Active Mage Sight vs Vampire's Obfuscate

[Ruadni]

How are the rules supposed to apply to a mage using active mage sight with death, vampires, and vampires using obfuscate?

In my imagination, death sight would pick up a vampire that was just hanging out in the room with you. It would even work if the vampire was creeping in the back of the room. Nothing magical opposes the mage, it works as planned.

Would it work if the vampire was mundanely hiding? What if they have total cover? Do they need to be in mundane line of sight? I'd think it would beat a mundane stealth check, but I'm not sure about if they're totally out of line of sight. I don't think it would work and I don't think you could detect vampires in the next apartment, but might be wrong.

If the vampire is under the effects of obfuscate 'face in the crowd' or 'touch of shadow', what happens? I think it might provoke a clash of wills. Death sight says "You can sense dead things like this vampire" but obfuscate says "You can't see me or register me as important'. I feel like some mage sights are better at this than others. Death is good at sensing dead things, mind is good at mind affecting powers like obfuscate. But spirit probably wouldn't be very helpful and not even get a clash of wills roll. How should this work?

[Tessie]

Unfortunately we can't give you a conclusive answer until the seemingly contradictory text for AMS has been clarified.

By how I think the rules are intended to work AMS can either bypass a hiding effect completely if the Arcanum would naturally bypass it (exactly how this works no one can agree on) or it can Clash if the Arcanum used governs the hiding effect.
The Obfuscate effect makes people believe something regardless of what their senses tell them so I don't think any Arcanum would bypass it completely. Since it is a mental effect, Mind would definitely get to Clash against Obfuscate, and depending on your interpretation (whether it's only the effect itself or the source of the effect) Death might also Clash since it's against a vampiric Discipline. No other Arcanum is involved in how Obfuscate works and would not get to Clash.

If the vampire is completely out of sight no AMS would pick up on them anyway. AMS goes through your senses. If you could hear the vampire's voice, touch their lifeless skin or just see them, you'd be able to activate Active Mage Sight and see all Supernal symbols relevant to the activated Arcana.

[Ruadni]

Are further official clarifications/errata planned for this?

Your answer is pretty in line with what I thought.

[Mrmdubois]

If there is it will e covered in Signs of Sorcery, if it’s not there it probably will continue to be left to the ST.

[Katana1515]

Honestly, in every game of Mage I have run or played in, its been the case that any Mage Sight will get you a Clash of Wills against any supernatural (note that includes non-supernal) invisibility/veil/illusion effect. As has been pointed out, the original text seems self contradicting, but *seems* to me be asking the PC to come up with a rationale to justify the clash. I'm yet to see a player fail to explain why his Forces Sight should *obviously* be able to detect the anomalous air disturbance caused by your invisible vampire moving around or something similar. Rather than constantly making judgement calls on whether your players argument is convincing (a sure path to OOC grief) a policy of 'if theirs any doubt, call for a Clash' works well in my experience.

Since invisibility/undetectability is such a big advantage (and a very easily available one in Mage) I see this as a feature more than a bug. Every mage has at least a fighting chance of pinning down an invisible attacker, or at least knowing that ones around and taking action. On the flip side if your playing the Veiled character, you get the certainty that no one is going to arbitrarily pierce your beloved spell without beating down your Clash roll first (which is surely backed up with hefty bonuses from advanced Duration and Potency!).

[Tessie]

Honestly, in every game of Mage I have run or played in, its been the case that any Mage Sight will get you a Clash of Wills against any supernatural (note that includes non-supernal) invisibility/veil/illusion effect. As has been pointed out, the original text seems self contradicting, but *seems* to me be asking the PC to come up with a rationale to justify the clash. I'm yet to see a player fail to explain why his Forces Sight should *obviously* be able to detect the anomalous air disturbance caused by your invisible vampire moving around or something similar. Rather than constantly making judgement calls on whether your players argument is convincing (a sure path to OOC grief) a policy of 'if theirs any doubt, call for a Clash' works well in my experience.

The base Obfuscate effect isn't literal Invisibility, though. It's a lesser version of Incognito Presence. You see the vampire with or without Mage Sight just fine, but you don't notice them as long as they don't actively attract attention or you're specifically searching for them. Seeing the disturbed air currents doesn't attract any more attention than seeing them walk past you, so Forces Sight is useless in this case.

[EndlessKng]

My read on it is that it's an ST call ultimately, but the bit about how a "light based invisibility" spell would hide from Mind Sight does make that a bit odd.

Personally, my house rule is that an appropriate Arcanum MAY reveal the use of some sort of effect and hint at what it is doing, but you would, as described, need a more specialized spell to do a separate Clash to break it. For example, with Face in the Crowd, that is making you blend in with everyone. I'd say that it conceals the Vampire from Death sight (after all, they're just a person), but allows Mind Sight to pick up SOMETHING. However, they'd then need another spell to either break it or understand what's going on, unless an appropriate spell is currently active (if it WAS, they could instead clash with that). In this example, Pierce Deception would work if they didn't have it active already, as would a Mind spell to try and reveal the true nature of the phenomenon. The Mind Sight would say "there's something odd in THAT area," but another spell would need to be used to really define it unless they've been exposed to the effect before.

