Down in the Gutter: OOC, The Nuts and Bolts of Staying Alive Options

[WinterRat1]

Vegas and Mister Juan - I'll have something up for you later from Doc.

Mister Juan I'm just going to bump Felix and Doc up to HQ, since there’s no point waiting for you to make a post saying you met up with Doc on the street. If there’s something in particular you want to post about that, flashback it.

Voorhees and Rob – I don’t know Rob’s ability to post right now Voorhees, so do you want to post this trio moving forward into the old Hammerpack turf or would you rather I do it?

Either way, per my earlier post, assume Shade told Aziz and Bockscar everything Legion instructed them to do.

Meriss – No need for a Reaction roll, that was just fluff. As for the Artisan roll, how extensive work are you going to do? Just erasing your old LoCoS stuff or are you actually tattooing yourself with more tattoos?

Don’t post anything further; I’ve got a post coming for Ink and Child, but it might not be up until later tonight.

[Abbandon]

Ok is it to late to use a point of edge to reroll my full defense dodge against gun guy?? When do we have to tell you that we want to use edge in those circumstances or is it somewhere on the wiki?

Sorry about not seeing the stand up rules. I just looked at the reference sheet in back and went thouroughly through the knockdown section lol.

[pragma]

I'd like to use Thumper's knowledge skills to see if I can shore up my guess as to who Luigi's paying now that the war's largely done. I'd guess Raiders, UV or Plague (this being unlikely if he's human) or no one (most likely, means free pizza).

Using knowledge Seattle Gangs(Redmond Barrens) to guess who Luigi's paying protection to.
# dice: 7 :: 6 5 6 2 1 1 5 -- 4 successes

[Abbandon]

Fool's Karma Expenditures: .....if he survives the day..

[ Spoiler ]

Martial Arts Quality: (10bp Catagory A)
-Krav Maga: Ready weapon = free
-Arnis de Mano: +1 DV to blade attacks.

Manuevers: (6bp, 5bp from catagory B, 1bp from 3Karma from C)
-Disarm: if you win a full defense parry the attacker loses weapon
-off handed training (blades): no -2 penalty for using blades in off hand
-Two weapon style fighting: ??, Can full defense with one blade and attack with other at -2

Training Time – Body 3 to Body 4
Cost: 4 x 3 = 12 Karma (12 Karma from Catagory C)
Training time: 12 x 5 hours = 60 hours
Improvement Test: 3 Dice: 6, 5, 1 = 2 hits
Total Training Time = 60/2 = 30 hours


Remaining Karma and BP= 0

[WinterRat1]

Ok is it to late to use a point of edge to reroll my full defense dodge against gun guy?? When do we have to tell you that we want to use edge in those circumstances or is it somewhere on the wiki?

If you recall the guidelines, which are on the wiki (and you probably should have read them, especially the Combat one), technically speaking there are two aspects of our combats: The Action Phase and Resolution Phase. Since this is a small combat, I haven’t been doing the formal procedure on the wiki, instead limiting myself to the OOC thread.

You tell me if you want to use Edge during the Resolution Phase, which would be right now. You only have about 1-2 RL days depending on the pace (and in the formal procedure, you’d have a stated deadline you have to tell me by).

Given that we’re moving pretty quickly here, I’ll give you until midnight tonight (Central Standard Time, make adjustments to your particular time zone accordingly) to tell me if you want to use Edge on your defense against the Pistol Guy’s attack and post your re-roll of all non-successes. Remember, don’t re-roll successes, just re-roll failures and tell me how many ADDITIONAL hits you scored. If I don’t hear from you by then (or at least a request for an extension) you’re out of luck. And I plan on posting a lot tonight, so I suggest you be prompt.

If you could have your Combat Turn 3 information up tonight, it would help me keep your combat moving quickly as well.

Sorry about not seeing the stand up rules. I just looked at the reference sheet in back and went thouroughly through the knockdown section lol.

No worries, obviously I haven’t been the best at catching everything lately either! That’s why we check one another’s stuff, and I post the Combat Posts for you guys to examine and double check my own work.

I'd like to use Thumper's knowledge skills to see if I can shore up my guess as to who Luigi's paying now that the war's largely done. I'd guess Raiders, UV or Plague (this being unlikely if he's human) or no one (most likely, means free pizza).

