Assensing is the true manner in which one is allowed to glean information off of a magical or living subject, but Astral Perception is where it begins. One must first "see" something before they can examine it in further detail. Non-living matter appears gray, intangible, and/or lacking in distinguishing traits. Living and magical things have an aura that can be studied in further detail. This is the way of perceiving and assensing astrally.

I'm curious how GMs (from either perspective - the GM or the Player's) have handled describing the astral in game. How much detail is given? Is it a muddy mass of gray with flecks of light here and there where flora and fauna exist? Does metahumanity look like blobs of rainbow-infused colors, garish colors beckoning to be delved into? How do you guys describe it or have it described to you?

Also, in searching for someone, how do you handle situations like that? Say, someone wanted to find an old contact in his old stomping grounds, but doesn't know exactly where he is at? How easy would that be without remembering his aura?

I portray it as a green aura backdrop, since the world is alive & would give off some sort of Aura, same goes with areas with lots of plant life. but walk into a city & you'll see lots of grey & muted colors with auras moving about as people move about their lives, the less essence a person has the more muted they become, melding into the background of the city & its lifelessness, as such, finding people in a major city is easier in astral because of how the aura's contrast to the muted backdrop.

Not much detail at all, or as much detail as someone would get on the physical plane through Perception without any rolls.

If everything was grayed out, I've always thought of the astral as being rather devoid of detail when it comes to things like distinguishing one person from another, physically speaking. Color of hair? Freckles? Skin tone? Designs on clothing? It all seems like it would be a big mish-mash of nothing discernible.

Hair color, skin tone, designs on clothing that aren't textured, not really things you'll get from the astral.

But you can still distinguish one person from another by their aura, even if they're not awakened.

And don't forget, all objects in the real world have astral shadows that cannot be seen through, even glass. Of course, if you're projecting you can always stick your head through a wall.

Right, so assume someone needs to find a particular person and hasn't seen or know their aura. Is it possible, say if they were in a crowd? I've always thought this would be a very hard way to find someone, or worse, some un-magical/non-living thing.

can you find someone if not told what they are wearing or what they look like? same principle.

Yeah, it would be very hard. Maybe even flat out impossible.

Visual perception would be different:

"Find the blonde-haired stranger with freckles wearing the anarchy shirt and brown pants. He'll be in that crowd."

The above can be given a difficulty level based on how many people are there and if the person searching can identify the visual identifiers. If someone is searching for someone astrally, using the exact same identifiers, it would be very difficult given that these kinds of details are lost in the astral.

Whereas, someone might be able to identify visually things that can be seen on the astral. Sickness/Overall Health. Cyberware. Mood. It's possible. Hard, yes. But not as near nigh-impossible as the other way. Or so it has always seemed to me.

You'd have an advantage if the description was "they're magically active, and have recently been stressed enormously at work." You'd look for the potent aura that has the appearance of stress about it.

"Dude, I can smell the colours!"

"For the last time, you are not a magician, you're just stoned!"

I can see why hyper intelligent shades of blue avoid our neck of the woods.

"Is this what light tastes like?" *om nom nom... stare* "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!"

Would there be....50 shades of grey?


/apologizes.


Seriously tho, I'd actually say its similar to 'actual' aura sight, like just before I get migraines at times. Or a combination of those older nightvision models that would flare up and lose ability with sudden light. You see the world in a different tint, and then in further glowy detail depending on environment and object of perception.

when I think of Aura's I kinda always shift back to WhiteWolf & Auspex power in vampire, where there is a multishaded aura with several emotions, Magical beings have a more Vibrant Aura & low essence people have a more dull Aura, the higher the magic score the brighter the colors in the Aura. But I would also allow a possibility for a mage to be able to hide their magic in the Astral with the right set of skills.

The metamagic skill Masking can hide your talent on the astral, letting you appear to be mundane.

What would a gamemaster tell an astrally perceiving character to roll to notice something when they are neither assensing an aura nor trying to observe in detail?

