@Yerameyahu

I totally agree with you, that everything else would be silly. But RAW I think the positin, that nothing happens, holds true.

The point is very simple, you have to touch the mage. But the mage is astral, so you can't touch him. This means the power does not work. Thats is what RAW says here.
(If the body of the mage would be the mage, the mage would have LOS all around his body, because this would be how LOS is defined. And he would have astral vision all around his body, because this is how astral vision is defined. So you see, this would (RAW) open huge cans of worms. Thats why it is ruled, that the mage leaves his body behind. (Thats true in crunch and fluff)

While I agree with you, that as a GM I would probably handle it as you described, it would not be RAW. RAW the mage would be immune, because the TM can't meet the demands of the power.

And I'm pretty okay with either outcome (mage is valid target, mage isn't valid target). I'm just presenting an alternative.

I don't think 'the mage is astral', though. He's right there: his body. You're touching him. I think we're fine with an understanding that the mage's consciousness on the astral is separate from his body on the physical, and that LOS (indeed, all sense) is from the astral form. The alternative is saying that you can't punch or shoot him, because 'he's not there'.

Just stun him to death, he will not be able to summon a high-force spirit with a full stun track, a full physical track and a full overflow track.

'Tis True...

Good clarification, thanks NiL. But that reinforces the same conclusion, right? As long as it's ghostly, it's not 'real sensory info', and they're definitely not pulled back. Just to be clear… does this mean that hurting the body inflicts wounds on the astral form (even though he can't/barely can feel it)?

Yeah, it's usually better to shoot or stab the mage, but I guess an unarmed, weakling techno *would* be better off using a black trode-touch. So it's not impossible.

I wonder if using psychotropic Black IC would work. Regardless of Yahoo's constant ignorance of printed word and stated fact, you've settled the argument for me Nil, Thanks.

There is no call for that, thank you. Incidentally, NiL's point is in no way incompatible with my position, and in no way supports yours.

Since you ask, I assume that psychotropic effects require a conscious subject, so you could conclude that it wouldn't affect an 'absent' mage, any more than it would affect a sleeping or comatose mundane. For a normal conscious subject, resonance trodes with psychotrophics *should* indeed work, by this theory.

@NiL_FisK_Urd

Affects does not mean affects in the same way.

Actually, if you were correct, this would not be possible:

So, no. The astral body does not take the damage of the physical one. It is affected as it is described. It feels a distant pain.
So stuning the physical body does not stop the mage!

Where exactly does it state that wound modifiers do not carry over?

It's the 6 or more dice penalty that prevents it, not the sudden disappearance of the astral mage.

@NiL_FisK_Urd
Where does it state it does?

It is made clear, that if the body dies the astral form can still act. This would be impossible if damage would carry over. So it does not.

It is neither mentioned anything about modifiers the astral form would have in this case. This means there are none.

Honestly, thats really plain as day.

Astrally projecting mages have trouble finding their own bodies? Since when?

There are canon situations they do, right? I think the classic one is 'if the body is moved', right?

So, I feel like people must have solved this 'damage between forms' question before. The rules quoted by Irion and NiL do seem to contradict a little bit, bleh; there are points for both versions.

@Irion: Damage to your body gives you a modifier - that is a basic rule. If you have an exception to a rule, you have to state it. There is no exception printed, so the basic rule takes effect.

Also, which part in "Any damage inflicted to one form immediately affects the other" do you not understand? Maybe you understand it if i state the german rules ...

But we also know that death doesn't stop the astral mage, and that "the astral body may experience a ghostly sense of distant pain". So we have to decide how to reconcile those.

Personally, I'd prefer to say that the damage instantly shares, but they don't really 'feel' it. Because we also know for sure that projecting mages get no (other) sensory information from their meat body, right? This means that a killed meat body inflicts the maximum wound penalty on the astral form, but doesn't 'kill' or stop it.

Even if that were possible, resolving the location with sympathetic magic should be laughably easy, as you can't get a stronger connection than "it's my f***** body".

Sure, JonathanC. What're the rules for that, ritual magic, right? Sounds like a pain.

