@Martin, no worries about the long list of rolls. I'll always take more rather than less, as I can help push the story farther along in a single post if I have more to work with.
Good to know
Unfortunately, in this case, the Mana Barrier stopped Loki dead in his tracks. It took me awhile to figure out how to play the barriers around the AML, so if you don't mind I might send you a PM later today going through my thought process so that i can hear what your thoughts are.
Oh ye of little fate
First of all, two fun facts about wards. A) Creating a large mana barrier, the kind that could envelop a building, requires ritual magic as described on page 297 of the SR5 rule book, and B) Each person allowed through the wall must be known to the person who created it.
Now, this doesn't mean it's impossible to create the kind of ward you've laid out, but assuming the building schematics you've provided us are measured in meters per box that means the building is 18m long by 9 meters wide by (5 floors * 3 meters) high. This gives the building a total volumetric dimension of 2430 cubic meters; the resulting ritual needed to create a ward covering the exterior of the building would require a number of participants with Magic scores equaling a sum total of (2430 / 50)=48.6. Assuming magic users have a Magic of 3 on average, that means it would take ~16 people to create such a ward (only 8 if all participants had Magic 6), and each person allowed through it would have to be made "known" to the owner. The owner, in turn, would have had to spend 6 karma on it to make it permanent, or the ward would have to be recreated every x weeks (where X is the number of net hits in the sealing of the ritual).
Of course, since this is a school with an Applied Magics lab, I don't necessarily think it's unreasonable for this effort to have been expended, but a Force 6 ward that big is pretty damned powerful. Personally, I find it much more likely that individual rooms (classrooms, for instance, with the ritual leader being the teacher, or restricted areas where the person responsible for the area is the ritual leader) would be warded, as the sheer effort of maintaining a record of who is allowed to pass through a ward that big would be an exhausting prospect.
As for types of wards, allow me to break them down to give you some insight into my own perspective on wards.
Normal wards (as described on page 297 of SR5) would be used to clearly protect areas from unwanted attention. They block astral entities (as you clearly proved
), helps defend against spells cast through them, blocks astral perception past it, and can literally cause damage to astral beings that are forced through them. They are very easily seen on the Astral.
Alarm wards (Street Grimoire p122) are more devious, in that they are transparent unless an Assensing + Intuition (3) test is passed. They will not prevent an astral entity from passing through, but would instead simply sound an alarm. I see these being used as a first line of defense, set on doorways leading in to restricted areas for example, or in elevator shafts (ugh, why am I telling you this) where physical intruders have little chance of eluding them. As far as I can tell, they do not cause Astral Intersection like normal wards do.
Charged wards (Street Grimoire p127) are similar to passive defenses, like the electric fence they are likened to in the book. I'd personally put these as a last line of defense around sensitive and restricted areas, as they can be pushed through just like normal wards but can cause the intruder significant damage (Force + Net Hits) Stun DV, and will reflect spells cast at them.
Door wards (Street Grimoire p127) are used to sap intruders of magical prowess, essentially reducing the strength of sustained magic for anyone who crosses the threshold and isn't allowed to do so. To me, this is the second line of defense along with regular wards, as they can slow down intruders who've already (hopefully) set off alarm wards until a threat response team can arrive, or sufficiently weaken them in preparation for the charged ward they've yet to face.
So yeah, fun with wards! To me, it boils down to this; if the room being protected is 10 * 10 * 3 meters you need two average magicians (MAG 3) working together to ward the room, 6 weak magicians (MAG of 1), or just one strong magician (MAG of 6). Once you start talking about warding buildings, the ritual becomes exponentially more difficult. My own house is approximately 1250m
3, and would therefore require a combined Magic score of (1250/50)=25 to ward; 8 average magicians, 25 weak magicians, or ~4 strong magicians. My office building (21 stories) is approximately 175k m
3, and would be an absolutely monstrous task to ward, requiring a combined magic score of (175000/50)=3500; ~1166 average magicians, 3500 weak magicians, and 583 strong magicians.
All of that being said, it's your game. I have no problem with a warded campus building (well, it obviously makes thing much more difficult for me
), but if you decide to stick with the ward as described Loki would simply wait around for a little while, assensing the ward for weak spots, and then try again later. Failing to pass through regular wards essentially present no real obstacle to a dedicated person, and I'm still rolling 14 dice against it's 6 so it's just a matter of time (even if you enforce the -2 dice pool penalty for trying again, despite spending time to look for weaknesses). Loki doesn't have any spells or active foci with him, so there's no real risk in this instance.
I'm still trying to get a feel for which rolls I should share, and which ones I should keep to myself, but I'm guessing that since Loki is fairly perceptive he'd know what he's up against here:
Mana Barrier v. Loki: 6d6t5 4
Loki scored 3 hits on his Assensing test, so he would indeed know exactly what kind of ward he's up against. As for sharing dice rolls, that's up to you. As a GM, I rarely roll in the open because I like creating suspense for my players. However, I think it's important to point out the following; in this case I scored 3 hits on my Assensing test, and so Loki would only know if the Force of the ward was higher, lower, or equal to his own. Now, in this case specifically you showing your dice doesn't do much since I as a player would have known it had a Force equal to my own (MAG 6), but if it had been a Force 5 ward I would only have known it was lower than my Magic score. This could potentially influence my decisions in the future, as I would need to press through it later and would not know how many dice I was rolling against.
To discourage metagaming on the players' behalf, I therefore typically roll secretly. As mentioned, I find that it adds suspense, and additionally it allows you to fudge the rolls if it ever becomes necessary ("the guard scored 12 hits on 12 dice, and kills PC A with a single shot? Yeah, let's say he scored a little less crazy instead" kind of thing).
As for Loki finding his body again, is the astral search something that is opposed, or simply something that has a threshold that Loki needs to hit?
With the spirit using it's Search power, it's an extended test with a Threshold of 5 and an Interval of 10 minutes; SR5 p400.
If Loki were to find it himself, it would be an Assensing + Intuition [Astral] (1 hour) test, with a Threshold set by the GM. That's why I like using Spirits to find my body again; they're much better at it than I am
So, let me know how you want to handle this; I'd happily roll another assensing test to qualify for spending enough time not to take a dice pool penalty for trying again immediately, and then try to press through a little bit later. It shouldn't influence the timing too much.
Assensing [9]: Aura Reading +2:
12d6t5 3Aura looks the same to Loki; aggravating!
Mana Barrier [9]:
14d6t5 5Better! I'd like to see the barrier roll 5 hits on 6 dice, thank you very much
EDIT:
Since you did roll in the open (
, I noticed you only used 4 Ritual members. If my previous assumptions about the size of the building is correct, that would mean their average Magic score would need to be 12; if that's the case, Loki is outta here
