And I'll plop it in here so people can talk about it



Hope that helps.

I'll also toss in that in the fluff description of the same all the way back to SR1, the act of casting a spell involved opening yourself up to magical energies and synchronizing your aura with your target's/targets' aura(s). Once that was achieved, the spell was cast and subsequently resolved.

Such synchronization could occur through normal / cyber (paid for with Essence) sight or through using Astral Perception.

You basically could use Astral Perception to read people's auras good enough for casting spells against them but could NOT affect the person through their aura unless you were active on the same plane as that target. That had to do with Physical Plane Mana needing to be used against Physical Plane opponents while you'd use Astral Mana against Astral targets.

Thus:

Astral Projection Mage can affect...
-Astral Spirits
-Materialized Spirits (dual natured due to Materialization)
-Anything that is Dual natured
-Others who are using Astral Perception
-Other Astrally active entities

Astral Perception Mage can affect...
-Astral Spirits
-Materialized Spirits (dual natured due to Materialization)
-Anything that is Dual natured
-Others who are using Astral Perception
-Other Astrally active entities
-Physical Plane entities / objects

Physical Plane Mage can affect...
-Materialized Spirits (dual natured due to Materialization)
-Anything that is Dual natured
-Others who are using Astral Perception
-Physical Plane entities / objects

Truth be told, a caster using Astral Perception can target ANYTHING. They get all the targeting benefits of both planes with fewer restrictions than either side only gets. The drawback, you are open to attack on both planes (which can be a significant penalty depending on the situation). The other hazard would be astral environment penalties (ebbs, warps, etc) but those are comparable to other distractions that could be coming from the physical.

Alright, think I've been convinced. I still wish they would have spelled it out a bit clearer. It says that asteral perception can target something, and that while using astral perception you can cast a physical spell, but it never says that astral perception allows you to target something on the physical plane. Still, it seems like that is the intent, though I rather like the idea of them being more separate, as I think it makes the blind mage concept more interesting since they'd have to resort to touch on physical targets.

Edit: Also because it is a somewhat cheap way to bypass all vision penalties. Yeah, sure, you 'open yourself up to astral' but 99% of the time that means squat, because 99% of the time there isn't an F8 spirit standing right next to you waiting to clobber you.

Not to hear my players tell it! They are convinced Astral Space is a deathtrap! In my defense, the astral opponents were a trifle too overpowered early in the game (my fault!), but since then, it has been pretty even. Despite that, I think it is the "burnt child avoids the cold stove" syndrome!

I cannot decide which way I would rule this, if it came up... On the one hand, Blind should make touch and AoE spells the only option, on the other hand, a Blind Mage has the Rule of Kewl all over it...

Curses! The book is no help, either, since it doesn't directly address this edge case! The targeting rules seem like they were pared down a little, possibly an editing choice. Of course, no rule can address every scenario.

I may go along with Tymaeus, though, as it doesn't seem overbalancing (especially since my players don't go into Astral Space if they can help it!). Astral Perception mods would apply, though, as many as I can stack on (heehee). My PCs tend to have large dice pools in our 600+ BP game, so I am constantly trying to inject as much "realism" as I can at them!

Another potential downside of using astral perception is you can no longer hear your teammates talking to you over the commlink, since your earbud is a technological device. You can still talk to them since your mic picks up your voice, but you run the risk of talking over someone else and garbling both communications (unless in the Sixth World they have some kind of commlink algorithm that prevents such a thing).

Corollary: Does DNI work while astrally perceiving? Like if you had a datajack and hook your commlink up to that, can you still "hear" what team-mates are saying through the DNI while using AP? My gut says yes, since you paid essence for the datajack. I'm not sure a trode net would work, however.

Agreed. A chart along the lines of the drone/rigger's dice pools for jumped-in, dog-brain, or remote control would save all of us pulling from four+ different pages of material to make our (good whether correct or incorrect) points.

I didn't think technological devices were any more/less audible than anything else while astrally perceiving. Speaking of which, what can one hear while astrally perceiving? I recall mention of a deaf mage being able to 'hear' on the astral. Do only astral entities make sound on the astral plane, or does everything filter over?

It doesn't necessarily bypass all vision penalties, just things like glare, and darkness. Smoke still has a physical form so it could obscure astral points just as much(kind of GM discretion) and FAB would block more thoroughly in astral than in physical. And you can always add in astral vision penalties from heavy astral impressions and activity. For example a place that recently got rid of a background count from a disturbing murder scene. It may no longer have the background count due to time, but the astral echoes could reduce your ability to perceive in the astral.

