OK. Hodder[Delta] has important information to share with the team at the supper meeting Jane[Alpha] has set up. I will write that out later today. I have life chores to do for most of the day, but this evening I should be able to post.

Heh, that scene in the market has me thinking of the scene in Fallout 2 just outside vault city where the super soldier and his buddies kill a family with a pair of chain guns (Or something equally nasty). Good times...

Anyway, finally caught up, now I have to think of a reason that Hawkeye wouldn't go with the group (Because she would have... oh well) and a response to the current question. Likely a good thing she didn't go though... there just might have been a fight with a group of AK wielding gangers

[Game Mechanics: Healing with a variable BOD rating]

The spirit possessing Hodder will depart at sundown. It would appear that the healing test will take place in the morning. If Hodder summons a new spirit to possess him, then I assume the healing opportunity is nullified. So, Hodder will have BOD 7 for a while, and Bod 3 for a while.

Healing from Physical damage uses a dice pool of BOD X 2. So, can we assume Hodder has a BOD of (7+3)/2 = 5 for the purposes of the healing test in the morning?

I also assume Vera will continue to apply her TLC with Dartha's help, so before I can roll for Hodder's healing, I need to know what Vera gets on a Logic + Medicine Skill + Medkit + Assistance (1: Dartha) roll.

#####

This brings to mind my doctor in Toronto. I am of the age when annual checks of the prostate gland are in order. She is a small, slender woman with delicate hands. She can get in there, check the gland and get out no problem. Now, while I am in Whitecourt, my doctor is a 6'4" Dutchman with hands like hams.

"Relax!" he says, irritatedly. Yeah, right.

Vera rolls the dice:

13d6.hits(5)=4

Thanks for sharing your prostrate with us Peter, it was a nutty experience.

Have to admit, upon reading this I shook my head. But then upon reading it a second time a few minutes later. It was entertaining.

OK, so let me know when I can roll the healing test, SA. It sure would be good to get rid of a few of those boxes of damage! Hodder walking around literally half dead is not fun.

Of course, the way Hodder is pushing Jane's buttons, he may not make it to the healing test!

Which brings up the question of "What would our characters do if Jane said 'Okay, the dwarf is a liability now, 5k to whoever kills him'?"

Shame Hawkeye won't have her big gun at the meeting

Given the damage he already has, Hodder might be killable at the moment by Hawkeye's big gun.

Just maybe what with the 9P/-4 damage it does and her extreme rifle specialization

Karoliine, sorry about using the Hawkeye name. I just went through the whole IC thread, and indeed it is never used in a quote, though many 'thoughts' and 'action descriptions' use it. That's what confused me. I will refer to her as Sakura, then, until she shares her street name with the rest. I'l go edit the post.

EDIT: done.

Hey Pete,

That sounds fair. 5 + 4 dice for Vera's medicine roll. = 9 dice for the heal.

Actually, SincereAgape, would it be BOD X 2 (10) + Vera's (4) + conditions (-1) + Awakened (-2) =11 dice?

No problem. I haven't bugged people about it in referencing her action wise because it makes it easier. Thoughts I suppose I should bug people about, but I figure it is a case of "Hawkeye = that kid" and using hawkeye so as not to create confusion.

There is a very good reason she hasn't shared her street name of Hawkeye with anyone yet. I'll let you see if you can figure it out on your own. Here's a hint: Read her vignette

I'm fairly sure that the -1 conditions and -2 awakened both applied to Vera's skill, not to your own healing. If she forgot to include them her roll may be different.

That works. I forgot to apply the body times two rule to the roll. Eleven dice it is.

Karoline, here is SincereAgape's decision from earlier.





Thanks.

[Game Mechanic: Background Count -- requires some GM interpretation]

I forgot to take into account the Background Count of -1 in this area. This actually affects Hodder in several ways.

1) It reduces the Force of the spirit possessing Hodder by 1. So, it had Force 4 for a while, then became Force 3. I guess, for purposes of the Healing Test, it would be reasonable to drop the dice pool for the Healing Test by one more, to 10 dice, to reflect the change partway through the day. I honestly didn't think this stuff would get so computational!

