[Malevolence]

Okay, I'll keep the R6 medkit. I don't really have the skills to use it, but at least I don't default on it.


Just FYI, the Ultimax Rain Forest Carbine was a misprint and was heavily nerfed in the Missions FAQ. I strongly suspect that rnb will expect you to use those stats for it.


Also, Wheelie and Treads have a weapon mount, but no weapon. Not sure if that was intended, and oversight, or a result of the character still being a WiP.

[Zweiblumen]

IIRC HL uses the same stats as in the Missions FAQ, it's still a good weapon after the nerf-ing, just not ridiculous.

And nope, no weapons yet for Wheelie and Treads.  They are in a "ready" state to receive weapons.  The little drones are for going in little places, weapons aren't that important most of the time in those situations.  I was seriously considering putting an arm on them instead, but will be able to do that in-game as there's a workshop in the van (with seating!).

[bangbangtequila]

There's one big hit, SPOILER!

[spoiler]

== Info ==
Street Name: "Flickr"
Name: Jackson O'Connell
Movement: 10/20
Karma: 1
Street Cred: 1
Notoriety: 0
Public Awareness: 0
Elven Male Age 27
Height 188cm Weight 80kg
Composure: 8
Judge Intentions: 9
Lift/Carry: 4 (60 kg/40 kg)
Memory: 8
Nuyen: 2810

== Priorities ==
Metatype: D - Elf
Attributes: B - 20 Attributes
Special: A - 6 Magic, 10 Spell
Skills: C - 28 Skills/2 Skill Groups
Resources: E - 100,000¥

== Attributes ==
BOD: 3
AGI: 5
REA: 5 
STR: 1
CHA: 3
INT: 5 (9 w/ Improved)
LOG: 3
WIL: 6
EDG: 2
MAG: 6

== Derived Attributes ==
Essence:                   6
Initiative:                11 + 1d6 (19 + 3d6 w/ F5 Inc. Int + Inc. Reflexes)
Rigger Initiative:         11 + 1d6 (19 + 3d6 w/ Increase Spells Active)
Astral Initiative:         11 + 2d6 (19 + 4d6 w/ Increase  Spells Active)
Matrix AR Initiative:      11 + 2d6
Matrix Cold Initiative:    6 + DP + 3d6 (10 + DP + 5d6 w/ Spells)
Matrix Hot Initiative:     6 + DP + 4d6 (10 + DP + 5d6 w/ Spells)
Physical Damage Track:     10
Stun Damage Track:         11

== Limits ==
Physical:                  4
Mental:                    6
Social:                    6
Astral:                    6

== Active Skills ==
Assensing                      : 6                   Pool: 12 (+4 w/ Improved Int)
Automatics                     : 6                      Pool: 11
Binding                          : 6                      Pool: 15
Blades                            : 1                     Pool: 6
Clubs                              :1                       Pool: 6
Con                                 : 1                     Pool: 4
Counterspelling            : 6                     Pool: 11
Etiquette                         : 1                     Pool: 4
Gymnastics                     :1                      Pool: 6
Negotiation                      :1                     Pool: 4
Perception                      : 1(Karma)      Pool: 6* (10 w/ Inc. Int, +Combat Sense)
Running                           :1                     Pool: 2
Sneaking                         : 1                     Pool: 6
Spellcasting(Combat)    : 6                     Pool: 12 (15*, 17*)
Summoning (Man)         : 6                    Pool: 12(15*, 17*)
Swimming                        :1                     Pool: 2
Unarmed                          : 1                    Pool: 6

== Knowledge Skills ==
Sperethiel                    : 3                      Pool: 8
Military                : 2 (Spec. Forces)    Pool: 7(9)
Biology                       : 2                           Pool: 5
Magical Threats          : 2                    Pool: 5
Small Unit Tactics         : 4                      Pool: 9
Security Tactics           :2                       Pool: 5
Religion (Christianity)  :1                    Pool: 4 (6)

Free:

== Contacts ==

Seamus O'Connell      6/3          Talismonger/Smuggler
Jackson's cousin, he was his handler back in Tir Na Nog and remains the only person from the family still in contact after he was banished. The family recognizes the sacrifice Jackson made, and while they cannot offer any overt aid, they

