Hey everyone. I got a player who had a major complaint about his character, a well-cybered out ninja to put a long story short (I don't have his sheet, but probably stealth skill group up to 4-5). Aside from the fact that he wants a chance to shine, which I may give him the chance to do, he's feeling like he's gimped due to the fact that being a mundane he's going to get owned by every Melvin the wage mage he comes across.

Here's what led up to his complaint by explaining what happened in my last run.

The runners are working in Los Angeles, and the face gets a call from one of her contacts about a job. The Koshari want something moved across town, simple (hah!). The meet went okay, but the issue came about when they had to pick up the package in question. Our ninja noticed that the warehouse they were going to go pick up the package was guarded, makes sense; the Koshari want to keep their business protected from outside threats obviously. When the runners approach the warehouse, they want the face to go in alone (our face is also an Amerindian shaman).

Here's where it gets interesting, our ninja believes this is a classic setup and they might possibly be getting owned. He wants to sneak in, so he rolls for infiltation (about 5 hits, he's really good at what he does). While the in-the-flesh guards obviosuly don't notice him, the infiltrator fails to notice that there are spirits floating about inside the building, and the spirits quickly inform the Koshari that there's another outsider in the building. Stealth does not hide his aura from spirits, as any mage knows. Thankfully the Koshari, instead of blasting everyone in sight, politely tell the face to remove her comrade from the building. After doing so to an obviously upset ninja, the Koshari hand over the package to the face, and the runners leave.

The run went well, but after the run on the next day several of the runner's apartments explode (for another reason of course), the ninja being one of them, resulting in a loss of her gear.

Last evening my friend complains that any sucker who can cast magic missile will surely own him, and wants to put his points and well-earned karma into guns. On top of which he feels he's even more useless without his stuff. I try to explain as that's why you have teammates who back you up. Having gun skills is also nice, but the last thing you want to leave in a run are tons of bodies and shell casings. In summary, he feels he cannot effectively play his role due to magic, when he still clearly has an advantage with his skill at infiltration and being-all around sneaky. He's being quite stubborn about it too, so that's why I come to you experienced runners here on Dumpshock.

How do I explain that stealth is one of the better skills to have in the game and how is magic not the "be all of end alls" in the sixth world? I know the corps and some crime elements (like the shamanic Koshari) like to hire magicians often so our ninja is going to deal with magic no matter what. How else do I explain why her team and her contacts are also important as well?

Infiltration skill works against assensing as well. Those 5 hits also counted against the spirits.

yep, the spirits would have to roll assensing plus intuition and get the 5 hits/more? to notice him.

same with astrally perceiving magicians, dual natured critters..yada yada.

It's been said in other posts: the best way to deal with the astral is to play it like in the physical world but using other skills. You want to see the guy ?? Make a Perception (physical) or Assessensing (astral) test.

I'm also assuming that in any shadowy skills (like infiltration), there's some type of training/tricks for the mundanes to use to evade the attention of the astral. For instance, hiding behind a window blocks the astral perception. Using mundane objects to hid will do the same in the astral.

I first would have to ask if the spirits did a perception check just like the meat guards did? All the spirits listed in SR4A have the perception skill (except watchers), and since the all the stealth skills says that they use an opposed check vs perception then I would have to say that he spirits would also need to do a check.

Yes, they are on the astral plane and yes they can see his aura, but...
Hence with the spirits and the shamanistic Koshari and the face having astral forms, then it is possible to miss the non-active ninja, hence the perception check. In addition, the cyberware that the ninja is wearing would break up his aura...That would be what I would do.

If you don't do that then she really does have a good point in that if he can't sneak around without spirits automatically seeing him, then his character is rather useless. Especially is, like you say, he will have to deal with magic no matter what.

Ah, now that's a major OOPS on my part. I was unaware about that rule, which I'll certainly let my friend know about next time I talk with him.

This brings up another question now for the astral. Just hiding behind physical objects is enough to keep spirits and mages from seeing you unless they can assense you successfully?

yes, but there is still an infiltration roll to make-unless of course they are behind a wall/etc.

also, have it noted that you do not penalize those assensing with the modifier from the chameleon suit,
if he has one of those.

