Ok so our group generally does all kinds of high end runs, so there is pretty much always at least a single mage, and a handful of spirits involved. Now the character I have built is an infiltration specialist adept with high perception, and masking to boot. The problem is if I am trying to sneak down a hallway and there is a force five spirit camping in the hallway in the astral am I just boned? I was wondering if I tried to take astral perception (granted it is one point of magic or initiating) if I can flip quickly over into the astral can I see the spirit and then actually get an infiltration roll against the spirit? Does a spirit when using assensing have 360 degree sight or is there a way to try to sneak past it when it's not looking? Does a mage have a field of vision when assensing that is the way he normally perceives or is 180-360? How exactly does assensing work I guess, since the rules are very vague on how you are able to assense and what it actually entails. I personally think that if an adept takes astral perception, and sinks points into assensing and masking that (s)he should be able to try and infiltrate against spirits. Note the character also has masking so would it force the spirit to make two rolls against the character or is that also bunk? One roll against the infiltration and one to break the masking. Now on the other hand if the spirit knows that there is no lamp shade in the hallway that is a different story but one I really don't want to get into right now.

Onto concealment. Now concealment talks about how it gives you a minus to perception, but that is it. So does it also grant a minus to shooting at someone who is concealed? For instance you are sporting a force six conceal on yourself and the security guard is not too shabby and actually has seven dice for perception. The guard is lucky and gets a single hit and thus spots your character trying to get into the facility. Now the guard has 8 dice for shooting at you (6 normally and + 2 for smartlink) now when you are under conceal it only talks about taking a minus to perception, but in the end does the guard who spots the runner only roll 2 dice when shooting because you are really hard to see? Additionally the Chameleon Suit only states that it gives a -4 to perception tests when trying to look at it. Does this penalty apply when trying to shoot at someone? The problem I see is that if you have a force six conceal and a Chameleon Suit you already give them a -10 to shoot at someone, but then giving someone a -10 to shoot at them seems a little nuts. At that point elite specialists will take shots at you and get 2-4 dice probably 6 tops if they can even see you (I chose a force 6 spirit, because it will give you the same penalty as blind firing.) Is this fair? Does it only actually affect perception and not shooting?

If someone could please help me or at least give me their 2 cents it would help a lot.

Concealment & invisibility are both all-or-nothing. If he gets a hit on his perception, he sees you, if not, he gets the blind-fire penalty. So at worst, a -6 penalty. Not counting cover or other possible modifiers.

They would get the -6 penalty if someone else spots the runner and tells the person who can't see the runner to open fire then right? That or else they do not just get to fire on the runner. At the same time if it says it affects your perception then it affects all forms of perception? Putting on a Chameleon suit makes you not just harder to see but to hear, touch, and smell as well?

Infiltration works on the astral the same way it would on the mundane.

Astral Sense, assensing, is a new different sense, not simply vision on the astral plane, It may very well be 360 degrees, like your hearing.

You would not need astral sight to have infiltration work against assensing people.

Concealment works against people trying to find you in the first place. Once perceived, the modifiers for concealment would no longer apply to subsequent actions against you.

Even though you can't see the spirit on the astral you can still sneak past them w/o investing points in astral perception? I am also referring to spirits and not just people. The problem is assensing is not clearly defined so how are you able to use it. Do you need LOS against a target to see their aura and read it, and what then becomes sight when on the astral? When casting a spell on the astral all spells are LOS so what the hell is LOS on the astral? Do humans and spirits have the same tunnel vision when it comes to assensing if we are to deal with it if you visually perceive on the astral the same way as the physical?

Thanks for the posts guys.

Concealment modifiers affect Perception Tests.

Cover modifiers affect Combat tests.

Target Hidden is a combat modifier.

Astral Sense is a new completely different sense. It is a Sixth sense. Note that a blind mundane who is awakened can perceive astrally. To simulate this you may want to think about your other senses, such as hearing, or touch. Imagine astral "sight" as something that is a combination of these senses. It may very well be 360 degrees, yet not allow you to read. It's an extra different sense, that behaves differently.

For game purposes this gives you a lot of freedom in how you describe it.

