Wizard's Communion and Penetration

Games Discussion Ars Magica
41

You do know how to pick the odd spells :smiley:

To be honest, The Shrouded Glen doesn't make much sense to me as a Mentem spell. It's a legacy from previous editions isn't it? Enchanting a boundary to look confusing seems more like Imaginem to me. Be that as it may, it's certainly part of the core rules. As a ritual, it's a little less objectionable to me; at least "enchanting the boundary" takes some vis.

Anyway, I don't disagree with you that the effect of wards needs to penetrate. It's the "double counting" issue that bothers me. I think I would also break out the wards which provide purely passive protection against the physical elements and call them "Protection from Fire" instead of "Ward against Fire". These don't require any of the special ward rules and just confuse things.

42

I'm guessing you have never truly been lost in the woods or out on the water in the fog. Happily, the times it happened to me I had been prepared and so was able to fix things when I knew something had gone wrong. Let me use the lake in the fog one as an example. I could see everything nearby perfectly well, but I couldn't see far-off things. So, since I was going slowly, I could avoid rocks. Also, I know the rocks and the lake so well I can cross it with no danger on a hazy night of a new moon - all I need is the faint outline of the mountains against the sky and I'm fine. But in this case I could only start in the right direction. The whole key to getting lost was that I didn't notice I was veering slightly to the right. I now know better and spend most of my time looking backward to make sure the wake is straight, but I was young and hadn't thought of that. So it wasn't that I couldn't see, but rather that I didn't notice certain things about what I was seeing. This is what happens to people when they're lost in the woods. They usually end up circling without realizing it if they don't know to protect themselves from it. It's not that they can't see the stuff, it's that they don't realize what's happening mentally. So the key to the spell is to subtly divert the trespasser's path. I hope that clears it up.

Try my suggestion above. You may like it.

Yes, I agree there. They also have their own confusion: when do you get 100% protection versus when do you get protection up to only +X? But that's a question for another place.

Chris

43

It's an interesting idea. What do you think would be appropriate categories for narrower wards? The current wards don't seem broader than other sorts of spells. For example, Demon's Eternal Oblivion affects anything Infernal, as does Ward against Demons. If one is super-broad, then so is the other. For a real super-broad category, consider that ReMe spells affect anything intelligent.

44

It's not that I disagree that ReMe could cause the sort of confusion that encourages getting lost. It's rather that the description of the spell makes perfect sense in terms of ReIm creating identical landmarks, shifting paths, etc. Also, the Im version would be completely legal while the ReMe breaks the rules, even if Sensory Magic from HoH:MC is used. But that's legacy magic for you.

45

Cf Richard Love's post

Cf David Chart's post in the WC errataed errata thread.

Even going with the first errata, this just makes things a little harder, not impossible. It also has an added side benefit: It makes Mercurian Magic all the more worthwhile, since only a group of mercurian can hope to cast a powerful aegis efficiently and without using up too much vis, which fits the setting nicely (even if I prefer the errataed errata)

Claiming wards must penetrate utterly contradicts the spell's mechanical description regarding beings with Might.

But there's worse:
Claiming Pilum of Fire must penetrate utterly contradicts the spell's mechanical description, period (It says it burns the target, and that's all. No mention at all of resistance, right? Thus it doesn't need to penetrate)
Claiming the Shrouded Glen (a D: Year, T: Bound spell) must penetrate utterly contradicts the spell's mechanical description.

Need I continue?
All spells are worded as if they succeeded in penetrating MR, without mentionning this requisite. Arguing that this means a specific spell doesn't need to penetrate is :unamused:

46

That post did not contain any information that suggested Wizard's Communion had any effect on Penetration. It just asserted, "I suppose it could have been clearer." I was asking for RAW, not speculation. The RAW is clear as it stands, Wizard's Communion has no effect on Penetration, which is a completely separate issue from the momentary duration of Wizard's Communion, which you mention next:

That's actually pretty interesting. He's thinking about it. Maybe we'll see an errata update or a 5.1/5.5/6.0 edition of the game in a few years. Or maybe an upcoming book which contains the complete overhaul to Vim. I'll be happy to read about it, and take it into account, when it comes out. For the moment, I'm discussing the RAW. I am capable of making whatever house rules I want, and often do. But I wasn't really interested in house rules in the context of this discussion.

That is an extension of my statement.

I disagree with both of those statements. It is not required that Magic Resistance or Penetration be specifically mentioned in a spell in order for them to function in regard to that spell. This is why I have been admitting this entire topic that the RAW requires Aegis of the Hearth to Penetrate.

