AM could possibly augment Trouble to be the spirit's equal in astral combat. Improve charisma boost damage to 9, and improve willpower gives 14 dice equal to the spirit. With a bit of edge - help from our side it can be okay.

Once the combat is concluded she'll try and fly with Trouble's aid so that I don't miss out all the fun.

Increase [Attribute] spells are Physical spells. They would help Trouble in combat on the physical plane but not in astral combat on the astral plane. Astral combat from the physical plane is a possibility, I suppose, but it leaves Trouble vulnerable.

Mato is lightly armed due to the border crossing. He has some throwing knives and the SMG in his arm but no Blight. What he has won't add up to much against a big spirit.

We can potentially leverage the environment. The spirit probably can't use Energy Aura inside the wooden hut without it bursting into flames. Outside the hut, we can potentially use water and snow against its allergy. Rain and snowfall are potential debuffs. A fire extinguisher would be wiz but failing that we could potentially use water from the river. Snowballs? Sure, why not.

In a way, the Fear power might be the biggest hurdle to overcome. As Jack says, it might come down to one of us distracting the spirit while the other tears up the summoner.

This, of course, assumes that they don't immediately pick up and leave, knowing that their position is compromised.

Edit: Bobby as an African elephant with a trunk full of water. That's 12 liters right there. There's our fire extinguisher.

Good idea - my only problem is: I still need 5 successes with 8 dice to face that spirit again. No chance without a logic or will boost. And even with double the number of those dice, it's still not a sure thing.
I'm missing Kynos. He was immune to fear

okay okay we'll transform -AM- into the elephant and SHE can spray the fire spirit!

After Bobby took out the two existing spirits in under 3 seconds, their mage was motivated on the spirit summoning front. IC coming later this evening which touches on the consequences of that.

One question: Is the spirit materialized? In that case, leaving the hut would trigger its severe water allergy:

Contact with the allergen results in extreme pain and actual physical damage. Apply a –4
dice pool modifier to all tests made while a character experiences symptoms. The character
also suffers 1 box of Physical Damage (unresisted) for every 1 minute they are exposed to
the allergen.

If it moves only astrally or manifested, it's not penalized, but still can use its fear ability, but not its flame aura (and has also no hardened armor)

If it is not materialized - do you really need to roll to approach it if you are not dual-natured? You are in a different plane of existence than the spirit.

Bobby is currently dual natured - until I can find time for a complex action to shut it down.

Did Bobby run onto the military restricted zone (north & east) or the Aztec research facility (west & south) or do they not extend that far downriver?

I would suggest skipping forward to reunite, but I'm not sure where we could regroup except on the island itself or far up/downstream.

He moved likely downstream, so not on the restricted territory.
And yes, regroup is a good idea

What I tried to narrate in the IC thread was him running up stream along the river, but I wasn't very clear, sorry. It was really a question of whether he was on the upstream or downstream side of the building, and in my mind the water spirit had approached from downstream and so the plant spirit from the upstream side, so that Bobby was on the upstream side of the building -- plus upstream makes re-grouping easier. I think he would have traveled something like half a kilometer upstream? (I didn't check bear's move multiplier)

The fire spirit is indeed astral, at this point, but since Trouble was watching from the astral that was not so obvious.

@Gilga that is good speed indeed. As you see IC Mato and Bobby will see each other first, but Trouble can ask them to wait, and AM will be along in a few minutes. Provided she doesn't go too far onto the land!

The goal was not to fall to the middle of the river if something goes wrong with the spell with her no swimming skills, and very modest physical stats this could be very dangerous. So she'll move as possible along the shore (or very close to) so in such a case she is more likely to survive.

If I'm reading the Killing Frost rules from Run & Gun correctly (debatable) it sounds like cold is a Fatigue test.

Temperatures likely qualify for Moderate (-2C to -13C), which would mean 1S damage.

Mato has a overcoat with a lot of cold protection (Insulation 6) but evidently this doesn't factor into the soak roll. However, wearing the jacket and pants doubles the interval from 30 minutes to 60 minutes. Damage starts at 1S and accumulates each interval (so 2S the second interval, 3S the third, etc.).

