It is an interesting question. I think there are two types of ways to play it.

One is total awareness of all hits. This allows maximum use of Edge and is easiest on the players (which is what I do)

No awareness of enemy hits - this forces players to say something like, I only got 3 hits. Is that enough, maybe I need more... - but I think that penalizes the players too much.

In any event, let's reroll:

15d6.hits(5)=2

Ok, not very good
First we'll have him actually make the test:
10d6.hits(5)=6 His successes are reduced to 4 by the handling of the vehicle, but he only needed 3 hits to make the test. However, now let's see what, if anything, the spirit's Accident Power has on him.

Spirit rolls Magic + Willpower of 8 vs Stinger's Reaction + Intuition of 10.

Cynthia:
8d6.hits(5)=3

Stinger
10d6.hits(5)=3

Unfortunately since Stinger got the same number of successes, the Accident power has no effect.

This means that basically Grease tries to cut the car off, but Stinger manages to swerve just in time.

What is plan B?

Well damn... I guess try it again. He's probably notifying his people about now, so we have to make it quick or cut and run.

ETA: I guess I can try shooting at him as well.

6 hits on 34 dice! crazy. If Overkill was close, could he try jamming using his deck? I don't know if that actually prevents you from sending messages in the matrix (the rules there are a little fuzzy).

If we are in "Chase" combat; we can now try pursuing him directly and messing with him more (trying to push him into walls and whatnot). Since I'm jacked in, we should still have an advantage even though we lost the element of surprise.

...and 6 hits on 10 dice for the opposition test. Seriously, your dice rolling sucks Lobo, LOL.

Lol - don't blame me! It was Invisible Castle - I swear!

Yes, you are now in chase combat, and we need initiative rolled and such.

Unfortunately as the rules currently stand there is no means of jamming transmissions (which is ridiculous I know, but I've asked for clarification and that's the answer I got).

So, initiatives:

Grease
4d6+7=23
Jack
2d6+7=18
Overkill
2d6+9=13
Amy
4d6+11=25
Cynthia
3d6+8=21
Stinger
2d6+7=18

IP 1
Amy 25
Grease 23
Cynthia 21
Jack 18
Stinger 18
Overkill 13

Actions?

I guess I'll get prepped to try and shoot a tire or something. I figure getting a window rolled down and readying my weapon will probably take my full action. If "setting the weapon up" can count as a Take Aim action, that would be great. If not, no big deal.

Can I try another cut off action? I'm imagining it like my car pulling out into the T intersection cutting Stinger off; him swerving to avoid me; and me pulling around to cut him off on the far side to push him against the curb / some obstacle. Make sense?

-DrZ

Open window - simple action

You had said you had your SMG out already, so you can use your other action to take aim.

@Grease - makes sense to me

Remember that one of your IP's this round will be taken up to do a Drive Vehicle action, otherwise your vehicle will be considered out of control.

IP 1
Amy 25
Grease 23 - cut off action
Cynthia 21
Jack 18 - open window take aim
Stinger 18
Overkill 13 Follow on bike

Can Amy see Stinger?

Sort of - with Grease's failed cut off attempt, that would put your car behind Stinger's, and so at best you'd see whatever sticks out over and around the headrest and is visible through the back window.

You used to be able to cap people magically with direct spells through the rear-view mirror. Then again, not sure if anyone has any of those spells or if the angle is appropriate.

ETA: Wait.... I hate to ask this, but aren't we in the taxi rather than the Hyundai?

I think I will let a spell go off, but give modifiers to the casting attempt.

Yes Lol - you ARE in the taxi, which is a Ford Americar equivalent. Damn it

That being said, it shouldn't matter - the Control Rig makes Grease so much better than Stinger that I'll assume he could have caught him even with the relative speeds being much closer. I should have been paying more attention, and I don't want to have to retcon all of that

Maybe we can assume that he pulled off a much better Cut Off attempt as well... LOL

I think that may be too much of an assumption

Doesn't my rig add to all my limits, too? So my speed would go up by a corresponding amount (along with my handling, sensors, etc.)

Speaking of, he didn't hit the limit on his test, did he?

-DrZ

I thought we had agreed that the Rig improves limits but not the actual statistics of the vehicle. Otherwise, you have motorcycles capable of reaching MACH something with a rating 3 Control Rig. It would still help out whenever you were making Speed or Handling related tests though.

As Jack said, it does not add to your Speed.

