So last night we played a 650 point SR4A game, with pregenerated characters provided by me as the GM. One of the characters was a Mage who had initiated, and ended up summoning an Ally Spirit prior to the start of the game. During the game the Mage cast a Stun Ball spell, and the Ally Spirit was in the LOS(A) range of the spell. So our questions were as follows:

• Can the Mage ignore a target in the Area of Effect? I assume not, but can he with hold successes or anything liek that?
• What happens when an Ally spirit maxes out it's condition track?

Thanks in advance for any useful guidance.

No, but yes he can withhold successes. I guess he can provide counterspelling for his ally.

I'm 99% sure he'll be disrupted back to his very own special metaplane, where he'll be very lonely, or not. He'll be back in 28-Force days.

The mage can also undergo an astral quest to retrieve him after being disrupted, to avoid waiting the (28-Force) days.

Also, if it was intentional and repeated, the Ally may attempt to break free. Not the first time that it happened, but by the third or fourth time his boss disrupted him rather than shave a few points off the force, the spirit will get tired of it.

It was totally unintentional. The player simply forgot he had an Ally spirit that was manifested in the area.

Manifested or materialized? In order to be a legal target for a spell cast on the physical plane, the spirit would have had to materialize.

Sorry, I do that every time. Materialized. Good English to Paul catch!

Its possible to use smart glasses to avoid friendlies in the AOE if they have a distinct form software can recognize by covering their appearance with opaque circles so you can't see them, and produce the needed connection to hit them with the spell. Its borderline cheating, but by the rules of how magic works, would totally be doable.

Edited for spelling... I hope.

I'm...not even sure I want to call that borderline. I mean, yeah, it's RAW, but it's about the bloodiest RAW I've ever seen short of a Neraph post.

Not to mention the host of other problems that could arise from the mage not being able to see his allies-Lack of Counterspelling being chief among them.

That is the flip side of smart glasses or interposing a hand between your eyes and your allies. That's why I don't find that unbalancing.

I dunno why people react so negatively to Negator-casting. It's practically the point, and it makes total sense for a magi-tech world like SR. How often could this even come up? And you're only saving a couple turns, over blasting them individually, telling your friend to move, whatever. Of all the crazy broken rules and exploits, this doesn't even register.

(modified slightly)
Quoted for truth.



(emphasis mine)
I feel honored, sir.

An invoked spirit of man is much worse. With sufficient hits the spirit will be able to cast for example stun bolt as a LOS(A) spell and exclude any targets it wants to.

You can't cast through any kind of electronic vision enhancement... So unless you use cybereyes it is (as far as I am concerned) a NO-GO.

And even using cybereyes it (as a matter of fact) would not work, if you are very strict.
You would need to manipulate the RAW data and analyse it first. This would mean you would cast at a picture of the past. If this is at all possible and to what extend is all highly questionable... So it the ball is in the GMs playground...

@Dakka Dakka
Questionable too...
And if you really go down this road... There are much worse things.
A force 9 spirit of men sustaining 3 different buff-spells on himself and the mage without suffering any kind of sustaining penalty..

Everything's a picture of the past, ugh. The fact is that you can hold your thumb in front of your face to do this. Negators are nothing different, blocking the actual photons with physical pixels (in glasses/contacts), or blocking your natural vision directly (with cybereyes). It is not electronic vision enhancement, and again, it can't really come up that often. If it does, tell the player who wanted to do melee to knock it off.

Wrong. You cannot use electronic imaging for targeting spells unless it is paid for with essence.The elcetronics are only used to block some of your vision. This is exactly the same as casting at a target in cover. If you can't see it, you can't target it and it won't be affected.

I see no rule against that.

Why? Innate Spell is a Power. The Power's range depends on the particular Spell that is innate. There are several Spells with Range LOS. Provided the summoner gets sufficient hits Great Form Spirits get to change LOS powers to LOS(A). They get to exclude any target within the power's area if they wish. Simple application of RAW.

Of course there are other ways to create powerful effects.

@Dakka Dakka

Either it is an electronic devise or it is not. If it is, you can't cast through it.


