Killing Great Dragons, The end is coming Options

[hermit]

.... and pray the smuggler is not among your IE/GD enemy's spies.

[longbowrocks]

Metamagic ability =/= spell, dude. The dragon rolls and gets his questions aboutt he future answered, the more specific the lower the TN. And you can do shit about it. No ritual focus needed. Nada. Just the general metamagical technique, and a question about the future.

SR4A sir. I've never played SR3. And sorry, I did mean metamagic, not spell.

Technomunchkins can do something similar and then resonancequest to the Library to research each and every bit of info ever logged into a device somewhere, no matter whether it has since been deleted or not.

I've seen the resonance realm quests.

Because of the high number of security people screening whereever the president goes before he even gets there. Secret Service, cops, ect. Watcher spirits, real spirits using the search power, the works. Possibly, the president pays a diviner to foresee assassinations, since Colloton is smart.

I meant IRL. It's easy to say something happens, but reality checks often show that whoever's on offense has an overwhelming advantage. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Aww. The world isn't fair. Get used to it.

It kind of is. I don't use the ITS Gonryu on any of my drones. Concealed weapon mount or otherwise.

[longbowrocks]

Anyway I thought divining saw the persons intentions. Divining yourself would give you a pointless look into what you plan to do. You can't for instance divine yourself to see if you would be blown up by a door you are about to go though that you think is booby trapped.

Maybe. I'd argue that you could sense that you were in danger, but would learn nothing about me or my intentions without a material link or assensing me, because at that point the question is about me, not the dragon.

[PoliteMan]

Sigh...shakes head. The diviner in this instance is divining their own future, they don't need a thing from you. If they get enough hits, they get useful information regardless of what you do. It may not lead them directly to you, but it may put you in their sights, and once they are aware of a potential problem more and more resources will be devoted to it until it is neutralized or it has some means of perhaps Masking itself, or hiding its intent, and without magic you will have no idea how to do that.

*shrug* There's numerous technological safeguards against that. First, including a random number generator into your plans screws divination to hell and random number generators are very easy to acquire in SR. As the easiest example, say I want to kill Hestaby on Saturday and 6:00 PM. At 5:59 PM I run a random number generator and if I roll a 1 on a d6, for example, I will abort the mission for no other reason. Such an event cannot be divined, it's impossible. Screw with the results until the odds are 1/1,000,000 and the principle still holds. Second, it does nothing to prevent assaults by a botnet or similar forces for two reasons: first, it's questionable whether divination could even correctly identify what a botnet is; and second, attacks from multiple shifting sources make divination worthless. If your botnet includes numerous vehicles, such as airplanes (and crashing an airplane into a dragon is fairly effective) then the divination is useless.

[longbowrocks]

If your botnet includes numerous vehicles, such as airplanes (and crashing an airplane into a dragon is fairly effective) then the divination is useless.

Airplane has 30 body I imagine. That's not even a test: 30 body X 3 for moving at over 200 meters per turn = 90 DV. You are a bad man. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Oracle]

Divining is magical. It does not care for mathematical impossibilities. Divining is - in fact - a mathematical impossibility in itself.

EDIT: Random numbers are calculated by some sort of algorithm. So they are not truly random. With the possible exception of random numbers calculated on the base of radioactive decay.

[PoliteMan]

Divining is magical. It does not care for mathematical impossibilities. Divining is - in fact - a mathematical impossibility in itself.

Casual violations of math, or physics for that matter, are magics stock-in-trade. Extreme violations, such as predicting inherently unknowable events, either shatters physics and reality or it shatter suspension of disbelief. Neither is good for a game.

Edit: Depends on how random you demand it. Suffice to say, given SR tech, you should be able to get sufficiently random numbers for your purpose.

[Ascalaphus]

GD Divination powers are several orders of magnitude above what the books list as available for PCs; the GDs are defined as having powers no-one else knows exist.

The normal rules are for normal (N)PCs. GDs and IEs don't play by those rules. If that feels unfair, tough luck.

This sounds like the way the game is meant to be played (otherwise a single shadowrunner could annihilate the entire sixth world). I still hate awakened though, and would really prefer them to play fair.

