How do you deal with Invisibility?, I.e. Improved Invisibility + Silence=bad Options

[cryptoknight]

At least invisibility doesn't work with tech... but Improved bends light around people... and affects tech... so you use Ultrasonic Vision to see them... so they cast silence...

I'm resorting to pressure plates and trip lines to create a facility defense to catch invisibles...

Speaking of that... can suppressive fire stretch it's 10m from close to far instead of from side to side?

[Ol' Scratch]

Simple, old-tech security measures are the best. You know, things like, say, doors.

[Crusher Bob]

Magical security
Patrolling spirits, hellhounds and other critters w/ astral perception can all spot the invisible guy

Physical access control:
Doors don't open by themselves, elevators don't move by themselves.

Mundane animals:
Guard dogs can smell the invisible guy

[hyzmarca]

Sprinklers. Invisible people still obey the basic laws of physics, including two pieces of matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Water will not fall through him but will, instead, cascade off of his body, producing an obvious outline.

[Crusher Bob]

For the more exotic security measures: micro-thin feeler wires that descend out of the ceiling when the building in unoccupied. Invisible guy brushes the wires, security knows where he is.

If you think SR tech is up to it, the feeler wires can be sensitive enough to detect minute air displacements, meaning that he doesn't even have to touch them. Of course, this means you can't be running the AC at the same time...

[cx2]

Also remember that instead of silence simply making him invisible to ultrasound it in effect makes a "black hole", at least as I imagine it. The sound won't bounce off the guy using silence, but equally it won't be bouncing off any walls behind him or the ground near his feet so you get this area where the ultrasound simply registers nothing at all.

Note that this would be my interpretation through common sense. To me I imagine it being like there being a big black hole where the terrain should be, rather than it bending sound around the target.

[kzt]

There are a huge number of security sensor systems out there. The spiffy new version is FOUO, but the 1997 version of Perimeter Security Sensor Technologies Handbook is really great at suggesting approaches that the casual GM will NEVER think of.

The other obvious approach is the use of floor-to-ceiling turnstiles that block the corridor and require an ID check of some sort to unlock so they can turn. And the camera system watching this will correlate the turnstile turning and nobody in the field of view and sound an alarm.

[Hank]

Somewheres in BBB it talks about capacitive fencing, which wouldn't care about invisibility or silence. It just goes off whenever material is nearby. I think it's in running the shadows.

[FriendoftheDork]

I'm not even sure Improved Invis will work against passive IR detectors. I mean, the body still produces heat, and when moving the temperature of the room will change rapidly. Light bending around the person will prevent animals and cameras from actually seeing him, but PIR should still work.

OR do you disagree?

[DTFarstar]

I forget if it does fool IR as well or not, but even if it does that doesn't mean room temp won't change. You could get a general area from that.

Chris

[Crusher Bob]

Improved invisibilty works against the thermographic vision of trolls and various other critters, so infrared cameras and beams are out.

[hyzmarca]

Improved Invisibility works against thermal sight. It does not work against any other thermal sense, however. IR cameras, it would fool. Simple heat detectors, it would not.

[Sir_Psycho]

There is a lot of useful security measures in 2nd and 3rd edition books such as Corporate Security Handbook, the Keeping the Rabble Out chapter of State Of The Art: 2063, The Neo-Anarchists Guide To Real Life has a section also, as does the unofficial sourcebook Paranoid Animals of North America (yes, that's Shadowrunners, kids).

Finding some of them in hardcover will be difficult and expensive if not outright impossible. But i'm sure you'll manage it quite easily looking for e-books.

[Critias]

[Riley37]

[cryptoknight]

Ok... I was trying to think of things that a typical shadow dweller might have (basically a guy who is cutting in on Tamanous' territory and they've hired the shadowrunners to put him out of business permanently. I figure he has a doss of some sort for processing of inventory and would have suitable defenses for that.

So the dangly wires are out, but the sprinklers are good... and after reading all of your ideas, I was also thinking a vibration detector that feeds into the area's AR and puts a humanoid shape (scaled for size based on the intensity of the vibration) over places where it detects vibrations but active sensors don't pick anything up.

[Critias]

Or you could just have an inch or sand poured on the floors throughout the building.

[DireRadiant]

All you need is one Watcher.

[The Jopp]

[DireRadiant]

Chem sniffers been mentioned yet?

[Hank]

[Tarantula]

Hank, just to be contrary, there are thermosense organs similar to pit vipers available as bioware that DO bypass invisibility. Then again, theres no sensor of them.

Also, if the mage throws in levitate (or is a mystic adept w/traceless walk) then the vibration sensor is out too.

Radar sense neatly still works though.

[Buster]

Improved Invisibility + Stealth + Physical Mask + Levitate = defeats all possible mundane detection except radar (and ultrasound and thermal sense knows something is there, just no pinpoint location). One watcher defeats all spells.

[Tarantula]

And improved masking with a grade of 4 (to be able to encompass all the spells) masking them to be hidden, and then the regular masking to mask your own aura to look mundane, the watcher might just get confused at the flying mundane.

[Hank]