The Search power, some questions Options

[Mardrax]

So right, some questions one the Search power, as used by spirits, since RAW isn't too specific on this at all:

1) Does the spirit have to move to use this power? Does it have to travel to wherever the target is (in astral or physical form) to find it? Does this make using the power a remote service if the target is over 100M meters away?

2) How do you handle the spirit relaying the results back to the magician? Does this change when the target is behind a ward, and how?

[Summerstorm]

1. THAt is a very good question. Per RAW, it might just be taking time. I myself have the spirit excuse himself and return a few hours later (if he finds the target - i am using the diminishing dice-pool rule, a spirit WILL find anyone on the planet if you don't)

It is a very awesome and mighty power, so i guess having the spirit not available while he is looking through the astral world is ok. But i am not automatically counting it as a remote service (maybe i should)

2. Well, spirit comes back and can leads the mage to the target. If there is a ward he would say something like: "Yeah, behind that. About there", and point at him - Target could have moved in that time though. Not neccesassary to pinpoint it completely, in my opinion. Makes a moving target (driving around etc.) harder to find, so that they can't just make legwork and detective work obselete.

He could also just describe the position, but uses emotion or distinctive landmarks (Yeah, at the "Holy Place", then a mental minute straight towards the huge mountain and down into the round canals beneath the eart. In the midst of monsters - once human)

But that is just how i handle it. With this power, assensing, and the damn future-prediction shenanigans it is hard enough to do a cool detective story with a mage in the group.

[Aku]

Based on this line:

Critters with the Astral Form power may use Search in astral
space and do not have to materialize while searching.

I think they do travel around, even if astrally, to find the target. The question, really is time. Since a spirit can travel VERY fast astrally, even in a search mode, @ 100 meters / turn, as a "walking" rate, so that means they'll cover a linear KM in 10 turns, or 30 seconds.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Based on this line:



I think they do travel around, even if astrally, to find the target. The question, really is time. Since a spirit can travel VERY fast astrally, even in a search mode, @ 100 meters / turn, as a "walking" rate, so that means they'll cover a linear KM in 10 turns, or 30 seconds.

And since the Time Increment for Search is 10 Minutes, they can search a fairly large area per increment.

[Nath]

I had the problem once with a possessing spirit. The PC wanted his spirit to keep on possessing the host body and use the Search power at the same time.

Just for the fun (and because the use of the Search power wasn't going to provide any useful information), I had the spirit starting running in a tight spiral.

[Draco18s]

(if he finds the target - i am using the diminishing dice-pool rule, a spirit WILL find anyone on the planet if you don't)

On the other hand--by RAW--a Watcher spirit is blind, deaf, and dumb, but is--by Fluff--better at this job than any other spirit.

By RAW the diminishing dice pool rule means that a Watcher gets 2 rolls:

1 at 2 dice
1 at 1 die.

This means that even an army of watchers can't find anyone with a TN of 4 (i.e. it can't use Search and find your buddy in the other room, TN 5).

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

On the other hand--by RAW--a Watcher spirit is blind, deaf, and dumb, but is--by Fluff--better at this job than any other spirit.

By RAW the diminishing dice pool rule means that a Watcher gets 2 rolls:

1 at 2 dice
1 at 1 die.

This means that even an army of watchers can't find anyone with a TN of 4 (i.e. it can't use Search and find your buddy in the other room, TN 5).

Don't forget the Bonus, to the roll, of +3 for actively looking...

[Draco18s]

Don't forget the Bonus, to the roll, of +3 for actively looking...

Search power doesn't have the Perception table modifiers. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It's Force + Intuition (5, 10 minutes).

The only modifiers are distance (+1 per km), "object or place" +5,¹ and Concealment or Wards (DP penalty equal to force of each).

ALSO, Watchers (being unable to materialize) don't have Perception. Only Assensing, which is also not subject to the "+3 actively looking" modifier.

¹"Find me Philadelphia" has a target number of 10+ distance!? From New York, NY the TH is 163. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/indifferent.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Search power doesn't have the Perception table modifiers. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It's Force + Intuition (5, 10 minutes).

The only modifiers are distance (+1 per km), "object or place" +5, and Concealment or Wards (DP penalty equal to force of each).

