Does the rule for Noticing Magic (SR4A, page 179) apply to all spell casting, even a spell such as Control Thoughts (SR4A, page 210)?

Yes.
Why would you think it would not apply though?

The fluff in the first paragraph of Noticing Magic threw me off a bit. Such as the following:

Plus their shamanic mask, if they are a shaman.

The Rules are there so Magicians are not completely undiscernable . . Because just from that bit of piece, a Magician can sit back, relax, hold a bit of paper in his hand and pretend to read something on it, cast a sideways glance at somebody and a spell in the same time and then look back at his bit of paper without looking like he did anything more strenous than moving his eyes for a second . .
And rules, technically, always trump fluff . . even if it may sound and feel really dumb and wrong to you in some cases.

Righto, thanks.

In Odom's novels, he described a wavering effect when powerful magic was used, which I thought was a kewl way of imaging it.

The problem here is always, that the rules are lacking fluff and so you do not know what exactly is going to happpen...

If a mage is in a Box and casts a spell, do you know that there is a mage in the box?

Can you see said mage? Can said mage see you? I would imagine if a mage starts casting a spell directed at you that you get that sensation... you know, like when someone is staring at you. That niggling sensation.

No, the target (or anyone else) notices the casting not the spell. This feeling that you are being watched you either get or you don't. Magic does not make you feel something like that.

@mage in a box:If you can't see the mage in the box you cannot see that he is staring intently at someone/something, or the sweat on his brow etc. The weird sparkles introduced by SR4A should be irrelevant as well as nowhere does it say how far they extend.

Good question, Irion. The RAW gives a threshold of 6 - F to notice a spell being cast, but does not say *how* it would be noticed.

If we assume there is an audio component to the casting (the RAW does mention chanting), then I guess you could hear a mage hiding in a box nearby casting a high force spell. Fortunately mages aren't in the habit of hiding in boxes and casting spells (the box ruins their LoS for combat spells to start with for starters), but I guess it would be GM call if it came up in your game ...

It is noticed by perceiving the mage, so with one or more of the observer's senses.

While the section about noticing magic mentions chanting and gesturing, the mage is in no way obliged to use chanting or gestures to successfully cast a spell. If the mage does not do something, that thing cannot be noticed. So all that remains is largely involuntary like sweat (casting is a draining activity), intense stare (the mage most likely needs to establish LOS) and the weird sparkles from SR4A (rules fiat).

My GM allowed me to change Magical Radical Sparkles to the smell and taste of oranges.

Whatever it is the sparkles have no listed range. Smell makes the thing even more unclear as you do not have LOS to determine whether the stimulus can reach an observer. Taste is contact stimulus, so it should very rarely even apply.

In my games there are no sparkles. period.

So in your games no one can notice the magician cast?

Of course they can. They just have to succeed at the standard test (INT+Perception(6-Force)). Contrary to SR4A they have to perceive the caster and not some sparkles that may be created by casting somewhere.

BTW to make it more caster dependent I use a threshold of (MAG-Force). To me it makes little sense that casting a force 3 spell is just as strenuous (and thus noticeable) for a MAG 3 magician as for a MAG 12+ Great Dragon.

Ah, alright then.

Huh. I always assumed that the effect was from magic warping reality, and not so much whether the mage was straining or not.

Since there is either contradictory or overly vague descriptions, it leaves way too much on the shoulders of the GM to interpret for a hard and fast rule, in my opinion.

This has only been introduced in SR4A. Before Magic or Mana has always been invisible on the physical plane though blatantly obvious on the astral. For reference the sections in SR4 and SR4A:

That's so that you and the opposition know who to geek first if one side doesn't have any mages. That or the guy who just started spontaneously bleeding from his ears from casting too strong a spell.

In all previous editions you had to notice a lot more subtle signs. In all previous editions mana was invisible to the mundane eye.

I personally like that the specifics on noticing magic is left up to GM discretion more than other parts of the game. I'm fine with the rule of roll this to notice that, but when it becomes "all magic is noticed because..." it can turn into a mechanical disconnect and players start looking for loopholes around it. I think shaman magic should be noticed differently than mage magic which should be noticed differently than Buddhist magic and so on, so every time one of my players does roll to notice magic, they can notice a new thing: whether it be chanting, ambient light changes, warping reality or whatever cool, weird thing I'm into at the time.

That's just my personal opinion on it, though.

We used to have deckers too, and no technomancers; I'm not sure I follow you. The rules changed, either use them or don't, saying what it used to be like doesn't actually get you anywhere.

Magic has become both more prevelant and more powerful in 4A. Obviously, it has become easier to notice as well.

It has? From SR4 to SR4A? Technically it has not even become easier to notice there are just more things that the GM can describe to the noticing character. The threshold is the same no matter if there are sparkles or not.

