 Wards, How Prevalent are they? |
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 Nov 3 2007, 07:32 AM
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#26
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Great Dragon  Group: Members Posts: 5,537 Joined: 27-August 06 From: Albuquerque NM Member No.: 9,234  |
Probably. You can't fight city hall when the reward for winning is getting killed in a "mysterious accident" or by "random violence". As the various investigative reporters in Russia are finding out, one by one. And there are few things that annoy a manager of a corporation more then missing his quarterly target because group of street scum is messing with his customers or the people his plan said should be his customers. |
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Nov 3 2007, 07:39 AM
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#27
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
But you can fight it when City Hall is heavily influenced by its friends in low places. Or if the proposed profits are outweighed by the very foreseeable losses.
If it were worth it for the Corps or City Hall to take back (or even control) the Barrens, they would have done so a long time ago. As it is, they are usually happy to leave the control part to the gangs, and then influence the gangs (or their controllers). |
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Nov 3 2007, 08:01 AM
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#28
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,537 Joined: 27-August 06 From: Albuquerque NM Member No.: 9,234 |
You have to be a full service business, as nobody who wants heavy physical won't want at least good magical security. And given the way wards work, you MUST have the response contract with the same company that put up the ward and you are going to pay recurring maintenance at about 3-4 week intervals. It's a lot better deal than selling alarm services. And KE has to have a LOT of mages. You can send out a corporate memo to all the mages to have anyone who isn't otherwise occupied to send a combat force 4+ spirit to 1234 North Broadway in Seattle, wait up to 10 minutes before they go home and to kill any magically active metahuman within a block attacking a spirit during that time. And at 4 pm 250 mages who are not otherwise busy spend a complex action and 200 some assorted force 4+ spirits show up on the astral and wait for the fireworks to start. Which won't take long, as one KE mage shows up on the astral at a standoff range and has his spirits attack one of the leaders. Who can be pretty much expected to defend themselves, before dying in under a swarm of spirits, which should trigger all the other gangers to attack. You won't get all of them, but you'll get enough to send a message. And it costs KE a lot less than sending in 200 armed guys and getting some shot up, etc. |
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Nov 3 2007, 08:37 AM
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#29
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 993 Joined: 5-December 05 From: Crying in the wilderness Member No.: 8,047 |
There is a price for warded rooms in the general price guide that may help a little as an indicator. Personally I throw wards up in what i consider believable and consistent places. So the stuffer shack is not warded but certain rooms in the mid level restaurant are, the high level hotel has areas that are warded and available for a price. Etc
Check my sig for a generic ward provider. I think most commercial magicians are doing this for a living. Buying the ability to astrally project is a hefty investment at character creation so don't worry about overly nerfing it. One tactic is to have a shedim at the body of the projecting magicain just as they get back. After the astral combat is done and dusted they should be more careful with there projecting from without side a ward of their own. |
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Nov 5 2007, 12:15 AM
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#30
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 615 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,895 |
And one hacker stumbles across that memo, leaks it to the right source. Sacrifical mage (say unliked poor performer Lone Star patsy), is sent to the scene told there will send a team of backup spirits to provide overwatch, but they need to catch them by surprise, if any spirits try to leave the scene, to destroy it. Witness mage, then sumons a low-force watcher spirit and tells it to buzz by the sacrifical mage, and then go to report to Lone Star (or whatever). Sacrifical mage, sees spirit going away to send warning and engages ... triggering a mass assult on him... Lone star now has evedince of Murder by Knight Errant via magical means and a MASS abuse of their powers, spread through out the entire corperation. Knight Errant ceases to exist, and the cooperate council is pertty much forced to censure this huge abuse of power (for being 'caught'). Something as huge a 400 spirits (even if trivial for mages to summon and send), is a HUGE act, and Mr. Murphy (or Murphy Johnson) will step in to see that it goes horribly bad for whomever is tryign to cordinate something that big.... In a world of (flimsy) plausible denability and corporate profits, big overt, acts like this would cause major issues. |
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Nov 5 2007, 12:22 AM
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#31
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
Which is why crap like that hasn't been done already to clean out places like the Barrens. I readily admit that it's possible, and KE are certainly the group to do it, as they proved in Bug City, but it isn't likely to happen. Besides which, as I said in the very beginning, there really wouldn't be a conflict in the first place, as the two groups wouldn't share the same clientèle. |
