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Valium
How do you handle ghouls and blind astrally perceiving characters in general? Can they read books and signs or use computers? What about melee and ranged combat? What kind of penalties do you apply for these activities?
DV8
As far as I've always treated it, Astral perception negates visibility modifiers. I don't know if that's canon, though.
Quix
I know this is slightly off topic but I'm asking anyway. Can a person actually hide from astral perception without being an initiate?
Velocity
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Valium wrote:
How do you handle ghouls and blind astrally perceiving characters in general?
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DV8 wrote:
As far as I've always treated it, Astral perception negates visibility modifiers.

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From Shadowrun Companion, p. 19:
Magically active characters with the Blind Flaw may still use astral perception as a form of sight. Such characters receive a +2 target modifier for visual tests based solely in the physical world.

Emphasis mine. I submit that a ghoul--or any character with the "Blind" Flaw--could squint and peer real close at a monitor or a book and read it. As for your other questions:
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Valium wrote:
What about melee and ranged combat? What kind of penalties do you apply for these activities?

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From Shadowrun Companion, p. 19:
A character with the Blind Flaw receives a +6 target modifier for all visual-based tests.

This seems pretty clear, but note that this is less than the +8 for "Blind Fire," indicating that the "Blind" Flaw does not, in fact, confer absolute blindness. Rather, the character has extremely poor vision and, though legally blind, can probably still make out indistinct shapes, vague movements and fuzzy colours.
Namergon
This +6 modifier would apply to someone with the Blind Flaw but without Astral Perception.
Moreover, ghouls are dual natured, their astral perception is innate, and IIRC there's something written somewhere about dual-natured creatures not having the +2 modifier, but I can be wrong.
In any event, +6 combat modifier for ghouls is not relevant I think. +2 at worst (against living opponents at least). Do not forget they also compensate with a pretty good smell sense.
spotlite
astrally perceiving characters cannot read, as writing has no aura. if something is fully blinf they can't read unless its in braile. this being the 2060s though, I'm positive that there will be methods of accomodating this disability. Braile keyboards and a braile ticker printout is one methos I know exists now. By 2060, I can't see any reason why you couldn't have an active braile/textured screen for static images (such as text). This would function like those metal pin pictures you can get now where you can push your hand into it and it pushes all the pins that touch the hand forward, generating a 3d hand print image. At the moment they are very primitive, but if you take certain special effects like those in X-men and X-2 where they have a large adjustable 3d map made the same way I can't see any reason why it couldn't be made advanced enough to do the job, albeit not brilliantly. There is also a very good chance that the blind character can use a 'trode net instead.

For any other purpose such as melee combat or ranged combat, using astral perception to guide physical actions imposes a +2 penalty, although this is really designed for characters phyiscally looking and using astral as sort of an overlay. I might impose only a +1 for a blind character trying the same thing as they aren't getting the conflicting images from their eyes. Remember, astral perception has NOTHING to do with real vision. Being physically blind doesn't affect your ability to astrally perceive. Given this, if its something which doesn't show up in astral space, you can't see it, or can only see a short of grey shape which corresponds. In melee combat for example this means trying to defend against someone with a sword or something is much more difficult than looking with your physical eyes.

However, I agree that your quote from the SC, p19 does seem to contradict this, but in the rule book, p173, astra senses it states:

"the astral plane is a primal place. Abstract information is more difficult to perceive there. Written information and symbols carry their emotional intent rather than their informational intent .... you could scan a sheet of paper from astral space and get feelings of love and longing from it, but you can't read it to see that it's a love letter".

while it says 'abstract information is more difficult to perceive' in this paragraph, it later on states categorically that 'you can't read' from astral. In short, you can make most visual tests, just with more difficulty, but there are instances in which you simply cannot see things the same way. Reading is one of them. A computer screen probably wouldn't generate any emotional content as it isn't even hand written, unless it was written on that specific terminal, in which case you might get the sense of failure and resentment from a resignation letter which is still on screen maybe. If its a document just called up from the 'net, or is a factual text, you might not get anything except a feeling of dry knowledge, if that.

