Rooting and Wall Running Options

[Tarantula]

Just a question and I couldn't find any answers directly to yes or no with the books. If an adept possesses both rooting and wall running, can the adept run up a wall, and then use the rooting power to effectively remain in place where he stopped at until he decides to deactivate the rooting power?

[Zen Shooter01]

The descriptions of the powers in question (pg. 179-180, Street Magic) suggest no.

First, Wall Running is a very limited power. Hits on a Strength + Running test give the number of meters the character may run up or along a vertical surface. Even if you're throwing ten dice the average is only three hits - so now you're three meters up the wall and in gravity's cruel domain. Wall Running does not allow you to stop, start, hang out and have a pastry. You run up, you come down pretty quick, one way or another.

At a cost of 1 power point, I wonder that it wouldn't be better to buy Improved Climbing Ability 4 instead.

Second, Rooting doesn't make you into a literally immovable object. It just adds a number of dice equal to its rating to any attempt to resist being moved against the PCs will.

So, a PC standing on a vertical wall so that he is perpendicular to the floor normally rolls 0 dice to remain in that spot. If the PC has Rooting 5, he rolls 0+5, for a total of five dice.

Planet Earth exerts its Gravity ability with a conservative estimate of 100 dice, and the PC loses.

[venenum]

[HullBreach]

[toturi]

[Tarantula]

To pick your post apart bit by bit:

[cyberdozer]

There are examples of Rooting and Wall Running available to you now. Take a look at Jackie Chan or Tony Jaa flicks - they both employ Wall Running to a great degree in their films. I am not talking about the wire-fighting, but the times when they scale a wall much taller than themselves by scrambling up a corner or using two opposing walls. For an example of rooting, watch just about any Kung Fu movie and there should be an example; One warrior resists the other's powerful attacks (the ones that caused him to fly backwards earlier in the fight) by rooting himself and shrugging off the blows. Tony Jaa does that in Ong Bak, when he is fighting the steriod-crazed henchmen underneath the Buddha statue in the cave at the end of the movie.

The inclusion of these powers strikes me as an attempt to provide a means for an Adept to do those same kinds of things we see in the movies while we are running the shadows. Perhaps Chan, Jaa, Jet Li, and the other martial artists who do their own stunts were actually latent Adepts in the not-so distant parallel past of 2071.

I have to agree with Zen Shooter01. Most Physical Dept powers empower your own body, but do not metamorphose it to a degree where Rooting would actually cause you to hold fast on a vertical or ceiling surface. That is what Gecko Tape is for, right? ;)

[FanGirl]

Tarantula, read the description again and you'll see that Zen's shooter's example is not irrelevant. The fact that the adept has to roll dice to avoid being "moved against his will" means that he can indeed be moved against his will. Think of a Rooted adept as a sticker: if you put him on a surface, he will stay there, but you can peel the sticker off the surface if you apply the necessary forces. In this case, gravity is the necessary force required to unstick the adept. Remember, adept powers only allow you to bend the laws of physics, not shatter them.

[Toshiaki]

If we're going to go into Kung Fu movies, then we also have cases where Rooting was used to keep them stuck to the wall. The Lizard from Five Deadly Venoms comes to mind for me.

[Zen Shooter01]

Kung Fu movies are not made with adherence to SR4 rules in mind. Just because it's in a movie somewhere doesn't mean it's possible in SR4.

Tarantula:
The description of Wall Running reads "Attempts to run up longer distances require stops or landings and additional uses of Wall Running". Because Wall Running requires a Strength+Running test, uses of it require a simple action (per "Using Running", pg. 117). So, you take a simple action to make the test, score four hits, run four meters up a wall, end your phase. The rules are ambiguous, but arguably you could make two consecutive simple Wall Running actions; but allowing that would have ramifications for the other uses of Running skill, as well. In any case, if you're still standing on a vertical surface when your action phase comes to an end, gravity gets you.

What "stops and landings" means is that if you run up the wall and end your action phase hanging onto a light fixture, you can use Wall Running again on your next action phase. But if you're not hanging onto something or standing on a horizontal surface when your phase ends, gravity gets you.

You are right that Wall Running will cover more distance more quickly than Climbing. But Climbing doesn't have to make pit stops like Wall Running does.

