How far out are we here? How far is it to the medical facility? How far to the garage? How far from the garage to the facility?

Bye
Thanee

Here is a google maps representation: https://www.google.de/maps/dir/49.6371186,8...#33;4m1!3e0

The northern one is the facility and the southern one the garage, I suppose?

And we are currently somewhere in that larger forest area to the east?

Bye
Thanee

@Slob
James left the building and waited outside, where Muhme can't hear them. bnc would never talk like this in front of the boss herself. Would you care to edit your post?

What he said wouldn’t change, but I’ve edited it as the new location may impact James/bnc’s response.

thanks

btw, the reason why I'm using "James" instead of bnc is because the characters always perceive James's appearance and voice not bnc's. I'm kinda trying to mimick the difference in seeing bnc and knowing it's bnc by referring to her/him as James.

@Jack are there any other findings of people who look like her (it should be virtually impossible in the Sixth World to leave no traces if you're as unique a person as she is) or share her characteristics? She'd try to not only search her out by name but also by virtually all other clues she has on her (including the damn witch's hut ^^)

Nope - it's costly to have your digital footprint erased - but possible.
And that should tell you something too...

I got you, thanks!

gilga posted his Assensing check in his IC post.

Ah, I missed that spoiler. Thanks.
Edited my post accordingly.

I don't think you can mask the fact that you are astrally active.

Bye
Thanee

That would be bad news for all dual natured people - especially vampires.

That is the main disadvantage of being dual-natured. Besides, there is a way to counter that for dual-natured beings. I think it was in Forbidden Arcana.

Yep, Dual-Natured Defender.

But I am rather sure, that it is exactly as I said. If you are active in astral space, that particular state is completely obvious to everyone that can perceive the astral.

With Masking you could look like a mundane, who still somehow is astrally active, or you could look like a spirit on the astral. But you cannot hide the fact, that you are astrally active.

Bye
Thanee

Do you have a page number for that?
Masking changes the appearance of your aura and your astral form

What you are thinking of might be the following passage:
"Anything active on the astral plane, including spirits, active foci, dual-natured beings, etc., has a tangible astral form. These forms are more colorful and brighter than auras, as they are astrally “real.”" core p.312

and
"Like physical perception, you don’t need to make a test to see things that are immediately obvious (and since astral forms are bright and vibrant, this means that most astral forms are easy to spot). You only need to roll the dice when your target is trying to hide or when you’re trying to observe in detail—then you make an Assensing Test to see what you can see." p.313

The obiousness clause doesn't apply when masking is involved.

The wording seems to be relatively clear:

The point is, that Masking nowhere allows you to not look as if you were astrally active, i.e. have an astral form. It allows you to look like a different astral form (a spirit or even a focus, I think).

But it's no big deal, if we do it differently here. I don't mind. Was more of a sidenote, really.

Bye
Thanee

Since masking is in my list for Anna (didn't feel right to initiate her again so quickly) tell me what you decided. Can it mask being astrally active? It probably implies that astral form that do not see through the mask will not attack you. So considerably more useful for astral projection.

@Thanee

It doesn't say the opposite either.
Being astral active is only visible through the more vibrant colors of your astral form. If you change the astral form to look different, you also mask the fact that you are astrally active.
I'm pretty sure that even some official sources had vampire maskerade on the astral as mundane, not astrally active people (otherwise quite a lot of plots would make no sense at all).

But anyway, yes in my games, masking can change even such basic elements about auras/astral forms.

I generally read rules this way: They do what they say. That's it. Meaning, they do not have to say what they do not do (that would be a pretty extensive list), only what they do.

Masking says, that you can do certain things (namely, you can let your Magic Rating appear higher or lower or zero (mundane); and you can have your astral form appear as another type of astral form (spirit, focus, etc.)), and that's the extent of it. Anything it does not list there, you cannot do. That's how I read it, anyways.



I think the "problem" in this logic is, that you only have an astral form, if you are astrally active. Changing the form does not change that fact. You will still be astrally active, just with a different astral form.

I believe, you are mixing "aura" and "astral form" here.



That last part actually highlights what I mean pretty well. As soon as you become astrally active, you gain an astral form, which is like a glowing light bulb on the astral.

Masking allows you to change it (i.e. have it glow in a different color or have a different form), but it does not allow you to shut it off.

What you let Masking do, effectively, is to completely erase your astral form.

Bye
Thanee

Ah, now I see where you are coming from.

Ok, a valid interpretation.

Mine though is this: Making an Astral Form look like it's just an unawakened Aura is part of Masking

"Anything active on the astral plane, including spirits, active foci, dual-natured beings, etc., has a tangible astral form. These forms are more colorful and brighter than auras, as they are astrally “real.”

You don't errase or make things invisible - you just make the astral form look like an unawakened aura, dimming its luminescense so to speak.

"You learn to change the appearance of your aura (and astral form). You can make it look mundane, or make your Magic Rating look higher or lower by up to your grade."

That explicitly spells out, that you can make you aura and astral form look mundane. Since mundanes don't have astral forms, it therefore must make them look like mundane auras.

