Hrm, I see the problem with using a combat spell for an analogy. New situation, new comparative spell

How about this. You are in a dark room, full darkness. You are a human, and you don't have any bio/cyberware that enhances vision. You hear over the speaker that the room is filling with a poisonous gas, and that you'll die soon.


You decide to cast Light (A Environmental Area spell). Do you take a -6 penalty for casting the spell? Why?

Interesting one.

If you argue that you do not take the penalty, then the next question is does this only matter in the case of this spell? What about other spells?

If you argue that you do take the penalty, it just seems annoying that you do for this particular spell.

Some interesting takes on this though.
If you do take the penalty, it's a matter of casting Light, using it's penalty offset to make casting the next Light spell easier. Doesn't matter that much out of combat, and in that case it's a matter of casting time and drain. There's also the alternative of perceiving astrally in order to cast the spell, which takes the time to switch perceptions, but otherwise incurs at the very most a -2 penalty.

As a matter of argument, someone could claim that they are casting Light inside their own eyes(Hey they can see the inside of their eyeballs right?), then moving the mobile point to where ever they need it to be.

Some interesting thought experiments to ensue no doubt. I see entire research teams at MITM and other places dedicated to solving this specific question.

Yes, thats another very good one. Can you astrally perceive air?

Casting on the darkness!! ...damn, where is magic missile when I need it? (hehe)


But seriously, in the case of light, what is your target?

The darkness.

You get a -6 penalty to see things in the darkness, but there is no penalty to simply 'see the darkness'.

IMHO: You would cast the spell without penalty, and each success would reduce visibility penalties one for one.

(Edit: Since light is a mobile point of light... I guess you could easily cast it in front of you and move it into the darkness as well, so long as it remains sustained).

As for astrally perceiving air... ummm, I don't think air is 'living' per se, so no.

p. 203

"This spell creates a mobile point of light, illuminating
a radius around it equal to the spell’s Force in meters."

So why not?

Astral Sense is not sight. It might be better at detecting air because the sense will detect the presence of a gas versus vacuum. Living things have an extra aura to Astral Perception, but that doesn't' mean dead things don't show up astrally.

You caught me before my edit.

It is a mobile point of light, I see no reason why you couldn't just cast it in front of you and send it in a room first.

I would think that would make things very convoluted though. When you astrally perceive under those guidelines you would not see anything (well) because everything is covered by some sort of aura or haze. Pollution for example when you are in the city would make astral perceiving all but worthless IMHO.

In my situation I gave, you woke up in this completely dark room. Now, since you said you could cast light with no penalty, you could instead cast Clean Air for no penalty as well right?

Shh, down that path leads darkness. Next you'll be pointing out that this would also mean that you cold cast Mob Mind with no penalty.

Yes, a quote would be nice. My understanding was, that every astral shadow is opaque, meaning that you can't see through glass, etc. on the astral...

p. 173 SR4
"Area Spells: Some spells target areas or points in space; in
this case the caster must be able to see the center of the area affected."

Dark room for casting clean:air.

IMHO: You are targeting the room which you stand, you therefore have to be able to define the rooms dimension via LOS- you would get the -6.

Would it make more sense to you if I said:



??

As it's been written, probably not. Though the planet Earth itself is astrally "alive" (which is what prevents mages from simply zipping through the Earth from Seattle to China) air is only the gaseous shell that surrounds it. If air could be astrally perceived that would mean air itself was alive and mages would be unable to pass through it.

But you said you could cast light without penalty. They both target the same thing. The "area"/"environment".



No, it wouldn't. Because light, which functions the EXACT same way, you said would not have a penalty.

They are the same, either they both have a penalty (how I'd rule it) or they don't.

No it doesn't.

Did you read why you could cast on the darkness?

Seriously, if you are going to debate, PAY ATTENTION!

When casting light in a dark room, you are not looking through the darkness, you are looking at it. The penalty comes from looking through the darkness.

So, you cast light on darkness, you can see (read:identify) that darkness just fine, no penalty to the spell.

