i believe there was a ruling against that sort of thing, but i don't remember where. maybe one of the FAQs.

I thought so too, but checked the FAQ and couldn't find it.

I'm glad you agreed that closing his eyes would effectively blind him too. What if the mage has nictating membranes? Do those effectively block astral perception too? Or contacts! Suddenly, mages with contacts can't ever astrally perceive! Why? Because the contacts block out entirety of astral perception!

I'm trying to hone in on exactly where each of you differ.

Which of the these block the ability to target while astrally percieving? Which provide targeting modifiers but don't completely block targeting?

1. By a brick wall, but can sense the presence of bad guy yelling on the other side who's making noise. (i.e. can percieve him with some of my senses (sound, smell), but not the one we treat as analogous to physical sight.)
2. Completely enclosed in a sack. (i.e. only my aura shows through, but my actual body 100% covered.)
3. Similar to above, but this time instead of being enclosed in sack, my body is 100% covered by clothes (body suit, ski mask, gloves, shoes) and blindfold.
4. Completely encased in sack, but with my bare pinky sticking out a hole in the sack.
5. Similar to above, but this time my pinky has a cyber eye installed (which I paid essence for.)
6. Out of the sack, now, but wearing a mage mask.
7. Wearing something that completely covers head, but not a true mage mask (e.g. pillowcase)
8. Wearing a blindfold (only covers the eyes). Regardless of whether mage is blind or sees.
9. Wearing contact lenses.
10. With eyes closed.
11. With nictating membranes down(that I paid essence for.)

My take:
1. total block
2. total block
3. total block (blindfold)
4. total block, unless you wiggle around and look out of the hole
5. target as normal
6. total block
7. total block, unless its one of those thin pillowcases you can see through
8. total block
9. target as normal
10. total block
11. unable to answer; don't remember specifics on nictating membranes; although unless they are transparent, I'd probably rule this as being the same as closing your eyes: total block

12. Replaces face with smooth single-piece cyberskull that has no openings. Breathing is handed by a quickened oxygenate with a hidden diaphragm port and internal air tank as backups. Quickened Fasting and Nutrition take care of eating with an intestinal port that pre-digested slurry can be poured into for backup. The featureless cyberskull is paid for with essence, of course.

LOL. Darth Hyzmarca! I gotta use that trick...

Regarding #9, the contact lenses would block astral perception since they are a physical object and not paid for with essence.

SM, 114, "Determining cover works the same way on the astral
plane as it does in the physical world (see pp. 140–141, SR4).
Shadows of physical objects in the astral plane may be drab and
insubstantial, but they are still opaque and can prevent targeting.
Items that are transparent or mirrored in the real world
(like a car window) simply impair visibility as astral shadows."

Air doesn't, because it isn't an obstruction in the physical world either. However, transparent things are merely a solid shadow, so objects (glasses, contacts, windows) block sight all together. Water, usually has quite a bit of life in it, so chances are, it'd block it, but that depends on the water. Ocean, would be teeming with all the plankton. A swimming pool you'd see down to the bottom of no problem.

My reason for allowing targeting through contacts and eyeglasses is that it would be ridiculous to prevent it, world fluff wise. Are you telling me that there isn't a single mage on the planet that has to wear corrective lenses of some type?

"Hang on, I'm totally going to stun bolt you, just let me get out my contact case and rinse my lenses and put them away. Just a minute...I need a mirror. Dangit! Okay, would you mind holding on for a second? I'm just going to run to the men's room. I'll be right back to stun bolt you in a minute, I promise."

But as Red said, it's debatable. Feel free to rule that they block and all that disclaimer jazz.

eidolon, they can grow you some new eyes if you want. Perfect vision. Lasik that is perfect also. Definately affordable for any employed mage. Or take the glasses off. Having trouble reading street signs is nothing compared to non-functioning/missing eyes, and those can both astrally perceive. Just because your meat eyes aren't the best doesn't mean your astral perception is impaired in any way. Just that your glasses are a solid wall to it.

