My plan was to send RHex along with the team for fire support. I would probably rig in RHex, while relying on my car's sensors to let me know if anyone is approaching the vehicle.

OK, sounds like it's settled then. Grease could also use whatever flying drone he is going to have to provide overwatch for probably both himself and the team.

If the plan is set, we can fast forward, unless you want us to hash it out IC. Up to you, Lobo.

Ok, so lets just go over the basic plan, as there is a chance for combat

1) Grease will drive all 4 of you, plus Rhex in the trunk down S. Chambers Road, make a right onto E. Layton Place, and then a right onto S. Evanston Way.
2) He'll drive up S. Evanston Way until it hits the park (marked Entry Point on the map), stop, all of you will get out, Jack will grab Rhex out of the trunk, and then Grease will continue driving up S. Evanston and park somewhere north of the park.
3) Grease will be jumped into Rhex.
4) Flying overwatch will be his two Fly Spy drones
5) Amy's spirit of Man will be told to see if anyone is in the park (using up a 2nd service)

If that is the basic plan, great, if there is something I got wrong, please let me know.

In addition, what 6 devices will be slaved to Overkill's deck (if any)?

Since it's a pretty smart spirit, I'd give him a more involved and precise task, asking him to assess the threat level of the living and non-living entities found in the park, to the best of his abilities while not taking too many risks himself, or something along those lines. With a logic of 5 and intuition of 6, that spirit should be able to come up with a good strategy to accomplish this task, I believe, and it is well within his expertise, especially as a Man spirit.

What I think I can expect from that service is something like this. On top of counting and observing in the astral, he might choose to assense their auras to get a clear picture, and might manifest (maybe using concealment on himself to hide if deemed necessary, even though he can choose to be high up in the sky) to observe what kind of weapons they have in the physical world, as well as to assess any defensive positions they may have.

Is this far-fetched or reasonable?

I think we were going to have the drones do a sweep of the park using thei sensors to determine if anyone is there. Once we've identified possible impediments to our movement, we might have Amy's spirit go roust them (thus not using a service from the spirit to search the park but saving them for actual engagement).


Isn't it (DRx3)? Or does it already include the devices Overkill has slaved.

ETA: Good news/Bad News. Got a new computer for work. Unfortunately, they are only allowing DropBox access through the web, so I'll probably be updating DropBox stuff from home.

My Blizdrive (Renraku Tsurugi) has a device rating of 3, so can have 9 devices slaved to it.

Drave item's that are slaved: Datajack, Hermes Ikon Commlink, Cybereyes, Earbud Audio Enhancement, SCK Model 100, Ares Crusader 2.

I could probably scratch a couple to make (the Earbud and Eyes) room for Grease's Rig, as well as their 3 main commlinks. Tips on which slaved items should have the highest priority to safeguard would be appreciated.

The one note I'd have is that Grease would only have 1 fly-spy on overwatch. That way, if Overkill wants to protect something from hacking, it's 1 less than to worry about.
-DrZ

ETA: Grease's RCC gives him a Firewall of 4. Not sure if that factors into the priority of which devices you're slaving. Also, I think if he's jumped in it's pretty tough to take command of his drone, short of physically jacking in.

The only real concern with the drone would be if it got dataspiked. You being jumped in pretty much takes primacy over any other control method.

I just updated my last IC post with my gear so I don't have to go wading through it all. If the gear indicates it is wireless with a (W) it is set to run silently. None of my gear performs matrix actions as far as I am aware, other than my commlink, but I hopefully shouldn't need to use it for any matrix related stuff. I am going to slave all of my devices to my Hermes Ikon.

Ok - lots to respond to

1) I was counting the Deck as 9 devices capable, but I figured at the very least Overkill would want his commlink, eyes and datajack slaved. (I wasn't counting any of the other things, since the equipment list doesn't mark them as running wireless on.) Overkill, if you are going to run stuff with wireless on, just put a (W) next to the item on your list.

2) Duly noted on the 1 Fly Spy, not two

3) Amy - that isn't an unrealistic request. Bear in mind the spirit is not going to give you specific weapon models - it might say "submachine gun" but it won't say "Ingram Smartgun"

Yeah of course! That's more than enough.

