This came from the datajack thread. heres the quotes for discussion:

I think that this would really come down to the GM's Decision. If he did not care about the power of mages in his campaign he may rule that this would be allowed. Remember there is a reason mages cannot target people through or around walls. Even the Ocular Orb cyberware will allow a mage to target while its inside his head but the second it comes out it becomes unable to target for spells. This gives me the impression that targetting for mages is a game balancing issue that should be considered carefully.

If it's replacing natural or cyber-visual input via an implant, then, yes it can be used in the same way as cybereyes can be used by a mage. But if it's used in conjunction with regular or cyber-vision, then I'd say no.

Line of Sight is exactly that - you must be able to see your target.


Echolocation uses sensory organs or technology to receive & interpret information from audio waves. It has nothing to do with vision, and thus cannot provide Line of Sight.

Tsithlis, ultrasound doesn't let you see through walls. So what problem do you have with it?

Wesley Street, so you'd let someone get the Radar cyberware as a replacement to normal vision, and let mages cast through walls?

SR4, 173, "Step 3: Choose the Target(s)
The next thing a magician must do when casting a spell is
choose her target(s). A spellcaster can target anyone or anything
she can see directly with her natural vision. Physical cyber- or
bio-enhancements paid for with Essence can be used to spot
targets, but any technological visual aids that substitute themselves
for the character’s own visual senses—cameras, electronic
binoculars, Matrix feeds, etc.—cannot be used."

Except the book says that enhancements paid for with essence can be used, but tech aids that substitute cannot.

& how does that have anything to do with this? In context with the paragraph it is from, enhancements are referring to visual augmentation.

You cannot use your cyber-ears to target a spell.
You cannot use olfactory boosters to target a spell.
You cannot use Echolocation to target a spell.
None of the above are visual.

If it was a physical spell (and if I'm understanding the RAW [I don't have the BBB and Street Magic in front of me so I'm going on memory]), no. Because you would be casting through an object. Though you could blow a hole through the object in front of the target using a barrier test. But if it was a mana spell, yes.

You are not understanding RAW. RAW requires you to visually see the target. To be able to see your target, your visual perceptive organs (eyes) must receive light reflected by the target. Radar does not pick up or interpret light, and thus is not visual, and thus cannot be used to target Line of Sight spells.

I don't remember anything in the RAW about reflected light being a requirement for "seeing". If that were true then a mage couldn't use thermovision in cybereyes.

EDIT: Or a troll mage using only thermovision couldn't cast in a cave.

Because, echolocation can function as a true ultrasound system. Which overlays or replaces vision. It also has its own vision modifiers. How is it NOT a vision modification?



Only indirect combat spells actually have a physical presence as they travel from the caster to the target. Powerbolt for example doesn't come out of the magician and fly into the target, it merely affects the target.

Sorry I was thinking of Echolocation which I believe does allow you to see through things if I remember right

You were thinking of radar. Echolocation varies from you can avoid objects clarity, to being as good as ultrasound, but not seeing through things.

I stand corrected. Then, yes, a physical spell could be used.

EDIT: Duh. Brainfart on my part.

You just answered it yourself.

Echolocation isn't a form of vision at all. The very first sentence of the description for Echolocation in Augmentation (p. 63) even tells you this. It's a form of sound analysis and it even puts the word vision in quotations because it's not vision, but is used that way merely as a descriptor. It's even a combination of a vocal implant and an auditory implant. There's nothing sight-based about it.

By your own admission in the above quote, it wouldn't work even if it was vision based because it "overlays or replaces vision." That's why a pair of sunglasses with vision mods don't work for spellcasting either.

Except, that with echolocation, it is not a technological aid, its an organ(s), and isn't covered in that sentence.

RAW requires you to have Line of Sight. To have Line of Sight, you must be able to see your target. The definition of "seeing" is for you to pick up & interpret light with sensory organs.

Light is the frequencies of Electromagnetic Radiation visible by the human eye. Metahumans are, genetically, human. Infrared Radiation (what is seen with Thermographic vision), is Electromagnetic Radiation, next to Visible Light in frequency.

As Infrared can (now) be received & interpreted by the (meta)human eye, it is visible light, & can be used to target spells.

Raw requires: SR4, 173, "Step 3: Choose the Target(s)
The next thing a magician must do when casting a spell is
choose her target(s). A spellcaster can target anyone or anything
she can see directly with her natural vision. Physical cyber- or
bio-enhancements paid for with Essence can be used to spot
targets, but any technological visual aids that substitute themselves
for the character’s own visual senses—cameras, electronic
binoculars, Matrix feeds, etc.—cannot be used."

