This pixie would be in its own enclosed cockpit. Are pilots in an aircraft invisible to an astral observer from the outside?

If so, then this would fall under the same rules.

Pixies may do with Drones inside a special cockpit. Everyone else must use cardboard boxes.

What about cardboard box lined drones?

Whither I am being attacked by a drone or a magic pixie, full auto APDS will happen in response... astral recognition is optional.

In regards to the FAQ, I always interpreted it as actively sneaking on the astral, not a comment on mundane stealth skills whatsoever. To me it seemed to be saying this:

An Astrally Projecting or otherwise duel natured character will have some difficulty using stealth skills on the astral. This makes sense as it is a world comprised mostly of shadows and auras, while a duel natured or projecting character will be an astral form, which is stated to be more vibrant then auras.

But, while this increases the challenge it does not stop anyone from the attempt. Obviously, a projecting character cannot use his/her physical attributes to sneak astrally, so Logic is used instead. A duel natured character can use either their physical abilities or Logic as they have a foot in both worlds. A mundane will sneak as normal.

Benefits and drawbacks:
Projecting -> Form is more visible, likely a strong perception bonus to opponent (+4 background heavy shadows, +2 background heavy auras I would say). Does not need to employ stealth against mundane observation (unless they actually pass through someone). Gets to employ more creative movement and hiding techniques such as hiding by passing through a wall and hiding on the other side, or floating along the ceiling. This last benefit will help those who role play sneaking in greater detail most likely.

Duel Nautred -> Form is more visible, likely a strong perception bonus to opponent (+4 background heavy shadows, +2 background heavy auras I would say). Gets to choose between physical and Logic attribute when using stealth skills.

Mundane -> Does not get to see astral-based observers. This can be a big or small problem depending on the orders and procedures of astral observation and how your group treats astral observation. Auras stand out against shadows, but not as brightly as a form would (+2 background heavy shadows, +0 background heavy auras I would say).

All are subject to astral visibility modifiers. All are subject to cover modifiers. All are observed by astral-viewing entities using Assensing skill.

Just how I see things.


I'm still not on board with the cardboard box thing. Astral beings can percieve shadows. If a spirit is going to be told to watch the physical from the astral, I would expect it would be told to pay attention to unusual shadow activity as well. I would say it would only help if the astral overwatch was told to only pay attention to magical activity, in which case a mundane could sneak normally without the box anyhow.

Except that the Drone is not Armor... It is a Vehicle...

Keep the faith

And what about a body form-fitting "vehicle"? I know, I know, full body armors do not count as total cover against magic, but when you consider the kind of armor that has strength upgrades and hidraulic jacks, you can hardly call them "armor" anymore. I know a lot of people will cringe when read this, but considering that the Awakening happened 60 years ago, people would try to develop better ways for mundanes to infiltrate places heavily guarded with magical security, after all, less than 1% develops magic powers and a lot of them will spend their whole lives without figuring out or without enough talent to make a living out of it.

How hard could it be for a corp to develop the equivalent of ruthenium polymer for astral? Perhaps somekind of bacterium that generates a close BGC? And I mean it. I find ridiculous that the best approach to pass through a watcher spirit is hind inside a cardboard box.

There's Concealment, etc. I think making an astral stealth suit would be… pretty hard, actually.

I would say that it is hardly necessary... Infiltration works against Astral Perception by RAW; it only gets cloudy if you ascribe to the text in the FAQ, Which I do not... You just infiltrate as normal...

Keep the Faith

You are infiltrating a facility. Inside of the facility there are spirits patroling the area. There should be no one walking around or only few people, let's take a look at the numbers:
Taking a look at SM page 114 we have a table for astral visibility.
The usual background ilumination of this facility would be +1 or +2. The aura noise would be +2 (+1, at best).
The spirits are actively looking for suspicious movements (+3).
In the end we have +5 to +7 as bonus to the spirits.
Even a crappy Watcher Spirit would have a 7 dice pool to roll. An average spirit of beast would have 13 dice (Int 3, Per 3 +7 bonus). The average infiltrator will have what? Stealth 4, Agility 7? Considering that a spirit of beast has 2 IP's, it could be 4 rolls against your single stealth roll for the spirit find you.
An "astral" chameleon coating would only level the game.

Why's it rerolling the counter-Infiltration test?

Yup, it's a tough situation.

Various Observe in Detail in a single combat round.

Bleh.

Well in a facility there would also be a lot of shadow clutter, so -4. And I'm not a big fan of giving +3 because they are actively looking for suspicious movements. They are spirits and I guess I can say spirits have infinite patience or something but unless they are on alert for some reason I don't give a hey I'm on guard so I get a bonus die or 3. Same with normal guards unless they got a warning that something is up they don't get a bonus because people don't stay focused enough to stay on alert an entire shift(again I can see an argument for spirits) And I certainly wont be giving them multiple tries every CT. Also for watchers and heck most spirits even a really bad disguise would get you past IMO, they aren't really built for noticing things like that especially on the physical plane.

It may be so. But if you summon a spirit and shows it all the aura of all people who should be at the facility, as soon as the spirit detects an aura, it needs 2 hits on an Assenssing roll to recognize an aura.

Possible but do spirits have the memory to cover all your employees, how long do your spirits stay around I mean do you train one every day or do you probably piss off the spirit world and have them bound for a year and a day. And even then watchers are a design fail so getting 2 hits is not easy for them.

The most sensitive areas will have few people working on it. This narrows down a lot.
This might only be my humble opinion, but auras would look to a spirit the same as faces to us so it isn't like they would have a hard time memorizing them.

Extended Masking makes the Invisibility aura moot if the masking isn't pierced. Buffed the masking with Increase [Intuition] makes it harder to pierce.
The fact Invisibility affects the mind of the onlookers and is a Mana-based spell means it is able to affect astral projectors.

