Mask is a Multi-Sense illusion, and thus can fool normal human sight, infrared, sonar, sense of smell, touch, radar and so forth.
Can it also fool senses granted by Detect powers?
If you are a male Latino dwarf, and cast Mask to make yourself look like an female Asian elf, do you register on Detect Dwarf spells only if the person who has Detect Dwarf sees through the illusion?
Do you appear on Detect Elf? what if the person detecting elves sees through the illusion? is there a case in which they'd see something that isn't quite an elf, but looks kinda like an elf?

If you cast Mask on yourself to look like a peaceful female Asian elf, and you then form the intent to harm that ork shaman who has cast Detect Enemies on himself, then does the shaman get a (Willpower+Counterspelling vs Hits on Mask Spellcasting) roll to sense your hostility?

If the ork didn't have LOS at that time, and then gets LOS, does he make a separate test to see you as a hostile male Latino dwarf, or might he make a separate test, fail it, and see you as a hostile female Asian elf?

If you cast Mask on yourself to look like an exact android replica of yourself, and then go up to that mage who's always running Detect Life (with sustaining focus), then they'll see you with their normal vision, but not with Detect Life, which might give them horrible cognitive dissonance.

Is your answer based on overall conception of Shadowrun magic, or based on relative game-balance utility of the specific spells of Mask and Detect Enemies? Mask can be a darn useful spell, but on another hand, in many situations, getting a hacker friend (or agent with Edit) to craft a latex mask is a lot easier than investing 5 Karma and sustaining a -2 penalty. Detect Enemies is darn useful overall.

You're making my head spin...

Short answer, no, Mask does not trump the various Detect Spells, in fact the two spells don't interact at all.

I base my answer on my understanding of Sixth World Magical Theory.

I agree with Ravor.

Unless I'm mistaken, Physical mask is a multi-sense illusion, not an every-conceivable-sense illusion.

The utility of the Mask spell is that it can be cast in an instant, giving you a quick getaway without having to carry a latex mask, apply it, and so on. If you've got a bit more time, Fashion and Makeover can do a similar thing; but Mask is a lot faster. A latex or nanopaste mask is great if you've got all the time in the world.

Mask does not trump touch ... shapechange does

No matter how you are masked, if you are a dwarf, and they can see you, you ping on a detect dwarf spell. While you need to see the target to use the spell on them, the spell doesn't care what you see that target as, they only care if it's a dwarf or not. On the other hand, if they where invisible you couldn't target them with a spell, though they could glow quite nicely in the astral plane.

Detection spells don't work that way. They're cast on a subject who gains a sense. Detect Dwarf gives the subject Dwarf Radar, which allows him to automatically know the exactly location of every dwarf within rage, whether or not he can see them.

And it would be pretty stupid if you needed LOS to the object being sensed for a detection spell to work. The ability to know where the thing that you see is is kind of redundant, just like that extra is is.




I'm pretty sure that Mask does trump touch. I would certainly encourage such a ruling because it enables M. Butterfly plots.

Detection spells, however, look at things far different than from their external physicalities. For example, Detect Enemies detects intent, not individuals. It cannot be fooled, except by something that makes you not wish any harm to the person you wish to harm. Alter memory might help there. Personafixes might, as well; both could fall either way.
The best way to defeat Detect Enemies, besides using a drone, is to give a bomb to some neutral third party without his knowledge (or with his knowledge if he just wants to blow a bunch of people up but lacks any specific grudge against the target) and wait outside the range of both the spell and the explosion, hoping that he gets close enough to the target before it explodes. Detect Life and such, likewise, detect fundamental things about the targets, and should not be fooled by things that do not change this fundamental nature (the only way to defeat Detect Life is to stop living).

Physical Mask does indeed 'trump' touch.

Care to provide a rules quote?

The Physical/Mask spells require the mage to touch the target and alter the physical appearance of the target. There's quite a bit of wiggle room, but how can the spell simply alter every sense absolutely and give a resistance test? (Note that you don't get a resistance test to perceive a shapechanged character is disguised.)

