Okay, this has been bouncing around in my head for awhile. When I started in SR3, it was my impression (no rules behind this mind you) was that a dual natured being (Ghoul/Shapeshifter/Materialized Spirit) saw both planes at the same time, much like a Troll or Dwarf had thermographic vision. My opinion changed in SR4 as it seemed to be that you could see either one or the other, and that dual natured being always saw only the astral. However, remembering Ghoul fluff, they could see normally and pretend to go about life normally if they got cybereyes (as their blindness was caused by cataracts, and not a mental insufficiency). Now here is the question: how exactly does dual nature work? Can astral beings that have materialized shift their perception to the physical plane? Of course they are still Astrally active and can be affected as such, but can they view physical with physical perception.

This also brings up the issue of perception vs. assensing. Do you need both? Can you default? Or is assensing just for the reading of auras (like Aura Reading skill in SR3), not distances, object recognition, etc.

p. 92, Street Magic

Well that doesn't clarify anything. To quote:

All this says is that they cannot view VR or AR due to the lack of a nervous system. It does nothing to clarify exactly how they perceive the physical world, but instead mystifies it. I guess it can be said from the above that they see both simultaneously? They have Perception skill, so it seems as though they can see physical, but where do you draw the line between Perception/Assensing when they are on both sides of it?

Also there's the problem that this describes materialized spirits, not dual-natured beings.

Yes, they can read the streesigns. In theory. But if you don't tell it to do so and how, it will most likely not understand the concept of "streetsign".

True dual natured critters still see both astral and physical at the same time. I guess the confusion about this comes from the description of astral perception, which states that astrally percieving characters eitehr see one or the other and are considered dual natured while astrally percieving.
Note that they are considered dual natured, not actually dual natured. Also, the Dual Natured powers description is kind of whack and can be read as if they shift their perception like people with astral perception, or that they are even permanently locked in astral perception mode. Which would kind of totally suck.

I guess this can be the actual intent, but it would make beeing dual natured even more into a weakness.

That passage really annoys me. It demonstrates quite clearly the authors utter lack of understanding of what AR means in SR4. The author assumes that AR means a simsense overlay and then flat bans the use of all AR by spirits. He then goes on to half undo that mistake for possession spirits but it's only fluff text with no real crunch to it.

Or maybe spirits just lack the ability to grasp an abstract concept like AR. It's just too far away for them to understand it and thus use it. They might be able to use regular computers, poorly, but AR is something most people don't even get, let alone spirits. So, this passage does not annoy me at all.

Spirits don't even understand the physical world, how do you expect them to understand the concept of virtual additions layered on top the physical world.

It has the effect of banning Spirits from even seeing physical AR because the author clearly does not realize that physical AR exists.

A Possession Spirit is using exactly the same physical meat-sensors that the bodies original occupant used. It should have no problem using goggles and an AR glove, particularly if it has the relevant skills as an Ally or Task Spirit might.

I'm going to throw my hat in with this spirits unable to use AR being silly. A spirit's lake of familiarity with physical happenings would be a great way to justify incompetence for every single matrix skill. It is logical to thing that a spirit just wouldn't have any clue how to formulate a data search or hack a comlink. On the flip side basic navigation and general "threshold 0"computer checks should be doable for a logic 6 being that can read the local language (yes they don't exist, and even if they did you couldn't try if you were incompetent(computers)) . As it stands, if right now a F6 spirit is incapable of getting you a Diet Coke from a vending machine if that machine has an AR interface. This Logic 6 being that can read (spirits do get read anything the cast can correct?) can not figure out that to get a diet coke, you hit the huge glowing button that says diet coke. This seems silly. I think spirit aught to have some mechanic or at least an explicit bit of fluff to let them try. Random idea what about you lift the pilot rules and make the spirits make check whenever they have to do someone on a computer that they weren't explicitly told to do?

It has nothing to do with seeing. They sure can see it. They simply don't process/understand it. It makes no sense to them, just like there are things on the metaplanes that are for sure not understood by metahumans.

People tend to ignore that spirits are beeings (if they are beeing at all) from another reality. It should not be difficult to imagine that they might have trouble understanding our reality, like we might have trouble understanding theirs. There sure are aspects of the metaplanes every spirits knows, and understands, that are not even aknowledged by metahumans.

