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[5e OOC] Tabula Rasa, Chapters II and III

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8-bit

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« Reply #930 on: <01-16-15/2259:53> »
Oh god damn it.

I'll get back to you in a few minutes when I'm over the fact that we are going to crash ... again. And it's Chino's damn fault again. Sigh...

I'm with Zweiblumen on this one, it's awesome, but I feel like Chino has the worst luck ever with his driving decisions.

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« Reply #931 on: <01-16-15/2308:33> »
Okay. I'm guessing we're saying good bye to our elderly hostages. And probably Doc and Ohanzee. I just have this picture in my head of Chino rushing the spirit then going flying as the RV crashes. Truly an epic moment  :)

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« Reply #932 on: <01-17-15/0041:12> »
Soak the fireball: 32d6t5 7

I'm gonna edge the dang soak roll.

Edge the dang soak roll: 25d6t5 7

Ok, so sam is good, thanks to his now singed jacket sleeve.

I just wanna live long enough to put that bomb on the obelisk. It'd be great if I could bleed out before it goes off, too. :)
« Last Edit: <01-17-15/0058:20> by Poindexter »
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Tecumseh

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« Reply #933 on: <01-17-15/0232:12> »
@Poindexter
No, not a great roll. 7 hits on 32 dice is a 5th percentile result. However, this is what Edge is for. I would encourage people to use it in the coming moments, as it will greatly improve your odds of survival.

Also need to determine if Sam is on fire. Armor 12 + Fire Resistance 2 - 6 Fire AP = 8 dice against Threshold 3 = 3 hits, yay, Sam's not on fire!

@Zweiblumen
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@All
The front right tire that went out so that's the logical direction for the RV to lean. The RV is going to tip and roll off the road to the right, then (per the critical glitch) flip on its side.

The crash rules in 5th Edition are largely nonsensical. Vehicle armor is never used to mitigate damage to vehicle occupants, by which logic it would be better to plow into a wall full-speed while on a Dodge Scoot instead of in a GMC Bulldog (since the DV of the crash is based on the vehicle's Body, and their Speed attributes are the same).

I spent about two hours trying to devise better rules, going back to 4th Edition, until I remembered that Ryo has a house rule for this exact situation.

When crashing, a vehicle is treated as if it rammed itself, resisting with Body+Armor as normal. Half of the unresisted damage is applied to the passengers of the vehicle, resisted with Body+Armor -6 AP. If a passenger is not properly secured (wearing a safety belt/harness), then they must resist the full initial damage of the crash instead, and may be hurled from the vehicle (gamemaster discretion). This may result in further damage from impact with the terrain or other vehicles.

The saving grace is all this is that you're not traveling very fast, given the trailer, the heavy load (namely Sam + the obelisk), the hilly terrain, and the icy conditions. Some internet research says that a crash at 35mph generates around 50 Gs of force, which is where things start getting fatal, and you were likely going slower than that.

I'm going to say that the Body / 2 damage value is more accurate for this situation (see p. 203), especially since the RV is going to negatively accelerate fairly quickly once the tire goes and the rim hits the ground. With the RV's Body of 16, that means there are 8 boxes to soak, minus what the RV soaks for restrained passengers.

RV's Body: 2 hits + RV's Armor: 3 hits = 5 hits, well that's pretty pathetic for 30 dice. Low 2nd percentile rolling.

Sam and Ohanzee are sitting, so they have the option of being restrained. (Sam wound benefit from an air bag too.) I had imagined Katsina tucking the Natelys firmly under the covers of the bed for just such a situation, although who knows how effective that would actually be in a crash. Doc, on the other hand, will be ragdolling.

1. Here are the damage codes for people to soak with Body + Armor - 6 AP:
Sam = 3P
Ohanzee = 3P
Chino = 8P
Ace = 8P (*see note below)
Doc = 8P
Katsina = 8P

(*Unless he changed clothing in the RV, Ace is still wearing the outfit that Katsina tailored for him. Per this post, it is Armor 6, Insulation 2. That will be negated by the crash AP, but still leaves Ace with some cyberlimb armor.)

After that, and with the resulting damage modifiers (if any), please roll the following tests:
2. Agility + Reaction vs. Threshold 3 to keep hold of your weapons (Sam, Ace, Katsina). Poindexter, if you're trying to keep your Alpha then this is your test to get your arm inside the RV before it gets crushed and ground into kibble.
3. Agility + Gymanstics vs. Threshold 6 to land on your feet (Sam, Ace, Katsina). Otherwise you will be prone.
4. Per p. 202, a Composure test vs. Threshold 4 (everyone but Doc). There will be a dice pool penalty to how many hits you miss the threshold by, for a number of Combat Turns equal to the same number. So if you only roll 1 hit you will have a -3 modifier for 3 combat turns.

