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Am I right you can't make a ritual permanent?

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Senko

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« on: <03-31-17/0145:04> »
I was looking at the quickening rules (for other reasons) and it occurred to me there's similar thing for rituals though there is for alchemical preparations. So I was wondering am I right that there's a way to make spells/alchemy last till dispelled/used but rituals will only last as long as sustained or as defined in the ritual but you can't make permanent wards for example?

Jack_Spade

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« Reply #1 on: <03-31-17/0533:49> »
There is the Anchoring Metamagic used by a few rituals (p. 152 SG)
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Rosa

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« Reply #2 on: <03-31-17/0825:14> »
Wards can be made permanent by paying karma equal to the rituals force, says so the rituals description in the CRB.

Senko

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« Reply #3 on: <03-31-17/1128:15> »
@Jack_Spade
Anchoring specifies its being used with quickened spells and as I said quickening is for spells not rituals thus you can't as I understand it make a ritual permanent using quickening and since its not quickened you can't anchor it.

@Rosa
Ok bad example there I'm not specifically looking to make wards permanent I'm wondering if I'm right that you can't make rituals in general permanent that is . . .

Quickening: Pay karma to make a spell last till its dispelled.
Alchemical Preperation: Pay karma to make an alchemcial preperation last till its used.

Rituals however have no way to make them permanent so they either last only as long as they are performed or as in the case of wards and a few others the specific different time frames  they define. E.g. you can't perform a ritual to create a circle of protection or summon a watcher then pay karma to make them last indefinately.

Rosa

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« Reply #4 on: <04-01-17/0025:45> »
I would actually say that the rituals that have the "spell" keyword can be quickened by the ritual leader just like they benefit from mentor spirit bonuses and can be dispelled. ..etc.

Other than that I would say that it has to be an unique ritual designed for a very specific purpose and would require unique reagents....etc., but that's houserule territory.
« Last Edit: <04-01-17/0031:23> by Rosa »

Senko

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« Reply #5 on: <04-01-17/0120:51> »
So I may be missing something on a few specific rituals but generally no you can't make a ritual permanent outside of house rules thanks.

Mirikon

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« Reply #6 on: <04-01-17/0938:09> »
Yeah, that's one of the reasons that rituals are pretty much useless. A 'curse' ritual sounds great, until you realize that it only lasts until you stop sustaining it. Which, when you consider the resources put into the curse, makes it far too short-lived for any benefit. Same with pretty much any offensive or defensive ritual. The only one worth the trouble outside of wards is the healing circle one, and only then for dealing with mass casualty situations, which are generally outside a shadowrunner's purview.
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Rooks

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« Reply #7 on: <04-01-17/1209:36> »
Except if you curse the target it creates a astral link that a spirit or astral projecting or perceiving mage or spirit can track to its physical location

Senko

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« Reply #8 on: <04-01-17/1825:19> »
Yep I know conjuring < spellcasting < rituals < alchemy but I'm working on that.

Mirikon

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« Reply #9 on: <04-01-17/2105:26> »
True, Rooks, but if you don't have someone astrally perceiving the target to begin with, you need a material link, which can already be used in a ritual to track the person it is linked to. So I stand by my point.

Senko, your order is off. Spellcasting = Conjuring > Alchemy > Rituals (btw > is greater than, < is less than). Comparing Spellcasting to Conjuring is like comparing a guy playing second base to the guy playing shortstop. Slightly different way they go about things, but roughly equivalent, and just as key to getting the job done. Rituals are useless, except in extreme niche cases. Alchemy, however, is much maligned, but if you use it right can be quite potent.

Don't play an alchemist like a combat mage. That drek just won't fly. But having a few healing charms, or 'Increase Reflexes' charms, or maybe just a couple 'Barrier' or 'Fireball' charms can make life interesting if you're a support type. Carry an assault rifle and wear armor like the rest of the group, and you also avoid the 'geek the mage first' bits. Basically, the types that alchemy works best with would be Combat Medics, support mages, occult investigators, and so on.
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Beta

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« Reply #10 on: <04-01-17/2117:01> »
Ritual may not be great from a player perspective, but from a gm and world building perspective it has a definite roll :)

After all, most awakened are not magic 6, but ritual teams of a fair number of magic 3-4 folks can spit out a lot of watchers, wards, etc.  Also curse is a great way to flush quarry if you have a material link, like blood left a behind from a fight :)

Senko

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« Reply #11 on: <04-02-17/0922:05> »
@Mirikon
Errr yes not entirely sure I agree about the conjuring = spellcasting given some of the variant spirit rules but those arrows of mine are the wrong way round. That's the result of posting when sick and tired, I also poured myself a glass of milk and added water to my cereal this morning rather than the other way round but that's another matter. The biggest problem with alchemy in my opinion is that anything you prepare goes off at dawn/sunset so unless your spending more karma you've got a very limited window to use them. Of course if you have the alchemical preperation metamagic and are willing to spend karma to make them last indefinately they can be useful yes. Still that comes back to the same issue as rituals their not that good for PC's. worldwise as you and Beta said they do have a definate roll.

