[Li]

Okay, so further explanation on why dual natured does actually possess serious drawbacks, as there seems to be some confusion on the subject of astral vs physical.

On the topic of mechanics of being able to see into the astral, let's go over what that can and cannot do:

-Looking through solid objects. Even objects that are physically transparent still exist on the Astral or else you get blind ghouls repeatedly walking into glass doors. And astral perception does not work through any physical object to prevent this humorous edge-case.

  There are no ranged weapons that function in astral space, so unarmed attacks, active weapon foci, and mana spells are the only options for astral combat. CRB 315

1) Somehow gain 30 meters of altitude so they can punch said mage/spirit/astral form in the face
2) Run away, break line of sight, crawl into a vent and force them to come to you.
3) Turn off astral perception.

Oh wait, Dual-Nature means you cannot turn off astral perception. This is one of the downsides, but it's none too serious. They can still use astral combat, except it's a game of rocket tag because

Damage inflicted from astral combat can be either Stun or Physical (attacker’s choice). Astral barriers can only be affected by Physical damage.

Which means that astral combat can further screw mundane soak tanks because the only roll you make to resist astral damage is your single stat of Willpower. Rocket tag, for those of you who don't know what game design is, means that everyone has the potential to kill everyone else in one hit, and the only way to really win is not to play. Not an option for the dual-natured, they're strapped in no matter what, and without their rocket launcher to boot!

Further, astral objects and barriers have very little relation to the physical plane, except where they do. If you want to deal with a mage or active spells/foci, what you do is put a mana barrier with high force in the elevator shaft (Example) or parking garage (Another example), or hell, just about any doorway. Three very common things in a sprawl, I would wager. And, according to the astral intersections,

Disruption means different consequences for different things. Disrupted spells and rituals end, disrupted preparations lose their spell and become mundane, disrupted mana barriers collapse, disrupted foci deactivate, disrupted spirits are banished, and disrupted living creatures are knocked unconscious with a full Stun Condition Monitor. Any permanent mana barrier that is disrupted regains all its Structure at the end of the Combat Turn.

This same test of Magic+Charisma[Astral]vs Forcex2 is that skill test I believe was cited earlier, in order to pass through without disruption, except it's still equally impossible and will take a dual-natured person easily a minute to try and get through the door, Ghost help you if you come in contact with anything higher than a Force 4 mana barrier. And even that would give you a hard time where a mage would simply have a spirit punch through.

Because of this, the only opportunity you really have to play any dual-natured character is a charisma mage or social adept, otherwise you're stuck rolling at barriers until the sun comes up or you get exceedingly lucky with limited dice on literally any other character concept. I want my ghoul street sam, dammit, but it's literally impossible to play anything but an Awakened face or a mage under the dual-nature rules, else you're going to come into far too many issues. Also, you need good willpower and agility, in order to both fight off spirits that are stupid enough to engage in fisticuffs with you when they can use Elemental Attack, and run away into a vent or something, rabbit punching all who come near. Not a major drawback in the least.

[dezmont]

Well these are high stakes decisions being made for every table in SR. Can't let anything be left unsaid!

I agree shifters right now are a bit wonky, for the reasons you mentioned. In fact there seem to be two playstyles of shifter right now: The 'I am a bear/cow/lion adept' who builds entirely around their shifted form and invests in gear for that form, because their metahuman attributes don't help them at all they must shift all the time in combat, and the 'fox/dog/sometimes wolf' mage build that pretty much only shifts when it is perfectly safe to do so for very minor stat boosts, so they don't ever expose themselves without armor.

I think dual natured seriously is a kiss of death quality. Pretty much every 'advantage' of it isn't an advantage at all, it is a mitigating factor of being forced to be on the astral plane at all times. Yes, you can use unarmed to fight back, but most PCs never *need* to fight back. Yes, you can see wards ahead of time, but most magical types don't care about moving through a ward, spells and foci are easy enough to bring up and anywhere warded is also anywhere with enough magical security to have a watcher screw a dual natured PC anyway. Yes, you can avoid the -2 dual action penalty, but acting on both planes is rare and pretty much only shows up in blind mage builds.