You have to use Astral Tracking -> put it behind a ward, and it gets a bit harder ^^
Assensing + Intuition (5+Ward, 1 hour)

Poor form and you won't win any respect that way. I thought Yerameyahu made a lot of salient points and regardless, this is an RPG, not some cosmic law. I get you're trying define just RAW and everything else is house-rule, and in a perfect world I guess that would be true, but just because an author maybe decided to take some liberty with embellishment doesn't mean it changed how every other rule worked. Common sense and rationalization does apply when interpreting rules and the writers are not infallible.

Personally at our table we go more with Irion's interpretation. You can't affect the mage until he gets back, since simsense doesn't really work at all. I have to admit though I'm somewhat intrigued by Yerameyahu's argument that the meat body brain is still there to be microwaved, but the rules don't necessarily support this and it IS a fantasy game. It's all metaphorical metaphysics. Resonance emulating electrical currents while the mage's consciousness/spirit isn't present.

It was simplest for us to adjudicate that though the mage couldn't resist the power, it had about the same affect as using simsense on a brain dead body/comatose body, i.e. pretty much nothing.

But it is interesting to wonder what would happen to use resonance trodes on a comatose person, hell could open up a whole new field of therapy/rehabilitation and could be the actual basis of a mission to retrieve someone still trapped in the 'trix as a ghost...

The whole snapping the mage back to his body seems far fetched, and actually has some potential for exploitation and abuse under certain circumstances and if done intentionally by friendly team members. What ramifications/rules would arbitrate what conditions the mage could be returned under. Metaplanar quests? Only on the same plane? etc.

It not just trying to understand the separation of magical spirit and physical body, or even the interaction of resonance powers, but also how simsense actually damages the mind by overload that would all have to be known to make a perfect accurate ruling. There is no real world scientific precedent though.

@NiL_FisK_Urd

WRONG. Damage to your damage track gives you a modifier. An astral porjecting mage has only his astral damage track.

So, since you do not DIE, damage is not transfered. If the damage is not transfered you have no boxes on your condition monitor. If you have no boxes on your condition monitor, you do not take any kind of modifier. Simple deduction.

The reverse has the potential for exploitation though. A member is getting hit with some heavy Black IC, so the team mage forces the target into Astral, giving him a Get out of Jail/Black IC free card. I.E. "Mages are just better."

I sincerely hope your line of thinking isn't to perpetuate the MagicRun drek that some like to push.

On the other hand, if you can't feel the damage you don't usually get the wound penalties - as per Damage Compensators, High Pain Tolerance, Pain Resistance, Sideways, Pain Editor etc. Well, Pain Editor only stops stun penalties...

So, in order to satisfy all points of the rules:

Any damage the body takes is instantly transferred to the astral form (and vice versa), but the mage can't really feel the damage and therefore does not get the wound penalties, and remains unaware of the fact that he is damaged.

That way, damage taken by either form still affects the same track, but only the penalties from damage inflicted on the astral affects the character (easy to book keep as the player keeps track of any damage he is aware of, and the GM secretly tallies up whatever else he gets). If the combined damage reaches max overflow, the body dies - but unless all the damage was inflicted on the astral, the mage stays conscious and remains on the astral plane for awhile)

Convenient that you decide to completely ignore the hard and fast rule of

Any damage inflicted to one form immediately affects the other.

@almost normal
I have answered that already. Please do not try this "You ignored X", if it is still the same day, what am I talking the same hour. (I might be a bit light headed but it is not that bad)

It is described how it affects you in the black box. If they wanted to say, that a condition monitor is shared, they should have said so. If a condition monitor would be shared, the not beeing dead part would be total bullshit.

If modifiers would be applyed, they should have said so. A distant pain hardly sounds like "inflicts the same modifiers as the real thing".

@Irion: there is no astral damage track - if i am wrong, please show me a page number where an astral damage track is spoken of.


Where do you take this statement from? SR4A p.193 states an exception to the rule of deceasing from overflow damage, but nowhere states that the damage simply does not happen. So you have an astral being with full overflow that can fly around for MAG*2 hours (and immediatly dies if hit in astral combat)

Suppose that it true also. No sir, I like a balanced game and my players seem to have more fun with variety and not being shoe horned into one archetype.

