I always thought that Extended Masking hides spells and foci from wards, but others seem to disagree. "Masked foci and spells appear to astral observers as normal fluctuations in her magical aura" which implies to me that unless the observer rolls a high enough assensing test, the spell's/focus's aura looks like a part of the initiate's aura. Therefore a masked spell/focus could slip right past a ward because a ward has no assensing skill. Maybe the ward rolls its rating against the masking attempt? How do you handle extended masking vs wards in your games?

Masking from SR3 was basically split into three metamagics in SR4. Masking, which cloaks your aura from assensing. Extended Masking which incorporates spell effects and foci into your masked aura. And Flexible Signature which lets you adjust your aura however you see fit.

None of those actually makes you mundane. You can appear mundane to others, but in no way are you actually mundane. You're still vulnerable to attacks from astral space if you're astrally active. Wards still affect you. Spells and foci are still active. And etc.

So even if you have the first two metamagic techniques above (Masking and Extended Masking), you and your foci/spells are still active as far as wards are concerned. There's no test for it; wards aren't intelligent in any way whatsoever. Mundanes get through because they are, in fact, mundane... not because they're disguised as mundanes.

The only way to slip through is to have assensed the aura of someone (usually the magician who created the ward) and "fool" the ward into thinking you're that magician. Even then, you're not invisible to the ward. Instead, you're someone the ward was specifically designed to allow to slip through despite being magically active.

It should be noted that even this is an extraction from the rules for Flexible Signature. Nothing concrete exists in the rules for bluffing a ward in this fashion in SR4 (at least none that I could find when I last looked). By the rules, you have to fight through no matter which technique you have... but that's pretty silly when you have the option to effectively transform yourself into the originating mage for all intents and purposes.

The key word in the description of masking is "appear". Wards don't have eyes and are not some bouncer who checks out everyone that goes through it and gives the astral boys a body check. If such were the case, Id say that Extended masking can make your active foci and spells seem mundane and would not be noticed by the assensing bouncer.

However, the true nature of wards is more of an astral wall that you can push through in astral, or break, but both of these instantly alert the creator of the ward, and it will be only minutes before he is there to investigate (unless you can bribe him before hand and get him to let you through). The only way to get through the ward reliably without asking the creator, is to fake his signature, thus the wall lets you through.

It makes masking not as good, but hey, there are ways around.

SM, 124, Fooling wards is what you're looking for. Takes masking metamagic. Opposed test intuition + magic + initiate grade vs wards forcex2.

Oh wow, thanks for finding that! I searched all over the place with no luck. Never been more glad to be wrong.

Seriously. I was thinking Quickening just became the most worthless metamagic investment ever, even if you did have Masking...

Yeah, makes having just masking almost decent now.

On that vein, Flexible Signature became a lot more useless, too.

I don't have my SM here at work. What value does Extended Masking bring beyond what masking does?

Extended Masking just covers your spells and foci. Masking is only your personal aura.

Consider that with both you can make it look like the mage that created the ward did the hit.

The biggest power of flexible signature is completely lack of astral signatures on things with force under your initiate grade. Initiate grade 6, and cast force 6 spells with nary a worry of being astrally tracked down. Beautiful thing that is.

No, extended masking is stuff with your astral signature, not someone elses.

Flexible signature to look like a person. Masking to look like a mundane wolf.

Sucks to be a shifter, then. No way some shifter runner would survive with that bounty on his head long enough to initiate at least twice.

Not that it really matters I guess, since there are no PC shifters in SR4.

Note that Fooling Wards is not something that you can do on the fly, unless the ward's creator just happens by.

Why not? If fooling wards only requires masking, not flexible signature, than you don't need to make the ward think that you're the ward-creator - you just need to appear mundane.

As far as shifters, they can cast. Invisibility is a great thing.

Fooling wards you can do on the fly, you just have to track someone who is authorized down first and assense them. It takes a few hours, but thats easily done during legwork before you actually go in for the run.

No Doc, you ARE in fact mimicking the creator via fooling wards.

Apathy: Appearing mundane doesn't matter. You aren't mundane. You still have an astral presense that hits the ward, whether it looks like it or not, and thats what sets it off.

The same as just being invisible doens't let you walk through walls, being astral but appearing mundane doesn't let you walk through wards.

God damn it, I'mma shut up until I can read these rules.

The funny thing, is it uses those exact words too. SM, 124, "In order to synchronize one's aura so it mimics a ward's creator, the synchronizing magician or spirit must be able to see the creator's aura to use as a reference."

Another note, you can use material, sympathetic, or symbolic links to make your test with too, however the dice penalties related to those are the same as for using them ritually.

Because the writes of Street Magic screwed up? Flexible Signature would make more sense, but thats not what the book says. Push for it in errata.

It seems like Quickening is back to being useless.

I had a chance to read page 124, and it says that Masking works just like Flexible Signature for your aura, presumably so you can astrally travel through the ward. It doesn't say anything about using Extended Masking to hide your spells/foci, so it sounds like only Flexible Signature can let you walk your active spells/foci through a ward and only if you're spoofing the creator's astral sig.

I thought that Anchoring would come to the rescue, but it sounds like an unactivated anchored spell is considered active in regards to crossing a ward. Therefore you can never shut off a quickened spell, even if it's anchored to turn off. Am I reading Anchoring right?

Frank's right, Quickening is a curse you put on your enemies, not something you use on yourself or friends...

Buster, by the book, masking lets you travel through the ward without raising any alarms. Flexible signature has nothing to do with it at all.

Wait, Dr. Funk has a point though...Flexible Signature can be used to alter the sig of a sustained spell, it can be used to spoof a ward too.

It should be able to. By RAW it can't. Thats my point. I think it should be errataed.

We mean using Flexible Signature on your own sustained spells so you can match their sig with the ward creator's sig. That lets you spoof your sustained spells through a ward. Therefore, errata willing, you can use either Extended Mask OR Flexible Signature to walk your sustain spells through a ward.

I'm unclear as to why, if you are masking the aura of the creator, that you couldn't take anything you want through the ward you wanted...? Did I miss something in translation?

You can Redjack.