Do physad powers show on the astral? Options

[McSass]

I was trying to remember if physad powers show up on the astral, and I seem to recall they do, but only powers that need to activate. Is this wrong?

Also, how would the new adept power facial sculpt work? Would the adept "shine" or whatever you wish the effect to look like only while changing their features, or would they be active the entire time they are mimicing a different face?

[Wounded Ronin]

I think that someone looking at you in the astral, if you're not an initiate with masking, would simply be able to tell that you're a physad. And, like, the number of successes they got would let them know less or more about your powers.

[mfb]

actually, you can't tell from assensing whether or not someone is a mage, physad, or whatever. you can only tell if they're Awakened or not, and what their Essence, Magic, and Force are.

[Ol' Scratch]

Well, save that a single success will tell you the general class of a magical subject (with power focus, fire elemental, and manipulation spells as the given examples). I'm pretty sure that would include telling if they were a hermetic mage, an adept, or a shaman at the very least, too.

But then again, the assensing rules are poorly written all around, so... whatever. :)

[mfb]

hm. possibly. i'd always assumed that they didn't include an example like "shaman", "hermetic mage", or whatever, on purpose.

[Nikoli]

Shaman's and their adept types are easy to spot (including path of shaman phys-ads) by their Shamanic Mask, otherwise I'd imagine it's rather tough to know for certain.
I could see a Magic Background test for complimentary dice on a perception test to try and pick up on habits and tell-tales after acertaining if target is awakened or not.

Things like maybe most (not all) hermetics use a particular type of jargon, due to the structured view of magic where shamans use a more free form and so on and so forth.

[McSass]

So it seems that the powers themselves don't show up? I just wonder because if you are using facial sculpt, and you get assensed, if they see your face glowing, then it kinda ruins the fun...

[Nikoli]

no more so than spending a few hundres thousand nuyen on a ruthenium polymer suit and imaging scanners to have it rendered useless by a free ability for a low-power mage guard.

[Synner]

Any Awakened type without active Masking should be identifiable as such on the astral at a glance. Any sustained spell, spirit present or active adept power is also d

[Ol' Scratch]

Uhm, no, sorry Synner but you're mistaking again. You need at least one success on an Assensing Test just to tell anything at all about a subject, including if he's just Awakened or not.

[mfb]

identifiable as such, as long as you've got 3 spare seconds and can get at least 1 success on Int against TN 4. "a glance" works, for a description of that.

[Ol' Scratch]

I suppose. Point is, you can't tell anything about a subject until you scrutinize it with an Assensing Test.

[Synner]

[Cochise]

With the notable exception for Adepts that you get insight on powers of the Adept from the second success on the assensing test (somewhere in MitS) while you'll never be able to tell the spell list of a mage ... even with 5+ successes ...

[Herr Nebel]

The rule for assensing adept powers is on page 21 (MitS).

[Canid13]

Okay, so lemme get this straight, an adept with Increased Strength doesn't show up as using a power while another adept using Boosted Strength does?

How about someone with Improved Sense? Or Improved Ability?

Some powers I don't see as being detectable.... you may be able to tell the person is Awakened, or that he's an adept, but whether he's actively using magic would surely depend on the power.

Else it makes Masking an absolute must for anything you want to ever concieve of doing on the astral and magic related in general. I think things are getting a little too stacked in favour of the initiates out there.

[toturi]

No, as long as the Aura Reader has a certain number of successes he knows what power the adept has and at what level. It does not differentiate whether he is using it or not.

[Canid13]

Phew. That's much better.

[Bane]

[mfb]

one success explicity does identify whether a character is Awakened. the rule on page 21 of MitS could be read to imply that one success is also enough to identify adept/mage/shaman, yes.