You're right, because then all the mage has to do is approach from the other side of the building. Or use a masked magic fingers spell and just tap on the button however much he likes.

I did point out that you'd need to be a grade 4 initiate with extended masking to pull it off Frank.

kzt: One way mirrors will do jack all for astral perception. The masked astrally perceiving mage would see right through it and see that its a warded room (great, that means the entire complex isnt warded). A quick masked spell later (is it mana window or astral window that sees through a ward?) and he knows that the spirit is in there, and of course, a quick projection trip around the facility shows its the only one. Then he can just start scouting out the entire facility, and plan some route of entry that doesn't disturb the spirit over there.

Actually it's worse than that. You can't asseense through a window, as it's opaque on the astral. I should run the entire ward all they way across the hall (so bypassing it requires going through earth) and put the booth behind it. I'd have to build some sort of clever art thing to disguise the viewport and position it so it can see the ward. Then toss a masking ward behind the art thing. Covered with concealment.

This wouldn't be the only ward or astral security, it's just there to try to notice intruders at the edge of the inner perimeter and get a response team on the way, preferably without the intruders being aware of the alarm.

To have an effective magical defense you pretty much have to use defense in depth. It's like SR hacking, if you can force the intruder to make enough opposed tests they eventually blow one.


I don't see any indication that you can use masking to bypass wards without synchronizing your aura. Otherwise the SM124 discussion of how you can bypass wards using masking would include just walking through them.

I run that windows and such that are shadows on the astral plane instead of transparent are just that- shadows. I realize this may or may not be canon so bear with me, I'm just saying it makes more sense to me if a window obscures the objects on the other side instead of completely separating you from them in astral space. Hell, it even works in a metaphorical sense, a window out into the world it is still artificial soulless man-made crap but it is soulless crap designed to give you access, at least in the visual fashion, to whatever is on the other side of the wall. Instead of, you know, the wall, which is designed to well... wall you off from that is on the other side. It just doesn't make sense for the two things to obscure sight to the same magnitude, so in my games they don't. Visual perception mods HO!

Chris

Several points:
To detect invis&stealthed mages:
Chemsniffer: can detect metahuman presence from phermones, and best of all there are rules for it in the BBB. - no very practical way to bypass.
Wards: disrupt those sustained spells - can be bypassed if mage has extensive time.
Detect Intruders, Extended: as Detect Enemy, I'd imagine that this would be one of the most common magical security measures in the sixth world. - can be resisted.
FAB: glows when astral forms pass through it, not sure if that includes active spells, but whatever. Scarier variants will actually eat your spells (if they are indeed present on the astral).
Patrolling spirits: have them not only report any unrecognized astral forms, but any unrecognized auras - can be bypassed if mage has Flexible Signature metamagic.

Also remember that normal security has a chance to resist the effects of Imp. Invis and stealth, the mage also has to beat OR for all the cameras - this can be pretty hard. If you know your PC will keep on recasting till they beat an OR of the sec. system, just throw a whole bunch of high Intuition sec. gaurds around and give them a sec. mage with high counterspelling (physical illusions are resisted with intuition + counterspelling). By the rule of large numbers, the more you have the more likely one is to eventually resist succesfully. Then that one will be able to set of the alarm and then shoot the mage.

To avoid detection:
a) Munckin it up and design a spell just like improved invisibility only it is mulitsensory (drain +2) and touch range (drain -2) and now you are frikin' undetectable. (and you don't need to cast stealth). [assuming of course no one successfully resists.]
b) keep casting till you beat OR.
c) as Tarantula pointed out: be an uber initiate w/ Extended Masking and Flexible Signature
d) have a spirit also use its concealment power on you, -Force to their perception tests really helps if they somehow manage to resist your spells.

Flexible signature is worthless. Masking/extended masking is all thats needed.

kzt, you're assuming the wards creator is a grade 4 initiate as well. The problem with this assumption is that a mere magic 5 grade 0 mage can put up a force 10 ward.

There are several options to get around the ward magically.

Blowing it down.
Forcing through it.
Tracking the creator of it. I'd bet most of their time (if they're a full on ward contractor) is spent maintaining their wards, not hiding behind them. Thus, it should be pretty easy to track them down, or send a spirit to do it for you.

Ritual magic? Not really. All you'd do with that is track the ritual link, which is the same as tracking the link from the ward. So nothing new.

Again, flexible signature does jack shit. You're not assensing the ward in order to find the creators signature. You're tracking the link from the ward to the creator in order to assense him to get his signature. Which means you need to track him down, and assense him, which would go against his masking. Once you have that, then you use your masking (and extended masking to hide your spells) and go through the ward.

Oh yeah, you missed a method... Go around the ward. Shape earth is a fantastic spell for this. So is shape concrete (most foundations are concrete).

"Actually it's worse than that. You can't asseense through a window, as it's opaque on the astral. I should run the entire ward all they way across the hall (so bypassing it requires going through earth) and put the booth behind it. I'd have to build some sort of clever art thing to disguise the viewport and position it so it can see the ward. Then toss a masking ward behind the art thing. Covered with concealment."
I never said you could. I said to use the astral window/mana window spells to see through the ward, and if nessisary, assense who you needed to. (Even better once you track the wards creator (which only takes hours at worst) then you can use astral window through the ward he's behind, assense him and get his signature, then walk through all wards he's created.)

As with most of the SR rules, when you look to see exactly how something works it's unclear. The fact that the creator being behind a magical barrier reduces the chance to track them suggests that you are not actually following the link the way a bloodhound follows a scent trail. Otherwise you'd track them right up to the ward without any modifier. Which isn't what happens.

So I think it's reasonable to assume that flexible signature makes it harder to start the tracking process.

Anyhow if I was a ward contractor renewing wards on a regularly scheduled basis, what better place to be than inside the existing ward? It's not like you are going to wait for them to fall down before scheduling a service call, right? And it's a 10 hour ritual, so you might as well get a comfy chair.

And then you walk back to your warded car and drive back to your warded office and then drive home to your warded house. So there isn't a lot of time to track them when they are not inside a major ward.

kzt, maybe being behind a ward weakens the link and thus makes it harder to follow. That makes perfect sense, and just because it looks unlike their true aura, doesn't mean it wouldn't still lead right up to them and their fake aura. Then you assense, and hopefully get the right aura (otherwise you accidentally force through the ward).

Either way, flexible signature doesn't help.

Double post, whoops.

Good point Narse. I'd been focusing on the ward, and the fact that the spirit was sequestered inside a room. Flexible signature is good for impersonating a spirits summoner. Would a person be able to give orders to the spirit burning services without the summoner knowing?

Also, if you're masked to look mundane, but have levitate and a few other spells that let you practically ignore mundane security, it makes sneaking around spirits considerably easier.

Actually I just reread Flexible signature and realized that I had misinterpreted it. No where in its description does it mention Auras. It only applies to Astral Signatures (so you can make it look like someone else cast the manabolt that assassinated the regional exec of S-K.). However in the description of Masking it does mention something about supplying a fake aura. Its not really explicit but it seems that you can use masking to impersonate someone to anyone astrally perceiving you. Still, Flexible Signature does have its uses, the primary one is not getting caught after casting spells when you don't have time to clean up the signatures you left.

Yes Narse, but thats best used when you're casting spells at equal or less force than your initiate grade.

Could work, and I'd think the security manager on duty would be able to command the spirits, as a failsafe if the mage was unavailible (since he does have multiple ward contracts and such).