I'm picturing doing it over concrete, as opposed to say an open field with grass, and mice and the like. You'd be less noticeable in the second one, but I'm pretty sure telling a meta human aura apart from grass is really easy for anyone with assensing.

I've always thought of grass and shrubbery as nice when it comes to hiding from astral searches.

Actually, the best spell you can have for hiding from astral view is ... (The envelope, please) ... mana static.

Background count directly reduces astral visibility. So, crawling through grass in the middle of a background count would make you practically invisible on the astral. (Particularly versus spirits, who lose their force from the background count, and then suffer visibility mods.) Fortuately, many corp facilities come with their own built-in background count, which makes it easier to hide from astral eyes.

If they actually succeed in making their Perception test ... or you fail in making your Infiltration test. The whole point is that you still get to make the attempt. Situational modifiers apply, but they don't mean that you automatically fail without even making a test.

The only kicker is if you are going to apply dice pool penalties to the sneaky dude in question do you have to have him roll twice? Once for real life modifiers and the other for astral modifiers? Or should you just factor it all in as a bonus to the perceiver?

Just to keep things crystal clear here, the only way to pull off astral stealth is:

1. Infiltration (What kind of modifiers should apply other then astral visibility mods? Should people who cannot astrally perceive have some special penalty?)

2. Mind effecting invisibility spells that must be researched, found, or otherwise acquired.

3. Don't let them have LoS (Behind walls, in a cardboard box ala Metal Gear, or wear a portable shower curtain ala Karate Kid)

No, you get to make the test, just don't expect any camo to help you, and they a +2 dice cause you are so brightly colored.

You keep mentioning camouflage and the like, but I have never made any claims about that kind of thing actually helping in this situation. All I have been saying all along is that Infiltration is quite possible on the Astral, even if there is LOS between the person hiding and the observer.

If this video hadn't already been forwarded through the depths of the internet and back, it might have added something to the discussion. On the off chance that someone here hasn't seen it, I'm throwing the link up anyway.

Camouflage adds neither penalties nor bonuses. There would be situational penalties, and if you're trying to hide astrally in an area with low magic and little life, there will be a penalty for that (just like there will be a bonus for hiding among grass and mice).


Since I run SR3, it's not hard to increase or decrease the results of the open test based on whether the fellow can actually see the astral or not. I assume someone with a 6 in stealth understands the concepts of hiding on the astral, since it's actually fairly straightforward, so the modifier would probably be between -2 and -4.

In my mind, the biggest challenge that mundanes would have with stealthing on the astral is that they have no way of knowing when their opposition is looking. On the mundane plane, they can listen for the guard approaching and duck behind the copier. On the astral plane, the mundane guy wouldn't know when to duck. That's not really covered by the rules, though.