@Yerameyahu

I totally agree with you, that everything else would be silly. But RAW I think the positin, that nothing happens, holds true.

The point is very simple, you have to touch the mage. But the mage is astral, so you can't touch him. This means the power does not work. Thats is what RAW says here.
(If the body of the mage would be the mage, the mage would have LOS all around his body, because this would be how LOS is defined. And he would have astral vision all around his body, because this is how astral vision is defined. So you see, this would (RAW) open huge cans of worms. Thats why it is ruled, that the mage leaves his body behind. (Thats true in crunch and fluff)

While I agree with you, that as a GM I would probably handle it as you described, it would not be RAW. RAW the mage would be immune, because the TM can't meet the demands of the power.

And I'm pretty okay with either outcome (mage is valid target, mage isn't valid target). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I'm just presenting an alternative.

I don't think 'the mage is astral', though. He's right there: his body. You're touching him. I think we're fine with an understanding that the mage's consciousness on the astral is separate from his body on the physical, and that LOS (indeed, all sense) is from the astral form. The alternative is saying that you can't punch or shoot him, because 'he's not there'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Just stun him to death, he will not be able to summon a high-force spirit with a full stun track, a full physical track and a full overflow track.

'Tis True... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Good clarification, thanks NiL. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) But that reinforces the same conclusion, right? As long as it's ghostly, it's not 'real sensory info', and they're definitely not pulled back. Just to be clear… does this mean that hurting the body inflicts wounds on the astral form (even though he can't/barely can feel it)?

Yeah, it's usually better to shoot or stab the mage, but I guess an unarmed, weakling techno *would* be better off using a black trode-touch. So it's not impossible. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I wonder if using psychotropic Black IC would work. Regardless of Yahoo's constant ignorance of printed word and stated fact, you've settled the argument for me Nil, Thanks.

There is no call for that, thank you. Incidentally, NiL's point is in no way incompatible with my position, and in no way supports yours. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Since you ask, I assume that psychotropic effects require a conscious subject, so you could conclude that it wouldn't affect an 'absent' mage, any more than it would affect a sleeping or comatose mundane. For a normal conscious subject, resonance trodes with psychotrophics *should* indeed work, by this theory.

@NiL_FisK_Urd

Affects does not mean affects in the same way.

Actually, if you were correct, this would not be possible:

So, no. The astral body does not take the damage of the physical one. It is affected as it is described. It feels a distant pain.
So stuning the physical body does not stop the mage!

Where exactly does it state that wound modifiers do not carry over?

It's the 6 or more dice penalty that prevents it, not the sudden disappearance of the astral mage.

@NiL_FisK_Urd
Where does it state it does?

It is made clear, that if the body dies the astral form can still act. This would be impossible if damage would carry over. So it does not.

It is neither mentioned anything about modifiers the astral form would have in this case. This means there are none.

Honestly, thats really plain as day.

Astrally projecting mages have trouble finding their own bodies? Since when?

There are canon situations they do, right? I think the classic one is 'if the body is moved', right?

So, I feel like people must have solved this 'damage between forms' question before. The rules quoted by Irion and NiL do seem to contradict a little bit, bleh; there are points for both versions. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

@Irion: Damage to your body gives you a modifier - that is a basic rule. If you have an exception to a rule, you have to state it. There is no exception printed, so the basic rule takes effect.

Also, which part in "Any damage inflicted to one form immediately affects the other" do you not understand? Maybe you understand it if i state the german rules ...

But we also know that death doesn't stop the astral mage, and that "the astral body may experience a ghostly sense of distant pain". So we have to decide how to reconcile those.

Personally, I'd prefer to say that the damage instantly shares, but they don't really 'feel' it. Because we also know for sure that projecting mages get no (other) sensory information from their meat body, right? This means that a killed meat body inflicts the maximum wound penalty on the astral form, but doesn't 'kill' or stop it.

