I don't understand where you're getting this from. I think it's the second example, where two missiles were launched in one phase and the spirit movements them both... which is completely reasonable. This example does not have 2 seperate turns, only one (well, until the missiles are hit with movement, at which time the pace becomes much more leisurely). Even if you hold your action to fire at the last possible moment in the turn, the spirit can hold after you. The only way you go after the spirit is if you force it to do something else to use its action, and if you DON'T go after the spirit, well, it movements your missile and you've wasted some seriously expensive gear.

This is simple math, simple logic, Tisoz, and your arguments against it are getting less and less coherent. Maybe you should take a step back, catch your breath, and work through it for a bit.

As stated above you're missing a big point. Dragon centers for penalties. The target number for centering against penalties is the TN for the test, minus his initiate grade. His initiate grade is at least 12. This makes his TN for the centering 2. he has lots of dice. He eliminates all the penalties. You go down. He doesn't cast a spell over force 10-12 because it's pointless. He resists drain without an issue, using a point of Karma Pool if he's really unlucky. You die. It's really, really hard to give a dragon high TN's on casting or anything else he can center for.

So named greats can be known to perhaps fall into 'ultimate' status, but I asked how the average PC knows dragons in general are 'ultimate". Even with perfect knowledge, it is debatable.

Well, we could assume the PC's are idiots, and while that wouldn't make it any less likely that they know Dragons are 'ultimate', it would make it drastically more likely that they would ignore this knowledge.

Dragons are thirty meter long intelligent magical lizards. That description alone should give enough information to deduce that the GREAT dragons might be a long, long ways out of their league.

I think you are right. I was attempting to present an example of a single rigger with initiative in the 20s firing rockets from two sources in the same turn. I think I started out with the wrong distance needed to get them both at the target by the end of that same turn. Then gort distracted by the substituted speeds, wrongly thinking that was why our examples were getting thrown off.

I'll try again ():

Intiative 2X
Spirit is watching for danger
Rigger fires missile that is able to travel 5000 m/t from roughly 5000 meters (should arrive at end of the turn)
Can spirit see or otherwise detect missile at this point? Possible surprise and perception tests for spirit.

Initiative 1X
Has spirit detected missile yet? (Surprise and Perception tests)
Rigger switches to other missile. (really, the rigger could fire another missile at this point if they are all together, right? And they will all detonate at end of turn at target? This is where I screwed up with speeds and how far the missiles can travel a turn because it doesn't make sense to me that if you fire 3 missiles at even intervals from the distance they can travel in a turn and they all move at the same speed that they all arrive at the target at the same time. But I think that is how the rules work.)

Initiative X
Spirit can definitely act against missile(s) this pass.
Rigger fires another missile able to travel 5000 m/t from roughly any distance up to 5000 meters? Missile needs to arrive at end of turn.

Does this make sense at what I was trying to demonstrate?

The spirit has 3 initiative passes it can act in. It can only get 1 action in any pass even if it delays its action, so it can't take 3 actions in the last pass when the missiles are definitely within range.

By Invae, I am assuming we are talking about bug spirits.

Good merges produce perfectly normal looking and sounding 'people' that can speak for the hive. I thought they did communicate and try to persuade in some of the novels and modules, at least they did when I ran them. I thought it made for scarier enemies. I remember when I started playing the game, runners would almost always go to the UB for medical attention. They were the flower on the dungheap that was the sprawl.

Many types of insects have strong work 'ethics' (?). They could use the human waste (sinless) that no one wants to aknowledge or provide for as their hosts to be quite productive. Compare it to the corps who exploit the worker and cast them aside when they are used up. The bugs are recycling these cast offs.

Most (great) dragons are looking out for themselves. Most bugs are looking out for the hive. Integrating the needs and desires of the hive into society should be at least as easy as doing so for the dragons. But bugs are icky and dragons are majestic.

I agree with your point here, and that is how the rules work as wacky as it seems.
Simple Solution however. 3 Phase's so each phase the missile only moves 1/3 it's total speed ie. 1666.67meters. So a missile fired in the 3rd phase would get to it's target till 2 more Pass's have happened.
[EDIT]Though this opens up for more paperwork and tracking it does allow for the target to move further away in hopes of getting one more action against said missile.