Only if you see it as a power in every aspect. This would even mean, that you can't resist it with counterspelling. Because the resistance roll is dexcribed as a general rule for the spells. (Not for every spell)

All it has to be is the standard sunglasses in the game capable of AR. So long as the glass can create opaque pixels you can totally have those pixels block parts of your vision. Since the actual photons from the intended targets are reaching your eyes through the clear parts of the glass you can continue to target those you wish to hit.

Casting through is irrelevant. Target acquisition may not be done by means of an electronic device, unless paid for with essence. As long as light travels through the electronic device there is no problem as you do noat acquire a target by means of an electronic device but with your own eyes. If this were an issue, you could not cast through power windows, which would be silly.

You may want to read the description of innate spell.
Though Innate spell is a power in every respect, the effects created by this power however behave just like those of normal spells.

@Dakka Dakka

Questionable. The window is not a question, since it is an purly optical device.

@Mordinvan
So tell me, how do your glasses "know" which to block.
And still, it actually does not really matter. Because, well it is magic.

The glasses use a camera feed. The mage doesn't, though.

It doesn't really matter. If you can't see someone, for whatever reason, and they are in the area of your spell it's still going to hit them.

Read up on how magic works. This is only true for indirect combat spells, for all other spells the rule is, what you do not see is not affected by the spell regardless of area of effect.

Synner (Peter Taylor) wrote a large post about this back in the day. The main thrust was that intentionally obfuscating your view would lead to the spell simply fizzling. I haven't seen anything from Jason to contradict that, so standing orders remain in effect.

I was talking about indirect spells, I should have been more clear. It is odd to me though that if you had a dwarf behind something, say a bear or a troll, and you drop an AoE that unless it was an indirect spell you wouldn't hit the dwarf who is in range.

Sounds like pure balance-GM-fiat, Bishop. Which is fine as long as the group makes a choice and sticks to it, but it should work as you've stated: *any* intentional blocking should behave the same as Negators (holding up your hand, strategically moving behind a pillar, etc.). It also means that un-intentional examples (Negators that you don't want?) should also *not* fizzle? It'd have to, or you could easily make mages constantly fizzle just by messing with their vision in almost any way… which presumably happens 100% of the day.

When faced with that kind of fuzzy problem, I'd rather just allow it. Again, how often are you people even wanting to fire AOE spells into a mixed melee?

I've done it a few times, mainly because the melee adept would have gotten us killed if I hadn't.

Not being able to see them is not the same as line of sight. You need a path for the mana to flow through. If you could see them astrally, you can zap them, smart glasses or not. Otherwise a blind wizard couldn't blast anyone, right?

The exact same way they know to overlay digital information in AR from optical based signals. My guess would be to divert a fraction of the light entering the lense, through the plane of the lenses, into the top bracket where the lenses are held. There the image would be analyzed, and object recognition carried out and cross referenced with preset FOF. This would allow the glasses to know which shapes are friends, and block those when the caster indicates they are casting and AOE spell.

You're right it doesn't matter exactly how the glasses do it, only that the actual photons from your allies are blocked, and thus can not contribute to an LOS on them for the purposes of casting, while the actual photons from your enemies are NOT blocked and thus can contribute to an LOS.

I don't remember photons being mentioned in the book. Not being able to see a target will get you blind fire penalties. It does not, by any stretch of the rules, remove line of sight. LOS is a special thing and isn't based on sight.
It's a clear astral path for the magic to flow. Something that is opaque in the astral will block line of sight.

Wrong, that would only apply if the mage is targeting astrally. If their targeting with their meat eyes, anything which obscures photons will have the effect of blocking LOS.

It adds up to the same thing, Bearclaw. You can cast around corners using mirrors, right? You can even use magesight fiber optics, which starts getting really sticky, fluff-wise. For non-astral casting of direct spells, photons (or something exactly like them) matter.

Yea, don't get me started on Magesight goggles. The only suitable answer to that is the orbital death cow.
So, it seems like we're saying that invisible targets are immune to magic?

