Blondie, Tuco, and Angel Eyes are having a three-way gunfight. Angel Eyes surprises Blondie who surprises Tuco. Angel Eyes and Tuco are one meter away from each other.

Can Blondie grenade/powerball/stunball/manaball Tuco with something with a one-meter or greater area of effect?

If the answer's yes, can he target the ground that Angel Eyes happens to be standing on?

If the first answer is yes and the second no, why is it treated differently?

Discuss.

~J

AFAIK, Blondie cannot directly effect Angel Eyes. That would mean that he cannot use any mana based spell against him, or any magic in general depnding on your GM.

RE: Targeting the ground--that would not be a valid target for any of the spells you listed. Elemental Manipulations target an area and therefore could be targeted on a point in space.

Grenades are the surprise equalizer, though since they detonate at the end of the surprise round, you do not have a chance to get rid of them if someone manages to throw one back at you.

So basically what you're asking is if Tuco can inadvertantly target Blondie, whom he is not allowed to target because the rules say so.

That's like telling a kid "don't jump on the bed" and then when you catch them jumping on the bed, they argue that they're TECHNICALLY jumping on the blankets, and the blankets are on the bed.

If I were GM, I would allow it.

Then, whenever you tried to surpirse anyone, I would have EVERYONE you surprised throw grenades at your feet *by the handful* as they "tried to target eachother" by way of the ground directly underneath you.

You know the game at the carnival where you roll the ball up the ramp into the different holes worth various points. Imagine everyone doing that to you with grenades everytime you tried to surprise them.

McQuillan: untrue—you're forgetting about GrenadeLink, which among other things makes grenades detonate in the combat phase in which they are launched.

Gerald Fitzgerald: great, you've covered malicious use. Now what about if the character is a mage who took Stunball as their only offensive spell and happens to not be armed? Or if we have six Tucos, making it a valid tactic without even considering Angel Eyes' existence?

~J

Kage--Correct, I was presuming a hand tossed grenade. Through proper use of toys, you too can avoid becoming the unfortunate target of your own grenades.

Well, this is a pretty screwed up hypothetical anyhow, but here we go.

For one, If Blondie surprised Tuco, and that action resolved FIRST, I don't think Tuco could surprise Angel Eyes. Tuco, who has been caught off guard by an attacked, is going to lose their concentration and be unable to make a surpise attack of his own.

Secondly, if Blondie surprised Tuco FIRST, within a 1 meter range to even make this situation possible, the noise would probably make it impossible for Angel Eyes to be caught off guard anyhow.

Tuco loses any advantage he has on anyone the instant he become the vicitm of a surpirse attack in melee range.

On top of that, if he insisted on attacking Angel Eyes, he would suffer some hefty modifiers for being surprised and fighting two opponents at once.

Gerald--the way the surprise rules are written, if everyone on one side gets more successes than the other team, the surprised team gets beaten on for a round then initiative is rolled.

Example:

Guard A--2 successes on his reaction test.
Runner 1--4 Successes
Runner 2--3 successes.

Both runners get a single pass worth of actions (2 simples or 1 complex) then Initiative is rolled.

If the example breaks out to:
Guard A--2 successes on his reaction test.
Runner 1--4 Successes
Runner 2--1 success

Runner 1 goes and can attack the Guard or turn on his associate. Guard A takes his action, he is able to target Runner 2 freely but cannot directly effect Runner 1.
Finally, Runner 2 acts, though he cannot directly effect his associate or the guard. Some good choices for Runner 2 would be aiming, pulling elementals out of deep astral, or a Small Unit Tactics roll.

McQ, I quite agree.

This is a 3 way surprise fight he is proposing. I'm sure you're very right, but it doesn't apply to this Chinese C.F. the OP proposed.

McQ, I quite agree.

This is a 3 way surprise fight he is proposing. I'm sure you're very right, but it doesn't apply to this Chinese C.F. the OP proposed.

Well, Jesus Christ, son! If you've read the damn rules what are you asking US for?

I'm curious what kind of business you think I'd have asking if I hadn't.

Put it simply: the rules are explicit, and very clear for a huge number of situations. They break down as soon as the question of whether one is acting against someone they can't becomes unclear—Blondie is forbidden to attack Angel Eyes, but is he forbidden to attack Tuco in a way that affects Angel Eyes?

