How is the magical security at borders between countries or states supposed to work? What prevents for example a mage and his group to pass a guarded boundary without being detected?

A (quite powerful) mage in my group applies the following technique: he looks for a simple metal container big enough to contain the whole group and all its gear. Everybody steps in, then he casts invisibility and levitation on the container and asks an air spirit to additionally use its concealment and movement powers on it. He then flies the the whole thing at mach 2 wherever he wants (at least at his power level it was something like mach 2 in SR3, I didn't verify for SR4, but high speed is not that important anyway). With a GPS and a minimum of precautions (flying at low altitude, avoiding crowded areas, etc.), I don't see how their trespassing could be detected.

Does anybody an idea of how I could prevent this? I'm preparig a game in which the runners are supposed to call for the assistance of some powerful organizations to bring a captured VIP from New Orleans to Seattle, and I fear they will simply shortcut that part with a few spells ad spirit powers.

I'm tempted to remove the levitation and movement powers from the game, but maybe someone has an idea of how security measures could have evolved to counter this kind of technique.

With the same methods borders are secured today: from man-surveillance to radar and (astral)patrols.



Did you check for the target number? Both the weight and the speed seems very high, even for a powerful mage and air spirit support. Then of course, for a normal container Mach 2 seems a little bit extreme concerning structural stability and aerodynamics. Perhaps this would be a way to slow down the container. And yes, concealment+invisibility is quite powerful.



As a GM, it is not your job to prevent actions by your group, your job is to let the world react in a believable way towards the runner. Check all rules for holes and let your runners have their way. Runners are supposed to be able to cross borders, this here is done a exotic way.

The main problem is: magic, especially full magicians, are very rare in SR. Even one runner/smuggler group with one magician is extremly rare and most NPC-teams won´t have an awakend member. So astral patrouls are not very common. Background radiation could be a solution inside a city.

SYL

Concealment is not all that badassed. Even after penalties if they are not rocking a force ten plus conceal there is a fairly good chance the crate will be picked up by sensors. I would also think that a large object moving at a very fast speed and picked up by sensors would receive an incoming rocket that would take out the object flying that fast and that low to the ground. Plus look at the SR4 rules about levitation and how much weight you can actually carry with the spell (it's not all that much.) Your GM might have been letting the party get away with more then the rules will actually allow you to get away with. I think when our force 5 mage was trying to levitate our group over a wall after considering what kind of gear we were packing (and we were not completely loaded out) it took him about three trips to get us all over the wall. A large extremely heavy metal crate, all the teams gear, and the team themselves could not just get flown around wily nilly.

Anyways after a while if your characters become waaaaay too powerful (mages with a magic stat of 9+) it might be time for the party to make new characters.

*edit* in response to apple remember a force 6 spirit using movement might make you go 6x faster, but it does not actually affect you when it comes to wind resistance, hitting a wall, or anything else like that. You are actually going at the normal speed of whatever levitation is allowing you to go, but in the end it is just 6x faster w/o really being 6x faster.... it's weird, but whatever. *edit*

As stated, radar will still pick up invisible objects. Some magical nations, like the NAN have spirit border patrols. As each NAN has tribal boarders too that can be a lot of spirit patrols. The use of watcher spirits could also be used to patrol for magical intruders. The anti air radar however is the best bet for spotting the thing.

How big is the group? If its more than three runners aint no way the mage is lifting them plus equipment plus container. Let alone move at speed.

Spirits. Astral travel is very fast, so a few spirits can cover several thousand kilometers at least to patrol borders.

58 Successes are necessary to get up to mach 2, assuming Movement from a Force 6 spirit, a magic rating of 6, and 4 average-sized humans, in SR4. IN SR3, only 57 successes were necessary but the TN would be increased by +2

Any non visual sensors won't have a hard time finding it. Spirits on astral patrol can find it. Wards and barriers will cause problems. That's a lot of weight to carry. That's a lot of stuff to cover with Concealment. Concealment isn't invisibility, only a penalty to opposed tests. Missiles and rockets can still hit the container. Levitate doesn't go that fast. And boy that's a long long time for a mage to sustain a spell.

But in the end so what. The players aren't there to entertain you with your notion of what they should do. The PC will never do as you plan. Let go. Have fun. Enjoy it when they come up with cool stuff to do you hadn't planned for.

a) Radar should be countered by the concealment critter power.
b) Fast moving spirits have problems with checking the border in detail. For that astral patrol rules exist in street magic.
c) Levitation has indirect speed and weight limit.

SYL

And Watcher Spirits are dumb.

Very, very dumb. Loyal, but dumb.

