Are you practicing to write plebiscite questions, Sphynx? I had to read that three times before (I think!) I got all the negatives straight.

Well... The question was perfectly clear to me. My teachers all used to write like this.
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Regarding the issue: The glow becomes invisible. You get the freakin' sustaining modifiers and are an astral neon-sign. Enough disadvantages for me. (And I _hate_ mages. *shakes*)

Invisibility spell- This spell is attached to a person- meaning, the astral energy around them deflects light and other shit, thus making them invisible. Armor-- calling astral energy around the aura of the person-- meaning the additional energy, which manifests on the physical, would have to be outside the aura of the person, given that the energies cannot exist in the same space without clouting eachother up.

Ah, can't edit, so just assume a teasing should have been added to the previous post. Remind me sometime to post a collection of referendum and plebiscite questions I've collected. The wording is frequently right up there with the structure of butterfly ballots. But I hadn't intended offense.

"Other"

Depends:
If I GM'd with your stated characters, outlook, ect, I'd say:
"The glow is quite obvious, despite being Invis, thus giving the target away."

Couldn't vote ... Because I'm going with solution #3:

Provided that Invis is cast after Armor, the field becomes invisible as well, since it was "part of the target".
Cast Invis and then armor and the glowing field will be a good indicator as to where you are ...

On first thought, I was going to agree with Cochise - that the armor has to be cast before the invisibility, but then the thought struck me...

- If a character picks up an object after he's turned invisible - does the object become invisible or does it stay visible?
- What if he drops an object he was already carrying/holding?
- What if you are shot - does the blood become visible?
- And what if you shoot someone? Is there a muzzle flash?
- What if you are carrying an assault cannon - it sticks out quite far - does that mean it extends 'beyond' the invisibility?
- What if you are carrying a person over your shoulder?
- What about the beam from a laser sight?
- Eyelight systems - will the invisible eyes shine if you happen to look straight at them.

So, having posed all these questions, I will formulate the following theory - the Invisibility spell (since it is sustained) will adapt to cover anything that can be considered to be on your persona, as long as it isn't another living being of significant size. This, however, poses the following question - should a spell count as an additional 'living being' since it has it's own aura? And thus we are back were we started...

- More questions...should you be able to 'hide' say a kitten under your coat? If so, a Troll has to be allowed to hide a dwarf or even a human under his coat... What about backpacks? A troll could easily carry a dwarf in a backpack like construction. What if that dwarf has an armor spell (or if you've thrown an armor spell on the kitten you have under your coat, to protetc it?) Just to point out how tricky this subject is...

Uh, this is a situation where Id fall back to something tried and true and go "dude, wtf are you trying to do, make my head explode? Cant you just do something else?"

Of course, failing that, Id actaully have to make a call. And Id have to base that call on the fact that armor "surrounds you with a glowing aura" and that "invisiblity makes you invisible" ... meaning that the armor is outside the invis area of effect (its around you, and invis doesnt extend past you).

However, something such as trid phantasm, or perhaps a specially researched version of invis using spell design, could both probably correct the problem. Tough call tho, I can see both sides, but I stand by my interpretation.

Not trying to make peoples' heads explode - just showing my own thought process

Of course, that sometimes amount to the same thing...

well, since the magician takes penalties for concentrating to keep the spell up (and considering that spells like 'mask', 'animate', 'camouflage' and 'double image' (as well as other spells) by default has to be altered during the sustaining (in case of camouflage, to fit the suurounding area, in case of double image and mask, to fit the movements of the character, and in case of animate to create the movement in the object) I don't think it's a stretch to assume that such alterations are part of the reason why a mage gets a modifier.

Eyelights are visible you say - how about if the character is wearing a necklace of blinking lights - are those automatically visible too? If not, someone please explain the difference.

An object stays visible whebn you pick it up? What if you put it in a pocket? (Also see my example of a kitten above) What if you put it in your mouth? What if you swallow it? When does it become enough 'part of you' to make it invisible?

Maybe more difficult - if the character has a grapple gun - at what point would the hook and line become visible when he fires them (since they are still attached to the gun) or would they stay invisible?