That's pretty much it. Thanks for your time, but you're still not sure where the problem lies maybe it's time to leave this one to the rest of the board.

~J

I think this is another example of an "at GM's discretion" question. If the attack seems to be reasonable against Tuco I would allow Blondie to do it. If it doesn't the Disciplinator comes into play.

Disciplinator, the - fist sized D20 made from steel, very sharp edges, used for terminal punishment of players by throwing it

Kage--my parting comments before leaving this to the Elder Council would be that it comes down to a GM adjudication of targeting versus effecting.

If you as a GM or your GM says that you can inadvertantly effect people above you in the reaction order through AoE attacks, then Blondie can grenade them both to kingdom come. This resolves wierd exceptions like the grenade detonating but Angel Eyes miraculously being fine because he was faster on the uptake.

As a GM myself, I generally have the reactions of slower people telegraphed in their movements. This way Angel Eyes will know that Blondie is about to launch a grenade and be able to take reasonable measures to defend himself. It may not be the best way, but it works for me and mine.

Good luck with getting the answer, I'll check in and watch what unfolds.

I'll say no, Blondie can't toss an AoE attack that will harm Angel Eyes.

IMO, blowing someone to itty bitty pieces with a grenade pretty much counts as an action that directly affects him.

My interpretation would be that Blondie must decide his action without knowing the exact position of Angel Eyes, if the player knows he must do his best to decide as if he did not, knowing that security guards normally go around in pairs and are normally within a meter of one another could maybe be considered

If knowing only Tuco’s position Blondie would use an aria of effect attack that would place Angel Eyes at risk then Angel Eyes will indeed risk damage.

This however may be applying an overly literal meaning to the word surprise.

To caramel frappuccino and any that agree with him.

Consider this alternate scenario.

Surprise test
Runner 3 successes
Head guard 4 successes
5 mook guards 0-2 successes

All guards are in a group 7 meters from runner,
Head guard spends his action communicating using an internal radio so GM doesn’t even inform the runner’s player what he did or that he was beaten on surprise test, and in fact only describes “a group of guards”.

Clearly an aria attack is a valid tactic but according to your strictest reading of the rules Runner is not allowed to throw a grenade because it will affect the head guard.

Even more extreme the head guard is 10 meters from the other guards but due to an unfortunate (legitimate) scatter it still affects the head guard.

Hens I believe that can not target is more in the spirit than can not affect, however the GM /MUST/ consider the legitimacy of the declared target, grenading an individual (or a spot on the ground) should not be allowed as a way to affect others.

Edward

So if the ambusher is sitting there with a grenade launcher, and has surprise on everyone in a group but one guy -- he can't shoot at that group with his only weapon, because he hasn't got surprise on one of them?

BS. That's absurd. Explain why/how it works. The grenade magically doesn't fire? He changes his mind at the last second? Why wouldn't/shouldn't he attack?

Let 'em make whatever attack, targeting a valid opponent, they want to. If you're walking around with a bunch of no-perception putzes and are all bunched up, you deserve to catch a little schrapnel. The restrictions on combat pool and dodging means the attack will still be much more horrific against the surprised enemies than the unsurprised -- and if someone's got a grenade launcher, they [i]should[/] be scary when they ambush you.

I'll add in the situation that actually spawned this question, as my multi-surprise situation above may cloud the issue.

What actually happened in the session was, roughly, that Angel Eyes surprised Blondie, who tied with Tuco but was faster than him. In this case it isn't a matter of no-Reaction putzes. The guy with the AOE (in this case, Powerball) wasn't doing any ambushing.

~J

for what my poor opinion is worth, i would rule in a way similar to tactical RPG's work, you can't seperate the character from the space they're in (so no throwing the grenade on the ground between their legs), but they are valid for any blast effects. I think a person in a cube that can't be targeted is less silly than said person not being able to be affected by a blast 1 m away from them.

I would say that in those weird cases during surprise when they can't target a specific person but all his comrades are nearby simply means they haven't noticed that target in the same way they have the others. Maybe at the precise point the surprise check was rolled, another target stepped in the way, or they have only spotten them out the corner of their eye and haven't registered their presence. Whatever, that's up to the GM in my view if the player really wants to have a reason to cling to.

