I'm fine with waiting until Pedro has a chance to chime in. However, I disagree that the rules say non-Avoidance spells are affected.
Quote:
Cover is relevant if the physical barrier is sufficient to impede attacks, rather than the ability to sense the target.
For Avoidance spells, it's usually obvious that the spell has a physical form (elemental bolt) but for Fortitude or Discipline targeting spells, it's unclear to me that there's anything to impede (the spells are dependent on sensing the target - not on physically targeting them). Of course, it's possible I've missed another section of the rules that makes it clear that non-Avoidance spells should be affected by cover. It could also be that I'm just reading too much into the distinction.
Also, a related question - do area spells suffer firing into melee penalties? In most games, they don't but someone made a comment (don't remember if it was in this thread or not) that made it seem like they do in Arcanis.