If you can think of a realistic way for the ground to be wet/slippery by the crosses, I'm all ears.

A water spirit with Weather control could make it rain over the Arsenal given a few hours. This would make the area wet, and probably cover our tracks as well. This evening, if I have enough services, I could use the accident power to make it even harder for them.

That's not a bad plan. You would need to make sure to erase whatever sigs that would leave, but it's not a bad plan at all.

@Lobo: I know it has been pretty wildly hot, has it also been uncharacteristically dry as well?

It has been dry - if you recall the lake is short of its normal levels. It also at the very least has not rained in 4 days (since the adventure started 4 days ago, and it has not rained in game yet).

The forecast tonight was clear, so a rain over one particular area of the Arsenal would be a little weird

Btw guys, check the range from Overkill's firing position to the area where they parked there cars, I am thinking perhaps MARKing and bricking them should they try to escape.

Btw guys, check the range from Overkill's firing position to the area where they parked there cars, I am thinking perhaps MARKing and bricking them should they try to escape.

All right so no rain then.

Do you think an earth spirit (possibly with the Engulf power) could do the job of erasing our tracks in a way that looks natural-ish?

Are we worried about our tracks right now? I think we've taken efforts to avoid leaving any in the immediate vicinity of the site. We also know that they are coming in from the east based on the tracks, so we've avoided crossing their tracks.

I don't really see a problem then.

At night it'll be really hard to spot any tracks when you're not specifically looking for it.

I was under the impression you wanted to make the ground slippery to make them less stable.

The only thing I was looking for was something to carry two disguised grenades over to those crosses so we don't leave tracks in the immediate vicinity of the crosses in the off-chance they get here while it is still light to set-up.

Just brought up a more urgent matter ic. What are our options for astral camouflage, if any??

ETA: I finally understand what you want the spirit to do and that's not a problem at all.

None that I know of, other than putting stuff between us and the viewer.

If they do recon, our cover will be blown, but Amy will know that it is and be able to warn the others. If they don't do recon, it might be safer to spring our trap earlier rather than later, because they might still be able to see us if they use astral perception on their surroundings.

ETA: Hiding in the water makes you really stand out in the astral. This could be a good reason to opt for bushes instead.

Do you have a page reference? I was trying to find where water was discussed WRT astral space.

Run and Gun page 157 seems to indicate the opposite - at least with the ocean. All water gives at least a -1 die penalty with possibly as high as -4 due to the presence of microorganisms.

Remember background count applies as a negative modifier as well

Wow that's really interesting about the water.

Oh I know. Hide behind the crosses for extra background count

Let's do that grenade thing then.

Summoning a F2 Air Spirit
12d6.hits(5)=4

Spirit Resist
2d6.hits(5)=0
Critical Glitch that probably doesn't change anything

Resist 2S drain
13d6.hits(5)=5

The force 2 spirit is more than capable of planting the grenades for you under some leaves for one of its services, leaving you with one service left.

You guys can cover that IC, and then what's next?

When you guys leave, are you going back the way you came? Or are you still planning on heading out to the visitor center first?

Are there actions Overkill can take to help hide them from detection?

I mostly meant slaving them to your deck and having them run silently.

Gotcha

Do I have time to work on Rhex?

I was considering mounting my SMG to it, and hiding it close by their escape route. It could also be used as a decoy to possibly draw some of their retaliatory attacks away from the team.

Poor Rhex, he's going to get shot in the face again...

Remember that it can't shoot, so if all you want to do is make it look like it can shoot the SMG, it will probably take you all of 10 minutes to rig that up.

So, as far as I can tell, you guys are done at the sacrifice scene?

If so, and if you travel back the way you came, you can put up a post that brings you back to the abandoned house (and if you want, advance the time to 5:30, at which point Overkill is finished).

If not, let me know what you need.

Can't Grease RC or jump into Rhex and shoot the SMG? Don't need an autosoft for that...

