Okay, the question finally came up. How thick is a focus's aura, and where can you stick it to hide it? Will clothing do? How about military armor? Can you block someone's view of your foci using a riot shield?

For that matter, how thick is a person's aura? what sort of cover is needed to keep it from being a bullseye? If I press my hand to a sheet of opaque glass, will the mage boy who's been idly watching the window be able to test his wiz new combat spell on me? If not, why can he shoot me through my awesome suit of milspec armor?


:: sighs :: this is why I don't play a mage often... the rules get tangled up with the fluff.

Firstly, "foci" is plural, the singular is "focus."

Second, the aura thing has been debated up and down on these forums (and probably side to side and diagonally) so many times.... and well, my take on it is this: Its not worth it to try to figure out the precise radiance distance of your aura or of auras in general. Make it easy on yourself. Anything that is construed as "clothing" fails to block the aura (this includes all armor types, of which milspec armor is one). Anything that is not clothing that is normally opaque does block the aura.

Note that normal riot shields are transparent, and would not hinder view of any foci, while opaque versions could potentially do so, depending on relative positions and the like. Also note that only active foci have an astral presence, and this is not the default condition. It takes a simple action to activate a focus, and a free action to deactivate it. So most of the time your foci are astrally indistinguishable from mundane items without a specific assensing test.

:: laughs :: sorry about the plurality issues, it's been a long day and my brain is shot. The reason I ask is because I was wondering what if you cast a physical style barrier spell and made it opaque. Would this block your aura from view?

Second, one of my players DOES generally implant his foci... how would you handle their astral visibility?

A common idea is that cyberware in individuals produces "dark spots" on their astral bodies which give hints to the location and type of 'ware installed. Likewise, implanted activated foci might produce "bright spots" on the astral body. Implanting foci is a great way to keep them from getting stolen/lost (unless they're in a limb, and, well, nevermind...), but as I GM, I would not give them any benefit to being spotted on the astral.

Implanted ACTIVE Foci are a valid target for attack. Since assensing is the first step to seeing an active spell, they can target a focus in a pouch on your back no matter where they are. You dispell the spell being sustained, then go after the focus and crush it.


Making a physical barrier opaque would block your aura because it would be just like any other form of cover. Poke your head over the top to shoot and still take +6 cover in the middle of the street.

Zenmaxer, I don't see anything in the rules for making a regular barrier spell produce an Opaque barrier. The Barrier descriptions on page 198 of SR3 indicate it only gives a +1 penalty to seeing through the barrier.

Necro Tech, The height of a barrier set as a wall is equal to its Force. It'd have to be a pretty low Force barrier for my characters to poke their head over the top.

actually, it notes a number of times in the fluff that the visual effects of magic are up to the caster, if I remember, something that I always felt was an invitation to bahroken effects. I see no reason why I barrier spell might not produce an opaque barrier.

:: nods :: I think I agree that I wouldn't make them invisible, but what might be interesting is to force the assensing mage to be actively looking for foci inside the target's aura... otherwise you probably just wouldn't notice them as a mage, would you? I'd think it'd be a bit unexpected at the very least and more than likely slightly more difficult to actually get an astral bead on an...umm...interior focus.

I'd personally make it as easy as an external focus if the mage isn't astrally active. If he or she is, though…

~J

Ward is an astral wall, barrier is a physical spell. The two are significantly different.

"Implanted" foci? Man, that does not some like a good idea to me. If I faced a mage who had an astrally active focus implanted into their body, animate, levitate or anything else to just to cause a lot of displeasure. To me, that's an astrally active bullet that was just placed inside of someone's armor. Hrm, what's the spell I'm thinking of? Flame Aura? Won't hurt the foci, but if you can see in in the astral, you can cast on it. That's a burning piece of whatever lodged inside of someone's body.

EDIT: Using astral perception to "see" the foci, and since your body's still in the physical, you can cast physical spells on it. I have a tendancy to not specify stuff because I forget people aren't... y'know... telepathic.

How would that jibe with the "physical spells cannot be cast from the astral" principle?

[edit] Joe beat me to it.

My runners always seem to foget that Astrally cast spells will ground to the meatbody, then detonate.

