Casting through a ward, Should I call shenanigans? Options

[Tanegar]

OK, at the last session one of my players asked me a question I wasn't ready for. He wanted to know, if you can poke your finger through a ward, can you channel mana through your fingertip and cast a spell on a target inside the ward as if your whole body was inside.

The situation is this: there's an item that the PCs need to acquire, located in an office. The office is warded, and the ward is constructed in such a way that its boundaries are coterminous (I think that's the word I want) with the office walls; that is, the boundaries of the ward are inside the walls (and floor, and ceiling). The player wants to drill a hole in the ceiling, have the magician PC (different player) poke his finger through the hole, and thereby through the ward, and cast Influence to make someone in the office toss the item out the window. There was also some discussion of a pair of mage-sight goggles; I think he wants to slip the fiber-optic cable through the hole, and cast the spell that way.

I said yes, but really the question caught me off guard. The more I think about it, the more I think it's a bad idea to allow this. I'm not aware of any rule or fluff that says spells emanate from a particular body part. I also think it trivializes wards as a defense against magic.

Dumpshock hive mind, should I call shenanigans on this player?

[Jaid]

i wouldn't allow it. your finger is not casting the spell, you are.

[bannockburn]

My quick and dirty ruling would have been: Poke more than 50% of your aura through, and you can cast your spell.

[sk8bcn]

I Wonder if I would go the 50% aura or 100%. Maybe 100% because I feel like there are some border effects that I m not thinking about atm but that would arise later on.

[Sendaz]

I would be inclined toward so long as the aura of the mage and the ward are intersecting, any spells being cast would suffer the normal effects of trying to cast 'through' the ward as the ward would be trying to disrupt normal mana flow. Plus the creator of the ward would probably be alerted to the fact something is messing with the ward.


So they either have to be inside or outside the ward, trying to straddle it like this is just going to cause headaches.

Because if you do let them play peekaboo like this, imagine if you have a corp mage stand in a very tight ludicrously high force wards (set by the head of mage security so attacks alert them accordingly) just slightly smaller than arm length across right behind a wall of clear highly bullet resistant plas-glass where he basically sticks one hand through the ward to cast at the players freely and then pulls their hand back in to get the full defense benefits of the ward against any incoming direct spells while the plas-glass helps take the brunt of any bullets and soften any indirects up a bit before it hits the ward.
So they probably would not need to use a lot of their own spell defense to boot.

Hmmm.....actually......

[Mantis]

I'd call shenanigans on it. It's not violating any written rule but it sure is pushing against the spirit of those rules. As Sendaz points out, a good rule of thumb in these situations is to ask the players if they'd like the idea as much if the tables were turned. Usually the answer is no.

[SpellBinder]

I'm with Sendaz on this one. On the wrong side or intersecting the ward means casting through the ward, even if your head's on the inside of it for proper LOS.

Now if you wanna really mess with your players make it a charged ward.

[Bearclaw]

I'd say you have to poke your head through anything you want to cast through.
My logic is: Using mage-site goggles, nothing but your vision has to be within the line of sight. So, if you can stick a fiber-optic tube through something and cast through it, you can stick your head through something and cast through it. With the obvious limitations of hole size and neck length.

[tisoz]

At first I thought using the fiber optic cable was a great idea then I got to thinking about it. The fiber optic cable would give one LOS but when the spell is cast it still needs to travel through the ward. I'm not sure how that is handled in the edition you are using but I have a feeling it is the issue the player was trying to circumvent.

As far as the "turnabout is fair play" scenario, I know a few GMs who think sticking a magician in a high security room/vault with wards and spirits protecting them then using fiber optic lines to cast spells into distant locations is a fine idea and SOP. Maybe since it is the caster's wards or the wards are attuned to the caster he takes no penalties casting across it.