Though the next question is does the Missile get to move in it's "Launch phase"?

Can it not take 2? The one carried from the previous phase and the one it gets this phase?

Not that it matters mind, cos it' still won't have enough in that instance.

An Off topic side note:
Won't the missile need to have locked on first requiring a another complex action on behalf of the rigger to have a decent chance of hitting as the missile isn't getting rigged?

I am not sure, I've never had missile fire come up in game. It was news to me they didn't detonate until the end of the turn they are fired. Since they are limited that way, I don't know why they would get another delay when firing.

No, those are in the delaying actions rules.

The missile itself or the weapon firing it? I don't know why he couldn't be rigged into whatever is firing them, they could all come from the same place.

According to Shockwave_IIc and me (and the rules for delaying), as they can't because they don't have enough actions in a phase.

Thats right Lofywyr YOU WILL FALL TO MY MAD RYHMES.

If its a single missile, then it's gonna get swatted. But if it's multiple missiles, and the target is close then the Slyph is going to have it's work cut out.

All this has reminded me, of a question i asked AE a while back on wther or not it's possible to shoot down incoming missiles with a minigun. That answer was a prove yes, but the situtation is different this time, but it is possible.

I'm going to go with Eyeless Blond's comments on magic, as sigged below

Single missile example:

Initiative 2X
Spirit delays?
Rigger aims or does whatever

Initiative 1X
Spirit delays?
Rigger aims or does whatever

Initiative X
Spirit may get single action after surprise and perception test
Rigger fires missile

End of turn
Missile detonates

So everyone knows they are an extremely dangerous menace to the world but no one wants to admit it?

That was my thinking ...... hence the thread!!

torz x

surprise? perception? the rigger's been in plain view the whole time.

By not living under a rock. When you hear about dragons in the SR media, it's them being insanely potent and mysterious -- running a large percentage of the world (Saeder Krupp, UCAS), mashing cities by themselves (Denver, for instance), and similarly being crazy badass at whatever they want to do. It's not a far leap for your average PC (or average person on the street) to then make the leap of logic to the fact that all dragons are that way, not just the ones they may or may not have heard the names of.

In a similar fashion, the first thing I think of when someone says "Taliban" or "IRA" is "they blew up lots of people." If asked what such a terrorist group is good for or good at, I could reply with some confidence (based on what little I may know about them, from the media) that they might be able to, y'know, blow people up. Whether or not this knowledge is applicable to every given member of either organization isn't the point -- I think I know that they are capable of blowing shit up, and as such avoid them. Likewise, with dragons. Your average PC (or, again, average human being) will have heard via the media that dragons are roving badasses capable of things that he is not. He will, or at least should, remember that.

I mean, it's not like your "average PC" even knows that every NPC he ever encounters, anywhere in the game world, falls into a neat category like Ultimate, anyways. That's besides the point, though ; there's enough street slang, enough heresay, enough Shadowland BBS talk, enough media coverage, enough rumors, enough common sense, however, to tell even your dumbest "average PC" that dragons are not to be trifled with.

You're the only one who seems to think otherwise.

Now I'm just shocked. I had thought you figured it out, but I guess I was mistaken.

NO. The spirit is expecting the missile, waiting for it. Surprise is not a problem, and neither is perception. It gets an action, the missile is slowed down to a rate where it won't even get to the spirit for several turns (if it doesn't crash from the sudden loss of momentum first). Missile is swatted. End of that story.

We've gone over this before . . . several damn times. To guarantee that the spirit misses, you need to fire more than one missile in a turn, and hope the spirit doesn't notice it early enough to get 'em both.

YES, a spirit CAN intercept a missile using canon rules. I'm not even sure what thread you've been reading anymore. How many actions a spirit has in a phase is irrelevant except when there is more than one missile being fired, or when the rigger firing the damn thing has at least initiative in the 30's (for a Force 10 spirit). Delaying comes into effect to allow the spirit to always go after the Rigger doing the firing, not to make the entire interception possible.

