Salted Wounds [OOC], a Deep Black Sea game Options

[Jack_Spade]

@Squirreldude
Thanks for the honesty, I had not realized that (and thought of the subduing rules)
In that case I'll just ignore the dice throw and go full defense to enter the flat

Full Defense: 25d6t5 7 (Agile Defender)

@Volker
There is a Parkour maneuver called rolling cloud that allows you to fall better and reduce damage by one DV, otherwise no, except for the glider armor with parachute in Street Lethal.

@Luckace

Yeah, technically spirit powers aren't affected by astral wards - which is stupid in my opinion. But them's the breaks. What is affected though is perception on the astral. But as we established, materialized spirits can see and hear just fine, so it isn't affected by blind fire penalties. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

That brings us to the Guardian Spirit: It dematerializes and appears upstairs next to the mist and gilga's spirit.


Defense: 16d6t5 4
Spending his second point of edge for rerolls:
Defense reroll: 12d6t5 4
Evades spirit attack.

Mage: 34 (goes to mist form - declares full defense)
Anna: 30 (shoots to disarm, commands spirit)
Battery: 29 (His Kamikaze just kicked in, lowering his wound mods to 1) (Kills Undiel - loses shield)
bnc: 27 (charges through door into corridor)
Assault: 26 (goes full defense and enters flat using his complex action to retrieve a backup weapon)
Aeraziel Spirit Team 25 (Attacks battery)
Anna's Spirit: 23 (Attacks Mage)
Guardian Spirit OP-Force (in Flat): 23 (Dematerializes and moves to assist mage)
Nova: 22
Bound Spirit OP-Force (Astral): 21
Sharkboy: 20
Wraith: 13

[SquirrelDude]

Mage: 34 (goes to mist form - declares full defense)
Anna: 30 (shoots to disarm, commands spirit)
Battery: 29 (His Kamikaze just kicked in, lowering his wound mods to 1) (Kills Undiel - loses shield)
bnc: 27 (charges through door into corridor)
Assault: 26 (goes full defense and enters flat using his complex action to retrieve a backup weapon)
Aeraziel Spirit Team 25 (Attacks battery)
Anna's Spirit: 23 (Attacks Mage)
Guardian Spirit OP-Force (in Flat): 23 (Dematerializes and moves to assist mage)
Nova: 22
Bound Spirit OP-Force (Astral): 21
Sharkboy: 20
Wraith: 13

Sharkboy to 15 after the interrupt attack and Assault should be down to 1? -10 for turn -15 for full defense?

[Jack_Spade]

Full defense only is -10 to ini and the -10 will affect him after his turn is over, but yeah, I'll amend that

Mage: 34 (goes to mist form - declares full defense)
Anna: 30 (shoots to disarm, commands spirit)
Battery: 29 (His Kamikaze just kicked in, lowering his wound mods to 1) (Kills Undiel - loses shield)
bnc: 27 (charges through door into corridor)
Assault: 26 (goes full defense and enters flat using his complex action to retrieve a backup weapon)
Aeraziel Spirit Team 25 (Attacks battery)
Anna's Spirit: 23 (Attacks Mage)
Guardian Spirit OP-Force (in Flat): 23 (Dematerializes and moves to assist mage)
Nova: 22
Bound Spirit OP-Force (Astral): 21
Sharkboy: 15
Wraith: 13

[Thanee]

Alright, new try to do something about Battery, I guess.

EDIT: ... or not. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[Volker]

Full Defense should reduce the mage to 24

[Gilga]

For next round Initiative 20.
Stunbolt F6.
Stunbolt: 13d6t5 6
drain Vs 3: 15d6t5 5

Need to resist the spell with willpower, damage 1 stun per net hit.

Would you think that the gun can be effective now? I think he still got very high soak.

