Stupid Question about Improved Invisability, I know..stupid Options

[GaiasWrath8]

This might sound stupid, but I really don't know and a player is going to use this to get out of a tight jam next game.

Can you see a charecter with Improved invisability with Ultra Sound? Astraly?

What about sprikaler systems? If it was raining would could you see were the charector was?

Thanks

[Kagetenshi]

Ultrasound yes, astral yes. The other two will require more thought, but I'm inclined to say not meaningfully (footprints aside).

~J

[LinaInverse]

Astral absolutely.

Ultrasound yes, but only partially. If you read the writeup for Ultrasound, it says that it cuts the penalties to TNs against invisible or obscured vision by half, not all the way.

[Kagetenshi]

That's true, but it will still detect them.

~J

[Ecclesiastes]

Thats why I use a custom spell that combines Imp Invis and Stealth into one spell.

[Kagetenshi]

A hole in the ultrasound picture is noticeable too. It'd be like an invis spell that just ate all light.

~J

[Ol' Scratch]

Those spells (Improved or not) affect your mind, targeting your sense of sight and hearing. There would be no hole; you would see the scene just as if no one were there.

[Zeel De Mort]

Rain: Yes. Sprinkler system: Yes. Big old bucket of paint: Yes.

[Teulisch]

Ultrasound very specificaly reduces visibility penalties by half, with a +4 for targeting by ultrasound alone. Aditionaly, the spatial recognizor can get a -3 or -4 modifier to hit target by sound, even without ultrasound.

for cyberware (and ultrasound in general), there is no difference between illusion and improved illusion. Remember that motion sensors use ultrasound.

to make invisibility more effective, you may want to carry a white noise generator.

[Jason Farlander]

No to the sprinklers or rain (or paint for that matter), for the the exact reason specified by Doctor Funkenstein. The spell is fooling the perciever directly, not creating or manipulating light in any way. In the same way that you can be invisible and wearing clothes, you can be invisible an have paint all over you, or water splashing off of you. The light from you, the clothes, the water, and/or the paint is still getting to the perciever, but the perciever simply doesnt *notice*.

Edit: Now, in the bucket of paint example, someone certainly might notice a gap on the floor where there should be paint but isnt...

[Zeel De Mort]

No.

If someone is covered in paint before having improved invisibility cast on them, then the paint will be invisible too. Just like their clothes.

If they get covered in paint afterwards, or put on different clothes afterwards, those won't be invisible too. Likewise with rain. The person with the spell on them will still be invisible, but the paint, which happens to be sticking to them, won't be.

Otherwise you'd have the situation where there's a big invisble troll standing in the middle of a corridor, unknown to all characters present. For some unrelated reason someone throws a chair down the corridor. It crashes into the troll and falls to the floor. Are you saying what would actually be seen by people present is the chair flying down the corridor and continuing to the end, despite physically hitting the troll? So it looks to those present like the chair is at the far end of the corridor, when in fact it's actually sitting on the floor at the troll's feet??

If that's the case, then that's really messed up and will cause you a whole hell of a lot of problems.

If not, then why should your perception of the chair not be altered, but your perception of the rain/paint is?

Much easier just to say that anything colliding with an invisible object after the spell is cast will behave as normal, with noticable effects. The spell's still pretty good that way, especially if you keep out of people's way.


That interpretation still doesn't solve the famous invisble door problem though!

[Dashifen]

[Ol' Scratch]

The spell creates an illusion of invisibility. It doesn't make you invisible, and if the illusion is successfully tricking your mind (ie, you failed your Spell Resistance Test), you're just not going to see any direct evidence of the invisible subject. The broken chair will look like it smashed against something else. The paint will look like it's splattered on the floor just right. etc.

Indirect evidence is something else entirely.

[Kanada Ten]

[tjn]

Technically, the person would still see the perp in any event, noticing him on the other hand is another thing all together. Also, since both Ultrasound and Astral Perception do not perceive the perp visually in the first place, neither perception is effected by the spell.

As Doc and Jason said, this is effecting the mind of the perceiver and not in any way actually making the individual invisible.

As far as the chair and the troll, the chair would hit the troll and while it would shatter as normal, the viewers would not notice that anything was amiss until the spell was broken. It might prompt them to make a second Int check to resist the spell, but that's a GM's call.

This post has been edited by tjn: Nov 17 2004, 08:51 PM

[CoalHeart]

Improved invis works this way to my understanding

You and whatever you are carrying is invisible. Including the dwarf in your backpack. But since you are the target of the spell the moment you put down the dwarf he's not part of 'you' anymore and becomes visible. This works with exchanging 'dwarf' for 'item'. And when picking things up, or people too, they are affected the same, it just might take a few moments to kick in.


Getting paint, rain or chairs thrown at you won't make you visible or allow a second resistance test. What it will do is give your opponents an idea that 'Something is there' by the paint not being on the ground, two footprints on the ground, or the chair bouncing off.


By having the idea of 'something is there' they can then make blind fire shots into your 'area' and potentially hit you. Without it they wouldn't even come close.

Your body heat can still be felt. If you lean up against a wall for a time and move away, the after print of your body heat can be noticed. You still stink like a dirty trog. You still make sounds as your modern plasteel platemail armor clangs together. You leave foot prints in snow and sand and whatever else.

You and anything on you is invisible, you still leave other clues of your presence to the very observant.

[hobgoblin]

improves invisibliy isnt the problem child when it comes to ultrasound as it clearly is a physical spell and therefor use the manipulation of light to create its effect. and as ultrasound dont work with light its not effect.

the problem comes with the normal invisibility as its a mana based spell andis supposed to edit out the image in the viewers mind. therefor one could arue that its even able to edit the images created by ultrasound. that is unless ultrasound works by putting a kind of corona or aura around all objects that have a echo. stronger echo = brighter aura. and the aura allso gives you a general outline of the object, alltho with a book on top of a table you may get a mixed result looking like a oddly shaped table or similar. therefor a person coverd by invisibility viewed by a person useing ultrasound would see a aura without someone in it ;)

[Ol' Scratch]

No, it's a Physical spell because it can affect Physical targets (like camerass) as well as living targets (like metahumans). It does not make you invisible. That would be a Manipulation spell. Ultrasound can be used to help detect Invisibility subjects because it's not sight-based even though it's built into eyes (for whatever retarded reason).

[hobgoblin]

as in the physical one can hide physical objects as well as living ones?

or as in the physical one can hide you from both technological and living observers?

and if the last, how the hell can it pull that of without playing with light? edit the electrons in the camera?

[Mercer]

[hobgoblin]

but when fooling the mind one can argue that it then should be able to allso fool it into ignoreing the ultrasound stuff as its being piped into the visual area of the brain, the exact area that the spell is said to fool...

[MYST1C]

[Mr. Woodchuck]

Please also note that improved invisability is a touch range spell. For the sake of simplisity a character and anything they are holding (within reason) are invisable to both living and technolocical means of visual detection. If a character is hit by an external object or if any object leaves the characters posesion it is instantly visible, and any portion of the external object remaining on the mage is rendered invisible. This does not instantly end the spell or negate any of it's effects however it will allert observers to the existance of an invisable entity in the area, but will not tell them where without other means. The spell will not rewrite the world around the spell target to obscure their placement by an area effect ilusion. (such as the chair continuing on it's path). The spell grants the inability to be seen not an edit out of the world. An invisable mage crossing the street is much more likely to be hit by a car because they can not be seen. If they can survive the hit they are still invisable, but if they are still in the grove they made in the car hood they will be found shortly.

[Ol' Scratch]

[CountZero]