More Magic Questions: Invisibility, did a quick search and wanted more info Options

[Clank]

I was wondering how Invisibility works.

The TN is 4, so basically the Force of the spell is only for Dispelling purposes, right?

All living crearues get a Resistance test against Illusion spells, so does the GM secretly roll the PC's Intellegence as soon as the PC's are 'within view' of the mage? If not, do you only roll when you (the PC) have a suspicion that there's something funny going on ("I disbelive it!")?

[Nikoli]

Nother funny aspect, Astral perception, according to the response I got from the Shadowrun folks on the official site, sees immediately through invisibility

[ShadowGhost]

Gm should do a secret roll to see if your character perceived the invisible character. All spells are resisted, including invisibility. Otherwise if he tells you to roll, you already know something is up.

So the GM would roll your intelligence + any dice allocated to spell defense against the force of the spell.

[John Campbell]

When I'm GMing, I have PCs roll Perception checks pretty much constantly anyway. One more isn't going to raise suspicions.

[Glyph]

The TN of 4 is for casting it. In other words, the spellcaster rolls Sorcery and Spell Pool, getting a success for every roll of 4 or more. Anyone who could be affected by the invisibility spell rolls their Intelligence against the Force of the spell. If they get more successes, they are not affected by the spell. So the Force of the spell does matter. If you cast it at Force: 6, then it will be much harder to resist than the same spell cast at Force: 2.

Force is less important for invisibility, though, because usually the spellcaster has more dice for casting than the target has dice for resisting. If you get, say, 7 successes on your spellcasting test, then it doesn't matter if the Force is 1 or 9... someone with an Intelligence of 6 or less (with 6 or less dice to roll) can't possibly beat your number of successes, so it automatically works on them.

[Jason Farlander]

Umm... the force is also the TN to resist the illusion. The TN to cast the spell is 4.

But yes, the two common methods of handling this are requiring frequent perception checks and making secret rolls. If it suits you, you could take into consideration the fact that "observing in detail" (making a perception test) requires a simple action and, thus, isnt automatic - thereby forcing your players to declare they are making perception checks. But a good number of GM's (myself included) find that option somewhat unpalatable.

[cutter07]

Whats the ruling on invis against thermographic vision? Can you see the heat patterns of an invis person?

[Kanada Ten]

No, you cannot see the heat patterns of an invisible person because that is still sight (FAQ). Thermosense, which is more of a smell, penetrates Invisibility, but not spells that works against either all heat sensing or that make one "invisible" to all senses.

[Zazen]

[The White Dwarf]

To summarize and add to the above:

The force is used as the tn to resist, and for dispelling. However, since the caster can (against tn 4) theoretically generate more successes with sorcery + spell pool than the target has intelligence dice to resist, its less imporant than for some other spells.

Invisiblity is a Physical spell. It renders the target invisible to sight. Ultrasound (sound based) and astral perception (the spell is physical so will not screen astral, ie mana, based vision) can both get around it.

Because any indirect illusion requires the target to have some reason to disbelieve it, there are no perception/resistance tests unless the targets have reason to do so. Such reasons can include paranoia, the invisible perosn not using stealth and moving loudy, telltale mistakes such as opening a door while someone is watching, etc. But there shouldnt be any automatic roll unless you have a situation like an astral perciving mage happens to glace over a room with an invisible person, then youd resolve a happenstance check as normal. A player requesting to make a perception check to look for signs of an invislbe target, and thus make a resistance check presuming he saw some is the way it should be resolved.

[danzig138]

[noname_hero]

[Jason Farlander]

Invisibility *is* a mana spell, Improved Invisibility is a physical spell. The functionality of the spell has nothing to do with the fact that it is physical or not - the spell produces a single-sense change, and only affects normal vision. Astral perception is a completely separate sense from normal vision (a creature with no eyes or even with its visual cortex removed could still astrally percieve if awakened).

[The White Dwarf]

Meant Improved INvisiblity was Physical. In reference to the fact that you have to use that in order to affect cameras, and thus thats the one commonly in use in our games. So commonly, in fact, that I forgot to even bother with the proper name. Sorry.

Noname Hero, you can do it however you want. But you yourself said

[BitBasher]

[Clank]

So using White Dwarf's explanation:

Mage 1 has Imp. Invis up and is standing right in front of Sam1 but not moving or making any other type of noise.

