If I am astral projecting, and I see a team mate in trouble (they are only present on the physical world), how do I help him with counterspelling?

Head back to your body and run across town. You can't break the astral/physical barrier, AFAIK.

If I start counterspelling, then go astral, can I still maintain it?

I might also be wrong. I know that *Dispelling* requires you to be on the same plane and have LOS.

As I understand I can maintain spells when I go astral. Similarly spirits can maintain powers when they stop materialising. I am guessing countermagic is the same, but I am not sure.

Well, except you obviously can. I mean, you can cast M spells that affect astral beings (Mana Barrier anybody?) without projecting.

Only if you're dual-natured (directly affecting them). In which case you're *not* breaking the 'barrier'. Counterspelling is directly affecting someone, that's all.

What? When you are only on the Physical plane, you can cast Physical or Mana spells on physical targets. When you are only on the Astral plane, you can only cast Mana spells on astral targets. When you are dual natured, you can cast Physical or Mana spells on physical targets and Mana spells on astral targets.

A magician must maintain LoS to characters / items he is protecting with Counterspelling so even if you can maintain it from the astral, you can only maintain it while within LoS.

THIS AGAIN! (grah)

Well, i am with Yerameyahu on this one. ALSO i demand rewriting the whole rules concerning astral/physical plane... ah hell... the whole magic section. They were perfectly fine before... why are they so weird in this edition?

Allow for grounding, attacking spells in astral while they travel, make the dual/astral sensing rules LOGICAL and be done. And yeah: you shouldn't be able to cast a mana barrier in the physical world and have it appear on the astral. YOU ARE NOT THERE.

(And when i am raging around like this: Bring back the spirits/elementals. adjust the spellcasting rules to make DEFENSES viable, and add back the grittyness into the game *g*)

Well, huh, that shows me. I didn't realize that.

Sorry I asked because I just don't know how this works. Neither do I couple of other people I know that run Shadowrun. Mostly we just play that the mage has countermagiced the party if they are in the same group, but we keep running into situations (like this) where that house rule doesn't work.


Does this mean that a magician will always be behind the people he is protecting? i.e. he must be able to see them (I guess with the usual constraints on mages seeing things they are targeting with spells) , so he has to keep looking at them (I am guessing blinking doesn't count )

Yeah, this points out two grey areas in the rules regarding Counterspelling.

1) Can an astute attacker distract the mage with a snap of the fingers or a tap on the shoulder? (just examples, OK?) If the mage turns away to look at the distraction, is the protection of the party nullified?

My take on this is that a blink or a momentary lapse of attention (nothing more than a complex action, say the casting of a spell at a target, or assensing something) to the other party members is not enough to drop the Counterspelling protection. Going into the bathroom to do number two does.

2) Is LOS to party members on the physical plane maintained for a magician who astrally projects/perceives (or a Free Spirit character who dematerializes)?

My take on this is that since spells can't affect / be on both the astral and physical planes at the same time, neither can their opposition, Counterspelling. Yes, spirit powers and spells can be maintained by someone who went on the other plane, but this is different from the more fundamental formation or negation of the magical construct.