He burned edge?

Really, an escape artist check is not very hard.

Hurrah we are back on!

Ah well this spirit wrangling is hard work. This one will only be good enough to get me there I think. But at least I will be using superspeed: movement*5.

Any chance of another first aid roll for the drain?

1 service from a force 6 task spirit with optional powers concealment and tracking.

Remote medicine roll
Command 6 + 4 skill +6 kit +3 nans +1 optimization +2 codeslinger +2 hotsim -2 remote med -2 awakened -2 conditions = 15d6.hits(5) → [4,6,6,3,6,2,6,4,3,4,1,6,5,3,6] = (7)

The old doctor's still got it!

Professor Assensing the woman:

INT 9 + Assensing 5 + looking for specific thing 3 - sustaining spell 2 = 15 dice ==> ??

Well, shit. Invisible Castle doesn't want to talk to me. I'll try later. 15 dice can buy 3 hits, but I'd like to try for the relatively likely 5 hits.

well, so far, this week has been far more resonable at work. Must have been the cooler weather last week.

so I've got Professor chatting with mall lady, Jade and spirit heading to Rusty's to catch Viper 5, Jovan hanging back in tunnel with spirit talking to watcher and crew, Oswald patching up Jade and hanging with mall lady, Ferret looking at the blimp, and Zo heading outside toward the tower...?

Am I missing anything?

I've been way busy with job applications and driving around everywhere to post to say this (except I tried briefly this morning, and Firefox apparently ignored and then forgot about my writing or being on this page), but I want to clarify that at this point Jovan isn't just sitting there in the tunnel twiddling his astral thumbs. The watcher communication would be through some of the free actions that Jovan has with 3 IP on the astral, but he is doing other things (probably attempting to approach the group of infected and their dogs). I just don't know what those things are yet, because I don't have a rough idea of how much time Jovan has available to spend dealing with them before he has to catch up to V5. But he isn't going to be wasting much time when there's a real possibility of Viper 5 exposing him to anyone else (including Jade, though I don't think he knows about that).

@Sephiroth
We are going to have to work out how to communicate I would send you a watcher, but they don't work here, and you haven't got a comm link. I am trying hard to tell everyone what I am doing IC, but its challenging. I guess thats a reasonable restriction on communicating with an astral mage

@Saint
I think its quite fun the way you role play a grumpy Orc. Any chance for a first aid roll (again) before I head out in hot pursuit of Viper 5?

@Red-ROM
Glad the work is a bit easier. Just doing a status check. I think:

• Prof/Oz is back with the new prisoner at the Mall
• Jovan is somewhere unknown (Mr Paranoid) with his astral form at the tower
• I have just arrived at the garage: looks like I am on my own I think...good thing I am not paranoid or timid
• Ferret: I am not sure where Ferret is.
• My ignorance: who is Rusty? I'll rewrite the IC post if I have played him wrong
• I assume there is no background count here as the watcher is working

My request of the spirit that I summoned to possess me is "hunt and defeat Viper 5" are you happy with that as a service?

Tracking roll: I am not sure how to do this: I have enhanced sense smell, and I feel that it should help.
Invisible castle is down at the moment: so tracking roll the old fashioned way: 2,3,6,2,3,4,6,1,5,6,6,3 = 5 successes

From my understanding:

Zo is heading off to the tower (where the bus is going).
Ferret, last I checked was with professor.
Oz is a grumpy old human. Zo is a grumpy young orc in gange colors. No Zo and Oz were not planned and does lead to confusion.

At the mall: Zo (in process of leaving) Ferret, Professor, OZ (not Zo )
In Oz's vehicle back at rusty's safe house:Jovan, an unconcious and probably dead runner (Thirty). And Viper 5 too who has escaped.

Party rescued Rusty during legwork when the Viper 12 attacked Rusty's bar (IIRC). Rusty knew Big Daddy Long Legs secret hideout.

Rusty is a friend of Big Daddy long legs. The Viper's were watching a club named Twisters in glow city trying to find Big Daddy, And when the team picked him up they made a move to follow them, and hack into the ferret's comm. They were pretty unsuccessful in both cases. Hence the prisoner escaping currently.

The Garage door was closed, and Rusty had no Idea where Viper 5 is, but let's just keep rolling.

The Bus is passing the tower. Oswald's blimp can see it heading for a smaller warehouse down the street.

edit: well, in reading my own post, it looks like Rusty did have an idea where the guy went... funny

Sometimes your characters just take a life of their own, and the story tells itself

OK I think we move to the kill
Surprise roll: He's just surprised!
Attack roll: 5 successes
Damage: Base 5S + Called shot 4 + 5 successes.

