Initiating is great. Beams of light from Stogie's eyes that light up the tent are great. Stogie going all Cyclops on the drone and laying waste to the forest with his newfound optic blasts would be going too far, but that didn't happen.

Phlapjack, is Smohalla actively trying to be seen by the drone? I'm unclear on his approach.

Thanks, Tecumseh.

Isn't Smohalla still astral?

Hmm, you're right. The line about 'keeping his distance' made me think of the shapeshifted eagle following the drone instead of the astral version.

Phlapjack, your post doesn't make as much sense anymore.

yeah, sorry. in my youthful exuberance to quote star wars, I muddied the post's meaning a bit. I'll revise it...

I'm off in the woods till Thursday. Sorry if that slows things, but go ahead and set things up if there is action. Anyway, Stogie is likely to be reacting a little slowly for the next couple of minutes IC.

Phlapjack, the revision doesn't make sense either. 'Not so easy to do from the astral'? It's quite easy to do from the astral.

Pbangarth, thanks for letting us know. Have a good time.

Atropos, do you have any planned actions for the next 30 seconds as the drone is approaching? Or is your intention to watch it pass? If the plan is 'wait and see' then I'll move things forward, but I wanted people to have a chance to act, should they so choose.

Not currently, as Ellesar is in 'Ghost' mode. He's going to move as little as possible and try not to be detected until he knows the drone is gone.

arrrgggghh

I thought it would be difficult to see something with no aura (the drone) in the astral? Like, it casts a very faint astral shadow. I also thought this was why the drone was hard for Smohalla to see at first.

The drone was initially difficult to spot because 1) it wasn't close and 2) Smohalla was sitting in a tree looking UP at the drone. Thus the drone was against a relatively lifeless sky and therefore hard to see. Now that Smohalla is following the drone on the astral, it's easy to see because 1) he can fly as close as he want to it and 2) he can be above it so that the lifeless drone is silhouetted against the bright background of the Earth and forest.

That said, I gave you a couple dice that I probably shouldn't have (the Vision Enhancement and Vision Magnification critter powers) given that you were astral and not in eagle form. But you would have noticed the drone eventually, it just determined where it was and how much time you had to act. As everyone is just monitoring the situation, I'll move things forward.

Well I put a hard threshold on it but Ellesar comes through again. He knows a bit about the drone, although he can't communicate that to Smohalla at the moment.

Got it

Atropos, the drone has turned away from you and is returning north. It's moving about freeway speeds, say 100 kph. Any action or does Ellesar plan to watch it go?

Ellesar will continue to stay put until the drone is out of eyesight. Would you like me to add a post about him watching it go?

Either way. Just didn't want to fly the drone away and have Ellesar disappointed that he didn't get a chance to do ___ first.

Found this pic of Mt. Rainier will browsing Reddit. Maybe another view from our campsite?

http://i.imgur.com/HiGKKu2.jpg

Nobody wants to reply to Smohalla? Someone should.

Tecumseh, is Smohalla able to translate astral distances into physical distances at all?

I'm just back from camping and partying. I know, I know. But... it's the life I've chosen for myself and I can't burden someone else with the responsibility.

OK, let's give it a shot! See what happens.

Sensing metamagic:

Magic 7 + Intuition 5 + Initiate Grade 3 = 15 dice. Don't know if there are any modifiers, Tecumseh.

15 dice ==> 4 HITS

Phlapjack, yes, absolutely. As I see it, Smohalla might be world's leading expert at translating astral distances into physical distances:

1) He has a physical form that allows him to fly in a similar manner to his astral form; and,
2) He's dual-natured, so he's simultaneously astral and physical and, therefore, may constantly compare the passage of time and distance in one to the other.

The drone was moving faster (say 100kph) than an eagle would fly, but still a pace that allows for Smohalla to follow rather casually on the astral while still having time to note his surroundings and keep track of how far he had flown.

The as-the-drone-flies distance between the lake and North Bend is 60 kilometers due north.

...

Pbangarth, what are you rolling for? To see if your new metamagic works?

Yes, that's all. Sorry, I thought I was clear in Stogie's IC post.

