Is the only advantage (the spell) physical camouflage has over (the spell) improved invisibility the difference in drain?

I was under the impression that camouflage had the advantage against people with low perception checks or for mages who had s decent infiltration dice pool, while invisibility had the advantage against people with high perception checks or for mages who couldn't infiltrate to save their life. But, on reading the illusion spells section on pg. 208 of SR4A it looks like physical camouflage allows the same intuition+counterspelling (if any) test to completely ignore as improved invisibility does.

Yeah, some spells are simply not useful, or just weak variations of others.

Bye
Thanee

Just because you can see something doesn't make it less dangerous then if you cannot see it. If camouflage can accomplish your goals with less drain does that make it bad?

No, it doesn't make it bad, it just wasn't as awesome as I thought it was.
It's for if you want to be able to do it without risk of drain all day long.
But, other then the drain, invisibility is better.

It does if they effectively do the exact same thing.
Been a while since I compared them, though. Will have to look at them.

What if a security system routinely compares an ultrasound map against a visual map specifically to detect those invisible thingies. You'll note this is the approach used in high security areas with openly broadcasting PANs so this certainly isn't an unusual security model.. There can quite easily be cases where making sure something is perceived by all the available systems, but is hard to actually know what it specifically is, can be a useful situation.

Spells and their mechanical numbers are all very well to compare, but their relevance is affected by the context they are used in, which is the world the Shadowrunners are in. Which in turn means it is almost entirely up to the Gm and players how to make those spells useful.

Very True...

Physical Camouflage's main selling point is the DP penalty on enemy shooting attacks. A F6 Physical Camouflage with 6 successes negates most mook opposition and still hampers harder targets.

So too will an [Improved] Invisibility spell if it is not totally resisted by an Intuition/Willpower + Counterspelling test. One net hit remaining on the invisibility spell and living attackers still have a -6 DP penalty for shooting at the hidden target.

If you're able to even partially negate the hits on a Camouflage spell, your DP penalty is lessened.

And I too agree with DireRadiant, about their relevance in the context used.

There are things that outright bypass Improved Invisibility that don't automatically bypass Physical Camouflage. Ultrasound goggles are cheap, and I've yet to see a PC in one of my games who didn't bring one of those. And there's always Astral Perception.

Ultrasound and Astral Perception both would bypass both spells with equal ease.

Also there's an open argument on how direct area spells work.

A camouflaged target is seen but not recognized. While an invisible one isn't seen at all.

Some people rule that direct spells must recognize the target to affect it with the spell. Others take the view that it's an area spell with higher drain, not a multi-cast single target spell... anything in the area is affected if it's a valid target. The rules are grey enough that it's up to GM taste.


But yeah... overall camouflage is just a weaker version of invis for most purposes. Though if you're not a high dice pool mage it may be superior. If people can regularly see through your invisibility... it won't do you much good at all as it's all or nothing.

But, camouflage is partial or nothing, that is the point. Anything that would overcome invisibility would also overcome camouflage.

I'm not so certain on that.

For a mana illusion yes. The resistance is all or nothing.

However read physical illusions... the resistance is to recognize the illusion as 'real' or not. The next sentence is to be 'fully' affected... being partially affected by a physical illusion even after recognizing it is real is not out of the cards and not addressed.


I cast 'trid phantasm' and put up an physical illusion of walls and smoke between me and the other guy... he makes the roll... he recognizes it as an illusion... but is he partially affected by the physical illusion still?

I have a feeling I'm going to regret getting into this, but here goes...

Falconer, it depends on the purpose of the spell, IMO. To use your example, the purpose of Trid Phantasm is to deceive a viewer into thinking the illusion is real. If the viewer resists the spell, they aren't deceived, so I would think there aren't any effects from the spell at all. If you wanted to have a spell that obscured their vision whether they believed the illusion was real or not, it would act more like a Manipulation spell, or at least like Silence where the target got a negative modifier based on their resistance roll.