Ok, need to make sure I have everything straight in my melon.

So masking enables you to conceal your astral status. An initiate can appear as a non initiated mage or an unawaked mundane and can conceal his astral form, concealing his status as dual or fully projected.

Now the effectiveness of these various applications is highly dependent on situation. A projecting mage concealing his astrally active status could never fool a dual observer who would notice there was no body in the physical world.

Now assuming all of the above is correct ( and correct me if I'm wrong, that IS the point...)

Assuming shaman A ( oh let's call him... oh I dunno... Kong! ) is astrally projecting. Now Kong has masking. I use masking to make myself appear as being non astral.

Now, would the masking generate light as if my body were present? ( as part of the masking process) or would I, masked as non-astral but with no corresponding meat body to give off light, appear as a grey ghost?

This all ties back to stealhing on the astral but one thing at a time...

Fire away, giant brains of rules knowledge.

Sunday

Masking or not, he would be present on the astral plane, which a mundane in his own body would not be. Mundanes are intangible on the astral, but an astrally projecting mage is not. All in all, masking your aura to look mundane, whilst possible, would make you stand out quite a bit.

Also, bear in mind, there is no "light" on the astral plane. There is no vision. It's all assensing, a sense that is written about in visual terms simply so as to make it comprehensible. It would be obvious that you are present on the astral, rather than an echo of the mundane world, and that is the giveaway.

The only reason to mask yourself as a mundane when astrially projecting is to let people know that you are an initiate, without giving away how powerful an initiate you are.

Masking has no effects on the physical plane. A projecting character can mask his astral form to appear as a mere aura. However, any astrally active character would notice the lack of a body and know that this initiate is a moron. So says Mits P.76.

am I correct in believing that a initiate must have Some kind of aura, he can't use masking to ERASE his aura, only alter it?

thanks.

I was trying to make an NPC threat mimicking the adept like assassin in Gibson's All Tommorrows' parties, notable for his lack of presence. course Gibson's story didn't involve astral space, but it had a similar feel. So i was wondering if there was a way to simply make him "invisible" on the astral plane.

but apparently not.

no worries.

I just rule that a character cannot use Masking to appear unawakened while he is Projecting. He can use it just fine to appear uninitiated though. This seems to avoid the problem nicely.

we had a whole other thread on this a few months back that I started asking many of the same questions. Check that out. If you want something more for being 'unnoticed' try the face anonymous power, or stronger variants of it. You could always jsut create a spell ... "Don't notice me". That'd work. Nothing in the books though

Except spells glow obviously on the astral as well, which is why Invisability doesn't work on things astrally perveiving.

you can mask the spell.

For SR3 it doesn't matter what you mask the spell as. The spell is masked and cannot be seen on the astral plane.

Maybe i'm missing something here. It was my understanding that when you switch to astral sight you stop seeing the normal world. If that is indeed the case, then a projecting mage could make himself look mundane, provided he doesn't float above ground level and generally makes an effort to pretend that the laws of physics still apply to him. Unless the viewer switches between astral and regular sight (by spending his simple actions to do so), he wouldn't know the difference. Maybe the lack of grey shadows cast by clothes would suggest nudity. That might give it away.

Am i wrong?

As far as I know, you are incorrect. Astral Perception overlays the Astral on top of the normal. This is why it is still possible to perform normal tasks (albeit at a penalty) while Perceiving. People are usually considered to be 'dual natured' while Perceiving Astrally.

Hmm. Page 182. "It is not possible to see both at the same time, though almost everything in physical space is reflected on the astral, albeit without detail." Nonliving matter reflects grey, while living matter reflects vibrant colours.

Looks like a projecting mage might be able to pull this off. Once again, the clothes thing might give it away.

Considering that a person who is Astrally Perceiving can cast a spell on targets that are either Astrally active, or just plain mundane, that doesn't make sense.

Operating on two planes doesn't mean seeing both, hence the modifier for mundane actions. Mostly it means that you can interact with purely astral beings as well as mundanes.

Pretty hard to drive (more than a mere +2 would indicate) if you can't see anything.

No, SR3 is pretty explicit that you can see both Astral and Physical at once while Perceiving. The modifier is from seeing both at the same time and dealing with the extra sensory input Astral Perception gives them. When you 'switch to astral sight' you're making yourself dual natured and your mundane senses do not shut down. Your quote from 'pg 182' does not exist in my copy of SR3, so I don't know where you're getting it from, but according to the book I have, a projecting mage would have even less of a chance of pulling this little trick off against someone Perceiving than against another Projecting being.

Oops. Looks like i'm in the wrong forum. No SR4 here. Sorry.

I was just beginning to doubt myself. Thanks for the confirmation, Sharaloth.

On the subject of Astral Perception, I'm not too enamored with the change in SR4.

burp