Why not? The book doesn't say you cannot be both spotter and leader at the same time. In fact the book doesn't say you cannot cast a ritual spell with a team with a grand total of 1 person.

Or is it again "intent" that Ritual Spellcasting be done by more than 1 person and the spotter and leader cannot be the same person?

I understand that. The problem is that this intention appears to be based upon an understanding of Magic that is stuck in a previous edition's mentality and therefore completely inappropriate.

In previous editions a ward was a purely astral construct that fought other astral constructs trying to pass through it. Regular spellcasting (and for that matter, ritual spellcasting) started at the caster(s), jumped up into the astral plane, walked over to the target, and then jumped back into the physical plane. But it doesn't work that way anymore.

Largely it doesn't work that way because of interactivity issues. A physical caster is not supposed to be able to affect an astral object and vice versa with anything - especially not with spells. And so the old system in which you could at the very least trigger the alarm function of a purely astral ward by standing on the physical plane and casting a spell at a physical target on the other side (thereby affecting a purely astral thing with a spell cast by a purely physical caster) was a big no-no. Indeed, the entirety of the Shadowrun magic system has undergone a series of minor and major fixes to prevent those interactivity issues from cropping up.

And one of the ways it has done this is to redefine how Wards work entirely. No longer are they an astral construct exclusively. They are dual natured. On the physical plane they are an invisible selective barrier that blocks some things and not other things. But in that capacity they are still just a barrier.

So now we come to the Ritual Spellcasting angle. It's been redefined. It doesn't jump a spell up into the astral plane and then tunnel back down at the target. Nothing does that. It starts on the physical and ends on the physical and it's always on the physical at every intermediate step along the way. And that's why your intention flat doesn't work at all.

Because from the standpoint of a physical construct (such as a spell cast from the physical, whether ritually cast or not), a ward is just a barrier. It's a selective barrier that selectively barriers against spells (whether ritually cast or not), but that's not actually different from a completely non-selective barrier that works against everything: like a plasticrete wall.

And that's the problem here. You're thinking old edition rules but you're writing for the new edition, where things don't work that way anymore!

--

Fundamentally, the niggling astral mechanics are the important stuff here. They don't work the way you're thinking about them working, and they haven't since 4th edition hit the shelves.

So a character can bypass a plasticrete wall with Masking?

This is actually the key point right here: Mana Spells don't spend any time on the astral plane any more.

• A Manabolt cast on the astral plane spends its entire time on the Astral Plane. It can only target things on the astral plane, and is only impeded by things on the astral plane.
• A Manabolt cast on the physical plane spends its entire time on the Physical Plane. It can only target things on the physical plane, and is only impeded by things on the physical plane.

If you cast a Mana Barrier it affects only the plane you are casting it from. If you cast it astrally it becomes an opaque wall on the astral that blocks just about everything. But someone on the physical cast just cast spells past it as if it wasn't there because it isn't. If you castit on the physical it becomes a transparent wall that only acts as a solid barrier to spells, active foci, and dual creatures. But the important thing is that it is still just a solid barrier.

And that's the point. The whole point. Once a spell is cast from the physical and ignores barriers there's nothing for a Ward or a mana barrier to interact with. The spell isn't an astral construct because it spends its time on the physical. And while a ward or a physical mana barrier is a barrier - it is no more of a barrier than the plasticrete wall is.

From the standpoint of the physical spell, the ward is just a barrier. While you could make claim that the ward stops a ritual spell, a window or fence would as well. There's unity across those concepts. Since Ward = Wall from the standpoint of a spell cast on the physical, a ruling that wards stop ritual magic has to also include making ritual spellcasting completely worthless to stay compatible with 4th edition Magic.

Wards interact with ritual spells only in the way that plasticrete does. No more, no less. If a ritual sending bypasses the plasticrete, it bypasses the Ward. If it does not bypass the ward, it does not get to bypass the plasticrete.

