Duvors

Ronin Perception Check (DC 1): (5,5,4,6) four successes. It is easy to see that Vinoq's suit has been repaired many times over an extended period. Ronin Engineering Check (DC 3): (6,5,5) three successes. However, you notice all the work has been of a consistently high quality - likely expensive - and has certain hallmarks of all being done by the same workshop. Likely Vinoq has only one person he trusts near his life support. Vinoq sweeps up the credits in a graceful motion and deposits them somewhere in his cloak. "I thank you for your generosity. But now I must repay you in kind. Let me see, what would be an appropriate recompense for this gift? Hmmm..." There is a momentary pause. "Why don't I give you some further context?" His arms shift to a new position. "Only a few of the newspapers covered this, but Alex Kampf and the four who disappeared all at once did not merely live in the same area, but were associates of one another. Some time back - I can't pin down exactly when - they began holding regular meetings in an unknown location, seemingly at the instigation of a sixth person whose identity I had to go to great lengths to acquire." There's a momentary silence. You wait in expectation for said identity. Unfortunately these hopes are soon dashed. "Too great lengths, indeed, for me to give it away for just ten credits. The same goes for the truth of Machen's identity, or for the Grey & Brown Shipping co. and its relation to the police's inaction on these cases." He gives a slight nod in mock benevolence. "You don't need to give out further charity if you do not wish it. I will happily gift you more of these stories in return for some of your own... if I think them valuable enough."

Looking back over the fight, I realize I forgot to add Black's Skill bonus to their Velocity. They should've been moving three squares a turn.

He nods slightly in acknowledgment of your greeting, then listens attentively to your inquiry. "Ahhh, yes," he says, his voice calm and lilting, steady in tone. "You wish to ask about the man who was here last week. You are indeed correct in that I am an observant person, but I have a problem you see." He shifts his arms into a new position. "I am a member of the Sect of the Red Cloud, and am sworn to a vow of poverty and to live solely on the charity of others." He motions gently around himself. "Unfortunately, maintenance on this suit is expensive, and I must eat, but charity is lacking on this station. But were you to donate something to my continued livelihood, I would be obliged by my vows to give you any help you require." As he talks, you begin to sense an oily smugness beneath his thin veneer of feigned innocence. "However, I am not without charity myself, so I will tell you things you could learn elsewhere, but only after much time. I hope this kindness will prompt reciprocal kindness in you." He shifts slightly in place. "To begin with, I. Machen came here looking for looking for reports of strange activity or unusual phenomena, and seeking a specific individual known as Alex Kampf. This is not meaningful in itself, but I suspect your interest is as much in Machen's quarry as he himself. Alex Kampf - a technician formerly in the employ of White Knight - first entered public consciousness when he vanished three weeks ago. Only a small article was dedicated to him, being either famous nor rich, but it seems to have caught the attention of this Machen, who made many equities around this area of the station. Unfortunately for him, he also disappeared around ten days ago, sadly failing to make the papers. He nods to you. "Judging by your enquiries, attire, weapons, and reek of sewer air, I assume that you are Heroica agents hired by Arno Milver to investigate the vanishing of Gregory Smiles, which occurred three days after Machen's own. Finally, five days ago, four more people disappeared - Rosco Bisque, Reid Catlow, Erik Sharpey, and Jet Stoyer - all on the same day. They made the headlines. All of them lived in the same area, a low-income neighborhood in the southeast docks, near to Blue Moon. The same area where Kampf lived." He shrugs. "I do know more, but I cannot part with it save in repayment for a gift freely given."

It's nice to see another old face in here, welcome!

"Thank you, you've been real kind. I hope we meet again sometime. Returning to the street, you begin looking around for this 'Vinoq' character. It's a bit difficult to spot his... er, 'residence' at first, but it's practically next door and you know exactly where it is, so you don't have any difficulty in finding it, set into its alcove like a shrine. Making your way across the street, you soon find yourselves face-to-jelly with the character you seek: "Greetings, wanderers. What brings you to the humble abode of this poor mendicant?"

