[GloriousRuse]

Think the east-west positions are reversed Tec...

[Tecumseh]

Anyone have a post reference for that? I'll change it if it's been established already.

Thanks everyone for the IC posts. Rednblack is real-lifing at the moment but hopes to have a post up tomorrow. Pap is still MIA and in very real danger of having Ité's brain cooked by IC. I'll give him through the weekend to reemerge. I'll continue to IC post for him in the meantime.

@Jayde, do you want to roll a couple rounds of back-and-forth between the air spirit and the earth spirits? The earth spirits only have 7 dice to attack and the air spirit has 12 dice to dodge, so it should be able to stand a step or two ahead. (Remember the house rules about spirits. The earth spirits are "greater" and thus have stats as listed in the book. The air spirit is "regular" and thus has -2 to its listed attributes.)

If you don't want to, I might during some downtime.

[Jayde Moon]

I wasn't really meaning for them to duke it out.  I guess Spirits in general don't have access to their 'powers' per se... but my thought was that it was using 'concealment' and just flavoring it in the context of snow flurries... which being a solid object, would be opaque to astrally perceiving beings.  The idea is that they are blinded and don't have LOS on any of us and can't really track our movements.

The flurries would affect anything in the area, actually, which works with concealment because it conceals us rather than blinds others...

[Tecumseh]

Even in SR5, Concealment is a Physical power and would not affect astrally assensing beings.

Similarly, snow is not sufficient to blind someone on the astral.

I'm actually curious about this now. I strongly suspect that an air spirit - even a lesser air spirit - would be very competitive with a greater earth spirit. It comes down to the air spirit's superior Agility (or, conversely, an earth spirit's inferior Agility) and the lack of a soak roll in Anarchy.

Even with my house rules, a lesser air spirit would roll 9 to attack vs. the greater earth spirit's 9 to dodge. Ties go to the attacker, so advantage lesser air spirit.

The lesser air spirit gets 8 to dodge vs. the greater earth spirit's 7 to attack, so advantage lesser air spirit again.

Immunity to Normal Weapons doesn't apply in this case. Since the earth spirit doesn't get a soak roll, it's almost as fragile as the air spirit. The earth spirit does have a better condition monitor and would do more damage if it connects, but I'm going to take this as a point of imbalance between the different spirit types. That said, I think it's more the case that earth spirits are markedly inferior rather than air spirits being superior to the other types. Fire spirits are very good, and Water/Man are fairly competitive too.

[Jayde Moon]

[spoiler=Rules musings]I really do hate astral perception rules pretty much nullifying the sneaking skill outright.  I have ways I deal with it in my games, because honestly, rules as written, I think it's pretty much impossible to ever do anything quietly against anyone who even has a minimal amount of funding.  Stack four force 1 watcher spirits facing a different direction and boom, done deal, no one can ever quietly infiltrate without you knowing.

As for snow blocking astral perception, it would block it as well as it would normal eyesight.  You can't see through non-organic material, water is inorganic, if all the snow between a perceiver and a target were compressed (cross-sectioned?) into a 2d space and there were no holes in coverage (as in 50 meters between them in a full on blizzard) then vision would be obscured.[/spoiler]

Yeah, the conceal power would not work against spirits, I wasn't thinking of that in my excitement about the snow idea... was just trying to think how to mechanically explain it, since spirits of Air don't necessarily have any sort of way to generate wind... psychokinesis, maybe...

But I hear ya!  Spirits fighting.  got it 

[GloriousRuse]

"<<Six, Two. East demo set. I'm outbound at fence. Break>>

<<3 man patrol just came out, doing close walk on the dish. Might see demo in a few minutes. Break>>

<<If they see it, I'm blowing charges unless you say otherwise. Over.>>"

"Swoopy nodded at Chante, breaking east from the last rally point while the specialty support team went to work."

"..speaking of which, he was nearly at his plotted turn south, where the trees were thickest and north of the eastern dish."

[rednblack]

First off, IC is forthcoming.  I probably need to make some rolls, and if I can pawn off some on Pap all the better.  In the 30 seconds Shiriki would like to accomplish the following:

1. Get Roto-drone back on the right side of the fence and then hover about 10M up at the rendezvous point and await the team.
2. Get turrets bricked.  I was thinking we could save one for Shiriki to use for the underwear boys, but since they won't be firing non-lethal rounds, and underwear boys don't have armor, unless they're going MMO-styled bikini armor, so any shots would have the likelihood of killing them.
3. Get Dragon piloted to the rendezvous point.

