Sights, Telescopic {Thermal}
Function: Used extensively by Special Forces and SWAT, a thermal scope picks up a target’s body heat and illustrates the target more clearly. Everything else is blue, but the target shows in bright white. These heat vision scopes work equally well in both daylight and darkness. Night vision requires some ambient light (from the moon or a distant streetlight) to be present, but a thermal scope asks only that the subject has a heat signature above the ambient temperature.
At long range, a thermal scope minimizes the penalty from –4 to a –1 modifier. At medium and short ranges, a character using a heat vision scope on a weapon suffers no range penalties. In darkness, the same penalties apply but the “Fighting Blind” rules do not.
An important consideration, however, is that a thermal scope provides benefit only when shooting warm (meaning living) targets. Animals, humans and other warm-blooded creatures show up perfectly in thermal vision. Vampires show up only minimally. Targeting a vampire with heat vision offers the shooter no more benefit than a normal scope (see above under “Sights, Telescopic”), as the vampire is hardly warm enough to stand out more than a little.
Thermal scopes usually offer no bonuses to seeing ghosts or spirits. However, if a spirit can in any way affect temperature (writing a Ghost Sign on a steamy shower door, using Magnetic Disruption, raising or lowering the temperature in the room), the spirit may show through the scope for the second in which the spirit invokes its Numen.
At long range, a thermal scope minimizes the penalty from –4 to a –1 modifier. At medium and short ranges, a character using a heat vision scope on a weapon suffers no range penalties. In darkness, the same penalties apply but the “Fighting Blind” rules do not.
An important consideration, however, is that a thermal scope provides benefit only when shooting warm (meaning living) targets. Animals, humans and other warm-blooded creatures show up perfectly in thermal vision. Vampires show up only minimally. Targeting a vampire with heat vision offers the shooter no more benefit than a normal scope (see above under “Sights, Telescopic”), as the vampire is hardly warm enough to stand out more than a little.
Thermal scopes usually offer no bonuses to seeing ghosts or spirits. However, if a spirit can in any way affect temperature (writing a Ghost Sign on a steamy shower door, using Magnetic Disruption, raising or lowering the temperature in the room), the spirit may show through the scope for the second in which the spirit invokes its Numen.
Item type
Sensory / Aid
Weight
Durability: 2
Dimensions
Size: 2
Base Price
Cost: •••••