One more thing:

How far away do you want to be when you send the spirit in to scan? Still on the Fronts side of E. Smoky Run?

Well I'd only send him if the fly spy can't do the job well enough, as suggested by Jack. In any case, I'd only send him when I'm close enough to the action. What's the range on our telepathic link?

600 meters. You can send him farther away than that, but then it would be a remote service, and would use up all your services.

It appears that you can be on the far side of E. Smoky Run (i.e. outside of Yak territory) and still be within 600 meters.

Ok - update:

So:

1) Grease will use his Fly Spy to sweep the park.
If he sees anyone, we'll cross that bridge.

2) If he sees no one, the team will drive as I described above, and get out at the entry point, and Grease will park the car further up the road, while jumped into Rhex

3) Overkill has his Datajack, Hermes Ikon Commlink, Cybereyes, Earbud Audio Enhancement, SCK Model 100, Ares Crusader 2 slaved, leaving room for at least 3 more devices, I'm assuming it would be at least the Fly Spy and two more - more if he frees up some room. Need clarification as to what exactly that will be.

4) Assuming no one at the park, the team will sneak through the treeline to the grave site, and then Amy will dismiss her spirit of Man, and summon a spirit of Earth to dig up the bodies.

Again, if I'm wrong, let me know.

Scratch that. I don't see why not to use the spirit. If there's no one around, it will confirm this for us and I won't need him anymore anyway, so might as well use the service. If there are people in the park according to the flyspy, then we probably want to check if they have magical/astral support and the spirit can go check that out for us as well. He might even have useful info, like who's an adept or mage, who has cyberware, etc. (depending on rolls, but it's a possible piece of info).

What do you guys think?

If the plan is to ditch the spirit as soon as we get to the dig site, then I concur. That said, you may want to bank a service to have him be able to fight for us if we get into trouble *before* we get there. So, not a useful opinion on my part at all!

-DrZ

If the spirit still owes Amy two services and it can scan the park with one service, you might as well. If the Spirit had the Fear power, I would have said just let the FlySpy do its thing and then send the spirit to go scare the drek out of anyone in the park using its power. Since it doesn't, might as well have it take a gander and report back, then keep it until we're set up at the dig site.

OK - IC thread going up, this will include the sweep of the park by the Fly Spy, which will be running silent and slaved to Overkill's deck.

It should put you just on the other side of the Yak border, probably a minute out from your destination.

Will still give you plenty of time to decide any other things slaved to the deck, as well as whether or not to send in the spirit.

Remember how we didn't want the spirit to use concealment on the car? We might want to have it use it on the four of us on foot as we head over to the gravesite.

Updated the map

ETA - the Fire Pit is approximately 150 meters from the grave site.

I added what devices are running wireless to my last IC post listing gear. I dropped the Earbud, so I have 4 slots total remaining which means I can add Grease's FlySpy as well as each team members' commlink to my PAN.

Think I should I drop my Cybereyes from the list so I can add Grease's Control Rig or Rhex? Not sure which choice would be better.

If Grease is running the drones through his RCC, I'm not sure if they can be slaved to Overkill's deck (since they would be slaved through his RCC and I don't think a device can be a slave to two different masters). The PAN section of the rules is pretty screwed up to be honest since RAW basically says if you're accessing the Matrix with a commlink/RCC/deck, you can't form a PAN (since your persona subsumes the device icon and personas aren't listed as valid icons to be part of a PAN). Since people are presumed to be walking around in AR, it gets ugly and nonsensical...

That's my understanding, that a master cannot be a slave as well.

Thus, if I slave my gun to my commlink, I can't then slave my commlink to a deck.

I thought (I guess incorrectly) that for this encounter that the Fly Spy was going to be slaved to the deck, not the RCC.

I will have the Fly-Spy record the conversation of the men in tracksuits. Am I able to tell anything about them? Asian, Eastern European? Can I make that much distinction of the language? I'd share the recording within the team, in case anyone can pick it up.

-DrZ

ETA: I'll protect my own stuff to make it easier. Be ready to rescue RHex when he gets bricked from my lack of defensive skills; he's worth more than you warren rats put together!

ETA2: Actually, I take it back- let's run it with Overkill protecting them. I'm only rigging one a time- it's ok to have them slaved to his Deck, so long as I can get in and rig them live.