Other than for general knowledge, the reason I ask is because the Eagle mentor spirit gives +2 to all Perception tests. Are there cases where an astrally perceiving character would roll Perception rather than Assensing?

Yes instead of "Find the blonde-haired stranger with freckles wearing the anarchy shirt and brown pants. He'll be in that crowd," it would be "Find the human with a blueish-yellow aura, a cyber left arm who is awakened"

The physical descriptions would have to be different, but with a description it could be done. I think the question posed though was could you find the blond haired stranger in the crowd without the description of her. Makes it much more difficult to do.

Assensing is used for all forms of Astral perception as far as I am aware (note: in 4a enhanced perception adept power even boosted the assensing skill so it is still a perception skill)

I agree it seems that it is easier to find what you want physically. Good thing though, because astral perception lets you see a bunch of things that cannot be seen at all in the physical world, like astral projections, spirits, active spells, magical barriers, where the earth is. Also, when astrally projecting, there is a huge freedom of movement that make searching easier in that respect.

I'm wondering how easy it is to hide in the astral (say for a spirit or while astrally projecting), by being surrounded in 3D by dead grey objects.

I always fluff Astral Perception as washing everything into scents of octarine.

Assensing is used for interpreting auras, being able to tell how powerful an awakened is or what kind of spell is on them.

Perception is still used to tell if there's an astral entity trying to hide behind the shadow of something in the real world.

They're related, but used for different things, like the Hardware & Software skills.

Dunno how accurate vs pretty fluff it is, but pg 193 SR4A has in-book art that seems to indicate what an astral view of a bar might look like.

Right. In general, being nigh-limitless in movement would be better for searching for something, unless that something's details were next-to-impossible to see in the astral. That was really the point of my question.

I do not think that this is correct. Perception IIRC is used for physical Perception, whereas Assensing is used to gain more information on the astral and used to tell if there's an astral entity trying to hide from Astral Perception (how it does so is irrelevant).

Yes, I'm pretty sure one doesn't use the Perception skill for astrally perceiving things. Astral Perception should be used for every kind of perception in astral space. I base this off this quote:


This specifically contradicts an earlier post: roll the (assensing) dice when your target is trying to hide or when you're trying to observe in detail.

What if you aren't trying to observe in detail, but the gamemaster thinks there is something you might notice something that happens in astral space. Would that still be assensing? The eagle mentor spirit gives dice to perception tests. I'm wondering if that should extend to astral perception.

Just to clarify... Astral Perception is not the same as Assensing.
In the case of the Eagle Mentor; yes, if you are making an Asrtral Perception test, your Perception bonuses would apply. But they would NOT apply to Assensing. They are not the same.

Astral Perception determines whether you actually SEE something astral (you will likely not need to roll for most things)... Assensing lets you interpret what you see.

They say you don't have to roll dice to just see things, but when you do, you should roll Assensing dice (see my quote above).

I think this makes sense, it separates what you can perceive with your mundane sense, and what you can perceive in the astral world, two very distinct actions. I really invite you to go to pages 312-313 until you reach the quote I posted. It makes it pretty clear.

And yet it also talks about actually perceiving things too. They are two distinct and different actions.
You Almost never need to make perception rolls in Astral, though you would make one, for example, if you were trying to find the guy infiltrating (opposed infiltration vs. Astral Perception (not assensing) with no physical modifiers applying (ie, no sneak suit benefits)). Once you spot them, then you can assense them. You cannot assense something that you cannot perceive.

It is also pretty clear you cannot assense something you cannot see.

No, that's wrong. Astral Perception uses the Assensing skill for any roll you need to make.


As you see, the Perception skill is used only for basic senses.

