Oh come on. I was so excited for this interrogation.

Actually, wait a minute. Does Jovan have enough time to cast Pulse in an attempt to slow or stop the nanites? Would he be able to affect them as such when they are shielded from sight by the sniper's body?

This is only a taste of the kind of levels within levels of preparation the Blind Man has in store for you. The Pulse spell idea is good, and the particular nanites in play are hard, and therefore potentially subject to that kind of interference. Pulse shouldn't be blocked by the presence of human flesh in between the spell caster and the targets, and Jovan can clearly see where in the body they are working.

OK, if you can get a number of hits that overcome the Object Resistance of this high tech machinery, there may be a chance. First, give me an Initiative Test to let me know how quickly Jovan reacts. This will give me a sense of how much damage is done before the spell goes off. Then cast the spell and let me know how many hits and the damage level. I will look at the swarm rules in Running Wild to give me a sense of how to treat a mass of small, individual "creatures".

Having almost exclusively been a GM for Shadowrun rather than a player (this game being one of the few exceptions), I am also not yet used to anticipating so many nasty tricks from the player standpoint (even though I still put a lot of effort into being a half-decent tactician). I also feel like I'm missing more important details than I should be in this campaign (it had vaguely occurred to me that the teeth implants were storage compartments, but I missed the suicide implications and figured that you weren't going to use them quite so quickly). Ah well, it's a good learning experience, and it gives me a very good defensive idea of my own to use with Jovan later.

Here are my rolls:
Initiative 9 + 9d6 = 14 total.
Overcasting F6 Pulse: Magic 4 + Power Focus 4 + Spellcasting 3 = 11d6 = 5 hits!! The dice are with me today! Pulse, as a manipulation spell, does not do direct damage per se; the effects are up to gamemaster discretion, and include things like erasing standard RFID tags and inducing data loss, power outage, or complete burnout.
Resisting 6P drain: Magic 4 + Power Focus 4 + Willpower 3 = 11d6 = 1 hit. Maybe not. Jovan takes 5P damage.

I may want to Edge one of those - since my earlier two edged Tactics rolls ended up not being used, may I get one or both of those points back, so that I may use them here?

Actually Jovan's Tactics rolls did help earlier, though I may not have overtly indicated so. He may have one of those Edge points back. I will leave it up to you, however, Sephiroth, to decide first whether you want to use it on the first roll, the one for number of hits on the Pulse Spell. Then I will let you know the results and you can decide, if Jovan has Edge left, whether to use it on the Drain.

I'm not being obstreperous here. The Blind Man is a formidable opponent who thinks things through to an amazing depth. He styles himself equal to a Dragon in that regard. Whether he truly is so deep and intelligent remains to be seen, of course, but he will make your lives miserable in the process. The team is in way over their depth but I believe they can survive and succeed. It would be no fun for me if I made the mission(s) too difficult. Any hints I give regarding his behaviour will be circumspect and difficult to discern. Surely that will make your play of Jovan more enjoyable, no?

Fortunately for the team, the two prisoners were separated, and Jovan will have learned something important from the first. So, even if Jovan fails to keep him alive, he will approach the second more carefully. Remember that an accomplished medic is on call for the team and is in the presence of the second prisoner.

Here's a bit of help from Jovan's tactical ability: read John Le Carre's "The Night Manager". You will find it helpful in understanding the Blind Man.

*****

All PCs have one Edge point back if they used any since the last refresh.

Just waiting for a response on this before I post.

Working on it now, WT.

I've been thinking about this, and it definitely seems to me like ensuring the success of the Pulse casting is more important - if it fails, I will only have one more chance at this, and that is very risky. However, I'm hopeful that 5 hits is enough to meet the Object Resistance here, and only one more hit (up to my cap of 6 for this Force) may not be worth it. If it fails, I have one remaining idea for Jovan to use - he will stick his hand in the prisoner's mouth and get the indiscriminate nanites all over his hand instead. No, I am not kidding.

It's certainly been pretty brain-wracking and surprising so far, to be sure. I may at times be a bit frustrated/dismayed by my poor performance up to this point, but I'm definitely enjoying the challenge. I'll check out that Night Manager novel sometime in the next week and see what insights I can get from it.

EDIT: also, holy woah everyone, we are super on top of things right now.

Remember, Sephiroth, that Edge dice are not limited by the Force max for hits. Don't know that that changes anything for you.

