Back in 2nd edition i remember being able to locate mages with ultrasound sight. Not any more i guess? I know it's electrical in nature but it pics up sound like a bat picks out movement. What do you guys know I got a Corp sponsored Mage brat popping my gangers heads any suggestions... I thought even with Improved Invisibilty running this would spot her... thanks

echo location, ultra sound, radar sense, thermo sense. All detect invisable persons.
Then there is pressure pads, trip wires, mist/fog.
O and wild uncontrollable bursts of suppressing fire.

If it is multi sense then nope. It is why drones have a hard time against the better invisibility spells you just have to beat their threshold and they are done. Generally mage counter mage on this, since a willpower roll against a high threshold = impossible. Pressure triggers will go off, motion sensors, and traps as well can be triggered by it.

Improved Invisibility (Realistic, Single-Sense)
Type: P • Range: LOS • Duration: S • DV: (F ÷ 2) + 1
Th is spell makes the subject more diffi cult to detect by normal
visual senses (including low-light, thermographic, and other
senses that rely on the visual spectrum). Th e subject is completely
tangible and detectable by the other senses (hearing, smell, touch,
etc.). Her aura is still visible to astral perception.
Anyone who might perceive the subject must fi rst successfully
resist the spell. Simply make one Spellcasting Test and use the hits
scored as the threshold for anyone that resists at a later point. Even
if the spell is resisted, the subject might remain unnoticed if she
wins a Shadowing or Infi ltration Test. An invisible character may
still be detected by non-visual means, such as hearing or smell.

Smell, and hearing are the giveaways. If the mage is walking around people will hear it. If the ganger has ear buds with a r3 a select sound filter for heart beats then that mage will probably be discovered. The spell only affects sight... that is it. Remember that.

However if it is still a problem a mage with a magic rating of 1 will be able to see the spell on the astral, or a adept/mystic adept with astral perception will also see it. Also there are non awakened people that can have astral perception, but springing that constantly on a player is just screaming fiat.

Grenades, Suppressive Fire, and other area-denial attacks are also usable.

At a -6 penalty if they even know what is going on. Most gangers probably throw 6-8 dice on a firearm (and only because of the +2 smartlink) so throwing a grenade will probably net them 0 to -1 dice pool and will probably result in a miss according to SR rules. Most gangers do not have a professional rating with a firearm or grenade, and I doubt they specialize in a certain type of gun.

On a tangent in my RL job the security guard I work with went vigilante on the drug dealers in his neighborhood when he found out one of the dealers sold to his nephew. One of the gangers tried to shoot him, and since he fired "gangland style" aka "I have no idea how to hold a firearm or aim properly" the ganger ended up breaking his collar bone from the kick. Then the guy I work with was a little angry so he decided to put the dealer who sold to his nephew in intensive care for over six months. It makes me wonder if firing your gun sideways was invented by the police so that people who have no idea what they are doing end up hurting themselves more likely then hurting anyone else.

Also note:We have had long (boring) debate what visual spectrum means... some say yes to ultra sound, some dont.

I have no idea why something that relies on sound could possibly be "visual spectrum". Just because you use the information gathered by a sonic (not even based on light!) system to draw a picture and paste the picture in your visual field does not all of a sudden make it a visual sense. It does not detect anything using the visual spectrum.

In fact, radar sensors use the same method of detection as ultrasound -- detecting reflected waves off objects -- and they specifically state that they will defeat invisibility even though they actually use light (radio spectrum, I know, but electromagnetic radiation nonetheless).

You can argue rules wise or you can argue RL. If you want to put Shadowrun through the logic of RL you might as well feed a baby through a wood chipper and hope that it will come out hole. It's just not happening.

Rules wise radar and all that other junk is a vision modifier not a sound modifier. It's stupid, and you can ignore them, but you have to realize that you are scratching off some of the rules. It can also get to the point where if you take enough of a long hard look at the Shadowrun rules you might find them so stupid, useless, and unhelpful it might end up ruining the whole system for you. Or not. However the line that is drawn in the sand is go with your gut or play by the rules.

The biggest problem is if you go with your gut there will be players who will fight you tooth and nail because of the fact that when they created their character they didn't know you would switch the rules around on them.

The reason why I quoted the rules is because Pendaric was saying you can use thermo, which would completely go against the rules quoted specifically in the book for improved invisibility.

He said Thermo*sense*, not thermo*vision. Two totally different beasties.

Internal air tanks/gas masks for everyone and a inhalation vector gas grenade.

If anyone of my players tried to argue that Ultrasound was a optic based observation system, I would punch them in the neck.

That's pretty much it. Ultrasound works by using sonic waves. The ultrasound device then translates the waves into visual information so it can be useful to a human, but it is still using sound to sense the target.

