i believe the spells would have the aura of their creator rather than the CEO, and that means the people who put up the wards only know what the wage mage's aura looks like

Quickened spells at a decent force with extra karma are not so easy to take out:

Say you have quickened a F5 spell with 10 karma. If you walk unknowingly through a ward said ward gets ratingx2 vs your quickened spell, while the spell gets 2xF + karma spent (or 20 dice for our spell). Which means a Force 10 ward (and how common are they?) only has a 50/50 chance of nuking your spell...

Background count is still a hassle, but that will only suppress the spell while you are in the area and not destroy it .

True, you stand out on the astral, but that is what masking/extended masking is for

When you initiate in a corporate magical group, you don't always get to choose.

I think you value karma far too much. Reality check: does everybody you know keep studying until PhD? Do they all keep on training in sports until reaching pro leagues? No. Why should a mage's only goal in life be to initiate until Grade 12? That is not the mage thinking, that is the player behind. Mages are humans too. They might even be a bit lazier since their gift has always made everything easy for them. There is no reason why they should all want to keep studying all their life rather than make some quick money.

Why obscene? A deltaware rating 3 Synaptic booster is 2 400 000Y. A Force 4 Improved Reflexes quickened spell is slightly less good (no straight Reaction boost) but costs no Essence and there is no surgery involved. One could sell it between 5 and 10 million nuyen. High? Sure, especially if it all goes to the mage. Obscene? Definitely not. The folks who can afford deltaware can afford that too, and there are enough of those folks to make independent deltaware clinics a viable business.

Attuning a ward to someone does not give you a ritual link to that person.



It only requires the presence of a mage attuned to the ward to temporarily attune it to the aura of the spells/foci on the person passing through it.

This is a matter of debate. Corps seem to take any magician they can get, and said magicians tend to get a great deal of 'freedom' to do what they're paid to do, because they are a rare commodity it terms of employees. You will have many fewer mages willing to sign-up for your company if they know they are going to have waste their potential on some mundane.


I never said they'd keep studying. Studying is the action which grants karma not the karma itself. Karma is the experiences of life worth learning from. How many people are willing to sell the experiences in their lives they felt were that worth while? Mages more then most know exactly what karma is, and actually have the ability to see things like shadow spirits feed off of it, if allowed the opportunity. To them its not some nebulous concept, but a "physical" reality of their world they can touch and measure. Now many people are willing to share memories with others, through books, movies, sim-sense, but I know very few people who would sell an actual memory itself.


Why obscene? Ok, lets try for a) awakened people in general are reasonably rare b) full mages are a small proportion of the total awakened population, c) initiated mages are a small proportion of mage population d) initiated mages who bothered to take quickening are a small proportion of the initiated mage population. So we are looking at a tiny minority of the population even capable of the act. Then e) mages which initiate in the first place are motivated and driven to succeed, f) success takes talent, skill and luck, g) the 3 above cost karma, h) Making karma more valuable to those who strive, i) increasing its relative value to them, j) decreasing the probability they would part with any, k) unless ridiculous sums of money are forth coming.

This does not even take into account that a mage is likely to only take quickening AFTER getting masking, and extended masking, and quickening spells on someone, somewhere outside his immediate sphere of influence means that the first 2 metamagics become somewhat pointless, as your astral signature is being widely advertised on your behalf anyway.

"Excuse me, Mr. Spirit, could you please use your 'search' power to look for any and all instances of 'this' signature tied to a metahuman body? Kay-thanks."



I don't think wards can be 'adjusted' like that after their creation.

Pretty dumb if they can't. Someone should invent new ones.

Exactly. And that physical reality is that karma is xp. No more, no less. What they trade in when quickenning is that they will master fewer spells in the future, initiate to a lower level or reach lower Magic. So what if they don't need those powers?

There is nothing to back this analogy. Unspent karma is not part of yourself. You don't lose anything you already have when spending it, you lose future potential. That's why the analogy with study works. When somebody gives up studying to get a job, he exchanges future potential for immediate benefit, usually money. Do people do that? Yes.