== Qualities ==
Allergy (Uncommon, Severe) (Opiates (Common Painkillers))
Distinctive Style
Focused Concentration (Rating 5)
Incompetent (Cracking)
Low-Light Vision
Magician
SINner (National) (Tir Na Nog)
Mentor Spirit (Wolf)

== Spells ==
(Tradition: Chaos, Resist Drain with WIL + INT (11))
Blast             DV: F-1
Combat Sense               DV: F
Heal                       DV: F-4
Improved Invisibility      DV: F-1
Increase [Attribute] (INT) DV: F-3
Increase Reflexes          DV: F
Levitate                   DV: F-2
Mind Control                DV: F+1
Physical Barrier           DV: F-1
Lightning Bolt                   DV: F-3

== Lifestyles ==
Home Sweet Home  3 months

== Armor ==
Armor Jacket                        12
Ballistic Mask                      2
   +Gas Mask
   +Thermographic Vision
Full Body Armor                     15
   +Nonconductivity 3
   +Thermal Damping 3

== Weapons ==
Yamaha Raiden
   +Silencer
   +Shock Pad
   +Smartgun System, Internal
   Pool: 11   Accuracy: 7   DV: 11P   AP: -2   RC: 8
Remington Suppressor
   +Concealed Quick-Draw Holster
   +Sound Suppressor
   Pool: 11   Accuracy: 6   DV: 7P   AP: -1   RC: 2
Steyr TMP
   +Concealed Quick-Draw Holster
   +Extended Clip
   +Gas-Vent 2 System
   +Laser Sight
   Pool: 11   Accuracy: 5   DV: 7P   AP: -   RC: 4
Survival Knife
   Pool: 6   Accuracy: 5   DV: 3P   AP: -1   RC: 2
Unarmed Attack
   Pool: 6   Accuracy: 4   DV: 1S   AP: -   RC: 2

== Commlink ==
Transys Avalon (ATT: 0, SLZ: 0, DP: 6, FWL: 6)

== Gear ==
Ammo: APDS (Assault Rifles) x100
Ammo: APDS (Machine Pistols) x100
Ammo: EX-Explosive Rounds (Assault Rifles) x100
Ammo: EX-Explosive Rounds (Machine Pistols) x100
Ammo: Regular Ammo (Assault Rifles) x500
Ammo: Regular Ammo (Machine Pistols) x500
Contacts Rating 3
   +Smartlink
   +Flare Compensation
   +Vision Enhancement Rating 1
Earbuds Rating 3
   +Audio Enhancement Rating 3
Magical Lodge Materials Rating 6
Minigrenade: High Explosive x6
Power Focus (Bonded Foci) Rating 3
Psyche x10
Reagents, per dram x200
Subvocal Mic

Jackson O'Connell was born to one of the younger branches of the O'Connor family tree of Connaught, as the second son. It may have been out-dated and therefore optional, he was still granted an education and training focusing on the specialized military tactics of the day. When he was still quite young, he was discovered to be Awakekened, and his training changed abruptly. Suddenly his already impressive skill set came on a one-in-a-million platform, and his future the family business was guaranteed.

He had all the qualities they wanted. He was loyal to a fault, his family gave him everything and so earned everything back with interest, in Jackson's mind. He knew that much of his family's wealth and influence came from the fact they helped to rule half of the Elven world, and the rich lifestyle afforded to his family (in particular his beloved sister) shaped his devotedness to the nation, and made the decision to join whichever branch of service he was best suited to an easy one. With that willingness to serve so transparent, he was recruited into a shadow group funded privately by the O'Connell's off the books completely. The Taibhseach (gaelic for Spectre - pronounced "thyev-shukh") were an old tradition of the O'Connells, founded a century and more ago, after the first world war ravaged Europe, with the sole purpose of protecting the interests of their bloodline. The job may have changed since those distant days, the techniques have evolved, but the tradition remained.