Also, ghouls specifically are not necessarily completley blind. lots just have poor eyesight, so I see no reason for the squinting not to work, with modifiers. Also agree that dual natured critters don't get the modifiers for astrally perceiving. A character who is simply blind would though, but again if they use it a lot I might negate the modifier to +1 as they'd get used to it.
BIG BAD BEESTE
OK, first up lets deal with the ghoul question. Yup, they are dual-natured and as such don't recieve the +2TN penalty for astrally percieving - that's their natural state of being. They don't concentrate or use meditation techniques to do it like most "meta-human" magicians who have to "tune in" to the astral wavelengths. This goes for all dual-natured "critters" including spirits, dragons, as well as those with HMHVV strains that make the victims dual-natured too.

Now we come on to the essence of Astral Perception. As Spotlight has already pointed out, percieving astrally is not actually done with the eyes but with a "Sixth Sense" - its just esier to describe the astral world as a visual medium in the game. Might as well try telling the players that their characters can taste what blue sounds like if you really want to get to grips with it! This is what makes magicians and those who percieve astrally a little odd compared to the rest of the "blind" masses.

Additionally, Astral space is the realm of emotions and the reflection of Life essesences in the physical world. After all, it is only a mirror held up to the "real world" but works according to a different set of dimensional laws. Anything alive is more solid than that which is manufactured. Anything which has life and emotions can imprint the astral with their emotive residue. The same goes for anything magical, but moreso - magically active things are solid and even "alive" in the astral plane. You can read up on all of this in the main rulebook and Magic In The Shadows. Getting your mits on old edition rulebooks and the Grimoire will help clarify the focus of what Astral Space is. The rules side of things will be out of date so take that into account whilst reading, although I don't find this is a big problem with the sound theories explored therein. Just use your common sense.

Now, the whole thing about written text and astrally percieving it - that's a no-no. As Spotlight has already mentioned earlier. Only the emotion context of the written text comes out. And as machines have no life, they have no emotional context to impart, and thus astrally they are dead shadows of the physical object. You cannot read in astral, unless the text is written 3-dimensionally - IE it is embossed or engraved or otherwise physically shaped like big neon signs. Alternatively, you could come up with some kind of house rule to allow text which has been written in magical inks to be read astrally as this would effectively glow in that plane. Take a peek at some of the Earthdawn principles and whatnot about astral netherworlds and the interaction between the physical world, magic and Naming if you really want to go to town here.

That also brings me nicely to address the visual modifiers for astral viewing. As Astral Space is alive and glowing it gets cluttered and thus trying to assense one individual,out from among a whole crowd on the street could be a little tricky. Too many blobs you see, but not entirely impossible for the trained observer. However, saying you wanted to do this in a highly emotionally-charged area, such as a rock concert, riot, or scene of a natural disaster or battle. Hence the rules for background count which add the area's rating as a modifier to the TN for the tests. The same goes for all magical activity and those areas of naturally occuring power - IE manalines and powersites. This is all explained in MITS. Likewise trying to see through elements and real world things that hide/conceal or dampen the life signals/emotions (or those that outright nullify or overshine weaker ones) will be harder. There are modifiers for these sorts of things - IE: depth of water, rock walls, forests, and fire - all of which get progressively higher in proportion with the greater distance between observer and target.

Finally, I'll wrap up on a couple of minor points about sight and computer access in the Sixth World. Cosmetic correctional eye surgery is easilly available to mend such poor vision flaws, unless its the actuall visual processing part of the brain that is the problem. If the eyes can't be corrected, then cyber replacements are another option (unless its the brain again). Alernatively, there's always ASIST or SimSense. Get a datajack and just plug your brain into the matrix - all you need is a brain for that, no matter what else has happen to the meat.
Velocity
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Namergon wrote:
Moreover, ghouls are dual natured, their astral perception is innate, and IIRC there's something written somewhere about dual-natured creatures not having the +2 modifier, but I can be wrong.
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BIG BAD BEESTE wrote:
OK, first up lets deal with the ghoul question. Yup, they are dual-natured and as such don't recieve the +2TN penalty for astrally percieving - that's their natural state of being.