Ite should be able to handle #2.  With how they're spaced, knocking out 3 should be plenty. 

Pap's got 12 Hacking dice vs. the Host's 12.  He has 5 Edge remaining, so I'll have him spend Edge on each test.  That ups his pool to 13, and will leave him with 2 remaining Edge, which will hopefully be enough if the Spider takes note.  As a quick note/question, I notice that Pap was subtracting 4 dice for distance, while I was using the 12 dice resistance to account for distance.  I thought Tec had said to do so, but if I was in the wrong, I've been overestimating my Hacking pool by nearly half.  Let me know how I should proceed there.

LOG 5 + Hacking 6 + Specilization 2 + VR 1 + Codeslinger 2 - Far 4= 12: 3#12d6t4 8 5 7
8, 5, and 7 Hits respectively.

The Host resist with 12 dice.
Host Resist: 12: 3#12d6t5 1 5 2
Second one comes in close with a tie, but since that goes to the attacker, Ite should be able to knock out each turret. 

Once the Dragon is refueled, Shiriki is going to pilot it to the rendezvous point, or as close to it as he can get.  A Piloting test is in order.  As per Tec's earlier post, the storm will be opposing with 12 dice.
Drone Piloting: AGI (8) + Pilot (5) + Control Rig (2) + Combat Pilot (2) + VR (1) = 18 dice.: 18d6t5 5

Environmental Opposed Roll: 12: 12d6t5 7
Damn, son.  Shiriki is not living up to his reputation with the whole keeping the vehicle off the ground thing.  Given the fact that this is takeoff, that's a crash, I would think.  That means damage to Shiriki and the Dragon = the Dragon's Durability/2.  And guess what?  The Bulldog has a Durability of 16, so let's go with that.  Shiriki takes 8P, as does the Dragon. 

Shiriki is at -2 to his next roll.
Drone Piloting: AGI (8) + Pilot (5) + Control Rig (2) + Combat Pilot (2) + VR (1) - Wounds (2) = 16 dice.: 16d6t5 4
Not terribly sub-par, but Shiriki wouldn't survive another crash, so I'm stealing one of Jayde's Edge to re-roll failures.
Edge Re-roll: 12d6t5 5
9 Hits total.

Storm opposes with 12 dice.
Environmental Opposed Roll: 12: 12d6t5 0
hahahahaha.  Sorry, Jayde.

The damaged vehicle protests, but it gets airborne, and on its way. 

@Tec, how much ammo do we have?  Shiriki will try to leave the boys in their dress blues alone, but it could be useful against those Spirits, depending on how they're gaining on the forward team.

About the Air Spirit v. Earth Spirits, it does look like the Air Spirits would have an edge on average, but with such a small advantage in dice pools, I don't know that that edge should be relied on in this instance.  Anything could happen once it's popped into the dice roller.

On Concealment and Sneaking v. Astral Perception I was of the same mind as Jayde for a long time, and strongly considered altering Concealment specifically to affect the Astral as well.  But, in SR5 anyway there are Metamagics one can take that address that -- making your aura appear as that of an insect, small animal, etc. depending on the location.  Anarchy doesn't have anything related, though it could be a good use for a Shadow Amp.  To my mind Sneaking should be a valid way of getting past Astrally Perceiving entities, depending on the environment.  If there is a lot of Astral clutter, cover, etc. one should be able to Sneak.  The blizzard is interesting as the storm wouldn't impede Astral vision, but water does, so would the blizzard shorten the effective range of Astral sight as more and more water is between the viewer and the viewee, or are Astral bodies so bright that they would effectively be beacons cutting through the dark.  I'm thinking the latter is more likely as even full body armor doesn't interfere with Astral sight, even though a thin pane of glass does. 

Anyway, I'm going to get on that IC.

ETA: it occurs to me that I should probably also put in a Perception test.
Perception: LOG (7) + WIL (6) + Control Rig (2) = 15 dice: 15d6t5 3
Shiriki is looking for the team's current position as well as the approach of the various antagonists.

[Jayde Moon]

For the spirits, first I'm going to determine initiative:

Air Elemental
Street Runner Ini: 6d6t5 2 hits

Earth Elemental 1
Prime Runner Ini: 8d6t5 3 hits

Earth Elemental 2
Prime Runner Ini: 8d6t5 2 hits

I'll say tie goes to the air Elemental because it is otherwise faster.

