[Walks Through Walls]

Inca,

 A couple questions about the combat that just started

1) When I run games and a complete surprise situation occurs (which I feel this is) I let the ambushing group act once then go into initiative with the who can act on whom roll from surprise. (if you don't feel this is appropriate or too powerful I understand)

2) Since my taser is silent how did the Yak know where to fire at me? Shouldn't it at the very least have been a perception roll to see me, and if he doesn't it is then blind fire correct? I don't know did you take this into account? I know you usually show what adds and subtracts to dice pools and didn't see any so that is why I ask.

2b) If it isn't blind fire shouldn't there still be a targeting modifier since my chameleon suit is still active?

3) I understand the fact that I downed the Yak that couldn't act on me and not the one that could, but that is some bad luck. Can I use edge to influence that?

I know that the rules are all subjective and open to each GMs interpretations, but  wanted to ask and see what your thoughts were before we moved on. I acted based on how I would have run my game, and when playing tabletop it is easy to adjust to small differences in interpretations while in PbP it is harder.

Thanks for your time and I love the adventure so far

[Kontact]

I would have given Cynth the full +6 ambush bonus on that surprise roll.
+3 is for in combat type stuff where one person isn't necessarily aware of the presence of the other, but they are still aware of the situation.
The +6 ambush is closer to this situation where the other party didn't know that a combat was going down at all until there were shots fired.

The extra 3 dice might well be enough to keep that guy from acting.

[inca1980]

Well, I kinda stuck to RAW for this one because you do an infiltration and perception check, whoever fails doesn't get the +3.  The invisibility of the chameleon suit is reflected in the perception test, and if I were to give extra modifiers for shooting at someone with chameleon suit that would really be making ruthenium polymer insanely over-powered and an amazing piece of gear which I don't think developers intended to seriously be technologically induced invisibility which i'm sure they would have mentioned in their description.  It's more like super super good camo, but once you see it, you can tell it apart from it's surroundings. 

I think it's important to roll initiative even before any combat occurs just because that means that someone with zero reflex enhancers could get the jump on someone who is seriously wired automatically.  There should always be a chance that surprise backfires...however small the chance is.  This dude rolled 6 hits on 8 dice...i mean that was a seriously lucky roll....9 times out of 10 you would have had the total jump on the bad guys but one of them rolled super lucky. 

The actual text for ambush is:

" Characters who plan an ambush and delay their actions while they lie
in wait for the arrival or appearance of their targets receive a +6 dice"

You weren't really waiting behind a corner while the bad guys appeared, you were the one who had to move to make the attack. 

In any case, I'll roll a perception check threshold 1 for Y2 to see if he can make you out, otherwise it's gonna be blind fire and i'll give him a -6 to his shot.  I'll modify it in the post.

In terms of acting on the Yak who was surprised and not on the one who wasn't surprised, your right that in table-top you would probably be able to choose....but I'm gonna say that you should have at least thought there would be some kind of surprise roll and not just an automatic kill so if you would have said "i'll attack the one who's not surprised" then I would have made it that, but you specifically told me which one you wanted to attack.  For PbP it's going to be hard to rewind for smaller things like these unless it's really really called for.  This is quite similar mechanics to the combat against the Crushers with a +3 to surprise for sneaking characters, so we'll just keep things as is and the only difference will be the perception roll to see you for Y2.

The problem here mainly is that Y2 rolled 6 hits on 8 dice, and then 5 hits on 9 dice.   I feel you had a totally fair chance to surprise both of them and take them out right away but the dude got really lucky and that's just how I rolled it   You also got lucky that I forgot to include your sustaining modifiers into your surprise roll, but I'll just leave the roll how it is and make sure to include it in your future rolls.

[Kontact]

Is suppose they are guards, so some amount of awareness is warranted, but the Crushers certainly weren't playing cards when that combat started.

Meh.  Differing opinions.  On with the show.

[Walks Through Walls]

It's all good. I just wanted to talk about the differences, and if it is easy it isn't any fun. 

