Alf lets out a low whistle and comments “
Certainly NOT targets of opportunity! Someone brought their can-opener to take people out of this militia-fort. Who knows what damn-fool booby-traps the families might have hidden around, so please be careful where you walk—I hate pulling rusty nails out of people. One of the women was a magician, so there could still be magical dangers as well, and I really don’t want to deal with drowning or burns or whatever. I guess you all know your jobs, so I’ll stop nagging, and go do mine – checking for signs of life and astral sweep. I’ll let you know what I find.”
--ooc-- I assume that before heading off, the team set up a communications channel --ooc--
First off Alf will astrally project and do a check of the lot and of the two car garage (where we may want to park). Wards, spirits, background count….?
Assensing 3 + Intuitiong (currently 7, unless a background count has knocked out his sustained spell?) = 10 dice. Get 4 successes http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4882922/ Barring dangers found in the Astral overview, or visible wards that would make the following pointless, Alf will then want to cast detect life twice: first covering the stinking, detached, garage, and second from wherever he can best cover the house itself. I’m going to give you the rolls now while I have time (yay for lunch break!), but ignore this whole section if the astral overview gives something remarkable, or if there is a background count (background count changes all the rolls)
Spell 1: force 5, 11 dice: 5 hits http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4882925/
Drain: 12 dice vs drain of 3: 5 hits http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4882926/ (no drain)
Spell 2: force 6 (for more area), 11 dice: 6 hits http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4882928/
Drain: 12 dice vs drain of 4: 5 hits http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4882931/ (no drain)
(I’m getting worried about all the good rolls ImaginaryCastle is throwing my way, always makes me nervous when I get good roles on the less critical stuff …. #gamerdicesuperstitions )Those successes should give a pretty detailed summary of life forms in those areas, but I don’t have the book in front of me to list the level of detail those success levels would show. Alf will pass along what he learns to the rest of the team.
ETA: I just rr-read detect life, and detection spells in general, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't using it right ... But I'm also pretty sure I don't really understand how it works. It seems to be focused on Alf, and can move with him, so should only need one cast. And it looks like anything in the area resists with willpower plus logic but exactly how that matches up with the chart on page 286 I'm not sure about (maybe the NPC all rolled the same?). It seemed like a logical spell for paramedic-ish character, but I've not seen it used before.