Shadowrun

Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Aria on <12-02-20/0925:54>

Title: [6E] Ritual Sorcery to find a target?
Post by: Aria on <12-02-20/0925:54>
According to RAW the Remote Sensing Ritual p145 (seems the most obvious) extends the range of the search area to Magic+Hits x100m, now for my team that's not going to be useful as Toronto is ~3300km from Seattle.  It may be something that will be covered in the forthcoming magic book but as a houserule could it be possible (leaning on past versions of SR) that a material link allows the search area to be centered on the target no matter where they are in the world?  (Ignoring back ground count, wards etc temporarily)...

Thoughts??

Thanks
Title: Re: [6E] Ritual Sorcery to find a target?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <12-02-20/1023:50>
In theory you don't need that.  Summon a spirit and have them search for the target. Ritual magic like the alchemy section is so poorly done it is unusable and should just be ignored. The spell casting section at least functions, it functions poorly but it actually works. Alchemy and ritual magic don't. Creating a ward sort of works after the errata, the rest not so much. The game math on them is so bad it hurts my soul.
Title: Re: [6E] Ritual Sorcery to find a target?
Post by: Sphinx on <12-02-20/1726:55>
A spirit's Search power (SR6 p.227-228) works well enough locally, but distance in kilometers adds to the target number for the spirit's Magic + Intuition test, so it won't let you find someone in another sprawl.

Ritual spellcasting using a viable Material Link (SR6 p.144-145) doesn't have any distance limitation, but the Remote Sensing ritual (SR6 p.146) doesn't work with a Material Link; it requires a Spotter. The only ritual in the core rulebook with the "Material Link" keyword is Curse (SR6 p.145).

To locate a target with ritual magic and a material link, I think you have to use the Curse ritual to cast an Illusion on them, sustain the spell, and then use Astral Tracking (SR6 p.161) to follow that active link wherever it leads. It doesn't really matter which Illusion spell you choose, but tracing the link is an Astral + Intuition (5, 1 hour) extended test, so the target will likely have an hour or two before you reach them to dispel your illusion or set an ambush. If you choose something subtle, like a Mask spell to make a negligible change in their appearance, they may not notice until it's too late.
Title: Re: [6E] Ritual Sorcery to find a target?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <12-02-20/1734:05>
If you have no idea where they are on the planet, yeah search is rough.  If you know Toronto, you summon the spirit, astrally project to Toronto and then give the command to search.
Title: Re: [6E] Ritual Sorcery to find a target?
Post by: Finstersang on <12-04-20/1021:23>
In theory you don't need that.  Summon a spirit and have them search for the target. Ritual magic like the alchemy section is so poorly done it is unusable and should just be ignored. The spell casting section at least functions, it functions poorly but it actually works. Alchemy and ritual magic don't. Creating a ward sort of works after the errata, the rest not so much. The game math on them is so bad it hurts my soul.

Oh boi, canīt wait for the Magic supplement that wonīt change anything about this :)