Being wet is a -2 modifier on the soak test. This is perhaps a little mild/generous, but in a way it offsets the harshness of Insulation not applying, which seems (to me) like it should.

So technically Mato would only be trying to soak 1S the first hour and then 2S the second hour, which isn't too intimidating with Body 5 + Willpower 7 - Wet 2 = 10 dice. Wouldn't want to spend all night out here but it would take a while for him to freeze.

His cyberlimbs are a bit of a question mark. To me, it seems like they mean that he doesn't lose nearly as much heat through his extremities (hands and feet) and wouldn't be vulnerable to frostbite affecting his hands/fingers (and the associated negative penalty on related tests) but that's open to GM interpretation. Perhaps cyberlimbs aren't hardened for cold weather, although personally I think I'd prefer a cyberlimb in freezing cold rather than a meat limb.

Is AM dropping levitation and joining Mato in the boat (or, you know, riding Bobby into battle)?

Oh, I thought we were on the island. In that case she'll cast the spells once on the island. She is not getting to the boat

@Tecumseh I forgot that there were additional rules on that in Run & Gun, I'd just looked at the fatigue tests for environmental conditions in the Core Book. After 1 time interval resist 1s, after 2 time intervals resist 2s, after x time intervals resist x stun damage. The time intervals in the CRB jumped from 1 hour (which seemed too long for being soaked in temperatures hovering around the freezing mark) to one minute (which seemed excessively short), so I hand waved something in the middle at 10 minutes. I figured cold insulation would add to the soak test, and that the first few tests he'd have no trouble with, which is why I didn't start talking about dice rolling but just gave an IC prod towards 'hanging around for an hour or two in these conditions is probably not a good idea' (although something like finding a place where he could get out of the raft, dump it out, ring out his clothes, and get under the raft so that he's out of the rain would definitely have extended the period.) Anyway, sounds like you are all moving, but if waiting comes back into it I'll go look in Run & Gun and refresh on the environmental rules there.

Quick situation re-cap.
- temperature has been at a few degrees celcius, but seems to be falling. On the plus side the rain is getting lighter, just a drizzle now.

- You are about 500m upstream from the island, around a bend, on the Aztechnology side of the river (the side where the island is closer to the shore).

- This is a quiet stretch of the river, where the weak current has allowed (currently wet) ice shelves to form for a couple of meters into the river along each shore. The shore itself is sloped upward at around 30 degrees for a few meters, with the first couple of meters being rocks with patches of ice, after which there start being some small trees.

- About a meter into the trees is a three meter fence topped with a few strands of barbed wire and a thin optical fibre. It would not be shocking if there was also some mono-wire somewhere (on top or a bit farther in), but that is hard to see in the dark. The optical fibre is probably providing a direct connection to sensors of some sort, but there are not obvious cameras. (and quite possibly some mono-wire, but that is hard to see given the conditions).

- about 50m upstream from the island (shortly after the river goes around the bend) the river narrows and the current picks up (no more ice shelf along the shore). On the other side of the river a series of sharp rocks protrude from the river, that look like they'd take some skill to guide a raft through. However a more rock free chute leads towards the island and then splits around it, providing a swift current sweeping around the island.

- If you look at the Island Map, the top of the page is upstream, the right side is towards the narrower (~8m) channel on the Aztechnology side of the river.

- There are some trees on the island (as shown on the map) but also a lot of open space. Getting some visual cover is easy enough, but there are also pretty good sight lines in many places

- The upstream shore of the island is a little over 20m from the hole that Bobby tore in the side of the building. The Aztechnology end of the island is perhaps 50m from the building, the Salish-Sidhe army base side of the island is 30-40m from the building.

