Enhanced senses, When invisibility doesn't mean squat Options

[Talia Invierno]

Enhanced hearing + sound damper should be able to pick up a single heartbeat, or perhaps pick out one heartbeat apart from others. Besides camouflaging against sound, in the same way as body heat camouflages against heat sources, would there even be any way to negate this? (Besides the obvious one, that is.)

Enhanced smell can pick out distinctive odours from the surrounding background environment, be they perfume, or tobacco, or a pair of shoes.

We are used to relying primarily on our eyes and indeed enhanced sight in an observant person (who is aware that a space the size of a person just might hold a person) might well catch the slight indent in a carpet caused by a weight where there should be no weight, moreso than a person with only standard sight ... but to what extent is input from other enhanced senses directional ... such as to negate some, or most, or maybe even all of an invisibility or concealment modifier?

[mfb]

it won't ever reduce all of the modifier. human beings rely on sight far, far too much for that. i might, however, grant a -1 or so TN per applicable enhancement, depending on my mood.

[Kanada Ten]

mfb, what about those who are trained in "blind fighting" or have otherwise invested in using their "other" senses?

I rule that anyone using enchanced senses must take a specific complex action to observe using said senses. Each sense enhancment not affected by the "aggressor's" magic reduces the target number to spot that aggressor - within range, and other limitations.

[Siege]

Actually, toss in the Select Sound Filter and you have a case for focusing on a specific sound.

As to whether or not Amplified Hearing or Enhanced Hearing is sensitive enough to pick up a heart beat...tough call.

Enhanced smell would allow a character to detect the presence of something, but not enough to isolate it beyond "over there" -- which is why scent dogs aren't taped to homing missiles. :grinbig:

I fully concur with the idea that enhanced senses could negate bonuses offered by sense clouding magics, but I find it difficult to believe that it could be so accurately refined as to fully replace sight as a targeting sense.

Toss in the sound locating sense from M&M and you have a better argument still for homing in on a specific sound -- especially if that sound is heavy breathing.

So, combine: Select Sound Filter, Enhanced or Amplified Hearing and the Echolocation/pinpoint sound thingy from M&M and you have a viable secondary targeting sense for .75. Plus blind-fighting to knock down the base penalty for another .5 and you have Rutger Hauer from "Blind Fury". :grinbig:

-Siege

[mfb]

there are already rules for people trained in blind-fighting.

[Mongoose]

I don't thin the "select sound filter" would be all that useful in this case. How can you select the sound you want to hear if you are not already aware it is there as a noise seperate from background noise? And if you ARE already so aware, what is the point of the filter?

IMO, the filter helps in analizing and comprehending sounds, not noticing them in the first place.

And if you do a "baseline filter" to eliminate all background noise, you'd better damn well do it BEFORE your "invisable friend" enters the area, or you will never hear a sound he's making!

[Tanka]

So somebody is invisible... You just let your Thermographic/Ultrasound catch them.

OK, thermal cloaking. Ultrasound catches.

If they have "ping" catchers, you'd think a person would notice a big hole where the waves should be reflecting off of, say, a wall behind it.

Edit: Mongoose: To filter out everything else and focus for anything that shouldn't be there.

[mfb]

select sound filter is very useful in initially detecting sounds. if you're in a windy area, and you filter out the sound of the wind, what does that leave you with? answer: the footsteps of the guy sneaking up behind you. i imagine that much of the SSF's function is automatically sorting and filtering the user's aural input.

[mfb]

tanka, there's not really any such thing as an 'ultrasound ping catcher', at least in SR. in SR, you simply emit ultrasound the same frequency as what the opposition is using.

besides all which, improved invis will take care of either of those options.

[Tanka]

mfb: Yes, I kind of guessed that. However, as near as I can tell, Improved Invis. can't defeat Ultrasound. It works on "pings" and the readings thereof. You'd basically have to fool the technology that there really is nothing there, otherwise it'd kind of be like the active camo in Halo. You can just barely see it if it's doing some sort of movement. If it isn't moving, then it gets really hard to see.

[Fortune]

[CirclMastr]

Actually, Improved Invis DOES defeat ultrasound that's part of a cyberware system, since it was paid with essence and thus 'part' of the person (I guess), and so is defeated as long as they fail the spell resistance test. And a silence or multi-sense illusion (such as Trid Phantasm) defeats ultrasound in any form. M&M, p. 18

[mfb]

right. i knew it was something like that.

[Tanka]

The Ultrasound doesn't base off of a person's normal sight. It uses senders/recievers to ping/catch, and only displays the caught pattern over the normal image. The tech has everything to do with aiding in still seeing.

[mfb]

er. normal invis, as i recall, defeats cybernetic ultrasound or ultrasound sights/goggles--yes, it's sound-based, but it's still being translated visually.

[Sphynx]

Yeah, Invis spells work against all 'visual' enhancements, including Thermo and UltraSound.

As for using sound, smell, etc, I'd reduce the +8 accordingly (dependant on the situation) to a minimum of +4.

Sphynx

[RedmondLarry]

[Sphynx]

True there, but the discussion is about the comment that UltraSound completely defeats invis. It only reduces the TN (which is why I said I'd not let sound/smell/etc go less than +4, making it as good, not better, than ultrasound).

Invis spells do work against a person with UltraSound vision (even if it doesn't work against the system itself), just with less effectiveness than with other systems.

Sphynx