[Malevolence]

Mercer'd be keen with waiting until practice is over and they remove their armor before beginning the assault. Not only would they be unarmed (relatively) and unarmored (again, relatively), but also a little worse for wear.


With the knowledge of the sewer exit, it might make a great entrance for the sneaky folk - both to block the enemy's egress and to get in undetected. Achak can enter through that route with maybe a drone (Punch, if there aren't any stairs/ladders) in tow, Patsy and maybe Flickr handle the trio outside, Jaeger or Flickr handles the spirit, and Mercer provides overwatch, shooting any target that presents itself, inside or out. Jaeger's spirits can also go hot in or out of the building as needed once the festivities start. We can maybe send Punch or Patsy inside via an above ground route if the sewers/passage are too awkward for them to navigate. Of course, if Achak declares the "hefty barrier" in the sewer insurmountable, we can maybe just post a drone there to cover the escape route while he finds an alternate entrance. Hopefully between his lockpicking and Spitfire's hacking, the door can be opened quietly.


Might be a good time to get a matrix eye view of the place - look for sensors, commlinks I can target, possible booby traps, and so on. We've got an hour or so to kill waiting on Jaeger, so as long as Spitfire doesn't get spotted, we should have plenty of time to spot all the things.


I should probably get Mercer's load out set up as well before things start happening. He's brought most everything with him in the van, but I'll list it out for reference:
Carried/worn
Argentum coat worn over Armor clothing (non-stacking, providing an armor of 12)
Ballistic mask (worn, +2 armor)
Fairlight Caliban
Biomonitor
Sensor tags
Stealth Tags
Joey and Sean (Tracker and Stick-n-Shock)
Shock gloves
Survival knife


Not carried/worn
Trauma patch
R6 Stim patch (note that his auto-injector has a second R6 stim patch and trauma patch)
2 doses longhaul (just in case this takes longer than expected)
1 dose Cram
Area Jammer R5
Bug Scanner R6
Tag Eraser
Vera (APDS) spare clips - 1xtracker, 1xAPDS, 1xsilver APDS
Stake (APDS, sawdust mini-grenades) spare clips - 1xAPDS, 1xGel, 1xstick-n-shock, 1xgas mini grenades (pepper punch)
Yoki (drum loaded with 5x Flechette, 9x APDS, 3x Sawdust, 5x Gel (bean bag), 2x Capsule) spare drum with same loadout
spare clips for machine pistols - 1xAPDS, 1xCapsule, 1xsilver APDS, 1xGel
2 each of gas grenade (pepper punch), sawdust grenade, paint grenade (wolfsbane), smoke grenade, thermal smoke grenade, frag grenade


Everything he's not carrying is wireless off. Weapons and tags are wireless off, armor, commlink, and biomonitor is wireless on for the bulk of the trip, but running silent as we approach our destination. I'll probably slave things to Spitfire for the Target Device benefit, otherwise he's got a stealth dongle and smoke and mirrors on his commlink, giving him a Sleaze of 6.


I can't help but think I'm forgetting something...

[Tecumseh]

Per rednblack's IC post, the current time is 01:37. That means that Achak is crashing off his novacoke high, which lasted from roughly 18:00 to 01:00. His Willpower and Charisma will both be 1 until about 08:00, which means that his Composure rolls are a fright. Not a winning strategy, especially given the magical abilities of wendigos (and their Influence power).

Achak will save face by pointing out the Flickr is an even bigger mess than he is, and that the elf needs time to recover before an effective intrusion can be staged. This will also provide more opportunities to study schedules and ensure a strike time that doesn't involve wendigos in heavy armor. Per the IC, it sounds like we have a couple days to work with. Doesn't look like anyone took Demolitions. Pity.

It seems that Jaeger has arrived on the scene. We should establish ICly that Jaeger links up with the others. Mal, can you do an IC post with the introductions? Then Jaeger can fill us in on his recon.

[Herr Brackhaus]

I'm working on the IC intro now, incorporating the additional information from rednblack.