Which also brings up a good point---ultrasound would bypass the camo suit as well. A detect life/guns spell would bypass the infiltration roll all together---but that would require a mage to be present and within range of the infiltrator.

Either way, you still have to compare this to sneaking past invisible guards. When you use infiltration, you hear or see patrols, hide, move when they're out of sight or looking the other way, etc., stuff you can't do if you can't see or hear the guards. Spirits patrolling the warehouse will catch him unaware, and on top of this they they'll be flying above most cover.

You need a projecting mage along to handle spirits, or give him the ability to see astrally.

Exactly, if you are aware of the spirit and knows where it is, you have a better chance of hiding from it. But, if you are walking blind (without astral perception) you would have a severe penalty to hide from spirits. That's why I was thinking of buying a trained temu for my ninja character, but my GM (who won't let us have fun) said I would find none in Denver to buy...

Fundamentally when Infiltrating against any kind of sensors, magical, technological or mundane, if you are penalizing the Infiltrator for not knowing where the sensors are, this is something that is done equally for all types. There's nothing specifically different about hiding from Assensing versus not knowing where cameras or guards are. (Though you are more likely to know where guards and cameras might be.)

Note that the likelihood of detecting the locations of sensors, and thus avoiding the penalty, is going to be higher in the case of a mundane Infiltrator(Though there are cool toys that let mundanes detect astral presences). All of this is only if you as a GM choose to apply these penalties in those conditions.

I think the biggest question i still have is why bitch slap the 'ninja' character because he was trying to watch his friends back?
on to the last few posts about modifiers to see the infiltrating characters-
i am pretty sure a skilled infiltrator knows to hide his presence as he goes along-
mundane objects appear as structures that even on the astral are not visible.
Also, spirits, on average, have a pretty good chance at assensing the target.
skills=force. That assensing pool can get to 10 easy.
Regardless, its your game, if you wanna slap the infiltrator with modifiers for astral entities seeing him, go for poop.

I appreciate the input guys. This really has been helpful.



Which toys are you referring to exactly?



Our group has two, and he knows of what they're capable of. So he'll definitely need to plan out accordingly with his teammates about anything going on in the astral.



Denver, eh? I'm sure if you ask Ghostwalker nicely...

I know of two "easy" ways a mundane can detect astral presence:

1- Tempo: it is a bioengineered Awakened drug (BAD) that allows one to assence. HIGHLY addictive, you can find all about it on Ghost Cartels.
2- Get a temu. A Temu is an Awakened vervet monkey that is dual-natured. When they notice an astral presence they start to scream and run away, but you can train it to keep quiet and point to you where the spirit is.
Each one has its own drawbacks.

Sure, because a jumping screaming monkey is a VERY discreet addition to a run. Specially in Denver, the most free-spirit active city in the whole NA territory.

Did i mention Shinobi started to plot with the other players that he also wanted a MINI RUTHENIUM OUTFIT for his pet Temu Monkey?

LOL.

Oh, by the way, being a dual natured creature, the Temu will fall unconscious every time it cannot penetrate an astral barrier, and warn the barrier creator if he manages to do it. Being Astral Barriers, something very common whenever a resident mage is assigned to be, i don't think a Temu is such a great addition. Ruthenium Coated or Not.

The problem is, a mundane can have a lot of theoretical knowledge of how the astral plane behaves, but in the end, he is walking in blind.
Yes, if an infiltrator character doesn't know there is movement detector on a corridor, he might trigger it while if he knew there was one, he would take the right procedures to avoid triggering it. The same works for spirits, if you don't know where they are, you will have a bad time trying to bypass them.

Like I said, a TRAINED monkey would learn to be quiet all the time. Also, Space Ghost had such a monkey with a ruthenium coat, why can't I have one too?

Because Space Ghost ended up a fat , frustrated man that runs an interview TV show?

Check out the Manatech section in Arsenal. Esprit “Petite Brume” Grenade, GloWands, Leeches, Lucifer Lamps for example.

The fact that mundanes have access to manufactured goods that impact astral senses might possibly be an indicator that it is in fact possible for mundanes to have some little tiny bit of knowledge and capability of how to affect Assensing tests with their infiltrations skills. But if people want to allow magic to be the all powerful stick of doom that no mundane can resist, that's up to them.

