Mental Exercise: Anti-Dragon Task Force, Government/Megacorp Forces taking on Dragons Options

[martindv]

Even with Twist Fate?

[Cthulhudreams]

I didn't factor in edge actually, the dragon's ability would significantly reduce the chance of death to sort of 0.2%, except that the spirit has an edge pool of 24 and isn't really going to notice spending a point of edge to negate that ability.

Incidently, if it wasn't for the dragons ability to negate the use of edge, the spirits chance of killing the dragon by using the rule of sixs edge spend is about 70%

[Particle_Beam]

Don't even bother with any Force 24-spirits, guys. Such things would be more powerful and smarter than every Great Dragon, and such uber-spirits would find it beneath them to be summoned by anything at all. Nobody, nothing, can ever summon a Force 24-spirit, and binding is outright impossible.
Keep it at a more believable level, guys...

[FrankTrollman]

Rules as Written, Twist Fate is almost entirely worthless. It takes actions to use, which means that it's virtually a non-issue.

All it can really do is spend its Edge to cancel other edge expenditures, so it's not going to really change its capabilities much.

[Jhaiisiin]

Don't even bother with any Force 24-spirits, guys. Such things would be more powerful and smarter than every Great Dragon, and such uber-spirits would find it beneath them to be summoned by anything at all. Nobody, nothing, can ever summon a Force 24-spirit, and binding is outright impossible.
Keep it at a more believable level, guys...

Which of course brings up the problem of hard caps, something that a fraggin' dragon shouldn't be subjected to. I mean, c'mon, Max initiate grade of 6? Period? Ever? Even after 15,000 years?! The hard caps on stats and magic are a balance factor, but it's nigh impossible to apply them to a being of the dragon's power.

[Elve]

There is no hard cap on max initiation, dragon or not...

[siel]

A GD (western) has body of 25

B: 25
A: 10
R: 11
S: 50
C: 13
I: 13
L: 13
W: 13
EDG: 6
M: 12
Init: 24

conjuring 8
sorcery 10

I was under the impressiong you need force 26 increase attribute to boost the body of a GD, which you can get from a force 13 spirit that overcast, is that right?



If we are just taking a GD straight out of the box, there's no foci of any kind, no army of bind spirits, and no metamagic. That doesn't seem quite realistic in terms of a well-prepared dragon. Since the opposing side get mages with initiation grades (and thus metamagic feats), maybe the OP could tell us if GD has access to foci, metamagic feats, and the highest force spirit that it can summon/bind?


As a side note.. i wonder how well a possession-tradition GD would work..

[Fuchs]

GD by the rules of the books.

[Elve]

Then you should also only use soldiers by the book, with the equipment they have by the book...

[Fuchs]

Prime runners, yes.

But as I said - Great Dragons get by by Dev Fiat. Same for immortal elves. So, the discussion usually ends in "THey would do that" "would not" "would too".

[apple]

I know I know ... resurrection from the dead. Please forgive me.

One question came up in a similar discussion on a german board.

Assuming that a great dragon has masking and extended masking, he has the power the change the type of his astral form/aura.

A character who learns masking can change the
appearance of her aura/astral form to do the following: look
mundane, look as though her Magic is higher or lower than
it is (+/– your grade of initiation), or look as though she is a
diff erent type of astral creature.

What does this mean in detail?
1) His astral form, that of a great dragon, while flying or astral projecting, can be changed to the astral form of a dual natured human, which would mean that he cannot be identified as a great dragon at at the astral plane?
2) His astral form can only change the type of astral creature (to be identified as a fire elementar of very large proportions for example), not the size or the shape of the astral form.

In SM page 112, the astral form of dual natured beings seem to be tied to the physical body, so I assume #2. If #1 is true, can a astral projecting human mage change his aura into a dual natured mouse and never be identified as a human mage?

SYL

[Malicant]

1) His astral form, that of a great dragon, while flying or astral projecting, can be changed to the astral form of a dual natured human, which would mean that he cannot be identified as a great dragon at at the astral plane?

As I see it, he can look like anything on the astral, human, cat, whatever, but the shadow of his body will still make the masking not very convincing. Unless he is projecting. Then all bets are off and he can pass as long as the masking is not broken.

I think one of the examples in the BBB was even an projecting form masking as mundane. Of course, this is easily broken, since no body is present, but it shows what the intent of masking is.