Tangled Currents - OOC Options

[Imladir]

It looks like I will need some sort of primer on fighting spirits. Can something be done in the OOC thread so I am not completely clueless?

What do you need? A small briefing on their specificities in combat?

[Mercy]

Somehow I have it in my head that spirits are immensely powerful and need to know if that is true and how to fight them.

[Imladir]

I don't know about the "immensely", but they are indeed pretty powerful.

Their main advantage in combat is that they have hardened armour against every non-magic attack. This means that they resist damage with Body + Force x 2, and in addition to that, they have Force auto successes on that roll. Oh that's only if the modified DV is superior to their Armour, otherwise they just ignore the attack.
A Spirit of Water of Force 6 would have 18d to resist damage, with an additional 6 hits on the result of the roll. The attack pools of the spirits aren't so great, since in most case, you won't be too far from Force x 2. The best fighting spirit is probably the Air Spirit since it has F+3 in Agility and F+4 in Reaction, which means a Force 6 Air Spirit would have 15d to attack (and 16d to defend). However, if a spirit with the Energy Aura power hits with an Engulf attack, it's Force x 3 damage, with AP -Force. So... It one shots pretty much anything it touches at Force 6. And even at Force 4, it'll hurt. And since any mage takes the Energy Aura / Engulf combo on combat spirits...

Basically, the only way to really deal with a spirit is another spirit. They neutralise each other, you can put them on the side and deal with the rest. A mage can combat a spirit with his spells or in the astral, or an adept with his powers (or with a weapon focus). In which case, the spirit doesn't have anything else than his body to resist. If neither option is on the table... It's complicated. There are two things to keep in mind: materialising is a complex action. So on the IP the Spirit materialises, it can't do anything, which means you have one action to react accordingly. And the main counter against spirits, is a very high AP modifier. So... A Sniper with APDS is the main weapon against a Spirit. Or possibly a monowhip. In worst case scenario, Sticks & Shocks (spirits can take stun damage).

Otherwise... Well... You're pretty much screwed.

[Mercy]

LOL Sounds like these guys are about to eat a large case of whup-ass. Hmmm. I will have to have a mage of adept along next time. I am not too worried. I have LOTS of bad guys so losing a few does not hurt too much and they will learn from events like this.

And sometime things are not as they appear to be. Bwahahaha.

[Beta]

Just to spell out a couple of more points about spirits in detail because they are important:

Hardened armour.

The spirit gets hardened armor equal to twice its force. This prevents all damage from mundane weapon when DV is less than the hardened armor - DV (or maybe less than or equal too? I always have to double check that one). So with a force 6 spirit, if you are just punching it (no AP), you need a lot of damage. If you are using APDS you only need DV 8 or greater, with a taser DV 7 or greater.

Then they get their soak roll, with auto successes equal to half their hardened armor and dice equal to body plus the full amount of armour -- but note that the armor is reduced by AP for both of those rolls. This is what makes AP so important against spirits, it not only gives you a chance to hurt them, it also really cuts down how much they resist.

A couple of examples, versus the force 6 air spirit. (hardened armour of 12, body 4)

- stun baton (DV=9s, AP=-5), no excess successes. Hardened armour is reduced to 7, so the 9 damage is not just shrugged off. 7/2 =3.5, I think it rounds down (not positive on that, but how I've played it in my home game), so the spirit gets three automatic successes, and rolls 7 (armour) +4 (body) =11 dice, and will probably soak another 3 or 4, taking 2 or 3 stun damage. (FWIW, in my home game I've ruled that shock melee weapons can be used when engulfed, because you don't really need room to swing in order to use them. Makes stun batons moderately effective against spirits)

- Ares Alpha loaded with APDS ammo (so DV 11, AP -6), no excess successes. Hardened armour is reduced to 6, so the 11 damage is not just shrugged off. 6/2 =3, so the spirit gets three automatic successes, and rolls 6 (armour) +4 (body) =10 dice, and will probably soak another 3 or 4, taking 4 or 5 physical damage.

- Enfield AS7 assault shotgun, loaded with explosive ammo (DV=14, AP=-2, no excess successes. Hardened armour is reduced to 10, so the 14 damage is not just shrugged off. 10/2 =5, so the spirit gets five automatic successes, and rolls 10 (armour) +4 (body) =14 dice, and will probably soak another 4 or 5, taking 4 or 5 physical damage.

- Strength 11 troll with a combat axe (grateful that with edge managed to get a hit, albeit with no excess successes). DV=16, AP=-4..Hardened armour is reduced to 8, so the 16 damage is not just shrugged off. 8/2 =4, so the spirit gets four automatic successes, and rolls 8 (armour) +4 (body) =12 dice, and will probably soak another 4, taking about 8 physical damage.