Its stun damage, but I suspect with his previous electric shock experience, it might be curtains for Mr Viper 5. Ah well that is what happens with possession...sometimes you get carried away.

Edit: (Note I don't have first aid...and he looks dead to me...so he might make yet another get away!)

Zo is using the a jersey barrier in the parking lot to gain full cover from the direction of the Tower

Stealth
4 dice:
4d6.hits(5) → [6,5,4,4] = (2)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3087584/

Perception 12dice:
12d6.hits(5) → [2,4,5,4,1,2,2,3,2,4,4,2] = (1)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3087585/

For now he is just keeping himself concealed and observing what is going on in front of him and

Awww...maybe I should roll less dice. I do better

Professor correlates the woman's indication of Long Leg's hideout with his internal maps of the area. He's trying to figure out if the woman's clue can point them to a specific building. Maybe abbreviate the bumbling around?

Beats me what to roll, but he's got every memory enhancement and every analytic enhancement, so there must be something in there to help him.

Noooo..... no dying for V5! All that essence would be wasted!

I am assuming that having the spirit provide counterspelling as a precaution doesn't take a service, especially when Jovan is also providing counterspelling for it. This spirit's services are very valuable, so if it does cost a service let me know because I don't want to do teamwork counterspelling in that case. Rolling for counterspelling teamwork on Jovan from elemental: Counterspelling 7 = 7d6 = 1 hit So Jovan will get 1 extra die if he needs to Counterspell Fear or w/e from the non-ghoul Infected or the dogs.

Rolling for counterspelling teamwork on elemental from Jovan: Counterspelling 3 = 3d6 = also 1 hit if you need to roll counterspelling for the elemental.

Assensing the ghouls et al.: Int 6 + Assensing 2 + Barren Background Illumination? 1 = 9d6 = 5 hits

Sorry for falling behind, everyone. We've been trying to figure out how to deal with and pay for the replacement of our mold-infested roof, and I'm still looking for a second job, so free time is not something I've had much of lately. Sorry.

Summon thought form 2 successes
Its resist 0 successes
Optional power: first aid

First aid on Viper 5 (to stabilise / see if he's alive) 6 successes. Now why can I not get those on important rolls

My posting may be sparse for the next couple of weeks as I will be away on holiday.

Have a nice holiday!

@ Seth, Viper 5 looks dead to you. Maybe if he got cyber implants and serious surgery in the next 4 minutes, but outside of that, he's gone

@ all:

I'm trying to be fair with Spirit services, and I would like some input. Is it fair to summon a spirit to hang out with you, and assume it will protect itself (and therefore you) from danger without costing a service? I'm okay with some counterspelling i guess, but seriously, where is the line? Why ask a spirit to attack or defend when you can just summon it in a hostile area, and let it fight for itself?
You see, the ghouls are goig to attack. And they will probably attack both Jovan and his spirit in these confined quarters. So what would a spirit in this situation do?

@ Jovan: roll initiative

@Red-Rom:Typically I run it as if the spirit is ordered to fight it will and that will use up one service. While it can and will defend itself, it will not strike back unless ordered to do so (using up 1 service).

A spirit in the astral comes and goes at sun rise and sunset, a bound one cost materials. In the case of bound, length of time in service doesn't mean that much to it. Though a spirit gets annoyed the longer the task takes.

An unbound spirit would still protect itself, but probably wouldn't protect it's summoner unless there was a service involved.

Yeah it could also flee or otherwise make itself non-attackable depending on its capabilities. Heck it may even let itself get disrupted (not a pleasent experience for the spirit but....) so it can go home.

No problem. Int 6 x2 = 12d6 = 6 hits so final initiative is 18.

Sithney is correct. An unbound spirit would probably not protect its summoner unless it was told to do so with a service or it had a good working relationship with its summoner (possibly, but not necessarily, requiring Spirit Affinity. As a note, that is one of the reasons for Jovan's calculated stance of generosity and cooperation towards his spirits). Whether the elemental would kill the ghouls who attack it or simply defend itself I cannot say, since spirits can be somewhat alien beings at times. This kind of thing is much more open to abuse with possession spirits, though, since an abusive player can have a spirit possess himself and then insult a group of thugs until they attack... and then let the spirit kill them in self-defense without expending a service. But that doesn't apply here.

You mentioned IC that not all of the infected present had the same HMHVV astral signature in their auras. Does my assensing tell me anything about that? Are the ones "capable of dull conversation" not ghouls?

I agree with most of the above: My last spirit had 1 task: hunt down Viper 5, and has vanished. I think thats a suitable service. I think other good services are "use this power for me", "guard this group", "get us quickly to location x without being noticed".

