OK Harpax's are very unpleasant. The cables are running out at the moment, but shortly they will stop, and there will be a big jolt.

Can you make

• An air sailing roll to minimise the jolt
• A leadership roll to inform the men to brace themselves.
• A general athletics roll (6 die) for the crew members

When the jolt happens you will be 100 meters away.

Once that happens the Snake's Fury will begin winching you in . Already crazed looking marines are waiting to launch themselves onto the Storm Swift. The winches move at 3 meters per second, so you have a while to exchange missile fire.

The rate of fire of the cannons is (for a good crew with magical assistance) 1 shot every two minutes, so you won't have another broadside. (Side note: that was the rate of fire around 1800, it was a lot slower in the age of cannons and canvas),

Marduk wants to take a second to try and understand WTF is going on.

Logic(5) + Spellcasting (4) + spellfocus (3) + talisman (1) = 13d6: 5 3 4 2 3 5 1 6 6 6 2 6 6 (7) hits.
Force 9 Analyze Magic
Drain: 5
Drain: 12d6: 5 4 3 5 6 5 5 6 4 4 2 1 (6) hits no drain

Assensing:
Intuition(3)+Assensing(6)= 9d6 5 1 5 5 6 6 4 6 2 (6) hits (wow nice roll)
magic theory:
Logic(5) + Magic Theory(6) + Great Ritual (4) + Analytics(3)=18d6 3 1 2 4 6 6 6 1 1 3 5 3 2 4 6 2 5 6 (7) hits.

Useful question.

• Firstly two people are messing with you big time. Loads of dream manipulation to put obstacles in your path. Probably Harliquin and Ysrthgarthe (except I can never spell its name). Harliquin probably wants to stop you because he (or at least his projection in the dream) thinks you are puppets of Ysrthgarthe (like Boris was and Dannrhil is).
• Secondly. Here the magic holding up the roof is collapsing and the glass is flying down. The elementals are fighting: the spirits of man are summoned by Ysrthgarthe, and the air elementals by Harliquin.
• Thirdly. Something is chasing you. That happens a lot in dreams/nightmares. Its probably bad for you if it catches up with you.

To get across the safest approach is probably to go up and over. The glass is most deadly near the air elements, and near the ground where it has fallen. Up high you are a long way from the air elementals, and the glass hasn't gathered up all that horrible kinetic energy.

With a question like that I cannot be sure I have answered it...so feel free to ask again

@Sephiroth/Alyena



Le's hope this goes a little better for me now I'm spirit buffed!

Perception aided by rank 7 spirit = 14 dice gives 6 successes
Initiative 16 + 8 successes = 24

Have had enough of this staircase so will use Shatter spell on the nearest door and burn a Dream point to get through the illusions etc

10 successes capped to 9

Drain of 3, 4 successes so no drain!

I just noticed my earlier post about clearing the hallway seems to be out of sequence with the Hall scene Seth posted. Sorry.

Seth, I forget, what do I need to do to dump analyze truth, and load levitate?
spellcasting: 13d6: 1 4 1 3 3 6 3 6 3 5 5 4 3 (4) hits.
Force 6 levitate:
Threshold of 1. 18m/turn (I am not a speedy flier)
DV:4
Drain: 5 4 2 6 3 3 3 3 4 3 2 4 6 (3) hits
1 stun (ouch)

@Sabs,
I couldn't quite parse that last request.

I don't think you need to be a speedy flier though: The antechamber is about 50 meters high and 100 meters across (you can see why it needed magic to hold the glass up).

@Pbangarth
NP

Levitate isn't in my spell matrix. I want to drop analyze truth, and put levitate in it's place. But I totally forget how you said to do that.

This might help: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...p;#entry1090317

It's a complex action to put a spell into a matrix. It costs nothing to "take one out".

Just wanted to make sure there was no die rolling There wasn't. So now I am a floating Marduk!

You know, "Do you serve the snake" is a horrible question, given that we are all in some kind of Servitude to Queen Alechia

Gosh that is subtle... Ah well good thing you aren't being asked!

So I seem to have dropped off the face of the earth recently, or at least Dumpshock. Sorry about that. Looks like I have some catching up to do.


Aye, indeed.

IC sometime next week but I thought I'd try and get the rolls in...

Air sail 16D = 6 hits (assuming repair crew have done their stuff by now? Still 6 hits if they haven't...)
Leadership 12D = 1 hit - Edge reroll (now would be a bad time to loose half the crew!) = 4 more hits = 5
I think I might have used 2 dream edge now but can't for the life of me remember what the other was for

Crew athletics = 1 hit (hmmm, hope leadership worked)...

