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JFixer
Okay, so you're on your way into Federated Boeing to steal some new gizmo, and your Shaman wants to slip inside and have a look. Sexy blonde dog shaman that she is, Pooka pops her top and astrally races over there to check them out. It's definitely not out of line to think that they've got six four man teams, to officers, one magician or adept, and one jammer-specialist in each patrol, and one or two drones (with a couple of dedicated riggers in control cocoons inside the building, nice and safe). The walls are also likely guarded with, say, F5 Astral mana bariers, to prevent any astral projectors from slithering inside.

We know the Shaman can go eight hundred feet straight up, come down on top of the building, and then /melt/ herself slowly through the barrier, sneaking inside without coming in contact with anyone, and basically moving at paradrop speeds until she strikes the mana barrier, so thats no issue. Once she gets inside though... how much can she see?

Is every computer screen a black box? What about an open drone being worked on by technicians and designers? Does she see parts moving on the assembly floor? Do keyboards have letters? Is a crowded work-floor just a seething mass of auras? What about if she manifests as a ghostly image, is she then able to glean more information?
ornot
Manifesting grants the projecting mage no further information, so there's really no reason to do it unless she wants to communicate with a mundane in the area.

As far as what she can sense while projecting... She will only perceive auras and astral forms. Although walls will interfere with line of 'sixth' sight, those things that have no auras will appear as dim shadows at best.

Remember that even mundane guards will likely be trained to recognise the sensation of an astral form passing through their auras, and at least will have glomoss sticks, so your mage can still be noticed.
GreyBrother
Two answer your short questions:
Yes. Just a gray or black mass. Yes, probably blurry. No. Depends on how near you are to an individual. No, but the mundanes are. Manifesting doesn't shift your perception into the mundane.

Those are my "default hermetician" answers. But i never use them... every mage perceives the astral a little bit different.

She can't read anything except Auras and that's about it.
kzt
The patrolling spirits and dual natured critters, like the Barghests KE routinely uses per missions, can still see him. The spirits presumably know everyone who is magically active and supposed to be there.

If you manifest the security cameras can see you too.
pbangarth
QUOTE (kzt @ Jan 25 2009, 01:27 PM) *
The patrolling spirits and dual natured critters, like the Barghests KE routinely uses per missions, can still see him. The spirits presumably know everyone who is magically active and supposed to be there.

If you manifest the security cameras can see you too.


Actually, manifestation is a psychic phenomenon, and not perceivable by machinery. (SR4, p. 184)
kzt
Ok, I missed that. Thanks.
JFixer
Okay, thank you thank you. So really all a magic spy can spy on is emotional states of people moving through the building, or magical research going on. Good to know. Seems like a general waste of time to try if there's even cursory trained security.
Adarael
Not really. As long as the mage is good at astral stealth - which is basically like moving behind their field of vision if they're astrally active and doing whatever else you want if they're not - it's really useful for learning the layout of buildings, patrol routes, numbers of guards, and what areas of the building are more secure & likely to have interesting doodads.

I mean, you don't GENERALLY ward the linen closet with another ward...
JFixer
But you can also generally download that information from some kind of group online as well. The sheer preponderance of spacial awareness and map-making software, even coded to the point of today's simple video-game layover maps, written in as you pass walls, means that if just one guy does a run there, you're likely to see a full map of the place online, if it wasn't available in public records already. Patrol Route scans are nice... but you should be able to get the external ones from outside the building and a block away, and the internal ones with either a fly-spy or just deal with them while you get in. You certainly can't tell a Maglock 6 from a Maglock 2, and generally speaking, you don't put extra cameras outside the doors of your most sensitive building because you bought them in bulk and got one for every door... at a discount... Isn't astral perception actually saying you can't even see the doodads at all?
kzt
I think we are missing something here.