Thank you. In hindsight I think I made an obvious mistake by making Azure's highest proficiency Acrobatics instead of Religion. The Inability to seriously heal themselves or meditate to full put them on the back foot almost the entire fight, forcing them to constantly run and hide as well as preventing them from using Master of the Warlike Art more than once in the entire fight. Honestly though, even if I had swapped Acrobatics and Religion I just think it would've made the fight last longer without changing the result. Black's plethora of defensive options, coupled with Azure's lack of auto successes on their unarmed attacks, made it damn near impossible to hurt them. Azure only did one damage in the entire fight. In fact I'd say that technically the majority of the damage on Black was self-inflicted. Considering that spirit refreshing per battle was actually one of the original complaints (encouraging fighting over other options) I'm not sure this really fixes the issue satisfactorily. I find the idea of 0-level spells interesting, but I'm not sure it's quite right. Having had time to think, I believe Zephyr is ultimately right that the way meditate currently works is problematic, and my real disagreement is over implementation. I think the idea of 'rests' is the best framework to use, but I don't think it should be purely MM dictated. I'm fine with MM's limiting opportunities to rest, but I take issue at MM's telling players 'you rest now' or 'you now regain spirit and vitality'. I prefer the ultimate choice remaining in player hands, partly because it allows for situations where the players have to choose between marshaling their resources and pushing on to keep ahead of a pursuer, or give themselves more time to prevent a disaster, or prevent opportunities from being lost. I've also talked earlier about the idea of meditation having a dynamic limit on usage rather than a static one: Essentially you don't automatically regain Spirit, instead having you opportunities to recover on the fly refreshed. I'm debating having Vitality work somewhat the same way. It's awkward because Vitality and Spirit are massively different from each other in function, but it would also make regaining Vitality by resting a more touch-and-go thing. Essentially something like this: # restorations = 1/2 medicine/survival/technology per rest, remaining uses do not stack. Essentially a restoration is like meditating, with the main difference being that it can be used on other people. It would also use one of the three proficiencies listed above. I'm on the fence with this however. As much as I want to make medicine relevant damnit i'm not sure if Vitality would be better served by having it just recover a flat amount. I do think this wold still be less powerful than magical healing ultimately. No, because they'd still count as 'spells known', so you'd still require spirit to know them in the first place.