I think that Mundanes can use drugs to gain astral forms in this game through deepweed (bnc did it), and in Forbidden Arcana game Shade was claimed to allow actual projection. (not sure if GM fiat or hard rules). What happens in that case? They are actually mundane so how can astral forms know that they have an astral form rather than an aura (I mean you can see through masking) but in that case there is no mask.

If a mundane person studies assessing, can one stealthily watch people in the astral without being perceived as an astral form that can be interrupted with?

As I said, while I believe this is beyond the intent here, I have no problem with it, if you want to do it like that.

So, this is merely for ... scientific purposes.



That is the same as removing the astral form.

I believe you see the astral form as a stronger, brighter kind of aura, but it's much more than that in my eyes.

An astral form is not an aura. It still has an aura (though the two are probably more merged together in the astral, as it is no longer just a reflection). It's your body in astral space as your actual body is your body in the material world. An astral form has attributes and is tangible.

You cannot have your body look like an aura. That makes no sense at all to me.



I actually don't think the "mundane" here refers to the "(astral form)", but simply to the "aura", as mundane only makes sense in context with an aura. An aura can be mundane. An astral form cannot, as it has little to do with your level of magic. It's probably brighter, if the magic is stronger, but even a mundane's astral form is much brighter than even the most powerful aura, because it is actually present in astral space and not just a reflection.

And yes, mundanes can have an astral form. It just requires some help.

Bye
Thanee

I just love you, dude! <3

@Volker: Just in case you forgot... bnc and Nova treated quite a few wounds together, so she should be aware that Nova has some pretty solid knowledge there. Also, you have seen her R6 medkit in use quite a few times.

Bye
Thanee

Yeah, but using First aid and having a medical background are two different things entirely.

Of course.

Just seemed a little surprising to hear that question now.

Bye
Thanee

It's basically bnc not acknowledging that anyone else beside her can be smart, too.

Jack, what skills/checks would there be involved if we try to pass as official representatives?
I assume that you'd want to see a Forgery check. Would there also be databases to hack in order to deliver the forged authentification to wherever they would double-check? Or anything else?

Also, how much time would the forgery take up?

Anna also has the disguise skill and equipment if it is needed.

You need:
Disguise test each
A hack of their host to place the credentials (and find out what's going on in there)
Forgery for your credentials ( Extended Test 1 hour, 3 successes minimum)

neat, thanks!
"their host" meaning BuMoNa's?

Also, will I have to hack it before the forgery to find examples for what the credentials are supposed to look like?

Hi Jack, can you explain disguise kit? it says in core rules that it adds half the rating of the extended test used - but I did not see that disguise is an extended test.

First she cast analyze device: F5
analyze device (disguise kit): 19d6t5 4
analyze device (disguise kit)-resist: 6d6t5 0
+4 dice to use the disguise kit.
drain 1: 11d6t5 2

Next, she turns off the power focus, turns on the health focus, buys 4 hits on improve intuition sustains it with a health focus.
Improve intuition drain: 15d6t5 7 no drain.

So Anna has 20 dice for disguise which is enough to buy 5 hits for each disguise.

Now let's try to make it 6 hits - she can accept 6 dice with cooperation rolls (leadership anyone?) and (perhaps a bonus from the disguise kit if anyone figured that out).

Disguise Kit gives half the threshold for the extended test (which is the test to build the disguise) as a dice pool bonus (capped at +4). So, if you have a test with threshold 12 (average difficulty; see p. 48 CRB), you get a +4 dice pool bonus for the tests.

Bye
Thanee

I edited my post to start working on disguises, what is the interval of the test (would we have time for 12?, why not do threshold 8 then?)


Extended test: 20d6t5 10 - very quickly.
In case we need one for each disguise:
Extended test: 3#20d6t5 8 9 9
all tests finished with one time interval, and we sport 6 hits (from buying hits) - with this dice luck it feels a bit silly to buy the hits though

Cooperation/leadership anyone for going from 24 dice to 30?

@Volker

No, that would be the R6 host of the Sternschutz clinic, to place an authorization of your coming to fetch Rabe (otherwise it would be really weird if you showed up without anyone knowing about it - no matter how good your forgery, they wouldn't give him to you if they don't find an order in their system to do so.)
The hack is also necessary to manipulate the SIN reader beforehand, as SINs can't be casually forged.

The R4 of BuMoNa is trivial for you, so I'll allow you to just buy the necessary hits.

@gilga
basically as Thanee said: You can make two rolls: One to build a disguise (repeated for each character) to gain up to +4 dice to your disguise roll. Threshold 8 therefore is enough to accomplish that

@Jack: Does this assume that we will pose as a BuMoNa ambulance?

The idea was to go with something corporate, since that would explain our heavy augmentations and magic, which would seem unusual (at best) for a BuMoNa crew, I would guess.

But, of course, if it won't be doable within the time frame, we have to go with what we can achieve.

Bye
Thanee

Eliza offered to rent you a corporate car.
I have no idea what you want to do with the ambulance,but that was what bnc was looking for.

