Too bad the game is pretty specific about light from the target needing to enter the casters eyes, in order to acquire the target, if optical targeting is what is being used. Its not a case of tricking yourself, its a case of the needed component to target someone being blocked by opaque pixels in the lenses.

Light is mentioned repeatedly, as is the inability to acquire targets targets unless you are using your own 'natural' senses. See mage sight goggles, cyber eyes, and all references to using purely digital displays to try and target with.

Please find that quote for me. As I can incorporate electronics into magesight goggles, I just can't use them to acquire targets with, and I see no references to needing to take my smart glasses off to cast, only not being able to use the electronics in them to help me acquire targets.

There's a reason why the words Line of Sight are used, rather than just saying Sight. Your contention is, "if you can't see something, even though there is nothing between you and it, even if you know it's there and exactly where it is, not only can you not target it with a direct spell, you also can't harm it with a direct area spell." Right?

I want to make sure we're arguing the same argument before we go on.

Already done...


The point is, it just feels silly. Cant use electronic devices to target something and getting around it with declaring you are not replacing anything...

Nitpick



"Spirit's" is not plural, that's possessive. That ally spirit owns an "and damage." Whatever that is. And this thread is about that "and damage."

I guess I failed a Perception Test there. Where did you quote that?

Actually it does not. It is completely logical. The mere presence of an electronic device does not necessarily invalidate physical natural LOS. Look for example at a single lens reflex camera (especially the schematic). As long as you look through the eye piece, you have normal optical LOS. If the camera also has a screen which displays what the sensor detects, you would not have optical LOS. If you by manual or electronic make obscure parts of the eye piece opaque, whatever is behind the obstruction cannot be seen by the observer and cannot be targeted by spells.

"if you can't see something, even though there is nothing between you and it, even if you know it's there and exactly where it is, not only can you not target it with a direct spell, you also can't harm it with a direct area spell."

Yes.

Exactly... If you want to actually damage the target at that point, Bearclaw, you must use an Indirect Spell, preferrably an Elemental one. Or target the Victium with Astral perception, assuming you can do that.

So can you keep spell defense up on an invisible team mate?

No. Even turning your head stops spell defense

Yea, that's what happens when you mistake "line of sight", for "sight".

Blame the writers. If they meant 'simply have a potential clear LOS', they should've made rules reflecting that.

You'll note that I specifically said, "In my home games".

I look at this situation through the lens of "magic" rather than "science". And I houseruled as such.

My take is that casting a direct spell at someone involves syncing to their aura and delivering magical energy to it through the astral. It requires a certain discipline and mindset. Trying to play meta-game tricks by sticking your thumb in your field of vie so that you can't see your friend, well, that's you trying to fool yourself, as far as targeting that direct spell. That causes enough internal dissonance that your spell fizzles. Magic is a living thing, and attempting mundane trickery to alter how it works will fail.

I do agree that by RAW, if you block targets from your sight, they don't get affected by direct spells.

I just happen to think that's stupid.



-k

They did. That's why it doesn't say "sight" or "vision" or "see". It says "Line of Sight".

No, they didn't. The rules frequently and clearly refer to being able to actually see things, not just draw lines in the air. Again, see mirrors, windows, magesight optics, the lack of non-sight (non-touch) targeting, the lack of info-guided targeting, etc.

Define Line of sight, please. I am not aware that there is a definition that does not require the observer to register anything with his eyes. As such a blind man would have line of sight just like a seeing one.

Line of sight requires sight, that is why it is not called potential trajectory of photons.

Which is a problem for the current rules. A blind mage can't cast (ranged) spells without astral perception, for example, nor can he use astral perception to cast through mirrors, windows, etc.; if you say 'potential LOS' is all that matters, it changes many such aspects of rules. (Which, again, is why allowing negators is just so much simpler. )

It is discussions like this that make me wish the writers had kept the old description of how spell casting worked from SR1 & SR2. It was very clear and concise.

Any spells cast on the Physical required line of sight (LOS) to target & cast. The fluff description given for the crunch was that you had to synch up the caster's aura with the target's aura. Purely mana spells would hit the target even if physical obstructions were in the way. The example given was a glass wall.

Yet an indirect spell (I believe they used to be called Physical Manipulations) required not only LOS but ALSO an unobstructed path to the target. Why? Because the mana was creating the effect that did the damage rather than actually being the agent of damage. Thus a Fireball spell was creating an actual fireball that traveled to the target. A Manaball spell simply created a damaging mana AOE at the point being targeted.

One of the examples given in the older editions also pointed out that if it is dark (no light) and you could not see or touch your target, you could not cast on them without using Astral Perception.

Thus it does make perfect sense that if your team is all linked together, that you could have software running on your glasses/goggles/vegeta power meter as an overlay of some sort that blocks out members of your team from LOS yet leaves your preferred targets visible in a purely optical manner (that means you can cast on them).

