scooping out the insides of a mage

Hmmm... So this means when our resident Tytalus does something silly and I go to smack him upside the head, I wouldn't actually be able to touch him unless I added penetration onto my Parma, or dropped my Parma for a second. Bah!

On the other hand, I don't believe I'm breaking any laws by trying to smack him upside the head cause I wouldn't actually be touching him.

Tries to envision two angry magi getting into a brawl Could a bear hug between magi still work as a restraint?

The Parma doesn't cause you to be resisted by another's parma.

I believe those two positions are inconsistent. Either the original force is still present and causes the movement, or you have conservation of momentum (i.e. inertia).

I do not think that is correct but that the in-game physical laws are actually different from ours and that Rego magic work (mostly) within that framework.

Fruny is right. In the official Ars Magica setting, the physical laws are different from those that hold in the real world. Diseases are caused by demons and bad air, not bacteria and viruses, and arrows keep going because the air pushes on them, not because of inertia.

Nothing wrong with having contemporary physics and medicine be true in your game, of course, but it will result in inconsistencies with some of the published material.

Sorry to be disagreeing with the designers, but:

My problem with the whole belief causes reality thing, which I have seen in a few different games, is that there are multiple beliefs in areas close to each other, and that always ends up with different people who believe different things experiencing different realities while standing next to each other. That is unworkable in a game system, especially one that includes magic.

For me to bring in a character who does not believe in the existence of magic (The 3rd edition power of reason) and say to the other player who has a wizard 'I know in game you threw a fireball at me, but my reality determines that I do not experience it at all. All my character experienced was seeing you do a funny little wiggle of your hands and talk strange latin at me. I now run you through with my sword. Your character believes in swords right?'

I am quite happy with the position esposed by degamer as a solution. That the laws of reality remain the same but the effects of a casters magic are determined by the beliefs of that caster. The rulebook endorses that with its only reference to the medieval paradigm, that spell design must fall within the bounds of the creaters view of reality.

Even that will cause problems as a wizard trained in a land where their view of reality is more in tune with inertia believing in the example previously given that when cancelled the spell that propelled the rock doesn't matter, the rock keeps going. So the western wizard gets a surprised lock on his face as the rock keeps going where he thought that his parma would stop it.

And I would like if the medieval paradigm is in control, for some book to actually codify the differences, so that when various players have differences of opinion on what the beliefs of the period were to have some basis. Yes it could be just up to the storyteller, but I storytell sometimes and have absolutely no idea what the medieval beliefs were. Make a page on the web site, the medieval core beliefs were these.

There is no "belief causes reality thing" in Ars Magica, at least not in 4th or 5th edition. The medieval paradigm is not true because people believe it, people believe it because it is true. So magic is real, not dependent on anyone's belief, and inertia is not, again not dependent on anyone's belief.

The most relevant bits of the medieval paradigm are described in the core rules (the "no inertia" thing is in there, as is the cause of disease), and they are addressed in more detail in later books, as those particular areas come up.

Ars Magica is not set in the history of our world. For example, you cannot stand on the moon of Mythic Europe and look at the earth; even if the moon is solid, the natural place of a human being is still at the centre of the earth (and the centre of the universe, as these are the same place), so you would fall off. You could probably stand on the far side of the moon, though. Unfortunately, rockets would not work, as Newton's Third Law is not true. Fortunately, there is no vacuum between you and the moon, because vacuums cannot exist. Unfortunately, there is a sphere of fire, which might burn you up. Fortunately, Hermetic magic can protect you from fire. Unfortunately, Hermetic magic fails at the lunar sphere.

I stand corrected.

I suppose I had not really picked up on that, because when I read the comments like "Diseases are caused by demons and bad air, not bacteria and viruses, and arrows keep going because the air pushes on them, not because of inertia." I assumed they were viewpoints of people from a more ignorant time, and were false. I read everything through the prism of my own viewpoint and misinterpret them accordingly. Even specific examples, like the disease being caused by humours being out of balance, triggered by bad diet or bad air, I read that and my thoughts are not "This is the game world, that is how it works", but rather "that is what people of the time believed, so that is what in character I should believe, even though OOC it is not true". As for the no inertia thing, I don't know where in the rules it is refered to, but not prominantly so I did not consider it when the discussion on countermagic began.

I think what I am trying to say is that all the comments in the rulebook that reality follows different rules in the game were low key enough that when I read them individually they all seemed like the humours thing. As explanations of character attitude. Sometimes I need things spelled out in big clear writing, with nice flashing arrows pointing at them saying IMPORTANT, MUST UNDERSTAND! :frowning:

All right, I'll ask it: Why?

Is it because parma is a "special" spell? Is having parma up any different than a spell for wards vs. wood? As stated, anything magical has to get through a magus' parma, and another magus' parma is magical.

Or is it along the same lines of why, if a magical dragon wanted to bite a magus, they don't have to penetrate even though they are inherently magical?

Parma like all magic resistance only protects against spells. The argument made by others is that someone who has enchanted himself with a spell will find his body blocked by magic resistance. But a supernatural creature with might has no spell active on them normally (though if they had say a shapechange power on them then they could).

So does casting your parma on yourself come under you definition of enchanting yourself?

Therefore could two parma'd mages not get involved in a fistfight.. or anything... intimate without one of them dropping parma.. otherwise they'd just bounce off each other?

In fact how do mages have sex with other mages.. either i've got to drop my parma, or she has.. and whoever does drop it will then be suddenly found repulsive and untrustworthy by the other mage cos the parma is gone..

damn!

I find it best to use an "inteligent" parma system... So ward vs naval lint wont stop you from punching another magus, while having an aura of fire on you would.