- There is a low, flat, rock 'beach' on the upper-right corner of the island on the map. It looks like it would not be too hard for a raft to go into the current that goes around the island and then to run itself up on that flat rock ... if the paddlers had much control of the raft. One thing that Mato certainly found out is that it is hard to control a raft with just one paddler, since it keeps wanting to spin. A second paddler might make it pretty easy to run the raft onto the stone beach, but on his own Mato might find it more difficult. If you look at this page https://www.whitewaterguidebook.com/oregon/rogue-river/ and look at the picture below the line starting with "mile 12.3" that is about what the narrower chute looks like, if you image the rocks to the right being a stone beach instead of a higher shore, and maybe increase the standing waves size a bit. (and some of the pictures above that would be typical of what Mato has passed through so far)

- To get to the island will require getting across the water somehow. Although it is not especially deep the current would be too fast for a person to walk across. Levitation, taking the raft, swimming, or even leaping across the channel from the shore would all be possible. (this is not quite a medieval castle, but they do have a pretty effective 'moat' protecting them)

- Once around the bend in the river you will be ~250m upstream from the island, and can start inspecting the island if you want (or Trouble could go and look astrally before then). Once within 100m matrix technology should automatically see their active devices (if they are still matrix active).

- From the range that you are at AM could also probably connect (noise from distance (-1) and sparse matrix devices along the way (-3). Yes, this means that she should be able to get in touch with Brent (she can't 'see' him automatically, but she has the gear and skills to reach out through that much dead air)

- Speaking of the astral, Trouble points out to AM that the Aztechnology security spirit has positioned itself so that it can see the island (but it is still back from the river a distance, it is just high enough to have an angle down). There is enough rain that its view of the island can't be all that good, but it does seem to be watching).

- I would like to know how each of you intends to get to the island, and where. Assume that the kidnappers prepared for the possibility of being found and may have made some preparations, so try to give me the information I'll need to determine things like how obvious the arrival is, do you have cover, how close you may be to any surprises that they prepared.

Any questions please fire away! It is a holiday here today and for a lovely change I don't need to do any work, so I'll be checking this page and answering any questions fairly promptly, just to make sure that everyone is on the same page as we get to the island.

Following Beta's clarification I edited my post so that AM offers a ride across the water. Seems strange to just fly away and leave them there.

Traveling so I won't have a chance to post for about 24-36 hours.

Haven't fully evaluated the terrain yet.

Flying would be convenient for getting on the island but if something happens to AM then it could complicate getting away. When Bobby was flying around before, did he see boats on the shore?

My idea was to levitate the raft to land it easily on the shore of the island, (just to expand our options landing-wise and probably avoid some of the traps they may have made to slow down a rescue.
Even if AM is compromised we can escape with the raft we came with.

You can recreate "The Life of Pie" with a tiger on a raft
I vote for the floating raft plan.

Life of Pi plan is fine with me but it puts all of our eggs into one basket. The spirit on patrol will see us coming. I thought it might be better to rush in from three different sides at once.

We still have Trouble keeping the spirit distracted. And we only need to reach the island - both Mato and Bobby are quick enough to spread out almost immediately.
having a movement enhanced flying boat will greatly improve our ability to evacuate Brent. Oh, and we really, really need to kill the summoner. Petrification is not enough if he can still think and counterspell or keep the spirit under his control.

Yes, it is a Shadowrun tradition for a reason (geeking the mage first). I agree about the boat it can be really fun.

He didn't see any boats/rafts per se, but under the building he did see a bundle that might be a deflated raft all rolled up.

Assuming you are going for the flying raft, where are you going to start flying from? I think the options are:
1) start levitating now, follow the curve of the river
2) start levitating now, fly over the point of land that the river flows around. It isn't all that high so levitating over it is not so hard, but it isn't entirely clear where Aztechnology territory starts.
3) get around the bend (by rafting or working your way along the strip of shore, see what you can see, then levitate if you want
4) raft close to the island, then levitate and zip onto the island somewhere they wouldn't expect, even if they detected the raft

And what part of the island are you targeting? (or to put it differently, where are they going to fly over the island's shore; AM can decide the exact landing location once you have more intel)

I'm for plan 4 - except that we levitate directly, so we don't have to worry about paddling - or turning the raft over.

