Tarantula has been blowing my mind with the symbolic link plugin for the Sympathetic Linking metamagic power (Street Magic p. 29). The symbolic link table on p29 lists thresholds for having 1) assensed the target, 2) met the target, and 3) "personally unfamiliar with the target".

I expected the power to have a limitation of having to assense the target, maybe at least a requirement to have seen the target with your own eyes, but you can make the link with people you know nothing about! As a player this scares the crap out of me, and as a GM this pisses me off.

A mage could just make up a name at random, "Jefferson P. Haysworth", create the symbolic link and bam, if there's anyone in the whole world named Jefferson P. Haysworth, he drops dead with a manabolt to the head. The mage doesn't even need to know if such a person exists and he doesn't even need to have a vague description of the target. The symbolic link with people you don't know is threshold 16, but that turned out to be no problem.

Also it seems that the symbolic link threshold only pertains to the creation of the symbolic link, not to the actual ritual spellcasting test. As Frank Trollman pointed out in other threads, even Wards don't seem to offer any protection to ritual magic. So a mage with Magic 9 can drop an force 18 spell from anywhere on the planet and the target gets only his Counterspelling dice to defend himself (he can also use Edge, but so can the caster and Edge runs out eventually).

Is the president pissing you off? Have a pet peeve against a celebrity? No problem, they're just an easily-buildable symbolic link away from a guaranteed kill.

Am I missing something?

You have to have some form of representation of the subject, but if you didn't have some sort of representation of the subject there'd usually be minimal reason for you to go to all the trouble of killing someone with ritual sorcery.

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That being said, yes. Ritual Sorcery through symbolic links is a reasonably fool proff way for extremely powerful magicians to cause part of the world to catch fire. It's the magical equivalent of a Thor Shot. And like most high-end magic, it's substantially less impressive than the non-magical equivalent but a lot more available to Shadowrunners.

As for defense? Throw an Edge point for Hand of God to save you from the initial volley. A second shot won't be coming for at least an hour - you now have one hour to track them down and counter attack.

-Frank

I don't know, if this worked at all, I don't see why all the greater dragons of the world don't suddenly drop dead from making too many enemies.

Well, for one thing Frank is wrong about wards.

For another, even if you are personally unfamiliar with a target, you still need to have an idea of what the specific target that you're going after looks like - making up a name at random doesn't work. You could be trying to target Harvey the rabbit by that logic. You can't create a symbolic likeness if you have no idea what the subject looks like - you need a photographic, a holopic, something to begin with.

Now, no matter what type of ritual sorcery is being used against you, you have a chance to detect it, which gives you the opportunity to locate yourself inside a warded area and/or hire a magician to track the casting back to its source. Provided you know what's going on.

Finally, if the targer is a magician character with the Flux metamagic, he or she can terminally disrupt the ritual link.

First, this was with a specialy crafted ritual assassination group. Its an extended (16, 1 day) test to make the symbol. Then, the ritual needs to be cast. Unless the leader has a magic of 11, then the target will likely have some forwarning about the incomming attack. Also, all members doing the ritual must be of the same tradition. This makes it very useful for "build a team to kill something" but otherwise, is very hard to accomplish.

But Flux only works for magic hours a day, and only puts off the targetting. Not to mention even if you maintain it for too long to stop the link, you may suffer penalties for having a disrupted aura.

Also, ritual kill teams seem to be able to hurry tests to make spells take place in an hour, not enough time for a target to even sense it.

Ancient, with a magic of 11, the ritual resolves after 1 hour. The test to know you are being targetted with ritual magic occurs at 1 hour. Therefore, you won't get to know you're being targetted until you're dead.

This just doesn't make sense to me. Magic 11, while incredibly high, is not exactly unheard of in the SR world. Harle is afterall, initiated into high double digits. Any one of those are unstoppable ritual killing machines.

Aztechnology should be unhindered with its plans if it has all its resources at its disposal towards creating 3 of these teams.

Other ways to survive, burn edge for critical success on resistance. Burn edge for survival if it would kill you. High counterspelling/shielding/reflecting can also be useful to survive it. Not to mention having medical assistance around.

Let's keep a few things in mind.

First, your ritual group is either operating under a -6 die penalty or burning up a lot of Karma making symbolic link foci.

Second, you have to hope you're killing the subject in one go, otherwise they're now warned. Even if you do kill the target on the first try, you still have to deal with the astral signature.

Third, Spell Defense works as normal, including variations like Shielding, Absorption, and Reflecting. Important mundane targets undoubtedly have teams of magicians sitting around them with no other purpose that providing spell defense. Great Dragons can probably handle that themselves.

Wow. If you have 3 teams that can probably kill anyone on the planet with about a day's work, you'll be unbeatable? Since when?

Those teams could each kill someone every day. Every single day, and it wouldn't even slow a major corporation down. The board of Ares Macrotechnology has twenty guys on it. You kill 3 of their top men and they'll move up three more guys from management and move on with their lives. And they'll do it tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that.

