The reason I think that Assensing would ignore normal Smoke etc, is that living things shine brightly, and manufactured things are dull. So, while there are tiny tiny tiny particles around, you're looking through it to the neon peter-petrielli burning-man-thing behind it.

The rules and fluff of Biofiber are very sperate. Fluff indicates it as sheets of fragile wood, grown into large sheets, requiring constant monitoring and feeding with complex nutrients. Rules just leave it as a mobile, regenerating Ward that dies if it goes down - while being cheap as hell. It can be grown in different Force-strengths, but doesn't give any indication of why/how - is it thicker? Less fragile?
My thinking was to spend say 1kY/Force as a modification that could only added to relatively 'hard-bodied' armour. This would cover the insertion/addition of a new layer in the armour, consisting of a thin metal shell around each piece of Biofiber, sitting in a (possibly oxygen-less, as that makes it more dense) impact gel. The encased biofiber would be hooked up to a very small, high-rating Respirator that leads outside the armour, with a link to the Suit's oxygen tank (if utilized) for high-pollution situations.

Ergo, Physical Spells would be handled as normal, while Mana spells and Assensing would treat the armour as a Force X Mana Barrier, and follow all those rules. Of course, you'd have to target the barrier directly - and thus probably kill it faster - because of the 'mystic link' required to target something.

Does all that make sense, at least by my understanding of the rules? I understand if yours is different, but I'd like to be sure this works by internal logic first.

My understanding is the plant would simply die if you did that to it. If the plant is notoriously fragile, that generally means, "should not be used as mobile armor components". The smallest system I would consider putting this in would be a tank.

penalties to perception affect spellcasting.

failing to observe in detail counts as a distracted modifier, which is -2. therefore, if the magician needs to make a perception check (which the magician will if the people being targeted are hiding), the magician must either take the -2 penalty or spend the simple action to remove it.

also, being on the astral doesn't remove astral shadows, which still block line of sight. the magician still has to perceive any targets, which is done with an assensing test. again, observe in detail is required to avoid a -2 penalty, which will be applied to the spellcasting test (since an astral perception test is still a perception test), and the magician must also spend a simple action to get into astral perception mode in the first place potentially. furthermore, the magician will no longer be able to simply switch modes of vision, such as going to thermal or low light from cyber eyes to negate or reduce penalties, and is still affected by *astral* visibility modifiers, particularly shadow clutter, background count (potentially), and aerosol FAB clouds and such things.

No, smoke is made up of lots of little particles, each of which creates their own little astral shadow. So it works just the same on the astral.

yes, it is very clear. let's have a look:

"Unless a character specifically takes
an Observe in Detail Simple Action to perceive, she is considered to be
distracted by whatever task is at hand (suffering a –2 dice pool modifier)."

what is the task at hand? well, unless they're actively looking, ie observing in detail, then it bloody well isn't perceiving is it?

it mentions quite clearly that you take the -2 unless you spend a simple action to observe in detail quite clearly in the text. now, it does tell you further in that you don't always need to worry about making a perception check (which is good, because otherwise it would get pretty stupid), so if you're trying to perceive a guy wearing the flashing light from a police car for a hat with glow-in-the-dark clothing in a completely pitch black environment with no cover in it, i would certainly waive the penalty since you don't even need to make the check to see him at all (subject to GM approval technically, but i expect pretty much any GM will approve of instantly perceiving that with no test involved). but no way in hell am i going to waive the distracted penalty which explicitly applies anytime you don't take a simple action if you're trying to spot someone who is wearing clothes that blend in with the background, has good cover/concealment to hide behind, and is actively trying to hide. now, somewhere in the middle there, we have a point where you go from "no penalty" to "penalty", and that particular point is not clearly defined. but i was just talking about people who are quite far in the "penalty" area in that post, so yes you do take that penalty. now sure, if your corporate security are a bunch of idiots and they stand in the open and shout "here i am, please hit me with a direct combat spell and also a full burst from whatever your heaviest weapon is", then sure, you don't get that penalty. but strangely, once the shooting starts, i have this crazy feeling that most security forces are going to have a strong preference for taking the best cover they can find and keeping their head down.

and arguably, the petite brume applies multiple penalties... you would get the astral shadows (which should probably not be quite as bad as on the physical) and the FAB cloud penalty. it's kinda like thermal smoke grenades, only even more expensive.

Jaid, there has to be a task at hand *to* distract. If you're not doing anything else, or perceiving is *part* of what you're doing, you're clearly not distracted by the task at hand. For example, casting a LOS spell integrally includes looking.

Uh, not they don't. If they did the EVERY spell casting test would occur at a -2. Unless you can find some segment of the rules indicating that before every spell casting test, the caster must make a perception check, or suffer the -2, I'm going to call bullshit.

Jaid, there has to be a task at hand *to* distract. If you're not doing anything else, or perceiving is *part* of what you're doing, you're clearly not distracted by the task at hand. For example, casting a LOS spell integrally includes looking.

The same visibility penalties apply to gunfire and spellcasting, right? So if you get a "distracted" penalty to spellcasting, why not also to gunfire?

If you're standing around watching (for example), but not taking Observe In Detail actions or 'Specifically Looking' for anything, you're not taking a -2.