-DrZ

ETA3: My understanding is that the RCC is just so I can deck multiple drones at once, and issue broad commands. If I'm just using one, that seems less necessary.

I think the drone could still be slaved to the commlink, although the whole master/slave + owner thing gets a little weird at that point. At least based on the last time I looked at what Aaron had written on the matter on the official boards. With that said, I don't think any of it has appeared in the official errata yet so I think we bow to your determination.

ETA: The RCC lets you deal with multiple drones at once, but it also acts as a transmitter. You need something to contact the drone, which could be a commlink, RCC, or cyberdeck. The only time where you only need a control rig is if you're directly plugged into the drone/vehicle (probably not too useful with Rhex unless you turn him into a thunder wheelchair of destruction).

It looks like the only master/slave/owner consideration is that you are the owner of the device, which you presumably can be (contrary to Aaron's position) and still have a device slaved to another person's device. It also circles around to the whole personas can't be part of a PAN, and your drone is essentially replaced by your persona when you jump into it.

@Grease,

They definitely look Asian. None of the team speaks the language they are speaking.

@Jack,

I've seen all sorts of things about masters/slaves on the boards.

Some people say you can, some people say you can't. The rules are unclear - for me, the issue is if you allow a device to be slaved to another device, which is then slaved to a third device, it allows a deck to conceal (in Overkill's case) 9 devices - lets assume 9 DR 6 commlinks, which each then slave 18 DR 6 commlinks, and so on, and so on, and so on. It would the give his Sleaze attribute to all of them, no?

They will probably clear it up in the Matrix book, but for now we'll play it this way.

I think the RAI is pretty well-established that you can't daisy-chain anymore. So, if Jack slaved his Hermes Ikon to Overkill's deck, it would be able to resist detection with Logic (Overkill's?) + Sleaze (Overkill's Deck's Sleaze rating). BUT, any devices Jack has slaved to his commlink only receive the benefits from being slaved to the commlink. While his Hermes Ikon maybe difficult to spot due to the added protection from the cyberdeck, his HK wouldn't benefit from the Sleaze attribute of the cyberdeck since it is only slaved to the commlink.

Personally, I prefer the ruling being that devices that are slaves in a PAN cannot be the master of another PAN. It's a lot cleaner.

ETA: With that said, it makes spotting silently running wireless-on stuff a relatively simple task unless the only devices you have running silently are all slaved to the decker's deck and everything else has its wireless turned off.

Glad we are on the same page - no need for too much complication.

It does, although running silent helps a little. It also means that if you are sneaking around somewhere, you just have to prioritize what you want accessing the matrix at any given time.

I suppose, depending on how expensive they turn out to be in the Matrix book, you could pitch in as a team and buy your own Host....

Also - ready when you guys are for the next part - what is the plan now?

I think the simplest way of running it if you wanted to allow masters to be slaves is as follows:

1) No daisy-chaining benefits. Any master-slave benefit/penalty is only received one level up/down.
2) The master/slave relationship has no impact on ownership. (So, just because Grease's drone is slaved to Overkill's deck doesn't prevent him from jumping into it through his own commlink/RCC, although he apparently wouldn't get to use any of the RCCs benefits like sharing/noise reduction since that requires forming a PAN between the RCC & Drones).
3) A device slaved to a master defends with the master's matrix attribute and the master's owner's mental attribute. (see example p. 233 (top))

ETA: My biggest hang-up with the entirety of the Matrix stuff is the part where they failed to include Personas as being viable masters in a PAN. Just about everyone is using a persona at all times in AR at a minimum, so they have to be able to be the master of a PAN. Anyway, that's neither here nor there.

Plan:

Um... have the spirit use Concealment on itself, Amy, Overkill, Jack, and RHex. We slip out of the vehicle just south of the park before Grease's vehicle would be seen by anyone in the park and then make our way through the treeline towards the grave site. Grease can either head north on the road (possibly acting as something of a distraction for the track-suited Guidokuza to watch while we sneak our way over or just do a three point turn and wait for us.

Thoughts?

