Hi there

I recently started playing SR4 and decided do go for a character that can go in and out without being seen or having to shoot someone. Having played D&D for many many years I foolishly thought if there is a magic way to detect things, there must be a way to magicly fool these mechanism.
So I made a mystic adept. Probably not the best character for B&E as it turns out but it somewhat resembled my unseen seer (for those of you familiar with D&D 3.5) . And to make matters worse he has sustaining foci.

On the first job the target location was guarded by a simple watcher. As I understand these kind of spirits are dirt cheap and it seems most valueable targets will at least be guarded by one patroling the area.
How are B&E characters supposed to work when spirits as simple as watchers can see you no matter what ?
The FAQ only seems to be handling infiltration on the astral plane vs other astral beings.

So I need some help on the matter ! What can I do to hide from that sort of guards ?

• Does the infiltration skill work at all ?
• Do I need to be astral percieving ?
• Is there anything nuyen can buy to help me on the matter (drugs, armor ...)
• Any nondectect spell for this purpose ?
• Any Adeptpower for this purpose ?
• Does the conceal power from summoned spirits protect me from dectection ?

I would greatly appreciate any help on this character because if there is no way I don't really see a point in playing him :/

Being a mystic adept you got this neat little skill called banishing it tends to make spirits homesick.
Also worth mentioning is that even on the astral you cant see through walls and watchers are thick as mince, wearing a sign saying "not an intruder" would probably work... if he could read

Timing your intrusions is beneficial aswell as watchers got lifespans measured in hours and spirits disappears at sunset or sunrise unless they're bound (which would be a tad more rare as binding aint free)

1) That's the point of the skill. It would simply be a Infiltration opposed by Assensing.
2) No.
3) Anything that aids Agility would work - P4MO is a big suggestion.
4/5) No, but there's Masking/Improved Masking.
6) Yes. It applies to both Perception and Assensing.

Final note: Singularly, watcher spirits suck. Two dice for Perception or Track? Useless. In groups, however, they get to use the Opposed Test Vs. A Group, top of page 64, SR4A. Ten watchers get a total bonus of 11 dice for Perception or Tracking - significantly higher. Even worse is if watcher spirits are helping a mundane as the mundane has a better Perception dicepool to add the Watcher's bonuses to.

Thanks for the answers so far.
The way it was presented to me on the run was as following:
There is a watcher, he can see auras as bright colors. Because of that you can't hide and since he is on the astral plane you can't outrun him. If you kill him the mage that summoned him will be alerted.
Seems there was really no option left

The nature of Infiltration is that it is an Opposed Test. I think it is covered in the FAQ that Infiltration is still used to pass by an astral target unseen.

Here's the logical counterpoint -
The astral isnt empty, the glow of the living earth, the auras of plants and living beings, the shadows cast by astral shadows all obstruct view, He might see my aura as bright colours but how is he gonna tell it apart from all the noise?

So hiding is perfectly viable, especially as the thing looking for you is half blind, as smart as a lobotomized hamster and tends to take orders quite... literally

of course, if you don't know the watcher is there, you may not know that you need to infiltrate in the first place... so i would say picking up astral perception is still a good idea.

it's been said in this thread, but is worth saying again to avoid what sounds like more confusion.

Infiltration DOES WORK against astrally perceiving things. You are trying to hide: presumably by breaking line of sight (thus the term hiding) with infiltration.

The following DOES NOT WORK against things astrally perceiving:
Invisibility (spell)
Chameleon Suit/Cloak (doesn't work vs astral)

you still get your standard dice pool though. No penalty. So just roll more hits than the other guy on perception when he is astrally perceiving.

The following DOES WORK against things astrally perceiving:
Normal infiltration/shadowing rolls
Intervening transparency (astral perception cannot see through clear glass)
The critter/spirit power Concealment

I think Mystic Adept works great for B&E because you can summon a spirit, and have it use Concealment on you and itself. Targets trying to see you, astral or not, get a dice penalty equal to the force of the spirit. Vs mundane vision, I believe this stacks with chameleon cloak as well.



Just a minor point, but this is actually untrue. Assensing is used to interpret information about aura's. This is instead a normal Perception + Intuition to notice the target vs Infiltration + Agility (usually) to avoid being spotted.

Remember that astral security is mostly designed to stop astral threats. A spirit rarely cares about physical infiltration, and likely won't recognize it when it happens. They see the astral world, full of astral forms, where physical beings are only auras, auras they would have difficulty telling apart from the literally hundreds of legitimate auras they see everyday(and a spirit likely won't understand security protocols or authorization or what not).