In terms of Summoning a spirit, does Hodder try for a Force 4 spirit (assuming he even can -- see point #3), with the attendant dice for resistance, or does he try for a Force 4 spirit and get a Force 3 spirit, with its attendant dice for resistance.

2) It reduces the Force of Hodder's Foci. So the Power Focus is temporarily reduced to F1, and the Sustaining Focus to F2. Since the Sustaining Focus was holding a F3 spell (Increase Reflexes), that has to drop as soon as we enter the Background Count. So Hodder is slow now.

3) Hodder's Magic Attribute drops by 1 from 5 to 4. He has the Attribute distributed Spellcaster-Conjurer 2/Adept 3. One of those has to drop. Which one, is up to the GM, and if it is the Adept level, then the player gets to choose which power to temporarily lose. If it matters, I vote that the Adept level drops by one, for the semi-logical reason that it is the higher of the two and for the whinging, self-serving reason that a Spellcaster-Conjurer level of 1 is just.... pathetic.

4) It affects his Astral Perception by -1 as well. This includes Assensing, for which there is a whole table of modifiers I just realized apply to Assensing as well (Street Magic, p. 114).


Uhhh.... can we get the fuck out of this accursed city?!?!?!?

@DigitalOyabun
Dexter will gladly rout his commlink through Jack's.

@Chrysalis
Dexter will link his biomonitor data to Vera's commlink.

Why? Magic resistance for everyone! If we're going up against a magic group, I'd imagine having a big "Haha, no magic for you" field over the entire city would be rather helpful, especially for our non-magic based members.

Also, I'm fairly sure the player gets to decide which side they lose a point from, just like they do if the loss is permanent, and just like when they have a gain.

I'd also like to point out again that 'average conditions' and 'awakened patient' both apply to the medicine roll (The one Vera is making), not the healing roll (The one Peter is making).

You know, ever since the introduction of the 'slaving' rules, I can't figure out why anything in the world is hackable. I slave all my electronic do-das to my commlink, and then 'slave' my commlink to only accept commands from me via direct imput. I'm now 100% hack proof.

Edit: You know, unless someone walks up to me and sticks a fiberoptic into my commlink or something. And if they can manage that... well getting hacked is the least of my worries.

Ditto for Hodder.

Hi guys.

Should have a post up tonight.

[Dice Rolling for Hodder]

OK, so here we go with a bunch of rolls for Hodder. I will be in and out all day tomorrow, so I'm doing it all here.

I am assuming Hodder loses a point from his Adept Powers because of Background Count. He's going to have to lose Heightened Concentration. Otherwise, he would lose Astral Perception, which is bad news to lose right now, or all the little stuff, including the ability to learn languages quickly. So, he can't concentrate and overcome the pain of his wounds.

The Healing Test better be good!


Good. Now, the next will be the language lesson for the Lagos City-Speak. Hodder is talking with the boy whom Peaceful found. I'm sure the kid will eat like a horse since Hodder is paying for breakfast. I guess we will have to negotiate the price for the lesson, SA. Of course, some money will have to go to Peaceful.


Alright! He's stumpy, but he's smart, and he can say so in Lagosian!

Now comes the toughest part. Hodder will have to survive potential trouble in the street and also, if we are lucky, may have to do some Tracking. He will summon a Task Spirit for the day, with the Optional Power (Physical Skill: Tracking). Same deal here, existing spirits are reduced, but summoning a spirit adds to the Drain. (Oh oh.)

OK, so Hodder is undamaged, possessed, and will maintain the two sustained spells for now. He has one point of Edge left.

While out on the town, Hodder will keep his Counterspelling umbrella over his teammates.

To be honest. I am a little annoyed at the power of a Possession mage, plus the fact that he can learn a language without spending karma.

In the end. I did let the character in the game, so it is something that I take full accountability for. But it does bug me a bit.