Please define success. You assume that a mage who initiates to Grade 1 only wishes to go as far as possible. This is plain wrong. Once again, not everybody who goes to university wants to get a PhD. Plus the first grades of initiations do not require any special drive: they are much cheaper than increasing physical attributes for an athlete for example and you can get discount from the easier ordeals.

Most people are not interested in knowledge for itself. It is only a tool to get whatever they really want. So there is a point where they just have what they need and don't need more. I still don't understand why you feel mages should not behave as human beings.

And once again you are mistaking your PC mages with the overall mage population. Masking is gold for runners, but most mages are not into covert ops. Not to mention that masking might be illegal in some places, same as hiding your PAN or concealing weapons. For a mage who wants to make a good living and remain independent, quickening as the first and last (ok, maybe anchoring too) metamagic he will ever learn is a sound choice.

Its actually MUCH more. It is something real and tangle in the universe. Spirits can feed off of it, and it can be traded, or stolen. It is a real, supernatural aspect.


You're analogy is not giving up studying to get a job. Its studying to get a job, and giving that up for some quick cash on the side. Do people do this? Yes, but they tend to be stupid, and not the sort who could deal with the rigors needed to initiate in the first place.


In this instance? It would be for the mage to realize their self actualization. In SR magic is a very personal ability, ordeal, and goal. Success would be to be the best you can be.


Yes you do get a discount for ordeals. There is a reason the word 'ordeal' is used. Not because it is trivial, not because they take it on lightly, and without forethought. Given how much the universe opens up for a mage who HAS initiated, and by that I mean nearly unlimited access to an infinite number of infinitely large metaplanes, I'm quite certain, that 1 of 2 things will happen, either you initiate, and are terrified at the universe beyond the door you just opened, and likely burn out quickly, or you're enraptured by it, and will be driven by the actually access to the infinite infinites you've just realize exist. I don't think it ever could be a matter of initiating, accessing the metaplanes, and going 'meh'. You'll either dive right in, or recoil like a vampire from sunlight, I don't see a lot of middle ground.


I feel they should and do behave as human. I also think that when shown the metaplanes during their initiation that the mage is going to be far more inclined to want to see, do, and experience more. I don't think many would be willing to trade that in for a quick buck.


See above. Meta-planes, full of infinite wonder and secrets, vrs a quick buck. If you're opting for the later, you wouldn't have had the motivation to initiate in the first place.

You cannot probe someone (in my opinion) to obtain an astral signature, you have to actually expereince it directly...

Keep the Faith

Ever met anyone who is so smart that "Studying" is not even a personal option, because they do not need to do so? I know a ton of people like that... Make the Grades without ever cracking a book. phenomenal memories, well read, etc. Now... How many of them are like Bill Gates? or in Shadowrun, like Richard Villiars? Not many. Some just do not have the drive to "be all they can be" because they have never had to actually sacrifice to get there. They will get to the persoanl goal that they find comfortable, and then they will coast along, just like they have always managed to do. You really cannot argue that point, because I would be willing to bet that you know a ton of people like this as well...

Just because you do not recognize a middle ground of accomplishment does not mean that most people will not settle into that grouping. Life is a lot more than just a binary choice. As for trading in possible expereinces for the Quick Buck... Where have you been? This happens ALL THE TIME in the real world, why would that change in Shadowrun? And besides, "Many" is relative... According to you , there are "not that many awakened in the world"... but here is the kicker... there are more awakened in the world than Doctors or Millionaires/Billionaires... Seems like a lot of people to me. So a question... How many of them would attempt to make a quick buck rather than earn it the hard way? More than a few if you look at the Top CEO's/Upper Management positions of the world... Enron? Banking Industry? Stock and Bonds? I am sure that I could keep on going...

As for claiming that taking the quick buck is an indicator that they would not have drive... I think that is wrong also. Again, there are many people in the world who will turn a quick buck given the opportunity... the most immediately visible individuals that I can think of are Martha Stewart and Joe Nachio... Are you going to tell me that they are not motivated to succeed? If so, I would say that you are wrong...

