BitBasher! Your right! It should be 1-.5^3 or 87.5% chance of at least one 4 or better on 3 dice. Gawsh I'm ashamed. Sorry Eyeless. It's no fun being contradicted by a moron, nor is it fun being that moron.

Why are you talking about the odds of getting at least one success with a TN of 4 in relation to the odds I stated in my posts, anyway? I never used a TN of 4 as a basis for example in my previous posts.

I was talking about a force 4 spell and a magic rating of 6 for a TN of 6. 4 + 6 (magic rating) -4 (force) = 6

Mmmmmm. Drugs. Yup. Couldn't be mere stupidity on my part. I'm sorry. Please let it go.

My difficulty not the chance of success, from a balance point of view it is about right.

My difficulty is that the flavour text, witch I consider to represent how people think of things in the world, says the chance of detection is much lower.

As an example there is a HV machine pistol that has the flavour text “marketers say it fires so fast it doesn’t have time to recoil” but the game rules specifically state it has no features that reduce recoil.

Edward

That is flavor text though, the key bit being "marketers say".

The stuff about magic being "not very" noticable is just the text of the rules. It isn't flavor text it is the high level description of the actual statistical rule... except that it doesn't match the rule at all.

Were there magic noticing rules in sr2? I don't recall the shamanic mask part. I think it was just mentioned that the shamanic mask exists. Could easily be that the rule is new and the descriptive text old.

However it has been quite a while since I have looked at an sr2 book.

I guess most folks let 1 success on a perception test go a lot farther than I do. According to the Perception success table, 1 success gives the result of "Something is there", 2 successes gives the result of of suspecting what type of thing it is. I'd interpret that to mean, if someone got 1 success, they may think the person may be acting strange when a spell is cast, but a lot of people act strange when a spell goes off. 2 successes means they have good reason to believe the person may be casting spells. 3 successes and they KNOW a spell is being cast. Most folks have an average of 3 intelligence, and in a crowded restaurant, not everyone would be in a position to notice anyway.
Another instance where this is favorable is in stealth tests. I may have a guard hit that 14 target number with his perception test, but that doesn't mean he's whipping out his gun and and hitting the panic button. It just means he noticed something. At that point, he either investigates, or if he's some low rent thug w/ a badge, ignores it and goes back to sipping soycaf.
End point being: One success should not give your mage away if casting a spell.

Does the shamanic mask remain visible while a shaman is sustaining a spell?

Not that I know of. I'm sure I remember seeing it specifically described as only a momentary change as the spell is being cast.