ALSO, Watchers (being unable to materialize) don't have Perception. Only Assensing, which is also not subject to the "+3 actively looking" modifier.

True, forgot about that, but you could always add them in.

[Draco18s]

True, forgot about that, but you could always add them in.

So a watcher spirit would get, tops, 15 dice, ever, to locating things with the Search power, so on average would be able to locate people within a 999 meter radius (but not objects or places).
On average a watcher spirit would notice "if a being is magical" (5 dice to get 2 hits).

Oh, final note: in SR3 the watcher spirit is explicitly described as not needing to move in order to locate the target.

[Neurosis]

1. THAt is a very good question. Per RAW, it might just be taking time. I myself have the spirit excuse himself and return a few hours later (if he finds the target - i am using the diminishing dice-pool rule, a spirit WILL find anyone on the planet if you don't)

I wouldn't do that. Wards are prevalent enough that Search frequently runs up against a wall (at least, I treat it as a ward of Force equal to or greater than the spirit's prevents the spirit's Search power from locating the target if the target is behind it, and the spirit will just keep searching indefinitely; maybe that's a deviation from RAW, I'm not sure). And spirits also can't find anyone located underground, etcetera. Likewise if the target is far enough away, an unbound spirit will very likely just fizzle out at sunrise/sunset before locating the target. Honestly though to me, the most common thing is that the team will usually find their objective through other means before the Search has time to finish. The hacker's schtick, legwork, these things have a very good chance of beating Search to the punch, especially if we're talking about a very large area (even say, all of Seattle is pretty sizeable when we're adding 1 to the TH for every Kilometer).

But yeah, every time an adventure refers to actually performing ritual magic to locate someone rather than just using the Search power, I am confused. Search is so much simpler and easier.

True, forgot about that, but you could always add them in.

That would be blatantly wrong, however.

A search test is not a perception test.

[Nath]

But yeah, every time an adventure refers to actually performing ritual magic to locate someone rather than just using the Search power, I am confused. Search is so much simpler and easier.

RAW, unlike the Search Power, the Threshold for Astral Tracking during Ritual Spellcasting using Material or Sympathetic Link doesn't vary with distance. So, it will always be 5 (+ Barrier Force) while the Threshold for Search can rise to as much as 40,000 (+ Barrier Force). Even without diminishing pool, ritual spellcasting starts being more efficient when the target is more than about 50 kilometers away.

But as said above, RAW pretty much kill any attempt to have an investigation-focused adventure.

[Shinobi Killfist]

The +1per KM distant threshold makes it hard for any spirit to find anything that isn't in the same town as you, even large cities will be hard if you use the extended test optional rule. And yes watcher's can't find anything.

While I use the rules for diminishing the pool for extended tests My 2 rule mods is the 1km distance is based on a location that the summoner chooses, so if he knows Bob is in Philly and the summoner is in NY he can start the search from the center of philly since the summoner knows where philly is already. Also I basically raise the effective force of the watcher by 1 for every hit on the summoning test for the purpose of the search power. It isn't huge, but it at least makes them equal to force 4-5 spirits when summoned by a decent summoner. Honestly I think they should have just let you choose force and its stat block would be 1 for most things and force for intuition, magic, and maybe assensing. The drain would be the hits on the resistance test so it would be much easier on you than summoning a normal spirit.

While rules consistency is a good thing as it makes it easier to learn and play, not everything fits perfectly in the same box. You have to work to make them fit sometimes, which yes means you have to do things like have rules consistency with a lot of but modifiers.

[Sengir]

I'd say the Search power works pretty much like the trick the occult investigator pulls in the intro fiction for the magic chapter of the BBB - a bit of magic singsong and the knowledge is just there in her head.

[Draco18s]

I looked up the 3rd Edition rules, and Watchers had special rules for watcher spirits finding things.

They made a Force test with a TN equal to 9 - [Summoner's Intelligence]. Any successes meant the spirit found whatever it was. What type of object determined how long it took to find (2 for people, 4 for objects, 6 for places), divided by successes.

[Aku]

Just as sort of an off the cuff idea for watchers, keep all stats at 1, but intuition, which is =f, skills are the same, except assensing =f/2, maybe

[Summerstorm]

On the other hand--by RAW--a Watcher spirit is blind, deaf, and dumb, but is--by Fluff--better at this job than any other spirit.