Martial Artist vs. Battlemage Setup Azure is the Martial Artist, Black is the Battlemage. The bushes, the pillars, and the balcony railing count as light cover, and characters may move through them. The balcony itself counts as moderate cover, but the balcony's cover only applies to attacks from below and are not applied simultaneously with the railing's. The pillars are considered two squares high for movement purposes. Initiative ties are rerolled. Round One Initiative: Azure (6,2), Black (6,2). Tie, reroll. Azure (6,1), Black (5,5). Black goes first. Black: Move to B6, uses Transmuter's Advantage. Armor is now Kinetic. Azure: Move to B3, move to A4 (Flow Like Water) and attack with Short Range: (2,+2 vs. 5,6,+1) failure. Black starts by moving to take cover and altering their armor to better intercept their opponent's attacks. Azure seemingly makes a similar move, but surprises their opponent with a sudden burst of speed as they snap off a wild shot at them. Round Two Initiative: Azure (2,1), Black (6,5). Black goes first. Black: Move to D6, cast Pulling Point on Azure to A3 (3,1,6,6,6) 3 damage. Spirit 3, +1 die to next attack, Vitality 6+1. Azure Vitality 4. Azure: Move to C3, move to D4 and attack with Short Range (4,+2 vs. 4,5,+1) failure. Black desperately tries to keep their opponent at bay, injuring them severely in the process while moving to a safer distance. Azure keeps up the pressure though, speeding toward them and firing wildly. Round Three Initiative: Azure (4,5), Black (2,4). Azure goes first. Azure: Move to D5, make two unarmed attacks (Master of the Warlike Art) (1,5,2,6 vs. 6,5,+1) failure, (2,6,4,1 vs 2,5, +1) failure. Black: Move to F8, attack with Long Range (5,3,3,+1 vs. 5,+1) success, 2 damage. Azure Vitality 2. Azure makes a valiant attempt to injure their opponent, but only one attack lands. And that one is easily deflected by Black's armor. Black in turn retreats behind cover and fires a crippling shot at their foe. Round Four Initiative: Azure (1,4), Black (2,3). Azure goes first. Azure: Move to C3, cast Shielding Ward on Self. Spirit 0. Black: Move to H8, cast Shielding Ward on Self. Spirit 0, +3 die to next attack, Vitality 6. Azure recognizes how dire their situation is and dives for cover, casting a spell of protection on themselves. Recognizing that they can no longer injure their opponent, Black mimics them - strengthening their next attack in the process. Round Five Initiative: Azure (1,1), Black (3,1). Tie, reroll. Azure (5,2), Black (5,6). Black goes first. Black: Move to H6, Meditate (1,2,2,6,1), Spirit 1. Azure: Move to E1, Meditate (3,4), Spirit 1. Black moves so their view is unobstructed by the fountain, keeping cover behind the pillars. It's still to long a shot, so they decide to recuperate. Azure moves to take cover behind the potted plant and begins to marshal their strength in turn. Round Six Initiative: Azure (6,5), Black (2,5). Azure goes first. Azure: Move to D1, uses Plasma Potion (4) Vitality 6. Black: Move to G4, cast Diverting Duplicate. Spirit 0, +4 die to next attack. Azure shifts to better place the plant between them and their adversary and downs a healing elixir. Black decides to make themselves even harder to injure, conjuring a number of illusory duplicates to distract Azure's strikes. Round Seven Initiative: Azure (5,4), Black (6,1). Azure goes first. Azure: Move to F3, make an unarmed attack and move to G2 (2,4,6,4 vs. 3,1,+6) failure, one Shielding Ward left. Black: Move to E4, attack with Long Range (4,4,1,3,4,1,+1 vs. 5,+6) failure, one Shielding Ward left. Azure charges their opponent in desperate attempt to fight back, but their lone swing in deflected by Black's spell and they swiftly dive behind a nearby pillar. Black rushes out to a position where they can hit their opponent easily and fires, but it's not enough to penetrate their enemy's defenses. However both of their spells of protection have been weakened. Round Eight Initiative: Azure (4,5), Black (4,6). tie, reroll. Azure (1,2), Black (1,3). Tie, reroll. Azure (6,5), Black (2,2). Azure goes first. Azure: Move to F2 and attack with Short Range (5,+2 vs. 5,6,+6) failure, enemy Shielding Ward gone. Switch to vertical and move up 1 and to G3 (upper). Black: Move to D2, Meditate (5,6,3,1,3) Spirit 2, Vitality 6+1. Azure makes another desperate attack against their opponent. Predictably it does no damage, but it does end the protective spell. They then run up one of the balcony's supporting pillars and take refuge behind the railing. Black in turn runs behind the potted plant and restores some of their magical energy. Round Nine Initiative: Azure (6,1), Black (5,6). Black goes first. Black: Black casts Pulling Point on Azure to F2 (upper) (4,6,3,4,2) 3 damage, Spirit 1, Vitality 6, +1 die to next attack. Azure Vitality 3. Azure falls two squares, treated as attack with one die per square fallen, Kinetic damage. (5,3 vs. 5) no damage. Azure: Move to H4, cast Sustaining Healing on self (3,3,+1) Vitality 4, Spirit 0. Black has a clever idea, choosing to telekinetically yank Azure into the air. This doesn't prove as damaging as hoped, with Azure landing on their feet safely. The effects of the pull are felt however, and Azure dives behind the pillars and attempts to heal themselves. It's not super effective. Round Ten Initiative: Azure (3,6), Black (3,6). Tie, reroll. Azure (5,1), Black (2,1). Azure goes first. Azure: Move to H6, Meditate (1,4) Spirit 1. Black: Move to E1, cast Pulling Point on Azure to G6 (6,1,2,6,3) 3 damage, Spirit 0, +2 die to next attack, Azure Vitality 1. Azure makes an attempt to restore some spirit, only to be cruelly dragged into the open. Round Eleven Initiative: Azure (1,1), Black (2,2). Tie, reroll. Azure (3,6), Black (3,2). Azure goes first. Azure: Move to H8, cast Sustaining Healing on Self (5,2,+1) Vitality 3, Spirit 0. Black: Move to C3, attack with Long Range (2,6,1,5+1 vs. 5,+10) failure, Azure Shielding Ward gone. Azure continues desperately trying to recover their health, drip by drip. Black, on the other hand, keeps the pressure up. Firing an attack that has no chance of hitting, but destroying Azure's defenses in the process. Round Twelve Initiative: Azure (3,5), Black (6,2). Tie, reroll. Azure (4,5), Black (3,4). Azure goes first. Azure: Move to F6, move to E5 and attack with Short Range (5,+2 vs. 2,5,+1, duplicate does not intercept) 1 damage, Black Vitality 5. Black: Move to B3, attack with Long Range (2,1,+1 vs. 6,+1) failure. Azure knows their situation is desperate, and decides that drastic action is called for. Azure charges Black, firing wildly. Black doges behind the fountain and fires back, missing by a wide margin. Round Thirteen Initiative: Azure (6,5), Black (6,6). Tie, reroll. Az (5,4), Bl (4,5). Reroll: Az (2,2), Bl (5,4). Bl goes first. Black: Attack with Long Range (6,6,+1 vs. 6,+1) 1 damage, Azure Vitality 2. Azure: Move to C3, make unarmed attack (2,1,6,6 vs. 5,6,+1) failure. Black fires again and manages to graze Azure, before they decend on them, fists swinging... and miss utterly. Round Fourteen Initiative: Az (3,5), Bl (3,6), reroll. Az (2,4) Bl (2,1) Az first. Az: Unarmed attack (6,6,3,3 vs. 3,2,+1, intercepted) dupe gone. Bl: Meditate (1,5,1,6,5) Spirit 3. Azure drives a fist into Black's gut, only for 'Black' to dissipate into nothing. The real Black uses the distraction to Prepare... Round Fifteen Initiative: Az (1,4) Bl (2,6) Bl first. Bl: Cast Pulling Tear on Az to F3 (1,1,6,5,3) 3 damage Az Vitality -1. And like that, the battle ends.