I'm still a little torn over the visitor center. It doesn't seem like we had any problems getting in this way, but it might not hurt if we checked it out. How much farther or shorter would it be to walk there vice walking back to the entrance we made?

I can't think of anything else my character would want to do.

For the team in general, I think Jack has determined the ambush positions correctly. Are we going to keep a constant watch on the area with a fly-spy? I think that would be wise so there are no surprises when we come back to lay the ambush at the beginning of the evening. At what time do we want to be there?

That's a good idea. We should leave a Fly-Spy or the S-B here to keep an eye out (slaved to the Overkill's cyberdeck, of course). I think we need to get there as early as possible, especially if we have some intention of trying to put together a way to overcome astral surveillance. A lot of it is going to depend on how long it takes to make any remaining repairs that would be required.

Rhex is basically out of action and cannot be used (autopilot or remote or rigger control) until it gets fixed (at least 1 box of damage)

Going to the visitor center is a 2.5 mile walk in a straight line, if you follow the road it is longer.

Going back the way you came is only 1.5 miles.

Ah sorry, thought he had been somewhat repaired. If it's 2.5 straight line (which we probably won't be able to pull off), I would say we just head back down the path we came.

Ok - figure you go a little faster on the way out, so instead of an hour and a half, take 45 minutes or so, plus another 30 minutes to the house, so you'd be back at around 4:45 or so, and Overkill will be finished about 15 minutes later - if you want to put up the IC. Nothing happens to you on the way out

Cool. I figure we can pick up the IC when we get back to the safe house. We have a rudimentary trap set. I would say that we need to be in position no earlier than 8PM. We would have to wait for four hours, but this is basically hunting, so that isn't a bad wait.

I just realized that Amy has the Influence group, and with it the Leadership skill (DP of 9). I find it strange to even ask, but couldn't she direct some of the more difficult technical skill tests that Overkill and Grease are making, for an added 3 dice on average? How do you interpret the use of 'directing' with the Influence skill Lobo? When can it be used and how?

ETA: I just thought of a fool-proof way to completely hide ourselves from the astral and physical and possibly spring a very dangerous trap also. What if Amy summons a powerful earth spirit and make it dig a big enough whole for all of us underneath the crosses and make the top of that artificial cave collapse when our targets are on top of us? A simpler course of action could be to have the spirit just hide us with a voluntary engulf, and spit us out when it's time to spring the ambush. In both cases, we're completely invisible to astral recon, and very well hidden from physical perception as well! What do you think?

With regards to leadership.

It requires that the person you are directing accepts you as their superior - page 141:

"The Leadership skill is about coaxing, convincing,
threatening, or challenging your subordinates, or getting
people to accept you as a superior. If you lead
people who accept you as their (lone) superior, even
temporarily, you can take a Complex Action to make a
Simple Leadership + Charisma [Social] Test. How this
helps depends on what you choose to do."

Emphasis mine - it then goes on to tell you what you can do with the skill. The action you would be looking for is

"Direct: Your hits act as a Teamwork Test for one subordinate’s
skill or Composure Test that they perform on
or before their next Action Phase"

I don't think that either Overkill or Grease would accept you as their lone superior in any area besides perhaps the magical realm, and certainly not with regards to fixing drones or other hardware tests. So, for me, no you can't use Leadership to help out on the repairs.

With regards to the plan, here are my issues with it:

1) No such thing (that I can find) as a "voluntary Engulf" - if a spirit engulfs you, you start taking the damage as indicated by spirit type on page 396.

2) Unless you wanted the spirit to dig a hole, you 3 climb in it, then put up some sort of support system to support weight, and then had the earth spirit throw dirt on top of that, I don't see how you put a "roof" so to speak on top of your hole made of dirt - there would be nothing to support it from falling down on you.

3) Apart from the technical difficulties, I'm not so sure you want to have someone the size of Truck fall down a hole with you in it - even if he doesn't land on you, you probably don't want to be within arm's length of him.

Could I try and repair the damage? I know I don't have the skill, but its Logic based, and my logic is 8.?

