Can watches spirits or other mages see if you if have this? If so how can you hide astrally?

Yes, and you basically can't.

Watchers are easily defeated by using Infiltration, because they have a dicepool of 2. The only issue that there isn't much to hide behind on the astral.

That would depend on how distracting the real world shadowing into the astral actually is.

Basically, check out the Astral Visibility mods in Street Magic.

Except basically everything which also exists on the physical world, astral shadows are opaque...spirits or projecting mages are able to stick their heads through the astral shadow of the wall you are hiding behind, but unless they actually do you remain hidden

Yeah, that would fall under "actively trying to remain hidden". Which is an opposed infiltration check that the watcher will almost certainly fail.

On the other hand, if you're just strolling up to the watcher in plain astral sight, no opposed test needed, the watcher automatically sees you.





-k

You wouldn't believe how paranoid my last group was about watcher spirits despite how much I kept telling the astrally aware players that stuff like windows and other objects obstructed astral perception & such. Their tactic to deal with them was... less than subtle to say the least.

You hide astrally by using a spirit with the conceal power.

This is something I've always been sort of fuzzy on with regard to the Conceal power: how easy is it to see the spirit in astral that is using the power? Should the summoner include the spirit in the targets for the conceal and so the spirit is rolling Infiltration along with the rest of the things it's concealing?

It's worth noting that Conceal aids one in the opposed Infiltration vs Perception check; it helps you hide, but doesn't hide you itself. There still needs to be some cover for you to use Infiltration.

I recall a bit in street magic regarding spell auras - the aura of the spell it self is rather easy to spot on the astral.

However, regular invisibility and extended masking should work wonderfully for astral infiltration.

I'm not sure there's any rule that you need any X before you may use Infiltration, though certainly there's some common sense issues.

Hmm. Okay, so if something has astral vision (such as a dual natured creature), then Improved Invisibility isn't going to do much. I'd presume ruthenium polymers aren't going to help much either, am I right? The next big question for me would be, 'does concealment help on the astral plane?'

(Edit) Yup. RAW says it protects against astral vision.

Masking can.

- J.

Btw: What kind of modifier would it be to hide from a guard you neither know is there nor see?

I mean it is much easyer to hide from a target, of which you know the position than it is to hide from someone who could be there or could not be there...

Just use the invisibility modifier -6? Or should it be higher?

@Udoshi

Well, depends on the situation. Regular invisibility does not really work. (SEPERATION OF PLANES!)
(Unless you cast it on the astral plane, for which you need to stay dual natured or don't depending on how you read the rules...)

Masking only changes your aure, it does not hide it. It would work in combination with shapechange. So you would seem to be a regular dog, rat, pidgeon whatever...

To be fair, I guess this is subject to interpretation. I interpret that it does:



I agree it doesn't say "invisible" but if the false aura is made to appear that they have "no" aura (i.e. non-existent) then the person would have to make the Opposed test in order to "see" the person. I guess what I'm saying is that fluff text aside, the rule mechanics readily provide a system in which Masking could be used to provide astral invisibility (pending the person being capable of Astral Projection).

- J.

While you could theoretically cast regular invisibility on the astral plane it is absolutely useless. It would hide the astral form of the target but the spel itself would be blatantly obvious. And that does not even address the issue of the target being active on the astral plane.

@Dakka Dakka
Well, it is a matter of interpretation.
If the spell makes you fall out of the perception of the astral observer, it does not matter if he could see the spell. He is "ignoring" everything.
(Or is the guy on the physical plane able to "see" you, because he does not see the stuff behind you... Or because he sees the cloth you are wearing)

But this is a general issue with the description for SR-spell beeing way too short to address how they are supposed to work.
@The Jake

You are jocking right? I mean you yourself say it does not say invisible and in the next sentance you argue you can turn yourself invisible...
Honestly: This would make this metamagic WAY TOO GOOD.
There would be no way in hell to really find astral intruders.

You just need to hide in the "floor". And even if they peak into the floor,(which would requres a lot of time on their hands) and even if they look at the right spot there is at least a 50/50 Chance that they will miss you..

Extended Masking would mask the spell. So conceivably:

* Improved Invisibility (sustained) to hide physical presence.
* Masking to hide aura.
* Extended Masking to hide the sustained spell.

If someone has two metamagics (one advanced) and that spell, I don't really see it as game breaking to permit this. Infact, I'm pretty sure the rules were established to permit just that. It's not supposed to be easy.

Although, any free spirit with Aura Masking and Improved Invisibility can do this no problems....

- J.

You are talking about a different problem. You are talking about how the hiding works, I am talking about what is hidden. The target of the spell is hidden, not the spell itself.

@The Jake: Of course, with Extended Masking it would work. Without those two techniques though it is useless.

Ok. Just saying Udoshi is with the correct IMHO I was actually thinking of pulling this trick with my shaman....

- J.

@Dakka Dakka
The question is counts a spell cast on me as "me" and do the cloth I ware count as "me".
I do not know.