Even if that were possible, resolving the location with sympathetic magic should be laughably easy, as you can't get a stronger connection than "it's my f***** body".

Sure, JonathanC. What're the rules for that, ritual magic, right? Sounds like a pain.

You have to use Astral Tracking -> put it behind a ward, and it gets a bit harder ^^
Assensing + Intuition (5+Ward, 1 hour)

Poor form and you won't win any respect that way. I thought Yerameyahu made a lot of salient points and regardless, this is an RPG, not some cosmic law. I get you're trying define just RAW and everything else is house-rule, and in a perfect world I guess that would be true, but just because an author maybe decided to take some liberty with embellishment doesn't mean it changed how every other rule worked. Common sense and rationalization does apply when interpreting rules and the writers are not infallible.

Personally at our table we go more with Irion's interpretation. You can't affect the mage until he gets back, since simsense doesn't really work at all. I have to admit though I'm somewhat intrigued by Yerameyahu's argument that the meat body brain is still there to be microwaved, but the rules don't necessarily support this and it IS a fantasy game. It's all metaphorical metaphysics. Resonance emulating electrical currents while the mage's consciousness/spirit isn't present.

It was simplest for us to adjudicate that though the mage couldn't resist the power, it had about the same affect as using simsense on a brain dead body/comatose body, i.e. pretty much nothing.

But it is interesting to wonder what would happen to use resonance trodes on a comatose person, hell could open up a whole new field of therapy/rehabilitation and could be the actual basis of a mission to retrieve someone still trapped in the 'trix as a ghost...

The whole snapping the mage back to his body seems far fetched, and actually has some potential for exploitation and abuse under certain circumstances and if done intentionally by friendly team members. What ramifications/rules would arbitrate what conditions the mage could be returned under. Metaplanar quests? Only on the same plane? etc.

It not just trying to understand the separation of magical spirit and physical body, or even the interaction of resonance powers, but also how simsense actually damages the mind by overload that would all have to be known to make a perfect accurate ruling. There is no real world scientific precedent though.

@NiL_FisK_Urd

WRONG. Damage to your damage track gives you a modifier. An astral porjecting mage has only his astral damage track.

So, since you do not DIE, damage is not transfered. If the damage is not transfered you have no boxes on your condition monitor. If you have no boxes on your condition monitor, you do not take any kind of modifier. Simple deduction.

The reverse has the potential for exploitation though. A member is getting hit with some heavy Black IC, so the team mage forces the target into Astral, giving him a Get out of Jail/Black IC free card. I.E. "Mages are just better."

I sincerely hope your line of thinking isn't to perpetuate the MagicRun drek that some like to push.

On the other hand, if you can't feel the damage you don't usually get the wound penalties - as per Damage Compensators, High Pain Tolerance, Pain Resistance, Sideways, Pain Editor etc. Well, Pain Editor only stops stun penalties...

So, in order to satisfy all points of the rules:

Any damage the body takes is instantly transferred to the astral form (and vice versa), but the mage can't really feel the damage and therefore does not get the wound penalties, and remains unaware of the fact that he is damaged.

That way, damage taken by either form still affects the same track, but only the penalties from damage inflicted on the astral affects the character (easy to book keep as the player keeps track of any damage he is aware of, and the GM secretly tallies up whatever else he gets). If the combined damage reaches max overflow, the body dies - but unless all the damage was inflicted on the astral, the mage stays conscious and remains on the astral plane for awhile)

Convenient that you decide to completely ignore the hard and fast rule of

Any damage inflicted to one form immediately affects the other.

@almost normal
I have answered that already. Please do not try this "You ignored X", if it is still the same day, what am I talking the same hour. (I might be a bit light headed but it is not that bad)

It is described how it affects you in the black box. If they wanted to say, that a condition monitor is shared, they should have said so. If a condition monitor would be shared, the not beeing dead part would be total bullshit.

If modifiers would be applyed, they should have said so. A distant pain hardly sounds like "inflicts the same modifiers as the real thing".