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Cray74
QUOTE (noneuklid)
[QUOTE]No, you are targeting what looks like Joe, but is not.[/QUOTE]

I'm unclear on this. Why does it matter if the window is pink, purple, or Joe-coloured?[/quote]


For the same reason you cannot target people with spells via electronic displays: you're not seeing the real Joe, you're seeing an illusion of him.

For a spell to lock onto Joe, you need to see the real Joe. Improved Invisibility only creates a physical illusion of Joe, a magical equivalent to an electronic display.
Lantzer
To further muddy the waters, you could target illusionary Joe with an elemental manipulation, because it creates a physical effect that acts much like a gun. What it does when it gets there is totally independent of what the caster thought he was shooting.

The powerbolt mentioned before could _not_ be targeted on illusion Joe because it's a _combat_ spell, which does not 'travel' at all, but is instead directly targeted. That's why you can cast them through windows. Joe is not there, so the spell has nothing to target.
Jrayjoker
An interesting take on it, but the intermediary material is still in place even if you don't believe it is there.
Lantzer
QUOTE (Jrayjoker @ Jan 4 2005, 02:23 PM)
An interesting take on it, but the intermediary material is still in place even if you don't believe it is there.

No argument - I agree. Elemental manips are like guns. point and shoot. That's why it's treated like a ranged combat test with extra modifiers. So the intervening material would be what is hit.

It's just like shooting a gun at an illusion. the bullet will hit _something_.

Combat spells are different. They essentally require a 'lock' to be successful. If you don't get the 'lock' on a valid target, the spell doesn't go off right, but you still take the drain. But you don't care that a (real) window is there if it doesn't interfere with line of sight. This is because a combat spell does not travel from you to the target. It shows up at the target.

The advantage to elemental manips is that you can hit what you can't see, much like guns and grenades.
The advantage to combat spells is as long as you can see it, you can hit it.

Edited combat spell portion.
Lindt
QUOTE (noneuklid)
Frost isn't an elemental manipulation.

Nitpick: Frost? You mean ice sheet. Thats a transformation manip, which is a physical change.
Jrayjoker
Lantzer,

"I couldn't fail to disagree with you more" (Mouse, newby decker in Shapcano's Lost Boys series)

The difference in philosophy between the two types of spells (combat and manipulation), and their inherent pros and cons is often subtle. Until you get to the drain tests, that is.
toturi
QUOTE (noneuklid @ Jan 4 2005, 06:27 PM)
Frost isn't an elemental manipulation.    rotate.gif

I'll retract my previous statement and I'll say I'd have to disagree since Frost is in no way a Canon spell. I had assumed that you meant that Frost was a Elemental Manipulation spell, but since you pointed out that your non-Canon Frost spell was not, then all bets are off.

However, if you meant a spell with the Ice Elemental Effect or Freeze Water or Ice Sheet, then yes, you may freeze enough water to walk on it.

If you are not refering to SR3 canon, you are welcome to your House Rules then. Know your rules first. rotate.gif
mmu1
Given all that's been said about Invisibility merely being an illusion - would then making someone or something invisible even allow you to look through them, and see something behind them that was really there?

Since you're not actually making things transparent to light, just messing with the minds of any observers, it seems to me what you're really doing is creating a blind spot in someone's vision, rather than letting them see through people and objects as if they weren't there.

Either that, or you're feeding them a false image of what they should see - but in this case, if you made a wall "invisible", people affected by it should just see whatever generic mental image you had of what's on the other side of the wall, not what's actually there - in particular, if you never actually saw what's on the other side yourself.
Kanada Ten
The Invisibility spell is capable of recreating the other side perfectly - it leaves nothing to one's imagination like Phantasm does.
Jrayjoker
I think a better way to say it is, the spell makes the people viewing the wall use their minds' inherent ability to ignore and fill in blind spots while also encouraging the viewers that "these are not the droids you're looking for..."
Kanada Ten
QUOTE (Jrayjoker)
I think a better way to say it is, the spell makes the people viewing the wall use their minds' inherent ability to ignore and fill in blind spots while also encouraging the viewers that "these are not the droids you're looking for..."

