BTW everyone, Death Clock is active.

I'll be running it as 7 days since last rather than 2nd last for as long as we're in combat since combat moves differently for different characters, but if we're going to keep this thing as post or die, it's going to be post or die for reals. Except I don't mean you will die for real. That's crazy. Your characters might get snuffed though. Anyways if no one matches the Alpha dog's edge by this afternoon, it will take the next action.

I would also draw everyone's attention to the fact that we are now explicitly using some additional optional rules from Augmentation and Arsenal, as specified in Sithney's edited 1st post (for anyone who hasn't already seen it).

Is this IP 2 after the combat turn where Jovan and the spirit have scared away the 2 dogs, or during?

I'm confused now. Are we now on a new Combat Turn after Professor's shots, or just ion the next action phase?

I think we are on a new round with the alpha dog spending edge to go first.

OK, Professor goes at:

INT 9 + REA 5 = 14 dice ==> 5 HITS ==> 19. Seeing as he is at maximum range and not such a good shot anyway, he won't use Edge to go first. He figures someone else on the team can do the killing way better anyhow.

Ferret's init for next round: 8 + 8d6.hits(5)=3 = 11, 1 pass

Cool, back to making sure I post!

Anyway, I'm spending edge to go first.
FIrst simple action is to put one long narrow burst into the alpha dog.
11d6.hits(5) → [6,1,6,4,4,6,1,5,3,3,3] = (4)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3421606/
Base damage is 7P, (13P with long burst, and max16P)



My initiative for the rest of the passes:
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3421601/
7d6.hits(5) → [4,2,3,4,2,4,6] = (1)
So thats 8, 3IP.

Alright, Alpha Dog goes on 16, so he will act before ZO

He's going to do a charging attack with a free action to run+complex to melee.
3 hits and a glitch. I'll say that the glitch involves his attack carrying him out of melee range, so the shooting in melee penalty won't apply on ZO's shot.

Roll melee defense.
Damage will be 6P +hits vs impact. Also, remember, these dogs have been sharing their meals with ghouls...

Damn!

The dog used edge to go first, so we can act now, right?

Edit: I should have read the IC post first. The dog is out of view to Professor and Ferret, now, right?

You're on CT2 IP1. Your Air Spirit already went on account of his higher initiative. You're still up before the dogs though, I believe.



Yeah, the dog is now inside the warehouse. Oz might be able to get a bead through a window, but the dog would have good cover vs. his shot. I'm going to draw up a map. Back in a second.

BAM!
[IMG]http://i40.tinypic.com/1zg876u.jpg[/IMG]
Aww, butts.
http://i40.tinypic.com/1zg876u.jpg

Cool cool. And the still-conscious Barghest is the one hit by Jovan's fear, so the fleeing counter doesn't start for it until it's out of sight of Jovan, yeah? In the cramped quarters of the tunnel and warehouse basement, that probably won't happen quite yet, so that gives Jovan and the Air Spirit quite a bit of time to work without dog hassle, if I understand correctly.

I will have more figured out and posted tomorrow, once I'm on a better internet connection.

Going full defense then.
Dice: Reaction 1(normally 5)+8 (DodgeX2)+3 Combat sense=12 dice.

12d6.hits(5) → [4,6,4,6,4,4,1,5,1,6,4,2] = (4)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3425965/

4 Hits!! Yeah me! Consider the 2nd IP 1st simple action my shooting of the dog above with a long burst.

The one you hit with fear is the nearby one that's 1 box from proper unconsciousness but is temporarily passed out from the severe astral assault.

The one the spirit spooked ran off first, so it has a 30m head start. Astrally, that's no distance at all, but physically, that's 1/4 the distance back to the room with Archer.

Oz is going to take a shot through the window.
6+3+2+2+2+1-3 = 3 hits.
Dog dodge
6+4+2 = 6 hits. That's a miss.

BTW, I know you said you wanted to match the dog's edge in the first pass, but that was mostly for prof's benefit since you didn't really have a chance of beating the dog with the paralyzation penalty. If you wanted to shift that expenditure to the 2nd IP, I'm not against it. It was mostly just a bit of confusing on your part, I assume, which isn't a thing I'd want to hold against you. That would let you fire your burst before the dog takes another swipe at you.

