Honest, I have only read the first post of THIS THREAD to get the link.

I am resisting reading further.

SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY. I've been dealing with lots of paperwork and ceremonies to graduate from college and then looking for employment with hardly a pause in between. Should not have neglected DS for so long. Mea culpa. I'll get a catch-up post up later today - I have a few more job-hunting tasks to do this afternoon first.

(also pbangarth, when we started this game with Red-ROM, with you in the first batch and me waiting for a few weeks in the queue, I was just graduating high school.... in four years, we've completed one run. I...don't know how to feel about that.)

We've survived. How many PbPs can say that?

OK. How about folks tell me OOC what the plan is, and I will then start the ball rolling.

Void's end of things is fairly simple. Open the door, shoot anyone who needs shooting, put the computer in a bag, and leave, with Zo presumably watching his back. The "distraction" part will probably be more involved.

Zo will be covering the alley that void is entering from. His bike will be parked across the street from the we are toys at where there's a break in the buildings to the alley. He'll approach the alley from that street and then act like he is waiting for some-one and smoking a nic-stik while keeping an Eye out for Void (who if he is good enough should'n't even register on Zo's radar).

He'll be carrying just his pistols and 6 extra clips for the thunderbolt. The CZ will only have 1 clip loaded with stick and shock and 1 spare with gel. He'll also have a collapsible staff and shock gloves, 4 flash paks, 20 plastic zip-tie restraints and the lock pick set. He will be wearing the just bought armored clothing with level 1 chemical protection to blend in and not look like a street tough.

Jovan will send a group of four inconspicuous watchers to scout the area and find street kids that are hanging around. The best would be a group of normal unarmed adolescents, but he'll work with what is available, including gangs. Once found, he will summon a stronger Spirit of Man with Innate Spell (Alter Memory), and have that spirit use a combination of Influence and Alter Memory on each of the kids to manipulate them into heading up the street towards Uncle Zola's location (once verified). Alter Memory would be used to maintain the consistency of the implanted suggestion - (after influencing person 1) "Hey, you remember that weird-ass voodoo fragger hanging out up at location X? The one we spotted earlier? Why don't we go mess with his punk hide?" "Uhh, chummer, I don't know who you're... (after being hit with Alter Memory) oh yeah, I remember him from just a few minutes ago! Let's go ruin his day, chummers!" Or something like that.

Jovan will be physically off-site and back at his home in Tacoma. He will manage the watchers remotely, then astrally project to the area after he has received verification of Uncle Zola's location. He will then keep himself astrally concealed nearby by hiding in the sewer tunnels and building plumbing astral shadows, close enough to maintain mental contact with the spirit.

One last little kink that we should work out - how should Jovan keep in contact with the rest of the team after the distraction? His spirit might lose sight of or be unable to watch Zo and Void, he won't be able to hear his commlink, and sending a watcher attache with either Zo or Void risks drawing Zola's attention to them.

Actually, nevermind. Zo is Awakened and has a pretty big figure, so hiding a watcher inside his body is an easy affair and it would not easily be spotted an an external assenser.

By "hide a watcher inside" I assume you are not talking about Possession but something like sitting astrally in the same space. Is this correct?

Yes, that is correct. Since Zo only has an insubstantial aura and not a solid astral form, another astral form should be able to hide itself in the astral space occupied by Zo's body (and he'll feel it there, of course). Since Zo is also Awakened (and thus has a brighter aura than mundanes), and since most or all of the watcher's brighter astral form will be covered up by his (also fairly bright) aura, even a very skilled assenser like Zola should have a very hard time detecting the watcher there. Does my logic make sense?

It's a good idea. I'll see how I can play with it!

IIRC: All living things in the astral have solid auras. Hence why FAB works and covering walls in Ivy works in blocking astral projection.

Now also remember Nonphysical items are opaque so buildings while not solid do block LOS. A watcher would work as a comm between Zo and Jovie.

There is some contradiction in the text. Any living thing that is strictly on the physical has an aura on the astral, but doesn't impede astral movement. It can, in fact 'feel' the passage of astral forms through it's shadow. For example, the 'chill' one feels when a ghost passes by. The Earth has it's own aura, yet can be penetrated, albeit slowly.

Dual-natured beings, such as FAB, have a presence on the astral and cannot be penetrated by another astral form. One needs to destroy the blocking astral form in order to be able to pass through it.

OK, planning seems to have finished, so the shit hits the fan in three hours. I'll get a couple of posts up by the weekend OOC and IC, to get things going.

I've used up the last batch of perception tests, so could each of the two on the ground give me three tests, two visual and one auditory.

Astrally, Sephiroth could you roll three astral perception tests for Jovan, and, also, one Composure Test (WIL + CHA) with a threshold of 2.