Regeneration+dual natured is a problem because it entirely changes how 5e shifters play on very fundemental levels. The only reason we have been given for changing it to be like that is to undo edition updates, which are common in SR for game balance purposes. There has been no real attempt to explain why dual natured and regen are more iconic to shifters than them being urban survivors with an alien outlook torn between two identites, something irreparably harmed by forcing them to astrally percieve 24/7.

Regen, contrary to what you think, isn't actually that strong. Yes, it makes you impossible to hurt by smallarms fire, but so does good soak, which is cheaper to obtain. No one is arguing that troll soak tanks, which are mechanically in most ways identical to regeneration or even superior, should be given dual natured to help people hurt them...

Because soak isn't really the only stat you get attacked on even by mundane foes. Gas alone screws a regenerator, as do weapon foci, which are rare, and mage spells, also rare. But spirits are not rare and unlike with soak a spirit attack entirely bypasses regeneration.

That isn't to say regeneration isn't potent. But it isn't some pancea that makes shifters suddenly good despite being literally made into worse versions of vampires.

And vampires have much more minor disadvantages. Sunlight allergies are not significant in a 24/7 city like seattle, and you need to get downright contrived to force it to matter (Johnson calls a meet 1 hour before the deadline? Yeah, walking there buddy, have fun with that). Even if it does, you can simply use an alleviate allergy spell to make it not relevant for getting about. Considering most conflicts in SR either take place in a facility or in areas of urban decay, meaning shade is not a rare commodity, and at night to boot, the fact that daylight can't be used in a gun is sorta a step up.

Then there is the 'weakness' of essence drain. Which in SR? Is outright an advantage, hands down. Anonymous murder is established as a super common issue, and no PC tier vampire will have any problem walking into the barrens, consuming a ganger or rapist or drugdealer for almost all of its essence, killing them, and dumping their body in the sewers for the rats to eat. In any other setting this would be an angst filled action, but in SR one of the selling points of the setting is that the world has gotten so crazy that violence against the established social orders, governmental, corporate, and criminal, is a valid and ethical form of resistance.

So now we got a PC option that is priced lower than shifters, with arguably more minor disadvantages, all of the same advantages, better statlines, and on top of that they can use all of these benefits all the time. Oh, and they can suddenly pump up to magic 12 whenever they want after a trip to the barrens to get a snack.

It may be impossible to achieve full balance, but lets not sugar coat it, there should be at least an attempt to look honestly at what is being done and how it works out mechanically. This is literally a case where one option is just straight superior but for some reason cheaper.

As I said, shadowrun demographics do not have to match general population demographics.  It's OK for 1/4 runners to be a mage, for instance.  But still nudges in certain directions are good.  In previous editions, you would often have no one playing as humans.  Now, in 5th, the game does a good job (maybe slightly too good) of making human a better choice for most builds than metahumans.  It's good to have the majority of the players bee human. 

1: That really isn't good, that is kinda annoying, and really shouldn't be enforced so heavy handedly with mechanics.

2: The second most common metatype should be orks, but it is not.

3: Dwarves by this logic should be about as rare as shifters and vampires, because they are only 2% of the population

4: In no way are metasapients common PCs. It isn't even close to a problem yet. If no one is currently playing a metasapient, talks about making them rarer make no sense and really just confirm everyone's suspicions this is pretense to enforce personal table morality.

[Voro]

stuuuuuffff....

Wow, um, that's a lot of words. 

You seem to be arguing that Dual Natured is some sorta crippling disadvantage.  I see some disagreement on whether it is, on balance, a slightly good thing or slightly bad thing, but I don't see anyone else agreeing with you that it is some sort of huge disadvantage that more than makes up for regeneration, various stat buffs, etc.

Guess I'll be the first.

Let's go ahead and look at what Dual Natured does.

A dual natured creature is active in both the astral and the physical at the same time. They're capable of perceiving and interacting with both worlds at once, and do not take the -2 penalty a normal mundane takes for being active on both.

So, compared to a dude who's assensing, Dual Natured gives you +2 dice to actions on the physical plane.

