Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengeance.
 

I seek the wisdom of the forums. I have two questions. First, is the spell penetration bonus you get from an item the same as the bonus you get from having a higher level? For ex, are these equally hard to resist?

B4 mage casts hellbind heart
B3 mage with spell forcus casts hellbind heart
B2 mage with eye of void casts hellbind heart

I just got a little less lazy and looked up magic in the manual (p.86), so now I see that what I'm asking is: is the penetration bonus (from items) added to the caster's roll BEFORE it gets divided by 2 (like the spell level bonus) or AFTER?

Second, does either or both spell penetration bonus and higher level make for a more effective (each reflection less likely to be resisted) blood vengeance?

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

I don't know for sure, but my assumptions until told otherwise are that your three examples are all equally hard to resist, and that Blood Vengeance is just a state that doesn't remember what power level of magic caused it. But I have no special knowledge.

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

i would also believe that all three examples have the same penetration.

blood vengance has a rating (like awe and fear) which shows how difficult it is to overcome for the attacker. someone casting the spell gets blood vengeance 0, angel of fury has blood vengeance +2. this rating does not go up when cast by a powerful blood mage, so i am guessing the answer is no.

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

No, they won't all have the same penetration I think, because the bonus from extra magic levels is (number of extra levels / 2).

So: B4 mage casts hellbind heart - MR roll against penetration 11 (the default 10 + 1 for two extra levels)
B3 mage with spell focus: penetration 11 again (10 + 1 for spell focus, +0 for extra magic levels, since they're rounded down)
B2 mage with eye of the void: penetration 12 (10 + 2 for eye of the void)

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengeance.
 

Yes.

edit: oops. Llamabeast is right. erm. I seem to have failed very basic math here. It's +1, +1, +2 penetration. (/edit)

Penetration does't affect blood vengeance.

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengeance.
 

Thanks for your wisdom. I see I was reading the formula incorrectly. So eye of the void really is worth the hassle...

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

I would just like to say something funny. I gave one eye of perception (whatever the +8 to perception eye is) and then my commander lost an eye as an affliction. So alright, I give him another eye of perception, and unfortunately that made him BLIND, and he couldn't fire the ethereal crossbow I had given him to shoot.

Geeze, I guess you live and learn. Never replace both eye sockets with magical rubies. Only one. I ended up redoing a extra 15 minutes of my turn because of that.

Jazzepi

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

Shouldn't he have a precision of 5? Two Eyes of Aiming don't stack bonuses, so you'll have a base 0 precision with +5 for magic.

So he can still use the crossbow...

-Max

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

You get the "blindness" affliction, which I believes prevents you from even attacking with a ranged item.

It was awful.

Jazzepi

Re: Penetration and cast level. Also, blood vengea
 

FWIW, if you have more than 2 natural eyes you can use multiple magic eyes without going blind. The first magic eye gives you the affliction "lost a couple of eyes" which suggests you'll lose the rest of them by using another eye, but in fact the affliction doesn't change with a second eye (only had to two slots, so not sure if you can replace all your eyes)