Meh, finding a Temu monkey shouldn't be that hard, just insanely expensive. I can think of a few ways to do it off the top of my head.

You can run it that way. However, I asssume that since the astral is a reflection of the physical, that a mundane hiding in the physical would be as effective as on the astral. Depending on the spirits instructions, they might be only looking for astral intrusion. Hiding behind a box of crates, works both on the astral and physical. The other item is that a spirit would have to know a person on the physical plane is not supposed to be there. To strict on intrusion for physical and mundanes, you'll get a false alarm whenever a pizza delivery guy or devil rat shows up.

Yes, it would indeed be run like that. But people who have enough resources to hire mages also deploy them only on sensitive places, where there is no such thing as a "i was just passing by" kind of encounter. And Spirits with Force 6 have, for all intents and purposes, Logic 6 and Intuition 6, which makes them very smart, even if completely alien. Or else there would be no need of magical vigilance on the physical, or it would not be possible.

For an example: A corporation could create a system on it's highly secure areas where assigned workers would have, not only a magloc passkey, but a vial of dual natured bacteria. The spirits would report on any person passing that had that marking on their astral forms: Others would be reported on sight.

On other example: There was a complex that had only ghouls working on it. Therefore, the Resident Spirits were warned to only warn of non-awakened, non ghoul infiltrators.

Of course they could hire a ghoul to infiltrate, but, damn, that would be SO hard to find that i woud give them the run if they managed to do it.

I don't recall the OP saying that the ninja was spotted by Force 6 spirits. There's a world of difference between hiring on a mage capable summoning Force 6 Spirits to watch the door and hiring a street mage calling Force 3 spirits. More to the point. Hiding behind a crate is equally effective against a Force 6 spirit as it is against a person, still... Neither one can see through the crate.

The Force 6 part was just for an example. At Force 3 or 4, they are intelligent enough.

And if you don't know where the spirits are, the infiltrator cannot really know if they are BEHIND the crate or in front of it, according to the position of the spirit. And even that might change. Let me point out one thing. If a street mage asks a spirit to patrol a warehouse, Every combat turn, the spirit makes 6 perception tests in 6 different places that can be very different from each other. (Observe in Detail is a simple action, and Spirits have 3 Initiative passes on the astral space). They also have a "Walking" Rate that is really fast, but it's normal stepping for the spirit. So, yes it is hard to hide from them if they are there. And most spirits can fly, even if not very high, so they can see some really awkward angles. Spirits aren't like cameras. They are not necessarily stationary.

Agreed, and I was willing to pay the money, but whatever...



Well sure. But let me give you an example. There is a building with a big outdoors area around it. Any people going to the building will do it by car (which means they can keep the windows closed and spirits will have no LoS. Then the spirits can be ordered to report and follow any metahuman soul they detect and wait next orders from the on-call mage.

If you're between a crate and a wall, then you're either behind the crate or behind the wall. Look, it doesn't matter if the spirit can fly. The skill works against flying people and cameras in the ceiling, too, doesn't it? Even if you don't know where the camera is, or that there's a person flying around, it still works. The simple fact is that the Infiltration works whether you know where the observer is or not, so not knowing where the spirit is shouldn't affect the use of the skill in the slightest.

Maybe this could be best handled by giving a Perception bonus to any guard/spirits that an infiltrator can't perceive? Most astral presences would get this bonus, as would invisible/silenced/hidden guards.


Oh, and what about the development of cybernetics designed to make the person's aura look like not-human (astral ghillie implants)? Probably nasty on the Essence though. Maybe a drug that dampens life energy emanations?

Seconded. If you're gonna apply penalties to infiltrators if they don't know where the observer is and/or the observer flies, you should do it for everything that's hidden and/or flies, including micro-drones.

I'm a little surprised no one has asked the obvious question here: why are you playing with a GM who won't let you have fun?

I can see the logic in this. So long as it's applied evenly, and so long as the players have this made clear to them, I could get behind the idea.

Oh, I was just being snarky since our GM is Garou and I was sure he was going to read it.
Although, yes, I'm a little resented he won't even let me try my idea (no matter how expensive and time-consuming it might be).

