like: see that somebody's standing behind a closed door? see his aura?

No, you cannot. The material item (the door) has an astral shadow that is opaque and hide what is behind it. Even transparent glass panel is astrally opaque.

There's actually a pretty heavy duty amount of things for which Astral Perception is plain less useful than physical perception. For example, Street Magic references how a book may be able to be understood on the Astral Plane if it's significant to enough people. So if you were an astral intruder in the Shrine of the Book, there's a number of ancient texts that would stick out as significant due to their psychic payload. On the other hand, Astral Projecting and trying to read someone's Us Weekly from over their shoulder is going to at best be damn near impossible in one of my games. On the astral, it's tough to tell one throwaway news rag from another. They're just grey lifeless shadows that are only of passing interest to most people.

Anyway, that's part of the reason why just about any combination of Perception tricks is pretty viable for Magicians. A Face/Shaman or Summoner may very well be able to get by with just picking Assensing or Perception and living with some situational disadvantages so he can save some points. But on the other hand, if you're more of a utility/detection sorceror or a full-on combat mage it may very well be worth your while to get some tricked out sense enhancing 'ware and cybereyes. The essence and nuyen hit for that stuff is pretty light and very little will get past a Dark King mentored Occult Investigator.

Thanks guys, great replies!!

Sooooo, extension. If a person is wearing a fully enclosed suit made of metals and glasses... can you still assense him/her?

Yes, your aura encompasses what you're wearing including armor.

Mesh

At what point does it go from being something you wear, to something that obscures assensing?

Edit:
Would a Newt Suit Apply?
Newt Suit
It's a submersible suit which is really just a robotic submersible, in the shape of armor/suit.

OR would it have to go all the way to something like:
Other Kinds of 'Suits'

Source? I don't recall anything like that, and it doesn't make too much sense especially when folks get into the miltech stuff.

It doesn't make much sense, but otherwise they are immune to direct mana combat spells.

To me that doesn't seem like a bad thing, but I'm not a dev.

I'll look into the source, but basically if it follows armor rules, it does not prevent your aura, if it follows vehicle rules, it does (So, milspec armor is no good, but a mini-mecha would be).

You want to really confuse people, be a pixie casting spells via mage sight cable while driving a human suit (anthroform vehicle).

As far as anyone astrally perceiving can tell, that drone just cast a spell.

My first SR GM had a great description of what happens when you get lost in astral space: You look at the street signs and see you're on the corner of drab & bland.

Indeed, Dark King Occult Investigators for the Win...

Would the effects of cyber replacement eyes with vision enhancement work on the astral? Do you get the benefit of the rating? I really dont see how as AP is not a 'visual' sense? can anyone clarify?

Cyber Enhancements do not carry over to the Astral...

Thats what I thought. Thanks TJ. I was confused by the original comment of the Dark King Occult Investigator with sense enhancing ware comment.

Hey, No Problems...

SM p 112 Auras:
"While clothes and other non-living objects are often outshone by the brightness of the wearer's aura, intrusive non-living objects like cyberware leave shadowy gaps in auras."

SM p 160 Spell Design, Line of Sight (LOS):
"... Note that full body armor does not "conceal" the person within and prevent them from being targeted."


Things to note:

• This does not state that auras always extend beyond armor, just that it often does
• Auras cannot be targeted by spells, physical forms or astral forms are spell targets
• Ergo, full body armor not concealing them as a target does not mean anything about their aura, as it could not be targeted in the first place. p160 LOS has nothing to do with auras.

So, aura bleed-though on thick armor is not really spelled out in detail. I don't see any real advantage to full body armor blocking an aura anyhow besides preventing an assensing test and reducing a visibility modifier on the astral to being spotted.

Other then it meaning that direct mana spells don't work on him? No, very little advantages other then that.

Care to show me where it says that a direct spell targets an aura and not a physical or astral form?

I mean really. You can use direct spells on man made objects that don't even have auras. Do I really have to even talk about this one?

I think that kzt is referring to targeting a person in a vehicle... generally not possible unless they are dumb enough to leave a window down...

Oh, yeah, if that's the case then of course.

It's more than that. You need to actually see a target to hit it with a direct mana spell. "A metahuman spellcaster can target anyone or anything she can see directly with her natural vision." Stunball doesn't do anything against body armor any more than it does anything against a car.

I get to quote myself, yay!


This does not specify direct or indirect, so we can safely assume it applies to both. Worn body armor does not block LOS spellcasting unless it stops being "body armor" and becomes a vehicle.

My question remains: WHEN does it stop being armor and start being a vehicle? I mean yes, clearly, when you start being able to put Armor on it like a drone or a vehicle but... you get the idea.

When you drive it instead of wearing it.

This. Honestly it isn't a size based thing, this isn't logic based. It is just a mechanic when it is by the rules armor you can cast spells at them when the rules define it as a vehicle unless it has a clear window you can't. If it is a new doohickey that you are making for a run, make a decision is this a vehicle or armor. Are you driving it with pilot anthroform or whatever(vehicle) or just using your normal attributes and running around(armor).