How does the mage get in again? If the building perimeter is covered by a single F5 ward you can't just "/melt/ herself slowly through the barrier". You have to attack the ward or mask your way through the ward. Attacking the ward in any way WILL notify the creator. Which will have the corporate magical response team show up and almost certainly kick your butt while you are still working on penetrating it as FedBoeing HQ is seconds away on the astral. Masking requires you assense the creator, who is likely to be pretty hard to casually find and fairly dangerous to astrally track.

If it's a set of wards you can sleeze you way thought the gaps. (However the rules seems to be kind of not there as to how this is supposed to work in terms of skills/time.) Of course they can block these gaps with various tools, like ivy or FAB II. Even without these I'd argue that a foreign mage isn't going to be able to get back out without spending several turns navigating them. Which kind of sucks when your are under attack by superior forces.
The Pat
Hello everyone,

astral infiltration of an area always leads to
a) a "minigame" that can take up a lot of gaming time with many players just biding their time until they can participate again, and
b) a headache for the GM, who has to prepare astral security as well.

Therefore our group has chosen the follwing (quite game world altering) house rule: A mage/shaman/what-have-you-magician can interact with astral space by projecting, but his astral body cannot leave his physical body. As I said, this alters canon a lot and might not go well with most SR fans, but for us the game is just more fun this way.

--- The Pat
kzt
What do you mean by projecting without leaving his physical body?
Malachi
OR you can have your projecting Magician roll Astral Perception once or a few times, say, "This is what you can see" and move on.
JeffSz
QUOTE (kzt @ Jan 26 2009, 03:05 PM) *
What do you mean by projecting without leaving his physical body?



It's basically just Astral Perception instead of Projection.


I have to add: There are a lot of options for magical security, but would anyone actually pay for ALL of them? Most places in the real world are severely under-secure, with cameras that aren't being monitored, security guards who are old and fat, and an alarm system that goes off - after which you have a while before the police arrive.

In 2070, the guards are more fit and have guns so the police aren't needed, the cameras are monitored by agents or hackers, and there's probably a mage on staff. I can't imagine a corp ponying up for full barriers, multiple mages, ivy, dual-natured creatures, and a gadget that slices, dices, and makes cappuccino; the options presented in the gear lists of the rulebooks seem to me to be alternatives, not necessarily something every corp suddenly went out and installed.

Big Boss: "You're telling me that instead of paying mages at each of our office locations, we can buy awakened ivy for the walls and glowmoss sticks for our security guards - and have three or five mages cover the entire company via astral travel if alarms go off? Excellent! Call Jimmy in HR and have him prepare some pink slips. Oh and cancel that order of Barghests we put in yesterday; the Orlando office needs reflooring."
JFixer
Just like a Matrix run...

Right. And the rules are there and pretty clear:

Roll Charisma+Magic vs the Barrier's Forcex2. If the magician wins he's inside, and each net success allows him to pull one thing in with him (friends, spirits, foci).
If he's /shoved/ into a Ward, he has to make the same roll, but if he fails he gets KO'd.

Melting through low power wards is super easy, and mid level wards aren't that hard. Hacking a high level ward might take some time...
Of course, when a mid level ward rolls a critical glitch to resist, like mine did tonight, the mages all get called in to pull it down and put it all back up... two hours of chanting and being generally pissed off for being called in on days off or out of a sound sleep to reconfigure the wards.

Really, Astral Perception = AR, and Astral Projection = VR... they're so close now as to be basically analogous.
kzt
"Any attack on a mana barrier or attempt to break through is immediately felt by the creator."

This is an example of an attempt to break through:

"Awakened characters have learned other methods of forcing their way through an astral barrier, however, and may “press
through� a barrier with a Magic + Charisma Opposed Test against the barrier’s Force x 2. If the character scores more net
hits, she forces her way through the barrier to the other side."
JFixer
QUOTE (kzt @ Jan 27 2009, 01:42 AM) *
"Any attack on a mana barrier or attempt to break through is immediately felt by the creator."