Just so you know, it is only in retrospect your characters know the war basically ended at midnight on October 31. As it is happening however, your characters don’t know the war’s over. In fact, some places could still be experiencing heavy fighting. There was no magic bell going off at midnight telling everyone to pack it in and go home.

Shade as a historian designated Oct. 31 the end of the war because it featured the last full scale battle of the war and resulted in the destruction of the Hammerpack, which was one of the central players in the war.

However, as with all wars, fighting is far from done just because history will later say this is when the war ended. From your characters’ POV, it’s only been 12 hours since the last big fight, and who knows what’s coming next? After all, you guys haven’t exactly been beating the streets for information, so you have no idea what the other battlefronts are like, or what the major players are currently up to. Sure, the Steel Demons and Heartbreakers have made overtures of peace (and they certainly seem genuine), but maybe Raider Nation and the Ultraviolet Nights are gearing up right now to finish you off…

Remember, the United States won the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812 AFTER peace had already been officially signed, changing the peace terms significantly and greatly affecting world politics as a result. So don’t think there aren’t any potentially major encounters left ahead of you…

And to answer your question, the owner didn’t pay protection money to anyone.

Instead, the deal was his turf was a neutral ground for the Corsairs, Black Plague, and LoCoS. There aren’t a ton of places in Kingsgate to eat, and even less that are actually decent. It was in everyone’s best interest to have a place to get pretty good chow without having to worry about getting food or lead poisoning in the process. The gangers actually even paid for their food! At a discount, of course.

Of course, with the Corsairs and LoCoS recently destroyed, who knows what the score is now?

[Abbandon]

Fool Turn 2 - Edge reroll

[ Spoiler ]

PREVIOUS ROLL:
Full Dodge vs gun
Reaction 5 + Dodge 4 - encumbrance 1 = 9 dice
4, 4, 1, 1, 3, 4, 2, 1, 5 = 1 hits

1 Edge spent to reroll failures = 8 dice
5, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 3 = 1 hit

Total hits = 2 (SON OF A BITCH!!!!)

Nothing changes except I take one less stun box right?

Its late for me, no turn 3 tonight. I will be doing my turn 2 IC and turn 3 ooc tomorrow.

[grendel]

Legion's page is updated on the wiki.

WinterRat1:

[ Spoiler ]

Re-reading the optional rules for Learning Metamagic in Street Magic, I realized these rules are for gaining additional metamagics beyond what are granted at each intiation level. Thus, I think they are a poor basis for learning metamagical techniques which are granted through initiation. After all, you're already paying karma for the initiation, and you don't really get any bonus for it apart from the metamagical technique. You still have to pay to raise your magic attribute, if we enforce a further karma and/or time expenditure then it makes it even less attractive to spend karma initiating.

I'd be for revising the learning procedures, but halving the time and allowing for more tutor / self-taught options. Especially for adepts who get assed-out of the metaplanar quest / spirit mentor options.

[WinterRat1]

Vegas and Mister Juan - One of you take it from here. I'm not going to keep leading you as Doc.

Doc will tell you he needs to go to Bellevue to buy some stuff. He'll list off stuff like a SuperMart, mall to get some electronics stuff, somewhere to get chemicals, things like that. Be creative. Move forward maybe 1-1.5 hours, and have some of the shopping done but not completed.

You will not find Fool when you head down to Rollers turf to look for him, so just fluff through that part. One way or another, he won’t be there by the time you arrive.

If you have any questions or need more guidance, ask me.

Incidentally, don't forget Nevada's currently toting a shotgun and Doc has an axe, so you might want to think about what you're going to do with your stuff while you're out shopping in the rich part of town. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Voorhees and Rob - Given Pragma's last post, I kept things moving and bumped our trio up to heading over to Thumper and Grack. You're both still free to post at will.

Pragma and Adamu - One of you please write in Aziz, Shade, and Bockscar's arrival at the Pizza Bank as you see fit with respects to time and manner of arrival.

Abbandon - Fool's karma/BP expenditures are approved. Go ahead and put it up on the wiki.

Actually, that 1 hit on your edge roll had several significant effects:

1. 1 less box of Stun from Pistol Guy
2. Fool is not knocked down as a result of being shot
3. Chain Guy does 1 less box of Stun

Therefore:

1. Fool now has only 4 boxes of Stun Damage total, and as such suffers no injury modifiers to anything. Yet.
2. Fool is not knocked down, and does not need to make a test to stand up. This obviously puts you on much better footing in CT 3.