If not...

Since no one else has a bead on the dog, it'll circle back around the stairs and take another shot at Zo for IP2

5+3+2 = 4 hits no glitch this time, so ZO will be considered in melee at this point.

Yeah I will use edge to go 1st on my 2nd IP. Thanks!

On his action, Ferret will move towards the entrance to the Annex. He's sneaking all the way:
Agi 5 + Infiltration 4 = 9d6.hits(5)=3

If he sees alpha dog and can get off a shot (single shot, sound suppressed - switching modes as necessary but default is SS suppressed, BF gas-vent 2):
Agi 5 + Machine Pistols 4 + Smartlink 2 = 11d6.hits(5)=5, Base damage is 4P, knock off any hits for Ferret moving, dog being in cover/melee, range, etc. [4,1,2,5,3,5,6,1,6,4,5] = (5)

Not knowing whether there are any more of these things around, Professor will bravely cover Ferret's back... from the bar.

Dog got 2 hits on the defense.
Soaks 14P to 8P
It's still on its feet if you want to shoot again.

Oh. Well damn.

Since Jovan can't actually do anything active in astral space other than cast a couple non-combat spells and use his Powers, he will just follow the other barghest down the tunnel back toward Archer et al.

You can do that at your walking rate. Did you want to try and influence/scare this one as well?

Actually, I think I might as well take this opportunity to let Jovan do some more heavy-duty tinkering inside that dog's head. I'm not sure how to conceptualize the details of this process, because I personally don't have any experience in the area of magical memory reconstruction and mental suggestion, obviously. I also feel like trying to alter memories of conditioned training without seeing those memories first with a Mind Probe spell is kind of like shooting at a target in the dark. But I will give it a try nonetheless. The basic idea is to switch around friend and aggressor in the barghest's memories of Archer's training. He would insert his appearance and aura in place of Archer's appearance and aura in the dog's memories, and remove as much familiarity of Archer from the dog's mind as he can, so that Archer will then be seen as an unknown intruder.

I'm away from my copy of Street Magic for the next day or so, so I don't remember if Alter Memory is an instant or permanent spell. However, since canon seems to indicate that resisting mental manipulation spells is an active and not passive effort, and the dog is currently scared half to death, would that place any sort of penalties on its roll to resist something like Alter Memory?

Some F4 Alter Memory rolls: Magic 7 (6) + Spellcasting 3 + Power Focus 4 (3)
12d6.hits(5) → [4,3,2,1,1,5,1,5,4,6,2,4] = (3)
12d6.hits(5) → [5,3,3,1,3,3,3,1,2,4,6,3] = (2)
12d6.hits(5) → [5,2,4,2,3,6,6,6,2,4,4,4] = (4)

Drain resists for those (F4 to F5 by BC, drain code 4S): Will 3 + Log 6
9d6.hits(5) → [4,3,4,6,6,6,5,4,2] = (4)
9d6.hits(5) → [5,2,6,1,6,3,3,5,3] = (4)
9d6.hits(5) → [3,2,2,2,1,3,5,5,1] = (2)

So 2 stun taken from Drain.

Some Influence rolls to go along with the alter memory spells: Magic 7 (6) + Charisma 4 + Power focus 4 (3)
13d6.hits(5) → [6,4,3,4,4,4,5,2,6,1,4,5,4] = (4)
13d6.hits(5) → [3,6,1,6,1,5,2,4,1,4,6,3,6] = (5)
13d6.hits(5) → [6,5,1,2,3,2,5,1,5,4,5,3,3] = (5)


This isn't necessarily in chronological order, so I'm not sure at what point in the above rolls to apply a wound modifier from the drain.

Alter Memory and Influence are both permenant spells. Only need the one roll and the long wait. Something like CTs = drain. I'm AFB as well.
On the fluff side of things, letting Alt Mem work on a non-sentient creature is a little iffy since animal memory is largely smell-based. Also, you would have to call off your spirit for the purposes of the attempt, as it would continue to attack.