They're immune to being visually targeted for direct spells, yes. The FAQ makes a vague handwave toward non-sight targeting (hearing, smell), but that's basically unusable and doesn't seem to be based on anything. That leaves touch, of course, and astral sight, and cybereyes, and indirect spells.

Hasn't the community in general scorned the FAQ?
Anyway, if you can hit an invisible with a stunball, you can hit a guy who's been edited out of your smart goggles, right?

Huh, now how about a "virtual" target? Say another mages illusion, would that be a valid target? How about people inside it that can't be seen through the illusion? With this line of thought you could make your team basically immune to all direct combat spells for the price of one illusion.

That's my point, Bearclaw: the only place you even get a whiff of non-visual targeting is the FAQ, and it's awful.

… You can't hit an invisible person with your stunball, not using Mk. 1 eyeballs.

Yes, if they're masked by an illusion that the casting mage doesn't beat, he can't cast at them. (AFAIK). It's the same as invisible.

Welcome to my hell. I back you 100%.


Are you really saying that a mage with Image Link glasses can't cast spells at people?

No negator glasses in my game world, although I am aware this is a bit of a house rule.

To me combat is just too fluid and kinetic for them to work effectively, and I can't be bothered to grid out exactly where everyone is to make decisions such as pixelating out a friendly also means the spell wouldn't block the enemy to whom LoS is blocked by said friendly. It is bad enough working out exactly who is in the radius of an AoE spell (or grenade blast) without adding further complications ...

Then hackers had best not be allowed to use the edit software to remove or modify images from security cameras in real time, as its basically the same technology, only the glasses would be easier, as you don't need to replace the obscured image of your allies with anything.

I for one in my home games use Synner's suggestion that trying to fool yourself like that will simply cause the spell to fail.

Yes, this would apply to ANY deliberate attempt to exclude targets from direct area spells, via blocking parts of your vision, whether it be AR-based or something like sticking your hand in the way.




-k

Since electronic binoculars are a given example...

Not a new argument, Irion. It's not *substituting*. I'm not even sure what 'electronic binoculars' are, but the distinction is very simple: if any information is added electronically, it can't be used (Vision Enhancement, zoom, whatever; no bonus can be gained from it). But information can be removed from an otherwise purely optical view.

@Yerameyahu
Where do you read that?

I just said: 'substituting'. The alternative is ruling that you can't block LOS by any method, and that mages can't wear glasses, contacts, etc.

Of course they can wear glasses and cast. Just not glasses with electronics in the lenses.

They all do. The issue is whether the 'electronic visual aids' are 'substituting' for their natural vision. Further, they're not using those aids to target. They're using them to *not* target.

And if it's not voluntary? If the hacker negates the whole team from the enemy mage's view, can that mage somehow still target your guys… even though he can't see them?

Faced with the various repercussions, it's just so much easier and less problematic to allow Negators. The abuse potential is extremely low, and the convenience-for-players factor is high… plus it fits the world and is a nice little (tiny) magi-tech trick.

Personally, I'd go more radical and not allow AOE direct spells. You want AOE, use indirect; else, I dunno, multicast.

Electronic binoculars are cameras with fancy image enhancement software and two view screens. As such you can't use them for targeting.

@Halinn are you seriously saying that glasses with a (turned off) image link will cause all LOS based magic to fail? I do not read that in the rules. You cannot use an electronic device to spot a target, but simply looking through one and not using it is allowed as per Irion's quote.

I'm pretty sure most windows 2070 have that nifty make opaque feature (IIRC by adding a current to liquid crytals). If you could not cast through an electronic device you would not be able to cast through a window even though it is set to transparent. This is just plain silly since you obviously have LOS.

This reading also opens up an effective but very silly defense against magic - just cover yourself with electronic devices. Magic cannot be cast through them

Haha, Dakka Dakka: like maybe a chameleon fullsuit? It's see-through, it's electronic, and it covers your whole body…

The chameleon suit is not see through , it simply projects an image similar to what you would see if the wearer and the suit were not there.

Wasn't there see through clothing from Zoe at one time? Since everything is WiFi capable, it must be electronic...

You're right, that's what I was trying to mention. There's something that's actually 'clear' as its 'base' state.