I would create a spell that give me an effect like gentle gift merit, and i would ask help to you becaus i new on this game and i don't alredy know all the rules of Ars Magica...

Thanks for any help!

A good way to do something like this nearly without bad side effects (just a few Warping points ...) is to permanently increase your Prs and Com by 3 each: the CrMe rituals to do this exist.
To find somebody to cast them on you might require the work of a campaign, and cost lots of favors, of course ...

Another, far easier but not durable, way to do this is to include consenting persons into your Parma Magica, for which you must touch them. Those included are not affected by your Gift: so you have the Gentle Gift with respect to them. Getting them to allow your touch is the tricky thing here.

Hermetic Virtues like Gentle Gift should fall under the limit of essential nature, hence cannot be directly acquired by magic: and in any case, magical tampering with one's Gift is extremely risky.

Kind regards,

Berengar

I don't know if your magus wants a spell to actually manipulate his gift or if you just want to be able to mimic the effects of a gentle gift. If your magus just wants to make mundanes at ease around him, I would design a Creo Mentem spell along the lines of Panic of the Trembling Heart or Rising Ire. A Creo Mentem 15 spell should be able to create an emotion of love, adoration, trust, etc... or at least negate the feelings of suspicion, mistrust and envy.

If the Rising Ire spell can force a personality roll of 9+ to keep someone from going psycho, it should be able to counteract the negative effects of the gift. Of course, a Creo Mentem 15 along these lines would have to be cast on each target. You might want to add a level and make the range voice to affect a group of people.

> I would create a spell that give me an effect like gentle gift merit, and i
> would ask help to you becaus i new on this game and i don't alredy know all the rules
> of Ars Magica...
> Thanks for any help!

Well, as you know something like this is not the intent of the game. A previous poster mentioned it being an aspect of one essential nature. Whether or not that is true, the idea is that characters can't use spells to make up for the negative effect they have on peopole that comes from the very Gift that let's them use spells (as opposed to obviously using that Gift which is another matter).

That said, to each their own game, however, keep in mind why such a spells isn't already widely spread, or if it is, how the order developed because of it. Restrictions on relations with mundanes particularly might of been different if everyone in the order could have avoided the negative aspects of it. Of course, if you're looking for a path that someone could discover to lessen the effect, that wouldn't effect the history.

Anyway, the best idea I can think, and might be good in any campaign if the path for a major discovery, would be to work out a Perdo Vim spell with either an Imagonem or Animal AND Mentem requisite. In this case take the base for making a spell or item non-readable by Intelligo, but then apply to whatever sensory pickup sets it off in mundanes, or to their way of reading it. Essentially, the gift is not sensed by mundanes, or does not effect them mentally.

Both the positive characterics and the Creo Mentem suggestions won' really remove the effect of the Gift, so much as offset it. Other examples would be Aura of Enobled Presence and Aura of Rightful Authority (if you have 4th ed). For most of these, mundanes will be view the magus as a person with some bad aspects (whatever feeling the mundane gets because of the gift) offset by good aspects (naturally high presence or magically manipulated). Note that some, spells, such as Aura of Rightful Authority, will get the mundanes to act as the magus wants, while still not liking the magus at all, just as they might certain nobles they feel they have to obey.

If you want to go with a pure mentem spell, I would suggest either Muto or Rego, rather than Creo. A Creo spell will just create a separate emotion/feeling, but does not remove other feelings. This can lead to an internally conflicted person. With Muto you could change the feeling created to something good, and with Rego you could shift the feeling to another target (I think that's how it works).

If, for your campagin, you wish to make it easy to negate the Gift, just say any magic resistance, not just from parma, will negate the effect the gift has on the person. Then by spell or charm, give them at least a magic resistance of 0, and your good. The corrollary effect, however, will be that NO creature with a might score, and thus some resistance, will react to the Gift on subconcious level.

Hope this helps.

<<If you want to go with a pure mentem spell, I would suggest either Muto or Rego, rather than Creo. A Creo spell will just create a separate emotion/feeling, but does not remove other feelings. This can lead to an internally conflicted person. With Muto you could change the feeling created to something good, and with Rego you could shift the feeling to another target (I think that's how it works).>>

I guess it depends on how you view the effects of the gift and emotions. If distrust is the absence of trust, then Creo Mentem could create the trust in the person. If the distrust and suspicion is an independent emotion, which interaction with the gift creates, then Perdo Mentem would do the trick.

Level 20
Mollify the Mistrustful Merchant
Counteracts the -3 to die rolls a magus with the Gift suffers in social interactions with other individuals. (Base 5, Eye +1, Sun +2)

<<Well, as you know something like this is not the intent of the game. A previous poster mentioned it being an aspect of one essential nature. Whether or not that is true, the idea is that characters can't use spells to make up for the negative effect they have on peopole that comes from the very Gift that let's them use spells (as opposed to obviously using that Gift which is another matter).>>

If a spell can't counteract the effects of the Gift, that would be an artificial limitation on spell casting. There are lots of reasons that casting a spell to aid in negotiations wouldn't be wise. You don't want to get caught casting a spell on someone powerful for instance, people with true faith will resist your spells, continually doing so on your grogs will warp them, etc...

This emphasis on the interactive effects of the Gift seems intended to encourage a greater role for companions. If your magi are constantly going on adventures themselves without the assistance of companions, there are easier ways to deal with it. An artificial limitation on spell casting shouldn't be used just to protect a game mechanic used to encourage companions in play.

I guess I would like to ask, why do you want to make a spell like that? The reason for the Gift's social effect is to prevent the magi from dominating the whole game - it gives them a weakness where they need help from companions or even grogs. So if you can do away with the bad effects, then you are lowering the relative value of companion characters. Are you sure you want to do this?

If you are sure, then the first thing to think about is why not every magus tries to learn this new spell. That is, there must be a reason why it is not so common that everyone knows it. Probably, the reason is that it's high Magnitude and not everyone can cast it.

I believe it should be very difficult to use magic to get around limitations that are built into the game. If not, then characters will get more powerful and more powerful until they can overcome any obstacle and the game ceases to be fun.

There is more than one way to counteract the effect of the Gift with magic. You can use Mentem magic on a person to make him react better to you, but this is sometimes impractical. It's hard to affect more than one person at a time, and perhaps hard to cast the spell without words and gestures that could be seen by people.

But you gave me an interesting thought. What about a spell that affects yourself, not other people, and it literally keeps your Gift from being noticed by them? It is dangerous to cast magic to manipulate your own Gift because you might botch and suffer really bad effects. But you could try. I would think a spell that limits your Gift to just yourself (Rego Vim) would keep people feeling the effects unless they touch you. However, it would also stop your magic working beyond Touch range. That is, it would temporarily give you the Major Virtue Gentle Gift, but also temporarily give you the Major Flaw Short-Ranged Magic.

If you did it that way, then I think it would still be very useful but something that comes with a heavy price. Not everyone would want to use it but if your magus thinks dealing with mundanes is really important, it might still be the right thing for him.

Anyway, use your imagination and have fun.

-Andrew Gronosky

> Cloak the Gift with more magic sounds counter-productive to me. :)

Well said. But they had to complicate things by making the Gift affect others with the Gift (this wasn't the case before was it?). So now the only way to be able to train someone is to extend your parma (read cloak the signal sent by the Gift with a magical ritual skill). So, while they can distinguish between parma and other magic resistance, including spells, plenty of people will find that it lacks a difference.

*shrug*