Am I reading this right?

For Vehicle Mask, there doesn't seem to ever be a reason to cast it at less than Force 5 even if you'd rather do so.

You have to overcome the Object Resistance Threshold, and for drones and vehicles, the spell's only viable targets, that's at least 5 hits needed to get the spell to go off. Requiring a Force 5 casting.

Which is problematic if you want to use it on a long term basis. A Force 5 sustaining focus is prohibitively resource-hungry, and using a spirit to bind a spell on a regular basis tends to piss them off.

Is there any way to reduce that threshold?



-karma

Build your own car from iron you hand-mined, steel you forged yourself, and so on?

Is it really the vehicle that resists the spell, not observers? (Does the subject of Physical Mask resist the spell?) Incidentally, why does the vehicle version have -3 Drain compared to Physical Mask?

Well, by my reading of the rules, it's BOTH. I need to overcome the target vehicle's OR threshold, AND unless I want drones or cameras to see right through the illusion, I also need 5 or more hits for that.

On the plus side with five+ hits, the vehicle's Signature is likely to be very good.

I suspect the -3 Drain is due to limited target. Physical Mask works on everything. Vehicle Mask works just on vehicles & drones. Also, it's good because due to the hit threshold requirement, most folks are gonna want to overcast the spell.

It's funny, because I started looking at the Vehicle Mask spell to disguise a walker-mode modified Horseman personal mobility vehicle to LOOK like an Otomo, but it's just a workaround because what I really want is an Otomo but you can't get one at character creation.


-karma

Oh, nifty. The wording of Physical Mask implies that it's for people (limited), but I guess you're right.

Well, i am sure you could disguise a bicycle or skateboard with just force 3 *g*. But yeah... fooling/changing machines is not THAT easy.

When Physical Masking metas, for example, do *they* resist the spell also? It seems like it should be fully analogous, whichever way.

If they resist the spell, I'd think they do. So you can't make that Mr. Johnson look like you when the police raid the bar without some effort behind the spell.

On the flip side, if they don't resist, then it's just the difficulty of the spell itself.

Only if they choose to resist the spell.

Objects automatically resist. There's no choice in the matter.

I'm just trying to figure out a way to do it without either spending a buttload of cash and karma for a Force 5+ sustaining focus or pissing off a series of spirits.

The only way I can think of is to initiate as fast as I can manage to get Quickening. And hope I don't piss off too many spirits binding the spell in the meantime.


-karma

Well, how about you simply don't sustain it all the time? Or just use Trid Phantasm or something.

You know... For some reason, I'm reminded of that old cartoon, MASK, now. Ah, memories. Mainly of how cheesy my childhood was.

As for sustaining, yeah, it's a pain, but when you're pretending that your Black and Blood-covered Ford Americar is actually a nice and clean white Lincoln Sprawlcar... It does come in handy. As long as you drive fast enough to keep the flies off.

The idea was for the vehicle to pretend to be a meta-human.

I'd prefer an Otomo, actually, but they're hard to get.

I suppose I could modify a Renraku Manservant-3 with Mimic, but it has such a low Body...



-karma

Can you cast the shapechange spell on a Vista Bus?

… The idea was for the vehicle to pretend to be a metahuman?!

The Horseman is roughly the same size as an Otomo. A hair taller perhaps and the same Body.

An Otomo looks like a meta-human.




-karma

Snrk. Whatever the GM lets you get away with, I guess.

A metahuman fits inside the Horseman, which to me is the definition of not roughly the same size. It's a GM call.

It is, I suppose, a GM call. I was considering "roughly" as "within a couple of feet".

I would not consider, for example, a car to be the same size as a person, even if they had the same Body.

But the Horseman is basically a coffin on wheels. A Troll probably is bigger than it.

I was really looking to substitute something for an Otomo. An illusion spell was just one thought on how I could do it. I'm not tied to the idea. (I suppose I could use the Mimic vehicle option on the Horseman to make it appear that a Meta-human was driving it)

But I was just startled that a spell designed SPECIFICALLY to be cast on vehicles literally cannot be cast at a lower Force than 5 for it to work.


-karma

Yeah, it's an interesting quirk in the rules. I still say that the target shouldn't resist the spell; it's an just an illusion for other people. If the rules don't say that, house rule it.

You *will* need Force 5 to beat the thousands of technological sensors anyway, though, right? Something like that, bleh.

Yeah, you'd want a good Force anyhow, true.

I figured out what I'm going to do. Buy a Renraku Manservant-3, and put a Mimic mod on it so looks like a metahuman. Put it in the Horseman so that it looks like the driver. Then install a hidden rigger cocoon in the Horseman for the actual Pixie driver.

The Manservant could even get out and do stuff remotely on occasion.





-karma

Hahaha. Wait, where's the pixie fit? Cargo attachment? Between the Manservant's legs? Rigger cocoon is a serious mod, you can't just shove it wherever.

It's the model with the Advanced Cargo Module, so I figured it'll go in there. By the campaign rules, all the Pixie sized gear is double price, so for that money I figure it's small enough to fit.

Huh. The Cargo Module has it's own wheels. I wonder how difficult it'd be to modify it as an escape vehicle.


-karma

Makes sense. Wacky.