I caution you against putting too much store in TVtropes. Cool idea, nevertheless. It would be interesting to play that one out.

Don't beat yourself up. After all, you are facing an NPC way smarter than any of you. *ducks killer glare from Jovan*

I guess I'll take the hint and Edge the pulse roll, then, if more net hits will make the difference between life and death for the sniper. And if it still fails, I will have my first opportunity to put Jovan's Regeneration to good use.

Edge to reroll failures: 6d6 = 3 hits. So a total of 8 hits.

OK. I'll accept the 8 hits on the Pulse spell. Before you try to stick Jovan's hands into the nanite swarm, remember where the swarm is headed... right to the place where the spinal cord meets the brain. Now, what was that about kinds of damage Regeneration doesn't fix?

Jovan is brave and creative I will warrant you, but he is also really smart.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm skeptical of the assertion that nanites, which are each only a few atoms wide, could ever possibly have enough physical room for body-navigation programming more advanced than "Burrow backwards X centimeters until you find Y spinal cord tissue, and eat all of it." Even in a swarm.

But I digress. You have results/information for me and Warlord, yes? Let's get on with it.

I'd like to direct your attention to p. 98 of Augmentation, "Control and Autonomy". Following from that discussion, each individual nanite may indeed find it difficult to navigate a complex bioform, but for argument's sake, if there were a number of GPS-like transmitters locked in spatial relationship with the target organ, then the nanites could simply be directed by them. Note that there are six artificial implants fixed in location in the prisoner's head: two eyes, two ears and two teeth in the maxilla. This would be both figuratively and physically at the cutting edge of current technology. Available only to the most connected and wealthy.

Of course, if that were the way these nanites are finding their way, then the nanites would be lost in Jovan's body, and his regenerative powers would almost certainly outlast their miniscule power supply. I just wanted to warn you, seeing as Jovan is hyper-paranoid and, having no medical skill, might not be all that conversant with how nanites actually work.

The Pulse spell is the only thing I could think of available to Jovan to confuse and delay the nanites. You've done the best you could under the circumstances, and no matter how this situation turns out, you are forewarned for the second prisoner.

Who's waiting on whom right now?

I am waiting on PB, I am thinking Zo might know something with his 4 successes.

Just put in an application for a great job. Back on this job tomorrow.

OK, WT, the Gates Casino in Bellevue, on Shoreland Drive pops into Zo's mind as a likely place. High class joint, run by the Mafia with the typical offerings. it also has a few rooms for 'discrete' meetings and according to Zo's memory, he thinks some high-roller art-thief types frequent the place, both to do a little flashy gambling, and to do business with contractors, buyers and associates. Could be worth checking out. People will have to dress well to get in there.

Professor will need some help from Jovan on the medical end. Sephiroth, could you give me a Perception Test for Jovan to help finding the blood pools, and, just 'cause it might be fun, could you give me a Composure Test, WIL + CHA (2), to see how well Jovan handles a lot of blood flowing around visibly.

Oh .... fuuuuucccckkkk.

*GM ducks and runs*

So, this is what I had thought/planned would happen:
-Jovan opens door for Professor
-Professor gives Jovan medkit, flashlight, and ice
-Being the anti-social butterfly that Jovan is, and being not entirely warmed up to the team quite yet, Jovan takes the things and tries to work on the prisoner himself, using his hermetic's Logic to default on First Aid (since Augmentation says that you can't default on using the tools in a medical shop)
-Professor and Zo go back to talking about the dastardly Pertwilling and how to catch him
-Jovan catches a lot of Rifle Guy's blood into medkit containers and refrigerates them in the ice to keep the blood fresh (he's super paranoid and doesn't want to drink potentially active nanites)
-Jovan uses First Aid and Assensing + flashlight to heal Rifle Guy's gaping throat wound
-With no one in the room to get super disturbed and grossed out, Jovan then feasts on the refrigerated blood. (pbangarth - I was trying to be subtle about it with the ice request )
-Interrogation eventually resumes.
-No one is the wiser about Jovan's Infected status

This is what is actually happening:
-Clearly not anything like the above.

Warlordtheft, do you want Zo to try to resist Jovan's Physical Mask spell? If so, would you like to buy hit(s), or would you like to roll for it? I honestly have no idea how I'm going to navigate Jovan through this situation while staying true to his character if Zo succeeds the resistance test. It'll be interesting. This is quite a surprise!

