OOC: Phoenix Rising, Out of Character thread for the runners Options

[Oenone]

Before I try plan anything out, just how many days/weeks/months of downtime do we have to play with? As I need to work out how much it costs to keep her pirated skillsofts updated. (I assume Gecko is handing out any updates for the stuff he provided? After all he'll be updating it anyway and it seems silly to have everyone pay out for such things.)

Etoile will be spending the majority of her time helping out at the shady fighting arena again. (This time she'll have a rank in instruction too. As that's one of her few must buy Karma spends.) Hopefully to earn a few more Karma points to spend on stuff which might make her able to do something during a run other than pout and occasionally do some heavy lifting.

And is there any word on the whole edge thing? As it seems like the most effective way to advance is basically just to turn everything into karma and watch our edges skyrocket. As you initially said we get 1 edge per 10 Karma, meaning any baseline humans are already up to 4 edge....

@Shalimar - Doesn't second initiation cost 16 Karma base? I can see an ordeal and being in a magical group reducing it a bit, but can it really drop it by 6?

[bmcoomes]

Before I try plan anything out, just how many days/weeks/months of downtime do we have to play with? As I need to work out how much it costs to keep her pirated skillsofts updated. (I assume Gecko is handing out any updates for the stuff he provided? After all he'll be updating it anyway and it seems silly to have everyone pay out for such things.)

Etoile will be spending the majority of her time helping out at the shady fighting arena again. (This time she'll have a rank in instruction too. As that's one of her few must buy Karma spends.) Hopefully to earn a few more Karma points to spend on stuff which might make her able to do something during a run other than pout and occasionally do some heavy lifting.

And is there any word on the whole edge thing? As it seems like the most effective way to advance is basically just to turn everything into karma and watch our edges skyrocket. As you initially said we get 1 edge per 10 Karma, meaning any baseline humans are already up to 4 edge....

@Shalimar - Doesn't second initiation cost 16 Karma base? I can see an ordeal and being in a magical group reducing it a bit, but can it really drop it by 6?

You looking at about two months of downtime as a rough figure. Yeah you can get updates from what Gecko shared with you. Or we can play a little side deal and workout a Matrix Contact for that stuff. Always an option. With the karma and edge thing it's not every 10 karma, it goes 10, 30, 70, 150, 270, and 590. So a human may be close to having three edge.

Brent

[DWC]

Updated Truth to reflect the two months of lifestyle and software update costs. Still putting together his shopping list.

[Shalimar]

@Shalimar - Doesn't second initiation cost 16 Karma base? I can see an ordeal and being in a magical group reducing it a bit, but can it really drop it by 6?

40% off for both ordeal and Group so it costs 60% of 10 + (3 x Grade)

The costs go 8( 7.8 ) - 10(9.6) - 12(11.4) - 14(13.2) - 15(15)

Brent a human starts with 2 edge, when they hit 30 karma (2 edge bumps at 10 and 30) = 4 edge, no more edge till they 60 karma, so non-humans will hit 30 before a human hits 60, so its not like everyone wont be within 1 edge of everyone else. Non-humans will max their edge before humans do at 150 karma whereas humans wont until 210 karma. Once everyone is in the 3 to 4 range I don't see it as that big a deal since that is where things will stay for at least 2 - 3 adventures.

Charlie spends the first 2 weeks of the 2 months doing her initiation Ordeal. The next 6 weeks she'll work 4 days a week. That nets her the cash to pay for her lifestyle, and also gets her 3 karma (210 *100/5000 = 3 + 6,000 nuyen(rent)). I'll spend the 3 karma + 2 left over karma on learning a new spell (Mana Static) in case mister big bad spirit wants a round 2, assuming he actually survived the first go. It takes 1 day to learn.

[crizh]

Can I suggest Manascape rather than Mana Static?

It's a new spell in the Digital Grimoire. Basically Tri-D Phantasm but for Astral Space.

[DWC]

Truth's shopping list:
Commlink Response Enhancer-2 Avail 8, Cost (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 4000
Simsense Accelerator Avail 14, Cost (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 15000

That's it for the moment. The installation of these two items into the commlink mounted in his cyberarm should be trivial for Truth.

[Shalimar]

Can I suggest Manascape rather than Mana Static?

It's a new spell in the Digital Grimoire. Basically Tri-D Phantasm but for Astral Space.

Would it allow us to be invisible to the astral plane?

I'll consider it for my next spell, but I need some self-defense if that force 8 blood spirit comes sniffing around. The ability to send it away for a month by casting a single spell is too much to pass up. Cast at Force 8 the spirit will be reduced to 0 force, meaning I'd only need to survive its first barrage and it wont be able to survive mine.

[crizh]

Yes, or at least concealed as something innocuous.

Mana Static doesn't work like that. It's hits that determine the BC it creates. There is a strong case to be made that it's limited to a BC of six.

[Shalimar]

Why would it be limited to 6? Nothing in the spell's description limits it to a Domain rather than a Warp. Its great for dealing with spirits if I release it before it becomes permanent.

[crizh]

I certainly wouldn't allow it to create a Warp. That sort of thing ought to be beyond the ability of Sorcery, the additional effects of a Warp are too significant.

