SM Shattershield spell - ward nuke? Options

[Slithery D]

Shattershield is a SM (pg. 165) spell to destroy mana barriers (spell of the same name, wards, lodges), nothing more than a limited Death Touch, so the drain is (F/2 - 3).

[hyzmarca]

The owner of a ward knows when it is destroyed, remember that. Any decent magician could take down a common ward without much difficulty. They don't hit back. The reason that spoofing the ward is the prefered method to bypass it is that doing so won't bring a magical SWAT team down on your head. Shattershielding force 10 wards will.

[lorechaser]

I see it the way hyz does.

This is, as you said, a faster way to take out the wards. It could already be done, it just took a while. Now you have a much more efficient method of doing so, but it doesn't get around the problem.

I see Shattershield as being used mostly on the way out - you've already tripped the alarm, and snatched the target. Now you've gotta get out fast, so you're willing to bust through wards as you go.

[Slithery D]

Spoofing is immensely more difficult than in previous editions. You have to actually go find and see the ward creator and then use your masking to match his. Do you have the time to track down the astral link (hours under the rules without any simplifying assumptions to speed it up)? What if the ward creator is inside the ward? You can't get to him to see his aura. What if he's masked and you can see through his masking? You just tried to spoof the ward with the wrong fake aura. Oops. Did he have a hovering spirit/watcher that alerted him to your astral presence and his now projecting himself to follow you and see what the hell you're up to?

Of course, you can use Sympathetic Linking metamagic rather than going and finding him. Do you have that, in addition to Masking? Do you know who the creator is? How? Did you get a material link? How? Did you create a symbolic stand in? Why do you have that much time but can't just track him down and match auras? Do you have enough extra dice on the spoof attempt to soak the massive dice penalty from going this route?

Spoofing (sorry, "fooling" in SR4) wards is going to be rare, time consuming, and require serious planning, foresight, and a little bit of luck in the vast majority of circumstances. Physically walking through wards with no knowledge of what's on the other side (and no active foci/spells) or busting through the noisy way is generally going to be the way to go. If you're going in loud, Shattershield is faster than a press through and will let you easily bring along spells/foci/spirits. Or as I suggested above, give it to your spirit of man and send him off busting every ward in the place. Or at a sister facility. Or weeks before your planned attack to make the corp call in magicians to rebuild the wards, which might give you a reasonable opportunity to spot them and learn their auras for a spoof attempt.

I like that spoofing is harder than the automatic "get past a ward for free" card it was in SR3. But that same change has shifted the dynamics of astral security quite a bit.

[Cold-Dragon]

shattershield is also for those moments where a fellow flinger is behind 1 or more of them on the physical plane and is using them to protect against your other spells, then you use it to drill through their defenses to get to them.

So in the direct fashion, it's a good spell, but while you're breaking things, your opponent is either running, attacking, or calling in the calvary.

Granted, I suppose you could just walk through the barrier too in that case, but I should hope the mage put up a physical shield too, heh. Or something like that. *shrugs* Maybe I should reconsider that...

[Slithery D]

I also disagree that it's all that easy to destroy high force wards in astral combat for most character builds. A solid shaman with Cha 5, Wil 5, and Astral Combat 5 can, I suppose, knock out a Force 8 with a few/several tries. But not a more typical Cha 2-3 hermetic with 0-2 points in Astral Combat. Shattershield is a lot karmically cheaper than Astral Combat skill against mana barriers, just like Death Touch or Mana Bolt is a lot cheaper than Astral Combat skill or weapon foci against spirits or astrally projecting magicians.

I think of the utility of wards in non-shadowrunning terms a lot. One of the most important needs for wards is going to be protection of vital transportation/other infrastructure from terrorists launching a fire and forget spirit attack on someone. Basic wards aren't enough to stop that, but now with SM I can easily introduce the idea of enough Magic 8 initiates with Reflecting metamagic making lots of money setting up Force 8 Reflecting wards that make those sorts of attacks on protected vital areas a dangerous proposition. But Shattershield once again makes it real easy. Destroy that powerful ward, send in your (Great Form!) fire elemental, tell him to kill everyone, run back to your body. (Flexible signature, natch, to fool the astral forensics). Three Storm strikes to kill everyone in the open? That's worth a few thousand nuyen and the time and drain to find one. Or several turns (at least) of multiple person LOS(A) fire engulf until an astral relief force can arrive and knock it down?

