[Selentin]

So I have a mage that, for various background reasons, isn't very adept when it comes to the physical realm (e.g., low physical attributes and skills). Probably not terribly unusual for a mage, but...the entire rest of our group are stealth monkeys (the lowest rating among them being an eight).

I'd thought that I could keep up with spells (e.g., invis), but every run we've been on so far, there's been something with eyes on the astral, so they pretty much auto-notice my character if I've put up any spells (and if I don't, my rolls in the meat world are so heinous that I'm pretty much auto-notice there anyway, since the opposition understandably has perception skills that might challenge the rest of the group).

I'm sort of at a loss as to what to do; the rules AFAIK don't provide me with any options. Unfortunately the players didn't make characters together, so we hadn't discussed a consensus approach; we just ended up like this. At this point I'm considering just telling the GM I'm going to retire this character and try again, this time conforming to the stealth-type approach our group have accidentally settled on. (Note we'd pretty much agreed beforehand that Mage/Decker PCs aren't going to use the "phone it in" approach where they hide someplace far away and just jot in via matrix/astral to do their part if there are specific problems in those realms).

Am I missing any rules/opportunities that a low-stealth mage could rely on given astral eyes are so common on our missions?

[Jack_Spade]

There are quite a few ways to do this:

Get a chameleon suit w/ Thermal dampening and a ruthenium polymer poncho.
Teamwork checks help to raise your limit and give you bonus dice (sneaking might take longer that way)

Use drugs for improved agility and detox afterwards. There is even a BTL chip for would be cat burglars - get a hot sim enabled commlink and a trode net to slot one of those (preferably one that doesn't burn out) as a mage you should be able to withstand the compulsions and the addiction.

Initiate and learn the masking technique + a decent metamagic focus.

[Beta]

Besides all that Jack Spade mentioned, there is another option -- although it is painful for a mage to put karma anywhere other than magic -- buy up your agility and stealth.  If they are low now, the cost won't be too brutal. 

To make it a little more palatable, look at it this way:  at character creation it pays to focus on building your strengths, so pretty much everyone has weaknesses in one form or another, which they need to address once play starts.  Sometimes you can live with a certain weakness and let the team cover you on that front, but sometimes not so much. 

In the shorter term, spirit concealment power can help a lot, when you can get away with using it.

[Darzil]

Also, GM might want to consider whether always breaking your concealment spells is a fair way to treat you as a player.

[Selentin]

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

Get a chameleon suit w/ Thermal dampening and a ruthenium polymer poncho.
Teamwork checks help to raise your limit and give you bonus dice (sneaking might take longer that way)

Valid one; I'd actually been eyeballing this already and thinking it was probably necessary as long as I could find additional methods.

Use drugs for improved agility and detox afterwards. There is even a BTL chip for would be cat burglars - get a hot sim enabled commlink and a trode net to slot one of those (preferably one that doesn't burn out) as a mage you should be able to withstand the compulsions and the addiction.

I had considered this; while viable as a suggestion, neither are really "in character" for my mage to engage in.

Initiate and learn the masking technique + a decent metamagic focus.

Maybe I've misread masking. I know it can help conceal foci, but are you saying this can also conceal that you have a spell active? Or are you saying that, given casting invisibility isn't going to be an option, this is an important step combined with many others to get concealed?

Besides all that Jack Spade mentioned, there is another option -- although it is painful for a mage to put karma anywhere other than magic -- buy up your agility and stealth.  If they are low now, the cost won't be too brutal. 

This is true; but, to match the lowest sneak of the group (the others are much higher) would cost me 67 karma. This is a ways off - my mage has spent almost his whole life up until three sessions ago as an academic at MIT&T, leading a cushy life, until a serious of unfortunate events essentially destroyed his ability to get respectable work of any kind. His agility and sneak are as low as they can be.

In the shorter term, spirit concealment power can help a lot, when you can get away with using it.

Doesn't this suffer from the same limitations WRT astral watchers as with casting invis on myself? As I understand it, concealment is basically just a physical power that will show as very obviously active in astral space.

Also, GM might want to consider whether always breaking your concealment spells is a fair way to treat you as a player.

I dunno. Our GM knows SR pretty well, and the interpretation is that if you have active spells, then you pretty much glow like a lightbulb to anyone with astral vision. I'm just surprised that spirits, dual-natured guardians, etc, are so common as to make concealment spells dubiously useful to a runner.

[Darzil]

Also, GM might want to consider whether always breaking your concealment spells is a fair way to treat you as a player.

I dunno. Our GM knows SR pretty well, and the interpretation is that if you have active spells, then you pretty much glow like a lightbulb to anyone with astral vision. I'm just surprised that spirits, dual-natured guardians, etc, are so common as to make concealment spells dubiously useful to a runner.

