So, I've been preparing for the third session of OTR by writing up the Shangri-La Runner team and Risa's group. But I've run into a few problems and I wonder if folks could help at all.

1. Operation "get rid of that ****ing car". To whit it's a Hyundai Shin-Hyung with Armor 20. To be fair to the players, though, all the Shangri-La guys would know is that they're going to deal with people who have a hardcore armored car and aren't afraid to use it, or even overuse it (eg, trying to conduct meetings from inside it). I could just try to rule they can't get it to the correct place but that is kind of dodging the issue, especially if they can lead the fight in that direction. So, what can these guys do?

a) Have the shaman powerbolt the damn thing to bits. Ok, this avoids the ridiculous armor, but it also gives all the spells a threshold of 5 which would probably end up making the shaman pretty useless.

b) Stick a bomb on it and run. This seems a possibility, although I'm not sure about the rules for sticky bombs (because I know that the first thing the PCs will do is to try to drive around like maniacs and shake the bomb off, and it seems a bit unfair to rule that has no chance of success). The real problem is that even if they're packing level 15 plastique, denting that armor will be kind of tricky, and it's a 1 shot deal. I'm not quite sure about the sense of someone charging up to the car while carrying a 1kg bomb anyway.

2. Spirits. WTF. One of the things I haven't used much so far is enemy shamans/mages summoning spirits, so I figure they ought to be doing it, especially in the Marli encounter. But looking through the rules confused the heck out of me, so I really need to ask:

a) How do you calculate the size of a Spirit's CM? Also, the rules state that a Spirit's stats are all equal to Force while it's pure astral, and vary to the stats listed in the book once it Manifests. In some cases Body increases. Does this mean that a spirit who gets hit, then goes Astral again, can then die as a result of the new, lower astral Body stat reducing its CM size?

b) Some of the spirit powers seem rather hardcore. Like Movement. Seriously, a force 5 spirit can give a human a walking rate of 50m?

c) I'm really confused about manifestation. The manifestation paragraph pretty much directly says, "When a Spirit.. wishes to interact with the physical world it can Manifest." But a few sentences later, "It has no physical body and cannot take physical damage or interact with the physical world in any way." What the heck. So what can it do? Does this enable it to cast spells on people? Can it be physically attacked? Does it get the "double Force armor" benefit? Does it get the modified stats?

d) Astral Combat. Does a mage/shaman have to be Astrally Projecting to do Astral Combat, or can they do it while Viewing, or even while in the physical world with Blind modifiers?

3. Healing spells. This was really a confusion about the "permanence" property of healing spells. According to the rules, a Permanent spell only becomes permanent after Drain*2 CT, but for heal you can sacrifice hits to make it permanent earlier. This just means the mage has to sustain the healing for that period of time, right? For the healed person there's no difference between temporary and permanent CM boxes?

As far as the car goes, well, having the floor drop out from under it works. It's going to be kinda useless stuck in a concrete pit. And it's probably the runner won't have the time to get it lifted out via crane, especially if a concrete slab drops over the hole above, leaving only a man-sized exit from the room.

In fact, I remember seeing news about a prototype vehicle trap for protecting secure facilities. Air hoses would be placed underground around a gravel entry road. When activated, they inject high pressure air into the sandy soil under the road, causing it to lose coherence. A vehicle's weight on the affected area would make it sink rapidly into the air/soil interface, partially burying it in moments.


-k

Vehicle is down for maintenance.

Expensive maintenance. Suspension is shot, transmission needs changing, engine has serious overheating issues. All that extra armour weight really makes for problems.

About the car: Give the opposition some sniper rifles with APDS/AV rounds. That ought to even the odds.

Not until someone dispells it. Or the healee walks into a background count.

Have a fire spirit materialise inside the vehicle, and see how much its occupants enjoy the ride.
Also, the (headless) murdercycle.
Keep note that both passengers and vehicle must resist damage from being rammed. The same goes for automatic fire.
Also, see the Binding spirit power.

A spirit has a CM of 8 + (half Body) like everyone else and their chihuahuas.

If the Shangri-La guys know about the car, they can plan to disable/destroy/otherwise get rid of it. Anything you get suggestions to try, or that you can think of, at least give it a try.

AoE elemental spell. Halves the armour, and can damage the PCs inside the car, even through Tinted windows. Nothing says you can't swap a spell on the Shangri-La mage list, with say, Fireball, or an AoE Ice spell (SM 164. Creates a slippery surface and forces a crash test.)

