorts of my motions, even most small ones. My clothing needs to contend with things that brush against it, with wind blows it, etc.
Also, are you saying the magus casting the normal spell has to keep concentrating on it to get it to work? That doesn't seem to be the intent of the spell. And if that concentration isn't needed, why would it be needed if the spell sticks to someone else?
I'm not saying an SG has to allow this spell. I am just pointing out that it would be quite consistent with Coat of Flame for such spells to have a Rego requisite and add 1 Magnitude over the version that sticks to the caster.
The caster has to control that spell, hence needs to keep within - casting - Range of its effect: that is the minimum requirement. A Concentration roll I would reserve for the more serious changes: keeping the breeze attached to you in a strong gust of wind or storm, jumping from a cliff with the breeze following. But yes, in some situations I would require one.
And no, a breeze is not your clothes. That would require Muto.
The clothing point is just that minimal intelligence is not necessarily needed to have something move with complex actions, even when being interfered with in the process.
How does that make any sense at all mechanically? First, the target isn't the air. It's the breeze. I know it's weird from a modern perspective, but ArM5 lays out a difference there. Second, that's not how breezes move in any world the characters are familiar with, even if controlled. A breeze that moves along quickly enough to sweep things up and yet never passes you if you walk slowly? How is that moving as a breeze? I think it would be more rightly stated that it is a breeze that you are making not move as a breeze does, instead always following behind you. (And it does some really odd stuff if you spin around.)
Obviously. And that breeze - not just some static air tied to your back like a jacket - follows you: moving as a breeze, not just with or in a breeze.
Its the breeze, not just some air, that follows you. As you had noticed above. And this is tricky enough to require at least control.
EDIT: This is getting weird now and abandons the thread's purpose. You will not mind if I do not further discuss the nature of breezes with you here, OK?
fundamentally it seems to me the question is whether the control stems from the spell itself having a programable feature or whether it stems from the magus subconscious directing it in an appropriate manner. An easy solution would be to summon a spirit of the spell who would then direct the spell as if cast by whichever target you like...
otherwise I could go into arguments for either side from A&A regarding the parts of the mind we would refer to as the subconscious, but it is ultimately under YSMV.
Regardless of specifics of breezes, I think Coat of Flame works fine with sticking without any need for later special control. It's pretty within-paradigm to have fires move around with objects. Just think of a fire on a torch moving along with the torch, or anything else set ablaze. Without the Rego requisite, it would be like standing in a campfire, and you could jump out of it, also quite within-paradigm.
As I said, it would be consistent with this, but that doesn't mean an SG should necessarily allow it.
at minimum the Re requisite would be needed to keep other things from catching fire... I think it would be appropriate for the fire to behave normally once it leaves the range- magically sustained but otherwise natural, so a person out of range could get rid of the magical fire by, for example, removing their clothes (which is what a fire would normally stick to rather than a person) but not by extinguishing it with water (beyond perhaps a single moment)
I can't see the distinction. The flames are controlled. The flames are in a completely artificial castle configuration. They are controlled from igniting anything else, or from collapsing if there's no fuel, etc. Either both spells fail when the caster moves out if range, or both continue.
I personally see them as both continuing. The magi isn't adjusting either spell in any way. There are set parameters at the time the spell is cast, and the spell follows those parameters.
The interpretation range matters for duration spells has consequences. It means spell that are used to buff grogs would fail when the grog leaves the magi's range. They'd have to be voice range to be of any use, and they are not.
I reckon, that you talk of ArM5 p.140 Circle of Encompassing Flames here. Right?
That spell needs control to get its shape.
But as I said above,
Yes, changing its shape with a Rego requisite takes concentration, while the caster is within R: Voice.
While the breeze requires continuous control to follow the recipient. There is not a set parameter, where that utterly dumb spell is supposed to go otherwise.