I think that all of this talk of clothing and glasses, contacts and all that, blocking astral perception is complete bs. So you mean I can be a mage, perceiving astrally, with all of my body except my eyes covered and no one can hit me with a spell on the astral unless they can see my eyes, because my clothing blocks astral LOS to my body. Fine, and I can't target someone on the physical plane unless I can see some of their skin, because clothing isn't part of them. Makes damn perfect sense to me.

you're misreading. what that's talking about is the auras of living things which are not active on the astral plane, ie not dual-natured. living things which are not active on the astral plane do not have an astral form, therefore they cannot be targeted, even by their aura. dual-natured beings do have an astral form--therefore their aura is not 'alone'.

Hmmm..upon further reading, this kind of becomes a non-arguement.

Clothes do not offer any resistance to astral glow or perception.

What is your idealized Astral Form using to cover everything but his eyes?

that's not true. what you can see through the clothing is the aura of the wearer. if i hold a flashlight up to a t-shirt, you can see the glow. that doesn't mean you can see through the t-shirt material.

But if that person wearing said clothes, which let's just say covers everything but his eyes, suddenly starts to astrally perceive, meaning his has an astral form as well as a physical form, and you, a projecting mage, are behind him. By your arguements, you cannot target him with a spell, because there is a shadow inbetween you and his astral form. Even if his astral form shines through the shadows, making them nigh transparent, you still couldn't cast at him because there is an astral shadow in the way....

What kind of sense does that make? Why should clothing or contacts, or glasses, or anything like that block astral perception? They are negligible shadows if they affect your astral perception at all. In the astral there is light everywhere, coming directly from the earth below you. With a t-shirt in front of my eyes and a standard halogen light bulb on in a room I can see the basic details of the room, and that is on the physical plane. On the astral items are but shadows of what they are physically, so if you something just barely impedes my vision physically, why should it suddenly impede it completely on the astral?

there is no 'sense' about the astral plane or magic. it's fiction. it is what it is, as defined by the rules. if your conception of how things work clashes with the rules, then your conception is mistaken.

Wow. Some of you guys are taking things to such an absurd extreme that I can't tell if you are serious or not. It seems like it should be pretty obvious how they intended it to work but we'll see what you think.

Glasses, contacts are small transparent objects that you look through on a regular basis. Being transparent objects they do have an astral shadow but being less than an inch from your eyes the difficulty of seeing through them is nill.

Blindfolds, no you cannot see through them while perceiving. You are still in your meat body and your meat limitations apply to your senses because you are perceiving through those senses.

Yes you can see through a shirt pulled up to your face. The next time someone blindfolds you with a thin white cotton t-shirt I command you to take careful aim and kick them in the balls for being a moron. If you were perceiving and someone put a tightly stretched t-shirt up to your face I would allow you to see through it but with a negative modifier for obstructed/clouded vision.

No you cannot stick your hand around a corner and perceive through it because it has no way to perceive without an essence paid cyber-eye. Some of you may disagree but you are still perceiving you are not projecting and thus your hand is still a hand.

Blind people. I would have no problem with them perceiving in the way they normally perceive things. That is I assume that when they are dual natured they perceive the astral in a strange way that neither they nor I could properly explain. I doubt it is in the same visual fashion that the regular mage does. It would be a neat character concept and some good RP if they came up with a fun way to do it.

darthmod, your points about cloth are basically irrelevant. you're completely ignoring the way the rules work in favor of how you think they should work. clothing does not prevent assensing/astral targeting of the wearer, but it does block assensing/astral targeting by the wearer if it covers his face. if your mental picture of how things work clashes with that, then your mental picture is ill-founded and should be revised. personally, i don't see the conflict: your aura glows brightly enough to shine through any clothing your wear--a fact which is completely unrelated to whether or not you can see through a thick cloth that is held over your eyes. it works the same way with thermographic vision; you can see a person's body heat through their clothing, but if you have thermo vision, you're still unable to see through a blindfold. you can argue that seeing the glow of someone's aura shouldn't be enough to target them with a spell, if you like, but the rules would disagree with you.

