Ok,

So, given that Amy and Grease's last turn will be spent talking (Amy having already posted her IC and Grease to follow), I might as well get the Initiative for next round up.


Jack
2d6+7=11
Grease
4d6+7=22
Amy
4d6+11=20
Overkill
2d6+9=14

Goons, A, B, and C (in order)
1d6+7=8, 1d6+7=8, 1d6+7=11

So, Combat turn 2:

IP 1:
Grease 22
Amy 20
Overkill 14
Jack 11
Goon C 11
Goon B 8
Goon A 8

Jack is going to hold his position until the inevitable.

ETA: Sorry if there are responses, I just changed my post to my action rather than discussing metagame variables. To put in in context for anyone that missed the original post, I just suggested that something was going to come to a head soon given that I doubted we were going to roleplay 140 CTs worth of actions.

@DrZ: Grease is going to have to re-Take Aim since he took a free action, although if you're doing suppressive fire, I guess it doesn't really matter.

I will hold on my action. (I guess the nomenclature in SR5 is "delay").

-DrZ

Lol - yes, OOC, if you stay there, people are going to come looking for you sooner rather than later, and not 140 CT from now.

Given that they've had exactly 3 seconds to realize that something is amiss, and these aren't Seal Team 6 out here, they take a little longer to get their ass in gear.

I've put it in CT to give you guys the opportunity to do something (which it sounded as if you were going to do something else besides sit and wait.)

If all you intend on doing is sitting and waiting, you are going to hang out and wait and see what happens, we can skip ahead a little bit.

ETA in response to Jack's edit - so Jack and Grease are holding tight, Amy is holding tight as well until someone gives her a cue one way or another. Overkill - are you doing anything preemptively, or are you sitting tight as well?

I will keep MARKing their guns and try to find that guy by the firepit's commlink.

Out of curiousity, how do Amy and Jack have such a higher initiative? Does it have to do with me and Grease being in AR

Double Post, my apologies. My connection is lagging pretty hard right now, even on a simple Forum...

That seems.. dumb.

ETA: "The maximum bonus a character may gain from sequential Take Aim actions, either to her limit or her dice pool, is equal to one-half the character’s Willpower, rounded up."

So Grease doesn't get much benefit from aiming anyways.

ETA2: Grease is in VR, so that's part of the reason his initiative is so high. Although he's pretty quick even out of VR, since he has a huge reaction.

-DrZ

Ok,

So, in the next 30 seconds or so, Overkill attempts to find the other Goon's gun:

6d6.hits(5)=1

And succeeds, and then is able to put 3 marks on all of them.

(16d6 vs 5, I mean, I could roll, but just to save time, we'll assume he is able to)

The gangers also have gotten together in a group by the firepit.

IC post up shortly.

Amy has the Adept Power Improved Reflexes 3.

Grease is in Hot Sim VR and so gains the benefit.

You and Jack are using your meat initiatives.

I agree.

@Overkill: Amy and Grease have huge initiatives due to Grease being in VR and Amy having the highest reliable initiative boosting ability available in Chargen (Adept ability: Improved Reflexes 3). Jack is actually a little slower than you. *Ninja/Lobo

I was being lenient here, in that RAW if you do anything other than Take Aim, you lose all your previous Take Aim actions.

I'm not sure if talking should count - so I didn't penalize you. That being said, in the 30 seconds after the talking, you've gotten your bonus back, should you want to take it.

Ok

So:

New CT:

First things first, I am not a fan of how surprise is used. So, here is what I'm going to do.

All of you have been waiting for something to happen. You are primed and ready to go, so there is no way any of these guys is going to be able to react before you do.

So each of you gets 1 Complex Action you can take, and then we will roll initiative.

What are your actions?

LOL

For clarification: Are the forms manifesting on the physical or is Amy only able to see them because she's astrally perceiving.

Only Amy can see them at this point, since they are both on the Astral Plane, and she is Astrally Perceiving.

Cool thanks, I just wasn't sure if they were manifesting or not.

I'll wait to see if Amy says anything. Probably regardless, my vote is to scram if we can.

@Lobo: Sorry for the ill-timed post, started it and had to get up from the PC before I could finish. Didn't realize you had updated in between.

No problem at all - it is slightly out of sequence, but we all know what you meant - and your second post fixes it

I am also going to vote we fall back, do you want me to knock out the firepit squad's weapons as we bale? It would make escaping to the southeast likely the safest route.

Jack will advocate falling back to the south through the houses and having Grease meet us with the car along that street.

I'm not that worried about the firepit guys. They're going to have just as much of a problem hitting us as we will have hitting them given that they're armed with SMGs or worse.

@Lobo: How far away from us are the reinforcements?

We still need the commlinks, don't we? I think we hold until we can get them, unless the spirits (which Grease doesn't know about) are badass enough that Amy wants to bail.

-DrZ

I put in the description that they were armed with machine pistols and SMGs. They are probably about 140 meters away- they are slightly closer than the fire pit guys because they are directly across the park from you as opposed to at an angle.

Sorry, I re-read that part and saw that. So they're nearly outside of range as well. A quick sprint south would put us outside of SMG range.

I suppose the question is how long does the spirit have before he finds the damn commlinks.

We don't know that IC, although Amy may have a rough idea assuming she has had a spirit use the Search power before.

ETA: I think at this point, we're going to have to wait to see how Amy responds to the spirit and projecting mage.

I agree.

I was just thinking, if the yaks find us with these bodies, they are probably going to assume we were the ones who put them there.

+1

Just a general FYI:

I will be in an all-day meeting tomorrow. I trust Lobo to play Grease appropriately (i.e. don't let me slow the team down).

-DrZ

Ok - so some questions for you so I can play you properly.