And while they're doing it, they'll drop a tungsten rod from space on Tenochtitlan. And they'll do the same to Veracruz, and Copan, and your face.

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Assassination, no matter how likely to succeed, is really no substitute at all for weapons of mass destruction. Aztechnology does have the death of Ghostwalker on speed dial. But actually using that button would piss off the other power players to the point where they'd use their big guns. And Ghost Walker just isn't important enough to risk people jumping you with the Wild Hunt, detonating nuclear weapons on your territory, and spraying your fields with gamma anthrax. It's just not.

-Frank

The principal argument to the contrary being that all spells go through the barrier if you're in a warded volume.

do the symbolic links get used up like the material links do?

Frank's argument essentially being that a ritual-cast spell does not have a path to the target per se, which is the crux of our disagreement-as I say it must have a path.

Because nowhere is it said that ritual magic is through the metaplanes. Also, spells can't reach the metaplanes at all, and there are no spells from the metaplanes entering astral or normal space.

Who says you can't see it on the astral? All spells have an aura.

So you can be walking down the street with astral perception and see a glowing trail leading from a ritualist in New York all the way to his target in Japan?

No, but you could see it zip past as it's cast.

I find this whole thing counter-intuitive. In my opinion, a Ward should act, you know, like a Ward. It should somehow magically protect you from Arcane Bad Things™ of all varieties.

If this is indeed the case, then I believe that this should be made clear in the rules. If it is not the case, then there needs to be clearly defined guidelines as to when a Ward is not a Ward.

Wards don't protect you from arcane bad things if:

• They are cast from inside your ward.
• They are Indirect Combat Spells cast through your ward (although in that case whatever wall your ward is attached to will generally help even if the ward does not).
• They are passive adept abilities.
• They are cast onto you using a variant topology in which they don't actually get LOS drawn through anything.

-Frank

I had a long and intricate post, but what it boils down to is this: I agree with Fortune.

Game balance, in-world logic and history, and any sense of ever needing hit men in the world who AREN'T ritual magicians indicate that wards should affect ritual casting.

And, as a hasty edit, the wording for wards interacting with spells is as follows:
"In some cases, a spell, focus, spirit, or even a character may unintentionally be forces into a situation where either they or the barrier must give." It doesn't mention LOS at all.

i don't like the idea that wards don't protect you from ritual casting, but Frank has a point: if the spell has to pass through a ward, why doesn't it have to pass through all the structures between the caster and the target? hell, if the target is a significant enough distance away, why doesn't the curvature of the earth come into play?

My explanation for it working is this:

If I target Joe's big toe with my manabolt. Joe takes damage. Not just his big toe. Why? Because Joe's big toe is linked to joe (physically and magically). If I cut off some of joe's hair (material link) and manabolt it ritually, it affects joe. Why? Because its linked to joe (magically). If I take Joe's lucky boxer shorts, and manabolt them ritually via metamagic (symbolic) Joe takes damage. Because they are linked to joe (meta-magically). If I make a statue of joe (hard enough as it is), and manabolt that, joe takes damage. Because its linked to joe (meta-magically).

The question assumes direct spells travel. They don't. They simply erupt at the target without an intervening travel time. It's the link between caster and target that is impeded by the ward. It's unfortunate that the wording of wards implies direct spells 'travel', because they don't and never have. As the FAQ states:

Do spells cast in the astral have an astral form? What about spells cast in the physical plane?

"Spells never have an astral form. They have auras, as all living and magical things do, but spells never have an actual astral form. That's why you can't attack a spell in astral combat, for example (as you could in SR2)."

Consequently, the spell's form isn't what the ward blocks - it has no form - and it's their echoes are what you're seeing. Spells don't move. They simply are. That's why you see auras of spellcasting where the caster of a mana bolt was and an aura on the target's body - not in a path between the two.

It's the link between caster and target that is impeded by the ward. Therefore it affects the ritual spell too. It also means it doesnt block a spirit's metaplanar shortcut trick.

The whole point of ritual magic and a symbolic link is that it bypasses the normal LOS link you're referring to.

Another note, is that it seems that ritual magic might be exempted from the errata that teamwork tests can only add dice equal to the skill of the lead character. This means ritual magic can get much more dice, and easily beat most wards/lodges/barriers hands down anyway. (See the dragon thread).

I agree with Frank on this one. Otherwise ritual magic is worthless, as anyone can contract a few dozen wards/barriers and be invulnerable to all rituals.

no, i think that the spell does its best to get from team to target, but if it cant (as in the target is INSIDE the ward, then it's got no choice.

My understanding was that the spell simply comes in to being at ground zero. No zipping around the world blasting through stuff , because the spell is purely astral until it hits.

esxcept, im very sure that building likely has a window, or a gap, that wouldnt block our spell... i dont think many ward creators would do the same.