Invisible Arms and Armor, Because either way, its broken Options

[Fortune]

[hyzmarca]

There are advantages to Funk's interpretation

[Dender]

[toturi]

[mfb]

aside from the whole invisible container thing, there's one big problem with turning your weapon invisible: you can't see it. that means you can't look through the sights, obviously, so invisible non-smartlinked weapons are going to impose a huge, huge penalty on trying to shoot anything (yes, even at close range). and even invisible smartlinked weapons should impose a penalty, since you can't see the weapon to be sure that you're holding it correctly. you'll likely be able to get a proper stance with your weapon simply by touch, but the fact remains that humans get most of their information visually, which means that no matter what, trying to use an invisible gun is going to cause problems. same goes for invisible melee weapons.

[Ol' Scratch]

[kzt]

[Ol' Scratch]

With my take? No. You cast invisibility on the tarp. The tarp -- and only the tarp -- is invisible, no matter if you have it folded neatly in a corner, thrown over a car, or completely wrap a body in it.

You'd have to recast Invisibility to "change the specs" as it were, at which point you're casting it on the object as a whole ("the car with a tarp over it"), not part of it. At which point you might as well just skip the tarp completely, unless you just want to protect your car from the rain or something.

[kzt]

bummer ;)

[eidolon]

[neko128]

At the risk of being attacked for bringing him up... My take on this is the Harry Potter Invisibility Cloak Method for Invisibility ™.

That is to say, the invisibility - for all intents and purposes - acts semi-intelligently, and is driven at least partially by intent. Magic does, after all, get driven a great deal by intent and symbolism in the SR world! So. Lets go back to our invisible cloak example. You invisify your cloak, and put it over a statue on the pedastol. The cloak almost certainly partially drapes over the pedastol; but the statue and not the pedastol will be invisible, because of the intent. If the cloak is wrapped 3/4s of the way around the statue, it's invisible from the sides where it's covered, but not from the other bit.

As a rule, something contained by an invisible container will be invisible. Someone who gets into a car becomes covered by the car's invisibility. If you eat something while invisible, the food is not now a visible target in your invisible stomach. I'm thinking "enclosed entities", as were referenced by the old barrier rules - a person riding a motorcycle that hit a mana barrier would be in for a world of hurt, but a person driving a car that hit a mana barrier wouldn't be affected at all.

I admit there's a lot of room for beating on my take of it, but it's the interpretation I like the most. :)

[Ol' Scratch]

[odinson]

[Buster]

[sinthalix]

This is my take on it. If we agree that an item placed inside an invisible container is rendered invisible (because it is wholly within the item), then a character wearing a full suit of armor would actually become invisible. Now if that character is not wearing a helmet or gloves, then those body parts would be visible to everyone looking in that direction. It kind of goes along the Harry Potter invis cloak...whatever's covered is invis, what's not is visible. There would not be rumpled clothing underneath, etc, because of the above assumption.

I think it would draw far too much attention to have a head and hands moving around with no body attached...not to mention the mere fact that a simple astral perception check will reveal everything anyway.

As to wearing clothing underneath, SR4 states that a padded undersuit is worn underneath full body armor.

SR3 states: Such armor features a padded undersuit over which
extensive armor plates are attached.

SR1 and 2 say the same thing.

For any of the editions, I would say that normal clothing could not be worn under full body armor.

[Blade]

My take is that magic, as weird as it is, is still deeply based on people's beliefs and traditional considerations... Both in-game and metagamingly speaking (most spells are variations of usual fantasy spells).

So when you cast an invisibility spell, you'll get that invisbility effect that we're used to seeing in movies, cartoons, comic books, video games... The effect that the tradition of the formulae (and the caster) will instinctively think Invisibility is.

Because there has to be more than just one invisibility spell and each invisbility spell formulae will work differently. To make things simpler, we don't consider each variation, just like we won't consider the differences between an Ares Predator and a Beretta Rhino (name made up on the fly) even if both guns won't be exactly the same. Maybe the intent of the spell caster can even bend the effect of the spell.

An invisibility spell based on the invisible man paradigm won't make clothes invisible as well. An invisibility spell based on the wonderwoman's plane paradigm won't make the passengers of the vehicle invisible.

But there are rules that no paradigm can break, such as casting invisibility on a car to make all passengers invisible in one spell, because it'd be cheating and it doesn't mix well with the intent of the invisibility spell.

Of course, this is just my own take, as many have pointed out we're in house rule territory here.

[Ol' Scratch]

[Lagomorph]

Perhaps some one with more search-fu can find it, but I recall one of the devs saying on DS that a closed invisible door allows LOS for spells because it is now see through.

If thats correct, then invisible items don't invis covered items.

I agree with Doc Funk on this, though I don't think there's a true proper way to play it. As long as the ruling is consistently applied, then play it how ever you want.

edit: I think this is the post I was talking about, but there may be one from synner about it also

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=18685

[Buster]

[mfb]

that's at least partially a failure on a Clarity in Writing roll, since you did in fact say "yes on all counts".

[Ol' Scratch]

Nope, I read it. Just pointing out that you couldn't even remain consistent in your opinion in a single post. As well as pointing out the absurdity of it all.

How exactly does your method work again? I still can't figure it out. You cast Invisibility on a tarp and now you have a portable super Invisibility spell that can make anything and everything invisible just by... holding it up? And the spell somehow knows what to make invisible (on BOTH sides, mind you)... how exactly?

(Nevermind that you're secretly agreeing me without realizing it. You know, regarding the whole "you cast invisibility on a single object, and everything related to that object is invisible" bit. But we won't mention that because you're just too smart and surely you knew you were agreeing with me.)

[mfb]

i don't think he's agreeing with you, actually. at least, as i recall, according to your view a visible gun picked up by an invisible man would not turn invisible.

[Ol' Scratch]

That's part of the problem. He's agreeing in some areas and disagreeing in others, and changing his view from one paragraph to the next. For example:

[Buster]

[Ol' Scratch]

The same reason you feel the need to hide an insult behind a smiley emoticon, then act aghast and outraged by the response? Or what, should I add a big :D to the end of my posts to make it all all right?