Manamite weapons

[hcobb]

Manamite is a rare metal alloy that is unaffected by any magical effect.

Manamite weapons have the same combat effects as gold weapons, require the same talents to make, and cost at least as much. These cannot be enchanted, but they ignore all enchantments on the target such as Reverse Missiles, Armor enchantment, or Iron Flesh. Blur, Dazzle and Invisibility have their same impact on the senses of the wielder as normally. While it would be nice to make a servant out of Manamite this obviously couldn't be an elemental or any enchantment. There is no spellcasting penalty to holding Manamite, but this material can't be used as a Staff. Getting wounded by Manamite has the same effect as being hit by a gold weapon, and so concealed Manamite daggers typically have poison to boost their damage. A Manamite weapon is immune to the Break Weapon spell (but can be easily broken by any mundane means), but Drop Weapon acts on the wielder and the Manamite weapon offers no protection against this.

Armor can be made out of Manamite also, but this is very rarely done because Manamite armor doesn't even offer mundane protection against magical attack. It does have the slight advantage of being unnoticed by magical scans but scanning for armor is very rarely done anyway.

[Shostak]

Sounds like Images and Illusions should be unaffected by manamite weapons.

[hcobb]

Do you think your attack should hurt the Illusion?

[Shostak]

No, it would be consistent with manamite's being "unaffected by any magical effect" for a weapon made of it to not interact with the magic manifestation at all. Hence the typical use of manamite as an Image/Illusion detector.

[TippetsTX]

So the idea is that the metal can disrupt the "knot of force" at the core of the illusion?

I've always assumed that element of the spell would be immune from physical interaction since the text seems to imply that it can only be unraveled by the "psychic exercise" of disbelief.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

So the idea is that the metal can disrupt the "knot of force" at the core of the illusion?

Henry's description of the metal remaining unaffected by magic makes me think that it is reciprocal, and magic is unaffected by the metal. Thus, a manamite sword would pass right through an image as though it wasn't there (and thus telling you that it wasn't a summoned entity).

[hcobb]

Yes, it's a good way to detect Image (as just punching the target would), but an Illusion is all in the mind so if you think that your sword should have damaged the target it takes damage. (When in actual fact it's just your own reflexes that keep an iron sword from passing through an illusion.

Compare to an Illusion double of a wizard who doesn't copy over the Stone Flesh.