Actually, Physical Mask doesn't do anything to a subject. It alters the target's perception of the subject (the target being anyone who perceives the subject). Illusions are different from other spells that way, as the magic affects everyone who has line-of-sense to the subject without actually altering the subject.

Yes, Mask is a Multi-Sense Illusion. Whether the distinction from Full Sensory Illusion was intended or not, it, along with the described effect of altering the subject's appearance, imply touch is not included.

There are no Illusion spells listed with the 'Full-Sense' designation. All Illusion spells are listed as being either Single-Sense (which affects one sense) or Multi-Sense (which affects all senses).

There are no senses with the Full-Sensory designation and the only description of Multi-Sense is in street magic which states Multi-Sense Illusions affect multiple/all sense which is a lazy way of writing multiple or all. Thus, the mask series of spells do not affect touch purely by virtue of being Multi-Sense Illusions.

If Physical Mask includes touch, and works on technological sensors, does that mean you could alter your apparent fingerprints to a specific pattern (to fool biometrics)?

Retinal patterns?

It says it affects your voice; if you have eidetic sense memory and can therefore "play back" any sound you've ever heard in your head, could you use a specific person's voice pattern and by so doing foil voiceprint ID biometrics? I would treat it like the voice control adept power - a con test vs. the sensor's rating, but the con test would be made when you cast physical mask.

You can play the game however you like, but if we are talking about actual canon, Multi-Sense Illusions spells affect all senses by default. If there is a sense that the spell does not affect, it would be listed in the spell's description.

Put it this way ... can you find any quote that specifically states that touch is not affected by Multi-Sense Illusion spells?

Does a MAD's metal-detection ability count as a sense?

Radar?

Sonar?

Millimeter-wave (i.e. cyberware scanners)?

Backscatter X-ray? (VERY scary technology, look it up)

I'm not sure. I believe that senses in the context of Magic refers to the five basics ... sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell.

I would rule that if a person was using the tech, then the spell would work as normal. If the tech was active on its own, then the spell must beat the OR of the device (in both Force and net hits).

Can't we all agree that the ability to facilitate extremely awkward "she's a man, baby" moments is reason enough to rule that Mask affects touch. After all, it is hard to justify a 20-year-long torrid love affair in which one participant doesn't even suspect that he's playing the crying game without the benefit of Mask or some other touch-based illusion.

I disagree. What the spell does should be listed in the spell description, not what it doesn't do. Can I fly by casting Fireball? It doesn't say in the spell description that I can't.

Is there plenty of room for saying Mask affects touch? Absolutely.
Is there plenty of room for saying Mask does not affect touch? Absolutely.

How the spell behaves is described in the section on Illusion spells. Any exception to the default rules for Illusions should (and would) be listed in the specific spell's description, as it is by definition, an exception.

I see no leeway here. There are no provisions in the rules for spells that affect more-than-one-but-less-than-all senses. There are multi-sense spells, which are listed as affecting all senses, and there are single-sense spells, which only affect one sense.

As for the canon ruling, I stand by my earlier post on the matter. You do have the option to email the powers-that-be (email address is on the home page), or even ask Synner himself. I will readily admit any error on my part if the response from either source turns out to contradict my aforementioned earlier post.

perhaps more to the point, the drain code for an all-sense illusion would be identical to the drain code for a most-sense illusion. as such, i can't imagine why anyone would bother making a most-sense illusion, and if they did, their version would be substantially less popular than the mage who takes your work and tweaks it slightly to create an all-sense version which is otherwise identical.

so i would go with mask being all-sense, just because not having it all-sense makes no sense

I like that solution very much. The OR resistance test parallels the test living beings get to see through the illusion (I don't remember the formula off the top of my head and am afb atm).

I still want to know if it works vs. fingerprint scanners (as I understand how they work, that would actually be sight-based, not touch), retinal scanners (sight), and voiceprint biometrics (sound). The spell specifically mentions that your sound, smell, etc. all change. I want to know how fine a degree of control you have over that change.

