Levitate versus combat drone, Does it work like this? Options

[Gort]

Okay, the scenario:

Mage is in a hallway, doberman drone is facing him ready to gun him down.

He casts a levitate spell on the drone, picks it up and manipulates it so that the turret cannot get line of sight to him and shoot him.

The drone is not alive, so is treated as an object, meaning the mage needs 1 hit per 200kg of mass. Since the drone is only body 3 and armour 9, a mass of 200kg seems reasonable, so the mage only needs one success.

Does this seem correct? Cause it feels very easy to neutralise the drone using levitate rather than other combat spells.

[ShadowDragon8685]

You're forgetting object resistance. A Drone is a "very complex" object, so that becomes a threshhold of five. Not so easy now.

[Abbandon]

Why not summon an electrical spirit. He will be near invinc vs the drone and the drone will be weak to lightning.

[Lilt]

If previous editions are anything to go by, then I'd expect the doberman to weigh more than 200kg with the armor and weapons.

Aside from that, you still need to overcome the drone's OR so even if it only weighed 200kg then you'd still need 5 or more successes. Tough, but achieveable.

The easiest way to deal with a drone as a mage is to summon a spirit with the elemental attack power. The elemental attack power ignores OR, as it's not a spell, and elemental attacks are only resisted with half armor meaning 9 hardened armor becomes 4 which is easily bypassed.

Whilst I made the same suggestion as Abbandon on another thread earlier, using an electrical spirit to disable a drone temporarily, it's noteable that you're probably better-off with cold or fire attacks. Consider the following attacks against a Steel Lynx:

Force 6 Air spirit uses an Electricity attack
Spirit rolls 15 dice for Exotic Ranged Weapon, rolls 5 successes on average
Drone rolls 3 dice to dodge, rolls one success on average
4 net successes
Drone rolls 12 dice, 3 body + 9 armor, rolling an average of 4 successes
Electricity attack has on-average 0 net successes which is not enough to disable the drone

Force 6 Air spirit uses a Cold attack
Spirit rolls 15 dice for Exotic Ranged Weapon, rolls 5 successes on average
Drone rolls 3 dice to dodge, rolls one success on average
4 net successes scale the damage up to 10p
Armor 9 reduced to 4 by elemental attack, 4 hardened armor not enough to ignore attack
Drone rolls 8 dice to resist, rolls 3 successes being generous.
Drone takes 7P damage on-average (it has a 10-box condition monitor)

[wind_in_the_ston...]

[twilite]

They really need to clarify whether the p154 descriptions of Electricity damage halving armor and ignoring metallic armor apply only to characters, or to drones as well. In the original description, it doesn't just say that the reductions are for characters' armor- is that supposed to be implied b/c it says half impact armor? For drones and vehicles, their armor functions as both, so that is not a definitive point.

It would change things in the above example if the armor for the drone is halved, and even negated if the armor is metallic- that's a minimum of 3 turns where the drone is completely out, but not destroyed (I'm thinking loot, if you can take out its network in that time).

[Lilt]

Cheaper? Yes. Smaller? Not nessecarily. The doberman remains medium-sized, and the Steel Lynx has grown to large size. Without exact definitions of these terms, it's impossible to say wether they've grown or shrunk. Lighter? Well, it does seem to have a smaller body than bikes which will presumably have remained the same size and weight. Although I wouldn't allow a Steel Lynx to fall below the 200kg mark, I suppose a doberman could.

Armor will involve the vehicle being heavier, the more armor the heavier the vehicle will be. The fact that they even stick some on the dodge scoot now can't change that.

Drones are completely immune to electricity damage, so the fact that it's normally resisted with half impact armor is a non-issue. The electricity attacks versus vehicles thing is a separate, special, case. The vehicle explicitly rolls Body+Armor.

If you really want to loot the drone then have your mage have a "vehicle components". Confer this knowledge via mental image o your drone and have it call its shots to disable the drone rather than destroy it. Taking-out the battery should involve a fairly cheap replacement, for example.

[DireRadiant]

Generally Levitate doesn't allow fine manipulation, which rotating the turret seems to imply. Look at Magic Finger for a spell which does allow manipulation. Levitate simply moves the object.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I think the implication was that you move the drone and rotate it to a point where it's turret can no longer aim at you. Like say, flipping it up so it's belly is facing you.

[Lilt]

[DireRadiant]

If you want the Levitate spell to also accomplish what the Magic Fingers spell is intended for I think you are allowing too much power to a mage.

[ShadowDragon8685]

And I think you're reading a little too heavily into the kind of rules that make it possible to fire an LMG at someone, full-auto, from point blank range, and miss.

Simple rotation is obviously possible along any axis, and rotating a drones so that it's belly is to you is perfectly valid, especially since you're shooting against threshold five, as I read it.