I was thinking #1, if only because of Mato's stunning lack of success with the raft so far.

He could probably be persuaded into #4 if Bobby - who has just run up the river - assures him that it is calm the entire way.

Mato will be taking the borders of the river very seriously. The shores on each side of the river are for emergency use only.

From the aerial photo map it looks like we'll be coming from the west. Since we're levitating and not worrying about shores, I think we'll hit the island as soon as we possibly can (the western point) and then charge the hut.

We'll see if Beta shoots/pops/melts the flying raft for the lolz. I probably would.

Edit: What was the construction of the cabin? I know Bobby the Bear tore down the wall, but was the wall a regular plank of wood or a thicker log or something else?

There was somewhat dingy vinyl siding on the outside walls of the building, and Bobby noticed some shards of some sort of wood in the brief time that he was looking through the hole. The roof is metal, the floor is less certain but it had an impermeable membrane underneath it, and all of that was supported on wooden beams that are in turn supported on concrete posts about 1.5m high (the ground isn't even, so some posts are higher than others in order for the building to be even).

Technically the raft is a vehicle, and the movement power works oddly on vehicles*. Technically it is power user's will+magic vs a threshold of half the vehicle's body (min 2), and if it beats that then it adds successes (not net successes) x vehicle's acceleration to the vehicle's speed (which can force a crash test). And repeat every turn that the power is sustained.
* the raft does qualify as a vehicle, I think, even without an acceleration or speed stat. If it is just a 'thing' then movement does not work on it

Now first of all, acceleration and speed are questionable for a non-powered vehicle, secondly the whole thing is being levitated, and finally I don't want to force rolls for every three seconds to figure out speed. So:

a) I'm just hand-waving the approach, because I don't want to delay things to try and figure out the mechanics. BUT
b) I'm making this "not-a-precedent" until we've talked about it more. Opinions, suggested house-rules, etc are all welcome.

Movement is a complicated power.

The Speed table is a mess. That makes Acceleration a mess by extension. Reality is a better guidelines overall than many of the vehicle movement tables.

I agree that the raft is a "vehicle" in terms of the rules and that Movement would operate as described, although it's probably better to average out the effect (maybe by buying hits) for an extended journey like this one.

I think the terrain restriction of Movement is important. It's a holdover from the 3E (and before) days when spirits were either 1) bound elementals or 2) spirits limited to their domain (forests, mountains, deserts, prairies, etc.)

Although in this case it makes me realize that I haven't got a clue what kind of spirit Trouble is.

@Gilga Is Trouble written up anywhere?

He is seating in the raft next to Bobby. I figured it would make a nice scene.

No, I meant stats. Attributes, powers, etc.

But, yes, a nice cat-on-cat scene.

He has 5 in all physical and mental attributes. Rule-wise ally spirits get Force to all attributes (so having him an elephant would make little difference).

As for powers he has the following.

1. Animal control.
2. Movement.
3. Concealment
4. Psychokinesis (like magic fingers spell).
5. Accident.

In addition, he is capable of "aid sorcery" which gives AM +5 dice to spells when she gets his help.

Fortunately this situation doesn't use the speed table, because it is by far the silliest thing in 5e! (my thoughts on that are longer than I'm willing to type on my phone)

And ally spirits do not have a spirit type. So their movement either works everywhere or only on themselves. I'm good with it being everywhere (unlimited unbound movement is really a super power, but we've been allowing it so far so I'm fine with it)

Movement is indeed the most powerful and I suspect that 5E writers did not anticipate the implications.
Anyhow, if you feel strongly about rebalancing/house ruling I do not mind but in the meanwhile, let's just enjoy the scene?

Honestly, I wouldn't consider any object a vehicle in SR terms if it's muscle powered.
That includes levitating objects (magic muscle).
And I'd be perfectly fine if we drop the option of using movement on automotive vehicles all together (driving near Lightspeed on a scooter can't be good for your tires - or the environment)

@Gilga indeed, I did move the flying raft to the island, I don't want this discussion to derail that part of the IC. But I would like to resolve it before the team potentially exits on a soaring inflatable raft.

