grendel, get a chance to look at the file I sent you? Let me know if it meets your approval (it's probably going to be in my next post)

Grendel: Just to clearify, I disarmed the explosives, right?

Joy.

WinterRat-
Here's a couple of perception rolls. I'm not sure if I need one roll for the group or one per ganger. Let me know if you need more, or anything else.

This is mostly for winterrat, but also everyone involved in Salvation

I apologize for my slow/lack of posting recently. I have a major exam next week that I'm studying/panicing for so I haven't spent as much time online as I had in the past.

That said I should be able to find time for at least a decent post for Blaze this weekend, and maybe one or two late next week.

Oh...my...gosh...are you kidding me? The MISSILE is coming at us? Holy fragging drek, snipers, hit mages, goons with Body of like 14, and now anti-vehicle missiles?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? SOMEONE (probably several someones) wants us dead with a capital D!!!

Gah! At this rate we're going to have nukes getting dropped at us in a week.

Thank you thank you thank you to all the dice gods that made it possible to have the same number of successes as my opponent! *lying prostrate on floor bowing to dice*

OK I need to clarify something Sedna.

You're the one who wanted to play an (ex)military character And you already know SOMEONE wants Sybersnake dead with a capital D!!! Still, all you've got to do to keep this situation from escalating is to abandon Sybersnake -- or else deal with the immediate group, and then resolve the situation within a week

I'll post this here in the OOC so that you all know that even though Virgil is slack-jawed at the moment, I am paying attention to the action.

For clarification purposes . . .

If I buy one success on the surprise test (by sacrificing a karma pool point), I am then allowed to roll initiative. However without any spell-enhancement Virgil will only be able to act once anyway. That should be enough for him to at least dive out of the way . . right? Though he would be able to take no further actions until after the missle detonates.

Temporary absence Notice

I am sorry to keep bailing out on everyone, especially since I am almost caught up on all the action that I missed during my thesis crunch-time period. For the past few months I have had a trip to St. Louis (one of my favorite US cities) scheduled for this weekend. I will be leaving Friday evening and returning Monday evening.

Sedna and Winterrat,
If that action is going well and you guys want to push through it quickly over the weekend, feel free to post for me if Virgil is still caught by surprise.

Finally technical problems seen to have stop toying with me and i can post the second half of what i had Knight doing about a fortnight ago, at last!.

Though i find it ironic as i get back Bandit has to run again *chuckles*

Have fun Bandit!

Going well??? Although, after going through Dragon's part of it, I suppose they could be going one heck of a lot worse.

But re initiative, bandit, you rolled two successes out of a possible four -- but you need to tie seven successes even to take a basic free action such as dropping prone. Your options:

• Spend a karma pool point to reroll the failures, hope for 4s.
• Perma-burn karma pool: one karma pool point = one success
• Absorb the round of surprise without spending anything, and hope for the best.

Basically, unless you negate the surprise, you lose your next action. (So, WinterRat, re " Virgil only loses his first action, not all his actions?" yes -- but the wording's a bit vague, I'm temp-ruling it to mean all the actions of that phase against that opponent.) You'd be rolling initiative regardless, bandit, but given your RE+IN max, unless you're willing to perma-burn enough karma pool to buy the surprise total up to 8 successes, it's moot. The difference between seven and eight successes is whether or not you can take any action to "directly affect, impede or counteract" the incoming missile; also whether you get to use Combat Pool to defend yourself against the missile.

At least (hopefully) you'll be having fun in St. Louis?

WinterRat, first general notes:

I'll write up the IC post right after I finish this post. (Must ... Have ... Sleep ...)

I'm okay with you having the Spas on you -- doesn't alter things too much, in this particular place -- but it would have made some difference (no, shotguns aren't "okay" here, but since Virgil is known, and it was a true emergency ...), so we'll just both have to watch that in future.

It's an AVM rather than one of the others, so the blast will be very contained at the point of impact: power decreases by -8/m.

Sybersnake wasn't able to put up any resistance to Dragon at all, and now she's as clear as it gets -- Dragon guesses she'll be completely out of blast range. Just as well: you'll remember she doesn't have all that much left of her armour.

Tiffany had the highest number of successes after Dragon, but still short; she has an 11 on her initiative; and then she beat Dragon just based on BD resistance -- but Dragon's also got momentum and surprise on his side. So she was just enough "with it" to manage to put up a bit of a resistance when Dragon shoved her to the ground, just enough for her to end up with M damage. Because of the torque, that's a snapped bone in her leg. But she's likely clear of the blast area as well.

Virgil: I'm writing up my best guess here, but I'll be looking for a couple of rolls from you, bandit, to confirm: first BD (TN 6), and then knockdown (BD [6]).