You really should read your Book Quote again. In no way does Masking "make you appear as if you had NO Aura." It allows you to make your Aura appear as MUNDANE. Mundane characters still have an aura. And yes, you could use your Extended Masking to cover the spell, so you still look Mundane. But in no way would you be able to erase your Aura.

the regular invisibility spell cast on the astral plane is not for dual natured beings. It is for astral forms. Extended masking incorporates the spell into the astral form and the spell itself conceals the astral form.

What?

I'm confused on what you are saying here. Are you saying Invisility conceals an aura? Because I don't believe it does, or ever has.

And I don't believe there *is* an 'astral' version at all. Invis is for vision, not astral sense. We've been over this so many times. At best, the GM could stupidly allow an 'astral sense' custom version of the spell, assuming such a thing is possible (I say it's not, astral 'sense' is unlike physical senses and an invalid choice for the spell).

Hmm. you might be onto something there. Sight indeed dose not work on the astral plane. I however do not see why an "ignore sensory input from the astral sense" spell should not be allowed.

The other version would be to modifiy regular invisibility to be "multi-sense". Then it would either fool the 5 normal senses or astral perception, depending on the plane it is cast on.

That is indeed the standard suggestion; I do prefer to say that astral 'sense' is of a different category from physical senses, and ineligible, but that's just me.

There are the espirit grenades in Arsenal which mask your presence on the astral. I don't think its game breaking to offer a spell which can achieve a similar effect either.

- J.

Yeah, I noted the absence of good spell for this some time ago and came up with Astral Invisibility - and as per standard procedure published it all over the matrix so that new characters could have it, too. I see that some people here might disagree with the feasibility of it, but I have a bribable GM, so I got my new spell. Nyah.

That may be, but the total effect of a spell that can do it is obviously vastly different from a physical grenade that can do something like it.

I always liked the "disguises don't work on the astral plane" theory. Things appear as they really are. The obvious exception that proves the rule is Masking. Other than that, the best option for hiding is the same as it is for mundanes, put something opaque between you and the viewer and hope for the best.

Per se, there are no rules against it. It would still impact game balance, I'd say. That goes doubly for the multisense version.


It does mask you, but in a way a smoke grenade masks you on the physical plane. Sure, you cannot be seen - not so very stealthy, though.

Good thing about astral patrols? It's quite a hassle to report back an intruder if you are on the astral plane. Radio comms don't go there and there's little you can do aside from calling a spirit onto someone. That's already a big gun, I'd say.

Indeed. I'd allow an 'astral smoke bomb' spell before I'd allow astral invisibility; the balance difference is clear.

There already are two more versatile spells than an astral smoke bomb. Both Entertainment and Phantasm can create astral smokescreens, among other things.

So, there you go.

Watcher spirits - especially attuned ones - do just nicely for this task.

- J.

I think that still qualifies as a hassle, but yeah, it's not insurmountable. Whoever invents a cheap astral-radio focus will be pretty famous, though.

SR4A, pp 208, 2nd paragraph under Illusions heading.

Personally, I would consider 'astral invisibility' coming under 'disguise'

Why are you trying to solve the problem like this? Shadowing and infiltration work on the astral plane as well.

True, but nondetectability is better than stealthy movement.

There's an Illusion spell in Digital Grimoire (pg.17) called False Impression/Manascape(area) - this can alter the impressions gained from magical senses (assensing, psychometry, sensing, magic sense, astral window, and other magical senses).

It's not a far cry from that to a 'true' astral invisibility spell.

We've certainly discussed that option in the past. My position then was that an altered impression can't include a *null* impression. That spell has the limited effect, AFAIK, of changing specific bits of info: 'he's an elf', 'he's angry', etc.

Yes, but the fact remains that spells can affect magical senses by RAW. The leap from an altering illusion to an invisibility illusion isn't a very big one.

That's true, and not what I'm talking about. AFAIK, that particular spell only lets you 'wear a false mustache', not 'become invisible'.

Yeah, exactly. You can appear as someone/something else.

I was just using it's existance as reasoning for the viability of an astral invisibility spell.

I get that. It's not a conclusive argument, but it is certainly suggestive. Given the arbitrariness of magic, I'm happy to posit that appearing as nothing is simply impossible, and categorically different from the false mustache. I accept that this is arbitrary, of course, based if anything on game balance.

If one wanted astral invisibility, I'd be more comfortable allowing a specific spell just for that, rather than allowing a do-everything multi-sense one, or even allowing Manascape to do it, etc. It's definitely an opinion, based on the time-honored principle of "don't give the mage an inch".

Oh, I agree that it has to be specific; an astral version of Invisibility (though I'd go for multi-sense as a requirement for drain purposes, just because astral is different)

Yes, that seems fairer. I just don't want a single multi-sense spell that works everywhere at once (or even each in turn).

Wrong. Regular invisibility is a Mana Spell. it works on anything living, and on the astral. If you are dual natured, you're good. If you're astral only, no need for improved invis.

Hiding the spell aura is the tricky part. Masking CANNOT hide your invisibility spell. Its a little like having cloaking generator that doesn't cloak itself. Extended masking CAN make the telltale aura of an existing spell completely go away because it specifically works on spells and foci, not just your own immediate body-only aura.