I haven't said brain in a long time. I've been saying mind. Why do you continue to insist that your mind is located where your eyes are?

Because the rules does not list any other option for the POV. Not one! They don't even mention the possibility that the Astral POV is in any way different from that of the Physical. It is you that is making the leap and assuming a difference, when in fact there is nothing in the rules that back up your suggested variation in the POV.

Pardon me... But I have to do it.

Fear the psychic pinkie finger!!!

Besides, T isn't the only one making these huge leaps you are talking about. You just verified that a sense can be from one location and the final perception of it be in another.

When he called you on it, you said no, that's not how it works. It's looking increasingly to me as though the entire arguement is "It works how I say it does when it's in my favor and it doesn't doesn't when it favors you."

I've resisted posting this because I didn't want to add fuel to the fire but what the heck...

Blindfolds won't work to prevent Astral Assensing in any SR game I GM. They will be treated as clothing which doesn't block your ability to astrally perceive. Mage Masks and the like will continue to function as written as they were specifically designed to interfere with magical activity. A blindfold will stop you from casting a physical spell using Physical Sight.

That is the key function. A blindfold wasn't made to stop all magical activity. To allow it to do so would render mage masks and other such restraints useless.

But (to borrow a page from your book), we all know that mage masks and other magical restraints are NOT useless. Yet by a strict interpretation, they are since a 1 nuyen hankie can stop magical activity.

So we have a problem. Either the hankie is as powerful as special made gear or too much power is being ascribed to the hankie.

Now, it's been said by many game designers that a RPG, in order to be believeable must be logically consistent with itself. That each part acts and behaves as one intuitively expects. This is especially true with SR as it's based on OUR world rather than a totally fantastic one.

So let's look at said hankie / blindfold. Sure it blocks Physical Sight. That makes sense. It does that and reasonably well.

But what does it do about Astral Perception?

Well, assuming that Astral Perception is overlayed on your sight (which seems to be what you two are going on about)... then it'd be a lot like the ultrasound overlay or a thermograph overlay. Sure the Blind Fold / Hankie keeps you from seeing anything Physical but the other sense that overlays is still going to work because the other 'sense' operating is Astral Perception. That information will still be "processed" by the brain and put into your field of vision.

So the Blindfold may stop you from seeing the guy wearing his blue shirt and grey pants but it won't stop your Astral Sense from picking him up and showing you his aura. So the very worst with a blindfold would be that you "see" an aura in the shape of the person in front of you.

To look at it another way... you'd see the same effect if someone used an Invisibility spell or some sort of chameleon suit that did NOT block thermographic. You'd not see them with your regular eyesight but your thermographic would show them standing there. Think in the same vein as 3rd edition where there were Physical Spells and Mana Spells. Mana Invis would hide you from people yet you could be seen via camera since the mana spell didn't fool machines whereas the Physical spell could.

So I guess that would make the easiest explanation. Astral Perception is just another overlay on top of your existing visual perception much like Ultrasound is. In this case though, you'd still be able to cast on the target since all you need is the ability to perceive the aura in order to cast upon them.

In that vein, I'd suppose that Thermographic would still work too (to some extent) given that a blindfold would need to be fairly thick to block heat info assuming your thermographic abilities are based in your eyes. A simple hankie wouldn't cut it.

the sensor for echolocation is the ears--the books say this. the effective POV for echolocation is the eyes--the books say this. no leaps are being made, there. Tarantula is making the leap that because the sensor and POV are in different locations for echolocation, they must also be in different locations for astral perception.

not only is that a huge leap, that is not what the book says at all. astral perception does not overlay physical perception, it replaces it. and even if it does overlay it, that still provides no indicator that the sensor and/or POV for astral perception is anywhere but the eyes. thermo, after all, is an overlay--but a blindfold will block it, because its sensor is in the eyes.

I'd have to say that the POV isn't the eyes. It clearly states that it's NOT linked to physical vision. That is rather clear and unambiguous.