In addition, if you look at the post (probably easy to miss), he did hit his limit, he got 6 successes which was reduced to 4 - but since he only needed 3 to succeed, he passed the test.

Yeah, Lobo... uh, I mean, Invisible Castle just screwed you. LOL

I'll just have Amy cast Mass Confusion centred on the roof of Stinger's car. It's not very likely to have any effect, but if it does, it could be pretty useful. Let's try at force 5 and see what happens. Amy's DP is 14 dice and visibility should be okay since it's an area spell. The 4S drain might hurt quite a bit but she doesn't have much else to do right now.

IP 1
Amy 25 Cast Mass Confusion
Grease 23 - cut off action
Cynthia 21
Jack 18 - open window take aim
Stinger 18
Overkill 13 Follow on bike

Mass Confusion Spell
14d6.hits(5)=1

Resist 4S Drain
13d6.hits(5)=6

Stinger Resists
Logic+Willpower
10d6.hits(5)=5

So, while it has no effect, Amy takes no drain.

Grease will attempt to perform another cut off action:

19d6.hits(5)=6 - and your limit is normally 4 up to 6 for the CR

Stinger tries to dodge
10d6.hits(5)=4 (hitting his limit)

So he has to make a Crash test with a threshold of 2 (+1 for conditions)

10d6.hits(5)=4

He again makes it easily

Cynthia remains in the area, awaiting a command from her mistress

Jack opens the window and readies his SMG

Overkill continues to follow on his bike - will spend a free action to ask if we should start shooting.

IP 2
Amy 15
Grease 13 -
Cynthia 11
Jack 8 -
Stinger 8
Overkill 3

ETA - IC write up for the almost crash and the first IP up either later tonight or tomorrow.

I'm a little busy at work - IC post will be up in an hour or so.

In the meantime, you don't have to wait for me, if you know what your action for the next turn will be, go ahead and post.

When you say "dodge", do you mean just resist the test? Can you "dodge" / "go full defensive" while driving (and does it affect your initiative?)

Either way, on my next 2 actions I'd like to try to force him off the road again, then make my vehicle test for the round on 3.

-DrZ

ETA: Will be on the road this afternoon, and probably unavailable most of tomorrow IC; just FYI.

@DrZ

The procedure for a Cut Off is this - both drivers make a Vehicle Test, and if the attacker gets more net hits than the defender, then that number of net hits is the threshold for the crash test taken by the defender. "Dodge" is probably the wrong word - that is just his resistance test - he isn't getting any special bonus or anything.

No problem about the availability - hopefully you can get his car to crash today

Me too!

As an aside- is Grease still high on cram? If so, I should be getting +1 Reaction to my vehicle tests. I forgot, so I wouldn't blame you if you did as well I wouldn't want to retconn anything, just have it be in effect going forward.

I guess I'll be taking a second Take Aim action and then trying a called shot on the tires of the vehicle with a 3-round BF attack w/APDS ammo. I'm not entirely sure how well that is going to work, I think I'm working against an awful lot of penalties. I'd consider using Edge, but since I've only recovered one point throughout the entire game, I'm not all that enamored of spending another. I still might do it depending on what my penalties look like. I know I am looking at at least -6 dice from the called shot and shooting from a moving vehicle. My smartgun and the take aim actions should add 4 dice to my attack, I think. Anything else I am missing?

@Grease,

Yes - sorry about that - you have several more hours of being affected by Cram, so your Reaction and Initiative should be higher.

I rolled another die, adding 4 to your init, so you really went at 27, not 23 - but that shouldn't affect anything apart from you going before Amy.

IP 2
Grease 17 - one more cut off attempt
Amy 15
Cynthia 11
Jack 8 - take aim and short burst
Stinger 8
Overkill 3 - take aim and short burst

@Jack,

-4 for called shot, -2 for being a passenger, +2 for smartlink, +2 for 2 take aim actions seems about it, visibility and range should be ok, and you have a high enough strength to handle the recoil, so it should just be a net -2 dice, so Agi 5 + Automatics 4, -2 dice for a total of 7 dice.

Quick question - I thought you couldn't use Edge on a chipped skill (or maybe I'm remembering that incorrectly).

You're correct, I completely forgot the limitation. I think my only option there would be to default on my Agility and use Edge, which would get me to 9 dice, but then subtract 2 for the associated penalties (I guess it technically gets me to 10 dice, but I'd have a -3 penalty, either way). The only difference would be that I could re-roll any 6s, but with only 7 dice to roll, that doesn't seem worthwhile.

