So for certain spells you roll Magic+Spellcasting and add the number of additional successes to the Force's damage or dispelling resistance. When rolling for armors do you add the number of additional successes to the character's armor force?
IE
Hungry Jack the magician has a Magic 5, Spellcasting 5. He decides before battle to cast an Armor spell on himself at force 5. He then rolls his Magic (5) + Spellcasting (5) and gets 3 additional successes. Is his armor rating a 5/5 with 3 successes over for dispelling resistance or is his armor rating 8/8?

You need to go read the spell description.

The armor rating is equal to the hits scored. So in your example the spell would make a 3/3 armor. The force is just the upper limit on the number of hits you can get.

Thanks for the info...and for proper clarity, it can not exceed the force of the spell?

Also keep in mind that edge opens that door again.

...the downside of the spell though, as per the description, it glows.

Don't remember it doing that in earlier editions, but I could be wrong as I have played only one mage character ever and that was only for one session.

I'm pretty sure it glowed in SR3 as well.
Not that we ever included that side-effect in our games.

I'm pretty sure its always glowed.

It has.

Yeah, which is why in all honesty, I vastly prefer Physical Barrier to the Physical Armor spell. Astral Armor fills a particular niche, I suppose, but Physical Barrier and Physical Armor have the same drain value and everything. Sure, you may have to reapply Physical Barrier on a case by case basis, and it can certainly collapse at any time, but you can't make an impromptu ramp, block an entrance or suddenly materialize a structure 5 wall (equivalent to small tree or ballistic glass!) in front of a speeding motorcycle with Physical armor, can you? I took out three pursuing lonestar squadcars once with a bit of Edge, a Physical Barrier and a Force 4 Spirit slinging Accident. Botched crash tests are hilarious.

that'd be sweet if it happened, but since the RAW doesn't take into account the durability of whatever you hit into the ramming damage table, it's still vastly inferior to the physical barrier tactic, which never puts the caster at risk. In fact, by the RAW, it'd be easy to argue that a Force 1 barrier would be enough to make a Bulldog going 40 meters per turn resist half its body in damage when they collide. My own GM, however, believes that to be kind of stupid and reserves the right waive that extra damage potential and sticks with just the crash test when a vehicle hits something much less massive than it self. I think he's overreacting, however; most of the REALLY big vehicles have a hard time punching through their own armor, even when using their own body as a damage value. I guess he's still just annoyed by me always playing Mages and causing ridiculous numbers of crash tests with Accident and Barrier.

Echo all Whipstitch said on the usefullness of physical barrier.

Thats one spell I always wanted usage-based drain for - driving a semi into a barrier should make the mage choke his own blood. On the other hand, just having the barrier should not cause so much drain.

I would use the vehicles speed with the rammed objectives "body" on the RAW table. No force 1 barrier - nonsense.

are there rules for the barrier crashing into targets or not?
Guy running/crashing into wall
Wall moving/crashing into guy
GM:"you see a shining wall form before you"
PC:"i brake!!"
GM:"ok, you make it. you stop mere inches before hitting the wall. ."
PC:"whoo! that was close!"
GM". . then the wall jumps at you and hits you in the frigging face!"

I think all magical barriers are supposed to be immobile.

Its a PORTABLE WALL! Ya know kinda like a portable hole! LOL

Oh wow, that was funny. My mind just imagined the scene of a manifested earth spirit appearing as a wall, and once the runner gives that sigh of relief for stopping in time, the wall jumps and beats the snot out of him. Damned amusing. Thank you Stahlseele.

I'm not sure if they're totally immobile or if they can be moved the way other spell effects can. Physical Barrier is descibed as (Environmental, Area), and sustained area effect spells can be moved as per Step 7: On Going Effects on page 174 of the main book. In previous editions, I think there was a limit on how fast you could move things (meters per turn, anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?) but in SR4 is just says, "the affected area may be moved with a complex action, anywhere within LOS."

Since this isn't TOON, and the barrier has no listed STR or Damage score, I'd rule that this isn't something you can use as a giant flyswatter. You might move the barrier a thousand meters in less than a second, but it doesn't slam into someone with all that force, it simply becomes a barrier in front of them. The Manipulation spells that used to do that (Punch, Clout and so on) got moved into Combat, which seems like a good enough reason to not make Barrier even more powerful versions of those spells.

Likewise, if you cast a barrier to block a doorway and then decide you'd rather block the doorway on the other side of the room, with a Complex Action you can just put the barrier over there, but it doesn't sweep across the room. That's how I'd rule it; although another GM might want the barrier to be blocked by objects and need a clear path to be moved. (My feeling is it's magic, and the caster already has to expend a Complex action, so it doesn't bother me. YMMV.)

I've gotta agree. You can move the barrier, but I'd rule it as simply phasing out and back into existence where you wanted it. Just kinda fade out and fade back in. At least that beats the giant flyswatter problem.

Thanks! I was fully unaware of that possiblity!

Check me on this: Put a barrier into a sustaining focus. Leave the barrier at home. If you need it, call it into LOS. Then hide it away somewhere until you are home again.

Next, don´t use the focus, sustain the spell yourself. Any problems crossing a mana barrier by having your barrier change location to the other side once you went over?

another thing . . is there an official ruling on kitty pryde'ing? O.o
meaning, is there a ruling about manifesting such a barrier simply inside something else?
For example, if you can see that the barrier is 3m long and you see someone standing there and you can see both sides of him and draw the line where you want the barrier to be . . can that line be drawn through his body and will the barrier either trap his body or do . . something ugly?

Mainlining magical power directly into a physical form until their head asplodes is called Powerbolt
Physical Barrier isn't Powerbolt and it's line of sight, so I imagine since you can't see "in" someone the spell would simply fail if it was attempted to be used in that way. Plus, the spell doesn't actually appear to displace things. Air and other molecules small enough to be unseen by the naked eye (and therefore don't interfere with LOS) actually pass right through the barrier like it's not even there. I suppose you could in theory make a spell that can exist simultaneously in the same space with larger objects, but then, what would the point of the spell be if it doesn't really interact with much of anything?

As far as trapping people goes, yeah, that's easy; you can shape the barrier how you want and plopping a dome right over someone is something the spell is perfectly capable of.


Christ, I put waaay too much thought into this that really should be going towards finals.

so if you can't see behind them, you can't catch them in a circular barrier?
and as a mage you can, in fact, look into people *g*
heck, even as a samurai you can "look" into people with US/Radar *g*

You can, but you can't use magical sight as a point of reference with which to cast spells and you can't cast spells by using radar sense. As far as casting behind someone goes, you can probably get away with doing that by using the area around the person as the point of reference (which yes, does poke a hole in the "but you can't see into/through them! theory). I already considered the "casting around" someone issue in the midst of editing my last post (seriously, I ended up doing about 20 minutes worth of brainstorming, revising, and adding smart ass comments which is why I'm responding just now!) and that and the air particle issue has convinced me that physical barrier is actually incapable of displacing things as it manifests and cannot exist in the same space as preexisting matter beyond a certain size. Remember too that magic is magic, but beyond a certain point even the most versatile spell requires a different formula and technique to accomplish something different than originally intended. Plus, there's also obvious game balance considerations to account for.

Astral Perception isn't remotely capable of seeing around things (you can literally hide behind someone else's aura on the astral) and doesn't actually offer any change in point of reference, despite being a psychic power. Why? Because the book says so and magic is confusing.

And yeah, I'm a fairly relentless poster. I genuinely care about Shadowrun to an extent that borders upon mental illness.