So, assuming you're hidden with an infiltration roll (4 successes), and attack someone with your silenced Ares Predator. The target survives.
Now, do you:
a) Let the attacker use his remaining simple action to re-stealth (another infiltration roll), and the target gets to roll perception on their IP, with the -4 due to silencer, or
b) the attacker can spend his remaining simple action to do whatever he wants, and the target gets to roll perception on their IP, with -4 due to silencer?

Also, are there any other modifiers/rules I should be aware of? Because, from my understanding, it would be way too easy to chip away someones health utilizing a silenced firearm, while remaining stealthed.

I could be really very much wrong but i don't think stealth-ing is like hitting a button in WOW. The guy knows you are there, he was just shot at, and he is pissed. He is going to be looking at the direction he was shot from and doing a perception test with the appropriate mods. I don't think you can hide in plain sight like some other games out there. If you can get out of the area without being noticed i would let you re-roll your infiltration to hide again but it isn't a power it is just you trying not to be seen. Shooting at people doesn't go hand and hand with hiding unless you are a sniper shooting from 300 yards in a gilly suite.

I'd argue b). The victim is likely to either drop prone, seek cover and attempt to locate the source of the gunshot using the general area of the attack. This would probably grant him a positive perception bonus (versus before) of +3 from "Perceiver is actively looking/listening for it".

But it is true that a rather unsuspecting victim without a high perception pool, or particularly useful sensory enhancements (spatial recognizer, audio enhancement, etc) is very unlikely to locate the source of well hidden, suppressed gunfire before it has done them harm. They can still go prone/take cover, call for help, or flee in response, though. They would also, probably, be aware of the general location of the attack.

Edit: I agree with Cang, it's definitely not like an on/off toggle, you need rational for why you're hidden. Also, infiltration implies motion past a perceiver (metahuman or otherwise), disguise is what lets you just lurk in plain sight.

Nope, Disguise is for disguises. Infiltration is hiding and sneaking, which is not to say 'plain sight'.

If you are in plain sight and there is someone capable of perceiving you, then you are "Immediately Noticeable" and by RAW no test is needed to observe you. You have to be hiding in SOME manner in order to receive the benefits of Infiltration.

Disguise does have the 'camouflage' specialization.

Also, from SR4A:
Disguise - When a character wants to take on a false appearance of some kind,
she uses the Disguise skill. This is true whether she wants to look like
someone else or blend into the background.

Infiltration - Infiltration is the skill used when a character wants to sneak around
undetected by either other characters or security sensors.

I use that to mean that hiding while stationary is disguise. Minimizing the impact, perceptively, while moving is infiltration. I am open to reinterpretation, though.

I'd say the person would have to spend the rest of his action to hide again (unless they were a sniper 200+ metres away in a ghillie suit as suggest earlier, they wouldn't need to hide again IMHO), and they would actually have to be hiding in the first place for it to work.
Ie in Shadows (if the target doesnt have relevant technology to bypass that normally) on the second story building across the street, in a dark alleyway under a car ect.

None of this hide in open sight nonsense.

Oh, I see what you're saying. Disguise as in, designing a stationary camouflage, like a duck blind? Now I understand *why* you said 'in plain sight'.

I would argue that this use of Disguise applies only as far as making your camouflage, not, as it were, 'using' it. You could create a ghillie suit appropriate to an environment and get the camo bonus, but the Opposed Perception test of *hiding* is going to be Infiltration, because you're almost inevitably going to be moving. For me. *shrug*

The linked skill of Intuition is what hints at a creative process. Hmm. You could, for example, use Disguise to hide inanimate objects, and I can see how you would apply it to strictly immobile, preplanned hiding (of oneself).

Except the description of Disguise claims it is an opposed test vs. perceivers. I understand when you're trying to look like someone else how this test is used. But, if you're disguising yourself as the woods, how do you decide whether you're using your disguise roll or a new infiltration roll. If you use a new infiltration roll, what does the camo specialization even do?