Don't forget the movement penalties incurred by the Petite Brume (Though it is not THAT big of a penalty to be sure)...

As for penalties for Distracted behavior, many people will argue (and rightly so) that the guy firing his shotgun (Even from cover) is an obvious target (Though he does have cover, which is why he gets a cover bonus to his dodge AND Spell Resistance rolls) that does not require an Observe In Dertail action to remove the targeting penalty. The target already gets a bonus to spell resistance (or Defense) for his cover...

Anyways

Muspellsheimr, you're not distracted by the task at hand if there is no task at hand. If you're just standing around, you're not distracted. Neither are you Actively Looking for anything specific. No -2, no +3.

Observe in Detail is for making intentional (nonreflexive) Perception tests when you're otherwise involved in a task at hand (climbing, fighting, even talking, etc.). The GM, for example, doesn't get to hit you with a free -2 penalty just because you're not constantly saying, 'I use a Simple Action to Observe in Detail. I do it again. I do it again.' You're not doing anything, so there's nothing to be distracted by.

Shh, if you start being reasonable he might not keep swearing at me. Har har.

Seriously, you have two choices. Force all your characters to constantly tell you that they're using Observe in Detail actions every 3 (1.5?) seconds, all the time (sitting at the bar, walking down the street, eating lunch, etc. etc.), or don't. *shrug* The result is identical to RAW, while the former has the advantage of being preposterous and annoying.

Since everyone and their father have at least 6 reaction with their Initiative passes enhancing method of choice and Body * 3 damage resistance, body * 2 for elemental though but it is piss easy to have +6 against fire, acid, lightning and cold modded into your armor but even without you will take far less damage from that pathetic fireball than you get from free win stunballs

I quite enjoy the premise that a band of professional killers and thieves must regularly declare themselves to be competent, failure to do so obviously resulting in the application of combat penalties to their non-combat actions. Also, I love angry internet words.

I quite enjoy the premise that a band of professional killers and thieves must regularly declare themselves to be competent, failure to do so obviously resulting in the application of combat penalties to their non-combat actions. Also, I love angry internet words.

While active, a jarhead is subject to constant stimulation
from a cocktail of neurotransmitters and hormones. This keeps
the brain in a constant state of alert. Any time that the cyborg’s
brainwave sensors detect boredom, it varies the intensity of its
sensory output or adjusts the chemistry of the brain’s nutrient
bath to trigger an increase in attentiveness.

Fucking loving angry internet words is a fucking house rule.

Can someone diagram that sentence for me?

I'll start:

Words (n) is the subject...

The first 'fucking' isn't a verb, and 'words' isn't the subject. 'Loving' (gerund) is the subject.

Don't expect commas and proper grammar from me, especially in a fucking fuck post dammit.

Poetry should be appreciated in all its myriad forms

Arguing that the game should be less fun for the sake of realism is completely contrary to the premise of games. Games remove what is not fun from reality in order to create a world that is more fun than reality, adding that portion of reality back in is self-defeating.

Well I'd argue that each person has their own definition of fun. Some people find closer simulations to reality to be fun, some people don't. I'd suspect the majority is in the latter camp, but I am not sure about that. So for some people, they are not arguing less fun for the sake of realism. They are saying for the sake of fun have more realism.

that sounds to me like it's telling you they're always alert. and funny enough, it's in the "game information" section of the book on cyborgs.

looks like it's in the rules to me, i dunno about the rest of you.

and i wouldn't say people are never alert unless specifically looking for something. i mean, if you were to try to infiltrate one minute after a guard shift change, the guard would probably not have had time to get too distracted. if you wait 10 minutes after a shift change though, yeah they'd probably suffer the penalty. but unless they have some reason to know they should be alert (say, if an audible alarm went off but they don't know why for some reason - if they do know what set off the alarm, they'd probably be specifically looking for something and get a bonus) then most of the time people will in fact have a -2 modifier. even then, if they know there's a need to be alert but they're too busy with something else (ie they don't have a simple action to spend) they'll still be taking the -2 modifier.

as far as spirits getting bored, i suppose that's GM discretion. we know that spirits are intelligent, but that their intelligence is not human intelligence. whether or not they get bored, i would say that probably depends. a watcher will probably be so simple-minded that it has a hard time getting distracted (not that it has a particularly good chance to notice you even with it's full dicepool, mind you). a force 9 spirit will probably consider it to be such a menial task that boredom is almost guaranteed, unless you've got something specific to challenge them. i would say the threshold at which i would consider spirits to be subject to boredom would be at about force 3... but it's possible that the binding/summoning process works much like the cyborg's drugs, and forces them to remain alert. ultimately, for spirits it would be GM's discretion, of course... but i personally don't think spirits would generally be always alert, particularly since there are indications that spirits have room to twist your commands if you do somehow manage to make them angry.

No offense to anyone here, but if you find yelling out every three seconds "Observing in Detail!" to be fun, you are provably wrong. From a design standpoint, unmodified dice pools should be the standard for nothing exceptional happening.

I see three "Observation" modifiers...

-2 for Distracted
+/- 0 for neither distracted nor observing
+3 for Observing in Detail (i.e. +3 for actively Looking)

Those are your choices...
If you are neither observing, nor distracted, you have no bonus/penalty...

My opinion anyways...