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[6e] Clairvoyance/Clairaudience test

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ammulder:
Mage used clairaudience to listen to a guard talking on his commlink in the next room.

Here's the question: should there be a test for this?  I thought perhaps yes, because I'd normally have a perception test to hear fine details of an overheard conversation.  Player argued no (and furthermore that they should hear both sides of the conversation), since they could place the "center" of the clairaudience effect directly on the commlink to get "right there" hearing.  (Mage also had clairvoyance running and could use that to help specifically locate the clairaudience "effect bubble", FWIW.)

Second question: if there is to be a test, is it a test based on the spell (comparing the guard's B+W or the commlink's Object Resistance to the original spellcasting hits), or a perception test as if the mage was using normal senses through the clairaudience tunnel?

IIRC in the moment I did the magic vs. guard's B&W on the principle that there should be a test for gaining important information and the mage was using a magical effect to intrude on the guard's "personal mana space".  But on success, I did provide both sides of the conversation.  Not sure whether that's really in line with the intent of the spell, though.

Related question: can you sustain clairvoyance/clairaudience while walking around, on the principle that you can continually spend minor actions to swap the effect between "see where I'm going" and "peer inside the nearby building"?  I thought with some practice, maybe it would be fine while walking slowly, but require a Major Action while in combat / running / etc. because it would be a bit disorienting / take a lot of your attention to keep yourself in the zone of view in that case.  Again, not really clear if that's reasonable, though.  (The mage wanted to case once and sustain and move around vs casting over and over again to get a new section of the building in view.)

Stainless Steel Devil Rat:
You've got some great questions!


--- Quote from: ammulder on ---Mage used clairaudience to listen to a guard talking on his commlink in the next room.
--- End quote ---

I can already tell this is going to be gnarly...


--- Quote ---Here's the question: should there be a test for this?  I thought perhaps yes, because I'd normally have a perception test to hear fine details of an overheard conversation.  Player argued no (and furthermore that they should hear both sides of the conversation), since they could place the "center" of the clairaudience effect directly on the commlink to get "right there" hearing.  (Mage also had clairvoyance running and could use that to help specifically locate the clairaudience "effect bubble", FWIW.)
--- End quote ---

Ok.  As a general principle, there's ALWAYS a test when it comes to spells.  Of course, Clairaudience and Clairvoyance don't explicitly spell out what any net hits gives you.  In cases like this, the go-to answer is "look at what the rules for that category of spells says".  In the case of Detection spells, you've got that chart right there spelling out what kinds of info you can get from a detection spell when you have X, Y, and Z # of net hits.  Going by that, I'd say the caster will have needed at least 3 or 4 net hits on the spellcasting test in order to get "good enough quality remote hearing" to permit picking that level of detail.

However, the description of the spell is that you gain remote hearing.  You MIGHT instead go with having the beneficiary of the spell make a Perception (Hearing) test to pick out what's being said on the commlink. Explicitly with no bonuses from augmentations (which a spell is, lol, but I guess we have to ignore that) and since cyber hearing augmentation can't help, then surely neither should no-essence-paid earbuds should help, either.  But, as much sense as this might make at first blush, it's got the inconsistency problem (no augmentations, lol) as well as making net hits for a spell meaningless... and from a game balance/game design point of view, that should never be true.


--- Quote ---Second question: if there is to be a test, is it a test based on the spell (comparing the guard's B+W or the commlink's Object Resistance to the original spellcasting hits), or a perception test as if the mage was using normal senses through the clairaudience tunnel?

IIRC in the moment I did the magic vs. guard's B&W on the principle that there should be a test for gaining important information and the mage was using a magical effect to intrude on the guard's "personal mana space".  But on success, I did provide both sides of the conversation.  Not sure whether that's really in line with the intent of the spell, though.
--- End quote ---

6e did not bother covering rules-territory on the topic of "what is a target of a spell" vs "what is a subject of a spell".  And to my continued chagrin, neither did Street Wyrd.  So, here we are just winging it.