It's fairly clear in the rule book that if you summon a spirit to possess you, or just hang around that doesn't cost a service, and you can command spirits to use their skills/do minor actions without it costing you a service. (I don't include skills that are attached to powers in this...I think they require a service). Even counterspelling (anyone other than itself) needs a service (its called Magical Guard), but I think its fair that its only 1 service to cover you from dawn till dusk.

To summarize: like most of the others I think you need to use a service to "protect me", or "defeat these". Otherwise it would hang around (it has to) but would do the safest thing it could: hide / all out deference...

Actually, thank you for mentioning Magical Guard. I had forgotten that none of the core spirits get Counterspelling (which means all of the hermetic's spirits, oh boo ). So I guess no counterspelling teamwork for me, then. I guess Jovan can still provide Counterspelling for the elemental, which would hopefully result in the elemental doing at least some little thing to return the favor, but I'll go edit my IC post then.

Personally I think that is a classical example of "splat book power creep".

Supporting die rolls for the IC post

• I assume the coup de grace needs no roll.
• first aid on me restores one stun
• Summoning a spirit of air: 4 successes
• Its resist: 0 successes. Sometimes you have to love the die roller
• Optional powers: Energy aura and Elemental attack
• Service number 1"take me to <this place> quietly and quickly"

Jovan wins the Initiative, make your move. The Spirit is backing up and waiting to see what you're doing

edit:

@ Seth: you're zipping towards ZO right? not much going on there at the moment, you can write yourself in there

Thanks. I am mostly trying to meet up with the others. I'd go help Jovan if I could, but I am not in contact with him, so don't know there is a problem

@Jovan
Bad luck. I thought the "all HMHVVs together" might actually work. Still Feral ghouls are ... well ... feral.

@General
Glad we kept the woman alive! I don't have the context to understand everything shes saying, so could one of you (probably Prof) summarise what shes said?

@ROM- Cool. Non-action: Back up the maximum allotment of 33 meters for this IP. Complex action: Influence on one of the smarter ones mentioned before by the elemental: "this vampire/banshee/ghoul/whatever-it-is might get us food if we help him a bit, and we can't eat his astral form." Free action: Talk to himself.

Was there anything substantive learned from my assensing roll earlier?

Magic 7 + Cha 4 + Power focus 4 = 15d6 = [4,2,1,5,3,3,5,5,1,2,1,3,3,2,4] = (3)


@Seth: It still might. Critter powers are nifty things in the right circumstances.

@all: Just as a by the by, Jovan didn't tell anyone about the video with the german man yet (partly because he is schizoid by nature, partly because he has been waiting for a bit more information from the watcher sent to Zayne so as to offer a bit more complete amount of information to the team upon hearing back from Zayne). I'm just as interested in a cooperative game as the rest of you, though, even if playing a schizoid and paranoid character creates some obstacles for me, so I'm cool with this way.

EDIT: I'll have this written up IC after I get home from work, probably after 11 eastern time unless I get out early.

Sorry. Missed that point. I thought the watcher had told us something.

I thought all watchers in the area went poof because of the background count? Is there still a -1??

It was decided that the background count wasn't in a big circle over the whole area, but comes and goes in different areas. There's background count in the mall, and the watchers cannot enter there, but outside the mall (where Professor, Oswald, Watcher, and Near-Dead Street Sam Chick currently are, by the overturned truck) it was said that there was little to no background count.

@Red-ROM
I wouldn't mind a description of what I can see: Opening fire on a large group of enemy forces is exciting, but I'd like to check that the world is roughly how I am imagining it.

I think that there is a warehouse. The warehouse is near the tower.
The bus full of unknown enemy forces, but probably ghouls, went inside the warehouse.
I had the image of crazed hopped up ghouls out in the open, surrounding the tower...hence my last IC post

I guess the question I most want answering is: are we charging a clump of ghouls, or room clearing a nest?

there seems to be miscommunication all over. I apologize about the trideo. I had lost track of who had seen it and who hadn't.
ZO and Ferret are stopped at a jersey wall at the edge of the mall parking lot, while the bus has dissappeared down the street. It is going into a warehouse not too far from the Tower. We haven't seen whats on the bus yet. The feral ghouls are Underground in a tunnel not far from the Tower. The only one who can see them is Jovan.

@ Jovan: ghouls chase after you, moving about 29 meters. They lose a little ground.

ghoul in the back by the dogs rolls verses influence, 1 hit
so there you go.

The two dogs send fear your way: 2 hits each

side note: i didn't see counterspelling listed in defense against critter powers, in either the influence or the fear. Is it applicable?