Except it doesn't have the ability to do that with cameras, does it? I'm pretty sure it's reenacting the otherside for all viewers.
Jrayjoker
Only the improved invisibility, with it's higher drain. I personally feel that the Improved invisiblity is more of a manipulation spell since it bends the light (based on successes IIRC).
Cochise
QUOTE (Kanada Ten)
I'm pretty sure it's reenacting the otherside for all viewers.

Simple question there: How would the spell achieve that?
The problem is that spell as such only interacts with the person it is cast upon and the observer who becomes a target by viewing at the person under the spell. It has no connection to third-parties nor to the surroundings. It's just between those two (or any other number of observers + 1 *for the primary target of the spell*).

So where will the spell take the information about e.g. a dwarf behind the aforementioned troll?
The spell has no connection to said dwarf (other than the dwarf himself might or might not fall for the illusion), so how will the spell reenact for any observer looking at that "invisible" troll (who is hidden from perception via the created illusion) what the dwarf behind that troll does?

I'm aware that dealing with invis as if it turned the "invisible" person transparent is very easy to use, but such a recreation of the surroundings that cannot be perceived by the observer (missing Line of Sight) nor by the spell (due to lack of affecting these surroundings) is rather dubious, even for something that work's with "magic", since that somewhat goes against how SR magic normally works ...
Cochise
QUOTE (Jrayjoker)
Only the improved invisibility, with it's higher drain. I personally feel that the Improved invisiblity is more of a manipulation spell since it bends the light (based on successes IIRC).

By no means does the improved invis spell bend light (particularly not depending on success numbers) ... Bending light would be a manipulation. Improved invis does what is described in the intro to Illusions: It creates actual sensory input. Actual sensory input however is not light, sound or something alike. Sensory input is the reaction a sensor would normally display when light, sound, etc. reach the sensor. So the improved invis triggers camera diodes and retinal cells of an human eye in pretty much in the same manner: Both show the reaction they would show when light would normally trigger them, just without that light actually existing ...
Jrayjoker
Cochise, it has been a while since I read the descriptions, so your point makes sense. But the TN should be pretty huge for improved invisibility to affect diodes and circuits and lower for metahumans then, shouldn't it?
Austere Emancipator
The TN is static. You just need a high-Force spell to affect cameras (because they have a high OR).
Jrayjoker
So what you are saying is that I need to roll my spell + pool dice and keep a record of the results so that when a person with a high intelligence looks at me and makes a perception/stealth-awareness test I have one result, but if I walk past a camera I get another result based on OR?
Cochise
QUOTE (Jrayjoker)
But the TN should be pretty huge for improved invisibility to affect diodes and circuits and lower for metahumans then, shouldn't it?

That's a totally different issue in terms of game mechanics. The spell is not cast against the camera. It's cast against a living being (the person who becomes "invisible") and the camera is only affected by the result of that spell.
Jrayjoker
Ahhhh. OK Cochise. So does the camera roll it's rating versus my spell and get a bonus because of high OR?
Cochise
QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)
The TN is static. You just need a high-Force spell to affect cameras (because they have a high OR).

Yet another issue of greater debate:

There is that errata that says that in order to affect anything non-living, you have to have a spell with a minimum force of OR/2.
However that errata is in the section that deals with TNs for spells. Since the invis spell has a static TN is heavily debatable whether the errata actually includes those spells or only spells being affected that have OR as TN in the first place ...
Cochise
QUOTE (Jrayjoker)
Ahhhh. OK Cochise. So does the camera roll it's rating versus my spell and get a bonus because of high OR?

No, a camera as non-living entity doesn't roll a resistance at all ...
Herald of Verjigorm
QUOTE (Jrayjoker)
So what you are saying is that I need to roll my spell + pool dice and keep a record of the results so that when a person with a high intelligence looks at me and makes a perception/stealth-awareness test I have one result, but if I walk past a camera I get another result based on OR?

No, he's saying you have to record how many successes you made, and the force the spell was cast. Living observers must compete with the successes, unliving observers just get their complexity compared to the force and it either works or couldn't possibly work at that force.

