Hey guys I'm calling to you veterans who've played previous editions - I am playing a first ed. module where the "bad guy" is supposed to track a kidnapped person using hair etc. (ritual sample). However, can this be done in 4th edition, and will keeping the victim underground thwart it? How about a ward?

I know I can change it if I want to, but then again I want to throw a fight at the PCs as they seldom has any fights except where they ambush someone and the fight is over in a couple of initative passes.

So how should I play this out? Will being underground protect the party from being found?

p.29, Street Magic

OK, that answers it I guess. So being underground doesen't help at all, and wards only help to some degree.

And as I read it from Street magic you now can go through the earth's aura (albeit with difficulty) even though the BBB says you can't.

It seems like the Shaman in my game still needs to summon a spirit to do the astral tracking while he does the ritual spellcasting. If he simply wanted to cast a spell using material link he could do so without summoning a spirit, but then it would be more difficulty to do the tracking afterwards.