Does:
Sam 1 get an immediate Resist Test, or
Sam 1 only gets to make a Resist Test if he thinks something's amiss?

Supposing Sam 1 had some sort of enhanced hearing, would you give the Sam a Test to hear the Mage breathing?

[ShadowGhost]

BitBasher is right - All targets of spells automatically resist, unless it is a voluntary spell. They may not even know what they're resisting. This is why I usually roll for my PCs if they encounter an invisible NPC - those that fail will have no idea an invisible person is there, rather than everyone rolling and guessing "Gee, there must be someone invisible in the room."

When it comes to spells, Subject and Target are confused.

Subject being what the spell is centered around (invisible person), Target being those who are affected by the spell (people looking at the "invisible" person). Those who fail the resistance test do not see the "invisible" person. I use "invisible" because you are not actually physically invisible, just a illusion that there's nothing there.

If a PC/NPC has failed a resistance test (cannot see the invisible person), then the only thing an additional perception test will do is to try and locate the invisible character by other means - astral sight, ultrasound, sound, radar etc., and even then, only if the invisible character does something to draw attention to themselves (makes noise, breaks wind, opens door etc).

Addition perception test will *not* see through the illusion once you've failed the resistance test - it will only narrow down the area the invisible person might be in.

This is where paint grenades can come in handy. :D

[ShadowGhost]

[John Campbell]

Sam 1 gets an immediate resistance test.

If he succeeds in his resistance test, the invisibility spell doesn't affect him at all, and since the mage is standing right in front of him, a perception check is unnecessary... he obviously spots the mage.

If Sam fails his resistance test, the invisibility spell does affect him, and he can't see the mage. He may then get a perception check anyway, with a hefty TN penalty, to see if he hears the mage breathing or notices the mage's footprints or smells the mage's cheap cologne or notices how he displaces the mist from the nearby steam grate. Any appropriate sensory mods apply.

And I said "perception check" in my earlier post, which is not exactly correct. It's a spell resistance test, but, unless spell defense is involved, it uses the same dice as a perception check, so I call them that to avoid raising suspicions, since I tend to call for frequent perception checks anyway, even when they're not really necessary. If spell defense is involved, I figure that the providing mage may be able to tell that something is pinging his spell defense, so I don't have much of a problem with the PCs starting to get suspicious.

It occurs to me that perhaps I should occasionally have completely unrelated and generally innocuous spells trip the spell defense, just to keep the runners on their toes...

[danzig138]

Since we're talking about invisibility here, I have a couple of questions.
1. Since Invisibility (not Improved) is a Mana spell, I have always assumed that it makes the subject invisible by messing with the minds of the viewers. So I would think that thermo, ultrasound, and even the other senses, and such would not penetrate it. I can understand astral perception beating it, because in my head, when you astrally perceive an invisibe creature, you probably still don't see the creature, but you do see his aura. Has anything been said officially on this matter, beyond what's in the book? I'm thinking this might be one of the Game Balance vs. How it could be things.

2. Under Indirect Illusion Spells, it says that they must be cast "around" a person or over an area (Magic rating in meters) that is within LoS of the caster. Now, assuming Magic 6, is this a 6 meter diameter, or a 6 meter radius? Also, is it mobile? Can the mage and his group pile into the Westwind, and turn it invisible and gruise around on a unique joyride through the plex? Or is the area effect of it stationary?

3. Nothing to do with Invisibility. What are tyhe rough parameters of the Mask/P. Mask spells? It says of the same basic size and shape. So could a 6'5" ork appear to be 5'10", or would that not be close enough in size?

[Person 404]

1. The definition of the spell restricts it to sight. So, thermo doesn't penetrate it. Ultrasound does. Inivisibility doesn't mess with the non-visual senses; that's what silence, stealth, and the like are for.

[TinkerGnome]

Why should there be a hefty TN penalty for the listening perception check? A standard stealth roll should do the trick, generally with the sam getting the +2 penalty for being distracted. Sure, that means the mage's presence will get noticed a fair bit (note that multiple successes are required to go from "I think I heard something" to "there's an invisible mage over there!"), but if you go blundering around it shouldn't matter if you're visible or not.

If you want stealth, mix imp invis, stealth skills, and sound dampening spells.

[danzig138]

[Person 404]

[John Campbell]