It is also this disparity, that cause me to use infiltration while a player is moving, and disguise when they are stationary. I argue that the stationary player is making a test to blend into his surroundings, making him harder to notice (i.e. throwing leaves over yourself, lying near a log to break up your figure, etc).

If you're hiding in a preset spot, Disguise could make perfect sense, and the first roll would stand until you moved. It applies to visual perception in cases where the enemy will literally look at your disguised position.

Infiltration covers everything else (that is, everything except hiding in a preset spot). I don't think *just* standing still makes it Disguise, no.

Very true, I'd agree completely. Also, 'just standing still' is a pretty dubious method of hiding, except versus blind people.

Haha, yes.

hi hi

A disguise roll could be used if you were hiding in a crowd, or maybe even a palming roll if you are taking the shot from inside the folds of a long coat, while in a crowd and attempting blend in.

Other than similar situations to those highlighted in examples in the rulebooks, I would agree with you. Disguise is used for creating a false appearance and Infiltration is used to sneak around undetected.

Getting to the spot in the woods undetected would require infiltration. Setting up a hide would be disguise. If the situation at hand is someone hiding behind a wall, peering round the corner and in essense trying to sneak pass someone or something undetected, it doesn't matter if the character is momentarily stationary or freeze for several moments, he is using Infiltration. If the character is hiding in a dumpster and creating a false appearance, it doesn't matter that he scratches his ass, he is using Disguise.

Right.

Kind of surprised no one's mentioned the obvious: if you shot him once and he lived, shoot him again!

The OP did. It was part of the question.

I say neither infiltration nor disguise, after palming the gun you clearly use the con skill while pointing at someone else and screaming, "Holy frag, that guy just shot you!"

That doesn't really work if you were infitrating a corp facility before taking the shot.

Your interpretation is wrong and the book disproves you readily enough.

SR4A, page 133.



As someone pointed out earlier, the use of Intuition with disguise lends it to a craft-oriented skill. Combining bits and pieces from the area around you to craft a blind to hide you from an enemy is a disguise check. Crouching while wearing camouflage is an infiltration check. Standing next to a wall while wearing a chameleon suit is an infiltration check. Assembling a costume to make you look like someone else is a disguise check. Laying in a wilderness environment in a ghillie suit is an infiltration check.

Interestingly, you could potentially use the disguise skill in crafting a ghillie suit to create one that inflicts a penalty larger than -4.

It does with a voice mod and a vocal sample from another guard...

Sure it does, just make sure to dress corp (or as another guard...either way I guess that means you did use disguise as well) and point at either one of your fellow runners or the other security guard near you, bonus dice if the target actually has a gun in hand.

I mean who's the guard gonna believe at that point, you the cute dryad social adept carrying a teddy bear, or McScruffy the troll?

As for the original question of hiding.

If you shoot someone with a suppressed weapon and they don't die I generally would follow the following process.

1. Target shot must make a perception check, opposed by your infiltration check, to find you. The act of shooting does not innately break stealth or hiding, in my opinion.
2. If the target beats the check, you're no longer hidden to him (and his allies) until you can break line of sight.
3. If you break line of sight, you can make another infiltration check to continue moving around unseen.

This, being hidden and becoming unhidden on attack is a DnD thing. The act of attacking alerts them to your presence, which means they will be looking for you, but it does not automatically give away your location.

Shadowrun also doesn't utilize directional sight or facing when it comes to individuals, so the direction a gunshot comes from doesn't matter. At best it is the catalyst for the +3 bonus for active searching which could be construed as "active searching means you limit your search to an area you know the target is located".

If your an dryad social adept, why on earth where you infiltrating and shot the guy in the first place.

I agree with StealthSigma. The shot doesn't cause the attackers infiltration to be automatically ended.

Per OP, the attacker still has 1 simple action left. He can use his free action to move (or if he's used his free action, his remaining simple). However, the attacker needs a complex action to use infiltrate, per SR4a p.148, so he'll have to wait until his next pass for that.