Again, use Edge where you need to.

I'm trying to decide whether the materialized Fire Spirits should be affected or not, since they fly and aren't subject to gravity. I'll noodle on that overnight. I will post results for Katsina next.

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« Reply #934 on: <01-17-15/0247:03> »
I am praying to the dice gods; let's see if it works.

Resisting 8P Damage (Body 5 + Bone Density Augmentation 4 + Urban Explorer Jumpsuit 9 - AP 6): 12d6t5 2 [2, 5, 2, 2, 4, 3, 4, 4, 1, 4, 4, 6]

Edging to reroll failures. Edge goes from 4 to 3.

Rerolling Failures: 10d6t5 2 [4, 1, 2, 4, 1, 5, 4, 3, 6, 4]

Okay, that could have gone worse. It also could have gone way better. 4P Damage sinks in. Wound Penalty of -1.

I'm assuming I need to make the Gymnastics check as well.

Agility 4 + Gymanstics 5 - Wounds 1 vs. Threshold 6: 8d6t5 2 [3, 5, 1, 3, 4, 5, 4, 2]

All right, Chino had his feet slip out under him.

The dice gods were not in my favor.

Anyway, I can't make the Composure roll, because I don't think I know Chino's Charisma. Also, I forget, do Attribute only tests suffer from Wound penalties? I assume they do.

Tecumseh

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« Reply #935 on: <01-17-15/0250:58> »
@8-bit
Cool, I finally made you learn your Charisma. Chino has Charisma 3. Doc's Charisma is the only attribute holdout (there are still some skills, spells, and qualities left to learn about), but will stay hidden for a while since Doc doesn't need to roll Composure.

Wound modifiers do apply to Attribute-only rolls, except for soaking damage and drain.



Let's do this for Katsina:

1. Body 5 + Armor 9 + Ballistic Mask 2 - 6AP = 10 dice against 8P: 1 hit, off to a bad start let's Edge that
9 dice rerolling: 3 hits

The base attack of 8P exceeds her modified armor value of 5 so Katsina takes 4P (plus 1S from drain earlier in the day) and is now at -1, with two Edge remaining.

2. Agility 6 + Reaction 3 - 1 wound vs. Threshold 3: 4 hits, Katsina manages to hold onto her sword, thus saving Ohanzee from being a shishkabob
3. Agility 6 + Gymnastics 2 - 1 wound vs. Threshold 6: 1 hit, Katsina faceplants
4. Willpower 6 + Charisma 3 - 1 wound vs. Threshold 4: 3 hits, Katsina is at an additional -1 for the remainder of the combat turn and the first pass of CT2

Katsina also needs to figure out if her preparations trigger due to damage. Per Ryo's houserules:

A preparation taking a single box of Physical damage will not make it lose its magic. This would render Disjoining obsolete, as you could disarm preparations without risking Drain just by smacking them. Instead, a sufficiently damaged preparation is immediately triggered.

Damage to a Preparation does not release the magic unless it is completely destroyed/ruined/scraped off the object. Alchemists shouldn't be at a constant risk of self destructing simply from putting their preparations in the same pocket as their car keys.

Her lynchpins are throwing knives and thus very sturdy. Some soak rolls: 9, 7, and 10 hits. One lynchpin takes 1DV but this is not enough to trigger the preparation.

Conversely, Ace has a preparation made of wood. Let's call it Structure 4 + Armor 6. We'll say that Ace's armored clothing counterbalances the -6 AP, so we'll roll 10 for the preparation.
Preparation soak: 4 hits, which stages the damage down to 4P, but this equals the preparation's structure rating so it is smashed. Per Ryo's rules, the spell is triggered.
Force 6 + Potency 6: 4 hits, Ace now has Combat Sense 4, and so receives +4 to defense for the next 6 minutes

This is going to be an involved IC post. I might not get it up for a day or two, depending on how the weekend goes.

Zweiblumen

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« Reply #936 on: <01-17-15/0252:03> »
Sorry, I didn't intend the comment to be insulting, just that the next scene was going to be fantastic as in fantasy and as in cool.  :(  sorry for the misplaced comment.

