Haven't completely caught up on all the details of SR4, and still sometimes get the SR3 and SR4 rules twisted, so I'm hoping someone can help me out with these questions:

1. Whiskers the Rat Shaman sticks his pet Rat 'Doug' in his pocket and casts invisibility on himself.Is Doug invisible, too?
• ...even though he wasn't the original target of the spell?
• ...even though Whiskers didn't have LOS on Doug when the spell was cast?
2. Whiskers takes Doug the Rat out of his pocket and holds him up; is he visible now?
3. How about when he sets the rat down and walks away?
4. Does it make any difference if the process happens in reverse? (i.e cast invis on target, and then the target picks something up?
5. If I splash an invisible target with paint, do I see the paint, or does it become invisible too?
6. Magus the Mage wants to see into the room without opening the door. Can he cast invisibility on the door to see past it?
7. If he succeeded in making the door invisible, could he then shoot through the door without visibility modifiers?
8. Could he look through the door to obtain physical LOS for casting a spell at someone on the other side?
9. Normally, spells like invisibility are treated as 'friendly' and are not resisted. If you were casting an 'unfriendly' invisibility spell on someone (e.g., so they get shot by friendly fire, or maybe get run over while trying to jaywalk on a busy street), would they have any way to resist the spell and not turn invisible?
10. Sustained spells like this don't usually even require LOS to the target to maintain after casting (which would be difficult anyway on an invisible target). Once the subject was spelled invisible, is there any way they could break the sustainment other than finding and killing/knocking out the mage?
11. Do any of the answers to the previous questions change depending on whether the spell is invisibility or improved invisibility?
12. Does size have any impact on the difficulty involved? In other words, is it any harder to make a blimp invisible than it is to do the same to a motorcycle?
13. The description of Improved Invis speaks about bending light around the object. Why isn't this a Manipulation spell? Also, why would people get a willpower resistance roll to not be fooled by what the photons pinging against their retinas tells them?

[edit]re-worded 10

1. Yes. Also the bacteria in your stomach is likewise invisible. Basically everything that you're carrying is indetectable by vision.
2. Nope. Hes still holding the rat.
3. Yes. The rat is no longer part of the Whiskers phenomenon.
4. No difference.
5. The splash is also invisible. But if you bounced a ball off the target you could figure out where the target was by how far the ball moved. Also since the splash that misses stays visible you can infer a location fairly easily under the described situation.
6. Yes.
7. Barrier modifiers would still apply but sure. Remember that the door is invisible the other way as well so the occupants of the room can see what Magus is up to.
8. Sure.
9. No. The spell resistance is to see the invisible target, not to avoid having other people not see you. The spell essentially effects everyone and everything except the target. The target is the hole in the middle and doesn't get to resist.
10. Run into a background count. Have someone with Counterspelling uncast the spell.
11. Not unless one of the outside observers is a Drone.
12. Not under normal circumstances. A spell cannot normally have any effect which is bigger than a radius of 1 meter per Force point. Blimps are therefore outside the area of most Invisibility spells. But other than that, size is not normally a factor.
13. Illusions can create real light and sound. Spells are illusions because they affect perception, not because of how they do it. A better question is why Shadow and Light aren't Illusions. For that matter, why are Control Manipulations not Illusions? Serously, what the hell? Manipulation bloat is a serious problem in Shadowrun.

Thanks, FT!

Looking at your response to #10 re: Background Counts...
I was under the impression that background count removed dice from the test, not directly removing successes. (Maybe I was wrong on this?)

If I rolled 12 dice and scored 4 successes on a spell, and then my target walked into a background count 3 area,

• do I now only have 1 success?
• or 3 (since losing 3 dice would have been losing 1 success on average)?
• or still 4 (since my GM's a softie and could be convinced that the 3 dice I lost hadn't been the successful dice anyway?)

A sustained spell brought into an area with a background count has its Force reduced for as long as it stays in there. Force caps successes, so a Force 4 Invisibility cannot have more than 4 hits active. If you bring it into a Rating 3 Background Count, it'll fall down to a Force 1 spell and it will only count as having 1 hit. If a spell hits Force Zero or less it's disrupted and won't be coming back ever.

