Newbie GM trying to understand magic. We play SR4 rules by the book. Any help is appreciated.

Here's the text:

Performing Magic leaves Signatures - sustaining it only leaves a connection.
Thus, you can trace Spirit to User and vice versa.

As concealment is a physical power (P), it has no effect on Astral Perception.

Thanks!

Yes, the spirit would still need to make perception tests to see your sneaky char.

Assenssing is the skill needed to ready auras, to know if the person is sick, hurt, happy, cybered, etc...

Perception is the skill needed to notice things, like a sneaky person, regardless of whether it is in astral or mundane space.

Actually, no - Assensing is the Skill used for any perception on the Astral Plane.
If you want to notice something hidden, you still have to use Assensing.

I hate to disagree with toturi, but I think that a chameleon suit will never help against a spirit. Despite a spirit materializing, they are always dual-natured and are still percieving on the astral plane, though now they can afect the physical plane.

If you are only running one runner, and he is not a mage, throwing spirits in is kind of cruel, since not only can they see him when he cant see back, but they are immune to normal weapons.

A group should always have magical support if mages are to be expected in the opposition.

I get the feeling that this runs counter to the intent of the power. The fact that it is physical is to allow a critter to conceal a vehicle say. Making it ineffective vs. astral observers essentially makes the power pointless.

It's the same with every Illusion spell...

So improved invisibility is really just different invisibility rather than improved invisibility...

None of them is effective against Astral Perception...

Invisibility is Type M, what makes that ineffective against astral?

Invisibility is neither disguising or creating an aura, it is concealing an aura.

There is a difference between using assensing skill with an observe in detail action to see if you can see something, and assensing to learn about an Aura.

I imagine the intent of the statement "Illusions cannot fool assensing to disguise or create auras." is because that falls into the realm of masking. I want to look like an innocent japanese school girl from the astral rather t han a depraved homicidal shadowrunner. An illusion cannot perform masking. It can however fool your senses, unless you DETECT the thing you're trying to determine is fake, then succeed on an assensing test.

So the illusion is that nothing is in this space, and you can create that illusion in the astral plane as per your quote. Then it would be a dead giveaway if someone could succeed on an astral perception test looking at that empty space and trying to determine if it is really an empty space or not. But why would anyone do that?

Because the vibrant aura of an invisibilty spell is floating around?

Anyway, 'disguising' and 'concealing' in this case are used synonymously enough to conclude that there is no way of hiding auras... except for masking wards, that is.

It's my turn to say, Come on.

What makes you think a spell has a vibrant magical aura? The illusions created in the astral plane are only given away if you make a successful Assensing Test. Look again at your quote, it is only obvious if you make a successful Assensing test. If as you insist that there is some vibrant astral form that sticks out like a sore thumb enough to attract enough attention to come in closer and Assense then it would be obvious before you Assense it and wouldn’t need you to succeed on an Assensing Test.

What your quote says is that the illusion exists in the astral and that you would only understand that it is not what you think it is if you read the aura and get enough successes to determine the type of object, and see that it is a spell not whatever it is it’s pretending to be. That’s two hits on an Assensing test to see the class of an object, that’s only 50/50 if you have 6 dice on the Assensing Test, clearly not obvious at casual perusal.

Consider a different case, Joe the mage decides he wants to pretend he’s Solid Snake, so he casts a phantasm to create a cardboard box around him, concealing his astral form from any onlookers, because the box/phantasm is in the way. For an astrally perceiving onlooker to detect that it is an illusion they would have to Assense the box with a critical eye in order to determine the class of the object and succeed on the Assensing Test and see that in fact the class of object is not a mundane object, but in fact a spell masquerading as a mundane object. There wouldn’t be much of a reason for any onlooker to do that unless something was amiss. Perhaps they think that the box does not belong, or perhaps they see it move, or something like that.

If that illusion were that there is nothing rather than there is a box, then there would be nothing to detect. They would not notice anything amiss or out of place so they would never attempt to get the two successes to determine that in fact that nothing is not a nothing but is a spell.

Page 201: Invisibility
"Her aura is still visible to astral perception"

Illusion on the astral plane is like wrapping yourself in clear plastic and saying "you can't see me!" the only perception test needed is to realize that the material covering you is plastic.

