From:	Simon and Fiona sfuller@******.com.au
Subject:	senses and magical targets
Date:	Fri, 6 Oct 2000 11:39:27 +1000

-----Original Message-----
From: The Geek in the Hat <alex@**********.com>
To: shadowrn@*********.com <shadowrn@*********.com>
Date: Thursday, October 05, 2000 11:13 AM
Subject: senses and magical targets
>
>Perhaps it'd be a good idea to pop this can o' worms open... why is it,
>exactly, that metahuman magicians rely on line of sight to cast spells?
>I agree that you should be able to cast spells at things you're touching;
>this would make playing a blind magician a good bit more viable...
>
>But what happens if we're talking about a magician that's not a metahuman?
>The magical dependence on sight, in our case, is because we depend so much
>on sight in our daily lives; we humans are visual creatures. So if we've
>got an Awakened dog, who doesn't have the same degree of reliance on
>sight, but thinks more in terms of scent and sound than we do, I would
>imagine that targeting would work entirely differently... perhaps a dog
>could get a metaphysical fix on something in terms of its smell. Then
>again, this probably wouldn't come up to often, as we don't get awakened
>canines in SR... but Merrows? Or awakened dolphins? Could they target by
>echolocation?
>
>On a note that's more likely to come up, could a troll or dwarf mage (who
>would tend to think of infravision as a normal part of sight) zap
>somebody who was trying to hide behind something by the heat signature?
>
Interesting. At the moment I don't really have an opinion on if this should
work, but I will say that there is a scientist doing the rounds right now
trying to prove that seeing things is a two-way street. The reason you can
feel someone watching the back of your head is because they are also sending
some kind of signal whenever they focus on something. Now it really doesn't
matter how right or wrong this guy is, there's no reason why this can't be a
working mechanism in Shadowrun, and the reason why LOS is needed.