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

[Thanee]

Battery must have used up all their luck with his great rolls earlier in the combat. Assault's soak rolls have all been pretty bad so far. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

10 physical boxes ... only 6 or so more to go? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[Volker]

I'd guess 5. The pain editor - cyber limbs combo is a monster. You need to make about 40 boxes of damage against 30 soak dice ... dsang!

[Luckace]

Tracking (assensing): 12d6t5 4

[Jack_Spade]

bnc 31 (Calls Car, Aims)
Anna's Spirit: 28 (Trys to intersect Mage's barrier, loses one barrier)
Mage 27 (Leavs Fog Form, shuts off Dual Nature, walks out of room)
Nova 26 (shoots assault)
Guardian Spirit 25 (Breaks remaining Astral Barrier)
Sharkboy 24 (Knees Assault in the face)
Anna 24 (Levitates Assault)
Bound Guardian Spirit 23 (Tries to frighten Anna's spirit)
Aeraziel 23 (goes Astral)
Assault 22 (fires Grenade)
Wraith 16 (searches for Mage)


Mage tries to hide: Hide: 16d6t5 7

Assault Resist: 14d6t5 3

Yeah he is floating alright

No more defense for him - just offence: He fires another grenade - directly at Anna: Grenade: 12d6t5 6

The grenade explodes on the window sill and will take down this portion of the scaffolding (and a good chunk of the outer facade)

Since he is only about three meters away dangling in the air, he has to content with 10P AP-2
Soak: 34d6t5 11
No additional damage from the HE grenade

Simple action to prepare free fall in case Anna breaks line of sight and drops him.

Since the flying drone can't use run for your life, it will have to soak the same damage as Assault.

[Gilga]

How far is he from the DMSO gas in the stairs? She does not want to take him upwards. She want to keep him within reach of Shark. Does that works? What to roll for Anna? Does she have to keep LOS to levitate him? Run for her life works?

[Volker]

I assume that it explodes on hit or via a trigger and not at the end of the round :-/

Soak: 6d6t5 2

That's 8 boxes of physical damage. As it's Body is 4, it has 8 boxes and is down.
So sad.
I need to recollect it, though, because the damn sniper ain't cheap and I have no money left for that crap (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Where's the drone landing/hitting the ground?

[Gilga]

Okay, Anna would run for her life, -5 to initiative but would keep the line of sight. She has plenty of movement and is willing to run 20 meters.
In case she cannot get far enough without breaking line of sight, I rolled damage resistance at -2.
Damage resistance: 20d6t5 8

[Luckace]

Damn, I didn't know you could just hide from astral sight...Well, I guess this guy has more initiations than we expected. So far we can assume divination/psychometry, wuickening(?) spell shaping, masking (advanced?)... Did I miss something?


@Jack: I thought the assensing roll was for my spirit, Wraith would have 4 dice less (not that it matters against those 7 hits). What about the other astral entities? Are the spirits still behind the barrier or could I target them?
As my spirit might manifest regardless, I would like to know what attackable targets Wraith has.

[Thanee]

You can use Stealth, just as normal, i.e. hide behind something that blocks astral sight. AFAIK, you cannot make your astral form vanish, and if there are active spells or anything, you will glow like a lightbulb in the dark.

Bye
Thanee

[Jack_Spade]

@Volker
Yes, impact trigger. Although I allow repairing even with a full damage track

@gilga
As far as I understood your action, you never had Anna climb out through the window (as per our conversation at http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...t&p=1343088 and http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...t&p=1343090

You'll have to decide what you want: To keep seeing the Merc you have to stay at the window. As soon as you move more than a meter or two back you'll lose LOS. Since this happens on his initiative you can't move him with your action (you'd have to have specified that you move him in front of your window instead of keeping him in reach of Sharkboy's fists)

@Luckace
As Thanee said: Astral sight is blocked by walls and other objects as well as living auras.
The assensing test was meant to pick up if his astral aura is peeking around a corner or something so you can home in on him directly

There is also the F9 barrier still occupying the room with the two guardian spirits behind it, waiting for their next action.