Now, the important question: In a reality defined by observations (see quantum physics), is there any true difference between something being invisible and every possible observer being tricked into believing that it is invisible? A sufficiently powerful improved invisibility will, by every objective measure, cause an object to not be visibly there. As much as you enjoy arguing about how or why or if it works, the only results that actually matter are: 1) those who fail their resistance test will see through it, 2) neither it nor any other illusion or detection can provide magical LoS.

I still stand by the prospect of a willing target only restricted invisibility to give the troll with the LMG a sneaky attack option.
Cochise
QUOTE (Herald of Verjigorm)
1) those who fail their resistance test will see through it ...

And that's the part that's still highly arguable, because if you really were able to look "through" it, you'd be able to observe something that you actually can't observe (the aforementioned dwarf behing the "invisible" troll) ...
mmu1
QUOTE (Kanada Ten)
The Invisibility spell is capable of recreating the other side perfectly - it leaves nothing to one's imagination like Phantasm does.

Then that's pretty incosistent with how SR magic supposedly works - how can it perfectly reproduce the other side without interacting with it in some way, and how can it interact with something outside of your LOS?
Jrayjoker
Here we go loopty looing back to the original debate. Gosh! I love this stuff. Typically in game time I just let it roll on with a "No, because I'm the GM." But debating the intent is good too.
BitBasher
QUOTE (mmu1)
QUOTE (Kanada Ten @ Jan 4 2005, 10:44 AM)
The Invisibility spell is capable of recreating the other side perfectly - it leaves nothing to one's imagination like Phantasm does.

Then that's pretty incosistent with how SR magic supposedly works - how can it perfectly reproduce the other side without interacting with it in some way, and how can it interact with something outside of your LOS?

Because it's magic and it does. Even in SR our understanding of exactly why it happens is inherintly limited. Because to that specific viewer the subject is in fact invisible.
Kanada Ten
QUOTE (mmu1)
QUOTE (Kanada Ten @ Jan 4 2005, 10:44 AM)
The Invisibility spell is capable of recreating the other side perfectly - it leaves nothing to one's imagination like Phantasm does.

Then that's pretty incosistent with how SR magic supposedly works - how can it perfectly reproduce the other side without interacting with it in some way, and how can it interact with something outside of your LOS?

All Indirect Illusions violate the "affect targets within LOS" rule applied to every other type of spell. If you cast Foreboding and leave the room the spell will continue to scare people even though you never achived LOS with them. That's what makes them so powerful - and why they cannot actually manipulate anything but sensory data.
Cochise
QUOTE (BitBasher)
Because it's magic and it does.

I'm not trying to be too picky here: But where does it say so?
All that is said is:

a) Illusions create false imagery (in mind or by actual sensory input)
b) Invis of either type causes observers not to see the subject of the spell

But where does it say that suddenly things that haven't been visible before now become visible?

As I previously stated: SR spells normally only affect their targets (persons or areas) and in the case of invis those targets are: Spell subject and any number of observers (they become targets by observing the subject of the spell). The spell does not affect third-parties. So if an observer is unable to perceive a third-party (object or person) that is "hidden" by the spell subject, how will the observer be able to see that third-party? The spell itself has no information on that third-party nor has the observer ...

QUOTE
Even in SR our understanding of exactly why it happens is inherintly limited.


That's the answer as to why we tend to think in terms like "becomes transparent" where objects behind the subject suddenly turn visible. It's very ease to use, but it actually isn't in accordance to how that spell category is supposed to work by name and definition

QUOTE
Because to that specific viewer the subject is in fact invisible.


Just as anything that is blocked from perception by that subject which has an illusion "tagged" onto ...
Cochise
QUOTE (Kanada Ten)
All Indirect Illusions violate the "affect targets within LOS" rule applied to every other type of spell.

It's not so much a question of required LOS on the spell's target upon casting.
It's about an LOS that doesn't exist and isn't created by such an spell either ...

QUOTE
If you cast Foreboding and leave the room the spell will continue to scare people even though you never achived LOS with them.


