It's tricky, that few skillpoints. I made a drake that spent a scant 88 BP on skills, many of which were "1 point so I can operate." Highest was 4 (spellcasting). I had only 3 spells, and a bare...9 BP on gear (and that was after the Debt negative quality giving cash too).

A dragon would be even tighter.

Interesting, which one and where is it available?

BP system penalizes you for taking lots of 1 point skills. I'm not trying to say you're doing it wrong, it's just that the system penalizes you for doing it this way.

I know - I feel tight when I have less than a hundred BP for skills and I have spellcasting. But it is certainly possible. You'd basically be a hatchling though.

Somewhere in this incoherence patty said something about a teamwork test to prepare the vessel. Since the cap on bonus dice from teamwork tests is the highest skill in the group, that won't really net you a huge bonus will it? My recollection is that there were something like 200 people involved...

I could be wrong.

Patty, why do you even bother asking questions here?

We're just going to tell you No.

It doesn't matter what the question is. You can't have it.

I have a question for you, though.

Is your character named "Aztlan"?



-karma

I am well aware. However, I couldn't forego the 1 rank of Athletics, the 1 rank of Stealth, or the various other 1-ranks I had (hacking, computers, perception, blades), or I'd have had a character who didn't have the skills to perform his primary function.



Yeah, its possible, but you really have to prioritize and start out "young."

I believe it was the last Denver Missions episode. I remember doing a search for Ghostwalker in the PDF and it found him. I think it was the 2nd or 3rd instance of the search word. Should be in the first 1/3rd of the guide for that mission.

Edit:

Found it.

Page 15, from Done Deal SRM2-025

If a statline for Ghostwalker becomes
necessary, use the Western Dragon,
modified as a Great Dragon (SR4, p.297).
Assume that Ghostwalker has any unlisted
relevant skills at rating 5. Further assume
that he has Analyze Truth, Deflection,
Armor, and Astral Armor spells all quickened
at Force 24 with 24 hits.

How much "official" oversight does Missions have, though, as far as how canon the adventures are?



-karma

Ok, thanks. Seems weaker than I imagined him to be.

OK, I just gotta. I am sure it has been done, but here it goes.....

Very carefully. (Bud-da-bump!)

Lets do the time warp it again!

Very carefully.

(That makes four)

24 hits on the major defensive spells is a biggie. That goes on TOP of his existing protections as a Great Dragon. What that Missions module doesn't count is his horde of spirits. He also (from other sources) has free spirits working for him too.

Sure, just as written he's not exceptionally strong but the Missions module also doesn't really account for the rest of his power.

Yup. Imagine the non-Awakened Security he has too. Especially as "governer" of Denver.

You mean the military of every zone? Good old ZDF!

Yeah. Good times, there. Good times. Roll the dice, get a Wildcat, maybe a CAS Marine.

I was looking over my Earthdawn Rulebooks.

Regular Dragons should have stats in the high teens and low 20's.
They should be 9th-12th rank initiates
Have access to pretty much every spell

It's more complicated than that, of course. But basically a regular dragon should be a tough challenge for a 6 person group of 15th Circle Adepts. And a Single Great Dragon is powerful enough that the Therans only ever killed one, and it cost them a couple of behemoths and several hundred high circle adepts.

Which in SR4/A terms means a lot of firepower would need to be expended and the loss of life would be... significant.

That said, about the only reasonable way a Great Dragon could be inhabited would be if the Great Dragon was letting you get away with it. Mechanically, it can be done and it's not that difficult.

Realistically? A gnat's toot in a hurricane has more of a chance to be heard than you have at inhabiting that GD's body.

Personally, I'd be more concerned that the Dragon was leading me on and had some screwball way to mess me up such as faking the inhabitation and inhabit his own body instead of my ally. Then let me think my ally was at the helm instead of him.

Yeah, never deal with a dragon. The ROI just doesn't compute.

I'm sorry, but all this talk about inhabbitation and what not has got me thinking. What happens if you encounter an inhabbitation spirit, who grants your astrally projecting form inhabbitation. Does this mean you can now inhabbit your own body? Or is there some issue time limits or the like?

Theoretically you could, and Inhabitation mentions you don't have to worry about Evanescence, which is similar to the time limit for mages. You wouldn't be projecting anymore, and that's what it worries about.

Um. Couldn't you also destroy your body? Oops!

Yeah you could... and end up just having Materialization until you get Disrupted. Which is still a good deal.

wouldn't you still die in 2*Magic Hours?

