Don't bother looking Kagetenshi, it's not there.

This is not a question of redirecting. Flames spouting 1" from you and being "redirected" away from you still won't be good for your skin -- in fact, your skin will melt away soon enough. There are some ways you can deflect the problem:

For example, you might decide that Elemental Magic fire and heat have really got nothing to do with the Real Thing. As such, magic can dictate exactly where every single joule of heat goes, and then elemental magic (or Elementals) never harm anything they do not specifically want to harm. But then the Area Attack Elemental Manips would give you a headache -- if all other elemental magic protects the caster from the spell as a part of the spell, then why don't these? All the other spells also affect every other creature in the area without discrimination, so your "area effect spells are designed to be indiscriminate" can't be the reason.

Or slight modification of the above would be that elemental magic is not a "guided weapon", as it were, but only protect the caster. Which still causes serious trouble with the Area Elemental Manip spells. Or you could decide that it's just the "Caster" Elemental Manips that protect the caster from all the effects. But why the heck don't these spells then protect the caster from all other elemental harm of that type? Because every elemental magic heat particle is different, and the spell knows where that particular bit of heat originates from? That doesn't sound logical to me. Or maybe every bit of elemental magic heat is intelligent after all... Which doesn't sound too logical either.

If elements produced by Manipulation spells are anything like the real thing, then nothing of the above works. And in that case, I'm stuck with all such Manipulations affecting the caster just the same.

There's probably a billion razors here, but that particular one is quite useless. If someone wishes for a spell with the effect of a Flame Aura but which wouldn't harm the caster, I'd have to do the math to decide what the drain would be on a spell that also gives the caster a limited immunity to heat -- up to the Force of the spell. Probably +2(S). In fact, several spells like this already exist for the medieval fantasy conversion, but I can't be bothered to check the Drains on those.

If you are fine with the thought that the GM has no idea what's going on, that's okay. I like to understand things. I see the possibility of me as a GM not understanding what the heck is going on in the game as potential trouble.

[Edit]To clear that last one up: I cannot consider It's Maaa-aaagic as "understading". It has to be something that makes sense to me.[/Edit]

Then the question is: Who is the fucking moron who didn't include the "Don't Harm The Caster" bit into Area-effect Elemental Manipulations? Because apparently this is not the slightest problem looking at magic either rules-wise or your logic-wise: Giving any spell the "Don't Harm The Caster" suggestion is extremely simple, apparently, and it doesn't change drain in any way whatsoever (as you can see from the Drain Codes of Flame Aura, etc).

This is what I have problems with. If it directs all the heat away from the caster, then why can the caster take damage from other sources of heat? And if it just directs the heat from the spell away from the caster, then how does the spell discern between the heat produced by mundane sources, and by all the different magical sources?

No, I did not. I said:

So if you want to describe the spell so that you actually breathe that flame, then you have some extra explaining to do, in my games. Of course, seeing as how there's nothing to suggest that there is an actual trail of flame from the caster to the target (the spell doesn't set flame to anything that is next to that trail), you could argue that the "breathe the flame" description of the spell Flamethrower wouldn't work anyway.

Believe me, I'm shaving as fast as I can. Enough to make my skin bleed profusely.

The books also specifically say how the shot ammunition in SR work, and those make absolutely no fucking sense at all, so I changed them. The fact that this is magic we're talking about changes things, certainly. Because it is maaaaa-aaaagic, you can justify everything that way. I don't want to do that, I would prefer for magic to make sense as well. Or at least to have some basic level of causality.

[Edit]Bugger. The spell description says "creates a rippling aura of flames around a subject's body, extending out a number of centimeters equal to the spell's successes." That's specifically how it works. Unfortunately.[/Edit]

The problem there is that it doesn't cause just minor circulatory problems. It causes really fricken huge circulatory problems. The kinds that, IRL, kill people dead. But I don't have problems with that, so no need to rekindle that argument.

That's true. So the way I figure things, a Flame Aura-like adept power would still be a very bad idea. The spell still works, because the spell can act as a barrier against the element.

I'll take your word for it. I know next to nothing about physics, especially electricity-related things.

Yeesh, mfb. No. That would still allow the spell to know exactly what is "good" heat and what is "bad" heat, and allow the "good" heat to reach the subject and would deflect any "bad" heat away from the caster. Changing the spell so that it actually protects against any extreme heat works far better for me.

You're right in the latter part. Such problems are insignificant and are there regardless of how the area-effect Elemental Manipulations are defined.

Well, I did say Hardened Armor, so he won't have to roll dice if the Power of the attack is smaller than or equal to the rating. But I am coming to terms with how useless that power might be for most people. 1 point for Hardened Armor 1 against all elements might be more worth while, though still not particularly useful. Or you could drop the cost of the single-element version to 0.25.

I always overprice things at first, because I'm really afraid that anything new I insert to the game will break the balance.

The thought of having to target the spell at a point 1cm off someone's nose just seems a bit silly. But that doesn't have to happen anyway, because the spell will go off when it hits anything, so you can actually aim it directly at someone.

How, exactly? It would have to know which energy-waves of heat are direct results of the effects of the spell. It would have to differentiate between the heat radiated from the flames brought into existence by the spell and the heat radiated from any flames set off by the original flames, for example. I feel it would be easier just to get rid of all extreme heat, and even then it is a significant part of the functioning of the spell, affecting the Drain.

If you consider the fact that I never said anything of that sort to be proof of me thinking so, then yes, you are correct.

Please forgive my hyperbole. I hope you werent emotionally scarred.

It certainly does. If/when I conclude that there's no way to make magic elemental effects to actually create true elements, I'll just go with that.

Only insofar as bad sarcasm makes my brain melt.

I thought of that, but I figured the astral signature of the spell was already all over the subject itself. But perhaps it might just stop any "leakage" from where the flames start to the subject. And in any case, suspending one's disbelief at such a minor detail of the Science of Magic ™ isn't a problem.

I was actually thinking about actual legality here, regardless of whether someone wants that spell. Other than Detection, there are no Area spells in the game that aren't also LOS. That implies to me that it wouldn't be legal to do such a spell. If it was legal, I'm sure some melee-oriented mages would want one.

Ah... AE is a Hermetic. You see, to shamans like me, we think of magic in a much more natural since. The astral space often feels your needs and responds as such, granting it has the power. The aura of flames spell you talk about feels your need for self defence and unleashes flame upon any who would attack you, similarly, it affects those you attack. The name is merely a description based on the fact that it does cause flames, but in a local region (i.e. the attacker). The illusion of being wreathed in flames is similar to a phenomenon known to many as the shamanic mask.

Now the concept of a fireball that hits everyone but oneself, that is a very complicated idea to express, the creation of energy in specific triggered cases (when someone attacks you, when you attack someone) is generally easy an has little affect on ones abilities (i.e. low drain). It is important to note that the energy summoned by aura of flames is rather small, its brother spell, fireball, creates a massive amount of energy, and to make it avoid the caster would cause additional complexity, and thus would be equaly detrimental to ones continued wellbeing.

You could just use the description of the Blast elemental effect, +1 Damage Level against manifested (perhaps that should be materialized?) earth elementals and gnomes. Depending on how powerful the other elemental effects are, maybe +50% (rounded down) or +100% Strength to determine Knockdown from unarmed attacks. And of course the Special Effects... Be sure to describe how the guy misses and hits a wall, causing bits of plaster or broken tiles to fly all over.

The entry in MITS as a Drain modifier only applies to health spells, which, by default, are touch range.

Edit: yay simultaneous posting!

Yes, you think of it this way, and you are wrong.

~J the Hermetic