I can provide Concealment with a spirit; while it won't help against anything dual-natured, it will help against any cameras they might have. OOC, I'd also be interested in finding out if the containers where the wendigos stay can be locked. Why fight several seriously scary creatures if we can just lock them in a container, drill a hole in the top and drop a few grenades into it

Also keep in mind that the tunnel is protected by a mana barrier and a door; I can deal with the barrier but the moment I do whoever created it will know, and I'm no good against the door. Worth posting a guard or observer there just in case someone tries to escape, however.

[Zweiblumen]

So, none of us are particularly skilled at finding things in the matrix   Though with enough time, we'll eventually notice everything.  RnB do you want a bunch of Matrix Perception checks?

[Herr Brackhaus]

Speaking of equipment, Erik doesn't have a lot of gear, but what he does have is essentially either on him or in the duffel bag in the smuggling compartment of his vehicle:
Carried/Worn:
Nixdorf Sekretar [A0, S0, DP6, FW2, w/Receiver, Fake SIN (Rating 4, Thomas Ashford, UCAS), 3 Fake Licenses (Rating 4, Registered Mystic Adept, Combat Magic, Foci Permit], Power Focus (Rating 2, metal torque), 2 Sustaining Foci (Detection, Rating 1, silver rings, one on each hand), Fetish (metal bracelet), 175 drams of Reagents, Vashon Island Synergist Business Line

Vehicle (Smuggling Compartment):
Duffel Bag [w/Full Body Armor, Yamaha Raiden, 3 Spare Clips (AR), 300 regular rounds (AR, Hand Loaded +1 DV), 2 doses each of Guts, NoPaint, and Psyche]

Also, on the way back past the warehouse from checking out the tunnel Jaeger will cast Astral Clairvoyance at Force 5 for a total range of 30m; hopefully that's far enough to be able to project outside of the car to get a quick Assensing off on the three people outside the warehouse.

Spellcasting (Detection) 6 (+2) + Magic 6 + Power Focus 2 - Sustaining 4 = 12 dice. I'm choosing to keep both the Detect Life and Spatial Sense spells active because of the brilliant net hits, and because it looks like you only need 1 hit on Astral Clairvoyance; there doesn't seem to be any use for net hits on this spell, with the possible exception of dispelling purposes, but range still matters so Force 5 it is.
Spellcasting (Force 5 Astral Clairvoyance); Resist 2S Drain: 12d6t5 3 9d6t5 4

And Assensing the three subjects; I'm assuming I roll once for all three, but let me know if you'd prefer one roll for each opponent instead.

Assensing (Aura Reading) 6 (+2) + Intuition 4... Aaaaaand I just realized I'd have a -6 dice pool modifier because of the sustaining penalties. Bugger, didn't think of that. All right, discard that last spellcasting test; I'll cast Manascape on the spirit instead to make the spirits aura look like a small swarm of gnats or other airborne insects. If I need to maintain LOS to keep Manascape centered on the spirit I'll roll down the window of the car (which are tinted by default, of course). I'll then ask it to assense the creatures I've detected through magical means.

Spellcasting 6 + Magic 6 + Power Focus 2 - Sustaining 4 = 10 dice. Drain is Force - 2, so I'll cast at Force 4; if the opponents spot the aura and try to resist the illusion, they'll roll Logic + Willpower:
Spellcasting (Force 4 Manascape); Resist 2S Drain: 10d6t5 3

Spirit uses Force for all skills, and Assensing is tied to Intuition which is also Force for Guardian Spirits, for a total of Assensing 7 + Intuition 7 = 14 dice:
Assensing (Force 7 Guardian Spirit): 14d6t5 6

Astral Limit is equal to Mental or Social limit, whichever is greater, so the spirits Limit in this case is ((LOG7*2)+INT7+WIL7)/3=10 (holy moly! . It's task will be to use it's Assensing power on the three metahumans outside the warehouse, and if not detected when done then do the same for the others inside. I would tell it to approach from the east using the containers as Astral cover since they would be opaque, but the fraggin' thing has higher mental stats than I do so I'll just tell it that stealth is of primary concern, so if it thinks there's a choice between being avoiding detection and completing the task it should choose avoid detection.