but i dont think it does, because well, if you're blindfolded, you can still SENSE emotions, which is what the astral is made up as. you dont "Read" words that say "turture chamber" you feel the pain and anguish that has gone on in there. Which i think can happen regardless of ther blindfold

then you can still sense emotions through a brick wall, or the planet. besides, your example is flawed--you can still see the words, they're just blurry and indistinct. if the book were closed, you wouldn't be able to get an emotion out of that word.

so you blindfold a mage w/ cybereyes, who then turns them off, what happens?

he's unable to see physically or astrally. i'm not sure why turning the cybereyes off would make a difference.

So slap a pair of nylons over the mage's face and you've neutered his ability to cast? So who needs that damn expensive magemask? By golly, every security squad on the planet just needs a cheap t-shirt to cover the mage's head and there are no more magical problems. All those stupidly expensive FAB and other magical safeguards really aren't needed.

You are all but saying a simple 2 nuyen piece of cloth can solve all the magical casting concerns by the opposition. That is complete and utter bullshit IMO and a bad ruling by RAW if RAW actually takes that stance.

I find it ironic and very strange then that a pair of nylons would always / without exception block the ability to properly sense someone so as to not be able to target them with a spell.

Then again, I find the sheer idea that contacts, glasses, and safety goggles would prevent someone from sensing properly on the Astral completely and totally mind-boggling. It defies common sense given the multitude of descriptions regarding physical objects' representations in Astral Space.

Then again, how again does a mage see in Astral Space given the multitude of single cell organisms that exist as airborne creatures in the very air we breath?

The most I could see being blocked / impeded would be sensing the physical portion (if any) of anything that was dual-natured or fully astral (which you wouldn't see anyways due to something being fully astral not having a body attached to the astral form at that location with it).

So under that, how *I* would rule it would be like so... blindfolded mage can still assense and astrally perceive. They would NOT see any physical portion (if any was present) clearly, if at all depending on the thickness & opacity of the obstruction. They would however still be able to perceive any astral portions of said targets.

Then again, this is a persistent problem with SR4. The rules were written very minimalist and drawing off common sense rulings from previous editions seems to be verboten. That's fine by me. Don't expect me to agree with you when your position defies common sense.

the whole reason this argument is taking place is that there aren't rules directly concerning blindfolded mages in 4th. there are only bits of evidence and extrapolations. there weren't any rules directly concerning blindfolded mages in 3rd ed, either. i've laid out the rules that lead me to believe that blindfolds obstruct astral perception (in both 3rd and 4th) previously in this thread, several times.

the reason you give for brick walls preventing assensing is a sound theory, but it has no more proof to back it up than any other theory that has thus far been presented.

ok mfb, let me give you four situations, all similar, and see how you would rule them. imo, there should be no difference between the rulings, but we'll see....

1)a mage with natural sight is blindfolded.

2)a mage who is physically blind, is also blindfolded.

3) a mage, who has replaced his natural eyes with cybereyes, is blind folded.

4)the same mage as #3, but he has turned off his cybereyes.

all are blinded astrally and physically.

so how does the blindfold affect #2 and 4?

the astral shadow of the blindfold obstructs their astral perception, the same way the astral shadow of a brick wall would. astral perception is not linked to the physical sense of sight, as everyone keeps telling me. therefore, the state of the mage's native ability to see things has no effect on whether or not his astral perception works. he could have no eyes at all, and be able to perceive just fine--until someone blindfolds him.

so all of the clothes you were also affects astrally perceiving?

i think the problem is that some of us beleive that "astral vision" DOESNT involve sight on the astral plane, where others, like mfb do.

i don't see how you can decide that astral perception is not strongly based on sight without ignoring huge, huge chunks of the pertinent text. i mean, just about every time it talks about astral perception, it does so in terms of vision. that's rules, that's sourcebook fluff, that's novels. every time any official source describes astral perception, they talk about vision. other senses are mentioned secondarily, if at all.