3rd edition says pretty much the same thing except it uses greater verbage to more strongly indicate the separateness of Physical Sight vs Astral Perception. Page 171 of 3rd Ed. SR if you are so inclined to look it up.

I'd go so far as to say that Astral perception is much like Echolocation in that it gives you an astral picture of everything there yet doesn't require physical sight. As such, a blindfold would be pointless to an astrally perceiving mage. They'd "see" you via your aura and the astral representation of the surroundings and still be able to target you with a gun (albeit at a -2 dice penalty).

So unless your hankie used as a blindfold is emotionally charged somehow, it ain't gonna stop a mage determined to use Astral Perception so he can take a gun and shoot you, cast a spell at you, etc.

It'll only stop his Physical Sight, not his Pyschic Sight.

A blindfold will not block thermographic vision. Thermographic vision is accomplished by interpreting infrared light. A black piece of cloth will not have any effect, unless the cloth is drastically different from the ambient temperature.

I'm pretty certain that covering the thermal sights on my tank (back when I had a tank) with a cloth completely blocked the imaging. Somebody who's still in the Army could verify, please?

IR light != temperature. a cloth will, unless i'm mistaken, absorb IR light.

then provide counterpoints to them, instead of just making the same points i've already replied to.

as far as explicit support goes, i've already said several times that there is no explicit support for either case. what there is, however, is strong support for blindfolds blocking astral perception, and no support for any other scenario.

Though rather unconvincingly....

i've never said it requires it. i've said it suggests it, and that no other alternative possibility is suggested. i've never claimed that my interpretation is rock-solid canon; in fact, i've stated several times that it's very leaky and not concrete at all. but it's harder to disprove than any other possibility i've seen.

This by no means provides iron-clad proof to the contrary (it doesn't really even suggest what the alternate explanation might be - just that there might be one), but to say that it doesn't at least imply that some other process could be at work would be a tad disingenuous. If the assertions that it "is not entirely the same" and "is quite different" aren't pretty strong suggestions that it very well might not work via an analogous process similar to the mundane senses, I don't know what would possibly qualify.

And I know you're probably sick of seeing that first line (or paraphrases thereof). We've seen your arguments for why you discount it (there's no direct support that it means anything in particular, and it doesn't fit with your understanding of what the rules do say/require). But as far as the 'psychic' thing goes, it's something that the writers have stressed several times, over all four editions - which indicates that just maybe there is something important to look at there (it even says so in the blurb).

In the instances where they are defined, it only says that psychic senses are 'special' senses (telepathy and precognition are given as examples) in direct contrast to 'direct' senses (vision is given as a specific example) and 'area' senses (ex: hearing). Which, admittedly, doesn't say a whole lot, but it implies quite a bit.

The common thread linking the 'psychic' senses in Shadowrun together as a classification is the idea that they all appear to feature the direct incorporation of external information into the mind of the observer, sans sensory organs, where it's then processed in a manner that allows the input to be used according to it's nature. And this strongly suggests that, as a psychic sense, it's reasonable to assume that Assensing works that way, too. It doesn't take that much of a conceptual leap to reach the idea that senses grouped into a given category probably operate in a similar manner.

Is that an iron-clad explanation? Certainly not. There may be another reason entirely that those dissimilar faculties are all grouped under the 'psychic sense' banner. But from the available information, the direct integration of input seems to be the only thing they have in common. Which implies that this is also a property of Assensing.

By my understanding (which is all that's at issue here), it fits the criteria for a workable theory:

• It's not 'complicated'. (Assensing is a psychic sense -> Other described psychic senses have <blah> in common -> Assensing probably shares that property, too.)
• It doesn't necessitate a change in POV. (Psychically-received input is incorporated seamlessly. This is implied by comparison to similar faculties and not explicitly contradicted anywhere).
• The different sensory experiences that make up Assensing function as required by the rules. (Psychically-received input works exactly as whatever it's supposed to be. This is implied by comparison to similar faculties and not explicitly contradicted anywhere).
• The sense is completely divested from the physical form and sensory organs. (You can't find the 'mind' on an anatomy chart.)
• It doesn't require that astral forms have a defined metaphysical 'anatomy'.
• It doesn't require a radical departure from any previously presented texts.