-Frank

If ritual spells do, in fact, work the way Demonseed Elite says, then I would have to agree with you. It looks like this might be another one of those things in SR4 it would be best not to think more the 5 seconds about, and just accept whatever absurd conclusion the rules bring you to, without trying to rationalize it.

I understand Frank's analysis and his points about using the previous editions rules. What I don't seem to be clear on is the conclusions he is drawing from the physical part of the dual-natured ward being selective vs. non-selective, and how that pertains to the points he is trying to prove. I still think a ritual spell is not being cast through the warded area and I don't think the fluff supports the rules. Even with Demonseed's clarification the rules don't 100% point to his intent. There isn't anything there that states specifically, without a shadow of a doubt, that wards inhibit ritual spellcasting. He obviously is the writer of these rules though, and if he had the chance to rewrite this section he most certainly would have made this more clear. Though if he had made these clarifications, we would be here instead debating whether or not wards inhibiting ritual spellcasting makes any sense based upon what is in the book. I say they don't, but accept this is the way the rules were intended to be.

EDIT: This was posted before I had the chance to see Frank's clarifications.

Indeed, see SR4v3 p. 185: 'Should a magician try to cast a spell through a barrier, the target of the spell adds the Force of the barrier to its resistance dice pool.'

As a ward is invisible on the physical plane, it does not break LoS, however - neither does it on the astral plane... it just does 'impose a visual penalty'.

Hmmm... I *think* there is one aspect missing from that argument: Targeting.
Non-ritual targeting in LOS and in that case a wall, fence, window either is (or isn't) adjusted for.
In ritual magic the ritual link is the target and since it is the targeting mechanism. I have several different thoughts here.
1) Why does it seem implausible that the ritual link serves to counter all non-magical barriers for physical spells?
2) Why can the link not "create an astral thread to the target" that the physical spell grounds upon/follows/whatever to reach the target? (Yes sounds a lot like spell grounding from previous editions, but in the case of ritual magic it really *feels* right..)

Just to clarity: We are just talking about physical (and not mental) spells, right?

Exactly. The. Bloody. Point.

You just quoted, bolded, and emphasized the entire point of using a link instead of a spotter. To get around security measures! Measures that prevent a spotter from being there! Measures that would interfer with the casting! Measures just like a ward!

But wards aren't barriers, they are more like polarized volumes of aspected background count.

...but since space is a mana void, the link would be unable to locate the target in the first place. Even if it could, the targeted spell would most likely fizzle.

Not if you had a material, sympathetic, or symbolic link. Only background counts (including the polarized aspected background count of a ward) covering the caster and the target matter with those links.

No.

Mostly because it does not at any point say that it does that. It says that you can target your victim without Line of Sight, and that's it. That either bypasses the physicality of things which would otherwise be in your Line of Sight or it does not. For it to do something more complicated than that (ignore the physicality of some but not all things that would be in the LOS), there would have to be some rules text to support that.

But there is not.

It did indeed work that way in editions past. This is in fact "Grounding" and it was removed. You can't have no grounding and have grounding at the same time.

While I will agree with you that there were times when grounding felt right - overall it was a terrible thing and I'm glad it's gone. But you can't go half way on that. You have to let go of the things that feel right when they let in so many things that feel so very wrong.

-Frank

Are you trying to imply that from the quote it follows that wards are ignored? If so, that doesn't follow at all from the quote.

If not, what are you trying to imply?

But a ward isn't a flat 2D mana barrier. It is a three-dimensional barrier with a rather large volume. The volume protected is not surrounded by the ward, it is literally inside the ward. In the case of people protected by wards, it is not that there is a wall between the target and the caster, it is that the target is inside the wall. Which is why you can't layer wards.

You're mixing your terms on some level. Wards are two-dimensional objects, typically not flat but rather curved and shaped, that enclose three-dimensional spaces ("the warded area"). The volume protected is surrounded by the ward, kinda by definition if it's three-dimensional. Since a ward is two-dimensional, things cannot be inside it, only behind it or surrounded by it. The ward doesn't permeate the volume; it simply creates a barrier, as mentioned by the authors earlier in the thread.