I round of stern chasers 2x8D = 3 hits and 5 hits

Now I just need to think about what to do about the winches

Hoping I'm not about to let the Storm Swift crash

In order of priority:

• Ryl will climb the ropes back to the Snake's Fury and burn through them near the ship - with some gouts of fire in their direction for good measure. Should allow her to swing back to the Swift as she probably can't fly as fast as she's going?!?
• Whip around and use momentum to swing the Fury into the path of a twister (might be risky?!? Is it possible?)
• Failing that turn hard to port and fire the battery at the ship (once Ryl is out of the way)

Any thoughts on my suicidal tendancies?!?

Gee, Aria, you guys are having all the fun!

Gotta love a bit of swash and buckle

@Marduk/Mandala
Choices:

• Go explore the chamber of two axes (you can just IC getting to the door, sneaking past the elementals, which is a double height set of double doors, and open them).
• Go help Alyena and Fearghas
• Go help Ryl
• Go help Boris and Immortal Li (although I'd rather leave that as "NPCs battle it out for your amusement")

@Alyena/Fearghas
The head will fade away.
Your combat position:
You can see 20 guards, 100m away doing 'oh my god its all going wrong' technical stuff, but you suspect within a couple of rounds they will organise as one of them has clearly seen your door.
You know from the initial brief that one of them is the commander Argbod Delaram who is a duelist, and Tirbodh Jamshid is a knife fighter/nethermancer.

Neither side are surprised, you can have a free round to do what you want.

• To identify Argbod Delaram requires a perception roll of 2 successes
• To identify Tirbodh Jamshid requires a perception roll of 4 successes
• Perception modifiers of -2 apply because of the bad weather, and -2 because of range.

@Aria
I've hopefully answered most of your stuff in the IC post.

Your idea for using the twister is very amusing, and if you can make an opposed Air Sailing roll with 2 more successes than your opponent, that might work. If he wins...in the twister you go. I'll roll for him if you try and do this. Good time to spend edge/dream points!

A load of fire arrows come winging your way: treat as suppressing fire with 4 successes, base 6P AP 2. Can you roll for the crew as well. They (and you) have +2 to avoid the arrows as a consequence of the raging wind.

Feathered drake initiative: 13

Can I just check: Tkath's air sailing skill is 10D +2 handling +1 auto success? I think that's what I rolled before?!?

And a worthy opponenet for Ryl Let's ROCK!!!

Ryl's initiative 15D + 8hits = 23! 3 passes

Avoiding fire arrows
Ryl: Reaction +2 = 11D = 5 hits, dodge
Crew: Reaction +2 = 5D (?) = 2 hits...some get skewered I guess DAMN THEM!!!

My son is playing a medieval game in which he is the lord of the manor. He has introduced pensions for his troops and pays a pension to their widows for while once/if they die. He says "Damm them for dying" a lot too...

If you can have the IC of three of your crew getting skewered by fire arrows (one dead, two injured) when you do your next post that would be great.

You have initiative Ryl (by quite a lot...), pretty obviously Quetzalli is a little distracted at the moment, what with the Fire cannons and all.

We'll call this round1.

Hey, sabs.

While I, personally, would love to explore rooms in a magical castle, and such exploration might make the second phase of our job easier, our task set to us was to take the position above the hall and hold it so the ship can land. It appears to be on its way. We appear to be there, and with magic can help our friends and allies from there. I think we should stay put and snipe at the forces holding them up. (And probably deal with whatever comes to block the landing.)

What do you think?

I think that's an excellent idea. I'm not really married to the idea of exploring the rooms

I guess then that we are back in sync.

Initiatives so far:

Ryl: 23
Quetzalli: 13
Alyena:
Fearghas:
Marduk: 7
Mandala: 13

Initiative for Mandala:

12 dice ==> 1 HIT!! ==> Init 13

Well, it's a pretty storm, and Mandala likes the view.

Initiative: 6+ (1 1 3 6 4 2) 1 Hit. ==> Init 7

@Marduk/Mandala
You are a long way away from any action...so you can mostly go now, and I'll soft out what happens soon

Mandala, what do we want to do? My spell choices are pretty dismal although YAY for line of sight.
I've got mana bolt

Well, there's the Snake's Fury coming after the Storm Swift, and a drake rising from it to attack Ryl. Why doesn't Marduk nail the drake with a Manabolt and Mandala hit the crew of the Snake's Fury with a Stunball, centered on the guy at the helm?