Basically, when dealing with a spirit with mundane weapons you want as heavy a weapon as you can get, with as much AP as possible, you should consider using edge to improve your chance of hitting it and to increase your damage. With a disciplined crew who knows what they are doing, everyone shoots at it, with your best shooter (heaviest weapon, or if all the same weapons with best skill) waiting until the others have gone, in order to reduce the spirits defense dice and so as to maximise chance of hitting and getting extra successes (if you are really cold blooded, using take aim actions in the first round and trusting in your team to keep themselves alive, in order to bring its dice down even lower), then using burst fire (or long burst if you can soak the recoil) to reduce its defenses even further. Basically near military teams can deal with most spirits that you'll see, but gangers are generally pretty screwed if they don't have a troll with lucky dice.

Banishing:
Banishing is the trap ability of SR5. normal spirits resist banishing just like they resist summoning, with the banisher taking spirit's successes x2 in drain. Each net success on banishing reduces the number of services owed by the spirit by 1, and if no services owed are left, it leaves. A little risky on the drain front, and it won't always get rid of a spirit right away, but not too bad. BUT if a spirit is bound, it adds its summoners magic to the resistance roll. Meaning that you may well not get any successes, and will face a lot higher drain (magic 6 magician with a force 6 spirits =12 dice to resist, 4 successes on average, so 8 drain to soak on an average roll, 12 drain can happen easily enough). There is no convenient way to tell if a spirit is bound or not. So you can see where this becomes a problem ...

Adept vs Spirit
Killing hands is excellent, right? The spirit doesn't get its hardened armor, so is resisting damage just with its body, and is easy prey.

If it gets into melee range with you. On the other hand, since spirits don't care about gravity, it could sit ten metres up in the air and rain elemental blasts down on you, and not care in the least that you having killing hands. Not as nasty as engulfing you, but it may get the job done.

[Imladir]

12d6t5; 10d6t5; 8d6t5

[Imladir]

Hey, just an idea, but wouldn't it be nice if Preston managed to catch up to Cynthia/Spokane by the evening? There's a gala planned (even if Spokane doesn't yet know it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) ), probably the kind of things where Tanya could invite Preston, no?
It leaves a full day (~10 or so hours at least) for Preston to catch up, should be possible no? I have plenty of stuff planned in the day, so we can keep busy and avoid going too fast (though I'm not sure we can be accused of going too fast at all...).

[Beta]

I'll leave that up to Mercy, but trying to get back posting (have had weirdness going on at home and work, chewing up time and mental focus this week).

I have some more planned for this next bit, but posting in pieces as I get them done rather than saving up a whole essay.

[Mercy]

I am sorry that I have been out of it the weekend. My younger daughter flew up from California on Friday and I had to spend some time with her.

I was sort of thinking along the lines of maybe bringing Preston into contact with the others at around this point. We will see if that works out.

[Imladir]

It's alright, we survived. Barely of course, but we did.

[Beta]

I figured out what Preston was doing, and did a bunch of die rolls to see how it might work out -- but just couldn't develop the enthusiasm for narrating it all. So I jumped forward to after the fact. The rolls below summarize what he did and how it went.

1) Make contact with scavengers and pay them for observations, recordings, 'links from the dead, bullets (or casings, if any), or other evidence. And deal with the inevitable 'smart' guy who thinks killing you is an easier way to get your money.
etiquette (with local scavengers): 8d6t5 4
Buying evidence (negotiate): 4d6t5 1
Surprise check: 11d6t5 3
clubs (Defiance shocker) acc 5: 15d6t5 4
I'm assuming he spent the following:
* 175 for descriptions of events
* 250 on links scavenged off the dead locals: 6 x rating 1, 2 x rating 2
* 250 for recordings that have some coverage of a battle
* 75 for scavenged bullets
= 750
(when he has time he should be able to scavenge 2 electronic parts kits from the links)

2) Examine the scene and the evidence, and pull some data out of it
visual perception, attack sites: 12d6t5 5
audio perception, of recordings: 13d6t5 6
Forensic Technician prof. skill (attack sites): 11d6t5 4
Matrix Search: 11d6t5 3

[Imladir]

Would you have any sort of connection to your spirit that would tell you if it is injured?

A spirit doesn’t have to speak to his summoner out loud. It can communicate telepathically with the summoner, even from astral space, so it doesn’t even have to manifest to receive orders or make reports. This link allows for communication over a distance but does not extend to the metaplanes, nor does it allow any other visual or audio connection. With this link, a summoner knows when a spirit he has summoned has been disrupted, as he will feel the loss of the link.

So it's up to interpretation, but I'd say no for injury (unless the spirit decides to tell the mage of course).