If you are in a dark room casting clean: air, you are targeting the center of the room itself, and if that room is dark you suffer the appropriate penalties.

You do not need to see the area to be affected, or define what area is to be affected. You only need to see the center of that area. So in the case of an entirely dark room, yes, you receive a -6. But if there is a point in the room that you can see without penalty, then you could affect the entire room (with high enough Force) without seeing the walls, or really any other part of the room.

Well said Muspellsheimr.

p. 173 SR4
"Area Spells: Some spells target areas or points in space; in this case the caster must be able to see the center of the area affected."
They are both area spells. They both target the area of the room. They both will have the same penalty.

I think Mush is in agreement with me that they would both suffer a -6 penalty in the situation I described.

Please explain why you are 'viewing through the darkness' to ... see darkness?

If you want to target a specific spot in the room, like in front of someones face... then I agree- you get the -6 because you are finding an area specifically in the darkness. But if you are just casting in the darkness... what sense does that make?

Then Clean Air would not have a penalty either for targetting that same area.

In reality the mage would only have to pull out his commlink and have the backlighting to target inches in front of him.

Your not targeting darkness with clean air. You are looking through the darkness to a center point (like if you wanted to cast light in front of a persons face).

Either way, it is good that you got past the silliness that you need to 'see air' to cast that spell... I feel we are making progress)

You don't target Air with Clean Air, you target the area. I've accepted that.
You are not targetting darkness with light either. You target the area. They both would take the -6 penalty.

And Wasabi? Assume they took all your gear, but didn't realize you were a mage. You got knocked out during a run, and this is where you woke up.

So be it.

Last I checked, one can't look through astral shadows, so any solid object that isn't living can't be seen through, right? Regardless of whether or not you can look through it with normal vision, If you are outside the car with the windows up, the shadows they create can't be seen through and you can't look into the vehicle. It's a lot like Ultrasound. a solid object is a deal breaker and can't be seen through. That's why tinted windows are used in motorcades. In the real, you can't look through and target, and you can't target from outside because the windows are up. Safe politician, until you destroy the window and then target him that way.

Some targeting notes:

In every game I have played in since 1989, it was just assumed that a ranged spell could be cast as a touch spell. I cannot find anything that either supports or contradicts this in the SR4 rules. So in my campaigns you could cast area spells such as light and clean at the tip of your finger with no penalty regardless of visual conditions.

As for mirrored/tinted windows: IIRC, they blocked astral perception as well as they blocked sight. So casting into a vehicle or room from the wrong side of such a window was not possible. (We certainly played it that way.) BUT, page 114 of Street Magic does read:

Determining cover works the same way on the astral plane as it does in the physical world (see pp. 140–141, SR4). Shadows of physical objects in the astral plane may be drab and insubstantial, but they are still opaque and can prevent targeting. Items that are transparent or mirrored in the real world (like a car window) simply impair visibility as astral shadows. Since there are no ranged weapons on the astral plane and spell targeting depends on seeing your target, hiding behind physical shadows works as well as hiding behind a vibrant aura.

The Astral Visibility table on the same page includes "Shadow Clutter: –1 to –4", so it seems that per RAW a one way window only inhibits astral targeting rather than blocking it.

Based on that, all high security vehicles (and buildings) in my games now use fully opaque armoured plates in place of windows, with high-res displays on the inside that let you see whatever you could have through a normal window via sensor input, while blocking all incoming spells. (Security mages riding shotgun have mage-sight goggles built into the vehicle so they can cast out of the vehicle if desired.)

Thanks for the specific passage.

I always love it when someone quotes the material. It's so much more helpful than arguing back and forth.

I've always played with that rule as well. Was that an official ruling, or just a common house rule?

Wow, I think I'll be "changing" the cars in my games also, but keeping that in mind for Missions and the like.



Some questions for the Devs:
Do permanent spells effects begin when the spell is cast or when they become permanent? If its when they become permanent, why do only 2 spells specify that in their descriptions?

When sustaining a permanent spell waiting for it to become permanent, does the magician take a -2 sustaining penalty for other actions taken?

