I'd like to hear people's views on whether they think a mage/shaman needs to have line of sight (Los) to sustain a spell?

Since someone is bound to bring up the fact that if a mage was trying to sustain invisibilty on someone, they wouldn't be able to see them, I'd like to pre-counter that argument with the fact that the mage can always see through their own illusions as they know them for what they are.

My general feeling is that a mage does need LoS to sustain, but I'd like to hear how others deal with it or if they believe there is a clear ruling on it in the SR4 rulebook.

I did a very thorough but unsuccessful search of the forum before posting this question, so if I missed a previous discussion on this, please could you include a link to it in the post telling me to use the search function?

I think that they do not need to maintain LOS, mostly because it would make a lot of spell casting of little value. Just walking around a corner would take a lot of care.

Edward

It would be very hard for the mage not to blink his eyes (resulting in loosing the line of sight).

Also, the rules indicate LOS is required for casting a spell. LOS is not mentioned for sustaining a spell (apart from moving a sustained area effect, which is completely different )

The mages in my group are permitted to maintain sustain beyond LOS, provided they cast in LOS, on the premise that once the astral connection is established, one can maintain it non-LOS, under reasonable circumstances.

Your mileage may vary.

Can you maintain a physical spell, go astral, and still maintain it?

I cannot think of a reason why not.

Sustained combat spell. Jump out of a building just long enough to cast one spell then duck back in and lock the door. Ouch.

But barring something like that sustaining beyond LOS doesn't seem too inherently abusive, maybe put a range limit based on Magic.

A sustained combat spell does not continue to deal damage. Effects, such as Acid or Fire, remain "alive" while the spell is sustained, but that is all.

There are no sustained combat spells in SR4 at all, period. I don't believe that it is possible to make a sustained combat spell using SR3 spell design rules either. The only known Sustained combat spell is Slow Death, an Austrailian variation of manabolt fund in Target:Awakened lands. Slow Death was staged and resisted once at casting. Whatever it was staged to was the maximum amount of damage it could cause and it would cause 1 box of damage every day untill its maximum was met or it was dispelled.

So, a sustained combat spell probably wouldn't dause its full damage multiple times. It would just spread out its maximum potential damage equally over a predetermined period of time.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply there was such a thing as a sustained combat spell already, just that even an incredibly weak spell that did damage over time would be game breakingly powerful.

However the system hyzmarca mentions sounds like a very sensible way to do a sustained damaging spell.

Well, astral projection used to be an exclusive action, so you couldn't sustain spells while making the 'jump'. Of course, they ttok exclusive actions out of SR4...

Well there where elemental manipulations in SR3 that did continues damage in an aria of effect for a duration of sustained. In SR4 these would be combat spells.

Edward

LOS does not have to be maintained to sustain a spell, only to cast i. Also I would not allow casting through an invisable wall etc...
As for spell design sustained combat spells seem, excessive, but permenant seems to be the Ultimate in broken.

EDIT: (Explitive deleted) Double Post. Stupid 'puter!