As far as Matrix Perception goes, Jaeger's Agent can roll 6 dice on it but Jaeger wouldn't think to ask it unless told, seeing as he was brought in as magical support

EDIT:
Forgot to include drain resist for Manascape:
Resist 2S Drain: 9d6t5 4

[rednblack]

@Herr, on Shattershield I'm a little torn.  On the one hand, Mana Barriers are pretty flimsy in on the Physical plane, and really only offer any kind of resistance in the astral.  Assuming the ubiquitous Force 6 Mana Barrier, you could be fairly certain of bringing it down while only suffering the minimum 2 Drain in almost any circumstance.  On the other hand, it is incredibly limited in its usefulness so shouldn't it be strong against that one target?  Anybody else want to chime in here? 

As for having your Spirit Assense the folks outside, I'm under the impression that each use of its Assensing Power would cost 1 Service, but that gets pretty swimmy.  Assensing isn't a Spirit "Power" only a skill, and since Astral Perception is the way that spirits "see" the world, I certainly wouldn't tack a service on for each chummer the spirit sees/senses/whatever on your six if you were giving it the order to watch your back.  But Assensing has the potential to provide a lot of very in depth information that simply keeping an eye out and reporting back to you on wouldn't, and I think it would be abusive to use 1 service to Assense and report back on every HMHVV infected human in the city.  So, uh, where's the balance point there?  Then things get even more complicated because a spirit will be using Assensing in order to carry out a lot of its other services, so I'm just not sure.  I'm mulling over the idea of having a full-on "Assense this guy." order cost 1 service per target, while more general "Look for X characteristics over this small group" would also cost 1 service but wouldn't provide a full Astral readout on each target.  Again, I'd like to get some feedback here.  I've checked online and it hasn't been much help, but my google fu seems pretty weak today in general. 

Also, the tunnel is protected by a mundane physical barrier of some sort, not a magical one, or at least not that Jaeger can tell.  I don't think Spatial Sense would transmit a mana barrier, though it might leave "blank" spaces in the magician's sight. 

@All, please post your load out as well when you get the chance.

@Zwei, I'll take a suite of Matrix Perception tests.  Let's call it 3.  I'll also take a Perception test for the Noizquito inside the warehouse if you want to try spotting cameras in there.  Ditto if you want to do the outside with your swarm.     

[Herr Brackhaus]

What would your alternate ruling on Shattershield be? Because raising the limit accomplishes somewhat the same thing, but the whole point of Shattershield is to destroy mana barriers in a "spectacular" fashion; to my mind at least this implies a particularly powerful spell with a singular use, i.e. hyperspecialized. Also keep in mind that the moment a barrier is attacked the creator is aware of the event, so there's a degree of risk to destroying a barrier in the first place.


As for the "balance point" for service use, I'd say this is two-fold. The Remote Service" aspect, and the Spirit Index aspect.

For the first, any service counts as a remote service if the spirit has to move more than Magic x 100 meters from it's summoner, and a single Remote Service always uses all services of an unbound spirit. A good example of a commonly used remote service is the Search power; in order to use this power, it's highly likely that the spirit will have to leave your range as well as spend minutes, if not hours in the Astral ceaselessly looking for something. A bound spirit would only count this as a single task, however, which is reasonable given the cost to bind spirits.

Counting "Assense target X" as a service would be utterly crippling in my opinion; that would be similar to counting every use of a power during combat as a single service, which the book specifically calls out as not applicable unless you specifically tell the spirit which power it should use instead of telling it to "assist me with this combat". In the latter case it can freely use it's powers as it sees fit (and most likely would to increase it's own chances of not being disrupted and to finish it's services more quickly), which could theoretically last for hours if you get into a run-and-gun battle.

Then there's Spirit Index; if you feel like a task is particularly onerous for any given spirit the character could be considered as starting to gain a bad reputation with spirits, assuming such an action was being abused. I personally don't think Assensing a single target is all that powerful, as it is information a projecting mage would gain in the same way. In my case a Spirit is doing it for me, though, and if I hadn't bought the Assensing skill at all and planned to just summon spirits to do it for me all the time, then I could see your point. As you say, however, it's a skill, not a power; to my mind, this is similar to asking the spirit to watch something for an extended period of time using the Perception skill instead of Assensing, something the Guardian Spirit is capable of as it also has the Perception skill. For example, I ask a spirit to stand outside the door of a busy night-club entrance and use it's Perception skill to "look for hidden weapons" all night long, and it would be doing exactly the same as using it's Assensing skill.

