[X] My Assistant

[hyzmarca]

This still doesn't answer the question of what happens if you blindfold something like a human form weretiger, whose astral head doesn't remotely line up with its physical head. It doesn't deal with possessed chairs either. Where exactly are a chair's eyes normally located?

[mfb]

i think i'd rule that a shapeshifter is affected by a blindfold the same way as any other humanoid. say the astral form floats around so that their heads match up, or something. i'm not going to even try to call that canon, though. if anyone's managed to slog through those Nyx Smith stories, there might be something in there.

a chair... again, not canon, but i'd anthropomorphize it, pick features or shapes on the chair and assign them as eyes. or maybe i wouldn't even try to assign a definite ruling on it; if i need the possessed chair to be able to see from a certain portion of its chairnatomy, it will be able to, and if i don't it won't be able to. trying to blindfold a possessed chair is a rare enough occurrence that even a detailed-rule fanatic like me is willing to let it slip by.

[fistandantilus4....]

[Red]

I think I agree with the metaphorical, or symbolic approach. A blindfold blocks astral sight because when worn it blocks physical sight. Yet it might allow astral sound just fine. The opposite for earplugs. I think that is simpler than working out points of origin for psychic senses.

[Fortune]

[Tarantula]

As far as the mage-mask goes, coming from pg12 MitS... you get a +6 penalty to any mental action taken (including trying to use magic) this is from a white noise generator. It goes on to say "Actions that a mage normally performs automatically, like astral projection, require a Willpower (10) Test to accomplish." So, yes, it cuts off all physical LOS the mage could have. You still could astrally perceive (if you can succeed the willpower (10) test) and then try to cast at someone (with the +6TN penalty). Its a very very very longshot, but could work. (Good thing there wasn't edge/longshot tests back with magemasks).

[Trigger]

I have to disagree with the fact that astral sight aligns with physical sight, due to a couple of specific paragraphs and sentences in the BBB.

[mfb]

then you have no basis at all for deciding what blocks it, if anything. the POV of your astral perception could be your right foot, the back of your neck, it could be a spot three feet to the left of your hip. anything and everything is pure conjecture, if you toss out the idea of basing everything off the vision metaphor except where noted different.

[Trigger]

I am saying that a blindfold blocks physical sight, and if you are astrally perceiving (not projecting, that is a completely different ballgame) then that blindfold is still only blocking your physical sight, not your astral. Sure, you wouldn't be able to physically see your target, but you are dual-natured while perceiving, so you are only blinded on one part, but you will still be able to tell that there is an aura there and thus able to target said aura. In the astral you do not see with your eyes, you have no eyes, you see with your aura. You do not hear with your ears, you have no ears, you hear with your aura.

[mfb]

again, i've never seen anything in the rules that suggests you sense with your aura. your aura is not your astral form--it's just part of your astral form.

[Trigger]

Then what is the rest of your astral form then? If not your aura, then what else is there? I mean, it is nothing physical, because it is astral....so what is it then?

[Ol' Scratch]

I simply stand by it not being a traditional sense at all, let alone one linked to any single physical location. It's like saying that you use your eyes to hear, or your ears to smell.

[mfb]

it's you. it's your astral body, whatever energy astral bodies are comprised of. whatever they are, it's clearly stated in the text that auras and astral forms are distinct:

[Trigger]

Alright, be that as it may, it is still not physical. When you perceive, you are both your astral form and your physical, you are perceiving through both, hence why doing anything involving strictly your physical senses comes with a negative dice pool, because the two do not align with each other. If you were 'seeing' through the same sensory inputs, then the things you were observing would align with each other, but they don't.

[mfb]

that's not in the rules. you get a -2 modifier for using astral perception yes, but in 4th ed it doesn't say why. in previous editions, as i recall, it was because the astral plane distracted you. regardless, the alignment thing has no basis in the rules or the fluff.

[Trigger]

Hmmm....I am going to think more on this and I will have a response for you....tomorrow. I have been working all day and I desperately need sleep....so, yeah....tomorrow.

[Ol' Scratch]

[mfb]

the magemask "blocks LOS". it doesn't specify physical LOS, so unless i'm missing something it should also block astral LOS.

[Fortune]

[Ol' Scratch]

Magemasks block "line of sight." Not "prevents the magician from assensing with astral perception." Those are and have always been two completely separate and distinct things. I don't recall once ever hearing the term "astral line of sight" in any edition of the game.

Not that it mattered in SR3 with a magemask anyway. In SR3, you had to be on the same plane in order to cast a spell at someone, and assensing them was acceptable for fulfilling the LOS requirement against astral opponents. Again, two separate things. The magemask prevents a magician from casting a LOS spell on anyone who couldn't defend themselves. Those who were astral or dual-natured had the ability to defend themselves just fine, especially since the magician had a +6 TN penalty on the few things they could do to them. And that was the main point of a magemask, to let mundanes have a defense and physical restraint against them in law enforcement.

[Ol' Scratch]

[mfb]

by that logic, there's nothing stopping you from assensing the aura of anyone, anywhere, no matter where you are in relation to them or what obstructions there are to your astral senses. you could assense Lofwyr all day long from anywhere on the planet. besides, assensing and perceiving are two different things. even if you decide that assensing isn't blocked by astrally opaque obstructions, those opaque obstructions will still stop you from perceiving anything beyond them.

[Ol' Scratch]

How on earth are you making that leap? Just because you're not using your fucking eyes to "see" on the astral plane doesn't mean you're spontaneously manifesting your point of view anywhere in the universe. That's just ridiculous. "OMFG, I don't use my eyes to hear with, so I can hear what Lowfyr is saying anywhere in the world!!!" That's the kind of retarded comment you just made.

[TonkaTuff]

Off-hand, I suggest we just call the thread. Without an official stance, this debate isn't going to be resolved. The fundamental assumptions of both sides can be applied to the somewhat ambiguous text to prove their version to their satisfaction, if no one else's. And in any event, it doesn't matter what any of us think the right answer is - we're all free to play the game however the hell we want to anyway.

If you want unidirectional astral perception, fine. It radiates in a cone out of the front of your characters' heads, and you treat perception just like sight with a different light source (distance, perspective, etc. applies). If you want omnidirectional astral perception, cool. It's a roughly-spherical sensory field radiating out of your entire body and LOS is determined by whether there are astral shadows or other features interposed between your perceptual locus and your intended target large enough or clustered densely enough to obscure their astral form.

[mfb]

well, you're separating what you can assense from what you can astrally see. that's what LOS is, man. i mean, these are your words: