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I'm sorry for jilting you like that. If you'd only post something wildly irrational again maybe we could work it out. ;( I mean McMurray has his head stuffed up his posterior and all, which is fun, but he just doesn't have the quality of intellect to back it up like you do.

It is like kicking kittens. Sure initially fun, but in the end quite an empty experience because they are just little tiny kittens and really can't fight back.

you got me there...

looks like its another small detail that have changed from SR3. and given that, things just got even more messed up...

Corporations will install spam zones that they activate during an intrusion, these zones then flood all visual AR with black screens, possibly rendering your AR useless. Some places could also jam the area, especially if they rely on a wired system.

I'm not sure you can block yourself without blocking other targets as well, but also note that your AR Glasses would be valid targets for physical AOE spells.

....or he happened to turn his head in that 750ms+ time span, which isn't all that difficult to do. I'm pretty sure I covered that in the whole expanded paragraph about the physiological mechanics of heads and eyes in "my world".

So yes indeed "facing" is handled in the RAW. It is built into the abstract so you don't -need- to screw around with the mess of who is pointing where at any given point. At most you probably should only give negatives to percieving, which does have adjustments listed for not being alert. Welcome to the skills Stealth and Perception, which functionally I like better than how D&D handles trying to sneak around. Or use Shadowing if you are doing the sneaking up without caring whether or not the mark sees you, just trying to blend in to all tho other people on the street.

EDIT: Feel free to describe a successful roll IC as the mark was looking the other way, too busy staring at the WonderBra billboard, to notice the Troll sneaking up on him. Or any other creative descripton of why the mark was distracted/inattentive/stupified/looking the other way. See, the --dice-- inconjuction with the character's abilities can tell you when the character is looking the other way.

@ Apathy: So if a mage moves his vision side to side or up and down during casting is he not not actually able to see multiple targets which could all be within range? I find with my own unaugmented IP of 1 i can easily glance around a good portion a sphere in 3 seconds. Actually I'm likely worse than just plain unaugmented with my stiff, aging, and car accident damaged neck. Hey, try it using a timer yourself. I did. Or watch someone [that is good] play a team sport like soccer, hockey, etc.

It isn't some amazing edge for PCs either, because it cuts both ways and in multiple ways for NPCs too. It also allows you to consistantly handle simpler situtations without taking them to the mat too. If you don't mind all the extra effort of trying to figure out what is facing where when and for how long, and the table chatter (that likely will eventually come down to some codified shorthand like "I Greyhawk the room") have at it i suppose.

In very specific situations, like someone that is getting rolled around on a dolly ala Hannibal Lector, you could worry about it. But normally there really is no need to sweat it because it's pretty much already right in there. Any "realism" you are adding with extra facing rules is just handicapping the PCs to the level of poorly trained combatants, because the well trained ones are checking their flanks and rear all the time (i.e. have good Perception ability) to give them as much awareness of the situation as possible.

EDIT: That of course brings up another interesting irony. For all James' moaning about not being able to sneak up to distracted combatants in D&D, D&D does have a sneaking/distracted mechanic built right into the combat rules. It's called Flanking. Flanking gives melee attackers bonuses to hit and effectively gives rogues, and those like-skilled, DAH-DUM! Sneak Attacks....unless the mark is well trained in the art of not being Flanked.

It's come up in my games. My ruling was this:

Yes the mage can do that, but deliberately blocking your own line of sight results in a modifier equivalent to "partial cover" for all targets and a modifier equivalent to "full cover" for the protected target.

The actual situation was a mage's friend being surrounded by about a hundred devil rats. ( He had stupidly charged into the room, thinking the element of surprise outvalued the element of caution ) The mage character decided against it and just blasted everything in the Area of Effect. Friend included. ( Who lived by the way. Lucky bastard. )

I'm curious what text this "targeting instant" comes from in SR. Not saying it definately isn't there, and i certainly am not the encyclopia of the rules past and present. I'm just not sure where that is from, or if it is a concept you have come up with. Because I don't remember seeing that. I seem to remember things always descibed interms of LOS (or touch) but not single, lengthless point in time reference. I don't see in the SR4 rules, or even the fluff, where they go into that sort of detail about that or mention there being an instant of vision.

If that was the case there should be at least vision modifiers for anything out of a very narrow arc of view because we get the kind of vision field of view we do through our eyes moving...which while very quick is certainly not instantaneous.

It's not specified one way or the other in the text - it's just the interpretation that makes sense to me.

So basically your problem with looking around while casting is created by the assumption of your own creation, and not really anything [as far as you know] in SR canon past or present? Did you happen to notice my last paragraph where i point out a problem with that assumption of yours?

Yeah, if you want to completely ignore what I said and instead let the dice determine what the guy does. I said he isn't looking around. Your response was "make him look around." Yeah, that makes sense. And you totally ignored the part about him being held and unable to look around.

Yeah, there's flanking, but that's just a red herring that has nothing to do with sneaking up on someone unseen. Nice try though.

Re targetting: do you let your mages target people all around them witht he same spell, despite the fact that they can't possibly see them all at the same time? If so that's cool, and I'm glad it works for your games, but it totally destroys the reasoning for using the phrases "line of sight" and "target what they see."

booklord: I like your cover idea. If it comes up in our games I'll suggest we use it.

Is this question directed at me?

Damn you are slow on the uptake. Ok, nice and slow:

You...are...creating...the...requirement...for...facing...rules...by...making...up...facing...rules.

There is no real rules mechanic for a normal state character with a fixed stare until you make up the rules for it yourself.

Er, no it isn't . Why do you want to sneak up on someone in combat? To do crap to them. You did say there was no sneaking in combat, that everyone saw everything all the time .... Beside the fact that I've already covered that sneaking up to someone in combat is effectively the same damn thing as sneaking up to them outside combat. That you are handling it so different is really, once again, you going off and making your own rules.

Er, no actually it doesn't at all. The only problem that is created is by the assumption of this made up idea of a lengthless instant in time, which itself brings with it other problems.

Yes it is and yes it is. Too bad large portions of the SR3 FAQ are themselves in direct competiton for the title of "acme of retardation".

I suddenly had this really strong mental image of a chihuahua with one of those cones on its head casting AoE spells.

Please report to the Drop Bear thread immediately, brother.

If you want to answer it.

So what you're saying is that people don't just look at stuff? because that would require facing rules? I completely agree that there's no mechanic for it, but there shouldn't have to be. If someone isn't looking at you, they don't see what you do. Who needs rules for it? All you need is way to determine which direction they're looking (i.e. their facing).

Or, oh, I don't know... not be seen?

When did I say I handled it differently? I gave a few examples and questions. I never said they were exclusive situations.

And I go back, for the third time, to the question you continue to ignore: if someone cannot possibly move their head, can you walk up to them unseen? If so, from which direction? If not, why not?

Like I said, I'm glad it works in your games.

The examples used could all also apply in a shadowrun game witht he exception of the errant mention of flanking rules. Instead of making it so that the character doesn't get a spot check because of where he's facing, he would not get a visual perception test. It isn't the D&D rules themselves whose lack of facing causes problems, it's any system that doesn't have facing and suddenly finds itself needing to know where someone is looking. Adding facing to a game comes with it's own set of problems, but does manage to solve the ones it's meant to solve.

I'm saying in the SR rules there are no descrete facing rules. What you are doing by defining the person as facing one way is making up the descrete facing rule.

Yes a character could be facing one way a whole IP as an IC fluff description. Repeat, as an IC fluff description. As i've mentioned. There just are no rules for a character that *could* turn their head for facing fixed that way. So using that state as an input for mechanics is unsound with no rules basis.

This is exactly the same as you are doing in D&D. Creating a mechanics state for a normal character that simply does not exist in the rules. DOES NOT EXIST.

There are rules for it. It's called a perception test. Casting a spell requires a perception test. I can cast a spell with myself as the center and affect everyone around me provided I get enough successes on my perception test to overcome any modifiers or opposed tests. RAW.

Lordy man, you claim with sarcastic certainity what -your- books says but you don't have it? You seem to have a hard time following post to post. I shudder to think what your memorized version of the rules looks like.

What -your- book reads:

Then later in the AoE section:

I could copy and paste the whole rest of the book, but as discussed previously with Apathy there is no where that states that a instantaneous momement requirement. So basically anything they can, as in they have the possibility of seeing, becomes a target if it falls within the AoE discussed elsewhere in that section. Including the caster, explicitly mentioned, which i believe was the original question.

Not making rules up isn't a "house rule". You are making up rules, i am not. The thing about looking around is just -explaining- how the abstraction that is already in the rules as written can map to an IC explaination of what is going on.

It still stands that:
1) you are making up rules, and thet making up rules to deal with those made up rules
2) the facing rules you are making up aren't required because the rules have abstracted away any need to worry about facing

P.S. It's not so much your memory, it is just that you didn't actually understand and store the meaning of what the hell you read to start with.

As much as possible while you are making up extraneous rules.

Give it up mental midget. Good night.

I think we're all opperating with some assumptions here. Since the rules don't explicitly say one way or another we have to interpret them in a way that makes common sense to us. You and I don't agree about what makes the most sense in this case, but I can easily see how you interpret the rules the way you do. In my opinion, it really doesn't matter which way people interpret, as long as they do so consistently and as long as all players understand ahead of time how it's being played.

As you pointed out, the actual canon references say:

and that to be a valid target you have to be able to see it

I think where the interpretation comes in here is how we read the "anything s/he can see directly" part of the phrase.

• I could say that you can only see those things that your specificly looking at, at the moment of your casting.
• I could say that it might count as 'seeing' as long as you've seen the target that combat pass.
• I could say that the rule says 'can' see, not 'does' see, and use that to infer that I don't actually need to see the target (i.e. he's behind me, but i could've seen him if I had turned around).
• Maybe the wording just refers to an uninterupted straight line between the caster and myself. If that's true, I never need to look at a target (either for a single-target spell or for an AOE spell.) I could cast with my eyes closed and not astrally percieving, as long as nothing was between me and the target. If this is true, I would then be confused why canon also says that visibility modifiers (smoke, darkness, etc.) apply to spellcasting.

In reference to the problem you have with my assumption (that the field of vision would be smaller), I was guesstimating the limits of peripheral vision on a normal person. You can't actually focus on someone in your periphery, but you can 'see' them in a limited sense. I would have no problem restricting the arc to something smaller (120 degrees? 100?) if the players agreed to it ahead of time and thought that was better.