On the other hand, the dude who's assensing can turn it off. As it happens, this is a pretty big deal. First, it's rare that one will be forced to assense and perform actions on the physical plane at the same time, particularly in an instance where the assensing is not being used to get around a worse penalty (such as assensing in a pitch-black room to take a -2 in combat rather than the -6 or -10 from darkness and other possible factors.) This degrades the positive value of Dual Natured greatly, making it very, very niche.

Unfortunately, that's all the positives Dual Natured has going for it. What are it's downsides for an intrepid shadowrunner?

Well, first, you stand out in a crowd. Even a watcher construct will casually and easily pick you out from a crowd. Random spirits or assensing mages will pick you out similarly, automatically tagging you for extra scrutiny from security as someone who is definitely magical. This is pretty bad in and of itself, but the fun's just getting started.

Second, you're vulnerable to attack. The same entities who are capable of spotting you out from a crowd are also going to be able to send assault after you - assault you'll frequently be able to do nothing about. Sure, you can train Astral Combat, if you have the willpower and charisma necessary, or you can even forego that and use your natural weapons. However, astral combat has a critical downside, and you as a meat-creature have another. Astral combat is melee only. You can only move as fast as your agility allows you to. Any astral being is going to be capable of performing hit and run attacks on you using astral combat that you'll barely be able to react to, assuming they don't one-shot you before you have a chance. This is entirely discounting the possibility of a hostile magician or spirit of man simply flying above you, out of reach, and plinking a few manabolts at you until you die. A force 5 manabolt can keep 5 hits - far more than anyone can reliably keep - and inflicts only 2 drain on the caster - low enough to be trivial - meaning that the eventual weight of odds means you'll die, and the mage might have a box or two of stun for their troubles.

That's not the worst bit, though. "But Voro, that can literally kill me with me unable to act in response, how does it get worse?"

The worst bit is dealing with mana barriers. Unlike a mage with foci or sustained spells, you're always active on the astral, so you'll typically have an opportunity to spot them before they run into you (though not always - elevators, cars, and other things that can trip up even an alert mage can trip you up in the same way.) On the other hand, the stakes are much higher. If unnoticed - like one placed over an elevator shaft, or across a roadway or other path for motor vehicles - a mana barrier will roll opposed rolls against anything active on the astral, with the loser (or tied party) in each roll being turned off - and the creator of the barrier being informed of the intrusion. For active foci, turning them back on is a simple action. Trivial, though still a hassle in that it alerts security, albeit with a delay for the mage to send the comm message to the right place and all that. For sustained spells, it's more of a hassle. You have to recast, hope you get as many hits as you wanted, and suffer drain again... and if you used background counts or reagents to your favor for your limit, you'll have to spend more reagents to get it going again.

Unfortunately, when a dual natured creature is turned off, well, that's a bit harder to fix, since their stun track is filled and they're knocked unconscious. Even if this isn't direct cause to abort the mission, it's a terrible inconvenience, possibly a lethal one.

How do you avoid doing this? It's simple. Stop in front of the barrier (if that's even possible) and try to slowly ease your way through, making a Magic + Charisma [Astral] test opposed by (Force of the Barrier * 2).

Simple, but not easy. Even casually guarded facilities will have a force 6 barrier, with secure facilities easily reaching 8, 10, 12, 14, or even higher over sensitive areas. If you didn't select a magic priority, you have almost no magic, and if you're not using Charisma for anything else, that's likely low too, so even a force 4 barrier will give you difficulties, much less anything seriously employed by security. Even if you're a charisma tradition mage, you're chucking 12-16 dice at most, and if your GM is particularly strict on the interpretation, a failure will force an intersection and risk unconsciousness.

Now, remember that most buildings in the 6th world will have some kind of astral security, which will likely involve at least a low-to-mid force ward over at the very least the back room and secure areas, and you can see where the day-to-day life for an intrepid criminal who is dual natured might be difficult at best.

tl;dr - if people don't think Dual Natured is a big negative, they don't understand Dual Natured

[dezmont]

There is also the fact that a security mage can literally just send force 2 spirits to repeatedly attack you infinitely until you die, eating up at least one action pass for every 1 the mage spends.

