How obvious is Aura Sensing? Options

[Mystweaver]

Hi there, I have a couple of questions about some SR3 rules. I have not had a chance to look over the SR4 rules yet so am unaware if this has been clarified. Perhaps someone could shed some light.


Firstly, when on the astral plane, whether perceiving or dual natured, when you assense someone, if that person is also looking back astrally or even not, is it noticeable that you are assessing them or is does it appear outwardly that you are just looking at them? Or as above can that magically active person "feel" you assensing them?

Secondly, according to MITS, it appears that if my Grade 10 Initiate (Magic 16) is attempting to assense another powerful initiate who is say Grade 12 (Magic 18) that the GM has to make two secret rolls. The first requires 16 dice TN 18 with two successes to penetrate, the second requires 18 dice TN 16 with one success... This leads me to believe that for high level initiates it is rare that they will notice each other very often. Is this the case or have I got the wrong end of the stick with regard to this set of rules. Same as before, can the other initiate "feel" you pierce their masking or the attempt?

P.S. Arrrgghhh! The topic is supposed to read "How Obvious is Aura READING"... oh well! :spin:

[nezumi]

Assuming you are astrally perceiving and not projecting, reading someone's aura simply would involve looking at that person. If you're making a thorough examination, the guy might become suspicious that you're staring at him, but he wouldn't feel anything. If the other guy is astrally perceiving, he could probably guess what you're doing (since you're looking at him on the astral), but again, he wouldn't feel anything.

As for initiates... I thought they could only do that if they have the masking metamagic. I can double check the rules if I'm wrong, but yeah, masking is supposed to make you harder to see as it gets higher. A lot of initiates don't buy masking (then again, at the ungodly level 18, he probably has two of everything), so it doesn't come into play that often.

[Mystweaver]

Are you kidding me? Masking was the first Metamagic technique I took as it allows you to mask certain foci abiet at a weak level until you get to the initiate grade my character has (grade 10)... Takes a SERIOUS amount of Roleplay to get there mind...

But thanks for your reply. My GM tends to think that Aura Reading & Piercing Maskingis obvious. My arguement is that if you are masked, you dont look as though you are on the astral so how can the tell you are astrally perceiving let alone Reading their Aura. The character I play is a Drake so naturally Masking is extremely important!

[Grinder]

Being a Drake brings a lot of other problems too.

[Mystweaver]

Dont I know it! Bloody Great Dragons..

[Grinder]

Noone told you before? ;)

[nezumi]

[Velocity]

In other words, it's ideal for shadowrunners. ;)

[Mystweaver]

I kinda thought that was our Job? However, although I have no choice about choosing E in the first instance, I would choose both C and E in the second instance. They kind of go hand in hand.

However, I find masking most important as a Drake (or any other awakened individual) can walk into Renraku as a Janitor (as long has said masked individual has formed an identity on the Renraku database and has a good enough understanding of Renraku Corporate Lingo) and get away scott free (and appear to be a Janitor!).

Hiding your Aura is the first step to being sneaky if you are awakened. All shadowrunners need to be sneaking imo... rather important methinks.


As for Dragons, well, its best to avoid them eh! Unless they trap you in their games or your fate decides you must work with them...

[Sunday_Gamer]

Well I couldn't possibly disagree with you more. Masking is the single greatest and most useful and DEFINITELY mandatory discipline of the shadowrunning mage.

Being to conceal your dual nature ALONE is worth it's weight in gold.

Masking also enables you to conceal spells on your self ( 1 force pt per grade) Masking allows a mage to appear as a mundane or an unitiated mage. No use? Ya, there's no historial precedence for masking the true measure of your power from your enemies.

On topic however, ascensing someone is as obvious as staring at someone. That's it "He's looking at you intently" is as much advanced warning I'm willing to give out about being ascensed.

Now granted everyone is entitled to their opinion about how useful masking is or isn't, in the end it depends on the game you're in. Where I come from, the sooner you can learn to mask, the happier you will be.

Sunday

[Mystweaver]

Thanks Sunday, that is how it always occured to me. However my GM always ran it that when you assense someone, you give away tell tale signs like a flicker of an eye or a strange look in your face when you assensed. Yet as far as I have read about peoples perception of what assensing is, is that it is not a sight rather a psychic sense.

Assensing to me therefore is reading the aura that you feel when you look at someone. I have been disagreeing with him about this subject for quite some time but things still flow steadily and the current "house rule" as I would call it just means I dont assense people as often as I would (As my character follows the way of the shadow and rarely likes to give away that he is magically active... just incase people enquire further to find out I am also a Drake and send some more drek heads to skin me for my Talismonger properties :nuyen: :nuyen: :nuyen: :( ).

[Fortune]

[nezumi]

[Talia Invierno]

[NightRain]

I always imagined that initiates would mask themselves, purely because no one likes to give away the exact extend of their knowledge, which is not too hard to determine if you can read someones aura. If they want to flaunt their initiate status but leave it at that, they can make themselves look mundane or the like when they're astrally active :)

[Mystweaver]

Well that is the idea of this post - to see other peoples opinions on the matter.
When I said "I Kinda thought that was our Job" I was referring to Shadowrunners in general. The majority of magically active characters who work regular jobs all around the world not needing masking is pretty obvious.

However, the majority of magically active characters a successful shadowrun team comes up against are also going to be masked as they are usually highly trained security guards, though it is rare still that there are many who are has high grade as myself. (There are just more lower grade peeps instead who always provide a problem). Also, when going up against Critters, masking is quite useful as they tend to go for the more magically active characters and if you can mask, they will go for someone else in your team :wobble:

Its always nice when another Shadowrun team is sent out to get us from one of our many enemies, and this is where my question comes from.

Oh and our timeline is at 2064. Chicago has not happened yet (so we can play it) and there are a few things that are out there that we do not know about (but are available from the new source books).

[hahnsoo]

[nick012000]

He means his game is running on an alternate timeline to canon.

[Mystweaver]

That is correct Nick... It allows for our experienced GM to run those events or in this case write them into the existing and broad storyline so that we can create the outcome. We also have a very large behind the scenes edge to the campaign as we spend perhaps a third of our time sorting out issues related the this ancient world of Earthdawn.

Some craziness happens and it is quite highly powered (which it has to be with Karma earnt ranging from 400-700 karma per player (and 4-7players). I may post some of my session notes somewhere in here.

[Demon_Bob]

Our mage used to always Assess NPC's of note claiming that one couldn't tell.
One day the GM asked how someone couldn't tell you were giving him the thousand yard stare? As the insulted could have been cool Contact walked.

[tisoz]