Here's a question though... the resistance test for dodging the cutoff attempt is the same dice used for dodging attacks in a vehicle. Are avoiding the maneuvers impacted in the same way as being attacked, i.e. does it introduce a progressive penalty? Would it be cumulative with attacks? I think it makes sense realistically, but I don't know how that works out from a game balance perspective.

They aren't the same dice - so I don't think they are cumulative.

The Cut-off attempt is an opposed Reaction+Vehicle [Handling] test.

If you shot at him, he would roll Reaction + Intuition (with no limit) against you.

Sorry, confusion reigns supreme over here. Too bad Grease's initial attempt wasn't considered a Surprise, since he wouldn't have been able to resist.

No problem - vehicle combat isn't done all the time, and so it is something we all are rusty on

I haven't been considering vehicle actions as capable of surprise - if you remember back on in the Yakuza fight when the spirit just materialized out of thin air, I just had Grease make a vehicle test to avoid it.

Not sure if I should be treating them as surprise capable actions or not...

I was wondering based off the following modifier:

Pilot unaware of event
If you don’t see it coming there’s not much you can do
about it. Pilots who are surprised get no Vehicle Tests
against anyone who Surprised the pilot to respond to
actions that come out of nowhere.

As far as the spirit, I was under the assumption that there would be some kind of visual clue of a spirit manifesting given the Complex Action required to manifest. May not be the case, I don't know. We probably should have just rammed this asshole, Grease's car be damned.

You probably SHOULD have rammed him - and that option is not out of the question yet...

However, making the cutoff test is a Complex action as well (just like the spirit manifesting) and since it wasn't a ramming action, he had to be able to get out in front of Stinger to do so - letting him see him (as opposed to flying out of the intersection and clipping him in the back driver' side section).

Amy will command the spirit to neutralize Stinger physically (possibly causing a crash, of course). This should make it hard to keep control of his car, especially with Grease messing with him.

If Amy has another simple action, she'll simply delay it for now. Free action to communicate (actually this may be a simple action):

<<@Team [Amy's subvocal] I've told Cynthia to appear next to Stinger and stop him somehow.>>

Ok - so, something we should have clarified.

Cynthia should never have actually been able to use her Accident Power before she manifested, which means she is on the physical plane.

I also remember at this late stage that the idea was for her to manifest next to Stinger and then use the accident power.

So, let us assume she had already manifested next to him, so on her next action she will attack him.

So - we have:

IP 2
Grease 17 - one more cut off attempt
Amy 15 - command spirit and send message
Cynthia 11 - attack Stinger
Jack 8 - take aim and short burst
Stinger 8
Overkill 3 - take aim and short burst

Grease's cut off attempt:

THERE you go

20d6.hits(5)=9

Reduced to 8 by the limit (normally 4, +2 for VR, +2 for the CR)

Stinger's test
10d6.hits(5)=1

He needs to make his crash test
10d6.hits(5)=4

So - good roll for Stinger, but he fails his test.

He has to resist 11DV AP 6, which means it will be physical damage

His resistance test:
13d6.hits(5)=4

So he takes 7 DV worth of damage

His Composure test:
7d6.hits(5)=1

So he takes a 3 point penalty to all his tests for 3 combat turns

Amy's Spirit takes damage:
1 auto success from armor
7d6.hits(5)=2
Means she takes 8DV from the crash.

I'm going to assume spirits don't need to make Composure tests from crashes.

This crash probably changes the other character's actions, however - so what do you do now?


IP 2
Grease 17 - one more cut off attempt
Amy 15 -
Cynthia 11 (Reduced by 2 for wounds)=9
Jack 8 -
Stinger 8 -(Reduced by 1 for wounds)=7
Overkill 3 -

New command for the spirit: Sorry you got hurt, just make sure the guy doesn't go anywhere by holding him in place, if you can.

All I need is a physical combat-like service where the spirit attempts to pin Stinger in place, preventing him from getting up and/or arming himself.

It would also be good for Overkill to use some hacker magic to help prevent Stinger from calling his friends (if possible).

-DrZ

Spirit attempts to grapple Stinger
Force 4+AG 4 -2 for wounds=6 dice
6d6.hits(5)=3

Stinger resists
Unarmed Combat of 4, Agility of 4, -3 for failed Composure test, -1 for wounds=4 dice
4d6.hits(5)=0

So, compare Cynthia's strength of 2 + 3 net hits to Stinger's physical limit of 6 - not enough to pin him down.