I suspect a lot of it is that people have different views of how things work in the Universe. For example, my previous GM took the view that everyone would always run every matrix device silent, so my Decker tended to stick to guns rather than trying to do anything matrix a lot of the time. However, I'm tending to play things in the "lowest cost bidder" approach. Most people just bought their kit, or were issued it, and skim read the manual. Most corps want to keep track of their kit, so don't want it running silent.

Mages are rare, therefore expensive, therefore only used for high value targets. Some runs are against such targets, others aren't. Even when they are, is your Mage paid well enough to be constantly on alert, constantly looking at the place you happen to be, without ever getting bored or going to the toilet? My preferred hard targets are behind impenetrable defenses that become penetrable due to human failings. Maybe there are things you can do to find out where the astral oversight is, and what they are looking for ? Maybe you can arrange a diversion that will distract him long enough for you to sneak in.

[MijRai]

Another thing to keep in mind is you can still stealth against Astrally perceiving targets.  Cast Invisibility and whatever other sneaky spells you need, then avoid the spirits/spells that are on watch while basically ignoring the mundane problems you've negated with magic.  It still requires you to raise your Agility and Stealth, but at least keeps you in play. 

[Whiskeyjack]

Also, GM might want to consider whether always breaking your concealment spells is a fair way to treat you as a player.

This. Have an OOC conversation. Lots of places have justifiable astral overwatch, but not all of them. Even places that do should have astral guard patrols or holes. And the astral is not just the mage trying to get in. The astral is overwhelming full of silhouettes, images, and mundane object bleed-over from the material. If the GM is playing it like you're the only hotspot on the astral for a whole corporate building, besides the security wagemage, he's Doing It Wrong.

Also you can do stuff like cast Improved Invis at Force 1 with reagents, which IIRC makes it much harder to spot even with Assensing, while not affecting its ability to work against mundanes noticing magic or seeing through the illusion.

[CitizenJoe]

Make a new character.  Your magician has been taking jobs for which he is ill suited.  You're lucky that you aren't dead yet.  If you try to find a way to be half assed at something, that will get you killed.

Basically, find a character that suits the jobs you're getting or find jobs that suit your character.

[Kincaid]

Invisibility "affects the minds of viewers," so at my table it works against astral detection.  Yes, it's possible to quibble about astral perception vs. single-sense spells, but it gives players a clear choice between Invisibility (good vs. magic) and Improved Invisibility (good vs. tech). 

[psycho835]

Invisibility "affects the minds of viewers," so at my table it works against astral detection.  Yes, it's possible to quibble about astral perception vs. single-sense spells, but it gives players a clear choice between Invisibility (good vs. magic) and Improved Invisibility (good vs. tech). 

Frag me like a goat. That has NEVER occured to me. 

[PiXeL01]

Stealth also works on the astral as do LOS. It would require you to use astral perception though but it should be possible to hide within the plane. I believe there is an option under masking (or a separate meta technique) that allows you to hide the auras of spells and foci under masking.

Also as mentioned the spirit power concealment doesn't work since it is Physical but as Mentioned below an invisibility spell cast in astral space should

[Whiskeyjack]

Make a new character.  Your magician has been taking jobs for which he is ill suited.  You're lucky that you aren't dead yet.  If you try to find a way to be half assed at something, that will get you killed.

Basically, find a character that suits the jobs you're getting or find jobs that suit your character.

I am assuming that the GM approved this character for their game. At that point, it's on the GM to accommodate what they players bring to the table, not 100% (it's a common trope where you get hired for a job and realize you may have more trouble delivering than normal, and have to get creative), but enough so the player doesn't feel like a chump for building the character they wanted to play.

If the GM is constantly shutting down your abilities when they approved your sheet, and not giving you time to shine in your niche or with what you got, that's on the GM and not the player.

[SmilinIrish]

"This spell makes the subject more difficult to detect by normal visual senses (including low-light, thermographic, and other senses that rely on the visual spectrum).
The subject is completely tangible and detectable by the other senses (hearing, smell, touch, and even taste, if it somehow comes to that). Her aura is still visible
to astral perception."


So would Kincaid's comment be houserule territory?  Don't read this as argumentative. This is disussion, not debate.  I'm playing a mage, and I'm teaching our GM as we go, so it is important that I understand because he pretty much goes with how I explain it.  I've wondered about astral stealth before.  The way we play right now is that avoiding LOS is the only way (moving behind things, watch for when they are looking the other way, etc.

[SmilinIrish]

Also, this is why skill priority is so important for a mage.  Unless you just take spellcasting and your other runner skills (perception, sneak, at least one social skill like negotiate, con or intimidate), you are going to need skills at B, definitely not lower than C.  Even with an Agility of 2, and 6 points in sneak with an Urban specialization, you have 10 dice for sneaking.  Add in the tech toys and you're doing pretty well.  Ask him for a retcon and rework some part of your character.  My mages don't start with a bunch of foci because I can't bring myself to create without using ABC priorities for Magic/skill/attributes.