ok, so the adept power motion sense, it says it gives a -2 to the penatly of blind fire, but does this mean that the likelyness of the adept getting snuck up on, even by the most stealthy of characters nigh impossible? it says,

This power grants the adept a magical sense of minute disturbances
in the ambient mana, allowing him to subconsciously
detect the motion of objects, people, or animals within (Magic)
meters, even when he would be unable to detect them through
normal senses such as sight, sound, or smell. The adept makes a
Perception + Magic Test with a threshold based on the Motion
Sense table. If the target is detected, reduce the dice pool modifiers
for visibility or blind fire by 2. This power cannot detect
movement through astral barriers.

he can detect it through walls as well, I wish to ask, does this mean he KNOWS they are there, or only has a "hunch" example.

I am a sniper, set up a fairly large distance from my team, will this keep me from getting snuck up on (if I was in a building for example) completly? (its a small area, so they are already pretty close to you, but there is a large difference on being suprised when they kick down the door, then if you know they are there seconds before they kick down the door)

He "knows" they are there, but only has a hunch as where specifically they are (blindfire). This will only allow you to not be sneaked (yes, that's technically the correct conjugation of "sneak") up on for melee - even one armed with a light pistol can shoot you without triggering the affect.

No, the correct past-tense of sneak is snuck: "After I told you not to sneak up on your uncle, you went and snuck up on him anyway, didn't you?"

The English language is a bitch, sometimes. Sorry.

The distance is meters in magic, so I would safely say that your distance is 4-5 meters. It's too short of a distance to provide you with much of any benefit. This is a power designed to aid a melee/unarmed adept when fighting in a "blind fight" situation, such as in the middle of smoke filled room.

Even so, I'm not certain this would protect you from a surprise test since it doesn't give you any indication of what these people are going to do other than the fact they are there.

I am hiding & my spidey sense tells me someone is in the room with me, I sure as hell am no longer surprised. in terms of surprise, their intent is unimportant, you know of their existence therefore you can decide if your character would be at ease enough to be surprised or not....but really, who in the shadows trusts someone they don't know until they do (who in the shadows trusts someone they DO know for that matter?)

If these people are in a hallway and bust open the door then yes there will be a surprise test. You would get a +3 to your check because you knew they were there but unless you actually prepped yourself to ambush them as they enter they are surprising you and a sniper would not be watching a door for someone to enter the room he's in.

admittedly this all depends on how quickly it happens, but if it takes more than 1 pass you have time to react properly & will not be surprised, so if its a more cinematic scene, or something of the like, it comes down to how you'd react, but yes, if its mid combat its a slightly different story.

Further, if the sense itself doesn't extend outside of the room and they come in quietly and then you suddenly notice them creeping up on you, it's very likely they're successfully ambushing you.

let me clarify just a bit, the sniper adept in question dropped a bunch of karma (karmagen) and ingame kama into magic, so has about a 7 magic atm. he sets up so that he is within 7 meters of the door, delibratly making use of this, if someone runs up to the door, STOPS, for a split second to kick it in, (this seems to be the key of wether or not the sniper knows the guy is there in time) then runs in. (the sniper KNOWS that noone freindly is going to be there at the time, well, he assumes that). he techniclly senses him, (perhaps) as soon as he reaches proximity of the door. question is if there is enough time it seems.

Time doesn't matter. If you're aware of a person it doesn't eliminate surprise. You can be fully aware of someone and be surprised by them at the same time. All that matters is whether the conditions are present to generate a surprise test. If they are, then the power gives you +3 on the test unless you're set to ambush then you get +6. Only when performing an ambush can you ignore the effects of surprise and then only if you are aware of both movement and actions of the target you're ambushing. If both conditions aren't met then you aren't immune to the effects of surprise. The power barely gives you enough information to qualify for movement but gives you nothing regarding their actions.

regarding that matter. Does the guy sneaking up at the sniper get +6? Imho "ambushing" means being the active person within a surprise situation. Whats the definition of an ambush? It should mean "planning on surprising someone".

It sounds like if you pass the magic+perception test you get 2 more dice. You don't know they're there, you're just more likely to notice.

I wouldn't say the active person is the one ambushing but rather the one better prepared to handle the situation. So looking at the previous example of a concealed sniper who is watching down range with someone sneaking up on him, the sneaking individual would be the ambusher. On the other hand, if the sniper was actually watching the door waiting for someone to come in, he would be the ambusher instead.

