Oh, and as an aside, Mr. Magoo wasn't burning Edge for Hand of God. He was burning Edge for a Critical Success; automatically 4 successes over whatever you needed.

There's also no way the Munchkin Wannabe Squad knows if their ritual succeeded at killing the target, either. Full-on ritual? Mr. Magoo shrugs it off without missing a beat. And unless they attempt to check up on him afterwards (which requires them to get through their wards and security) or just keep going on and on with the ritual multiple times (wracking up ALL that yummy Physical Drain), then mission failed. If they do keep on going (requiring another 7 attempts, minimum, though they have no way of knowing that from a medical record), that makes them a pretty little target for the army of Prime Runners to come and turn them into salsa.

Well, unless you're going to metagame and assume you know Mr. Magoo is going to get all those Critical Successes.

Um, I'm not sure that is a legal use of Edge considering that a Damage Resistance Test isn't really an "action" per say.

So, to do this again, real quick... The teams actions are as follows, they get the call for the job, and start work. They rush the test for the symbol, Teamwork test. Have their bound spirits guard so glitches don't matter. Now you get 5 guys with Int + Skill (4 + 6) 10 + Edge on it. To teamwork for the big one. You get 3 hits average, with 2 extra from edge. 5 hits total (you don't need to save edge for glitches, thanks to guard). 5 * 5 = 25.

Main guy goes, with his 10 + 25 for 35 pool. Average of 11 hits. Edge to reroll failures. 24 dice makes 8 more hits. 19 hits vs 16 threshold is done in half a day.

Now, they sit down and start their Slay (Human) at Mr. Magoo.
We have the 5 assisting magicians. Their dice pool is 9 (skill) + 10 (magic) + 10 (spellcasting focus) + 6 (aid sorcery spirit 1) + 6 (aid sorcery spirit 2) + 2 (mentor spirit) - 6 (symbolic link) For a dice pool of 37. This averages 13 hits. They use edge to reroll 24 dice and get another 8 hits. 21 hits a piece. 21 * 5 = 105 dice pool to the leader.
Leaders dice pool is 43 base, because he uses edge to make 6's explode and remove cap on force. Plus the extra 105 dice from the ritual casting. Making his dicepool 148. Averages 48 + 2 hits. (The +2 is for hits gained from edge dice, which bypass the force cap). Half of those are likely to be 6's, and explode. 25 dice. 8 hits average. So we're at 48 + 10 now. Half of those 8 explode, for 4 more dice, and 1 more hit. Total is 48 + 11.

If hits are limitted before the test is opposed, we're at 31 hits.

If hits are limitted after the test is opposed we're at 59.

Whats magoos defense magically? Alternately, the leader could easily spend his edge to "critically succeed" making it at +4 more than Magoo gets. Unless Magoo spends his edge to critically succeed on the opposed test, in which case, I'm not sure what happens? They both succeed? It goes back to how the dice fall, which is 48/20 (depending on when force limits) on the side of the ritual team.

So, what are Mr. Magoo's defenses magically?

2 things funk. One, the casters have the skills needed to find the ritual materials on their own. They are ritual assassins, so this is a pretty big downtime activity on their own. We can make the rolls if you want.

Second: Its an opposed test. What happens if the ritual caster instead spent edge to critically succeed the ritual? When Magoo decides to spend his to critically resist it, what happens? Back to where dice fall?

I hope this isn't a sign that all shadowrunners should just be a team of magicians with ritual spellcasting...

Naw, although a great "I Win Button" for online debates, the tactic doesn't actually work nearly as good in real table-top play, for example, how exactly does such a ritual team manage to form and then survive for any real length of time? They are quite literally a magical nuke and you can bet there are alot of people who would go to great lengths to keep the genie in the bottle, people still remember the Great Ghost Dance and there are enough immortals floating around to realize the danger that possible Mana Spikes represent.

It also requires "creative" use of the rules, ignoring the intent, and taking advantage of minor interpretative loopholes. Usually to the detriment of the spirit of the exercise it's being applied to as well.

With an exception of your last very valid and quite excellent point I have to disagree, Ritual Magic has always been protrayed as being really fragging nasty in the fluff so I don't think it being equally nasty in the actual rules is a mistake in any way, with the Great Ritual and Sacrifice Metamagics we are becoming ever closer to being able to reenact the Great Ghost Dance.

