Why are Evocation Veils spirit-only?

[vultur]

You should totally be able to do veils with non-Spirit elements.

Aleran Aircrafters use air veils, which make perfect sense -- light is bent going through the air (like mirages).

You should also be able to do an entropy water veil (scattering the photons that pass through so they don't form an image), this might look more like a big fuzzy cloud or "visual static" than invisibility though.

Earth and fire are harder to justify ... though heat can contribute to mirages, and light is a form of electromagnetic radiation and earth has ties to electromagnetism, so maybe... Alera also has Woodcrafted Veils which hide you in an environment with plants, maybe you could do something similar with earth (or elemental wood if you use an alternate elemental system).

[Taran]

I see earth veils as dust clouds etc...

[killking72]

My first character was a wizard whose primary element was Air. He would change the refractive index of the air around him, causing light to bend around him. You're completely right. You can do veils with every element, it's just how you word it. Don't forget that a "Veil" is not just invisibility, which is what you're actually asking about; Why can't I go invisible with every element. A veil is just a block against someones perception of you.

[blackstaff67]

Well, since the book says Spirit is the stuff of light and illusion and mind stuff, it's why you can put up a block and look invisible.  I suppose I could use Earth to do the same, but it'd look like a dust storm (block versus alertness, anyone?) or similar physical feature.  Fire might be a wall of flame, Water might distort and bend/refract the light so their vision might be off, but these blocks are NOT what I'd call "subtle."  I guess that's why there's Spirit.

[Mr. Death]

You should totally be able to do veils with non-Spirit elements.

Aleran Aircrafters use air veils, which make perfect sense -- light is bent going through the air (like mirages).

You should also be able to do an entropy water veil (scattering the photons that pass through so they don't form an image), this might look more like a big fuzzy cloud or "visual static" than invisibility though.

Earth and fire are harder to justify ... though heat can contribute to mirages, and light is a form of electromagnetic radiation and earth has ties to electromagnetism, so maybe... Alera also has Woodcrafted Veils which hide you in an environment with plants, maybe you could do something similar with earth (or elemental wood if you use an alternate elemental system).

If I'm not mistaken, the Aleran woodcraft veils work by weaving vines and bushes and stuff around to hide you physically. So an analogous earth 'veil' would be burying yourself under the dirt.

I don't think water or fire would work to hide you--I know all the elements can be used for different actions, but there ought to be some differentiation between them, and it makes sense that there are some things one element could do but others can't. You can't use spirit to start a campfire, for instance.

[Tedronai]

Water:  dense fog is the obvious answer

Fire: dense smoke, or a quick series of 'flash-bang' explosions to overwhelm the senses of anyone looking in your direction, or carefully manipulated 'heat haze'

[Sanctaphrax]

You can do veils with every element, it's just how you word it.

You really should be right. But YS 255 calls veils the special province of spirit magic.

You can't use spirit to start a campfire, for instance.

Sure you can. Spirit does lasers. Lasers create heat.

Spirit: it's just better.

[Taran]

Spirit: it's just better.

You sound like a commercial.

[Haru]

You sound like a commercial.

I half expected him to do a thumbs-up, smile and one of his tooth would blink.

Anyway, a veil is basically a supernatural stealth roll, and if you can explain to me how your element can do it, I'm game. An actual "I'm invisible"-veil would still be spirit, though.

[MadAlchemist]

Iv'e always been pretty lenient on what a caster can do with Rotes in particular. If the player wants to make something up on the fly all of the "not subtle" methods are cool within the element description but why not let the Air channeler (or whatever) have some sneaky veil-like Rotes too? Magic is supposed to be more about what you believe you can do with it than anything else.   

[vultur]

If I'm not mistaken, the Aleran woodcraft veils work by weaving vines and bushes and stuff around to hide you physically.

I think it is more like camouflage; Bernard can use it while moving while they're sneaking through the swamp in Captain's Fury. There's a bit where Bernard says he can't calm the dogs with earthcraft and keep the veil up at the same time while they're sneaking by, so Gaius shows Amara how to do an (aircrafted) veil.

You really should be right. But YS 255 calls veils the special province of spirit magic.

Yeah... which seems to violate the "block is a block is a block" principle.

And there shouldn't be an outright more powerful element either.

Well, since the book says Spirit is the stuff of light and illusion and mind stuff, it's why you can put up a block and look invisible.  I suppose I could use Earth to do the same, but it'd look like a dust storm (block versus alertness, anyone?) or similar physical feature.  Fire might be a wall of flame, Water might distort and bend/refract the light so their vision might be off, but these blocks are NOT what I'd call "subtle."  I guess that's why there's Spirit.

I agree it would be hard to do a subtle veil with earth or fire, but Aleran aircraft veils seem pretty much "invisibility", and I think a water/entropy veil could be pretty similar.

[Rossbert]

It's less about the rules and more about the western worldview.  Veils are spirit only because the Western element wizards learn that "Spirit covers LIGHT, mind and force" meaning that any wizard who learns the traditional path is convinced that spirit is needed to manipulate light.  In the case of the game they only use the word veil for straight-up invisibility.  You summon a fog to hide you, fine, but it isn't considered a "veil."  This is much in the same way that you can have many different sparkling wines but only a specific one from a specific source is champagne.

[killking72]

YS252 "an evocation based veil, for example, is often done as a block, but what it blocks isn’t damage, it’s perception" Going off what what's read in the rules saying that veils are spirit only seems to be very stupid and unbalanced. If I'm GMing a game, and you use some element to bend light, that makes sense, then yea it's perfectly fine. Your aeromancer says he's going to change the refractive index of the air around him, yea go ahead. You're going to use fire to heat up the air around you, I might make you hurt yourself more if you fail the control. As for earth magic, since it's domain is electromagnetism, hell yea you can say the light just doesn't reflect off of you, making you invisible. And I don't see a way for water magic to do it that isn't very dangerous for yourself.

[vultur]

And I don't see a way for water magic to do it that isn't very dangerous for yourself.

Water covers entropy, and Carlos can put a bullet-disintegrating shield up without harming himself, so I don't see why you couldn't put up a light-warping shield. The shield doesn't actually touch you, there's space between it and you.

[Haru]

The easiest way would be to simply use the light bending capability of water, due to its refractive index. It would be a bit like putting up mirrors around you, things might seem to be at different places than they are. Like a spoon looks bent in a glass of water.