I thought of that, but it just seemed improbable that the container would have been detected by a radar. If needed, he could simply reduce the speed when approaching the guarded areas and hover 1m over the ground. I doubt that any radar would detect them in that case. Anyway, if a spell can fool detection mechanisms based on light, what prevents a character from designing one that fools any other kind of sensor?
As far as spirits are concerned, ok maybe one of the patrolling spirits could be at the right place at the right time. With a detection spell, that spirit would be taken care of quite fast though. That would alert its summoner of course, but what could he do?



The mage had magic 10 and summoned power 10+ spirits. We did the calculations several times and in the end with all his foci and karma he could easily lift the container and move it around *fast*.



I totally agree with that, which is why I'm looking for a believable way to react to such an intrusion. This trick seems fairly easy to pull off for any mage who has a clue (not at that power level of course, a 500kg metal container flying at mach 2 is really an extreme example), so I figured that people would have found a way to counter it.

Another example: they needed their gear for a run in England. The mage packed all their gear in a waterproof box and instructed a water spirit to travel underwater and drop it off on the shore somewhere at a given time in a predefined deserted area (and making sure beforehand that the spirit could localize the area). After that, they simply traveled to England as simple tourists and their gear was delivered afterwards by the spirit. Easy and straightforward for any mage, nearly impossible to counter.



I agree, and that is what makes magicians so powerful. I guess I'll just have to live with it then, or increase astral patrols at borders beyond what would be reasonable.


My problem here is that adventures are sometimes written as if the author was not aware of the powers of awakened characters. For example, when you want to put a huge area under quarantine, how do you prevent astral entities from getting out at full astral speed? How could the Chicago incident remain secret for so long?

Astral patrols at full speed are not an infallible method of border control, but then again either are vehicle patrols and radar.

However, given that a levitating, invisible box moved by spirits is likely covered in auras and astral signatures, if astral patrollers are present, then they should get a roll to see it. That's the risk the team takes.

That might be where you're going wrong. Even small containers mass closer to a tonne: http://www.sjonescontainers.co.uk/dimensions.htm, and you'd have to total the mass of the contents too, which is probably another tonne of 'Runners and gear.

However, active magicians are rare, and Magic 10 Magicians orders of magnitude more so, so maybe they should be able to get away with mundane shit like crossing national borders unobserved. If they start affecting the status quo though, they might bring serious consequences down on their own head. Ambient scatter radar is probably able to detect low-flying Mach speed unstreamlined objects, heck, they can probably be localised with seismic detectors if they're flying mach speeds NoE in a container.

Instead of metal, use cardboard. It's lighter. One idea, which has been used often, is to simply mail oneself to one's destination. Use a warded sealed container with an independent oxygen supply and send it by the Sixth World equivalent of Fedex.

Ouch, cardboard with one in side? Have you ever seen how the various shipping companies "treat" objects/boxes being shipping, it is most enlightening. I would go with a wooden crate rather than a card board box.

WMS

Any mage with double digits in magic do not hide for long when a dragon comes looking for them. A magic 10 mage is asking for trouble with every single action he does and does not erase his astral signature on every single spell he/she casts. I don't know how he got so powerful, but the biggest problem he faces is that all the big players will be looking for him as he is no longer a pawn, but more like a bishop, knight, or rook. Everyone and their mother either wants you or wants you dead at that point.

magic 10 means create new characters in my mind. Something that powerful makes the game less fun imop, or else maybe you are sending them on runs that are too easy. Magic 10 means that if they are still runners then they are doing things like sealing up astral tares, or going to take out a bug queen. I would say shit generally gets heavier then just kidnapping a CEO. More like everything has gone to hell in a hand basket and they are either there to close or open the gates.

Also summoning force 10 spirits means that the spirit is better in every shape or form then the mage that is summoning it (stat wise.) I think most spirits of that magnitude will roll edge and try and resist at every turn against the mage. I mean even with high drain/casting stats you are only rolling probably a few dice more then the spirit being summoned. I doubt they are brought into the plane of their own free will (since they are summoned) and will probably ask the mage something in return if he wants it not to use edge against binding or summoning.

In the end how long has this person been playing this character? I don't know.... something just tells me it's time for a change at that point. It just seems like the biggest problem you have is dealing with the power creep more then the boarder crossings and such. These types of problems will continually be bypassed with someone of that power, so maybe sit down and talk to the player and tell him whats up. Maybe he might be willing to turn his character into an NPC and create another PC. Our group has always played with backup characters ready to roll just in case our main dies or is turned into an NPC.

*edit* if an area is sealed off generally people place high level wards around it. Also I'm sure some creatures escape those sealed off areas through the barrier, which is why shit leaks out into the physical world no matter what people try to do to stop it. *edit*

Isn´t that a little bit extreme? We are talking about around 100 karma put into the increase of magic and around an additional 100 karma for initiation... and in SR4 initiation is quite normal, most magician will have some grades. Many people in SR play much longer than 200 karma, some even play into the region of 1000 karma (and many real life years). Of course, stunts like levitating an entire container full of people is a little besides the rules but on the other side levitation and spirit service is very powerful even with a 0 karma mage.



