OOC: SR4-First Run, Food Fight! Options

[Cold-Dragon]

[Slacker]

You are correct, you can only use Counter-spelling for spells you are unaware of if you are actively counterspelling.
If combat starts up here (which i am seriously hoping won't be the case), I'll let you use a free action to use counter-spelling, though.

[netlich]

Ok, here's two rolls. 15 mins before the meet Mark is already there and performs a routine scan of the perimeter (he is not looking under any rock or into every bush obviously! Just circles the meet area and checks for inconcistencies in the environment (like a tripod-set machine gun or a drone :-) )
Again when he gets to the meet he routinely scans every little detail for anything suspicious...Like Jack holding a walkie-talkie and not moving or breathing!!!! ;-)

[ Spoiler ]

Intuition+Perception : 7 dice (+2 specialisation for visual perception)
Dunno any modifiers that might apply especially the light conditions...

1: 5 !
2: 3
3: 1
4: 4
5: 1
6: 2
7: 4
8: 6 !
9: 3

1: 3
2: 3
3: 2
4: 5 !
5: 5 !
6: 3
7: 1
8: 5 !
9: 6 !

2 hits in the first 4 in the second test.

[Cold-Dragon]

Since a free action is roughly the normal rules for counterspelling, I should hope so! ;) lol.

*goes to read what chaos is coming up*

- - -

posted!

And yes, I'm having some humor fun with the, acquainted, bit! ^-^

[netlich]

Well I don't wanna monopolise the discussion as we are posting at different timelines and I am still expecting whether there are any results from my perception checks (which would modify my wording a bit)....

So am just gonna a post afew bits and bops and then leave it till SLacker and Tzaz reply...

[Slacker]

Sorry for the delays folks, my computer died on my over the weekend so i couldn't post anything. Looks like you were carrying on well without me though.

@netlich:

[ Spoiler ]

You really just noticed what you've already noted in your post. That the dwarven form at the bench was in fact a dummy. (The second roll would have been enough to detect the watcher spirit if it had passed through your aura, but since all Tzaz had it to was a quick circuit around that didn't happen at all).
By the way, how far our did you want the others to wait. Zelda wouldn't necessarily have to be nearby to do any hacking (oh and as long as Celia's commlink is turned on, Zelda can hack it even in hidden mode).

[Aku]

Both this post and the one in the IC thread are posted on behalf of Slacker:

@Tzaz: As you can tell by the IC post that my friend was kind enough to post for me, it's kind of important that you say exactly what instructions you give to a spirit. You just told it to go around the area and didn't specify what it should report back to you on (technically, I don't think you even told it to report back to you, but that can be fairly safely assumed I suppose). If you want to give it different orders than what I made up IC that is fine. Since it is currently looking for anything that desires you harm, it will be a bit slower as it tries to assense each creature's aura.
To make it quicker without the constant interruptions you could tell it to patrol the area and report back once its finished. That way it will give you a report of all the living creatures at once rather than piecemeal. Or you could specifiy a range of sizes to look for such as between your size and the troll's size. Or something else intirely. It's up to you.

[Slacker]

@Tzaz: Oops...guess i somehow overlooked that word 'humanoid'. Guess the spirit just thought anything with four limbs and a head was humanoid.....oh wait that doesn't explain the snake. Damn, can't use that excuse.
Let's just say the spirit was unfamiliar with the word (it does only have an attribute of 1).

[Tzaz]

Force six earth elemental:
1,4,2,3,3,6,5,1,1,1,2
Dv:6,6,1,6,1,2
guard orders on me
Im camoflaugeds, hiding, and have a shotgun out. Using visual perception to see the new humanoids
Female at 50 m=6,3,5,3,6,3,4,1,6
Humanoid at 25 m from me=5,3,6,5,5,3,1,6,4
If they are not friends of Hammer we will throw leviate on them and leviate them up 25 meters in the air.
If they do any offence at me sick the earth elemental at them and go invisible and hide hide hide.