Can a permanent spell that is still being sustained be dispelled by another mage using counterspelling?

Can you use an appropriate sustaining focus to sustain a permanent spell until permanent?

Pretty sure it was just a common house rule. Especially since Touch was considered a penalty; the assumption in the rules is that you wouldn't ever want to Touch your target rather than LOS them.

Then the question is can you use yourself as a target when you cast a spell and receive no penalty? Lets say you cast light not as touch, but you use yourself as a target. Could you cast light, clean, or powerball on yourself in a dark room and take no penalty instead of using it as a touch spell? I mean you know where your hand is in a sense.

Light? No. Clean? No. Powerball? No.

Why? They're all area spells, and target an area.

You could powerBOLT yourself just fine though.

Well, you *could* powerball yourself. Since under the touch rule, you always have LOS to yourself, it would act just like a powerbolt with extra drain. (In fact, don't you always have LOS to yourself? I can't honestly recall.)

No, you can't, powerball isn't targeting on a person, but an area, so you can't powerball YOURSELF as it targets an area, and YOU are not an area.

Powerbolt on the other hand works fine, because I do believe you have LOS on yourself always.

It may target an area, but if you are in said area, and are always considered to have LOS on yourself (which I think makes sense), you should hurt like everyone else that you can see in said area.

You still would take visibility penalties for casting it, because you have to target the area, not yourself.

Powerbolt on the other hand, would not take visibility penalties for casting on yourself, as you unimpeded LOS to the target (yourself)

I think you're being a bit pedantic on this one.

When you cast a AoE direct combat spell, you are targeting a center point. The spell goes out from there; but you only get the ones you can see. You don't have to specify a person, you can specify a center point.

In this case, the center point is yourself. And since you can't see anyone else, you can't hurt them with the powerball. You can fry yourself, but the spell doesn't fizzle or become more difficult because you're centering it on yourself.

I'm not a dev but I'd like to mention that unless spells with a permanent duration are specifically excepted from the rules they follow the same rules for sustaining until they are permanent. Ditto that their effects occur immediately unless specifically excepted.

[BBB, p194]: "Permanent spells must be sustained for a short time, after which their effects become “natural� and no longer require magic or concentration to maintain. The time required to make a spell’s effects permanent is equal to twice the Drain Value in Combat Turns."

Well my thinking is that there are a lot of meta magics that use you as a central point for what you do (such as cleansing.) Or you know if you want a normal spell... detect enemies. What is to say that you can't use an area effect spell on yourself? You cleanse the area around you, or you target yourself to cast light on. Effecting other things/people is probably where it gets hazy, but I don't see why you would take a -6 if you cast light on yourself and then tried to clean the air around you using again yourself as the target point.

See the Magic Action thread for why I posted these questions. Theres an on going discussion. Keep it to that thread, we don't need it spilling over anymore.




First, cleansing uses counterspelling and follows its own rules, not the spellcasting rules, bad comparison.

Detect enemies you cast on yourself, and then the spell is able to detect the enemies from there. You don't cast it on an area.

SR4, 173, "Area Spells: Some spells target areas or points in space; in this case the caster must be able to see the center of the area affected. All visible targets within the area are afected; area spells can afect more than one target at a time." Is why you can't cast it on yourself, because you have to see the center of the area you are affecting.

OK, then.

If we're discussing the Touch rule being canon, then you always hhave LOS to yourself. So, you *could* cast an area spell without penalty, on the area you're occupying. Even without that, you can still argue that you have LOS to yourself, or at least the back of your eyelids.

While we're at it, lets decide this... if you are in a lit room, and have 3 people behind you, but cast powerball centered on the back of your eyelids are they effected?

Now, same situation, the room is 100% dark. No light at all. Can you still see the area between your eyes and your eyelids? Can you still cast without penalty?

