LOS and Direct Area of Effect attacks, Peekaboo / Blasting through walls? Options

[Ascalaphus]

Can someone explain to me exactly how this works? Take for example a Powerball.

A) If you have to have LOS on all people inside the area of effect to hit them, can't you just obscure part of your vision so you don't hit friends in melee?
A2) What about an invisible person in the area of effect?

B) And if just LOS to the center of the area of effect is enough, can you hurt people directly on the other side of a door you can see?



It seems to me that neither A nor B is really desirable, but how do you deal with that as a GM?

[Apathy]

There have been an unending number of discussions on this board about what constitutes line of sight for spell targeting purposes, and none of them have come up with any solid consensus about what the right 'canon' rules are.

That said, there are references in one of the FAQs that say that using AR to block LOS to just your friends for the purposes of casting should not work. I can see no real fluff reason why it wouldn't, but I follow this guidance as well because otherwise it makes AOE spells too effective.

My personal interpretation of LOS for casting is this:

[ Spoiler ]

• There are no facing rules in SR, so the assumption is that LOS implies that you have an uninterupted line between you and a target or point and could see if you happened to be looking in that direction. So if I center an AOE spell on myself it can hit people behind me in that AOE. This includes friendlies as well as enemies.
• By default, you always have LOS on yourself if you can see at all.
• LOS originates from eyes. In cases where the subject is blind or where they have no eyes (surgically removed, etc) LOS originates from the upper part of the face where the eyes would be. This means blindfolds and magemasks both block LOS.
• Cybereyes paid for with essence can be used for LOS. Cybereyes can be placed on alternate parts of the body (back of head, fingertip, etc) and will still work for targeting purposes. Yes, this allows you to stick just your fingertip around the corner and cast withou exposing your head.
• LOS in astral sight originates from exactly the same place(s) that it originates from in the physical world. So (unless you have cybereyes in an alternate location as discussed above) blindfolds and magemasks block astral sight as well.
• With direct AOE spells, only targets that can be seen by the caster are affected.
• With indirect AOE spells, any targets in the AOE can be effected. This allows mages using indirect AOE spells to hit targets hiding around corners, etc. However, I treat indirect AOE spells as magical hand grenades, with the blast expanding out from the center of the AOE, so obsticles between the center of the AOE and the target can provide partial or complete cover, regardless of whether the mage can see that target or not.
• In the case of a guard hiding on the other side of a (opaque) door, you couldn't hit him with a direct spell at all. While you could hit him through the door using an indirect AOE spell he would gain the benifit of the door as additional cover/armor.

[Ascalaphus]

There have been an unending number of discussions on this board about what constitutes line of sight for spell targeting purposes, and none of them have come up with any solid consensus about what the right 'canon' rules are.

That said, there are references in one of the FAQs that say that using AR to block LOS to just your friends for the purposes of casting should not work. I can see no real fluff reason why it wouldn't, but I follow this guidance as well because otherwise it makes AOE spells too effective.

My personal interpretation of LOS for casting is this:

[ Spoiler ]

• There are no facing rules in SR, so the assumption is that LOS implies that you have an uninterupted line between you and a target or point and could see if you happened to be looking in that direction. So if I center an AOE spell on myself it can hit people behind me in that AOE. This includes friendlies as well as enemies.
• By default, you always have LOS on yourself if you can see at all.
• LOS originates from eyes. In cases where the subject is blind or where they have no eyes (surgically removed, etc) LOS originates from the upper part of the face where the eyes would be. This means blindfolds and magemasks both block LOS.
• Cybereyes paid for with essence can be used for LOS. Cybereyes can be placed on alternate parts of the body (back of head, fingertip, etc) and will still work for targeting purposes. Yes, this allows you to stick just your fingertip around the corner and cast withou exposing your head.
• LOS in astral sight originates from exactly the same place(s) that it originates from in the physical world. So (unless you have cybereyes in an alternate location as discussed above) blindfolds and magemasks block astral sight as well.
• With direct AOE spells, only targets that can be seen by the caster are affected.
• With indirect AOE spells, any targets in the AOE can be effected. This allows mages using indirect AOE spells to hit targets hiding around corners, etc. However, I treat indirect AOE spells as magical hand grenades, with the blast expanding out from the center of the AOE, so obsticles between the center of the AOE and the target can provide partial or complete cover, regardless of whether the mage can see that target or not.
• In the case of a guard hiding on the other side of a (opaque) door, you couldn't hit him with a direct spell at all. While you could hit him through the door using an indirect AOE spell he would gain the benifit of the door as additional cover/armor.

Your interpretation seems sensible, but how do you handle a mage holding his fingers before his eyes to screen out part of the area of effect? I'm having trouble describing why it wouldn't work, but it feels wrong somehow.

[Apathy]

Your interpretation seems sensible, but how do you handle a mage holding his fingers before his eyes to screen out part of the area of effect? I'm having trouble describing why it wouldn't work, but it feels wrong somehow.

I don't have an in-game fluff reason for why it wouldn't work, but I don't like it, and I don't allow it in my games. I'd tell the players before-hand so they're not surprised by what sounds like an arbitrary ruling.

This was originally documented in the SR3 FAQ (http://www.shadowrun4.com/resources/sr3faq.shtml). For your convenience I'll reprint that portion of text below:

[ Spoiler ]

If a magician holds up his hand, or a piece of paper, or whatever, to block a target from his vision, does that mean they're not a "valid target" for an area effect spell? In SR3, do magicians who try to intentionally limit their area effect spells suffer some penalties or chance of spell misfire?
In FanPro's opinion, no GM should allow players to get away with this kind of stunt without penalty. A magician who plays these sorts of mind games with himself is asking for it--any attempt to thwart the intent of a spell simply causes it to fail outright, but the caster gets slammed with the Drain anyway.
If the GM wants to allow players to get away with tricks like this, then apply the cover modifier that the caster wishes to give the excluded target to the TN of the spell. If the caster wants to give the excluded target total cover (anything less and the spell affects them--except in the case of elemental manipulations), then the spell's TN increases by 8 (equivalent to blind fire, a +8 modifier). The magician could, of course, center against this penalty. If the caster wants to pull this stunt with multiple targets, the penalties stack unless the targets are very close together, in the GM's opinion. (Just imagine trying to block two specific people entirely out of your field of vision in a crowd.) If you want to be really cruel, apply the TN modifiers to the spell's Drain Test, too.

[Ascalaphus]

That's very helpful.

A magician who plays these sorts of mind games with himself is asking for it--any attempt to thwart the intent of a spell simply causes it to fail outright, but the caster gets slammed with the Drain anyway.

That's a fairly nice criterion to apply. It can be applied to lots of situations, actually, now that I'm thinking about it.