[X] My Assistant

[Wothanoz]

See, now you are talking. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

See, I'm not crazy man! Well, I might be crazy, but I ain't dumb.

I look at it like this: if mages are about as common as docs or lawyers, they probably charge reasonably similar rates for their time. So, expensive. I'd say that a magic 6 magician can probably charge a whole lot of money an hour, probably something in the realm of $100, to $200 an hour, at the least. After-all, a lot of smaller lawyer tasks can actually be handled by paralegals, smaller doctor stuff can be handled by nurses and PAs. But with magic, there's not a way to diffuse those with talent. You can have an understanding of the metaphysics as a mundane, but you can't actually do any of those tasks. So you have the lowest, weakest mages doing magical research and drudge work, with competent mages doing security, and your elite mages doing whatever the fuck they want.

A typical office building floor is around 4m in height, with a 3.7mx3.7mx3.9m cube being 53 cubic meters, or just about the size of an area a magician can ward per magic point. So that's about a 12 foot by 12 foot square, up to the ceiling in most offices, which isn't really big. And it takes (force)hours to ward that area.

So a magic 4, ritual sorcery 4 "security mage" puts up a barrier, which can be as large as 7.8x7.8m square. He's throwing 8 dice, which means 2.64 hits in general. So, he can reliably ward force 1 or 2 wards that will last for about 2 weeks. So for $100 or $200 you can get a cheap ward put up over your house to keep out roaming magical problems. It's not great, but it's not bad either. A Force 3 ward on the other hand, is gonna be a bit trickier and dicier and he might not always succeed. So he might have do it twice. A force 3 barrier is probably around $600 for your house, because he might not get it on the first go. Or he might bring in an assistant.

Now, a team of 10 of those security mages could ward an area as big as 78mx78m, and the leader's dice pool would be something like 12 dice, due to teamwork, or 4 success in general. Now they can reliably put up force 2 or 3 barriers that last for two weeks. Force 4 and force 5 are worth attempting, though force 5 starts pushing it. Force 1 and 2 barriers can probably be erected one after another until drain starts penalizing the ritual, at which point you rest for an hour. Force 3 and 4 wards are going to require a bit of rest, in addition to more time.

So i do kinda expect lots of places to be secured with force 1 and 2 wards, basically the astral equivalent of a fence with a "private property: no trespassing" sign on it.

[Lobo0705]

Not to mention that since your form is a glowing colorful object, a couple of spirits which take seconds to summon and last until dawn/dusk work just as well in keeping out Astral Intruders - since even if the intruder can defeat the spirits, it only takes them a single Free Action to alert their summoner that someone is there, and now the facility goes on alert.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Not to mention that since your form is a glowing colorful object, a couple of spirits which take seconds to summon and last until dawn/dusk work just as well in keeping out Astral Intruders - since even if the intruder can defeat the spirits, it only takes them a single Free Action to alert their summoner that someone is there, and now the facility goes on alert.

Indeed... Security (Matrix, Physical, and Astral) is a many layered thing. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)