Invisible characters, Issues with invisibility & melee combat Options

[BlacKat]

Greetings,

I have aplayer that spends his whole time invis during a run. His character has a focus for the invis spell and just works at bringing it up before they start running and does not drop it unless they absolutly need to until after the run is over.

The question here involves melee combat. The character is based around being gods gift to the katana ( I know how original ;) ). So he uses the invis to attack undetected. My question is would the people he is attacking get the usual reflex + melee skill/dodge/unarmed combat in response to the attack or do they just have to sit there and take it? If they do get the responding rolls, what kind of modifyer should I use. Mind you by the time the character makes its first swing someone has already taken a shot or done something else to alert the victems that there are runners in the area. This is not a pure surprise situation, just a possible surprise from the invisible mage.

BlacKat

[mintcar]

Roll perception if the victim is allert. He may hear something and figure out what's about to happen. If it fails, roll surprise. It's still a surprise situation if the attack is coming out of nowere. (Btw, this should be concidered for characters attacking from behind cover too, if they moved when out of sight it's a new surprise situation. This really ups the possibility for strategy in combat.) If the victim is not surprised I would let him dodge as normal, but with a visability modifier (as if blind). This is all assuming he did not manage to resist the spell, in which case none of above would be necessary.

[UndeadPoet]

In SR3, negative visibility modifiers were divided by 2(round down) for melee combat. Total invisibility would be -3.
To let them spot him and allow them a melee defense roll, I would suggest a perception (1) or (2) test to let them use their other senses in order to realize someone is there.
If you have problems with this player, remember, when invisible, he burns like a torch in the astral realm and is still totally visible to someone with ultrasound vision.

Also tell him his character is unoriginal. I bet he does not even have a background story giving reasons for his katana skill, hm?

[TBRMInsanity]

Attacking an invisible target (or getting attacked by one) in 4th just applies serious modifiers. There must always be an opposition test in 4th combat. You may want to eliminate the number of dice from the defender's dice pool equal to the force of the invisibility spell. That would accurately represent the difficulty of hitting an invisible target.

As pointed out there are also other ways to combat an ivisibility spell, one of my favorite was if the guy only uses invisibility, have a guy with cyber eyes (ie non-natural eyes that see through the spell). Paranomal animals like hell hounds also work wonders. And my personal favorite is the force eating salamanders from 3rd. They are the best way to neutralize a mage and his/her spells. Plus if you just want to be mean induce a huge background count. Drain will be a b!%*#.

[UndeadPoet]

Drain would not be a problem, unless you use a chicago-level background count. If he only uses his invisibility, there is no real problem for him with a (reasonable!)background count.
If you fail your resistance test against invisibility spells, you plain do not see the person. No -1 per net success, but a straight -6.
Cybereyes do not work, since they are used by a (meta)human and, through essence loss, have become part of his body, which is cheated by the illusion. Also, if it is a physical illusion, cameras or other non-living stuff won't help, either.

[Butterblume]

After the first victim, there will most likely be blood splatters on the katana, and possibly on the invisible guy...

[UndeadPoet]

Right. In our group, we had a same situation with our mystic adept. He was invisible and killed an enemy, the remaining ones started firing at the place their dead buddy had stood a second before. I have no idea which penalties the gamemaster gave them for firing at the invisible target, but the adept was scratched good when he came back to the group.
And that, determining the position by the bloodshed(remember, he uses a katana... His unoriginality works against him here), will be the easiest way to harm him.

[Dashifen]

Smoke, sprinklers, mud, paint balls, etc. are all also effective ways to spot invisible types. I still recall a character with a home-built gun with the modification from SR3 that allowed you to have two clips of different ammo for the same gun. He'd load capsule rounds with paint in them in one clip and lethal ammunition in the other. He'd literally spray the area with paint to try and detect incoming invisible combatants. 'Course, the only time I actually assaulted him with an invisible "ninja" like character, the character dropped on him from a balcony ....... he never did think to fire up.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

There are many nice suggestions here, but why not look at the RAW?

Oddly enough, Melee does not include any penalties attacking invisible targets.
However, defending against any attack the character isn't aware of isn't possible - that would call for a perception test, at the usual -2 distraction penalty.

Whether or not being invisible in melee qualifies as Superior Position is up to GM, so the invisible attacker might get a bonus.

[hobgoblin]

either give the defender a "blind fire" modifier (as he does not know what he is defending against but he may get lucky) or just give the attacker a "superior ground" modifier.

[Aaron]

According to the RAW, the defender get to defend unless he or she is unaware of the attack. Also, as is the case for shooting blind, you may wish to replace the attribute with Intuition, although that's a GM call.

Anyway, the use of Invisibility (Improved or otherwise) is fairly moot when a corp (or whatever) shells out the extra grand for ultrasound.