You could, imo, very reasonably argue that as a Mana spell, Clairaudience simply cannot hear what's coming out of a technological commlink.  At the same token, you could argue that Clairvoyance cannot see what's being displayed on a video screen for the same reason.  But since there's no real parsing between targets and subjects, the player could also very reasonably counter that "Mana spell only means the beneficiary of the spell has to be a living creature, not that everything the spell interacts with has to be living creatures". I would counter that with a whole discussion about how targets and subjects differ, but as we said that's not really covered by the rules... and who cares what *I* think. I don't even play at your table :)

It's a shame when the rules don't cover something they could have (or even should have, imo) but when that happens the GM just has to make a call and move on. I think your instincts were correct: when a spell involves a hostile or unwilling participant, there should ALWAYS be some kind of roll necessary.  9 times out of 10 that roll should be opposed, but in a case like Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, I can honestly see the unopposed success test being appropriate.


--- Quote ---Related question: can you sustain clairvoyance/clairaudience while walking around, on the principle that you can continually spend minor actions to swap the effect between "see where I'm going" and "peer inside the nearby building"?  I thought with some practice, maybe it would be fine while walking slowly, but require a Major Action while in combat / running / etc. because it would be a bit disorienting / take a lot of your attention to keep yourself in the zone of view in that case.  Again, not really clear if that's reasonable, though.  (The mage wanted to case once and sustain and move around vs casting over and over again to get a new section of the building in view.)
--- End quote ---

That's basically the implicitly intended purpose of those spells: remote recon.  Who needs drones or a rigger, right?  (sadface)

A couple of things to keep in mind:
1) as you imagined, the action economy involved in zooming the focus around makes it pretty impractical for combat and other "every second counts" situations.
2) When the team has a few minutes to allow the mage to throw their sight/hearing through a facility, feel free to decide that this kind of focus is more intense than sustaining other spells, and rule that it cannot be sustained with Focused Concentration while actively moving the spell around.  make them suck the -2 dice no matter what.  Or even up that to -3 dice.  It's your game man.
3) Wards are fairly cheap.  And since there are no "MAGIC ISN'T REAL!" types in paying jobs in the Sixth World, anyone who's in charge of building security knows to use them.  Mana Barriers are gonna stop detection spells.
4) Remember there's rules for regular, ordinary people noticing that there's magic going on around them.  (pg. 129, Noticing Magic)  If the magic is being centered right between a mundane's ear and his commlink, I'd even give Edge for that perception roll.  Maybe even lower the threshold, because people's ears are REALLY sensitive, man.  Don't touch those if you want to be subtle.

ammulder:
Are wards really cheap?  It seemed like the only way to get a long-lasting mana barrier was the Ward ritual, which required 6 or more hits on the casting test (e.g. not trivial), and must either be repeated every week/couple weeks or made permanent with 6 Karma.  There can't really be mages who wander around blowing 6 Karma a day for paid warding gigs, right?  (Or sustaining spells forever?). Yet, when preparing a facility, you don't want to build in a mage-staffing or weekly cost vs paying once to have a mana barrier installed permanently.

The other problem is that any mage who casts this ritual is going to have magic rating 6+, which makes the minimum mana barrier rating 6, which is pretty difficult to pass (it rolls 12+ dice against you... not unreasonable to think the casters would have gotten a few net successes so maybe more like 16 or 18 dice, and if they blow 6 karma on a whim, maybe their magic was 8 or 10 to begin with?  So a run-of-the-mill barrier could maybe roll 20 or 25 dice against you?).

Anyway, for this past run, I just made the barrier (basically following the outer walls and ceiling of the office) strength 3, because this was a low-level office... more than zero protection, less than 12+ dice.  That worked well -- they had to drop a couple spells but got the critical mask/invisibility ones through.  I have no idea how many ¥ an effectively-permanent rating 2 mana barrier should cost in principle or how you would accomplish getting a Mana Barrier 2 installed in practice, but it seems like it should be a thing.

Since I didn't let the mage Clairsee or Clairhear through the barrier, they had to drop the spells, pass the barrier invisibly, re-cast on the inside, and use the spells from there.  That worked fine -- enough difficulty that Plan A didn't work exactly as laid out (scan from outside the building), but Plan B worked OK.  (The walking-while-clairsensing came up while walking around inside the office invisibly, and as I said elsewhere it didn't quite come to combat on account of Confusion and Con rolls, but the mage has these spells and I anticipate this coming up again.)

