Couple questions:

1) Warding says 50 cubic meters per magic point. So a standard 6 magic mage could only ward 300 cubic meters. Assume 3 meters for a standard ceiling and that leaves 10 by 10 so roughly 30 feet by 30 feet by 10 feet high. Am I the only one who finds that small? Can multiple wards be used to cover a larger area with one larger ward or would it be a series of small ones and each would require 4 walls, 1 floor and 1 ceiling in order to be warded? What about spirits warding, do they require a physical surface to ward or can they ward thin air?

2) Masking wards are like regular wards but very hard to see and make any magic within appear mundane on the astral. What good is making magic appear mundane unless you're trying to fool someone else inside your 30 by 30 room?!? The ward although masked is still an astral barrier and as such anyone on the outside of it couldn't see any spells your casting inside it anyways. What am I missing? How does the wards masking affect people looking at the ward, they see an astral barrier but can't tell what it is? They see right through the ward as if it wasn't there? Small astral midgets paint the warded area to appear as a lovely garden?

Thoughts?

Kong

Um, yeah. That's why one usually ward rooms or small buildings unless you have multiple awakened (or a non-canon Warding focus).

Spirit warding requires a physical component in the exact same manner as all other wards. Which means something that is at least "solid".

For a Masking Ward, the barrier is clear, meaning they don't see shit or know its there unless they run into it or demask it.

IMO.

Also(I don't have the books with me to check) teams of warders can ward a larger area and it's easier to make such a ward more permanent. buisiness's exist for just such a reason.
I think this was more a game mechanic to keep character-made ward under control. Just my thoughts

And don't forget the ever popular warded clothing (current team have a 2m spherical F10 ward on a hair pin for if they ever need to do tunnels full of bugs. Which they did have to. It was very useful...

can't find anything in canon to disallow that, so I've let it slide. It really bugs them when mages use shattershield spells.

Anyway... Teams of warders can indeed make a larger area. I can't remember the amount either, but I think you just total up their magic ratings, since that's what you do when you're working out the maximum force they can put up.

Bang on with the Masking Ward by the way. It conceals both itself and whatever magical stuff is on the other side of it subject to relevant force ratings.

But you can do a huge area with the right set up, which doesn't even need to be that good. You think how big a ward someone like the illuminates could put up! Standard initiate group, say a dozen members, plus a few guests like friendly physads (who can put up wards) - lets say two of them - with an overall average grade 3 if its a good group, is maximum force 126 (not that they'll manage it, but force 12-15 shouldn't be a problem), pooling 126 dice?!! I don't think successes are going to be a problem and they can do a 6300 cubic metre area, say 6m high by about 32m on each side. That's easily a large sized meeting hall. Between them they only need to pay a karma point or so each and its permanent.

And that's only if they want to make a cube. No reason you can't just shape it as a barrier in which case it can be a cm thick if you want and nearly 800m per side. Imagine the Renraku arcology for instance - no reason why it shouldn't (in fact, it does) have occasional F10 wards which go across entire levels and cover the outside. It would only have taken a week or so to accomplish assuming everyone who needed to be present to attune to it (basically security personnel and some staff mages with exceptionally high clearance. You just make sure everyone who's supposed to be there knows not to try to use the elevators with anything active magically...), and even if renraku are lacking magically, they'll have at least a few magical fraternities, or more likely a corp wide one - that's a lot of mages, even considering how rare they are. Ship them in on rotation to put the wards up and you can do it easily.

Yeah, a mage on his own is a bit puny really, but bring in even half a dozen competent friends and the wards get a LOT better, real fast.

That is correct, wards have to have a physically definable boundary, such as a wall, a chalk line, ect.

I've always run that you could ward a cabin or the bridge of a cruise ship, for example. It just made sense to me.

Hmm... maybe this'd be getting too Shamanic, but perhaps a ward could be possible in anything big enough to have a Hearth spirit... but it should be possible on cargo ships too... hm...

~J

You can ward a vehicle, the ward obviously has a breach whenever the doors or windows are opened. You could not ward the deck of a ship, having nothing to write on... I'm curious about spirits needing a material surface as well, why would a forest spirit need walls? a wind spirit?
I might rule that spirit warding is a circular field radiating out from the spirit at a distance governed by it's force.

As far as masking wards go, I'm trying to figure out the whole "makes magic appear mundane" as it relates to wards being astral barriers and as such blocking astral sight.

Let's imagine a glass room covered by a ward,

Scenario A: 1 mage inside room, 1 mage outside room.