[Slacker]

@Tzaz: I am saying that the watcher spirit made a circuit around the meeting point starting at 100m and moving inwards on eaxh circle, just because it can move through astral space at the speed of thought does not mean it can search an area this large in an instant and because there is life glowing all around thanks to vegetation and such it actually does take time to search thoroughly. You did make it to the bench and the conversation did start up.
It wasn't until the point I specified that the watcher reported to you that it spotted somebody.
Also, please make any OOC comments in the OOC thread and not in the IC thread. That is what the OOC thread is for.
Also, remember that the spirit is observing from the astral plane. It is seeing auras not the physical body of these people. So describing how Tempty and Taku look physically does no good while it is in astral.

[Cold-Dragon]

That's not entirely true, actually. the astral perception of the material world is simply filtered - you see it through a sort of 'glass'. that can affect how things look, but otherwise, you can make out fine details of a person as you normally would. Think of it as the ultimate low light/thermo vision - that work together at the same time.

Naturally, living things give off an aura too, which only makes them that much more noticeable. The only arguement of detail you might not be able to get is writing - in SR3 the written word doesn't exist astrally (though intent behind the word does). THey don't make a real claim of that in SR4, so I don't know if you can read that way.

Mind you, manifesting ignores the 'no reading the written' rule to my knowledge as well, and you can see things quite fine if you want to be physical about it.

but...I could be wrong. I have before.

[netlich]

Slacker maybe we need to flesh out the details over the job with the critter so I know what I can feed into the Dangerous Duo I am having the meet with :-)

I knwo the mission was succesfull but we never talked about details like , did we actually get to deliver the package or did we get paid yet...?

[netlich]

Oops- sorry - so is Jack with us or still hiding in the trees? I will have to ammend my post a bit as I was staring down the walkie talkie :-)

I am not good at intimidating walkie talkies or inflatable lumberjack dolls!!!

[Aku]

Yet another post for Slacker while he's at work:

Didn't have time before heading off to work this morning to look up the exact quote about seeing physical objects from the astral but here it is:

[Slacker]

Sorry for the confusion of timing here.
As I already mentioned to Tzaz, the watcher spirit could not search the entire area in an instant. It was patrolling the area in a circle as instructed and spiralling inward as it went. It spotted the two people in the woods at the same time Hammer was asking Celia if she knew what kind of creature they had abducted.

@netlich: The mission was completed and you were paid for it (the money was just part of whatever you spent at chargen). You were not originally told you were retrieving an animal, but the noises (and smell) coming off the container made it quite obvious that there was a creature inside. However, the container was designed in such a way that you could not see what was inside, yet air could still circulate; and it had a seal on the container so that any tampering would be noticed.

[netlich]

Cool beans; thats fine with me....

[Slacker]

@Tzaz: Sorry for taking so long to respond to your summoning, I keep forgetting about it. Anyways, your poor roll (only 2 successes out of 11 dice) with the spirit's above average roll (3 successes out of 6 dice) combine to mean that you failed to complete the summoning.
And as the Drain Damage is double the number of successes the spirit rolls you took 3 boxes of Physical damage (6 minus your three successes, and physical because force 6 is overcasting for you).
Oh and you may want to change your actions because of this and the fact that you actually are with Hammer and Celia currently, but I will go ahead and tell you that you are unable to make out either person the spirit has alerted you to, though you know the general location of them thanks to your spirit.

[Tzaz]

I can throw a 6 earth force elemental..
2 for magic, 2 for power focus and 2 for mentor=6
so i take 3 stun and no earth elementalgets summoned.

did i do that right?

[Slacker]

@Tzaz: Sorry, I keep forgetting about your mentor spirit. You are correct, you only took stun damage.

[gobogen]

I thought mentor spirits only gave 2 more dice on the conjuring of spirits of a certain type, not count as +2 to magic for the purposes of the summoning. At least I believe that's how it goes..

[Cold-Dragon]

Mentor spirits only provide bonus dice - they never increase your magical rating. Currently, NOTHING improves your magic rating except through karma. Thus, the damage is physical and not stun.