I am thinking about limiting the skill level of Hodder's Lagosian skill to one or two. Having him able to learn a language fluently in three hours makes me feel really uncomfortable.

PS - Can spirits that have possessed a possession mage be banished?

Trying to find ways to make it more challenging for Belloq

There are many different languages in Lagos, each tribe has their own, and Feral Cities says that there are over a hundred in total. With Linguistics all he picks up is a Single Rating point in 1 language. That gives him a very very basic ability to speak the language, and if it happens that the one language (out of a hundred) he learned to speak is not spoken by the person he is addressing...or worse, is the language of the person's rival tribe...

Even if it is the language of the person he is addresing (Yoruba is the most common) with rating 1 he is limited in what he can understand and make people understand.

Wow. I'm actually learning the limitations to their power, in spades! Different perspectives, I guess. Most of what Hodder did in the last post had little or nothing to do with possession.


But that's where his skill level is: 1. The Linguist Quality adds two to a language skill level, but I and Kerenshara have different views about when that can be applied. I believe the skill can only be raised to 1.5 of it's base level. In other words, until Hodder pays for a Skill level of 2 or more, the Quality doesn't help. I don't think I used the word 'fluent' anywhere, did I?


Absolutely, they can be Banished. And Stunned, and Blasted.....

I'm sad you see Hodder as being overpowered somehow. I'm having a blast facing all kinds of limitations, coming from a combination of the possession tradition and being a mystic adept. I think he is providing me with a real challenge to keep up with the rest of the party. I haven't worked this hard for a PC in a long time.

And anytime the game slows down a bit, I can have an internal dialogue with the possessing spirit. It's almost like playing with myself.

Oh okay. Thanks for the clear up Embers. That helps a lot. Rating one in City Speak is not broken. Not sure if it makes sense to use magic in addition to linguistics (Unless it says in the book). Because what happens when the increased logic spell is dis-spelled? The players logic all of a sudden drops back to its normal rating and all of their brain power is not as powerful when they learned the skill.

Natural Logic + Willpower roll makes more sense to me when trying to learn a permanent language. (If the books say otherwise then I will follow those rules)

Ah okay. Thank you for the clear up. Don't take anything I said personally. I was just griefing about possession mages.

Edit. They may have some limitations. But there is no denying they are powerful. And it is debatable to say that they are broken.

I guess one has to figure out what is 'broken'. To some that means they are no good. To others it means they are too powerful. Having a big dice pool is what a lot of people on DS I have read use as the criterion for that categorization. Hodder has one dice pool that gets up into the 20s (damage resistance), but has yet to have used it (A good thing, no?), unlike others in the party who also have dice pools up there. And Hodder has to continually risk literally dealing death to himself in order to get the numbers up there.

This last spirit Hodder summoned is Force 3, not the Force 4 which is Hodder's maximum. I was afraid to try Force 4. Afraid of Force 4? That's sad. I'm a whipped wuss.

Vera rolls consistently 20s in social skills.

So we can argue what is broken or not, mostly I find that broken on DS indicates invulnerability, unflappability and infallibility in combat.

A level 1 in a language also means that no matter how many dice you roll you are limited to the level of language unless it is 5-6 in that language. Vera is using a level 4 Yoruba language soft, so she cannot get anymore than 4 hits on any social rolls in that language. Not to mention being the wrong sex and attractive as well.

If you really want to do business in Lagos it's English or French as they are the neutral, non-tribal languages. Nigeria primarily speaks English today, but in Niger they speak French.

I suppose I should point out Hodder, that you can't be affected by a force 2 increase logic spell. Force has to be at least equal to your unaugmented stat. I'm reasonably sure that Hodder has higher than a 2 logic.

