Can you use your meta magic "spell defense" to defend one of your meta magic "quickened" spells?? The spell defense description has a bunch of funny wording on it so im not sure.

For example:

"Bob has used his quickening powers to permanently boost his reflexes but during a fight with another mage the enemy mage spots Bob's quickened spell on the astral and decides Bob doesnt really need that advantage and so trys to nuke the spell with.....a spell of which type I am totally unsure of, dispell? manabolt?....whatever. Bob, always ready for stupid enemy mages to attack his foci and quickened spells though trys to dispel the enemy mages spell to prevent his quickened boosted reflexes from disappating, Bob uses his counter spell pool and the dice from his spell defense meta magic......" ??

The problem is ... what spell is the enemy mage using to get rid of Bob's spell? The enemy mage (EM) could use counterspelling to dispell Bob's spell, but then Bob couldn't use Counterspelling himself in defense. Unless the EM created a spell specifically to dispel other spells (which I don't believe is allowed), Counterspelling will not be too much help to Bob in defending his active or Quickened spells.

What part of the wording is funny?

- The enemy mage spots the spell on the astral. He can attack the spell; it resists with force +expended KP

- Spell defense requires LOS, so Bob can defend his spell if he is on the astral, too.

In SR4, spells are not astral creatures - they are not themselves subject to being targeted by spells or attacked in astral combat. In at least some earlier editions of the game, this was not entirely true. I recall having a watcher horde standing by to 'intercept' spells in astral combat...

You can't "attack" a quickened spell; it's an aura, not an astral construct, and is insubstantial on the astral. You can dispel it, or you can try to disrupt it by forcing spell and subject through an astral barrier, but a spell is not subject to damage. There are spells that can affect other spells: Analyze Magic is a prime example.

Some facts that I hope will help clarify things for some people:

spell defense isn't a metamagic. It is one of the uses of the Counterspelling skill. It allows a mage to 'disrupt' spells as they are cast at an object on which he is using spell defense.
The other principle of Counterspelling is dispelling. Dispelling allows a mage to 'disrupt' a spell that has already been cast, and is now being sustained. Any spell that is being sustained can be dispelled no matter what is sustaining it. Spells sustained by mages, sustaining foci, and quickening are all vulnerable.

In the original example given, the EM is not using a spell to dispell bob's enhanced reflexes. Therefore Bob can't use Spell Defense to protect against it. It should be noted that the EM still has to resist drain as using Dispelling causes drain.

Abbandon; I recommend that you read the part of SR4 about Dispelling, I think it will answer many of your questions.

I was wrong. The relevant quote declaring most spells as auras rather than constructs is in the Astral Space section of Street Magic. (Irrelevant now, but is there something in the main book on this?)

Ahh ok pg176 specifically talks about counterspelling quickened spells thanx. The target only gets to fight back with force+magic+karma spent on quickening.

It said the EM's hits reduce the hits scored by the caster. This raises a further question.

For example:

"Bob used quickening to permanently sustain Increase Reflexes to himself scoring 8 hits. He needed 4 hits to get 4IP's. Slag an enemy mage attempts to dispel Bob's increased reflexes and scores 5 net hits. This reduces the number of hits Bob got to 3 which drops him down to only having 3 IP's. Bad news for Slag though. Bob put everything he had into that spell and now Slag has to resist 16P drain. Slag dies!!! Woo hoo!!"

Is Bob's Increased Reflex spell permanently reduced now or does it regenerate like a mana barrier?? Is there any way to increase the power of the Increase Relfex spell without totally recasting it and subsequenly re-quickening it?? Like rebinding a spirit...

What kind of things can interfere with astral perception. Like is there anything I can do to make it harder for enemy mages to see any active foci i have?

Do fetishes have aura's or forms?

Bobs spell is permanently reduced, there is no way of strengthening a spell once it has been cast.

As only active foki count as astral objects, and I´d consider an inactive focus stronger than a fetish, I´d assume aura only?

For hiding foki, see extended masking, pg. 58(german ed.) of Street Magic.

One of the many reasons quickened spells suck. Completely and utterly.

Chris

Hmmm it sounds like it should be an all or nothing thing to dispel a quickened spell. How the hell do you partially dispell something?? Thats like partially dodging a bullet or partially finishing your drone manuever.

Would it work better if the enemy mage had to cancel out all the hits you got.

Bob cast Increased Reflexes on himself with like spellcasting 6, a R3 spellcasting foci, and his magic of 7. Thats like 16 dice. Bob casts the spell at Force 14 and uses quicken materials or whatever so he can pump 14 Karma just for the quickening and is allowed to pump another 28 dice into it (force x2 extra for a quicken ritual or whatever??) for a total of 42 karma.

So Slag trys to dispell it and uses his counterspelling 6 + magic 7 vs F14+bob magic 7 + 42 or 13 vs 65. If you trade in dice thats 4 to 16.

Hell Slag doesnt even stand a chance of degrading it does he ?? We didnt even talk about how many hits Bob actually scored to cast the spell which he used edge on.

You dispel something partially by weakening its structure. Until it eventually collapses.

Yes, dispeling can be deadly. One should assense the spell first, as high drain is more acceptable to blood mages than to you...

If you feel that Quickened spells are a poor investment at the present, it's easy enough to rule that Quickened spells are an 'all-or-nothing' effect. RAW is only where you begin, houserules are vital to getting them game where you want it to be for your group.

Also remember that it's pretty tough to dispel a Quickened spell covered in Extended Masking. They have to 'see' it before they can dispel it, and seeing through Masking isn't really all that easy.