Except that the whole point of cybereyes is that they count as natural. The spell affects (for example) 'natural vision', so it affects eyes and cybereyes, but not blind men.

Maybe I need the relevant text quoted to me as I thought it was more for someone else targeting. So then if a person had non-optical contacts/goggles would they not see the phantasm dragon by that reasoning?

If by 'non-optical' you mean 'non-visual'? I didn't give the full explanation, so I might have misled you, but the basic idea is this:

A mental illusion (let's say, Invisibility) affects the mind (directly) with respect to their visual senses (which cybereyes count as, because they're Essence-paid). For the equivalent Phantasm, it does the same thing: something is added to their 'mental' visual senses. While I don't see why a blind person necessarily can't experience that (it's the same as simsense, to me?), a blind person isn't going to be *fooled* by the image of a dragon. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

A person using visual sensors is still getting visual info in their mind, so AFAIK the illusion still affects that. *This* is something of a gray area, so I'm only saying this is one interpretation. You can kind of choose which one to use: basically it's either (only drones are really affected) or (any use of a sensor beats Phantasm), and both of these are workable.

When I said non-optical I meant digital. I think on looking at it again for SR4A that only applies to the zoom so it was a needless addition there on my part.

That interpretation seems fair as it remains consistent (affects blind people, affecting people through visual sensors). I personally would go with the latter one but you've explained the former one sufficiently well for me to understand it, thanks.

Read the full description:
Mana Illusions: Mana-based illusion spells affect the mind and are ineffective against technological viewing systems like cameras. Mana illusions are resisted by Willpower + Counterspelling (if any).
Some mana illusions affect the target’s senses directly, others affect the senses of anyone perceiving the subject of the spell (though the spellcaster is not affected by her own spell).

Given the highlighted part, I'd say it is rather clear that affected part of the sense is not the receptors, but the mental part of sensing. This alone would mean that a blind person is affected as long as the visual cortex is intact.
However, there also is the last part: If the spell is not aimed at somebody directly (i.e. an Area spell), it affects "anyone perceiving the subject of the spell" -- so the spell is cast somewhere, and everybody who looks at that area or is in earshot gets the appropriate illusion implanted via his eyes or ears. But somebody who can't look at the area will only get the audio part of the illusion, no matter whether he can't look at it because he is behind a wall or because he is blind.

I did read the whole description without adding emphasis to only a single portion of the sentence. I read "if A and not B" and we're kind of in C territory which isn't described well by the rules. Yes A by itself makes C obvious, but the "not B" portion makes me question it. And then there is trid phantasm which would easily handle the case at only 1 drain higher.

Also you'd have weird edge cases like mages performing Entertainment spells on live trid and anyone watching it then can see it (because they can see the area) but it can't be recorded so then you don't have to worry about someone copying it to sell. Or metahumans watching a feed through a camera or a rigger looking at a feed on his drone seeing the phantasm. And if you argue that they wouldn't see it due to those being not essence paid sight then someone wearing glasses with a digital zoom or else just tied into his smartgun's camera would also not pick up the visual element either (or else would have an instant litmus test that its an illusion when it only appears on his cyber-eyes and not the smartgun camera).

As I said Yerameyahu's description of the issue lets me understand the other side as valid, its just not how I'd interpret it personally. I don't think further discussion will cause me to change from the personal viewpoint that both interpretations are valid I just am siding with a different one than most.

Yep, people wearing electronic glasses will not see it, same as the guard at the CCTV monitor.
People watching simultaneously with their own eyes and some technical system will (IMO) see it, because looking at the spell's AoE with your own eyes means the Phantasm is in your brain.
Alternating between "natural" and "technical" vision will reveal that one of the two is manipulated.

If cybereyes count as natural vision, then technically you're always better off buying Image-linked goggles (or even contact lenses) instead. You aren't paying essence for them, and with image link they're clearly processing what you're seeing before you see it, so a Phantasm would read as false.

It makes no sense that cybereyes would cost more *and* be mechanically inferior.

Image-link just means the goggles overlay AR visuals over your field of vision, not that it acts as a personal viewscreen.

I suppose you could buy goggles that do that, though.

Cybereyes have inherent advantages that goggles/glasses don't.

That's just true in general, though: you're always better off buying the non-implant version of anything (except for mages). That's just how things are: cyber sucks when there's a gear equivalent. You can't have cybereyes count as natural *and* artificial, depending on when it helps the player. I mean… you can (you can do anything), but it's an obvious metagame intrusion, that's all. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

It would read as "inconsistent". But how do you know whether the glasses or your brain is being manipulated? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Interesting quandry: mage effecting your mind or hacker effecting your glasses. If you guess wrong you probably bleed...

Imagelink can send any data into a window of your vision. This includes a video feed from your friend's cybereyes or imagelinked contacts/glasses/goggles. There's no reason you could just loop your own video feed into your imagelinked contacts; the delay would be negligible, and you'd have a ridiculous (but RAW-friendly) loophole that would prevent you from falling for Phantasms (you're still boned on Trid Phantasm, though).


This is why I say it's just easier to assume that cybereyes automatically see through Phantasm, and why SR3 was right to be specific about whether vision cyberware and gear was optical or electronic in nature.

You can secure your PAN to the extent that trusting your sensors when your eyes are telling you something ridiculous is a pretty safe bet.


Oh, and the trick I described above would still work for cybereyes, since they also contain cameras. Basically, any time a person is looking through an electronic lens in Shadowrun, it's retarded to assume that Phantasm would work on them. As soon as they have a viable reason to be suspicious, Phantasm has failed at its job.


Just learn Trid Phantasm instead, and suck up the extra drain. If you shorted yourself on Willpower as a mage, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Sure, just like you can shell out for kickass astral security. But the point is that detecting an illusion with image link glasses is not a trivial matter.

Yes, it IS a trivial matter. Hiring astral security to follow your Shadowrunning ass around is prohibitively expensive, and/or dependent upon you knowing a mage. Securing your PAN costs a few thousand nuyen. So yes, detecting a non-Trid illusion with image linked eyes/glasses/contacts/whatever is completely trivial.

And again, in Third edition this wasn't even an issue; if you had electronic (rather than optical) vision, mana (as opposed to physical) illusion spells didn't work on you. Period. Nothing in 4A specifically contradicts this, so I fail to see why it should be assumed to be different now, especially given how trivial it is to defeat Phantasm with artificial vision.

I do not recall the optical vs electronic distinction ever affecting illusion spells as claimed, because they affect the targets mind not his eyes, ears, smell or other senses. Anyways, a blind person do not lack the neurons normally used to interpret images. What has happened instead is that they have been re-tasked with processing other senses, leading to the classical case of blind people having impressive hearing. This may be different if the person grew up seeing but lost sight later on. But that that point one is starting to move into such rule pedantry that is likely rocks starts falling from clear skies...

Not if you want to make it hacker-proof, probing hacks mostly everything.