By default, is there any kind of visual effect at all attached to combat mana spells like Stunball and Stunbolt?

Aside from People dropping like flies?
No, nothing noticeable, why do you ask? O.o

The nature of the effect isn't stated, but with a perception threshhold of 6-force (somebody correct me if I'm mis-remembering... don't have books handy), a powerful spell is pretty noticible. Actual effect is GM discretion, but I few I might use are:

• You see shamanic mask on caster.
• You feel the hairs on the back of your neck rise and inexplicably know that the source of your unease is the guy in the red shirt.
• Joe face takes on a look of deep concentration and you notice a faint visible aura flicker momentarily around him.
• As the johnson looks at Tim, you suddenly smell the odor of brimstone wafting off him and feel and unexplainable vibration within your body.
• The sec guard gives you a puzzled expression and suddenly explodes, spraying gobbets of flesh and bone around the room.

Ok, well maybe not the last one.

Generally, I've described high-force direct combat spells has having a "lensing" type effect on the air round the target and caster, a bit like a bomb's overpressure wave, to represent the fact that it's easy to notice a Force 6 Manabolt. An example of that kind of blast wave is the warp around this car: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSlam6cq9P8

Also, I tend to describe wounds on the target being spontaneous bleeding, in the case of mana effects, and broken bones/torn flesh for physical effects. Just cuz that's how I expect it to be.

There's no bright flashing lights, though. There's not even a guaranteed visual effect - I just happen to stylistically like a visual effect as part of it.

I'd keep it subtle for the 'stun' series - hairs on the back of the neck, goose bumps, flickers at the corners of your eyes..

A higher force powerbolt, on the other hand, might look like someone's busy replicating dragon ball Z right there next to you.

Off the top of my head the rule to notice spells going off is a intuition + perception (6 - Force) hits. So i'd say yes. In SR you tend to glow and be very flashy about magic.

I would say the art supports it to as all the exterior/interior art for SR has always show mageic/spells being a physical display. Lurker brings up a great point with the RAW, since the higher the force the easier it is to spot. So use your imagination for visual discription of what it looks like. Make it a technocolored as you want, I prefer bright Neon lights

Ok, so next question: How visible are combat mana spells when the caster is invisible himself?

While the balance aspects of the cited rule are certainly worthwhile, I just think it often doesn't make sense. I guess they just definitely didn't want mages to be stealthy.

In that situation people can easily notice where the spell comes from(unless its very low force), but they still can't see the mage.

Yes.

As LurkerOutThere said, there is a paragraph about Noticing Magic in the Magic section of the rulebook (p. 179 SR4A).

"Noticing if someone is using a magical skill requires a Perception Test (p. 135) with a threshold equal to 6 minus the magic’s Force. More powerful magic is easier to spot with the gathered mana normally appearing as a disturbance or glowing aura in the air around the caster."

Bye
Thanee

Oh, but they can certainly make educated guesses, and throw some wide-bursts his way. If someone were to ready an action to do that I would drastically reduce the blind fire penalties.

Grenades and supressive fire are other good ways to do this.

Invisible spellcasting has become a lot more difficult because of the sparkles SR4A introduced. In earlier editions including SR4, only the caster not the magic itself gave away clues. IMHO that's the way it should be. The sweating and frowning is obvious enough as it is.

For situations like that I like to use suppression fire.
It solves the issues with blind fire, etc.

It's especially funny when the mage is overcasting at Force7+. I had a mage once think he could go around a corner and no one would notice that he was casting at Force 8. He just didn't get that Perception Tests with a threshold of -2 are passed by sleeping people, astrally projecting mages, and full-immersion riggers. In the end, we had to resort to describing the effects as "No, you don't chant and wave your arms around. You're right, this isn't D&D. It's still fucking hard to hide your spell when it causes you to float three feet off the ground on a throne of flaming skulls and blots out the sun with clouds of hate and lightning."

Of course, this set a hilarious precedent for future casters and a contest of one-upsmanship on describing the special effects for high-level spells.

I like that image. I'll work on that for my Free Spirit Magician.