It's not so clear to me. It says that assensing is for reading auras and for making an observe in detail action. What I'm trying to determine is if it is also used to notice something not so obvious while not explicitly looking for it. If so, since there is no defaulting on assensing, a character without that skill can never perceive anything non-obvious in astral space. For example, if I was projecting in a room a minute ago, and then a door that was closed is now open when I return, maybe it's not so obvious if I'm not paying attention to the door but it has nothing to do with auras.

And that is completely your interpretation, and you are welcome to it. My point is that it is not as cut and dried as you make it to be. Otherwise, this question would never have come up.

What they've done is basically separate perception with physical senses and astral perception. Everything that has to do with astral perception is covered by the assensing skill. They should have made it more obvious but that's what it comes down to. Remember that Astral Perception is not just auras, even though the book focuses on that aspect:
I assume they just wanted all the magical skills to have no default. In your example, I personally think that just looking in the direction of the door might be enough to notice the absence of it. But then again, if it's non-obvious or they're distracted or looking for other things, then perhaps a better understanding of the fluctuations in the astral world is required to notice it, and thus, an Assensing test, as per the rules.

Well, Since non-awakened cannot perceive the Astral (well, mostly, anyways), having Perception cover normal perception of things in the astral is not an issue. Where the skill comes in is KNOWING what you are seeing (which is where Assensing comes in). BUT, you STILL need to be able to see it (Perception) before you can assense it (Assensing).

It is not intuitive, and is hampered by the explanations that ARE given (no need to make Perception tests most of the time, except when you need to make a Perception Test). Which is sad, really. No real horse in this race, actually, but it is an interesting question nonetheless. It could do with some exposition and correction. Not that I expect any, mind you, but it would be nice.

I stand by my interpretation, given the quotes that I provided, especially the one that says perception is about basic senses. Your statement that you need to see it first is not supported by the rules in the book anywhere that I can find. The book even said that finding someone who's hiding using astral perception requires an assensing test.

I agree that it should be made more obvious. As so many other things that need corrections/clarifications.

I see it as astral perception is like a vision mode. When you toggle on Astral perception, you still need to make perception checks to notice some things. Especially since its possible for astral things to come in from 3D, just because you can see something doesn't always mean you can NOTICE it. Consider normal perception, someone behind you is not invisible, but you don't always immediately know they are there.

The big difference is Assensing is like a 'scanning mode'. You focus on an aura and take sensor readings.

The other thing is when astrally projecting, you can ONLY use astral perception mode. Its like a Predator without their helmet on, only able to see thermographic.

I agree. And this gets back to why I think it would be difficult to search for physical properties in the astral.

I would say that Astral Perception maps inputs onto physical sense analogues. There is the Sight, but also the ability to Listen and Smell, Taste, maybe even an astral Tactile analogue. Perhaps sometimes a mage's astral signature isn't so much Astral visual input but an astral scent.

I see Assensing to be the Perception skill analogue when using Astral Perception. Astral Perception without Assensing means you are unable to make sense of much of the sensory input you are getting from Astral Perception, quite literally since IIRC Assensing is not defaultable. So all someone will get from Astral Perception without Assensing is the astral equivalent of what would be immediately noticeable.

Very well put, I couldn't agree more.

I'd actually think that would be kinda terrifying. Imagine being able to shift to astral perception, but not know what the things you see actually are. Not so much an issue in the 6th world, but imagine if you had the sight today, and decided to walk through a graveyard, or old battlefield with astral sight 'on'.

Yep, but it can be fun too.

Some really old buildings sometimes retain a presence there. Not a full on aura, but like an echo almost. You won't see this effect with newer structures, too freshly torn from the land and regurgitated into its new form.

There are old ruins of keeps and castles in Europe that if you take the time to really look at them, though some find using the corner of the eye works better, you can see the structure they were versus the reality of what they are now.

I wouldn't make it like an overlay. I would enforce that you see only astral space while astral projecting or perceiving. If you're perceiving, you can shift perception to get your bearings.

Edit: Never mind, I misunderstood mapping senses to mean having astral perception on top of other senses like an overlay.