Keep the Faith

Well, you do make a memory check to compare what you've seen before to one you're seeing now. And other than Mind Probe, would Mindlink let you share astral signatures with others?

Because that's something I've been thinking about for a while now, leaving behind your astral signature isn't that big of a threat to you. It's not like DNA or fingerprints where it can be entered into a database, checked against millions of prior samples and then always there, on file, the next time they find another sample. The FAQ said even a simrig can't record magical phenomena.

The one mage who assenses your signature will have to naturally remember it and compare it to your aura himself. Sure if you get caught then a detective mage can assense those bodies over there, assense you, tell Lone Star "yep it's him" and then appear at your trial as a witness. But in any other scenario unless you left behind an astral or sympathetic link he's got nothing on you and short of you two bumping into each other on the street he'll never find you. Even if you constantly commit crimes unless the same guy is brought in to assense every scene they'll never even link the cases.

If all the Mage cops got together in a mindlink network and shared the astral signatures of a "Magic Most Wanted" list it'd be more effective, but it's not really stated if that's possible.

There's nano ware that alows memeorys to be stored as data it's pricy and SOTA though. Other than that that why most dective mages are mystic adpets with the infaliable memeory powers and such.

Well, you could go like so...

A quickened spell that got disrupted would regenerate in Force (or Magic) of Disruptor - Quickened Spell's Force

Thus a Force 8 Ward that disrupted a Quickened Force 4 spell would cause that spell to not return to power until 4 days had passed. If that's too easy, make it such that the spell returns 1 Force per day AFTER the waiting period.

With that last bit it'd be like so...

Day 1: Force 0
Day 2: Force 0
Day 3: Force 0
Day 4: Force 0
Day 5: Force 1
Day 6: Force 2
Day 7: Force 3
Day 8: Force 4

In fact I may institute that in my game as Karma is by the game system represented as lifeforce / learning / force of will / sum of experiences / etc. It's a representation of life. It should not be that easy to snuff out. Life is rather pernicious and persistent.

Likewise, if one wanted to permanently destroy the quickened spell, then the opposition needs to overcome the original casting but should also have to spend the original cost in karma spent on the Quickened Spell +1.

I can see that... It really is not stated specifically, so I can see some leeway in interpretation.

Since we apparently cannot create your "Magic's Most Wanted" list using technology (mostly), we need another tack from which to proceed... Looking in the Books, the only thing that I can come up with is the Quicksilver Camera, which allows us to film Signatures, Auras, Background Counts, etc. Many agencies create high-definition copies for archival purposes (mentioned in the text)... so, we can now have a database of Astral Signatures that are readable by "Experts" that can now be linked in a Database.

So... I guess that we CAN indeed set up a Registry for Astral Signatures and link them to the Aura of an Offending Metahuman/Creature/Critter with enough data. I see this being implemented much like Fingerprinting was approached in its early infancy, and DNA archives as they are being developed today. Slow to Start, but becomming increasingly more useful as time goes by.

Keep the Faith

Do keep in mind that it's harder to Assence the result of a quicksilver camera than it is the actual signature.

It'd be like matching a pure-from-the-scene fingerprint with a smudged, blurry, faxed copy of the Records on File.

Yea I thought of the Quicksilver camera more as providing Magical Mugshots, although it keeps saying it can also photograph the astral signatures of objects I'm not sure if that explicitly means any thing you cast a spell on, I read it as just objects that have their own aura like Foci, etc.

Magical crime scene photography would be a big step forward though, even with the pretty crazy threshold. Anyone looking at the photo has to make an Assensing test 2 higher than normal, so threshold 5 for an Astral Signature. However, you can only achieve a maximum threshold equal to the hits scored by the photographer on his Assensing + Perception test. So the photographer would need to score 5 hits while rolling two skills, ouch. He'd have to be the superstar of the magic detective industry to stand a chance.