ETA: Jack's going to turn his Wired Reflexes on as soon as he gets out of the car. I think for now he is going to leave his wireless designated devices on and running silently unless they start to see folks heading their way, then he'll turn them off.

Works for me, although Grease balks at the idea of using the BMW as a distraction. It's defenseless! I think the 3 point turn works best- you don't want to be escaping in a direction you're unfamiliar with.

-DrZ

ETA: I'll throw up an IC post.

-DrZ

By distraction, I basically meant having you just drive up the road. They'd probably focus on the car at 3AM rather than looking at the trees we're sneaking through. But, it would probably put them on a higher level of alert than they are now, so the 3-point turn may work out the best.

Ok - so, assuming no one tells me anything different, I'm going to roll Sneak tests for you going through the treeline to get to the gravesite. Your stats are as follows:

Jack
Agi 5 Sneaking 4=9 dice

Grease
Agi 3 Sneaking 3 = 6 dice (From my understanding, the bonus for Control Rig and VR bonus applies to "Vehicle Tests" - which are on page 199, and seem to apply to piloting a vehicle in dangerous conditions, rather than Sneaking around. If someone can find anywhere that shows that he should get either of these bonuses to a stealth test with that vehicle, I'm happy to apply it)

Amy
Agi 3 Sneaking 1 = 4 dice - Urban doesn't apply in this case

Overkill
Agi 5 Sneaking 2 = 7 dice

Let me know if the spirit of Man is manifesting and using its Conceal power.

I'll say that I figured a VCR provided its bonus to pretty much any action performed while jumped in, but I'll look for a citation.

ETA: I can't really find one. The only place that really talks about vehicle stealth is in the Sensor section (which this presumably is not). The main reference I did find was in the VR and Rigging section where it described "Vehicle actions" as "Vehicle Control Tests, Gunnery Tests, and Sensor Tests."

Personally, I'd allow the Control Rig it to apply to pretty much any action performed when jumped in that deals with the vehicle (including gunnery and anything limited by the vehicles attributes. Riggers already seem pretty mutli-skill dependent as it is.

Here is the reason why I don't think you get it.

Page 452 under Control Rig:

When you’re jumped into a vehicle or drone, the control rig provides its Rating as a dice pool bonus on all Vehicle skill tests.

And on Page 146, they define Vehicle Skills as:

The skills you mainly want to look at as a rigger are the Vehicle Active skills. Those are all of the skills that begin with the word “Pilot,” plus the Gunnery skill so you can shoot from your vehicles.

So, the stealth test is made using his Pilot Ground Vehicle Skill - which I don't believe it is, then I don't think he would get the bonus.

So to clarify, does the CR provide a bonus for sensor tests (using EW a non-vehicle skill) or does it only get the VR bonus?

I think you may need to add a section to the Rigger rules. This should also include what actions get the CR + VR bonus and which ones only get the VR bonus.

Oh wait, I did find something, but it's obviously up to you on how to handle it.

Under Drone Infiltration (p. 270), it states:

1. The errata doesn't say anything, but I am pretty sure that should be Stealth + Agility [Handling]
2. Given that it is limited by Handling, it seems like that might make it a Vehicle Test. But that would be an expansive interpretation. It would line up with the write-up for Drone Perception though, which is limited by [Sensor] and the entry indicates you are using the sensor array of the drone to perceive.

ETA: If you back into the argument by looking at Vehicle Stats, Handling is defined as: "represents the vehicle’s agility and responsiveness.
This value is the base limit for Vehicle Tests made where maneuverability is the most important feature." Certainly not conclusive or definitive, but I think it potentially adds support.

Ok then

Stealth + Agility[Handling] it is

I think the best interpretation would be this:

Anything that is limited by Handling, Sensor, Speed or Accuracy (for vehicle weapons, not regular weapons) you gain the CR bonus to.

ETA - I edited mine as you were editing yours

I edited my last post with potentially further confusion. Check my ETA, LOL.

I think I am getting to the point where I would run it as any test that is or can be limited by a vehicle stat counts as a vehicle test.

Ok then, in light of the above:

Jack
Agi 5 Sneaking 4=9 dice

Grease
Agi 3 Sneaking 3 CR Bonus 2 VR Bonus 2= 10 dice

Amy
Agi 3 Sneaking 1 = 4 dice - Urban doesn't apply in this case

Overkill
Agi 5 Sneaking 2 = 7 dice

Let me know if the spirit of Man is manifesting and using its Conceal power.