Regardless, getting more than 6 hits is far from easy and the drain code is painfully harsh.

[Shalimar]

Your right, completely right, I should just let the nice force 8 blood spirit eat my magic/essence/ etc without putting up any sort of meaningful fight.

[crizh]

LOL.

It's entirely up to you, I shall shut my big trap.

Except to say that getting Manascape past a Force 8 would require at least an 18 Dice spellcasting pool. Although I still thinking having the option of sneaking past it is better than being forced to fight it...

[Shalimar]

LOL.

It's entirely up to you, I shall shut my big trap.

Except to say that getting Manascape past a Force 8 would require at least an 18 Dice spellcasting pool. Although I still thinking having the option of sneaking past it is better than being forced to fight it...

I'm not so much worried about sneaking by anything so much as worrying about the one Charlie has already managed to piss off with a Force 10 acid bath. From Brent's comment's its alive and going to be coming back. Charlie isn't exactly always primed for a fight, and most of the time she isn't looking in the astral so it'd be easy for it to sneak up and get the first hit on her. If she survives, her response has got to be something major otherwise she probably wont survive a second hit given her fragility (body 3).

[Oenone]

Given who the spirit works for I'm not entirely sure it'd come for payback alone. Not perhaps the most optimistic way of thinking I admit, we should assume however that the spirit in question is very much up and about by now. So maybe hitting the Azzies should be on the 'jobs we try not to take' list for a bit.

Two months? Right I'll do some math in a bit and work out the specifics of what Etoile is upto then. I'll send them via forum message to save on the spam.

[bmcoomes]

As much as I like manascape I like mana static too. As far as making mana warps or voids and in my opinion it would be easier for mana warps than a void. I don't have to much of an issue of going beyond rating 6 there are ways to clean the area if it's not in the book yet I'll homerule it. Or you can simply counterspell it so you don't get there things like that. Plus Oenone is right it would not just be the blood spirit by it self. But for ease of mind turn about is fair play.

[Shalimar]

I'm looking at Mana Static defensively. Besides, if someone threw up a mana static strong enough to take out one of my elementals it would stop casting period since I tend to only summon Force 10s. I might want to consider swapping my specialization to Plants though. Magic Guard 10 would be darn useful and the same elemental could do that and Concealment 10.

[bmcoomes]

Right I understand that and I would smack your pee pee if you were trying to use it other wise because your tradition.

[bmcoomes]

OK, so after doing some research, I see that there is no spell for "cleaning" astral space from a background count. The only manipulation I can find of background is mana static. Which I find weird because most rituals begin and end with a "cleaning" of energies. So I don't see why there as not been a spell to manipulate background count like this. So in that light here is a spell I put together for this. Of course there are limits the effect like space and things like that were you simply can affect a change do to obvious reasons.

Sanctification (Environmental, Area)
Type: M, Range: LOS (A), Duration: P, DV: (F/2) + 4

This area-effect spell recan’s an areas background count of 1 for every hit scored by the caster. Or it cleans an areas background count to 0. Once the spell is made permanent, the modified background count from this spell recedes at a rate of 1 point per hour until the area is back to its natural state.

**Edit: I found the metamagic of Cleansing so I'm going to take the above into consideration and possibility change some things with it.

[Oenone]

And Etoiles downtime is submitted.

I'm right in thinking we're not running tomorrow to give time for the next run to actually be written up?

I think I remember words to that effect last week, but my memory is kind of scrambled atm due to massive changes in my sleep cycle.

[bmcoomes]

right there is no game tomorrow, But I'll be working your guys downtime and things like that.

Brent

[bmcoomes]

after look more at Cleansing I'm going to leave Sanctification as is.

Sanctification (Environmental, Area)
Type: M, Range: LOS (A), Duration: P, DV: (F/2) + 4

This area-effect spell recan’s an areas background count of 1 for every hit scored by the caster. Or it cleans an areas background count to 0. Once the spell is made permanent, the modified background count from this spell recedes at a rate of 1 point per hour until the area is back to its natural state.

[Shalimar]

I think the spell is somewhat superior to the filtering metamagic so I'm not sure how balanced it is vs a metamagic which costs 3x as much (15 Karma vs 5 karma)

[bmcoomes]

well that way I put things out before calling it, because I missed the "Filtering" metamagic.

[Oenone]

Note to self. Never ever buy any more social skills for Etoile again. Ever.

*Kicks Uncouth a few times*

[bmcoomes]

OK, after some more research and brainstorming I think I found something that will fill the niche I was look for. While it really not that powerful with just the two mages combating each other the one who placed Mana Static and then the one placing Sanctification. It was built for more team play than not. Let me know what you guys think.

Sanctification (Environmental, Area)
Type: M, Range: LOS (A), Duration: S, DV: (F/2) + 4

This area-effect spell recan's an areas background count of 1 for every hit scored by the caster. Sanctification was designed to combat the effect of Mana Static. Were Mana Static floods an area with mana Sanctification soothes or places order on the area's mana. Only draw back to Sanctification is that the caster must Sustain this order but unlike normal sustain spells which only incur -2 for each sustained spell. The caster incurs half the background count (round normal) modified by the casters test as a dice penalty on all other tests.