Considering where you were before using edge, that ain't bad.

Go ahead and post your IC for CT 2 and OOC for CT 3 tomorrow. Good luck. You're going to need it.

Grendel -

[ Spoiler ]

Thanks for re-examining our training rules, I assume your re-reading was entirely selfless and unmotivated by any potential for personal gain. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Nonetheless, upon further review I concur with your conclusion.

My suggestion is as follows:

Increase the default training time for Initiation to 10 hours. This won’t apply every time, since I will use ordeals as the required training time regardless of how long or short they are, if they qualify for being used as training time.

Upon successfully initiating a character automatically receives the metamagic technique of their choice. The rationalization is this is what they were doing during the training time/ordeal to initiate.

I’ll change the ‘Metamagic’ section of the training and development guideline to ‘Additional Metamagic’ and clarify it’s for learning metamagic above and beyond the free one at each initiation.

Since you only need to learn metamagic if you’re learning additional techniques beyond the ones you get at initiation, I don’t think we need to change the training time or add any more methods to learning unless you’ve got a good one. I don’t view adepts as being screwed, since you can learn through deed or research, and it seems to me most adepts would be inclined to learn by doing (deed) anyway.

Thoughts?

BTW, would you do me a favor and develop training time rules for Martial Arts Maneuvers and Styles? I have a feeling that’s going to be pretty relevant going forward.

[adamu]

@Abbandon - Dude, man, I am so cheering for you. Taking on three guys alone. Was waiting for your Edge to kick in. Kick ass and take names.

[Vegas]

Mister Juan - Feel free to pick it up from there, or I can keep going. But the post won't go up till tomorrow.. too tired to keep writing tonight.

[Abbandon]

OMG. I wasted sooooo much energy thinking about this battle you guys have no idea. It took me an hour or two to think of using edge. I went to bed thinking of ways to get Fool out of this alive because I had assumed he was still knocked down. I woke up thinking about it lol. I could not decided between shooting gun guy atleast once or running away and most likely getting chased and beaten down.

I didnt realize its only the total amount of damage you take (after it goes through your armor) that determines if you go down or not. I was thinking well crap thats still 5P im still on my ass.

Will edit in my turn later after my hands stop shaking and my breathing slows lol. (well after getting to used my guy for the first time i found out something important. I had wrote down my knife did 5P standard damage but its actually much wussier (3P). Oh well im probably the only knife fighter in all of sr4 lol. And it wont be so bad raising blades up and switch to a sword lol.)

Fool - Turn 3

[ Spoiler ]

Initiative
reaction 4(5) + intuition 4 - encumbrance 1 = 8 dice
1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 1, 4
Final Init = 8, ?? gotta look this up...

(If I go before gun guy)
IP 1:
free:
simple:
simple:
complex: Stab gun guy!!! (see below)
movement:

IP 2:
free:
simple:
simple:
complex: full dodge defense interrupt any attacks in IP1 (see below)
movement:

(if gun guy goes before me)
IP 1:
free:
simple:
simple:
complex: full dodge defense (see below)
movement: move behind gun guy, try to protect my backside.

IP 2:
free:
simple:
simple:
complex: stab gun guy!! (see below)
movement:

My Knife attack vs gun guy:
Agility 4 + Knives 4 - encumbrance = 7 dice
6, 4, 4, 4, 6, 2, 3 = 2 hits
Knife damage (str 4/2 +1) 3 + Arnes di Mano 1 = 4P + net hits (reach 0, AP -1)

Full dodge vs ballistic:
REA 4(5) + Dodge 4 - encumbrance = 8 dice
3, 2, 5, 3, 2, 4, 5, 3 = 2 hits

Full Dodge vs melee:
Reaction 4(5) + (dodge 4x2) 8 - encumbrance 1 = 12 dice
4, 4, 5, 3, 2, 1, 5, 1, 4, 6, 2, 6 = 4 hits
3, 1, 2, 2, 6, 1, 5, 5, 6, 2, 4, 6 = 5 hits