Invisibility(and it's improved counterpart) are very useful and are a great way to trump the thermo of those dwarves and trolls. That said, the are innumerable ways to counter it. Wards alone are usually enough to discourage it's use.

Another way that no one has mentioned yet are critters with astral perception. Both hell hounds and barghests are trainable. Plus there is a strain of awakened geese w/ astral perception, if you don't want to have a huge dog along all the time.

I will say again that Ultrasound by RAW is a vision enhancement. You can go with your gut or go with the rules, but one way or another you have to realize that there will be a player who will probably point to page 324 in the BBB and show you that the rules say it is a vision enhancement. Your player when looking at the rules unless told otherwise will think of ultrasound as a vision enhancement and thus it cannot cut through improved invisibility.

Also I would like to add that there is a reason why our group stopped playing SR the more we looked into the rules and the longer we played the game. We found that the farther down the rabbit hole we went the more we kept asking ourselves why this rule or that rule made no sense whatsoever. Also we also felt the rules lacked a lot of clarity in certain aspects of how we wanted to shape our game, and the fact that Unwired didn't really fix the matrix the way we hoped it would be fixed. Eventually by the time RC came out we had given up on the system and no longer cared so are going to probably end up doing either a white wolf hunters skin (possibly in the 2070 setting but we haven't decided,) or a d-20 skin of Earthdawn.

That being said either go with the rules or say they are stupid and don't use them. It's your choice and both are valid, but should a player really be punched in the neck when they create a character and think that since ultrasound is a vision enhancement by the rules they then believe that by the RAW it is a vision enhancement? It is sometimes a little tough to lay out every single house rule before a game has even started so sometimes as a GM you end up running up against resistance if you haven't prepared against every single little pitfall in the book, because the players will probably expect you to use the rules for the most part.


*edit* the initial question is about gangers being able to cut it. The best they could probably use is the geese. *edit*

If you're going to complain about the rules, read them first. The description of Ultrasound specifically states that it lets you see people cloaked by an invisibility spell. It is in the vision enhancement section because the ultrasound is converted to a topographic map that overlays or replaces the user's visual senses.

Lets make this simple regarding Ultrasound:

Arsenal, page 166 - Eyeware
No mention of either Ultrasound or Radar Sensor

Arsenal, page 165-166 - Headware
Ultrasound Sensor and Radar Sensor

Both are HEADWARE

Both translate ultrasound/radar imaging to your Display Link, overlaying your normal vision - but it is not VISION.

I would say this though:

Regardless if something is a visual sense an illusion spell fools the MIND and regardless what someone tells you or shows you your MIND is fooled. I dont care if the ultrasound system tells me that I can see something because my mind will not register it since I will not see it, because my mind REFUSE to see it as I am under the subject of a spell.

That's my take on invisibility anyway.

The martial arts maneuver Blind-Fighting reduces the blind-fire penalty from 6 to -3. This includes fighting things like invisible people. It's still a penalty, but a -3 isn't neeearly as bad as a -6. I had just discovered this fairly recently, but it seems pretty awesome.

Part of the confusion is generated by the fact that ultrasound is listed into the possible vision enhacements for contacts/glasses/goggles, which is basicaly a sensor that feeds an image link to make it understandable to the user because ultrasound is acustic in nature and metahuman's primary sense is vision.

Also we should make distinction betwen mana and physical spell, mana spells affect the mind of the viewer so it doesn't register the presence of to spell's subject, physical spells alter the properties of the enviroment to make it seem that things are different from what they actualy are (in this illusion spells could be considered manipulation spells but if you think about it that could be said for all the spells; and yes the willpower test to resist physical illusions doesn't make much sense); the first have the advantage of affecting any vision related (in the case of invisibility) sense perceived with the viewer own senses (it doesn't affect the vision of the image generated by ultrasound goggles because that image isn't the spell subject), natural or augmented they might be, but it doesn't affect non-living entities, so cameras will spot the subject without any problem (and anyone with with AR glasses can overlay a feed from the glasses's camera to the normal sight) and drones are usualy abundant in the places most runs take place; the second won't affect implanted sensors such as ultrasound/ultrawide radar but will give a misure of convcealment from cameras.

As answer to the OP I might suggest taggants nanites, nebulize them into the suspect area and they will adhere to the invisible subject becoming an AR beacon allowing drones/guns/automated defence to lock on the target (if you were to say that before the Crash 2.0 you would have been taken for lunatic, but right now one of the best spells a mage can have is Demolish Taggants).

Mud. Snow. Standing water.

Booby traps: Tripwires, covered pits, etc. Gangers with lot of extra time, a little creativity and Matrix access can build all sorts of defenses for their safehouse.