If I am a mage, and I want to cast on someone 3 feet in front of me, I can look at them and cast.

If I close my eyes, but use my echolocation (as good as utlrasound style) why does that not fall under the bio enhancement paid for with essence to spot?

Way to skip the entirity of my reply. Is this the new form of discussion? Dismiss everything that proves you completely and utterly wrong?

The description for Echolocation specifically states that it's not a form of vision and only uses words like "image" as a descriptor. It's an auditory/vocal modification, not a vision modification. Natural or technological it doesn't make one iota of difference. It's an ACOUSTIC SENSE (Aug p. 63), not a visual sense. You're completely and utterly wrong here.

And the radiowaves in radar used are also electromagnetic radiation. Why can't they be used?

The description for Echolocation is for having only echolocation. Once combined with the a vocal range enhancer and hearing enhancement, it functions like a true ultrasound system, and is thusly a method to use to see things. And would suffer the same vision mods as using ultrasound vision would. How is it not a visual enhancement?

Are you truly this daft?

"Well, you see, if you add a vocal range enhancer and hearing enchancement, it TOTALLY stops being an auditory sense and, somehow that I'm totally not going to explain because it's completely retarded to even conceive, it becomes a visual sense! Despite, you know, everything in its description saying the opposite. But I'mma ignore all that."

Is that really the brunt of your argument here? Really?

sadly, it seems, aside from ritual castings, spell-targeting has to be optical.
cyber/bio-Optics work because they are still utilizing optical means, nothing electronical or non-optical means . .
mage-sight-system uses fibre optic cables to let a mage cast through an entire building, but it is still optical, as in seeing things . .
as for the troll, am i reading it right that the troll ain't using any other visual perception than thermographic view?
trolls can't switch optical/thermographic view on and off as they desire, both of those are allways on . . and the mage with the cyber-eyes?
i don't think it's mentioned ANYWHERE that one can switch off optical means aside from lowlight, thermographic view, and eye light and the ultra-sound . .
there's no mention of you being able to use your eyes only with thermo-view . .

It says it functions like a true ultrasound system. referencing, SR4, 324. "Ultrasound: The ultrasound accessory consists of an emitter
that sends out continuous ultrasonic pulses and a receiver
that picks up the echoes of these pulses to create a topographic
ultrasound “map� that is laid over (or replaces) the user’s normal
visual sensory input. While ultrasound vision is perfect
to “see� textures, calculate exact distances, and pick up things
otherwise invisible to the naked eye (like people cloaked by an
Invisibility spell), it is less adept at other tasks like perceiving
colors and brightness. It cannot penetrate materials like glass
that would be transparent to optical sensors."
Emphasis mine.

So yes, once you get the rest of it, it stops being auditory, and turns into a visual sense. Because thats what the books say. It also will start using the VISION modifiers table for ultrasound.

You can switch between view modes with cybereyes. And you can cast with cybereyes. So a human with cybereyes and thermo vision could turn off normal light, and cast only using the thermoview in a cave just fine.

but thermooptical is still optical . . infredead is still a wavelength of light . . which sound just isn't . . you can't target using spells with the thermo-rezeptor bioware either, because you don't actually SEE . .

IR is not light. UV is not light. They are forms of radiation. Light by its very definition is radiation that is visible. If a (meta)human brain is capable of processing IR as "sight" which is outside the classical visible light spectrum it isn't much of a stretch to think that a metahuman brain could interpret microwave or radio waves (moving down the electromagnetic spectrum) or ultraviolet or x-rays (moving up the electromagnetic spectrum) as "sight".

A radar detects bounced radio waves as natural human eyes detect bounced visual light. The catch is our natural eyes and our brains don't have the capability to detect or interpret radio waves. They're too low frequency. According to the Shadowrun universe with digital cybereyes and whatnot, with implants that replace the eyeballs and visual processing centers of the brain, they could.

EDIT: Ergo, if a brain is capable of interpreting what it was not biologically designed to interpret as light there's no reason it couldn't be tricked into perceiving sound as light.

But it is its own vision. And the requirement is seeing the person, with your vision, including any bio or cyber augmentations to it. Excluding technological visual aids. Echolocation isn't technological, but is still a paid for with essence bio enhancement for vision.

Too bad such a thing doesn't exist in Shadowrun.

