I had a player who wanted to cast invisibility on a door so he could see through it and cast direct combat spells at people on the other side.

Can you voluntarily fail your resistance roll against your own spell so that the door is invisible to you?

Does the invisible door impede direct spells (either combat or the manipulation spells like Control Actions)?

If the folks on the other side of the door get more hits than the net hits from the spell on the door, do they know that the door is invisible?

That's like drugs, just say no.

The spell wasn't intended to work that way, and it is clearly an attempt at abusing it rather than a creative use. It simply won't work.

Using Invisibility on a door is akin to painting a train tunnel on a large rock. Just as hilarious, too.

"All right, I'll just cast invisibility on the door and... It's now a wall. OK. That didn't work."

This is funnier than what the player wanted to do.
I could see this for a vault door. Makes it hard for the theives to find the cash.

I'd allow it. While it might be useful in limited ways, eventually there'll be something on the other side of that wall/door that reacts faster than the mage to -- at the very least -- get out of LOS. And, the mage just announced his presence, too, so any opposing magical support just got called in.

The door does not impede direct spells since they don't travel through space. Indirect combat spells do and would be impeded by the door (unless they beat its barrier rating but then the other side gets the barrier as armor, etc. etc. etc.). It's a pretty good ambush possibility, though.

RE: the other side, they, too, would have to fail their resistance check and, thus, succeed in (not) seeing the invisible door.

Invisibility just fools the mind that the door is not there. It would be a blank wall as the mage has no idea what the room behind the door looks like. SR Invisibility is not "TRUE" (as in DND) invis. This is a jedi mind trick that the door does not exist. So no, casting Invis on a door does not make a window into the next room. Get a mage google Fiber Optic snake under the door a la Sam Fisher and have at it.

That's a fair point, since it is an Illusion. If the player make as a custom invisibility spell that is an environmental manipulation, then.... I'd probably still allow it since it's pretty cool.

You mean like Improved Invisibility?

At BEST, they might see what appears to be on the other side, but it's not real. It's an illusion.

The Invisibility spell does not confer actual invisibility. It merely "paints over" the subject with an illusory image.

As stated above, it's no different than painting a train tunnel on the door.



-karma

Improved Invis fools electronic devices by warping light photons away from it, so once again blank wall. No visible door but also no window in the wall.

The problem is that the Improved Invisibility is still an Illusion spell regardless of description of "bending light" around an object.

Creating a Manipulation version would definitely cause higher drain at the least.

SR magic doesn't work the way you think it works. I'll give you an example, lets say I know the corp security goon is on the other side of a mirrored glass wall thanks to my buddies radar sensor. Even though I know for a fact that he's there I can't cast spells on him. Why would an invisibility spell fundamentally alter the laws of magic no matter what it's nature.

I have to agree with Lurker. Magic may break the laws of Physics but it does not break its own fundament wacky laws LOL

Magic follows physics. Just not as we understand them.

At least, that's what the Hermetic Mages say.

I would happily allow a Manipulation that renders things transparent; the door becomes a very clean full glass door. Name the spell 'Window' or something. The area version is 'Don't Throw Stones'.

MADNESS I SAY! MADNESSS!!

That's the SR3 FAQ, not the SR4. Maybe they've retracted that silliness.

@Lurker, I'd agree with you if the Imp. Invis spell didn't indicate that it bends light. That should have been the purview of environmental manipulations, but it's in the Illusion category. So, the question is really whether or not the Imp Invis spell should provide this capability. Invisibility (i.e., not improved) shouldn't by any means, but Imp. Invis. would depend, it seems to me, on whether you go with the description fluff or with the category. I'd prefer to go with the category (i.e., Illusion) and thus say that it doesn't work, but if you go with the fluff, then I'd have to say that it does.

At my tables, all physical illusions are actually environmental manipulations and, when I first posted, I had glossed over the fact that I think of things in those terms and not RAW.

We had a similar problem in a Vampire game. I'll rephrase it in SR terms with the orginal terms in parenthesis but the problem remains the same. A character (Ravnos) used trid phantasm (Chimerstry 2 or 3) to create the illusion of a light source in an otherwise dark room. Does this help with visibility?

I think not as illusions can only add or remove sensory input that the caster actually knows about.
The same thing goes for an "invisble" door. It simply won't work. The spell can only remove the information "door" from the view, it does not replace it with something else. That is a mask or phantasm spell.

Thank you all for the responses, I think I will talk it over with my group. They may end up using the transform wall into glass spell instead.

Even if it did work (make the door look transparent), the spell is an ILLUSION spell. What you would be looking at is not what's on the other side, but an ILLUSION of what is on the other side. So it wouldn't work for spell targeting.

Imagine this; mage A (using astral perception or some such) creates a phantasm of somebody who is invisible (target C), which exactly duplicates their appearence and location. What happens if mystic Adept B (who isn't using astral perception and has no enhanced senses) at Target C? Nothing, because he can't see the target!

Same for trying to cast through an "invisible door".

BTW, one of the magic supliments for SR2 did have a spell that allowed you to see through walls / other objects. I forget what it was called, but I know that there was a linmit on the barrier rating you could see through. I;d suggest using that in addition to having to overcome the OR. Something like max barrier = force + (extra) successes.

visual information gained via magical senses do not allow you to target people (ie you cannot target a spell on someone you can see through clairvoyance unless you can also see them with your eyes)

i would apply the same ruling to information gained from making walls invisible, personally.

Even if you made it physically invisible? (I'm not sure this is even possible in SR4, but let's assume it for the sake of argument). If you turned the door to glass, then mundane LOS would work, yes?

A detection spell that sees through walls would not, as you say; neither would an illusion.

This seems more in line and balanced. Especially since both sides can see through the glass.

Save that we can't turn it physically invisible with the Invis spell. Invis by itself is Mana-based, which means verboten on inanimate objects (or so I recall).

Improved invis is Physical. Since it does warp the light around it, it's likely it could actually be used to see what's on the other side (provided you made the threshold).

Yes Doc. I'm talking about a hypothetical physical *manipulation*, not the illusion, as I said.

You can use Invisibility on (that is, to *hide*) inanimate objects. Improved Invis is required to hide things *from* inanimate objects.

You should know by now that I only pay attention to the three most recent posts or so.

You should know by now that I only pay attention to the three most recent posts or so.

I said it *in* that post. Hehehe.

>.>

<.<

Don't judge me.

I would let it be used to see on the other side of the door (works both ways btw) but disallow any LOS effects from being granted. Falls under that whole idea that senses granted by spells cannot give you LOS.

Agreed, because it's a sustained, magical LOS.

Hrm. Cast Improved Invis on a door sized thick steel plate. Have the troll carry it around. Confuse the hell out of people shooting at him.







-karma

Haha. No Cover mod, but armor.

I was totally thinking if it didn't let you see through, cast it on the door, let your target run smack into it, then have your Troll charge through it when the guy's looking confused in front of it.

I don't know if I'm reading this right or not, but the door > glass spell would be so stupid.

I mean, sure, you'd be able to target something thats behind it, but what protection does glass give against bullets? Might as well open the damn door then.

That aside, Magic in SR can not create complex objects. So the spell should be impossible. A window is too complex for me.

You might want to keep in mind that every person looking at the 'invisible' door will resist the spell first so not all people will react to the spell.

Tiny Deev, not actual window glass. A transparent substance; ever heard of 'bulletproof glass'?.

It was only for the sake of argument: *if* SR manipulation magic could render something physically transparent, *would* it give LOS? Nevermind.