And in other news, best soak roll I've ever done!
soak 11 + edge 7: 18d6h5 12

They say drunks survive the crashes because they've gone limp, I guess that worked for good ok' Doc too!
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8-bit

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« Reply #937 on: <01-17-15/0257:38> »
@8-bit
Cool, I finally made you learn your Charisma. Chino has Charisma 3. Doc's Charisma is the only attribute holdout (there are still some skills, spells, and qualities left to learn about), but will stay hidden for a while since Doc doesn't need to roll Composure.

Wound modifiers do apply to Attribute-only rolls, except for soaking damage and drain.

After millenia, the mysterious Chino's Charisma was known. Just kidding, thanks for the response.

Sorry, I didn't intend the comment to be insulting, just that the next scene was going to be fantastic as in fantasy and as in cool.  :(  sorry for the misplaced comment.

And in other news, best soak roll I've ever done!
soak 11 + edge 7: 18d6h5 12

They say drunks survive the crashes because they've gone limp, I guess that worked for good ok' Doc too!

Ha, and we thought Doc was a goner. That's some nice rolling.



Here's the Composure test.

Composure (Charisma 3 + Willpower 5 - Wounds 1): 7d6t5 5 [5, 1, 6, 5, 4, 6, 6]

HOLY. You know what? I'll take it. Chino isn't phased in the slightest.

Tecumseh

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« Reply #938 on: <01-17-15/0300:29> »
And in other news, best soak roll I've ever done!
soak 11 + edge 7: 18d6h5 12

They say drunks survive the crashes because they've gone limp, I guess that worked for good ok' Doc too!

Good news, bad news.

Good news: LOOK AT THIS EXPLODING 6 ZWEIBLUMEN ROLLED: [6, 6, 6, 6, 1] ARE YOU KIDDING ME THAT'S FOUR HITS FROM ONE DIE

Bad news: You didn't account for the -6 AP. I'm not going to scratch them from the end because that would nix 8 of your hits due to the exploding 6s. Please roll 6 exploding dice and subtract the results from your total. You rolled 4 to hits to spare, so you have a nice cushion to work with.

Poindexter

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« Reply #939 on: <01-17-15/0305:19> »
1. Sam = 3P

2. Agility + Reaction vs. Threshold 3 to keep hold of your weapons (Sam, Ace, Katsina). Poindexter, if you're trying to keep your Alpha then this is your test to get your arm inside the RV before it gets crushed and ground into kibble.
3. Agility + Gymanstics vs. Threshold 6 to land on your feet (Sam, Ace, Katsina). Otherwise you will be prone.
4. Per p. 202, a Composure test vs. Threshold 4 (everyone but Doc). There will be a dice pool penalty to how many hits you miss the threshold by, for a number of Combat Turns equal to the same number. So if you only roll 1 hit you will have a -3 modifier for 3 combat turns.

1- soak crash dmg: 10d6t5 4
2- keep hold of the XM30: 15d6t5 6
3- I imagine Sam was indeed strapped in and so i feel like he doesn't get a gymnastics test. If i'm wrong, lemme know and i'll make the roll.
4- Composure from the crash: 7d6t5 1 Should I play the penalty like Sam is enraged and making bad decisions since it doesn't really seem like he took much of a banging in the crash?
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Malevolence

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« Reply #940 on: <01-17-15/0400:29> »
My favorite part from the Vehicle section:
Quote from: CRB pg 201

Vehicle crashes are rare, and though they can be spectacular in many cases they do not involve a lot of damage.


It then goes on to mention that you take Vehicle Body damage resisted by Body + Armor - 6 AP. Many vehicles have in excess of 10 Body, so 10P damage or more with -6 AP is NOT a small amount of damage in my book. And it runs completely counter to reality where in Shadowrun if two vehicles collide with a brick wall, the person on the motorbike takes less damage than the person in a van. Ryo's house rules are MUCH more sane.


Anyway, just wanted to mention that I chuckled when I read that line and considered the 16 Bod of the RV. For wont of a comma, that sentence has multiple interpretations; "though they can be spectacular in many cases, they do not involve a lot of damage" (lies!) or "though they can be spectacular, in many cases they do not involve a lot of damage" (if you throw caution to the wind and get a vehicle made out of paper). Seriously, the lightest vehicle you can get has a body of 4 (4P, -6 AP), but if you want more than a bike, you are eating 8P with -6 AP in a crash.


Ohanzee's rolls:
Damage resist - Damage Soak [Body 3 + Armor 6 - AP 6]: 3d6t5 1 - Utterly average, Ohanzee takes 2P. Back to -3 Wound Mod.
Composure Test - Composure [Cha 6 + Wil 6 - Wound 3]: 9d6t5 2 - and sub par. -2 for 2 CT.