As mentioned: critters. Even without considering dual-natured beings, a regular old dog (as per SR4) has Perception and Enhanced Sense (Smell).

Tactics: When gangers encounter snipers they run. They scatter. They hit the tunnels, sewers, and hidey-holes. This is their ground, their turf, they know the ins and outs and will vanish like so much pixie dust when bodies start dropping.

Safehouse: Make sure you put the gangers in an interesting place, not just the typical burned out hole or whatever. Think Cabrini Green, a frightening monolithic maze filled with low income families, gangers and whores. They can run up, down, through apartments, out fire escapes and back in windows. No ganger is ever alone because the halls are too dangerous - other gangs in the same building, the random barghest hiding out from the rain, the occasional security force (or runner team) raiding the weapon store. A lot of these guys will be hanging out with their moms, girlfriends, maybe even playing with their kids while friends cut Novacoke in the kitchen.

[edit] What level of gang are we talking about? Do they have hackers, riggers? What's their industry (drugs, guns, sex, etc)? Who's the backer (Yakuza, Mafia, Triads, Rings, Vory, Lone Star, corporate)?

Actually, SR4 page 201 says Physical Illusions are resisted by Intuition.

*checks the book*

Well look at that... Intuition! How could I have missed that?

Thanks!

i think people get how the invisibility spell works mixed up. remember it's an illusion spell, hence electronics automatically sees the normal version, and NOTHING sees the improved. the spell dose not change the physics of how light affects you, people just believe they don't see you.
it's an illusion spell it affects the Psyche, it would have to be a manipulation spell to affect light it's self.

Please don't repeat arguments that have already been rebutted.

I didn't remember that, my thanks.

Anyway I think that improved invisibility should grant a bonus to infiltration test opposed by a perception test instead of just "see or not" approach.

Counterspelling and liberal use of the Mana Static spell.

Astral Hazing. It's terrible how common it has become.....

Improved Invisibility is a physical illusion. It actually effects the light in the metahuman visual spectrum, not anyone's mind. Ergo, anything that does not use a metahuman visual spectrum to see something under Improved Invisibility will see it. Ultrasound does not use a metahuman visual spectrum and will see them. Radar does not use a metahuman visual spectrum and will see them. Thermosense does not use a metahuman visual spectrum and will sense them. This also goes for MAD Scanners, Radio Freq Scanners, etc etc etc. Anything that can locate them or something on them without using a Metahuman Visual Spectrum (Normal Human Range, Low Light Range, Thermographic Range) will detect someone under Improved Invisibility.

The darn thing about it is that since it "bends light" as you say then it should rather be a Manipulation spell.

Basic invisibility is a "see me not" spell and affects the mind, the latter description for improved version is just to tell us how it fools sensors.

Basically, If a metahuman is affected by the spell he will not believe his eyes (or what input he is getting) regardless of what sensory improvements he is using since he is fooled by the spell.

Paint Grenade. Easy to get and very cheap.

That might be how you house rule it, but the actual spell is a lot more limited. It affects one, single sense - sight. It does not affect ultrasound, radar, scent, sound, etc. It is not a "somebody else's problem" field.

Why won't the paint become invisible?

I'd say it stays visible, because it wasn't there when the spell was cast.
If a 'painted' mage casts invisibility again, the paint would go invisible along with everything else he's wearing.

True, it affects the the subjects of the spell and makes him invisible to people looking at him with their eyes. Regardless if they have ultrasound or radar vision they will still look with their eyes through their image display that feeds them information from their radar or ultrasound sensor.

End result they will not see him as their eyes dont register the subject of the spell as they have been told they do not see him.

That is my point I try to make.

Yes, radar and ultrasound will detect him, but not a human looking through such a sensor as their eyes are still fooled.

ANY other sense works as long as he does not have to use his eyes to perceive that sense

Oh, I dunno, I would expect a few holes.




-karma

Simple then. Implanted radar and ultrasound do not feed to the eyes. Ta-da! But the way you are reading it is still a 'House Rule' and not RAW, so we shall no longer listen to your ranting and raving. Bu-bye.

Not improved invis... Improved invis is a physical illusion. It affects reality, not the observer's mind.

Invis is a mana illusion and affects your mind. You just don't see him because your mind doesn't see him.
Drones on the other hand... don't have minds and are immune to mana illusions.

In either case, Ultrasound is not listed as a visible spectrum affected by improved invis... improved invis doesn't affect your eyes, it affects the visible spectrum as it interacts with you.

wow people are getting personal for no good reason, it is a game guys, you have to suspend your sense of disbelief in the world a little at least.