Nope. Counterspelling, not counterpowering. Only works against the critter power Innate Spell.

I knew something didn't apply to critter powers, but I didn't think counterspelling was it. I guess it's up to you whether it applies here, Red-ROM. You are correct, I see now that counterspelling isn't mentioned in the two powers (or in the whole section, I think). I don't know much about the distinction between magicians' magic and innate critter magic in the fluff. Mechanically, you can certainly make Counterspelling inapplicable to critter powers. So on one hand, Jovan has very little magical defense against those dogs right not. On the other, Jovan has Influence, Compulsion, and Fear powers of his own, so that would mean that ex. he could turn Charles' mind into his magical plaything should they meet, with very little Charles could do to defend himself. So it would cut both ways. You're in the best position to judge whether such a thing would be balanced and/or worth it for your game. This is another case where the critter power rules leave something to be desired in terms of how it relates with what.

I can't link to invisible castle right now, but the rolls are taken care of. IIRC with Counterspelling he got enough hits to resist both Fears, without Counterspelling he very luckily resisted the second but lost by 1 hit to the first (and the first dog's Fear was so close to glitching... )

Yes, Sephiroth, Jovan's critter powers are indeed some of his best tools for that very reason. Counterspelling can get nasty with Skill, Shielding, a focus, teamwork, and Aid Sorcery all piling up. And if the target then has Absorption or Reflection ....

None of that works on Jovan's critter powers. And he can stack their use without penalty, unlike sustained spells.

@Red-ROM
I think its impossible to run one of these games without confusion. Lots of people. Lots of time lag. And posts are not a status of "what is" they are a notice about "change to what is". So any player has to only only miss one change and you get confusion.

Thanks for the summary. I have now joined up with Zo and Ferret and I guess we can choose to follow the bus, as we don't know that Jovan is in a fight.

@Sephiroth
Personally I lament the fact that counterspell doesn't work on critter powers: you expressed the issues well. It is however very clearly RAW that it doesn't apply. In my pnp games, I allow a separate skill "resist critter powers" to be purchased as I don't need to worry about RAW.

I cast a force 3 fashion spell
Casting: Enough successes
Resist drain: Enough successes

@Group:Before I post. Is it just me and you at the Jersey barrier? I think that is case. Prof, Oz and ferret are with the lady--Jovan is astrally in the tower and physically back at rusty's in one of Oz's vehicles.

Correct?

Ferret's with you, not Oswald and Professor.

@pbangarth: Hmm... you make a good point. I was aware they were more useful than spells because of their lack of sustaining penalty, I guess I didn't realize they were quite so useful for penetrating counterspelling easily. Bit of a shame he can't really use his other powers all that much, at least until he has enough karma to get Masking or False Impression and Physical Mask. Ah, the prices to pay for paranoia.

well, I'm back to 12 hour days again

I'll do what I can

What a trooper!

My commiserations. Once again: we appreciate the effort you put into maintaining this game

@Saint
I have just joined you.

Just rolling for Zo's observing the annex.

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3101682/
[2,3,2,5,1,2,1,2,6,2,5,4,6,6] = (5)

And if needed my Infiltration roll..
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3101695/
1,5,1,2] = (1)

ooops!

Amen to that.

@Saint Sithney: That is a slippery slope you are walking on in bringing up that Infected bounty, friend. It's not hard to see where that road will lead once we start down it. I have no desire to be the first to engage in PvP, I promise, but I will not be held liable for any essence drainings, memory alterations, etc. that may result if (preferably not) or when we reach that point, regardless of how much nuyen Jovan is worth dead.

That's not a threat, it's just a disclaimer. Just throwing it out there. I'm not upset or anything, it'd just be kind of an awkward situation if the team switched from ghoul-hunting to nosferatu-hunting.

Just curious. As an hypothetical question what is the bounty on say a Vampire, and while we are at it a Nosferatu?

Just so you know Jade Tiger isn't too fussed about Nosferatu. The world is split into predators and prey. Predators get more respect than Prey. (Most people in this group come in the category of Predators: not sure about the Prof yet)

Hey, man. There are fields of 'battle' in which the Professor reigns supreme.
.
.
.
.
Unfortunately, few of them have yet to come up in the shadows.

I'm not talking about romps with interns...

Standing bounties on infected from running wild.

UCAS
Bandersnatchii 7,500
Banshees 5,000
Dzoo-noo-qua 2,500
Fomôraig 1,500
Ghouls 1,500
Goblins 4,000
Loup-garou 2,500
Nosferatu 15,000
Vampires 7,500
Wendigos 15,000