It isn't just about Awakened.. this goes for AIs like Deus too. Some NPCs are simply meant to be above and beyond the playing field.

A better idea would be to have these characters roll logic, or a memory test, or something of that sort to see if they predicted my actions. Those huge stats aren't just there to look pretty.
Then again, the threshold should probably be immense to guess that a person you've never met or heard of is going to make an attempt on your life.

It isn't just a GD rolling that test; it's more like multiple intelligence agencies working to prevent your attack. A GD can hire hundreds of people with mental attributes in the 9+ to work out contingency plans against everything - and they do.

You don't get to have a fair fight with GDs, IEs or (old school) AIs.

[longbowrocks]

Divining is magical. It does not care for mathematical impossibilities. Divining is - in fact - a mathematical impossibility in itself.

EDIT: Random numbers are calculated by some sort of algorithm. So they are not truly random. With the possible exception of random numbers calculated on the base of radioactive decay.

Be a mage, and make your algorithm dependent on the result of the enemy mage's divination test (there are more ways to tell past than future). Your GM will run home crying. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

[Oracle]

How do you know the result of the enemy mage's divination test?

[longbowrocks]

It isn't just about Awakened.. this goes for AIs like Deus too. Some NPCs are simply meant to be above and beyond the playing field.

Meh, I don't feel that threatened by something that has no physical presence. I guess in the large scale he can take out a dragon, but his defense is only as strong as the armor rating of his home node. Assuming I get past the outer shell of hirelings in meatspace, he's much easier to take out.

[hermit]

I meant IRL. It's easy to say something happens, but reality checks often show that whoever's on offense has an overwhelming advantage.

If it was as easy as you think it is, don't you think it'd have been done already?

SR4A sir. I've never played SR3. And sorry, I did mean metamagic, not spell.

So? What does the dragon need ritual samples for to find out who is planning to hit him with a mortar in the coming month?

Anyway I thought divining saw the persons intentions. Divining yourself would give you a pointless look into what you plan to do. You can't for instance divine yourself to see if you would be blown up by a door you are about to go though that you think is booby trapped.

It also shows what will affect you. You could do that, but usualy that's pretty impractical. Also, your GM would probably houserule to limit it to once a session very soon if you abuse divination like this.

Airplane has 30 body I imagine. That's not even a test: 30 body X 3 for moving at over 200 meters per turn = 90 DV. You are a bad man.

What about "you need to get the dragon to expose itself in the first place" is so hard to understand?

*shrug* There's numerous technological safeguards against that. First, including a random number generator into your plans screws divination to hell and random number generators are very easy to acquire in SR. As the easiest example, say I want to kill Hestaby on Saturday and 6:00 PM. At 5:59 PM I run a random number generator and if I roll a 1 on a d6, for example, I will abort the mission for no other reason.

Nothing is random. Everything is a cause to some effect.

Assuming I get past the outer shell of hirelings in meatspace, he's much easier to take out.

Uhm. That's assuming a lot.

[Oracle]

Casual violations of math, or physics for that matter, are magics stock-in-trade. Extreme violations, such as predicting inherently unknowable events, either shatters physics and reality or it shatter suspension of disbelief. Neither is good for a game.

Edit: Depends on how random you demand it. Suffice to say, given SR tech, you should be able to get sufficiently random numbers for your purpose.

There are two possibilities:

1. Randomness is something that regularly happens in the world. If so, your random number generator won't add much to the overall randomness of events.
2. There is no randomness at all. Everything is predetermined by natural laws, but complex enough to seem random. Chaos theory. So random numbers are not random.

Something in between is unlikely because in nature things happen regularly or they don't happen at all.

In both cases the random number generator shouldn't really help, because it does not add much to the complexity of the system.

[longbowrocks]

How do you know the result of the enemy mage's divination test?

He makes a note on his comm and you hack it.
You make a divination test to see if he will take countermeasures and what they will be.
Use clairaudience or clairvoyance to spy.
spell: Mind probe.
Interrogate a confidant.
Spy astrally.
spell: Borrow sense.
spell: Dream. To cause your subject to unintentionally divulge the information.
Shade slipped into some food. Suddenly the odds are a lot more even for any sort of direct confrontation.

