Is there any way that you can have your own quickened/sustained spells pass through a mana barrier without having to force their way through? By a strict reading of the rules, only the creator's astral form is even allowed to pass through a barrier without trying to break through, but I'm sure that the designers meant for creators' foci and quickened/sustained spells to be able to pass through as easily as themselves. My only guess would be to use Masking to imitate the creator's aura as in Street Magic, but I'd like to know if this would even work at all.

I'm fairly sure they specifically made it so that they -wouldn't- go through barriers easily so that you didn't have mages running around with reflexes 3 all the time for the cost of a few karma while everyone else has to pay tons of and essense/magic for it.

I thought of that also, but otherwise quickening spells loses a lot of utility and becomes more of a karma sink than anything else. If a spell has to force its way through a mana barrier every time regardless of who it's being sustained on or who cast it, then nobody would have any reason to use quickened spells, since every time they enter even their own magical lodge there's a chance that the spell will end, and all the karma they spent on it will disappear. Quickening doesn't drain Essence or nuyen, but karma, which can be a much more important (and much harder to find) resource.

But the real question is whether or not there is a way you can get a sustained or quickened spell through a mana barrier without forcing its way through.

extended masking. otherwise, you need permission from the creating magician (or one of the creating magicians, if it was a joint effort) to get your spell through without the barrier and the quickened spell duking it out.

Yeah, I thought you could use extended masking to make your astral form (and that of your foci/quickened spells) look like that of a mundane person. So basically, unless you're a high-level initiate or its a low force ward, it's fairly difficult to sneak through with a bunch of quickened spells.

masking doesn't help (unless you houserule it that way).

it makes your aura just look different. it won't change its actual status. so even if your spell is hidden, its astral form is still there. and the ward doesn't get a roll on noticing astral forms - it just blocks their passing.

compare it to a wall and a mage with impr. invisibility - thoug he cannot be senn by mundane means (radar and stuff not counting ...), he still isn't able to go through the wall as he IS there.

same applies for foki.

yes, that makes quickening pretty hard. but for your own magic lodge/other wards and barriers it's no problem. as you are the creator, you can "tell" the barier to let the spell through. corp mages won't have problems either, as they just have to call security and the appropriate mage when rentering a builing/room with a ward on it.

What it means is that something that lets you bypass one of the few drawbacks to magic, drain, duration, sustaining penalties isn't completely overriden by the expendature of a few exp and an initiation grade.

I'm sure you can get your quickened sustained spells through mana barriers by forcing them. You can -always- get them through your own barriers because you can let anything through your barriers that you want.

I don't think that giving mages difficulties with mana barriers is really a problem as far as the usefulness of quickening spells. Sure, karma isn't found in oceans, but essence is by far the most limited resource. You get 6. Period. End of story, go away. And what does it take for a mage to quicken a maxed out reflexes spell? 3 or 6 or something? That's -almost- enough for a mundane to get a +1 to a skill. Hmmm... +3 IP vs +1 DP to a single skill... yeah, I'm going to call that mages have the advantage, so they need something to balance it out. That something is the fact that they run into a mana barrier and go "Noooo, all my sustaining foci and quickened spells!"

That same expenditure elsewhere gives a permanent increase to something useful. The usefulness of something that expensive AND is easy to disrupt... not so much.

Essence isn't all that limiting either given that you can now recover lost Essence.

None of my mages ever had quickened spells for this reason. The cost is simply too high for a temporary / 'easy-to-break' effect.

Yes, it does. No, it is not a House Rule.

I always followed the Masking is a cover up interpretation. Can you site where it says otherwise in the rules?

street magic, p. 124, "fooling wards".

it's been around for quite some time, i know i've read it in SR3 books, and i suspect it's been around since SR2 and maybe even SR1.

there's a reason everyone says your first metamagic should be masking, you know (and your second being extended masking isn't a bad idea either)

the way with "fooling wards" will work.

so let me correct my post from above: just using masking (and with foci around extended masking) to make yourself look mundane might fool the sec.-mage or the watcher. but the barrier will still block the astral forms of your active foci or spells. as they ARE there. unless you synchronise with the ward.

just a side note: the chapter is named "fooling wards". what about otrher barriers? magical lodges and stuff? can you fool those as well? i'd rule yes, but SM doesn't say anything about it ...

I'm fairly sure that it specifically states that lodges create wards. In which case the fooling wards stuff would obviously apply to lodges. I could be wrong about that though as magic isn't my strong suit.

Personally I've found that Quickening becomes allot more useful if you allow Mages to "tie up" their Magic to power the spell, they get the lost point back when the spell is dropped or disrupted...

No, they create barriers, but the lodge owner can allow any astral form to get through. In the astral barrier section, they just say "other" without precising of it refers to people or astral forms. I would tend to interprete it the same way as the lodge.

It does not make quickened spells too strong: this only applies to friendly barriers, not hostile ones.

well, freindly barriers never were a problem, eh? but can you "fool" a generic lodges barrier whos owner is unknown to you? if it works like wards, then surely yes. but what about a quickend manabarriere somewhere? foolable or not?

Well, anything you do with wards, sustained spells, and the like all have a trail you can follow back to the creator / owner. Once you assense them, you can then attempt to fool the ward / barrier.