The generalist should even consider 29 BP for a power focus 4 (restricted gear). Would a samurai think twice about a "+4 to everything you do" implant for 145k¥ and no essence cost?

I´d personally go for mentor bonus + specialisation in one category (a mere 7 BP), and build the power focus ingame.

A very high resolution image displayed on a very high resolution screen means that tiny flaws are, well, tiny.

Not even counting the fact that you're shrinking a 8 foot by 8 foot by 8 foot chunk of space (we'll say 64 square feet of area because we're looking in 2D) onto a 1 foot by 1 foot screen (for trid you might assume 1 foot of depth as well).

So flaws are 1/8th the dimensions (1/64th the area, 1/512th the volume) that they are in real life.

Lets assume that all detail is faithfully preserved with a pixel (or voxel) density measuring in the millions per square (cubic) inch. So even a detail as small as a grain of rice is visible on your screen.

Though how visible IS a grain of rice on our 1 square foot monitor?

1.5mm x 4mm
Divide by 8
0.1875mm x 0.5mm

Wikipedia:
Observing a nearby small object without a magnifying glass or a microscope, the usual distance is 20–25 cm. At this close range, 0.05 mm can be seen clearly. The accuracy of a measurement depends on the experience (0.1 to 0.3 mm). The latter figure is the usual position accuracy of faint details in maps, and also of technical plans.

In other words, that grain of rice displays as little more than a spec of dust: even more easily looked over than the rice grain is in real life.

So...that means our flaws are much more obvious than a grain of rice (or several).

How about a full cubic foot of the illusion is blatantly wrong? That works out to being a square inch or so on your monitor. Decently obvious on the monitor.

But it's not obvious in real life? We're talking a cubic foot of space. That's the size of my CRT monitor.
How glaring would that be, to have someone invisible except for their chest?

Pretty fucking obvious, if you ask me.

Here's an example of how this "cameras make it obvious" is a failure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubNF9QNEQLA

Of cource it's bloody obvious if there is a flying chest moving around, but that has nothing to do with the subjeck at hand.

Why are the guards using such small monitors. I would use much bigger AR screens.

Name something that is not obvious to the in-the-flesh observer, but blatantly obvious to the observer of a camera feed.



...you've obviously never seen a security room. They have hundreds of feeds to monitor. They can't have each and every one taking up a 4 foot by 4 foot section of wall. The local quick-e-mart to my old apartment (a building that has all of 4 short isles of shopping and a deli) has 7 feeds, all of them displayed on the same 20" TV.

If it's in AR then it depends on your AR overlay, which has same effective "wall space" size, even if it's projected directly into your brain.

Is it reasonable that all objects have effective hardened armor against all spells?

An OR of 6 means that the opponent of a spell gets 6 automatic hits on a spell resistance test.
This translates in a dicepool for buying hits of 24-27
Way to large

I propose a rating system for camera's

A camera sensor rating system
Camera Rating
- low res black/white camera 1
- low res color camera 2
- high res color camera 3
- vision enhancement (1-3) +rating
- low light enhancement +1
- thermovision +1
- vision magnification +1

Max rating camera 9

sensor + clearsoft = More diversity ==> Good for roleplaying

Marduc:

I love that. What I'm trying to figure out is why Synner feels so strongly that RAW is correct when it's obviously not.

This is exactly what I took away from your post, and it's exactly what I'm responding to. Synner said over and over that he is not assuming that the camera is doing processing. It' just projecting a high quality image that shows flaws that human eyeballs wouldn't pick up. That's it, 100%. You're basically accusing him of lying about his own ideas, which is nonsense. I understand what you're saying, and you're wrong. I don't appear to have missed anything at all.


As for the idea that cameras wouldn't pick up non-obvious things, the idea of contrast is being completely ignored. Cameras can pick up greater contrast than human eyes, I think, and this could account for outlines being clearer, shadows being more distinct, and disjointed lines coming more highly into focus. Also, the human eye has a focus field the size of a dime, everything outside of that is largely a blur to us. When a wavy outline of a person sneaks past you, you might fail to spot them simply because you're not looking exactly at them when they move past you. But a camera has the same focus for the entire image, they do not suffer from poor peripheral vision. A person viewing that screen would benefit from both the wider contrast and the improved focus. And since they'd probably be viewing it in AR or VR, the data could be fed directly to their brains, bypassing the normal limitations of human vision, perhaps.