By RAW the diminishing dice pool rule means that a Watcher gets 2 rolls:

1 at 2 dice
1 at 1 die.

This means that even an army of watchers can't find anyone with a TN of 4 (i.e. it can't use Search and find your buddy in the other room, TN 5).

Ah yeah, i have houseruled watchers in my game, since the RAW-Watcher can not exist and makes no sense.

Half summoner magic attribute for mine and they get +2 dice bonus for their only power: Search.

So in my game a Force 3 watcher rolls 8 dice for that.

[DamienKnight]

I had the problem once with a possessing spirit. The PC wanted his spirit to keep on possessing the host body and use the Search power at the same time.

Just for the fun (and because the use of the Search power wasn't going to provide any useful information), I had the spirit starting running in a tight spiral.

ROFL.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

So a watcher spirit would get, tops, 15 dice, ever, to locating things with the Search power, so on average would be able to locate people within a 999 meter radius (but not objects or places).
On average a watcher spirit would notice "if a being is magical" (5 dice to get 2 hits).

Oh, final note: in SR3 the watcher spirit is explicitly described as not needing to move in order to locate the target.

Yet, the Threshold is an Extended Test, and you could locate anything given time, if you did not use the Decrementing rule. We do not apply that optional rule universally. If you have time, the rule does not apply. A Watcher has nothing but time. Of course, other methods may be quicker.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

That would be blatantly wrong, however.

A search test is not a perception test.

But you could, of course, Attune the watcher to make him more effective.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Just as sort of an off the cuff idea for watchers, keep all stats at 1, but intuition, which is =f, skills are the same, except assensing =f/2, maybe

You do realize that Watchers are all Force 1 Right? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Draco18s]

You do realize that Watchers are all Force 1 Right? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Specifically. Which is why they're blind, deaf, and dumb. Sneaking past them is as simple as defaulting for most players.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Specifically. Which is why they're blind, deaf, and dumb. Sneaking past them is as simple as defaulting for most players.

If you are trying to sneak, maybe. But the search power will find them, eventually.
And if you are the lone living thing in a place where they are guarding (you stand out horribly at that point), well, they will find you automatically, no roll even required, unless you are under concealment.

They are not as weak as everyone makes them out to be. And there are RAW options that you can implement to make them more useful. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Aerospider]

If you are trying to sneak, maybe. But the search power will find them, eventually.
And if you are the lone living thing in a place where they are guarding (you stand out horribly at that point), well, they will find you automatically, no roll even required, unless you are under concealment.

They are not as weak as everyone makes them out to be. And there are RAW options that you can implement to make them more useful. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

This.

And to narrow the expectation-to-results gap from the other end, watchers are not meant to compare to standard spirits for anything you might want a standard spirit for. Golden rule is, if a team of watchers isn't enough then you want the real deal.

I think the biggest discrepancy is that they have the search power at all, but the best way to make it work is to use the other extended test optional rule - that is, limit the number of rolls. That way you can make it possible but unlikely for a watcher to succeed and not even let the player know how likely it is beforehand. Search is an awesome power - watchers should never find it easy.

[Draco18s]

If you are trying to sneak, maybe. But the search power will find them, eventually.

Not really. And if they're using Search to find you walking through the area they were told to "notify about intruders" then:

a) the watcher knows who its looking for (Search is for "Find Steve" no "search for people intruding this area")
b) you've come and gone long before the Search succeeds (10 minute interval!)

And if you are the lone living thing in a place where they are guarding (you stand out horribly at that point), well, they will find you automatically, no roll even required, unless you are under concealment.

A human under a cardboard box doesn't stand out in an empty parking lot any more than an empty cardboard box does: It can't see your aura.
Likewise standing behind a tree, under a bush, or around the corner.

but the best way to make it work is to use the other extended test optional rule - that is, limit the number of rolls

You mean, they get TWO rolls with TWO dice each instead of TWO rolls with TWO, then ONE dice? Congrats, you've increased their odds of finding anything by 33%!

I think the biggest discrepancy is that they have the search power at all [...] Search is an awesome power - watchers should never find it easy.

Seriously? You'd take away the only power watcher spirits have simply because it's impossible for them to do anything with it? Rather than, say, take it away from other spirits and make it so that watchers can actually succeed by fixing the Search power rules?