Okay, I know Shockwave's got it, is he just the only one to have broken the mysterious gibberish code that I'm apparently writing in without my knowledge, or is Tisoz really just not getting it?

You act like the rigger is a pitcher throwing a baseball to a catcher while the spirit is a batter waiting to swat it. In this analogy, wouldn't a ball coming from the umpire be a bit of a surprise? If the spirit automatically knows where everything is at all times, why are there search powers and rules for its use?

Movement power requires LOS. Can a spirit see a bullet fly? Can anything living? What about something traveling 10 times as fast? How are you figuring surprise and perception is automatic? That is a poor assumption.

Missile is fired from 500m traveling 5000m/turn. Even if spirit successfully slows the missile, it will get there at the end of the turn.

Well since you've went over several damn times, how come earlier the spirit automatically notices it? I still think the rigger could fire a missile every phase, but you haven't actually explained how the spirit could stop even one launched during the last phase of the turn.

Look, you don't need to get snitty. I have seen a bunch of mixed numbers, and faulty assumptions.

You have yet to show how a spirit is intercepting anything other than by using movement power, even a single missile much less multiple missiles, while disregarding everything that could hinder the use of that power. And the movement power isn't stopping anything.

I think you are assuming, apparently mfb too, that the rigger is right out in the open the entire time waiting to die. The rigger isn't as arrogant as the spirit and dragon.

No, I don't get it.

I see where we were using different numbers and made things irrelevant. I have not seen any solution other than assumptions or using a part of an example to demonstrate a possibility. Like having a single missile still fired from its maximum single turn range to show it could be slowed enough to take an additional turn.

If we are firing one missile, do it from a closer range. And for some reason you don't think the spirit should ever have to make a perception check to notice anything or a surprise check to know a battle has started and from where it came. Do you not use surprise for snipers? Do you use surprise for anything? Maybe I just over use surprise.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Missiles are relatively large, and flare when they launch because they require tremendous force to accelerate.

F=ma

To get up to 5000 mpt, well.. that's a massive amount of force, so there would be visible evidence of the launch.

Likewise, missiles fly fairly straight, so there has to be a clear line of sight -- rigger can be hiding, sure, but the missile itself has to come flying straight out at the target..

You can argue that they rigger could be hidden in a bunker and the accelleration is initial ignition is contained -- but nothing accelerates instantly, so there would be a several meter long trail behind it to begin with -- even IF missiles have advanced to leaving no trail at all in flight.

Hence, the spirit would see it -- since 500m is not that far away.

Silence/stealth on the missile and smoke everwhere.

Spirits are astrally active, silence and stealth means they see this thing flying in with a pair of spells on it.

Smoke behind the missile -- everywhere would make it multiple missiles later -- Want to lay odds someone's killed the rigger by then?

Not at all. I'm assuming he has dozens. I'm also not using Ghostwalker as an example because everyone made such a big deal about how special he was.

I am also not assuming any dragon would only use one spirit. I am trying to simplify things to see if one spirit can stop say one rigger, or even one missile. I'd like to be like everyone and just assume it can, but when you create situations and have to account for initiative and limit actions and not suppose omniscience, it makes it a challenge.

A brilliant contribution to the discussion.

By that logic, every time a runner is faced with an enemy who wields a pistol, but throws a grenade instead of shooting, that runner has to roll for surprise and perception.

Do you handle your games like that? If so, then best of luck to your players. They'll need it.

In combat, one shouldn't, EVER, be focused on only one thing. Be attentive for all these nasty surprises that can happen, like someone throwing grenades, or some helicopter 500 meters away firing a missile. Especially if looking out for missiles was your primary task.

In such a short distance, the spirit could well just down the damn helicopter, rigger included. For all I know, the usual combat distance for a helicopter is a bit more than 500 meters.
Besides, in 500 meters range, you cannot possibly want to tell me an intelligence 10 spirit wouldn't notice the missile approaching.

Oh, and slowing the missile down from 5000 to 500 in a split second would inflict very harsh stress upon the missile Since it isn't made with such a stress in mind, it'd likely just be squashed.