Assuming a sucessful infiltrate roll before the shot (which OP does), the attacker isn't "immediately obvious". Therefore, on his turn, the defender can take a new perception test to attempt to find the attacker. This may or may not get an extra bonus, depending on whether or not the defender chooses to spend a simple action on observe in detail.

Anyone else gets a standard threshold 1 test to hear the shot, at -4 dice because of the silencer, per SR4a p. 322, or a threshold 2 test, per SR4a p. 136.

Silenced shots are a threshold of 2 on the Preception Test Tables on p.136 SR4A, which always struck me as odd, given they also get -4-7 depending on the gun/ammunition used.

I would say that the whole "is the target unhidden after an attack" all depends on the situation. Here are a couple of examples:

Here is a situation where I do see the person becoming unhidden.

Sammie the Samurai sneaks through the building, quietly opens the door, sees his target, takes aim, then shoots. Unfortunately for Sammie, he didn't kill the target and he's now standing in the doorway easily spotted if/when the target looks back. Of course, if Sammie gets an action before the target, he may do something to remain hidden.

Conversely, here is a variation on the above example where the target can cry then die because his attacker might be hard to find.

Sammie didn't just use infiltration to be quiet as he got into the room; Sammy also has Dermal Sheathing with Ruthies & is buck-ass naked. Furthermore, his gun is a cyber gun of some sort, and is also covered by the Ruthies. Because of this, when the target turns to see what fragger shot him, there is a chance he assumes the target fled down the hall since he sees an open doorway (a la predator armor). The target must try to pierce the infiltration at this point in order to notice our friend Sammie.

When you have 1 skill, like infiltration, that covers a variety of things (being quiet, being unseen, etc), then I would rule that the results of your action (and whether or not you are seen) are going to be affected by the specific use of the skill at that moment.

What if Sammie the Samurai has a long gun and is a few blocks away? Does he have to re-stealth then?

Then the target gets to be dumb enough to poke his head up to look for the sniper. He may even see the sniper in time to see the muzzle flash. But, if he wants to look he gets a perception check to break it.

If Sammie is standing upright on the roof a few blocks away plainly visible, then no roll is needed; but a head might still splode!

At least up to -9 by my count, silencer modification is -6 (instead of silencer accessory), electronic firing -1, and subsonic ammo -2. That would leave a lot of people without even getting a roll.

Which, after all that silencing, they shouldn't get.

Indeed... Heavy Silencing is the only way to Shoot...

Keep the Faith

Not to mention the penalties for range (up to -2 or -3?) if it's a long-range shot.

Thats pretty realistic, it just mean that no sound carried to their position so there's nothink to hear.

I think that your quote actually does nothing to disprove his interpretation.

The use of Intuition simply means that Intuition is the functional attribute when you are taking on a false appearance of some kind. If you are trying to sneak pass someone or a sensor undetected, that's an Infiltration check. Getting to the area where you want to set up your hide undetected, that's Infiltration. Once you get there though, creating a false appearance or blending into the background is a Disguise.

Thing is, you just said exactly what he said.

My stealthspert would have a dice pool of 2.

5 Intuition
4 Perception
1 from Synch
1 from our Tacnet

I don't have any hearing specific augments for him, but I am planning on getting the Rating III Reception Enhancers for him from Augmentation so he would have 5 dice without hearing specific augments.

--



The section "Using Disguise" clearly states craft when describing its usage. Further, a word which I had missed previous, the Disguise + Intuition rolled is used for opposed test to pierce the disguise. The combination of these words deems that disguise is used when you're trying to conceal something as something else, which falls right in line with the common definition of disguise.