The big issue is that a vision aid cannot electronically process the image and re-display it back to you. If it does, it's useless for spellcasting unless you paid essence for it. This is why your favorite trid camera that you carry around will not work for spellcasting but your cybereyes do. Same reason why electronic binoculars do not work for spellcasting yet optical ones do.

Line of sight is exactly that. A condition in which you can see (not see, but can see) the object in question. If you are in the middle of a circle of men 4 meters across, you can center a stunball on yourself, and KO everyone, even if your back is to them. You can only see about half of them, but you have a clear line of sight to any of them. The same is true in the reverse. You are counterspelling. You are the center of a force 6 stunball, and your team is spread around you within 4 meters. Your counterspelling dice will protect them. Even if they're invisible, because there is nothing blocking the mystical connection between you and them. It's not a question of photons travelling, because you are not shooting photons. It's a question of a clear path for the magic to travel.

This was kind of explained in earlier versions Magic in the Shadows, but I can't provide a quote.

Is there a quote that says blind mages can't cast spells without using astral perception? That would probably change my thinking.

Are you using astral sight, or normal vision? With Astral sight, yes, with normal vision, no, unless you manage to resist your own spell.... that last part I'm guessing at.

There's plenty about the SR4 magic system which is 'stupid' in my opinion, so I guess we can agree on that.

How about a complete absense of rules for how blind mages could cast with the exception of usual astral sight. All blindfire rules in the core book are for firearms, as the stat the attempt links to is intuition instead of agility, if you carried this through for magic, a mage would also use intuition as well, which could lead to interesting effects on the force of the spells they would be throwing, as well as the fact cyberware doesn't cause intuition loss.

What you are referencing is not line of sight but line of effect. Line of effect is only ever relevant in case of indirect combat spells. The rules state that you must see the target(s), not that you must theoretically be able to see them. Also by your interpretation, cover and visibility modifiers would be irrelevant. That is explicitly not the case.

I'm pretty sure the way targets are acquired has not changed from previous editions (except for the thing about grounding).

@Blind mages:What can a blind mage see? Nothing. That is all he can target with his vision.

The above quote also contradicts centering a stunbball on the caster and affecting the targets behind him.

So how wide is the cone of sight? How many guys can you hit with a stunball? Does your field of vision really spread 12 meters wide from 6 meters away? It seems like the whole idea get's needlessly complicated if you do it that way. Doing it your way, you will have to determine an arc, then measure that arc.

Right now, I can look at the guys across the lab from me, about 15 meters. THere's 2 of them, about 4 meters apart. Although they are in my line of sight, I can't really look at both at the same time. If I focus enough to tell what color shirt one is wearing, I can't really see the other at all. This is anecdotal rather than empirical, but I think you'll find the same if you repeat my experiment.

I really hate the whole idea.

Interesting...
I LIKE the idea, because it keeps magicians from having even more overpowered [Brazilian] shennanigans.

I'm not saying it's good, I'm just telling you what the rules are as I know them. You have to actually *see* the target: nothing behind you, behind your outstretched hand, invisible, etc.

In most cases, you don't have to worry about the complications you suggest.

The whole thing sounds like Kids In The Hall play Shadowrun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9ucJAV3rVU

It seems you're needlessly complicating this, though. You don't have to be able to tell what color shirt someone is wearing to target them with a spell. I'll agree that at certain edge cases, these ideas get kind of fuzzy ("what if you can only see someone's shoe tip?"), but in general, the idea of direct spells is not about details, it's about targeting the aura of the person, which doesn't need to know the color of their shirt. And since the idea of an "aura" is so magical and un-scientific-y, you don't have to try to apply real-world science to it. That's why there's also the idea that the aura being targeted extends a few cm past clothing, so you can still target a person wearing a full-body suit and so on.


hehehe

It's not really an edge case. The rules are quite clear. The target gets the defense modifier Target in Good Cover.

Certainly not in a combat situation, no. People move unpredictably and you couldn't airbrush them out fast enough. I always figure the hacking the security cameras thing involves the tried and trusted vidoe loop of an empty corridor, anyway.

Maybe not the best example, but the quickest one off the top of my head

Although if it's a direct spell, there's no defense modifier I believe? Unless the GM has the mage make a Perception test before being able to target the shoe-tip?

Except that your arguement is not logical, as there must be a pixel overlay over the entire line of sight. Just because some pixels are blacked out and some aren't doesn't necessarily matter for Irion's book quote to hold true: there *are* pixels over the mage's entire line of sight, and it could be argued that this would affect magic. Certainly does on my table, although as I previously stated I understand this is a house rule.

Visibility modifiers still affect the mage's DP for direct spells.

Found it - thanks!