[Jack_Spade]

Full Defense should reduce the mage to 24

As mentioned, I'll adjust all Full Defenses in the next ini phase.
He still had his ini action at 34 first (going in mist form) before using the interrupt to go full defense

Mage: 34 (goes to mist form - declares full defense)
Anna: 30 (shoots to disarm, commands spirit)
Battery: 29 (His Kamikaze just kicked in, lowering his wound mods to 1) (Kills Undiel - loses shield)
bnc: 27 (charges through door into corridor)
Assault: 26 (goes full defense and enters flat using his complex action to retrieve a backup weapon)
Aeraziel Spirit Team 25 (Attacks battery)
Anna's Spirit: 23 (Attacks Mage)
Guardian Spirit OP-Force (With Mage): 23 (Dematerializes and moves to assist mage)
Nova: 22 (Shoots Battery)
Bound Spirit OP-Force (Astral): 21 (Attacks) Aeraziel)
Sharkboy: 15 (Punches Battery)
Wraith: 13

Next round


Anna: 20 (Stun Bolt at Battery)
Battery: 19
bnc: 17
Aeraziel Spirit Team 15
Mage: 14
Anna's Spirit: 13
Guardian Spirit OP-Force (with Mage): 13
Nova: 12
Bound Spirit OP-Force (Astral): 11
Assault: 6
Sharkboy: 5
Wraith: 3

[Volker]

Full defense only is -10 to ini and the -10 will affect him after his turn is over, but yeah, I'll amend that

I think, Assault slipped your attention, didn't he? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Should be 16

[Jack_Spade]

Nope, as you can see in the next phase table, he is down to 6

[Volker]

aaah

[Jack_Spade]

Anna: 20 (Stun Bolt at Battery)
Battery: 19 (Strikes Spirit)
bnc: 17
Aeraziel Spirit Team 15
Mage: 14
Anna's Spirit: 13
Guardian Spirit OP-Force (with Mage): 13
Nova: 12
Bound Spirit OP-Force (Astral): 11
Assault: 6
Sharkboy: 5
Wraith: 3

Soak: 6d6t5 3

Battery takes 3S for a full 11 Stun Track
Autoinjector activates Stim 6

Compex action: Battery strikes Aerziel: Strike Spirit: 18d6t5 9
Spirit defense: 16d6t5 5
Soak: 4d6t5 2
Spirit disrupted
Moves into flat, blocking entrance

[Gilga]

What what?! Please explain what just happened?

[Gilga]

Anna: 20 (Stun Bolt at Battery)
Battery: 19 (Strikes Spirit)
bnc: 17
Aeraziel Spirit Team 15
Mage: 14
Anna's Spirit: 13
Guardian Spirit OP-Force (with Mage): 13
Nova: 12
Bound Spirit OP-Force (Astral): 11
Assault: 6
Sharkboy: 5
Wraith: 3

Soak: 6d6t5 3

Battery takes 3S for a full 11 Stun Track
Autoinjector activates Stim 6

Compex action: Battery strikes Aerziel: Strike Spirit: 18d6t5 9
Spirit defense: 16d6t5 5
Soak: 4d6t5 2
Spirit disrupted
Moves into flat, blocking entrance

Why wouldn't the spirit go full defense or something?

[Thanee]

Oh, Stim Patches actually remove stun damage again... In SR4A they only gave you "High Pain Tolerance".

That's quite handy. Nova should get herself a few of those, too, just in case. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[Jack_Spade]

Why wouldn't the spirit go full defense or something?

Because it would have lost the ability to counter attack? But just for the sake of argument: Full Defense: 6d6t5 1, the spirit would have been still disrupted.

As for what happened: You filled the merc's stun track, which triggered the bio-monitor wired to an autoinjector to release a dose of Stim into the mercenary.

[Gilga]

About the spirit: Or perhaps Wraith wanted to use edge, to keep us from losing yet another spirit? You seem to be overly eager about its demise.

So he lost consciousness, the biomonitor discovered it so quickly and the response happened so quickly - and then the drugs affected his body so quickly that he did not even lose his action, or collapse to the ground or something? This seems like a legitimate interpretation of the rules to you?!

When every other healing attempt is measured in combat turns which makes it ineffective in a middle of combat. Now I am not going to argue about that, because this entire combat feels like one rule lawyering after another.

