My team needs to get through the exterior wall of a brick building - preferably quietly and quickly. What's a good way to do that in SR4?

It looks like an AV rocket is the quickets and least skill-intensive. But it is also very restricted and loud.

Plastic explosives seem readily available but I'm hesitant to use it with no Demoltions skills. Is it feasible to use that stuff untrained (in game)?

Isn't there some sort of thermite paste in real life that you can outline a hole with and then blow up (or burn through)? The thermite bar in the rules seems like a primitive version of that - but the stats for it don't look like they'd get though a good exterior wall.

I thought maybe an earth spirit could do something (the building being brick) but nothing there. I'm not familar with spells, and am not sure if the team would be able to get hold of a spell our shamman does not already have with her - but if there is the perfect spell out there, we'll certainly try .

Anyway, there may not be any good way to do this - but I figured I would ask.

Give your troll a chisel .

And yes, this post ist serious.

Move Earth spell should work. failing that, can you create a loud distraction that would cover your less-loud entry? blow up a few vehicles out front, use a breaching charge on the wall?

or you could just go to a window and use glass cutters and sneak in that way

hmm, is the silence spell available? that and foam explosives (demolitions isnt realy needed in SR4 i think, but it helps) should be nice and effective.

Problem with Move Earth is that most modern walls are going to be a combination of synthetic concrete and steel. Your spell is likely to look at you with a WTF expression when you try to use it on that wall.

Silence spell won't stop the sound on the other side of the wall, will it?

Honestly, a thermite ring might be the least loud. I think we need a little more background.. Why are you trying to go through an external wall quietly? The very idea doesn't seem to imply stealth or silence in any way....

Miniwelder? It's got a DV of 15 against barriers.

Failing that, how about a monofilament chainsaw? It's got a DV of 10 against barriers, with -2 AP.

Couple that with a silence spell (or heck, even heavy traffic noise) and you should have a decent chance.

Its a building that we need to get into (prisoner retrieval) with no windows on the uguarded sides. The closer to the target we can get before all hell breaks loose, the better our chance of success.

We'll probably just go with a big, loud, explosion, but it would be nice if there were a Passwall spell or lightsaber handy

I would have thought that a monofiliment chainsaw would have been just the thing. But looking at the numbers, it would be ineffective.

How about Turn to Goo? You could Goo the wall and scrape away at it... It's not quick, but it's quiet.

I have a short story/novella that I'm working on that uses this idea, but you can borrow it

Edit:
OK, maybe this will be too slow for your needs... but what about tunneling up from underneath?

have a rigger drive a big van filled with explosives up to the main gate. detonate. at same time, blow up the wall. their attention should be focused on the main gate, expecting a frontal assault...

Just drill it. That's not very loud and brick is soft, it'll do the trick very easily.

Or you can get one of those mine-tunneling things, with the big whirly drill head.

Heh.

Okay, this is a prison you're trying to get through? Expect the walls to be much more dense and thus harder to penetrate than your average building wall. So the idea of creating a massive earshattering distraction at the front gate as you detonate a small, shaped charge hole in the back wall would likely be your best option. It's not quiet, but it'll minimize the chance that you're going to get hosed.

And I thought Turn to Goo only worked on organic stuff....

A few weeks prior to the job (or days if necessary) create a diversion and scrape a sample, analyze the materials and find a solvent for the plascrete binder. Then engineer an enzyme that eats it, and spray the walls, using drills to get it in deep. Then you can use signifigantly smaller mining charges to finish the job, little longer to do, more work, more skill intensive, but quieter.

Honestly, it would help if you gave us a rough description of the skills the characters involved have.

What's the threshold and interval for engineering a plascrete eating enzyme?

How about engineering nanites that eat the plascrete and use it to make more nanites? That way they're self sustaining, and you don't have to do any drilling.

Of course, when there are enough of them that they create a hive mind and try to take over the world, it'll be your fault, but hey, those things happen.