But isn't there already rules for severing a connection when being assaulted with black ice? True the IC try to jam open the connection, but that doesn't prevent other players from using non-magical methods to sever the link before irreparable harm is done. So there is actually already an in game precedent for such things occurring and already balanced for...

Well least it sounded good to me

Edit: Cold SIM and AR notwithstanding as an automatic bypass either!

A general rule is outlined once, and affects everything that has no exception to it.


No, because it is a general rule. The Exception needs to be stated.

This rule is total bullshit (and with me as GM, you will just die and not float around).

Everything that lets you ignore wound penalties clearly says so - why should this be an exception?

@NiL_FisK_Urd
We had this allready. If they have the same damage track, the rules would be wrong. It would not just be a "rule never to be used" they would be plain WRONG.
Because if your physical body dies, you would die and you would not fly around for several hours. (And if you are dead, your body can't be put on life support, can it?)

So the only way for the rules to be right (and the rules are right by definition) you need sperated damage tracks!


Dead does not mean you are reduced to one. It means dead. (lower than -body)



So well, you houserule it. Because this Rule is in RAW, RAI and in the fluff.

What is wrong with "your overflow box is full but you do not die for X hours" - this neither contradicts the rule in the box nor the general rule for dying - because it is a clearly stated exception.

It would be nice though to show me your made up exceptions concerning astral projection + wound modifiers and the made up astral damage track - because i cannot find it in the books.

If you cannot provide me with actual quotes, i will assume you cannot find any.

At least you don't have to worry about the astral link not being fresh.


All of this assumes that the Mage didn't set up any Alarm Wards around his/her body before going on their astral jaunt, didn't bother with any mundane security, didn't summon any spirits to guard them while they were out, or even ask a buddy to keep an eye on them...

Or all of the mentioned security measures failed and he was dragged away.

I don't see the potential for abuse here. I'm not even sure a mage has the option of forcing someone else astral (only a Great Form spirit or an awakened drug can do that, right?), but then the person is stuck astral; not a huge improvement. Remember that physical disconnection is just as much an option to 'defend' against this kind of attack, and vastly easier (and fully mundane). This *isn't* a question of magicrun/mages are better; it's seems like you're really trying to make it about that.

--
It still seems like the astral/meat damage sharing question is unresolved.

*shrug* the original scenario was a TM, right? I'm having trouble seeing how they'd go about slipping around an Alarm Ward. A mage could do it, but probably not while also remaining unseen by any spirits working for the target mage. I mean, every Mage I've seen in play makes use of Watcher Spirits, at the very least...if they were going Astral, it follows that they'd make better preparations than that.


I'm just saying, kidnapping a mage's body doesn't seem nearly as cost/time-effective as simply killing the body.

Not really - astral damage is stun or physical, and there is no mentioning of an Astral damage Track -> it uses the "normal" tracks. Per p. 193, damage to the body immediatly affects the astral entity. Everything that ignores wound modifiers clearly says so - astral projection does not say it, therefore wound modifiers apply normally.

The only "funny/stupid" thing is, that once the body dies, you have an astral entity with a full overflow track that does not die and vanishes in MAG*2 hours. Doing astral damage to it should kill it immeadiately, but it is not mentioned (but as always, general rule is in effect if no exception is stated).

I think the 'While you were out...' box clearly settles that damage is shared on one track.

Only question is if damage modifiers do...

Because if they do, the astral form would fall unconscious if the physical body fills up on either Stun or Physical damage. Much good it'll do you if you hang around unconscious on the astral while your body is dead... (nowhere does it say that damage to the physical body doesn't knock the astral form unconscious)

Even if you houserule that 'no, you don't fall unconscious, but you do receive wound penalties', an average astral dead mage would have a minimum of -6 dice on everything he or she does, possibly up to -10 if you fill in the stun track first.

Come to think of it, I can find no mention that you return to your body if you get knocked out on the astral...so in that case your astral form should just hang there for Essence Hours until you die, or?

Just get a pain editor. Also, the astral form has essence hours to heal stun damage, so maybe he will survive.