Damage Soaks:
Ballstic 8 + dermal 1 + toughness 1 + body 3 = 13 dice
3, 1, 5, 1, 4, 1, 6, 5, 6, 3, 2, 4, 4 = 4 hits

Impact 7 + dermal 1 + toughness 1 + body 3 = 12 dice
5, 5, 2, 4, 2, 3, 4, 4, 2, 1, 2, 5 = 3 hits
2, 1, 2, 3, 2, 5, 3, 5, 1, 4, 4, 6 = 3 hits

[pragma]

Held up my post upon arriving at the Pizza Bank because I don't know what's inside. Thumper's rough plan is to scope the place out, ask for food in as intimidating fashion as he can, then eat, then leave. In the middle somewhere he will make political assurances that the pizza is helping to keep the owners safe.

[Abbandon]

Important!!!! Everyone should look at this if they want to add more flavor to their games here on the forums!

Check this out

[grendel]

WinterRat1 -

[ Spoiler ]

Well, yes and no. I was planning on having Legion learn from a spirit, but when I reread the rules I realized they said free spirit, so it nixed that idea. Then I reread them again and went "wait a minute...." So it was both out of selfishness and self-correction.

I would say we should go with initiation training time is 9 + initiation grade, or whatever ordeal time is required, whichever is greater. That would make grade 1 a base of 10 hours.

Keep in mind that ordinarily if you're trying to initiate via a Deed ordeal, then you don't earn any karma for the deed. Full magicians still have the edge in that they can do an astral quest, which is basically an ordeal in a box since they don't have to go out and seek anything out. Plus, they're not expecting any karma from it anyway. But I don't think it's going to be a huge burden as the number of metamagical skills which are useful to adepts aren't as numerous as the ones useful to full magicians. I think the change as state above should work out well. And if it doesn't, we can always revisit.

I'll take a look at martial arts training times and have something for you next week.

[WinterRat1]

Pragma - The place is fairly empty when you arrive, probably due to the recent violence.

There's only the owner and maybe 1 or 2 assistants and possibly one or two customers, who will do their absolute best to be invisible. If you want to shake down the customers, you'll find they're even poorer than you guys.

The owner cooperate and do everything in his power to convince Thumper not to damage his shop or the people in it, and will be more than willing to feed the gang to keep things that way.

Go ahead and fluff through it, nothing significant will happen in the Pizza Bank unless one of the PCs starts a conversation with the other PCs. Otherwise just move the group through it.

The only significant point is to establish if Thumper and Grack will stick with Shade, Bockscar, and Aziz, or if the group is splitting up after eating. Please take your next post at least to a point that establishes the answer to that question.

[WinterRat1]

Grendel -

[ Spoiler ]

I can go with initiation training time being 9 + initiation grade, or whatever ordeal time is required, whichever is greater.

Would you do me a favor and make the changes we discussed on the wiki? I'm swamped with tax season right now and I won't have time to do it for the forseeable future, and I don't want to forget.

If you can't, let me know and I'll ask Vegas to do it or do it myself later.

[Meriss]

@Winter: The thing is my tats don't actually match my descriptions in my backstory. The current change is the Locos tat is plain to see. Right now Ink is going to add two thick black lines, crossing out the gang name. If he has the time he is going to start adding the names and dates the Locos gangers died.

And Finally getting around to spending my rewards Yay!

Boosting HPT from 1 to 2 with 5 Category A BP
Spending 5 BP from Cat A to buy Martial Arts 1.
Spending 4 Cat B BP to buy the +1 Blades Attack and the damage on called shot manuvers from Arnis de Mano
Converting the last Cat B BP to Karma = 1 Karma
Artisan 2 to 3 = 6 Karma
Close Combat Group 2 to 3 =10 Karma

I'll just spend time practicing with my own bod and anyone who wants to volunteer as a canvas for Artisan
And Ink will start practicing with anyone who will let him practice to improve the Close Combat.

[WinterRat1]

I have two major deadlines this week, one Friday and one next Monday, so my posting and response time will be significantly scaled back until I at least clear Monday. In the meantime, here’s some updates to keep things moving along:

Meriss – Go ahead and keep moving, you’re free to post. I won’t have time to toss up the post I wanted to and it can really be done at any number of times, so just go ahead and keep moving for now.

