My point of conceal, is it doesn't really make it more difficult to effect the objects. You just have to min max a bit more and inflate your dice pool and you are right back at the same level of success. With the change and clarification of sensors its still easy to effect drones with illusions for the 12 dice club at least with your first spell, but even at OR 6 all it means is people inflate there dice pools and end up with the same chance of success. Hence while it looks like a "fix" it actually does nothing so its just concealing the issue. I appreciate the constraints you were under when making the changes so maybe this is the best that can be done. I would of preferred fundamental changes like giving objects a resistance tests vs direct combat spells with there OR threshold as bonus dice. Clearisght+sensor pilot checks with the OR threshold as bonus dice for sensors VS illusions. And that is just off the top of my head. Presumably actual game designers could come up with better solutions when they feel free to make larger changes.

Independent of an observer != OR-base.

Independent of an observer means that the mage rolls his dice and has only a general sense of how well he did ("I got 4 successes, that should be enough") not an absolute sense ("Hey guys, we can sneak past all of their cameras!"). Independent of an observer the spell functions. How well it functions is dependent on the observer, even if that observer is a security camera.

For simplicity of dice rolling under a Clearsight model of resistence is that for every security camera network (that is, once per corporation) you roll once. Not once per camera, once per camera network: all of those cam feeds are going into the same server bank, the server "analyzes" the illusion once, if it's good it's good and will always pass undetected for any cameras it controls.

This is two fold: one, if the roll is poor, it could still be "good enough," if the roll is high it could still be defeated (and only the GM would know--key point there: the mage should not know if the security cameras are recording the illusion correctly). And two, it makes for varying levels of difficulty: Invis-ing a raid on the local stuffer shack: piece of cake. Invis-ing your way into the Renraku Archology: no freaking way.

I think that "casting an illusion spell in your sleep" to overcome OR4 would only require a dice pool of 16 (16/4=4). Automatic Sucess for those "Hollywood" Types (who should be relying upon their "prefessionalism" to perform their everyday job in a satisfactory manner), Not 20+... We are beginning to get into Semantics here... While I agree that OR4 is difficult to consistently overcome for a beginnig mage, there are steps that you can take to do so on a mostly consistent basis... if it was always a success, then where woud the challenge be?

Anyway, My Two Cents on an issue that has already been fixed (OR3 for Sensors, 12 Dice/4=3 for the "Prefessional)... Seems pretty "in your sleep" to me.

For one thing, now you're arguing preferences. You don't have an argument about why the current mechanic is bad/wrong, you just would have preferred something else. While it's fine to express your preferences, it's obvious that they can't please everyone, and what they were doing here was trying to effect change while staying as close as possible to the original rules. There's no need to shake things up as you suggest when a simple tweak can accomplish what the designers want.

As for it not being more difficult -- that's just flat wrong. It is more difficult for any given mage to affect technology, no matter what their dice pool is. I have seen people roll 20 dice and get 2 hits. If that person was trying to do an easy task, they would have succeeded, but if they were trying to cast Improved Invisibility to fool a camera, they would have failed. It makes a difference. Of course, you're correct insofar as it means that people in chargen can easily give themselves a higher casting pool, and not worry about sensors very much. The intent was not to say "haw haw, you're fucked, you now fail half the time even if you have enough dice." The intent was to force mages to spend a bit more on spellcasting dice pools, requiring them to focus more reasources on magic and be a bit less versatile. But no matter how you slice is, a higher threshold is a more difficult task, and no task is ever guaranteed to succeed, despite what theoretical averages would tell you.

I think the biggest problems with some of the changes is that they were done across the board, rather than targeting the problem areas, so you wound up with the min-maxed mages being inconvenienced, and the "normal" mages completely hosed.


Seriously? You think their intent was to further encourage min-maxing, and discourage the "well-rounded" characters that so often get touted as the ideal type of shadowrunner on these boards? I think that would have been the result (if they hadn't revised OR's and made the combat spell drain increase an optional rule), but I hope it wasn't their intention.

