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252
Now I know that this is plausible.

However here is the question. Can you dispell something on a sustaining foci from being astrally projected.

Yes making the PCs feel they are perfectly secure, and then well. It is always funny, to watch my players die.

As a note I have declared war on my inferior players, those that want to die. Have fun, and remember "Live and Learn, Die and Forget, unless you are an expert system."
Herald of Verjigorm
Active foci are dual natured, so you can dispell the enchantments in them from the astral.

[edit]well, it isn't dispelling, it is more of "shattering the magical side of the focus" and uses astral combat rules
RedmondLarry
The magician attempting the dispel has to be on the same plane (astral or physical) as the spell itself (SR3.184, "Dispelling", 2nd sentence).

You can, however, attack an active sustaining focus.

See This Topic from last week for more info.
TheScamp
QUOTE
The magician attempting the dispel has to be on the same plane (astral or physical) as the spell itself (SR3.184, "Dispelling", 2nd sentence).

Well, technically you need to be on the same plane as the target of the spell.

But yeah, by all means pop the focus.
RedmondLarry
TheScamp, I read the 2nd sentence to mean you have to be on the same plane as the spell, but I see how you could read it to mean that you have to be on the same plane as the target. Very interesting.
252
Alright next question about astral and dual naturedness, and noticing things.

Person is trying to make themselves invisible on the astral. Is there anyway.

If you say masking are you sure. To me that seems to be a disguise type thing, you look different from what you are. Like it masks you. Not you are invisible.

As much help as possible, if you can.
RedmondLarry
Nope, can't be invisible on the astral. One option is to mask yourself to look mundane and astrally move across the room as if you were in a physical body. Legs striding and arms swinging. A physical entity won't see you, and an astral entity has to look closely to realize there is no physical body there.

The alternative is to stealth around on the astral plane, hiding behind opaque things like walls, ceilings, and floors; or hiding your astral form in the midst of dozens of living bodies in some crowd.
Kanada Ten
Casting invisibility, then using masking to hide the spell aura should make you invisible from all sight... The book seems fairly clear that invisibility makes you invisible on the astral but that the spell aura gives one away (regardless of how one plays it).
Herald of Verjigorm
That is one impressive way to read the line:
QUOTE
Their aura is still visible to astral perception.
John Campbell
QUOTE (Kanada Ten)
Casting invisibility, then using masking to hide the spell aura should make you invisible from all sight... The book seems fairly clear that invisibility makes you invisible on the astral but that the spell aura gives one away (regardless of how one plays it).

The book actually explicitly states that Invisibility does not make you invisible to astral perception.

So, no, that doesn't work.
252
So I guess that is truly a suicide mission for even that NPC, ohhh well. It still will be fun.
John Campbell
If it's a suicide mission, have you considered having your NPC send a spirit or elemental or the like to do it? Expendable underlings are just made for suicide missions...
Kanada Ten
QUOTE (John Campbell @ Mar 1 2004, 10:34 PM)
QUOTE (Kanada Ten @ Mar 1 2004, 10:20 PM)
Casting invisibility, then using masking to hide the spell aura should make you invisible from all sight... The book seems fairly clear that invisibility makes you invisible on the astral but that the spell aura gives one away (regardless of how one plays it).

The book actually explicitly states that Invisibility does not make you invisible to astral perception.

Actually it explicity states their aura isn't [invisible].

[edit]And the only way to make the aura of an invisible person look mundane is to make it invisible. YMMV[/edit]
Herald of Verjigorm
QUOTE (Kanada Ten)
Actually it explicity states their aura isn't.

You must have an odd printing of the book, because my quote is right out of the first paragraph on invisibility.
Kanada Ten
QUOTE
You must have an odd printing of the book...

I accept your statement and use it to show the book states only that their aura isn't [invisible].
TheScamp
QUOTE
TheScamp, I read the 2nd sentence to mean you have to be on the same plane as the spell, but I see how you could read it to mean that you have to be on the same plane as the target.

"The magician must be able to see the target of the spell and must be on the same plane."

The rule is talking about the "target," or more broadly, "target of the spell." I'm not sure how you get the spell itself worked into it as it's never mentioned, but hey, read it how you like.

QUOTE
And the only way to make the aura of an invisible person look mundane is to make it invisible.

Or it could, you know, look like a mundane person's aura. Having a sustained spell on you doesn't suddenly make your aura into that of an Awakened.

QUOTE
I accept your statement and use it to show the book states only that their aura isn't [invisible].

Fantastic. Then again, the point is completely moot, as the person's aura is the part of them you see from the Astral, anyway.
Kanada Ten
QUOTE
...as the person's aura is the part of them you see from the Astral...

I disagree. An astrally perceiving person can see anything regardless of its aura status. They see the ground, the wall, the car even if they are physically blind despite the fact none of those things have auras.
Zazen
What you say doesn't actually disagree with what you quoted. Yes, nonliving things have no aura, but living things DO have auras and that's what you see from the astral.
Kanada Ten
You see them and their aura (this is explicit in the section quoted by Herald).
Herald of Verjigorm
I will also mention that you cannot mask an aura into a non-state. The closest you can get is to make your aura look like that of an unawakened creature. Any competent astral security would investigate a roaming mundane aura with no physical component. Which means you still have to use stealthy choices of where to go, even when invisible and masked, to avoid astral detection.
Kanada Ten
QUOTE
I will also mention that you cannot mask an aura into a non-state.

