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Questions about Quickening in Missions

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Hobbes

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« Reply #15 on: <06-20-18/1114:28> »
Uh... in Neo-Tokyo doesn't your SIN get burned if your Astral signature get spotted during a crime?  There is simply no way to enforce that across multiple tables...

Hey Bob, sorry, burned your SIN on my last run.  Hope you've got extras.

evilaustintom

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« Reply #16 on: <06-20-18/1226:02> »
Masked is real hard to validate, since there's a restriction on how many you can Mask. So 'you bought a Quickened spell and the gm signed off on it', sure. But 'the seller has explicitly logged each Masked spell and the GM knows in advance to know how many spells they can still mask in that run, and the current GM can rely on that the #masked was validated properly by the previous GM', not very much.

I don't have my books in front of me, but I believe Extended Masking covers a limited number of focuses...but there is no stated limit on spells.

Quote from: Marcus
You can't "Force" it.  You could probably dispel it, should they fail to live up to their end of the deal, but the whole things hover much to close to pvp imo.

I agree.  This is completely a voluntary thing.  It would work well for the groups that play together a lot - such as the pirate elves.  Or you just agree to a low amount.  <shrug>  There are limits in Missions play, and you have to work within those limits...so if that means coordinating to play together, then that's what you do.  There are 14 new missions out - a lot of opportunities to get together.

Personally, I gave my contact information to everyone (and got their own contact info), so we can coordinate together.
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Ktonberry249

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« Reply #17 on: <06-20-18/1252:55> »
I have always applied the same limit of force(up to your magic) and number(up to your initiate grade) to spells just as i would to foci with extended masking. I don't see that it works as intended any other way. The "items" is referencing all new uses that extended masking applies to, but i think its definitely something that needs a concrete ruling on since the above  interpretation is not something i have ever heard.

"Extended masking extends your masking to include anchored, sustained, or quickened spells; imbued or attuned items; or alchemical preparations that are in the magician’s possession. The magician may mask a number of items up to his initiate grade (this is in addition to bonded foci). Each item masked in this way must have a Force less than the magician’s Magic attribute. As per the masking rules, an Opposed Assensing test is required to view such items. If the observer fails to gain any net hits, the masked items appear to the observer as normal fluctuations in the background count."

adzling

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« Reply #18 on: <06-20-18/1301:22> »
urm masking only applies to the magician's own aura.

you can't mask someone else's (nor flux nor any other metamagic have applied to it).

so masking quickened spells cast on other people is clearly not possible.

regardless missions should just outright ban quickening, most mission GMs apparently have no idea how to handle quickening properly (i.e. you can't just walk around with quickened combat spells, or any really, without drawing  attention) + it's that borked.

Xenon

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« Reply #19 on: <06-20-18/1424:32> »
Masking applies to the magicians own aura.

Masking also applies to the magicians own astral form (while using astral perception or astral projection the magician can change his or her astral form so it look like another astral form; for example the astral form of a spirit or an active focus).

Masking also applies to the aura of up to initiate grade number of bounded foci (no requirement on the force or that they have to be in the magician’s possession).


My take on this is that you may use Masking to hide the magical aura of your non-active bounded foci from other magicians (by making them look mundane) but you cannot hide or change their astral form once you activate them.




Extended Masking applies to the aura of active (explicitly anchored, sustained and quickened) spells (no requirement on number of spells, the force of the spells nor that the target of the spells have to be the magician).

Extended Masking also applies to the aura of up to initiate grade number of imbued or attuned items and alchemical preparations that are in the magician’s possession (in addition to bounded foci). Force of the items must be less than the magician's Magic



Personally I don't think Extended Masking make sense since both active spells and alchemical preparations have astral forms. Changing the aura so it look mundane would be pointless since the astral form would be obvious for anyone that can sense the astral.

Even if it was changed so that you can use Extended Masking to also change the astral form to another astral form (so an active spell look like an active focus or an alchemical preparations look like a spirit) will not really help you look mundane either.

My guess is that it is not the same author that wrote Masking that wrote Extended Masking....

Hobbes

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« Reply #20 on: <06-20-18/1956:45> »
"...To evade HTR Teams, characters must clear any evidence of their presence first and then depart from the
location. Failure to clear evidence of their presence results in all active Fake SINs being immediately burned. Anyone
operating under a real SIN is arrested after completion of the Mission. Evidence includes astral signatures, video
footage, and eyewitnesses who can recognize the characters later. If their SIN has already been burned due to failing
a SIN check, they do not lose an additional SIN..."

