If I had a PC trying to be stealthy on the astral plane, I'd allow a roll as normal, with the following modifiers:

-2 Character is not able to see into the astral plane while moving
-2 Character is not able to see into the astral plane at all (cumulative with the above)
-2 Character focus is stealth on the material plane

And the material plane stealth would be subjected to the modifier:

-2 Character's focus is stealth on the astral plane

The character can either focus on the material stealth or the astral stealth and take a -2 to his roll for the one he's not focusing on. It might be possible to overcome some of the astral modifiers with training (but not all).

Bob the adept attempts to sneak into a facility with astral watchers on duty and mundane guards. He rolls his 8 dice of stealth and gets 8, 5, 5, 3, 2, 1, 1, 1. He doesn't have astral perception, but he's more worried about the watchers than the mundane guards. The TN to spot him on the astral is a base 4, the TN on the mateiral is a base 6. If Bob had astral perception, but didn't have it on, the TNs would be 6 and 6. If Bob was astrally perceiving at the time, the TNs would be 8 and 4.

Sound fair to anyone? Too harsh? I think it gives the PC a lot of power in how he wants to use his abilities.

Oh, and quote time:

Ok, let's take a look at the elements mentioned so far for stealth and see how they stack up:

Background Count: While it'd be great if everywhere in SR had a standard background count of +1 or +2, this is simply not so. Yes, walking through downtown Seattle on an afternoon would probably be +2. Yes, even at during the late evening, when people are getting sparse, +1. But half an hour after those people are gone, we're down to 0. And 0 means very visible.


Bacteria: Not happening. Either mages are quite a bit more blind than I've ever seen mentioned, or this is just silly and they only see a light amount of background color.


Hiding with other living things: Great, if I'm hiding in a forest, on a lawn, or in a crowd of people. Useless if I'm slinking through a corporate facility.


Hiding behind physical things: Sounds simple, right? Only, I'm infiltrating, and how can I know when is safe to move and when I should hide? I can't spend all my time huddled under my Mage Proof Desk.


Small awakened population: Assuming I can find out if magical security is present— which is unlikely, even with the best legwork— best I can hope for as a mundane is to pack my bags and go home. If I can't find out, like all unexpected security measures, I just need to be cautious, prepared, and adaptable, right? No. I can't be any of these things since I can never see it coming, provided it's there, and since a profession will assume it is in lieu of good intelligence, this just sucks.


Stealth!: Great, the skill works mechanically, but dropping the numbers, it makes no sense.

Earth aura: Either this aura is a lot stronger than I think or it's not enough, given that those percieving and projecting have no trouble seeing anything on the astral plane unless the target is specifically hiding (see above).

I see some potential for hiding, certainly, but the inability to adapt to the situation is what kills this for me. I don't see any way of reliably counteracting astral perception while I do see that with most other security measures.

Tinker, are those -2s to the target number or what? If they are, some of them don't make sense. If they're not, they just make a bad situation ridiculously worse.

That's fair, but if you do go that route, I'd like to toss in a variety of bonuses that mundane (and, as you mentioned, especially ones with low essence) have access to. Otherwise, there really ends up being no way to get around any of this. +6 to my stealth roll is practically what I'd get in broad daylight on a busy street, and though that may be applicable here, it shouldn't be.

Oh yea, isnt there a rule someplace that the t# to see a person in astral space is 10-essence?

There was in SR2, not sure about SR3. Maybe that is only for assenssing in sr3?