[Red]

Many of the mentioned tactics for detecting invisible characters depends on the source of the invisibility. Invisibility spells render the subject, his clothes, and weapons invisible. Including the paints and dyes that give them color. Depending on how your GM interprets the spell, it might be valid to claim that the invisibility spell now conceals the new pigments since they have become part of the subject of the spell. You couldn't paint your target in that interpretation, but you could aim at the "hole" where your paint vanished. However a GM could also rule that an invisibility spell only applies to the paints/dyes at the time of casting. Thus an invisible character could accumulate dust, dirt, blood, paint, etc...

There is no concrete rule for this yet. I can only recommend that you discuss this issue with your GM before the situation arises. But there is room for comprimise. One could argue that the ability of an invisibility spell to cope with new factors like paintballs depends on the net hits, and force of the spell.

[hyzmarca]

The invisibility spell has always worked like a visual only SEP field (except for improved invisibility in 4th). It isn't that you can't see the target it is that you can't notice the target with any visual sense.

[Rooks]

did the guy even roll to sneak up on someone? if not I'm pretty sure the guy would hear the footsteps coming a be aware thus roll perception and ya invisibility always seemd to be a cloaking field around the person a person standing int he rain would still be noticeable when they are invisible just not as noticeable as if they were not invisable since the rain kinda forms around the invisable person showing its outline

[hobgoblin]

if its a gun battle in the same room. im not sure if he would even hear a truck comming thru the wall...

and no, i do not base this on the hollywood style sound effects. the avarage gunfire make about as much sound as a firecracker. but a firecracker going of right beside your head, even more so multiple, will play havoc with your ability to hear.

[BlackHat]

[BlacKat]

Thanks for all the responses.

Right now we are going with blind fire rules. If its a surprise situation I will deal with it as such.

The game has been going on for almost 2 years now so the characters are in the 100 karma range so its hard to challenge these guys regularly. The campaing wraps up this year though as it has gone on long enough.

BlacKat

[Edward]

Bering in mind the invisibility spell is resisted, I will assume the target has failed to resist.

Until the target is aware that there is an invisible opponent in the room he is unable to make any defensive roll. The target may become aware ether with a successful apposed stealth/perception check (audio enhancements and distraction modifiers apply) or when the GM determines its obvious (he is attacked, observes somebody being attacked or the attacker makes a battle cry)

Once the target is aware of the presence of an invisible opponent he may roll defence as normal taking the same penalty as for attacking an invisible opponent (-6 dice if I recall correctly)

This is based on logic, I don’t have my book in front of me but I don’t think it was covered.

Also you can equip security guards with ultrasound vision witch will effectively counter his invisibility and make him look very suspicious.

Edward

[CONAN9845]

Do you mean to tell me that there are people who think that there is no penalty to attack an invisible character in melee because the "Target Hidden (Blind Fire)" modifier is only on the Ranged Combat Modifiers Table, and not on the Melee Modifiers Table?

Are you kidding me? Fine. In the description for Invisibility, it states that attacks against invisible targets suffer the Target Hidden modifier. Since it doesn't make a distinction, that applies to both Ranged and Melee.

If the defender is unaware of the attack, then there is no defense. Treat the attack as a Success Test instead. Characters who are engaged in combat are not unaware of an attack. They have to actually be surprised. Attacking from behind gives the Superior Position modifier regardless, but in order to surprise someone engaged in combat, you have to use Infiltration to sneak up on them.

Spraying someone who is invisible with something doesn't help. In order to percieve a character that is under an Invisibility spell, it must be resisted. The whole point of the illusion is that you are invisible, regardless of environmental circumstances. Other senses work as normal, of course.

Ultrasound only works in the absence of a Stealth spell, and any invisible character worth anything will have both. White noise generators can also mess up ultrasound. It's not a cure all against invisibility, just like SR3.

[Edward]

Dose the SR4 invisibility spell describe what happens when you pick something up while invisible

Putting clothes on, picking up a briefcase, getting dirty.

At eth very least a light smoke field will leave a void giving an opportunity to fire at -6 (with no indication of location I would not allow an attempt)

Edward

[CONAN9845]

Please keep in mind that everything that I post is my own interpretation of the rules, and by no means meant to be what the developers intended.

The smoke field would do nothing. The person under the influence of an Invisibility spell is non-detectable by visual means... period.

"Anyone who might perceive the subject [visually] must first successfully resist the spell." That's all there is to it.

Picking something up may cause you to be seen without them resisting the spell, so whatever you pick up or or are in contact with cannot be seen. It's like the stealth spell, but applies to vision instead of hearing.

[James McMurray]

[CONAN9845]

To me, that's the same thing.

[Dranem]

If your player is using invisibilty waaay too much, start adding astral barriers, watchers, spirits, dual-natured critters. As potent as magic is, it should not always go unchecked, awakened characters need to learn that over-relying on magic can come at a cost.

For every bit of magic, there is often (not always) some way to defend against it - that is life in the 6th world.

[James McMurray]