Ronin - I just remembered that you don't have ETG's character sheet, so I'll make the rolls for you.

Why am I more afraid of what grendel will come up with regarding Litany's "candidates" then an actual shadow meet?

Because you should be.

Move along, citizen. Nothing to see here.

Or Dire's just been paying attention to the massive number of references regarding grendel's nature.

That signature of his is a pretty good indicator as well I'd say.

Absence Notice:

Jul 22 - Aug 28

Why: Moving to San Diego!

Access: Limited, I should be able to check every other day.

I will post another one as the date draws closer.

Temporary absence notice

This is my last week at my job and my last week of posting until I get my family settled in Oregon, which should be around the 14th of August. I will PM WinterRat1 with how I think Max will fight at the warehouse, but he will have to run Max for a while until I return.

Slipshade

Sorry for the delay everyone. There's a LOT of dice rolls I have to make. Does anyone know of an SR 4 dice roller that lets you request X number of rolls? That would save me a lot of time.

WR1- Do you want us to call actions right now?

Sorry this is taking longer than I thought, 15 or so combatants on an unfamiliar system is more of a hassle than I originally expected. I'm trying to set everything up so the next round is smoother. I'll be ready to start Round 1 Initiative Pass 1 later today. Oh for the days of SR 3!

Also, for Surprise Tests the only thing that matters is the number of hits. There is no 'Surprise Initiative Score' or anything like that.

Basically, you can only act directly or indirectly against someone who has the same number of hits as you or less on their Surprise Roll. Anyone who rolled more hits on their Surprise Test than you cannot be acted against directly or indirectly.

ETG:
Surprise Roll: 6 hits
Initiative Score: 9

OK go ahead and declare your actions. Here's how this will work. I'm going to post the initiative order below, and then everyone declares their actions AND rolls for them in the same post. Additionally, post what can best be described as 'general intent'. This is your character's main objective for this Initiative Pass.

For example, ETG's intent is probably something along the lines of 'kill as many of the bad guys as possible'.

I don't want this to bog down in having to wait for each person to post one by one at various times, so what I'm doing is running all the combat at once. All the characters are basically acting at the same time, but to account for the fact that you are allowed to delay actions or change them if someone before you does something you'd respond to, we will be using the 'general intent' mechanism to account for this.

Basically, your 'general intent' will be used to determine the threshold needed to change your action from your stated action to a different one.

So to continue from the previous example, if ETG wants to switch his target from A3 to A5 (say because A3 already died, or maybe moved behind cover so ETG has a better shot on A5), the threshold would be very low (or maybe even no roll at all) because he's basically doing the same thing, just with a minor change.

On the other hand, if ETG wanted to say, run over to the telecom and hack into the warehouse system (the warehouse has no Matrix system, but I'm making a point here) that would be a much higher threshold because it's significantly different from his previously stated intent.

I realize this is a little bit different from the strict tabletop canon way of doing things, but it is simply a concession to having so many combatants, PC and NPC. I figure we'd all rather keep the pace up and the action flowing smooth and fun rather than wait around for days or even weeks as we wait for everyone to take their turn posting and act one by one. With this many combatants, it could take us weeks to get through the first pass!

After all actions have been declared and finalized (i.e. after seeing all the posted actions no one wants to try to change their declared action) I will tell you all to post your actions in the IC thread as normal, and then after all necessary dice rolls have been resolved in the OOC thread, I will post the results, as usual.

If there are any questions with respects to this system, please let me know. I will tinker with this as necessary to ensure the most efficient, effective, and most important, fun way of resolving this large a combat.

Combat Round 1, Initiative Pass 1

Initiative Order:

Edge: Cao Jaan and Blaze
19: Scrapheap
18:
17:
16:
15:
14: Knight, A1
13: Nora, A9
12:
11: A2, A5
10: G3, A3, A6, A12
9: Lady Dove, ETG, G1, G4, G5, A4, A8
8: G2, A7, A10, A11
7: Max, G6
6:
5:
4:
3:
2:
1:

Surprise Results

Opponents ETG can act against, directly or indirectly:

A2,A3,A4,A5,A6,A7,A8,A9,A11

Opponents Scrapheap and Cao Jaan can act against, directly or indirectly:

A2,A4,A5,A6,A7,A8,A9,A11

Opponents Knight and Blaze can act against, directly or indirectly:

A4,A5,A8

Max glitched his surprise roll and so cannot act against anyone, directly or indirectly this round. Furthermore, he trips over himself in shock and falls prone on the ground. It will take 1 Simple Action to get back to his feet. Of course, in this situation falling on the ground may have been a blessing in disguise.

I thought about having Max crash into Scrapheap, costing them both a simple action, so I rolled a dumb luck roll, and you guys won. Lucky you two.

That would have been classic! And about par for Scrapheap's luck...

At 19, Scrapheap will yell, "Nora! Hang on!" I'll then throw a smoke grenade over (or through) the shelving unit for cover.



Let me know if I need to do anything to determine scatter.
-S

Well it looks like John caught a lucky break for once. Or maybe it's Max's luck rubbing off on you. Actually, it probably was Max's luck because technically the dumb luck roll was for Max, not John. He would've crashed into anyone/anything nearby if he failed, John simply happened to be the closest candidate. So maybe John's luck is beginning to turn around.

On the other hand, I doubt you can call being ambushed by 12 very hostile individuals while your niece is dangling overhead by 1 underdeveloped teenage arm 10 meters off the ground lucky, so maybe his luck is running true to form.

Any movement this Pass Scrap? Don't forget to include your movements everyone!

And use the directions on the map for reference if need be. I included the maps with a compass for a reason!

Ok so I guess Max's action is to trip and fall prone then.

