Concealing a foci, Just how shiny are your toys? Options

[Zenmaxer]

Okay, the question finally came up. How thick is a focus's aura, and where can you stick it to hide it? Will clothing do? How about military armor? Can you block someone's view of your foci using a riot shield?

For that matter, how thick is a person's aura? what sort of cover is needed to keep it from being a bullseye? If I press my hand to a sheet of opaque glass, will the mage boy who's been idly watching the window be able to test his wiz new combat spell on me? If not, why can he shoot me through my awesome suit of milspec armor?


:: sighs :: this is why I don't play a mage often... the rules get tangled up with the fluff.

[Jason Farlander]

Firstly, "foci" is plural, the singular is "focus."

Second, the aura thing has been debated up and down on these forums (and probably side to side and diagonally) so many times.... and well, my take on it is this: Its not worth it to try to figure out the precise radiance distance of your aura or of auras in general. Make it easy on yourself. Anything that is construed as "clothing" fails to block the aura (this includes all armor types, of which milspec armor is one). Anything that is not clothing that is normally opaque does block the aura.

Note that normal riot shields are transparent, and would not hinder view of any foci, while opaque versions could potentially do so, depending on relative positions and the like. Also note that only active foci have an astral presence, and this is not the default condition. It takes a simple action to activate a focus, and a free action to deactivate it. So most of the time your foci are astrally indistinguishable from mundane items without a specific assensing test.

[Zenmaxer]

:: laughs :: sorry about the plurality issues, it's been a long day and my brain is shot. The reason I ask is because I was wondering what if you cast a physical style barrier spell and made it opaque. Would this block your aura from view?

Second, one of my players DOES generally implant his foci... how would you handle their astral visibility?

[RangerJoe]

A common idea is that cyberware in individuals produces "dark spots" on their astral bodies which give hints to the location and type of 'ware installed. Likewise, implanted activated foci might produce "bright spots" on the astral body. Implanting foci is a great way to keep them from getting stolen/lost (unless they're in a limb, and, well, nevermind...), but as I GM, I would not give them any benefit to being spotted on the astral.

[Necro Tech]

Implanted ACTIVE Foci are a valid target for attack. Since assensing is the first step to seeing an active spell, they can target a focus in a pouch on your back no matter where they are. You dispell the spell being sustained, then go after the focus and crush it.


Making a physical barrier opaque would block your aura because it would be just like any other form of cover. Poke your head over the top to shoot and still take +6 cover in the middle of the street.

[RedmondLarry]

Zenmaxer, I don't see anything in the rules for making a regular barrier spell produce an Opaque barrier. The Barrier descriptions on page 198 of SR3 indicate it only gives a +1 penalty to seeing through the barrier.

Necro Tech, The height of a barrier set as a wall is equal to its Force. It'd have to be a pretty low Force barrier for my characters to poke their head over the top.

[Zenmaxer]

actually, it notes a number of times in the fluff that the visual effects of magic are up to the caster, if I remember, something that I always felt was an invitation to bahroken effects. I see no reason why I barrier spell might not produce an opaque barrier.

:: nods :: I think I agree that I wouldn't make them invisible, but what might be interesting is to force the assensing mage to be actively looking for foci inside the target's aura... otherwise you probably just wouldn't notice them as a mage, would you? I'd think it'd be a bit unexpected at the very least and more than likely slightly more difficult to actually get an astral bead on an...umm...interior focus.

[Kagetenshi]

I'd personally make it as easy as an external focus if the mage isn't astrally active. If he or she is, though…

~J

[Catsnightmare]

[Herald of Verjig...]

Ward is an astral wall, barrier is a physical spell. The two are significantly different.

[Friggas Ring]

"Implanted" foci? Man, that does not some like a good idea to me. If I faced a mage who had an astrally active focus implanted into their body, animate, levitate or anything else to just to cause a lot of displeasure. To me, that's an astrally active bullet that was just placed inside of someone's armor. Hrm, what's the spell I'm thinking of? Flame Aura? Won't hurt the foci, but if you can see in in the astral, you can cast on it. That's a burning piece of whatever lodged inside of someone's body.

EDIT: Using astral perception to "see" the foci, and since your body's still in the physical, you can cast physical spells on it. I have a tendancy to not specify stuff because I forget people aren't... y'know... telepathic.

[RangerJoe]

How would that jibe with the "physical spells cannot be cast from the astral" principle?

[Apathy]

[edit] Joe beat me to it.

[GrinderTheTroll]

My runners always seem to foget that Astrally cast spells will ground to the meatbody, then detonate.

Nothing like doing watch duty over a Mage then ***KA-BOOM***, Incomming Fireball! :D

[Jason Farlander]

There is absolutely nothing preventing astrally percieving mages from casting physical spells. Sounds like a wonderful argument against focus implanting, to me.

Edit: this is in regards to Friggas Ring's post and the comments associated therewith.

This post has been edited by Jason Farlander: Sep 29 2004, 06:33 PM

[Jason Farlander]

[GrinderTheTroll]

Say what? No grounding? So replacing "Fireball" with "Manaball" would have no effect at the meatbody?

[Cochise]

[Zeel De Mort]

One way to get round the problem of not being able to affect physical things from the astral, e.g. mundanes, is to do this:

Find an astrally projecting mage, dual natured character, or similar. Normally you'd only be able to blast this guy with manabolts, but leave his friends untouched. Instead just cast an Influence or Control type spell on him (not easy since he's a mage = high wilpower) and then order him to go and manabolt his friends, or give away their position so you can send some grenades over there, or shoot them all in the back, etc etc.

He'll get second chances and there are some hard rolls, but at least it's an option.

[GrinderTheTroll]

It's the damned subtle changes from SR2 to SR3 that are messing me up. FanPro needs some sort of list of the changes made from SR2 -> SR3, atleast the big enough changes anyways.

It's funny, my group just realized that the tried-and-true "Panther Cannon" was not included in SR3 until the Cannon Companion, sheesh. It was however replaced in SR3 with the "Ares Vigorous Assault Cannon", bleh.

[RangerJoe]

Now, a dual-natured being (e.g., a magician using astral perception) can cast physical spells against targets only in the physical word (e.g., a mundane) as well as mana spells against purely astral targets (e.g., a non-materialized spirit). Likewise, the dual-natured being can be targetted by astral/mana as well as physical effects. So here's my question: Blind Bob, the blind shaman is on a run, using astral perception instead of physical sight (he's just cool like that). He spots a corporate security mage, who is also astrally perceiving, surrounded by a bunch of security goons (think the cover of FoF or something). Can he manaball the lot of them? Fireball the lot of them? Are there any constraints on who is a valid target for what kind of spells under these conditions?

[Cochise]

He can target them all ... He's on the same plane (currently actually on both). He "sees" his targets => Say hello to "Manaball" or "Fireball" ...

[RangerJoe]

Cheers. Or both, if he's feeling thorough.

[Kagetenshi]

[Tanka]

PAC is not in 2nd Core (just checked :D), but it is in Street Sammie Catalog.