That should give Ryl enough help. Then we can turn our attention to the two air defense crews. Or save our own asses as whatever has been chasing us comes up after us.

Sound OK?

Visibility modifiers are quite extreme through the storm: rain / lightning.

• Ryl is at -2 for less than 100 yards.
• Call it -5 for the 1/2 mile that the Storm Swift is. (It's not quite invisible...)
• I don't think there are any range penalties or anything.
• This will quite likely be an unpleasant surprise for Mr Quetzali

Mana Bolt! Tally Ho! (Don't worry I'm actually kinda bad at spellcasting)

Spellcasting(4) + Magic (6) + Talisman (1) + Foci (3) + desperate spell (6) -5 = 15d6(exploding 6's)
2 6 2 6 5 2 3 5 5 5 2 5 5 5 2 | 6 6 | 3 2 = Hits 11 (rhorho, I might die)

Force 9 Mana Bolt

Drain: 5+7=12d6 4 6 2 3 5 4 3 3 6 4 3 5 (4) hits
DV: 5
1 stun
Plus how ever many hits I over-hit by.
Sorry Mandala it's been fun knowing you.

sabs, I don't think Seth is using the optional rule that gives you extra Drain for extra hits, so the spell only does 1S to you. However, don't you have to do a Drain resistance for the use of the Matrix through which the spell was cast?

Force 9 Stunball at the Snake's Fury making sure to get the guy at the helm:

Magic 9 + Spellcasting 3 + Talisman 1 + Dream Manipulation point as Edge 8 - visibility 5 = 16 dice, exploding 6s

==> 5 HITS phht! That was a waste of Edge. So 9S DV plus net hits.

Drain DV 5S
Resistance 19 dice ==> 5 HITS no drain

Matrix Drain, hmm this one is also 5S because I cast Force 9.
Resistance BOD 3 + WIL 7 = 10 dice

==> 2 HITS Man, I'm on a roll today!

OK, DM point as Edge (There you go, Seth!) 8 dice exploding 6s ==> 4 HITS Sheesh! Good thing Mandala has Guard in effect!

No drain.

I couldn't remember the drain rules for the spell matrix

body(4)+willpower(7): 11d6:
6 2 3 1 2 6 5 3 3 1 6 (4) hits.
1 stun again

Fortunately, the matrix stun damage wears off quickly. That is, if we have a minute or two before more shit happens.

Notes:

• The only rule for the spell matrix is that it takes time to put spells in, and that the "enhanced ones" knock a point of drain off.
• I'm not using many optional rules: RAW it is. Meaning that the drain code for combat spells is the same as all others. (I think that the optional extra drain code for combat spells was one of the more poorly thought out optional rules: it actually encourages overcasting and has the exact opposite effect to the one they were trying for. If we were using it, you can choose how many successes you want to cap at).

@Pbangarth
Nice to see "Mr Lucky" is doing well.

My poor drake. Well I'll wait to see what Ryl does, but I suspect Quetzali is going to sleep

Well I won't need to do anything if my opponent is a red splat on the ground faaarrrr faaarrrr away

Note:
I don't have Stun Bolt, or Ball. I have MANA Bolt
Single Target Physical Damage, not stun.

Yes, sabs, I think the little snake-boy is going for a dive, the sudden stop at the end of which will finish the job if your spell didn't.

Seth, do you want us to post these actions in IC, or wait till you tell us the results here and we do action and result in our posts?

Much as I would like to have a tough fight here, I think that the sniper mages have it. Ah well.

I'll IC tonight or tomorrow the falling quetzali.

Aria: the boats are still coming together, so you need to either fly across / land / wreck the mechanisms or do something else clever. Your crew and their's are exchanging missile fire, but in the current weather conditions they may as well be throwing matchsticks. Just decide what you want to do, make a few suitable rolls (you pick) and we'll work out what happens.

Mandala/Marduk
After preening for a moment in awesomeness, you might want to consider your next move. You cannot see most of the crew of the Snake's Fury (the ship is above you, so lines of sight don't work too well).

The air defences radiate powerful wards, so they will keep out most ranged spells you do (although as demonstrated you do have powerful spells).

I'd also like a perception roll from the two of you.

Hey, Seth. SR4A tells us that mana barriers like wards affect critter powers in the following manner:


So for things like Accident and Psychokinesis, its up to the GM whether wards interfere with them. How do you run it? Mandala also has Shattershield for just such circumstances.

Perception roll for Mandala: INT 8 + Perception 2 - (not sure about this) general chaos of the storm 2 = 8 dice

==> 2 HITS hmmmm....

Well, sabs, it looks like its up to Marduk to notice the big nasty sneaking up on us from below.