Note that a Force 7 Invisibility spell with only 4 hits could be brought into a Rating 3 Background Count and not really notice (it would drop to Force 4, the cap would drop to Force 4, and there were already only 4 hits so nothing important changed).

-Frank

13: I normally disagree on this one with SR in general.

Invisibility is an illusion spell that affects the MIND and fools the person no matter what gadgets he has because his mind refuse to aknowledge that person.

So, no matter what personal sensors, scanners, ultrasound whizbangs he's still blind to the guy standing right in front of him if he failed the resistance test.

Sure, as long as they have a mechanical sensor like say a drone piping information to an imagelink or so then they would see the target, unless it was an improved invisibility spell.

I disagree on 8. He can cast invis on the door, and shoot through it fine. If he wants to cast on the people inside the room, he needs to open the door for LOS. Invisibility & Improved Invisibility can never grant LOS through their effects.

Jaid, you have no idea.

/e whistles innocently and mumbles something about runner opposition...

I'll retract my statement, seems they let magic grant LOS in SR4. Thats something I missed.

I guess the alternate to that is, in order for it to work, the mage must fail to resist his own spell in order to see through the door and be able to cast on those behind it.

Magic can't grant LOS in SR4 that I am aware of. Certainly, Clairvoyance and its relatives can't. I don't see why Improved Invisibility would be much different.

But I've oft made known my preference for the invisible jet syndrome as a matter of flavor, so you can take my opinions of the subject with a grain of salt.

Invisibility and Improved Invisibility have always been two of the most controversial and contentious spells. Because it is poorly defined it can be implemented many ways.
Frank's method is self-consistent, which is a very good thing. Many implementations of invisibility lack self-consistency. But, it isn't an official clarification or a consensus and does not have to be considered definitive.
That said, is a good choice to go with.

Edit:

It can hyzmarca. The reason is clairvoyance and its relatives specifically say they don't allow it. Invisibility/II doesn't. Thats whats different.

The rules are kind of vague. On page 173, it says that technological aids that substitute themselves for the user's own visual senses cannot be used. You could reason that magical aids that do the same thing would face the same restriction - it seems to lean that way when it limits a caster's targetting to "anything she can see directly with her natural vision."

As difficult to grasp as the SR3 rules for physical illusions were, the explanation of "false sensory input" at least explained why invisibility wasn't a manipulation spell while light was, and explained how you could resist improved invisibility. In SR4, it's more vague. So you determine that invisibility is an illusion. So, does that mean you "see" the invisible subject, despite the fact that the spell is bending light waves? Or does it mean that you see, say, a telltale shimmer, but still suffer blind fire penalties (in which case, what's the point of the resistance roll?). Maybe it's the former - a careful reading of the spell reveals that it may not even be total invisibility - it only makes the subject "more difficult to detect by normal visual senses".

I swear, the invisibility in Eric the Viking made more sense.

This is a very informative thread. Nice work FTM

so heres how i see the newest lonestar strike team working:

Action 1: mage casts invis on door of the druggies hide out.
action 2: strike teamers fling 'nades all over the place while everyone is still stunned at the light coming through their front door.


then mage drops invis before the nades explode?

invisibility, the sr topic that never goes away

Aku, maybe I misunderstood, but it sounds like your strike team was throwing grenades through an invisible door.... Pretty sure that won't work.

Chris

if you can get los for spells, and shoot through the invisable door sans penalties, why not?

Spells don't travel per se, and the bullets still have to penetrate the barrier. If I remember right the targets inside get bonuses to armor or something, so grenades would go *clink* and the guys throwing them would go "Oh shit!" As their 'nades bounced off the door and fell back at their feet. Unless it's a max str troll that can penetrate a door with the grenade in the first place. No idea how that works.

You just gain LOS, so you lose the blind fire penalty for the gun, and you actually CAN target someone with spells because of LOS just like a window.

Chris