Everything about Echolocation is auditory and vocal in nature. Everything. There is nothing vision based about it except for words to describe the experience and to save space on rules (such as Perception mods). Even ultrasound vision, the cybereye version, simply takes the sound-based data and paints a picture of it over your line of sight. The sense itself is not visual whatsoever.

It's just flat out stupid to think otherwise. Especially when the rules make it abundantly clear. Again, Augmentation page 63.

If solely using Echolocation doesn't work as "sight" then neither do cybereyes because they aren't "sight" either. They're not masses of rods and cones, they're little cameras hooked into a brain. And if cybereyes don't work then the whole damn thing falls apart.

If the rules were abundantly clear they wouldn't be open to interpretation and we wouldn't be having this discussion. Damn those writers for saving space and skimping out on clarification.

Except, you know, that optical versions are available, and that optical modifications work just fine for line of sight. By that ridiculous statement, a pair of normal binoculors don't work either since they don't have rods and cones. Hell, even a pair of reading glasses render you unable to cast spells because they don't use rods and cones either.

Look at this way. You can have your eyes (cyber or not) and every optical nerve in your brain literally plucked from your skull and it would have -zero- impact on Echolocation. Still going to argue that it's a form of sight? Are you really going to go there?

Emphasis mine.

Once again, Line of Sight requires you to receive Visible Light with your eyes. Visible Light is Electromagnetic Radiation that can be picked up & interpreted by (meta)human eyes.

Audio waves, which is what Ultrasound/Echolocation requires to function, is not part of the Electromagnetic Spectrum. Yes, radio waves are, but (meta)human's cannot interpret them with their eyes, so they cannot be used for spell targeting; as soon as a Troll or Elf develops the ability to receive/interpret radio waves with their eyes, it can be used, but somehow I do not think this is going to happen anytime soon (note: cyber/bio replacements/enhancements, although can be used as, are not metahuman eyes, and so do not count for determining what is classified as "Visible Light").

SR4, 324, "While ultrasound vision". It is visual, the book says so, no quotes, no anything else.



How would you "optically" replace someones eyes? You take out their eyeballs, and replace it with........ what? You can't "optically" replace a retina. Unless you're talking about a cybereye with a retina inside it.

The problem is that it doesn't say optical mods work, but rather that technological ones don't. Echolocation is not a technological modification, so it should work, because it modifies your vision.

P. 64 Augmentation
"If combined with the vocal range enhancer (p. 67) and
hearing enhancement (p. 65) implants (or their cyberware equivalents),
with a little training this augmentation functions like a true
ultrasound system (p. 324, SR4)."


P. 324 Ultrasound: Th e ultrasound accessory consists of an emitter
that sends out continuous ultrasonic pulses and a receiver
that picks up the echoes of these pulses to create a topographic
ultrasound “map� that is laid over (or replaces) the user's normal
visual sensory input. While ultrasound vision is perfect
to “see� textures, calculate exact distances, and pick up things
otherwise invisible to the naked eye (like people cloaked by an
Invisibility spell), it is less adept at other tasks like perceiving
colors and brightness. It cannot penetrate materials like glass
that would be transparent to optical sensors.
The ultrasound sensor can be set to a passive mode, in
which it does not emit ultrasonic pulses but still picks up
ultrasound from outside sources (such as motion sensors or
someone else’s ultrasound sensors on active mode)

If you are speaking of cyber-eye Ultrasound, you are correct with it not being vision. It is audio information turned into a digital image overlay.

If you are speaking of normal "vision", yes, it is sight. Camera's in the implant pick up visual Electromagnetic Radiation, interpret it, and transmit it to your brain's optical center. As they are not (meta)human eyes, what they pick up cannot be used to classify what is considered "Visible Light", but the rules make it quite clear that they function as metahuman eyes, and when paid for with Essence, can be used for spell targeting.

Spell targeting still requires you to see the target, which requires visible light, which is based off what a (meta)human can naturally pick up from the electromagnetic spectrum, so even if your cybernetic eyes have radar, you cannot use it for spell targeting until some Dwarf develops the ability naturally, at which point it becomes a viable tactic.


EDIT:
What fucking part about this do you not understand? Ultrasound is an AUDIO sense. It's data is picked up by an AUDIO receiver, which then maps it out as a digital visual overlay.

Having Echolocation allows you to emit & receive the audio waves in such a way that you do not need the visual overlay to interpret it. If you are using the visual overlay, it is akin to looking at a map - you are seeing a COPY of the data, formatted in such a way as to allow you to view it.

