An astral being being able to use a Perception skill while Dual Natured without penalty is much the same as a a Mage using Assensing skill while astrally perceiving or projecting.

If you believe the Mage grows "Spirit Eyeballs" of the astrally perceiving variety while projecting or perceiving, then of course spirits can also grow metahuman eyeballs to perceive mundane things.

The ability to mechanically roll the dice for "Perception" does not automatically confer the physical organs of the perceiver. It just means they can use the skill.

"As with other dual-natured entities, a spirit’s ethereal senses are able
to sense both worlds without incurring modifiers for acting on
both planes at the same time."

"Spirits may use both Perception and Astral Perception skills
as normal."

But it doesn't explain why, it just simply says they can use the skill.


In fact, earlier in the general description of spirits.

"A free spirit, in its materialized form, is made of energy in
the form of a set of coherent forces. These forces effect the space
around it, giving it the illusion of shape, mass, and appearance."

and

"A free spirit has the “look and feel” of a physical
being, based on the form it took before it became free, but it is
not made of the materials that appear to make it up; “skin” will
not tan or sunburn, “iron” will not be attracted to magnets."

So while a Spirit can clearly operate while Manifest and use Perception skill, it's not because it has "regular" senses, but because it can reasonably interpret the mundane world.

As an additional item, if a spirit could use "regular" senses, why don't they work on Electronic Projections on screens? Wouldn't this clearly work if they did have a regular sense? It's just a picture isn't it? If they had regular eyeballs when Manifest there should be no reason it wouldn't work?

"Note, however, that spirits are unable
to see or interpret simsense, electronic projections on screens,
or AR displays."

The Following Spirits have them...
Spirits of Beasts...
Spirits of Man...

Therefore, both of these spirit types have Normal Senses in addition to Astral Sight. Can't argue with the Book.
Of course, a Watcher does not have them....

summon five watcher spirits and get a +5 dice pool modifier for friends in melee in astral combat.

Sort of: all spirits have their native astral sense (works fine for most everything), and nothing else unless otherwise noted (Enhanced Senses).

Possession of that critter power doesn't mean the critter has all the senses that the power can boost - just that if the critter has any of those senses, it'll be boosted.

I'm fairly certain spirits hear sound. Useful for giving orders, crucial if you're going to loan a spirit to someone, and because there's no mention of difficulties in talking to spirits, I believe they can hear.

I wouldn't be surprised if they lacked smell; it's not like they breathe, after all. Same for taste; they don't eat physical food, so why would they have taste?

Spirits can be hurt and can materialize, so I'm guessing they have a good analogue for a sense of touch.

Sight is a bit iffish... It makes a lot of sense that they'd basically use Astral Perception most of the time. It's much more natural to them. It's the sense most open to argument.

Well astral perception is not really visual, it is just the most handy analogy to use.

See, I'm fine with all orders being given over the mage-spirit mystic link, and no 'lending' spirits to anyone.

I agree this is all up in the air, but it's more satisfying for them to be astral-sense-only in the basic package, then upgrade from there. It gives spirits a fun, flavorful limitation.

After all, watchers do have a voice of sorts if they manifest themselves. So a sense of hearing might be appropriate, too. They won't hear sounds made by any technology.

Should've thought of that, would have given my character an edge in combat with that crazy awakened alligator. Thanks!
Watchers also work as distractions: have two or three of them scream right beneath your opponents ear in the middle of a gunfight!
Basically, it's sometimes useful to have some watchers around. Sadly, they can't take the shortcut via a metaplane to get to you and, well, don't bother explaining them the way to you...

I think that distracting enemies is exactly the reason they can be counted as "friends in melee". They're not doing much else, after all.

The nice thing is that watchers still have 9 health boxes - enough that you actually need to make an effort to destroy them (not too much, but on the other hand they don't materialize, so they're hard to touch.)

The feeling of pain in the general sense is only very partially an actual sense. Also, I'd like to see something that says spirits can actually feel it.

What we do know is they take wound penalties, whatever that 'really means'.

Well, there goes my plan if the person was driving old skool. "Bite him on the nose. Hard."

Oh oh oh!!! Won't work for jacked-in drivers (Or ones with Cyberoptics) "Materialize so that all he can see if you!"

I don't care how good your AR camera view is, when a Water Spirit has his bare bottom pressed up against the surface of your EYEBALLS yelling out, "I HAD AZ-TEX-MEX FOR LUNCH, MOTHER-SLOTTER!" at the top of his very loud lungs...

They can certainly distract. Which might be good for a -2 penalty or so. And since they only Manifest, they're pretty close to impossible for non-mages to get rid of - they're not physical enough to attack without being dual-natured, but visible enough to harass.

Sending them to swarm on enemies is pretty useful, a good way to demoralize the enemy, or to collect some bonuses that start to add up after three or so Watchers.

Distraction is good. Being right in someone's face BLINDS said person. Which is a much less subtle but far more effective distraction.

I'm not sure a non-physical thing can really blind you, because you could just walk right through it. I went for the -2 penalty because that's comparable to aggressive AR spam. The watchers are even more mobile and adaptable, but AR spam tends to have content that gets to you, like "Bubba the Love Troll X: Going In Back For More" trailers when you're trying to pick out the perfect Christmas gift for your kid sister.

I don't know, that does sound like a pretty good gift for a kid sister...

quite the family.

It's "Shadowrun". The Big Brother in this case shoots people in the face for money!

Quite the family, indeed!

I remember story fluff in one of the books that talked about watchers where the watcher came bounding back to its summoner to report what a person said only to blip out of existence because its time ran out. Right before it vanished, it said "Hey boss! She said..." (poof)

A non-physical thing can still cause variable amounts of cover from nothing to total cover. It really depends on how much of your field of view is blocked by the manifesting spirit.

I'd lean toward cover penalties over blinding for that reason alone. You can still see, you just cannot see your target clearly because of LOS obstructions like a Watcher mooning you up close and in your face.

I think that was in Grimoire 2ed, where they introduced Watchers.

Wouldn't the caster has to be Astrally Perceiving/Projecting himself for this to work?

Indeed. Otherwise the caster would not be able to cast anything on the astral plane anyway, let alone cast this specific spell on a watcher. A materialized spirit, on the other hand...
The very idea itself is still great, as adepts are not able to project.