Why are we once again in author bash country? It's getting ridicioulous. Everytime someones lacks the basic imagination to explain some poorly worded passage to themselfs they start spouting nonsense like "the authors are stupid, don't now what they are talking about, blah, blah". What the hell?

Btw: AR never exists physically. It is always and ever virtual.

The relevant section of Street Magic regarding Spirit's perception is perfectly correct, as is the reference to the lack of recognizable sensory and neural structures to process visual (or even auditory) stimuli that are the standard in AR displays.

What the writer was explaining is that while materialized spirits do indeed have a physical presence this does not mean said presence comes equipped with a metahuman sensory apparatus or more importantly with an analog of a metahuman brain. Putting it another way spirits don't actually "see" or "hear", so much as they "astrally perceive" even when they are in the Physical plane. At which point it is important to reiterate that this astral sense is not vision as we know, though most magician's mind's process what they sense into a visual representation.

Hence, while most dual natured critters do indeed see overlaid sensory information collected from both their physical senses (including Enhanced senses) and their esoteric "astral sense", spirits always lack true physical senses to complement their astral senses.

This does indeed mean that most spirits are blind to AR and are unable to read street signs or computer screens.

I believe this is on my list of FAQs but until then feel free to take it or leave it.

So, explicitly, Spirits gain no additional senses when materialized?

They do not ever perceive mundane light at all.

What about possession Spirits?

Uh oh, Synner is going to bone himself with that interpretation of the rules regarding materialized spirits. Lead Developer or not, unless the whole rules-team sits together and cobbles an offical ruling clarifying that issue, I'm not going to apply that interpretation of him for my game. It sounds as silly as the SR 3-FAQ-ruling, where you could cast Invisibility on a wall and then cast spells on the people behind it, because now you suddenly saw them... And I do fear that some game developers may still think that this usage of Invisibility may be valid in SR 4.
Of course, F.A.Q.s only provide interpretations, not real rule clarifications, but still...

I read it a little different I guess...


Primarily. Not entirely.


So they see both worlds but the astral world being their native has the physical world superimposed over it. Things that are glaring to us, like a brightly colored ARO the size of a human head, are easily missed by spirits who would see lots of that, since living things are all brightly colored in astral space. Not to mention that this blending of the two 'visual' perceptions can be a bit daunting, Im sure. Since most things that are non-living have grey and drab appearance on the astral plane they may be able to make out someones brightly colored red ink on a whiteboard or a colorful computer screen in their office. But in a place where there is more abundant life, physical things will be less noticeable likely getting drowned out with the more vibrant and "natural" (to them) astral images.


But not fully impossible. In some circumstances, like possession specifically, it would be very possible.

So no datajacks or simsense rigs for your spirit or ally....yet.

Not unless they have a specific Power that grants them no - you will note that several spirits in Street Magic do have additional senses as Optional Powers Enhanced Senses.


No. They percieve astral shadows of all physical objects (p. 112-114 of Street Magic goes into more detail about what that entails), but, no, they do not normally percieve the visible spectrum as a metahuman would. Note: the astral shadow of a signpost (or book) will have astral shadows of the writing; it just won't convey meaning to the spirit (though a hand written note of particular importance might).


Same thing for possession spirits. A lot of people fail to understand that Possession spirits only puppet a physical vessel (they do not gain its knowledges, abilities, skills, or senses). Their ability to sense things works whether they're possessing a motorbike, a vase, or a human body because it is unrelated to actual physical sensory input.

The only exception to this is Inhabitating spirits of various sorts, which do gain access to metahuman (or other) senses by Merging with their hosts, effectively tapping the host's innate abilities.

And yes, this does make spirits less useful. It is intended to. And yeah, self-possession can be limiting.

As usual all of the above is unofficial until you see it in a FAQ or errata.

Now this applies for Astral Projecting (or manifesting) mages as well. So a mage could not read anything unless it was hand-written? They could probably read anything thats just letters though (not placed on a sign or paper, but 3 dimensional letters like on a store front).

Reading on the astral is covered by p. 112, Street Magic.


