I feel there to be a subtle but important difference between an Alertness Veil (keeping someone from noticing you) and a Targeting Veil (making it harder to hit you).
The "spirit" (ha ha) of the Spirit Veil is that people just don't notice the target, or you get the 'illusion' aspect of the discipline. You're in a 10'x10' room with a wizard, but you think you're alone until you start detecting other cues.
The complication with many of the other elements' approaches to the Veil maneuver is that they seem to draw attention to the target, even though they would also make it harder to get an accurate shot at the target. Every one of these veils would be obvious if cast in a 10'x10' room. A plume of fog, water or dust would be immediately visible, the heat waves probably less so.
But put these same "veils" in different environments, and they wouldn't necessarily be so obvious, and might just accomplish what every Spirit Veil could do.
People seem to be going all over the place.
When I say "Veil" I mean mechanically a Block or Defense against Alertness the same as a normal Spirit Veil. In practice I mean either invisible or effectively invisible. What Devonapple calls an Alertness veil.
Mechanically, a Veil is just done as a Block. You make the roll and you're done. But because of the story portion of the game, you can't just do that you need to tell a story.
Putting up clouds of dust/fog/gobbilgook is fine and all, but I'm looking for the Classic invisiblity spell with elements other than Spirit.
I'm looking for ways to justify that block against alertness without putting a Smokescreen aspect on the scene because Spirit can do and the other elements should also be able to somehow. FOr one thing, people keep forgetting about Harry's Blending Brew from
Fool Moon. That to me is another example of a Veil because although people still see him, he is still effectively invisible. That's alos what I'm looking for besides the
It's a design challenge.
So far my favs so far are:
Air: Codex Alera thing of changing the refraction properties of the air around you.
Earth: Sinking into the Earth or covering yourself with the "Soil" of the environment. Which would also work as a badass Maneuver/travel spell/armor now that I think of it. Kakashi Mole move anyone? Blending BRew could also be reflected through the Grounding portions of Earth. Blending you in with the psychic ambiance
Water: Cameleon Skin aka Adaptive Camoflage ala
Predator ala
A Scanner Darkly ala what the U.S. Army is working on right now.Water could also Blend by diffusing someone's impact on an environment.
Fire: Destructive version of the Blending Spell I mentioned before. What I initially had. Could also be used for heat simmers to bend light.