Why should they? Even binding is normally not a problem, only if the summoner violates the spirit (like using him for suicide actions).



And what do you do if your player say: "No thanks I like this specific characters and the memories and stories associated with him."?

SYL

Ok this sort of thing would need tons of successes (beyond critical success) to pull of in SR4. I won't go through the SR3 Rules now, but I guess that wouldn't be that much of a difference there (it just doesn't matter beyond some point). In SR4 a mage with magic 10 and a level 10 Spirit may need some 25+ Successes I guess for the levitate with Mach 2 part. Concealment and invisibility make you more or less harder to detect... A metal container at Mach 2 is something that I wouldn't call sutble and the Spell probably won't conceal breaking the sound barrier.

Another question is, if the group thought about the protective gear and airsupply the might need at those speeds. I would have taken a shot at having the mage (who will be quite stressed with keeping up the magic) pass out - Pilots do, why shouldn't mages. Also the integrity of the container most certainly won't match a jet-plane.

We shouldn't forget, that what our friendly neighbourhood mage is doing here is heavy magic. Magic at this level leaves traces that he cannot conceal under those circumstances and might attract a lot of paranormal stuff, like spirits (maybe the spirit of the lands hes crossing) critters, other mages and so on. And yes, summoning and dealing with level 10 spirits is more than dangerous. Magic always comes with a price.

Though I would have thought the complications through, and would have considered not allowing the stacking of some effects, I would allways let the charakters get through with a brilliant idea. Not that I would consider this idea brilliant, it is more blunt powermongering, which I tend to discourage.

So even if they would find a way to get through with this... someone would probably have to pay the bill later on...guess who

P.S. - Oh and for the waterspirit thing.... The Oceans are full of unknown mudane and paranormal life and dangers....

Keep in mind also that a spirit's conceal power will be well countered by a second spirit's search power. You can assume that most nations able to afford it will draw heavily on shamans for border patrols, and will have nature spirits available for the sole purpose of searching out giant flying metal crates to alert the authorities.

Concealment works against every kind of perception test. But yes, the level of success required seem to be a little high even for a magic 10 mage, not to mention the structural stabiliy of a turbobunny container racing with mach 2.

I assume 1000kg, that is treshold of 5 to even lift the container. For mach 2 (2000km/h to make it simple) and a force 10 spirit, you would need spell’s Force x net Spellcasting. Even cast on maximum force of 20 (*cough* drain *cough*) you would need something around 8 net hits ... and 12+ total hits. Which means a dice pool of 36 average. That sounds like a serious investment of edge.

Since my SR2/3 books are far away from me, I cannot think of any way to achieve this kind speed only with levitation and movement in SR2/3. On the other side, my SR2/3 rules knowledge is not really good after playing SR4 for some years.



Only if the spirit or the conjuring mage has seen this specific mach 2-turbobunny-container.



I would not be so sure of that. Corporations, mob, independent institutions and many other organisations will pay equal or better ... adult, educated and capable awakened people, and especially mages, are extremly rare, compared to the things they are expected to do, so even a magic heavy nation like the NAN will not be able to really set up heavy astral patrols for their entire border land (because they have to protect their cities, their army, their intelligence service, their police etc ... customs service comes last). Same goes for spirits.

SYL

If a dragon hires someone it takes the play in a different direction. If you want your force 10 mage then have at it. The problem is he presenting against that level of mage just means the mage will move through boarders no matter who is looking for them. If you are double digit magic I'm sorry but I think a dragon will approach you. It's not insane, and it gives a different feel of the game. If you want to tone down the game to something reasonable then a level ten mage will never be reasonable.

I was trying to offer a solution different then what other people are thinking. If you want to go epic where your characters never die and they eventually become all powerful then have at it. Get that 2000 karma character and demolish everything in your path. If the GM is against killing off characters in anyway shape or form then you need to run with what the players want to do. If that mage wants to do something like that he can do it, and it won't or shouldn't be a problem. Trying to steer the players into using a contact when they don't need to is a little silly and trying to "do away" with a rule that they should be able to work with seems fine. If they have been playing for so long taking conceal, or movement, or levitation will probably catch a large amount of flack for it. F 10+ Invisibility and F 10+ conceal = you can go across almost all boarders (save maybe one being patrolled by a great dragon.) It's basically that cut and dry. You don't need a container, you could just pick up everyone and haul them to pretty much whatever destination you want to go to.

Either scale up the game, make it a cake walk, or start over. All are valid options and sitting down to the table and asking where the players want to go might be an interesting proposition.

And? A dragon is just a normal Mr Johnson and a great dragon is just a normal "first tier power player" on the same level als Damien Knight. High level play, and that of course only if the "incredible" magic power is widely known in the shadows and not just "its a powerful shadow mage for hire".



