I’m trying to get my head around wards.

First since wards’ stationary requirement obeys Galilean Relativity and can essentially move it creates the question. What happens when two wards impinge on each other?

How could this happen you ask? Well, imagine a group of runners use a Bulldog Step Van and place a rectangular ward in the cargo area. Now compared to the inertial reference frame of the van the ward is stationary, however compared to the ground the ward is mobile. Corp A created a dome ward over an air vent to their underground facility to prevent astral intruders from swimming in through the vent, it’s anchored to a large rock that would take a serious force to move. Physical intruders are prevented by other means. Now the bulldog picked up the runners closer to the corp.’s building than they originally intended but now they are breaking out guns blazing. They drive past the air vent and wham the two wards impinge on each other’s space at speed.

Now the rule is Wards are Exclusive (p124 SM). So something has to give. I imagine there are a few things that could happen.

1) Both wards fail.
2) One ward fails,
a. The moving ward fails.
b. The higher force wins.
c. Opposed test Force vs. Force.
d. The older ward wins.

I can’t accept 2a, as the moving ward fails means that there is a preferred reference frame and that one of the wards is the moving ward and the other ward is the resting ward. But each ward would physically see the other as the moving ward, so 2a implies 1.

The “Wards are Exclusive” section states that if you attempt to create a ward that overlaps another ward then the newer ward simply fails. So that may imply 2c is the correct rule, but that seems silly, a purely temporal distinction like that has no similarity to the general game mechanics.

I think c is probably what I would use in the rare case this happens in my game, but what do you think?

1) Must be wrong, because that would allow force 100 wards to be defeated by a force 1 warded rock. This would be so incredibly bad for the game that it must be wrong. Yes, that is a metagame reason, but this is a game, and it's important.
2a) I agree with you completely. It's bad.
2b) I think this sounds perfectly reasonable.
2c) I like this even better than 2b, since it will generally imply 2b, but has some dice rolling, which I think is good.
2d) Definitely not, because it also allows an attack similar to in case 1, it just requires that someone create a force 1 ward and maintain it for a long, long time, and it eventually becomes the ultimate ward-killer. It's not quite as bad as case 1, but it's close.

So in summary, I like 2b and 2c. They'll generally have the same results anyway, so it's a matter of how much rolling you want to do.
2b does give you a minor issue to consider, what if the forces are equal? Do they both fail, or do you come up with a secondary tie-breaker consideration? 2c might have the same consideration if they tie successes, but you could also just say that in the event of a tie they keep rolling until there is a clear victor.

i would treat it like dragging active foci through a ward, personally.

2C is probably best.

I go for 2c

SR3's magic book (Awakenings? or was that SR2?) had a format for this. The actual subject was foci and manifested spirits being forced through a ward, such as if they were on an elevator passing into a warded area. If I recall correctly, it was a force vs. force test. If the focus or spirit won, they passed through, though the owner of the ward probably knew that something had penetrated the ward. If it failed, then the focus was deactivated and spirits were disrupted. You could use this mechanic and say that if the truck ward wins, it punches through the larger ward as per anything breaking through in astral combat, perhaps weakening the other ward by its force. That would leave the ward in place but weakened. Sure they could put up a stronger ward to begin with, but it would be harder for the van to overcome it too, which might be the point if the van's ward is only temporary anyway.

I would either go for 2c if the issue was forced (ie. the van stopped within the confines of the stationary Ward), or otherwise just say that the Wards' Astral Forms just slid around each other, as normal Astral Forms tend to do if given the chance.

In my opinion, there would be too many Wards in the Sixth World for it to be viable for them to be constantly clashing.

The newer ward collapsing is really meant in cases where a ward is trying to be built in a place where it would be overlapping with an existing ward. In this case, the newer ward just never reaches cohesion.

In a case of a ward in motion moving through another ward for a short period of time, I agree with the idea of using the "pass-through" rules in the magic chapter of SR4. In a case where a ward in motion moves through a ward and then stays within its area of protection, I'd go with an opposed Force test to determine which ward survives.

Yay! I feel all warm and fuzzy inside now ... sorta

So wards are like soap bubbles if they are moving through eachother they just smoosh their way through, it's just if one stops and tries to coexist in the same reference frame (i.e. van coming to a stop inside the ward) then they fight it out.

How about this:

Neither collapses, but only the outer one counts for the duration of the overlap, even if it's of lower force.


So CorpA puts a force 3 ward over it's air vent, to keep out the astra riff-raff, it covers a dome-shaped area with a 10m radius.

The runners park the force 12 warded bulldog right next to the vent.

While the bulldog is inside the ward, the runners benefit from being inside a force 3 ward.

sticky points:

Parking halfway through the ward. Which ward is considered the 'outer' ward?

Is there a test required to carry an active foci out of the van after you're already 'breached' the ward with the van. I would imagine that the simplest solution would be to treat leaving the warded bulldog as trying to enter the warded area, despite the fact that you're already in it. However, there shouldn't be a test to move from outer warded area to the inner warded area, since the inner ward is effectivly useless when it is the inner ward.

Yes, my recent diversion into the metaphyics of wards was brought on my the FAQ and the implications.

It's perhaps somewhat important to allow for mobile wards to protect things like buildings (a 100 story building at the top moves quite a long way just swaying in the wind). If you don't allow referance frames that differ from the referance frame of the earth you can not ward a room in the top of a building. Things like warded airplanes are probably important to national security also etc. I think this is why that came up.

*deleted*

Can wards move? what's to keep us from keeping a "ward rock" in our pockets at all time?

The fact that it is moving with respect to its reference, which is, in the case of the rock, the air around it.

Something that wants to be moved has to be at least 2m in diameter and must use its walls as the location of the wards walls.

Well, thats good enough for me.