When can you be considered to have 'dropped' an item? Do things hanging loosely off of your jacket or coat qualify? An item in your pocket? A kitten in your pocket? What if the item is another 'person' - say a character who has been transformed into a kitten using a Shapechange spell?

These are the situations where my powers as GM kick in: I decide individually
What I've provided is just the basic outline. The problem with both rules and "logic" for magic is that neither can be precise enough to be perfect ...

I'll stick with what how I handled it up to now ...

~shrugs~

snowRaven: I'd go with most of Conchise's replies and qualify (per your next question) with "at what point does the grappling hook shift domains?" All right, so it doesn't completely technically qualify, but the case-by-case ruling would be based on whether a given item/part/effect is absorbed within the person's own aura or arguably has become part of a different environment. It works slightly better within the Earthdawn Naming system: at what point is this item/part/effect no longer a part of the entity/collection named Me and has been absorbed into the entity/collection named Building (or Group, or Sprawl, or City ...)

Within that line of reasoning, the grappling hook remains invisible right up until the point at which it contacts the building, at which point the grappling hook and all items understood by the player/GM/group to be part of a single unit with that grappling hook become visible.

Okay I hate to make things more complicated but....
( Oh who am I kidding... I play Shadowrun. I love to make things complicated )

There are 2 types of invisibility spells.
Direct Invisibility ( Mana spell that has no effect on machines )
Indirect Invisibility ( Effects everything )

The way they work is entirely different. A Direct Illusion spell would be different. In this case people can't see the individual can't because the part of their brain that processes that information is being effected by the magic of the spell. In this case if the invisible person does something to call attention to themselves then the viewer should probably get a second chance to see the character. Rolling intelligence dice against the Force of the spell +/- any appropriate modifiers. ( Keep track of the initial number of successes of the invisibility spell )

The indirect invisibility spell is more of a sustained light manipulation spell where light and other wavelengths of visual energy if bent around the character. Yes many of the above scenarios might give the character's location away, but they still won't be able to see him. an argument could even be made that if an individual sees an indirect invisibility protected character by making enough intelligence successes then they still might be unable to identify him because all they see is an outline.

~must refrain from going into the "how does physical invis-spell work discussion"~

Just as a note though: As an indirect illusion spell, improved invis cannot bend light around the person under it's effect and it's next to impossible to describe how that spell works in terms of physics. It just works ... simply because it's magic

As far as picking up objects is concerned, I've always ruled that they become invisible as well, as at that point they are within or part of your aura (like the clothing and gear you were wearing when the sell was cast). A living being, however, can not become part of another living beings aura, and thus can not become invisible when picked up without a separate casting. In the kitten example, the kitten would remain visible, even when hidden under the persons coat, as unlike in that idiotic scene in the last Bond movie, hiding behind something that is invisible is pretty damn useless (other than it acting as a bullet shield).

Speaking of the bending light style of invisibility (which the SR version clearly is not, otherwise you'd be blind), anyone designed a version of invis like that?

Okay bending of light is bad. Let's try this......

In general you see things because light bounces off that thing and reaches your eye. The color of the thing determines how much and what type of light bounces off the thing to your eye.

Now for an invisible object.......The light strikes the invisible object but is not reflected. Instead the invisibility spell generates the light coming out of your body at the exact same intensity on the other side of the object making it look like the light passed through colorless air.

How's that?

Try to think of invisibility as the SEP field from Hitchiker's Guide. It makes things much easier.

That was one of my favourites!

Ehn, if you want to get exhaustive, there are versions of invisibility possible for just about any premises you want to postulate, from bending of light (aka. doing it with mirrors) to "social" invisibility to stepping "between the moments" / out-of-phase to trid-style projection of what should be there. We could just call all of those variants "invisibility" and then assume that game mechanics simplifies most of them into two versions: a mana indirect illusion (affecting living beings and we'll assume anything that has an aura), and a physical indirect illusion (affecting cameras and such as well).

Because if we don't: well, things get very detailed and very complicated from there.

Don't forget the rule directly under the Indirect Illusion Spells heading on page 195 of SR3.