To my earlier point.  Any survivors that were able to Assense the team will result in a burned SIN for the Mage that quickened a spell.  That seems somewhere between difficult and impossible to account for.  Especially for a wandering Mage at a Con that'll possibly never be seen again. 

Marcus

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« Reply #21 on: <06-20-18/2219:26> »
How do you link an Astral Signature to a SIN?
As I understand it, You can't put an Astral Signature into a database, you ether make the Assensing test to learn it and later recognize it, or you don't. Now you can do some fairly trouble some stuff to locate a mage with a given signature; so sure if a mage cop gets your signature you got problems. But I'm not sure I follow how that burns a SIN?

They show up and you're like naa Bro, it wasn't me. it was some other dude with my totally unique astral signature?
« Last Edit: <06-20-18/2221:26> by Marcus »
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Hobbes

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« Reply #22 on: <06-21-18/1024:28> »
"...Failure to clear evidence..."  Presumably there is a time period of investigation where the runners are tracked down and SINs are torched. 

Basically the same thing would happen if a mage who is present had his/her signature assensed, the SIN gets burned.  Why the SIN gets burned and not jail time?  Because that's the penalty the Mission team has decided on.  If it were a home game jail time and such would be on the table, but the Mission team went with "Burn a SIN" for a bunch of reasons I'm sure.

If Shadowrun corps/law enforcement actually went full on magic and super tech CSI on Shadowrunners the game would be real short  : )    Tokyo is a little tougher on Runners, but it's still Shadowrun.

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #23 on: <06-21-18/1030:44> »
How do you link an Astral Signature to a SIN?
As I understand it, You can't put an Astral Signature into a database, you ether make the Assensing test to learn it and later recognize it, or you don't. Now you can do some fairly trouble some stuff to locate a mage with a given signature; so sure if a mage cop gets your signature you got problems. But I'm not sure I follow how that burns a SIN?

They show up and you're like naa Bro, it wasn't me. it was some other dude with my totally unique astral signature?

NTPD sees the aftermath of the magic. They put magic forensics on the case and a NTPD mage gets your sig.  That NTPD mage tracks you down to wherever you are post-run and directs mundane cops there.  You're busted.
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

Lormyr

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« Reply #24 on: <06-21-18/1058:55> »
In short, it might not be the most realistic consequence, but it is a reasonable one. In Chicago, PCs could be fairly careless in their runs so long as everything that could live to tell the tale didn't. I personally like the fact that in this Season (and hopefully moving forward) you have to use a little more discretion and care.

For general spellcasting, this should rarely be a problem. It takes HTR 1d6+2 combat turns to respond. That leaves plenty of Initiative passes prior to scrub away signatures.

The FAQ specifically states "Magic is common in Neo-Tokyo and simply using it may not be enough to garner any attention. Combat Magic higher than Force 3, any Mental Manipulation, and other uses of magic at the discretion of the GM
may garner attention from astral surveillance.". So casting such spells in the streets will almost certainly lead to a SIN check encounter for legality of those restricted spells. But just having some Quickened Detection, Health, or defensive Manipulation spells on yourself? That should fly under the radar.

Finally, another important note from the FAQ: "Two important caveats to Magical Surveillance are that adept powers don’t have astral signatures that can be read like spells and that NTMP watcher spirits will never patrol inside of privately owned buildings and will ignore magic that is cast on extra-territorial properties.".
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Hobbes

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« Reply #25 on: <06-21-18/1240:58> »

Finally, another important note from the FAQ: "Two important caveats to Magical Surveillance are that adept powers don’t have astral signatures that can be read like spells and that NTMP watcher spirits will never patrol inside of privately owned buildings and will ignore magic that is cast on extra-territorial properties.".

Finally Extra-territoriality is paying dividends to the Shadowrunner community.... :P

But yeah, a Mage can pay attention and clean stuff up.  A Mundane running around with Sustained/Quickened magic won't even be aware they're under magical observation potentially.  Caveat Venditor.

adzling

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« Reply #26 on: <06-21-18/1259:47> »
ok im going to unpack this, bear with me cause there's a lot here, so here we go

Masking applies to the magicians own aura.

Masking also applies to the magicians own astral form (while using astral perception or astral projection the magician can change his or her astral form so it look like another astral form; for example the astral form of a spirit or an active focus).

agreed, you can also use it to make you look like a mudane or whatever else (a fly, a spirit etc).