Well poop. That kills the opening to my story...

silence spell
no noise escapes the area

AV rocket + silence spell on rocket = silent wall boomage

the rocket itself won't make a noise, nor would the explosion itself. you'd have a pretty loud noise when all those wall pieces smack into other walls, the floor, etcetera. compared to the sound of the rocket actually exploding, though, yeah--pretty quiet.

Cast it on the wall and it's general area, then it shouldn't make a peep when the rocket wangs it

I like the idea of using a spirit to do the dirty work (and fail that use a troll).

Whatever you use to make the actual breach (AV, demo, thermite), I'd definitely cast high-force Silence and Trid Phantasm on the wall.

The catch is, the interior will be out of LOS, and the vibration from your activity is going to be transmitted *somewhere*. So, don't expect the guards not to notice.

You're probably best off going with a distraction, a big boom somewhere else. Or, if you can pull it off, hack their system and forge paperwork turning the prisoners over to another agency (you, dressed in very nice black suits with a red-hot face taking point, and some manipulation support for backup).

I would expect most SR prisons to have magical wards to prevent magical intervention....
Or at lest watchers.

I think Big D might have the right of it.
Those walls are big and thick for a purpose.

What's more like a shadowrun? Breeching a fortress or walking in, tricking them and them walking out with none the wiser?

both, it depends on the parameters of the run...

Infect the wall with rockworms well ahead of time. They're nasty vermin, and the wall would propably have to be demolished. Make the entry during the construction of the new wall.

Summon a spirit with the weather control power and have it whip up a nice loud thunderstorm ahead of time. That'll provide lots of loud noises, and might even knock out main power or interfere with communications. Won't totally fool them, but combined with a silence spell around the area of the actual rocket attack you've got a damn good start.

Not sure how loud an Ares Firelance vehicle mounted laser is. Guessing it's a moot point, because you probably don't have one

Hey the best of both worlds a spirit and a troll!

You best bet is a silence spell, send a spirit inside to cast in on the far side, the mage casts it on the outside of the wall, use the AV rockets.

This of cause requires a mage with the stealth spell and acceptable conjuring of spirits of man and access to AV missiles. Or some other unsubtle way to breach the wall.

You could do a limited version using eth stealth spell, cast on the missile (or explosive) and the wall, possibly the floor as well (inside and out)

Before you try any of this recon the prison’s astral security, your spells may be noticed.

Edward

Hell, recon the prison design, make sure they don't have any circuits built into the walls to detect major breaches.

I'll be honest, I think getting through an exterior wall is the least of your troubles, unless that one hole in the wall is going to get you where you're going. Most prisons are designed to only let people move from one part to the next if a guard says it's okay, and with the advent of technomancers, I think their security is most likely not wireless if they can help it.

Thermite is probably your quietest way in (it sounds like a loud hiss when it burns), but the smoke and heat will probably set off the fire alarms (that crap produces an impressive amount of smoke). A microwelder isn't gonna cut it (no pun intended)... while those things can be used to burn through deadbolts, hinges, and stuff like that, they're really not built to go through entire walls. You might be able to burn an inch-deep trough in the wall, sure, but actually cut through it? Not happening.

Drilling in concrete is incredibly loud, and if it's reinforced concrete you run the added risk of possibly hitting rebar, which will only be louder. I honestly think your best chance of getting in and out quietly is to try and slip through a legit entrance in disguise... going through a wall of a building designed to keep people from going through its walls should be phenomenally difficult.

Getting through a thick concrete wall with thermite will take a long-ass time. The temperature it causes is high enough to slowly erode concrete, but you'll have to work a few millimeters at a time.

You could do it much faster with an industrial-grade thermic lance. No idea just how much noise that makes, but I'm guessing it's quite loud enough.

I (the orginal poster) wasn't actually asking about a prison. I used the word prisoner and that lead to some assumptions. Since I had already gotten my answer (there is no Passwall spell, no lightsaber, and no quiet explosive solution) I let the thread go off on that tangent since others seemed to be interested in the prison break scenario.