Campaign: Post or Die
Rolled on: Feb. 18, 2015, 7:49 a.m.

8d6.hits(5) → [4,3,5,2,1,3,2,4] = (1)
Intuition+Willpower to see through Jovan's mask spell.

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4780485/

Nope. I don't think that is an issue. Unless you got less than 1 success on your spell.

He's an elf? Right?

Nope, that won't be an issue. You would have had to get 3 or more hits to resist it. Huzzah, crisis averted.

Resisting an Illusion spell is intuition+willpower? I had thought it was just intuition+counterspelling or willpower+counterspelling or something. I'm at work and AFB, but cool. Not an issue either way, fortunately. I think I forgot to originally specify whether he was a human or an elf, so... yep, he's an elf now!

As for me:
Looking for the blood pools: Intuition 6 + Perception 3 + Observe in Detail 3 - (unknown modifier for low-light conditions - am AFB) = 12d6 = 2 hits .
If you want to teamwork test the First Aid: Logic 6 + Medkit rating 6 (I assume it's one of Professor's original chargen medkits) = 12d6 = 4 hits (should actually be 11d6 due to Jovan's wound modifier, but that doesn't take away any hits). Please subtract the appropriate modifiers due to the environmental conditions, missing Essence in Rifle Guy, etc.
As for your Composure roll (even though I was totally going to go in that direction anyway after Professor left the room): Willpower 3 + Charisma 4 = 7d6 = 2 hits. I am on the edge here - does Jovan's wound modifier affect this?

I was AFB as well, I thought it was intuition+Will (I might be throwing in an optional/some one's house rule). Either way, 1 success if I remove the last four dice.

Yeah, PbP can lead to this kind of overlap of intentions and actions. Give me a day to figure out a few things in OOC, and hold off IC posting please.

He's an albino elf with sensitivity to sunlight.--See Zo called it earlier!!!

*chirp* *chirp* *chirp* *chirp*






Also Warlord, I had completely forgotten about that elf accusation. That works beautifully.

I hear the crickets. Their in my head, too.

I've been thinking. WT, Professor is likely to want to intercept any potential problem between crew members. Not that he is all that fast, but I'll roll an Initiative for him. Could you do the same for Zo? Likely Zo will win, anyway.

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4791419/

Um 12 (3 hits).

I wouldn't worry about it too much. This will probably work itself out without professors intervention.

I'm also ok with it either way - the big thing that would break the whole situation is Jovan being outed as Infected, and it doesn't seem like we're in any danger of that happening because of Physical Mask (unless maybe the Composure roll ends really really badly, I dunno). Stuff like this is probably bound to happen when PC's are trapped together in a confined space anyway, and it'll keep things interesting.

3 HITS = 10, lots less than Zo's 15, so Professor can't intercept him. SO, it's on as posted in the IC, and I bet the next action is up to Jovan.

But yes, the disguise is good, and was a smooth move, Sephiroth. I'm sure it was for the captive originally, but it helps enormously to keep things on an even keel in the party.

Yes, the wound modifier counts, so the hits are reduced to 1. Let's say Jovan is -really- interested in the evident blood. Go ahead and have some drama, Sephiroth.

Here is a First Aid roll from Professor we can use one way or another once the immediate RP is over.

First Aid 6 dice ==> 3 HITS

MUCH DRAMA LET'S DO IT.

Also, regarding your recent posts elsewhere, I would like to point out that I did join the queue for the original game very soon after it started (like a week or so) and was reading on the sidelines almost from Red-ROM's very first post. I think that should count for something.

I wonder if any of the potential recruits would want to try an AI...

Zo is not that impressed, a tripping elf mage? Why is that such a big secrete/issue?

I agree, an AI in the group would be interesting. But the rules are weird and limiting.

Sorry for the delay, Warlord. I'm dealing with a family emergency and trying to finish an overdue project task at the same time right now. I will try to get to this on Saturday.

Hope all end well with the family emergency. Those are never any fun.

I think I'll have Professor wake up Void, so Glyph can get in some action, too.

Zzzzz... <snort>.. "Huh?"

Really really sorry for taking so long, guys. I haven't disappeared - I'm just trying really hard to crank out overtime right now to cover emergency expenses. Someone send me an angry message if I don't get a post up by the end of Friday night (I am trying off and on to complete one by then, in my currently very limited spare time).