That needs to be removed then, it's utterly superfluous.

I... don't understand this? Unless I've forgotten something Spirit doesn't refresh at the start of battles anymore. It would be completely superfluous with meditate as an action. And meditation is hardly incompatible with diplomacy, stealth, or intelligence.

"Oh, those usually go for about five, err, here, have two." You spend ten credits on two lightbulbs. "Elfonn Deshelf? Nah, he's just a local weirdo. Really into mushrooms. the guy I'm talking about is Qoron Vinoq, a Quarm. Lives in a weird little tent thing in that alcove between the pizza place and that green apartment building. He says he's a mendicant monk who lives on charity and all that jazz, but he's also one of the biggest information brokers in the entire damn station. The bastard seems to know something about everything that goes on in this place. I... don't like him. He's too damn smooth and I keep getting into trouble with people who think I tell him things. I mean, I know I talk a lot, but I can keep... err... considering how we met I'm not gonna finish that."

I think what bothers me here is that those examples are to some extent 'fair'. The actions the MM takes are on the 'world' end of the spectrum and to some extent can be mitigated and avoided. Resting recover spirit is a 'player' end action and really should be a player choice if implemented. MMs have plenty of ways to narratively restrict access (ticking clocks, wandering monsters, delineated safe zones) that making it an MM end decision mechanically is a bit too harsh on spellcasters. This still has the issue regarding artificially extending combats, doesn't really create the scarcity desired, and is just narratively weird. I'd formulate this idea more like to following: # meditates = 1/2 highest casting prof per battle (or rest if implemented), leftovers pre battle/rest are deleted. I think this also would address the 'automatically Meditate to full' issue, at least partly.