I have to admit that I really don't much care about how much sense the rule makes within the magical paradigm of Shadowrun. In the end I can make it make sense if I have to. What I am interested in is a clear rule that we can use in our game. I'll note that your position on this has changed greatly from the start of this thread. Earlier you made this comment to justify the higher OR concerning drones and computers:



Now, you claim that it is, and has always been, that illusions must only overcome the OR of the sensors of the drone/computer (which would be significantly lower). So far I've seen nothing to dissuade me from deciding that you simply changed a rule without regard to the consequences because it "fixed" a small thing that you felt was a problem. Then, when faced with the consequences, you decided to make up a new rule and claim it as always having been that way.



I'll note that your original post that you reference above was to say that this same magician would not find OR6 unreachable. The exact quote was:



As I said before, a die pool of 12 is a significant investment for a mage and not trivial and a threshold of 4 was not something that "you'll be able to pull off all the time." Even under your example. No one claimed that you shouldn't have to make a significant investment to deal with technology and changing the amount of investment you need is certainly reasonable. However, your method and the extent to which you did so does not even come close to what you claimed your purpose was. It was already difficult for a mage to "pull off all the time" and even more difficult for spells where you need more successes than the threshold.

So yes, if you'd like to use your earlier responses as proof that you have already answered questions we can do that. But let's actually use those quotes rather than make baseless claims that you've been consistent throughout this discussion.

You have to consider that karma rewards went up by 50%. Mage dicepools will go up correspondigly.

And the awakened can now use as much money as the augmented, as foci didn´t get cheaper moneywise.

Ideal Generalist

• Magic 6
• Spellcasting 6 (Aptitude 7)
• Power focus 2 (restricted gear 4)

Specialist add-ons

• mentor boni
• spellcasting specialisation
• spell category foci 3 (restricted gear 5)

DP Boosters

• Aid spell services 3-5
• Edge 2-7

From my experience, 12 dice is on the lower end of magical dicepools. Less than magic 5 / spellcasting 5 is a rare sight, mentor spirits are par for the course, as is having a spellcasting specialisation.

...For shadowrunners. Not the general run-of-the-mill Joe Shmo Mage.

Yes, its just a preference that when a rule is broken they actually fix it instead of patching it up a bit.

As for it being more difficult, well yes on a simple objective level getting 6 successes is harder than getting 4. Thank you doctor science. As an actual effect on the game though as you pointed out people can just increase dice pools. While yes there is a BP cost to this and requires spending a bit more in magic, the cost is fairly marginal and has other positive side effects other than bringing your success chance back to where it was. Like absolutely destroying everything that opposes you if its not a drone.

In our games 12 dice was on the high end for magic pools. The current campaign just ended so I will be interested to see what people do when making new magic characters.

No, I'm sorry, that's completely backwards. If they were independent of all viewers, then it wouldn't matter WHAT was viewing the illusion, the roll would determine how well the illusion was crafted. In other words, people and computers would react exactly the same to the illusion. That's not what we get. What we get is that computers see through illusions easier than just about anyone (3 OR = 9 dice, or 12 if buying successes; that's 5 intuition+4 counterspelling or a similar configuration. It's pretty much impossible without counterspelling). That's the very definition of a spell that's dependent on the viewer. If it were truly independent, we'd have a success chart like Mind Probe does, or some sort of negative Perception modifier similar to how Combat spells work (minus Force to perception checks to visibly notice the Invisible person, minus an additional die per success on the spellcasting test). What we have now is a spell that reacts differently depending on who or what is viewing it, or how it's being viewed (in the case of a guard watching camera feeds).

And in response to the filtering comments, that's because you're telling us that cameras magically pick up things that humans wouldn't notice (semi-transparent images or whatever), then automatically allowing anyone viewing the feed to see the same thing. That implies that either the illusion is NOT constant, like you say, or that sensors actively filter their input. There's no other way I can think of for the two to interact as you say they do.

Yes, I'm aware that cameras record what is actually there, while the human brain "fills in the gaps" and ignores data that doesn't quite fit right. That's actually WHY this all doesn't work right. The fact that Joe Rentacop is viewing an Improved Invisibility spell through a camera shouldn't make it any more obvious to him, because he's still processing exactly the same input. Unless the camera alters the feed, of course.

Proof for that is all the bloopers in movies nowadays. If you watch specifically for them, you can catch cameramen in mirrors, boom mikes swinging across the top of the image, extras moving around backstage, etc etc -- but 99% of the time, even though they're onscreen and pretty clearly visible on the feed given to you by a camera, you don't notice them.