And yeah, most of what hodder is doing has nothing to do with possession (Other than gaining tracking for free for a while). His adept skill simply lets him get 1 in a language very quickly, and his quality gives him a +2 bonus to the language. There is some debate on if that +2 bonus actually applies because of the (Max skill is 1.5x actual skill, but the language boost doesn't say it is a bonus to the actual skill, but instead a bonus to the roll. I've only seen 1 or 2 things that seems to actually fall under the 1.5x rule)

Really the +2 bonus isn't any different from if he had gotten menomic enhancers or something similar. In fact it applies to even less, so it really isn't particularly broken. I do suppose I agree with the fact that he should likely make the 'learning' roll without the benefit of improved logic (Especially since it wasn't cast at a high enough force) but in this case he rolled well enough to make the test even if you pull the last two dice off his roll.

Like he said, the main place a possession mage is OP is in combat, especially in damage resistance, but that hasn't really happened yet. A possession mage with a big spirit possessing him is hard to hurt, but Hodder doesn't have access to particularly big spirits.

And 20s in social skills isn't all that hard, especially for an elf. 7 Cha + 4 Skill + 1 Vocal + 3 Pheremone/kinetics = 15 and I haven't even started trying yet. Throw some emotion software in there and you have 21 no problem.

Oh, and it isn't hits that is limited by language, it is skill. So if you have language skill of 4, and negotiation 5, you can only make use of 4 skill worth of negotiation. There is no limit on your hits though. Unless that changed from 4 to 4A.

I checked on page 130, the example given is that your skill roll is affected. Obviously I need to read the Charisma skill parts better.

So back to rolling 20 dice or so.

-Chrysalis

Good to know our face is so on top of the social skills rules

I'm just really good about remembering odd little facts like that.

Shit. I goofed, again. When I get time today, I'll go through my rolls on Invisible Castle to see if it had any effect.

OK, so since Hodder could not use the Increase LOG spell, let me just convert my error via his experience and make that casting of a spell into the Sustaining Focus his standard Increase Reflexes, but at the reduced Force 2, so he gets 1 extra IP and 1 added Inititative point. If that's not OK, SincereAgape, then I'll just have Hodder cast that spell into the Sustaining Focus before he sets out for the foray into the markets.

With the reduced LOG, several of the ensuing dice rolls should have been at 2 fewer dice. So I went through the list and cut off the last two dice in each Test where it mattered: Drain Resistance Tests and the language acquisition Test. In every case, if there was a reduction in the number of hits, it wasn't enough to change the result. So all the ensuing rolls are still OK, even without the Increased LOG.

I'm sure after all those failed drain resistance tests made you feel like Hodder had a logic of 2

Hey Pete. The gripe about possession mages is something that I needed to get off my chest, and I respect you enough as a friend and as a player to be open with you about this subject.

About possession mages. Yes Hodder has a dice poll of twenty for resistance. He also has natural invulnerability, very good magical resistance, and the ability to increase any of his attributes to a high number. For combat he has spirits and spells at his disposal, all of which can defeat the staunchest of enemies. Not to mention when possessed by a spirit, he has a lot of other spirit powers at his disposal.

He is as close as you're going to get to impossible to kill. I'd say almost as tough to kill as a great dragon.

All mages suffer the potential of suffering from drain. One of the factors Hodder has been feeling limited is because he is rolling badly. At the present moment, Hodder has full health.

There is no debate is my mind. Possession mages are powerful.

The character has no weaknesses (with your addition of social skills and the ability to boost charisma). And I applaud you for building him that way.


@Karoline. Last topic of this post. I am going to be enforce the maximum carrying capacity for Hawkeye.

With a strength of two, her Maximum carrying capacity is 40 Kilograms. No encumberance rating, rather the total amount of gear she is allowed to carry.

If you have a bag with two fully modded sniper rifles, a shotgun, extra ammo, etc she will not be able to carry it through Lagos. It's like asking a sixteen year old girl who weighs 100 lbs to try and lift a boulder. Or have a baby try and move furniture. It's impossible to do.

The Barrett sniper rifle with full modfications weighs around 28 Kilos.

The Ranger Arms weights 20.

Armor at 8/6 with dermal inhabitors easily weights 5-8 Kilos and that is being generous.