In SR3, power foci use to raise your rating for purpose of stun limits, otherwise, that's gone extinct. Some spirits might, in theory, still be able to raise your score (ally spirits) but I'm betting that's gonna change in some way.

[netlich]

Well according to the rules at pages 79 & 192-193 this is quite ambiguous as the specifics of a mentor spirits and its advantages and dissadvantages are all heavily depended on its archetype - something that IMO is disucssed between the GM and the player...

On the other hand though the in-book description of the Mentor spirits talks about only one rules' modification which is called Mentor Spirit Modifiers which are indeed only dice modifiers and not level modifiers...

To be more exact the closest example to Tzaz's rock is the mountain in my opinion which offers +2 dice in countespelling and earth spirit summoning....

I am thus torn in half of what could be the right way to go....

And being almost midnight I am not even sure why I even started typing this!!! Oh well there wasn't anything to answer to in the IC thread so there :-P


just my 2 :nuyen: worth of suggestions


PS. As you can see I now have a book and I am actually reading it!!!! Slacker you can now rest assured I won't be pestering you with rules questions
( just the odd munchking question to get the best out of the rules for Hammer :-P)

[Cold-Dragon]

lol. well grats for getting a book netty. and Rest assured, there are bonus dice that Tzaz would have from his mentor for earth spirits - it would be silly for mountain not to have them. But those are only two extra dice for rolling - although I think he can choose to use them in summoning or resisting drain. that is a vague spot.

In game wise, I believe I'm making a perception test or assensing test - I'm not entirely certain which atm, lol. Possibly perception to spot out the 'dark spots' and assensing to determine what they are or who's the one behind them..*shrugs*

[Tzaz]

Ok The question is, does my mentor give me +2 power for throwing earth/man spells? IE manipulation/health ? Or force in summoning/spellcasting?

Slacker..I thought you said they did when we did the walkthroughs and Thats what it says on my character sheet.

Page 179...Top right paragraph. " The magicain decides how powerful a spirit to summon, choosing the spirits force. She then makes an Opposed Test, her own magic+summoning versus the spirits Force. Mentor spirit modifiers and summoning foci can add extra die.

page 192. A power foci. " A power foci adds its Force to all tests in which the magician's Magic is included."

Page 192. Mentor spirits. " By seeking to embody the same ideal, the magician gains magical power."

ok its either
Case I:
Force - magic[2]+power focus[2]+mentor[2], and
summoning dice = magic[5]+summoning[3] + summoning foci[0]
OR
CAse II:
force=magic[2]+power focus[2] and
summonig die= magic[5] + summoning[3] + mentor[2] + summoning foci [0]
OR
Case III:
Force - magic[2]+power focus[2]+mentor[2], and
summoning dice = magic[5]+summoning[3] + summoning foci[0] + mentor spirit[2]

So I chose a force 6 spirit from case III.
10 die/ 2 successes=1,4,2,3,3,6,5,1,1,1
Spirit opposed test 6 die/3 successes=6,6,1,6,1,2
Spirit -1 net...no spirit shows up.
Drain[2x3] =willpower[5]+ logic[[5]
Dv:=4,4,6,1,3,4,3,1,6,4 for 3 successes so i take 3 stun?
cold dragon seems to be the expert on this..This is my first ever mage and Im really in the dark with no thermovision. lol

[Cold-Dragon]

ANY time it says extra dice are added, they are added to the dice pool - never the ratings. Totem modifiers alter dice. Power foci add dice (but they don't alter your magic rating).

The Mentor Spirit comment is actually a metaphysical ideal - basically, your inner ego has designed this spirit, and to access your full potential, you have to match that ego in more and more ways, be they visible or mental.. Think of it more like a negative quality - if you go against it, you become weaker. If you go with it, you don't get penalized.

As far as cases....all 3 of them look wrong, lol. Mainly for what I just said.

Force = up to twice your magic attribute.
summoning dice = magic + summoning skill + totem modifiers + summoning foci/power foci


You cannot alter the magic attribute in SR4 in any way except for penalties (pissed off mentors), burnout (drugs, cyberware, etc, or raising it with karma. To go past 6, you have to initiate first.