@Beta
The problem is just how many mages of 3-4 you need. Take wards for example (since I was looking at modifying that for my vermin repelling spell stupid cockroaches). Anyway it is . . .

Area: 50 cubic meters * sum of participants magic rating.

If you only want to ward a room or maybe a floor of a building great. If you want to ward your corporate headquarters though its a different matter. Now my calculations may be wrong its late and I'm tired but . . .

Average office building size according to google: 14,900 square feet..
Wards covers 50 cubic feet per magic rating.
50 cubic meters = 1,765.73 cubic feet.
1,765.73 cubic feet = 146.0886 square feet (again according to google).
14,900 / 146.0886 = 101.99. .... (lots of numbers so we need 102 magic rating to cover an average office building today with wards).
Assuming an average magic rating of 3 that gets us . ..
102 / 3 = 34

So to ward an average size office buidling you'd need 34 mages ritually casting for a number of hours equal to its force.

Admitedly that's not hard to get for the megacorps and wards can even be made permanent if the ritual leader spends an amount of karma equal to its force still that's a lot of people to get together for one job and if you don't want to make it permanent for some reason you'd need to recast it every couple of weeks equal to the net hits scored.

Now as you two said world building that's fine but for players not so much as your unlikely to have more than 1 or 2 mages in a group.
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Mirikon

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« Reply #12 on: <04-02-17/1129:12> »
@Senko
Difference between a spear and a sword. They both do an excellent job of killing things, but they have strengths and weaknesses compared to the other, so which is best basically boils down to personal preference.

As for alchemy, it isn't dawn/dusk. That's spirits you're thinking of. Alchemy has a time limit based on its potency, and then starts wearing off, so you need to use it before then for full effect. Which brings me back to the comment about playstyles. Playing a 'standard' mage in SR is like playing a sorcerer in D&D, while playing an alchemist is like playing a wizard. You have to think ahead and prepare accordingly.

One of the key benefits to alchemy is that you don't have to sustain the spells, meaning you can fire them off without that stacking -2 penalty. Why is that important? Because you can pass out a few Heal charms to your team beforehand, and when they get clipped, you can activate them from across the room, and the spell will heal them and sustain itself until it is permanent. Same with an Armor spell, or an Increase Reflexes or Enhance Aim spell. Starting to see the possibilities, now, aren't ya?

Now consider throwing a physical barrier spell up in the middle of a hallway (or a road) while you're trying to make your getaway. The wall will just sit there until it is done, while you get to worry about more productive things, like getting the hell out of dodge.

Timed preparations are perhaps the trickiest to use, even moreso than contact preparations, because they have a set timer from the moment they are created. This timed Fireball spell will go off in five hours, no matter what else is happening at the time. That can be problematic to implement, but when you're able to have a covert ops type drop them someplace that they'll cause a nice distraction, you open up a lot of possibilities.


The problem with rituals, on the other hand, is that they're not even that useful, especially since they're purchased separately from the individual spells. Previously, you could just use ritual magic to cast one of the spells you knew, or to help the ritual leader cast a spell they knew, on a target you either had a spotter for (projecting mage or spirit) or had a material or symbolic link for. There was a lot you could do with it, but the time constraints were the big reason you never saw many runners using rituals. Like with many things in 5e, they changed something that didn't need changing, and it is not improved.
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Glonthein

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« Reply #13 on: <04-02-17/1515:21> »
Senko : Your calculations, feel weird to me, probably because you go from a volume to a surface without specifying the height (and also the fact that you are using feet, which i'm not used to), but as far as I can tell, those would be correct for a height of 3 meters/10 feet approximately, and said size.
Now, most of the time in shadowrun, people actually calling themselves mages and good enough at what they do will have a magic rating of 5 or 6 at least. For a small group of shadowrunnners, those two mages would be able to cover between 500 and 600 cubic meters - which should cover the volume of a standard one floor house. That sounds to me like a rather okay-ish lookout if your guys have good teamwork.

Also, I may be wrong, but aren't attunement and those other rituals available to adepts permanent by default ? (I'm talking about some of the rituals described in the Street Grimoire). Or are these not really considered rituals for you ?
« Last Edit: <04-03-17/0310:20> by Glonthein »

Senko

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« Reply #14 on: <04-02-17/1932:26> »
@Mirikon
I just double checked my books you're right, still a short duration but different to what I thought. I'll have to take another look at it.

@Glonthein
They're weird to me too the spell description is 50 cubic meters per magic rating but I couldn't find an average office building in cubic meters only in square feet so I had to try and convert to work out the mages needed. The google entry I found said average office building = 14,900 square feet no mention of heigth/width/etc. Your calculation was mostly right but the spell is meters not feet which I'm not used to feet either which didn't 't help my conversions. Anyway 2 mages with magic 6 could cover 600 cubic meters. Problem is (for me anyway) trying to convert cubic meters to an actual personal idea of what it covers. Which is why I have a VERY strong suspicion I messed up those calculations earlier since I don't think that program I found is converting properly or at least representatively.

