As usual, please post the link to your character sheets first, before we beginn the discussion:

Bobby Walker

Mato: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.c...characters/mato

Raven's Character Sheet

https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.com/characters/am

Improve logic F6: buy 4 hits (16 dice with Trouble's help).
Drain: Drain: 11d6t5 1 2 stun, she'd rest it up but no negatives yet.

Getting one more dice from Mato and another from Trouble (buying 1 hit in computers). Getting him skilled in technology is in my bucket list.

She'll have: 12 dice (computer + logic) + 4 improve logic + 2 hot sim + 2 cooperation.

so 20 dice to dig up anything she can (she'll spend a few hours) --- on my bucket list is the profiler quality which would give social bonuses after a background check, but for now lets see if she can find something to help with negotiations or make conversations more interesting. She'll spend an hour searching for Limited Interest or Not Publicized information about him, and try to guess which son he is talking about and study him.

I somehow thought it was an extended test, so this is what I rolled; her limit is 6/7 I think. (4 from deck, + 1 from overclocker + 1 software+1 from teamwork(?))
Matrix search: 20d6t5 7
Matrix search: 19d6t5 7
Matrix search: 18d6t5 6

I am not certain about the rules, but she can spend 3 hours.

Alright. That gives you a very detailed rundown of even relatively secret things.

Xavier is a 45 year old half-caucasian half-chinese man with a wife and three kids.

Xavier has inherited his wealth from his grandfather, who made his money in the early 2000s with selling out his company to Microsoft. He is a classical trustfund baby, albeit one with a work ethic, who managed to increase the wealth more than he is spending it.

He holds stock mainly in Ares related companies and is very involved in trid productions. There are some substantial rumors that he took advantage of several simsense models - not necessarily rape, but certainly coercion. There are several surpressed blog posts on the matter. Xavier threw a lot of money at those to make them disappear.

He is married, but his wife lives in Europe most of the time, so it's likely there isn't much love lost.

Xavier's oldest son Xavier IV (yes the family isn't very inventive where male names are concerned) is magically active, 20 years old and supposedly was at MIT&T, but made it out before the whole blackout thing happened. He has two sisters - twins - of 16 years, Ygritte and Zara. They are both at an elite boarding school in Switzerland.

Xavier III does have a large private collection of magical artifacts, but as far as you can find out, no tarot cards.

In the last nine months Xavier III has spend a lot of time visiting and staying at very expensive clinics catering to the rich and ultra rich.

Information on Xavier IV is a lot more sparse, no matter how deep you dig.

Born 20 years ago, phenotyp homo sapiens sapiens, was tested for magic at 10 and attested vast potential.
Received private tutoring and the best education you can get for money - including intensive simsense courses - so that he qualified for accellerated entrance to MIT&T.
All that effort was somewhat wasted when the institute was shut down a year later and he had to contend with only attending university in LA.

The boy has made no apperances in the screamsheets or shown other reckless behavior that would garner him interest in the matrix - despite there being a lot of eyes looking for him.

But he seems to have initiated at least once, since he wrote a thesis last year about "The inconclusive evidence of souls". The work focuses on how consciousness can be separated from the physical body and how - with enough effort - a mage could learn to materialize.

Materialize? I think you mean manifest.

Bye
Thanee

Nope, this time I checked 😉

Okay... would be strange, though, if a mage could actually do that.

Bye
Thanee

Spoiler: it's doable by RAW

How?

This is news to me too. It sounded like a good plot, since the boundaries of what's possible change all the time.

Gilga, dragons can astrally project too.

You're about to find out

Nice catch, I edited a bit.

I don't know of any method that works, but I do not know 5E well enough to know everything.

Maybe some weird possession-related stuff.

Anyways, I am sceptical until convinced otherwise.

Bye
Thanee

Answers to Mato's IP questions:

The simsense models were all tall blondes of pinup proportions.

The clinics are delta clinics with specialization on gene treatment.

When Jack had said he'd take the holiday weekend to prep this section, I checked out for the weekend. I see I'm coming back well behind, and will again be playing catch-up. Sorry.

Here is Tamarind's character sheet.

I still haven't spent nuyen, but I'll update it for lifestyle and debt payment and assume that she is negotiating/dithering about further spending. (One thing that I need to figure out is the cost for modifying drones? Or is it pure skill roles? But it seems that if you change out an internal taser for a pistol there would be associated hardware bits and bobs that would have a cost?).

First IC post may be tomorrow (have a concert to go to tonight, not sure I'll have time to get all the way caught up on the IC thread in time to post anything useful).

We haven't incurred any Lifestyle payments yet, and I think Tamarind had her first month pre-paid anyway. We'll do Lifestyles after this chapter most likely.