The big thing about surprise is that it requires an awareness of both the movement and actions of the other party. That's why you can have surprise tests occur when both parties are looking straight at each other.

Just get an UWB-Radar and Multitasking - you can watch through the door while you also watch downrange ^^

Not exactly. Sneaked is the traditional past-tense and past participle of sneak, and only in recent years has snuck become accepted, mainly because of its popularity. Twenty years ago (roughly when I was learning English) this wouldn't even be a debate, but now with all these improper-speaking young-uns running around butchering the language concessions have been made. Citation.

Hmm, I stand corrected.

Except, it's not necessarily "young'uns" butchering anything, as I'm 99% sure that THIRTY years ago, "snuck" was what I was taught in school (in the American Northeast). And, I've found references (now that I'm looking) that "snuck" actually originates from the late 19th century - think 1880's, plus or minus a decade. Including, especially, that there was apparently an entry for it in the OED in 1887 (Words and Rules, Steven Pinker; 1999).

Now, isn't it grand to have a still living language?

Yes, a person in front of you can surprise attack you.

If you're not expecting him to attack.

If you're in a situation where there should NOT be any person in your detection range, and you are expecting anyone that does come into that range to be an enemy intent on murdering you, then I'd have to say that qualifies as "expecting attack".

Before you even start using the surprise rules, the GM needs to determine if any involved parties would be "unaware" of the impending surprise. If you are expecting an attack to come through a door, and have a means to detect someone approaching said door, you can be safely said to be "aware".

That said, it would be cheaper and more effective to just gecko grip a concealed tripwire or motion sensing grenade outside the door. If you're worried about killing the wrong person, make it a flashbang.



-k

All that means is that someone could create a paranoid character and expect everyone is out to kill him. Poof! Surprise immune.



Unfortunately, the rules do not follow through on your interpretation. An aware party gets a bonus on the surprise test.

In some circumstances, gamemasters may wish to give a character the chance to be alerted that something is about to happen. The best way to do this is to make a secret Perception Test for the character. If the character is lucky, he may, for example, hear approaching footsteps, notice the smell of cigarette smoke as he approaches the corner, or just get that tingly feeling that someone is behind him. A character who succeeds in the Perception Test is alerted in some way, and receives a bonus on his Surprise Test (see below).

Emphasis mine. Foot steps are no different than a motion sensor tripping that someone is approaching.

I had an adept player in my game take this power and initially he had wanted to use it, as has been described, as a "spidey-sense" or even radar (e.g. to detect invisible enemies or persons through walls).

My interpretation of the power and limitations hinged on the use of the word "subconsciously" in the power descriptor. In effect, the adept's mind knows something that the adept doesn't realize. Even when he starts shooting, he wouldn't necessarily realize his actions are being guided by the subconscious power. In my opinion, if the power did work in a conscious manner, (e.g. he can actively detect movement around him even when he can't see it), then the cost of the power would need to be increased.

The opening text of the Surprise section indicates a Surprise test may be warranted if people are "unaware that a situation to which they need to react is forthcoming".

The GM decides this. Otherwise, if you just took the text of the rest of the Surprise section, you would roll Surprise EVERY TIME PEOPLE ENCOUNTERED EACH OTHER.

If a GM decides a Surprise Test is warranted, it happens. If the GM does not, it does not.

I simply can understand GM deciding that, because you took the effort to detect an intruder approaching a door, you might not need to even check to see if you're surprised if someone approaches the door, opens it, and tries to attack you.

Personally, if I was being truly paranoid, I'd set up camera feeds on all entrances to the building I'm sniping on, so I'd have the time to be long gone by the time they reach the floor I'm sniping from.



-k

Surprise is an event that occurs due to a lack of knowledge. The best definition for unaware is provided under the ambush section which is the only place which concretely states a condition under which you do not suffer the effects of surprise. There it states that if you are not aware (reasonably in my interpretation) of the movement and actions of the other party then you are still subjected to surprise. Thus the only situation where one can concretely say that surprise doesn't matter is one in which all parties involved after aware of both the movement and actions of the other parties.

The only bit of info that the aforementioned sniper thanks to the power has is as follows.

1. There's someone or someones has entered his spidey sense range in the hallway.
2. There shouldn't be people in the hallway.

That information alone is not sufficient to avoid surprise. You don't know where they are (aside from the fuzzy in the hallway). You don't know that they are after you. You don't know who they are. You don't know when they're going to breach the door. In other words there's not enough information available to know that a situation will require handling. If the sniper continues to look down range instead of prepare an ambush for those who are going to potentially burst through a door, then he would get a +3 to his surprise test. If he does, then he would get +6 since he's still unaware of their movement and actions before breaching.

