It's been a while since I've played (pre SR4!), but I'm starting out a new campaign as GM. I'll start out with the first bone of contention that's arrisen regarding Armor and Manabolt. We always ruled it back in the day that a person in armor, regardless of type, sealing etc could be targetted by mana spells just fine, as it was assumed their 'aura' would leak out or whatever, allowing the Mage (or anyone else) to just know they were targetting a living being.

Now we have Cyborgs, which specifically can't be targetted in such a manner. I regard the brain in a box as essentially just the Rigger in a van, you can't target it because he's in there somewhere behind blacked out windows, but you don't know where. However, one or more of my group are arguing that being inside Envirosealed armor is similarly sufficient to block LoS.

Opinions, or any canon clarification?

The JarHead is not a Person anymore and isn't completely immune to Magic either, as far as i remember.
They get a +2 dice or so to resist spell effects i think.

And no, Armor, wearable, has never and will never be spellproofing for people.
The walls of the universe have been breached and magic is leaking out.

If armor blocks LoS, you get a -6 penalty on any mundane ranged attacks for blind firing on people in armor, too.

Bye
Thanee

The fluff explains that a person's aura extends a short distance from their physical body, bypassing worn armor and clothing. For a cyborg, their aura may be smaller, but it still extends beyond the braincase and head.

~Umi

Actually guys, Darkest Angel is right about cyborgs being immune to mana attack spells. Reread the section in Augmentation on Targeting and Magic (pg 160 Aug). Cyborgs get treated as drones for spell targeting purposes (Object Resistance test). This does not extend to people in full armour though so that remains the same. I think the justification for this is that a cyborg is just the meat brain and nothing else, whereas even a samurai with full limb replacement still has some skin and organs in his body providing a better living target for mana spells. The cyborg is the exception to the rule on spell targeting rather than a whole new rule.

This sort of explains it, and how I put it to the group (and they seem to agree):

A Cyborg is just the driver of the drone, no different from a Rigger; they can even be switched between drones - their meat body is replaced by the Jar and it's commlink, so there's still that level of distinction between which part is 'Drone' and which part is 'Meat'.

A Street Sam on the other hand replaces pieces of their being, there is no such distinction between their chrome from the rest of them.

In terms of spell targetting, you see a guy in heavy armour, you know it's a guy in heavy armour - it's actually something you can distinguish in real life on a subconcious level. Being able to see that, and that subconcious knowledge is what allows you to target a guy in armour, whereas not being able to see the brain in it's jar within the drone is what prevents you from being able to target it, and is why an attack must be against the drone directly.

Thanks for your answers in any case.