If the total amount of what she is carrying in the suitcase is over 30 kilos, which I think is her max encumberance rating, she will be lugging the bag around. Meaning she'll be having a hard time pulling the bag everywhere she goes, and have to take frequent breaks. This is like lugging around a bag of luggage around the city. It's going to be a pain in the ass.

We'd already talked about encumbrance via PMs (Though I deleted them a while ago). First I can't imagine a weapon weighing 28 kilos, I think we'd agreed on 14 kilos (28 kilos is over 60 lbs. While the weapon is heavy, it isn't -that- heavy. It also isn't that heavily modified, most of them actually -removing- weight, not adding it, especially since the weapon now fires -caseless- rounds, reducing the ammo weight significantly)

I hadn't planned on her carrying all her gear around with her. The main way she has managed so far is the fact that she has the weight in a wheeled bag, which makes it far easier to move a given mass.

In class right now so I can't focus too much on this. I'll write a bit more in about an hour or so when I'm back home.

I do intend to -not- carry much around besides a single weapon, a single clip of ammo, armor, and a handful of those little random objects.

Ooohhhaawww! Cool!



Karoline, Hodder's gear is really light, and he can carry a lot of stuff. If Hawkeye needs a caddy, he's quite willing to help. The little scene boarding the plane was an overture to do so.

Sweet, I've always wanted a personal caddy I'll just have you stand next to me holding a golf bag full of guns and have you pass them to me as I pick off an army of advancing bad guys. You can even reload my weapons while I keep firing

You're right. Barrett Sniper is 14 kilos. Fully modified I'd say 20 kilos. The items are not attatched, but they are still apart of the case she has been carrying.

Single Weaspon, Single Clip of Ammo, Armor and a handful of Random Objects is managable. I'd give that around 30 Kilos which is her encumberance threshold. Anything more and penalties will occur.

Even with a wheeled bag. With two sniper rifles, a shotgun, armor, etc for a person with a strength of two is impossible.

Actually, caddying is what a homunculus is for. If Hawkeye pays for the materials, Hodder can build her her own STR 12 caddy.

Alright, back from classes now.

Electronic firing actually removes moving pieces from the weapon, so is likely to make the weapon lighter. Skinlink can be applied to contact lenses, so can't weight much, tracker is basically an RFID, so weight should be a gram or so at most. Chameleon Coating might weigh a little bit, but wouldn't be too much.

Scope is included in that weight, as is magazine weight (Which would be lower due to caseless rounds). So the only thing that would really add any mass to the weapon is the smartgun, which is commonly put on pistols, so isn't likely to weigh more than half a kilo or so max. This also doesn't take into account the fact that 14kg is the modern day weight of the weapon, and they are already working on making the weapon lighter weight, so I could easily imagine it being several kilos lighter by 2072.

Oh, I nearly left out the easy breakdown, which I suppose could add a few grams here and there for interlocking parts, but once again that seems like something that would add very little, especially compared to the lightweight materials used in 2072 that would make the gun lighter than 14 kilos to start with.

I know I'm sounding augmentative, but when I picked the weapon I didn't realize that it was so massive (The SR fluff makes no mention of it being particularly large, and I'm no guns expert) and so didn't figure it would be a problem, even with my low strength, to carry: Armor, sniper rifle, shotgun, holdout, few grenades, and a handful of other common running items.

I'm also a bit floored when you tack on almost half the weapon's weight for 'modifications' which mostly include changes that would reduce or not really affect the weight of the weapon.

I don't plan on carrying the new sniper rifle around with me, it is just more of a 'in case I need it' should something happen to my main weapon, or possibly I could sell it. Just figured there was no reason to let the enemy sniper hang onto it mostly.

But like I said, I don't plan on carrying around an entire armory with me. I figure the weapon is 14 kilos (Reduction for 2072 materials, increase for the mods that you believe add so much weight, though I personally see it closer to a decrease than an increase), and I agree that the armor is likely fairly heavy, so another, lets say 6 kilos for that. Shotgun is maybe around 3-4 kilos, and holdout is likely a kilo or less. That leaves me about 5-6 kilos for other gear, which seems fine to me, as I don't plan on carrying around all that much.