Now before i get slurs and mother jokes thrown my direction, let me say i'm just now learning 4th, i'm a 3ed player from way back. That being said i know the world and it's fluff about as well as anyone. Well short of AH though.

As for the spells.
I think we all agree on the regular invisibility rules. It is a see me not spell. I mind trick and nothing else.

The improved version be RAW states for the it actually alters the flow of light around the target.
We have also established that this it the improved version of the invisibility spell.
I find it silly and out of place for the improved version of a spell not to also do what its counterpart does.

if i were GMing with a player; that played to win, didn't care about the fun of the game, rule lawyered me at every corner, and made his character as an exercises in mathematics.
I would be forced to stick to RAW and site my decisions in cannon and other cases of similar use in RAW

So, we have a spell with 2 effects.
1. it affects the visible spectrum.
2. it includes the abilities of the "normal" invisibility spell. we will call this the "see-me-not effect"

we will define visible spectrum as light with a wavelength between 350nm and 750~1000*nm. this includes the low-light and thermo vision ranges.

we will define see-me-not as a standard magic effect. Requiring all the normal LOS and resistance rules.

:
The spell could be beaten by non-light-dependent sensors; if the operator of the devices themselves was out of LOS of the caster.

*you have a non-RAW complication as for what to do with IR sensors. Thermovision by RAW gives metas, and the like, the ability to see over the 700nm range, but how far is not documented, to my knowledge. By RAW the spell dose affect that part of the IR spectrum.

also;
silence defeats ultrasonic at force vs rating
radiation barrier defeats x-ray vision at force vs rating
limited barrier"radio waves" beats both microwave and radar at force vs rating.

hey, its always raining in seattle. also, I think adding water cannons on security vehicles and swat trucks is a good idea for thwarting a lot of shadowrunning tactics.

It can't have #2 as it's a physical illusion, and not a mana illusion spell.

in either case, ultrasound detects you, turns you into a man shaped blob on the display link.

There's nothing there for a mana based illusion spell to latch on to and make you not see because the mana based spell can't tell the computer you aren't there. The security guard is seeing you via AR, which magic can't affect.

Now if you had improved invis and a technomancer working together, you could probably be invisible to everything if the techno and the mage got enough successes.

you are casting without altering mana? That is completely against RAW. All magic is mana based as per RAW. the only difference is the nature of the spells effect. Some spell are limited to the astral plane and some spells can manifest on the physical plane.




I just said that.

I hope I am quoting enough, but it was a fairly large post.
I am a little newer to the magic sections of SR.

Does the base/normal spell (Invisibility?) beat Ultrasonic equipment?

Improved invisibility has no impact on the mind, it works by shifting light.

Anything you want to rule different is your house rule, but per RAW Improved invis
affects the light spectrum



Ultrasound is not the visual spectrum. The visual spectrum transmits light to photoreceptors in your eyes.
Your mind interprets the light received. If you have Ultrasonic vision, Ultrasound puts the signal on your optic nerve or optic nerve receptor in your brain if you have cybereyes. If you don't have cybereyes it puts a blob on the display link of your contact lenses or glasses. Which the spell knows nothing about.

In either case, Ultrasonic vision and radar vision are immune to either invisibility spell as neither operates in the visual spectrum of light, even the extended visual spectrum (low light, thermographic, other visual spectrum senses such as a laser pointer).

Er No. sorry Jay. Ultrasound on drone/building nails you but not with a person with invis but improv vis works on visual sensors and people but gets nailed by non-visual detection by both.

Magic has its own twisty logic and different play styles lead to the great cornicopia of *creative differences* that is dumpshock.

I do find how we can all have the same debates again and again, stimulates an interesting cocktail of emotions across the spectrum of human experence.

O what the hell, Street Sam or Adept.

Gun-dept, though I have played my fair share of Sammies.

If you don't care about collateral damage White Phosphorous granades work great, you might not see the subjet but the flames enveloping him/her/it should be visible, not to mention that seeing the target could have become a moot point.

MGL-12 modified for burst fire, loaded with frag grenades works pretty darn good too.

Wow! Talk about some heavy advice chummers! I think the dog angle is the place to start i think I'll be stopping by the local pound next game for sure. Also the nanite idea is awesome , we can maybe get some resources soon from our cram dealings and hook some sentry guns up to our security terminal as well as some trip wires to release the nanites... then our hacker can blast away from the security terminal. I hope the pound has some newly acquired pit bull pups that will no doubt be ill tempered to intruders. I love dumpshock lol... i think my GM's gonna think twice about turning me on to it.

Oh yea, while I'm thinking of it, two sets of two words for you.

Flame Thrower (stick it on a drone if you can't use them)
Spray Gun (spray paint, drugs, what ever)