Vasic Stones: Combative Transportation

Vasic Stones can do a lot. They can bring stuff to you, change the nature of the universe around you, and even transport you anywhere you need to go. Larry Niven once said that if you have receiverless teleportation (which vasic stones has) you will have a short war.

This article is about how Vasic Transport Stones can effect others in the void, and how to fight back against that. This article should be considered an extension of Vasic Stones: Transportion, and builds upon the rules given there.

Guiding, Disrupting and Fighting Back in Vasic Navigation

It is possible to use Vasic stones to affect those making a journey. To do so requires a transportation stone inscribed specifically for the purpose of affecting other navigators. A navigator on such a stone can not only sense the terrain around him, but also other Vasic navigators, and can stay around for multiple trips. A single inscription to put a cargo-less navigator in the void takes 20 minutes to inscribe and lasts for 2 hours.

He can either assist or interfere with bringing in a cargo, or interfere with these activities. Each of these is an average technique of Navigation (Vasic). A Navigator in the void may make any number of these actions in a one minute period, but receives a -2 per attempt to each action. The number of actions that will be taken must be declared beforehand. Disrupting and then guiding a target counts as a single action for this purpose.

Observe Vasic Navigators (A, Per-based Navigation (Vasic), max Navigation(Vasic) +4)
Sensing a traveler takes uses the standard distance table, as opposed to almost all other Vasic rolls, Which use the long distance table. The roll gets an automatic +24 (10 miles), as Vasic magic is by nature long distance. The modifiers are based on the closest point the traveler comes to the interfering/assisting stone. Most of the time this is the ending location, but it's possible to try and prevent someone from leaving or to snag someone midway through a journey. A simple success reveals the presence and movement of a navigator. On a success by 4 the intervening navigator can sense enough about the other navigator for identification, and the size and composition of the cargo -- humans and animals are fairly indistinguishable, as is a shipment of spears from a shipment of shovels. It is possible to tell humans from cured leather or butchered meat. Processed goods are generally distinguishable from their sources, but shaped goods are not.

Kera is standing watch on the temple stone so that no-one sneaks up on her and her team ... and with good reason. A criminal navigator named Ruruk tries to bring 12 thugs into the area-- in fact, he tries to land on the stone she brought earlier when she didn't know she'd be able to come here. The stone is a mile away -- that's -18 in range penalties. She doesn't have any points in this technique, but she can use her default of Navigation (Vasic). she rolls against 15+24-18 = 21 and rolls a 13 -- success by 7! she can tell there is a bunch of living animal matter and they have lots of metal. She can also see Ruruk's signature -- and she's seen that signature before! She knows it belongs to a criminal, but she's never met him, so she knows nothing about what he looks like.

Disrupt Vasic Navigation (A, Navigation (Vasic) -4, max Navigation (Vasic))
Disrupting allows an intervening navigator to foul up someone else's travel, causing their journey to fail. Resolve as a quick contest. The defender uses the same target as when traveling to the destination, OR if he has Vasic Navigation Combat he may use that with the same modifiers. The attacker uses the shortest distance from his stone to the defenders, plus power bonuses or bonus for his stone being 10 or 100 times larger, and doubled penalties for a smaller stone.  If the attacker wins, the defending navigator is considered to have failed his roll by the margin of victory and must make the journey with that error. If the the defender wins by 5 or more, he is not effected. If they tie or the defender wins by less than 5, the defender may return, try again (accepting the -1 for repeated attempts), or accept the effects of failing his target roll by -2. In all cases, the process takes 1 minute. the quick contest does not replace the need for the basic navigation roll.

Kera knows that Ruruk is up to no good, and decides to try and mess up his attack! She only has 2 points in Disrupt, so her skill at disrupting is 13. Ruruk knows navigation combat at 19 -- he's more experienced at this -- but he's coming from a much longer distance. He's also tried to land twice before landing on the target stone. He gets +2 for having an undersized target stone, -4 for crossing the dimension, -6 for not having a starting position in this dimension, +2 for a nice inscription, -2 for failed attempts, and +1 for having a fine stone. so his effective skill is 12. Kera is a mile away from the target, which gives her -2, but no bonus for inscription or stone size, and disruption doesn't get bonuses for target stones or penalties for time or number of attempts. her effective skill is 13-2 =11. 

On the first attempt, her roll is a  8 his roll is an 10-- he succeeds by 1! he can either take -2 (-4 total because he'll loose the bonus from the stone), or he can try again. -4 is 10 miles out (check the long distance chart), and he thinks he can still get through, so he tries again -- his effective skill is 12 this time and hers is 11. He's out of luck though, as he rolls a 15 for a failure of 3 and she rolls an 8 for success by 3 -- a victory by 6! after he looses the bonus from landing on a under-sized stone, he has failed by 8 -- and he doesn't have the option to try again! He'll end up 1,000 miles away from his target... unless someone else acts.