Composure: Willpower 3 + Charisma 4 = 7d6 = 3 hits. I was really nervous that you were going to have Jovan try to spirit-kidnap and kill that baby.

What modifiers do you want me to include? I am away from my copy of Street Magic until this evening and cannot look up the astral perception modifiers table right now. If you want me to just do straight unmodified assensing rolls, I can do that; otherwise, I will get those up after I get home tonight.

I was hoping that roll would worry you a bit. You made the roll, so no telling what would have happened.

Yeah, go ahead and give me some straight rolls,as a situation that might require them has not yet happened, so I don't know what modifiers to apply. And, this way I can keep the test more secret.

Rolls. Also, are you sure that there are no summoned spirits of Zola on astral recon that could see Jovan there? And that Zola is not astrally perceiving? That was the intent behind having Jovan observe things remotely and out of sight through his summoned watcher team - I'm still not very confident in Jovan's Masking ability, and Zola as a seeker of secrets and a very strong mage is probably one of the most dangerous people to assense Jovan for what he is.

Zola is not active astrally and there are no spirits of his or anyone else's within your range of perception.

Question, the guards are in the front entrance, and not the back? Or both?

Guard at front. None at back.

Two guys on the ground, I need your perception rolls.

Sephiroth, thanks for the rolls. They are not actually Assensing rolls, but rather Perception, but on the Astral plane. If you perceive something, then you can Assense it to gain information about it.

For Zo his rolls were:

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4555885/


1. 12d6.hits(5) → [5,1,6,6,1,1,4,1,2,5,1,5] = (5)
2. 12d6.hits(5) → [2,6,6,5,6,6,2,6,2,5,1,4] = (7)
3. 12d6.hits(5) → [2,4,2,6,5,6,1,2,6,2,6,3] = (5)


Auditory and vision are no different.

OK, Jovan has time to set watchers and go back to wherever he is holed up physically.

Summoning a Force 5 spirit of man: 4 hits vs. 1 hit by spirit, so Jovan gets 3 services.
Resisting 2P: Will 3 + Logic 6 + Centering 2 = 6 hits, no drain received. I am hoping that the description given IC is sufficiently broken down into individual mini-tasks to warrant spending only one service.

Two hours will be enough time for all of the watchers. Rolls for them with accompanying drain resist:
10d6.hits(5) → [6,5,5,1,4,3,5,1,3,1] = (4)
9d6.hits(5) → [2,5,2,1,2,2,4,1,6] = (2)
10d6.hits(5) → [5,6,3,6,6,4,6,6,5,2] = (7) (I send this one to accompany Zo, because the roll was a critical success and that means it should be a really annoying watcher to be around )
9d6.hits(5) → [2,1,6,1,3,4,4,4,5] = (2)
10d6.hits(5) → [2,1,4,2,5,1,5,4,2,6] = (3)
9d6.hits(5) → [2,2,6,6,4,6,5,1,4] = (4)
10d6.hits(5) → [6,3,6,5,3,2,6,4,2,2] = (4)
9d6.hits(5) → [4,6,6,1,5,6,2,3,2] = (4)

Assensing the book: Intuition 6 + Assensing 2 = 8d6 = 1 hit.

Great centering technique, Sephiroth. Love it!

Thanks for the perception rolls, Warlordtheft and Sephiroth. Man, Zo is ALERT!

If I can get Voids tests, Glyph, I can go on to the next phase.

here are his three perception tests. And sorry about the confusion; I hadn't meant to imply that Void was jumping the gun, but hadn't checked the time in the posts against the time for the op to commence.

Heh, there is a reason people synchronize watches before a mission. No problem, though. I had fun with it!

Here's an idea!

My wife and I have timeshare weeks to use up before they expire. I don't know where everybody is, but what if it were possible for me to find a central location to which we could all travel cheaply and play face to face?

I'm in Toronto.

Not likely for me living in the states. We don't get that much time off down here!

^Yeah, which is a bit of a problem here. You get sucked into a perpetual 9-5 trap and end up hating your job like 87% of the rest of the country. Ugh.

I am admittedly in a somewhat better position, as I am in the post-graduation lull of free time and am still looking for full-time employment. Money for travel would be an issue though, as I currently have little to no income and am living in Minnesota with my family.

Wouldn't have to be for a week. It could be for a couple of days. And the accommodation would be cheap!

Not too practical for me, unfortunately.

Here is Void's infiltration test.

14d6.hits(5) → [5,2,1,5,2,5,6,2,3,4,6,2,2,3] = (5)

Man, you guys are good at frontloading the hits!

OK, Glyph, give me a Surprise Roll.

Void's Surprise Roll.

14d6.hits(5) → [2,6,3,2,2,2,3,1,3,2,2,5,2,4] = (2)

Bah, so much for front-loading the hits. Jinx!

