No i'm not. Although vague the astral world info is implying that only physically solid objects are mirriored in astral space, as even a window or mirrior obstructs line of sight and thus gives penalties. (btw, the earlier mention of the one way mirrior shield would only not help against astral perception as per the rules it would just "impair" visibility.)

Astral sight doesnt work off the visible light spectrum, thus there is no reason to believe that something that only blocks visible light (like smoke) is going to block astral sight.

Mages dont "have to sleep" there is a spell for that

but yeah, any mage that would run a Ward business isnt going to be a fast responder to something happening to the ward. First off he might be doing something like you have pointed out, thus causing a delay in him getting to the building owner. The other part being that if he has like 100+ wards up, when something happens to one of them he then needs to figure out which one it was (as in, what building it is in) and then contact that owner, so yeah 5 mins seems reasonable for a response time and thus useless.

Well, it is still seriously useful if you're guarding something seriously secure. But for the bar, mall, or public buildings it is just overhead that goes nowhere fast.

Well there's still those nifty special Wards. Like the Alarm or Trap Wards in Street Magic.

Unless that bar happens to be a Mob bar. Pretty much any place of interest should have wards and magical off-site security - Not the Stuffershack, but the jewelery store, for sure. If Johnson wants to meet in a secure back room, you bet it's going to be warded. If your Hazed out SURGE friend wants in, he's going to wreck the ward and possibly queer the meetup.



If Improved Invis did warp all photons, it would make it a quick and dirty means of avoiding radiation poisoning, which is a cool enough concept to warrant a GM ruling.



Actually, the rating for UWB radar is just for its penetration. The UWB system comes as a stock rating 2 sensor, upgradable as any other radar sensor to rating 6. But you can also couple it with clearsight autosofts (up to 4) in a drone, or use your own visual perception if you're feeding it through to the image link on your comlink for AR overlay (which is default if the radar is installed in a limb.) That gives the drone a potential 10 dice to toss with 0 modifiers besides cover. Baseline being 5 dice, since who wouldn't spend 600 nuyen on a lvl 3 clearsight prog.
Also, with a type of radar that sees through objects to create 3d maps, I'd argue there's no bonus for cover unless your target is hiding in a pile of corpses. I mean, it's really hard to hide anything as distinctive as a skeleton from something that's designed to look fairly exclusively for skeletons. So, yeah. One success is game up. Can't trick something that sees you as plain as day on an open field... where it can additionally see through a meter of dirt beneath your feet as well. That means the hypothetical stock UWB drone can buy the win running passive, then switch to active (read: ping extended style until it knows how many fillings the target has,) all with no LOS.

But both act in response to astral forms - background count would not trigger their defensive capabilities.

Personally, I am of the opinion that wards would not be likely to be used in areas of public access or egress. They would be used in secure areas, or exclusive establishments. The main disadvantage of astral hazing would not be to make the character unable to function in society. It would be in the area of infiltrating secure areas. While it is not stated explicitly, I would say that if a mage can sense when someone attacks or attempts to break through a barrier, he can tell when it goes down (I am not so sure he would be able to tell if its Force went temporarily down due to the background count, though).

Smoke is particulate matter, water vapour and other gases hanging in the air. Matter blocks astral sight. Why would smoke not block astral sight the same way it blocks regular sight?

A good question would be, what is the 'stuff' your actually seeing on the astral plane? It looks like the matter of the regular world, but isn't solid, so it not. Is it someones 'opinion' of that matter which left an imprint on astral space? Given that you can read the emotional content of that matter, I'm inclined to say this might be the case. So unless that smoke as been around long enough for someone's opinion to etch its way onto astral space, I'm thinking you might have a hard time seeing it.

As I posted before:


I think that smoke cast only a thin astral shadow at best - too thin to cover aura of something alive.

first: smoke as astral barrier.

It's important to realize that smoke is not a gas. Smoke is made up of itty-bitty bits of solid matter being carried by gasses and thermal drafts. So yes, smoke would cast an astral shadow. I would argue that the smoke grenade would apply the same penalties in astral sight that it applies to physical sight, since they both block sight by putting solid (and nonluminscent) matter in the way.

Second: Why Petite Brume? Petite Brume is dual-natured, no? so it slows spirits, no? runaway now, yes?

Excellent, now could you propose a mechanism by which this nonliving matter which is not occupying its space for any significant length of time is going to impact astral space there is no emotional tie to any of it? It seems to do something to astral space you need to have feelings, ideas, concepts. No one is going to wash and wax the smoke in their smoke grenades like one would a car, or a window, or any other device or object they touch, so how is it influencing the astral space?

From Arsenal (enphasis mine):

Smoke grenade releases a cloud of smoke over an area with a diameter of 20 meters - heavy or thermal smoke, what means penalty -4 for normal sight (for light mist, it's only -2) for a cost of 30-35 . And yes, it slows spirits... you can runaway if you run faster than 100 meters per Combat turn...
So what does "breakthrough" mean - developing something less effective, for a price nearly 30 times higher? If we assume that normal smoke works for Astral Perception, “Petite Brume” is a pure nonsense...