Which is pretty simple: You cast the spell at a target that you have to see (an area in this case). Everyone who becomes an "observer" of that arear is instantly turned into a target by definition. But here's something that this spell won't do to any observer: It won't give them any "information" that is not connected to that bad feeling. It won't give them any information on things unknown to them.

QUOTE
That's what makes them so powerful - and why they cannot actually manipulate anything but sensory data.


And that's the point that brings us back to the question why Invis would provide anything else (namely the information about unknown facts)?
Lindt
This is about the time in the arguement I say "Mr Camara, meet Mr Panther MPAC"
Jrayjoker
Which then adds a whole lot of Sec guards and paracritters to the equation...
GrinderTheTroll
So if you cast Improved Invis. on a wall and as long as the illusion held up, you "see" what you think you should see on the other side of it, which would be interesting. [edit - So if expected to see guards, machine guns, bombs, etc., I would probably say you'd see those things because that's what you "think" is there since the spell is effecting your mind.]
The neat part would be, if you went around the wall adn saw something different, then I would think that would bake your noodle.

I suppose the real trick would be to make Invisibility a Manipulation that actually bends the light or deflects in such a way so that would you could truely "see through" the target of the spell.
Jrayjoker
I would call it an elemental manipulation, and it would need to be sustained/anchored/quickened for it to be at all useful. I haven't designed it, but the drain would be a killer I think.
Cochise
QUOTE (GrinderTheTroll)
I suppose the real trick would be to make Invisibility a Manipulation that actually bends the light or deflects in such a way so that would you could truely "see through" the target of the spell.

Making invis an manipualtion instead of an illusion will have several consequences (based on the current SR3 magic system):
  • You'd have to cast against a TN for the human being and OR for objects
  • The rate of success would involve thresholds
  • Only the subject that this spell is cast upon can actually resist, since the observer would not perceive an illusion or false sensory input but real information about an actually altered reality
  • Bending light around the subject of the spell wouldn't be a good idea at all. While this really would make it invisible to any observer it would simoultaniously render the subject blind, since all light would be bend around it, thus no more light that actually hits the subjects eyes. Thus it would be better for the spell to increase the transparency of the subject to 100%
  • Such a spell would create LOS for pusposes of spellcasting, because you'd be seeing the "real thing" behind the subject.
  • The subject would be totally invunerable to light based attacks (Lasers either going around or through the transparent target without causing harm). Something that is not true for the illusion version
BitBasher
QUOTE
Thus it would be better for the spell to increase the transparency of the subject to 100%
This wouldn't work either, as then the light cannot be focused by the eyes and registered by the retina, as the light passes straight through it. The subject is still totally blind.
GrinderTheTroll
QUOTE (Cochise)
Making invis an manipualtion instead of an illusion will have several consequences (based on the current SR3 magic system).

Yeah, you've nailed down the particulars of it. Maybe calling it "True Invisibility" would actually be a more accurate name, although the Astral Plane would foil it, could still be handy I'd imagine.
Cochise
QUOTE (BitBasher)
This wouldn't work either, as then the light cannot be focused by the eyes and registered by the retina, as the light passes straight through it. The subject is still totally blind.

I'd still object to that:

1. The state of the being in question would still be a magical condition, that allows certain laws of physic not to work properly (like photon absorption while stimulating the retina)
2. The "transparency" has only to work for external viewer. Thus focusing and bending within the subject would still be possible. You'd only be able to detect something like that when doing traveltime comparisons for the light involved ...
BitBasher
QUOTE
1. The state of the being in question would still be a magical condition, that allows certain laws of physic not to work properly (like photon absorption while stimulating the retina)
You're dirrectly contradicting the fact that this spell is a manipulation and DOES inherintly affect physical light. It doesn;t have any "Magic caveat" to it, it's creating a physical manipulation of the energy.