Father Bremen -- well, he's a troll. And he's absorbed Dragon's momentum without even being rocked by it. That leaves him and Dragon standing right at the open passenger door, directly in the missile's path.

As well, both he and you are soaking 6L damage from that sudden unexpected stop at the end -- as is the car door, in case it matters. You don't -- quite -- take it off its hinges. He absorbs the damage readily, barely winded. (I stopped rolling for him after the first three 6's. Tiffany could have used those.)

My initiative: 22. We get to 22 -- nothing's happening yet. (And yes, I remember -- now that you reminded me ) So that cuts us forward to Dragon's next phase. But this is a good place to address this:

Grendel, I'm going to start the Info Search on the two people Tony wants me to look up. What type of search is this going to be detail wise? What is the TN of my search roll?

Moirdryd - At least we can make some progress before I leave then . . .thanks again for being so patient with me.

Results of Knight's assensing of Cao Jaan:
There is a definite feeling of sorrow and hopelessness that surrounds this entire area of the barrens. Inside of the shelter the astral plane is not nearly as polluted by these feelings, but a background count of 1 still manifests.

Cao Jaan is magically active, though not in the same way as Knight, he has no cyber or bioware of any type. You also sense a penetrating remorse laying over his aura, as if the condition of the world around him is truly causing him pain. He also appears to be speaking completely honestly with you.

When you make your next IC post please give me an etiquette roll.

Sedna-

Yeah, the Spas situation was weird. Neither of us realized it for a long time, so I will just try to pay more attention to that stuff in the future.

Perception roll (with -1 mod, not counting cyber/bio): 10 05 05 04 01 01 01
Body: (did armor count at all?): 15 09 05 05 04 01 01; either way, staged to nothing, but I was wondering if you did not mention armor because it did not apply or you forgot.

So at this point, phase 15 (Dragon's turn), the situation is as follows:

-Sybersnake is definitely clear of the blast
-Tiffany is most likely clear of the blast, but crippled (one broken leg)
-Virgil is/is not clear of the blast?
-Father Bremen and Dragon are currently standing smack in the path of the missile.

OK, damage soaked and perception taken care of, so Dragon’s actions for the phase.

Again, should I write this or you?

Anyway, Dragon will do the following during this phase:
1) Kick Father Bremen in the hoop/shove Father Bremen in the appropriate direction away from the missile (not as an attack, but more of a prompting ‘get going’ kind of thing, since I can’t drag him away in time) and scream ‘Run!’

2) If Virgil is clear of the blast Dragon will take his own advice and scatter; if Virgil is still in the blast radius (or looks like he is, since obviously Dragon can’t take out a tape measure and check), he will drag/kick/carry/do whatever to get Virgil out of the blast radius this phase.

3) If possible, make sure Tiffany is clear after getting Virgil free, so he can help her on phase 5 if he needs to.

That should probably take care of all the actions available to Dragon this round, let me know if there is anything else I need to do/write.

And the intensity is definitely running high. I have to ask, would we have been pretty much dead if we all failed our surprise rolls?

It is time to pay homage to a tradition that has provided me with many fond RPing memories . . .

Cedric,
It is time for you to make a "dumb-luck" test. I need you to roll 2d6 and post the sum of the two dice. I also need you to pick a number from 2-12 and post your selection.

You may post in the IC with Erebus riding through the city on the way to the exchange, but do not post his arrival at the club.

*This is likely the last post I will be able to make before leaving for the weekend. I will pick-up on Monday night . . .perhaps with some action (insert evil laugh here )

Sedna,
Am I right in thinking that now Virgil will not get an action until after the missle detonates?

Winterrat,
Have fun with the post. As soon as Virgil is free from his stunned state I have an action or two planned out if the oppurtunity arises.

Yes. We're currently on 15 (Dragon's actions). As soon as it cycles around to the new round, Virgil will be clear to take an action -- which should hopefully come around nicely by the time you return.

Could you just roll your initiative -- for the next round -- so I know how far I can take everyone else?

Sounds great . . . .let me just say again how great it is to be back!

Total iniative for Virgil: 11

Have a great weekend everyone.

No, you haven't seen any of those people before in that last post. They're all just names of people I studied with in RL college, actually. They're just there to be foils for the random technobabble that came bubbling out of me the other day that I wanted to write in.

So I've left to you writing up the exact resolution of your actions re Father Bremen, WinterRat.

On initiative 12, Dragon discovers exactly what the sound was (per thread). Just in case, a clarification:

• The car is on the opposite side of the street from the clinic
• The missile is coming in from somewhere over and above the clinic
• the Condor is hovering a few metres above the rooftops on the opposite side of the street from the clinic. It's only got partial cover, because otherwise it doesn't have the angle to target the two of them with its HK-227

From where she's fallen, Tiffany inadvertently gives Sybersnake partial cover, which is enough for the bullets to miss her entirely. The reporter herself takes the brunt of that piece of burst fire, straight BD roll with only armour to reduce the damage: and seriously lucks out with four successes. (Two of those would have been even without the armour!) So she only takes L bruising as bullets impact against her armour.

