Spellcasting vision question Options

[Beaman]

Can you cast spells with vision augmented glasses/goggles/contact lenses/binoculars on things you wouldn't be able to perceive naturally (ultrasound, thermo, lowlight, vision magnification (digital), vision enhancement (digitally cleans and sharpens images you are already seeing) etc)?

[Jaid]

ultrasound definitely not.

as far as the others, i think it depends. if you are basically looking at a screen which has the image, then no.

so definitely not digital magnification.

as far as low-light, thermographic, and vision enhancement, i'm not so sure. personally, i think it should be possible to sort of overlay those types of vision, so it should be possible, but i'm not sure that the rules support that.

[Hasaku]

You have to see them with your natural vision, which you're not. You're actually looking through a transparent screen, which is overlaying an image of them such that they appear in the proper place in your field of vision. You don't really see the person at all. Good enough to throw them a beer, not good enough to channel mana into them. Just shoot them, or use an indirect spell. The fact that you don't truly see them doesn't really matter when you use the image as a reference point for directing lead and/or flames at their location.

[jervinator]

The only vison enhancements that work are Mage Goggles, which use fiber optics, and cyber/bio-ware enhancements which, since you paid Essence for, are considered 'natural' vision.
Any non-cyber electronics negate the possibility of targetting a spell. This includes all remote cameras and most goggles and scopes.

[nick012000]

I disagree. Most of it seems to be electronic overlays over a clear screen (with the contact lenses and glasses, anyway). So you do still have line of sight through the lenses, you just have electronics outlining important stuff.

[Liper]

only cyberware bought with essence, or vision enchancments that are optically based and not digitally.

[Hasaku]

[Feshy]

My personal take (that is, I'm making this up, not reading it somewhere) on this issue is this:

Wherever possible, the technology works by overlaying the new information over a real, optical image in a semi-transparent fashion. When this is not possible, it is displayed as an AR image screen. Based on that, I have broken down the vision enhancements into three categories:

No modifiers (works just like normal vision):

• Smartlink
• Flare Compensation
• Image Link (Assuming it doesn't cover the target in a window)
• Optical Magnification (Binoculars, scopes and some goggles only!)

Modifiers exactly cancel bonus

• Low Light
• Thermographic
• Ultrasound

Can not cast spells while active

• Vision Magnification (electronic, this is the standard)

Undecided

• Vision Enhancement

My rational for these categories is this:
For no modifiers, this technology does not obscure in any way natural vision (except maybe to put a targeting retecicle on it that is easily identified.)

For the category where modifiers exactly cancel the bonuses, I figure this works from both a logic standpoint (the more obscured the target is, the more the digital image enhancement covers it with its "updated" information) and a game balance standpoint (the technology can be used by spell caster, but does not affect spell casting.) The basic idea is that if the caster would normally suffer, for example, a -2 low-light penalty, and the low-light goggles remove that penalty, that spell casting is penalized by a -2 "vision clouded by technical enhancement" penalty. One more thing to point out about this category is if the modifiers reach -6, the character no longer has line of sight -- that is, if the only reason they can see the target at all is because of the thermographic enhancement, then they can't really see the target.

For the category where spell casting is impossible, I figure that vision magnification would pretty much have to overlay an AR window on your normal vision, thus blocking out normal vision. The exception to this is binoculars, scopes, and goggles, which do use real lenses. I figure such real optical equipment is probably a bit more rare than the cheaper, smaller, lighter electronic versions. Glasses and contact lenses are unlikely to have the necessary amount of room for optical magnification, and would therefore have to use electronic.

As for the undecided category, well frankly I have no idea how "image enhancement" would work. I lean one of two ways -- either applying no penalty (the overlay is not significant, an expert system simply uses icons and other tools to draw your attention to relevant looking details) or a negative modifier equal to the rating (the system overlays a sharpened image on top of the real image.)

In any case, assuming you have 'trodes or something, and either skinlink or wireless enabled, you could change the modes (or turn the device off) as a free action using DNI. This would be nearly identical to the "everything that gives a bonus has a penalty equal to that bonus" category, except it requires a free action.

[Hasaku]