Nothing like doing watch duty over a Mage then ***KA-BOOM***, Incomming Fireball!

There is absolutely nothing preventing astrally percieving mages from casting physical spells. Sounds like a wonderful argument against focus implanting, to me.

Edit: this is in regards to Friggas Ring's post and the comments associated therewith.

Say what? No grounding? So replacing "Fireball" with "Manaball" would have no effect at the meatbody?

One way to get round the problem of not being able to affect physical things from the astral, e.g. mundanes, is to do this:

Find an astrally projecting mage, dual natured character, or similar. Normally you'd only be able to blast this guy with manabolts, but leave his friends untouched. Instead just cast an Influence or Control type spell on him (not easy since he's a mage = high wilpower) and then order him to go and manabolt his friends, or give away their position so you can send some grenades over there, or shoot them all in the back, etc etc.

He'll get second chances and there are some hard rolls, but at least it's an option.

It's the damned subtle changes from SR2 to SR3 that are messing me up. FanPro needs some sort of list of the changes made from SR2 -> SR3, atleast the big enough changes anyways.

It's funny, my group just realized that the tried-and-true "Panther Cannon" was not included in SR3 until the Cannon Companion, sheesh. It was however replaced in SR3 with the "Ares Vigorous Assault Cannon", bleh.

Now, a dual-natured being (e.g., a magician using astral perception) can cast physical spells against targets only in the physical word (e.g., a mundane) as well as mana spells against purely astral targets (e.g., a non-materialized spirit). Likewise, the dual-natured being can be targetted by astral/mana as well as physical effects. So here's my question: Blind Bob, the blind shaman is on a run, using astral perception instead of physical sight (he's just cool like that). He spots a corporate security mage, who is also astrally perceiving, surrounded by a bunch of security goons (think the cover of FoF or something). Can he manaball the lot of them? Fireball the lot of them? Are there any constraints on who is a valid target for what kind of spells under these conditions?

He can target them all ... He's on the same plane (currently actually on both). He "sees" his targets => Say hello to "Manaball" or "Fireball" ...

Cheers. Or both, if he's feeling thorough.

PAC is not in 2nd Core (just checked ), but it is in Street Sammie Catalog.

Honestly, it's been such a long time now, I just assumed it was part of SR1,2 and 3. Probably added with SSC, FoF and now CC.

Thing that messed with me from SR2-->SR3 was they removed Subduing Combat, it's now exclusively in CC.

SSC was updated for SR2, so it was introduced in that. They did miss a few spots and left them as the old TN-Damage-Successes to stage setup, though.

Correct, OT, but in this case the astral form of the meatbody in question is not present, only the astral form of the implanted focus.

Ah, thanks Zenmaxer. I'd forgotten where this conversation started. I'll edit my post to clarify.

Perhaps one more point.

No one has mentioned the method provided in the books for hiding your focus. Masking. MITS.76

Okay, so lemme get this straight, a non-percieving mage with an active focus on his/her person can't be attacked from astral although the focus can? Cool.

But with regards to the implanted focus, you still have an impression on the astral when you're physical only. So, if the aura of the focus is inside the 'impression' of a mundane meatbody then wouldn't it be concealed by said 'impression'. I'm using impression to denote the aura of a purely physical person, so as not to get confused with any other aura :o)

As for masking, yes it can hide that focus just as easily as your long coat hides your Predator :o) I can't remember the exact ratings etc off hand, but I think an initiate with the masking metamagic can mask foci with a combined force equal to twice his magic. Could be once magic, or perhaps twice grade. I dunno, my brain's mushie at this ungodly hour :o)

The reason I tend to agree with Canid is because all the text on channeling\possession suggests that astral forms within other astral forms are either "recessive" or "dominant" and further, if you pay for it with a nominal ess cost, technically it is part of you for the purposes of spell targeting, and cannot be aimed at independent of the whole... and unless you are projecting\perceiving\etc, you are not a valid astral target. When the focus becomes dual-natured... ow, my head.