Lord I hope so... although, doesn't Amy have Invisibility?

I could for 1,000 2,250 Grumble, I forgot about the Cost of Living Adjustment

ETA: I'm going to the symphony tonight, so I'll be out of pocket from 5:30 to probably 10PM or so, CST. Doing Mahler's Resurrection Symphony (#2 in c minor). Should be awesome.

She does - would be a good idea to cast it probably

So, I mostly followed that bit about what skills I can roll with my rigger jacked in. I don't have a "Stealth" program for my Doberman, so it eliminates that whole can of worms (the dog could be better at sneaking around than me!)

I also will be running silent, as suggested by the rules that Jack quoted, so that's another -2. Doesn't do me much good to be skulking about if there's a big "DOBERMAN PERIMETER PATROL DRONE MK IV.II" ARO floating above the cyberpooch.

As a reminder, this is the Doberman's sensor suite: Camera, Omni-directional microphone, directional microphone, ultrasound, radio signal scanner, motion sensor, olfactory sensor, vision magnification.

-DrZ

Concealment is very powerful: it removes 5 dice from perception checks of the people who might see/hear us. I hope other modifiers will apply such as visibility or just being distracted...

Invisibility: It's hit or miss, either the target resists, or it doesn't. If it resists, there's an opposed sneak test as normal. Also, it won't cover sounds. Other problem: if I sustain the spell, I get -2 dice to my sneaking test. But I can cast it at force 3 and sustain it with Focused Concentration. I could choose to use regents on the spellcasting in the hope of getting more than 3 hits (out of 14 dice).

Also, Phantasm could be used to create a realistic distraction, with a lot of noise too if we wanted. I could have Los Mags showing up, or the Lone Star on foot in the park, or Triads with a bazooka, anything that will likely get the attention of the Yakuza.

My preferred course of action is to ask the spirit to conceal us, cast force 3 invis on myself as a backup (though without regents so I don't waste resources), and then be ready to cast Phantasm in the other direction if ever someone spots us.

Do you guys think this will work?

ETA: Also, are you guys seriously suggesting that Grease should use his meat body's agility while he's rigging? From the book: "Agility measures things like hand-eye coordination, flexibility, nimbleness, and balance." I think Intuition made a lot more sense.

The book is (fairly) clear on this one. Besides- his intuition and agility are the same anyways.

-DrZ

ETA: I like your plan; it should work well. Conceal + Invis. I wouldn't cause a distraction, I'd prefer to just get in and out quietly.

Okay then, this sounds like the plan

So, Overkill usually posts early in the morning - I'll be looking for him to tell me exactly what he is slaving to his deck (those of you who want stuff slaved to his deck should offer stuff up, btw.

Once that happens, I will:

1) Roll for Amy's Invisibility spell at Force 3
2) Roll for each of you for stealth
3) Roll for any Perception tests (applying the -5 die modifier for Concealment from the spirit - along with any other appropriate modifiers).

Post an IC result of the above.

This should be around 8:30-845 EST

We're not really suggesting it, it's what the devs are saying is how it works. They give a relatively lame reason (IMO) that Agility is largely tied to the motor cortex and other parts of the brain (which is a valid argument for hand-eye coordination and balance). I don't like it because I think it just about places Riggers over Technos for needing every Ability in the book.

@DrZ: Sorry, when the book was saying Stealth in that instance, it apparently meant Sneaking. When you're jumped in, you obviously don't use Autosoft. Of course, they didn't bother fixing that in the errata.

@Overkill: If you have a free slot, I would slave my skilljack to your deck.

Looking forward to it! There's always a ton of activity to browse through in the morning

It would be nice to have Amy's commlink slaved, but if you all have more important stuff to slave to the deck, go ahead.

Drave item's that are slaved: Datajack, Hermes Ikon Commlink, SCK Model 100, Ares Crusader 2

Group's items: Jack's Commlink and Skilljack, Grease's Commlink, Amy's Commlink

I have room for one more item: wasn't sure if I could actually slave his rig, RCC, or Drones