If not in a helicopter in LOS, where else would he be? In a nuclear submarine before the Denver coastline ( ), 500 meters away from GW, launching a tomahawk? Or maybe in a hidden bunker with invisible missile launchers pointed explicitly at GW, 500 meters from him? Or is he in a klingon spaceship, hovering just before GW?

Sorry, 500 meters just doesn't make much sense.

Don't be so snitty.

I'm not contributing to the "discussion" because it's not a discussion any more, it's an example of one person stubbornly refusing to listen to everyone else and being a sarcastic prick as he does so. What needs to be said has been said, people's minds are made up, and all that's left is to read the last several pages of it and laugh at how close-minded and insulting you are.

From the get-go you've been saying anyone who disagrees with you can't read, isn't reading, is incapable of understanding what you're saying, has a dragon fetish, is a dragon fanboy, isn't paying attention, or just plain doesn't know what they're talking about. You're the last person who should call anyone else "snitty," and the absolute last person who should say a damned thing about contributing to a discussion. I tried to point out a few things several pages ago and you immediately replied by insisting I was part of a "Matrix Gang," and handily ignoring everything else I said.

If I want to get a great big fucking belly laugh out of you calling someone else snitty, I'm damned well going to. And I'm sure I wasn't the only one laughing at your righteously indignant tone.

Stop talking to me. Go back to preaching to the unenlightened masses about how weak and pathetic dragons should be, how any fool with a disposable missile launcher could have stopped the takeover of Denver, and how anyone who disagrees with you (and agrees, instead, with the canon setting material) has a furry dragon fetish and a computer ringed with pewter figurines.

Okay lets make this easy then:

Rigger fires missile. By the rules it takes a full turn to impact at the very least. Astral spirit (under standing orders to protect dragon at any cost) manifests and jumps in the way during one of his one or two remaining actions (doesn't matter if he lost the Surprise test this isn't an attack or anything, he just stands there). Boom! Spirit gone. Missile gone. One pissed off dragon and no more surprise.

If the spirit doesn't notice the missile, for whatever reason, what are the odds the dragon doesn't have an Anchored Detect Missile triggering a Physical Barrier spell (Force 16 sounds about right). The missile explodes and whatever damage still gets through isn't going to get by the dragon's Hardened Armor and body.

If they are looking in the right direction and make a perception test through smoke and the other magic mods I suggested way long ago. And it would make sense to place the silence spells back where they were fired, but if they are on the missile they are going to be on the part facing the tail, where the sound is worst. That happens to block LOS to the spell by the pointy end of the missile (and the rest of it.)

The attackers aren't going to win by using offensive magic, they should do everything they can to make magic harder to use.

So quit reading. I know you know how to quit.

This is where we started, because I suggested triggering anchored spells to force drain tests. Someone countered with having spirits intercept, but didn't say how they were supposed to accomplish the task.

So the dragon has a custom spell in a focus. The focus acts as the spellcaster for determining if the detection spell succeeds. Modifiers apply that I can see making it 10 or 12 pretty easily. How many successes does the spell need to target the source and that is another spell to resist the drain from, again with plenty of modifiers. And these anchors don't have karma to reroll.

See, you act like it is automatic, but there are all kinds of things that can go wrong.

Ooo, kitty sheathe those claws! Y'know, I was planning to let that debacle you ran die a decent death and fade into unpleasant memory, but nooo, you had to keep nursing your bile. I don't believe I've made a personal attack against you in the forums since then, so perhaps you should show a little more maturity than this?

Oh, and betcha GW (master of spirit-fu) can pass his drain on to a spirit. There's a kind of precedent in Azzie blood-magic, after all.

No, the Spirit does not know where everything is at all times. It is, however, looking for missiles to swat, that being its primary stated purpose. A missile's coming at it, it's expecting it, since that's what it was looking for. Surprised? No, not really. When you are searching a messy room for that book you need, are you surprised when you find it? I doubt it.