Extra Karma i hope? ^^

It was a pure sport, pursued merely for the joy of excellence. Why sully it with rewards? Besides, after a few years, a game gets pretty Karma-flush anyway.

'cause it's ingenious and adds another bit of fun to the game ^^

Just so I can remind my players what page was the 6-force perceptionb test described on in the 4A edition?

Page 168 of SR4.

and 179 in SR4A

Can a spell (instant or sustained) be Masked? I know ancored spells can be masked but instant or sustained spells I wold say no but can't really find anything saying one way or another.

Why not with extended masking?

Crap it really has to be like that. Everytime one of those pixie bastids throw their force 11 stunbolts, what actually happens is their targets are struck by lightning and the pixies turn into giant... giant pixies. And EVERYONE within a city block will notice.

Is there ANY other precedent for a negative threshold?

Nope, the books don't even define the Threshold 0 test.

Well there's not much defining, it's a test you can't fail as you always get a minimum of 0 successes.

I don't think it's that bad. Anyone who has the chance to notice is going to see the pixie, but if you're, say, sitting in your flat, headphones on, scratching yourself as you read the paper you aren't going to notice. You need to be able to sense them and the target in the first place to notice any magic.

Can a test without hits be a success? This is not defined.
Anyone who has to roll, which you have to do to pass a test, can still critically glitch. So a threshold 0 test must be different from "immediately obvious", which doesn't require a test.

Well, the most simple solution is that you end up with "immediately obvious" for anyone in the vicinity, who could see or hear the spell (don't know about hearing, actually). That just spells doom for the sneaking mage. No more running into places with high force invis up and stunbolting people left and right who might still detect you. You really need to sneak now, and not knock people out. Is it all bad? Not really, I guess.

If you do it mathematically:
Theoretically, most bystanders don't even have dice left to observe you if there are a few mods, plus being distracted. But a one die spotter can notice as long as they don't glitch. The 0 dice spotter is the only one who could not automatically notice a Force 6 spell, unless he rolls edge.

And if you raise the force, and keep with the mathematic thing, that would give the spotter automatic net successes. (Because net hits= hits - threshold = 0 + 1 = 1) So they could be banging their heads at a heavy metal concert and still notice you using just a force 7 spell in the vicinity. And all the noise and distraction doesn't matter, because those modifiers apply to the spotter, not the spottee, and the spotter already has a net hit.

This is really a funny rule.

it should be noted that it's the magic being cast that is noticeable. magic in use (eg an invisibility spell that is being sustained on someone) has no threshold for (regular) perception. though it *will* be rather obvious on the astral.

Had a mage in my last session overcast a Force 10 Mana Bolt (he has Magic 8 and a Power Focus) and he got 9 Hits to the poor schmuck's 0 Hits (his counterspelling support had just been taken out). So that's 19 levels of wounds and I chose to describe it as a sort of liquefaction process. Very messy. The casting magician and a civilian they had with them failed Composure Tests and fainted and vomited, respectively. The casting magician got away with two levels of physical drain.

Anyway, I'd call that noticeable.

Simple, but there still should be a distinction between obvious (no test necessary) and Threshold 0.
a) We don't know if the noticeable phenomena from spellcasting are masked by (improved) Invisibility. At best observers will see flickering air or whatever (which were only introduce by SR4A all previous editions didn't have the sparkles) without a source. Changes on the caster himself(sweat, furrowed brows, look of concentration) are definitely masked by Invisibility
b)the invisible mage remains invisible even if someone notices spellcasting.

True.
Nope. Everyone can glitch critically:
Whether you passed the test is irrelevant to determine if the roll is a critical glitch. Only the absence of hits is important. So everyone no mater how high the dice pool can glitch critically.

You could be right there. I'm not sure if such imaginary hits should be awarded to the roll, making Critical Glitches as above impossible. Normal Glitches though are still possible, though they won't help the caster much.

About as funny as Ghoulpocalypse by RAW.

BTW: What sense is stimulated by Spellcasting? Will augmentations to any sense apply to the test? Is it only visual?

