Ok here is the situation in my current game, i have a player who will assense nearly anyone they have to work with. Runners/johnsons/ the strange bum outside the bar etc etc. Now is it possible to detect astral assensing or is there a limit to its usefulness? At the moment she does it to the point where she has an extensive knowledge of most of the people they have had contact with in the past or currently interact with.

Has anyone had this happen? I don't consider it to be a game breaking annoyance, im just curious.

Near as I can tell, no way to notice it save for a Watcher Spirit poking them and saying "HEY YOU'RE BEING ASSENSED BY [that guy]!"

And even then, it probably wouldn't work.

You're a Shadowrunner. You're supposed to be paranoid and try to find out everything about everybody you do business with.

I wish my group would assense more. Its an invaluable information gathering tool.

While doing it to everyone up to and including the bums oin the street might be a bit much, it might also be the smart thing to do.For instance, if you have reason to suspect you might be under surveillance, finding out that the bum next to you has cyber ears, a head transceiver, smartgun link, wired reflexes, and a GPS rig might just save your ass.

Assensing and Aura Reading does not give you the whole story about that person, but I would agree that it is a good tactic and it is working the way it should.

You won't know exactly what he has, but some things should be readily discernable just by their location (such as wired reflexes and perhaps a smartgun).

Of course, magic can defend against it. Masking ,watchers, etc. But it's very hard to spot if they have masking on (the assenser that is), because astral perception is covered by masking.
I use assensing when ever possible. As before, a lot of the time, you need every edge you can get to keep from walking into a bad situation. Want to make it more difficult for the team mage to guess if the Johnson's going to screw them over? Try having the meet in an area with a lot of background count, like areas in the barrens, or a very astrally active club (high emotions, the mage bars, etc). But it's hard to disguise a cybered sam around a mage with good assensing abilities.

I wasnt saying this is a bad tactic, in fact she has received a bonus karma point or two for assensing someone and using that information to formulate plans/ or figure out what was going on one step ahead of the group. I was just wondering what the average DS'er thought of it.

yeah you can see the exact location of the "dark spot" in the aura but not know the nature of it.

Yeah, a lot of the time you're guessing, but if he's got a dark spot on his hand, long dark lines in his arm and dark blobs where his eyes should be you can make a guess at probably a smartlink, cyberspurs and cybereyes. Of course, you could be wrong, but hey, nobody said this was an exact science

I think someone who did the Shadowrunning thing for a living could probably recognize common cyberware's effect on the subject's aura enough to identify it. I mean, that would be kind of important in their line of work.

GrindertheTroll, the Intelligence (10) test is made when an astrally projecting form passes through your aura. You can make to test to feel a chill or similar sensation. Main book, page 173.

BTW, I'm new to posting on these boards. How the heck do you get those quote containers to appear in messages?

You can either use the 'Quote' button situated on the upper right hand side of the post you want to quote, or you can do it manually by typing ...

i've always played it as such myself. the only thing about assensing that annoys me is that it doesn't help when you're piercing masking. brute force only; no room for finesse.

Assenssing one person is a simple action, tuning on your astral perception is a simple action, so on average you could say a normal mage takes one turn to assense one person. Someone staring intently at me in the metro for about 3 seconds can easily draw my attention. Most people purposefully avoid staring at anyone but their friends when in a public place. People who do stare often do it in order to establish eye contact and engage in a conversation. And those who just stare for no obvious reason... they tend to give you the creep. In some place, staring can be downright dangerous. "Yo, why you staring at my girl, you pervert?"

Many novels and fiction about SR mention that mage look at you weirdly when assenssing, as if they are looking through you.

In game term, some target should get an opportunity to notice that the mage is staring at him with some concentration, depending on the situation. In itself, it doesn't scream "Mage assessing aura!" but it is at least as noticeable as someone staring at you for any other reasons. And the mage would get the standard +2 to TN for any mundane action to disguise their attention with a stealth roll.

But aside from that and the risk involved in being present astrally (reduced if you know masking), it is only common sense to assense as much as you can get away with.

EDIT : Screw with your player a little if he assense too much. I once described a NPC who was known to have reasons to be angry at the mage walking toward him and looking positively furious. 'what do you do'? 'I assense him'. Well, he got a very good look at the emotional state of the NPC as he drew his gun to shoot at him. I had a good laugh about that.

i'm saying that a high skill in aura reading ought to help you pierce masking. i mean, aura reading is the skill of studying auras; masking is a technique that makes it harder to study your aura. you'd think they'd interact.

Ah. Good point. You could add aura reading as a complementary skill for the initiate trying to pierce the mask, I guess.

Actually it may just be me, but I don't see aura reading and masking related at all. All masking can change is the apparent status of magical activity of the person using it. It doesn't help him if someone assenses him to see if he is lying, or has cyber, or a disease, or anything else. All it does is stop the viewer from knowing he is magically active.

Tht's a good point. You know, now that I think about it it might be a cool idea to have some sort of Aura Disguing metamagic, based on Masking, which does allow you to do that sort of thing.

SO here's a question, DOES someone notice if there mask is pierced by an atral observer?

That's what I'd always thought, but I never really thought about it.
I guess my take, if the init. is DELIBERATELY masking, they could notice the break, since it's a lot more effort and personal attention being paid to it, but other wise not.

Perception test to notice someone staring rather intently?

I find excessive dice rolling to be irritating--and assensing everyone adds a lot of them. I'd suggest just taking half the PC's intelligence as successes (round down) for people where it doesn't matter. Actually roll for important ones. If you dont' want to tip you hand, you could do the rolls yourself and just do fake rolls for unimportant ones. The speed in reading the results might be a giveaway though.

Anyway... I know somewhere I read astral perception looks weird. You're a little unfocused, and sometimes you react to things that "aren't there". Further, you have to kind of stare at the person as you're trying to unravel things in their aura. It's kind of noticable--I'd definately give someone a perception check to notice.

Also, keep in mind a lot of mundanes aren't really comfortable around magic types--they don't have the gift, they don't understand it, and they can't defend against it. In other words, they're afraid of it. Also remember people in the shadows value their privacy. Sure, you're supposed to do your legwork when it comes to dealing with people, but not in front of their faces. I imagine if a PC was openly aura reading someone, it might very possibly be considered rude--it's like going through someone's wallet right in front of them. It might not have anything they want to hide, but all the same, they won't appreciate you doing it without permission.

yeah i would have to agree with the mages stare being an issue, but the only time this PC has done it she has been with a group and she stands behind the negotiator. Aside from being an elf she blends in decently so i havent had the NPC's flip out because this whack job elf is staring at them.... yet.