Which, granted, for dramatic reasons is probably the only person who should be assigned to a PC's case

I would assume it means "anything that shows an aura" which would include objects that have spells on them as well as "casting residue."

I know... but since you can now record a physical image of an Astral Signature, it is now possible...
As I said, I would bet that Thaumaturgical Forensic Experts would be in high demand, especially by the courts, for just such a purpose...

Keep the Faith

Yea but it's not only the investigator who looks at the photograph who needs to be top notch, the photographer has to be amazing. SR4A had little examples of what each skill rank means and at 6 Perception 6 Assensing the photographer is a superstar and even then he's rolling 12 dice to get 5 hits, so he has to get lucky just to let the investigators back at the crime lab has the possibility of hitting the threshold of 5.

So while it's pretty cool that it's possible, this seems like the sort of thing reserved for magical terrorists who throw a half dozen Great Form Fire Spirits at an airport or when a corporation loses millions or billions. There would only be a few of these guys out there and they would not work cheap.

Congratulations, you've now either lost your spell or alerted the security mage to your presence. Lose-lose.

Is that not a typo? I can't think of any other example when you roll 2 skills with no linked attribute. It's not that bad, though: bonus dice to Perception are fairly easy to get.

Sure... 6/6 is the best... but lets not forget that you are going to have things that will add into the roll (and most likely things that will subtract)... under optimal Circumstances, you can have that 6/6 guy throwing around 16 Dice (which statistically will net you those 5 hits)... without having anything that takes your base attributes beyond the 6 (for Humans anyway) Natural Maximum.

Yes, the TFS will indeed be a Specialist, no doubt, but it is far from impossible, even keeping the Skill descriptions as they are (which I would anyways). Arguably, the two most useful skills for a Thaumaturgical Forensics Specialist (which is a much more specialized version of the CSI vocation) will be Perception and Assensing... so I would expect them to have decent skills in this area.

Keep the Faith

He also needs to invest some points in Knowledge: One-Liners. YEAAAAAAAAH!

And an album of The Who to activate after said one-liner.

Don't forget Edge. With an Edge to reroll failures, 9 dice are enough to reach 5 hits on a regular basis.

All very true indeed... Especially the "The Who" album track...

As for the Test... it is indeed Assensing + Perception... but 2 specialites (Astral Photography), one for each, as well as a Mentor Bonus, say "Dark King," for an additional +2 to Assensing and Perception Tests will net you an immediate 8 bonus dice right there... combined with 5/5 for the Skills (more in line with my expectations anyway), gives you 18 Dice to play with (20 if both skills are at 6)... Not to difficult now...

EDIT: Also, since you can obtain high-Resolution digital images from the original plate, and each astral signaure is identical to the sigtnature of the individual who created it, I am pretty sure that you could design a computer program to match the Hi-Res uniqueness against each other (as the Hi-Res Prints will still be unique to the individual that created it, just not with the astral undertonmes) like finger prints or DNA evidence is typed. You may not get the astral undertones, but do you really need them?



Keep the Faith

Back to quickening, i can see if used more often outside the nitty gritty of the urban world. I could see tribal peoples and 3rd world countries really getting into quickening. I would assume that the Sahara doesn't have a lot of wards, nor do i assume that bushmen and people living in remote areas run into wards that much either. I mean they might attract dual natured and spirits but if it is a bigger edge to survival then it isn't an issue. I would assume that in small tribes awarding someone with a quicken spell would be a great honor and a tribal leader shaman would stay in power and loved if you did some quickening such as permanent clean water, fire, shelter, etc.

I know as players of a game we look at it in a narrow view, but fluff wise, the world is a much bigger place.

I talked about that earlier. I think it bears repeating.

The 5+ hits portion of the table indicates you access their inner most memories. If that mage can make a ward to allow X person through, then that mage's brain knows what X persons astral signature looks like.

You'd also need a 5+ Force spell to get that many hits.

