@Kot:
Ok, you can only counterspell those team members who are LOS. Since Zach is unconscious, maybe calling your bound spirit from the metaplanes might be a good option. It's whatever you choose, but whatever it is post it in the IC thread. Any actions, rolls, or anything else that your character does I want in the IC thread....and if it's an OOC statement then just put it in those brackets. OOC thread is to not clutter up the IC thread with meta-discussion like this post i'm posting right now
@Sichr:
This wasn't a trap, they had no idea you were coming....but Zach just stepped out of the elevator without even thinking about the Astral Plane....so did Stryker! Mage and Muscle need to work hand in hand...and if you're up against a team that is doing just that, then this is what happens.
Well, the logical consequence is that the shit hit the fan which is why strategy is more important now than ever. Ok, i'll just straight out say what I think would be a good idea. This is not like some kind of thing i planned, this is just me assessing the situacion which you guys totally created.
Stryker needs to wait until Brick gets to the other side of the southern hallway and can lay down some supressing fire (not necesarily the FA action), and once Brick spends a free action to give the sign that the hall is clear, Stryker should grab Zach to Stabilize him. As long as Brick has that bottom part of the hallway covered then it should be clear and there's no other entrance points to the floor save the elevator; and if there's no other enemies in the other apartments, then Stryker can start healing in relative safety. Another idea is that the wall next to the grenade blast was only left with a structure rating of 1, armor 12. Brick could blow it through and Stryker could drag Zach into that apartment and would have some great cover and a safer space to heal Zach. This are just some ideas....but please debate people.
Stryker though also needs to make sure nothing is watching him on the Astral. Now it's hard to do all this with a -3 wound modifier...anyone got stim patches?....but it's still doable.
@To whom it may concern:
It just kinda frustrates me that you guys don't really debate strategy all that much and you don't really ask me if X Y and Z are possible or good ideas, but then will be super quick to be like "this is so unfair!". Everything I have done so far has been sticking to rolls (some of them behind my GM screen) and RAW and house rules as closely as possible, so I think my GM calls aren't too far fetched. Tell me in a personal message if you think otherwise. You guys know how UB works...you get dropped into the middle of a combat scenario.
It's really standard shadowrunner protocol to be ever aware of the Astral Plane....so even if you didn't get to detail the situation as well as you could have in a full blown shadowrun with legwork and all, you still got a TON of room for maneuvering in my opinion. I started you off in the elevator, not the hallway for a reason....so that you don't start off in the middle of danger. If you really feel that something I'm doing is just way out of sync with the character or nature of Shadowrun or truly "unfair", then let me know in a personal message....but next time you want to post something like "If the GM had only...." or "In my games I usually....."...just think for a second if you truly feel it's unfair....like you really think i'm not just presenting you with a challenge, i'm actually rigging things so that you get fragged, or at least maimed....then by all means let me know. But if you think that maybe a little strategy and discussion with your fellow teamates could have prevented a situation, or if you feel that this is more than just a "fun" amount of the "unfairness" of shadowrunning being a dangerous profession, then when you criticize the adventure you're kind of undermining the legitimacy and fun of doing a PbP role-playing game.
It's a trust thing. You trust me that I try to make my NPC's and scenarios work by the same rules of the game which constrain and determine the players actions, and whenever I don't do that it's for a good plot reason to tell a good story and that i'm always trying to stay balanced and not just trying to see you get blown to pieces....and then the GM trusts that you'll accept the world which he is presenting to you at face value. When this trust is there then role-playing games start getting really fun because you feel like your character is really living in a world with cause, effect and flavoer and you're not just going through some motions.
No hard feelings, just want to let you know how I feel. I really think it's cool that this is already the 3rd Urban Brawl scenario and it's fun to see Brick and Stryker develop as characters through Karma, cred and roleplaying. Even though these are just combat scenarios, i try to put some loose plot elements in it. Hopefully Zach will live to develop too, and if I were you i'd be excited because the next time he's at a his favorite runner bar down in Renton, when the shaman who's assensed him asks him why he got the liver replacement, he'll be able to growl out between his tusks in a thick russian accent..."Back in '72, lost it to some shrapnel from a frag grenade...didn't do a proper astral sweep, shit hit the fan...but we did the job, got paid...can't complain except vodka gives me the runs now..." ...and it won't be just character background, he'll be able to say that for real. I don't know man, but for me that's what Shadowrun is all about.
Like this guy I play table-top with, he plays this really beautiful elf infiltrator/face chick but she went into overflow damage in a fight with a squad of fire-spirits near the docks in Lagos. One spirit hugged her real tight and burned her hand, when it finally got magically healed her fingers ended up fused together....so she had to go to the chop-shop off of a marketplace and get it loped off and now she's got a cyber-hand with a shock-hand attachment. So at the present moment she's sailing away from the coast of Nigeria with 500 nuyen worth of Cowry shells in her pocket from winning an MMA fight with an african troll AND a brand spanking new cyber-hand....bad-bitch
Now tell me that that's not cooler than paying like 2 BP at character creation! That's shadowrun dude! Maybe i'm masochistic but I only really start digging a character once it's been scarred...or even better yet...killed...Just a nice big R.I.P. written on the character sheet and all the players in the room standing for a moment of silence