I think if anything I would reverse the process, if the player makes a perception check, and notices people watching him, or if he has tacnet with marked enemies, or if he has friends looking in astral space who have seen the enemies, I would grant him additional dice to his stealth against those potential observers. Roll your stealth, now roll 3 bonus dice for the guard that you know is there... Something such. Obviously there needs to be someway to work thing out fairly for everyone.

As for hyper intelligent spirits, I believe that this in no way helps them. I would imagine that a force 6 spirit ordered to guard an empty room is just plain bored out of his mind. At the same time, he would consider the duty demeaning and below him. Then you must consider the order he was given, if it was too vague, the spirit might know that the player is an enemy, but will intentionally interpret the instructions in a way that was not truly intended. I can easily imagine that a force 6 spirit would not even notice a normal mundane, as "they are pathetic and beneath his notice". Choosing only to take action against astral or dual natured beings.

At a certain point some things make the game all but impossible for the players. The GM can decide that the enemy is a rank 15 initiate with 12's in every stat, and that his hyper intellect knows what the players are going to do before they do it. This sort of thing makes the game entirely unplayable, and steps to avoid marginalizing the players should be taken. If a player does something that is well thought out, it should be rewarded no matter how many ways the GM can think of to screw him over. If the goal is especially high end, explain that fact, a simple ware house is probably not that high end, and should not have expensive high end defenses.

This is blatantly incorrect. I'll have to dig up the thread from maybe a month ago where we had this exact discussion of what does the astral look like and trying to infiltrate against astral observers.


On the astral. LIVING BEINGS ARE THE LIGHT SOURCES!!!

While the spirit may not 'see' the ninja behind the grate. The spirit sure as hell will notice that there's a very large, very brightly glowing lifesource lighting up the area behind the crate where there should be nothing and probably investigate. Not only that sapient critters (like metahumans) are much more vibrant light sources on the astral than would be a large dog. (also clothing doesn't block the aura as it extends past their body a short distance allowing it's detection and use for spell targetting).


Infiltrating on astral requires a COMPLETELY different mindset than infiltrating against a mundane guard patrol.

The primary use for the infiltration skill against assensing is for projecting mages and spirits trying to avoid notice while purely astral.


Can the ninja do it. Yes, he can try. He's going to have a massive dice penalty for trying through as one... he has no astral perception of his own, he doesn't understand what the mages psychic sense 'sees' or how alien the world is. (So alien that assensing CANNOT be used untrained). He can't 'hide' in the crowd... (the most effective way to infiltrate in the astral is to hide your aura inside a pack of other auras... such as a crowd of people moving through). Inside a clean, non-living area there are actually large dice pool bonuses to astral observers, as there's only dim astral shadows of the real word to see the brightly living aura light itself against.


None of the manatech in the books is going to help him do this. The vast majority of the manatech is only pertinent to people building secure facilities and trying to build walls and similar structures such that mages and spirits will have trouble infiltrating them. Not so that a mobile infiltrator can evade a mobile astral patrol on it's home turf. Even the spirit camera takes too long to take an effective exposure to be usefull.


To the original GM... you did nothing wrong. Against a spirit patrol he wasn't aware of, there's nothing wrong. It's no different than if there was a patrol of counter-ninja's on the inside of the building he hadn't seen. I commend you for just having the opposition have the face call him off... and well if the face denied knowledge... then I probably would have lit him up.


I'd be hesitent... but I might allow him to spend some karma on latent awakening if it's that much of an issue to him. But force him to spend karma on astral perception as his first ability. (and the skills which go with it). If he's heavily cybered I might make him pay extra (since he didn't buy up his magic score properly). Not RAW, but fair to the adepts who had to pay for their magic loss due to enhancements.

umm...no

If you want to run a game in which non-awakened infiltration is all but impossible, then go with the approach you (Falconer) outline. I can not claim you are wrong. The rules are MUCH too vague for me to assert that.
What I would say is that for most games I know of, that would be boring. So most of the GMs I have played with wouldn't do that.