If it's my call then: Critter powers are reduced just like spells...i.e. whatever benefit you would get vs a similar spell, you would get vs a critter power.
Shattershield was indeed invented for this.

Perception modifiers are around -5
Assensing through the shield is -10 (that's a clue), as well as the -5 for the storm unless you go "just astral"

However the big nasty sneaking up on you below...well...if it's sneaky its sneaked past that.

Alyena's rolls

Initiative: 7 hits + 16 = 23

Perception: 5 hits. Forgot the minus due to storm so total = 4

Ho hum, no drake to fight, ah well, will just have to land on the Snake's Fury and take on the entire crew

Seriously though, I will try and fry the winch mechanisms: breath weapon 15D = 4, 3, 6, 5 hits...I can roll more as needed...I really don't want the Storm Swift rammed...if it looks like frying that won't work I'll go and snack on the Captain!

So apparently I Suck.
I never bought perception with Marduk. WTH is up with that.
int+perc=3 - 1 - 5 = -2 dice.

Dude there's a storm out there, I can't see shit.

On the otherhand, assensing its' my thang (sorta)

Sensing: magic(9)+Intuition(3)+ Initiate Grade(4)-10=6d6 6 5 2 5 6 (4) hits

Well, I guess it helps to roll lucky everyonce in a while.

Seth, what would I roll to figure out Fearghas's wondering question IC? Log + Magic Knowledge or something? I forgot to do knowledge skills for ED Fearghas, so I'd probably have to do that now, I guess...

@Aria
I've been struggling how to GM this Aria. Shadowrun doesn't handle mooks well, and a fight between a hero and mooks can be a long drawn out and not very exciting thing. I
think I will just go with:

• Can you make a "how well it goes roll": pick a suitable combat skill and roll it.
• The bad guys will get 10 - the successes in how well it goes attacks on you:
• 3, 3, 4, 4, 0, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3
• These will be doing 5P base damage.
• You get to roll your normal defence roll - about 3 die (as there are loads of them) to simulate a big fight

Can you do an IC post of you being suitably heroic, and smashing the winches / ripping the ropes, while either taking some light wounds, dying horribly or ignoring their pathetic attempts (I suspect the latter).

@Sabs, Pbangarth
OK the elemental appears asks for orders. As it does so, the double door way into the Hall of Two Axes opens about 2 feet, then closes again. If you want to have a go at doing something while that happens, an initiative of 12 or more would let you.

@Alyena, Fearghas
The guard's are about 100m away (I hope there isn't a continuity error there). They are spending a combat round picking up/drawing weapons then moving towards you.

The are splitting into 4 groups:
1: 8 people still doing their stuff
2: A group of 4 guards with the man who is obviously Argbod Deleram.
3: A group of 3 who are rushing to a ballistae
4: A second group of 3 who are rushing to a ballistae.
You mostly have a free round to do what you want, as they get ready: you have strategic surprise on them
their

Seth? Did my assenssing rolls not pull up anything? I know my perception test failed mightily.

@Sabs
It's fair
I was looking at perception totals, but assensing will tell you:

• A dwarven aura moved into the room while the door was open. There were powerful illusion spells on that dwarf.
• There are mighty magical wards still on the door, so presumably he was someone allowed in by the wards.

sabs, I don't think it was our task to take out the defensive weapons, but rather to hold this position for the ship to land. Now, seeing as we are free at the moment to aid the assaults on the defensive weapons, we could do something while we wait for nastiness to come to us. Helping neutralize the weapons surely is within the purvue of "hold the landing field at all costs."

Mandala could go and shatter some wards to make our magic more likely to affect the guards staffing the weapons. What do you think?

I will be leaving tomorrow to visit my daughter in Liverpool, England for a week. While she does have internet, my presence on DS will probably be more sporadic than usual. So, sabs, if I am holding things up too much, just improvise and have Mandala do something cool.

I don't think Mandala saw the dwarf, did he?

I suspect I don't even have to roll anything as I have 6 hardened armour in drake form (and higher armour than that because of my adept powers...) but maybe I'll make some rolls...it's no fun if it's too one sided

Alyena is going to cast Mob Mind on the group still trying to bring the air defence under control. Her aim is to cause them to flee thinking it is about to blow and that they need to save their friends. This will hopefully cause some confusion at the ballistae posts

As I have a spirit atm it actually reduces my dice a bit

8 hits capped by force of spell to 7

Resist drain: 4 hits
Dream point as edge: 2 hits Total of 6 so 1 stun

Have 5 Dream Points remaining.