Using astral combat to fight off security spirits is sorta like a decker fighting IC. You can do it, but you basically have to either get to running silent or log off to get anything done once you start smashing. But mages normally 'log off' by turning off astral perception.

[Sir_Prometheus]

tl;dr - if people don't think Dual Natured is a big negative, they don't understand Dual Natured

I really understand dual natured. (I've been playing mages since 1st edition)  Several of the concerns you have mentioned are overwrought.  For one thing, it doesn't make you as visible as you're suggesting, and even then not necessarily noticeably different than any randomly perceiving mage.  I will also point out that Masking is available to initiatites. 

It does bring up the point that shadowrun needs rules for Magic increase and maybe some metamagic by creatures who are dual natured but not either adepts or mages.  Yeah, currently, if you're playing something dual natured, and not using the adept of mage powers, you're doing it wrong. 

Generally speaking, statements like "the guards will notice you and blow you away" are apocryphal. 

[Voro]

Several of the concerns you have mentioned are overwrought.  For one thing, it doesn't make you as visible as you're suggesting, and even then not necessarily noticeably different than any randomly perceiving mage.  I will also point out that Masking is available to initiatites.

You glow on the astral, as opposed to everyone else who is a dull light at best. You stand out, the text is very clear on this. And masking does not allow you to appear as if you're not present on the Astral, only to appear as something other than what you are. And is only available to initiates. Which requires you to have chosen magic as a priority, which is shoe-horning in anyone who is dual-natured and restricting actual choices.

It also doesn't at all address the concerns of people being able to kill you with you being able to do nothing in turn, nor the problems I detailed relating to mana barriers. You only made an effort to argue against the weakest of the three downsides I detailed.

EDIT: To be clear, I don't think a dual natured person would be immediately shot by guards. But they would have attention paid to them the entire time they were in the facility, the same as any other walking weapon ought to be. That's attention that isn't desirable, and it isn't gated by having your aura actually read, like it is for most awakened (and that blocked by Masking)

[dezmont]

Also dual natured works very differently from 4e on than it did in 3e. In 4e and 5e, especially because spirits are now a pretty casual thing, being dual natured is less 'I am a magical creature who works equally well on both planes, as long as I got a mage at my back I am good!' and is now more 'I am half a spirit in almost all of the worst ways. I literally can drop dead going down an elevator or on a car ride.''

[Sterling]

EDIT: To be clear, I don't think a dual natured person would be immediately shot by guards. But they would have attention paid to them the entire time they were in the facility, the same as any other walking weapon ought to be. That's attention that isn't desirable, and it isn't gated by having your aura actually read, like it is for most awakened (and that blocked by Masking)

Here's my big issue with your complaints; Shapeshifters are not dual-natured people. They're dual-natured animals. Damn straight any guard worth his salt is going to pay attention to an animal wandering around where it might harm real people.

You want to play a wild animal that's essentially learned a neat form of camouflage that's fine, but you have to accept that's what you're doing.

[Sir_Prometheus]

You glow on the astral, as opposed to everyone else who is a dull light at best. You stand out, the text is very clear on this. [

Actually, no, the text has always been super unclear on how visible relative things are on the astral, whether stealth of any kind is possible, and all of that.  It doesn't even say that they glow "brighter".  All it says is that a perceiving character is "obvious".  What "obvious" means in this context has never been detailed.

And masking does not allow you to appear as if you're not present on the Astral

Also unclear.   You can quote whatever text you feel is "definitive" if you like on either of these subjects.  I've had a GM argue you could Mask an aura to simply not be there on the astral.  I don't actually think it works like that, but it's not clear how it does work. 

It also doesn't at all address the concerns of people being able to kill you with you being able to do nothing in turn, nor the problems I detailed relating to mana barriers.

Spirits fighting a perceiving physical character is not air support vs a ground target.  As to why it's not:  *hand wavy metaphysics*.   Truth is it just wouldn't work, otherwise.  If the spirit can attack the physical character, the physical character can attack back.  Maybe there's some Heisenberg uncertainty to the spirits position.  It can either be "local", or "not".  Like a node.  The spirit can "run away" quite easily but it doesn't get to make drive by attacks.  Otherwise there'd be no point and the system isn't setup like that. 