Event 1: Mage inside casts a spell
Result 1: Mage outside sees nothing except a large warded cube.

Event 2: Mage outside is looking for mage inside.
Result 2: Mage outside sees nothing except a large warded cube.

Scenario B: 2 mages both inside the ward.

Even 1: Mage inside casts a spell
Result 1: it's clearly visible from inside the room.

Now lets do the same thing but the ward is a masking ward. Which apparently means it is both invisible and makes magical effects occurring within appear mundane, like I said, not sure what it all means.

Scenario A: 1 mage inside room, 1 mage outside room.

Event 1: Mage inside casts a spell
Result 1: Mage outside sees the room (ward is invisible) sees the mage (mage appears mundane and non-astral (assume he was dual) spell cast looks like a mundane emotional flux in astral space?!?

Event 2: Mage outside is looking for mage inside.
Result 2: Mage outside sees through the invisible ward, seing the room and it's occupant but cannot identify the occupant as a mage?!?

Scenario B: 2 mages both inside the ward.

Even 1: Mage inside casts a spell
Result 1: it's clearly visible from inside the room.


Now take note, everything that is answered in the masking ward version is what I'm not certain of and am trying to work out.

Thoughts?

Kong

I guess you're right about that, not sure why I assumed a vehicle would work any differently than a room.

Kong

There are multiple novel refences to movable wards ( yes I know novel != canon), the easiest to remmber is in The Forever Drug where they use warded cages to trap and transport paracritters.

But I was thinking, would it be possable to ward a tent to take camping? This would take care of a lot of nast para problems in the wild.

-The Eggman

I take your point about a physical exterior. I'll re-adjust things in the campaign that hasn't tried it yet. The other campaign have always used that rule and its a bit unfair to change on them now. besides, it means the opposition can do it to. Anthroform combat drones with warded exteriors backed up by adepts with weapon foci and Armour spells quickened to their warded robes are a mages absolute worst nightmare, beleive me!

I guess we never read that part too carefully. But if you can ward a vehicle and still use it (and I see no reason why not), then it stands to reason its at least possible to ward other objects and manipulate the ward accordingly - if you can do a dome by drawing a circle, you can evidently influence the shape of a ward. Maybe as a metamagical ability you could get away with warding clothing and so on as they have been. That makes a kind of sense, if I had to justify it. i accept the whole 'canon says NO' point though. I'm just hypothesising!

EDIT: just thought of something slightly related - what if it wasn't portable wards, it was more just sort of quickened shielding. Casting across a ward increases target numbers, wards increase target numbers. The only additional thing something like this would do is also give you dice to help resist if it does get through. But as a weird never-before-encountered ability that some secret cult uses, it would really make things tough for the runners... H'mm....

I more interested in the masking ward and it's effects at this time.

If I'm standing outside a warded glass room looking for mage A who's inside the room. Mage A is merily casting spells. What can if anything, Mage B see?!?

Sunday

Just for the curious:

assuming he can't penetrate the masking ward, he sees the mage - looking mundane - waving his hands around and chanting. He can see the effects of spells if they come out past the ward, but other than that, no, assuming the ward is powerful enough to mask the spell effects and the mage.

re: the bug ward protection thingummy, its cool, they'll just have to learn an appropriate barrier spell and quickening...

I (mistakenly?) thought power foci only added to the magic attribute when casting, conjuring, or using magical skills (which warding does not, oddly enough). I know ally spirits add directly to magic attribute when used to "Aid Power." Also, IIRC, Adepts cannot use power foci though they can ward (provided they have astral perception). Nor can spirits. Though using many spirits to aid in ward creation seems likely (up to Charisma...).

I love parentheses (in case you couldn't tell).

Parentheses are (it cannot be questioned (even remotely (no, not in the least))) wonderful.

~J

Yes, well as long as we are bringing up warding issues.

If a dragon tries to move through a ward on the physical plane, can he.

Just to remind people dragons are dual natured creatures.

It is my understanding that physical things can move straight through words. But astral forms can't.

Then if they can't freely move through, could they push through without destroying the ward, kinda like moving something through opposed fields. It is possible just need to have the strength.

Dragons can engage a ward in astral combat, use Masking to synchronize their aura and thus pass through it undetected, or use a spell to destroy it.

for a ward to be effective it needs to stand between a persons aura and whatever is going on. this makes clotheing useless as the aura passes a bit outside of clotheing (im thinking about 1-5 cm outside) so therefor a warded jacket, while theoreticaly doable, will be useless as the aura is on the wrong side of the ward. atleast thats what i would toss at any player whos char is traying to ward said item of clothing.