Edit: Wouldn't that homunculus caddy require Hodder to constantly summon spirits to possess it though?

It is a bit fanciful, I admit. Yes, the homunculus would require a spirit to animate it.

The easiest and most elegant solution would be long-term binding (Street Magic, p. 94), in which the spirit would be assigned to serve for a year and a day. It would require Hodder paying karma equal to the Force of the spirit to bind it for that long, and then assigning it to serve Hawkeye. So, I suspect Hodder would charge steeply for the service.

And given his relationship with the elohim, He would probably do such a thing only for a trusted, long-time friend. Maybe after the DotA series is complete, and he and Hawkeye have saved each other's lives a few times.

Of course, getting the thing onto an aircraft might be a chore for Hawkeye. Same with being stealthy.

Yeah, that'd be among my biggest concerns. And honestly at that point I could just buy a Terrier or Horseman to carry around my stuff. Oh, or a Manservant, then it could even get up stairs and rough terrain.

A more practical solution is to get a point of muscle enhancement (which I'm planning to do when we get back to Seattle and have some down time). When originally designing the character and picking the str of 2, I hadn't realized that the gun I picked out was nearly 3x as heavy as I expected it to be, and it is that extra 10ish kilos that is throwing off my encumbrance. It is a classic rules/real world disconnect, because the rules don't mention it being larger than any other rifle, but obviously in the real world it is massive.

You and I are both learning on the job, Karoline. It's fun! It's Nerps!

I have a sleep regulator so I can pull some long hours. I'll be doing that to make an intel package on Samuel and the package.

Hey Pete, thanks for having a lot of passion and energy. It is great.

@Karoline. It does seem like a bit much for a character to endure. Hawkeye will unfortunately stick out in Lagos, just like the majority of the party. I am trying to word this correctly...but the fact that she is carrying around a Barrett Sniper rifle is a big thing. It is an extremely valuable item in Lagos and in the sixth world.. People would kill and barter entire families for one.

I know the item is concealed in a luggage case. But anyone thief or trained mercenary with a trained eye will have an idea of what might be in the bag. Especially if it is being carried around by a young Asian girl with an obvious cyberhand, a look to kill, and moves with as much grace as an assassin.

@Everyone. The first night has fallen on the city. I know a few wanted to run some story lines and one on one Roleplaying. For those who hadn't planned on anything, now might be a good time to approach another character who interests you. There won't be anymore downtime after this.

Well, given that when disassembled it looks like random parts, and inside a luggage bag or backpack it looks like nothing at all because most people lack x-ray vision. Also, it is a cyberfoot, got changed right near the end as I realized the foot would be easier to cover up than the hand (You know, shoes and whatnot).

Even if someone could see the parts, no thief would recognize it, and even a trained mercenary only -might- recognize it as a disassembled weapon, and they might be able to to mark it as a rifle or assault rifle of some kind based on its size, but they'd be unable to mark it as as barrette just from the parts.

Now, if she is carrying it around assembled on her back, then yeah, it is going to draw some attention. But you have to keep in mind, that while it is fairly expensive (9k) the other enhancements it has aren't really obvious, so that value can't really be seen. And there is also some level of "Do I really want to try and rob a gun store? Because they have... you know, like guns" If I walk like an assassin, and carry a gun of ultra pain -most- people are going to be more afraid for their lives than attempting to steal the weapon.

The look to kill is also far less obvious thanks to the amnesia. Now if we were talking pre-amnesia, then yeah, total look to kill. Anyway, I plan to have it disassembled into parts in my backpack. It only takes me one combat turn to assemble it, so unless we run into a hoard of cyberzombies within melee range it shouldn't be too much trouble for me to get it when needed. I will be carrying around my shotgun though. Decidedly shorter range, but I figure we'll be more close quarters anyway.

Oh, now that sounds ominous!