QUOTE
2. The "transparency" has only to work for external viewer. Thus focusing and bending within the subject would still be possible. You'd only be able to detect something like that when doing traveltime comparisons for the light involved ...
Manipulations affect everything in their radius. You don't get it both ways. You're mixing illusion logic with manipulation logic.
Jrayjoker
Just a thought, ultrasound vision mods would still be affective for navigation.
Cochise
QUOTE (BitBasher)
You're dirrectly contradicting the fact that this spell is a manipulation and DOES inherintly affect physical light. It doesn;t have any "Magic caveat" to it, it's creating a physical manipulation of the energy.


Actually no, since I'm talking about the subject not the light itself wink.gif
I'm talking about a spell that affects physicla light by altering the way it behaves while passing through that object. All the spell has to cause is:

a) Allow physical light to be brought back onto the same angles and polarisations that the eye's lense has altered and
b) compensate the energy loss that is normally caused to the light that hits the retina

All that only for the small portion of light that actually hits the eye's lense ...

QUOTE
Manipulations affect everything in their radius.


Yes, but my proposal doesn't change anything about that ...

QUOTE
You don't get it both ways. You're mixing illusion logic with manipulation logic.


Again: No, I'm not mixing logic of both. But it appears that I'm not able to convey the idea properly ...

Try to think of a perfect periscope within the altered body that realligns all light that exits the body to the state it had when entering the body, while also compensating for the minimal energy loss that retinal activation requires. For any person observing the subject in question would 100% transparent, yet the subject would still be able to see ...
GrinderTheTroll
It would be a matter of House Ruling more than likely. Making the Target of the spell "blind" would be an interesting way of making it more limiting.
Shaudes29
OK here are the writups of the manipulation spell options.


Bend Light:
Spell causes light to bend around subject giving the appearance of being invisible. The amount of light that is bent around the subject can range from 0-100% Every sucsess adds 10% and a +1 to all perception test and ranged combat modififers. Max %=10*force of spell.
(NOTE: This spell does not effect any light or heat given of by target)

TN: 4 Drain +2L
Sustained Spell +1DT
Physical Spell +1DT
Minor Environmental Change (motion of light) L drain


Transparency :
Spell causes subject to be transparent to light giving the appearance of being invisible. The amount of light that is transmitted though the subject can range from 0-100% Every sucses adds 10% and a +1 to all perception test and ranged combat modififers. Max %=10*force of spell.
(NOTE: This spell does not effect any light or heat given of by target)

TN:B/O® Drain +2M
Sustained Spell +1DT
Physical Spell +1DT
Minor Physical change (appearance) M drain

to make ether of these effect thermals would require a +1 too +2 to DL
An additional +1 to DT or+1 to DL to prevent target from suffering from same penalties.
(Aditional note any test throu the target are at 10-#of secseses. Includes perseption and casting magic)


what do you guys think? sujested alterations?
GrinderTheTroll
QUOTE (Shaudes29)
Spell causes light to bend around subject giving the appearance of being invisible.

So does that mean these are Illusions and not Manipulations?
noneuklid
Huh.

Ok, addressing a few things.

Yes, I meant Ice Sheet. Sorry 'bout that. At any rate, ice sheet is a spell 'intended' to trip people, but it should fairly obviously have a secondary effect, even though it's not an elemental manipulation.

QUOTE
For the same reason you cannot target people with spells via electronic displays: you're not seeing the real Joe, you're seeing an illusion of him.


The point was, you'll hit the electronic display in that case- you're targeting what you see, which is the electronic display which is displaying Joe. Just like if you target an illusion of Joe- you'll hit what the illusion is covering.

QUOTE
That's a totally different issue in terms of game mechanics. The spell is not cast against the camera. It's cast against a living being (the person who becomes "invisible") and the camera is only affected by the result of that spell.


Actually, it is cast 'against' the camera- anything that observes an indirect illusion is a target of the spell. I'm not sure how you'd roll that in terms of the camera's resistance. The Force thing probably covers it, as has been brought up.

QUOTE
Now, the important question: In a reality defined by observations (see quantum physics), is there any true difference between something being invisible and every possible observer being tricked into believing that it is invisible? A sufficiently powerful improved invisibility will, by every objective measure, cause an object to not be visibly there.