While it plausibly should be able to fool scanners, that would invalidate the quite expensive adept powers and tech gadgets with the same effect, so I think I wouldn't allow it to work against scanners, although I'm not too happy with that reasoning myself...
Still, physical mask is powerful enough as is.

I can say that, with with all the authority that I have (not that much, but still) that physical Mask does affect tech based scanners, including fingerprints with some provisios.

Duplication of a specific set of fingerprints should either not be possible, or should require specific actions (assensing the target model, or similar) which would provide the degree of accuracy in game terms to be beat.

Second: While the actual fingerprints of the target of the mask are altered for purposes of immedeate scanning (and recording...) his actual fingerprints are not physicially altered. Thus, while he is actively handling an object, for all intents and purposes his fingerprints ARE those of the Mask spell (random if the illusion doesn't specify), once he as released the object and/or the spell has ceased to be sustained, the actual fingerprints left behind are his own.

Note that recordings made during the Illusion will reflect the illusion even after the spell has lapsed, as usual.

This applies in other ways as well: If you have the Physical Mask of a troll, your thermographic signature is that of a Troll, even if you are a dwarf. It is possible that, for example, feeling a bed you've been lying in that you would leave a troll sized warm spot, at least for a short while, the MOMENT the spell ends, the warm spot is that of a dwarf. A recording of the thermal pattern made during the cusp period would have an obvious break moment.

Regarding the lingering effect: While this must be a GM adjucated affair I feel it is probably best to assign a residual area/duration, presumably based on teh Magic of the caster or the force the spell was cast at (or, if you really want to ratchet it down, the hits), though the actual units of distance/time are debatable, there are precedents (meters radius for example). Note that this 'residual' only applies (again) while the spell is actually being sustained.

Note that if the spell lapses (assuming a long term sustainment, for example anchored or sustainment foci held) for any reason, and is subsequently recast, the lingering remanents (fingerprints, dna evidence if you want to get really nitty gritty) would not be 'reprotected', even if technically the same spell is repumped (supressed spells?).

I could see this being very interesting if someone uses a long term physcial mask to hide and someone opens a cold case file after they've had an "incident". Also, unless the mage is deliberately mimicking someone or spending effort designing the DNA/Fingerprint (or other, more esoteric signatures: Lip prints, etc...) as part of the process, even a recast of the same physical illusion can be problematic as such unique factors will radomize within the parameters of the spell... meaning a Physcial Mask used to generate a complete false identity must, by necessity, be much more labor intensive or be disposable the first time something disrupts the spell.

The leeway is 1: the spell description describes alteration of appearance; 2: multi-sense spells affect all OR multiple senses per your quote from Street Magic.

There is leeway, rule it as you prefer.

Shrug. If you say so. Since there can be only one correct interpretation of the actual canon stance on the matter though, I maintain my earlier stated opinion.

I have offered multiple quotes to back up my statements, while you have based your opinion on one word (or) which doesn't even appear in the quoted text as you use it. It is only your definition of the (multi/all) portion, but your definition is not the only valid one. That '/' can also be used as a defining or clarification tool.

What if you don't want the mask to hide something specific? For example, let's say your GM's ruled that while Physical Mask changes your fingerprints, you don't have fine enough control to make them a specific person's fingerprints. If you're wearing cellular glove molds, can you cast physical mask to not override your physical hands without disrupting the rest of the spell?

It is an Illusion spell that allows the caster to alter how he appears to others. The results are totally under the control of the caster. If he desires to change every facet of his appearance, or merely a small part of the whole is up to him.

Sweet

Well, the degree of control is not specified so talk to your GM beforehand.

Actually, it's generally a good idea to have healthy conversations with your GM about your mad schemes.

No lack of control is even implied. The caster chooses any and all aspects of the subject's assumed appearance.

Of course, your point about GM-Player communication is definitely good advice.

Well, I didn't mean roll for your hair color, I meant anything more along the lines of - can you pick the iris pattern to fingerprint patterns? Can I physical mask profanities into my fingerprints?

Ah, fair enough then.

That's essentially what I've been trying to ask. I like the way Cabral put it better, though