Subtle difference. You are talking about people who stop trying to improve themselves. People like this would NOT have the karma to sell. I do not see many people who have access to the infinite metaplanes falling into such a state so easily. The issue is if people who would have the quantities of karma needed 12+ at a time, would be willing to spend it on something like a quickening for someone else, and I'm really doubting it.


Ok, lets try this another way. You earn karma my DOING things. By striving, by stretching, by doing what is hard and not what is easy. These are the kinds of people who would have the levels of karma needed to even consider being able to put those kinds of quickened spells up. How many people do you know who work, and ache, and strive, doing what is only just barely possible for them, who would sell their hard earned memories, skills, and experiences cheaply if at all?




and you often do... at length...



Yes, and they write columns, and appear on T.V. and this is where their quick buck comes from. They do not sell their POTENTIAL to write BETTER columns, or come up with BETTER idea. They market a talent they have a near endless supply of, and one which when used becomes greater, you're proposing mages would sell the only thing they can use to improve themselves, and there by cripple their ability to get more. I really HOPE you don't know anyone like that.

So anyone with a magic of 3 or higher, or edge....

If mages to cast Quickened spells are so rare, why are mages to Ward places so common? Sure, you don't have to initiate, but face it, to build a Ward that'll really stop a Quickened spell it does need to be quite powerful, too.

Also, high-end executives that might buy Quickened spells probably don't go to Warded places on a random whim. They have someone else check out the place first to see if its safe. If the owner of the place isn't willing to accommodate by allowing him through the Ward, shouldn't he be worried that he's venturing into enemy territory? Compare it to a world leader visiting another country and being put in an incommunicado location - that'd be suspicious, too.

---

What I meant by a spirit-disruption system was more like this:

"If a Quickened spell is disrupted, it remains so for X days, after which it reactivates, at Force 1 lower than before, permanently. Karma can be spent to build it back up to its previous level."

A Quickened spell should be rather like assigning Karma to buying a new ability (the spell) for someone or something.

This is something that I think could not happen. I think the photos of auras would need to be assessed and organized by hand. Just like fingerprints back when they needed to be compared by hand, one at a time, against stacks of prints.

What they could do is have anyone who assesses the photo write a breif summery and try to fit it into catigorys that a computer COULD keep track of. It would aid someone finding a pattern by looking at what else is in the file under the same info. On category for possible blood magic, another for coyote shamans, another for hedge witches, another for initiates, and still others for the types of spells or spirits. And investigator would play around with search criteria and come up with houndreds if not thousands of photos, that need to be laboriusly compaired to each other by hand, but it would not be an imposible task. It would just be very difficult and often fruitless. Crime software might also be programed to help see patterns.

Also it would need for corporate states to share more info with each other than they probably do. Finger printing was useless enough back when states or even cites did not share with each other.

I disagree. By the RAW, you don't get karma for practicing, you get it for accomplishing things, with a bit of bonus karma dolloped on top if it happened to be a "difficult" run, whatever that is. In the rules there's a fundamental disconnect between doing ordinary things and getting karma, which is why I tend to think that any claim to understand just how much karma a non-runner can accumulate is frankly going to be just conjecture.

n/m.

You may doubt it, but society begs to differ a bit from your opinion I think...



Several in fact... if they could sell their sould for money to make a better living, they would do so... Desperate people make these kinds of decisions daily in the real world... and there is a big differences here... your Karma DOES NOT EQUAL Memories, or Skills, and only tangentially impacts experiences... you sell of your Karma (in Game) and yet you still have access to everything that you just listed as precious, but you also have something else as well, whether it be money, power, or happiness, whatever...



Often, Yes... no worries though, you are in no way in danger of losing your status because of it...



Except that once you have reached your potential (Say Skill 6) you do not stop gaining Experience... which is where your analogies fall down... My two examples above... They had everything that they could ever want in their life, and could do absolutely nothing else in this world and still have millions at their death. And yet, they broke the law because they saw an opportunity to take the quick way out instead of the legal way, and tried to make a few Million dollars while doing so... Why? They in no way needed the Money...