I am going to say that there seem to be another issue here, you seem to use every trick in the book, every rule abuse to make it hard on us. I admit that this level of sophistication makes it much less fun for me and that I feel like the aftereffects are bad for us. When we'll be pressured toward high firepower (how much higher can you go from a sniper rifle with ADPS? which is not effective).

This kind of things makes this entire scene frustrating. Knowing that you'll use your mastery of the rules to undo anything we do accomplish. Or that the opponents will just edge it if we actually get a good strike. I don't like this level of sophistication like the auto injector-biomonitor steam - and your interpretation of how well they interact with one another.


Or even the shield walk that seems to me like it is much more powerful than any other maneuver in the small unit tactics. Coupled with a shield which is much stronger than any other shield.
Let's have these things in mind and make a discussion about the kind of game we want to play. Previous high-level opponents were not that sophisticated. I do not want to play a game of who read all the books and found the best exploit of the rules. In fact, I'd rather avoid an arms race with the GM. It seems strange to me that should we make it out alive, the next thing should be to go shop autoinjectors with stim patches and a better armor.

[Jack_Spade]

You are facing opposition, real opposition this time. They are prepared and they are trained to deal with a situation like this. You are dealing with agents of a megacorp that can spend incredible amounts of resources to get what it wants. This is both part of the story I want to tell, as well as a chance for the team to grow into a more cohesive unit.

A few of the things I'm using here, are experimental for me since they are from the most recent books - when else am I going to see how well they work? Beside that, you found counters to them - using cold damage to get rid of the shield hadn't occured to me and is quite valuable data both for me and for you. The reward for that would have been the equipment they lost and for you the ability to replicate those tactics (SUT aren't new, they exist since R&G and yet I see very few people using them. It seems to me that demonstrating their use is the best way to make them more popular and add an interesting element to the game)

By the way: I already gave you a hint about the autoinjector method IP. You found the Lazarus Combo in the Vienna safehouse, but never wondered how it got there or where it came from.

That said:
This fight is meant to be hard - but it's not like you are losing. The mage is on the run and with him his bobyguard spirit. The two mercs have lost their primary means of attack and defense and are also retreating now that there boss has gone. Likewise, your Stunbolt was very effective. Battery now runs on borrowed time.
And if you wanted to end the fight now, you'd have the opportunity. Just reread this post http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...t&p=1342748 and this post http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...t&p=1342883

Edit:
Besides all that: This fight was entirely optional. No-one forced you into this confrontation.

[Gilga]

I think you are overly generous with the ability of a biomonitor to detect and apply the treatment, and for the drugs to affect him so quickly. He basically did not notice that he went unconscious, did not lose his balance, and even completed a melee attack as if nothing had happened. I'd imagine having dropping like a rock and rise from the dead after a round or two as very powerful (and problematic). Though, what you are suggesting making me think if there is a tactical advantage in continuing to bash the man.

Of course, our characters know nothing so we'll continue.

The Shield smashing is your doing, not us - Battery was so armored that you had him strike an aura spirit and he ignored all the damage from it. The spirit was unlikely to ever touch him - with the kind of defense he rolls. Which makes me think if I should even try to attack him with my meager pistol (and James/bnc). Even if we fill his stun again, he'll just reawaken again, so yes bad for him in the long term... but is there any tactical advantage to continuing?


#OOC - Yes it is not clear to me why we are fighting these guys, to begin with. Though, if you placed say ten (even ordinary) guards - we would have been much more careful. I think that some of the charging is due to the fact that we seemed to have more of everything. More mages, more combatants and so forth. Water under the bridge (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

For me, Anna just hopped off the scaling after Sharkboy not wanting to miss out on the fun, and not wanting to let him go fight a mage without magical protection. I did not feel like we gave this combat much thought but it did not appear half the menace that it really is.

[Thanee]

(how much higher can you go from a sniper rifle with ADPS? which is not effective)

To be fair, though, with average rolls, I would do damage to him with every shot (not a whole lot, because he is super-maxed-out on just about everything, it seems, but he would be down by now). It was just that luck was a bit in his favor here.