I didn’t look over your rewards thoroughly, but just off the cuff, I’m pretty sure it takes more than 10 karma to raise your Close Combat Group from 2 to 3. I believe it’s at least New Rating X 10, which makes it more like 30 karma…I’d check to be sure, but I’m 99.9% certain it’s not a mere 10 karma to raise a skill group from 2 to 3. I’d double check your numbers or ask for help, and I’ll review your revised numbers when you put them up.

Vegas and Mister Juan – Vegas knows generally where I’m going with this sequence, so go ahead and set it up if you have time Vegas and I’ll squeeze in a reply. If you can’t let me know and I’ll just take care of the whole thing in one fell swoop.

Grendel – You’re free to post as well, Legion is clear to do whatever.

Adamu, Pragma, Voorhees, Rob – You’re all free to post. Adamu and Pragma, unless Voorhees or Rob say otherwise, assume Shade, Aziz, and Bockscar go with Thumper and Grack.

With Aziz and Bockscar wounded and the five of them venturing into heavily contested territory Shade would play it safe and try to keep the group together.

If you need any inspiration for posts, when you get back to the old Hammerpack HQ feel free to toss in a flashback post on the last stand of the Hammerpack. I’ve been dying for a ‘final battle’ type post/recollection to put in Shade’s journal, and it would be really neat if I could get one from Grendel, Pragma, Adamu and Rob (as a sort of ancillary member of the Pack at the time), giving four different perspectives on the war’s biggest and final battle. Just a thought.

Abbandon – You’re the one waiting on me the most directly so you have highest priority. I’ll try to get to you next to keep the fight moving.

Lindt is out of action until the end of February or so, so Meriss continue to NPC Child appropriately, as you’ve done a great job of doing so far.

Let me know if any of you need anything or has any questions and I’ll do my best to reply, but I don’t have time right now to write solely fluff posts, so those who actually need me in order to keep moving (e.g. Fool and the Nevada-Doc-Felix group) will have highest priority in my responses.

[Vegas]

WinterRat - I can likely wrap up the trio picking up any needs within the electronics store, killing a little more time playing on the cleaner side of the streets and take us relatively close to where I think you're still going with this bit. I will definitely leave it up to you to write that particular bit.

Unless you feel inspired to just wrap it all up and Mister Juan and I can post reactionary posts going forward.

Totally up to you. I know your time is mega stretched right now and I don't know if MJ wants to pipe up along the way either.

Just let me know and we can run with it.

[WinterRat1]

I can likely wrap up the trio picking up any needs within the electronics store, killing a little more time playing on the cleaner side of the streets and take us relatively close to where I think you're still going with this bit.

Go ahead and do this please, I’d like to play up the whole ‘cleaner side of the streets’ just a little bit longer before returning you all to the nice friendly gutters you call home. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Vegas]

Will do! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Maybe they'll have to grab something to eat, y'know when they're not fishing it out of garbage cans and what not (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Abbandon]

No worries. Im to busy being angry at the 3 homo's who passed me by on the street!!! Joking. Direct comm to comm should work fine right? I remembered but then forgot again to check out what my singal strength is and how far away people would get a ping from Fool would be. I think i had a nice commlink hehe.

signal 4 = 1 km. Thats like 10 football fields?

[WinterRat1]

Comm to comm has two problems:

1. You are not getting any reception.

2. Even if you were, no one was in a position to help you at the time Fool is involved in this fight.

[grendel]

Boosting HPT from 1 to 2 with 5 Category A BP
Spending 5 BP from Cat A to buy Martial Arts 1.
Spending 4 Cat B BP to buy the +1 Blades Attack and the damage on called shot manuvers from Arnis de Mano
Converting the last Cat B BP to Karma = 1 Karma
Artisan 2 to 3 = 6 Karma
Close Combat Group 2 to 3 =10 Karma

Meriss: spending 5 BP to gain one 'level' in martial arts only allows you to chose one of the bonuses from that martial art. The maneuvers that you purchase for 2 BP apiece are separate and distinct from the martial arts bonuses. Also, improving an active skill group by one point is new rating x 5, or 15 karma points to go from CCG 2 to CCG 3.

[WinterRat1]

I just checked the wiki, and improving an active skill group by one point is new rating X 10, or 30 karma points to go from CCG 2 to CCG 3.

I think you glanced at the wrong chart Grendel.