He was trained by the masters, taught the ways of their order, a unique mental discipline that hones the instinct to such a fine edge that they no longer think about what they are doing, but rather let their body guide itself. There are very few who can master it and become their field operatives, and even fewer Magicians, and this made Jackson all the more valuable to them. They provided very little magical instruction, but rather taught him the focus and clarity he needed to simply let his natural connection to the mana guide him. He became known a Flickr, the darting light of a burning flame that the eye can only barel register before it either burns them or disappears. It took six years, and really, they were too tedious to bother getting into. The point being, Jackson was honed into a weapon, and then unsheathed.

He served for 5 years as the magical dagger thrust into the heart of those who threatened the values of the clan O'Connor. He destroyed corporate teams trying to influence the nation. He took down a Toxic Shaman building up across the border and threatening the few forested areas in their beautiful country. He crossed borders and murdered diplomats. He defended the honour of the country and the integrity of nature. Politics didn't matter, becaue he was no mere military agent, at risk of discrediting his own government, and his team lived and breathed in the darkness outside the law. It was when Aztechnology developed an aggressive plan to muscle into one of the clans and finally open the doors to Tir Na Nog that they finally met a match.

The Aztech delegation was meeting with the McCarthy Denaan'mor at their estate, finalizing a contract that would give the corporation, represented by one Tir citizen, legal ownership of a swathe of coastline with virtually unregulated control of some fifty square kilometers. This could not be allowed to happen, even though they endeavoured not to harm the major clans and thus avoid destabilizing the government. The team was small, only three men - all awakened. The two adepts had easily penetrated the security and taken out two elite security agents. Jackson had gotten into position, and began focusing his mana to cast mob mind, and force the Tir's to slaughter the delegation, and torpedo any negotiations now and stop them from ever rising again. As he cast, he realized what he missed. One of the delegates was infected, and shattered through the spell like wet paper. The vampire turned on the team, and Flickr had no choice but to bring destruction down on the room. He threw his lightning with all his might, and even took out one of the walls with the ferocity of his attack. The delegation was slaughtered, his two adepts putting a bullet in each of their heads to be sure, but one of the McCarthy's was killed, and the vampire escaped. That could not be sanctioned, could not be allowed. His fate was sealed.

His family met him under the utmost secrecy, and judged him in council. They found that he acted in the best interest of their family, and the nation as a whole. But he had murdered a member of a Denaan'mor. If he were caught, if he were linked to them in any way, the nation could descend into civil war. Before they passed their judgement, Jackson knelt before them and offered his blade, surrendering to die in the name of peace and family. They declined. He had served with absolute dedication, and done well when faced with an impossible choice, and so he was simply disowned. He was sent into exile, and provided with a new identity from a member of the family who had died in an accident only two months before, and shipped out to the UCAS aboard a freighter, in a shipping container with one light, some military rations, a small cot, and his few personal belongings. It was a long trip.

He arrived and met with Seamus, his handler, and got set up with an apartment. It wasn't much -  the budget was there to defend the nation, not put a burned asset up in the Ritz - but he had his skill and he had his freedom. It was enough. The most valuable thing that Seamus provided was a dossier left on the desk. It was the full file his group had put together on the incident which burned Jackson, and the last page was the picture of the vampire with a name: Jacob Kreutz. It was only one page, marking out his private holdings in Aztechnologies, his property in Tir Na Nog, and a last known location, which was on a plane bound for Bellevue.

[Tecumseh]

Well step one is to get rid of Poindexter's quote tags and background.

You can use Chummer to create a text-only export that will save you some time with the gear listing. Go to Chummer's print menu and use the drop-down menu at the top-right (which defaults to "Shadowrun 5") and change it to one of the text-only options. That will be easy to copy-and-paste.

Selfishly, I wouldn't mind more Counterspelling. Review the rules and you'll see that it's not a traditional pool that you get to add Magic to. Skill rating 2 means you get 2 dice and that's it. The most likely source of points is from Automatics, but that gets deeper into how you envision playing him. A specialization (presumably in Combat spells) is another option.