Dragon thinks of Condors as reconnaisance drones. This is something new to him. Spas or Predator might work, but decrease all power by 9 and damage level by 1, and that's before it gets to use BD to resist damage. (Armoured vehicles are nasty, that way.) Oh, and it's close enough now that Dragon can spot something else coming out of the thing.

When you get back, bandit, you won't need to make a Perception check for this: it will probably already be in play.

We are now on initiative 11.

Hold on, decrease power by 9? That has to be more than just armor, are you including the halved power for all attacks on vehicles in that decrease? Because a Spas has power 10, Guardian 9, so it should not be 9 for both of them. Clarification please?

And yes, I will be writing Dragon's post later tonight or tomorrow; sorry I didn't get to it yesterday, didn't have time to do so.

Point -- forgot that those two were slightly different, and was working from memory off a "generic" heavy pistol, just by way of giving you some sense of what you were up against. So just take half power to begin with, and I'll factor in the armour in its resistance roll separately.

On the plus side, a Condor can only have a BD of 2. And clearing up another point of possible confusion: yes, it's been customised.

(I can appreciate no time: on my side another 1 am phone call ended up disrupting much of this theoretically "free" day. When you can will be soon enough, WinterRat -- and tomorrow should be free for sure ... hopefully.)

Theory is a beautiful thing, is it not?

Sunday karma [April 25 - May 01]

bandit: 1 (+1 GM bonus, +1 Sheepdog) = 3
Sentinel: 1
WinterRat: 1 (+1 GM bonus) = 2

OK, Dragon is going to run over to the two women after kicking Father Bremen and stand over them while firing back with the Spas. Essentially, he's trying to use himself to provide cover for them so they can get clear of the drone (and anything else that is going to get thrown at us). Note that I'm not implicitly restricting myself from using Dodge pool. If anything, he'd probably throw himself over the women and try to roll them to safety, or something like that. We'll burn the 'how' bridge when we get there, but I just wanted to give you an fyi.

Strength Roll: 15 09 04 02 01 01

Man, I hope my luck keeps holding out like this. I always was a streaky roller. Once, in one 8 hour session of 3e, I rolled I kid you not, 30 critical hits. Of course, I also had about 15 critical fumbles. My GM would've banned my dice from the table if I didn't point that second fact out. And no, they were not loaded dice.

Firing one shot with the Spas, SA

Base TN: 6 (assuming long range here, 21-50 meters?)
Aiming: -1 (decided I should aim here)
Target Stationary: -1
Smartlink: -2
Attacker Running: +4
Partial Cover (assumed you meant 50%): +4
No recoil mods (adequate recoil comp)
No injury mods
No visibility mods seemed applicable, correct if otherwise

Final TN: 10 (or 9 if medium range)

Shotgun Roll: 19 07 04 03 02 02 01 (grr...darn sevens! and the two sixes were so promising! )

Well I got lucky and hit it. Now if that actually DOES anything, I'll be happy.

Spas: Normal rounds, SA; Damage = 10S before any mods such as halving power and reducing damage level, armor etc etc et al.

Note that successes obtained from Dodging do carry over.

As of 15: Father Bremen's moving in the right direction.

As of 12: that second drone breaks cover and begins shooting at the women, resulting in Tiffany taking that L wound.

On 5: Dragon makes himself cover for the two women while shooting the Spas at the second drone. For that one you're lucky, it's just inside medium range -- different weapon. So the 7 counts

BD + five dice from Control Pool to resist: 15, 5, 5, 3, 1, 1, 1

Unfortunately, even a standard Condor LDSD-41 has 3 points of armour ... and this isn't quite a standard Condor.

As to whether or not the two women catch anything from what Dragon didn't say as to what specifically not to use for cover (per "Get to cover now!!!", an SMG shooting at them, and absolutely nothing yet indicating to them what else they're supposed to take cover from): I'm going to borrow bandit's idea and ask you to make a "dumb-luck" test:

Shoot…can I ask for an intelligence test from them though? Common sense indicates that since it was Dragon who flung them AWAY from the car, he’d hardly want them to go back TO the car. They both almost certainly have intelligence from 4-6, so it’s quite reasonable, especially given that they’ve both been in firefights before, that they’d pick up on that. And I can take a free action, say on 4, that would simply yell, “AWAY from the car!!!” correct?