Also, there was no quickening involved so far and no-one took the time to assense the mage so far. You can infer two initiations: Spell Shaping and Psychometrie.
Now, I'm not saying this is all he has, since he clearly is part of the magical research division that experiments with HMHVV... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Gilga]

About Anna, She is by the window, or as I imagined by the scalings to get a good view of what happens downstairs.
At any case, the window is open as she previously entered through it. I imagine it more of a hole than a window as the building is in renovation (but Volker handled an actual glass window).

She is not running inside the apartment, that would be insane for her. (with a possibility to encounter a superior mage alone). She runs outside toward Sharkboy and Nova, a brief moment before the entire scaling and parts of the building collapse. About Wraith, he should have enough astral movement (at walking) to scan most of the building and likely find the mage.

[Gilga]

By the way Jack,

in this game will breaking LOS prevent the levitation? Can you negate a sustained spell (e.g. mind control) simply by blocking the line of sight of the mage once it was cast? I am asking because I never played like that (not that I mind, I just want to understand how magic works in this game.).

Also, I am thinking physical barrier or ice wall spells as a safer method of counterspelling in that case. If the mage can't see the person, the spell wears off ? (less drain, easier to succeed).

[Thanee]

AFAIK, you do not need to maintain line of sight in order to sustain a spell. You only need it for the initial casting.

Bye
Thanee

[Jack_Spade]

This is a specialty of Levitate:

The subject of the spell can be moved any-
where in your line of sight at a movement rate equal to
the spell’s Force in meters per Combat Turn.

Once you no longer see them, you can't move them - including keeping them in place - at least that's how I interprete the line. Otherwise no, you don't need to keep seeing your target after you cast a spell.

As for climbing out of the window when you see a grenade coming directly at you. That strains my believe somewhat, because Anna'd have to jump towards the grenade, beat it hitting the window sill during it's 3m flight, land on the scaffolding, take a hard right to run along it (no climbing maneuvers - this is an interrupt action that only allows using normal movement)

I won't insist on this, but I'd recommend - for sanity's sake - that if Anna wants to evade the grenade, she'd pull back to the back of the flat to avoid the blast.

[Gilga]

While you are very generous of letting us know where the grenade is going to land. Anna does not know that, and by retreating inside she may be just heading toward the blast. To the very least, she and the grenade are moving in the same direction, so she gets less relative movement. The most sense is to run toward the grenade - thinking that most people will not blow themselves up. (which is why she thinks it is unlikely that the merc is crazy enough to be within the blast zone). So she runs within the direction of the grenade, thinking that outside is safer than inside. Besides, it is very rational for Anna to be outside of the window, to begin with as she got there escaping another grenade and needed the wall to protect her. (This is what 10m 15m radius of explosion? )With such small apartments, and such a large explosion radius, the apartment next door may be within the blast radius.

Also, applying your intuition about what an unaugmented person would do, in the real world is a bit of a guy in gym syndrome. SR is not realistic, people dodge bullets and run out of the blast radius of grenades. In 3 seconds running in the army, none of us managed to cover that much distance, not 40 meters, and not 24 meters. We managed to take a few steps and fall down to the ground. Figuring that when we lie down the effective radius of the grenade is smaller.

Now let's consider our heroine, she CAN run out of the blast radius - she is faster than anyone we can imagine with her 10 agility. She does not know where the grande is going to fall, she assumes it is someplace inside the apartment - as a mercenary blowing himself - willingly, is a bit insane to her. Sure it is a smart thing to do mechanically, but Anna would not assume that the man is going to blow himself out. She would never willingly blow herself up. So she does not know where to run inside - and would definitely run outside. If she was a real person in our wold mechanics I'll have her jumping out of the window (falling from the second floor would not kill her but a high explosive grenade might).


Since she is in another world with different rules, and she can run insanely fast. She is definitely running outside, where she is sure to get ahead of the blast. Anna has agility 10, which is more than the fastest person alive today, and SR mobility is already insanely faster than our own. Right now Anna jogs at 48 kilometers per hour, faster than what I can bike on my electric bike. Perhaps few people in the world run 24-30 km/h I bike - but seriously nobody runs that fast. Most people run at 12 km/h where 16 km/h is already rare. (it means running 2km in less than 7.5 minutes - few people on my military unit at the age of 18 after training for half a year could do that. (Basically, the guys that were top athletes prior to joining the IDF, could run 2km in 6 minutes perhaps 5:30 was the fastest of all.). So imagine how fast it is 24 km/h - and then how fast does 48 km/h is for a running speed.