Lets take say a room 3 high by 3 wide by 3 long average square bedroom, that gives you 3 * 3 * 3 = 27 cubic meters. Less than 1 magic rating so easy to do. Now I can't exactly go measuring office buildings so I'll try guesstimating again with my apartment building. Looking at the contract of sales its roughly 50m by 31m by 8 stories and google agrees with you that 3m is average ceiling height for residential (mixed use 3.5 and office buildings are 3.9 interstingly enough). So that gives me . . .

50 * 31 * 3 = 4,650 Cubic Meters (not counting underground parking basements).
4650 / 50 = 93 (you could just multiply length by height here but not all buildings are this convenient).
So to ward just one floor of my apartment building you'd need mages with a total magic value of 93. To ward the entire building you'd need 93 * 8  = 744 magic rating.
Assuming an average magic ranking of 3 that is 744 / 3 = 248 mages, assuming an average value of 6 its still 124 mages.

Sooo . . . painful and not really easy to arrange even for megacorps I hink which is annoying as ritual magic should be good for that kind of thing. Get a group together and the results should be far beyond a normal mage, maybe if it was multiplicative one mage = 6, two mages = 6 * 6 = 36 or magic rating * magic rating / number of participants? Not for all spells obviously just a modfication on wards e.g. two mages with  magic 6 can ward an area of ((6 * 6) / 2) * 50 = 900 cubic meters. Still not enough to cover a floor of my building or even much better than (6 + 6) * 50 = 600. However the more mages you can put on the spell the more effective the results will be.

So normal wards formula
Mage with magic rating 3 is 3 * 50 = 150 cubic meters.
Mage with magic rating 6 is 6 * 50 = 300 cubic meters.
Two mages with magic rating 3 is (3 + 3) * 50 = 300 cubic meters.
One mage with magic rating 3 and one with magic rating 6 is (6 + 3) * 50 = 450 cubic meters.
Two mages with magic rating 6 is (6 + 6) * 50 = 600 cubic meters.
Four mages with magic rating 3 is (3 + 3 + 3 + 3) * 50 = 600 cubic meters.
Four mages with magic rating 6 is (6 + 6 + 6 + 6) * 50 = 1,200 cubic meters.

Now with my revised formula.

Mage with magic rating 3 is 3 * 50 = 150 cubic meters.
Mage with magic rating 6 is 6 * 50 = 300 cubic meters.
Two mages with magic rating 3 is (3 * 3) * 50 = 225 cubic meters.
One mage with magic rating 3 and one with magic rating 6 is ((6 * 3) / 2) * 50 = 450
Two mages with magic rating 6 is ((6 * 6) / 2) * 50 = 900 cubic meters.
Four mages with magic rating 3 is ((3 * 3 * 3 *3) / 4) * 50 = 1,012.5 cubic meters.
Four mages with magic rating 6 is ((6 * 6 * 6 * 6) / 4) * 50 = 16,200 cubic meters.

So interestingly 1 mage is the same, at lower levels of power/participants my formula gives a worse result but if you can put multiple mages and especially multiple powerful mages the results increase exponentially. My apartment building is (4,650 * 8) 37,200 cubic meters. So to ward that size an area you need 744 magic rating which under the current formula means a LOT of mages even if they're extremely powerful but under mine and assuming lets say an initiated leader of 6 + participants at 3. . . .

Normal Formula
(744 - 6) / 3 = 246 or 247 mages ritual casting for 6 hours (force 6 ward) to ward my apartment building (a fairly standard 8 story building).

My Formula (I just kept multipying and dividing till I got over the 744 combined magic rating needed).
(6 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3)  / 8 = 1640.25.

So 8 mages ritual casting for 6 hours to ward an area equal to 82,012.5 cubic meters or more than twice the estimated size of my building could easily cover the basements as well and part of the surrouding terrain. If you only use 7 (624.8 and lots of numbers) you can ward an area equal to 31,242.85 cubic meters nearly all the residential floors. If you drop the ritual leader to 3 magic as well that will give you a combined value of 820.125 capable of warding an area of 41,006.25 cubic meters all the residential floors and some of the basement/balconies.

I rather like that since 7-8 mages of varying power being needed to ward an 8 story apartment block rather than nearly 300 seems a lot better number and when you consider there are far, far larger buildings to ward? Lets try an office block of say the same width/length as my building but 15 stories tall that's . . .

50 * 31 * 3.9  * 15 = 90,675 cubic meters.

Which isn't even if the full extent of what we have out there with 20-30 story buildings being common and then there's the shadowrun acrologies. Of course there is always going to be outliers Harlequin is something like 32 magic so he alone could ward an area of (32 * 50) 1,600 cubic meters and with 2 assistants of 3 magic could hit 1,900 (normal formula) or 4,800 (my formula and roughly the size of a floor or my building).