Mechanically, you use the same dice pools, test and modifiers for Perception.

Even for Visual Perception test you may note that in the rules there is nothing about modifiers for perception test because you as a human have binolcular vision by default. There's no need to extend this added on stuff to astral perception either.

You may want to read p. 182 on Astral Perception.

I did. It was vague. I would like to have a clearer answer, since assensing has to do with not only spotting people, but reading their auras. It means that if they can read your aura w/o actually needing to see you then the minute you are felt, or seen, or whatever by a spirit when you are infiltrating the game is over. When dealing with it like perception then it means you can get someones aura, intent, if they have cyberware just by (in a sense) astrally "hearing" them. If you don't have masking and you try to infiltrate wouldn't a spirit just know where you are instantly? Rolls 12 dice and gets a hit when you are 40 ft away from them even if they are not staring in your direction. On the one hand if you get a 360 degree feeling it makes a mage trying to ambush you when you first peek into the astral that much harder, but on the other it means physical infiltration is almost impossible if a force 4+ spirit is involved. Physical skills don't really apply to the astral so if you are infiltrating on the physical (w/o being able to see the spirit in the first place) it doesn't seem all that likely that you will be able to fool a spirit when it tries to assense you.

I am asking the question(s), because in this situation I feel it has importance to know which way it will go.

I run it differently than the others above: astral perception overlays the field of vision similar to thermographic vision. That way, spirits don't get to test if you're creeping up behind them because they can astrally "feel" your approach. Only if they're facing you do they get to test. I realize that it's somewhat against the way astral perception is defined, but I do my best to make sure that the other types of senses that a person can get from the astral are also available (e.g., tactile sensations, smells, even senses). But, each of those additional, astral sensations are described and limited like their physical counterparts. Thus, an astral smell couldn't be detected if the source of the smell is far away or in a different room or something very much like you don't always smell the problem until you open the refrigerator door

Regardless, since, as you say, the information about astral perception is (intentionally) vague, that's the way I've always done it.

As for reading people's auras, that's a specific use of the assensing test and would be rolled separately. I don't give people information from the assensing table unless they've specifically assensed a target in addition to perceiving them. Similar to how someone could perceive a conversation across the room and then roll a second test to try and specifically listen in to that conversation to the exclusion of others (assuming they don't have a sound filter, of course).

As has been stated astral perception is not the same as vision, although it is frequently described using the same terms for simplicities sake.

However, perception on the astral plane is still affected by mundane objects. They are insubstantial, but continue to provide an obstacle to 'LOS'. That is to say that if you are on the opposite side of a wall from an astral spirit, it will not perceive you or your aura because the wall is between it and you. It would be simple for the spirit to pass through the wall, which is entirely insubstantial on the astral, and remove the obstacle from it's LOS.

As astral perception is not visual, the dice pool is not affected by chameleon suits or other visual camouflage. Similarly if you had some piece of kit that would prevent you releasing odour, reducing the chance of tripping olfactory sensors, this would not affect astral perception any more than it would visual perception.

There are no rules on how to avoid being spotted by something you don't know is there, since part of infiltration is, IMO, knowing when to hide, and when to move quietly. Consider trying to sneak into a facility when you don't know where the sensors are. You have no way of knowing how not to set them off. You'd have to ask your GM for this. If your adept had astral perception it would probably make it easier to avoid inadvertently running into a spirit, and actually allow an infiltration check.

Masking disguises your aura as that of a mundane, and similarly hides your emotions, but it does not hide your aura. An analogy would be a book written in code. You could see that there was a book there, but reading it would be hard. Of course, since the mage has to give a command to his spirit so it knows what to recognise as an intruder it might only be interested in magical auras. The alternative is to introduce the spirit to each guard and tell it that those auras are not targets.

In the circumstance you have suggested I would probably have the spirit try and assense your aura against the infiltration threshold and the masking threshold. If it penetrates your aura and realises you're magical or afraid of being spotted then it'll raise the alert, otherwise it ignores you as you're likely a guard, and at worst a mundane threat to be dealt with by the mundane guards. Remember that the chameleon suit and other visual camouflage doesn't affect the spirit's assensing dice pool, as it would affect the visual perception test of a guard.