[Katana1515]

The base Obfuscate effect isn't literal Invisibility, though. It's a lesser version of Incognito Presence. You see the vampire with or without Mage Sight just fine, but you don't notice them as long as they don't actively attract attention or you're specifically searching for them. Seeing the disturbed air currents doesn't attract any more attention than seeing them walk past you, so Forces Sight is useless in this case.

See that's peculiar, because I can see a line of reasoning where spotting anomalous air patterns (particularly ones linked to supernatural effects) is exactly the kind of thing active Forces sight should throw up. I'm not saying its a strong example, I don't think it is, but its one I have seen come up in play at least twice (in different games with different people). My point is it *could* be argued, and lacking any strong guidance from the book I would think twice about shutting a player down who made that argument. Otherwise I could quickly just find myself making seemingly arbitrary judgements that leaves players uncertain where they stand. Anyway, I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents since that systems worked okay for me.

[HardcoreHannes]

See that's peculiar, because I can see a line of reasoning where spotting anomalous air patterns (particularly ones linked to supernatural effects) is exactly the kind of thing active Forces sight should throw up. I'm not saying its a strong example, I don't think it is, but its one I have seen come up in play at least twice (in different games with different people). My point is it *could* be argued, and lacking any strong guidance from the book I would think twice about shutting a player down who made that argument. Otherwise I could quickly just find myself making seemingly arbitrary judgements that leaves players uncertain where they stand. Anyway, I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents since that systems worked okay for me.

The argument is, that there simply is no irregular air pattern with either Incognito Presence or Obfuscate. A person walks down the street looking completely ordinary and you just dismiss it and look for that irregular thing you are searching for. Even with active Death Sight you might realize something supernatural and deathrelated is going on in the scene, but it is definitely not that totally normal dock worker just minding his own business.

[Range]

Incognito presence mentions that beings using supernatural abilities to detect the subject, such as Active Mage Sight, provoke a clash of wills. I'd argue that a clash of wills is an appropriate way to handle this situation.

[Scarlet Witch]

If it helps the discussion at all, I know Obfuscate does not work if the vampire is totally unexpected to be where they are, like a high security room or someones private study or somewhere after hours.

Id have it be situational.

Death sight would provoke a clash of wills against obfuscate, maybe, in a room of living people, but if you were with four vampires and one is using obfuscate, I'd reason death sight won't clash with obfuscate in that situation because the mage already sees 3 dead things so the fourth one using obfuscate doesn't stick out so bad.

Forces sight wouldn't work either because the air pattern distortions wouldnt look out of place if there are other people around to make other distortions.

Obfuscate works like the perception filter from Doctor Who, you're not invisible just ignorable-to-supernatural-degree.

Now the one that would confuse me is Mind Sight or Prime Sight. Prime might just need to be a spell but, can you "see" lies with just the prime sight? Obfuscate is a kind of "lie" of the senses, would sight alone do it or do you need the detect falsehoods spell instead? And Mind Sight seems perfect to clash it, but what if the vampire is in a room full of other minds? Wouldn't that vampire just be one of the crowd and not jump out? It could be called either way I feel.

[Tessie]

Mind Clashes automatically because the effect is Mind-based. No need for the vampire to stand out. On the other hand, even if the mage wins the Clash they might never suspect anything since a vampiric mind doesn't show up any differently unless they're Frenzying (and perhaps not even then; not that it matters since Frenzying vampires tend to draw attention).

As for Death Sight and not expecting a vampire in a crowd of humans, Obfuscate already hides a vampire that looks like a corpse from low Humanity, and one of the examples that Obfuscate can hide is a vampire walking around with a weapon in hand in a crowded mall. They need to actively draw attention to themselves.
Death Sight can help if the mage is already looking for a vampire since the vampire will pop out. It'll be a simple Wits+Composure or Wits+Investigation roll penalised by the vampire's Obfuscate. That's the mundane failure condition for Obfuscate, hence the non-Clash roll. I'd personally add an equipment modifier due to how much help Death Sight would be.

[lnodiv]

On the other hand, even if the mage wins the Clash they might never suspect anything.

For Mind Sight specifically, I'd say this is accurate.

It's worth pointing out, though (and I know this isn't the case you were talking about) that Mages are always aware when one of their spells Clashes. So if similar detection was provided by a Mind spell instead of Mage Sight (say, for example, a Shielding spell to prevent them from falling under the effect of supernatural mental influence such as Obfuscate), they would absolutely have a reason to suspect something.