Going back to the intelligent parma, maybe yours should stop you from hitting him :stuck_out_tongue:

The argument made by others that a parma stops anything enchanted by magic from penetrating goes a bit far in my opinion. Maybe removes the effect of the enchantment to that which gets through, and besides parma's can be penetrated by a powerful enough spell.

Ah well, my own views on various subjects will continue to ignore the rules especially the debated rules on the medieval paradigm. Game systems are always guidelines, take em or leave em, as long as the version played makes the group playing satisfied by the balance.

I concur. I prefer to think that if the magic itself isn't trying to cross the Parma, there is no reason for the Parma to do anything. If a sword is enchanted to kill cats on touch, your Parma isn't going to stop it - unless you're a cat and the magic in the sword is actually trying to kill you.

I'm willing to let the physical object get stopped entirely if the magic either enabled or modified its interaction with the warded magus. Relevance of the magic to the action undertaken is the key point.

I do like the game's weird physics. It makes it more challenging to try to think about the way things work out. :slight_smile:

Just wondering, why is it then, that PeCo is used to cause desease, (destroying the body like bacteria, etc.), but cannot be caused by Auram (Bad air), or ReCo/Aq (manipulating humors)?

Slight change to my original question.. leaving out the 'giant' bit of the spell..

During last weeks session, we fought another mage. I did my usual and turned into a bear (my heartbeast). However this mage flung up a ward against animal, which just plain stopped me getting near him. (First time an enemy mage has thought to do this).

If my 'turn into a bear' thing had been a spell, i'd have pitted my penetration against the level of his ward, however as it's simply my heartbeast form, there's no spell level or casting total to do this calculation.. or is there and I'm just asking a noob question?

To avoid this happening again, I think I need to invent a spell that'll add a penetration value to my combat form. I could muto into another animal with decent fighting stats, or.. (and after a long preamble, this is the question):

If i cast a spell to turn me from a bear (heartbeast) into an identical bear (now the result of a spell).. would that allow me to use my scores to try to beat the level of the ward? (and yes I realise it'd now mean I'm going up against his parma when otherwise i could ignore it).

And if so, what level would the spell be? As a comparison, to turn from my heartbeast into my other animal forms (falcon, wolf, shark) are lvl 25 mu/an spells (I avoid any corpus prerequisite by only changing from my heartbeast form). So lvl 25 to go from bear to other beast.. but as I'm going from bear to identical bear, can I get away with a much lower casting total (allowing me a much higher penetration)?

Ideally I think what I'd do it put this spell into a number of one-shot items (afterall how often am I going to fight someone with a ward against animal), and by doing that i can use my lab total to add the penetration at time of creation at the rate of 2 penetration per lab point, rather than the lower level I'd get by doing it as a formulaic spell.

Any suggestions welcome - even if it's just to point out I've missed something important and reveal me as the newb I really am :slight_smile:

A Ward is magic, and while your bear form isn't (his Parma can't stop your claws unless you have a spell or enchantment on them), you should still have your Parma up. If you have your Parma up that gives you a chance to get through the Ward, as in he has to penetrate your Parma for the Ward to work. Thus you might not need to take any precautions your Parma alone could work for you, which separates you from the rest of the animals.

Other than that, casting a spell to turn you into an animal wouldn't work well to get you through the Ward unless you Penetrated. You'd be better off staying human until you walked through the Ward and then changing. The other problem with using the spell to turn into a bear is that his Parma protects from your attacks. Instead cast Wind of the Mundane Silence and drop the Ward altogether.

Ryce, as qcipher says, the ward against animals only counts against you when you are in animal form, change back, walk forwards change again.

But qcipher is wrong that being a bear means that your attack is blocked by his parma, you are a bjornaer, it isn't a spell that turns you, but a natural changing between your shapes.

The Parma would protect against his bear claws if he used a spell to turn into a bear though, which was what he was thinking of doing, and what I was referring to.

To your question Ryce about what level of spell that is:

I wouldn't allow you to drop it by a magnitude from the spell due to the similarities (but I might give a casting bonus), but you are actually casting an easier than level 25 spell. If we use the Ravenous Beast to Torpid Toad spell (lvl 25) asa reference, you'll actually have a much easier time in the first place. For starters you'd drop the range from Voice to Personal (thus getting through your own Parma) and making the level 15. If you drop the Duration to Diameter it's now a level 10 spell, which is probably enough for a fight easily. So now we're down to level 10, that's pretty simple to cast.

Does that work for you?

qcipher, why would he use a spell to turn into the same shape as his heartbeast if he knows that parma's stop spell imbued forms? I thought he was referring to just using a spell to soup up his heartbeast form, like many other bjornaer do, and that spell was stopped by the parma, not his heartbeast.

Don't ask me, that was his question. But basically, in his Heartbeast a Ward vs Animals affects him (let's forget about his own Parma for now), but if he changes into a bear with a spell he has the chance to get through Parma and such through Penetration. That's what he wants. Here:

The best thing to do is still to rely on your Parma to get through the Ward, and rely on the natural, non-magic nature of your Heartbeast to get through his Parma. If you can't get through the Ward with Parma, change to human, walk through then change back. Or drop the Ward with some kind of Pe Vim spell.

You actually wouldn't pit your Penetration against his Ward though no matter what form you were in (Penetration doesn't work like that), only your Parma would affect you to get through. And whether you're a bear by Heartbeast or spell, the Ward can work on you. If you're a bear by way of a spell though, what wouldn't affect you is a Re An spell that is meant to control animals, they would need to use Re Me.