Witness My Hate is only affecting Stunbolt. I think it's a cool quality but make sure it's worth the karma cost. Those 7 karma could be used to buy 3 rating 1 skills. If you used skill points for any of your current rating 1 skills, you could buy them with karma instead and put those skill points into Counterspelling. Or maybe you already bought those skills with karma so that's not an option. Just throwing out some ideas.

@rednblack How far do you want us to advance things before you step back in? Mal had us go overnight, but I didn't know if you wanted to spend some more time anywhere along the way,

[bangbangtequila]

I'm having trouble with the text export, but I'll sort that out and just do it that way.

Witness My Hate: I agonized over this a little, I really did. The big reasons I bought it are thinking long term for a number of direct damage spells, and for dealing with spirits. Stunbolt + WMH turn into a seriously spirit melting combination, particularly when I get my Magic up to 7 or 8, with centering to get my Drain dice up over 20. At which point all direct damage spells are going to be REALLY necessary as hardened armour will no longer be a rare thing to happen across, and having your chaos mage be able to bypass mundane defences would be a huge bonus.

Counterspell: I actually did end up dropping a few points from perception and pumping that up for a few reasons, those being the 10 intuition I'll have all the time, and combat sense. I really don't need to waste 6 points on it, especially since I'll be pumping it up by augmenting my helmet.

Automatics is really important. I won't ever have the sort of agility that you combatants are going to have, and I'll likely never bother upgrading it. The fact that strength is my dump means I'll have low RC, so just to fire off one long burst is going to hurt my DP pretty badly, and I can't rely on throwing 8-10 damage out every turn on spells without eventually knocking myself out with drain. It also fits with the special forces background.

[rednblack]

I'm going to address things in the order received.  If I miss anything please let me know.  Apologies for my absence yesterday.  Between a tattoo appointment and my son's "choir recital" -- if you can call "singing" by four-year-old's such a thing -- pretty much ate up my day.

Before I begin, I remember that the last house rule I wanted to talk about was keying Intimidation off of either BOD or STR, should a char wish to do so.  Thoughts?

@Tec, I like your idea for seeing how much the data in the case has been degraded.  I was toying with something similar, so that's what we'll go with.  While the dice pools don't necessarily reflect it, we should reach out to Zwei's char ICly for help on that front.

Additionally, nice healing on the Good Sister.  I appreciate the IC concern, even if Poindexter isn't here to do so himself.

@bangbang, thanks for the char flavor.  I feel like I have a good idea who Flickr is, but I still need to know his past in terms of hunting.  How long has he been in the vampire hunting game?  How did he come to it?  What are his motivations?  What are his long-term goals?  What enemies has he made, and who does he consider a friend -- or at the very least "asset"?

@bangbang and @mal, yes, we have already house-ruled summoning for low power Spirits.  The armor on the other hand will not be house-ruled.  Specifically, while most masks and helmets only offer +2 AV, the Full Body Armor Helmet gives +3.  I have a hard enough time envisioning someone with 1 STR wearing Full Body Armor that I will not not be adjusting Encumbrance in that regards.  Keep in mind 1 STR means someone who isn't even capable of Running or Swimming without training.

@Zwei, we're going to call the Encryption rating on the blasted case a Rating 3.  Happy Cracking.

@Zwei and @Mal, we will be using Missions FAQ errata on the Rain Forest Carbine, making it 11P -2AP, I believe. 

@bangbang, to get the Text Only formatting on a Chummer file, go to Print, Text Only, and then Save as HTML.  From there you'll be able to open the text only document as a web page, copy, and paste on the forums.

@Tec, et al, feel free to push forward ICly.  You should expect the vampires and their thralls to be on the hunt, but the firefight at the Sunrise Office didn't give them much to go on -- good on you guys.  However paranoid your chars may be ICly, no one is going to be busting down any doors in the next few days -- at least your doors.

@bangbang, don't underestimate the power of Suppressive Fire.  No Recoil is a biggie, and even without a large pool you can still shut down a good number of the opposition simply by laying down lead.

