AM has a good birthday for a trickster (she also shares it with my brother, not sure what this says about him)

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Right, someone staying behind so that they would not hear the terms, so wouldn't be subject to memory wipe. In general I'm trying to avoid floppy-body and do-it-from-the-van play, but for this Tamarind could stay outside and run surveillance. I'll try to pop up a quick IC tonight.

Body boost: 10d6t5 6

Extended spatial sense

Spatial Sense F2: 17d6t5 4

Drain resist: 14d6t5 5

No drain.


Bobby is looking for hidden observation rooms and or suspicious warded rooms.

Bobby can sense most buildings except the Ford offices (AA cooperation), and the lawyer agency. Both sites are warded with powerful wards.

If Bobby tries to assense the offices he'll discover that there is an area illusion spell shaped skillfully to the offices.

Mato's post noted that he was using his radar sensors, which are like the technological version of Spatial Sense. Do they (or his ears or his olfactory sensors) detect anything unusual?

Edit: Going to roll Art knowledge skill because I bought it for reason!

Logic 4 + Art 2 + Western European 2: 8d6t5 3 hits for Art, 4 hits including the specialization

Now that I'm thinking this through, I'm not sure how the 'staying outside' part works. Tamarind will have to sign the NDA in order to know anything about the job (presumably it forbids the signees from telling any non-signees any of the details).

So possibly the right order of operations should be that she also goes inside, signs the NDA, then leaves before hearing about the job. Then:
- if the team does not take the job, returns to supervise the Laes taking.
- if the team does take the job, returns if there are further details being provided

Does that sound about right? Or am I missing something that argues for her staying outside the whole time?

I was thinking that the NDA covers the job details prior to either accepting or declining the job (and the negotiations involved in such). If we decline, we have our memories wiped. If we accept, we do not since we need to remember the job details to do the job.

This is why I offered to have Mato either accept or decline the job on behalf of the agency so that nobody else's memories would be at risk if the agency decided to pass.

I think Tamarind is fine being in the car but gilga can say for sure.

I don't mind the characters being paranoid, but there are no mind-wiping mages in the offices and no job offers. You sign the NDA, and then they schedule a meeting with the client. If you do not reach an agreement, you agree to have THAT meeting wiped out of your memory. So the mind-wiping mages and drugs are likely to be present in the meeting with the client.


You are in the offices mainly because you did not sign the NDA at SIS. So Mr. Smith suggested you come to the office if you decide to sign the NDA after leaving you with a copy.

Fair enough. I think some of the paranoia is fed by the illusions.

OK, Tamarind should be in the office. I'll edit the last IC about her to have her go in, then add something new (but later tonight, I need to get rolling just now)

Also @Tecumseh Tamarind is in her early 40s (but may seem older?)

I just didn't see her age on her sheet. I did a bit of math around how many years she spent here and there in her background to try to add it up but eventually acknowledged that I didn't know.

But she's team mom to a bunch of 20-somethings now!

I added her age finally to nail it down. She is 41, turning 42 in August. The key date I work around was that she had finished her four year hitch in the army before the orichalchum rush during the year of the comet.

Nice, I like it.

Mato will turn 24 in either late June or early July. I've been searching for an appropriate date, or one that's significant in canon, but none have jumped out.

Maybe June 30th or July 1st. Halfway through the year for being half of a man.

Hi, feel free to RP until Sunday or yell at me to fast forward to Sunday.

Is the implication that we won't hear from the client until Sunday? If so, Mato will think that it's strange to not hear anything over the course of Friday or Saturday. Nothing wrong with that; I'm just saying how he'll RP it.

You don't hear anything until Monday, actually. I keep forgetting that Sunday is the weekend for the rest of the world

Ha! Just yesterday my son asked me if Sunday was the first day of the week or the last. I told him it depended in what part of the world you were in, then went into a long-winded explanation of calendars.

@Jack, the NDA signing is Friday and Bobby's tattoo appointment is Saturday morning. Per the GM it sounds like there's no concerns around the timing, but we wouldn't be dropping you off at the talismonger on the way back from the lawyer's office. (Plus Friday is available if there's anything Bobby wants to do.)

The things we are used to.

But, yeah, around here the week starts with Monday and ends with Sunday.

Bye
Thanee

Ammended my post.

I just realized that focus tattooing must be a lot easier for the enchanter than regular focus creation. There is no object resistance to deal with, so it's only force the enchanter has to content with.

It will get really interesting, once Bobby starts getting armor foci.

By the way, do you need to be adept to bind Qi foci?

Nope, just need a schema

What's a schema? I'm not sure that word is used in the English books.

p. 319 says, "Qi (pronounced “chee”) foci only work for adepts." I presume that would include both adepts and mystic adepts. I suppose you could make a case that some other Awakened could bind them but not benefit from them, although I can't think of a situation where that would be useful.