Yes, yes, but even without sparkles the spell remains that obvious. HOW?
Actually, in 4 the spotter has to SEE the mage, because it's the skill use being noticed, not the effect.



Uh... but you can't glitch without dice. So if you can't roll, you can't glitch. That's what I was going for. With 1 die, a hit will spot, a miss will spot - because the threshold is 0, but a glitch will be auto-critical. Funny, too. Arguably, actually even a crit glitch will spot, just before sticking his finger in his eye or something.


Well... since arguably even the crit glitch shouldn't help the caster much, either, I guess it makes no difference. What happens if you get net hits, but no dice to roll? That one doesn't make sense at all.




Now, by common sense I think mana spells shouldn't produce sound, only visual cues. But even so...

The funny situation I am seeing: If even a 0 dice spotter gets net hits - and I'm not certain on this - now we have a situation where a mage can cast a spell of at least force 7 from a gazillion meters away, using any kind of optics/vision enhancement, and ANY person with line of sight should notice. Unless I'm really messing up the spotting rules - which, I admit, I may, with all the damned cancellations in my SR schedule recently.

A quick look-up brings up my next question: How do the thresholds interact with the "normal" perception test thresholds? Not at all? If so, then even one automatic net hit means certain detection. If they interact in some way - then how? Distance is just a modifier, other vision mods also just apply to the spotter's pool.

Noticing that Magic is happening is not the same as detecting the magician. In the 'gazillion meters away' example, the observer may well notice a disturbance in the air around the target, but not see where it came from, or who sent it.

"Crap! Billy-Joe just got fried by magic! Take cover and call for backup!"

Yes, that is exactly as it was in all other editions before 4 AFAIK.

Without dice you can't succeed at a test either, so you won't spot the magic in that case.

It's a perception test, not a sight test. So they don't even have to see the mage. Maybe they hear him, or smell him, or something similar.

The described phenomena though a visual only. Being able to use gear that enhances visual perception however would make spellcasting even more obvious.

Ok, so let's summarize for 4A

Threshold replaces the threshold for perception tests in the basic rules for perception.
Modifiers apply (audio/visual/whatever); Certain modifiers apply directly from the casting, others are related to the sense use
Effects are totally undefined, so it's unclear what sense is to be used. Most probably visual, but there might just be thunderclaps, whizzing, fancer laser sounds, etc.

After modifiers: (distraction, darkness, fog, etc. etc., noise, distance)
Spotter has no dice, base threshold 0: spotter can't try.
Spotter has no dice, base threshold negative: spotter can't try, overrules the automatic net hits.
Spotter has at least one die to roll Perception, base theshold 0 or negative: spotter spots automatically, whether he glitches or not. This is independant of distance or sense used, as long as distance mods don't completely eat up the dice pool, due to poor rules; With automatic net hits the spotter even gains additional information. A force 11 cheesebolt hence allows quite detailed information about the effects, the location, etc.

Assumably a guard should have a few dice left. So he always spots magic with 0 or negative threshold - irrespective of the type of spell or effect, or the distance, as long as he has line of sight or is within "earshot" - whatever that means in game terms. Assumably earshot is however far you still have a dice pool for hearing perception.

I still can't work out if this rule is inherently bad, it's just really badly designed - probably because it was a stopgap measure put in in 4A because of the complaints of people about the power of mages.

At least with threshold 0, possibly even with negative thresholds you can still get a Critical Glitch.

The mechanics are the same for SR4 and SR4A. The Anniversary Edition only added sparkles to the description of the phenomenon. And neither Vampires nor mages should sparkle.

Replace 'sparkles' with 'huge jolts of electricity' from an arbitrary point around F5
For fear of mingling settings: "I sense a disturbance in the Force" might be a very good result of that perception test by that full immersion couch potato, trying to game without being disturbed by the F12 Nourishment addicted pixie living two blocks away.

The actual line is:Sparkles are closer to that than jolts of electricity.

I agree, this does however mean that all perception aids won't help.

Neither will mods such as vision mods and noise. Now what about line of sight? Earshot? At least a distance must be defined at which point modifiers apply, or else you will always detect any mage anywhere in the world who is overcasting by much.