Wards aren't that common, and high force ones are expensive.  They can also just be plain destroyed in astral combat, btw, not that hard.  Back in the day, they used to fight back!  Certainly does pose some infiltration problems. 

I think dezmont mentioned force 2 spirits summoned ad infinitum...........which would do 2 dmg.  Gimme a break. 

Like I said, "your concerns are overwrought".  That doesn't mean they're nonexistent, and I was trying to avoid going through them all one by one.  Many of your assumptions are not true. 

[Voro]

You glow on the astral, as opposed to everyone else who is a dull light at best. You stand out, the text is very clear on this. [

Actually, no, the text has always been super unclear on how visible relative things are on the astral, whether stealth of any kind is possible, and all of that.  It doesn't even say that they glow "brighter".  All it says is that a perceiving character is "obvious".  What "obvious" means in this context has never been detailed.

I do think that "obvious" would indicate that you are, you know, obvious. Easily discernible, noticed casually, whatever.

And masking does not allow you to appear as if you're not present on the Astral

Also unclear.   You can quote whatever text you feel is "definitive" if you like on either of these subjects.  I've had a GM argue you could Mask an aura to simply not be there on the astral.  I don't actually think it works like that, but it's not clear how it does work. 

So... you don't think that's how it works, except in this particular case, because it works against my point? Even if one's GM does believe that's how it works, it doesn't change the fact that all dual-natured creatures are shoehorned into being magicians, or at least adepts.

It also doesn't at all address the concerns of people being able to kill you with you being able to do nothing in turn, nor the problems I detailed relating to mana barriers.

Spirits fighting a perceiving physical character is not air support vs a ground target.  As to why it's not:  *hand wavy metaphysics*.   Truth is it just wouldn't work, otherwise.  If the spirit can attack the physical character, the physical character can attack back.  Maybe there's some Heisenberg uncertainty to the spirits position.  It can either be "local", or "not".  Like a node.  The spirit can "run away" quite easily but it doesn't get to make drive by attacks.  Otherwise there'd be no point and the system isn't setup like that. 

Even disregarding the capacity for drive-by attacks, they can still make an Astral Combat attack against you before you can react, which is a *tremendous* advantage, even if you make your surprise check, as astral combat is basically rocket tag unless you're a dragon or a high-initiation adept specced for it. And it does nothing to contest their ability to manabolt you to death at their leisure.

Wards aren't that common, and high force ones are expensive.  They can also just be plain destroyed in astral combat, btw, not that hard.  Back in the day, they used to fight back!  Certainly does pose some infiltration problems. 

Wards are "An extremely cost-effective method of magical protection" and "they are inexpensive as magical protections go." In fact, they're "one of the most basic services magical contractors provide", and "competition has driven the price of magical barriers down to the point that nearly any corporation or organization will be able to afford them."

So, no, not expensive. And sure, they can be destroyed in astral combat, if you can deal enough damage to destroy them in one turn. Which requires you to be a high-charisma character focused on astral combat, which, again, shoehorning. And honestly, even then it's sketchy.

Oh, and they can still fight back, if they're one of the fancier ones in Street Grimoire, though those probably do cost more.

I think dezmont mentioned force 2 spirits summoned ad infinitum...........which would do 2 dmg.  Gimme a break.

If you're swamped by force 2 spirits, you're unable to do anything but be pecked apart by them or spend all your time fighting them off, until such a time as some form of reinforcements come around, at which point you'll likely be partially injured anyway. It's not really the most viable way for a few reasons, but the principle is not entirely unsound. Even 2 damage can hurt if you can't keep it from being applied repeatedly, at least when your soak pool is only your willpower.

Like I said, "your concerns are overwrought".  That doesn't mean they're nonexistent, and I was trying to avoid going through them all one by one.  Many of your assumptions are not true.

I respectfully disagree.


----

EDIT: Forgot to address this post.

Here's my big issue with your complaints; Shapeshifters are not dual-natured people. They're dual-natured animals. Damn straight any guard worth his salt is going to pay attention to an animal wandering around where it might harm real people.