These spells are cast either "around a person" or over an area. Not 'on' a person like other spells. Admittedly this is open for GM interpretation, but considering they made it a point to expressly write it differently here, I think the idea was to rule it to surround a person, much like an Aura (thus my interpretation that Invis invis's the glow of Armour).

Sphynx

I'll accept Talia's explanation of when things become a 'part' of said person, and I'll also accept the description of the spell in that it is cast 'around' a person.

I have some problems with the example of the grapple hook, though - there's just no easy way out of the problems. I hope I'll never have this happen in a game...

Regarding said kitten-in-pocket - since the spell is cast 'around' the person I think anything that can completely fit within a certain 'personal space' should be effectively hidden by the spell. This would have to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

Invisibility is one of the spells that has the most problems, since it lacks a definition on 'how' it works (besides 'it's magic') - all of the various examples that Talia brought up would give different possibilities for use/abuse. In that sense, I almost like the old Disregard spell better - it doesn't create those strange situations (although I guess it has it's own problems - like everything else...)

I am assuming that the reason Armor spells can be assumed to 'glow' is due to the fact that at some level, spells are always partially visible...

By this rationale, I have a question to break your brain...

Doesn't that mean that the higher the force of an invisibility spell, the more visible the object/individual being made 'invisible' becomes?

I mean, sure, the target number to see an invisible person under a Force 8 Imp. Invisibility spell is 8... but if the mage isn't an initiate, the target number to see the spell is 2. Or, if one was an Initiate Grade 2 (just to not suck the physical drain from a force 8 spell) the target number would be 4 - I.E. the same as a guy wearing dark clothing at night, but not hiding.

Curious question, neh?

No, the glow is part of the official spell description. A large portion of magic has no visible effects until you cast it at force 80 (low end estimate) and pull the astral closer to the physical like happened in a few cities.

Bollocks. Magic's quite visible in the 6 and up range, supposing no initiation has been performed. On 162 of the main book, the rules for 'noticing spellcasting' are given; I seem to recall MITS suggesting these be used for noticing the 'flash' of spells as well (such as a glowing shimmer when a manaball goes off.) This supposition is supported by the description on 163 for 'Shamanic Masks' - I.E. the totem's physical features being magically superimposed over the shaman's own.

Considering that armor and barrier spells 'glow' as per the description, but said description provides no indication as to how bright this glow is relative to say, a desk lamp, I imagine these glow levels would be directly analagous to how powerful the force of the spell is. I.E. why would a force 1 armor spell glow just as much as a force 10? Seems a little ass-backwards to me.

If you would read the actual section, that test is to identify that a mage is casting. It is not the test to see a spell, but a test to see the typical effects of a mage attempting to cast a spell. It gives a chance to notice which one is the mage when a group is dressed identically.

I did read it. If you'd look up at my previous post, you'd see the following line:

If you find anyting in any 3rd edition sourcebook, I'd like to know. Otherwise, I will assume it has gone the way of "Turn to goo."

Adarael, you may be thinking of the ability to notice spellcasting as described in SR3 on p. 162 ("Noticing Magic"). I don't interpret this rule to mean sustained spells can be noticed.

I've thought a lot about this and decided that any light-emitting part of the subject, such as a flashlight, armor spell, or laser sight can be made invisible but will still shed light, so that the location of the armored character may be determined by the illumination of the floor and surrounding objects when ambient light levels allow. Muzzle flashes will still be perfectly visible.

Just my humble ruling on the matter.

Zazen -- I like the way you handle that.

Back to the original idea of the thread, we've always sorta figured that invisibility isn't so much invisibility as a sliding translucency scale based on the force and number of successes garnered...

I.E. Force 4 with two or three successes is a lot like the Predator's blur suit. Hard to see, but still visible on some level...

Force 6 with four successes? Pretty damn see-through.

As to shadows and light, we figured that the field would be dimmed by the invisibility - not cancelled, but shadows would be made lighter, and flashes less bright.

well, in this case, i rule more fair than realistic and say that invisibility works on the glow of the armor as well.
otherwise there would be no point in choosing those to spells when you can only benifit from one of them at a time...