If it comes to a fight, are you a suppressive fire or not kind of guy?

If not, do you tend to fire burst or full auto?

What is more important, getting to a position where you can make a kill, or keeping under cover?

If you had to follow someone's lead, who's would it be?

I believe his name is Mr. Novacoke.

1. At this range, I would use suppressive fire to keep them pinned down and out of range of the team.

2. When they get within weapon range of their guns (i.e. probably 30-50 meters) I'd switch to burst fire again specific targets.

3. My goal is to protect the team. If need be, I would sacrifice the drone so they can make an exit, but I'd REALLY prefer that wasn't necessary. So I wouldn't expose myself to make a kill, but I would if it meant my team could escape.

4. Jack's; he seems to have the most tactical know-how (that I've seen so far), plus I've spent the most time with him.

-DrZ

ETA: Jeez, throw a guy under the bus while he's saying he'll follow your lead! Grease bugs out and leaves them all hanging, collecting on what they've already found. What's 3 new enemies among the group of people who already dislike him?

Did Amy have time to assense the two forms before they noticed us?

@Amy,

You have a Complex Action to take before they notice you, and we roll initiative.

You can use that to Assense both of them - Assensing is the equivalent to Observe in Detail, I imagine, so it would be a simple action.

Or you could use that Complex action to attack, run, etc.

I'll use one action to assense the mage, and my next course of action will depend on the result. I'll probably stop perceiving, in any case, before they can fire at me. I am not equipped to fight in the astral with this character.

Your assensing test tells you that her Magic is lower than yours.

Err.. I'm not sure what to do. This will be our only chance to get the information we need out of those commlinks. It's a really good lead!

But Amy is not going to take the decision to stand ground on her own, possibly against the will of the rest of the team, even though she can be stubborn sometimes.

With my remaining action, I'll just tell the others what's going on and let them decide. IC post coming up.

Taking my daughter to the library, I will be back in an hour or two.

In the meantime, if the fighting is still delayed when Drave's Initiative rolls around, I will start MARKing the weapons on the backup squad, starting with the largest guns and working my way down.

I would try and monitor their comm chatter, but I don't speak Chinese so I doubt it would do us any good to tap their commlinks.

If anyone else has any suggestions of useful things a decker could do in this situation let me know, otherwise, disabling as many of their weapons as possible seems like the best choice for Drave's actions.

Ok then:

Now that you have been warned by Amy, Jack - you make the call, and Grease will follow it, and with Overkill away, I'm guessing that if you say bug out now, he'll go with you. If you hesitate, he will then have to make another Matrix Perception test to try and find the guns of the other squad.

Its all on you Jack - no pressure.

I have to leave to catch a flight around 3:30, just FYI.

I think we are still in a relatively strong position tactically, and should hold out to grab the commlinks if at all possible. I am not far away from having Grease say "Frak it" and lay down some suppressive fire on one of the two groups.

-DrZ

I've been watching too much Archer. As soon as you said this, my mind went here.

P.S. If you want to do that, you need to tell us before you leave for the flight - that's not something I would have you do without you telling me to.

Of course. Mine as well.

I will wait to see if Jack says anything in response to Amy.

Okay then, Jack has made the executive decision to get out of Dodge.

Overkill and Grease still have a Complex action to burn,

Grease can use (and will use it) to send a message to his car to meet them on the street behind them.

I'm guessing Overkill would begin moving back through the houses to meet the car.

Any problems with that?

I'm saying we book it.

1) We're in their turf, this entire area could be crawling with Yaks if we get into an extended firefight. The houses behind us could also have Yaks living there (the four that are now buried beneath our feet were said to be living in the tenements on the SOUTH side of Sagebrush Park, basically where we are now).

2) We are in a decently tactical position at this moment. From what we have seen, only Rhex has a weapon that can fire with relatively little penalty at the range that we're currently sighted. But that just makes #1 more of a problem if this turns into a long-term firefight with no one able to hit each other. I think it starts favoring them more and more.

3) We have NO IDEA how long our spirit is going to take to find the commlinks. Amy probably has some experience with the Search power, but IC we don't know.

4) By my reading of what Amy commanded it to do, it can still succeed and bring her the commlinks if we get too far away, it just turns into a Remote Service.

LOL, I love that show. You know, given Jack's background, he's basically Cyril if Kreiger got a hold of him. Just need a few points in the Law knowledge skill...

Hmm... Do I have a Simple Action left? I know I used a Simple Action to change my weapon to FA mode and used a (probably) Free Action to DNI my text. If I do have another SA left, I might as well turn the wireless back on my weapon.

While my IC post is up, Grease will also send a command to his car to travel to the rendezvous location specified by Jack.

Ok then.

Overkill will sneak away south;

7d6.hits(5)=2


Next turn - initiative:

Jack
2d6+7=13
Overkill
2d6+9=13
Amy
4d6+11=22
Grease
4d6+7=22

Mage
3d6+8=17
Fire Spirit
3d6+8=16
Goons A, B, C (by the firepit)
1d6+7=10, 1d6+7=9, 1d6+7=8
Goons 1,2,3,4,5 (by the trees)
1d6+7=13, 1d6+7=8, 1d6+7=13, 1d6+7=8, 1d6+7=8

So

IP 1
Amy 22
Grease 22
Mage 17
Fire Spirit 16
Jack 13
Grease 13
Goon 1 13
Goon 3 13
Goon A 10
Goon B 9
Goon C 8
Goon 2 8
Goon 4 8
Goon 5 8

Sure - no problem.

Also, Grease will fire if fired upon.

-DrZ

Follow-up question I should have asked earlier: How far back are the houses from our current location? More specifically, how far is it for us to break LOS with the gun mooks?