With all due respect while 'at my table' may be an effort to help make sense of the rules, it is not a justification to insert non-printed material into a general rules discussion. This is a fault I'm at least as guilty of as most, so imagine I'm saying this in a mirror as much as I'm saying it to you.

I was trying to resist this myself.

As much as I don't like the idea of selectively blocking people out to avoid hitting them with a spell...

If a pixel in an LCD screen is transparent, it's no different than glass. Light passes through unimpeded, and is not being affected by the screen in any way that matters.

In a very real sense, LCDs are electromechanical, not electronic. Light passing through them is not being edited electronically, processed, or otherwise modified in any way. A photon has come from a light source, bounced off the target, and passed unaltered through the LCD screen to hit your eyeball.

Imagine a window covered with a bunch of mechanical shutters, spring loaded so they're normally shut. Each shutter can be pulled open via an attached cable. Pull the cables, and you can see through the window. Let them go, and your view is blocked. In this setup, I don't think anyone can claim the view through the window is being electronically processed.

Now imagine these shutters are so small that hundreds fit into a pinhead.

An LCD is just that, a mass of tiny shutters suspended in liquid. Send an electrical charge through them, and they line up so light can pass through. Stop the current, and they fall back to their normal random orientations, rendering the area opaque.

In any case, I get the very strong impression that when the authors say "technological visual aids that substitute themselves for the character’s own visual senses", they mean something that has taken in visual data, converted it into electronic impulses, and then recreated the imagery on a screen or image link. Like a camera recording digital video, passing it through a cable, and playing it back on a display.

Black spots on a pair of glasses aren't really the same thing.



-k

My understanding is that it is fine on this forum to share house rules on any topic under discussion as long as they are clearly labeled as such. I shared my house rule, and gave my game world logic reason for it. What's the beef?

I didn't think spells could be targeted through glass, or was that just opaque glass?

@KarmaInferno

While true, it does not matter.
It is not about transperancy, light or whatever. Electronic helpers are a NO-GO unless implantet. This are the rules.
And if they are implantet you would need a very specific way to block them. Image recognition would not work, because the image would need to be analysed and thus becomes unusable for LOS.

You can target through glass so long as you can see the target through the glass. Otherwise, fiber optics would not work. Magesight goggles?

The sticking point is that supposedly/apparently clear/transparent glass is opaque on the Astral and therefore, not suitable for establishing LOS while on the Astral / using Astral Perception.


**Thanks Neraph for catching that**

Using Astral sight.

Irion, you fail at comprehension. He was very clear that the electronic aid was NOT processing vision and re-displaying it. You cannot use a camera to establish LOS for spell casting. That camera takes the image, processes it (this is the key point), and then outputs the image on a screen.

Under his example, the glasses/goggles have a clear LCD lens that can be seen through without any image processing. Thus they can be used while casting spells on the Physical. They are given a command by software to darken certain portions of the lens. It does. The program (if it did any image processing) simply puts blocks in front of the people you did not wish to target. With those spots darkened, certain people are not targeted.

The net result is that the darkened spots are electronically controlled blocks in an optical set of glasses/goggles.

I would allow such in my game if the players asked for it. They'd pay a pretty penny though. Limited customer base and all that.

Would you allow mages to block targets by blocking them from their sights with their fingers?

It doesn't matter if electronics were involved in placing the *physical* pixels between the eyes and the non-targets, Irion. All that matters is if there's a *substitute* for the real vision (watching a display, viewing simsense, etc.).

It does matter.

The exact quote is "technological visual aids that substitute themselves for the character’s own visual senses"

NOT just any old "electronic helpers".

It means the "technological visual aid" must be of the type that REPLACES direct visual input with electronically rendered data.

Like, as I said, a digital camera streaming the image through a data cable to a screen.

A pair of LCD glasses, in fact, does not "help" or "aid" the incoming image in any way in the areas that are transparent. They do not substitute the wearer's visual senses.

Visuals converted to digital data = Not usable for targeting spells.

Visuals passing through without being altered = Usable for targeting spells.



-k

@KarmaInferno
So? The image is replaced with an image where parts are blacked out. This is done by electronical means. Thus you can't cast spells...

No.

There is no replacing going on.

It's no different than painting black dots on a pair of normal glasses.

The image has not been converted to data and back into an image. It has passed through unaltered. The photons coming off the target are the same photons that are hitting the wearer's eyes.

Consider this: If all it took was an LCD overlay to block targeting of spells, corporations could make all their troops immune to being targeted by spell simply by coating their armor with the stuff. A transparent riot shield with such a coating would make anyone behind it immune. 99% of windows would block targeting because by the 2070s nearly all windows have some sort of electronics, even if it's just to darken as a sunshade.

To be a substitute, it has to completely remove the image and replace it with something else. Not merely overlay it.



-k