This isn't the stuff most runners will be doing, but it's still problematical that others can do it. This was my objection to the idea that tanks/airplanes couldn't be warded in another thread - what percentage, then, of military mages would be dedicated to astral projection assaults with spirit in tow to blow up/take over/neuatralize these things from inside? Now just ad Shattershield and the tank has once again become obsolete on the 2070 battlefield unless it has its own dedicated astral defenders who are quick on the draw.

[hyzmarca]

The very best use of Shatershield ever was in a Tom Tawn short story. A character is stuck in a warded room with a political rival who happens to be a vastly supperior spellcaster. It is quite obvious that he is going to lose but instead of attacking his enemy he overcasts shattershield and destroys the wards. It turns out a Great Dragon was waiting outside,

No, I have no idea why the GD couldn't have just destroyed the ward himself.


You could always reduce the warding drain to make the establishment of high-force wards much easier and maybe have force 40ish wards be a little more common if it is a problem.

[hobgoblin]

[Cold-Dragon]

A smart dragon will wait for the opportune moment to strike to deal with any troublesome mages he wants gone - why crush a shield yourseld and draw attention when the other guy can tire out the mage and/or crush the shield for you?

Some dragons call it resource management, hehe.

[2bit]

Doesn't anyone think the real culprit here is the drain formula? The fact that you can cast a spell at force 9 for 1 DV drain, especially a combat spell where Force translates directly into damage, is silly.

[hyzmarca]

Well, you can shoot an assualt canon for 0 DV drain.

[lorechaser]

Because guns are better'n mages. :)

I was so proud when the mage in our group (who had me build his character) told me "I don't really care about attack spells to start - my Predator is my fireball"

[Gort]

Heh, that's a foolish mage. You can cast a force 6 stunbolt for a whopping 2 drain value, any decent mage should be able to soak that, and a force 6 stunbolt will really screw up the average mundanes day.

Plus, stunbolts don't miss. But keep the gun in case of counterspelling.

[Cold-Dragon]

"Haha, I put up a mana barrier against your stun bolt!"


"Haha, I put up a Desert eagle against your mana barrier, and an extended phys barrier around your mana barrier so I can shoot you without you running away!"

Okay, I lied about the phys barrier, but while he's busy checking that, I can be using the take aim action at least a couple times...

[lorechaser]

Gort: You can. But if you have the gun, you didn't spend the Karma/BP for the spell, and you put your specialization in Illusion, rather than combat. And you got to pick a mentor spirit that you like. ;)

[Lantzer]

I liked Slithery's look at the issue.

One thing was left out: This change in dynamics means that Mages are going to be more reluctant to walk around with quickened or sustained spells up.

Sure you can blow down that ward - same way the Samurai can blow down that door. And you don't want to do it for the same reasons, on the same occasions. It gets a bit inconvenient soon after.

Most of the time you don't use a cannon for a doorbell, and you don't spank a child with an axe.

I don't see a problem here.

If you want to waltz in, you'd better do your groundwork, just like a physical entry. Or be prepared to pull out the artillery.

[hobgoblin]

yep, blowing away that ward would be like neo putting a full mag into the metal detector ;)

hmm, i kinda recall reading a marvel comic where wolverine did just that.
maybe it was in ultimate x-men?

he walked thru airport security, the detector went of and he basicly slized the electronics out of it with a quick jab.

[SL James]

That was in the first movie.

[WhiskeyMac]

The part where they go to rescue Rogue and Wolverine walks through the metal detector at Staten Island.

[Cabral]

Psh. I thought you were talking about the actual comic where Wolverine walks through airport security, sets off the metal detector and gets pulled off for a strip search. Then, he walks out of the strip search room and shoves his arm into the baggage X-ray machine. :)

[hobgoblin]

heh, guess i have so many wolverine refrence in my head that im mixing them up :P