Now whether or not that is a good thing is a matter of taste of course.

*laugh*

Few greater compliments, than to be considered to be worthy of a parody thread.

ok this is easy all you need to do is higher two hooks and get a bottle of viagra. If it doesn't killem he will at least thank you for the great night

Oh, and regarding the Exploding Semi And Plane Of Doom methods, if the bunker IS reinforced well enough to survive, simply hijack a couple more planes or maybe a suborbital, rinse, and repeat.

Or fill the semi with thermite. Happy, happy thermite - cleanse with fire

Further addendum - add a couple of semis full of toxic waste (nasty liquidy type preferably) to the mix. Have a bath Mr. Magoo

Does the house have lines for gas? Hell are there gas lines in the area? Send a drone to explore them carrying a small explosive and a tank of oxygen. Blow up the house if you can reach it, have the emergency services dig Magoo out and hit him with multiple snipers.

Actually, you don't have to worry about collecting your pay-check because sooner than leater, Bloodzilla will eat the world. But that's just collateral damage.

Afterwards, it will bind the sorry souls of the team to silly Silver Surfer live-size replicas and send them out through space to search for new worlds to eat.

Buster you seem to be preventing many of these methods with GM fiat. You have given us no info on the grounds and the security they have, beyond "It's a bunker."

Take Bloodzilla, he flattens Magoo's house with his first use of Quake, followed three seconds later by another use. His range is LOS, so I doubt response will be that quick or accurate. For a start they need to pick up the tremor, then realise it's unnatural...

Bloodzilla never gets the unique quake power. It's written that invoking blood spirits never grants unique powers to the transformed bound spirit. However, as long the Energy Drain power presented in Street Magic for spirits isn't corrected and given a limit like the Essence Drain power in the basic rulebook, the blood spirit may very well have uber-force rating.

That's something that absolutely has to be addressed in the coming Errata of Street Magic.

Invoke a Force 1 Guardian Spirit and a Force 1 Earth Spirit is addition to Bloodzilla. Have the Guardian Spirit Endow the Earth Spirit with Endowment and the Earth Spirit, in turn, Endow Bloodzilla with Quake.

Couldn't bloodzilla just force his way through the wards and then materialize and use his engulf power to drown Mr. Magoo in blood? A tipple digit force spirit would have very little trouble forcing his way through any ward or barrier.

The rules say that blood spirits have the Essence Drain power, not "Essence Drain that doesn't have a limit of 2 * Essence" power. Therefore, there is no way to infinite loop blood spirits and no way to get triple digit force spirits.

Not exactly. They add the drained Essence to Force instead of Essence. That is the problem.

But doesn't essence = force?

No... it's Force -> Essence, not Force <- Essence, nor Force <-> Essence.
Thus the rise of Bloodzilla.

Now, bearing in mind that I'm not 100% on actually rolling things out with magic and whatnot, this seems like a potential strategy to kill old man Magoo. But first, a question!

How is Magoo signaling his hitsquad? You said there isn't an apparent Matrix connection, which means a hardline we don't know about (but could find), or that the wireless is off until needed. If there is neither then how do they come running when he's in trouble?

Team would be a Technomancer Rigger and five Mages. TM would look for a landline, I will assume that there isn't one. If there is, find a point where it can be cut before it gets to another node, and plant a bomb. If it's guarded, then things get more complicated, and I can get into that later.

If it's nothing, or simply turned off Wireless then...

The TM buys (probably already has) numerous drones equipped with powerful jamming systems. These will run off of built-in Pilot programs, since they have a simple tast, surround the mansion area a a good distance and initiate a blanket of wireless jamming as the attack starts. Could be dozens of these if necessary, staying on the gruond until the last moment. Them the TM (borrowing from Nightmare) hijacks a plane of reasonable size with a Sprite. Then several large-ish drones. The first plane comes in low and fast, picks up an escort of spirits controlled by a mage in position near the mansion, and simply shears through the mansion near the second or third floor. As this all happens, the jamming blanket goes off.

