Hi!


This might be an obvious one, but I don't know the terms to search for, so:

What does keep me from levitating around my cyber-eye casting spells trough it? I paid essence for it and that was the only criterion I could find in the rule books - nothing about it having to be attached to the body. But that really would sort of "feel like cheating"


thx

You paid Essence, it's legal.

You paid essence, but like the eyeball drone mod, it has to be IN you to function. This is for the same reason there are no weapon focus arrows: once an item leaves your aura, it is no longer considered part of you or connected to you magic, and is therefore subject to the normal "no casting through non-optical (vs electronic) image displays."

Emphasis mine.

That is probably the single BEST "why" I have seen on the topic. Thank you. I will give that to one of our players who asked, and looked at me like I had a second head when I tried to explain the real "why".

If you can refit the drone with an optical lens and have it trail a very fine optic light-tube spooled up to your eye socket, you could cast magic through it.

Note that a weapon focus taser - of the type that has phsical wires/leads between you and your target - is technically legal.

hmmm... special equipment mod anyone?

What would be the advantage over a MageSIght goggles?

The drone would be far less obvious when undeployed (in your socket). Mage sight goggles appear to be bulky and obvious, but they have no real disadvantage to the drone except in covert situations.

can you get optical thermo and low-light for mage-sight goggles? flare comp? (i'm not sure offhand, actually, maybe you can...)

The optical binoculars have no capacity, so it is not explicitely written, but I assume you could have none of these enhancements on any optical device.

capacity is for cyberware. goggles, monocles, glasses, etc all just have increased availability (leading to some very valid questions, such as "why can i fit more vision mods into my contacts than i can fit into my cybereyes?")

In SR4A, it is also for visual / audio aids, but on a different scale: each enhancement takes up 1 slot. Electronic binoculars can have up to 3 enhancements, optical ones 0. As it is not a matter of size, I assume that optical devices are incompatible with vision enhancements.

You can only get lowlight or thermographic vision with electronic modifications. Since this is a cybereye you can use those vision mods. Now here's something that is sorta creepy. Get the Eyeball drone mod, pop the eye out of your head and hold it around the corner, kill everyone there without exposing yourself to a whole lot of return fire.

Now I have a scene in my head of a troll samurai with the mage and friends in a bar.

"Here - watch this," says troll. slaps mage on back of head causing eye to pop out and land in mage's beer,
"Stop doing that!" says mage.

Its expilicly stated in the eyeballs drones description that you cant cast spells via it whne it hase been removed. however you could get a cybereye in your had.

Hence the reason why I said you hold it around the corner. As long as you are touching it then your aura can channeled through the eye and at the opponents. As soon as you stop touching it... that's it, no more spells.

Wanna Cheese?
Cyber-Arm with Rocket-Punch hand with built in Cyber-EYE< = IMPORTANT, simple Camera won't work.

Mage sight goggles don't have wheels and motors on the end directing its movement, it's just a loose fiberoptic cable.

Note that the cybereye could use any electronic connections back to the socket as a cyber eye (digital) does allow casting as of 4th edition IIRC, so all you'd need is a non-wireless connection.

Unless there is a specific note about the cybereye iBall drone and spellcasting.

Yes, there is a specific rule about it and spellcasting. I believe it's in the description of the cyberware.

Actually, the gear description says the cable is wrapped in myomeric rope, so you can control its movement.

My mistake. IMO, a drone would still be more maneuverable.

Oh, no doubt. Still, the goggles aren't entirely useless in that regard.

I saw a character once who had a cybereye on the end of a long cyber tail, great for spellcasting.