As far as targetting the individual with a grenade launcher goes, I would ask why bother? why'd you want to? If you have a grenade launcher, and the targets are mixed together, the GM could rule that as you've been caught with your pants down, you can only fire off a shot reflexively perhaps into the middle of the highest concentration of targets that you have surprised (and therefore 'noticed' in terms of being able to do anything about it except dive out the way), and work it out from there. I appreciate this might not be a literal interpretation of the rules, but it seems reasonable to me. You could target someone you haven't been surprised by with the grenade launcher, and there are plenty of reasons why you might - they have the biggest gun, you don't like their face, whatever - but there could be any number of explanations as to why you can't do that to someone who has surprised you. Perhaps you were too busy calculating escape routes, maybe some of them are stood still and you're brain has only registered the moving ones, maybe anything.

As far as indirectly targetting a combat spell, I would say you can't - the way they work would seem to indicate that, at least in spirit: if you can't see it, you can't target it, and I would say the same would go for surprised - its a psychological 'surprise' more than anything, its not that you can't see them, but you didnt' focus on them properly, or you lost sight of them momentarily. Casting a spell requires concentration, after all. This might even save your friends occasionally, if you didn't know they were there or were going to take action. I would suggest not, however. In this case, you know the person well enough to have no trouble registering them once they come into the field of view. In this case though, you would be unable to stop yourself were you in mid spell, and would get your friend instead. That's the point of being surprised - rules really shouldn't go in your favour if you're the one surprised.

But an area manipulation spell? Don't see why not, in the same way as I described the grenade laucher. You still couldn't target an individual you were surprised by, but if they're in the area you're throwing it anyway they'd get hit. Can you target where they are 'as if its empty space'? Yes, of course you can, but why is your character targetting there, exactly? if its dead centre of a group you have got the drop on, fair enough, but if its way off to one side you'd never target that area unless you were reacting to something you can't be reacting to because you're surprised, and as a GM I'd want some kind of IC reason why you were shooting there.

I think the surprise rules are the sort of thing that you're *supposed* to rationalise away however you want, and the players could help a little here as well by giving imaginative suggestions if they want - whatever makes it seem more 'real' to them I'm in favour of. I prefer to think that the surprised person simply doesn't have the presence of mind to do anything against the surpriser, except leap out of the way, ignore them in favour of other targets, or just plain don't see them enough for their presence to register. Pick one!

I know this post won't satisfy the rules lawyers out there, but just occasionally something can't be quantified by rules. I reckon this is one of them though of course you're free to disagree!

Bah. You can't get sharp edges on a D20, the angles are too large. Try a D4.

~J

D20? D4?

Aren't we playing shadowrun here?

(Cubes may not be as sharp, but at least you'll have a few hundred on hand!)

On Topic: I would handle it as tisoz post indicates. Well put sir!

SR is all about logic. Specifically, it's about incomplete logic and about multiple uses of logic on disparate occasions without the sharing of assumptions between the occasions, even when referring to the same situations.

And it only hits me because it loves me.

~J

Situations like this are the reason why my group didn't use the official surprise rules very often. Second reason is, that it really annoyed me, that our group's elven "I-got-faster-reflexes-than-a-cobra-on-combat-drugs" streetsam was always able to surprise all ambushers.

No, it doesn't. If the streetsam doesn't realize that an attack is going to happen until the first bullet hits him his reflexes don't save his day. After that there is the normal initiative roll. That means he will be the first to react. Or he is dead already.

It's pretty clear that Blondie *can* act against Angel Eyes, so long as it's not directly. Check out p 109, BBB:

Okay, how about this situation.

Mayday the mad pyamid bomber has a 10 metagon nuclear weapon in his backpack and a dead man's switch in his hand.

Jack the Aztlan Federal marshal has surprise against Mayday and shoots him because he is stupid. Mayday uses a simple action to drop the dead man's switch and destroy the pyramid. Does Jack survive the nuclear blast unscathed?

Of course not, silly! Mayday can't harm Jack, so clearly the dead man's switch would simply fail to work properly! Sometimes I wonder if you even think about this stuff, hyzmarca.