Guide Vasic Navigation (A, Navigation (Vasic) -4, max Navigation (Vasic))
Its possible to rescue someone who has failed to make it to their destination. This may only be done to a target that is willing or that has failed a disruption contest (though not necessarily yours). This roll allows you to place them with your own roll. Use all of the modifiers for a normal journey, except for distance.

The distance modifiers uses the greatest of  the modifier from the distance from the guider to the destination, the modifier from the guider to where the navigator was disrupted, and the margin of error. If the Guider caused the margin of error via disruption, the margin of error may be ignored.

Failure indicates a missed placement, not a failure to move. Use standard rules for missed targets.

Kera wishes to find out how Ruruk got the inscription to come to this world and attack her, and if he ends up in the ocean, he'll drown and she'll never find out! She tries to guide him to a location where she can find him easily but where he won't be able to get to her until she's good and ready for him. She has no experience guiding travelers, so her effective skill is a mere 11. She's one mile from the point of interception -- that's -2. She wants to put him 100 miles away -- that's -6. He has an error of -8, but she can ignore that because she caused in in the first place. If she had a target in the area, she could use that, but she doesn't want Ruruk anywhere near a stone he can escape with, so she gets the +0 for no special target.  the largest of the modifiers is -5, so she has an effective skill of 6. She rolls a 12 -- failure by 6! she thinks she can do better, and so rolls again with an additional -1 -- her target is now a 5. she rolls a 10 -- failure by 5 is good enough for her! she's off by 30 miles, but even at the closest, Ruruk is 70 miles away.

Vasic Navigation Combat (A, Navigation (Vasic) , Navigation (Vasic)+4)
Vasic Navigation Combat allows a navigator to resist disruption from a hostile navigator. It also allows navigators to deny those in the void from guiding or disrupting others.

When a guide or a disruption the navigator wishes to stop occurs, he may roll a quick contest of Vasic Navigation combat, modified by range to the location the maneuver to stop is occurring and appropriate bonuses from relative stone size and stone power. The attacker receives a +2 bonus. If neither side succeeds by 2 or more, the defender may continue to guide or disrupt the travel but at a -2. If the attacker wins by 2, the attempt fails. If the defender wins by 2, there is no effect to his attempt to effect the third party.

It is possible to oppose another's opposition -- this is resolved as for opposing guidance or disruption.

A navigator may act to oppose his own guidance or disruption, but that involves taking multiple actions per turn and is usually not worth it. Opposing guidance or disruption must be declared before the contest is resolved.

Ruruk has managed to get his hands on another stone and is trying to stop help from reaching Kera! The travelers are coming in right next to Kera on a pile of Vasic Stones. The GM declares Ruruk, based off of that little stone she brought, tries to disrupt her help! The travelers are coming in to Kera's location, and that's where Ruruk is trying to stop them, so she has no penalty. Ruruk is a mile away, and so has a -2. Additionally, Kera is the one attacking, so she has another +2. She has no points in Navigation combat, so she uses her default of Navigation (Vasic -- a 15). She has 15+2(attacking) =17. Ruruk has 19-2(range)=17. They both roll 11's, and Ruruk still gets to interfere -- but he has a -2 to the attempt....

Tips to Remember

This can be a lot. Important things to remember include
You have to sense a navigator before you can effect them
Use one distance modifier per roll
It takes an action to effect someone else, defenses only stop actions.
-2 per extra action, and it applies to all
When calculating error distance remove the bonus that having a target gives

Use in the campaign

Combative Teleportation is mostly useful in places with a lot of Vasic Navigators running around. These fall into a few types. Many trade centers employ guiders to help people who almost reach their town, but miss at the very end, both saving travelers from landing in ponds (or worse) and keeping the town safe from people randomly teleporting into their houses. Disruption and Combat is more common among those interested in breaking or enforcing the law, or in the military -- you don't want an enemy transporting a few hundred soldiers into the center of your city! Criminals may try to transport into someone's home behind locked doors (requiring police to either spot entry or disrupt the transport) , or bandits may intercept rich cargo.

In many campaigns, fighting over the stones won't be an issue. Those wishing to stop a stone from being used can just put a cover on it, and stopping travel further often isn't an issue. But if your campaign will feature rival vasic navigators, and you wish for the navigators to test each other's strength, this combat system will serve you well.


I hope you enjoy this system!