I'm a newbie to magic, so I'm wondering about quickening Increased Reflexes on yourself. If this is possible, i have a few questions.

Is someone with IR+3 as 'jumpy' as somebody with Wired 3? Do they move with the grace of someone with MBW 4? Also, I think I want to quicken this spell on my character . What's a good Force to set this quickened spell to (just in case i run into a mage who wants to dispell it), or is it a bad idea to spend karma for quickening?

no, IR+3 doesn't make you jumpy--only technological increases do that. and, no--no one moves with the grace of an MBW4 guy except someone else with MBW4. you might try tattooing it at force 4 or so, and spending 2 extra karma on it--that gives you an effective force of 12 for dispelling purposes.

It is definitely possible to quicken IR +3. A mage with quickened IR +3 would be neither as "jumpy" as wired 3 (jumpiness only applies to cybernetic reflex enhancements) nor as smooth as a person with MBW 4 (which is a specific effect of that cybersystem).

It is OK to spend karma for quickening, ESPECIALLY if your GM allows the karma-for-cash rules in SRComp. The problem is that, over time, it *will* get dispelled - either by walking though a ward or multiple dispelling attempts, which cumulatively reduce your successes. I would say to either do it at as high a force as you can afford - which is my blanket advice for quickening, or to quicken it at force 1, in that losing 1 karma to dispelling/a ward isnt that bad.

With walking through wards being the main screwjob that usually gets people with quickened spells.

Masking can fool wards. You are probably better off quickening it at low Force and masking it, to fool wards and escape the notice of enemy spellcasters who might dispel it. Yeah, you can fail to fool the ward, or the other spellcaster might have masking, too, and see it. But that's better than having a high-Force quickened spell that makes going through wards without alerting magical security nearly impossible.

I like the idea of using ritual sorcery to cast spells to be quickened. More than likely going to get a lot more successes than doing it solo. Increase Reflexes +3 is a spell many magicians are likely to know.

Some spells beg to be quickened using ritual sorcery for the casting. Detection spells in general. Increase attribute spells.

I've never seen it listed where you can use ritual sorcery to quicken anything, much less end up with more sucesses doing it solo since you hav a lot more things to divide your dice up between. Where are the rules for that? Book/Page number? Example?

MITS page 36, "Spells cast through ritual sorcery may also be quickened..."

Never happens in my games since the few spellcasters always seem to be of different types, or be Magicians Way Adepts.

Unless there's a special rule for the Ritual Pool that allows you to use more dice pool than skill, it's generally going to be a wasted effort for many magicians.

They were talking about scoring extra successes, however.

You can't share karma, the leader has to pay it all.

And why's it a wasted effort? You just have to manage a 6 on a sending test, so a few dice get used up on that, very few depending on how lucky you feel. Everyones leftover sorcery dice plus foci add up for the casting.

Where are you coming up with that from? Only the ritual leader's dice are used for the actual Spellcasting Test, though they can pull from the Ritual Pool if there's any still available.

If he has Sorcery 6, the most dice he can pull from dice pools is 6. So if his Spell Pool was 6 to begin with, nothing is gained in the use of ritual sorcery for these purposes.

Assuming I'm not misremembering how ritual sorcery works. I've only used it twice in the past.

Nah, the leaders sorcery dice go into the pool just like everyone elses. The casting is all pool, 'cept maybe for a couple totem dice.

In that case I stand corrected.

I don't require a Sending Test when doing ritual magic on a subject that's right there with the ritual team.

(Perhaps staked out in the middle of the pentagram or other ritual area. )

You can get more successes because you can draw dice from the Ritual Pool, an entire new pool of dice.

In the example they draw from spell pool and ritual pool at the same time. The shamans have Sorcery 5, but at one point allocate 6 ritual pool dice to a success test, so there may be no limit to the number of ritual pool dice the leader can allocate to an action. In fact, it says "Make the Sorcery test. The leader designates the number of dice to be used from the Ritual Pool."

Is there a limit to the number of Ritual Pool dice that can be allocated to a Ritual Test? What is it based on?

Apparently there is no Skill being used per se because everyone's skill is being transformed into the Ritual Pool. Its esentially one giant Skill that they just call a Pool to confuse people.

I just wanted to clarify about Quickening - once a mage has the technique, there's no limit to the number of spells he can quicken except for Karma limits correct?

And the dispelling concerns is why Sustaining Foci are better right? Cuz even if the spell is dispelled (by wards etc), all you have to do is recast the spell - am I correct in this also?