You want to play a wild animal that's essentially learned a neat form of camouflage that's fine, but you have to accept that's what you're doing.

Actually, they're not dual natured animals as it stands in SR5. They're animals, yes, but if they're going to be an option at all, they should at least be a passably viable one, and making them dual natured would make them effectively not. If you want to ban them because you don't feel they fit the theme of SR, sure, go ahead, but do it at your table, and call it what it is, don't try to skirt around that by making them grossly ineffective for everyone through errata.

[dezmont]

Actually, no, the text has always been super unclear on how visible relative things are on the astral, whether stealth of any kind is possible, and all of that.  It doesn't even say that they glow "brighter".  All it says is that a perceiving character is "obvious".  What "obvious" means in this context has never been detailed.

Not to be cute, but I think the meaning and intent is obvious.

Also:

Anything active on the astral plane, including spirits, active foci, dual-natured beings, etc., has a tangible astral form. These forms are more colorful and brighter than auras, as they are astrally “real.”

Also unclear.   You can quote whatever text you feel is "definitive" if you like on either of these subjects.  I've had a GM argue you could Mask an aura to simply not be there on the astral.  I don't actually think it works like that, but it's not clear how it does work.

The core text is definitive. GMs are allowed to be wrong all they want...

...however... you are not wrong here! In this case, you are correct in that it is totally unclear. That said allowing masking to conceal astral forms has a ton of super intense effects beyond just helping out dual natured PCs, specifically it means that mages can astrally percieve an area without alerting spirits, which makes mages much stronger as they can now more easily know if it is safe to cast in areas they don't control without aid of other archtypes. It also is important to note that there is no way to casually see through masking without a major action, meaning that in astral combat if someone was masked there is literally no way to spot them without eating a turn. You basically totally ruin astral activity allowing active auras to mask without further changing how fast one can assense... and that would be a pretty major change to do just to justify the mechanical balance of dual natured on underpowered metasapeints!

It also doesn't at all address the concerns of people being able to kill you with you being able to do nothing in turn, nor the problems I detailed relating to mana barriers.

Spirits fighting a perceiving physical character is not air support vs a ground target.

You aren't physical. You are dual natured. You are 100% a valid target for a spirit air bombing you, so it in in fact air support vs a ground target... who can't shoot back or get most of his allies to shoot back.

  As to why it's not:  *hand wavy metaphysics*.

I hope you will not be offended if I say this is not an acceptable counter argument and that I am not going to even bother getting into detail on it because you are essentially saying that the rules don't need to function to function.

Wards aren't that common, and high force ones are expensive.  They can also just be plain destroyed in astral combat, btw, not that hard.  Back in the day, they used to fight back!  Certainly does pose some infiltration problems.

Wards are actually exceptionally common lore wise. Destroying a ward basically alerts your target which means a dual natured PC has the option of sitting in the car, and avoiding that at all costs was literally a stated design goal of 5e, or trying to press through, or ruining the run for sneaky types.

I think dezmont mentioned force 2 spirits summoned ad infinitum...........which would do 2 dmg.  Gimme a break.

2 damage times infinity is a lot of damage to be fair, especially because you can only soak with willpower 

A willpower 6 PC with 5 intuition, logic, and charisma has a 5% chance to take anywhere from 1 to 3 DV each pass. Assuming the average of 2 damage each hit and the spirits acting fast enough to get 2.5 combat passes on the astral, pretty low to be fair, the dual natured PC has 3 minutes to find and neutralize the mage before dying, assuming that they become incapacitated at 10 physical boxes. If the mage projects and hurls stun bolts at the poor shifter or vampire or, firebringer forbid, naga, that time will be dramatically reduced.

A bit less of a joke now, that 2 damage. Only way to avoid that fate is to become a adept or mystic adept with a serious investment in mystic armor, which is literally one of the worst adept powers in the game.

Like I said, "your concerns are overwrought".  That doesn't mean they're nonexistent, and I was trying to avoid going through them all one by one.  Many of your assumptions are not true.

Except I just proved a few are and your only counter to some is 'despite working that way in the rules I am imagining it doesn't work that way.

