[celondon]

What Resists Vehicle Mask?

Does the vehicle itself resist it or do any individuals seeing the vehicle resist it? Or do BOTH resist?

If the Vehicle resists, you roll once and, if successful, you're golden. Nothing short of an astral perception will spot the illusion.

If viewers resist, the spell will get seen through many, many times as you are driving downtown, if not by the people, then certainly by the various sensors/camera along the path.

If both, the spell will never generate enough net hits to fool anyone who isn't mentally deficient and will almost never fool a sensor.

Here is the pertinent rule:

Physical Illusions: Physical illusion spells create actual images or alter physical properties, such as light or sound. Physical illusions can be used on both living and technological systems. They are resisted by Intuition + Logic; non-living devices resist with their Object Resistance. The magician must generate more hits than the observer for the illusion to be considered real. If the spell is not completely resisted, the target is fully affected by the illusion.

Thoughts?

[Herr Brackhaus]

Technically,  both. As a GM, however, I would never roll for the tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people you'd drive past, because as you say statistics alone would cause the spell to "fail" many times over if that was the case.

The trick is, though, you don't need those people to be fooled. So you only roll for the people that needs to be fooled. Even if a random pedestrian sees your actual Americar instead of the delivery van you've masked your vehicle as, he's not going to see anything out of place.

Of course, if you're driving down the road in a kitted out death wagon, Mad Max stylee, the story might be a little different so you might want to edge that roll

[Marcus Gideon]

I see that the spell refers to "net hits" having an effect on the Signature modifier. Which would imply that there was a contested roll just to cast the spell. But the spell doesn't say anything about overcoming Object Resistance to begin with. So I'm going to say... it just works? You're not really altering the vehicle, so Object Resistance shouldn't really matter much? You're placing an illusion over the top, which you could theoretically do anyway with a Trid Phantasm or something.

So the only people resisting the illusions are those viewing it. When you drive down the street, random folks on the sidewalk roll Intuition + Logic with a Threshold of however many Hits you scored in the spellcasting. If they succeed, they see the real car, but it doesn't negate the spell. It just means they see through it. If they fail, then they see the illusionary car instead. Either way, the illusion keeps going until you stop sustaining it.

I suppose the "net hits" could also refer to how well you fooled the viewer. If someone is trying to shoot at you, and you cast the spell with 5 hits... they roll to resist and only got 2. That means there are 3 net hits, which could be used to reduce the Signature by 3, making it harder for that particular person to hit you.

[Herr Brackhaus]

As the OP points out, it's a Physical Illusion spell, which means Object Resistance comes into play because the vehicle is a non-living target.

[celondon]

Technically,  both. As a GM, however, I would never roll for the tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people you'd drive past, because as you say statistics alone would cause the spell to "fail" many times over if that was the case.

The trick is, though, you don't need those people to be fooled. So you only roll for the people that needs to be fooled. Even if a random pedestrian sees your actual Americar instead of the delivery van you've masked your vehicle as, he's not going to see anything out of place.

Of course, if you're driving down the road in a kitted out death wagon, Mad Max stylee, the story might be a little different so you might want to edge that roll

The people aren't the ones that really need to be fooled; mostly they won't know/care. Cameras/Sensors on the other hand record your passage and can be used forensically to track the vehicle. A camera is going to get, on average, 5 hits with it's Object Resistance of 15+ dice. That means the caster needs, on average 6 net hits to be "safe" which is 18 dice. If the vehicle being masked ALSO resists, the caster needs 33 dice to be "safe." That's a little unreasonable.

[Marcus Gideon]

As the OP points out, it's a Physical Illusion spell, which means Object Resistance comes into play because the vehicle is a non-living target.

Except you're not actually "enchanting" the vehicle, so it doesn't need to resist having magic placed upon it. Since the Mage has to remain in contact with the vehicle the entire time in order to sustain the spell (this being one of the only times I've ever seen that stipulated) then the Mage is basically just making an illusionary shell around the vehicle. So the magic isn't "on" the car, it's around the car.

The reason Physical Illusion magic says non-living roll Object Resistance, is b/c it's a physical spell and it can affect drones or cameras. So the GM needs to roll OR to find out whether or not the Traffic Camera you just drove past, will see the real car or the fake.

[Herr Brackhaus]

Yeah, I'd agree with that on second reading. Vehicle Mask says it's a version of Physical Mask. Casting Physical Mask on someone doesn't require a resistance roll on behalf of the target.

Again, though, whether a particular camera is fooled or not only matters in specific cases. So the GM would need a particular reason to roll against the illusion; if the runners are driving around in a modded wagon of death, I might roll just to see if they attract attention.

This is similar to those arguments that a low-rating agent or patrol IC rolling Matrix Perception Tests against everything would eventually critically glitch. While that is true, rolling is a game mechanic used to introduce risk and reward; it can be assumed that everyday life doesn't require rolling, and as such carries on just fine except in extraordinary situations.

At least, that's my take on game mechanics vs real world concerns.

[adzling]

So for these cases where multiple, random quantity of observers may witness the vehicle do you have the mage roll successes once and then roll separately for each observer?
Or do you roll each time for mage and observer?

We do the former.
Interested to know whatcha do.

[Marcus Gideon]

The caster rolls once, when they cast the spell. They keep track of how many Hits were scored on the spellcasting roll, since that will be the Threshold for any future observers to beat, to see through the illusion.

So if they cast with 5 hits, any pedestrians or traffic cams need to beat 5 to see through it. Seeing through doesn't mean the spell is broken, so you don't need to worry about driving past the first nosey person and ruin the spell for the rest of the trip. So long as the spell is sustained, it stays at 5 hits. The only way to reduce that would be Counterspell or Background Count.

[Herr Brackhaus]

Seconded regarding rolling once for the magician and for each potentially important observer. Same as for infiltration, where you roll once for each sneaking character and then for each potential observer, until the characters stop sneaking or a situation calls for rolling sneak again.

[celondon]

Thanks for the feedback, folks!

[Rooks]

So for these cases where multiple, random quantity of observers may witness the vehicle do you have the mage roll successes once and then roll separately for each observer?
Or do you roll each time for mage and observer?

We do the former.
Interested to know whatcha do.

former no one wants to roll that many dice and in terms of mooks you just take the highest groups examples resistance stats and roll it that is the upper limit it doesnt mean they all pass their resistance against illusion check just the best example of that group notices which is why you want to hide your weapon mounts inside the body of the vehicles as much as possible if a ford americar is disguised to look like say a bulldog step van who cares but if the ford americar is kitted out with say an assault cannon you might have something to worry about then even hidden weapon mounts people arent going to say ah hah this car is packing its just going to register as a unique indentation like a hidden door which could be mistaken for a smugglers compartment or a ding on a car


In basic D&D terms its an illusion spell that everyone rolls a will save to disbelieve on the DC (number of