Moreover, SR people can dodge bullets, while real people cannot. (the best they can hope for is dive for cover). Anna specifically can dodge bullets with a grace that is kind of like Neo from the matrix, (22 dice with full defense). So our imagination and sense of realism do not exactly apply here. In a way, she probably starts running before the man even clicks the trigger with her Intuition value of 10, she instinctively understands the danger just by where his eyes are, or when he starts to move the gun in position.

Speaking of realism, you let a man that is immobile in mid-air, turn his body and position around to shot at Anna as if he was on solid ground. Not arguing here, I think that not being able to dodge bullets is enough of an effect for the spell - but there is no realism in this situation. It is either hard if he accidentally faces Anna, or impossible if he is not facing her. Recall that he was prone, either on his back or on his tummy, he is likely either facing the sky or facing the floor. Just saying she is far from the average Joe, and that retreating inside the apartment makes no sense not knowing where the grenade is going to trigger. What she is doing is well within her physical abilities, (even if she just walks - and not run ). So I honestly do not understand why you want her to do something that does not make any sense for me and credit that choice in the sake of realism.

[Jack_Spade]

Alright, so you are out and on the collapsing scaffolding. But unless you run backwards you won't keep LoS on the Merc.

Oh and I forgot to comment on Astral Movement speed and perception: Just because you can move at nearly speed of thought, you can't perceive as fast. I.e. conducting a search necessitates that you actually take a look around and not just skip through the whole building.

So, new Ini Phase:

bnc 21
Anna's Spirit: 18
Mage 17
Nova 16 (11 if interrupt)
Guardian Spirit 15
Sharkboy 14 (9 if interrupt)
Anna 9 (due to interrupt)
Bound Guardian Spirit 13
Aeraziel 13
Assault 12
Wraith 6

[Gilga]

LOS was never an issue... She is not exactly a soldier or a warmage, she is running outside of a blast radius.


Does it means that the spell failed - or can she just levitate him again in her next action?

[Gilga]

@Jack the 3km a combat turn nonsense is running. Walking speed is well 100m /combat turn (if I recall correctly) and allows perception. Given that you are not restricted by gravity, and that the mage is likely not very far from the combat, it should be enough (I think) to find him. If you think that it requires a rolling fine, I'd say that checking 2-3 stories of the building with 100-meter movement is not difficult. Also, the 4meter radius ward is likely very visible as it is larger than a single floor. Wraith should at least encounter that thing very easily.

[Thanee]

Oh, right. Since it won't cost her any actions this turn, Nova will use the interrupt to get some distance between herself and the grenade. But she will not move so far, that she cannot move back again. So... something like 7-8m away?

Bye
Thanee

[SquirrelDude]

How close is sharkboy to the explosion and how much damage would he need to soak if he stayed where he was?

[Jack_Spade]

@Squirreldude
Sharkboy is 3m away from the impact like Assault, so 10P AP-2 to soak

But also consider that after the explosion the scaffolding will topple over.

@gilga
100m/3 seconds is still ridiculously fast - especially if you want to scan for auras, trying to differentiate between a rat, a human, a swarm of insects, pigeons or some other critter.

[SquirrelDude]

How far up are we?

How much damage would Sharkboy take from a fall?

Does he have enough movement to get away from the explosion?

[Jack_Spade]

8m above the snow covered back yard of the house.

Damage would be 8P AP-4

Yes. 8m will move you completely out of the explosions effective range.

[SquirrelDude]

Sharkboy just gets out of the radius, then.

[Volker]

Phase 21:
Movement: Move to the drone, then to the van. I don't know whether jumping is part of the movement or it requires a Free Action. I didn't find anything specific about it. Either way, it'll be no problem.
Simple Action: Pick up drone.
Simple Action: Open door.