So infiltration vs assessing works straight across, if the spirit is even told to watch out for physical threats(usually not). If the spirit wins, they won't attack you, they'll alert their mage that something suspicious is going on(a spirit watching over the physical will make false positives fairly often).

You are correct. Technically, Chameleon stacks with Chameleon also. There is nothing hardwired into the rules that states that spells do not stack, and this is reaffirmed by certain spells that specifically state that they do not stack with themselves (Increase Reflexes comes easily to mind). You could cast Armor on yourself thirty times and get each of those hits for armor. The obvious limiting factor is the sustaining penalty, which grows linearly.


Huh, I always assumed that Perception was used on the physical and Assensing was used on the Astral. Oh well, learn something new every day.

I think this is a great post. I think you have to just trust in the easy mechanism that is the SR infiltration vs. perception +/- modifiers. If you start over thinking it you would wonder how someone who can't perceive the astral is supposed to hide in areas that actually cloak their aura, besides breaking line of sight... you know with that invisible, silent mobile sensor that you have no way of detecting. If you really wanted to make it more realistic you could always invent some modifiers for playing hide and seek mundane vs. ESPers.

As to the original poster I like your character concept. I think he is well suited for 6th world B&E. When we do a run against a target that is always a question we ask, do they have magical security and of course independently verify if we can. Of course the economics of SR means that high rating scanners are dirt cheap easy to install and monitor, even if you have to bury the hard line. They don't keep out the magical riff raff but most people need a meat body to get in and get anything out. Wards are probably the most cost effective defense, though hardly fool proof. High rating bound spirits are fairly costly but if what you have is valuable absolutely worth it and harder to get past. Still mages don't work cheap compared to security guard Larry who is plugged into the system and literally cannot look away from his moniter that also has the advantage of an automated system running clear sight with a R6 sensor.

Well, if you had read a few lines more, you would not make untrue statements:

Huh. As Neraph said, learn something new every day: sorry about that. Splitting hairs here, but I assume assensing vs infiltration works for non-astral beings?

Frigging, I knew I had it right. Making me doubt myself - for shame! (joking, if you couldn't pick that up.)

And yes, it probably works for non-astral beings also.

I just want to add, Neraph, that the team work test you quoted has a maximum bonus of +5 so there is no point in having a swarm of watchers larger than 6 for this purpose since the extras don't contribute. Unless they are back up for the ones the intruder starts eliminating but of course that will probably call bigger, better reinforcements.

I noticed that through my readings - it isn't in the area for Group Tests on the earlier page I noted, but it is under Perception Tests in the Skills chapter and I believe somewhere else also.

True team work tests, as noted on pg 65 of SR4A have each character making the test with their hits adding dice to the team leader (guy with the highest skill) pool with a maximum bonus of the team leader skill. Otherwise, for opposed group test, the maximum bonus is +5, as noted on pg 64 and pg 135 under Using Perception.
Just trying to be clear as I'm not sure if you are agreeing with me or not. It is early and I can be easily confused by the bright glowing orb in the sky.

Correct. You are right about Teamwork Tests (page 65, SR4A) and Using Perception, page 135, SR4A. For some reason I didn't notice it on page 64 under the header of Opposed Test vs. A Group, but it's there also.

Still, five watcher spirits just became so much better for Perception Tests of the summoner.

I don't like the Quickening rules because any quickened buff makes a character a walking alarm bell as far as wards are concerned.

This, exactly.

A lot depends on the facility being astrally patrolled as well. If guards periodically patrol outside or wageslaves and shift workers come and go, for instance, spirits and watchers instructed to "watch out for metahuman auras" would give their summoner a busy night. Especially if cars and or trucks are coming and going, driving across an astrally patrolled area would not trouble the astral security, as they cannot see the auras of those inside the vehicles and have no way of knowing which vehicles are "legitimate users" or "intruders".

I'd make the infiltrator roll Infiltration + Logic instead of Agility. because
a) Log equals agi in the astral and
b) avoiding a purely astral entity, that you know must be around, but you have no way to see, is more a matter of behaving cleverly than moving with grace. The watcher doesn't care about the noise of your steps, or the smell of your cigarette. It's about making intelligent choices and choosing the right path, where running into the spirit is most unlikely.

No, because:
a) You aren't on the Astral, and
b) Astral shadows still exist, so hiding behind a wall fools Assensing just as much as it does Perception.