Sounds rough. If you ever need help carrying this burden...


Got it, thanks!

Tecumseh, was Smohalla able to get an idea of how that elf with Talent stacked up to a magic 6/grade 2 initiate?

Magic 5, unless you're counting your power focus. Assensing won't tell or compare initiate grade.

Verdict: Magic 6

...right. Dang I need to think more before posting...

Ok thanks for the info.

So, the second half of my vacation starts tomorrow, and will be spent on an island in Georgian Bay (in the Great Lakes - inland sea kind of thing). I won't have internet in the cottage, but we will duck into town once or twice this week, so I hope to be able to keep up. I'll be back home Saturday night.

Have a good time!

Tecumseh, Smohalla will summon 3 watcher spirits, low enough duration that the drain shouldn't be a problem (I think it's like 1 hour/1s drain, so like maybe 4 hours each?), then he'll send them about a mile north, watching and patrolling ("Astral Alarm" task) something approximating the 3 directions north of our group (NE, N, NW).

Sounds good, Phlapjack. Thanks for the plan; I was going to ask what exactly you had in mind.

Was anyone else having trouble accessing Dumpshock the last few days? The last time I was able to see anything was on Saturday.

Some OOC chatter while Pbangarth is out:

Anyone playing Shadowrun: Returns? I just finished it last night. EDIT: I just found Phlapjack's less-than-impressed review.

Anyone pick up 5th Edition? I bought it when it came out but reading PDFs is slower for me than reading a book. I've only made my way through chargen and the Combat chapter so far.

Yes, I also had troubles getting on. Honestly the skeptic in me kept me from jumping on the Returns train. It looks like a decent game from what little I've seen but it doesn't seem complete. Are the online PDFs out already? I thought the books were only available in hard-copy.

I had trouble, too. That just means I've missed less.

The great DS outage of '13. One of the admins was off-grid this week, which might explain why the outage went on so long. I had to go over to the "official" SR forums to scratch the itch, and that site is not as interesting as DS

I played some more SRR last night (Steam says 5 hours total now). Same gripes as in my initial review, plus all of the gripes in this post too. Having said that, the game HAS managed to suck me in, in that I kept playing past when I should've stopped and gone to bed. So there's that, I guess. (I keep thinking that I wish the game had been released for android tablets, the game would be awesome as a tablet game that I can take with me on the bus or wherever...)


The SR5 pdf is online at both stores (battleshop and drivethrurpg?). I bought it, and I'm also less than impressed with it. *sigh* I feel this is one way you can really tell you're getting older, when things stop impressing you so much and you keep thinking more and more things were better "in the past".

I'm enjoying both SR:R and SR5. They both have things which can be improved but overall I'm happier to have them than not have them. I think the Shadowrun community will come up with some pretty impressive things for SR:R via the editor. I playtested a couple of the user-made campaigns to scratch the itch before Dead Man's Switch was released. One of them, Life on a Limb, is only halfway done and already rivals the main campaign for size and breadth. And I'm curious to see how the Berlin campaign differs from Seattle. I think we've just scratched the surface of what we're going to see.

Phlapjack, I'm under the impression that iOS and Android versions of the game are forthcoming. They were part of the original Kickstarter pitch. I just bought one of the new Nexus 7 tablets and I'm hoping to play through the game a second time with that. (The tablet arrives on Monday. I don't know when the tablet versions of the game will be released.)

Cool - I'll need to try checking out some of the user-made campaigns. And I keep hearing about the Berlin campaign...well, I hope it's good All in all I find myself liking the game, and looking forward to playing it when I get home.

I have the Nexus 7 as well (older model, when it was first released), I think it's a great little tablet. Only complaint is lack of sd-slot, so having to save and load things to a usb stick (with a usb adapter cable) is kinda cumbersome. I think another "negative" is the lack of 3g as an option, but I'm in China so I haven't noticed (are the new Nexus-7's coming with 3g as an option?)

I'm back.

Welcome back.

Already did the Welcome Back Kotter song, so I need a new routine to welcome you back...