Indeed. NiL, I agree: the funny/stupid bit is key. The logical result of full damage/wound mod sharing is… a little undesirable; however, I think the rules and our own intuitions clearly say damage/wound sharing should be present. That's the issue. Is there any good way to resolve this, or are we just stuck with heavily 'wounded' astral forms? It's acceptable if we are, but it's nice to consider options. :/

On a slightly different note, we do know that sensory information from the meat is not relayed to the astral form (except 'maybe as ghostly distant pain'). So, if the astral form is sharing wound penalties, it must be some mechanism like (meat wound is reflected as astral wound) -> (astral wound causes wound penalty). This is perfectly fine, of course. However, it predicts that a pain editor actually wouldn't help the astral form: it's getting the wounds regardless, not the pain.

I have not found a solution to this - at least not in the Core Rulebook or in Street Magic.

Yeah. I'm kind of surprised this question hasn't been previously resolved. Like I said, I would personally *want* damage sharing; it seems 'right' and it's consistent with the rules. I think we also really want to avoid having a separate 'astral condition monitor', because complexity creep sucks.

But, we do also want to preserve the idea of the 'awake' astral form, I think? So a killed meat body shouldn't, in theory, cripple the astral form. It'll dissipate soon enough, after all. So this is tough to resolve. Maybe the astral form only experiences half the wound penalties? Fluff it as that 'distant pain'. :/ This is a problem, though, for the interaction of astral damage boxes with meat body damage boxes. Hmf. There may not be a way to have both.

Worst case, we'd have to conclude that a killed meat body *does* KO/cripple the astral form, and just bite that bullet. I think this contradicts the implications of While You Were Out, and the tradition behind that.

Well, it's clearly stated that pre-existing wounds appear on the astral form. So any wound penalties you had to begin with clearly apply.

It's not stated that wounds to the physical body appear on the astral once you are out, though - only that 'distant pain' thing, and that the damage affects the astral form.

I'd go with what I said above:
Keep any pre-existing damage on both forms, and treat any new damage transferred from the physical to the astral as 'secret'. The mage may very well know that something happened, but not how severely injured he is, until the physical form dies or he goes back.

Use the total of astral and physical to determine point of death.

That raises the question of determining which form dies when - maybe the form that receives the killing blow is the one that dies?

Nah. Player is only aware of astral boxes, and gm keeps track of whatever physical damage is received on top of that. When the total hits max overflow: "You can't feel the connection to your body anymore."

The issue there, snowRaven, is what happens when you take astral damage? Do you get KOd earlier than you'd expect, because you actually have secret boxes of damage? :/ It seems messy, and halfway to just having a separate astral condition monitor.

Right, I'm more worried about how the physical damage should affect the astral form (KOd earlier, and what about wound penalties?), than having the meat body unexpectedly dead (though clearly that's another concern).

You'd be KO'd sooner than expected then, yes.

You'll get a mess somewhere no matter how you do it, really.

I am alright with a crippled astral entity, every other character would be completely dead if their body dies.

Take this example: a Mage (witz 0 edge left) will be killed in the nex turn, he has an active pain editor, a full stun track and one box left on his physical track - if he gos astral, he will (probably) be alive for another few hours, and can wreak havoc with spirits or warn others. If he suffrs zero wound modifiers, this will seriously change his abilities to do things.

Yes, and this isn't exactly a common situation anyway. I just wanted to explore if there was a way to resolve this, because the 'stranded astral mage' is sort of a known concept.

On the other hand, the rarity (and hopelessness) of that example doesn't worry me as a source of abuse, either. I think that kind of situation is perfectly reasonable; a dying mage probably *should* be expected to flee his dying body and warn someone, or take some final vengeance. Either way, really.

So, our two choices seem to be: (crippled astral form), or (separate astral condition monitor without damage sharing). I'm throwing snowRaven's solution under the latter, though it's a little different. Yes?

Well, this is a reason for every astral mage to know a free spirit with endowment and vessel trading XD

Edit: Actually, you would need one possession spirit with endowment and one free spirit with endowment and vessel trading

Haha, a great form spirit with a greater power?

Honestly, page 193, SR4A is plain as day. Damage Modifiers carry over to both planes of existence.