Further, the linked attribute is a strong indicator of which skill applies. If your ability to remain unseen would be related to movement (or lack thereof), then Infiltration applies. To clarify what I mean by lack of movement means infiltration + agility applies means that by moving you ruin your ability to stay hidden. Consequently you need to have very good muscle control to move slowly enough not to draw attention. Ghillie suits, camouflage, and probably ruthenium coating all work as a matter of movement. Using any of the three methods has nothing to do with blending yourself into something else. You do not have to do anything for them to function aside from being in the appropriate environment and limiting your movement for a ghillie suit or camouflage suit. The latter two function because you minimize your movements and the outfit breaks up your outlines. The combination of these two facts causes observes to have difficulty spotting you because the natural eye relies on lines and movement in order to passively observe something.

I can understand a rational for wanting someone to use Disguise over Infiltration when they're lying on the ground and not wanting to be seen. It really kills snipers or other ambush style characters by moving them from a 1 attribute/2 skill (Agility/Weapon Skill/Infiltration) character to a 2 attribute/3 skill (Agility/Intuition/Weapon Skill/Infiltration/Disguise) character and avoids overstacking a single stat or skill which is something that is problematic in Shadowrun regarding Agility and Logic.

A slight digression.
I find it humorously retarded that the Hacker is the best archetype to take on most support roles (Demolitions, First Aid, Mechanical skill....) due to the fact that they stack Logic. A skillwire wire just lvl 1 skillsofts for the support skills can easily pump a Hacker into 10+ dice pools without much additional cost. This is both brilliant and retarded. The non-logic focused characters will have dice pools that are lower than a defaulting hacker, so someone who would reasonably be good at Demolitions ends up being worse than a nerd. On the other hand, this logic stacking of support skills makes it more idea for the non-hackers to ignore them and let the hacker take them in order to serve as a reason for the hacker to come on site for many runs. We have one character on our team that current has 8 agility (2nd best behind my 9 agility) and the best logic score of the team. In general, he's better across a wide range of skills than anyone else on the team because of how many skills are stacked into Agility and Logic. The GM has done some retconning with us because we're finding out that some of our character had taken skills to cover gaps (rather than taking them as a matter of character) when this agility/logic character frequently does the job better and cheaper.

The argument also applies to agility. My stealthspert with 9 agility is -almost- better with any weapon than anyone else on the team. There's a few exceptions, pistols (maybe), unarmed, blades, and clubs but in every single one of those groups he's #2 when you add skill + agility (ignoring specializations and other modifiers) or has no skill, like with clubs. My character has the third or fourth highest strength (of a team of 4), yet he is fully capable of killing an unaware target with a single KNIFE attack and can pretty much do it with two attacks assuming the target doesn't dodge either attack. I say this because my stealthsperts primarily attacks from the Automatics or Longarms skill. So aside from the fact that stacking agility makes you a combat monster in stuff you don't primarily attack with, you're also functionally incredible at Escape Artist, Infiltration, Palming, and Gymnastics while defaulting.

You can do it by either 'hiding in a crowd', or simply 'looking like you belong there'. Now after someone has come under fire from your general direction you're going to have an 'interesting' time convincing them that you are supposed to be there.

No, I did not. Notice I did not say that "crouching while wearing camouflage is an infiltration check" or "standing next to a wall while wearing a chameleon suit is an infiltration check" or "laying in a wilderness environment in a ghillie suit is an infiltration check".

All I said was basically what is written on p124 SR4A for the Disguise and Infiltration. Momentarily freezing in crouch while camouflaged or ducking behind some cover when someone or a sensor is looking is an infiltration check. Standing in a corner of an office while wearing a chameleon suit is a disguise check, getting into that office is an infiltration check. Laying at a hide in a wilderness environment in a ghillie suit is a disguise check, laying still for a moment while crawling undetected in ghillie suit is an infiltration check.

I'm disinclined to agree with you. The skill in SR4A says the skill is to take on a false appearance of some kind, not to remain unnoticed. Disguise is to MAKE the guli suit, or select the outfit you use to infiltrate the corp with, infiltration is the skill you use to do the actual infiltration, atleast if you wish to do so reasonably unnoticed.

