It says to assume that you see things unless they take pains to hide. If I'm not moving and generally hiding from normal perception am I considered taking pains to hide from astral perception too, or no?

I would say yes.

I would also say yes.

I would also say yes.

As for your original statement though, keep in mind (at least in SR3) that spotting MUNDANE things becomes MORE difficult. So if someone has a gun on him that he's not trying to hide, identifying it as a gun may still not be easy for you. Astral sight is superior when spotting living and magical things, but inferior when spotting anything non-magical.

I would say : it depends.
Hide between trees, it will be very efficient (tree is a living being thus it will actually give you a cover even in astrall)
Hide within crush paperboard, I would say no, because they are hardly noticed in astral, while you have a aura (even if not as bright as a awaken one's or spirit, it is still colorfull)

I will resume like that :

Magical things are obvious
Living things are visible
object are translucent

i disagree. if objects were translucent, then you could ignore/reduce visibility modifiers for shooting through barriers by astral perception, which i don't think is the way things are supposed to work. however, if they were not fully covered, i think it could certainly be very obvious that they are there... ie, if even a part of them is exposed, you would perceive the "color" amongst the grayness.

or at least, that's how i would describe it... things that are not alive or magical tend to be kind of 'dim', dull, gray, pale, monotone/colorless kind of deal.

living things tend to be more colorful and bright, and magical things are usually very colorful and very bright (with the exact amount depending on how strong the magic is, naturally).

to some extent, this "brightness" can pierce clothing, since heavy clothing inflicts no penalty to assensing tests... however, if you were to take a flashlight and press it up against the clothing, you would also be able to see the light through that as well...

[edit] i would also add that i feel that, simply by spending so much time close the the person's aura, clothing tends to begin to take on and reflect the aspects of the aura as well, to some extent... [/edit]

normal vision rules apply to astral by and large,

you can't see through things you can't see through in the phsyical plane on the astral, actually on the astral you can't even see through glass, you can however pass through em = )

Damn, you are absolutly correct !
For clothes or thin cover VERY close to the body, I would state that it doesn't stop the vision, because I think the aura isn't only IN the body, but is a bit out (5 or 10 cms ?) of it as well. Does that make sense to you ?

The rule of thumb has been (at least, since SR3) if you can see through it in the real world, you can see through it on the astral plane.

With the exception of wards.

the closest reference I could find was "if you're in a opaque object you can't see through it" but that doesn't mean by default if in a transperant object you can see through (on the astral)


I checked mits and the street grimiore and came up empty.

Novel refrences are plenty where there's a building (probably with windows!) that they don't want to look into for fear of setting off wards, since wards generally in that setting are close or exactly the diameter of the room they could see them through the window on the astral if you were able to see through objects on the astral.

Glass for all purposes related to the astral is the same as a brick wall since there is no light on the astral plane.

Astral perception is not a visual sense, it's a physic one.

Think of it as magical radar. When you think of it that way, it's easy to see how you can't see through windows.

This is the logic behind people masking their auras. They send out 'false signals' like an ECM suite. They don't actually put on a "magical mask".

According to SR3, in the rulebook under 'astral perception', it does say quite clearly that astral perception CAN see through anything you could see through normally, as long as its not electronic and isn't blocked by an 'invisible' object (something with invisibility cast on it, wards, unmanifested spirits, etc.)

Anything else is a house rule. I will say disallowing sight through anything PHYSICAL, transparent or otherwise, is a good house rule (it makes more sense than the existing rule), but it's still only a house rule.

I feel uncomfortable with googles (opticals) helping to cast spell on a distant target, and the same googles avoiding to see the target in astral space.
But I see the point and didn't manage to find any objection in the BB.

Should be in a FAQ ...
It actually is : http://www.shadowrunrpg.com/resources/faq.shtml#5

"Is glass/clear plastic see-through when astrally perceiving?
The basic rule of thumb is this: if you can see through it in the physical world, then you can see through it on the astral plane. If you can't see through it physically, then you can't see through it astrally, either. The only real exceptions are astral barriers (and other astral things), which are at least partially opaque on the astral, but physically invisible."

EDIT: I should upgrade my reflexes ... Nezumi is faster

This means surely that magic sight googles allow to astrally perceive ...
It is quite a cool object !!!

up to SR2 alll non-living objects were opaque on the astral, though there is some strength to the fact that objects that are thin enough may be transparent (like rice-paper screens for instance)

SR3 I'm unsure, but I think objects were transparent astrally if they were so in the mundane world, by canon.

SR4 I'm prertty sure goes by that last statement, though I lack a page reference atm.

Um.... this didn't catch your eye at the top of the FAQ?

Special Note:
Currently, all rules-related questions refer to Shadowrun, Third Edition. Shadowrun, Fourth Edition rules questions will be added in a future update.

As for astral sense being linked to vision, that is incorrect as SR4 describes blind people being able "to see" with astral perception, and being able "to hear" even though they are deaf. This is all described on page 182 of the rulebook. Your not seeing anything, your sensing it, and the picture appears in your mind. Also emotion is much more detailed.

One would think you could read a love letter in astral space, or a death threat...but road signs and techincal data would be very blurry.

....actually that would be a great concept for an character, blind, deaf phyiscal adept that only sees astrally.......

Since SimSense in SR4 is FullX per default, and astral perception still is described as analoga to normal senses... it is not that far from being recorded, nor from being played back on a mundane.

Thx RotbartVD
I find this really fun as the shaman I think about will be a kind of artist basing his creations on astral places ...
And morbid enough to play with Chicago Streets Astral perceptions in FullX ...

So could you put a hood over the mages face to prevent him from seeing you and targetting you? Or could he just go astral and see through the hood?

Since the mage can't see you through the hood physicaly, he can't see through in astral, so he can't cast a spell on YOU.

"Fireball on the Hood !!!"

You can still target people if only astrally percieving, just not projecting.

Taki is actually correct, but not for the reasons he's thinking. He can't see astral because the hood blocks the ability for the "physic waves" of auras to reach his mind.

But if you took off the hood, and GOUGED OUT HIS FREAKING EYES, he could still cast at you.

However, if AFTER you gouged out his eyes, and put the hood back on, he still couldn't cast on you because the physical object blocks his astral perception.

It has nothing to do with vision.

Seeing things in your mind and your eyes have nothing to do with each other. All your eyes are doing is translating electrical signals to your brain. If I gouged out your eyes, hooked you brain up to a machine that could duplicate those signals you'd see the same thing.

Hell if you take a human eye and used it as a camera lens, everything would be upside down. It's your brain that actually turns the image rightside up.

p.s. I like this a lot better as it eliminates any kind of cheesiness such as mages using goggles, or those stupid fiber optic systems.

But could he play PinBall??

C'Mon and play man

You didn't learn me anything ...
Next time don't explain with :