| From: | Max Rible <slothman@*********.ORG> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Full of Life |
| Date: | Thu, 31 Jul 1997 11:49:51 -0800 |
>The whole dual-natured ivy thing is just this: the awakened plants act as a
>Ward IN EVERY WAY.
...
>For example, a corp research building is protecting by a Rating 6 para-ivy
>grown over its walls. An astral projector with Sorcery 6 flys up and tries to
>pass through. The ivy attacks. Both sides roll Astral Combat Tests using
>their dice vs. TN 4. If the ivy gets more successes, it does combat damage
>like a Barrier, or 6M, if the projector wins, his successes reduce the ivy's
>Rating. If the projector wins the combat (ie, reduces the ivy's Rating to 0)
>he is able to pass through, but "the barrier remains intact against all other
>intruders." (SRII, "Barriers," p.147) just like a normal astral
barrier.
This has a believability problem for me. If you kill the astral form of the
ivy, the ivy should *die*.
Alternatively, there could be a form of Awakened ivy that naturally
creates a ward in astral space where it's growing in the physical world.
At 11:18 7/31/97 -0600, David Buehrer wrote:
>Quicksilver wrote:
>| My problem with this is that a mage can just stand off and blast the ivy
>| with a spell of some kind. Sure, he can do the same kind of thing to a
>| ward (shattershield spell,) but the ward is not vulnerable to mundane
>| attacks as well.
>IMO, such a defense would be backed up and layered. Put the dual-natured
>ivy up as your basic wall. Then toss a couple of watchers out there to
>watch the perimeter. Have a mage or two inside, with a couple of elementals
>on standby, ready to start wacking if something twigs with the ivy.
However, this is a great deal more expensive than just having an ivy-lichen
wall. One of the things I *like* about a standard, unAwakened ivy-lichen
wall is that it's an excellent astral barrier that isn't terribly expensive,
so it's believable that people are spending the nuyen for it. Whenever I'm
designing a target for shadowrunners, I look at the kind of expense required
to maintain it. Wards and magicians and elementals cost a lot; an ivy-lichen
wall has a modest startup cost and low maintenance, and can be used to make
life tricky for runners without making them say, "Hey! Someone must be
spending
like fifty kilonuyen a year on this ward!" Once an astral mage can start
quietly whacking ivy, it means you need a lot more expensive astral security.
(Wards, at least, ping their creators when they're attacked. Ivy isn't going
to do that.)
As far as I can tell, this whole need for non-astral living things to be
permeable to astral things comes down to FAB. If you don't worry about
FAB, living
walls are a splendid thing and everything works just fine. What if living
things
can stop astral forms, but only if they're dense enough? This means that
ordinary
bacteria flying through the air after someone sneezes won't blow an astral
mage
across the room, and that FAB, if it *weren't* a dual-natured critter,
would be
unable to impede a magician. Make FAB dual-natured so magicians can battle it
like Steve would like, but allow unAwakened ivy-lichen walls to remain useful
barriers. (When making the call about bacteria, it'd be good to hear
whether the level of plankton in the ocean qualifies as a barrier.) If you
want to capture a magician, you need a FAB net, because they'll just squirt
out
of one containing strands of algae. Cheap astral barriers remain available.
Living soil keeps mages from getting into your facility by going underground.
--
%% Max Rible %% slothman@*****.com %% http://www.amurgsval.org/~slothman/ %%
%% "So, an Arisian, a Vorlon, and a knnn go into a tavern..." %%