The text then goes on to explain that emotionally charged texts may have enough emotional resonance to be understood from the astral plane. Viewing a text on a screen or an AR display is always impossible though since it simply isn't percievable in astral space.


That is one of the reasons astral pigments were invented. The metahuman mind has the references to interpret human languages/symbols by drawing significance from the visible shapes of letters.

So, now I'm thinking, a TFT LCD backlit with a lucifer lamp...

Expensive but effective.

Thanks for all the replies, but I feel we are worrying far too much about whether spirits can view AR/VR. They CAN'T! Even if they could they wouldn't have the knowledge or skills (except Task spirits) to even comprehend what they see in AR/VR.

That said, can they view old style computer displays?

And do dual-natured entities (Dragons/Ghouls/Critters/No-longer including spirits in this) have to shift their perception between planes? Or do they view both at the same time?


Now this mostly answers my second question, but does this indeed mean that they don't need to shift perception between? How do you deal with the split between Assensing/Perception then? Since Assensing can be used in place of Perception to interact with Physical objects while on the Astral plane (but only to the limit of what can be perceived), why do most spirits have Perception as well?


So now in regards to spirits, some spirits are able to view the physical plane as a normal metahuman would, thus they can view AR and read a street sign.

To list them:

• Spirits of Beasts: Low-light vision
• Spirits of Man: Low-light vison, Thermographic vision
• Guidance Spirits: Optional: Low-light vision, Thermographic vision
• Inhabitation (Flesh or Hybrid form)

In fact, in Flesh form (not exactly sure of Hybrid form) the spirit can use the skills and body as if it were his own. I'm guessing that this also means he can interact with VR and AR (Hybrid may also be able to).

Also, now that we know there are only 4 spirits can actually view physical reality, why do they all have Percpetion?

Oversight?

No, I'm sure it was deliberate.

I am going to have to go with my own interp on this one. What Synner says sorta contradicts itself. If spirits don't see the real world when Materialized, as well as the astral (like dualnatured folks), then why the heck does every spirit have Perception as a skill? If every form in sensory input was entirely astral-based, even when materialized, they couldn't actually use the Perception skill.

His interp also messes with the RAW of the Search power. "The critter must have seen what it is searching for before; spirits may search out anything that their summoner provides them with a mental image of." It doesnt say the mage has to have assensed the object, place or person. If what Synner says is correct. A mage wouldn't be able to supply a mental image of something they hadn't assensed. If the mage hadn't seen it astrally, then the mundane image he sends to the spirit would be worthless.

How we handle this in my game is if someone is 'manifesting' then they see things just from the astral persepctive. If they are dual natured or materializing, then they see both astral and material perspectives equally.

Note that the perception skill is also the skill you use in astral space to notice things. So, the fact they have perception skills does not invalidate his point.

page 182 from SR 4th

"While astral perception allows an Awakened character to sense the astral plane, actually interpreting what is sensed takes practice. Interpreting auras to gain information about the person or thing to whom they belong is called assensing"

Sounds like assensing is used on the astral plane, not perception.

"Whenever you have to perform a physical, non-magical task (shooting a gun, driving a car, and so forth) while astrally perceiving, you suffer a –2 dice pool penalty."

pg. 182.

For dual natured beings I would give them of the choice of which realm they were concentrating on the -2 would apply for the other, but would rule it as always active.

If you rule it as they first and primarily Astrally perceiving then I would say they see the real world well enough, but are always at a -2 for interacting with it, but this dose not seem right to me.

From the 1.5 errata

"p. 287 Dual Natured [4]
Add the following line:
Dual Natured critters do not suffer the –2 dice pool modifer for interacting with the physical world while astrally perceiving.

Woops. My bad. I need to keep a better hand on the errata.

I guess dual natured just get to see both then.

Not really. Assensing is used to interpret auras. Perception is used to spot the auras in the first place to assense. So really, its perception first, and you find an aura, then, its assensing, to figure out what the hell you just saw. (Your friendly bound spirit, or a very alarmed watcher).

This was true in previous editions, however, I see no reason why is should be true now, when the Perception and Assensing have been split (with Perception as a skill test, not an Intelligence Test). I think this may be the way things should be, but I am not yet convinced that it is the way things are in SR4.