Just looked it up, in English it is Formula - and that is created through Arcana - so just a question of studying. Best of all, you can buy formula and just work it like a blueprint without having to develop them yourself.

The artificier doesn't need to be able to use the focus, he just needs to be able follow plans

Agreed on all counts.

gilga's question was whether you need to be an adept to bind a qi focus. To that I believe the answer is yes. But to Jack's point, it's entirely likely - even probable - that the artificer who is creating and/or applying the qi focus could not use it themselves. Only a mystic adept could do both.

Actually, Mystic Adepts cannot use Enchanting, I believe...

In other news, I am on vacation this week and the next, so might be a bit slow to respond. But I will check in and try to keep up.

Bye
Thanee

Have a nice trip

Though that bit about MysAdepts not being able to use Enchantment was a mistake in Forbidden Arcana. If I remember correctly, the devs did give a statement about that in the official forums. It got fixed in the German translation.

Also, I'm content with a time jump to monday

Underworld knowledge skill roll for the Gates Casino:

Intuition 6 + Underworld 1: 7d6t5 3 hits

I'll have Mato rattle off a few rumors from the sourcebooks, which may or may not be true as the GM desires.

Your rumors sound about right; what I had in mind for knowledge check is to say that the place is of interest to the Finnigan Mafia. Its magic security is very strict (mainly as a place of gambling in a world where people can subtly cheat with magic), as well as its physical security because they likely have large sums of money.

They also may ask you to deposit your guns/weapons in a safebox (if they find them).

Just some RP, her money goes into drones, not clothes. I'm fine with her being in the meet or not.

Also: Where is AM and her fashion spell when she is needed!

Let's do some dice rolling ...

Not rolling for the illusions, that should be fine with just buying successes.

Fashion Knowledge 3 hits
Fashion Spell F5 4 hits (no Drain)


Preparation Increase Charisma F6 (Command Trigger)

Alchemy + Magic 4 hits vs. Force 1 hit = Potency 3 (no Drain)

First try!

Let's do one more...

Alchemy + Magic 6 hits vs. Force 1 hit = Potency 5 (no Drain)

Wow!


Ok, then some others...

Preparation Gecko Crawl F5 (Contact Trigger)

Alchemy + Magic 4 hits vs. Force 3 hits = Potency 1 (no Drain)

Alchemy + Magic 6(5) hits vs. Force 3 hits = Potency 2 (1S Drain)

Preparation Gecko Crawl F6 (Contact Trigger)

Alchemy + Magic 5 hits vs. Force 4 hits = Potency 1 (3S Drain)

Alchemy + Magic 3 hits (should have rolled -1 die, so removing the last) vs. Force 0 hits = Potency 3 (1S Drain)

Alchemy + Magic 4 hits vs. Force 1 hits = Potency 3 (2S Drain)


7S total, time to get some rest.


Summary:

Mato:
Increase Charisma F6 P5 Command
Gecko Crawl F5 P2 Contact

Raven:
Increase Charisma F6 P3 Command
Gecko Crawl F6 P3 Contact

Tamarind:
Gecko Crawl F6 P3 Contact


The two practice preparations:

Gecko Crawl F5 P1 Contact
Gecko Crawl F6 P1 Contact

Bye
Thanee

Jack, not sure if Bobby wants his armor jacket to look different just so he doesn't look ready for a gang war, but for the purposes of the meet don't forget that Mato gave Bobby his Zoé Executive Suite.

Oh right, forgot about that. I should really add it to my inventory.

My personal schedule could be goofy this week and potentially beyond.

School is supposed to start on Wednesday but the teachers are threatening to go on strike. If they do, my schedule could be jumbled as I juggle child care until the strike is over.

I'm still around and reading, but I might be more scattered than usual.

Ready to advance to the morning if everyone else is.

I finally gave in to temptation and bough the '6th world tarot' deck, and it arrived today. So if anyone needs a scan of a card at some point, let me know.

@Jack, others. --- How would you go about smuggling throwing knives to the casino security-wise? What would you roll vs. what? I assume they have enough resources for security but does not know much of the rules for that.

I wouldn't, but in general, the soles of boots are traditionally the place for that, provided they are of a material that doesn't show up in scans.

Mechanically it's a Palming vs Perception test.

With cyberware it's relatively trivial to have a smuggling compartment that's hard to detect - it's just a gamble if the scanners are high enough rating and roll well enough to pick them up.

The rules for hiding stuff is on p.419 core btw.

The concealability rules don't always make a lot of sense and need a bit of interpretation.

By default, it's an opposed test using Palming, but Palming isn't defaultable so technically you can't actively hide/conceal something without Palming. That's a bit silly.

The knives themselves are probably -4 Concealability and the smuggling compartment adds another -10 on top of that, for -14 total.