Now, on the other hand, you've said that the observer on the other end of the camera "needs to perceive", but didn't give any more detail on that. If you meant that the observer (human or autosoft) needs to make an Intuition (or Clearsight) check to notice the faulty Invisibility ...... then what's the point of having OR in the equation at all? Sensors, by themselves, don't do squat. They have to be analyzed by something before action can be taken.

Obviosly they use primitve cameras with OR 1 or 2. Duh.

But that's exactly my problem. Peter tells us, cameras record what is actually there and that's why the rules are what they are. But the rules tell us, cameras are semisentient reality examiners. Awesome. It makes my brains hurt so much.

No, that's the opposite of what he's telling us. He's told it to us twice. But yeah, looks like you're trolling again. So nevermind.

And again, I can't fathom this idea that people think it's weird for cameras to resist illusions that humans might not resist. THIS IS NOT NEW, IT IS AS OLD AS THE GAME ITSELF. THE TIME TO OBJECT WAS 20 YEARS AGO PEOPLE.

Uhm... no? And no. Also... no. Even now, cameras do not resist. They are simply not affected, which is quite different. Yes, there is a difference between resisting and not beeing affected. Now you learned something! Need some time to gather your thoughts and make up some more stuff to use in this "debate"?

There is a picture, the camera does not believe that picture to be good enough, so it does not transmit the picture to a screen. That does not make any sense. As long as the camera is not able to make a choice what to transmit, there is a picture, or there isn't. With the OR rules, the camera has a choice what to transmit, something it should not have.

hm. Maybe I should put some sense into that... on second thought, nope.

No, he told it like a million times, always the same, always as if it makes perfect sense. But it doesn't. Not even a little.

You are mistaken.

My position has remained consistent through out this thread (including the quote above). If the illusion you are casting is seen by a camera or individual sensor you would face a certain OR (OR 4 in the initial SR4A printing, OR 3 in the final version). However, if your illusion was observed by a sensor suite (emphasis added above) or package this makes the entire system much harder to fool and hence is subject to a higher OR (OR 6 in the initial printing of SR4A, OR 5 in the final version) because the combination of sensors in a package makes it easier for flaws in your illusion to be detected.


You seem to have missed the point where I repeatedly said individual sensors and mentioned cameras specifically in response to examples. You also seem to be ignoring the reference in that you quoted me where I specifically mention sensor suites in drones and vehicles (though admittedly I could have been more explicit and said "sensor packages"). There's a very good reason why I specifically singled out drones and vehicles because unlike commlinks that have a built in camera and mike, a standard vehicle/drone sensor suite (p. 105 Arsenal) includes: an atmosphere sensor, 2 cameras, 2 laser range finders, 2 motion sensors, and radar. Which relates to what I've said elsewhere and will repeat again: for the vast majority of the spells published at any point where you're facing a sensor package like most drones and vehicles have your basic single sense illusions are useless anyway (regardless of OR). Your Improved Invisibility will be automatically defeated by the standard vehicle sensor package (specifically because the motion sensors and radar will catch even if you fool the cameras.


Again there seems to be a disconnect here. I've repeatedly stated that a Physical Illusion against an appropriate individual sensor (like a Physical Mask vs a camera or Silence vs. a microphone) should be treated as OR4 (now OR3 as it used to be), while going against a full sensor package should be OR5 (now 5).

As it stood in the original SR4 and in the now-revised SR4A, this means that a magician with a dice pool of 9 or better can on average expect to fool a camera with a Improved Invisibility every time he tries. I believed (and still do) that this is too easy. I believe that the OR of 4 is more appropriate, requiring a dice pool of 12 to have a reasonable chance of success on average (and a Force of 4 to succeed). The example you quoted was my demonstration that a starting magician can also reasonably expect to affect an OR of 6 which some folks were saying required a great dragon, if he just pumped his roll with Edge.

As to whether or not a dice pool of 12 is a significant investment, I'll agree to disagree. Starting with a dice pool of 9 is trivial for most magicians. Specializations, mentor bonuses, foci, etc make 12 dice extraordinarily easy to achieve if that's your thing.