Perception test and the Assensing Test are two separate items in this case.

In order to do the assensing table you would first do a Perception Test, using astral sense, with the Infiltration test as opposed.

Next you can do a Assensing test with hits going against the assensing table.

If I wanted to use a cyberware scanner against a Infiltrating target, first I would do a Perception Test to see the target, then I would use the scanner test against the target to check for what kind of target.

If I wanted to shoot an infiltrating target, I would first do perception, then a combat test.

I need to see you first, in order to then get mroe detail on the next bit, like determining your eye colors. First I would need to see eyes.

The assensing test for aura reading is not necassarily the same as the perception test to see auras to begin with.

So you did read this paragraph..

"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. A magician
who wishes to learn more about an aura must make an
Intuition + Assensing test, with the number of hits determining
how much the magician learns, as outlined on the Assensing
Table (p. 183). Without attempting to read an aura, a magician
can still get an impression of what type of aura it is (spell, spirit,
living creature, etc.)."

The magician can tell the aura is there, then they do the assensing test. This uses the assensing table for results.

And you read.

"Like physical perception, a character using astral perception
should not need to make a test to see things that are immediately
obvious (and since astral forms are bright and vibrant
this means that most astral forms are easily noticed). An actual
test should only be called for when an astral being is specifi cally
trying to hide, or when a character is trying to astrally observe
in detail; in both these situations, an Assensing Test is made."

From this I understand that an Assensing Test is made in order to detect the character trying to hide.

Thanks DireRadiant this is what I was trying to point out to my GM, but the opposing view is - How can you infiltrate or hide when you have no idea where the spirits are. It was a valid point. My question really hinges on if you don't have astral perception can a character really have a chance of skirting around spirits. Do you take a large penalty, or am I going to have to suck it up and spend a point of magic on assensing?

Infiltration will help, it's just a question of how much of a difference it will make. Consider a non-astral example: You are up in a tree, and completely invisible, by some magic. Two people are going to attempt to sneak past you. The first is a Mr. Stealthy McNinja, the other person is just Joe Average. Obviously, McNinja has a much, much better chance of sneaking past you than Joe does, even though you are completely invisible and McNinja has no possible way of knowing where you are, and that is due to McNinja having a higher Infiltration pool than Joe does. I think it's clear that Infiltration skill still matters, and thus should still be rolled. Of course, McNinja would have a much easier time sneaking past you if you were not invisible, so it's really only a question of how much. I can't, off the top of my head, think of an exact rule that covers this, so I'd probably throw a -4 out there and call it good. If someone could find a rule and point to it, I'd use that instead.

Mundane Infiltration should work against assensing.

There is a person hiding behind, oh let's say the Empire State Building. If that person gouges their eyes out, can you suddenly see them?

Mundane Infiltration should work against assensing, but a mundane should get dice modifiers when trying to sneak past someone he doesn't know is there. When sneaking past the physical, mundane guard shack, he can listen for the guard's movements and know to duck behind the copier when the guard gets up to take a leak. If the guard were effectively invisible to him, Mr McSneaky wouldn't know when to duck.

You are perfectly free to adjust and add modifiers as you see fit to any test. The "guard peeing" modifier on infiltration test is not in the rule book. The ability to add modifiers to any test by the GM is. So go for it. Have fun.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for penalties to be imposed on the infiltration test if the PC attempting has no knowledge of the sixth world. If the PC is awakened themselves, or had an appropriate knowledge or background skill, then I wouldn't impose a penalty. That's up to me as a GM under the impose bonus or penalty modifiers as the GM see fit rule.

You can also look at the fact that Awakened characters astrally perceiving take penalties of -2 dice when attempting purely mundane actions on the physical plane. It seems entirely reasonable that a similar penalty might apply in the other direction. But it's not a specific rule or modifier.

I am only stating there is no such specific penalty in the rule book. I haven't said that the penalty can't or shouldn't be imposed, that's up to the GM and players of that game to decide.

Your game, your rules, have fun.