[Senko]

Just want to confirm if I'm right or wrong about this. My understanding is that you can't use the metamagic that keeps spells/alchemy going at the cost of karma to sustain a ritual indefinitely you can only make them last as long as the ritual allows.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Certain rituals have a built-in way to make them permanent, like Wards.

But if you're talking about Quickening and Anchoring, it looks to me like they're both a hard no for applicability to Ritual Spellcasting.

If you could sustain a spell cast via ritual with metamagic, you'd have the participants' auras continually linked to the target and I'm pretty sure that's not an acceptable outcome for mage characters.

[Senko]

Hadn't thought about the aura linking but good to know I was right about them not applying thanks. Can't recall being able to make wards permanent I'll have to go back over my books to find that.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Wards, pg 297:

if the leader spends an
amount of karma equal to the ward’s Force, the ward is
permanent.

[Reaver]

Wards, pg 297:

if the leader spends an
amount of karma equal to the ward’s Force, the ward is
permanent.

This is how a Corp can afford to place wards at all their facilities.

Without a way to make ward permanent, the (relatively) few corp mages would never be able to keep up with demand.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

While you're not wrong, I see the weeks-long duration being quite the racket as well for magical security contractors.

Talk about a dream of a racket: Yeah, we'll have to be back next month to put your ward up again.  And charge you again.

[Shinobi Killfist]

While you're not wrong, I see the weeks-long duration being quite the racket as well for magical security contractors.

Talk about a dream of a racket: Yeah, we'll have to be back next month to put your ward up again.  And charge you again.

I kind of assumed that was the norm.  And permanent wards were rare even for corps. Karma is too valuable to blow.  Even the corp might prefer you save it.  But its a meta concept so its hard to think how people treat it in the setting. Permanent ward that some fragging Runner drops vs 1/3 my way to next initiation? 

[Reaver]

While you're not wrong, I see the weeks-long duration being quite the racket as well for magical security contractors.

Talk about a dream of a racket: Yeah, we'll have to be back next month to put your ward up again.  And charge you again.

I kind of assumed that was the norm.  And permanent wards were rare even for corps. Karma is too valuable to blow.  Even the corp might prefer you save it.  But its a meta concept so its hard to think how people treat it in the setting. Permanent ward that some fragging Runner drops vs 1/3 my way to next initiation?

Except Corps are also cost watchers.

Having to constantly pay out for travel for a bunch of mages to cast a bunch of Rituals on the same building every 2-6 weeks VS doing it once.
As in the cost of the reagents used for one casting VS casting every 3 to 6 weeks...
Add in having to have those same mages travel back when the ward is disrupted, VS the ward restoring itself the next combat turn..... (Core, pg 316)


But yes, this is very meta. but probably the best explanation for why wards are so common compared to the number of mages. (on 2% of the population is awakened remember, less then that are mages, and less again can cast the Ritual..) 

As to Karma and NPCs... well.. Notice the Corps churn out a LOT of shit that requires karma somewhere in the creation process... its almost as if they have a Karma Forge somewhere.. or as much as the plot requires..

[Shinobi Killfist]

While you're not wrong, I see the weeks-long duration being quite the racket as well for magical security contractors.

Talk about a dream of a racket: Yeah, we'll have to be back next month to put your ward up again.  And charge you again.

I kind of assumed that was the norm.  And permanent wards were rare even for corps. Karma is too valuable to blow.  Even the corp might prefer you save it.  But its a meta concept so its hard to think how people treat it in the setting. Permanent ward that some fragging Runner drops vs 1/3 my way to next initiation?

Except Corps are also cost watchers.

Having to constantly pay out for travel for a bunch of mages to cast a bunch of Rituals on the same building every 2-6 weeks VS doing it once.
As in the cost of the reagents used for one casting VS casting every 3 to 6 weeks...
Add in having to have those same mages travel back when the ward is disrupted, VS the ward restoring itself the next combat turn..... (Core, pg 316)


But yes, this is very meta. but probably the best explanation for why wards are so common compared to the number of mages. (on 2% of the population is awakened remember, less then that are mages, and less again can cast the Ritual..) 

As to Karma and NPCs... well.. Notice the Corps churn out a LOT of shit that requires karma somewhere in the creation process... its almost as if they have a Karma Forge somewhere.. or as much as the plot requires..

Ah, I'm probably not doing it by the rules but the breaking through method of getting past a ward.  While it regains its structure at the end of every combat turn I had interpreted that as a if you had not destroyed it yet.  But that might just be the spells, which add the extra line if the structure is brought to 0 the spell ends. So while I was probably still doing it wrong, I wasn't referring to the disruption part. But it only made sense to me though that there had to be some way to destroy a ward permanent or otherwise.

[Senko]

While you're not wrong, I see the weeks-long duration being quite the racket as well for magical security contractors.

Talk about a dream of a racket: Yeah, we'll have to be back next month to put your ward up again.  And charge you again.

I kind of assumed that was the norm.  And permanent wards were rare even for corps. Karma is too valuable to blow.  Even the corp might prefer you save it.  But its a meta concept so its hard to think how people treat it in the setting. Permanent ward that some fragging Runner drops vs 1/3 my way to next initiation?

Except Corps are also cost watchers.

Having to constantly pay out for travel for a bunch of mages to cast a bunch of Rituals on the same building every 2-6 weeks VS doing it once.
As in the cost of the reagents used for one casting VS casting every 3 to 6 weeks...
Add in having to have those same mages travel back when the ward is disrupted, VS the ward restoring itself the next combat turn..... (Core, pg 316)


But yes, this is very meta. but probably the best explanation for why wards are so common compared to the number of mages. (on 2% of the population is awakened remember, less then that are mages, and less again can cast the Ritual..) 

As to Karma and NPCs... well.. Notice the Corps churn out a LOT of shit that requires karma somewhere in the creation process... its almost as if they have a Karma Forge somewhere.. or as much as the plot requires..

I just assumed they treated it as make work for the mages on the payroll, "Ok who do we need to find work for this month? Ariot, John, Sam, Jenny, Tina and Miguel. Alright assign John, Sam and Miguel to renew the wards on our 8th and way Warehouse the offices at Trafalgar and the offices at Bridge street, Ariot, Jenny and Tina can do the offices on Pitt and the depot at Market Square." Sure mages are rare and valuable but any large business is going to have periods of downish time they will want to find work for the employees who build/maintain something and wards are a good way to get your yen out of the mages on payroll with you only rarely needing to go outside for contractors.

You have a point about the karma forge.