I was reading Magic in the Shadows, and noticed that you could sustain spells cast with ritual magic "by allocating dice from the Ritual Pool to that purpose, which will sustain the spell for a number of hours equal to the Magic of the team leader multiplied by the number of dice allocated." (p.38)

This seems like a great way to add value to the under-appreciated art of Ritual Spellcasting in SR4, and I'm considering houseruling it back in. Now, back when I played SR2 I only had the core book, and I skipped SR3 altogether, so I have no idea how this might affect gameplay. I'm hoping for some input.

I'm thinking the houserule might look something like this:

Ritual Sustaining: The ritual team can use some of the successes from a Ritual Spellcasting test to sustain the spell, for (leader's Magic x Successes used) hours. The leader remains in control of the spell and can stop the sustaining process at any time.

I don't think this would allow for very long-lasting spells, making quickening less useful. It would be a nice way to cast an Alleviate Allergy spell for a day, though. Maybe you could even buy sustained spells from a high-level mage or magical group.

I'm hoping magical security, especially wards, would keep 'freely' sustained Increase Reflexes (and the like) spells in check. I don't think Ritual Sustaining would differ too much from Sustaining Foci. You'd just be using planning and time instead of Karma. Both would have their uses.

not to mention it would cost ritual materials each time. i don't foresee any massively horrible problems with it.

Personally I would house rule it that to sustain the spell the team would also have to take a -2 per success allocated to sustaining the spell.

Or maybe limit the number of success allowed to be allocated to sustaining the spell by the number of members of the ritual casting.

Basically you don't want players abusing the ritual magic to sustain high force spells.

Also, I would think, unless the ritual is preformed using a physical, sympathetic, or symbolic link the spotter would need to maintain LOS of the target through the sustaining time. If a link is used, it must be in possession of the members of the team working to sustain the spell through out the sustaining time. Or that the ritual lasts the entire duration of the sustained spell. Otherwise I would kind of feel like the rules of ShadowRun magic were being broken.

Thoughs are my thoughts.

I fully endorse using Ritual Magic to sustain spells. But we play without sustaining foci so I don't mind giving our mages the chance to walk around with a"free" (remember: no ritual materials in SR4) sustained spell at the cost of not being able to pass wards unnoticed.

Thanks

DoomFrog: I agree with your thoughts, but my games are a bit more lax. They can be, because we don't have any obvious munchkins. Maybe this is why I feel that there is no need to limit this way of sustaining any further. It runs into the same problems as foci and (to a lesser degree) quickening.

- Going through public places (with any kind of astral security) with a high-level spell is gonna raise some eyebrows, especially if that spell is combat-related.
- Going through wards is a problem. You can't recast, as with foci, and there's no extra protection à la quickening. If the caster is not with you, you can't even drop it. Someone's gonna have to dispell it.
- You light up like a Christmas tree on the astral, as always with spells.

The way I'd run it, Ritual Sustaining would be kind of a 'quickening lite'. It wouldn't require LOS, as the ritual imbued the spell to sustain itself for a time. As I understand it, this is also how it was in the past.

Spells sustained like this could have their Force halved for all dispelling purposes, because of the fragile nature of the Sustaining Ritual. Dispelling would be against (Force/2)+Magic and the spell would only roll Force x 1 against wards. I don't think this is needed, because Ritual Sustaining would be comparable (and when it comes to wards, inferior) to sustaining foci.

Christmas lights in mid-December for some places and games. The astral is hardly an empty void where a single spell shines like a lone beacon..

Naturally

Doesn't make it impossible to be stealthy - just more difficult.