EDIT:
I assume that regular smoke grenades release a heavy (not light) smoke, because they are only 5 cheaper than thermal smoke grenades.

Which the Johnson isn't going to know unless he is the mage that created that stuff - because the wards don't trigger alerts. Same for an offsite mage warding the corp sec compound. Unless he is on site to astrally see his wards going down, he isn't going to know.

Well, you can assume that the runners have a strong emotional investment in that smoke keeping them from getting fried. Sure it won't be shining like a wage slave's " Hang in there" kitten poster, but, maybe if the runners clap their hands and say "I do believe in faeries," it could impose a minor vision modifier. Another scenario that certainly would generate emotional response is if the smoke was deployed in a crowded area. That kind of panic could even generate instant background count to a small degree.

Street magic page 112 under "shadows" and SR4 page 181 under "auras and astral forms" suggest to me that objects in the physical world show up in astral as "shadows." Street magic specifies that you can go through them, but that they block astral sight. Sure, they wont have an aura, so the smoke would be drab and colourless (oh, wait, it already is), but would still cast that shadow.

Now that I think about it, straight smoke grenades would be less effective on the astral, because the people on the other side are all glowy with astral signature. I think it would still make targeting more difficult, having more shadow clutter in the area per Street magic page 114 Astral Visibility table, but the astral signature would shine through. The Petite Brume, however, could help to mask an astral signature, effectively relying on, simultaneously, aura noise and concealment. I could see making spell targeting through the astral more difficult based on both of those factors.

That being said, RAW suggest that the petite brume would apply it's concealment effects per the description in arsenal, and act the same way that FAB-II does in street magic. You could potentially slow somebody down. Does that make it useful? Not really, but FAB-II isn't cheap.

EDIT: umm... stupid part of post deleted. Before anybody read it I hope.

Edit 2: Kumo, you're right. You would have to run at 100 m/turn. I recommend a fast bike or car.

Oetit Brume Grenades say that they limit astral movement to 100 m/turn. But it only covers an area of 10 meters. You know what that says too me.

Spirit hits the cloud traveling at 100m/turn passes thru a space 10m.

Spirit thinks "Oh, speed bump" and continues on.

I would re-read the relevant rules again if I were you... per RAW even Light Smoke provides penalties to Astral Sight... contrary to what you are thinking, and what you continue to argue and post... Just because you can move through it does not mean that it does not impede sight...

Keep the Faith

Where are these rules?

Street Magic...
Page 112 Astral Topography; Shadows...
Page 114 Astral Visibility - Particularly the sentence that reads - "Note that while these modifiers (Astral Visibility Table Modifiers) replace some physical world perception modifiers (such as the light level), other physical world modifiers still apply."

Also the end of the next Paragraph... "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"...

There are other relevant sections, but these are the immediate ones that show that Physical Shadows, even with little to no emotional content, still obscure astral sight...

Keep the Faith

Yes of solid objects. I'm not thinking smoke qualifies. If you can get a dev to say it does, I might believe you, but I fail to see how something as temporary as smoke can impact the astral like that.

Not a word about smoke directly.
A whole sentence from SM p. 114 is:

Damn imprecise. Which physical world perception modifiers apply, and which are replaced? Looks like another hidden glitch made by devs . IMHO wound modifiers, effects of toxins etc remain unchanged - things affecting the mage directly.

Once again - the air is also material... it should be treaded as one big shadow...
Hell, even light is "probably" a matter of some kind...
And:

Aura doesn't exceed clothes - it shines through them... But clothes or armor are even more material than smoke...

No, they would be used to screen out critters and people with active spells. Most anyone can walk through the ward at a nightclub. If someone bounces off it this would tend to suggests something to the bouncer who is watching people walk though the door.

Plus spirits can create wards. A spirit long-term bound can do some interesting things.

It is pretty expensive to keep rebinding spirits - most venues don't even like hiring security guards and have to be forced to do so by the government as part of their licensing conditions. Why would you assume that bars are going to do so when the influence of the government has collapsed?

One spirit can cover a lot of places. It's not like he has to sleep.

and each place is likely to be a service
long term binding can only have 1 service
short term bindings would charge 1 service per place per 12 hours
I don't see that being 'cheep'

It certainly depends on the definition of service yes.

A plain, dark room, three Lucifer Lamps candle-style with cameras attached for 720° coverage, and a TacSoft.

The Modifiers replaced are specifically listed in Street Magic, all others would apply from the physical world...

You are of course free to run things as you see fit, but I will be using astral shadows and the visibility mods suggested in my games... if it obscures sight in the real world, then an astral shadow is created in astral space for the same effects... remember, smoke does not last all that long anyways, so the astral shadow of said smoke will last exactly as long...

Have a great day...

Keep the Faith