Is a "medical corp" not a corp?
I was searching for a medical unit that is specialized in tasks like the one we are up to, as specified in the quoted post in which I rolled the search. Medical corps are not, as in 2012, only peaceful ambulance drivers, but they sport heavily armed, magic-assisted assault teams. If you have an expensive enough contract with DocWagon, for example, they'll send a hit team and rescue you out of whatever shit almost killed you in the first place. BuMoNa has a contract with DocWagon allowing every Doc client to expect the same service from BuMoNa (see here).

So I don't really understand why a BuMoNa ambulance would not be a corporate car und what other corp than something like BuMoNa you would rent for retrieving a wounded or possibly dead asset. For me, BuMoNa sounds like the perfect corp for our heist - and with 8 scores on the matrix search, I didn't expect any less.

That's why I wrote "preferring services whose nearest facilities are within 100 km". I don't think that a team like that would be in every corner whereas I think it's self-evident that any ambulance would be within a couple of kilometers anywhere in the ADL.

@Jack thanks for explaining that. So if I understand, I roll 4 times the threshold 8 extended test.

Then I roll 4 times more with +4 to the dice-pool for careful preparation, and we all have BuMoNa disguises.


Volker makes a lot of sense to me, some crazy expensive anything included insurance may be a cover that can explain us.

No, it's fine. Just not what I had in my mental image.

Bye
Thanee

Ok, that makes a lot more sense.

Couple of points then:

Stealing/borrowing the transport of a HTR team is a lot more difficult then just having an automated ambulance vanish for a few hours.

It's also overkill for this situation since you aren't invading Sternschutz territory to get Rabe out.

Plainly spoken, you need:

- an order in Sternschutz' system that you are authorized to fetch Rabe
- the appearance of being from a legitimate corporation
- forged credentials to complement the disguise

Arriving in a heavily armed Roadmaster with the appearance that you are about to storm the facility would be rather contra productive to any cooperation from their side.

Eliza can rent an executive limo for you almost completely legally.

I'm sorry if I was or am being unclear. I think my point still has not arrived entirely.

I did not mean that we should mimick such a HTR team and then just collect a corpse. That would indeed be an absolute overkill.
My point is: If medic corps do ordinary medic jobs as well as HTR interventions, and I need something in between (say, collecting a heavily wounded or possibly deceased asset), then the same company would be who I would call, because they have the medical capabilities and the magic/muscles.

You write, we need "a legitimate corporation". My thought was: BuMoNa is the perfect example for such a legitimate corporation. If this kind of job would be done by a different corp, I'm fine with that, too. But what other corp would you hire for a job like this? I'm totally fine with the limo and an entirely non-medical corp as well. I just thought that would be the most natural corp to hire.

Well, my general idea was not that we represent a corp that was hired for retrieval, but the corp itself (which is a customer of π-Rate Data).

i.e. Rabe was working for "our" corp, and vanished during the incident. Then he resurfaced in the Sternschutz facility, so we (the corp) send a team of agents to retrieve him.

Since we (again, the corp) have no idea what happened, yet, it is entirely reasonable that the team is not some regular goons, but more advanced troubleshooters. With diverse talents and capabilities to handle all sorts of possible situations. And to also keep the retrieved asset safe during the travel, in case he is in danger still.

Something like that was, what I had in mind originally.


For the record, I still like that idea.

I think it will be a bit easier for those going in, as posing as BuMoNa will be more difficult compared to - pretty much - just be ourselves (no big difference between runners and corporate troubleshooters, really).

The main advantage of BuMoNa is, that we already have a possible target where we can acquire most of what we need. In the other scenario, we would still need to figure out what corp to use.

Bye
Thanee

Oooooh, now I get where I failed to grasp your idea.

Okay, that idea is cool as well, really. In your idea, Anna would also net have to spend several hours sewing uniforms out of whatever cloth she would sew them. I'm into that idea.
Taurus should have both an Ares SIN and some knowledge about Ares's corps. Let him pick any and then use the Limo Eliza provides us with.

Cool! Then we are on the same page!

Bye
Thanee

Did Taurus just become the point man on the operation? I was really hoping he could just be the guy pushing a gurney.

Whatever works though.

I don't think your position inside would change. But your knowledge might be helpful in choosing a corporation.

Bye
Thanee

+1

Cooperate troubleshooters seem similar to shadowrunners, but I think we still need uniforms or accessories like cooperate pins or something like that. They are not undercover or anything.

Yeah, I would say "business clothing". Like in the movies when there are feds or corps, they always seem to wear suits.

Bye
Thanee

That is correct - see also my little list for that.

Tell me if I have understood your plan correctly so far:

Eliza organizes a nice car for you
Anna creates disguises, which includes nice corporate clothing
bnc hacks into the host to place permissions and clear your credentials with the SIN Reader
Taurus, Anna and Nova go in, tell the clerk at the window they are here to fetch the John Doe upstairs as well as his belongings.
Clerk checks his files and sees the forged entry with your permission
You get Rabe and leave the building unmolested.
Meanwhile Sharkboy stays outside as back up should you need violence to get out again