Mato is a regular sensor suite so all these rolls can add up. I wish Orokos let you reroll previous rolls, or save certain configurations (like Perception) that you have to roll frequently.

Base Perception: Intuition 6 + Perception 5: 11d6t5 5 hits
+ Visual: Vision Enhancement 3 + Specialization 2 - Rain 1: 4d6t5 0 hits
+ Audio: Audio Enhancement 2 + Specialization 2 - River 1: 3d6t5 1 hit
+ Olfactory: Olfactory Boosters 4 + Specialization 2 - Rain 1: 5d6t5 1 hit

So that's 5 hits for visual and 6 hits for audio/olfactory. He has both low-light and thermographic vision.

Radar Sensors are on p. 81 of Chrome Flesh. They should be able to easily see through the walls of the cabin.

When it comes time for Initiative, Mato will spend a point of Edge on Blitz: Initiative (Blitz): 5d6+14 33

Mato will have 3 Edge remaining (out of 6) after the Blitz.

Perception: 13d6t5 3[13d6t5=4, 4, 5, 3, 4, 5, 4, 1, 2, 3, 2, 3, 6]
Perception with the Hawk Eye Quality (works like vision magnification)
Dropped to 2 successes due to modifiers
Ini: 15+5d6 34
I'm using Full Defense preemptively.

For Trouble:
Assensing -1: 9d6t5 4

For AM: (modifiers -2 for self-sustain, -1 for rain in visual perception, for matrix just -2 to sustain the spells.)
perception: 7d6t5 2
perception matrix: 9d6t5 6

For Tatanka:
Assensing -1: 7d6t5 2


Initiative: for AM: Initiative: 10+1d6 15
Initiative for Trouble: Initiative: 10+3d6 25
For Tatanka (I think its F*2 +1d6 for watcher?)
Initiative: 10+1d6 14

Spirit is about 400m downriver. The other auras that the spirit sees (and matrix activity that AM picked up on) are another 400m beyond that, approaching the next bend in the river.

the 'small' sized drone is the 'dirty' version of the '7' drone in Rigger 5.0, and has pilot 3, body 1, armor 0. The microskimmers are per the CRB, pilot 3, body 0, armor 0. Their init will be init: 6+3d6 23

At the speed Mato was going he can be right up to the building this turn, but I'll let you break up the movement if you wish to have Mato be back a bit when he picks up on all of this. To examine the insides of the building with the radar scanner would be an inspect in detail action.

Bobby is dealing with a grenade stuck under the roof overhang above the door. He can take his action to climb the wall and be up on the roof before it goes off at the end of turn, or of course he can do something else. Let's just say that no self respecting Bobby/tiger would fail to climb the building, so no roll needed, just the action.

I think my options are

1) attack the small drone under the cabin

or

2) deal with the microskimmers.

If that's the case then I'll make an attack on the MCT Seven with one of Mato's throwing knives. He'll use the throwing knife in his right hand because the Strength of his right arm is higher. Sounds like range isn't an issue. Mato is running so that's a -2 penalty. I'm unsure how heavy the rain is but thermographic vision will take care of it if it's still a light rain. If it's a moderate rain then I'd lose -1.

Throw: Agility 10 + Thrown Weapons 5 + Specialization 2 - Running 2: 15d6t5 3 hits

Drones roll Pilot + Autosoft [Handling] to dodge, but I don't know if this drone has a relevant autosoft. (An, even if it did, I'm uncertain if it would be Evasion or Maneuvering.)

To be sporting, I'll assume that the drone has an autosoft. Otherwise it just has Pilot 1 and that's sad.

Drone dodge: Pilot 1 + Autosoft 3: 4d6t5 0 hits, looks like Orokos is an equal opportunity offender tonight

Base damage is 13P -1AP, staged up to 16P by net hits. The drone doesn't have armor, nor enough Body to soak that down to a survivable range. It falls apart like tissue paper, just like the fluff in Rigger 5.0 says.