The next phase is a series of drones packed to the brim with enough of whatever explosive will dig the biggest hole in the ground, and they come down, full throttle, from directly overhead, again controlled by a sprite, and defended by a series of spirits. Some of the spirits will stay on the ground and fight, others will go back to escort the drones. Several drones would be needed to crater down to the bunker surface. Then another couple drop in with thermite. If at any point a barrier is found, the mages, onboard a craft rigged by the TM, would approach close enough to counterspell, with spirit assistance if needed. Then again, I'm not really certain how fast we could get a divebombing, afterburning drone to go... might be over awfully fast.

The thermite breaches the bunker I'd imagine, at which point naplam is dropped in on the next couple planes. Or we get another sprite to fly a missile into the hole, filled with any number of nasty chemical/biological/nanite weapons. And Napalm. The spirits would assist.

With the speed of drones, the series of crashes/bombing could be over in less than a minute, just long enough for the blast of the last one to clear, and another dives into the smoke cloud. Planes would be (I'd imagine) harder for spirits to catch than a truck, and with mages around to put magical/physical barriers up and super-powered Sprites doing crazy piloting tricks, they survive all the way to the ground. Napalm, various nerve chemicals, and cutter-style nanites should pretty much kill everything inside, assuming it isn't absolutely massive. More drone-missiles flown into the breach to ensure that bulkhead systems fail might be needed.

Now, as for whether or not this is reasonable, I don't know. All this stuff could conceivably have been owned by a crazy TM rigger/mage assault team prior to that day. Explosives seem relatively easy to get in small quantities, and over time, you get large quantities. With computer-level timing and precision provided by the Sprites and TM, the entire thing could be preprogrammed, so no mid-battle comm is needed, allowing the blanket of jamming to stop anything from getting out, and allowing it to proceed with inhuman timing. Magical protection on the drones slows spirits and enemy mages long enough to impact, and if the mages have a series of spirits bound to engage the enemy spirits and cause confusion on the mansion grounds, it might even trick defenders into initially believing that the first plane attack was just a diversion for a ground assault. It's even possible the cratering drones would simply collapse the bunker, killing Magoo.

Well ok, call it a house rule if you want, but a blood spirit's Essence Drain can only get a max of double the spirit's ORIGINAL force, not double it's most recent force.

I've been thinking about Ravor's magic tunnelling idea. Assuming you came up with a way to hide the initial dirt excavated, you'd have to deal with the tunnel collapsing behind you as the area of the spell moves forward. You'd be fine, because you'd be in the safe area of the spell, but you'd leave a trail behind you like Bugs Bunny. I didn't think of sinking Wards in the ground (just around the bunker), so that approach would work up until Mr. Magoo's Detect Life and Detect Magic spells sniffed out the team and sent spell-popping spirits down after them. As far as I know, the detection spells will extend down into the ground (correct me if I'm wrong). If the Shape Earth spell was dispelled/killed by a spirit (or ward), the safe area of the tunnel would collapse on the team.

I think Seraph Kast wins a Kewpie Doll of Doom for combining everyone's good ideas into one nasty multipronged attack. I think one good way to get through the bunker would be with one or more mages and several spirits and one or more hackers/technomancers/agents/sprites all protecting one or more kamikaze drones filled with bunker-busting explosives. The trick would be to get the kamikaze drones to the bunker before Mr. Magoo's spirits and electronic warfare agents can detonate them.

I can think of a few more ideas that might work too (and would require less collateral damage), so keep the ideas coming.

For an alternate tactic. Take a mage. Magic 6 and intuition 6. Willpower 4. Initiates 22 times for a cost of 381 karma. (Assuming group and ordeal discounts on all).

Costs are:


Gets I think all metamagics, but at least masking and improved masking.

Casts shapechange as a rat, or some other similar small animal. (Mage has a body of 3, so he can turn into a body 1 critter.) Sneak in through the house, and kill mr magoo in melee combat (since he gets a bonus of +1 physical stats per hit). Assuming magic spellcasting of 6, thats 12 dice. average 4 hits. So the 1/1/1/1 rat is now 5/5/5/5. Give him unarmed combat skill, and magoo dies. Over and over till he's dead dead. Mage slinks out. Not spotted from magical means due to the masking. And give him a good infiltration skill, and the silence spell too. (And why not, foci to sustain all the spells too). There ya go.

Initiate Grade is limited to Magic x2.

Ahh, I see. So, he can go up to 12 with his base rating of 6. He can get to magic 9 and grade 18 for a cheap 362 karma.
Costs

He still won't get his masking penetrated.