If somebody picks up a material link for the ward creator, then masks himself while perceiving, and another person assenses that person, can that assensing person now mask himself as the ward creator? If you duplicate an aura, it's indistinguishable from the original one if done right, and you can do it right if you have a material link.

Same thing for symbolic links. Does it work?

what do material and symbolic links have to do with it?

anyways, here's my take on masking to spoof wards from someone who is masked to look like the ward's creator: it should be possible (and is an excellent way to spread "pictures" of a person's aura incidentally), but while someone who has seen the original is unlimited in the number of hits they can get, a person copying from a copy should be limited to as many hits as the copy gets on their masking test...

(did that make sense? basically, it's kinda like how the forgery skill works... if you are working from an innacurate 'picture', then the best you can do is to look as accurate as the picture. well, barring truly phenomenal luck, at least).

Luck may not enter into it. A skilled artist may be able to take the features done by a less skilled artist and make them more realistic through knowledge of the human form or a truer perspective as examples. I may make a drawing and have the perspective look unnatural but a superior artist can take the cues from what I drew to make the picture better.

This of course leads to te case of a police scetch artist. Could a person who can assense a target describe the aura to a different magician with masking and verbally transmit the aura...

i'll put it another way:

Bob the guy with sketching skill sketches a picture of Joe. it's a kinda crappy picture. he misses minor details, and ultimately it only looks kind of like Joe.

Jack the other guy with sketching skill has never seen Joe. but he has seen Bob's picture of Joe, so he sorta knows what Joe looks like. maybe Jack is an incredibly skilled artist too, and just happens to be having a good day (spends edge, rolls well, or whatever). he can certainly make a picture based on the picture of Joe, and make it look more realistic or whatever.... but can he sketch a picture that looks more like Joe without ever having seen Joe to know what Bob missed in his picture? probably not.

I'd go with Jaid.

Okay I'll put it another way too:

Bob the guy with sketching skill sketches a picture of Joe. it's a kinda crappy picture. He focuses on details that make a person distinguishing, a scar, a mole, receeding hairline, and such. Ultimately it only looks kind of like Joe.

Jack the other guy with sketching skill has never seen Joe, but he has seen Bob's picture of Joe, so he sorta knows what Joe looks like. However Jack has more skill, he understands things about people's faces from experience. He understands perspective, the likely ratios between facial features and the layout of a well recognizable face. He cleans up those features in Bob's poor scetch, and it's suddenly much more recognizable.

Recognizable pictures are not only about being able to see the original. Otherwise anyone could copy anything just by looking long eough, but the true talent that comes through in the art is a flair for noticing things like perspective, ratio, and placement. Not everyone can do it, but someone skilled could duplicate a scetch, but fix up some of the details and make a more convincing image.

Forensic scetch artists scetch pictures of people they've never seen before and make recognizable images. I'm not saying that there should be an unlimited ability on the part of the second artist. But it can be better, and thus I think you are wrong.