Well. That's been my thing- is the spell editing effect or the observer? It seems like what the spell is doing is editing every observer- basically, the spell becomes a distinct 'entity' of sorts. The effect of this entity, as mfb has pointed out, is to sort of 'flow outwards' from its point of origin (the subject of the spell) and replace the observer's perception with whatever it would be if the object was actually not there. The spell records and replaces sensory data. The only 'huh?' factor left is if the spell allows this perception to reach the observer in the first place- basically, if you turn a red object invisible and throw it into a room full of "red object detectors" that react to reflected red light, will they go off or will the spell edit the perception data before it actually even reaches the sensors?

QUOTE
So if you cast Improved Invis. on a wall and as long as the illusion held up, you "see" what you think you should see on the other side of it, which would be interesting. [edit - So if expected to see guards, machine guns, bombs, etc., I would probably say you'd see those things because that's what you "think" is there since the spell is effecting your mind.]


Hell no. I can't even imagine the kind of mind that has the ability to create a truly realistic image of something it expects to see, in realtime. At best you'd get a hazy, dream-like image if that were the case (which would make, say, an invisible person pretty obvious as they're moving). I fully support the idea of spells that make you 'overlook' something, but they wouldn't stand up to scrutiny the same way an Invis spell does.

I'm also facinated by the True Invis spells that are popping up. I tend to agree that a 100% transparency doesn't necissarily mean blindness as the light could still register on photoreceptive materials (especially with the aid of magic), but likewise agree that a very large object would create noticable blurring as it moved.

However, it is far more interesting if the spell DOES render its target blind. There's no reason there can't be more than one version of the True Invis spell; they would have different drains and different side-effects.

Bending light is probably right out, though, since the light needs somewhere to *go* when it's bent, and so it wouldn't work from certain angles (as you moved towards above an invisible object that is touching the ground, it seems like you'd begin to see more and more of the object as the light fails to 'bend' around the surface in contact with the ground).
Shaudes29
No thay are manipulation spells. NOT ILLUSION SPELLS. So now you could cast spelsl thour but you would suffer the apropriat modifiers to your castign test.

And thay are not area efects eather so if you want it to make that stack of boxes clear for you to cast through youl need to make the spell an area spell whitch adds another +1DL corse you coudl make it limited to non-living ristricted target for a -1DT.


Transparency non-living area : F6(fetish)

TN:B/OŽ Drain +1S (drain 3S)
Sustained Spell +1DT
Physical Spell +1DT
Minor Physical change (appearance) M drain
Area Spell +1DL
Non-living -1DT

Target number 5 for boxes, asuming guns in boxes 8 for guns.
Was just looking over the perseption table and think that canging the modifiers by +2/1sucses ould be more resonable
10-#S*2

or
+1/sucses 5-S

so lets say the mage gets 2 sucseses at tn5 and most of the boxes are relativly empty. So thay are 40% transparent with a +4 to hit the efeted object and a +6 to target anything on the other side. Sounds touf dosent it.

or

+2 /+3

5 sucses considerd fully ivisable.


I would discuradge the bend light beging an area non-living only.
Fortune
QUOTE (noneuklid)
Yes, I meant Ice Sheet. Sorry 'bout that. At any rate, ice sheet is a spell 'intended' to trip people, but it should fairly obviously have a secondary effect, even though it's not an elemental manipulation.

The primary effect of Ice Sheet is creating a coating of ice. Any further consequences are not magical in nature.
noneuklid
Dunno about that. The only effect the spell talks about, besides melting, is "Characters crossing the sheet must make a Quickness (Force) test to avoid falling prone." That implies the slipping effect, yes, is magical in nature.
Fortune
The slipping is caused by the ice, not the actual magic involved (except that the magic created the ice in the first place). Note that Ice Sheet does not have a Cold damage secondary effect.
noneuklid
If it's caused by the ice, why is the target number the spell's Force?
Fortune
The Force determines how effective the covering is. If it's caused by the magic, why is the ice needed in the first place? Why isn't the spell called 'Trip'?

The spell creates a sheet of ice. The ice causes people to (possibly) trip, just as regular ice does.

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