Okay, so, when you pay essence for something it becomes part of you and can't be targeted seperately.
So, take a wacky example. A chip of headware memory is enchanted as a focus. The headware memory is paid for with essence, so it can't be targeted directly. But can the magicy aura of the foci still be targeted? Could you blast the magic from it but not damage the chip?
Maybe what we need here is a new metamagic technique (or maybe just a new regular technique that no one has done before) where (for a small essence cost) an implanted focus or quickening tatoo is made part of the recipient, and thus inseparable. The up-side is the spell cannot be dispelled short of your death. The downside is, you're astrally active and targetable forever.
There. If you're players STILL want that, go ahead and give it to 'em.
Otherwise, I just don't know. This is one of the more confusing magic threads.

p.s. I liked grounding from 2nd ed.

I think that the magical aura of the foci would manifest separately from the objects physical impression, but would still be much harder to notice. There's other ways you could do it, but they're all very painful to think through and I'm tired.

Allright, how 'bout this? I know I've suggested this before and had fruit thrown at me, but...enchant the person as living telesma!
(runs and hides)
...incidentally, I still think this is a step in cybermancy. It would explain a LOT about the process.

yes it would explain a lot, actually, thinking about it. basically the person would become what amounts to a gris-gris trapping their own spirit..

okay, let's not hijack, this is confusing enough as is. I honestly think it'd just make it harder to see by assensing.

Sorry.
How 'bout add double essence to target numbers to assence the focus? Too much? Just essence? Essence plus magic? Ooh, I like that last one.

Somehow this never came up in the "I'm going to make my Dikoted cyberspurs into a weapon focus" thread. Odd.

Okay, let's take a reasonably good cyber-focus (in my opinion) - the weapon focus spur/razors/handblade etc. You've paid essence, so it can't be targeted seperately (as a machine within the body) but it's a focus so when it's active it has a seperate aura. Now, my personal slant would be to either require an assencing test to spot (done this in the past) with a high number of sucesses, and/or to add the essence cost to the TN to spot.

I personally think it'd be an assencing test, since you have to assence in order to find cyberware in the first place. Granted, if the mage weren't an initiate with masking you'd know it were focus as soon as you saw it, but you still have to bring the aura into focus by assencing it so you can pull out the seperate aura of the focus.

As for vulnerability, once you've assenced it I'd allow it to be zapped in astral - and I'd inflict stress upon the implant also for taking damage - but I'd still give someone the 'hidden aura within an aura'.

I think there is precedence for this - channelling and possessing. Both require high numbers of sucesses on an assencing test to spot the second aura.

Regardless of spotting the implanted focus, I would not inflict cyberware stress on the implant/focus if the focus were destroyed in astral combat. "Destruction" in astral combat only destroys the enchantment, not the object itself, so there's no reason for physical changes to occur in the object, unless you're the GM and you want something nifty and cinematic to happen.

IMHO

Astral forms can easily pass through a magician who is not astrally perceiving. An active focus which is not masked will blaze with "light" and "color" to one who is assensing, even if it's in the magicians stomach. It's a simple matter for an astral form to attack an active focus within such a magician.

The books provide a mechanism for hiding active foci, and only high-grade initiate magicians can hide very much. Since the authors make it difficult, I do not allow my players to use cheap tricks to get around it.

Therefore I rule that active foci which are not masked are valid targets from the astral in almost all circumstances.

Indeed. I’d only give a penalty to seeing if the mage was astral as well.

~J

I'm not saying you can't attack the focus, I'm just saying that it's aura is buried within another so would be a little harder to see. Not much, but it could be enough.

Definately think the best way is to use masking, but there are other, less effective things which a non-initaite can do to give them some protection.

And I'm saying that unless the mage is astral it would be like trying to hide a flashlight (switched on) under a silk cloth without folding it.

~J

I think that's actually a good analogy - hence my initial suggestion of applying a modifier of the essence cost of the focus. I don't see this getting above +1 pretty much ever.

Nor does it mention any modifiers, good or bad, associated with said cyber-foci.

The Focus' Aura is totally different and seperate from that of the Mage. Just because they may overlap does not mean one in any way cancels out, or hides the other.

Now, if the character in question were to wear a coat made of Magic Ivy, that is a different matter, as the coat would form a barrier between the Focus and the Astral Perceiver.