The sensor's rating doesn't affect the defender's roll but rather their Limit. The roll is still Intuition + Electronic Warfare. So you need a pretty strong dice pool to have any dice left over after -14. Would a high-end casino have that? GM's call. But then what does the player roll, if anything? Still Palming, even though it's concealed in a smuggling compartment? As I said, it needs a bit of interpretation as for what's reasonable.

Eh, I don't think that the smuggling compartment stacks with the knives - once you find the compartment (which can't be better hidden than 10) you'll open it and find whatever is inside it.

And Sensors can roll their rating x2 when unattended. So you need an R6 to have a chance to find a smuggling container.

Well it depends on what the sensor is actually doing. Is it simply detecting the smuggling compartment or is it identifying what's inside?

Someone who has found the smuggling compartment itself and is looking inside is one thing, but for a scanner looking for contraband that's inside the smuggling compartment then I would stack the two modifiers. The smaller nature of knives should make it easier for them to stay hidden compared to something larger, like a cyberdeck or an RCC.

Or use a grenade for example. Maybe the scanner doesn't "see" the grenade but a chemsniffer might detect it, for which there are separate modifiers (on p. 361). So, again, there's a bit of interpretation about what the scanner is doing, or how it is doing it, and what modifiers would apply in that scenario. It's messy.

Careful: Chemsniffers aren't subject to concealment. Those only react to quantity and sealing.
Likewise, you need shielding for smuggling compartments against the various other scanner types (as per Rigger 5 p. 165)

So in this concrete example, a purely visual inspection will likely fail to find the knives on Mato's person. A pat down would likely be a lot more successful, as that only has half the penalty.

Cyberware Scanner are only modified by number of implants and cyberware grade. (p.366 Core)
A smuggling compartment is a lot less safe as soon as those sensors are in play.

The cyberware scanner will have no trouble identifying the cyberleg, the same as anyone seeing or touching it. The question is will it be able to identify every aspect within the leg? I personally would argue no, since the millimeter wave detection works by the microwave passing through clothing and bouncing off skin or any hard item it finds. In this case it would find the arms and legs, no problem, but shouldn't be able to see through them. In that sense the cyberlimb acts as noise and interference for the smuggling compartment.

I'll play it however the GM rules, but my preference is to avoid a scenario where Palming + Agility is more effective than the smuggling compartment. But if that's the interpretation we go with then I'll adjust accordingly.

I'd assume the casino would have chem sniffers and a cyberware scanner (providing how dangerous some of these pieces are), not that one needs to find a scanner to detect Mato's obvious limbs. I'd interpret it that the scanner would not know exactly what is in the limb but would leave it vouge as to why for the more rule savvy of you to go into all the 1000 details of sensors in SR. with 10 dice in perception and not being particularly alert the guards would not identify Mato's knives. However, Mato knows that he is smuggling them, and the guards may identify his stress/excitement whatnot. (This is actually how security finds stuff - they don't discover your hidden stuff they look at your behavior).


I'll let Mato roll etiquette to see how nervous/excited he is vs. the perception of the guards.
If he fails the roll, the guards will physically search his limbs. I'll give him +1 for the suit because it feels expensive and makes Mato less suspicious, and -2 for the guards because it is morning and there is not much foot traffic so they are less alert. I'll even allow for teamwork here if you help with a plausible explanation to his tense behavior.

Perception: 8d6t5 4 I guess the dice want what the dice want
Please roll your etiquette, and let me know when to skip the casino. If it gets to that: They'll have (if I got it right) -7 instead of -14; thus, out of their 10 dice, they get 3 dice, and if I understand correctly, a single hit is sufficient unless Mato somehow uses palming (but then would he get the -10 of the smuggling compartment?)
Physical examination: 3d6t5 2

That's fair. And a good point, as I've read articles to that effect (about Israeli airport security, no less).

I'll use pre-roll Edge. Warning: I butchered the Orokos syntax and will caveat the results after: Charisma 4 + Etiquette 2 + Specialization 2 + Edge 6: 14d6o6t5 4

That should actually be 5 hits because Orokos added the rerolled 6s to the individual die total, so that 11 should actually be two hits: the original 6 and then the rerolled 5.

If the specialization (Corporate) doesn't count, dropping the last two dice doesn't affect anything, nor even dropping the last eight. Not the greatest roll. That should have been worth 7 or 8 hits, but 5 hits should be enough to get the job done.

I think we're ready to skip to the casino!

I would have used Composure not Etiquette, I think, but no big difference.

Bye
Thanee

I liked this:

Assensing Sandy with just 2 hits, that probably won't do much.

Bye
Thanee

Is Vala also astrally active?

That is something you cannot possibly hide, right? Even with masking.

Bye
Thanee

Vala is not astrally active, but there are five astral non-materialized spirits in the room.

Yep, I'm aware. She will obviously get any information about what is going on in the astral relayed by them.

Bye
Thanee