Has my current hacker disappeared in IC?

No I just hadn't done the introduction because I was being a slack ass. Basically.

Zyerne, if you're intending to join, shoot me a character write up so I can see where you're at.

It would be easiest to intro both characters at the same time.

I learned something. Don't try and send PMs when thoroughly pissed off. Only Took me 3 or 4 trys get it done right.

Now back to wondering where my SR delivery has gotten to.

Reminds me of a few posts I've lost. I HATE it when that happens. Especially when it's a nice long thought out one. They usually end up like your PM afterwords: short and to the point.

I lost half a post yesterday when a dang update rebooted my computer rather than just recycling acrobat.

I was just being plain incompetent.

I did write the follow up PM in Office though.

PM well received. At least the second one. Thanks, it gives me a much better idea of what you're looking to put together. can you have the character done in a week?

At this point, we're looking at having RJ as Nix, and running a hacker along side. RJ, you're starting to look like Troy McClure. Zyerne is coming in as our Street Samantha gunslinger type. Should be fun.
At the moment, I'm autopiloting Caliph, but I'd like to slide him out once Alice is ready to roll out.

Zyerne, games taking place in London obviously, so being a Californian myself, go easy on me if some details are a bit off.

I'm sure thing's will have changed by 2072, I'll cut you some slack

I won't need a week, she's mostly done to be honest, but I do need a clarification. From digging around and working backwards, I'm getting that it's 500BP chars with up to 250 for stats?

That's correct. I've never really liked that you couldn't have a character with good mental and physical stats because of the BP cap. This helps a little.

Cool, that's what I've been working to. Those extra 100 points go real fast though.

Oh, to reference your London comment again, you'll have to forgive me Alice's 'accent'.

I figured that would be our little unspoken understanding. Thanks for speaking it.

And yes, those points really do go quick. I like 'em though. I think it really helps open up character possibilities.
So far I don't think I've had anyone complain about more points. We'll see though.

Summon F4 Spirit of Man: Magic(6) + Summoning[Man](3+2) [3,5,4,3,6,4,6,1,3,1,6] = 4 hits
Spirit Resists: http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2770430/ = 2 hits
Resist Drain: [4,3,6,4,3,3,4,4,5,4] = 2 hits; drain taken
Body(3) + Will(5) = dp8; Buy two hits after one hour rest.

My players certainly didn't when when I converted them to karmagen and they wound up with a ton of extra points to play with

I'll try and get a sheet to you by tomorrow night, right now I'm gonna crash, been a long day.

Life eaten Fisty again?

Sorry guys, getting promoted and dealing with all the BS that comes with it. Playing catch up.

Getting some posts in at work (yay multitasking) so I'll have to roll for your spirit when I get in at home.
Edit:NM. I can read. Honest.

FYI -4th edt rule for Attribute karma advancement. "Fixing" the system by making things mor eexpensive doesn't seem so much a fix as a bandaid to me.

My personal errata for my games reverts that to pre-SR4a levels.

For scouting out the land, my understanding of it is that right now, you're scouting the area. How close are you planning on getting to the estate/manor it's self.

So, after this semester kicked the everloving hell out of me, I have returned. Didja miss me, boyos?

Assuming the car is a half mile or more away, Nix will be closing to within a hundred meters, riding high looking for not only magical and astrally active things, but also any technological items that are identifiable via shape from astral space,


Fisty - Did the gangers get him and do unspeakable acts on his corpse yet?

Well Dingo was haning outside and doing what over watch he could while Nix and Caliph wentinto the bar. in game time, not much time has really elapsed, so there isn't a lot of need to worry about what Dingo was up to, assuming Mickle is ready to go again.

Might do some hand waving goodness to say he had a minor tussle in the alley and has to take things a little slow, bursing some ribs or an eye or something.

So the car is a half mile out, and Nix is astrally going within a 100 meters of the home. Got it.

I forget whether their gear has gotten here, yet, but if it has, Dingo might have gone back to the the hideout and sent a flyspy or two with them while he did over-watch.

If not, and you don't have better plans, we can go with the assumption that he's doing some initial probes into the estate to see what he can do to speed up the entry process when they decide to go on in.

Gear's arrived, but fly spy's arent' going to have very good range in the "great Out doors".

Redjack, with Mickle back, do you still want an extra shooter or should I bow out gracefully?

Mickle is our hacker. We can still use a shooter, especially with Caliph MIA.

Ah, I had my players mixed up. I thought Mickle played Caliph.

In that case, hopefully Alice will turn up when Fisty gets to a convenient point to bring her in.

True enough. Well, while those two are doing their recon, Dingo will being his own variant. He'll be seeing if he can find a matrix link to the estate, see what he can get into from off-site, beginning probes at the firewall, etc etc. He'll also be taking care to cover his tracks, keep an eye out for anyone trying to hack him, and generally being a paranoid f*** to match the paranoia demonstrated by the rest of the team.

Mickle - Simple Data search will dive you the comm code for the estate. You can make your hacking rolls in the IC area.

For Alice, I'm thinking that the best way to go is to have her change out with Caliph. While on recon, he's going to get a call, and have a sudden need to "pay an old debt". Going to go with the 'traveling in the same circles' connection, and have one of Caliph's "old working partners" , Alice, come in to cover his angle on the job.

Alice is ready to go, so all we really need to do is get her there and in with the crew.

Nix is winning at Shadowrun Survivor.

No problem, whatever's going to work.

Do you want a copy of the sheet posted publically somewhere?

You can post yours up in the Cast of Shadows if you want to. So far with the line of games that I've had going (pretty much this one and the one before it) sheets were kept between you and me, although RJ has his up in there. I've got your sheet, the rest I leave up to your discretion.