... must be his Bad Luck flaw kicking in.

An impressive string of 2s, though.

Did that last IC post on an iPad. Haven't figured out how to select and highlight text for formatting.

I need Initiative from Void and Zo.

Void's Initiative roll:

14d6.hits(5) → [2,3,2,4,5,3,3,1,6,2,4,4,1,3] = (2). 2 + 14 = 16.

Invisible Castle is really not liking me. Fortunately I have a high base number to add it to.

I am having a hard time picturing the scene. I guess my question would be, would Void be able to use his monowhip without a reach bonus/with a slight penalty, or will he need to switch to his gun to attack? How would the enclosed structure affect them? Do they need to come out of it to deal with Void?

The two gunmen are stretched out prone inside an aluminum "duck blind" that looks a lot like any number of vent covers on rooftops throughout the city. the front opens over the alleyway and provides a clear view of the stairs and entry to the Spaniard's safehouse. shooting out front is easy. Turning to shoot their long weapons to the side will be more difficult for either of the occupants. Big sticky-outy things in a confined space.

Void is now about ten feet from the structure and can see through vents on the side. There is no way to use the monowhip without having to cut through the aluminum blind. That actually is possible, but the occupants will have a bonus to their armour. The aluminum blind will provide far less protection from any form of gunfire.

Warlordtheft, give me initiative for Zo.

Zo's Initiative:

11d6.hits(5) → [6,6,2,2,3,3,2,5,4,6,1] = (4)+11=15

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4571702/

Let us know who goes first. I figure Zo heard the OH DREK part....

Sorry guys. It took me a while to find the stats I wrote up for these two. Things got mixed up in the move.

So, order of operations:

Void 16
cannon guy 15
Zo 15
rifle guy 11

The blind is within striking distance of the monofilament whip, though I think Void can only reach the cannon guy, who is prone closer to him than
rifle guy. The stairs down are also close by and would allow Void to duck out of sight (temporarily).

Zo now definitely sees movement in the metal structure. Cannon guy is staying prone and reaching forward with an outstretched hand, the way game contestants look just before they are about to hit the buzzer. Rifle guy is beginning to swing his weapon around to bear on Void. They have good cover for anything Zo might want to do. All this is evident to Void as well.

The metal structure will give its occupants a fair bit of extra armour vs. the whip, and extra evasion dice for Void to dodge a gunshot.

I believe Void and Zo both have 3 IP.

Glyph, your play.

You could try rushing them and moving to unarmed combat. Especially if you attack the rifleman first - that would probably make the cannon guy hesitant to fire at first, given his weapon and how close you'd be to him.

Cutting someone with a monofilament whip through a barrier is too pink mohawk to pass up, plus he has it readied, and this is not the time to be taking an action to switch out weapons.

Void's monofilament whip attack, reach added but no bonuses for position or penalties for vision added/subtracted. It is against the cannon guy, since that is the only guy Void can reach.

16d6.hits(5) → [3,2,6,2,4,2,4,2,6,3,4,5,4,1,2,1] = (3)

Man, I've been having a streak of bad/mediocre rolls with Invisible Castle. Guess I have the bad luck flaw in real life. Fortunately, the monofilament whip has a pretty good base damage code, if I hit.

Hmmmm.... How many BP for a -player- Negative Quality?

Void has 2 points of Edge. Let me know if you want to use one to reroll misses, or save them both for later.

At this point, I think I will save it for later. He has more initiative passes coming up, can go on full defense with an interrupt action, has good passive dodging, and full cover is a short sprint away.

OK.

Zo is next.

Zo is using his silenced CZ120 Light pistol with barrel reduction and shooting the guy about to draw a bead on Void. Not I'm AFB so as I recall (check on this) the Damage is base 4P, -1P for the subsonic round, and +1 to ballistic. Though with the silencer and the use of subsonic ammo no one should even hear this shot.

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4574341/

1st shot: 14d6.hits(5) → [6,1,5,1,4,5,2,6,6,2,5,5,4,5] = (8 )--Max 11P or S depending on armor.
2nd shot 14d6.hits(5) → [4,5,1,6,5,5,5,6,6,2,6,6,1,4] = (9)--Max 12P or S depending on Armor.

The only modifier I included was for the smartlink.

Side note: Can he even dodge since he seems unaware of the threat I pose?

Glad to see -somebody- on the team has mojo with the dice!

I'll respond when I get home from work, when I can check range, recoil, armour, level of cover, etc.

Yes, rifleman doesn't see you. As soon as your weapon discharges, cannon man will see you.

You sure? the weapon has a built-in silencer, and I am using subsonic bullets (so no flash or virtuallually no sound). Of course he might be looking right at me from where he is at.