Regardless, Synner is doing a very nice thing by trying to provide a plausible explanation for how RAW works. But almost everything about the magic rules is gamist in nature. The dice mechanics are intended to place certain benefits and limitations on magic spells, in order for them to be fun and balanced. They have never made a lot of sense realistically. Neither have the combat rules, or the skill rules, or almost anything about Shadowrun. The world can't be effectively simulated by D6's, but D6's can create a fun game. If the rules don't make a fun game for you, then you need to change them. Debating about real world explanations of the rules gets you nowhere, because at the end of the day they're still fun for you or not, irrespective of whether they have some kind of rational real world explanation. For this entire system, you must suspend your disbelief to a certain degree. When you home in on this particular rule discrepancy, you ignore the fact that the entire system is one big giant discrepancy that creates a grossly unrealistic picture of the real world. This discussion is like carefully examining the right hoof of a dead horse. Whether or not his hoof is fine, he's already dead so it doesn't matter. You can't use the Shadowrun ruleset and come out with an adequately simulationist product. It's designed to let you play an enjoyable game, and the fact that its weird mechanics are unrealistic is wholly beside the point. It was nice of Synner to spend so much of his time trying to provide you guys with a rational justification of the RAW. I wonder, though, whether you have any shame for the childish, hostile way you behaved in return.

Thanks

I would like to see such a system, as it would be able with this to actually use the spells at low force, which is IMHO the right way to aproach this, and not by raising the bar. Its like saying everybody is able to get regularly A's and B's, but anybody who don't get atleast B's are screwed and kicked out of school.

If you feel this doesn't cover the whole range of visual sensors
then:
Camera Rating
- low res black/white camera 1
- low res color camera 3
- high res black/white camera 5
- high res color camera (military grade) 7

Voila Max sensor rating 13

It would be nice if the OR was transformed into a resistance test (couterspelling applicable) at OR*2 or OR*3 if OR*2 still gives a to high succes rate. At least this way low force spells have a way to succes, as most spells which have to beat the OR are specialy designed to affect technology. It is illogical to say that spells that are specialy designed to affect technology require a high force to affect it. This should be added in the drain code of the spell. The rate of succes is what is determined by the force. Want to repair something. Go ahead. Force 1 you remove dents out of your drone. Force >6 you repair the burnout drone.
Force 1 ignite, you scourge the car and ruin the paint job, Force >6 what is that inferno. ect

Picture a mirror. Your reflection does exactly what you do.

You get from me what you give to me. Thus, slinging snide comments and personal attacks gets you treated in the same manner. Why? 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. Your actions told me you wanted to be treated in such a deplorable manner as that was how you treated me with your insults.

Up until you started in on me, I was polite, courteous, said nothing mean/hateful, and made a good faith effort to explain what I was seeing / interpreting.

You would not be the first person I've pissed off or offended for treating them like they have me. You likely won't be the last either. You want me to be nice to you? Play nice with me.

=====

As for Synner's explanation, I do appreciate it and his efforts. I simply think it's wrong. It doesn't pass the sniff test. You go on describing the focus over the whole image which is then viewed by a person who has focus over a dime. How exactly will that help?

Whether a person sees the illusion first hand or via camera, the PERSON viewing is still going to have to make a determination as to whether or not they see something wrong. That is the control piece. You can have meat do it or you can have tech do it. Regardless, there MUST be some level of control / review in place otherwise all that fancy hardware is worthless.

Going with a strict interpretation of what Synner is saying would mean the meat watching the viewscreens automatically detects all illusions that failed to overcome the OR of the cameras. You could use an illusion spell for something innocuous (change your hair color for instance) and under the revised rules, the camera operator automatically knows it's fake if the spell didn't beat OR. Doesn't matter what it is. He automatically knows. That idea has a pretty ridiculous level of suspension of disbelief attached to it.

