This last week end, we were playing shadowrun (gasp!)... it was actually the second night (of what will be three) playing through one mission. We started discussing matrix security as our GM never really felt they did well previously with SR4 matrix and as I was playing the mage, I brought the conversation to astral security and how they (our tabletop group has 3 GMs) handle astral security.

Personally, I given thought to the specific commands given to the spirits/watchers. I generally prefer that they give little thought to mundane goings on; cyberware and vehicles mostly evading their comprehension. Orders generally pertain to astrally active or those with spells, though sometimes an area (like climbing over a fence) might be off limits and cause them to raise an alert, seek guidance or manifest and challenge those traversing a restricted area.

Discussion: How do you handle active (spirits, watchers, patrolling mages, etc) astral security? What are some examples that you have used, or had used against you, in the past?

Spirits are not stupid but depending on how they are being (en/mis)treated, they may interpret their orders differently.

Watchers are stupid, not unfunctionally stupid unless that is how the table handles low intelligence stats but more complex orders strain their comprehension.

Patrolling mages may be lazy or they are simply going to fulfill their contractual obligation of informing the physical security of intruders.

The first obvious thing to do is architecture. Algae-covered walls, burying the facility under a mountain, any number of different methods along those lines to create choke points to minimize the need for astral security.

Let's say all your really important stuff is in the basement. Then you can create an astral barrier on just the elevator column, and you'll know immediately if there are any mages trying to take a peek into your lab.

Other thoughts I've had (or are just on the top of my head) regarding how to use magic for astral (and general) security.

Spirit powers; Concealment comes to mind. Probably would be a bad thing if the runners thought that pill box they were "sneaking" by was unoccupied.. Confusion, Accident; lots of fun to be had there.

I'm sure this has been brought up before, but a fiber optic network running through a facility to let 1 (or a team) of mages cast spells without chance of reprisal (unless the runners can find the pinhole camera hidden somewhere in the room, but by then it's probably too late).

Rituals, in particular Ward.

I.e., let's say you've got a Ritual Leader with Magic 6, Ritual Spellcasting 6 (the head of magical security). He's got 3 employees to help him out, all Magic 4 Ritual Spellcasting 4. Each employee makes a teamwork test rolling their 8 dice, getting 2 hits. Those hits raise the Ritual leader's limit by 2, and give him 2 extra dice to his test (up to the maximum allowed, his skill of 6). Now, instead of rolling Magic (6) + Ritual Spellcasting (6) vs. a limit of [Force], he's able to roll 6 + 6 + 6 vs. Limit of [Force + 6]. Let's say (for sake of argument) he chooses a Force 4 Ward, meaning he's got 4 net hits on his test. His ritual will now last a month, and cover 900 cubic feet of space. He can also spend 4 karma to make it permanent (if he wishes).

On average my standing operation for magical sec for a corp is wards/dual natured ivy and bound elemental/s. My players can almost tell the nastiness of the corp by the type of elementals they use. The spirits usualy have if some thing astral happens sic it or report it. This may be a spell, dual natured or astral being in area.

In more small secure sites as spirits can be quite smart, they may challenge any person on site who's aura they dont know with orders to take them to nearest sec guard/mage post. It may even be kill if not under escort of known sec staff in a z zone.

In choke points I employ full wards and elemenals/watchers at guard at public entrances for magical and some times cyber scans.

More esoteric spirits require constant summoning but bring lots of fun tricks.

I had a soft Z zone with decompartment permenant wards, each room in the building isolated from the other. The sec mages were taught to specialise in astral combat and operated in twos or head mage be powerful competant and arroggant astral dualist. The spirits had free run of the facility and the mages turned up with elemenetals in tow. The idea was to force the runner wizzer to astral and be overwhelmed or to summon and lose there spirits for the same effect. This was further re enforced by a plastisteel homoculus as a guard.

I tend to emply most of what's been said, but if I want the magic users to simpy stay away, I put my facility in Chicago, as close to the voids as I can. Bugs don't scare mages (in 4E anyway), nothing a stunbolt won't sove, but essance eating bacteria and random arbitrary swings in mana? Bwahahaha, I had one high magic team refuse to go into Chicago without anything short of Hazmat gear.

Thanks for the replies so far. I'm hoping to see more specific examples. For instance:

Physical Overview: A company (let's call it Acme Inc) leases 5 floors of a 35 story skyrise on the edge of the Seattle downtown; floors 12-16. Neighborhood security is "A". Floor 11 is currently leased by an independent dental practice while floor 17 leased by the sales department of Geyser Ltd, an SK subsidiary specializing recreational climbing gear.
Astral Security: Floor 13 is the executive floor for the regional VP and his staff. A R2 ward is maintained over the entire floor. The other floors are not warded.
- From dawn to dusk a watcher patrols all 5 floors as well as floors 22-24 and 27 (other contracts for the security company). It travels between the floors by going outside the building (so as to not alert astral security on those floors). Its orders are "Alert your summoner of any astral entities without your summoner's signature." Every 3 hours there is a five minute overlap with 2 watchers.
- From dusk until dawn, there is a F3 Air Elemental (optional power Noxious Breath) dedicated to Acme's floors (the other contracts in this building did not want to pay the additional costs). The spirits orders are "Alert your summoner of any astral or dual-natured entities, or any spells in the area or on people in the area, without your summoner's signature."
- If alerted, the summoner will arrive to investigate in 6d6 seconds. His meat body is hooked to a biometer and he logged the fact he was headed here before coming astrally. He generally assumes there will be a false alarm if it is the watchers and recon by thieves/shadowrunners if it is the spirit. He checks everything over. Finding nothing, he will leave. If the spirit called him, he will return in 2 minutes to make a second check.

The details are, of course, unknown to the team except what they get by:
(1) Astral recon, which potentially could alert the security mage causing him to investigate and file a report
(2) Hacking the company to get details of their security contract, which will definitely be more vague than the description above (and perhaps even wrong if they are getting less than they paid for).
(3) Hacking the security company to get details of their security contract, which will be pretty close to the description above (though perhaps wrong if they are getting less than they paid for because if either (a) fraud or (b) a lazy security mage).

This scenario is reasonable with a few holes and perhaps a surprise of two. I can see a team getting completely side tracked upon seeing the watcher go to other floors, assuming that Acme has secret stuff going on on floors 22-24 & 27. I could continue to provide more detail here, but you get the idea.