It also gives basically everyone a sort of Magicsense ability, which I'm not seeing in line with the usually clear separation between mana and physical effects.

What I suggest is basically just ignoring that mana warp special effect, and going back to the way it was in 4th - meaning, you have to see the mage. That's the only clearly usable rule.

When a black magician casts a spell:
a stench of brimstone (smell)
prickling of skin (touch)
howling as the gates of hell open (sound)
a dry taste in your mouth as the moisture is sucked out (taste)
the temperature drops around you (thermal)
a blast of purple / black energy as a stun bolt comes your way

When a fluffy magician casts a smell:
a cleansing spell not unlike pine
still a prickling of skin
a faint harp like sound
still the dry taste
a golden beam as a stun bolt comes your way

In other words high force spells are really really obvious. Forget the crap about invisibility masking it....its like saying invisibility masks the trail of the black smoke belching rocket. The point of this game mechanic is to make magic non subtle, and it does that well. If you want to crush their minds and force them to forget thats ok...but powerful subtle magic in shadowrun doesn't exist

Seconded

Well the fluff of that section disagrees with you:The crunch however is diametrically opposed to this. Not only is the threshold ridiculously low for spells of a decent force (3+), but the crunch also introduces a previously unheard-of mana effect on the physical plane.

The rules say that magic isn't subtle (anymore), but everything you've put down individually is not really in rules. It was also never like that previously. Saying that stealthy magic doesn't exist in SR is preposterous. It doesn't exist since 20A came out.

Ok, let's say we use your variant:
Range of smell? A few meters; Let's say you get -2/meter to the perception roll
Range of touch? Uh... this one's impossible.
Sound: Audio mods apply
Range of taste? That one also doesn't work
Temperature: isn't a spell effect. As a sensation? It doesn't work very well
Visual: It's a core concept that mana doesn't influence the physical world directly. Whatever, vision mods apply, plus the usual for astral perception, shamanic mask, etc.

So now, let's add up: You still only get ONE roll to perceive magic, because it says so.

That means ALL the appropriate modifiers get added into it. That could very well mean that you now have less chance of noticing than if there were only visual signs. Of course, as long as you have even just one die left, you definitely notice it from an arbitrary distance, and with arbitrary disturbance of your perception. And that's what's just wrong.

It is hard to see how you can get fewer die with more sensory inputs....

I can see that you like the idea of subtle magic. I think mages are extremely powerful, probably the most powerful archetype there is. The game designers realised this and put in place a game mechanic to stop the mage automatically being the best in every situation. Specifically they put in the fact the high powered spells are very obvious. They put a game mechanism in place to support this.

So when an invisible mage casts a high force spell it will be obvious. The invisible mage will still get the hidden target benefits (which are substantial) but everyone knows there is a mage around.

Having something like concealment around is interesting, but concealment only hides the mage it doesn't hide the spell he is casting.

Edit
I have just gone to re-read the section in the book:


So my fundamental premise was wrong...mostly its noticing the distraction on the mages face, although the higher force spells have their own effect. I suspect that invisibility would actually help quite a lot.

In my games I will carry on as I was playing before: but now its a house rule not RAW. I like having the clouds swirl, the ectoplasm start dripping and the taste of ozone appear when the blood mage casts that force 18 ritual spell.

What I like is not the question, what produces a workable result is.

I think it's a good idea to make magic more obvious, but I dislike the manner it was done. They should have thought about this in more detail, and above all, explained what they wanted to achieve with thresholds of 0 or below.

The treshold for noticing magic was exactly the same in the first printing of the 4:th edition corebook.
Anniversary edition did nothing but ad a line to better explain what people are noticing when high force spells are cast.

That's already out of the way: In 4th you're noticing the mage using the magical skill. In 20A you're noticing "sparkles" (and all the other stuff). Clearly the former doesn't work if the mage is hidden or invisible, while the latter is obvious even on invisible mages.

It also clearly says, that magic is not very noticable in 4E, while they somehow ignored that part in 20A.