So it still takes a L wound though, right? The lowest (and most likely TN) it had to resist is 2; 4 successes for it vs. 2 for me, and base damage of M after figuring vehicle armor, gives it two net to reduce it to L. That’s something, I scratched it, right? Right? (Can you hear the hopeful expression in my tone?)

Dumb Luck Test (Bandit you stole this from me you punk!) : 06 01
heh, j/k, it's awesome that it's found its way here as well.

Number called: 7

Whether this is very good or very bad I have no idea, this is different from the usual way we do it, so I guess I’ll find out very soon…

Sentinel: surprise check please.

Bandit,

5,3 = 8

and for my number selection 7

hope you had a good weekend in St. Louis

Yes they can. Basically it's Control Pool with a base TN of Handling, with other mods as appropriate for a driving test (p. 149, bottom left. Ignore the page reference; it's wrong: Dodge tests are on page 113, not 133.)

(Edit): You know, looking over the rules a bit more, it actually seems possible to use Combat Pool to make a Dodge test in a vehicle. Riggers get to use Control pool instead if they like, but there's nothing explicedly forbiding normal characters from dodging with Combat Pool it seems.

(Edit x2) No, wait, I just read it wrong. The rule does seem to pretty clearly screw non-riggers when it comes to driving, though this isn't really news. So I guss the question is what's the Handling on a Condor, and is it good enough for five Combat Pool to dodge a bullet with two successes?

Sedna- Dunno about using control pool to dodge, but other than that you are correct.

EDIT: Eyes beat me to it. So yes, barring a Dodge test, the drone takes an L wound

For this immediate purpose I'll leave it at the L wound then -- although the Dodge / Control / Combat pool question will be relevant very soon, quite probably within this combat session. Can we finalise a ruling on that?

Don't have a book available to me at this time, I'll get to it ASAP when I get back from work. Anyone else?

Also Sedna, what's up next, are you going to write the missile hitting at 1, and should we roll initiative for the next turn?

I've still got an action on 2, and it's a two-fold one:

• two simple actions: HK-227 burst fire (base 7M; burst 10S) against Sybersnake, who fortunately has the benefit of Tiffany's coat. However, with Dragon standing over her, it's almost impossible to hit her without hitting Dragon instead; and since the rigger's clearly stopped caring about collateral damage, it's Dragon that ends up taking these two bursts instead. Fortunate though, given that Sybersnake still doesn't have a non-surprised action and not a whole lot of intact armour.
• the other turret reveals an Ares Antioch, but it doesn't fire yet

Burst one: 11, 9, 7, 5, 5, 3 (five successes)
Burst two: 10, 10, 4, 3, 2, 1 (two successes)

Recoil compensation balances out three points of recoil; the smartlink balances out another 2 points of the modifier: makes it a net +1 to TN.

(Can't use pool on these, right? Because I've got six Control Pool points left.)

Grendel...does Kaiser have the acid etch, you told me it would be about 500

Cable guy is here to take my modem. I'll get back on as soon as possible. This is bull .. complete and total bull, and I'm sorry, everyone.

Good luck!

A couple things on this:

1. I don't know about control pool, must check later; riggers are my biggest knowledge deficient area, even more so than decking.
2. Here's my breakdown of the situation:

Range = Medium: Base TN: 5
Smartlink: -2
Recoil:
+3 for first shot
+6 for second shot
Recoil Comp: 3 pts total; first shot at no recoil mod, second shot at +3 overall
Partial Cover: +2 (since it was receiving a +4 bonus to being hit)
Damage Mod: +1
Target Running: +2
(in SR once a character selects their movement: walking, running, stationary, they are considered to be in that 'movement mode' until their next action. This is so they cannot gain the benefits of multiple movements while removing the penalties. For example, being stationary to shoot, then running to be a harder target. Hence, since Dragon was running during his action, he's technically considered running until his next turn, even though he's stopped at the end of his turn; he can rechoose his movement at the beginning of his next turn)
No visibility mods
Attacker stationary: no movement mods

1st shot TN: 8 (2 successes)
2nd shot TN: 11 (0 successes)

I'm not sure this is the right OOC thread... so many LitS threads....

The IC and OOC for A Short Victorius War, is up. I belive at the moment just Shadowrunner 13 is in the game. But that may change as it evolves.

@ SR13 and Grendel, please feel free to continue your dialogue, just do it in the new thread.

Bear with me, this is a new way of starting a game for me, thanks

Gah! I'm still catching up on three posts ago, an e-mail, and a PM needing answering! [Edit: hope that helped, Shadow ]

Oh, and for clarity, Shadow, Shadowrunner, grendel: there should be a clear shift between run threads and main thread. So rather than just shifting an existing conversation to that thread, shift the action to it once you begin to pursue that run, Shadowrunner?

(pant, pant, pant)