I'm starting to think that the issue with meditate isn't so much 'it's implemented badly' as 'it exists'. It may be that there is no way to implement this cleanly and the idea should be abandoned. In other news, I think I do need to test the Battlemage and MA, so I'll run a brief fight to see how they function under the current rules. To start with, their stats. These are both 30 point builds with starting equipment packages and 10 credits spent on a plasma potion each: Martial Artist Vitality: 7 Velocity: 2 Strength: 4 Skill: 1 Smarts: 1 Spirit: 3 Spells: Healing Light, Quantum Transposition, Warding Bond Proficiencies: Acrobatics 5, Religion 2, Short Range 1 Equipment: Calibrated Kinetic Short Range, Standard Elemental Armor Inventory: Plasma Potion Battlemage Vitality: 6+2 Velocity: 2 Strength: 2 Skill: 2 Smarts: 2 Spirit: 4 Spells: Gravimetric Propulsion, Gravity Sink, Illusory Clone, Warding Bond Proficiencies: Arcana 5, Deception 1, Long Range 2, Stealth 1 Equipment: Standard Elemental Long Range, Standard Energy Armor Inventory: Shield Booster, Plasma Potion This fight will also make use of the directional obscurement rules from earlier in this thread (because white room fights are silly) as well as a vertical movement system I've devised: Under this system, a 'square' in grid terms is considered to actually be a cube. Thus, the occupied space and the vertical space adjacent to it are considered to be the same 'square', meaning it costs no movement to switch between vertical and horizontal movement. The other vertical square and the uppermost horizontal one however are both considered separate squares. If a Vertical surface has no handholds, a character can only move 1/2 of their Velocity on it and cannot end their turn there. Thus it costs one velocity to move diagonally from one to the other. All in all, moving from the lowest square in this picture to the highest costs 2 velocity. As to the rest, initiative will be rolled every round, and both characters will be played by myself unless people show an interest in playing one or more of the characters between now and when the fight is run.

"T-thank you for understanding. I don't think everyone would be as... forgiving." he gives a little electronic cough, he clearly puts a lot of effort into this whole 'body language' thing. "Missing maintenance worker? Why does that... Waitaminute... a prospective customer couple of days back, he was talking about a missing maintenance worker... but he said a bunch of people disappeared around the same time, 'bout two days ago he said. Err, five days now, been a while since I saw him. Unnerving stuff, but he didn't know much more. Probably saw it in the news, I don't pay attention to that stuff." "Thompson? I'm sorry, but aside from the fact that he was... er, my employer I guess, I don't know anything. I never saw him and was too afraid to ask around. Sorry."

That would be outright crippling as stated here, and more uses in this paradigm would add more complexity than I'm happy with for a non-class mechanic. I don't care how many things are MM dependent, a MM should not have control over a player's access to their own abilities. As a matter of fact I think it is important, because if the MM commits to rolling for it then the player has to make a separate post for every time they meditate. It's also part of the reason that Ætherbrews are better at restoring spirit, as they will always restore the highest amount you can get from meditating +1-6. Meditating on the other hand can potentially restore nothing if you roll badly enough. This becomes less likely as your casting proficiency increases, but unless you're deliberately withholding points from Spirit the latter is likely to shoot ahead of the former by a large amount, meaning that even if you have enough dice to nearly always succeed in meditating, It's rarely going to be enough to fully restore spirit. It's not basically the same, in fact it's more like the resting mechanic you propose, but with a different limiter on usage. Ætherbrews cost money and fill a limited inventory while having a one-time use, meditating doesn't do this but isn't as strong and the same goes for all the suggestions in thread. The only meaningful difference between meditating as is, rests, and limited meditations is the degree to which they make the process annoying and complicated. Personally I have yet to see any suggestion that isn't just 'make this system more awkward to use'. That is not how you balance something. I personally think that the implicit tedium in the current arrangement is also an example of this, but I can't think of a way of fixing it nor do I see any suggestions that actually address that. So make it so casting the highest levels of spellcasting only requires an 8 point investment instead of 14? That's a big change to something that was originally balanced in the intent that casters wouldn't automatically have access to meditation. It would equalize the points cost of multiple castings of lowest-level Purging Font and Healing Light with the higher level casting for the same number of people, but that's a really niche benefit. Since the import of this seems to have been missed, let me state it more clearly; we have untested features that directly interact with this rule, and changing it has the potential to seriously undermine their playstyle. They were designed in a context in which meditate was optional, but we've never tested how well they function with or without it and were still intended to require it to play optimally.