The situation given is that there shouldn't be ANYONE in the hallway, and if there are, they are almost certainly there to kill the sniper.

Given that situation, it's not unreasonable to allow that the sniper now has awareness of the impending attack and can act without having to roll surprise. Hopefully the action is "I roll over and aim at the door", or "I dive out the window", or even "I trigger the claymore mine strapped to the ceiling over their heads"*.

If he continues to keep sniping instead of acting on the information that people are about to give him a bullet enema, well, then that is a different situation I classify under "posthumous stupid runner stories".




-k

* - this of course is a prime opportunity for a GM screw, making the "intruders" actually a family returning to their home after being out for the day. But I'm a cruel GM sometimes.

Exactly. If he responds to it then he puts himself into a situation where he's preparing an ambush for those coming through the door at which surprise is initiated but since he doesn't know their movement or actions he would still be subjected to surprise if he rolls lower than the opposition.

This.

As has been mentioned, if the major aspect of being surprised is awareness of someone possibly attacking, how does Paranoia settle into this? a character who has been running the shadows for years may at anytime have his hand on a gun because he simply assumes everyone is a liar & is planning to kill him (after all after a few years he has probably caused millions to many companies) so its not unlikely that he may figure any job could be a set-up.

100% concurrence from me, on this.

Now, a sniper who knew anyone in that hallway would be an enemy, but DIDN'T have a way to know "... and there's someone there right now" ...? Subject to Surprise.

... that's why my dwarf sniper build has a Renraku Stormcloud for top-down, and three (mobile & gecko-tipped) LoneStar iBalls, all tied in a tacnet (with Tactical Sattellite Mapping, too!) and optimised for "spot stuff": to watch his back, to prevent surprise while in a hide, etc. Won't eliminate all surprise (if he didn't know there was a doorway behind that book-case, he can't be watching it, now can he?), but will definitely cut down on a lot of it.


Sensor RFID tagshave a Capacity of 1. Motion Detectors require a Capacity of 1. That's about as cheap as you can get. (Many of my characters buy job-lots of those things, and use them liberally to watch approaches to where they are, etc.)

"Awareness" is two things at once: (a) expecting attack, (b) information that said attack is imminent.

Paranoiacs EXPECT attack all the time, from all quarters. That doesn't mean they have the requisite information that said attack is going down right now. They have half of the equation, not all of it.

The sniper example is this: "if I sense someone approach that door, then they are enemies about to attack me". They have the expectation, and are waiting on the information.

It's just, contrary to what the person coming up to that door wants ... the Sniper gets their information through a closed door, before the attack actually happens (but while it is "imminent"). The hunter has just become the hunted, and the ball is in the sniper's court. (And hopefully he thought to leave a command-detonated grenade taped to the ceiling. Heh.)

He could if he had an Ultrawideband Radar.

Unless it was shielded, of course.

Then I'd investigate the shielded bookcase. It's like tracking a hawk at night by watching for the dark spot amongst the stars - you know something is there because of the lack of information on it as opposed to the inclusion of information.

The whole point of shielding is that you do not know that it is shielded. Otherwise Smuggling Compartments would be useless...

Yes and no. If you shield an entire book-case so that the UWBR can't see through it? Then the book-case stand out from it's surroundings, by being an opaque object that the UWBR cannot see through.

A shielded compartment in something like a briefcase, OTOH, tries to shape itself so that the opaque area is not in itself noticeable. Also, they don't generally have to shield themselves against UWBR sensors.

Conitive Dissonance... If you are shileding a passage behind the bookcase, you SHIELD THE WHOLE WALL as well, otherwise the passage is still noticeable. Obvious conclusion, Structural wall made of Reinforced/Hardened Concrete (or whatever), ergo, no UWBR penetration in the first place.

If I am scanning a Briefcase that is impenetrable, well, that SHOULD tell me that it is a smuggling compartment (You WILL have dead Space, but the Shielding, in theory, prevents its detection). It does not, ergo, shielding works and the dead space is ignored.

Right. Your post above lead me to believe you were only talking about shielding the bookcase though.

Still, depending on circumstances, that may be questionable in and of itself. A structural wall on the interior of a library, when all the other walls are of a different material? It may be odd, but possibly not enough to warrant investigation. But it would be noticeable, along the lines of "Oh, now I get why it was opaque," as you're getting shot by the guys coming out of the secret passage.

Likewise.