In this case I've specifically asked the spirit to look out for itself by not getting spotted as opposed to just having it charge in and do it's thing, putting its wellbeing ahead of the mission. It's also a short term service that doesn't abuse the spirit in any way, as it is in it's nature to perceive the astral anyway. Spirits are mentioned as being inherently curious about the Physical realm, after all, and in Jaeger's case he's got the Spirit Whisperer quality which means he attracts powerful spirits for some reason. I'm sure there's a story hook in there somewhere.


And finally; ok, so the barrier is physical, not magical. Got'cha, I'll edit my post. As the player I'm not sure what that means, though; does the player character have any idea of what it might be? Is it a wall, or some form of barricade, or something else entirely? You're spot on about mana barriers, though these would only leave blank spaces if they completely enclosed an area similar to those created by a lodge, which fills an area instead of a wall like object like that generated by a Ward or Mana Barrier spell.

[rednblack]

What would your alternate ruling on Shattershield be?

I don't have one.  Like you, I think just making the spell cost 1 less drain is pretty weak.  So, either I will house rule the spell as you suggest, or it will just be a poor choice of a spell, in which case you'll be free to select another option.  I'm pretty much leaning towad your house rule at this point.  I'll let anybody else chime in who wants to, and make a call by the end of the day.

Counting "Assense target X" as a service would be utterly crippling in my opinion; that would be similar to counting every use of a power during combat as a single service, which the book specifically calls out as not applicable unless you specifically tell the spirit which power it should use instead of telling it to "assist me with this combat". In the latter case it can freely use it's powers as it sees fit (and most likely would to increase it's own chances of not being disrupted and to finish it's services more quickly), which could theoretically last for hours if you get into a run-and-gun battle.

I disagree.  First, combats in SR typically last 3-6 seconds.  Even though I tend to run pretty long combat encounters, they almost invariably end before the half minute mark.  That aside, though, this is legwork, not combat, and utility Spirits tax a Service per use of their utility.  Wanna have the Spirit use Confusion to make it easier to talk past the guard?  1 Service.  Ditto on the guard down the hall at the second kiosk?  That's another Service.  Now, as I've said, I sympathize that Assence dude X, boom that's a Service seems extreme, but more on that in a second.

Then there's Spirit Index; if you feel like a task is particularly onerous for any given spirit the character could be considered as starting to gain a bad reputation with spirits, assuming such an action was being abused.

I'm worried that spamming Spirits for Assencing will be abusive in game terms, but I have a hard time thinking Spirits would find it as such.  No Spirit Index for Assensing.  As you mention later, it could even be "fun," in a way, for the Spirits to do so.

I personally don't think Assensing a single target is all that powerful, as it is information a projecting mage would gain in the same way. In my case a Spirit is doing it for me, though, and if I hadn't bought the Assensing skill at all and planned to just summon spirits to do it for me all the time, then I could see your point.

This is very valid.  It may not be worth the exercise in figuring this stuff out precisely because you've made the necessary sacrifices balance-wise.

As you say, however, it's a skill, not a power; to my mind, this is similar to asking the spirit to watch something for an extended period of time using the Perception skill instead of Assensing, something the Guardian Spirit is capable of as it also has the Perception skill. For example, I ask a spirit to stand outside the door of a busy night-club entrance and use it's Perception skill to "look for hidden weapons" all night long, and it would be doing exactly the same as using it's Assensing skill.

I don't see the correlation here.  Assensing offers a whole host of info that just looking for concealed weapons does not.  Maybe if you were asking specific questions which Assensing could answer I would see this point as being spot on.  As is, I don't know that I'm willing to part with such an extreme amount of knowledge for such a limited cost.

In this case I've specifically asked the spirit to look out for itself by not getting spotted as opposed to just having it charge in and do it's thing, putting its wellbeing ahead of the mission.

Well, it's also putting your well-being ahead of the "mission" but point taken.