"Yeah... fair trade, sounds about right. I'm afraid I don't know what they were moving. I was... I was too scared to try and find out. Probably drugs though, that's where all the big money is." He adopts a 'scratching the back of his head' posture, likely a show considering a lack of actual need to do so. "The guy who came looking around? Lessee... tallish, orange hair, neat beard and mustache, tan jacket, blue shirt, camera, grey pants, little book he kept writing in, eager and inquisitive manner. Called himself I. Machen, but I don't think that was his real name. He was asking around about some guy... uh, wow, now I think of it that's not that different from you. Err..." He looks nervous for a bit, but decides to continue. "Right, some guy named Alex Kampf, said the guy was his friend and he'd gone missing. I could tell he was lying though. He was also asking if anything weird had happened recently. Of course I said no, but I don't think he believed me. I'm... kinda a terrible liar. ...and I get spooked easy." "...Yeah, yeah that sounds about right. You... you don't think Thompson whacked the guy and then skedaddled? No, no, I don't want that... I don't want you to get your ideas from me, I don't know what the heck I'm talking about." He pauses for a moment, seemingly considering something he's reluctant to say. "Y'know," he says, a tone of reluctance and distaste creeping into his words, "there's a ...guy I know of, he's even on this street. And he spoke with that guy Machen for a long time, damned snitch. He'll charge ya a lot for anything he knows though."

"Oh!" Pip seems pleased at your sentiment in a pathetic, possibly endearing, way. "Well, I can only move so much into the street at a time, and most people don't really have an eye for the value of old things like these. But sometimes someone like you comes along and sees these things the way I do. I don't really make a lot of money, but I have few real needs anyway."

The issue here is twofold; the first, which you've mentioned, is making it MM-dependent puts a character's abilities in the hands of the MM rather than the player, and the second is that making it player-dependent results in a system that is only differentiated from meditate as it currently stands by: Restoring all Sprit automatically, rather than rolling (this distinction isn't important now, but it will be once Sprit scores outpace casting scores). Restoring all Vitality automatically without requiring a dedicated healer. (Potentially?) Requiring the entire party to do it. In other words making it more powerful, but also somewhat more annoying to use. This is the option I'd personally prefer, but I'm in no way enthusiastic about it. I should also point out that the Battlemage and Martial Artist classes are both built around the idea that they gain benefits from having high spirit, but also have incentives to spend it (explicitly in the Battlemage's case, implicitly for the MA) and changing or removing meditate would seriously effect their intended playstyle and render them significantly weaker than intended.

I'll be honest, I love this style of interior design, and you've done a marvelous job of capturing it.