Going back to the original question, I figure I'd create a private penthouse suite for myself in the head, some middle class housing inside the main body and some low-rent tenements from the tail downwards, the rent from which would allow me to live a life of luxury.

Just in case you don't know, the numbers you see in the Earthdawn books aren't the actual scores, they are the Step Number of those attributes. So the actual attributes are about double the number listed. Of course, they don't translate exactly in to SR numbers. Not sure what they used (if aything) to translate them between the two systems.

Oh I know
I looked at it, and ~roughly a step number is roughly the same as a stat number in shadowrun 4e.

The average is a 10, which translates to a 5 step
Average stat in SR is a 3.

Like I said, doing really rough math.

Still that means that your average dragon is using using something like 40-50 dice for combat pools.

Deal with a dragon, but only when it beats the alternative (pissing it off by not dealing with it, for instance).

That's called a lose-lose.

Yeah, they be serious bad-assess, so much so, that in either game I would not want to have to deal with. The only other game I know that make dragons that way is Rolemaster where, on average, an adult dragon can one-hit-one-kill a high level character with a claw swipe. Not to mention their breath weapon destroying squads in a single breath. D&D dragons are major weenies comparatively. (Except the ones in The Iron Kingdoms, they were nasty - you should read the description for their primary dragon, "and two score and seven went screaming into the maw...." Awesome!)

As soon as you Inhabited, Possessed, or Materialized, you'd technically no longer be Projecting now, would you?

Offtopic but what is ROI? I've seen it a few times now and can't figure out the acronym.

Return On Investment.

RAW = Rules As Written.

RAI = Rules As Intended.

ROI = I have no idea.

EDIT: Ahh, thanks Critias.

Wow, that was quick. Thank you Critias.

Meh, I was right here when you posted it. No biggie.

So it would work??? I have an idea I want to try now... It could be either VERY good or VERY bad...

In my opinion, Materialized would still count as projecting - you're materializing a projection but are still out of your body. And the effort of maintaing the materialized body into existence is more likely to shorten your time available than to extend it.

Inhabiting and possessing are more debatable since even you're into a a real body. It's not yours so there might still be some problems, but it's probably safer than being out in the open.

The big one that would help would be Astral Form. If you have that power, you would be safe from the Evanescence effect.

Inhabitation should work as well as you are permanently anchoring your astral self into a physical form.

So if you got a 'true form' from inhabiting yourself, would that mean you're now a free spirit?

wouldn't your body die, if you inhabited someone else? Severing your connection to your old body.. and yes.. effectively becoming a free spirit?

No actually, your old body would remain alive and well, unit something else killed it

I think you'd turn back into a projection and just die, without additional powers.

Effectively. But you still aren't a free spirit for the purposes of what Free Spirits can do. They are a different 'race' than (meta)human which you still are (unless your race changes to Free Spirit by performing Inhabitation & getting the True Form result).

The major issue is that you are only good to go as long as you have the Astral Form power. If that goes away, you are potentially boned depending on how your GM is going to interpret the rules.

But hey, that's between you & your GM. For my players, I reward creative / out-of-the-box thinking. If they come up with stuff that breaks the rules, I reward them and we figure out what to do to prevent the problem from cropping up again.

This whole idea also touches on an old thread where Neraph & I were discussing these very concepts. It was where he showed how one could potentially convert (with GM approval) your mage into a free spirit via an Ally.

Reward children for creativity. Punish players for munchkinry.

No, because as soon as you Materialize, you create a body and fully assume its form. That means you're no longer astrally projecting - you're now Materializing.


Vaguely - except with vastly fewer Powers, and only for as long as you've got a spirit sustaining the Endowment on you. Soon as that's up.... you're in trouble.


? This is mechanically different, but conceptually similar.

That would be the one. The concepts are similar but the methods are drastically different.

But unlike a spirit, you still have (or are supposed to have) a meat body you're currently leaving vacant somewhere else. And the materialized body isn't something existing that you're taking residence in, but something you fore to exist through sheer will. If you get stunned in that body, odds are you'll be dumped back to a passed-out astral form in a fashion somewhat similar to a disrupted spirit, with the materialized body vanishing.

In the same happened into a possessed or inhabited body, my opinion is taht you would be knocked out but would remain in the concerned body - which is afterall existing by itself rather than only through the exercise of your powers.

Which would then shunt you back to your real body.