Well, Jovie should really lay-off the BTLs. I mean aliens? Really?

Well, it's working, isn't it? I hadn't had a chance to really get into his paranoid conspiracy theorizing yet, and it seemed like a better choice for foreshadowing than Illuminati one-world governments, corporate-controlled shedim spies, or animatronic Lofwyr robots.

I bet pbangarth will make us run into the "reptilian overlord"-types instead of the Gray-types when we do get to the extraterrestrial mini-plot now, just to screw with me.

Also, I am now officially ceasing most of my overtime work, as it has been taking over too much of my life in the last month. So I should be back to responding every couple days again very soon.

Now if Jovie had gone with an alien dragon conspiracy, he'd total be understanding about that. I mean, Ares did find a dragon skeleton on mars....there's even some pics. :

Glad to hear your overtime is going down--working too much is not good for you.

BTW-I'm going to hold off and give professor a chance to intervene/process this.

My granddaughter was sick. She wiped her nose and then poked her finger up mine. I failed my dodge roll and have been laid up for nearly two weeks. Sorry. I will catch up and post for Professor. I think I might close out the interrogation for the moment so we can get on with a run of some sort.

I -really- like the IC interaction guys. Thanks for cranking up the drama. Now, let's see if we can get Glyph back into the action.

Wait for my post please.

PS. I should give Sepiroth some karma for Jovan because of the "Summon GM" spell he just cast!

Don't worry, you haven't missed much - I was waylaid by emergency affairs too for over a month. I'm kind of disappointed to hear that we are skipping the rest of the interrogation, though, as that was going to be a spotlight scene for Jovan that I was quite prepared for (barring my own unforeseen circumstances).

Since this day is still IC a really good time to regroup and set up, and since almost every character was going to rest for hours anyway (Glyph already is, Jovan will be after the interrogation, and I remember Zo wanted to sit in the lounge and watch the police news trids), why don't we do another temporary time split? That way, the interrogation can still be played out (with the usual speed of the Post or Die rule, I propose) and the legwork for investigating Pertwilling, obtaining the Spaniard's equipment orders, and perhaps looking into Zo's shipment meeting from the previous night could be run at the same time OOC. We've been able to do this time splitting successfully before.

@pbangarth:

Split time could be possible, but the prisoner in Jovan's room is now as injured as the other fellow. Even more so, actually. So, until some healing takes place, neither one can be interrogated. We now know that there is probably a suicide tooth in the other guy as well, so our NPC medic can deal with that to prevent the same thing happening to that prisoner.

This is just one more indication of the Blind Man's planning, and control over his minions. Nothing will come easily.

In that case, we could perhaps do a time skip where everyone, including the prisoners, gets some rest, that way Void can get back into play, but Jovan can still do his interrogation scene.

I think that would be a good way to handle it.

I'm good with that too. We might need a day or so of down time. IC I think it has been what, almost 1 week since Post or Die started.

One day of downtime would also finally let us do some of the things that take a lot of time and are usually fast-forwarded in PnP groups, like shopping, binding, putting up wards and other defenses, doing mechanical repair and modification, and all that jazz.

I like this idea. Let me get an IC post up to set it up.

Damn, getting old sucks. New medical shit is on me. I've put up one IC post and will review the three options that I alluded to in a much earlier post, and then start up with a meeting of all of us (You too, Glyph!), so we can get on to another run.

OK, so help me out a bit. Can each of you post here the post number of your equipment requests earlier? Each of you doing one search is easier than I dong three. Then I'll get onto getting your equipment to you. Jovan's magical text material may take a while, but the Pertwilling possibility could help in that regard.

Here's what I had wish listed for Zo--

<Prof---Here's da wish list-disposable commlinks--1 per crew, 1 autopicker, 1 maglock passkey, 4 trauma patches, 1,000rds APDS for assault rifles, 1000 rounds apds for heavy pistol ammo, two dozen kilos of C12 with 10 wireless detonators , 1 panther assault cannon w/smartlink and 50 rounds of ammo, one missle launcher with 4 AVMs (or 4 LAWs), 1 stealth suit <see tag for sizes>, 1 Grapple gun, 100 meters of stealth line, 1 catalyst stick, 10 thermal smoke grenades, and 60 rounds of stick an shock light pistol ammo.>

I Professor footing the bill on this? ZO assumed he was. Zo also assumed he was not going to get all of this (like the Panther Cannon....)