@Endgame @Yzalirk With a nod, the Adamite leads you into the building behind him. before you is a dingy grey corridor ending in another door with stairs leading up and down to one side. The Adamite leads you downstairs into a basement room that would be rather nondescript were it not for... ...well, I don't think I have to finish that sentence. The only functional piece of equipment down here is a small recharge bed, likely for your guide's use. "Okay." he says, "Let's start from the beginning. My name is Pip, I'm sort of a... collector of stuff other people throw away. And I make my money by selling it on to other people. I've had that spot right across from the manhole for years now, and I've become something of a watchman for other people who use this building. Err... That's not really relevant. Well, maybe it is... ahh, nevermind. Anyway, point is some months back some people approached me. They must've been watching for a while to know that it was my spot... anyways, they were from some new outfit in town who wanted to use that old sewer to transport stuff across town, dunno what. Seems the plan was to have some guy come up from there and leave a trash bag in the alley, and for another guy to come and pick it up. I was supposed to be the lookout, to watch and see if anyone came investigating who wasn't supposed to, or watch out for shifty characters. Heh, as it they weren't shifty as hell themselves." He sighs. "They offered me money, which was pretty tempting, and said it was a cinch 'cause the maintenance crews never went down there... They also threatened me, one of them said they worked for Flatfoot Thompson, which seemed to tick off the rest of 'em. I don't think they were supposed to tell me... that's beside the point. Anyway, things went pretty smooth for a while, until a couple of weeks back when some guy came around asking everybody odd questions about seeing strange stuff. He phrased it all pretty casually, but I knew he was on to us. Us? Them? I dunno... Right, yes, he was clearly on to 'em, even checked out the manhole! I told them about it of course. Err, the outfit, not the man. They said not to worry and left it at that. Err... I don't like to think about..." He marshals himself from his perturbed state. Partly anyway "Sorry, on with the story. Four days ago there was supposed to be a drop-off, but the guy never came, and the guy who was supposed to pick it up didn't come either. I had no other way of contacting them, so I couldn't do anything but wait. I... I didn't know to be scared or relived, but I kinda settled on the former, 'specially as I didn't know if it was really over. Then you came up from the sewers and I thought you guys were Flatfoot's boy, specially as everyone a' his who came up that hole was armed. Thinking about it, I think it was always some kind of flamethrower they had, weird." He sighs again. "Anyway, that's all I know. I dunno how helpful that is, or if it has anything to do with this 'Greg' you're lookin' for. Who is he anyway?" he asks, his interest piqued, "And... who are you? Are you cops?" MM Note: I'm sorry I wasn't here yesterday, I'm afraid I was having kind of an off day. Anyway, enjoy the wall of text.

That doesn't really work, because then a player can meditate anyway to gain the full cost back. Besides, Meditate doesn't work off of max spirit, it works off of spell proficiency successes. You're supposed to roll for the amount regained each time.

I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't do anything today. I'll be back tomorrow.

"...You're not Flatfoot's men." his voice is low now, a quiet despair in his voice. "Ye gods, he's gonna kill me for blowing my mouth..." Decker Persuasion Check (DC 2): (4,6,4) Three successes. "Oh what the heck, it's too late to go back now." He lets out some sort of electronic sigh, likely prerecorded. "Not... dressed like you, no. Well, sometimes, but maintenance workers don't carry weapons, or just randomly crawl out of manholes." He glances at the door behind him. "Look, can we go inside? I'm not comfortable talking about this out here." "Okay!" The elf simply continues to stare dead at you, unblinking.

Okay.

Can I ask why you think this matters? Because from my perspective neither are really necessary components for something to be considered 'useful' for space builds.

Gracefully disentangling yourself from the conversation, you make your way over to the Adamite's stall. "Ah! Ah-h-h, ahhh, yes, hello! I, er, as you can see good sir we have a... a f-f-fine selection of wares for all your electronic... needs." He gestures at the frankly pitiful collection of old, broken objects before him. "I, er..." he looks around to see if anyone is listening, thankfully enough the elf seems to have wandered off, so there's nothing to hold his tongue. "L-look" he says, lowering his voice: "you can tell Flatfoot that I haven't told anybody anything. W-... w-where the heck have you people been? I haven't seen any of you in over a week!" Ronin starts looking around, only to realize he doesn't actually know what Greg looks like. He could be anyone here, and you wouldn't know. Ronin Intimidation Check (DC 1): (6,1,1) One success. "W-what? Who the **** is Greg?" The distress in his voice has grown even further at Ronin's blatant terrorization. If he wasn't an Adamite you'd think he was on the verge of breaking down in tears. "Listen, you can tell Flatfoot I don't know any Greg! Is he one of you guys? Did he squeal? Is that why you stopped coming here? Be-because I know nothing, believe me!" He pauses for a moment, as if trying to place you. "Y-you are Thompson's boys, aren't you?" Decker, it's at this point that you feel a tug on your sleeve. Looking down you see the elf you thought had left, getting a good look at them for the first time: "Hi! You smell like someone that likes mushrooms!"