Yours,
Joel

Blah Blah Blah

Spirits see what they want to see. If you make magic all powerful the game is unplayable, period. The books states that stealth works in astral, I can easily argue a dozen ways to screw mundanes if that is the intention, but for simplicity, you need one simple mechanic for stealth as with every task in shadowrun. Feel free to make things as complicated as you would like, but in the end, you will only make the game less playable, not more realistic (how much realism is there in the magic rules anyhow?). I personally believe that in cluttered environments, spirits should have negatives to perception checks. They do not live in our world, and mundanes are naturally hard to see. There are some environments that favor the use of magical security, but others it should simply suck at. A building with lots of non astral clutter, and multiple mundanes active should tax the skills of the most powerful spirit.

Nuts, if he was an adept I would suggest he smoke some deep weed for astral perception checks. If there is magic tech that mundanes can use, cool, I gotta get Arsenal at some point.

Perception and Intuition does translate to the astral, though if you want to learn deeper info from it that is where Assensing comes in IMHO.

And the whole glowing thing? I thought forgarn made a really good point earlier. See his post for his quotes, which basicly point out the brightest stuff is actually stuff on the astral or dual, not mundane auras.

So let me add to that by pointing out that the earth is astral and if auras can be bright enough to 'glow' through most mundane clothing, then the earth for damn sure should be casting a glow even through things covering it - so in conclusion, I would rule as a GM that as long as the ninja stayed close to the earth, his aura could be hidden by his mad infiltration skills in the astral glow of the earth. Yeah, my take on it is that if the earth is a 'light' source on the astral, there is also no night time either but like a constant kinda of soft lighting except for parts where they earth is really extremely damaged (like dead asteroid levels) in some way as to reduce is astral presence and even then it won't be even close to as being in space.

You want the ninja aura to be a glowing beacon on the astral? Put him in space Otherwise let his him get his stealth on.

Just in case it isn't obvious, space is pretty brutal on all things magical/astral, correct?

Okay, just for arguments sake then... yes the earth does emit weak light. (which the book goes on that some traditions attribute to the earth being a living entity in it's own right... Gaia theory). However, it's weak, not strong. The book lists something like a park (green grass, few trees, etc.) as being no visibility mod. As you go into city streets/office building or worse... hospital room clean... living things stand out more against the astral matter shadows.

Look in street magic at the astral visibility stuff... worst possible case is in the jungle in a crowd of people... (life and living auras everywhere... the equivalent of AR spam on 'visual' overload). On the other hand, in a nearly empty warehouse... an aura that the other mage doesn't recognize stands out like a sore thumb.

To better illustrate... an infiltrating astral mage would not hide behind the box... he would hide *IN* the box. (astral shadows of matter don't block movement... and while his clothes are too close to him to block his radiance... the sides of a shipping container are a different story). In many ways, it's a different mindset and approach. What makes the SR magic approachable is that it is so alien but at the same time 'familiar' enough that we can envisage it. Similarly, astral movement speeds are obscenely fast... so you can also use the 'dash' method of going from astral shadow to astral shadow. With masking the astral mage, could appear mundane and 'walk' into the buliding w/ the shift change even though he's not physically present.


I think something the player is missing, and maybe the GM. Magical security is supposed to be rare. It costs SERIOUS nuyen to bind those spirits then use their services up like that just to patrol a warehouse. The only reason to do that is because there's something really valuable or important there/going on. A mid-force spirit will oftentimes only get about 1 service per 500-1000 nuyen. To have multiple of them up on a single night is easily the cost of a guards monthly low lifestyle cost!


The cyber-ninja, could have asked his mage in advance if there was magical security present. With just a quick glance at the assensing the mage probably could have informed him of spirits patrolling the area. Or that there was a ward (another sign that there's magical security).

Remember infiltration isn't just the ninja method... there's other methods as well. For example, disguising yourself as an employee and hiding in plain sight.

Because he was being Ironic. By the way, i am his GM.



Well, it does not work that way. As you can see in the Astral Perception Section of street magic, the modifiers to astral perception are basically based only in the amount of 'life forms' so to speak, in the area. It's easier, astraly, to move in the clear in a forest than to sneak in a dark alley, because your aura is clearly defined against the background.

I used a -6 penalty for non assensing stealth [the same modifier of shooting something you are not seeing, and assuming you had some training in astral evasion and stealth.] If you are doing that trying to ALSO avoid mundade onlookers, i rise that to -8. And i advise Shinobi to spend Edge.