What I mostly dislike about Battery is, that this shield gives zero hindrance for dodging attacks. That just seems completely wrong. This thing must be heavy and unwieldy. But it isn't. At all. It's how the rules work, no argument here, just weird (kinda like that end-of-the-round suddenly no interrupts are possible thing).

One more thing, which I think is wrong. Battery just retreated into the flat. He simply should not do such a thing. He is on Kamikaze right now. He has no survival instinct whatsoever, anymore, and feels invincible and everything (which is, pretty much, the description of Kamikaze). He should act like that and not like a carefully planning professional currently.

Just one of those little things about him, that make him feel completely "gamey" and not like an actual person.

Bye
Thanee

[Thanee]

Ingame, however, I think we have to re-negotiate with Nacl. With this level of opposition, there should be one more "0" behind our paychecks. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[Gilga]

IC I would agree, but at least bnc (and to a degree Anna) are in a very weak negotiation position. bnc probably wants her sister rescued regardless of the pay. Anna is doing it mainly to support her, and would likely not ditch the job because 'it is not worth the pay'.

[Jack_Spade]

The shield is unwieldy - you need STR 9 to use it without any penalty to your agility. Battery has STR 7 (now 9 with Kamikaze) and suffered one point penalty.

As for Kamikaze: RAW there is no compulsion to act like that - unlike Kali. Battery has drilled maneuvers with his partner for quite a while and acts without thinking.
But if you all think it should have, I'm all to glad to implement that as a rule change and add the Berserker negative trait to it like a Shark or a Bear shaman has.
In that case him taking a step back is only the precursor to a charge attack.

@gilga
Biomonitors are that powerful: They do track how much damage you have taken and combined with an auto injector can immediately apply a drug when a preprogrammed event takes place. That's RAW and it applies to your characters just as it applies to your foes. You all didn't mind that bnc could fix a severed artery during a fight either.

I build Assault and Battery as Prime Runners - a three man runner group (the hacker is the third - called Jaywalker) with a very specific skill set, namely acting as highpowered bodyguards for a very important, powerful ritualist mage.
Complaining about them being overpowered is akin to attacking Damien Knight and complaining that he is protected by an army.

[Thanee]

As for Kamikaze: RAW there is no compulsion to act like that - unlike Kali. Battery has drilled maneuvers with his partner for quite a while and acts without thinking.
But if you all think it should have, I'm all to glad to implement that as a rule change and add the Berserker negative trait to it like a Shark or a Bear shaman has.
In that case him taking a step back is only the precursor to a charge attack.

Just read the Kamikaze description and it surely feels a bit wrong to act defensively while under its effect, don't you think?

It's more a fluff/roleplaying thing, I guess, as there is no hard rule.

Complaining about them being overpowered is akin to attacking Damien Knight and complaining that he is protected by an army.

Them being powerful is fine (to me, anyways). It's not like we are completely outmatched or anything. We are still doing pretty well, despite somewhat bad luck with the rolls.

Bye
Thanee

[Volker]

Why wouldn't the spirit go full defense or something?

Nope. Spirits don't have edge (CRB 304). Wraith could, however, spend edge in its stead.

regarding the stimpatch:
I might be wrong, as I was a hundred times before, but then, considering how often we argued about something, there surely was about a dozen time where I was right, so...
I assume that you treat a stimpatch as a drug with Speed Immediate (technically it's not even a drug or chemical which would disallow to use it in a auto-injector but I guess we all agree that it makes sense to see it as a drug with Speed Immediate).
Still, "Immediate means the effect is applied at the end of the same Combat Turn in which the victim is exposed" (CRB 408). Since Anna took Battery out in phase 20, he is out for the rest of the combat. There's no room for interpretation in this regard, it's clearly defined that there is no chemical in the whole Shadowrun world that works faster than "end of the combat round".