With a total of -4 to anything I do, I think that my effective options will be limited. I might  just run around playing field medic. Of course, I have to survive this Turn first - I'm out of actions and many actors still have two more moves. Most importantly, the spirit I am fighting has at least one more.


And our ride's busted. Hopefully we can grab the Bulldog without it taking too much damage. And the drone would be nice to own.


On a side note, I'm totally digging the action.  But I have a question about the Fireball spell. The damage for a fireball spell is (Force)P DV -Force AP, with the net hits from the scatter test being added. Since the threshold for the scatter test is 3 and the mage rolled 3, the damage for this fireball should be either 12P -12 AP (serious overcast - he's taking 8P drain!) or 6P -6 AP (2 drain, stun if he has 6+ Magic, otherwise physical). So, are your numbers correct on that, or did you get Elemental Attack (single target) confused with Fireball when running the numbers?
« Last Edit: <01-19-15/2128:05> by Malevolence »
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Zweiblumen

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« Reply #941 on: <01-17-15/1035:38> »
And in other news, best soak roll I've ever done!
soak 11 + edge 7: 18d6h5 12

They say drunks survive the crashes because they've gone limp, I guess that worked for good ok' Doc too!

Good news, bad news.

Good news: LOOK AT THIS EXPLODING 6 ZWEIBLUMEN ROLLED: [6, 6, 6, 6, 1] ARE YOU KIDDING ME THAT'S FOUR HITS FROM ONE DIE

Bad news: You didn't account for the -6 AP. I'm not going to scratch them from the end because that would nix 8 of your hits due to the exploding 6s. Please roll 6 exploding dice and subtract the results from your total. You rolled 4 to hits to spare, so you have a nice cushion to work with.

Doh!  I'm gonna blame trying to do this from my phone for that ;)
rolled too many dice! -6: 6d6h5 3 more exploding!
More reasonable 9 soak!  I still get incredibly lucky!
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« Reply #942 on: <01-17-15/1600:49> »
And our ride's busted. Hopefully we can grab the Bulldog without it taking too much damage. And the drone would be nice to own.

Our ride is busted, but we do have the ATV and a Snowmobile in the trailer. Which probably can't carry everyone for very long, but might suffice in an emergency. Assuming we can get to the trailer, that is.

On a side note, I'm totally digging the action.  But I have a question about the Fireball spell. The damage for a fireball spell is (Force)P DV -Force AP, with the net hits from the scatter test being added. Since the threshold for the scatter test is 3 and the mage rolled 3, the damage for this fireball should be either 12P -12 AP (serious overcast - he's taking 8P drain!) or 6P -6 AP (2 drain, stun if he has 6+ Magic, otherwise physical). So, are your numbers correct on that, or did you get Elemental Attack (single target) confused with Fireball when running the numbers?

I also have a question about the Fireball.

If it was Force 12 (to get 12P, -12 AP), then wouldn't it sort of explode in the middle of the car and hit multiple people? The radius would be 12 meters, more than enough to at least hit Chino, if no one else. Unless the mage somehow pinpointed it to hit only Sam. Force 6 would be much smaller (and less damage), but I would think would still hit someone else. Unless I've got the dimensions of the vehicle completely off in my head, which is completely possible.

Please no one hate me for maybe making the fireball try and fry us.

Malevolence

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« Reply #943 on: <01-17-15/1848:54> »
I'm assuming that the radius of the blast is largely irrelevant as all of us but Sam have cover from the RV (which took no damage from the blast). Sam, hanging out an open window, did not have that protection, so he and the RV both took the blast. This is house ruled, as are the separate damage resist rolls for the windows and tires. The whole vehicle combat section of the CRB is a mess (as is pretty much everything that intersects Riggers, including the Matrix), as I'm sure we are all aware (and could probably argue that ALL of the CRB is a mess), so I'm happy for the house rules - every one so far has been an improvement, IMO.


But, if Tec does decide to switch gears and go with the RAW on area weapons and vehicles, I don't think we'll be angry with you for your comment. If it's a Force 12 fireball, we're toast either way and at Force 6 we'll all most likely mitigate the damage anyway. But treating vehicles as cover and cover as barriers, thus having it roll it's resist first and only having the occupants roll against damage getting through makes sense, so I hope we stick with it.
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Tecumseh

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« Reply #944 on: <01-18-15/0222:36> »
4- Composure from the crash: 7d6t5 1 Should I play the penalty like Sam is enraged and making bad decisions since it doesn't really seem like he took much of a banging in the crash?