I was talking more in contrast with previous Editions.

I really like this idea. If you don't mind I'm gonna borrow this.

Noticing magic in use is one thing I do plan on house ruling in that the next time I run, I fully intend to add a requirement to be Astrally perceiving in order to notice spellcasting at all unless the caster has a geas that requires the use of 'magic words' or gestures.

As Dreadlord said, it is the power of the magic not the magic user that gets noticed. I wouldn't be worried about MAG 12+ great dragons though, like Harlequin and other immortal elves they have access to better and subtler magic than PC mages could ever dream of.


While you are free to house rule as you want at your table, I would strongly advise against this. Would you give a sammie an invisible gun that he could kill people at will with nobody able to see who it was doing the killing? The fact that spellcasting (esp high force spells) can be detected is necessary for game balance, and IMHO removing it would turn the game more into MagicRun than it currently is.

I have a problem with this, as it seems to imply that ritual casting is absolutely imperceptible.

So there are no sparkles in SR3. I can't check 1st and 2nd editions, because I do not have the books.

Sure go ahead.

That is not totally true, as you can possibly spot the spotter or the team members. It probably is the intention of ritual spellcasting to be nigh imperceptible though:
Don't forget that even with the sparkles you can only notice something "around the caster". This hardly applies to ritual spellcasting anyways, especially not the spotter.

However, in Ritual Spellcasting, the TARGET notices the magic building up around him. Seems counter to what you are saying.
We have always allowed "physically relevant" build up of mana, as that seems to be what is implied in the text. Sparkles aside (which we do not use unless the caster likes that visual), spellcasting is noticeable. Does not really matter how. We have a fairy like spellcaster whose physical manifestations sound like tinkling fairy bells. *shrug*

If he's in the box and you can't see him, then he can't see you. So the only way to tell if there is a mage in the box is to make sure it's installed with a cyanide release device based on the decay of an atom and observe if the mage is dead or alive.

You may want to look at the test again. It is Assensing + Intuition (20 – spell Force, 1 hour). Unless the target has Assensing, no roll is permitted as you cannot default on Assensing. I was only saying that magic is undetectable by mundane perception.

Every Manabolt, Heal and Increase attribute casting.

Again the caster provides the stimulus not the magic. Even if you use the new concept that magic can be perceived mundanely the stimulus only happens around the caster not around the target. So the manabolt is out unless someone can perceive the caster. Anyway the targets should feel something of the spell's effect even if they missed that the caster did something besides touching them.

Do you prefer a game in which magic cannot be noticed by mundanes at all?

It's about not what I prefer, but what all previous editions said and only half a sentence in SR4A contradicts it. Mana or Magic is imperceptible to mundane senses. The effects of magic can possibly be perceived (fireball, illusions etc.). Regardless what the spell achieves any mundane can perceive what the mage does to cast a spell (gestures, chanting if a caster does that) and what happens to the caster because of casting (look of exertion, heavy breathing, beads of sweat etc.)

I get all that, but I'm asking do you, personally and in your own opinion, prefer a Shadowrun in which magic cannot be noticed by mundanes?

Yes.

Yes, quite. Magic should be the scary, unknown quantity to mundanes, and making it easy to identify the magic-user shoots that in the foot.

The awakening happened ~60 years ago. While there are a bunch of unknowns to it, a lot of research would have happened on countering it and noticing it.

Throws up an interesting Question:
Glo-Moss. How does it react to spellcasting?
What happens if you cast right next to it?
What happens if you cast at something right next to it?
What happens if you cast and half way to the target there is some of it?

LOL. Only if the mage is a cat shaman.

Back in the old days, I interpreted the rules as allowing very discreet spellcasting. My GM thought that was a little overpowered. He even made it so that astrally perceiving was obvious to mundanes. This thread really got me thinking, so I'll post a couple of thoughts here.

The (6 - Force) rule could be modified so that some traditions have more noticeable casting than others. For example, a shaman might have a more obvious casting method, but gets more dice in the deal. If you wanted to create a new tradition called elementalist, then they might get more dice for one category of spell, but they get cast with visible effects of the particular element, like flames, fog, or dust.

A rationale for mundanes being able to notice casting is that crossing the barrier between the astral and physical planes is visible for an instant. Mundane things are seen on the astral plane as shadowy, and magical things crossing into the physical plane could similarly be seen on the physical plane as unnatural. Note that the mundanes can't see the spell or the magic, just the crossing into the physical plane at the moment the spell is cast. Or you could go all out and say that magical things that affect the physical plane have a visible manifestation.

I personally always felt that choosing to be a shaman over a hermetic should come with a free animal totem (mentor spirit) since you get the shamanic mask anyway which gives you a penalty and no actual bonus to compensate.