To tell the future you have one option. To find past events or current events, it's not even a question.

[hermit]

All of which assume you are either awakened, get close to your target, your target's stupid, or all of them.

You assume you just get past the really hard obstacles, and then plan how you will do the last step of your hard, complex task, taking the last step before the first (and the thousand that lead up to the last). It's like planning travel to a faraway place and only taking money to pay for the hotel, because you take flight and everything else, like learning the local language, as a given somehow.

[Oracle]

We are still talking about a GD as the enemy mage, right?

[longbowrocks]

If it was as easy as you think it is, don't you think it'd have been done already?

I always ask myself that.
The only possibility I can think of is that sympathizers for extremist causes have largely been filtered out based on shallow reasoning which is frequently incorrect (color of skin, etc). More people are filtered out by the fact that this requires planning, and folks with that level of bloodlust can get caught pretty fast. Another thing that filters people out is that this is practically a suicide run. You'll most likely be successful, but you probably won't make it out.
This is a much more solid plan than shooting the president in the face, but nobody tried that until the 16 president (US president). Ok, they did try and fail on the seventh president, but apparently nobody learned from that.

So? What does the dragon need ritual samples for to find out who is planning to hit him with a mortar in the coming month?

He has no link to me, no knowledge of me, no sight of me, no anything of me, thus violating the principle rule of magic, which even divination wants you to hold to:
"To use Divining, the initiate must first be able to assense
the subject (be it an entity, a place, or an object), or possess a
viable material link (p. 28)."

Nothing is random. Everything is a cause to some effect.

And by using divination, cause and effect breaks down. If something would happen based on the results of your divination, then it is the result of cause and effect. If you try to avoid that happening, nothing is based on cause and effect any longer because the timeflow has been messed with.

[longbowrocks]

All of which assume you are either awakened, get close to your target, your target's stupid, or all of them.

You assume you just get past the really hard obstacles, and then plan how you will do the last step of your hard, complex task, taking the last step before the first (and the thousand that lead up to the last). It's like planning travel to a faraway place and only taking money to pay for the hotel, because you take flight and everything else, like learning the local language, as a given somehow.

I didn't really plan it out, but if telling the future is easier than finding out about the past or present, we have much bigger problems than Great Dragons here. I can always pay a mage to do divination metamagic on the dragon. He doesn't get any more defense than I do.

[Faelan]

I always ask myself that.
The only possibility I can think of is that sympathizers for extremist causes have largely been filtered out based on shallow reasoning which is frequently incorrect (color of skin, etc). More people are filtered out by the fact that this requires planning, and folks with that level of bloodlust can get caught pretty fast. Another thing that filters people out is that this is practically a suicide run. You'll most likely be successful, but you probably won't make it out.
This is a much more solid plan than shooting the president in the face, but nobody tried that until the 16 president (US president). Ok, they did try and fail on the seventh president, but apparently nobody learned from that.

Except that mortars are large enough to be difficult to conceal and the ammo is pretty heavy, and once again your mortar will never hit the place. Like I said counter battery and phalanx are very likely. This means your slow moving projectile gets blown up in mid air.

He has no link to me, no knowledge of me, no sight of me, no anything of me, thus violating the principle rule of magic, which even divination wants you to hold to:
"To use Divining, the initiate must first be able to assense
the subject (be it an entity, a place, or an object), or possess a
viable material link (p. 28)."

And in this case he is assensing himself. His future he does not give a crap about your future, he has no need of a physical object since it is in reference to himself. I can automatically assense myself and have an automatic viable link. It at no point violates principals of magic.

And by using divination, cause and effect breaks down. If something would happen based on the results of your divination, then it is the result of cause and effect. If you try to avoid that happening, nothing is based on cause and effect any longer because the timeflow has been messed with.

Once again it is a magical effect it by its very nature breaks a mundanes understanding of reality, which might explain why some are scared shitless by it.

[Faelan]

I didn't really plan it out, but if telling the future is easier than finding out about the past or present, we have much bigger problems than Great Dragons here. I can always pay a mage to do divination metamagic on the dragon. He doesn't get any more defense than I do.