Normally what I'd do in the case of the frequently astrally perceiving mage is sometimes he'd get through the modifiers fine, other times astral perception is even more penalized than physical.

Everything has a representation on the astral, but the emotional content may be more pronounced.

Indistinct sound seems to indicate that you wouldn't be able to hear anyone talking, technological device involved or not, while astrally perceiving.

Not to be the stick-in-the-mud, but I still don't see an explanation anywhere about how the RAW that says 'can do both' contradicts the RAW that says 'can't do both at the same time'. Help me out, here.

I can chew gum. I can walk. But ..... OK, a better example: I can walk, and I can drive a car. I am capable of both as long as I am in the state of 'being awake'. Just not at the same time.

So I was gonna post stuff about what I thought I remembered about technological stuff not being distinguishable while astrally perceiving / projecting, but now that I look for it in SR4A, I can't find it! Perhaps I remembered it from a previous edition? Or, my butt may have been typing again.

Astral Perception/Assensing is what you use to determine if a Character is modded up with Cyberware/Bioware... why would it not be able to distinguish technology?

Keep the Faith

You are not actually seeing both planes at the same time, while astrally perceiving, you are perceiving the astral world, however, since you are Physical (percieveing remember) and you can see the auras of both living and nonliving things, you can still establish that link required for spell casting (or whatever esle you may be doing like driving, though at a penalty) and that will allow you to cast your physically based spell on the physical plane, at the target you have chosen, even if you are preceiving Astral Space...

Keep the Faith

That's technology that's been Essence-integrated.

You know, can you REALLY drive while astrally perceiving? You can't see through glass, so you won't be able to see through the windshield. I guess you can always stick your head out the window or shoot out the windshield. But you definitely won't be able to follow stop lights or make out signs. So it sounds like a really bad idea.

Perhaps, but that is why you have a -2 Penalty to any physical action you would take... and driving my motorcycle, there is no glass to get in the way of my perception... but in cases like those, you can still follow the flow of the traffic around you, so even traffic lights are truly irrelevant, and if you are using gridguide, well, it would not matter anyways, as the system would handle all of that kind of crap...

Anything else is really just semantics at that point...

Keep the Faith

what about your Bike Helmet ?

JahtaHey
Medicienman

Don't wear one. Helms are for chumps and will mess up the hair of the mage. You wouldn't want a mage to have bad hair would you?

have you ever ridden a motorcycle at reasonable speed without eye protection? It is unpleasant to say the least.

And unless the mage's hairstyle is "blown away by airstream" wearing a helmet doesn't mess up the hair any more than driving without one.

I decided to see where I got the idea about tech not having meaning on the astral, and poked around my old SR books. Found a passage in SR3 (page 173) about astral perception.

So it turns out I was wrong; you'd still be able to hear your commlink just fine according to this. I guess I remembered the part about not being able to read a monitor, and somehow extended that to all tech in my (warped) mind.

The only similar passage I can find in SR4A is on page 191.

That kind of supports what I was thinking with the "indistinct sound" bit, though it's a pretty vague statement. Maybe your teammates talking on the commlink just sound a bit more distant, which I guess isn't much of a downside.

I also dimly remember something about mages going to concerts while astrally projecting and being able to pick up the music as well as the emotional content of the songs and the excitement of the crowd. I guess if tech couldn't be properly heard, it would make astral concert-going a bit problematic. I mean, you'd hear the roar of the crowd, but not the music blaring out of the loudspeakers, so you'd have to go right up next to the musicians to hear what they were playing.

I don't have Street Magic; is there any more exposition of astral perception in there?

I also still wonder about DNI. Would your AR display still show up overlaid over your astral "vision" if you were wearing a trode net or had a datajack?

That's a good question. My gut reaction though would be 'no' because it likely connects with the same part of your brain that your eyes do, and your eyes aren't being used at all any more.

I also still wonder about DNI. Would your AR display still show up overlaid over your astral "vision" if you were wearing a trode net or had a datajack?
No, because you can't see anything Technical while perceiving Astrally

JahtaHow
Medicineman

Implanted DNI(Any implanted cyber has DNI) uses essence, and a trode net doesn't.

Technology that the user pays essence for can be used for visual targeting for example.

Hmmm So You say ,If a mages gets Thermosense and pays for It with Essence he can establish a Line of sight for Spells ?

HokaHey
Medicineman

Not necessarily. Eyeware paid for with essence allows targeting. UWB Radar and Ultrasound are out because they are headware. Maight also have something to do with being active sensors.

I did put that word visual in.

woops