We are talking about something around a grade 5 initiate (in theory, of course it could be grade 10), nothing with 2000 karma. Quite powerful but not the end of the world who is not destroying anything, but just using magic in an exotic way (and in the case of the turbobunny container possibly in a way against the rules).

SYL

The reality of security in the modern era would tell me that no kind of magical security would be able to effectively deal with something like this. People who guard borders are not trained to deal with things like invisible, concealed, levitating connex boxes flying at Mach2. What border guards are looking for can be summed up simply: Drugs, Guns (and explosives), Illegal entries (with and without any kind papers), and persons of interest.

IF a country had magical border security, I wouldn't imagine it would be more than a few watcher spirits on average, with a security mage (or shaman) who would be responsible for multiple Control Points. And you would have to ask yourself: What kind of magician ends up in border security? It's not a glamorous or high paying job, and magical skills should demand top dollar. Chances are, he or she is a mediocre magician.

If this is a military check point, you can probably expect a higher degree of security and professionally developed magicians, but they are still looking for the same things. Security patrols will probably be accomplished astrally, and a "Reaction Force" will be called out once the astral body "spots" the infiltrators. Anything flying that fast will be past the border before anyone can react - and an astral patrolman will probably not be allowed to give chase - his job is to patrol and screen - not deal with the threat once it gets past him.


In all, I'd say that something like this would come back and bite them in the ass later. When evidence of magical infiltration by high-powered entities is discovered - people will come looking. And they will be more prepared than the guards were.

Let us suppose you are flying The Amazing Crate over the UCAS/Tir Tairngire border, just for the sake of argument. Suppose for the moment that The Amazing Crate can hold 6 runners and their basic gear, and has a size roughly the same as a current-day Ford Astro or Mercury Villager or the like, if a bit less mass.

Suppose also for the sake of argument that you have enough force and successes to move this crate at about 250 MPH and are doing so at 30 feet above the tree line. Not bad at all!

However, you'll still get picked up by radar, as people have said, and in 2070, flying that low frankly doesn't matter. Radar spotting drones are cheap, disposable, and designed specifically to kill low-radar blind spots at places like international borders. So the Drones will be rolling about 4 dice, generally (Assuming Sensor 5-6, because these ARE military-grade spotter drones, plus Clearsight 5-6, plus 3 for the size and makeup of the object being concealed, -10 for spirit's force) and will start rapidly detecting that SOMETHING of significant size is sneaking the border.

Cue interceptors, piloted by real riggers, using higher die pools and the occasional edge to go "WTF is that radar ghost?" Eventually one's gonna cut loose with a missile if it feels threatened.

In general, it's an awesome way to sneak a border, but IF you get found out you'll probably be toast before you know it. Better to use some technology & bribes to hide a faster-moving craft that can engage in active EW.

Then you just buy a LAV tickit out and do the same to it bar levitate and you've got your ticked out flying crate.

It is expected of Shadowruners to be able to get across a border from the get go. There´s even an archetype in the BBB that supposedly does it for a living. The long borders countries have simply are harder to patrol than the relatively short fences the extraterritorial corporations put around their compounds.
So for a shaman or mage with multiple initiations under his belt it becomes really easy to cross those weak borders. I fail to see a real problem here.

The issue at hand seems to me, that you´d like to have the PC´s call others for help, for what -to them- is basically a glorified taxi ride to the other side of town.
I´d rather come at it from the side of why the VIP needs to be smuggled across the continent and what people will do to stop him. Having even a force five use the slow version of the movement power and then sitting in a safe spot will make that journey take at least a week (that includes the aforementioned 12+ net hits on the levitate test).
Of course simply having the spirit use it´s power and then scoot would be mean, so giving any characters keeping an ear to the ground a heads up, that they have been found out would be the way to go. While incidentally giving them an incentive to interact with whatever opposition you have set up. Maybe they´ll even go ahead and call the organisations you want them to.

Thanks for all your feedback.

The mage moving the 500kg box at mach2 had indeed a lot of experience. When casting a spell, he had a dicepool of more than 30 dices, and with karma (which he had plenty of), that meant a lot of successes.

Anyway, I shouldn't have emphasized such an extreme example. I still believe that a mage with more modest abilities can pull off similar tricks, even if not as spectacular.

I guess I'm just getting tired of the invisibility+concealment and levitate+movement combos which are used and abused in every imaginable situation. When they are infiltrating a building, I have wards and all kinds of magical protections and counters at my disposal to make it somewhat challenging. At much larger scales - like for example crossing country borders - such protections are not realistic. And firing a missile at anything that appears on the radar seems a bit extreme to me (except maybe at the Tir boundaries).

Well, the russians shot down a a passenger liner like that. Its not exactly new per say.