BTW, was that attack the first service you took from that spirit? I sort of remember a "planning" service, but I don't think anythying came of it, so I'll not be counting that..

Ok. Will do.
S&A(9) + 2 From Smartlink -3 from recoil (base 8-5for recoil comp)=7 dice

8d6.hits(5) → [5,6,1,4,1,5,3,4] = (3)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3433729/

Base damage is 7P (max 10P), wide burst is a -3 to the dogs dodge roll on top of a -2 wound penalty, and a -1 for it taking a second shot, so its dodge is at a total -6)

0 hits on dodge.
Soaks 10P to 7P and goes down, entering overflow.

Outside Combat is over for the moment.

I'm going to be away from my computer from Tuesday to Friday. If I get a chance to do so, I will pop into DS to see how things are going, but the current plan is to be off the grid till Friday. Professor will go along with the consensus till I return.

*cough*



EDIT: The specific wording of the service was to assist in combat against Archer and his gang, as opposed to a more "go kill all of them yourself" sort of phrasing. Does that rule out the possibility of Jovan and the elemental coordinating in this combat?

IIRC, there was a scouting service (which Red-ROM I think was counting as ongoing while we are in Crosstown), a service to open and translate the recording on Amber's commlink, and I think one to use Movement on ZO and Ferret in addition to this combat service. I'll have to look back through the pages and see if I'm missing anything. I was trying to save a planning service for later in the evening - Jovan was just asking the spirit conversationally for any insights it had into the situation, without having it actually do anything planning-wise quite yet. ROM didn't answer several of Jovan's attempts at conversation, though, so do with that as you will.

"Hi, Honey! I'm home."

Hey, Glyph, welcome on board! So I just looked through Void's stats, working my way down to the 50 questions. I copied it into Word so I can have a list of all of us here on my computer. As I was going through the Qualities, I said to myself, "Void, with a name like that, I'm surprised he doesn't have Astr...

"Oh. Shit."

This should be fun! Professor will run from Void like the plague (which, by the way, he did run from once in India), and Jovan will have even more reason to be socio-pathic/paranoid/anti-social.

I'm kind of thinking of letting Jovan be affected by both Void's Nasty Vibe and Critter Spook, on top of the Astral Hazing. It's going to be a challenge for me to come up with a reason in Jovan's mind for him to not try to turn the unnatural and "evil" Void into a Capri Sun.

He's going to be really confused by Void's knowledge of furry vampire BDSM, though. I didn't think there was anything that could make a schizoid nosferatu paranoiac with a superiority complex feel weirded out and uncomfortable... but I may have been mistaken.

Not sure if looting the dead, should we have a chance to, is appropriate. I left the elf alone after the sign fell on him cause I figured all was squished. But in the case of Jade, all that has happened is that her throat got ripped out...my consensus is no unless it was something of you lent to the PC, other wise there is a good chance we'll get more from the dead PC's than the run itself.

@Glyph: It will be nice having another ork in the party. Currently we have 2 Dwarves, 1 orc, 1 human, and 1 Noseferatu. It will be interesting to see how your character sees an Orc ganger.

Void isn't fond of gangers as a rule, but there are always exceptions. It should be interesting to contrast an unpretentious street thug with someone who is a bit obsessed with trying to seem "respectable", often with mixed results.

Looting is acceptable, but be aware that Jade is likely crawling with HMHVV-III slobber, so there's a risk of infection there.

Yeah, that's fine. Assisting involves taking direction.




I recall the spirit having 3 services on summon. I'll drop the scouting service since it would likely have been a remote service, which would have preculded any other services. Also there wasn't any real info gleaned there. The Movement on ZO was Jade's spirit, I believe. So, with that count, it should leave you 1 service remaining.

I went back to the post where I rolled for that to verify, and it looks like I originally thought it was 3 services but had rolled 14 dice for the spirit's roll instead of 7. Relevant post is here. That would put the services at 5 (edit: because the spirit got two less hits than I originally thought). Sorry, I should have edited that in after you pointed my mistake out to me originally.