I'm not disagreeing out of hand with what you're both saying, but could one of you provide a book & page reference for this idea? It seems reasonable to me, but I don't recall reading anything of the sort in any official sourcebook.
Shanshu Freeman
QUOTE (spotlite)
A computer screen probably wouldn't generate any emotional content as it isn't even hand written, unless it was written on that specific terminal, in which case you might get the sense of failure and resentment from a resignation letter which is still on screen maybe.

I agree, your interpretation is also consistant with the explanation for being able to hear while astrally projecting. If it's generated by a speaker, you can't hear it, but if a person says something, you can hear that because of the emotion in their voice.
Lilt
QUOTE (Velocity)
I'm not disagreeing out of hand with what you're both saying, but could one of you provide a book & page reference for this idea? It seems reasonable to me, but I don't recall reading anything of the sort in any official sourcebook.
Here ya go, it's in the intro to the spirits and dragons section of the main book
QUOTE (End of 2nd paragraph @ P260, SR3)
Dual Beings do not recieve the +2 target modifier for non-magical activity while using astral perception; continuous astral perception is natural and normal for them.
[edit]And under the Dual Beings heading on P5 of critters[/edit]
Lilt
My take on this: Your astral form hasthe senses of sight and hearing, and you can touch astral objects (P173, SR3). I don't think the whole "tasting what blue sounds like" idea is quite right, although it's certanly a nice twist to put on things.

It's also an interesting nore that the section on astral senses on P173 says that you can tell what colour a stop sign is, but elsewhere it states that the astral plane is completely grey. (I know I've seen it before, but where was the page refference for the fact that the astral plane is completely grey?)


I personally would allow a character to gather information from a computer screen, but only if someone had read the document on the screen and thus interacted with it. IE: someone reading an email saying they were fired would probably read the Anger/Dismay imprinted on it, but would need to succeed exceedingly well at an assensing test to gather that the person reading it was fired.

[weird=stuff]I have in the past made the astral plane far, far, far more complex and multi-dimensional. Some dimensions available were X, Y, Z, Time, "Astrality" (How astral you are, you manifest when you are close to the physical and enter the metaplanes by moving further), dimensions for emotional scales (happy/sad, angry/calm), and more... Essentially it lead to more interesting astral combat as people could dodge anger-word and astral forms needed to manifest to attack dual-natured stuff. Time was virtually impossible to navigate (I was considering adding metamagical feats) but you could see about 1/2 a second in either direction, the future split into an infinite number of paths so unless something was almost certain to happen it was just a blur.[/weird]
Zazen
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It's also an interesting nore that the section on astral senses on P173 says that you can tell what colour a stop sign is, but elsewhere it states that the astral plane is completely grey.


I think that's because you identify it as a stop sign and you know that stop signs are red, not that the stop sign appears red.

It's kind of like saying that you can read normally using astral perception, provided that you are viewing distinct letter-shaped objects (like the big Hollywood sign). A bit misleading, but correct.
REM
Blind quadraplegic deckers.
Lilt
QUOTE (Zazen)
QUOTE (Lilt)
It's also an interesting nore that the section on astral senses on P173 says that you can tell what colour a stop sign is, but elsewhere it states that the astral plane is completely grey.
I think that's because you identify it as a stop sign and you know that stop signs are red, not that the stop sign appears red.
I'll give the full quote
QUOTE (Middle of 3rd paragraph @ Astral Senses, P173, SR3)
For example, you could see a stop sign and know what it is based in its shape and color, but you can't read a street sign and know what street you're on.
I think that implies fairly strongly that color is discernable and is one of the aspects that allows you to identify the sign...
Zazen
When it says "know what it is based in its shape and color", it could mean that you know its a physical object by its grey color.

Then you notice its octagonal shape and that it is mounted on a pole next to an intersection, etc.
Velocity
QUOTE
Lilt wrote:
Here ya go, it's in the intro to the spirits and dragons section of the main book
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(End of 2nd paragraph @ P260, SR3)
Dual Beings do not recieve the +2 target modifier for non-magical activity while using astral perception; continuous astral perception is natural and normal for them.

Ah, so it is... many thanks, I must've overlooked this.
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