All this said, do you have any ideas for a compromise?  I'm really not going to let Assense X (where X represents near infinite auras within 100 meters) be a single service.  I'm more than willing to let "is there anything unusual about the auras of X" or "do any auras specified have Y characteristic" etc. be counted as a service, but I just can't see where an average of 4 hits for the ubiquitous Force 6 Spirit -- detailing Betaware, exact Force, whether the subject is HMHVV positive, etc. -- and for near-unlimited subjects is non-abusive. 

And finally; ok, so the barrier is physical, not magical. Got'cha, I'll edit my post. As the player I'm not sure what that means, though; does the player character have any idea of what it might be? Is it a wall, or some form of barricade, or something else entirely? You're spot on about mana barriers, though these would only leave blank spaces if they completely enclosed an area similar to those created by a lodge, which fills an area instead of a wall like object like that generated by a Ward or Mana Barrier spell.

It looks like a wall.  Had you not gotten so many hits, you may have just seen an "end" to the tunnel, but given the hits, it looks like they built a wall into the "end" of their tunnel, and so Jaeger, or the team, may surmise that said wall was intended to come down at some point if the vamps want it to.  Or, maybe it's just a wall to set their tunnel apart from the sewer system proper..

Also, thanks for differentiating between Mana Barriers and Wards, etc.  What I was referring to would have more applicability on Wards than Barriers.  It's likely that Barriers wouldn't show up at all, while Wards might look like blank spaces, etc.

[Herr Brackhaus]

I think a fair option for Assensing is for you to give the information you feel like the spirit thought was interesting. After all, it's not Jaeger the player characters that's observing these characters, but Frida the spirit. Thus, Jaegers knowledge of vampires and magical creatures does not correlate directly to what the spirit would know.

You could also apply astral visibility penalties to the spirits dice pool, reducing the potential hits. Or both.

Ultimately, you control the flow of the game so you control what information is available, because GM fiat.

I think it's perfectly valid for you to say that the spirit might have scored 5 hits and see all the aura details, but it's having difficulties explaining what it saw. This would be similar to how you'd get to interpret how a spirit used it's powers in combat, unless I explicitly told it to do something specific.

You're also more than welcome to tell me to stop metagaming

I'm a very rules bound character but have no issue when a GM makes a call for story purposes. If finding out thecGuffin shouldn't be possible at stage X in an adventure, then no (or at least few) methods should override this. I'd liken this to a Decker looking for a particular piece of information in a host; he can spend all year looking, but if the Intel isn't there it isn't there to find...

[Tecumseh]

Shattershield
Shattershield, as written, is demonstrably inferior to other available spells. Thus the options are to
1) house-rule Shattershield, or
2) select another available spell.

#1 is tricky because it puts the responsibility of balance on the GM who may not feel that he is in a good position to adjudicate such matters on the fly. In that case, #2 is the better approach.

Let's do some math to see if we can explore #1.

Mana barriers have Armor and Structure equal to Force. An F6 mana barrier rolls 12 dice to soak damage. The attacker has one combat turn to do 6 boxes of damage (Structure=Force) before the barrier regains its full Structure at the end of a combat turn. This is an uncertain proposition against a spell such as Death Touch, as a magician rolling 14 dice might only get 1 net hit per initiative pass, and thus make 6 net hits in one combat turn a tall order. Net hits x2 is only marginally better in this example because it depends on three initiative passes.

Herr's suggestion of Net Hits * 2 DV resisted only by Force would make the spell highly effective against mana barriers. 14 dice would average 5 hits versus 6 dice that would average 2 hits. 3 net hits multiplied by 2 DV equals 6 which means that the mana barrier goes down in one initiative pass. That would match the spell's name, for sure. Higher Force mana barriers might require a second casting but that is not unreasonable.

Personally, given the highly-specialized nature of the spell, I would be comfortable with Herr's proposed house rule. If someone spends a spell slot on it then it should be an effective spell.

Spirit services
Ultimately what constitutes a spirit's service is entirely at the GM's discretion.

Personally, I rule that Jaeger's request costs at least one service. He's asking the spirit to go somewhere and do something that he cannot, and Jaeger even uses the language of "task". That the requests involves a skill instead of a power is immaterial. Spirits can fight using unarmed combat instead of a power and the fight will still cost a service.