Potato, potahto, toturi. The quoted examples are implied to be taking place during an overall Infiltration of an area: "Crouching while wearing camouflage is an infiltration check. Standing next to a wall while wearing a chameleon suit is an infiltration check." There's almost no circumstance where you're be rolling Disguise for "Standing in a corner of an office while wearing a chameleon suit"; 99/100, that's Infiltration.

Yep, Agility is (unsurprisingly) the best stat for every character ever. And Hackers barely even use Logic, unless they want Hardware or Software. Personally, my go-to character just combines them: Stealth, Hacking, Athletics, Sensors, EW, Overwatch, B&E, Rigger, etc. Sometimes our SR group is only 3 players, so it's more fun to have 10-12 in a lot of Pools than 22 in one.

Indeed it does. Indeed, you do use Disguise + Intuition when attempting to craft a false appearance - you are trying to conceal yourself as just another bush.

If your ability to move does not factor into your remaining undetected, then Disguise applies. If your ability to remain undetected would be related to appearing as you are not, then Disguise applies. Ghillie suits, camouflage and rutherium all work to cause you to appear as you are not. Using any of the three methods has everything to do with blending yourself into the background. It is precisely because you have to be in the appropriate environment for a ghillie suit or camouflage to function if you are trying to blend in that Disguise should be used. The outfit breaks up your outlines and makes you appear as something part of the background and that is Disguise.

I think that there is some overlap where the 2 skills are concerned, which is why ghillie suits, camouflage and rutherium reduces Perception dice pool instead of specifically increasing either Infiltration or Disguise dice.

My examples are for when you have already Infiltrated into an area and are finding some place to hole up and wait.

For disguise to apply, movement can NOT factor into whether or not the method would work. Read the text for ghillie suits.



A ghillie suit's penalty functions entirely based on movement or lack thereof. Thus the ghillie's suit's penalty is applied on a Perception vs Infiltration test. This section alone is enough proof that remaining immobile in a dark corner is an infiltration check, not disguise.

Per the text for ghillie suits, the ghillie suit's penalty is not entirely based on movement or lack thereof, there is still a penalty even when you move, it even says that the character blends into the surrounding terrain more efficiently. Furthermore as you have quoted, the penalty is to the Perception Test to spot the camouflaged character, of which Camouflage is an explicit specialisation of Disguise and not Infiltration. This section alone is insufficient proof that remaining immobile in a dark corner is an infiltration check, not disguise.

You know what. I'm going to directly challenge your assumption. Show me the highest infiltration check and disguise check you can achieve on a human. If you can get a disguise pool higher than your infiltration pool, then I'll start to lend credence to disguise being used when stationary. It does NOT make sense for your ability to remain unseen be better when you are moving compared to when you aren't moving.

Don't forget to include genetic optimization and exceptional attribute for a 8 (12) in the attributes.

Infiltration Base: 12 Agility + 7 Skill = 19 dice pool base.
Specialization = 21
Reflex Recorder = 22
Enhanced Articulation = 23

Disguise Base: 8 Intuition + 7 Skill = 15 dice pool base.
Specialization = 17
Reflex Recorder = 18
Qualia* = 19

*Qualia is only applicable if your game allows content from Augmentation.

We can't apply nanopaste or a latex face mask since they would be used in a disguise check that's unrelated to remaining hidden from sight. They are used to make you look like someone else when observed in plain sight. As I see it, unless there's something massive that I've missed for disguise and I've missed nothing for infiltration, I'm much better off at hiding by constantly moving, since every penalty that could apply to your opponent's perception is equal for disguise and infiltration. The -only- exception to that would be a ghillie suit could be -2 for infiltration and -4 for disguise which is still smaller than the 4 dice advantage you have in infiltration. Even if we knock off exceptional attribute and genetic optimization, you have a 3 dice advantage in Infiltration over Disguise. Even a troll, the lowest agility meta-type, has a 2 dice advantage in infiltration over disguise.

What assumption are you challenging?

That infiltration is used while stationary.