Double Ward, Is this allowed? Options

[booklord]

I had an interesting thought and I'm wondering whether its allowed by the rules or not. Basically its a ward system almost guaranteed to detect an astral intruder.

You create 2 wards. The first ward is a standard barrier ward. The second ward is an alarm ward as discribed in Magic in the Shadows. The second ward is placed just inside the first ward with as little space between them as possible.

Anyway how would you get through this combo without being detected? Alarm wards are difficult to see but with a standard ward in the way it's got to be near impossible. If you destroy the first ward you alert the security magician anyway so the alarm ward becomes redundant. If you mask your way through the first ward you'll immediately step into the second ward which since you're masking your aura for the first ward you're pretty much guaranteed to set off and alert the security magician. Either way you're detected.

Am I missing something?

[Person 404]

Wards have to conform to a physical surface, and it's pretty strongly implied, if not stated, that you're allowed one ward per surface. That said, it probably wouldn't be too difficult to construct rooms/hallways/doorways such that they could have two very closely layered wards.

[Ancient History]

Expensive but possible, sure. There would have to be a surface for the alarm ward to be set on, natch, and it would be more costly in time, materials and drain, but the alarm ward would be much more difficult to detect.

[Lilt]

The second ward may need to be made by a different magician than the first ward, otherwise the synchronisation of auras may still be in effect.

[toturi]

The last time I looked, my wall has 2 faces... So 2 wards is fine.

[Xirces]

That was my thought - is there anything to stop a ward been put on each face of a wall. Even if that's not allowed you could put an internal cavity in a wall...

[BitBasher]

[Lantzer]

I'd say you _can_ ward a wall, there just wouldn't be much point to it.

[Dashifen]

I would allow a warded wall without ceilings and floors. Course, as Lantzer said it doesn't protect against the old Astral Mage Floating Around The Building trick, but it could be useful in blocking dual-natured types. Keeping those pesky bug infested security para-critters out of the boss's office is usually a good thing :)

[blakkie]

Alarm wards are tough to spot behind the barrier, but as soon as you brought down the first barrier you'd get your standard chance of spotting the alarm barrier. No? So if anything, by a quirk of the rules, the barrier would -increase- the chance of the spotting the alarm ward by allowing two perception checks where you'd normally only get one. That is unless the GM ruled that only one roll be made, and compared that roll twice against the two different TNs.

[booklord]

[blakkie]

Er, right. I mean mask your way past the first ward do you not get the shot of seeing the second behind? If the GM was :evil: I suppose he could ask for a Quickness test for you to stop in time.

Lilt raises a good point about the aura matching. What exactly are you trying to synchronise with, the aura of the mage that created the barrier. With the barrier itself? With appearing as a mundane (where upon you don't need to directly observe the barrier to bypass it). Do you need to directly observe the barrier to bypass it?

If a mage cannot see the barrier, for example because they cannot see into the astral, can they bypass it with Mask? This is not just academic.

[Backgammon]

You can also make a room that seals up when the PCs walk into it and pumps in Green Ring.

[blakkie]

[Zeel De Mort]

Regarding wards and where they can be placed: p174 of SR3 flat out says that they "must be placed on a non-living thing (walls, a vehicle, rocks and so on). A ward cannot be moved from its physical component to another location".

So.. if you ward a room that has doors, you'd assume the door gets warded too. What about when you open the door? Is the doorway warded? But... there's nothing physical there if you've just swung the door open. In fact the two are seperated, so that's broken the rule already. Does the ward follow the door when it opens, leaving a nice handy gap for dual natured guys to walk through? Can I pull the door off its hinges and take the ward with me? :D

I doubt it! But I mean whichever way you rule it, wards don't quite follow the rules in the book. Opening the door either leaves an area of open space (the doorway) warded, which the rules say you can't do. Or it moves the ward along with the door, which makes the ward much less useful.

Hmm.

Also I guess since it's contact OR inhilation, you'd need blood and air filters at rating 8 (assuming not much bioware) and a body of about... 7 or 8 to mostly be able to ignore it. Or you could just get genetic immunisation, much cheaper in every way, as long as it's only green ring you're worried about... :)

[danbot37]

Yea, but a hermetic circle is warded, and the only physical component that the ward is placed around is usually a line of sand or something. So it doesn't have to be a wall, I don't think, and many novels (not quite canon I suppose, but close enough) have wards blocking the astral and not the physical plane (but there still has to be something physical to outline the ward)

[Kanada Ten]

Hermetic Circles act as an Astral Barrier when in use, and a Shamanic Lodge is always one (the the latter is also a complete structure).

[danbot37]

yea, I edited it to hermetic circle... oops. lol Guess I was combining astral barrier and ward in my head... oops again

[RangerJoe]

I seem to recall MiTS or BBB having rules about shamanic lodges that are not complete structures (e.g., a forest clearing for certain nature spirits, a rock hollow/grotto, etc.). In such a case, I wonder if the lodge astral barrier functions like a hermetic circle dome?

[Namergon]

[Zeel De Mort]

That's fine, and is the way I'd rule it too (i.e. that the ward covers the doorway, regardless of whether the door is open or not). But then what if the doorway takes up most or all of the wall, or what if you blow the walls away completely? At what point does the ward cease to exist? If a room consists of nothing more than a skeleton of iron girders, can I put a ward round it if I define the shape it should take at the time? What about if I just put four rocks at the corners of where my "room" should be, is that enough? What if someone later kicks those rocks around a bit? :)

[Xirces]

I can't help but think of bouncy castles or... caravans.

Can a ward be put on something inflatable or mobile?