Question on "Severing the Silvery Cord"

[pole_shift]

Certain Astral spells (notably Astral Projection and Mind Hunt) require the caster to "separate his mind from his body". This, apparently, is dangerous as hostile Astral mages can detect you and sever the silvery cord connecting the two resulting in a Feebleminded caster. What I would like to know is just how dangerous is this? Is the chance dependant in any way on the caster's or detector's level in Astral magic? Thanks for any feedback.

-a concerned Astrophile

[Wendigo]

In my experience: 100% chance of being feebleminded if there's a single astral mage in the targetted province.

[pole_shift]

Yeah thats been my experience too but I haven't done it enough to be sure. I would like to here from one of the developers on this.

[Jasper]

Hmmmm. I'm pretty sure that I've succesfully Mind Hunted with Seithkona's (1 Astral) present... Actually, it was against you Wendigo. I was playing as Arcoscephale and had priestesses handy, so I wasn't too worried about the risk.

Maybe I got feebleminded, and then immediately healed? But the Mind Hunt was sucessfull...

Alternately, I may be misremembering as it's been a few months. Perhaps the Seithkona had just arrived, right after Mind Hunt was cast?

In general though I've had bad luck with Mind Hunting when Astral Mages are present. A difficult spell to use unless you have access to Recuperation.

[Wendigo]

Weird, cannot confirm/deny this as sometimes it's hard to have an idea of where a lesser commander was killed by a mind hunt (too many scouts & the like around, & no info on the province it happened AFAIK).

Maybe the witch moved in that turn as you suggest (I used to move & patrol small squads of them around a lot by the end of that game, looking for your Harvester).

[Kristoffer O]

I believe it is 100% if astral mage is present.

[Huntsman]

Is it a 0% chance if no astral mage is present? Or is there always some small chance?

Edit: Oh, and do Spell Penetration bonuses apply, for instance, if the caster has a Spell Focus amulet on?

[Vicious Love]

To the furtehst of my knowledge, which I sincerely hope is less complete than Kristoffer O's, yes. The presence of an astral mage will automatically feeblemind the caster, but the abscence of such a mage guarantees the caster's safety.