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Nov 5 2007, 01:35 AM
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#32
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,537 Joined: 27-August 06 From: Albuquerque NM Member No.: 9,234 |
Except Lone Star doesn't give a crap about ganger street scum either. As KE got away with setting off a nuke in the middle of a major city, they are pretty good at handling minor issues like this. And it's got a really tight window to make it happen, and you have to have the Lone Star mage hanging around on the street with a gang of astrally active mages who hate cops. I don't think that the Lone Star mage will get a chance to attack the watcher, as he'll be busy being dead. |
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Nov 5 2007, 02:15 AM
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#33
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 246 Joined: 26-January 06 Member No.: 8,198 |
The quote is 'around 1% of the population is magical yadda yadda but not all of the 1% has 6 Magic (Now at least imaginable in SR4 since your magic doesnt start off at 6)'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population 8,909,000,000 (World Population in 2050) - 1,494,500,000 (25% of Worlds Population in 1999/Vitas(2010)) + 890,900,000 (Estimated 10% Population boom over 20 years) _______________ 8,305,400,000 (Shadowrun 2070 World Population) 1% of 8305400000 is 83,054,000 That's a lot of ward makers. |
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Nov 5 2007, 03:24 AM
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#34
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 246 Joined: 26-January 06 Member No.: 8,198 |
On another note: It would take 30.1902895 years to cover the Earth entirely.
With Force 1 Wards If all the awakened in the world had 1 Magic rating. Using up 260,844.101 karma for permanency (0.00314065669 Karma per person). |
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Nov 5 2007, 05:23 PM
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#35
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Genuine Artificial Intelligence Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715 |
I assume that low-force wards are quite common. It is a very simple profession for anyone with a magic attribute of 1 and astral perception. It doesn't even require a skill roll, so there's no training involved. It's it's a darn good living for low-risk and no training.
And remember, wards rarely need to be strong enough to actually repel an attack, IMG 95% of wards are more of a warning system. You might be able to easily breach a Force 1 ward, but then someone will know about it and spirits will be dispatched (often not by the person who made the ward, but by someone stronger) and that's where the real trouble comes from. IMG, wealthy people routinely have a force 1 or 2 ward on their bathrooms/bedrooms. Corporate meeting rooms will always be warded, but again, it doesn't need to be a Bloodzilla-stopper, it just needs to trigger an alarm if breached. Another thing to consider is that wards are legal, and there are lots of legal, reasonably common things (low force foci, etc) which interact with them. I therefor assume that sometimes, if you're going into a warded area there will be a sign that says, "This area is warded, please deactivate any foci before entering." But that's obviously going to depend a lot on where it is and who is supposed to be there. |
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Nov 5 2007, 06:04 PM
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#36
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 689 Joined: 16-September 03 From: Colorado Member No.: 5,623 |
Just a side not the worlds population in SR is significantly lower than the estimated 9 billion wiki estimates because of the rampent VITA plagues. At least thats always been my understanding.
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Nov 5 2007, 07:00 PM
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#37
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,978 Joined: 26-February 02 From: New Jersey, USA Member No.: 500 |
One would also need to update the numbers for the fact that demographers keep downshifting the projections. Because, among other things, most of Euope is going to be old folks real soon now, and Russia is -losing population-. Meanwhile, Africa is being decimated by AIDS, TB, nasty mixes of the two, and other diseases. Also, Latin America is experiencing a steady drop in birth rate. Keep in mind that diseases like VITAS would hit two populations most directly: The elderly and children. This significantly "thins out" the population of childbearing age.
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Nov 5 2007, 07:15 PM
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#38
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Immortal Elf Group: Validating Posts: 7,999 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,890 |
Magic is uncommon as a whole around the world. It's not uncommon in select fields, security being one such field. If a field has a lot of money involved in it, the magic:mundane ratio skyrockets compared to, say, the number of mages working as a farm hand in a third world country.
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Nov 5 2007, 07:55 PM
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#39
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 246 Joined: 26-January 06 Member No.: 8,198 |
- 1,494,500,000 (25% of Worlds Population in 1999/Vitas(2010)
Yes, but that is modern time problems, just like the tech things happened differently. For instance, from 2020~ to 2070, 50 years of ork breeding and if I read right, they throw out litters of 4-5? Donno. |
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