Rulings Question..., Ambush / "Freeze Don't Move" Options

[DgrenJ]

All to often I have a situation come up where someone is drawn down on another person, more often than not a Lone Star Cop drawn down on a Shadowrunner, in the typical "Freeze, don't move!" situation.

I am wondering what the rule you guys use for this situation is, if the Runner decides to do something. Does he have a chance to out manuever the "ready" Cop?

Also...

A similiar situation, when people have delayed actions over countless rounds, and then 1 char steps out into the open, and a NPC chooses to fire, and another PC chooses to fire at him, etc... etc... etc... how do you play that out?

Thanks...

- DgrenJ

[James McMurray]

The cop scenario works fine with the delay action rules.

Delaying over multiple turns: I would have everyone wanting to act on that pass roll initiative again, and discard the numbers after that IP passes. Alternatively you could use a faster method of comparing reaction scores and only requiring rolloffs on ties.

[Backgammon]

I call for Reaction tests in those circumstances. Winner goes first.

[ornot]

I'd call for initiative before the cop pulled his gun, although that can be tricky and gives the players advance warning.

If the cop already has his gun out and the 'runner has not, call for initiative. Should the cop win the initiative he'd probably hold his action and interrupt the 'runner if they do anything he doesn't like. If the 'runner wins then pulling a gun is only a simmple action, or free if he passes a quickdraw test.

As for multiple delayed actions, that shouldn't be a problem, since a character can only have one action held at a time. If the character's next action comes up he has to use or lose the held action. As for multiple characters holding actions I'd say it goes in order of the initiative they originally rolled.

eg. runner 1 init 14
runner 2 init 7
NPC 1 init 12
NPC 2 init 10

Runner 1 and both NPCs hold their action. Runner 2 goes to shoot NPC 1.
NPC 2 declares that he wants to use his action to shoot runner 2.
runner 1 declares he wants to use his action to shoot NPC 2.
NPC 1 declares he wants to use his action to shoot runner 1.

Order that stuff happens:
Runner 1 shoots NPC 2
NPC 1 shoots runner 1
NPC 2 shoots runner 2 (unless he was too badly hurt and his initiative dropped to less than 7)
Runner 2 shoots NPC 1

[Thorn Black]

I would have the guy holding the gun a free shot. After all, why would any Lone Star officer offer the "freeze or I shoot" option if 9 times out of 10 the shadowrunner he has got the drop on will go faster.

It's not as if I am being harsh on my players, they know exactly what could happen.

[ornot]

I don't think the Star have to deal with runners all that often. If they did, who would be a Star officer? You just get geeked by professional criminals everyday!

I feel the initiative rules cover this. If the cop has his gun out, he can shoot with two simple actions. The runner, even if he does win the initiative still has to use one to draw his gun.

[Backgammon]

[GrinderTheTroll]

[James McMurray]

Having a weapon out and ready to fir should probably count as an ambush situation. IIRC that's worth 6 dice.

[ornot]

meh... It's only really surprise or ambush if the victim doesn't know he's about to be attacked.

The Star officer has already foregone surprise by shouting a warning. The officer doesn't need to spend an action drawing his gun, but that's about it.

[nezumi]

I would use delaying actions for the Star officer, and require quickdraw on the part of the runner. Alternatively, competing reaction tests (since they're both delaying actions indefinitely otherwise) plus the runner still has his quickdraw test.

[GrinderTheTroll]

[Phobos]

Surprise Test works for me, invoking that part of the rules that you cannot 'fail' the roll because you expected the Surprise for both parties. The cop(s) would have a good bonus though : +3 (if they'd rather hope he'll freeze) to +6 (if they'd rather hope he doesn't),

[Samaels Ghost]

Can you delay a Simple action that you haven't used or do you have to delay the entire Complex action?

"Freeze, or i'll shoot" (free) + Take Aim (Simple) + Delay just in case this guy goes for a gun (Delayed Simple). He gets a perception or surprise or whatever and if he wins he get to Shoot (Simple). Can I do that?

[Shrike30]

Jim Cirillo was a police detective working in New York City's Robbery division a couple of decades ago when they started getting a rash of robbery-homicides... people would stick up a convenience store, a pizza parlor, a liquor store, take the money from the register, then shoot the attendant and leave. He recounted the first time he ever fired on a suspect in a book he later wrote on the subject of handguns and ammunition.

On realizing that the person at the register was, in fact, robbing the store, Cirillo stepped out from behind a display case and shouted something along the lines of "Police! Drop the weapon!" He made it about as far as "Poli-" when the suspect started moving and shooting at him. Cirillo returned fire and killed the suspect.

During the subsequent investigation of the shooting, Cirillo was asked by one of the people on the board if he had identified himself as a police officer, and if he'd ordered the suspect to drop his weapon. His response was "Yes, but I'm not sure if he heard me over all the gunfire."

[James McMurray]

LOL!

[X-Kalibur]

[Dread Polack]

One of my other favorite RPGs has a combat maneuver called "covered."

You make a normal attack roll with a penalty. If you succeed, you have the oponent "covered" with your weapon. If I was going to use this in SR, I'd run it this way:

Make an attack at -2. Count your hits. If you succeed, your opponent is covered. Feel free to issue commands to your target ("drop it or I shoot!"). At that point after that, assuming you or your target take no other action, you can chose to simply hit the oppenent for free. The defender is considered to be in whatever defensive position he was in when you hit with the cover maneuver. That is, if he was surprised, he get's no defensive roll. If he was not dodging, he doesn't get to roll his dodge.

If that doesn't work for you- you could allow them to dodge if they weren't surprised, or to roll straight Reaction if they were surprised.

What do you think of that?

Dread Polack

[Phobos]

Damn you DP, that rule is brilliant.

[Dread Polack]

Well, credit where credit is due- I stole it from the HERO system/ Champions. :)

Dread Polack

[GrinderTheTroll]

[Kyoto Kid]

[Samaels Ghost]

i like that. I ran into a situation the other night where two things bugged me.

1) I was told by a PC that you couldn't hold part of an action (just a Simple)

2) My Lone Star swat team (Just two guys left) had a PC 'covered'. He was half way up a flight of stairs and they had their gun pointed at him and at least a SImple action each left to shoot him if he moved. He had begun up the stairs and had rolled a crappy Perception roll (a tie between their Infiltration and his Perception) so I decided to atleast give him a gut feeling something was wrong, no specifics. He looked around some more with another Simple action and saw his cloaked enemies down the steps. By this time all his actions were spent so they had him by the balls. I thought.

At the time combat had occupied most of the session and I wasn't in the mood to further slow things down by digging through the rulebook. He ended up darting the rest of the way up the stairs and behind cover before they got to do anything. It urked me something fierce but i was trying to move things along. I was going with number 1 being corrrect and wasn't in the mood to press the obvious.

First, number 1 is worng, isn't it?
Second, I think i'm going to introduce that covering manuver. That would have been very appropriate in this case.

[Vaevictis]

[Shrike30]

You don't need to introduce a covering maneuver. Holding an action covers this adequately.

The minute you start shooting at someone, you're not covering him anymore... you're shooting him.