If you can cast spells on yourself, why can't you cast something that has an area of effect on yourself? It's dark and you can't see yourself when you cast detect enemies, but you don't take a -6. If you have a spell that requires touch how can you cast it if you can't see your hands? Why is it suddenly that you know where your hand is and you have to take a -6 to cast at it? If you powerball yourself when there are people behind them you will not hit them, but can you still hit yourself? Most people don't blast themselves with AOE spells, which is probably why it was created that way (to balance the game,) but to use yourself as the epicenter of a spell I think should be possible w/o taking a -6. Just like you were casting a spell that is centered on yourself. Detect enemies might not be AOE, but then again it does have AOE effects. You cast it on yourself and suddenly the "effects" extend beyond your person. How is it not an AOE spell centered on your person? I mean yes they are two different things, but still you are kinda casting a spell that has an -area of effect- and it is centered on yourself.

Touch is Different than LOS. I can't find anywhere in the books that says you can cast a LOS as a touch spell. You can cast detect enemies on yourself fine, because you are touching yourself. You can not powerball yourself because it requires LOS, and you dont have unimpeded LOS (in our dark room example) to the area you are casting on.

If the spell range is LOS, you must succeed at a visual perception test to see the target. If you succeed at that (with your -6 for full darkness) then yes, you can cast it. If you don't, you can't see it well enough.

Is that a good enough compromise (and its in the rules too!) to settle this? Mage makes perception test at -6 to cast the spell, success means he can center it on himself, failure means he can't do it. If he does succeed, then he has to cast the spell with a -6 penalty as well.

Detect enemies is a totally different category of spell, and detection spells have their own funky rules.

Since we are having cool and interesting magic LOS discussions. Here is an interesting pondery. (If that is even a word)

Augmentation pg. 160 "Cyborgs are difficult to target with magic. The only living part of a jarhead—the brain—is encapsulated within the CCU which itself is enclosed within the drone body, where it is effectively safe from spell targeting."

Street Magic pg. 160 "Note that full body armor does not “conceal� the person within and prevent them from being targeted."

So, why does a drone body protect the brain from LOS and full body armor doesn't?

I am not a proponent of Invulnerable Armor Monsters. I just want some kind of explaination. Or is this just ANOTHER example of "handwavium" ?

If the brain is a separate thing from the body of the cyborg so much that it can't be targetted. I guess if one is to cast Invisibility on the cyborg, the body goes invisible and we see a floating brain there?

If they're behind you where you can't see them, they're not affected, no matter where you center the powerball.

Here's one for you. If you cast a Fireball at your feet in a totally darkened room, do you take a -6 to the attack roll?


If the spell range is LOS, then that's fair and by the rules.

However, the long-standing rule has been that Touch can stand in for LOS. Basically, that's the only difference between Death Touch and Manabolt. If the more-restrictive version of a spell can work, why can't the more powerful version work as well?

Additionally, I can't find the rule that says a mage is always in touch range of himself. So, would you put a penalty on a geas-free mage, who wants to cast Heal on himself while tied up?

A jarhead is a brain inside of a box (admittedly, a box with limbs, armor, and weapons). A person in full armor is wearing a particularly heavy set of clothes.

The former can be dealt with in two ways. It's either a passenger inside of a vehicle with no windows. Or it's someone hiding inside of a container. Either way, the 'person' has total physical cover and your mage cannot establish LOS to target. The latter is handled just like any other clothed target. You don't lose LOS if someone's wearing a mask or a motorcycle helmet. You don't lose LOS if someone is wearing a burqa. You don't lose LOS if someone is wearing stormtrooper armor. It's a conceptual thing, which is how Shadowrun magic works.

You could call that 'handwavium', if you wanted. But, honestly, the entire ruleset is based on nothing more or less than 'it works that way because that's how the devs say it works,' so unless it's completely inconsistant with everything else, I don't much see the distinction.

Fireball, yes, I would say you have to succeed at a visual perception test at -6 to cast the spell, and then suffer the -6 on the casting of the spell also.

"long-standing"? Quote then? Why can't the more powerful one work also? Because, thats how the rules were written.

No, I wouldn't, because heal is a touch range spell, and at least part of the mage is touching another part of him. (One finger touching another for example).