Jack - what are you doing?

Can you clarify if the crash means his car is no longer moving? Sorry, I'm not exactly clear on what's going on here, whether he can get the car back in motion, etc.

If his car is well and truly wrecked and our car is no longer moving, I guess I would move to get out and try to take him. Then again, he's probably still in the car, so I don't know how I would get to him. I assume he still has full control of the doors and stuff.

ETA: Isn't he at -2 for wounds or does he have a pain editor or something. I thought he took 7DV.

I'm sorry - didn't put up the IC post yet.

His car smashed into a parked car, and his Comet isn't going anywhere without a tow truck

And yes he should be at -2 - sorry (not that it mattered on his roll of 0 hits )

Question the Next: How are you treating parts of a vehicle? I read a PbP a while ago where it was ruled that every part of a car used the same defense characteristics as the car itself, so shooting/breaking a window was just as difficult as trying to shoot/break a door. My first thought with Jack would be to smash the driver's side window, rip him out of the car, and grapple him. If I have no chance of punching through a window though, it's kind of pointless.

ETA: I need to buy kuncks. <-- Actually, I guess I don't need them, at least not to break a standard window assuming the barrier rules are in play rather than the vehicle rules.

Ok - well, for right now that is moot since you are still in a moving car (Grease will have to stop the vehicle on his next action - I suppose you hold your action for now.

Not sure how it is supposed to be handled in 5th. In 3rd (which I'm most familiar with) there were statistics for tires, but that was it - there wasn't a specific damage location for windows or something like that.

By the way, the car itself has to resist damage
11d6.hits(5)=2

So it takes 9DV worth - it is pretty badly damaged, and I would say the windows would have shattered. We can discuss some other time how to handle damage to individual parts.

If you in fact are holding your action, let me know, cause I have to resolve Stinger and Overkill.

Yeah, that's fine. I don't have a non-lethal ranged attack at the moment, so I can't do much that wouldn't risk killing the guy.

Yeah, the main question I have is whether attempting to punch through the glass would use the barrier rating for glass/ballistic glass or whether I would have to deal with the stats for the car (considerably more challenging). To me, it would make sense that glass is glass, regardless of whether it is affixed to a car or not.

Stinger frantically tries to get away from the spirit, pulling his gun and firing

Agi 4 + Pistols 4+ sm 2 - 2 for firing in melee, -2 for wounds, -3 for failed composure test

3d6.hits(5)=0

Missing wildly

Overkill skids his bike to a stop near the car, and dismounts, (complex action used to drive)

Ok - I am thinking that we can actually start free roleplay, in that Stinger is so out of it, and pinned inside his car, with a spirit on top of him and Overkill right there, I think going through any more dice rolling is a formality.

If you guys are okay with that, I'll write the IC up until that point and then we can RP.

If you want to actually go through the motions of rolling dice, I'm happy to do so.

Since you're the one rolling the dice, I think we're okay with moving forward (although I do kind of want to yank him out of the car and subdue him, it's one of the few things I should be theoretically good at doing, LOL).

If you want to include that in the IC post, as soon as anyone else has a physical hold on Stinger, Amy will dismiss the spirit, in order not to draw ever more attention to us than already.

I'm curious about the reaction of the bystanders, how many there are, and what they look like.

Well - I don't mean to rob you of your crowning moment

Actually, why don't you guys write that up?

This will give Jack a little bit of glory as he gets to yank Stinger out of the car, and Amy can interact with her spirit and look around.

As far as the crowds - it is almost 3:00 AM - there are probably a handful of people at most on the street, most of them homeless, and all start running once the people with weapons show up. A quick glance in the astral shows none of them are Awakened, and all are more concerned with getting the hell out of dodge than paying attention to you.

I can write up us getting Stinger out of the car. I've got to deal with some recalcitrant hardware first, so it may take an hour or two.

When you do that, go wild. Include Amy and her spirit as much or as little as you feel like, I don't mind.

Let me know if y'all want me to add or change anything. I tried to incorporate everything Lobo said OOC as well as your input. I figure this gets us to the point of needed to GTFO and figuring out where we are GTFO to...

P.S. If you want to see what Grease just did, here's a good example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0IXTfWdFmk (It's at about the 34 to 40 second mark. In Stinger's case, he actually made a nearly complete spin but ended up slamming into a parked car before completing it).

I learned how to do that in the military. Fun!