Since Concealment is Physical [SR4A, p293] it won't affect onlookers located solely in the astral.

pg 293 "Concealment also allows dual natured critters to conceal themselves and others from astral detection."

Those are both true statements and don't contradict in any way. Dual natured people/critters/anything exist both on the physical and astral plane and can be affected both by physical/mana spells cast on the physical realm and mana spells cast on the astral realm. Since dual natured people exist in both places, they sort of get to break the rules a little bit and if Concealment is physical then it can't be used on the astral plane (unless you cast it on the physical plane and use your dual nature (all astrally perceiving people are dual natured) to have it also affect you on the astral plane.

If the spirit is attempting the same task multiple times (in this case, trying to detect a possible infiltrator whose location is not known to the spirit), if it doesn't succeed on the first test, I believe the rules for "Trying Again" (p.65, SR4A) would come in to play, penalizing subsequent rolls. Unless the infiltrator does something drastic enough that the situation no longer applies as the same task.

Ofcource they cant they aren't in the astral to begin with and can't ever be there without begoming at least dualnatured.

Street magic says the whole year and a day thing is actually very common, and mentions no potential side effects. I think you're reading into it a little much.

This had me think for a moment, would it be possible to create a physical and manna invisibility spell? Or would it have to always be 2 separate spells. By which I mean, can I make a spell which affects cameras and minds at the same time?

They say in the main book all spirits hate to be bound. I suspect any mage who has a practice of making his bindings last the full possible duration is not popular in the spirit world. All games can differ, but that is how I see things.

Personally, I don't see the issue really.

Using spirits to observe is a commitment of resources. Each wagemage can only have so many spirits, and only be in so many places at once. Also, as a smaller part of the population is Awakened (1%), and a smaller subset AWARE, and an even SMALLER subset actual magicians... Using said magic and rarer resources to keep a look out for mundane activities is a waste unless it's of truly high importance, and rarely do runners enter a high secure area without planning ahead a bit unless they want to fore-go infiltration entirely. If it's that important, the runners should know or have the chance to find out, and plan accordingly.

Astral overwatch of mundane things can be used against security as well. Depending on the instructions the spirit receives there could be:
1) a lot of false reports that the mage has to stop what he's doing and check personally
2) releasing particular animals could cause spirits to appear and attack, causing mundane security to act in a different manner (on alert, "false alarm, the spirit killed a devil rat again", causing a panic if the spirit materialized suddenly, etc)
3) accidental casualties. Did the spirit remember all 20 security workers from the various different shifts? How about regular employees with access? Did the new hire get introduced to the spirit yet?
4) runners could hire other mundanes to break in (gang members, two bit thugs, etc), thereby distracting magical resources

All these make me think that typical astral observation will not really be looking for mundane activity in great detail. They will most likely be looking for magical and astral activity, though they may look for certain important things like the sudden disappearance of an aura mixed with an emotional imprint of pain (killed security officer). But mostly I see it as a case of "Not my department, not my problem."

Astral overwatch of the physical world in detail would likely only be when it's determined to be of great importance, or very temporary such as a deal where one party doesn't trust the other to come alone or whatnot.


On a completely unrelated note but thought I had to share, my firefox spellchecker suggests "garbageman" as a proper spelling replacement for "wagemage". Coincidence?

The character I play rolls 13 Dice for Stealth, before Tacnet Bonuses if applicable... So fairly comparable to your Spirit Example... So even odds on a single roll to go unnoticed.

As for a Lone Person infiltrating a Barren facility with no human presence around... Not too very realistic is it? How about something a little more common...

A facility that has Workers, Executives, Researchers, and Security Guards, is not 100% sterile, so there will be micro-organisms as well, Possible background count, and then you still have the facility walls and whatnot casting their opaque astral shadows. Things become a bit easier for the infiltrator don't they? And that assumes that the Mgical Guardian knows EVERYONES Astral Signature, which is not guaranteed in the least, especially for a large facility.

It still boils down to Infiltrator vs. Perception... and I would not allow additional rolls (those 4 rolls mentioned against the Infiltrators Singel Roll) to perceive without applying the -2 Dice cumulative penalty per additional roll...

Keep the Faith

Tell this to my GM, this is how we have been doing it.

Anyway, if it has another human presence around, them you would have two problems. Hiding from the human and hiding from the spirit at the same time.
And again, you only need two hits on Assenssing to recognize an aura. So yes, the spirit could realize it is an unknown aura quite easily.

EDIT: changed recognize for realize, to be semanticly correct as pointed by tagz.

Actually, that's an oxymoron, you can't recognize something you don't already know. Though it COULD know that it's one that it DOESN'T recognize.

Though, that brings up the question of "In your game, does an NPC or a PC know when they didn't get as many hits as they could have?" What's to keep the spirit from thinking he may not have assessed well enough, or does it just know it should be able to recognize it and can't? It's an interesting concept as it could spill over into lots of different rolls.


As for the -2 for retrying, I'd say that the security force has to be looking in a manner that's more specific then just "on duty" to incur that modifier. But the same is said for the +3 for actively looking.

The actively looking bonus and -2 for failing should really only come into play if the security actually has a good idea of where and what to look for specifically. Also, since the guards ARE looking, just not specifically, they shouldn't really get the distracted penalty.

Just my thoughts.

Yes, that's RAW: you only have to Observe to avoid the Distracted -2 if you're doing something *else*.

Sorry, it is one of those "lost in translation" thing. The correct should be "realize". I'll correct my post.

I know what you meant, I was mostly just kidding around.

I know that you know what I meant. I just wanted to make it crystal clear.

I know you know he knows what you meant.