I think the issue is that we don't have the correct kind of repair kit/shop/facility for it.

Haha sure that makes sense. I was just trying to think outside the box here.

Maybe some kind of trench is more feasible. What could be used to cover the top of it in the astral? I don't think dirt would do much, but what about plants? Is it possible to grab patches of live grass and put it on top of a hole that we're in and that would serve as a trench during the ambush?

The problem is that Aeronautic and Automotive mechanic are non-defaulting skills - unlike Armorer.

So to putter around with various firearms, fixing little things on them, attaching accessories, etc, you roll 7 dice (Logic -1 penalty for defaulting).

To fix Rhex, you are not even allowed to roll the dice, as you don't have the skill.

Yeah, I think we need to get a good idea of what can be used to hide our auras. From my reading of the book, astral sight is generally blocked just like normal sight, so if we can do anything to break LOS between us and the observer, we should be in decent shape. It's complicated by the fact that auras extend outside of clothing, so it seems like we would need to do a bit more than just throw a tarp over each of us, but a layer of dirt might work. Maybe.

You mean something like this

The one issue you are going to face is that digging a hole right near a lake, you run a definite risk of hitting ground water. I mean, not a big deal, assuming you don't mind squatting in water for a couple of hours.

Yes, something like that, definitely.

Not a big deal, and an earth spirit would have good intuition about this I bet.

Jack's right that blocking LOS in a significant way will be sufficient. So maybe we should set that up right now while there's still sunlight? I could summon an earth spirit to do it since we don't have a shovel and it'll be much faster.

What do you all think?

If an Earth spirit can dig us some fox holes, that would be bad ass. Those are a pain in the ass to dig.

ETA: I want the basket traps from the original Red Dawn.

Here is my understanding of astral space.

Non living objects look like gray versions of themselves - they are still opaque.
Living objects look like glowing colorful images of themselves.

So, if you have a wall between you and someone astrally perceiving - they can't see you.

If you are crouched down behind a wall such that only the top of your head is sticking up, it is much more problematic than if you were doing that to someone with normal vision - since the wall is gray, but the top of your head is glowing red(or yellow, or whatever).

Hiding up against a tree should work (or at least it would require a Perception test) since both you and the tree are glowing. (unless it is a dead tree, at which point, its gray, and you are screwed).

Does that help?

Yup.

And don't forget that a thin glass panel completely block line of sight in the astral, for instance.

Anyway, if we have branches and dirt on top of our heads and our bodies lie completely in a hole in the ground, then there's no way to be seen astrally, and that's really all we need for the ambush to be a success, so I think we should do it.

I think so, I guess my suggestion would be that we hide ourselves so that we are totally outside of LOS of the bad guys (spider holes). Hide a drone to provide us with a continuous feed of what's going on at the site. Pop out when they're all focused on the ritual and not paying attention, pop the grenade, and light them up. A spirit of the earth might not be a bad idea here. Engulfing may be a solid option. Does engulfing suck you all the way into the ground? Would be a good way to potentially neutralize a mage by breaking their LOS.

You don't actually go into the ground - I picture it more as the spirit surrounding you and suffocating you.

After all, a fire spirit can engulf you even if you aren't anywhere near a fire.

I wasn't sure given the description of the power



With that said, making it so a caster can't really cast seems pretty OP to me.

Well, I think at the very least the caster should be able to cast spells at the spirit engulfing it...

Yeah engulf is a pretty strong option, just as powerful as an elemental attack but with different side effects depending on the spirit. The stun effect from electricity isn't bad at all though, to be fair. An air spirit would have a higher dice pool to make whichever attack, too(+5 dice!), so that's something to take into consideration as well. It's also fast if there's a pursuit, and it has the accident and concealment powers. The main issue is that the air spirit has a much lower body attribute (-6!) so it can't take as much punishment. It also has higher dodge and higher init, so overall I think the air spirit is my top choice for a combat situation. The concealment power in itself can be a massive boost.