Assensing is an Active Skill. Assensing is not required to Astrally Perceive, Project, or gain (the equivalent of) LOS on the Astral (though it helps).

Sorry, but that wording annoys me.

Wearing clothes doesn't stop normal vision because it doesn't cover the eyes.

That wording implies that because clothes don't obstruct astral vision that the aura must be what is being used, which is kind of strange because you know, clothes don't block normal vision either, but that doesn't mean we see with our whole body either.

Sorry about that. What i meant was that if someone is blindfolded the blindfold would be WITHIN the persons aura very much like armour and clothes. Using astral perception would give penalties but not classify them as being blocked.

agreed, but the problem is, it doesn't suggest anything specific. it just says "it's different" and leaves it at that. and the fact is, the rules go on to describe several striking differences between astral perception and physical sight--thus fulfilling the "it's different" descriptor. so not only is the 'same POV' interpretation still the only specific one that has even vague support, the text can be easily read to not imply any other interpretation.

agreed, but again, nothing specific is stated or even implied. and given that astral perception ignores light modifiers and blindness, is affected by the number of living things in the area around the perceiver, and allows the perceiver to see the sins of men... i think we've got plenty of important stuff to look at without adding things in that are not even suggested by the text.

sure, but that doesn't have any effect on the end result. astral perception may not depend on sensory organs, but it can be blocked the same way sensory organs are--for instance, by a brick wall. and if it can be blocked by a brick wall, it can be blocked by a blindfold unless there's something in the text that indicates otherwise. as i've shown several times, there's nothing specific in the text that suggests otherwise.

it still remains to be shown anywhere in the text that the aura is a sensory organ, or has anything to do with perceiving (as opposed to being percieved, which the aura has everything to do with). claiming that an astral perceiver can see through a blindfold is like claiming that a person can see through a blindfold using thermographic vision because his body heat extends beyond the blindfold.

And if it is blocked by a blindfold, it also is blocked by contacts, glasses, goggles, or a helmet as well.

You'd think in 18 years of shadowrun text and fluff they'd mention all those mages having to take off their glasses to perceive.

I would suggest that in the last couple years there weren't that many people as dorky as we (or maybe just me) are. I don't know many people outside this forum that still play SR. Of those, not all of them play SR4. Of those, many of them don't know the rules as well as they could, and haven't grasped the nitpicky nuances of the contradictions and vaguely-worded rules.* (For example, until recently I didn't realize that transparent objects obstructed astral vision.) And of those, most people don't really care, since they'll just rule it whichever way suits them and leave it at that.

I think that there might only be two people in this hemisphere that care enough about this interpretation to argue over it for 16 pages.

*Although I'd suggest that there are fewer contradictions in SR4 than were in previous versions. YMMV

But there's a solid double-handful of people dorky enough to sit and read it.

Except that things change in each edition. Previous fluff and editions don't count, you only get the past 2 years of fluff/sourcebooks to use for support that blindfolds block astral perception.

Does this mean I could write a story in which a mage is blindfolded and sees through it, then use my own story as proof that there is now fluff supporting that blindfolds don't obstruct astral perception?

Single POV is fine. A single POV doesn't mean that it is perceived in the same location. Echolocation for example, same POV, perceived in the ears.

because, per the RAW, physical objects have astral shadows which impede astral perception.

No, mfb. You're the one who said only the past 2 years count because previously transparent objects didn't block perception. It is possible (and quite likely too) that astral perception has only not been from the location of the eyes in only 4th ed, rendering the previous 16 years of fluff irrelevent.

In fact, BBB, 173, "Astral Senses
Your astral form has normal human senses of sight and hearing."

This text has changed in 4th edition, which is described in SM, 114. Under Astral Visibility and the Other Senses headings.