More to the point, to the best of my knowledge, wards are never explicitly said to be three-dimensional only; their size is listed as cubic meters, but they're also listed as special cases of barriers, such as that created by the Mana Barrier and Physical Barrier spells, which can be two-dimensional walls as well as domes/spheres. I really don't see a reason to say why wards couldn't be walls if you just wanted to block a passageway without enclosing a space.

Think of it as a box; a chest, in which you store clothes, say. The chest as a whole (the warded area) is three-dimensional; the walls of the chest (the ward itself) are effectively two-dimensional. The fact that the clothes are in the chest doesn't affect them much beyond the effects of the walls on things trying to enter and exit the space.

So if ritual spells don't have to travel to the astral why would the spotter need to asense the target? You need to be astrally active to do that.

No, you're thinking of background count. "Polarized" means the ward only defends against targeting links coming in, not targetting links originating inside the ward.

Anyone who is protected by a spirit will most likely be be protected by a ward. Why would someone not have their monster spirit whip up the biggest ward they can when they know they are being magically hunted?

Ward your armored limo.

...however if the target is in the mana void of space, the spell itself would fail to go off since magic does not function in space.

...unless they changed that rule too.

...then it is the end of the world as we know it.

Touché.

Spells and other magic does function in Voids, as long as the rating is high enough, say, at least 13.

Yes, that's what I said. A mana void is a type of background count (negative). Therefore if the target is floating in the void of space, with no plants or living atmosphere around, then he'll be protected.

And why can't the law of sympathy provide a method in which to avoid the protection of a ward?

Because the link still must cross that Ward.

Wards do not effect sympathetic links... they DO effect ritual spellcasting... (nothing says they dont, they do effect regular spell casting, nothing in ritual changes that rule, so they use normal spell casting).

Yes your link is uneffected if target it warded or not; however the ritual casting WOULD be effected by the ward.

I like that... 'They're barriers that stop things from going through them.'

I wonder... wouldn't that include instructions from the caster to the mana on how to shape itself since the ward interferes with mana?

Something is connecting from the symbolic link / spotter to the target. That connection, whether it's LOS or a ritual link is going to be interfered with due to the fact that mana manipulation (aka: spellcasting) is going on.

In fact, here's how I picture it... ritual team has a symbolic link. They cast their spell at the item/object. Now we know the item is somehow connected to the target. The mana manipulation is sent to the target via the item. The link connecting the item and the target has to go through the ward. There's no 'shortcut'. The reason why is that the symbolic link isn't the target. It's merely something magically connected to the target. The reason it goes through the ward is that wards cover 3D spaces.

I also agree that even if a spotter were to get inside the ward, the connection between the spotter and the rest of the team would suffer the same problem as using a symbolic link. The connection would be interfered with due to the ward.

It's easy enough for me to see. I can see how others would interpret it differently though. Though I would dare say that some are forgetting to see the forest because of all the trees.

I suppose I should give the same advice my college instructor does... don't get your mind wrapped around the axle.

I feel silly quoting myself but I really would like an answer to my question.

...so that means a ritual team on the earth's surface not only can locate a person in say an installation at an L point using a sympathetic link, but also nuke him with a spell effectively ignoring the void effect of space entirely? I thought that only large planetary bodies with lots of life forms were capable of generating a Gaiasphere strong enough to allow spells to function normally.

...I need to do some research on this.

Frank, for this quote, i dub thee awesome.


Sir Awesome Mc Trollpants. Of the kickass brigade.


Pity the group that ever casts a force 18 manabolt at someone with reflecting...

Awesome. I suppose that since wound modifiers aren't on that table, they don't apply either. Right?

And I don't see an astrally perceiving character's -2 pool modifer on the ranged combat modifiers table, so I guess it doesn't apply there either. Right?