That is an excellent idea.

Also, you are correct that Sam does not need to make a Gymnastics roll. I incorrectly wrote Sam's name on the list when I meant Chino.

On a side note, I'm totally digging the action.  But I have a question about the Fireball spell. The damage for a fireball spell is (Force)P DV -Force AP, with the net hits from the scatter test being added. Since the threshold for the scatter test is 3 and the mage rolled 3, the damage for this fireball should be either 12P -12 AP (serious overcast - he's taking 8P drain!) or 6P -6 AP (2 drain, stun if he has 6+ Magic, otherwise physical). So, are your numbers correct on that, or did you get Elemental Attack (single target) confused with Fireball when running the numbers?

You are correct, I whiffed on this. The Force of the spell was 6, so the base DV should have been 6P instead of 12P. I was indeed confusing the Elemental Attack damage code for Fireball's base DV.

@Poindexter, Sam only had to soak 6P instead of 12. You rolled 7 hits on your initial soak roll so you do not need to Edge the non-hits. You get your spent point of Edge back thanks to Malevolence's vigilance.

However, 6P is still enough to fry the tire, as it does not have enough Structure to soak the damage, so the RV will still crash and flip.

One correction for Malevolence though. The 5th Edition rule for overcasting is, "If the number of hits (not net hits) you get after applying the limit exceeds your Magic rating, the spell’s Drain is Physical instead of Stun damage" (p. 281). So even if the Magician had been casting at F12, his 3 hits were below his Magic rating and thus his Drain would still be Stun instead of Physical. The rule you were alluding to (Force > Magic = Physical drain) was for 4th Edition but was changed for 5th.

Our ride is busted, but we do have the ATV and a Snowmobile in the trailer. Which probably can't carry everyone for very long, but might suffice in an emergency. Assuming we can get to the trailer, that is.

You won't know the fate of the ATV and snowmobile until you check on them. Same with the Natelys.

I also have a question about the Fireball.

If it was Force 12 (to get 12P, -12 AP), then wouldn't it sort of explode in the middle of the car and hit multiple people? The radius would be 12 meters, more than enough to at least hit Chino, if no one else. Unless the mage somehow pinpointed it to hit only Sam. Force 6 would be much smaller (and less damage), but I would think would still hit someone else. Unless I've got the dimensions of the vehicle completely off in my head, which is completely possible.

The fireball did not explode in the middle of the RV; it detonated outside the passenger door/window where Sam is. The combat mage cannot target the interior of the RV because he/she doesn't have a clear line of fire. Indirect combat spells don't use the traditional spellcasting rules, in which you need to be able to have line-of-sight. Indirect combat spells don't even technically require sight (although it helps to avoid blind fire penalties) but do require a clear line of fire. If there were a giant pane of glass between you and the combat mage, the fireball would have hit that and detonated instead. (For the record, the combat mage is firing out of the window like Sam is, precisely to avoid the windshield obstructing the line of fire.) Think of indirect combat spells like grenades and bullets instead of your traditional Direct spells, which fly through the astral and only take emerge at their point of contact.

Technically 6 meters is enough to get the blast inside the RV, but I am ruling that Sam is a barrier that stops/absorbs it. This is also why the three passengers on the left side of the Bulldog did not roll to soak damage from Sam's fragmentation grenade; the three passenger on the right side of the Bulldog shielded them. (In hindsight, I need to remove a box of damage from two of the passengers to reflect the drop-off in the frag grenade's DV from where it detonated - at the front of the vehicle - to where they were sitting - in the middle and the rear.)

Area effects are one of the rulesets where I really wish this were a computer game so the GM wouldn't have to mentally calculate the distance of every single actor to the center of a blast. Technically the Tata could have been within the frag grenade's blast radius; technically, the fireball could have blown out the window next to Ohanzee and subjected him to a soak roll too. But there's a limit to my processing powers and how much time I can dedicate to teasing out every cascading consequence. I spent 4-5 hours yesterday trying to figure everything about (although a good portion of that was houseruling on the fly), mostly because I wanted to get the OOC posts up in time for people to process them over the weekend. At a certain point I had to just draw a line and say, "I can't take it any further."

This is my first opportunity to get online today so I haven't had a chance to tackle the IC post(s) yet. Sunday will be another busy day as well, but hopefully there will be some time available in the evening. That gives rednblack some time to make his rolls too.