Masking also applies to the aura of up to initiate grade number of bounded foci

agreed

(no requirement on the force or that they have to be in the magician’s possession).

this is unlikely the intent or useful as a ruling.
Masking is specifically about editing your aura and the magical things you carry (foci).
Imho it would be far more logical if the foci leaves your presence it's no longer part of your aura and so therefore not subject to being masked. This is also true if you fall unconscious or go to sleep, your masking is no longer active. If this were not true then you could maintain masking on your foci wherever they are in the world, no matter how long ago you touched them. which is clearly nutso.

My take on this is that you may use Masking to hide the magical aura of your non-active bounded foci from other magicians (by making them look mundane) but you cannot hide or change their astral form once you activate them.

I disagree with this as it's clearly against RAW where it specifically says you can make your aura look like anything you want (and by extension your bound foci).

Extended Masking applies to the aura of active (explicitly anchored, sustained and quickened) spells (no requirement on number of spells, the force of the spells nor that the target of the spells have to be the magician).

Extended Masking also applies to the aura of up to initiate grade number of imbued or attuned items and alchemical preparations that are in the magician’s possession (in addition to bounded foci). Force of the items must be less than the magician's Magic

agreed

Personally I don't think Extended Masking make sense since both active spells and alchemical preparations have astral forms. Changing the aura so it look mundane would be pointless since the astral form would be obvious for anyone that can sense the astral.

the above supposition is only correct if you deny that foci and auras cannot be disguised to look mundane. which is not the case afaik. therefore I disagree.

Even if it was changed so that you can use Extended Masking to also change the astral form to another astral form (so an active spell look like an active focus or an alchemical preparations look like a spirit) will not really help you look mundane either.

again this relies on your interpretation that masking cannot make a magically active person look mundane. lore and raw say otherwise afaik.

My guess is that it is not the same author that wrote Masking that wrote Extended Masking....

probably correct.

back to the issue at hand, I still hold that because Masking (and Extended Masking) is meant to allow you to change your aura (and any magical effects or items attached thereof) and moreover that it ceases when you fall unconscious or go to sleep that therefore using Masking on quickened spells you place on others is not viable. Their aura is not yours. Masking is personal not a service you can offer to other people.

Lormyr

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« Reply #27 on: <06-21-18/1344:16> »
A Mundane running around with Sustained/Quickened magic won't even be aware they're under magical observation potentially.  Caveat Venditor.

While this is true, I can't imagine that most spells that a character would want Quickened on them would be cause for alarm for the NTMP. Combat Sense, Deflection, Increase Attribute, etc. are hardly cause for concern by themselves. Now, if they have offensive Quickened magic, such as Element Aura on a weapon, or the Quickened spells are at a high force, or something else along those lines? Sure.
"TL:DR 6e's reduction of meaningful choices is akin to forcing everyone to wear training wheels. Now it's just becomes a bunch of toddlers riding around on tricycles they can't fall off of." - Adzling

adzling

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« Reply #28 on: <06-21-18/1357:59> »
why would those spells not be a cause for concern?

they are akin to wandering around in full body armor or being equipped with 'ware that boosts your agility/ strength/ whatever.

Hobbes

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« Reply #29 on: <06-21-18/1359:55> »
A Mundane running around with Sustained/Quickened magic won't even be aware they're under magical observation potentially.  Caveat Venditor.

While this is true, I can't imagine that most spells that a character would want Quickened on them would be cause for alarm for the NTMP. Combat Sense, Deflection, Increase Attribute, etc. are hardly cause for concern by themselves. Now, if they have offensive Quickened magic, such as Element Aura on a weapon, or the Quickened spells are at a high force, or something else along those lines? Sure.

RAW you can't know what spell is sustained, and you need ?3? (sorry can't recall) hits on assensing to know the type of spell Combat, Health, Manipulation, whatever.  Combat Sense could be Clairvoyance, damn pervy mages, Deflection could be any one of a number of very bad Manipulation spells, Increase Attribute spells are probably cast at a higher than force 3.  And so on and so forth. 

I think the number of useful (to Mundane PCs anyway) Health spells under force 3 is pretty limited, and those are the only things given a pass by NTMP.  And even those aren't guaranteed to be "Okay" by any given site's security. 

*shrug*  As a player I'd never try an pull that on a GM, as a GM I'd ask the player to just please don't.