Jaeger is not just telling the spirit to be alert (which it would do via assensing). In my mind, that would be the equivalent of saying "keep your eyes open as you are walking around," i.e. it's obviously understood and secondary to whatever else the spirit is doing. Instead, he's requested a scouting report, which is something that the spirit wouldn't do on its own unless it was told to and principally involves the spirit's skill.

Qualities like Spirit Affinity and Spirit Whisperer already have crunch benefits. Whether the GM wants to extend some leeway to the fluff benefits is the GM's discretion. I'm probably a pretty prime example of MagicRun as a player but even I don't think spirits need any additional help.

From a broader perspective, Assensing and Perception tests are tricky because they have no defined interval. If I get a bad roll, can I just roll again three seconds later? Does that mean that all secrets are eventually revealed because mathematically I'm going to get 5 hits on 12 Assensing dice within 3 rolls? With 14 dice it's only 2 rolls.

Possible approach #1
Make the spirit buy its hits while Assensing the groups. 3 hits provides a good report that reflects the competency of the spirit while simultaneously representing the imperative of not getting caught. However, we also have to be respectful of rednblack's bandwidth as a GM. He's not a computer that can spit out a 3-hit report on 13 people on short notice. That takes serious time and effort.

Possible approach #2
Go outside the printed rules. For each service, give the spirit a number of Assensing hits equal to its Assensing dice pool. In this case, 14 hits. The spirit can spend those hits per the summoner's direction. You can get a highly-detailed report on 3 people or you can get a high-level report on 14 people. If you want a 2-hit report on everyone (13 targets), that's two services. If you don't want to spend any services, then play a full magician or cough up some nuyen for Shade so that the mystic adept can astrally project himself.

Possible approach #3
Use Herr's suggestion of having the spirit - with its imperfect understanding of the physical world - report on what it thinks is interesting.

Herr, by your own admission you have a 20-page document of house rules. You might be a rules-bound player but you obviously see the value in looking beyond what's printed.

[Herr Brackhaus]

To the other team members; any of you have engineering or security related skills that might help with figuring out the wall? Jaeger isn't too familiar with those kinds of things, so a wall in the tunnel is about the extent he'll be able to contribute.

I'll wait for an IC post before dealing with Flickr; if it does come to needing a Heal spell I'd drop all sustained spells after the Spirit returned and cast Heal at Force 6 (Drain Value of F-4) with 14 dice total.

Oh, and rednblack, Jaeger definitely thinks of spirits, Guardians in particular, as revered ancestors. So when he said to remain stealthy it wasn't for his own benefit, but for the spirit. Being discovered by potentially powerful dual natured vampires could be a death sentence, and he wouldn't needlessly risk a spirits existence for something so mundane as a scouting mission. Just some additional POV into his psyche for you


Tecumseh
Great comments all around. And I must have missed Shade; looking that up now

As for being rules bound; that is still 100% true, but I never said RAW

By rules I once again mean this particular game. My game has a lot of established house rules, this game is still working some out, which is great! Sometimes RAW is just inadequate, and I very Mich appreciate GMs and players who can roll with it when necessary and come up with a better rule.

Perhaps I should have said mechanics based player instead; I enjoy roleplaying quite a lot, but there has to be a framework for me to base some of my decisions on. And I certainly don't expect a full 5-hit report on 13 people; I'd almost expect the GM to fudge some dice or just tell me that something isn't important. If a player in my game asks to get all the details about a corporation whose host foundation they've just hacked, I'm not going to sit down and write a full charter, business strategy, org charts, and business records. If they get that in-game info they can refer to it if it becomes necessary, at which point I'll make up the required information if not already present, and leave it at that

[Malevolence]

Concerning Flickr's health - I'm not sure what his condition monitors are at, but I believe he has the Heal spell, and he should have made use of Mercer's medkit back at the bar. This only heals physical damage though, and I think he incurred a significant amount of stun. The few hours since the bar have been pretty low activity, so he probably gets a few rolls to heal off some of that stun as well, so he might not be in very bad shape at this point at all.