So Earth Elemental 1, Air Elemental, Earth Elemental 2.

I realize I am typing Elemental instead of Spirit Of...  not going to change all of that...

So the Spirit of Air is moving in and the first Spirit of Earth lobs clod of icy dirt at it (Elemental Attack Earth), so attack roll is... what?  Spirits usually get exotic weapon proficiency along with their elemental attack...?  so we'll assume they have it at 3 (1 for the Spirit of Air?)

Spirit of Earth Elemental Attack
Agility (4) + EW (3): 7d6t5 5 hits!!!

Uh oh...

Agility ( + Log (4): 12d6t5 5 hits! PHEW!  Grazing hit.  No secondary affect for dirt clods.

The Spirit of Air stays out of melee range, and shoots it's own lightning arc.

Agility ( + EW (1): 9d6t5 2 hits I accidentally rolled 11, so I roll 9 and if it's higher ignore it.. got 3, so 2 hits it stays.

The Spirit of Earth 2 Dodges

Agility (4) + Log (5): 9dt65 2 hits Secondary Electrical Effects?  I say yes!  -1 to rolls.

The second Spirit of Earth throws it's own dirt clod.

Agility (4) + EW (3): 6d6t5 2 Hits (I rolled 7, so took off the last die)

And the Air Elemental Dodges:

Agility ( + Log (4): 12d6t5 3 hits

I'll IC post shortly.

[Tecumseh]

@Glorious
Roger, I'll edit my earlier post.

@rednblack
Thanks for the long posts. I'm going to GM adjust the damage from the crash. The Dragon has some armor on it that will help cushion the blow. We'll use the Heavy Drone example on p. 135. That gives the Dragon 1 box of auto-soak and 12 boxes of armor. The crash does 8, of which 1 hit gets auto-soaked, leaving 7 boxes for the armor.

But, not to let Shirki off the hook too easily, we'll say that he's Disoriented (-2) for his next Narration until he clears his head.

The IC post makes a mention of refueling, but to my knowledge the drone was never ordered to refuel the Dragon. Ité ordered the drone to add ammo instead. Given the 30 second of load time, the drone can load enough ammo for ten (10) machine gun "attacks", and five (5) cannon/launcher attacks.

@Jayde
Thanks for the rolls. We will call them Earth Elementals from now on, which is what they were called through 3E when they were summoned by a hermetic.

Greater/lesser only applies to Attributes, not skills, so you were right to roll 11 for the air spirit attack.

This applies to everyone: if you roll too many dice, just drop the appropriate number from the sequence that Orokos provides. Since Orokos doesn't order the dice (lowest to highest, for example), dropping from the end of the sequence is equitable.

Remember that ties go to the attacker; there aren't any grazing hits in Anarchy. The earth elemental and the air spirit both connect. The earth spirit does 5P - let's skip the combat power since these aren't combat spirits, we'll just use natural attack - which eats 5 out of 6 boxes of the air spirit's armor.

If you're using the air spirit's elemental attacks - and it sounds like you are - then the proper dodge roll is Strength + Willpower. (See p. 138.) Unfortunately earth spirits are pretty badass at these (16 dice to dodge) so let's call it an unarmed attack instead, even if those are pitiful, to match the rolling you've already done. That translates to 1P so - kapow! - the earth spirit now has 11 boxes of armor instead of 12.

@All
For evac, Dan-Dan and Chante could conceivably jump in the Dragon as it is taking off. Or something more dramatic, hmm?

Swoopy will need to make a run through the woods. Given the snow and his full body armor, he'll need about a minute to do this.

Shiriki and Ité will need to pop out of VR - or will they - and then run ~100 meters north to the evac spot.

The good news is that Pap logged into the site today so I'm hoping he re-emerges. I'll give him a couple days. If he hasn't risen by Easter, then it's off to the tomb for Ité.

[MDMann]

I've posted a quick reply but hope to post something longer later. Hopefully Daniel will vault into the belly of the departing dragon as the dobermans are snapping at his heels. Hopefully.

[GloriousRuse]

Athletics: 12 , Target 4: 12d6t5 4

[Tecumseh]

I PM'd Pap again. I plan to move things forward either Sunday night or Monday morning.