Can a spirit see a bullet fly? Maybe, I don't know how spirits 'see' at all. They don't really have eyes and they don't really have brains as far as we can tell, so, hell, they might be able to 'see' and track individual photons. It's irrelevant either way. Spirits can detect things in a manner analogous to sight, so they can see an oncoming missile, since humans can see oncoming missiles (they usually don't have the time to react to it, nor the means, but they can see it). Surprise tests are irrelevant (what's a missile's reaction? Shouldn't the spirit's expecting it have any effect?) and perception tests are automatic, as in FREE actions (unless you're 'observing in detail' and you don't need to know what's written on the side of a missile to know it's coming at you). This is not a poor assumption, this is a logical one, backed by canon.

yes, yes it will, but then I draw your attention to this statement of yours:

and, also by you

Now, if you'll remember. You are the one who supplied both the 10k and 5k ranges used in previous examples. I switched out your missile speed for a faster version that would weigh more in on your end. In the end, both showed that a spirit COULD intercept a missile fired from either of those ranges. Indeed, two missiles could be fired from 5k, and both could be intercepted.

Now you've decided to shorten the range to 500m, changing your numbers yet again. Well, sure, even if the missile got Movement powered it would arrive at the end of the turn, but at that range, why would the spirit bother? It's too close, the spirit would just movement itself and get in the damn way. A Force 10 Sylph (what we've been using) could move 390m/turn, more than enough to intercept a missile fired 500m away.

I never assumed anything of the sort. Actually, I was assuming the Rigger (or button-pusher, whoever) was safe in a bunker or military vessel some kilometers away getting fed targeting data via some sort of spotter. If the Rigger's 500m away, then he's an idiot, and he IS waiting to die.

Now the assumptions I'm making here are all ones you've provided, or those given by others as canon material that I cannot personally verify. Unless you're counting canon rules as assumptions? I don't know, and I'm not sure if you are arguing out of spite, or if you really beleive my logic's off. If the former, please don't say anything else, we've all gotten tired of this, it was fun, but like all things this argument, too must come to an end. If the latter, then take my earlier advice and think, really think about what I've been saying, what you've been saying, and what others have contributed. Run it all through a calculator a few times, draw diagrams, whatever, just take a long break to work through the variables. I'm sure you'll come to a conclusion we can all agree on.

[edit:] Checking up on the sylph spirit, I find that the normal movement multiplier is x4, not x3 like I'd been assuming. That would put the Force 10 spirit's top speed at 520m/turn. WAY more than is needed, and quite easily able tear apart the silly rigger trying to be 500m away when he launches a missile.

You are assuming everyone knows exactly who is where.

In my games, if there are two forces who may be aware the other is somewhere about, but they haven't run into them yet, or if there is someone shooting from cover that was not previousely spotted, yes I roll for surprise. Sometimes no one has an advantage and everyone is rolling vs TN 4. When one side opens fire from cover, aka ambush, they get a -2 TN modifier.

Actually the more I have used the surprise rules, the more often I see times they could be used. My players call for surprise rolls, too. They usually have pretty decent reactions, so they do well on them.

Possible Modifiers:
Perceiver Distracted +2 - looking in every direction for any sign of trouble
Action Obvious -4
Smoke/fog/rain/mist +2 to +6
I'm going to leave out background count, possible mana static spell, and spirit concealment power
Lets call it TN 6 after launch and out of cover
Did 1 roll with 5 successes
Did 2 rolls with 4 successes
Did 3 rolls with 1-2 successes
Did 3 rolls with 3 successes
10th roll had no successes
So, 1 out of ten times it doesn't notice it. A few times it isn't sure what it is.

Depends on how you see movement working. Thats like saying if you used it to speed up a human, it would break its neck. Without more info on how powers work, that could be a faulty assumption.

A ravine, behind a wall, in a building, in a sewer...

Are we back to GW again? forget trying to change your mind, you can't even accept changing the example.

LOL, that will realy screw the plans up!

torz x

I apologized for my part in making a mess of that.

This is where you are jumping to a conclusion, and where I felt you jumped to a conclusion in saying the 2 missile example would fail. The spirit has 1 complex action. It is taking a complex action to use the movement power on itself. Where is it getting another complex action to intercept the missile? How is it intercepting the missile? Melee? That takes a complex action it does not enjoy. At most it would need to be done with a free action. I think free actions need to go before the complex action, so it would have to depend on getting a free action before someone elses action (maybe.)