[Zweiblumen]

@Zwei, we're going to call the Encryption rating on the blasted case a Rating 3.  Happy Cracking.

cracking (Log 4 + Hacking 2 + Spec 2 + VR 2 = 10): 10d6t5 2 first attempt unlikely to be successful, but I hit my limit anyway.  So if (hah) that didn't work, we'll try again with pre-edge to break the limit and give me 3 more dice.
cracking w/edge (Log 4 + Hacking 2 + Spec 2 + VR 2 + Edge 3 = 13): 13d6h5 4 that should do it.  Possible to defend with 6 dice, but not so likely.  (Note: exploded twice for 0 extra hits boo)

@Zwei and @Mal, we will be using Missions FAQ errata on the Rain Forest Carbine, making it 11P -2AP, I believe. 

Oh, I didn't know it had been nerfed *that* much.  That makes it *WAY* worse than an Alpha and more expensive to boot   I'll definitely change that then.  There's 0 reason to take a more expensive poorer performing weapon, even for story at that rate.  (can understand not optimizing, but that's paying extra to have less than half the capabilities of a cheaper weapon)  I'll pick another weapon.

ETA: went with the Yamaha Raiden.  Same dam/ap but with bf/fa options and included smartgun and electronic firing.

@bangbang, don't underestimate the power of Suppressive Fire.  No Recoil is a biggie, and even without a large pool you can still shut down a good number of the opposition simply by laying down lead.

This!  SF is what non-combat specialists do with their IPs when they aren't doing whatever their specialty is!

[Malevolence]

bangbang, I'm curious as to how you are reaching 10 INT. You start with 5 and then somehow boost it to 10. Increase Attribute [Intuition] will get you to 9 (with +4 due to augmentation limit), but the last point... I was only glancing at it, so I can't be certain that I didn't miss something elsewhere that accommodates that.


Zwei, the Raiden is a solid choice if BF and cost is important, otherwise you can go sniper rifle and keep the DV/AP with SA. Of course, the cost goes way up...

[bangbangtequila]

Magic isn't an augmentation, so I'm just capped at the maximum possible score of 10. It's hard to point out the rule, but there are threads with pages upon pages explaining why this is so. Something about how drugs and magic both can boost beyond +4, and that non-implantations stack with implants.

I can dig up the specific posts which explain that rule for you if you like?

[rednblack]

Magic isn't an augmentation, so I'm just capped at the maximum possible score of 10. It's hard to point out the rule, but there are threads with pages upon pages explaining why this is so. Something about how drugs and magic both can boost beyond +4, and that non-implantations stack with implants.

I can dig up the specific posts which explain that rule for you if you like?

From the text of the Increase [Attribute] Spell, on page 288 of the CRB:

". . . The Force of the spell must equal or exceed the (augmented) value of the Attribute being affected. The Attribute is increased by an amount equal to the hits scored, up to the target’s augmented maximum (any hits that would increase the Attribute beyond its augmented maximum are ignored). . ."

[bangbangtequila]

Oh well. I may be thinking about the old augmented maximum rules. I'd thought between psyche and increased it would be 10. Alas, I can just sustain it anyway and run it as 6 and wp as 5 as I'd initially intended.

[Tecumseh]

I have a busy week in front of me.

My wife and I are moving in a week. It's only six blocks but it still requires that we pack everything up, put it on a truck, haul it over there, then reverse the process.

Sunday will be Mother's Day, our first as parents. I suppose I should do something for that.

Monday I'll be traveling for work. Tuesday through Thursday I'll be juggling work and packing. Friday I will be taking the day off to do some of the moving, which will continue over the weekend.

I'll be able to monitor things continuously but my posting rate will be slower.

[bangbangtequila]

Equipment and such updated. I'm finalizing my background now, and will have it up there by the end of the day.

[Tecumseh]

@bangbang, did you ever finalize your background? If so, can you show us where you put it? I can't find it.

@rednblack, what do you want to have happen next? Do you want me and Mal to keep ICing or do you want to pause for bangbang and Zweiblumen to enter stage left?

OOCly, I'm still thinking that there might be some solid smuggler connections here. Zweiblumen is a rigger and bangbang's contact is a talismonger.

[Zweiblumen]

My original thoughts on Spitfire were much more machine based infiltration/recon/assault based.  It would be simple enough to change a few knowledge skills and make him more of a smuggler.