No, what's ridiculous is to argue how a person perceives a target in the visual center of his brain is "right" or "wrong." It just is what it is.

According to the rules, you can't stick something to your face and have it enhance your spell casting (binoculars, glasses, whatever). But you can replace what gives you vision with an artificial organ and it works. If your vision comes from radar, UV, IR/thermo, traditional visual light or sound, it doesn't matter. Because it's still vision. What you seem incapable of wrapping your mind around is that it's theoretically possible to divert audio receptors into the visual cortex. It's not that big of a leap.

This is the line of thought I'm not understanding. A metahuman has to naturally be able to see something to see it for magical targeting? Does that mean a human relying on thermo-optic implant vision in a cave can't target a spell?

Emphasis changed.

Hell, that quote even drives the point home even more since Invisibility is a spell that specifically and unquestionably defeats visual perception. Ultrasound vision, despite the name, is not a visual sense and Echolocation specifically states this about itself. The cyberware version takes the auditory data and paints it in your line of sight for you. Just like an image link. It is completely artificial visual data. And Echolocation only refers to it for the rules, not for what it is; an acoustic sense that grants spatial perception (Augmentation p. 63; YET AGAIN).

And, also again, what kind of an insane argument is it to say that adding a vocal mod and a hearing mod somehow turns something into a visual mod? Come on. Use some common sense.

If you manage to divert your audio receptors into you visual cortex, you will then be able to interpret sound the same way as you do vision - that does not make it vision - it only makes it interpreted in the same manner as vision.

How many times do I need to say this? Vision requires Electromagnetic Radiation. Further, it requires that radiation to be classified as Visible Light, which then requires a (meta)human to naturally be capable of receiving that wavelength of radiation via their eyes.

No. What it means is that to qualify as "Vision", it must be part of the "Visible Light" spectrum of Electromagnetic Radiation.

Cybernetic eye replacement/augmentation function as if they where a (meta)human's eyes - that does not make them a (meta)human's eyes. What it does mean, however, is that any Visual Light that they receive can be used for spell targeting. What it does not mean is that they are capable of receiving is used to determine what Visual Light is.

Visual Light is defined as Electromagnetic Radiation of a frequency that a Human is capable of receiving & interpreting with their eyes. Metahumans are, genetically, Human, and so are included for defining what Visual Light is, which then means that, in Shadowrun, Infrared Radiation is Visible Light, and can be used for spell targeting. While that can be considered an assumption, as far as I am aware, it is fully supported by rules & fluff, and so is cannon.

What this means is that audio waves, not being electromagnetic radiation, can never be used for Line of Sight spell targeting. Further, if a metahuman ever naturally develops the ability to "see" other electromagnetic wavelengths, such as Radio Waves (radar), then from that point on, such "vision" can be used for spell targeting. Until someone develops that ability, the other wavelengths cannot be used for spell targeting.


And I am done with this retarded discussion. Dr Funk & myself have clearly shown why Ultrasound cannot be used for spell targeting. If you still are incapable of comprehending this, go right ahead and use whatever the fuck you want. Just do not expect it to use it in any official game.

Microphones's in the implant pick up audio reflections, interpret it, and transmit it to your brain's optical center. As they are not (meta)human eyes, what they pick up cannot be used to classify what is considered "Visible Light", but the rules make it quite clear that they function as metahuman eyes, and when paid for with Essence, can be used for spell targeting.

Here...

Using this philosophy, people with synestasia should be able to target people via smell, because their screwed up nervouse pathways transmit the information to the brain's optical center.

And here...

The sum from that discussion that i could gather was, radar and ultrasound cyberware doesn't work because its technological. So why doesn't echolocation bioware (and associated mods) work? Its not technological, its biological.

Edit: Here we go, from the horses mouth:



Which... echolocation + vocal range extender + enhanced hearing = biological ultrasound and thus cannot be computer generated, and thusly could be a link for spellcasting yes?

So, again, why can't you target someone with hearing? It's natural and not computer generated, so thusly could be a link for spellcasting yes?

Same exact argument.

With ultrasound vision, as it specifies that it functions like the implant. Which is able to overlay or replace vision. Somehow, the echolocation bioware magically turns it from "hearing" into seeing.

IT isn't about it being tech or bio, it's about it being sound and not vision...

Then why does biological echolocation state that it works as ultrasound cyberware, which is vision. If it is not vision, it should state that it works as the cyberware, but is not vision. It needs to state that, because the ultrasound vision section it references says that it overlays/replaces vision.