In my actual case, we're trying to rescure a girl being held in a brothel in the Redmond Barrens. It's a 4 story tenament building with similar buildings on either side and guards in front and back.

After reading the equipment rules we've found that there's no way we can get any new gear in time to be of use. So we're just going to shoot our way in the back door.

Yeah, that changes things considerably. Shooting your way into a prison would be very risky, given the speed and quantity of reinforcements; here, maybe it's not so bad.

I'd still go with a distraction, though. If nothing else, some demo tied to a remote detonator that you trigger through AR right before you hit the door.

To continue further off topic: Most prisons are designed to keep people in, with little thought at how to keep people from getting in. You'd be surprised at how easy it could be.

Depending on the wall, but from time to time it can be easiest to go "over" the wall (levitate, skydiving with an air spirit to soften the fall etc.)

There is always the power magic option,

Have your mage summon the biggest spirit of man he can giving it the power bolt, power ball, acid stream or some other suitable spell. And as a single service ask the spirit to bring down the wall as quickly and quietly as possible. The spirit will then blast the wall into smithereens using nice quiet magic.

The way you described your target they probably wont have much astral watch but you should recon anyway and you don’t need to worry about the difficulty of acquisition unless you don’t have a mage with descent conjuring and a suitable spell.



Edward

If a mage summons a spirit with innate spell, who then casts a spell, who's signature is left? The spirit's (which is meaningless once the spirit evaporates into the ether), the mage's (which will linger for a day unless erased), or both (or some other weird combination)?

given that a spirit can be used to astraly trace the summoner, i would say it would be the signature of the mage, but with a extra bit to indicate a spirit (only showing up with a greater number of hits then needed to locate the signature).

This sounds like a "White Tiger" Scenario.

My advice

2x20 liter Jerry cans of petrol

20kg of fertiliser
5kg of styrofoam

Put fertiliser in the petrol of can A
Put styrofoam in the petrol of can B

leave for 24 hours SEALED

Toss can B in and shoot with a tracer round... Napalm in lobby = distraction

Use Can A and a silence spell to detonate the back wall

It will have the blast for a standard wall

Not that I've personally tried, but I doubt a 50-50 mix of gasoline and ammonium nitrate fertilizer provides a very efficient detonation. You might want to try 94% AN mixed with 6% fuel oil. Globalsecurity.Org has this to say about the mixing process:
"Uniform mixing of oil and ammonium nitrate is essential to development of full explosive force. Some blasting agents are premixed and packaged by the manufacturer. Where not premixed, several methods of mixing in the field can be employed to achieve uniformity. The best method, although not always the most practical one, is by mechanical tier. A more common and almost as effective method of mixing is by uniformly soaking prills in opened bags with 8 to 1O percent of their weight of oil. After draining for at least a half hour the prills will have retained about the correct amount of fuel oil.

Fuel oil can also be poured onto the ammonium nitrate in approximately the correct proportions as it is poured into the blasthole. For this purpose, about 1 gal of fuel oil for each 100 lb of ammonium nitrate will equal approximately 6 percent by weight of oil. The oil can be added after each bag or two of prills, and it will disperse relatively rapidly and uniformly."

Because of the problem of properly priming ANFO, if you don't have a character with a decent Demolitions skill I'd suggest simply buying 30kg of TNT instead.

true I got a few of my proportions wrong but I described a 60-40 mix, not a 50-50

20 liters of Petrolis significantly less than 20kgs

oh and ya might need more styrofoam than i described

I don't think the relative amounts are quite as problematic there as the fact any old petrol/gasoline does not necessarily mix with AN to form an explosive with anywhere near the performance of ANFO. According to the Globalsecurity.Org article, AN can be mixed with certain kinds of oil up to a 50-50 ratio with no appreciable loss in performance as long as it's mixed right.

To get military grade napalm B, you'd also need benzene. But, if you really intend to just throw the canister inside and ignite it with a tracer round or several, you'd probably be better off with just the gasoline.