Charles/Maury estimates: rough estimate, we need order 200 people with competent psi stats and several levels of psi-projection to be the defenders/protectors/etc. and 50 of those have to be Tinoori. [assuming 4-hegemon ritual involves a similar Perception-PP group and step like the 3 already in the ritual as-is.] I can't see us possibly getting away with less than 4 attendants, and I'm thinking we'll need five. We might need six. if we need more than six, we're doomed, 'cause they won't be good enough to be in the attendants group, let alone the rest of it. ('cause then each of the attendants needs 6 11's on their pre-psi roll. that's order 15 psi projection theory, and a pile of dice.) The two hundred estimate assumes that all four hegemons need a group, and are in four different locations, and assumes 5 attendants, so that people with an average (relevant) psi stat of 5 and 3 or so skill average about 1 success for 11's. Note: Some of this has been clarified: we need at least 4, but can probably make do with 4 or 5, not 6. 4 separate PP groups are indeed needed, one of which is going to have to be all Tinoori. ----------------- Some numerical and other analyses from Tom/Jim: Red + 5 representatives @ Bowl ==> 5/6 successes for 11s (Jayla can reduce most of these to 9s, presumably.) People == Jayla, Ruehan, Twig?, Cassandra?, Tinoori?, (inworlds human psi?) (Note that Cassndra may be a security risk. I recommend a full mental scan before she takes place in the ritual, on the slight chance that she's a sleeper agent for the Terrans. [Katya's on it]) (Does Jayla count towards the racial/spatial distribution? [no, nor towards the number] ) This has to be done for 9s. 5 11s would imply 9d/20s or 12d/15s to get 5 successes, which is going to be ridiculously hard. Or we need to get people with way more psi theory than I think we have. We should find out if we can use fortune for this roll. (sounds like yes) [already answered: anything but the PP of non-fortune substats can use Fortune as usual.] For 5 9s, this would be 7d/14s, 9d/10s, 12d/6s. Our best bet for this step, since we're likely to still be together, is to have Kith buff Jayla, and Jayla buff the attendants. This will let them all roll for 9s. **actually, given the limitations on their respective buffing, Jayla should buff Kith and Kith the others (as I bet Kith is still buff-able by Jayla, but many of the others may not be. this is the I'm-an-authority-figure buffing skill.) ===== Blue + Puce: (Attendants x 10) fortune/Perception w/PP for 11s. ==> 50 successes for 11s 3d/5s ==> 1.1 3d/10s ==> 1.8 6d/5s ==> 1.7 6d/10s ==> 2.7 9d/5s ==> 2.1 9d/10s ==> 3.3 12d/5s ==> 2.4 12d/10s ==> 3.8 16d/5s ==> 2.8 16d/10s ==> 4.4 18d/5s ==> 3.0 18d/10s ==> 4.7 This implies 46 regular Tinoori, or 30 moderate Tinoori, or 25 Uber-Tinoori, assuming only 5 skill each. The Tinoori are probably a better group to buff by reducing difficulty, since they don't have fortune to throw in. It's only 17 uber-lucky people, or 21 moderately lucky people, since they can throw in their fortune. Buffed individuals (-2 difficulty) will rate 20% of the dice rolled in additional successes. So normal Tinoori rate 1.7, medium Tinoori rate 2.9, uber-Tinoori rate 3.9. For the fortune group, this means we could get away with a very small buffed group (11 medium people, or 8 big people). It's more economical to buff the lucky people, if we have to pick (because they're rolling more dice, each individual buffed will get more benefit). But we may have an easier time recruiting humans than Tinoori, so there's a trade off here. Except: the Puce and Blue groups do their Power Projection rolls at the same time, so they could, in theory, be buffed by a single person. (And 32 people should be enough to cover both.) Those 32 people need to be fairly buff, however. 13 Tinoori with 9d/5s, 8 lucky people with 9d/5s, plus 10 for extra support. (That's assuming everyone throws in their fortune on the fortune roll.) (This doesn't help deal with the "hegemons roll for 11s after each post-10", however, as then they're probably too far apart to buff together.) For the Red and Green groups, we need 10% more people, same type of people as the Tinoori. All other things being equal, we should make sure that the Attendants fit well into the Blue/Puce groups. Probably want 10% extra people in each group, to be safe. Maybe 20% if we're paranoid. If PCs all roll 9 dice, buying 15 skill is as good as 2 people with 9d/5s, or as good as 4 people with 3d/5s. We should look pretty seriously at four buffers, though, for the post-10 rolls. Otherwise the Hegemons need 9d/20s or 12d/15s to rate the 5 successes for 11s. Kith can buff FFA or DOnella, but not both. [Andrea says: Katya plans to just have the dice and skill to rate 5+ successes. We can at least ask Donella and Jayla if they can do the same. Donella probably does not have the ability to buy beyond 9 dice, but if the timing works out (or someone can spend karma for her), she can add fortune to her fortune on at least a couple of these rolls. Jayla ought to have the ability to buy 12 dice if she has the desire and the eps) Does FFA have the stat-caps that the PCS do? (I think he ought to, but we haven't checked.) It might be more efficient for him to just buy up his hit points rather than his Per dice. Though his parents may have something to say about that. :) [Tom: We ought to consider putting First Frost on Black. But you didn't hear that from Jim. ;) Andrea: Nor from Katya. But I'm sure Kye will suggest it for us . :)] If we find buffers, we need to find out how many people they're likely to be able to hit. If Kith buys 6 more levels of Inspire, she'll rate 4 successes for 12s, when she throws in her fortune. That's enough for -2 difficulty for 32 people. [Andrea notes: remember not to count her Fortune dice for her own PP rolls, then, as she can't do both. Unless you spend karma! :) ] ------------ Some additional calculations from Andrea: dice 5 11 10 r Rated to get 2.41 successes dice 5 11 20 r Rated to get 3.71 successes dice 6 11 10 r Rated to get 2.68 successes dice 6 11 20 r Rated to get 4.12 successes dice 8 11 10 r Rated to get 3.12 successes dice 8 11 20 r Rated to get 4.78 successes Pre = 11xattendants (55) all others = 10xattendants (50) each group has 1 hegemon + ~3-4 PCs. PCs are likely to be at the 8 level (at least). hegemons likely somewhat higher. so 1 hegemon + 3 PCs might rate around 16 successes (if they all have 20 skill, which I admit will be a hard sell to the PCs). (20 if there's a 4th PC) Leaving 35-40 successes to be accounted for by NPCs, who will in fact also rate about 4 successes if we can get them to buy 20 skill and if they're reasonable psis rather than guys off the street (6 dice); i.e. ~10 npcs. That's much more manageable than 50. :) If we assume that both we and the npcs have only 10 skill (but hegemons have more), then the PC group can account for, say, 14-18. But in this case, the npcs rate 2-3, so we'd need 15-20 of them.