Cool, duly noted and all jades gear is now off limits. Bye bye flash pack, you are not worth it...

By risk, I mean an edge test..

Cool cool.
Were you still planning on casting the permenant spells? Keeping up with the dog shouldn't be a problem, but where the dog goes durring the necessary CTs could be.

Yeah. Influence for Jovan is a Critter Power, not a spell, so that is an instant effect thing that only takes one complex action. I double checked and Alter Memory is a permanent spell after all, so at F4->F3 that should take 3 CTs, which I think you said is how long it would take for the dog to reach the end of the tunnel. So the Influence will go first, and then the timing should be ok.

It has been a while, but there was the dog drone as well as the wall drone that has been destroyed. You might be able to jury rig something and connect to whatever was controlling them.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...960&st=1525

dog resists 4d6.hits(5) → [4,1,5,5] = (2)
2 net on the influence
I'll treat the force as your magic rating, so the dog can't roll another resist for 6 CTs. Gives plenty time for the Alter Memory, but Alter Memory can only alter a single memory. A lifetime of memories like training needs something far more extensive.
So, basically, you can hijack the dog temporarily, but you can't keep him without putting in long term effort. Even then, magical memory is unreliable (wearing off with time) and the dog would be pretty much insane from getting mind-jacked day in and day out. No, that pup, if you want to capture it will take proper training to get right.

Meantime, you've got it stopped cold, despite its overwhelming fear.

Quick AR scan of Annex node to see if it is still on alert:
Computer 4 + Analyze 3 = 7d6.hits(5)=0
- no glitch, but no successes either so Ferret will assume it's still on alert!

Oops. BTW-our times are out of sync (poosible due to me) what is the official time of the game. It matters as the reaction damage recovers at 1 point a minute.

Jovan is still kind of an unknown with the dog down below. He's got it dominated, and can work to keep it so.
I'm just going to have to move on assuming that he's either going to knock it out or kill it.

Sorry for the delay. Hijacking it temporarily is the main intention, yeah. Just to cause a little more confusion for the ghouls. Jovan is not equipped to keep paranimals in his house.

So to make sure that I understand how you want to run critter powers for Jovan: you're treating Influence basically the same as the spell version, except it only takes a complex action (unlike with permanent spells)? And for things like Fear and Influence, the force is treated as Jovan's magic rating for things like resisting and astral signatures? Are you doing astral signatures for critter powers?

Is the Force thing going to change anything for Compulsion as well? Will Compelled creatures be getting a resistance test to that now? I'm assuming that Regeneration will work more or less the same.

The force = magic thing for Influence is just me setting a minimum time frame between tests to shake off the Influence's effects. Influence is a power that can last a really long time, but it also calls out "any time the character is confronted with the wrongness of the actions" which in this case, a dog under the fear power not fleeing for its life, is every single terrified moment. So rather than rolling will over and over every second, I'm putting a minimum interval on it based on the Control Thoughts spell's interval of every Force CTs.

Bunch of rolls to attempt to find the trucks' or any other hidden nodes: EW 4 + Scan 3 = 7d6.hits(5)=4, 7d6.hits(5)=3, 7d6.hits(5)=3, 7d6.hits(5)=3, 7d6.hits(5)=3, 7d6.hits(5)=3, 7d6.hits(5)=2 - Hit minimum threshold (15) after 5 combat turns or not at all with diminishing rolls.

No digital signals coming from below. No comms no trucks.

Assensing the warehouse for the things listed IC (status of the trucks, any metahumans still breathing or any other lead on Archer's location, and whether Jovan can hear ZO and Ferret's conversation): Int 6 + Assensing 2 + Devoid of Aura Noise (besides the dog) 2 + Barren background illumination 1 - background count 1 = 10d6 = [5,6,2,5,2,2,3,3,3,6] = (4)

Sithney, should we sync Jovan's clock with the rest of the team's, or just let Jovan be far down the tunnel behind the dog by the time Prof/ZO/Ferret actually arrive in the room?