I don't remember the module very well, as I went through it kind of randomly, and the players I was with tended to over think situations (we had a sniper watching the Johnson meet. That has happened in 3 runs I've been on, with different players. No, it wasn't my suggestion.), but if the Shangri-La guys are in the area first, set a few bombs. If nothing else, you can ask for crash tests, the bombs may hurt the players, and you might be abl;e to damage the car a little. It would not be wise (from a character perspective, at least) to have one of the soldiers charge the car with a bomb.

I just use the modified body as the CM, regardless. Unless it ends up inside something via possession or similar. It makes it easier on the head, and gives the spirit a little breating room in the astral, where they should be superior (in some way).

Yes. The ability is powerful, but movement does not necessarily win battles. Also, keep in mind that if the Human has body 6 for some reason, it's movement rate is only 25 m. Make use of spirits within enemy ranks. They can be amazing help to challenge PC's.

Whenever an astral entity manifests (projection magicians can do it as well), they can be seen. That's it.

Mages/adepts/dual natured beings can use astral Combat only while projecting, or astrally percieving. Non-dual-natured beings, and non-spirits don't have an astral body while not percieving/projecting, so they cannot attack astral only targets, or be attacked by them.

The healed person won't notice, unless the mage ends the sustaining prematurely, and he starts bleeding out again.

Don't (non-flaming) chihuahuas have that Fragile weakness, which gives the 6 boxes or something like that?

I'm curious. What is the difference between a Flaming Chihuahua and a Non-Flaming Chihuahua?
Sorry, had to do it...

A Chihuahua possessed by a fire spirit?

Heh...

"Um, chummers, that dog just lit our car on fire. By pissing on the tire!"

Yes and no. I just read through the entire Pink Mohawk Role Call thread, it included a story of an heiress magician whose only body guard was a Fire Spirit with realistic form. That the team used to attempt to threaten her, by killing it. Before realizing it was a spirit.

Have the opposition escalate their force; in other words, they don't know how tough the vehicle is, so they start with light or medium machine guns and work their way up to antitank missiles. If you think it would be reasonable, have the opposition track down the guy who modified the vehicle to discover its weak spots. If you want to do the sticky bomb thing, go for a magnetic limpet mine and a really fast, small drone.

Oh, and +1 on the pit trap. On my last tour in Baghdad, my MRAP nearly lost a wheel when it fell through a collapsed manhole. Even though just one of the front wheels was stuck, the vehicle was very much immobilized, and we had to have one of the other vehicles pull us out of the hole. If their vehicle has a turret, this will affect their field of fire.

This is an expensive solution, but you've identified a key problem in the fight. If they can't neutralize that vehicle, it doesn't matter what else they're packing.


Eh. If the team has notice of where the car's going to be, they can set up landmines and remote-detonated bombs (which is actually a good idea). You don't run up to a car and try to stick a bomb on it.

I'm going to vote for the pit trap option that's been suggested several times. Not the elaborate concrete slab-covered trapdoor or the air-cannon quicksand, but maybe set a shaped charge to blow a hole in the street as they go over it. If the car's immobilized, the team can take potshots at the players from absurdly good cover, forcing them to abandon the car and push into an unfavorable position (remaining in the car is just asking one of the team to spend a point of Edge for a critical success to shoot out the windshield).


Understandable. The summoning rules are pretty layered.


RAW, the track changes when their body stat changes. As the spirit is controlled by NPCs, feel free to fudge it whatever way you want. It's a good point of obfuscation to control the outcome mid-fight.


They ARE hardcore. There's a reason people consider spirits to be the greatest threat in the game.


Manifestation is just an apparition. The spirit can see/hear the material plane, and people can see/hear its manifestation. It's still an entirely astral entity unless it Materializes (very similar pile of letters, but different words).


You can engage in Astral Combat while simply astrally perceiving. You're at a disadvantage, though, since your movement is restricted by the physical world while the spirit can zip in any direction at hundreds of miles per hour through walls. Generally, if you want to take out a spirit that's hiding on the astral, you'll want to open your third eye and start flinging stunbolts at it. (Or some other Mana-type spell, Physical-type spells don't work on the astral.)


For the patient, there's no difference until the spell drops and their wounds tear open again. If the Heal goes Permanent, then there's no risk of this happening anymore: their body has healed For Keeps and the spell can no longer be dispelled.

Dont forget the basics.

Have the meet in a dead end alleyway. Do the players really want to risk taking the car down there? Doesn't take much - a van loaded with something heavy - to block the entryway once the players are in.

Do they have runflats? Shoot out the tires.

Is the car being run fully rigged? A paint grenade on the windscreen might be enough to seriously screw up their ability to drive.

Or lay a few spike strips and zapper strips out.

Or, hire a hacker to take over the car - depending on how savvy they are on matrix security, they might have left it *wide* open to a skilled hacker.