Edit:

Action breakdown
Free - Running
Simple - Throw Weapon
Simple - Observe in Detail (radar sensors)

Some rolls to dump here that may matter later:
Tue roll 1: 11d6t5 4
Tue roll 2: 6d6t5 1
Tue roll 3: 12d6t5 5
Tue roll 4: 11d6t5 5

and some that matter right now
init: 10+4d6 18
shoot Mato: 13d6t5 6

Mato can dodge, and the dart needs three net successes to get past Mato's armor (per injection darts, page 434.) The skimmer is loaded with a 0 mod point capacity single shot dart or bullet, per Rigger 5.0 (there are no single shot dart guns in the game, so I'm using the accuracy of a palm pistol, which as modified by the Rigger's Control Rig let's him keep all of his successes)

I'm not quite sure of what Bobby's total movement per turn is so far, but it was only about 20m to get from the shore to the cabin, although he was zig-zagging so call it 25m? Let me know how far away from ground zero he wants to move with whatever movement he has left. (or just getting sheltered by the side of the building may be enough)

@Beta per this clarification then AM should be part of the combat as well, as she locates herself (given visibility conditions a few meters from the house). So feel free to fire at her or whatever-as she is within the scene. Anyhow, I posted her firing her pistol I am not sure what the stats of the drone are.

@Beta per this clarification then AM should be part of the combat as well, as she locates herself (given visibility conditions a few meters from the house). So feel free to fire at her or whatever-as she is within the scene. Anyhow, I posted her firing her pistol I am not sure what the stats of the drone are.

Bobby currently has a movement multiplier of 6, so currently 36m/round unless the agility boost counts as true agi increase, in which case it would be 60m/round (I assume he no longer has Movement as Trouble has used the power to accelerate the boat)

In any case I'd have left about 10m of movement at the end of each round (that's what I wanted to confer with my "dodging and weaving" descritption), so I can evade if necessary.
Since I don't need them for anything else, I can use actions to sprint, buying two hits from my 8 running dice, for an additional 8m per action (which is 32 m more)

In that case I'd roll a fatigue resistance roll after the first round: Fatigue Resistance: 13d6t5 3

I hope that is enough to reach the hut and evade the explosion in the first round.

8 hits on 11 dice, damn. That's 99th percentile rolling. AM could peg a flea's ass mid-jump with a roll like that.

Alright, Mato is up against 6 hits. If he can manage 4 hits on his dodge then the injection dart won't have enough net hits to inject anything. I actually didn't know that rule because I'm not sure I've ever used darts. It's always been gas grenades and slap patches and the like.

Mato is running so he gets +2 to dodge.

Dodge: Intuition 6 + Reaction 8 + Running 2: 16d6t5 2 hits

Yes, of course. Naturally. Guess I should have gone Full Defense.

I have 12 hits on 58 dice (21%) for my rolls on Orokos this month.

Let's see if Edge has anything to say about it. Mato will have 2 (of 6) Edge remaining.

Edge reroll: Edge reroll 14: 14d6t5 3 hits (also 21%, what a coincidence)

Alright, Mato gets hit but the dart doesn't have enough net hits to inject. GILGA LEAVE SOME HITS FOR THE REST OF US.

wrong thread

In Tuesday's IC post I missed putting in the result of Mato's radar perception. I'll just assume he's buying hits, which will probably increase the number of hits given how he's been rolling lately ... I'm editing it into yesterday's IC, but the summary is here too to make sure it isn't missed: the building has two rooms. The one with the hole in the wall is lined with shelves, the other has some furniture. In the one with the hole in the wall he also detects a shape of about the right size and shape for a metahuman standing in the middle of the room, but the signal seems somewhat off.

Are we still in initiative passes? Open RP?

Mato will hunt down that remaining skimmer if he can. If that frisbee has flown, then he'll join the others in the pursuit down the river.

How are we following? Is the flying raft fast enough or do we need to be more aggressive in our pursuit?

Can Mato use his radar sensors to see the skimmer through the tree (in theory, he should) and then attack it with a -6 Blind Fire penalty?