To the contrary, I believe I've been consistent throughout, and my replies directly addressed your questions. Maybe they weren't answered to your satisfaction but they were answered.

You need to go back and re-read. He said, in no uncertain terms, that the image always shows up on the camera. If it fails to beat OR though, then it's obviously a fake to anyone viewing the camera's feed on the other end. It's still visible as an illusion, there's just something wrong with it, like it's translucent, so someone would recognize it as not real. That is at least Synner's explanation for how it works. Ignore it or not, but don't keep telling us he said the exact opposite of what he did say.

So if cameras do not filter data, as Synner has specifically said, how does an illusion that doesn't beat OR3 look obviously fake, when the same human observer looking through his own eyes rather than the cameras' wouldn't notice anything wrong? As he's said repeatedly, it's the same image for both the camera and the human observer. However, it's very clearly NOT the same image, because the camera lets the observer see that the image is fake where he wouldn't see that with his own eyes.

For the record, this is incorrect. I've stated it several times now since it seems to be a common misunderstanding of the rules on Physical Illusions. Read the category description on p. 201 of your basic SR4. Physical Illusions are not either/or matters, they "create actual images or alter physical properties, such as light and sound". If they are resisted the illusion is still there. It is still visible, it is just obvious that the "illusion is not real" or in the case of a character, he is not "fully affected by the illusion" indicating that he is is still affected, it just fails to be convincingly realistic.

Hence you cast a visual Physical Illusion on someone and light gets bent, shaped, whatever and an image is produced. That image is as real as the image that would come from the photons bouncing off the real person now hidden under it. As long as the effect is maintained, the camera (or anything else looking at the illusion for that matter) always sees this Physical Illusion. However, if the observer successfully resists (via OR if an inanimate sensor and via Intuition + Counterspelling for living beings) the image doesn't cease to be/to register. Resistance simply allows the observer "to determine that the illusion is not real." (again p. 201, SR4)

A Physical Illusion does not "edit" what the camera sees, it "edits" reality. In the case of visual Physical Illusions, they create a "magical hologram" that an appropriately placed camera always sees. The camera always transmits what it is seeing. However, what it transmits may be a flawed illusion (if it doesn't reach the appropriate OR) or a realistic illusion (if it beats the OR).

As Zurai quite nicely put it above, the OR defines how well crafted all these "magical holograms" and "magical special effects" have to be to convince a specific sensing device that they are real.

I've given multiple examples above, numerous others are possible: the light manipulation in the "magical hologram" of a Physical Illusion might create a "lens flare" effect that the human mind might not register or might attribute to a glancing reflection; shadows might fall through the illusion clearly noticable in a high contrast camera while the human eye might write off as something out of line of sight; the light bending effect might create a wierd color refraction in a complex hi-rez lens that doesn't happen in the human eye; the shadows cast on the illusion itself might be off, and the mind of someone interacting with the illusion might not register because it is distracted by the bigger picture; etc; etc.

This is where Rules comes into contact with Fiction and causes a disconnect. Your average every day magician, according to the skill levels chart and the average attribute ratings, isn't going to have 9 dice. They'll have 6 or 8 at best. Unless they are a professional with above average attributes.

Your average, every day magician can sneak past cameras once in a while. He's been practicing, he can do it 40 to 50% of the time.

Players on the other hand are by definition not average. They are in fact above exceptional. PC are by definition the best in their class. A dice pool of 9 may be trivial for a player character, but that just means that they should be able to perform exceptional feats with glaring regularity, such as sneaking past video cameras. Just as a general every day lockpicking teenager (agility 3, lockpicking 1, specialization [front door]) has to take two or 3 tries before he succeeds and a shadowrunner can walk up to any door, spend one complex action and break in.

If mages aren't allowed to be infiltrators because the OR of cameras is too high, then no one should be allowed to be an infiltrator. Mages should be able to do the same net effect with magic that anyone else can do with technology (within limits, by which I mean that a combat monkey is replaceable by a magician who uses spells to kill people instead of using a gun, NOT a mage who can do [stuff with magic] and fire a gun just as well).

Plus, you still haven't said what it is about a camera that makes illusions obvious. Just that they are. You've given no fluff/fiction reason nor and reason other than "technology should be hard to effect with magic" when it's painfully obvious that Trid-Phantasm is not being cast on the bloody camera.