The reason literally no one I have talked to believes you are sincerely trying to fix their thematic consistency is twofold:

1: Shifters don't have a strong thematic link to dual natured. It makes you a half spirit, and dilutes the actual thematic conflict shifters face which is a pull between the animal and human worlds. You can't have that pull if it isn't even possible to consider integrating into a metahuman identity, there is a reason Stripes doesn't focus on the legendary assassin micromanaging her reaction to barriers and background counts as opposed to saving her child from a world that sees them as monsters despite their desire to remain isolated.

2: If this was really about consistency we wouldn't be completely ignoring the actual mechanical issues shifters have that make their writing borderline incoherent. The provisional errata would have far more content than just 'regeneration, silver, dual natured, done.'

3: There are claims these archtypes are somehow shockingly common and popular when they really aren't and if anything are underepresented right now.

All of these combined scream disingenuity, and even if you are being 100% sincere 2 absolutely needs to be adressed. No one can even begin to consider this an errata effort if no one is trying to plug the writing holes in the actual mechanics because they are too busy trying to convince everyone they have their best interests at heart over a frankly mechanically unnecessary change who's rational constantly changes.

[Novocrane]

What "obvious" means in this context has never been detailed.

Like physical perception, you don’t need to make a test to see things that are immediately obvious (and since astral forms are bright and vibrant, this means that most astral forms are easy to spot).

[Sir_Prometheus]

I'm not going to debate all that in detail, so just a few points.  Most of this is directed at dezmont

* "Obvious" is not a synonym for "glowing" and particularly not "shining brighter than all the other generall glowing stuff".  An assault rifle strapped across someone's back is "obvious", that doesn't mean it's glowing like a lighthouse, it means if you look at the guy, you're going to see he has a rifle on his back, and you don't have to roll a perception test.  WHich isn't even the same as saying you'll notice it -- you may not look at the guy.  People miss "obvious" stuff all the time.  A lot of this is a question of "active" versus "passive" noticing.

* If you're going to say that the text is "definitive" you should quote the text.

* Fending off those dmg 2 attacks --It's Body, not willpower, you aren't projecting.  (They didn't do good job, like many things, detailing that in 5th, but the "astral attributes" are for pure astral forms only.  A dual natured dragon still has body 40, or whatever it is)

* I find it more believable that Masking can make it look like you aren't perceiving/dual natured than that you aren't there at all.  EIther way, it's undefined.  Stealth on the atral in general, is undefined. 

* The air support thing just doesn't work that way.  Never worked that way.  It mostly doesn't work that way because it would be dumb and unworkable if it did.  Metaphysics is not physics.  That is, really, why astral combat is a different skill than regular combat, because things work differently.  If you want to argue about the rules in some different version of the game, then you can go about doing that then.  You can have projecting magicians using weapon foci spears to poke each other through walls (or better, a scythe, that way you can sweep) and all that fun stuff.  Skip astral combat, just let them use their polearm skill.  But shadowrun doesn't work that way. 

*Dual-natured isn't supposed to denote something "half spirit" lots of random paranormal animals have it, and it seems like more and more of them have as time went on. 

*For that matter, Shifters always have been described as "half-spirit".  Specifically, in previous editions, it was supposed to be easy to tell they were shifters, becasue their astral form would always be whatever form they weren't using physically.  I.e. if they were standing there as a human, you could see their bear form on the astral, or vice versa.  Soooooo......that's just completely, utterly wrong

*Who's being disingenuous?  Me?

*I'm really sorry you won't get to play your init +5d6 regeneratin Tiger street sam who never has to worry about astral barriers. 

[dezmont]

I'm not going to debate all that in detail, so just a few points.  Most of this is directed at dezmont

Cool.

* "Obvious" is not a synonym for "glowing" and particularly not "shining brighter than all the other generall glowing stuff".  An assault rifle strapped across someone's back is "obvious", that doesn't mean it's glowing like a lighthouse, it means if you look at the guy, you're going to see he has a rifle on his back, and you don't have to roll a perception test.  WHich isn't even the same as saying you'll notice it -- you may not look at the guy.  People miss "obvious" stuff all the time.  A lot of this is a question of "active" versus "passive" noticing.