P.S. No real danger of replacing the rigger for recon -- a flying drone can cover much more territory from much farther away with zero direct risk to the PCs... what the mage can do is see through walls when on-site, which a drone can't do anyway.  I think they're generally complimentary.

Xenon:

--- Quote from: ammulder on ---Mage used clairaudience to listen to a guard talking on his commlink in the next room.
--- End quote ---
Sure I guess people can technically still talk in their commlinks and listen to their built in speakers (like people used to do back in 2021) but in this day an age, don't the majority of the population interact with their devices wireless via direct neural interface....?



--- Quote from: ammulder on ---should there be a test for this? 
--- End quote ---
For casting the spell? Yes
Sorcery + Magic where net hits are added to magic rating to figure out how far away the center point of the clairaudience bubble can be placed. The bubble itself is typically a sphere with a two-meter radius. It replace hearing things close to the subject's own body.

For hearing what someone says when they are talking in your native language?
If not in the vicinity (like if you are trying to make out a conversation from another table at the restaurant) then you would typically resolve it as a perception test with a threshold from the Perception Thresholds Table (in the case of the conversation from another table that would typically be a threshold of 2).

But in this case (when you are basically as close as standing right infront of the target)?
Not really....



--- Quote from: ammulder on ---if there is to be a test, is it a test based on the spell (comparing the guard's B+W or the commlink's Object Resistance to the original spellcasting hits), or a perception test as if the mage was using normal senses through the clairaudience tunnel?
--- End quote ---
Perception.





--- Quote from: ammulder on ---Related question: can you sustain clairvoyance/clairaudience while walking around
--- End quote ---
So, both Clairvoyance and Clairaudience replace your normal 'line of sight' and 'pbaoe hearing' with a 'bubble' that is each just 2 meter in diameter (unless you amp it up). No more line of sight.....

You also need to spend a minor action for each area spell you wish to move (if you wish to move both your seeing bubble and your hearing bubble to the same spot you will spend 2 minor actions each time).

So if you spend a minor action to move your 2 meter in diameter bubble visual perception to a spot 1½ meters in front of you then you would see yourself and you would see how your body take a few steps forward as you spend a minor action to move up to 10 meters. But once you walked 2 meters or so you will be out of sight and you would basically be walking blindfolded. If GM allow it then you can perhaps take multiple minor actions to keep moving your 2 meter in diameter bubble visual perception another 1½ - 2 meters while you are walking, but if you plan on walking your 10 meters in a combat turn you would probably need to spend 6-7 minor actions just to constantly see where you are walking. Doesn't really leave much room to also move both your two bubbles in order to see and hear other rooms in the building.

What I am trying to say is that perhaps it is better to remain seated while doing this, drop the spell, move and recast the spell once you moved 10-20 meters or so.

....but I guess if you were to amp up the area of effect a few times then it could be possible ;-)





--- Quote from: ammulder on ---...but require a Major Action while in combat / running / etc. because it would be a bit disorienting / take a lot of your attention to keep yourself in the zone of view in that case. 
--- End quote ---
Disorienting yes, but just moving your bubbles will cost many minor actions as it is I think.

Trying to engage in physical combat while sensing your surroundings and your target from the astral plane is disorienting and cause a negative dice pool of 2 dice. I think it will be even more disorienting if you are watching both yourself and your target from some sort of 3rd person bubble perspective (and not even 'over the shoulder' in a Third Person Shooter kind of way). If even possible at all it will probably give you a rather hefty negative dice pool modifier. I am thinking a Blinded I or II effect here. And/or not able to gain or use Edge on your actions (similar to the disorientation effect you gain from being dump shocked). You typically also get a negative dice pool modifier of 2 dice by just concentrating on sustaining a spell (unless you have means to sustain it without concentrating on the spell).