Concerning spirit services - I think that asking for a report on the people within a smallish area is perfectly fine as a single service. But he asked for two separate reports - one for those outside the warehouse, and one for those within. I think that two services is a reasonable fee for what has been asked. Since it is fairly low population, I could see a request to report on what the spirit finds in the whole area (warehouse and immediate surroundings) as a reasonable single service request, whereas asking the same of a large office building in the middle of the day when there might be hundreds of people present would be asking too much.


Where to draw the line? Tough call. Tec's suggestion to split up the total dice pool as successes makes sense, though it is open to abuse - a guaranteed 14 hit Assense against a single target can be wild (well limited to the spirit's Astral Limit of 10, which doesn't really help), so I propose further limiting the results of any individual to what the spirit could purchase (in this case 3 hits). So, he can get 3 hits on 4 targets and 2 hits on a 5th, or 1 hit on 14 targets, or any combination in between.


Alternatively, you can break it down to say each "use" of the Assense skill is one service, but the spirit can Assense multiple people in a single attempt. While Astral "vision" is effectively 360º, you could limit it to a cone shape similar to human perception. In this case, the group outside, if they cluster, would be one service, and the group inside, again if they cluster, could be a second. This is still open to the "giant crowd of people in an open space" abuse, but since auras would block the view of other auras, you could reasonably limit the number of people that could be assensed in one "snapshot". With this interpretation, the task would likely require 4 services - two for outside where presumably the two patrollers are on the same side of the building at some point in the patrol and the guy in the van, then two for inside where Kreutz and the Wendigos are in the large open area and the other two are off in the smaller room.


Concerning Shattershield - No opinion. I like both options presented by Tec.


Concerning the barrier - Mercer has 10 dice for Engineering. It might also be worthwhile to send one of the gnats down there to get Mercer eyes on. It isn't the barrier we're talking about, but it would be useful to see what the sewer side of this thing looks like.

[rednblack]

@Mal, come on, Mercer doesn't want to go in guns blazing against 7 genetically modified -- and arguably "perfected" -- HMHVV infected ork shamans in combat armor, plus their handlers?!  That's ¥105,000 just in bounties alone ripe for the taking, ¥120,000 if the ponytail lady from Sunrise and Kreutz are both zekes.  That's a lot of jing.

@Herr, let's go with your house rule on Shattershield.  DV = Net Hits X2.  Drain, etc. will remain unchanged. 

You're also more than welcome to tell me to stop metagaming

Metagaming on rules points is exactly what you should be doing.  1. it helps me learn the rules better, and I can't express how helpful it has been for me to play with more experienced folk on the PbP boards since I joined.  2. I remain open to suggestions precisely because I think that finding rulings that make sense and make the game flow more smoothly are more fun for everyone involved.  Don't think that because I disagree with a point or shoot something down that I don't want your input.  I definitely do.  3. your order to your spirit is exactly what Erik the char would do, even if it also makes sense from a utility standpoint.  Erik knows that he can't Astrally Project, and likewise knows that his revered spirit ancestor can.  No askance glances from me on that, chummer.

I really appreciate everyone's responses on this.  What seems to make the most sense to me is to not give a flat ruling on Spirits using Assensing but use a "what makes sense" given the circumstances result.  I'm going to tax 2 services: 1 for the group outside and 1 for the group inside.  I think this should work quite well, but I'm reserving the right to revisit this later.  The three metas outside are healthy, mundane, and moderately cybered -- however the Spirit would put that last one is up to you, Herr.  The troll is especially augmented.  I've still got to figure out what to do about the wendigo and potential vampires inside.  At the very least they'll all be Distracted at best, but as has been explicitly stated ICly Kreutz at least is a little weary of his present surroundings.  Let's see how he does:

V. Manascape - Distracted: 8d6t5 2
Nope, looks like you're in the clear.

The auras on 7 of the 8 orks are eerily similar, not as though they are clones of one another but as if something has over-written their DNA at a very fundamental level.  All 8 orks are Awakened, 7 are augmented, and diseased.  The Spirit has a hard time getting a read on the 2 humans.  Maybe they're just regular chummers?

