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The Found Arcana OOC

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Tecumseh

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« Reply #30 on: <08-31-18/1425:56> »
I don't even try to read PDFs on a laptop. I have a 7" tablet and an 8" tablet, both of which I occasionally use for reading PDFs, but I wouldn't say that I enjoy sitting down with them. Perhaps I get enough screen time in the rest of my day, but after just a page or two my eyes have crossed and I want to do something else. Conversely, I bought the dead trees version of Cutting Aces and ripped through it in a week because it's easier on the eyes.

Separately, I bought Cutting Aces off Amazon for $24 but now it's $39. There are several other books I'd like to buy and read on paper, like Market Panic and Street Lethal, but they're mid-$40s. Anyone know why the price varies so much, or did I just get lucky with Cutting Aces?

Beta

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« Reply #31 on: <08-31-18/1435:50> »
eReaders are very close to reading on paper.  They just make black dots or white dots, and let ambient light do the rest (as opposed to a backlit LCD display).  I was a bit sceptical until I tried it, but I find it really quite good.  I've still bought paper versions of a few books, but I've actually read others front to back on the eReaders comfortably.

I'll shut up about it now though.

Tecumseh

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« Reply #32 on: <08-31-18/1443:57> »
Tell me which one you have. How do they handle non-standard formatting, like pictures and tables?

Jack_Spade

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« Reply #33 on: <08-31-18/1517:08> »
I've finished the crunchy stuff and am on my way through the background.

As mentioned elsewhere, they messed up some of my tricks, but I already have some new stuff to replace it.

I absolutely love the Faceless tech - not only because you can edit yourself out of the ubiquitous surveillance, but also because I love modding persona mods onto stuff - and nothing beats having a commlink with DR10...

I have a half formed idea for an AR Adept hacker (use Heightened Concern to negate penalties of the new reckless hacking for a very, very speedy hacking experience).

Also, the new ammo has potential - if you don't shoot with it but instead place it next to the device you plan to direct connect to.

... and I should stop now. Not like my char has the money, knowledge or inclination to do anything in that direction.
talk think matrix

To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield
Revenant Kynos Isaint Rex

Beta

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« Reply #34 on: <08-31-18/1544:34> »
Tell me which one you have. How do they handle non-standard formatting, like pictures and tables?

I have the Kobo Aura One (largest screen on a fairly widely avaible e-reader).  It displays pdf just fine, tables and all.  But it is classic e-ink, just black and white, so pictures obviously suffer (they are generally distinguishable as it does something intelligent to do grey-scaling by portion of dots black:white), but there is a reason that I bought the Rigger book in the paper version. 

PDF pages don't flip as quickly as something like a normal novel does, and very graphic heavy pages in particular can take several seconds, which is annoying (although quicker if flipping back and forth, I think it must save recently rendered pages in short term memory or something like that).

It includes a table of contents feature as well as basic search functionality.  You can zoom in or out, but I find that having the whole page on the screen is readable so I don't generally play with that.

It is for sure NOT as good as having a book, and you are paying a substantial cost to get the e-reader, so not for everyone (I was going to get an e-reader anyway, after discovering that a lot of authors I like were publishing some material as e-books only, and that a lot of otherwise out of print books that I wanted to re-read were available electronically.  And I can borrow e-books from my local library directly from the device), so paying a bit more to get the larger screen, and making pdf easier to read, was worth it to me.

(I took pictures of how it looks -- it is small and light enough that I tend to haul it around with me a lot -- but then found out that you can't attach files over 256kb to the forums, which wouldn't make very useful reference pictures.  I'll see if I can pull them into google drive and set permissions so I can link you to them, later)

Beta

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« Reply #35 on: <08-31-18/1551:59> »
@Jack_Spade.  In the IC Bobby suggested
Quote
I suggest our spell slinger calls up a spirit asap and has it search for the boy directly.

Bobby may be disappointed, as we barely have any spirit power.  Out of three awakened characters, only Jawsey can summon spirits (he can summon spirits of man), and he is only working with Magic 2, summoning effectively 3.  With 13 soak dice he's wiling to call force 3 spirits, maybe even risk a force 4 occasionally, but they will not be the most powerful searchers.

(I only added a smidgen of casting and summoning to his 'traveler' build after the magic-D-full-mage option was pointed out. Not the optimum build for the priorities by any means, but I was looking to avoid the things I'd normally do with magic and focus on some odd corners instead. 

gilga

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« Reply #36 on: <08-31-18/1617:13> »
Well AM can construct a watcher, but I think that force 3 spirit is perhaps more powerful, even if she could go F5 watcher.

Lorebane24

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« Reply #37 on: <08-31-18/1618:23> »
Also, remember the dangers in the game of summoning spirits with a force higher than your magic.  Forbidden Arcana added an optional rule called "testing the leash" where a spirit will try to break from your control (possibly becoming a free spirit, which is going to piss people off.).  I will almost never check for this for most spirit, but if you oversummon, it's something they'll attempt somewhat routinely.
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Beta

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« Reply #38 on: <08-31-18/1631:32> »
@Lorebane:  Oops, I'd best go read up on that one!

@Tecumseh: sent you a message with links to pictures for the e-reader.
« Last Edit: <08-31-18/1633:18> by Beta »

Jack_Spade

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« Reply #39 on: <08-31-18/1653:31> »
Spending some reagents to reduce drain on a oversummoned watcher would probably be best. 
talk think matrix

To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield
Revenant Kynos Isaint Rex

gilga

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« Reply #40 on: <08-31-18/1709:10> »
Thing is AM has 10 dice, and if I understand correctly ritual resist with Fx2 so at F5 it is 50% chance... Even then - it would have intuition 3 and magic 5 = 8 dice - to be raise to 11 or so with magic.

So she can do F1 -F3 quite reliably higher gets shaky... now since Watcher has F-2 attributes... there is little incentive to go to F3. F3 gets 5 dice, going to say 8 with magic.

Summoning does not cost reagents, and F3 spirit has 7 dice for search, to be augmented to 10 or so with the improve intuition spell.  I feel that watcher is the inferior option.

« Last Edit: <08-31-18/1711:45> by gilga »

Tecumseh

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« Reply #41 on: <08-31-18/1757:23> »
@GM
Can we get some additional details:

1) Time of year

2) Current weather/conditions

3) Time of day

Lorebane24

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« Reply #42 on: <08-31-18/1839:44> »
Of course!

1) Time of year:  Mid-september

2) Weather conditions: Despite this being Seatlle, it is not raining this evening.  Tempuratures are starting to change, and right now they are on the cooler side of temperate.

3) Time of day: Let's say Arthur Liu came into your office at around 16:00, and it is currently about 17:30.
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Tecumseh

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« Reply #43 on: <08-31-18/1858:00> »
Wiz, thanks. I like the IC post too.

Beta

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« Reply #44 on: <08-31-18/2226:34> »
Well, that was a curveball!

I didn't write out Jawsey telling the others what he observed, but assume that he tells everything.  I think AM is planning on putting an increase intuition or something like that on the spirit?