I thought this referred to 'attacks to crash' the Barrier. It applies to the charisma+magic method of sleazing through as well? That's not a violent process that affects the barrier itself in any way...
JFixer
QUOTE (JeffSz @ Jan 26 2009, 11:42 PM) *
Big Boss: "You're telling me that instead of paying mages at each of our office locations, we can buy awakened ivy for the walls and glowmoss sticks for our security guards - and have three or five mages cover the entire company via astral travel if alarms go off? Excellent! Call Jimmy in HR and have him prepare some pink slips. Oh and cancel that order of Barghests we put in yesterday; the Orlando office needs reflooring."


I had had five magicians and two adepts on staff for a very large facility. They got in and out and only had to deal with two lots of interference, with a summoned spirit taking the entirety of the other security force (not a gun on hand big enough to hurt it...) with several well placed social set-ups, and a few unlucky rolls on the Spider's part.
jesusofthemonkeys
You're shaman could also do some assensing once inside. Depending how good they are they might find out things like general type of cyberware or cyberware vs use of combat drugs. Depending how creative you get and your number of successes you can also find things like an angry guard that might be bribe-able (i think you can get an exact cause for an emotional state, its been a while since I've played a caster). Also I think you can project through walls, which is handy for seeing who's on the other side of a door and their emotional state in case some ones setting an ambush.

The Pat has a good point though, it can become the Projecting Mage Show, which is about as fun as Hacker Run Show, or the Surveillance Rigger Show. Shadowrun tends to get bogged down in this kinda crap, so everyone just has to be aware of the time spent on there particular specialty. Incidentally, this is also the reason I don't play a lot of sammies.
kzt
QUOTE (JFixer @ Jan 27 2009, 06:23 AM) *
I thought this referred to 'attacks to crash' the Barrier. It applies to the charisma+magic method of sleazing through as well? That's not a violent process that affects the barrier itself in any way...

No. You have to mask your way through to avoid setting off the alarms. Which typically has issues...
Crusher Bob
Note that you should also be able to hear stuff while astrally projecting, so you can listen in to anyone's verbal conversations. Of course, this can be defeated by security using machine telepathy via their comm-links; but we will assume that plenty of people still like flapping their lips.
The Jake
I don't think this has been said (forgive me if it has) but an initiate can alter their aura and bypass a ward silently. All that is required is that he know the auras of people already doing so. Those spirits, magicians and adepts going back and forth? Pick one of them.


- J.
TheOOB
QUOTE (The Jake @ Jan 29 2009, 01:32 AM) *
I don't think this has been said (forgive me if it has) but an initiate can alter their aura and bypass a ward silently. All that is required is that he know the auras of people already doing so. Those spirits, magicians and adepts going back and forth? Pick one of them.


- J.


It's not that simple, you need masking, and you need to have assensed the aura of someone can pass through, then you make a masking check(intuition+magic+initiate grade if I am correct) vs. the wards ratingx2. If you succeed you pass through.

Attacking the word or pressing through alerts the wards creator.
Sir_Psycho
QUOTE (TheOOB @ Jan 29 2009, 01:43 AM) *
It's not that simple, you need masking, and you need to have assensed the aura of someone can pass through, then you make a masking check(intuition+magic+initiate grade if I am correct) vs. the wards ratingx2. If you succeed you pass through.

Masking is hiding your aura. I think The Jake was talking about Flexible Signature.
TheOOB
QUOTE (Sir_Psycho @ Jan 29 2009, 02:03 AM) *
Masking is hiding your aura. I think The Jake was talking about Flexible Signature.


No, masking does not hide your aura, it projects a false aura, so you could, for example, look mundane, or look like another mage and pass through another ward.

Flexible signature changes how the signatures from your magic based effects (such as spells) appear, you can make them last shorter, longer, or make them appear to be someone elses. Great for fooling a ward to allow a sustained spell through.

Street Magic explicitly allows the use of masking for passing wards without alerting the creator IF you have assensed the aura of someone allowed to pass through.
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