If he had a awakened spotter, i would remove all penalties.



As far as i know, they spirits do as they are commanded. They can only misintepret the order or twist it if you have a glitch on the summoning test, if i remember well. My books aren't with me now.



My point exactly. Thanks.



Yes, i think THAT is the great limitation of magical surveillance. It IS supposed to be efficient. That's why i think the worlds greatest infiltrator is a Ninja Adept.

I add my 2 cents that if you start going the "ninja cant see the astral spirit and therefore his stealth doesn't work against the spirit" route, you will make it WAY TO COMPLICATED. Yes it might be more realistic but it will totally handicap the mundane infiltrator / ninja . Add on top that to be consistent, you would need to make it that ANY watcher (mundane/astral/video camera/spy satellite etc) that the ninja is unaware of, discounts his stealth ability. Again you totally nerf the stealth skills.

Just rule that the stealth / infiltrate skills work against any type (astral or mundane) of perception (unless its a special scenario). OK the ninja may not know exactly where each watcher is and what their LOS is but being trained in stealth means that the ninja knows how to avoid being seen. While infiltrating, the ninja moves differently, keeps close to the ground, takes advantage of cover, moves quickly (so that even if someone does see him they don't know what they saw and and when they follow it up there's no one there), knows roughly how patrolling security (astral and mundane) is set out and how they cover the area*, etc, etc. Maybe the point I'm trying to make is that if the ninja is infiltrating, they will move stealth-a-ly regardless of whether they think anyone is watching them or not.

Phew! Does that make sense to everyone ?

*note this doesn't excuse not doing your homework legwork and finding out what the security set up is like before infiltration. That is just a part of being a ninja**

** I actually prefer Pirates rather than Ninjas but I like to play the stealthy infiltrators in SR

The only correct thing you said in that entire little rant.

Living beings are not Astral lanterns. Living beings merely 'glow' in comparison to the 'shadows' of non-living beings. There is a strong contrast. That's about it.

Infiltration is opposed by a Perception check (Physical or Astral). If the perceiver (in this case, patrol spirits) does not beat the infiltrator, they do not notice them.

There is no "massive penalty" to a mundane attempting to infiltrate past patrol spirits. Astral Perception effectively works identically to Perception to defeat Infiltration, merely using a different set of perception modifiers - at best, the spirit will be receiving a bonus (+2, I think) for standing out because he's the only living thing in the area, or similar.

Which is RAW.

One could argue that a good and skilled infiltrator isn't just sneaking past obstacles that he/she can see, but is using techniques that allow him/her to sneak, knowing that there are a hundred and one ways to observe the sneaker that cannot be seen. If we were playing That Other Game, you'd have things like alarm spells, mundane nightingale floors, even a simple mirror system.

Garou, you are in the wrong in this situation. You basically crippled a character who should be knowledgeable and skillful in the Sixth World, and created an unfair situation by deliberately skirting the rules. If you are going to apply a -6 or -8 penalty to sneaking against invisible observers (of which, the Infiltration skill should already account for), then you are going to have to do it for ALL invisible observers, including drones with Chameleon coating, any blimp drone on a cloudy day, micro-drones, small animals, sneaky guard animals, people observing from across the street in a window because they are voyeurs, etc. If you were playing a 2020 or 2030 campaign, when the Wonders of Magic are new and experimental, I'd say you'd be doing fine, but by 2070, astral security is not only a well-known factor, but people have probably created a body of knowledge to circumvent it.

What I would do, however, is give the Spirit the standard assensing bonuses/penalties listed in Street Magic for viewing this character. They are, after all, only one set of eyes and ears. An infiltrator is attempting to bypass all of the eyes and ears, and despite years of movies and video games, I doubt that good infiltrators will need guards with exclamation points and question marks over their heads to be observed while the infiltrator is sneaking.

Falconer has a minority opinion as far as living auras being "shining beacons of light". They are vibrant, but so are my boxers (and I'm proud of it!). That doesn't mean that people are going to recognize my boxers on an average day, especially if I'm doing my best to conceal them (at least, I hope so).