A shitstorm may excite movement in other areas that have long seen no adverse weather, and this movement may sustain itself against attempts to dampen it. Such is the way of sociosphere dynamics.

It's fun to see that the SR4A shitstorm has leaked into the remnants of the RC shitstorm, spawning yet more furious SURGE bashing.



Edit: Wow, how did so long pass since I began writing this post. Added quote.

We should agree to disagree. What you are opting to ignore is that magicians that are not shadowrunners, and who are valuable assets in their fields, will tend to specialize in their fields of practice (holistic healer, special effects wizard, enchanter, security mage, etc), so while a base dice pool of 6 or 8 will be common for the everyday magician, a professional will not only have a base dice pool of 7-8 (3 Magic or 4 Magic if he's been active more than a year or so and has initiated, plus a professional level Spellcasting skill of 4) but will also have a Spellcasting specialization (+2) appropriate to whatever it is he usually uses his magic for and is likely to have invested in foci that aid in that field - leaving out mentors since from a roleplay perspective the character shouldn't be picking and chosing a "good" mentor.

As should be obvious, I disagree with the vision that most Sixth World magicians are general practioner magic users and should be equally versatile in a variety of functions. To use your infiltrator example, yes, a magician infiltrator should be able to able to get by cameras with OR4, as long as they focus on the tools and skills necessary to do so - just like a mundane infiltrator focuses on infiltration rather than high-end combat skills.


This is where we're at odds. I believe that the setting calls for everyday magician to be able to do this on a regular basis, and magicians shouldn't be require more specialization than they did under the basic SR4 rules.

I.E. putting him at a dice pool of...let me count this.... 4 spellcasting, 2 spec., 4 magic. 4 + 4 + 2 = 10. 10 dice will get you enough dice to cast a Force 3 Illusion spell for 3 hits about 80% of the time. That's your specialized professional mage: sneaking past cameras 80% of the time, right where I said they should be. This has only strengthened my argument.

ShadowRunner's dice pools are expected to be even larger than this.

And once again, you haven't said what it is about a camera that makes illusions obvious. Just that they are. You've given no fluff/fiction reason nor and reason other than "technology should be hard to effect with magic" when it's painfully obvious that Trid-Phantasm is not being cast on the bloody camera.

Sorry, I apologize. I must have misunderstood:
What I was pointing out is that a typical professional (with specialization and foci which I didn't quantify) could actually have a dice pool of 12 easily (though not unexpensively). Your professional's dice pool of 10 becomes 12 for a 30k nuyen investment in appropriate tools (Spellcasting Focus force 2) or 13 for 45k nuyen (Spellcasting Focus force 3) - Spellcasting foci which incidentally augment all his spellcasting independent of spell categories. Note this isn't counting potential dice boosts from a bound spirit's Aid Sorcery, mentor spirit boni, power foci, and other gimmicks that magicians have up their sleeves which could pump a starting professional magician's pool up to 18 and much higher at little additional cost. (And I'm chosing to ignore what Edge use might do to that boosted pool).

So to fall back on the oft-quoted Hollywood special effects wizard being disarmed by the new ORs, I'd counter by saying that it's not unreasonable for a non-Shadowrunning professional illusionist in the Sixth World (with or without a Hollywood budget) to be throwing around upwards of 18 dice to craft his Trid Phantasm for the director.


As I noted above, anecdotal evidence points to dice pools in the 12-15 range in shadowrunner's main areas of expertise (in playtesting I've seen magicians go up to 17-18 on ocassion). Regardless, a dice pool of 12 makes it very likely to get 4 hits on average. If the shadowrunning magician doesn't want to take any risks, he just has to pump his Spellcasting with Edge to put him over the...errr... edge.


Nothing about the camera makes a Physical Illusion obvious. The result of not achieving the requisite OR is that the illusion is not well crafted enough and that enough telltales "to determine that it is not real" are apparent to the camera (some suggestions as to what such flaws might be are provided above). Whether or not these flaws are noticable to an individual looking directly at the same Physical Illusion depends on his Intuition roll per the rules on p. 201, SR4 (the original version, not SR4A).