(3.5) Nystal's Magic Aura

[hangedman1984]

Can nystal's magic aura be used to disguise a mundane item with a spell cast on it (such as preventing detect magic to notice fire trap on your spellbook for example)?

[Private-Prinny]

I'm not sure, but I would say yes. Alternatively, you could make it look like your completely unguarded spellbook has more traps than the Tomb of Horrors.

[Jack_Simth]

Can nystal's magic aura be used to disguise a mundane item with a spell cast on it (such as preventing detect magic to notice fire trap on your spellbook for example)?
You'd better be able to. Otherwise, anything under the effects of Nystal's Magic Aura will show up as having illusion magic. Which, you know, makes it rather useless.

[hangedman1984]

What i thought, but the examples in the spell description are all magical items.

What about free-standing spell effects, like a teleportation circle?

[gbprime]

What about free-standing spell effects, like a teleportation circle?

Well it states an object up to 5 lb per level. So I guess that depends on how the teleport circle is built. Judgement call from the DM there.

[Irreverent Fool]

Not helpful, but related:

In our session last week, the party found a cache of about ten potions. We're about third level (ECL 4-5, everyone has LA) and nowhere near a source of pearls for identify and nobody has enough spellcraft to identify a potion that way. Detect Magic revealed an aura of necromancy on the things, so we tucked them away and figured we might have a use for/be able to identify them later.

In a moment of desperation, with most of the party unconscious or dead to poor tactics against an ambush by displacer beasts, one of the members quaffed one and found it to be a potion of cure critical wounds disguised with Nystal's magic aura.

Insert collective facepalm.

obnoxious
sig

[Aharon]

The most useful application of that spell, in my opinion, is to give all your items artifact-level auras. Nothing says you can't, and your opponent will be a tad irritated by the fact he is fighting someone better equipped than some gods. In the unlikely event someone uses a detect spell on you, he will even be stunned :smallsmile:

[Cicciograna]

Can nystal's magic aura be used to disguise a mundane item with a spell cast on it (such as preventing detect magic to notice fire trap on your spellbook for example)?


Magic aura
You alter an item’s aura so that it registers to detect spells (and spells with similar capabilities) as though it were nonmagical

Emphasys mine. This means that if you cast the spell on an object which actually has an aura (such as a spellbook with Fire trap set on it) any Detect magic cast on the book will not read the aura of the Trap.
Some DMs (such as me) could request a second casting of Magic aura if he regards the very spellbook as magical, thus having its own aura.

[hangedman1984]

Emphasys mine. This means that if you cast the spell on an object which actually has an aura (such as a spellbook with Fire trap set on it) any Detect magic cast on the book will not read the aura of the Trap.
Some DMs (such as me) could request a second casting of Magic aura if he regards the very spellbook as magical, thus having its own aura.

But is the book now a magical item, or a mundane item under the effects of a spell that (not being an object itself) can't be the target of nystal's magic aura?

[Cicciograna]

Sorry, only now I get your point.
Basically the effect that you want is to neutralize the aura of Fire trap: that is to say that the caster of Magic aura should target not the book itself but the Fire trap spell, so the question that now arises is if an item with a spell cast upon it is actually a single entity or two separate things, for the purpose of targetting of spells.

Personally, I'd rule that Magic aura neutralizes Fire trap's aura, thus viewing book and spell as a single thing: however, take note that this ruling leads to the question if a single casting of the spell could neutralize the aura of a book which bears more than one spell, such as Fire trap and Sepia snake sigil.

While I recognize that my interpretation is not coherent with what I wrote before (about the second casting of the spell on the spellbook), as my previous assumption would specify that book and spell are two separate entities, their auras thus requiring a separate suppression, what I propose is a simple tweaking to Magic aura spell, and precisely to its target, which should change from One touched object weighing up to 5 lb./level to something on the lines of One source of magical aura, thereby includeing spells and different effects.