Even shining beacons of light in the real world don't behave in the manner that Falconer is espousing. Take a lamp, put it in an alley in a given city. Take a blindfolded friend and walk them so they can see the mouth of the alley, but not the lamp. Then ask the friend "What do you see in that alley?" Chances are, they won't be able to tell. They might not even know there is a light source there.

Quite right.

In addition, an aura is strikingly LESS vibrant then an actual astral form. To say that an aura creates a light significant enough to see around objects would mean that a form would be BLINDING. I agree that the glow of an aura can't be much more then what you could see with LOS. I'd say the same thing about forms. The term "bright" in this context doesn't necessitate radiation of light, only clearer visibility.

And even in the off chance I'm wrong, and I doubt it, given that our ninja wasn't the only person in the warehouse (the guards), then I don't think that a spirit would see a single glow coming from around a box and feel it has to immediately investigate. Could be just another guard. Or a rat. Without LOS you can't see the obvious human form (which may be less obvious from cyber), and without an assensing test with hits you can't tell info about what made the aura.

You know, this topic is divisive enough that it might be another candidate for info@shadowrun4.com, the Informal Questions and Answers series there.

Living people are a dim light source on the astral. Astral presences are a bright light source in the astral. Also, the ninja in question has a lot of 'ware. Meaning low-essence. Meaning dimmer astral glow than usual. I'd say it's about the equivalent of hiding a chem light behind the crate in a lit warehouse to a physical observer. It might be a little easier to find, but mostly only if you know what you're looking for and either already have a general idea of where it is, or you're doing a very thorough search. In short, I'd call the effect so negligible as to not warrant any rules effect at all.

...of course, if you think magic should auto-win ShadowRun all the time, no matter what, that's your game. Just don't expect me to want to play in it.

I stand by my assertion. Read street magic. Earth (Gaia) < cloud of bacteria (dim glow) < plants < non-sapient critters (like rats) < sapient critters (metahumans) < active astral forms (spells, spirits, dual-natured and projectors).

The two brightest things on that list are active astral and sapient creatures (metahumans).


I still believe the GM did it correctly... the ninja didn't consult w/ his magical support... and he got ratted out by some VERY expensive magical security. No harm was done to the player whatsoever except a little egg on his face and a good learning lesson.


I'm not all for magic == instant win... but in this case, compared to the cost of the guards per month... the magical cost per day is extremely high for using spirit services like this.


Muspellheimr:
I disagree with what you wrote, ONLY in that the infiltrator has no idea where the astral spirits are and when. He can time to sneak past guards. Use his own perception and kit to rat out technological observers.

He has no way to hide or disguise himself from astral though. (including bonus dice from chameleon suit and other equipment). His essence has nothing to do with his astral visibility as some suggest. That's what I mean by a massive penalty, he can't use the same pile of dice he does for a normal infiltration attempt.

So in falconers weird interpretation of SR you better play
someone with astral perception...Or else you are screwed

Again I ask... how much are you paying for that?!

Wage mage is definitely more than medium lifestyle corporate asset. Plus the cost of his binding materials. You make it sound like easy access to assensing is a common thing... assensing doesn't work through mage sight systems either.

Full fledged 24/7 magical security should NOT be an every day occurence.


You don't answer the point... I never said he couldn't roll, just that he wouldn't get his full dice pool of equipment, and he'd have to change his actions accordingly. Also actions he'd take like 'hiding in the shadows' to avoid a mundane guard only make him stand out more on the astral... as he stands out more in the dark corner in astral the exact opposite of his intended result.


You also ignore that a mage needs to pay a lot of BP/karma for both perception AND assensing.

What if we replace assensing w/ UWB radar? How is he aware it's being used, or he's being observed through walls. Does he still complain that he doesn't get his chameleon suit and other tech goodies against a non-visual sensor?

I never claimed otherwise. The infiltrator does indeed lack knowledge of where the spirits are, just like most surveillance methods the Infiltration skill allows you to bypass

Infiltration <> "Hey look! I'm invisible."
Infiltration = "I'm out of your perceptive range" - which is precisely why it is treated as an opposed test vs. a Perception test (and guess, what, Astral Perception uses a Perception test, simply with non-standard modifiers).



Which, again, is treated as a Perception check vs. Infiltration check. It simply uses different modifiers than visual perception - just like astral perception.