I think that's a matter of interpretation, personally. Though I might just have to house rule.

If I cast invisibility on a tank, and then mask the spell, I could drive it around without anyone seeing it on either plane. I don't think letting a mage do it is that big of a deal.

Either way, it gives me a great idea for smuggling: invisible trucks.
Zazen
QUOTE (Kanada Ten)
You see them and their aura (this is explicit in the section quoted by Herald).

But it doesn't say anything of the sort!
Kanada Ten
I think it does, but you could always quote it and prove me wrong.

Besides, it's silly the way your making it seem. "You see an aura and then the person gets shot, suddenly the aura is gone and a dead body appears." Sorry, I don't buy it. Auras are around magical items and living beings, they don't override them.
Zazen
Override what? The faded grey appearance of nonliving, nonmagical things?

I don't understand what you think is supposed to be "underneath" the aura. The aura is what you look like on the astral, that's all. It's not a set of astral technicolor underwear that you wear over your real body nyahnyah.gif
John Campbell
QUOTE (SR3 p.195)
Invisibility
...
This spell makes the subject invisible to normal vision. The subject is completely tangible and detectable by the other senses. Their aura is still visible to astral perception.


Non-living, non-magical objects don't have auras. However, (per p.171) they can be assensed. They don't "glow" the way living and magical objects do, but they are "visible" on the astral. Since Invisibility affects only "normal vision", and assensing is not, by any reasonable definition, normal vision (and it's even debatable whether it's really "vision" at all), but, rather, one of those "other senses", Invisibility will not interfere with detecting objects, living or no, via assensing.

So, yes, the scenario you present is silly. The actual scenario goes more like so:
You assense, but cannot see, a body with a living aura around it. It gets shot, and the aura disappears as it dies, and turns into a dead body, which you still cannot see (unless, of course, the shootee was the one sustaining the Invisibility spell), but can still assense just fine.
TheScamp
QUOTE
If I cast invisibility on a tank, and then mask the spell, I could drive it around without anyone seeing it on either plane.

Where are you getting this? How does masking a spell also make the target of that spell unseeable on the Astral? This is the part of your argument that makes absolutely no sense to me.

Spells are completely separate from their targets when it comes to astral viewing. You can, for example, assense either a spell or its target if you choose. How does making the spell unnoticable (from the astral) also confer that same status to its target?
Lilt
My take is that it depends on what you consider Normal Vision (What Invisibility affects), what you consider Physical Vision (what Astral perception is not affected by), and what you consider the "normal human [sense] of sight" (the sense available to an astral form).

If you consider the "normal human [sense] of sight" to be synonimpus with Normal Vision, and do not consider Normal Vision to be Physical Vision, then yes, invisibility can fool astrally projecting characters.

If you consider Normal Vision to be Physical Vision then it won't work.

If you say that when Invisibility to Normal Vision is caused by a Physical spell then it is messing with Physical Vision, and when Invisibility is caused by a manna spell it is not messing with Physical Vision, then Invisibility (but not improved invisibility) effects can work on the astral. (if you also consider the "normal human [sense] of sight" to be Normal Vision, that is)

You still need to deal with the spell, however, which has an aura of its own. One way to do it would be to make an area version of the Invisibility spell that makes itself invisible too.
John Campbell
....... Are you seriously claiming that astral perception qualifies as normal vision?
Lilt
Not exactly, I'm just saying that the "normal human [sense] of sight" that astral forms have may be similar enough to Normal Vision that similar spells can affect it. Even if they aren't similar enough; I see no reason that some form of psychic invisibility spell could not be created that makes you invisible to astral forms (if cast on the astral)
Kanada Ten
QUOTE
SR3 page 171, The Astral Plane
While beings in astral space can perceive the physical world, they cannot effect it.

QUOTE
SR3 page 171, The Astral Perception
You can also see glowing auras surrounding living and magical things and gain informaiton from them, using a psychic sense know as assensing.
John Campbell
QUOTE (SR3 p.171)
Assensing
By assensing something's aura, you can gain information. The auras of living beings show their general health, emotions and magical nature (if any). Enchanted objects show their magical nature. Non-magical objects have no auras, but pick up impressions from being in contact with living auras. Assensing can "read" any impressions left behind on an object.
ShadowPhoenix
I don't have a page reference handy, but in the BBB in the magic section pertaining to projecting/astral senses it states in the example that everything physical was visible, in fact goes into detail on how street signs were jumbled(since you cannot read in the astral) So I imagine you can see physical things in the astral, now if Invisibility is a Physical spell, it would alter things being viewed from the Physical plane, but Astral plane is not affected. It would have to be a dual natured or Mana only spell to affect the astral sight. meaning someone who has Physical Invisibility cast on them is indeed invisible to all physical viewers who cannot succeed in their test. Astral viewers do not need to test since the effects of a physical invisibility spell cannot affect the astral.


At least that's how I see it. I'll get the page ref when I go home.
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