Stainless Steel Devil Rat:

--- Quote from: ammulder on ---Are wards really cheap?  It seemed like the only way to get a long-lasting mana barrier was the Ward ritual, which required 6 or more hits on the casting test (e.g. not trivial), and must either be repeated every week/couple weeks or made permanent with 6 Karma.  There can't really be mages who wander around blowing 6 Karma a day for paid warding gigs, right?  (Or sustaining spells forever?). Yet, when preparing a facility, you don't want to build in a mage-staffing or weekly cost vs paying once to have a mana barrier installed permanently.
--- End quote ---

I'll quote myself as a reply here:


--- Quote from: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on ---The act of ritual spellcasting is against a threshold, which makes it a simple test as described on pg. 35.  EDIT: Pedantically, it's a teamwork simple test, but yes.  TL;DR is you roll against the threshold, and nothing/noone rolls against you.

The (threshold x 2) dice pool comes in for the drain.  It is itself a simple test to establish the Drain DV, which then triggers a 3rd set of simple tests for the participants to soak that Drain damage.  In practice, there's basically no difference between 2 simple tests when the 1st test sets the threshold for the second... but yes pedantically the drain is a simple test of (ritual threshold) x 2 against an implicit threshold of (0), and then that # of net hits becomes the Drain DV that must be soaked by the ritual particpants on yet another, successive simple test against another implicit threshold of (0), where each net hit reduces the drain DV by 1.

Edit2:

So, a walkthru on setting up a Ward (pg. 145)

Step 1: Choose a leader:  Let's say we have a NPC wagemage using these rules, rather than some hand-wavey "NPC-only" rule that PCs can't access.  Our security contractor has Skill 4, Magic 6, and drain attribute 4, along with 2 employees who help them set up these wards. These mages are Skill 3, Magic 4, and Drain attribute 3 each.

Step 2: Choose the ritual: obviously, Ward.

Step 3: Set up the Foundation:  presumably these contractors have the permission of the building owner to be doing their shenanigans.  Said manager can ensure the building's employees leave the process alone.  Or, quite likely, the ritual will take place during an unmanned weekend or something.  The leader either sets up a portable lodge, or they expend a bunch of reagents and add it to their invoice.

Step 4: Spend Reagents: The team spends X reagents to ensure the Drain, once it comes, isn't too nasty.  And why not? They'll just add these resources to the service charge, too.

Step 5: Perform the Ritual:  The team spends 4 hours, per the Ward description, doing their drawing, chanting, dancing, or whatever is appropriate to their tradition.

Step 6: Seal the Ritual: The dice rolling part.  As a teamwork test, first the assistants go.  Their dice pools are 7, which should be enough to count on 2 hits each.  This adds +4 dice to the leader, whose pool was 10 before the help.  14 dice "probably" results in 4 hits maybe even 5, which means some Edge will probably have had to be spent to hit 6 hits total and be successful.  Assuming this is the case, the attempt is successful, but with 0 net hits. (6 hits vs threshold 6).  Next, each participant of the ritual must soak drain.  We find out how much that is by rolling 12 dice (6 threshold x2).  That's "probably" 4 hits, reduced by however many reagents they spent in step 4. Edge shouldn't be a factor since it was probably spent getting up to 6 hits in the first place.  But since 4-X<6, the damage is Stun, so really who cares how much Drain anyone takes.  But technically, it would be rolled against.  Thanks to errata, the force of the Ward is equal to Leader's Magic + Net hits, rather than just net hits.  So even at 0 net hits, the Ward is a Force 6 Mana Barrier in this case.

The leader then either is finished, or has the opportunity to spend 6 karma to make the ward permanent (per the Ward ritual rules).  Technically, since there were 0 net hits, they would probably HAVE to do this or else 0 weeks=0 time and the ward fails shortly after they succeed.  Alternately, the GM might allow 0=weeks to not truly be 0.0 time and have it last some days or even hours.  But moral of the story: try to get at least 1 net hit unless you've got the karma to burn. 

Or, maybe they just spend another 4 hours "trying again", hoping for 1 net hit this time.  (in which case, it DOES matter how much Drain they took on the first try)

--- End quote ---

Also note that I didn't even factor in any foci.  So the hypothetical security contractor who just goes around to all his clients every X number of weeks to maintain bunch of wards across the city seems pretty plausible to me.  Of course certain organizations like corps and crime families will have their own mages on retainer, as well!

Also, not every mage has 6 Magic.  Lower magic=lower starting point for Ward ratings.  A big enough ritual team and/or a nice enough focus can certainly compensate for <6 Magic.

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