SR4, 117, "Gamemasters may call for Perception Tests for any situation that involves sight, hearing, smell, touch, or taste."

SR4, 182, "An actual test should only be called for when an astral being is specifically trying to hide, or when a character is trying to astrally observe in detail; in both these situations, an Assensing Test is made."

I retract my statement. Assensing is indeed the perception for astral perception. Perception is only good for the five senses we all(mostly) know and love. Thusly, there is no reason based on Synner's posts for most spirits to have a perception skill at all.

The list on p. 117 was not meant to be exclusive and didn't take into account a number of enhanced senses (that weren't available at the time) introduced in the advanced rulebooks including cyber and bio augmentations, certain adept powers, and perhaps SURGE traits many of which also play off the Perception Skill.


p.182 is up for errata and will likely read:
"An actual test should only be called for when an astral being is specifically trying to hide, in which case a Perception Test will suffice, or when a character is trying to astrally observe in detail in which case an Assensing Test is made."

The Perception skill should function regardless of what sense is being used. We are considering whether its worth adding the specialization "Astral" in the next errata..

The Assessing skill (per p.113) is "the skill of learning information from auras, astral forms and astral signatures." Note that it doesn't mention noticing them, and this fits right in with "While astral perception allows an Awakened character to sense the astral plane, actually interpreting what is sensed takes practice. Interpreting auras to gain information about the person or thing to whom they belong is called assensing " (p.182) - which in turn suggests the aura has already been detected/sensed somehow.

Could you add specialization Astral to Infiltration and Shadowing too?

The idea of adding the specialization to the aforementioned skill would be only to underscore the distinction being made in this thread. Equivalent Specializations to Infiltration and Shadowing are quite common house rules in my experience and they are something to consider in the future — I've certainly allowed them at my table.

*Double post*

Wait, so all the instances of spirits using technological devices to communicate, such as Buttercup using a telecom on visual, or Cinnamon using a telecom on visual, or staring at a trid, or whatever is pretty much gone?

That seems rather...wasteful.

Rather, Synner is applying a rule-interpretation that isn't doing well with the game world that has been described all the time. But fortunately, it's not official (for now).

And it makes the usefullness of task spirits next to nothing. Since half the technical skills require being able to fully percieve realworld. Synners interp, as it stands simply invalidates so many past fiction references to spirit/ tech interactions.

You seem to have missed the part where I noted that spirits with a Power that grants them an Enhanced Sense can have physical senses (or their analogs)- since Allies and Free Spirits can pick these up all those examples are still perfectly viable.

*Double post*

Ok, so how does your interpretation interact with the Search power? And if you will be adding yet another Errata to change the rule to work the way you see it. Does this mean that a mage has to assense an object, place or person, before sending said mental image to the spirit. If so, any mystic adept that doesn't have the astral perception power would never be able have a spirit use the Search power.

Synner, doesen't it seem odd that a spirit would have an ENHANCED sense to have the sense at all? Doesen't the critter section assume that all critters have senses equivalent to a human unless otherwise noted? (such as weakness: blindness)

Actually it assumes most critters have sensing organs of some sort and their body's aren't made from materialized ectoplasm or a possessed vase—which is not the case of spirits. You may also note, that the section specifically distinguishes Spirits from Paracritters and Dracoforms.


The mage sends a mental image and that is enough for the spirit to do understand what it is looking for, just like a Chinese wujen's spirit of the air that a Caribbean houngan just snatched control of [banished and (re)summoned] understands his mental commands even though its original summoner commanded it in Cantonese.

Seriously though, the ruling is under discussion at the dev level because it came up with regards to one of the books we're releasing., but it's something that will be clarifed. It's by no means binding until you see clarification in a FAQ or errata. I've come forward with my thoughts on the matter. They may or may not change before publication, so feel free to interpret them as you like.

Meanwhile that's the last of the rules discussion on this subject from me until things are finalized.

Okies, so how about some rules discussion about PC dragons then?
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?s=&a...st&p=660618

To further muddy the waters, I just found this in the FAQ...



Which seems to make todays interpretation more of a rules alteration than a clarification.