I know there's some logic rule about using the interpretation that makes the most sense. But there's also the rule to use the Rules As Written. Following RAW will lead to illogical things occurring which defy sense, common or otherwise. That situation should be avoided when writing rules.

After having read over the whole thread so far, I'm firmly in the camp the metric should have been made into a resistance test of OR+Clearsight (or operator's appropriate skill) vs Illusion Spell. Yes, I know it wasn't a move that Synner wanted to do but honestly, it would have eliminated most of the bitching about the whole OR change with regards to illusions.

This way, the spell is still hard pressed to beat the system. It also allows for variable ratings of equipment (variety is a good thing). It also prevents automatic knowledge as described above. Unless an image is interpreted, no amount of OR will help determine if an illusion is fake or not.

I cannot buy into the idea that an inanimate object will allow the user gain automatic knowledge. To my knowledge, no such animal has existed in SR before. I don't see a need for one now.

This also means that anyone who straps a Lone Star iBall to their forehead and uses the video and audio feed from the drone instead of their own vision is virtually immune to illusions, yet, somehow, implanting cameras in your skull strips them of their ability to filter out illusions.

Unless I'm mistaken, the user would still need to interpret the image. Just because there is a flaw in your field of view doesn't mean you consciously see it or that you even recognize it's fake.



With your quoted post above, it implies the camera user automatically knows it's an illusion (if it was one).

This is one area where I like how D&D through the editions handled Illusions. You had to have reason to disbelieve an illusion in order to save against it unless you had an incredibly high intelligence or other magics operating that blew the whistle for you.

I'm reminded of an old John Wayne movie where he was walking through a saloon at night without lights. Prior to entering the saloon, he had a lantern. Inside the saloon, he had a flashlight. I pointed it out and my grandfather disagreed. Said he had a flashlight. I rewound the VCR tape and replayed the scene. Sure enough, it was a flashlight. My grandfather said I wasn't supposed to see that.

Looking back at that movie, it was the pattern the light made. It wasn't round like a lantern but cone shaped like a flashlight. That's what clued me in. The light was wrong. But my grandfather saw a lantern. Why? Because that's what he expected to see. He had no reason to save vs illusions. I saw something wrong and looked closer.

This reinforces my point above. Even with a picture that has flaws from an illusion, you still have to have reason to believe there *IS* a flaw or illusion. Simply viewing an illusion through a camera cannot automatically give you knowledge of all illusions that failed to beat OR.

But in SR, apparently that is the case.

If you are referring to cybereyes, that would be because you paid Essence for them, making them part of your whole being. IOW, they get subsumed into your aura and are vulnerable to the failings of flesh.

I'm willing to suspend my disbelief over the whole "implantation makes them failings of the flesh" or whatever that causes cybereyes to be no mechanically different than "meat eyes" with regards to magic, it's the whole "strapping an iBall camera to your head and being immune to illusions" that irks me.

It simply doesn't make sense. There's no damn good reason for it. Magic invisibility already fails against the right sensors, why do we have to jump through hoops to avoid being seen on camera?

If I'm invisible I should be, well, invisible. None of this BS about cameras making the security guard watching the feed go "OH MAH GAWD! DERE'S AN INVISIBURBLE MAGE IN TEH HALLWAYZ!"

I've been going over some of the changes and I have a question about the Arrows.

normal arrows you have to buy at ratingx5 capped at 8 same as bows. But with the injector arrows they are not rated but do the "same" damage. Now I know that these change are coming to Arsenal soon too. But is my conclusion correct or close in that you are buying a arrow shaft at the rating then buying an arrow head, like a regular broad head, injector, or the like from Arsenal? In reality that makes sense to me cuz you do have to buy an arrow heavy enough for your poundage or you run the risk of the arrow exploding on the arrow rest as you shoot (not a good thing). Plus you do have a butt load of options with broad heads these days.

Thanks,
Brent