As for making GM calls for story purposes, I try to resist that whenever possible.  If you guys figure out how to best the BBEG in the next 2 pages of IC, cool on you.  I'm already worried that I'm spamming too much plot in too little space to worry about pacing this thing out.  More than anything I worry about dead-ends, but luckily that hasn't been an issue so far.  That all said, I will be making an arbitrary GM call and say that no one can help Flickr.  He'll rest off his Stun no problem, but what happens with the reagents in him is completely in the (dice) god's hands.

@Tec, so can I be an absolute asshat of a GM and ask for a Con test for Achak to save face and blame not wanting to attack now on Flickr?

@All, what're the next steps?  If you're not laying siege now, are you heading back to the safehouse and making plans for when that assault will take place?  How far forward do you want to move ICly and what other steps will you be taking in the meantime?  Mal mentioned sending a drone down in the sewers to put eyes on what Jaeger found.  I think Zwei's availability is still limited, so we can make a call that that happens, assuming you find a way to get a drone in the sewer. 

[Malevolence]

Oh, yeah, the plan. I think that since Achak is incapacitated until 8am and we don't want to do this during business hours, we'll have to delay the assault until sometime after 8pm the following day, though we can stay a bit longer to finish up surveillance, and can certainly leave some assets here throughout the following day to see what else we can glean. Leaving that noisesquito in the warehouse, wireless off and recording could be useful. It can be programmed to go wireless on (running silent) every half hour (or even every five minutes) to upload its footage, then move to a new location (to foil a Trace Icon action if they get lucky). That should reduce its chances of being detected with Matrix perception while still giving us near real-time data. If Spitfire doesn't have a stealth soft for them, he could purchase one and upload it during one of the check-ins just to increase its odds of survival.


As for the sewers, yes, I fully support finding a way for a drone to get in there for a visual inspection. A noisesquito (or even fly spy) can probably fit in through the grip holes of a manhole cover. Alternatively, your average sink would probably be a decent ingress point (though the p-trap might be a problem if the drones aren't waterproof).


But what we have so far, plus the sewer trip and Matrix gander that Spitfire will be taking, should be sufficient for the evening morning, plus eyes on the inside (and maybe a pair on the outside to watch for guard changes, etc) should help. Now, no-one has taken a close look at the decker backup wendigo troll in the van, so we should also rectify that while we are here.


Mercer is keenly aware of the bounty values (see In Debt - he had to find some unorthodox means of income while he was underground*), and quite pleased at the prospect, but he's also fully aware that in order to survive the assault, some specimens may not be whole enough to qualify for a bounty. Of course, he'd probably be okay turning the whole building into an inferno, even if that meant no bounty, but that's his prejudice speaking. That and turning in the bounties carries a risk. One step at a time...


* - or laying low, so as not to be confused with when he was, quite literally, underground.

[Tecumseh]

Oh, snap, I don't have Con. I thought I did but, no, it's Influence.

My Charisma is 1 due to crashing from novacoke. I'll be defaulting due to the lack of Con.

Con: Charisma 1 + Con 5 + Plausible Evidence 1 - Time to Evaluate 1: 0d6t5 0 hits

Achak doesn't know the details of what drones can and cannot do but he likes Mercer's plan of maintaining some surveillance throughout the day. Sending a drone into the sewers would be swell as well.

Achak will try to contact Elijah from a burner commlink to verify what was eavesdropped.

From a social engineering standpoint, it might be possible to flip some of the sentries, but that might take more time than what we have available.

Another option is to wait and strike the convoy that transports the specimens rather than trying to siege a facility. If the specimens are transported separately we might not be able to get them all at once but it might help minimize our risk and exposure. We're not particularly close to the Aztechnology Pyramid (which, fun fact, I lived one block away from until May) so presumably they will have trucks come pick up the shipping containers with the specimens inside. (I suppose the specimens could egress through the tunnels and sewers, but it's 30 miles from Dash Point to the Pyramid so I doubt they are walking.) We could disable the trucks and then pick them apart. If they aren't moved for a couple days then a possible drawback is that the specimens would have time to recover from their maladies, but I'm guessing that's a longer-term recovery from whatever procedure they went through.

The earlier comment about swapping names was referring to the line: 'Mercer identifies immediately as the big brute with the telescoping staff who kept calling him "nighthawker."' That was Achak, not Mercer, unless Mercer had a separate encounter I never heard about.