Wyzack wrote:So if i go normal human i can fuck over wizards just by looking at them cast spells? Does this put them at greater risk than it does myself, or is it about the same?
Depends. If that spell is something wizard could feasibly do without magic (most low-experience spells go into this category), then it causes no paradox. If this spell is a vulgar one (powerful enough to always challenge your view of reality), or covert one cast in a way that is obviously magic, then this does happen.
First of all, you don't *remember* magic. The Abyss fills you with nightmares, because you sleeper bastard have some in your soul, and you auto-repress it.
The most common paradox merely means that spell works differently - fireball might fly at ally of mage, or strength spell might work on you instead, but it can just as well mean that fireball, instead of flying at your ally, flies at you. Other paradoxes strike mage - make them get derangements, make them get physical deformations and so on. Other two are, well, bad. One causes reality in an area to go weird, another summons Daemon-eqivalent, an abyssal entity, which can range from mere imp that can do no harm to a pretty powerful being (do not confuse with Demons, fallen angels of the God Machine).
There is also disbelief, which makes sleepers unravel (dispel) vulgar (going against reality) spells. There is a *slight* problem with that. You see, it rolls first turn, and then after each ten minutes, against spell's Potency. Ritualized magic - the one mages can cast when prepared - can amass large ammounts of successes, so dispelling them in a single round would be hard.
The MAIN problem is, you see, that only one paradox makes you theoretically safe from magic, and disbelief doesn't matter that much when there is a rock flying towards you. Plus it is not guaranteed - MAGES roll for it, so if they are lucky, the spell goes through. There are some penalties for targeting sleepers though. Do remember, however, that you don't really realize that what you saw is magic - in 4/5 of cases you forget what exactly happened. And mages with right arcana can fuck you over without you knowing - nothing like a good Matter spell to dissolve your car when you are not looking, or Fate spell to make you really, really, REALLY unlucky.
TLDR: It's good if you can get *someone else* to look at the spell, preferably when you are far away, because if the spell is strong and mage unlucky you can get fucked hard. Imperial Mysteries (Epic handbook equivalent, with rules for 6-9 dot arcana and playing archmages) gives an example of archmage casting a simple covert spell to heat his coffee, but instead liquefying nearby skyscraper thanks to paradox.
