Now we're getting somewhere. You can also always see the inside of your own eyelids. So, you always have LOS to yourself.

But if you close your eyes, theres no/little light, so you'd need to cast at the correct vision penalty.

Close 1 eye then.

On a side note. If you take the meta magics channeling, and masking if you possess yourself with a spirit can you still mask yourself? The spirit has your signature and you are both sharing the same body, so can you mask your signature?

The eye which you're using to see the inside of your eyelid with has little to no light and would take the penalty. Your other eye can't see its eyelid, because it isn't closed.

It is not about whether you can see yourself. Since the first edition came out, everybody I know has always played that a LOS spell can also be cast under the more restrictive Touch conditions. And you are always touching yourself.

Some are touch, and some are LOS. The point is that you must know where your target is. You must be able to precisely place him in relation to yourself. Technology between you and the target, like a viewscreen, interrupts this knowledge of your target. So since you always know where you are in relation to yourself, you can always target yourself. I don't think this is supported directly by the rules, but it stands to reason, IMO.

You can cast powerball with yourself as the only legal target because you don't actually target an area, you target the people within a certain area.

Oops, the book says you "target a point in space," for area spells (p.173) This sounds dumb to me. How do you target a point? A spot on the floor? You certainly can't see a portion of the air. And if you have to have LOS on the people in that area, why aren't you just targeting them?

I would also like to rule that LOS spells can be cast in total darkness, by touch. But this would cause trouble for many players. You would have to have some knowledge of your target. You wake up blindfolded. You hear footsteps coming near. You reach out your hand and connect with a person - powerbolt! Um, no. Maybe you get a penalty, on par with cover. You're fighting with a guy, and the lights go out. Powerbolt suddenly becomes a touch spell. Yes. This is all so "judgement call" that I don't think most players would go for it.

I'm not convinced your not trolling with some of this stuff.

I mean really? Can you see/target air? Can you astrally perceive air? Vision penalties for casting light in total darkness? The effect of casting powerbolt centered behind your eyelids? I mean, really? These kind of question come up in your games? Or are you just being pedantic and arguing about rules because you some how enjoy it?

I mean the proper GM response when a player come up with some kind of BS like "I cast powerbolt with one eye closed so as to deny LOS to my allies and not include them in the area of effect" is to hit the offending player upside the head with a book. Or if your GM is some how giving you vision penalties for targeting air or darkness, HE needs a book upside the head.

I find the rules governing magical targeting to be incredibly simple, and logical (in there own way). You can only target what you can see, and (for target spells) you must target the entirety of an object. Take these two principles plus a small teaspoon of common sense and you shouldn't have any problems.

I mean really. If you brought up that BS about 'how can you target air' for the purify air spell at my table, you would deserve the dice and other odd objects that would get thrown at you.

---

But I'll humor you and pretend your being serious.

You have to understand that magic is arbitrary, and follows its own rules of logic. Seemingly semantic distinctions between say a person in full body armor and a borg, or targeting a section of wall and as opposed whole house are important to magic. Simply cause that's the way it works. You can call it 'handwavium' if you like. And actually it might be appropriate, cause you know magic... waving you fingers... abracadabra... ... you know?

I'll just take these in order.

I think it was stated in earlier editions that this was possible. It isn't stated in SR4, so it isn't possible.


Stands to reason yes. Great fluff explaination yes. In the rules? Not so much.

I agree that targetting a "point in space" is dumb. And why you aren't targetting the people in the area I don't know either.

I most likely would go with that in a game(though disallowing it does make for a reason to learn at least one touch combat spell), but definately not RAW.


"Or are you just being pedantic and arguing about rules because you some how enjoy it?" Yes, I do. I like to find discrepancies in the rulebooks and see how far they go/can be abused. And then discuss to see if I've missed something/totally screwed up my reasoning/found an abusive thing that needs errata. It is enjoyable.

The air example was more to just emphasize that you don't target what is affected with an area spell, you target the area.

Magic is arbitrary yes, but follow logic? Ha! You must be a hermetic! There is a large difference between a person in body armor, and a full out brain in a box. For one, the brain in the box has hardly anything of an aura left, which does not extend beyond the box. While the guy in combat armor still has plenty of aura (even if nasty and twisted with 'ware) and can be targeted. Fairly simple really. As for a section of wall? maybe, if its got a clear definition of that section (new drywall that hasn't been painted yet? You want to blow up one board/section thingy of it? Sure!) If its a concrete wall or otherwise looks whole, you gotta blast the whole thing. Whole house? Sure, you can, but I'd also allow for doors, windows, appliances, furniature and the like to be targetted spererately also, either or really.)

Also, I'm not mr. "handwavium". I'm perfectly fine with a GM saying "the book says so" and accepting it. No explanation needed.

Let's talk about sight.

Just because it is dark, does not mean I cannot see. My eyes still function, I just have no light bouncing off of object back into my ocular sense organs. So I would say my line of sight would be the air molecules bouncing off my eyeballs (better known as the threshold of the darkness) and no farther. Which by complete coincidence (or maybe not) is the same range as touch. So, any spell I want to target in the dark without penalty would manifest directly in front of my eyes. This would make "Light" a bitch to cast but I could do it (my LOS would still only be in front of my eyes but the penalty would now come from glare instead of darkness).

There are penalties for seeing in the dark. For full darkness, this is a -6 penalty, even if you are touching them with you nose.

Casting LOS range spells take the same vision penalty. You take the -6 to your casting.

Can you chose a point in space that is part of your aura? If you know where it is LOS still counts, but what if you use the astral? You can certainly see your aura on the astral and target that aura as a point in space. Do you think this will give a -6? Is that good enough to work around it? Guess it would have to be a mana based spell though...

No, you can always take a simple action to astrally perceive, cast that way, and then simple action to switch back. Your aura gives off plenty of "astral light" for that.

This discussion is for not astrally perceiving (for whatever reason).