can wards be used to make 'magic armor?' can I overcast a force 12 ward on my armor and then a force 12 ward on my shield and get +24 dice vs. magic spells that had to pass thru the wards to effect me? I have a player posing this question and would like to know the communities take on it.

thanks

In order to give extra dice for spell defense, the ward would have to cover/provide a barrier around the whole person, wouldn't it? Armor doesn't do that until you get into full military grade stuff.

A further complication I read in another thread is that wards are made of flat planes of magical energy (with some argument about domes), so boxes are easy to shape (eg. rooms), but complex shapes such as the human body are not easy to make.

As was clarified in the other thread (and the FAQ) wards have a minimum volume around a physical anchor which pretty much negates the warded armor. Wards also require some form of delimitation mark (though this is in the rules it is unclear and will be clarified in upcoming errata), which cannot move in relation to the physical anchor (although both can move if they remain at the same relative distance).

Answer: Try a personal mana barrier spell instead.

Can rooms be warded without the ward collapsing everytime a door is open? If not, then it would imply a flexible delimitation mark.

The ward holds to the shape of the room not the door. So when you open the door you still have a ward accross the doorway. A ward need not neccesarily follow a physical structure at all.

However street magic is much more specific about the options of ward shapes and that you can't move the things. Though maybe Synner knows something and you'll be able to move them in the future, which would be nice because I like having warded vehicles in my game without having to always have a magician somewhere sustaining a mana barrier. Though maybe it's just as well.

look into the FAQ (though it's "only" the FAQ, not RAW).

the explicit example of the warded vehicle is given, IIRC. you can ward cars (or containers - which is clearly an option for high-security-transports).

but in no way i would allow an warded armor. it would have to enclose the person completly, which would require an security-armor at least.

the shield would work - if you don't move it. look at the example about the rock used an an anchor for a ward. that works only until the rock is moved (even a little bit) - the the ward collapses. and so would the ward around the shield.

maybe you should slap your player with a newspaper and advice him to play Cyberpunk if he doesn't like the magic aspect of SR.

Ah right the FAQ. I thought I'd read somewhere you could do that and then I forgot where, and figured that it was a pre-street magic source. Thanks SCARed. Although it really doesn't line up with RAW at all, I don't care, it works. It's on the website so it's cannon if not RAW right?

Really I'm betting the reason for all the annoyance with wards that street magic threw at us was because people were making warded bullets, melee weapons, armor and the like.

At any rate if you could ward armor you wouldn't need an enviroseal. They explicitly say that if you punch holes in something holding a ward it's still OK (and by extension you could have holes to start with).

It looks like your snags are the minimum size and "no complex geometry" clauses.

I think the closest you could come is wandering around Solid Snake style in a warded box.

I voted no, but there is one caveat. If the person in the armor were to inhabit it as if it were a very small, man shaped house, and never move, then the ward would work. As soon as s/he moves it is all over.