blindness and blindfighting Options

[A Clockwork Lime]

Out of curiosity, did you bother to keep reading? You know, like the very next sentence?

"To use astral perception, spend a Simple Action to extend your perceptions to the astral plane."

How about the part where they specify that it's a sixth sense? As opposed to an overriding of your sense of sight? Hmm? Did you read that far, too? How about the aforementioned quote where they say its distracting (because, duh, it's another sense interferring with all your other ones -- basic reading comprehension there, pal)?

And yes, I'm clearly the one who's wrong. <pats your little head gently> Maybe now that you have your idiotic laughter out of the way, you can stop and read what's going on around you. And maybe if we're really lucky, you'll answer some of the questions that have been asked.

[Kakkaraun]

Yeah, I know that's there. What you don't seem to get is this. When they say extend, they mean "to gain a new ability." They mean you're EXTENDing your perceptive abilities to a whole new level, leaving the other behind.

If I extend an extendable baton, which was originally 8 inches long, to being 18 inches (obviously, these figures aren't real, as none of my beating instruments are collapsible), it's not 8 inches long, it's 18 inches. Nor is it anywhere inbetween, it's 18 inches, period. If I were to go by your reasoning, the extendable baton would have +.5 reach when fully extended.

Remember, IN ANY WAY. IN ANY WAY. That's pretty clear, isn't it.

Now, just run along. Quit trying.

[A Clockwork Lime]

Do you really need to explain to you why your example is beyond stupid? If you were correct in what you were trying to say, your 18-inch extended baton would only be 10-inches because, in your bizarre little world beyond our own, the first 8-inches would have stopped existing for the duration of the extension. You wouldn't be able to use it all, because, somehow, the other 10 inches made it impossible.

[A Clockwork Lime]

I'm going to apologize to everyone.

I know I have a tendency to get tenacious from time to time, and I really do try to avoid doing that. So to everyone who just bothered to read all of that, I again apologize. I won't be responding to this thread again.

[Kakkaraun]

Good! The thread just became a lot less worthless.

[mfb]

so. +3, then, for the blind-fighting adept power.

[Talia Invierno]

Quite apart from anything else, one of the largest handicaps I ran into running a character who was astrally-sighted only ... was a complete lack of access to printed materials. Reading through data. Videotapes. Photographs.

No emotion attached. Invisible.

I ended up with a disproportionate amount of reliance on the wrist computer and the datajack. Text, images, everything data-related which happened to be visual had to be scanned in for me to "see" it. How else could I have accessed a magical library - let alone upgraded the more abstract data-oriented knowledge skills - at all? How could hermetic spells have been learned, otherwise?

Accessing data through purely audio media presents its own problems. For one thing, it takes much, much longer. (How long does it take to say, v. to read silently the same passage?) For another, it completely dominates the remaining primary sense: if you are to pay attention to what is heard in order to learn, you can't simultaneously pay attention to anything else which might otherwise have been heard, not without compromising comprehension or 'ware such as the encephalon (more Essence loss!).

Without the jack, the only means of access to such materials I could see might be through an ally spirit's sense link - and the question of whether or not they are able to read (unless materialised) remains a Dumpshock subject of debate.

[Kagetenshi]

You could probably read through a 'trode rig.

~J

[Kakkaraun]

You know, you can still understand simple photographs and videos, I think. I mean, the core book says you can recognize a stop sign from "shape and color," so...

[Talia Invierno]

I would interpret that to saying that the shape of stop sign can be interpreted because of the symbolic association of that colour and external shape of the object. (I think the same quote specifies that the words on the stop sign, equally shapes, cannot be identified.) Even in computer printout, pages would tend to be of a standard size (still [American] 8½ x 11 inches?) and something resembling white, neither particularly symbolic or giving any inherent hint of information as to their content.

I think you would be right as to the 'trode rig, Kagetenshi ... only how much more awkward to have to carry that around additionally! when all that is normally needed is just to glance at an on-screen image or a piece of paper.

Certainly it can be worked around - through 'trode rig, jack, rigging simsense? - but just consider how much we casually glance at - read, identify images - throughout the day, and consider that even to a blind character, even one astrally sighted, such casual intake of visual data is impossible.

[A Clockwork Lime]

If these characters are blind via the Blind flaw (outside of the sole exception of a Ghoul), then simsense and 'jacks shouldn't be able to help. Even a full set of cybereyes wired directly to your visual cortex won't correct the flaw, so nothing simulating that input should work either. I know the last paragraph technically makes it an option, but if the last sentence of the first paragraph is a definitive truth, then the last paragraph just doesn't seem to make any sense. Well, beyond the fact that it's true for everything in the game (that individual GMs can rule however they want).

At best, you could have printed text translated into audio for you. But as far as imagery goes, you're pretty much screwed unless you have a friend with a mana version of Entertainment or Phantasm creating an exact duplicate of the imagery, which you wouldn't have much of a problem of seeing from the astral.

[Herald of Verjig...]

The blind flaw states that for mundanes who can still see through simsense (decking, rigging, and other ways), the point value is only -2 instead of -6. There is no comment about if the point value should be even smaller if it is a mage who can see through simsense, or if that is even an option.