However, Aegis of the Hearth has a large section of Might-based mechanics that close upon being useless, are are somewhat comical, if it must Penetrate. Either Aegis of the Hearth should specifically list itself as an exception to Penetration, or the entire Might-based mechanics section should be removed from the spell's description, or perhaps some other solution (I was going to cover proposals in a different topic, and so those would be house rules/suggestions for future editions).

I wasn't arguing that. You're creating a strawman by asserting that I was saying something other than what I was saying.

47

There isn't any phrase of "brought to existence" in the RAW of Muto Vim.

In my earlier post, I asked you where you got this idea. Your response was that you can't discuss it.

48

Sometimes you just have to forget who you are speaking to.

So: "MutoVim, guidelines", p159

Otherwise said "it is possible to use MutoVim to affect another spell before it has been cast."

Casting spells, under "formulaic magic" p81:
"If the casting totals equals or exceeds the level of the spell, the spell is cast and the maga suffers no ill effects. If the casting total falls short of the spell level by ten or less, the spell takes effect and the maga loses a Fatigue level. If the casting total falls short of the spell level by more than ten the spell fails to take effect, but the maga still loses a Fatigue level".

Casting spells, under "spontaneous magic" p81:
"spontaneous magic involves the production of effects which do not correspond to a spell the magus knows."
"Before casting the spell, the maga must decide on the effect she is trying to create."

"Glossary" p8:
"spell: an individual use of magic, generally Hermetic magic."
"formulaic magic: spells that have been worked out in detail ahead of time."
"spontaneous magic: Magic created by a magus on the spur of the moment, to meet an immediate need. Generally much weaker than Formulaic Magic, but much more flexible."

Conclusion?

A spell is a single use of magic. It may be formulaic or spontaneous.
When a magus cast a spell, he brings that single use of magic in existence, ie, he does a magical effect.
Reading what I quoted about Muto vim: it is possible to use MutoVim to affect another thing (called incorrectly 'spell'), before even the moment we know if yes or now it will exist (which is the casting).
Hence it is not working on the product 'the spell' during the process 'the casting', because during the process, the spell doesn't exist.

The spell only exist when the casting succeed. If you are saying the opposite (a spell exist before the casting) then you are saying that you cast a spell wether or not you succeeded on the die roll, which contradict the rules.

Otherwise said (all trying to get you convinced):

Spell comes after a successful casting.

If you affect something during the casting, you can't be sure you affected a "spell", since suche spell could not appear if you fail the casting. Thus you are working on something else.

Thus, you are working on magic directly, which is totally correct since spells are individual uses of magic.

Thus, I used the words "magical energy forming the spell"

Which as for consequence that spell is the result of the casting, and MutoVim affect something during the casting, therefore,

  • it doesn't need to have a duration (unless the special (and easily worked out) cases of ritual and ceremonial casting); which is something which render MutoVim useless.
  • it doesn't have to have some penetration (other than the penetration required to beat the penetration of an uncooperative magus) to affect the target of the spell resulting from the casting; which is something which render MutoVim useless.

Hence: the rules were already more correct thant what the errate introduced, if you read them rightfully in the first place.

Analogy :
you want defecate on the roof of your wardrobe (which has magic resistance) rather than in your toilet. But you only have a spell called "defecate in my toilet". Solution? MutoVim your spell to turn you into a bird.

Defecating is the magical effect; your first range was "touch" (the toilet).
The turning in a bird is the MutoVim; you wanted to increase your range by something like a "Wizard's reach" spell to "voice" for example.

The result is as what you would have done without muto vim, but due to muto vim, you succeeeded at doing it on something which would have been otherwise unreachable.
Muto Vim all the way. Your excrement remain a magical effect, and your turning into bird doesn't need to penetrate any MR of your wardrobe.

49

No, not so. Are you saying this because it doesn't specify changing the "spell level," and penetration is based of the spell level or essentially that? If you are, please realize you must also conclude that it doesn't affect the casting itself because there is no "target level" to change. Or you could have a similar argument focusing on "spellcasting roll," but it can then be shown that this violates the text in the penetration section. So WC does not work at all? Alternatively it could be argued that it's telling us to change the "target level" of the spellcasting roll, and we have to look up what that "target level" is. We find it is the "spell level." So the "spell level" has been changed for the purposes of spellcasting. But you use that same "spell level" for penetration so penetration is then affected. RAW is ambiguous on this point. I believe they were trying to write things so that dispelling and counter-magic and the like had to deal with an unchanged spell level, so they started talking about "target level" and when to apply it and then things became ambiguous because of other references.

Chris