Someone just posted a direct quote proving that active astral forms can instantly be spotted in the astral. So I don't think I really need to adress this, considering the core rulebook outright says 'you get spotted if you are astrally active, have fun.'

* If you're going to say that the text is "definitive" you should quote the text.

I didn't quote the text because, as I said, you are right in that there is nothing in there that says masking doesn't work the way you think it does.

* Fending off those dmg 2 attacks --It's Body, not willpower, you aren't projecting.  (They didn't do good job, like many things, detailing that in 5th, but the "astral attributes" are for pure astral forms only.  A dual natured dragon still has body 40, or whatever it is)

Cool. You still die in about 3 minutes with literally the best stats possible. Faster if the mage summons spirit of man.

* I find it more believable that Masking can make it look like you aren't perceiving/dual natured than that you aren't there at all.  EIther way, it's undefined.  Stealth on the atral in general, is undefined. 

Agreed. It is insanely unclear at the moment and no interpretation is really going to please everyone here.

* The air support thing just doesn't work that way.  Never worked that way.  It mostly doesn't work that way because it would be dumb and unworkable if it did.  Metaphysics is not physics.  That is, really, why astral combat is a different skill than regular combat, because things work differently.  If you want to argue about the rules in some different version of the game, then you can go about doing that then.  You can have projecting magicians using weapon foci spears to poke each other through walls (or better, a scythe, that way you can sweep) and all that fun stuff.  Skip astral combat, just let them use their polearm skill.  But shadowrun doesn't work that way. 

Ok apparently you just didn't get my point.

"It is dumb and I don't like it working that way despite it clearly working that way mechanically" is not an argument. The fact that something is inconvenient to you does not make it less true. Nothing about astral movement makes it so that you can't make a hit and run attack. Nothing in the astral combat section even comes close to implying that you can't do this. The idea that it isn't possible is nowhere in the text, its not even alluded to being untrue, and so because it exists as a natrual ramification of the rules we are going to keep treating it as true. Because it is true. Even though that hurts your argument.

Also, that isn't even the thing people are criticizing. Even if the spirit holds still, you just can't defend yourself against a spirit floating 30 feet above you. You have no recourse as a non-mage, at all. This isn't even slightly ambiguous.

*Dual-natured isn't supposed to denote something "half spirit" lots of random paranormal animals have it, and it seems like more and more of them have as time went on. 

*For that matter, Shifters always have been described as "half-spirit".  Specifically, in previous editions, it was supposed to be easy to tell they were shifters, becasue their astral form would always be whatever form they weren't using physically.  I.e. if they were standing there as a human, you could see their bear form on the astral, or vice versa.  Soooooo......that's just completely, utterly wrong

That hasn't been true for two editions because of changes to how magic works. Too much has mechanically changed to keep the game in perfect stasis. We can't pretend this is 3e. If you want to write for 3e, there is a 3e section of the forums. However this is 5e with its own mechanical realities.

*Who's being disingenuous?  Me?

Yes. You still fail to address the very serious criticism that this errata is completely ignoring major errata content to overfocus on reverting to 3e. Do you even know about the edge issue or the movement tables? Do you even care? It seems pretty clear to all observers you don't, because you won't even consider talking about them. One of your core arguments is also 'I don't like the ramifications this fact has on my argument so I will argue that it is simply untrue because I say so.

*I'm really sorry you won't get to play your init +5d6 regeneratin Tiger street sam who never has to worry about astral barriers.

No one wants regeneration either, if you didn't notice. It is just a compromise because some people are ridiculously upset that people have fun the way they want at their own tables.

Thank you for outing your true colors. I think this was an illuminating conversation for everyone.

[Reaver]

Everyone seems to forget that spirits in astral space MUST use mana based attacks, or melee combat. If it uses melee combat, then you can attack it back. If it uses mana spells, block its line of sight.


Really, this is the "Nerf guns cause my melee combat character dies all the time" whine, except over dual natured status.

there are pros and cons to it.


Suck. It. Up.

Vamps and dual natured, ghouls are dual natured. 80% of the para-critters are dual natured..... and yet there are not exploding critters left and right all over the city and countryside... hmmmmmm......