As a Character, you will have an unlimited number of experience (karma) to acquire... what you (or I) choose to do with some tangential experiences in the short term DOES NOT LIMIT you (or us) in the long run... it is ludicrous to think that that is the case... It may Slow my progression down, but if the short term insures that I will be around for the Long Term, then it is a good investment in my opinion. I have not lost ANY POTENTIAL by using somehting like Quickening, and yet it just might insure my survivability so that my long term goals may come to fruition... You see absolutely no potential in that? I sure do...

Keep the Faith

Why not though? The description of the Films are that they can be archived with High Resolution Copies (Digital would be the likely option, in my opinion), which should/will retain their uniqueness, at least in my opinion (Hell, Facial Recognition software relies upon this very thing)... what you will lose are the more subtle Astral imprints that may or may not translate, but the description does not mention that at all... These are the reasons that a TFS will be an expert in that particular field insetad of a CSI technician, because he can see the more subtle imprints that another may miss... but software could be programmed to kick out likely matches, which WILL cut down on research time, assuming that hte system floows like Fingerprinting and DNA technology did.

As for the Data Balkanization that is prevelant in Shadowrun, it will be handled much like SIN's, or Security Footage (or whatever) is handled in Shadowrun... sometimes they may share it and sometimes they may not... all dependent upon their purposes. When Purposes align, then the data will likely be shared.

So you're asking why there are more people able and willing to do something that any magician can do, with a few hours effort and with no personal expenditure than magicians who took a particular metamagic at initiation, who have learned a particular spell and are willing to give up a portion of their not thoroughly understood but definitely present mystical force (aka soul)?

Seriously, lol?

Karma isn't soul. Essence is (closer).

It doesn't matter what it is. It's *something*. That's a big deal, hehe.

No, I'm asking why Wards are so common if mages are said to be so rare.

How powerful will a typical Ward be? That depends on your opinion on how much Magic a typical mage has, since Wards are subject to maximum Force like everything else. The Drain on casting a Ward is Force - pretty heavy, so I don't expect too much overcasting.

The Ward rolls Force x 2 to stop things passing through; Quickened spells get their (Force x 2 for any spell) + (Force bonus dice for Quickened spell specifically due to the metamagic) to resist dispelling.

---

Also,

No astral signature involved.



So in the "pressing through" approach, your Quickened spells aren't at risk. Only if you accidentally walk through a Ward is there a risk, and even then a high-Force Quickened spell has a decent chance of winning this check, since it generally has more dice than the Ward.

There are more mages in the Sixth World than there are doctors or lawyers today. They're rare compared to the overall population, not compared to anything actually worthwhile of a comparison. Also, wards protect against more than just mages.

Question: if you told your players that their mage can earn hundreds of thousands maybe millions of nuyen by selling Quickened spells to some rich CEOs, non would take that deal?

Digital copies of astral photography. Wow SR4 the piss all over the shadowrun setting edition. Whatever happened to astral crap and tech don't mix. What is next special goggles and gloves that let you haxxor computers and see AR from astral space.

It's also something that can be used to purchase Knowledge Skill: Obscure Matrix Trivia. It's something alright, but a very nebulous something.

I was wondering the same thing. You can spend BP for 1 BP = 5000 nuyen. Karma is worth roughly half as much, be generous and say 3000 nuyen per karma. That would make something like 36000 nuyen a reasonable price for a 12 Karma quickening. I can imagine that the majority of PCs would GLADLY blow 12 Karma quickening some spell on a rich guy for a million nuyen. In Shadowrun, karma = power, but nuyen also = power, and a million nuyen is a lot more power than 12 karma. You could throw a party with joygirls, blackjack, and max-force Power Foci.

Karma, I've found, is the ingame representation of downtime and ability to work on something else. Study spells, learn a new language, hit the range to improve your aim, charm school - if you don't have the karma, you don't have the time and interest to learn.

AFAIK you can't make digital copies of astral photography. This whole "digitize the results of quicksilver cameras" is not supported by RAW.