[Walks Through Walls]

I'll post tonight with my actions Inca. I'm off to work now and just checked the boards real quick before I left.

[inca1980]

For the past few months I been scouring the net and any time I find some image which describes well a scene in the adventure I like to pick it up and save it.  Since a lot of times i find it after the fact I never posted them, but I thought I'd post a few images to just color your imaginations a little bit

This would be a view of Bellevue.  Imagine that the viewer is in a building close to Washington Lake and looking eastward and to the north (left) is the southern part of the bulwarks surrounding Overlake Corporate Park. 

Then here's a good image of the feel for the neighborhoods of Renton where you drove around looking for Hannibal and also Eastern Bellevue where Sam's apartment is. 

This one also captures the feel for Touristville i was going for.  Maybe dirty it up a tad bit, but not too much.  This would be the end of the Touristville strip and after a while travelling south (out of the page), you would get into heavy Barrens. 

This is right in the center of Crusher territory near the plazas where you met Sheldon.  Other sections of these area covered in a patchwork of tarp. 

Closer to the brothel it looks like this, just instead of brick, the buildings are more made of plasticrete of a similar color with a little more detail in it's texture (pipes, grooves, etc) since construction is much quicker and cheaper in the sixth world.  If you were at the front entrance to the brothel and looked up at the building, you'd basically see this.  It's still day, but the front entrance would look something like the lower panel of this, with the top panel being similar to what you'd see looking down the alley along the side, but dirty it up a bit to look like the first pic i showed at the top of the paragraph. 

So there's some visual candy to give you a bit of an idea of what everything looks like.  Please feel free to post any images you feel might inspire the imagination to be able to view the campaign better from your perspective, especially if it's pics of your character


Hey, while we're at it, let's just do that awesome Renton street scene in stereo!!   You guys know how to do this right?  To get it to deepen into a 3D image.  I find that the farther away you get from it, the easier it is.  Start with your face close up and then just back up.  Oh maaaan that freakin rocks, it's like your really there....i can almost see Hannibal slinging chips on the corner in his trench-coat

[Kontact]

Please feel free to post any images you feel might inspire the imagination to be able to view the campaign better from your perspective, especially if it's pics of your character

I finally stopped putting this off.
Here's a picture I drew and took a photo of.  The color sucks because of that, but, no scanner, so what's to be done?



Figured I'd go for a "gibbering horror" style matrix icon.  No one should see it as such unless they break his stealth anyway.

[Chrona]

Your Icon. Pure Win.

[inca1980]

Hell ya!!!

[inca1980]

@Cynthia:
I was reading back and I realized I was doing taser fire wrong with your fight with Sam, so that's why you downed him quicker.  It's just a flat 6s(e). 

Oh and one more thing, when you post your rolls, you think you could put the actual dicepool breakdown in the notes like i do?  You also don't need to copy and paste the actual txt that says "BB code".  The main thing is it helps if i can see the dice pool make up with stat, skill, and modifiers all shown.

[inca1980]

Make sure you guys link your rolls up.  Let's also break down our dice pools.  Here's an example: Joe's perception test: Percep 3 + Int 4 + Visibility -2 + Cyber-eye Enhancement 3= (8d6.hits(5)=1).

All you do is put the break down in the "notes" box.  Once you do this just cut and paste the BB code.  It just makes my job a lot easier

[Sludig]

I always have problems pasting the rolls.   But I'll try. ((I swear it doesn't like me.))

[inca1980]

Your move guys

[inca1980]

@Walks:
How many clips you got left for your taser?  It says on your character sheet that you have 3 clips for the taser.  I remember you unloaded 2 on the troll.  2 on the orks.....and then the ones you used tonight, so that should leave you with like 2 clip left i think.  Check it out and put it on your character sheet in brackets next to what was originally bought.  In fact it would be cool if from time to time people do inventory on ammo, grenades and other such things that were used and put it in brackets next to the original value that was purchased with BP.