Why don't you take a sec to look over your contacts and work on a back story of a debt owed that would have a Texan girl going out to the U.K.

Figured I'd go ahead and get something up. I'll get the rolls posted once I get my books out and do a quick refresher on hacker-type rolls.

RE: edge roll. Since I was about 6 months afk, I figured this would do for deciding if Dingo thought to toss a flyspy into the van. If this doesn't work for Fisty, I'm more than willing to roll something else or just nix the roll.

Edit: Are we using 4A rules?

Re: 4A - So far yes. I know that isn't the most helpful answer in the world. In regards to attributes, that's a no. I've also posted some house rules, although I think they were in the last game thread (Blood of the People) and I got lazy and didn't link them. That's the most likely possibility. I know for sure that they are on the In With the Family game from forever ago, and I could/should get around to linking/posting those at some point.

Flyspy in the van - that's fine. I'll have to go back through a bit and check because I believe that there was some more drones requested. Assume Dingo was present for Nix/Caliph heading out and could plan accordingly. We're all workign to get back on the same page.

I found said house rules a while back, dug them out again. Do like the smartgun works for 2 weapon shooting one

Yeah thought you might appreciate that one. Incidentally, found my copy of Loose Alliances. My day got much better after that. It was hidden by a DM screen for D&D Darksun. A worthy cover.

Sorry about the delay in getting those rolls in place. Took a bit longer to get to my books than expected. However, they're up now.

Caliph/Alice Changeout - At this point, we're going to go with Caliph having had a discussion with Nix about the need to go back to the States. I don't want to take up a lot of time IC since we've been a bit slow anyways.

Suffice it to say that in between the meet and heading out, Caliph received an important call that he could not say no to, a debt called do. Someone else, already vetted, is on their way to replace him, as a concilatory gesture from the friend who is owed the favor. He's agreed to help with the recon while awaiting the arrival of the new member.

One of the fly-spies is mostly stock. Both have had their signal and sensor ratings upgraded to 3. The second has a number of other upgrades: Thermographic, Magnification, Vision Enh R3, Encrypt R3, Maneuver R3, Clearsight R3.

Ok. Quick recon and we'll switch out Caliph/Alice. I take it with Dingo back, Rocket stays in the box?

I'll be here, whenever you're ready.

That's the plan, although it doesn't hurt to have him already intro'd and prepped, since Mickle said that he "should" be good. So Mick, if you have any problems with being on more or less regularly, jsut let us know man. We'll be flexible. Lord knows I've had enough of my own problems.

Should that be Dingo and Nix?

Nix would be her main point of contact.

Beginning the hacking attempt. The slow version, of course.

Analyze-ish activities gets included in the probing attempts, don't they?

Anyway, assume that the flyspy-related activities were directed towards Nix's pair of flyspies. I'm too lazy to copy/paste them over to a new IC post.

As for the satellites, I figured that hacking would be involved. Roughly how difficult would it be to hack in, get the imagery, cover my tracks, and get out again? I rolled some knowledge skills that might help.

Matrix Security: [6,1,2,4,6,4,3,5,5,3] = (4)
Hacking Techniques: [2,5,2,2,4,2,6,2,3] = (2)

I'm basically looking for whether this would be in the realm of a relatively regular activity for hackers, or if this would be on the scale of an entirely separate shadowrun. If it'd be too much trouble, Dingo won't bother and will find a different way.

I see hacking of a satelite, especially one that can provide live imaging, as more high end. That isn't to say that it isn't possible, but we're talking about individual (or linked/constellations) assests that cost tens of millions. When one goes off course and starts looking elsewhere it tends to get noticed. So its a lot more in depth job.

For a hack, I generally figure there's an Analyze test if you want to know what you're up against first, but you can do the long hack without it. I'm finishing up for the night so I'll roll for the system, but it isn't very impressive, so you should be good.

That's about four hours worth of hacking, so I imagine it won't be complete until after Nix and Caliph get done with their recon. I'll whip up a quick post summing up Dingo's activities.

We'll leave the satellites alone until I'm in and able to see if the estate has security cameras set up to cover the area.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year all! I took a few days to focus on family and holidays.

Just a heads up, in addition to work picking up, I also picked up teaching a night class for the spring so my post rate will probably only be 1-2 week. If we can level out Fisty from the bursts, it should be good though!

I am rather Feast or Famine, aren't I. No problem with the posting rate, although I would like to get everyone together. It makes sense that you would finish your recon first before breaking off to meet with the new member, so if at all possible, let's work on that a bit. Mickle's mentioned about the same rate, and I knoe Zyerne is in a nubmer of games. Shouldn't be a problem.

Anything else you want to do for this round of recon then?

Mickle - I'll give you the results of your hack after enough IC time.

I'll post Alice heading to the meet sometime today, probably after I get home. Pick it up whenever you're ready.

Cast F3 Physical Mask [3,2,3,3,5,2,1,3,4,2,6] = 2 hits
Resist DV2 Drain [6,2,6,3,1,4,6,1,1,4] = 5 hits
No drain. Drop Spell.

Cast F3 Physical Mask [2,4,1,5,4,1,4,3,5,2,1] = 3 hits
Resist DV2 Drain [3,1,3,6,6,6,6,4,5,1] = 2 hits
No drain. Drop Spell.

Cast F3 Physical Mask [2,3,2,2,5,4,3,6,6,4,1] = 3 hits
Resist DV2 Drain [1,4,4,2,6,5,2,3,4,6] = 3 hits
No drain. Sustain Spell.

--------------------

I figured a little post for flavor on Nix' paranoia level would make for a good start. Given the thumbs up from Caliph, she will get a much better greeting than poor Dingo got from the duo.

As I said to Fisty over in T-Town, one paranoic per game is about right