Just out of interest, though:

Biomonitors are that powerful: They do track how much damage you have taken and combined with an auto injector can immediately apply a drug when a preprogrammed event takes place. That's RAW and it applies to your characters just as it applies to your foes. You all didn't mind that bnc could fix a severed artery during a fight either.

I couldn't find any reference that biomonitors can truck boxes of damage nor how fast they react. I guess it would react pretty fast but vital signals do need some time to drop after damage has been dealt to a body. I'm talking split-seconds not seconds, but still all the vitals a biomonitor can track (heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, ...) do need some time to drop after something impacts a body, as far as I can tell. But I'm not arguing here, just interested in the source of your RAW info.
Ah, and just to be fair: You must admit, however, that fixing the artery did take several combat rounds in which I was unable to do anything else. That doesn't necessarily make it more realistic, though ^^ it was definitely the most romantic event in my whole SR career, however (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Anyway, I think that it's okay to face real opposition. So far, most of our opponents were just beyond average. We are quite advanced. Two of us have received about a million of nuyen to spend, and Jack was quite generous in how we were allowed to spend it. I can remember, for example, that he granted you, gilga, to convert the money into karma although there is no rule that would allow you to do so. This was a huge jump in your character's career he just gave you as a present. In my case, he helped me quite patiently (note quite patiently, but with angelic patience) to optimize James, sometimes answering four to five pms a day. So I guess it's fair that we bite a bit of granite here. We're not playing Disney fairytales but Shadowrun here. Even so and with a bit of bad luck, we are winning and have by far not exhausted our possibilities. So far, none of us even got harmed as far as I can tell.

I would agree that there's some ground to discuss the "rule knowledge race with our GM mastermind". I sometimes felt the same - when NPCs can do things I haven't even known there exist, e.g. Or when rules are interpreted in a way that feel very contraintuitive to me. This is one thing. But I don't think we should whine about overpowered NPCs. We're quite overpowered ourselves and I'd rather play SR challenging than boring.
Besides: We were idiots, and deserve a punch in the face.

[Gilga]

About the power level, I feel that it puts pressure on over-optimizing for combat, and I don't like it.
I think that I'd like the shield walk to not increase defense, as it seems broken to me. (and they did not even use full defense on top of that...). Getting +10 armor (or even +6) seems like enough of a bonus for a free action.

About the autoinjector stim patch combo - again it seems to work WAY too fast. No other form of healing works instantly. E.g., heal spell and medic kit heal 1 box per combat turn. Bnc needed multiple combat rounds to work on the artery. She did not do it in a single pass, and then shot - and dodged in the same combat round. Schmidt did not just instantly recovered without the damage having any mechanical effect. So it is not the same thing, (and yes both are not realistic), but instant healing in response to being knocked out just takes the edge out of being knocked out. I don't want to exploit it - I don't want it to exist.

Is there a point of attacking Battery? (sure he might die after the combat from an overdose of drugs) but can we do anything to actually incapacitate him while in combat? With a pain editor (which is VERY powerful) in comparison, the extra stun is converted to physical. So if we keep hitting him, he'll fall down eventually. (providing we survive long enough to do so). Now whenever his monitor is filled he'll be healed. (until he runs out of stim patches?!) Is it necessary to make the point of them being highly trained? Would the combat be 'easy' if stun damage can incapacitate a person?

Because to me, it seems like your design has left no way to actually incapacitate Battery (and perhaps Assult has a similar shtick). Their armor is too thick for physical damage, and stun does not seem to affect them while in combat. Perhaps spells could be used - but Anna does not know anything like it. It is a bit frustrating to me that we fight a combat where the opponents cannot be incapacitated while we fight the combat.

Or am I missing something? Because to me, the implications are that the opposition can simply ignore our damage, (and we cannot ignore their damage). Is there a way to win? It seems to me that all we CAN do is have them apply more steam patches. (are there any restrictions on how many times he can repeat it? ) Now all the problems I see would have been solved if the healing was not instant.

For example, we'll be surprised at their miraculous recovery the first time we incapacitate them, but the second time we can make sure they don't revive again. The problem is that the healing is instant - and Battery is not helpless even for a brief moment.