This seems appropriately upbeat

Well, I'm not making any promises about roving never more. But I love the song! Thanks.

Tecumseh, Smohalla doesn't have anything more to do tonight I think - he's just going to sleep after sending the spirits out.

Smohalla won't be sleeping again tonight.

I'm not sure Stogie will either after what he's been through.

Ellesar, however, should be able to rest peacefully with no Awakened dreams to disturb him.

Hey, one out of three sleeping well is an achievement in the Sixth World.

Figure of speech

Atropos, it's been a couple weeks since your last post. Let's get some RP up.

I'll be traveling for the remainder of August but I should have internet access at all times. If anything, my post count should go up. Let's make some progress! I might accelerate things so that we don't spend a week making breakfast, then another week making lunch, etc.

Things have been crazy around the house here. My roommate is leaving so I had to pack my stuff to get ready to move to my new apartment complex that won't have any available space until the end of this coming week. We're just about finished until I actually move out so my post activity should also increase.

Ok, with this in mind I'll go ahead and post some more time-consuming stuff for Smohalla.

*edit* Smohalla will be summoning a F6 air spirit, optional powers: Fear, Guard

Atropos, thanks for the post. In the course of a two-year game, everyone has some absences. Just give us a head's up and an ETA if you see one coming, or if you unexpectedly find yourself in the midst of one.

Phlapjack, can you do the rolling for this one? I'm traveling today and won't have a chance to post until tomorrow. Rolling instructions, and a warning:

Dang! I keep thinking Smohalla has Magic 6. I almost never make characters with Magic 6, dunno why I keep thinking Smohalla does...maybe 'cause he's initiated or something...

Anywho, he'll try for a force 5 spirit with optional power: guard. Save the F6 stuff for when the drek hits the fan (definitely summoning inside the Sisters' aspected area, seems to give a boost to Smohalla's power...)

Summoning F5 Air spirit: 24d6.hits(5) → [3,4,6,2,1,1,5,5,6,1,4,4,2,3,6,1,4,5,1,2,3,3,1,1] = (6) hits
Spirit resists: 10d6.hits(5) → [2,2,4,5,6,5,3,6,5,2] = (5) hits
Drain resist: 24d6.hits(5) → [1,1,3,6,6,4,6,5,3,1,6,6,4,5,6,5,6,2,6,1,5,5,1,5] = (14) hits

(just realized I didn't add the extra initiate level(x2) for drain resist, but I don't think it matters )

I don't -think- Stogie has tried this inside the 'magic enhancement zone', but perceiving what happens during Smohalla's summoning, he will be reminded that he wanted to try an adept power that has variable results here. So, he will try augmenting his AGI just to see. IC to follow momentarily.

Pbangarth, Stogie has tried his attribute boost power back in post #518. Ten months ago, yeah, hard to remember. If you want to do it again for giggles, go ahead and roll it. Same rules as Phlapjack: double the number of dice for both the boost roll and the drain roll and I'll count out how many successes you keep.

Atropos, maybe we should have Ellesar suddenly Awaken so he can get in on the fun. Or maybe he'll be the only one who's functional after all this power backfires on the magicker types.

Yeah, something niggled at the back of my mind, but I was too lazy to look for the post. Sorry. I'll try to be more careful in future. Well, rather than retcon the text, I'll do it, and have some fun with Jake.

So...

MAG 7 + Boost AGI 1 = 8 X 2 = 16 dice ==> 3 HITS ... serves me right for not doing my own legwork.

But I have to go with the story, so I'll use Edge to reroll misses (and probably rue the decision when a fight comes):

13 dice ==> 3 HITS ... ... well 6 total hits.

The Drain will come a number of combat turns equal to 2 X the hits that you count.

Drain is 1S , resisted by 2 X (WIL 4 + BOD 4) = 16 dice ==> (Don't do this to me, dice!) ==> 5 HITS ...phew.

I'm sure Tecumseh, being a thoughtful (not to mention generous!) GM, will let Edge refresh before that happens...



*edit* why did I have my character's name above instead of Tec's...my only excuse was tiredness perhaps...