Questions on Astral Sensing

[ottdmk]

This has come up during the online West Marches style Earthdawn campaign I play in. (Located here!!! New players always welcome! )

So, reading through the Workings of Magic chapter here's how I think it goes. I'm going to use Astral Sight as my baseline, and then move into the Astral Sense Wizard Spell. I'm looking for confirmation or corrections.

So, basically, everything has an Astral Imprint (ED4PG pg 206). Inanimate, mundane objects look washed out. Living thing look vibrant, as do magical objects and spells.

When activating Astral Sight, you need to beat a TN of 6 + the Astral Conditions modifier. If you fail, you get an idea of how corrupted Astral Space is in this area. If you succeed, you can see into Astral Space and see all Astral Imprints within range. (Rank x 10y for Astral Sight.) The Mystic Defense of the objects/people/creatures/spells etc. does not come into play.

In other words, if all you're interested in is whether or not something is within range of your Astral Sight, all you need to do is beat the 6+Conditions TN. Things cannot hide from you just by having a high Mystic Defense.

Where Mystic Defense does come into play is if you wish to glean details from the item/creature/etc Pattern. The Pattern is contained within the Astral Imprint.

With Astral Sight you still have normal line of sight rules. You can't see the imprints of people inside a building; you just see the building.

Which brings us to the Astral Sense spell. It changes Astral Sight from line of sight to an area effect centered on you. It specifically eliminates the need for line of sight.

So if you're in a narrow alleyway and have the Astral Sense spell up and running, can you see all the imprints inside the buildings you're beside?

And if so, what does that mean for Spellcasting? My first instinct is that line of sight = line of effect in Earthdawn, so no casting into buildings with Astral Sense, but I'd like to be sure.

Final question: Does Wizard's Cloak work against detection by Astral Sensing? It bumps Mystic Defense, so it shouldn't (if I'm interpreting all this right). It would help prevent pattern examination though...

[Bonhumm]

When activating Astral Sight, you need to beat a TN of 6 + the Astral Conditions modifier. If you fail, you get an idea of how corrupted Astral Space is in this area. If you succeed, you can see into Astral Space and see all Astral Imprints within range. (Rank x 10y for Astral Sight.) The Mystic Defense of the objects/people/creatures/spells etc. does not come into play.

In other words, if all you're interested in is whether or not something is within range of your Astral Sight, all you need to do is beat the 6+Conditions TN. Things cannot hide from you just by having a high Mystic Defense.

Where Mystic Defense does come into play is if you wish to glean details from the item/creature/etc Pattern. The Pattern is contained within the Astral Imprint.

With Astral Sight you still have normal line of sight rules. You can't see the imprints of people inside a building; you just see the building.

Which brings us to the Astral Sense spell. It changes Astral Sight from line of sight to an area effect centered on you. It specifically eliminates the need for line of sight.

So if you're in a narrow alleyway and have the Astral Sense spell up and running, can you see all the imprints inside the buildings you're beside?

And if so, what does that mean for Spellcasting? My first instinct is that line of sight = line of effect in Earthdawn, so no casting into buildings with Astral Sense, but I'd like to be sure.

I'd say you are right about the no line of sight part. The description is clear enough to mean that you would have like a 'overhead/wallhack' view of anything within 30 feet. I would also say that you could cast a spell on that 'thing' since you DO have a sight on it (astrally or physically is irrelevant).

HOWEVER, I would temper this with the fact since it still works like astral sight, that if you did not beat the MD of the object/person there, all you would know is that there is something 'magical' there. Is it a normal namegiver? an adept? a magical beast? An item? Who knows!

So basically, seeing an well-equipped adept 'through the walls' could create targeting issue with the mage like:

Great, I see 6 'magical things' moving together. So probably an adept, his threaded weapon and maybe stuff like everclean cloak, firestarter wand and a bedroll of comfort in his backpack. Which pattern do I target for my ephemeral bolt?

Yeah, I know: area of effect spells! But still....

This would also not affect the physicality of the spells. For example, when casting earth darts, the darts appear besides me and fly to the target. Said target is inside the building, behind a wall, the fact that I can sense/see him and target him do not change the fact that the darts themselves will crash on the wall.

[ChrisDDickey]

Here is additional reading that covers these questions.

http://www.fasagames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=112
http://fasagames.com/archiveforum/viewt ... =17&t=1818

[ChrisDDickey]

Surprisingly (I have been playing ED4 a long time and I keep having to be reminded it works the way you describe!), it seems your summation is correct, with two caveats.
In order to detect somethings Astral Impression, the targets MD has nothing to do with it. The two caveats are: (1) only physical things have Astral Impressions, so you still need to beat the MD to find purely Astral things, and (2) Magics meant to hide you also sometimes hides your Astral Impression.

However (and this is important), if you are going to target someone using Astral Sense, you need to do more than just locate the targets Astral Imprint, you also need to sense their pattern (IE: Astraly sense their MD + conditions).

So once again, you sense that something is there, and where it is with the lower target number. But you need to target it's MD + conditions to be able to cast spells at it.

As to Wizards Cloak. I think that is another bug in the text. I think you are correct that a targets MD does not usually enter into whether it has a visible Astral Imprint. And Wizards Cloak only says it raises MD, and does not say it raises the TN. However it clearly says it is meant to work against any spells or abilities, and I think you can safely say that this is one of the many editing fails in the rules, and that the intent is that it should raise the Target Number.

Hitting the normal target number should allow you to see all Astral Imprints except those protected by Wizards Cloak, Stealthy Stride or similar magic. The Astral Sight test needs to be above the Stealthy Stride test, or 6 above the normal Astral Sight target number to detect those protected by Wizards Cloak.