You could always pay a mage to do a divination on yourself and he might tell that Lofwyr eats you for breakfast, at which point he might give S-K a call and see if he can get some nuyen from giving a tip. To divine the dragon you would need a material focus. He is never divining you directly, he is divining his own future and at some point yours intersects his in a not so favorable way. This is what he is being drawn to take a closer look at. If he wanted to divine your future he would need a viable focus.

[longbowrocks]

Except that mortars are large enough to be difficult to conceal and the ammo is pretty heavy, and once again your mortar will never hit the place. Like I said counter battery and phalanx are very likely. This means your slow moving projectile gets blown up in mid air.

Thanks, I thought those were future tech. Actually, I still think they're future tech, but whatevs.

And in this case he is assensing himself. His future he does not give a crap about your future, he has no need of a physical object since it is in reference to himself. I can automatically assense myself and have an automatic viable link. It at no point violates principals of magic.

Eh~ maybe. I group this in the same category as "magic affecting me without any link".

Once again it is a magical effect it by its very nature breaks a mundanes understanding of reality, which might explain why some are scared shitless by it.

Cause and effect is rather aptly named. If cause does not create effect, then it's not cause and effect any more.

[PoliteMan]

There are two possibilities:

1. Randomness is something that regularly happens in the world. If so, your random number generator won't add much to the overall randomness of events.
2. There is no randomness at all. Everything is predetermined by natural laws, but complex enough to seem random. Chaos theory. So random numbers are not random.

Something in between is unlikely because in nature things happen regularly or they don't happen at all.

In both cases the random number generator shouldn't really help, because it does not add much to the complexity of the system.

#1 Random, truly random, events are unpredictable almost by definition. Divination is therefore pointless.
#2 If this is true, and the divination reveals that the GD will die, this is unalterable whatever actions the GD takes.

Some middle ground seems most reasonable for play purposes, where divination is helpful but not all powerful. This does make divination less useful against either multiple actors or actors who increase the uncertainty of their actions.


Also, there's still no real answer to whether divination even can affect Matrix events. Divination provides guidance through visions, yet the matrix..does not interact well with magic. It simply does not exist in a form which interacts with magic.

Also, Longbow, old school AIs were just as annoying as GDs. As I recall the old SR3 stuff (Target:Matrix maybe) flat out said that an AI was basically unbeatable in the Matrix.

EDIT:

Once again it is a magical effect it by its very nature breaks a mundanes understanding of reality, which might explain why some are scared shitless by it.

Again, breaking something like cause and effect is well beyond the suspension of disbelief most players are willing to extend to magic. Either you need to completely reimagine, well, how time and fate work in your universe or divination is far more limited than is being presented here. And let's be honest, if any player started using divination the way it's being used here, the GM would beat him over the head with the rulebook. This isn't a RAW or RAI interpretation of divination because I can't imagine anyone actually playing that way (step up if you have), this is essentially a GM fiat argument that GDs have "Super Divination". And that's fine, play the game as you like. I don't think they have super-divination because it makes the game boring for the PCs. While the rules certainly give scope for GDs to have extra-special powers, and they should, this is not one that is included in the books.

[longbowrocks]

You could always pay a mage to do a divination on yourself and he might tell that Lofwyr eats you for breakfast, at which point he might give S-K a call and see if he can get some nuyen from giving a tip. To divine the dragon you would need a material focus. He is never divining you directly, he is divining his own future and at some point yours intersects his in a not so favorable way. This is what he is being drawn to take a closer look at. If he wanted to divine your future he would need a viable focus.

Could be a good plan. If I get a good reading, rub out the diviner and continue. If I get a bad reading, give the mage some more detailed information on my original plan and set a counter-trap at the proposed time and location.

[CanRay]

EDIT: Random numbers are calculated by some sort of algorithm. So they are not truly random. With the possible exception of random numbers calculated on the base of radioactive decay.

Edit: Depends on how random you demand it. Suffice to say, given SR tech, you should be able to get sufficiently random numbers for your purpose.

True random number generation has been achieved using Lava Lamps. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[longbowrocks]

True random number generation has been achieved using Lava Lamps. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

GrrooOOovy man.