You quote the Rooting power description, but you do not quote the lines that state that Rooting adds a number of dice equal to its rating to any attempt by the adept to resist being moved against his will. It clearly does not make the adept literally immovable. Do you suppose that the power is meant to allow an adept to hold a freight train in place by Rooting in front of it? That the adept "cannot move at all from where he stands" in context clearly means that the adept may not walk, run or otherwise voluntarily move while using Rooting.

[Frag-o Delux]

Does everyone here play that when the persons pass is through they instantly stop moving? I agree that once the person stops running at top speed gravity will get them. But I would also make it where the PC would have to continue to make constent top speed, if he slows down the power stops. Sure he could run up an entire house or up 4 or 5 stories of an office building, but hes going to tire quickly. I mean we use to run hills in footbal practice, thats a lot harder then running on flat land. I couldnt imagine how hard it would be to run vertically away from gravity.

I have always pictured Rooting like in those kung fu movies, or like those spoiled brats in the mall when mom says no and he falls to the floor and turns his body into dead weight. Sure moments ago mom had no trouble picking him up when he wanted to be carried. But now his limp body is a pain in the ass just to sit it up.

[Zen Shooter01]

The description of the Wall Running power states, "attempts to run up longer distances require stops or landings", my italics.

[Frag-o Delux]

Longer then one phase or Initiative pass (what ever they are calling it in SR4)?

[ShadowDragon]

I'd allow a root just for the coolness factor (now I'm sounding like emo samuri lol), but with the condition that it only lasts for 1 IP, and that you need at least 1 success on the root test. Failure means you fall, but can land safely with an acrobatics test provided you're not too high; glitches and critical glitches make it less likely that you'll fall safely.

[Tarantula]

[Dissonance]

What if you activate rooting and succeed? Do you then have to make a strength test to avoid smashing your face in against the wall?

[cyberdozer]

[Zen Shooter01]

Tarantula:

I'm against it because the rules don't support it. It's clear in the description of Wall Running that it's not meant to turn the adept into Spiderman.

The "Using Running" section governs the use of the running skill. A Strength + Running test is a use of the running skill.

I would permit the combination of Wall Running and Gliding with the rope that you suggest, but I would require a Climbing test every time the adept was just hanging by the rope.

[Inu]

Another option: 'rooting' might not let the wall runner stop and hang, but it might give them enough 'hang time' to change direction, or leap away from the wall, or something like that. Think Prince of Persia. :)

[Cabral]

If you want to hang around, be a Mystic Adept and take Gecko Crawl ...

Gecko Man. Gecko Man. Does whatever a Gecko can ...

[Tarantula]

[cx2]

It could be argued that if someone was running up the wall then stopped they were never actually at any point standing on the wall. You would go from running to falling with no interrim state, other than that possibly of your body rotating such that your head goes down first.

4 metres would still be in the region of 13 feet 4 inches, which is a fair distance. It's as high as many free standing walls I've encountered in RL, and it's reasonable that this was not expected to be a substitute for climbing.

As for rules reasons, you mean other than it makes the whole act of climbing worthless?

[Moon-Hawk]

Here's how I would handle it: Make your wall running attempt as normal. Good. Now you're up a wall. Make a climbing test to hold on. Apply rooting as a bonus. (only useful if you're trying to stick to one spot, not crawl along) With the bonus from rooting, you can probably stick to a sheer wall like a cartoon ninja. From here, you're not in a position to wall run again, so you either have to jump off or down or climb as normal (without rooting)
This lets people run up a wall, stick for arbitrary time, and jump off (like a crazy ninja) but is still pretty limiting.
YMMV

[Bira]

The "gravity using 100 dice" thing strikes me as a bit silly. If an adept really wants to stand on a wall for a long period of time, I'd have him roll the normal rooting test against a number of dice equal to his Body - the character is basically fighting his own weight, so this is not a smart thing for a troll to do.

And I would allow the Wall Running + Rooting combination to work - Rooting would allow the adept to stop for just long enough to make another Wall Running test on his next action. I wouldn't require a test for Rooting unless the character actually stops running (i.e., stops spending Simple Actions to use Wall Running).

[Zen Shooter01]

The hundred dice of gravity line was a joke. :P