(As a general note Max's strategy will be to get Nora to safety...then protect Nora, Scrap and himself.)

Ah, movement. I've edited the post above.

WR1 - Yes thanks.

Slip - I modified my above post. You cannot affect, directly or indirectly, anyone who rolled more hits on their surprise test than you. Since you glitched, that's well...everyone.

I have a mechanics question as I contemplate Blaze's action. According to the outcome of the suprise and iniative rolls, Blaze can act directly or indirectly on opponents A4,A5,A8.

Due to the open structure of the shelfs in the warehouse, I believe it would be reasonable to say that goon A4 is within LOS of Blaze, which makes him a valid target for an area affect fireball spell (a physical spell). Several other goons (A3, A5, and A2) would also be hit by the blast, depending on how the area of affect works out. This may sound silly, but goon A2 does not recieve protection from the blast merely by iniative does he?

Thoughts . . . ?

Also, I am not pleased with the spell list that Blaze was given during his initial generation . . .who loads a combat mage with area of affect spells, but neglects selecting any single-target spells? This guy is just built for out and out magial destruction

Dude; his name is Blaze, not "Firecracker"

One other note, I checked the map and A5 is probably at the outermost edge of the spell and might not even be affected if you center it on A4. I'd have to see the area effect radius of the spell to rule exactly. Remember the warehouse is 100 meters wide, so characters are not quite as close as they appear to one another.

Also note that you will definitely fry poor civilian Z to a crisp if you fireball A4. Just thought I'd let you know, in case you decide Blaze cares.

And btw, you are aware you'll be fireballing Cao Jaan's home and shelter for those poor lost souls who otherwise have nowhere else in this world to go, right?

Knight will grab what cover he can behind the shelf he's next to and manabolt A5.

Free action: will yell at Cao to "Get the Lady and get out."
Complexe action: Cast a Force 6 manabolt at goon A5.

I am aware of all of those issues (and throwing a fireball is not my first choice that I am considering), though the shaman that I am used to playing would act in a far less destructive manner than Blaze probably would.

I threw out that example because when I looked at the map (which is outstanding by the way!) and the outcome of the surprise rolls, that technical issue jumped into my mind and I wanted to sort it out now rather than once combat starts.

Thanks for the anlysis, you confirmed all of my own thoughts. It really does come down to physical or mana based spell.

I will post something in a few hours. Also, I just realized that I never sent you my conversion of Blaze winterrat. I will be sure to do that tonight as well.

Totally off the subject, but has anyone else caught the "Nature" article concerning the BrainGate sensor tests? The future is here folks direct interface between man and machine, cyberware is born.

Hello, sorry bout not posting for a bit, but i guess it didn't matter since I don't have the sheet yet anyway (doh!)

Question: as of this IP (IP1), are the citizen "Z"s still standing or will they have commenced general panic behavior yet (with the exception of Mr. Z-about-to-be-fried-by-Blaze's-fireball).

Anyhow, ETG will generally be shooting at targets, and moving into some tactical position:
-cover Blaze
-protect the staircase behind him.

I think he'll also try to tell Blaze, to retrieve the upstairs girls, take em down the stairs and out that NorthEast side door if a) he has enough actions b) nobody else has come up with a better plan.

I wasn't quite sure what .. err... liberties Litany could take with the NPC in the scene when I was writing it up. I was thinking I might need to do some social engineering rolls to get a close look at the private back area without it arousing suspicion.

Dire - You stopped at exactly the right time in your last post. As per the general rule, you can write up whatever you want with the NPCs as long as it does not affect the storyline in a material way. Obviously getting access to the back room would have a material impact on the story, so stopping prior to the NPC response was exactly where you should have stopped, just like you did. Good instincts.

BTW, I like how you're writing up the commlink stuff, I already get the feel of a continual 'buzz' of information floating around Litany when I read your posts.

Vegas - Pick a number, 1-11.

WR1- 7

Ooh...were you SURE you wanted THAT number? Just asking, you know, as a 'GM feeling responsible for his player' kinda thing.

EDIT: Not that there's a problem with that number or anything. Feel free to stick with it. I just thought I should check to make sure that's the number you wanted to pick.

I am being nice. Why do you think I asked if she was sure she wanted that number?

Technical question. Given that we are doing SR4 gear without the wireless infrastructure, how do we control drones? Litany has a couple surveillance drones and her implanted commlink Do we use the native signal for each device to determine the effective direct manipulation range? Or are the drones and commlink without signal themselves?

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that there was a separate private section of Tower 23. The 'back' seating area isn't as open and visible as the 'front' area is. Litany needs no special permission to wander back there.

Drones have always been controlled wirelessly. The only thing we are restricting now is the wireless mesh networking that comes about in SR4. For now, Litany issues commands to her drones in much the same was as Captain's Chair mode worked in SR3.

Apologies about the delay, time seemed to be more the limiting factor than Internet access (after screaming at my telco and calling in a few favors, that is).

For Cao Jaan, he will run toward the shelving in front of A5 and A6, and will warn his boarders to run for cover toward the offices.

Karma awards for my players

Morgannah: 1 pt (Jun 28th - Jul 11th)
BClements: 3 pts (Jun 28th - Jul 11th) [GM Bonus]
WinterRat1: 3 pts (Jun 28th - Jul 11th) [GM Bonus]
BanditF50: 2 pts (Jun 28th - Jul 11th)
TiredRonin: 2 pts (Jun 28th - Jul 11th)
Shadowrunner13: 2 pts (Jun 28th - Jul 11th)
The Eyes: 1 pt (Jun 28th - Jul 11th)
DireRadiant: 2 pts (Jun 29th - Jul 11th)