Are you figuring just getting in its way, colliding, will do the trick? I would say that is a form of melee. But even then, I thought missiles can avoid objects to a limited degree. Enough to avoid the spirit? I don't know. If it does impact the spirit, I have seen people here on Dumpshock discuss how the spirit's immunity to normal weapons actually works. Some people propose that instead of the spirit bouncing the attack, it merely passes through without doing damage. Again, I don't know. That is why I'd like to see an active interception instead of a block that could be argued will not succeed.

If the block is sufficient in your mind, then we can agree it could intercept it. I just am not sure relying on a block is sufficient to intercept.

I agree. I just am not sure why you were saying the spirit could defend against the multiple missiles from the longer ranges (without extending to a second turn and/or relying on a blocking maneuver to intercept.) That is why I tried to set an example that needs resolved in basically a single phase. Not just changing the situation for the sake of changing the situation.

y'know, you can call me argumentative, and i won't deny it. but anybody in this thread can call you an ass, and not even be stating an opinion.

your modifiers are really screwy. i really don't see how purposefully watching out for a specific thing gives you a "perciever distracted" mod when looking for that thing. and it's a good thing you didn't apply the concealment power, since it doesn't work against astral sight. that puts the average TN at 4, which means the f10 spirits the dragon has watching are going to spot it just about every time.

So in your world a spirit sees in every direction at the same time? In mine they don't.

If you are not looking in the right direction, or trying to look in every direction at once, you are going to be distracted from the one direction the thing is. No one could understand how a surprise situation could exist, so I somewhat made up for it in the distraction.

TN4 would be pretty good. I gave a -4 modifier for being obvious. If you don't like the +2 distracted, substitute more smoke/fog/rain and increase it from +4 to +6. Back to TN 6.

I was being even handed the first time by taking the middle smoke/fog/rain modifier and what I considered looking the wrong way as distracted.

I was being more than even handed when I first said to use Ghostwalker because he was the best with spirits. However, everyone made a point that he was a unique case. Then argued about ultimate status etc.. So I changed it to any other dragon, but I'm sure this was seen as me being an ass and juggling numbers. Even at that, people keep throwing GW back into the discussion.

I admitted getting some figures messed up, and I admitted I was using the slowest missiles I could find to be more than fair. I don't see that as trying to skew the numbers.

The thing is, everytime I think I've made my point about it taking time and a number of actions that are not available, someone deflects the topic.

No, actually they respond, and their response is that you are wrong. I can see how some might think of this as 'deflecting the topic'.

And a number of actions are not necessary. Only, to be absolutely specific, three. One free action to recognize the missile, one complex action to activate the Movement power, and another free action to rush headlong into the path of the oncoming missile.

No, wait. I'm wrong. Moving doesn't take an action at all. So two actions. One free, one complex. As for the missile dodging.... how easy is it to dodge while going 6000kph? How about when you've got about 100m of distance between you and the object you (quite suddenly) have to dodge? By the time the missile's programming registers that it SHOULD be dodging, it'd have hit. If you really need to, have the spirit make a quickness or reaction test so that it's positioned just right. I don't know where the rules for 'Getting In The Way' are, but I'm sure they're somewhere.

As for perception modifiers, why is there smoke/fog/rain at all? Why do you keep changing the situation? It was fairly clear when we started: Can a missile be intercepted by a spirit? No mention of random interfering atmospheric variables, no mention of spelling the missile, no mention of cover, etc, etc. It was a simple question. Missile is fired, spirit's going to try to intercept it. What you seem to be doing is asking: How can I make it so the spirit WON'T intercept the missile. This is a perfectly valid question, but first you have to recognize that it is what you are asking, and that the spirit would normally be able to intercept the missile if not for your dogged interference.

And for GW... Well, this particular facet of the discussion began with a mention of one of GW's spirits intercepting a missile, so we use him as the supposed summoner. Since we're not using any special spirit rules, ANY Sylph of Force 10 would be doing this, summoned by ANY magician (my example had the summoner as a grade 30 initiate, but that is wholly unnecesary for anything except flavor). Do you see now?

[edit:] Ah, Shockwave, always beating me to the punch.

Love ya really