@MDMann
Go ahead and make an Athletics test for jumping into the Dragon. You have have +2 for Wall Running / Light Body as they will help. It's not necessarily a difficult jump but the downdraft from the Dragon's rotor blades will make it trickier than usual. Note, the Dragon in its gunship configuration has a ramp at the rear, not open doors at the sides. It has four landing wheels at each corner.

We'll stay that it's an Average jump:

Average jump difficulty (8 ): 8d6t5 1 hit

Well that's thoroughly disappointing. I was hoping it would be a little more challenging. Anyway, once you roll you'll be able to IC something cool. Maybe wall running up something to jump into the back.

Actually, let's make this interesting. I'm going to spend a GM Plot Point on a variation of Surprirse Threat / Malfunction: the rear hatch of the Dragon will not open. Either it's frozen shut or it was damaged while Shiriki was crashing it. If you want a ride out of the base, you'll have to jump on one of the landing wheels and hold on for dear life during the short ride to the rendezvous point. This should only take one Narration, but the bad news is that you won't be able to fully dodge incoming fire. You'll still get a dodge roll since you'll be attached to a moving vehicle, and thus hard to hit, but you won't get your full AGI + LOG pool.

@rednblack
A reminder: Shiriki's body is in the woods, say halfway through. He'll eventually have to drop into AR if he's going to make it to the extraction point himself. He has great Agility but, still, running through the snow is difficult. It will take him about 30 seconds to get there unless you want to drop a Plot Point to double-time it.

@GloriusRuse
Great IC post. You're creeping forward into the next Narration but that's okay. Swoopy is getting a good workout but is up to the challenge.

@All
The next step is going to be similar to the last step. I don't know if we'll break into Initiative again or if we'll just abstract it. The clothed guards will break out of their shacks and will begin searching for targets. That will take them a little while to do so they'll probably only have time for 1 attack, not 10. Same with the drones. The spirits will continue to rumble unless they receive orders to do something else.

You don't have to declare and roll yet; I'm still planning on an IC post to wrap up this first 30 seconds before we move onto the next 30 seconds. And, with luck, Pap will reemerge before then.

[Tecumseh]

No word from Pap so Ité is in my tender loving care until...

We're doing the same thing again for the the next thirty seconds. There are six guards emerging from the guard huts; they are largely blinded and disoriented. Four are to the west (the two huts there) and two are to the east (near Swoopy). The ones near Swoopy can't see him but can see his footprints. The RNG wasn't very creative this morning and made 5 humans, 1 elf, all of them male.

Per Glorious' IC post, the two near him will blind fire into the forest:

Soldier #5: AGI 6 + Firearms 4 - Blind Fire 6: 4d6t5 3 hits
Soldier #6: AGI 5 + Firearms 4 - Blind Fire 6: 3d6t5 1 hit (mislabeled as Soldier #5 in the roll)

@Glorious Dodge your shots. I know that Swoopy has his back turned and isn't exactly paying attention about when to duck and weave, but go ahead and roll your full dodge pool (10) with an extra +2 to represent Cover from the trees.

If you want to IC again, the exploding turrets will effectively startle/surprise them, at which point they'll take cover and stop firing.

@Chante, Dan-Dan, Shiriki
The soldiers to the west are searching for targets. They can't see Chante because she's invisible. They probably can't pick Dan-Dan out yet either. Odds are good that the Dragon is going to make a nice target for them once they get their bearings.

@MDMann
If you're still planning on jumping onto the Dragon, go ahead and roll for it. Your threshold to do so is low (1 hit) but see the previous post for the position it will put you in.

@Jayde
Figure out how Chante would like to make her exit. The spirits are still duking it out, but the earth spirits are taking an interest in the departing helicopter, bulldozer, and dump truck.

@rednblack
I was looking over your last IC post and wanted to make sure we were clear on a couple things. The Dragon is more like a Chinook (front/rear rotors) rather than an Osprey (side propellers/rotors). It doesn't have wings, there is no "right" propeller, etc. Don't forget that Shiriki is at -2 for Disorientation for this narrative.

Everyone ahead and push things through the next 30 seconds (declare and roll as necessary) but don't trigger the charges on the radars yet.

[GloriousRuse]

Being shot at! base 10 + Cover 2: 2#12d6t5 3 3

[Tecumseh]

Ties go to the attacker. That's 8 boxes against Swoopy's armor.