Wards 101, ...what do you mean I can't get there from here? Options

[MikeKozar]

Can any of the arcane-savvy 'Shockers out there give me a walkthough on wards and biofiber vs. spirits and projecting mages? If a mage is in a facility enclosed in one of the above, can he still summon spirits? I assume that a spirit can't simply leave the plane and reappear inside of a ward/fiberwall, but I want to make sure I understand how it works before I let my players loose in the facility.

[Apathy]

My understanding is that spirits can only be ordered to materialize somewhere that the mage has been before. So a spirit can bypass wards by hopping inside the research facility directly from the metaplane, but only if the mage is already there or has been there in the past. Someone else would have to provide a reference for this as I don't have books available.

[Pendaric]

SR3 a magicain can call a spirit they have on call for an addition service within a ward, if they themselves are within the ward.

SR4 no idea (and rules merging goodness is already a problem at my table so I ll let someone else quote the SR4 breakdown.)

[BishopMcQ]

Street Magic and SR4A have all of the rules that you need.

In short:

If the mage is in the warded area:
-- she can summon a spirit to her (either a previously bound one, or summon on the fly).
-- she can send a spirit from her to a location that she had previously been to. (via Metaplanar shortcut, consumes one service)

If the mage is out of the warded area:
-- she can send a spirit to any location where she has already been.
-- she can send a spirit into a warded area that she has been before. (via Metaplanar shortcut, consumes one service)
-- she can summon a spirit to slam through the ward or fool it.

It should be noted that unless the mage turned off all astral presences, she would not be able to pass into the warded area in the first place without foolling the wards or breaking them.

Page References:
Street Magic, p. 94
Street Magic, p. 124
SR4A, p. 194

[MikeKozar]

Thanks, everybody. Bishop, especially - those page numbers are going to come up on Game Night, I can tell. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Dragnar]

Fun fact: Telling a spirit to bypass a ward via metaplanar shortcut explicitly costs a service (as per Street Magic, p.94) while telling a spirit to go back to his metaplane and come back on the other side of the ward (ie: describing him how to do a metaplanar shortcut) doesn't cost a service (as neither calling nor dismissing a spirit costs a service).

[Apathy]

Fun fact: Telling a spirit to bypass a ward via metaplanar shortcut explicitly costs a service (as per Street Magic, p.94) while telling a spirit to go back to his metaplane and come back on the other side of the ward (ie: describing him how to do a metaplanar shortcut) doesn't cost a service (as neither calling nor dismissing a spirit costs a service).

Calling a spirit gets him to appear at your location. You can dismiss the spirit, walk to the other side of the ward, and then call him back for no charge. But if you send him to go to the metaplane and then come back to a physical location which is not your own you should get charged.

[Dragnar]

Telling the spirit to use the metaplanar shortcut explicitly only works if the conjurer is on the side you want him to go to (ie: the side you could just call him to anyways).
Ok, for free spirits having been to the target location before works as well, but that's close to meaningless for conjured spirits.