[Beta]

OOC

Hack on the fly of links, followed by edit files. Assume all are rating one, and owner had 4 intuition (resistance of 5):
HotF: logic 5 + hacking 5 + devices specialty 2 = 12 dice.
Edit Files: logic 5 + computers 5 = 10 dice
Assuming noise zone 3 (a bit worse than where Monique was earlier), but have enough noise reduction to cover that.
Note: fail to get a mark on link 3 first try, fail to copy files on link 5 on the first try and on links 1 and 4 on the first two tries
Rolls can be found from the index here, I think: http://orokos.com/roll/m-brex

(apparently dumpshock recognizes tab characters while you are writing a post, but not when you read it. Sorry for the mess that this table became)

Link /HotF /HotF-resist /Edit File /Edit File Resist x=fail o=pass
1 /4 /1 /2 /3 /x
1b / / /0 /0 /x
1c / / /3 /1g /o
2 /5 /0 /4 /2 /o
3 /4 /4 / / /x
3b /6 /3 /4 /2 /o
4 /5 /3 /1 /1 /x
4b / / /2 /3 /x
4c / / /2 /0 /o
5 /5 /0 /3 /4 /x
5b / / /3 /2 /o
16 actions, he should have at least 2 passes a turn in cold-sim, so 8 turns or a little less, <=24 seconds.

BUT -- That is 29 overwatch! Adding 2d6 (happens at the start of every 15 minute interval) gives another
2d6 overwatch: 2d6 3 totaling 32, and he goes back to AR and logs out before GOD comes down on him.

Terrifying how often 10 dice versus 5 failed, and how fast overwatch adds up with even such trivial actions.

Matrix search on dwarf: 11 dice
matrix search on dwarf: 11d6t5 3
Use edge to re-roll 8 failing dice: matrix search on dwarf - edge: 8d6t5 5
wow, nice edge roll, for a total of 8 successes. He'd have his data processing at 6 (deck) +1 (overclocker) +1 (toolbox) for a search, so limit of 8 and keeps them all.

[Aria]

Check out the master 2075 OoC here for a high powered recruitment opportunity if anyone is interested!!?

Have a good holiday!

[Imladir]

Back finally. I think I died a few times waiting for that...

[Beta]

I hope that, at the least, the board found a lot of chocolate eggs during its Easter vacation!

[Beta]

Bought Edge up to 4, for 20 karma.

[dluxcru]

Clarification question on the movement power - it has this bit about "terrain" that the creature controls. This sounds like something that maybe got copy-pasted from 4e, but does it mean that a water spirit's Movement power would only work in water, Earth on the ground, etc.?

[Imladir]

Yep, that's what it means.

[Imladir]

Turning my mind towards the spirit of water, I thanked her for her help, and added "If you can clean up any astral signatures I left behind, then do so and go free. If not, then follow us in the astral as backup."

That's impossible, you can only ever one and only one unbound spirit. To summon your earth spirit, you need to release your water one.

And for your Earth spirit, only one service. So it can use its movement power to accelerate your or slow the car, but that would be all: no movement on you and the car (unless you want to speed or slow everyone that is), no bind, no concealing, nothing else.

If the target is a vehicle, the critter makes a Magic + Willpower test with a threshold of half the vehicle’s Body (round up).

A normal car has a body of 8 (low quality) to 15 (high quality), the Ford Americar which is pretty standard has 11. So at the very least 12d with difficulty 4, and more probably 5 to 6.

Again, clarification on weather a spirit can clean up a sig would be good - I don't see anything that would prohibit them from doing so, nor do I see anything stating that they can

A spirit can remove signatures. It's one service use though.

[dluxcru]

I looked and you're right about the one summoned spirit - you can have bound spirits up to your charisma, however (pg. 301 core), which is probably why I thought you could summon more than one. I can assume that the last simple action is dropped, then.

Because we're in a fight, however, combat service. Thereby I can get multiple power use.

[Imladir]

You're not fighting anymore when the earth spirit is summoned, you're pursuing. At least that's how I'd do it, since it would be too easy otherwise to count all powers usage leading to a fight to be a combat service. It may be debatable for your water spirit since it could be considered a continuation of the previous fight, but to your new spirit, it's not a fight: it's a chase and then maybe a fight.

[dluxcru]

I'll leave that for Mercy to determine.

[Beta]

re post here

Palm Taser: 5 palming + 9 agility (w/cyberarm)=14d palm taser: 14d6t5 5
Decent roll, I think they'd have to exceed that on a perception roll to notice.

And I feel there should be a roll around this point for how well he's doing this act, but I''m not quite sure if this is
- Etiquette (pissing match over authority) or
- Con (since he's completely lying about being there legitimately),
or somewhat less likely (but still some connection) maybe
- Impersonation (he's impersonating a legitimate worker, although not anyone specific)
- Disguise (behaving appropriately for the roll he's disguised as having).

Thoughts as to which is most applicable?

[Imladir]

I'd go with Con here I think.