For AM:
Ward passing: 15d6t5 4 so the charisma spell would drop as she passes.

For Trouble:
passing ward: 10d6t5 3

What happens on a tie, do we have the cat with us?

Mato perception: Intuition 6 + Perception 5 + Attention Coprocessor 1: 12d6t5 5 hits

perception: 10d6t5 2 oh, I might have over written her

Resist: 12d6t5 6

Vs. Trouble Resist: 12d6t5 5

Very mean wards it seems.

Looks like AM stands outside, pantomiming

M, she'll have to try again
pass ward: 15d6t5 7

Resist: 12d6t5 2

Second try works - would you mind rolling the resistance rolls yourself? It speeds things up quite a bit 😉

Thanee, minor point, but the meet is in downtown Seattle (not Bellevue). Just in case it's relevant at some point.

Right.

@Jack: In the IC you wrote, that the Ward is buying 3 hits, so I went with that (buying 4 hits myself, just enough to get the one spell through).

Bye
Thanee

That's ok. If you have 16 dice you don't need to roll - but if you roll, the ward does so as well

Yep, exactly 16 dice (6+6+4).

Bye
Thanee

I see, I see... I thought the ward was buying hits no problem in rolling for it on the way out.

I'll wait for beta to post, before moving you to the meeting.

Sorry, last night got eaten up my wife's job stress (suddenly half her department is gone, but the work remains. Bad formula for a perfectionist), and I outright forgot to post after.

One addition to the previous comment, the first thing she'd done after getting paid was going out to get two sets of business clothes. Something at the 500nY for each outfit, so lower end really.

perception roll when going into the building: perception: 15d6t5 6

As an aside, the agency (well, Mato, really) pays for an AR Fashion Subscription specifically for business clothes. I don't fully grasp what AR fashion is like, but I figure AM and Raven can make us look good in the real world while the subscription does its thing in the AR world (in case the fashion or the rules are different in AR). So I think Tamarind can look pretty sharp in a 500 nuyen suit, especially with the finger-wigglers as fashion consultants.

Ah, I read this after writing my IC. I'll tweak it a bit to reflect the AR side.

Finger-wigglers.

I think, AR fashion is adding an AR layer to your outfit, which (obviously) can only be seen, if someone has AR active. Maybe there is a stylized tiger head on your jacket, and in AR it comes alive and growls at people randomly.

Bye
Thanee

That's a good example, but what about for business wear? One would think that it is inherently conservative. Which doesn't mean that there isn't some opportunity for flash, but I'm just not sure what AR would add that you wouldn't just do in real life. A shimmer, maybe? A subtle glow?

I'd use AR to match a name to the face and some essential details like the employee's file, last task, etc. As for fashion, I was thinking about it like image filters - well, not the ridiculous ones but stuff that would make wrinkles and small flaws disappear and make your suit appear perfect and clean, even if it is a bit wrinkled or stained. I was thinking manipulations that are very subtle and in an environment where AR is common would make you feel better about yourself.

Beta, it looks like your IC post ends mid-sentence.

Here's Mato's Teamwork contribution to the Negotiations test: Charisma 5 + Negotiation 2: 7d6t5 2 hits

Negotiation:
Charisma + negotiation: 15d6t5 7
Teamwork dice:
Teamwork: 5d6t5 1

- So we'll get the 8th hit only if we have three more dice for teamwork.

Was going to add Teamwork, too.

With 14 dice on Negotiations, I can just buy those 3 hits.

Bye
Thanee

What's the environment around the IV's apartment building? Is it a dense urban environment, or are there trees and natural spaces surrounding it?

Trying to get a sense of how easy it is to move around, and how many potential observers there might be in the vicinity.

Not too dense, but neither removed from view - threshold 4 for stealth

I'll interact with the rest once I get input from Jack for other options for getting in.

For Trouble: Assensing: 10d6t5 4

For the record, I know we can just get inside with the key.

Mostly trying to do that more inconspicuously.

But with that big ward in place, that might be tricky.

It would probably be possible to slip through with multiple tries, but what if there is a spirit on the other side then. Probably too much of a risk considering there isn't that much to gain (since we already have a very legal way to get inside).

Bye
Thanee

Yeah, I don't want to stop you - just pointing out that this is the easy location to infiltrate 😉

Trouble gets inside first try.
Passing ward: 10#10d6t5-20d6t5 2 -5 -6 -6 -4 0 -6 -3 -1 -4

That's a clever way to roll. I never thought of that syntax before.

Very true. Especially getting the resistance roll in there. Saves some typing.

Bye
Thanee

Ohhh dang! That window.

They might have a spy drone there, watching the place. So they might know we are there right now!

Bye
Thanee