Alright, but what about the Phantasm Box scenerio? You make an illusion of a box, that is hiding you in a corner of a dark alley, where a great preponderance of other trash is and isn't in any way out of place.

All spells are said to have an aura of their own. So to astral sight your Phantasm Box would be the one piece of garbage with an aura.

I am fairly sure that you can't see through a persons aura when you look at them, so .... I would say that they can't see through the boxes aura (the spell isn't cast on you so there is no aura on-top of another effect as with spells cast on am individual), but it's still a glowing box that they can figure out fairly easily is an illusionary spell.

You want to use a Phantom Box when a mage is chasing you? Ok, just don't hide in it.. least some C4 for him to find instead.

As was pointed out eairler in regards to illusions, "their magical auras give them away as illusions to anyone who makes a successful Assensing Test"

If you have to succeed on an Assensing Test to tell that the phantasmal box is in fact not a box then it is not as clear as you portray. Someone has to look at the box specifically and assense it succeed before they realize it's not a box.

ALL spells have an aura of their own, a normal box would look gray and hazy, an aura looks bright and obvious. The box would bring attention to itself. The Assensing test would only by necessary for a person to recognize that the aura is specifically an illusion spell.

Good try, but sorry. To tell the type of spell is two hits on an Assensing test, you have to just succeed on an assensing test to notice that it is in fact a spell and not a box.

Yes, to tell the type of spell takes two hits...
But you don't need to know the type of spell to see the vibrantly and colorful aura of magic surrounding a box in an alley full of "the faded semblance of objects from the physical world, all gray and lifeless".

SR4 page 182

Though according to RAW you have to assense the box to know it is an Illusion, you should not have to decide to assense a box at random to see it. The GM should ask you to make an Assensing test as long as you are percieving in astral and apply a -2 DP modifier if you are focusing on something else, then if you get the one hit, you notice the box and if you get more than one hit, then you notice that it is a spell.

What the character does with the box is up to him.

About concealment working on Astral, while it would rock, I highly doubt it would work.

You seem to be stuck on this simple quote.
"their magical auras give them away as illusions to anyone who makes a successful Assensing Test"

If you make the Assensing test you know they are illusions. But you don't been the test to know that there is a glowing box.

If in the physical world i painted a plain box with luminescent paint and sat it in an alley most GMs wouldn't bother rolling a perception test if you were walking in that same alley, the box does kind of stand out.

But you're assuming the glowing green paint when in fact there is none. It is a subtle difference, that is not obvious UNLESS you make a successful Assensing Test.

The spells aura glows, that does exist.
You don't need to make an Assensing test to see something glowing, just like you don't need a test to see a spirit sitting on the side of the road.

The test is only necessary if something is trying to hide/is being hidden, or you want to try an read details of something you have already seen.

But what if there are hundreds of glowing green boxes and one of them is the person you are chasing disguised with an illusion?

Stealth is often more about blending in than it is about not being seen.

The problem isn't that the rules aren't clear, the problem is you stop reading the rule before you get to the part that says, "to anyone who makes a successful Assensing Test".

Yes the willpower part matters. If you beat the illusion with your spell resistance test then you don't even see the box. If the spell beats you then you see an ordinary box and it will only be given away as an illusion, "to anyone who makes a successful Assensing Test".

You're fixating on that first part, and ignoring the condition imposed on it, and supporting that by an assumption about astral space that is either incorrect or does not apply in this case.

Demerzel, the problem is that Assensing Tests in the Astral are basically the same as Perception Tests in the meat, and a strict reading of RAW also requires a Perception Test (At -2) to be made to notice a "running crowd".

So yeah, I agree with the people whose reading of RAW says that Illusion Spells are virtually useless against a mage's Astral Sight. The trick to making them work is to trick the mage in question not to open his third eye in the first place OR to do as hyzmarca has suggested and to use other auras present to 'blend in' your Spell's Aura.

*Yawn*

It's pretty obvious you're mistaken on this one, Demerzel.

Just to be clear as to what you mean 2bit. It's obvious that I'm wrong and that Manabased illusions created in the astral require no test to defeat despite the statement to the contrary on page 201?