[rednblack]

I figured that with the auto shotguns nothing would change.  It's the LMG that really throws the spanner in the works.

I think James is going to take the helm and try to get out from under the Suppressive Fire.  Plus it's been almost a full CT that James has had 2 points of Edge, and I don't remember that feeling since like the first CT of the last engagement. 

I have: REA (7) + Edge (5) = 12 dice.
REA + Edge: 12d6t5 8
Holy shit what a roll!!!  I'm going to hold onto that second point of Edge after all, at least until the next test.

Complication: James is still prone.  Here's another weird one.  Standing up is a Simple Action, but Piloting tests are Complex.  I don't see how James can stand up and drive in the same IP without getting blasted at least once by Suppressive Fire.  Maybe this is like a Jumping and attacking thing?

I'll get the IC up tomorrow when I see how this plays out. 

[rednblack]

James needs to make a REA + Edge test against each instance of Suppressive Fire separately.  I thought it was one test for all, but a quick check in the book shows that I'm mistaken.  I would want the first roll to be against the LMG fire, as the Accuracy on those weapons are higher, and James will lose a die for making the second roll.  It also didn't occur to me that I could use Full Defense, which is probably a smart call.  Well, let's reason through that.  With 11 dice James will average between 3-4 hits.  Most shotguns max out at 4.  If James is hit, he'll be looking at something like 13P +4AP, which he'll Soak with the above-mentioned 28 dice + the air boat's Armor.  We'll just see how this plays out, so I can that last pass for Break Away.

I have: REA (7) + Edge (5) - Subsequent Attacks (1) = 11 dice.
REA + Edge: 11d6t5 3

Actually, nope.  Only passengers using Hit the Dirt get the vehicle Armor as bonus dice.  James may get some cover for the air boat, at least.  I'll go ahead and roll Partial Cover, as the air boat probably only protects 25-30% of James' body.
Partial Cover: 2d6t5 0
Nope. 

So 8 hits against the LMG's Suppressive Fire and 3 against the automatic shotgun.  Assuming James is going to catch some lead on that one.  Should've made sure all my rules calculations were correct before forgoing the Full Defense bonus.

ETA: the grenade that came their way was a Flash-Bang correct? 

[Tecumseh]

I'll decline to say what type of grenade it was, although James might reasonably conclude that it was less-than-lethal given the fact that it didn't vaporize the boat.

I'm not opposed to a reasonable amount of OOC cherrypicking but I probably wouldn't go so far as to let someone pick which dodge test applies to which suppressive fire attack. That should be random, but the good news is that it's a 50/50 chance in this case.

We also need to apply some common sense. Flechette suppressive fire is supposed to be unavoidable, although the rules do state that Full Defense is an option for standard suppressive fire. That said, I don't see any logical way that we could apply Full Defense within the confines of an airboat (say, 2 meters by 4 meters, probably half of which is fan and engine) without jumping overboard or taking cover. Even the regular dodge test (REA + EDG) seems generous, given the fact that there are roughly (2 shooters * 20 rounds per CT * 1/3 per IP) 13 rounds of flechette fire flying by the airboat (which is far smaller than the 10 meters x 2 meter cone for suppressive fire, or 5 meters x 2 meters for Enhanced Suppressive fire) each second. Logically, that's just not avoidable.

In other words, we're breaking the rules a bit. This is inevitable, as the rules can't mirror every possible situation. I'm not going to ban the REA+EDG test, but I will say that Full Defense isn't an option unless you're using it to jump overboard. The dodge test is also subject to the defense adjustment from flechette suppressive fire (see p.121 of Run & Gun). In this case that's -3, which costs 3 hits from the 8-hit test and 1 hit from the 3-hit test.

We'll flip to see which attack is which. 1 = LMG, 2 = not LMG. Coin Flip: 1d2 1, congratulations

Now I actually have to roll to see what the suppressive fire hits are.

LMG: Agility + Heavy Weapons + Smartlink: ?d6t5 2 hits, misses!
Not LMG: Agility + Automatics + Smartlink: ?d6t5 4 hits, connects

James gets tagged and needs to soak (base damage + flechette - DV adjustment from range) 11P +3AP. That won't exceed his armor value so any damage will be Stun. The boat's armor does not apply if James is standing up to pilot the airboat, but you still have 26 dice. In theory that should take care of 9 boxes, but you have a 22% chance of not taking any damage at all.

CT2 IP3
James: 13
Shooting at Fire Spirit: 6

Shooting fire spirit: Agility + Firearms + Bulky + Smartlink + Take Aim: ?d6t5 6 hits
Fire spirit dodge: Reaction 11 + Intuition 8 - Background Count 5 - SA Burst 2 - Wounds 1 - Second Attack 1: 10d6t5 3 hits

Fire spirit gets tagged again. Soaking: Body 10 + Armor 9: 19d6t5 8 hits
Good soak roll, plus 5 auto-hits from Immunity makes for 13 hits total. Fire spirit takes an additional 2P and is now at 7P.

CT2 IP4
James: 3

The boat is still in the suppressive fire cone. The Break Away action will incur negative modifiers from the suppressive fire (-6 total) but the fancy get-out-of-suppressive-fire vehicle test looks like a straight Reaction (7) + Edge (5) - Flechette (3) test to meet the threshold of 4 established by the shooters. If it doesn't, James will be eating another shot or two.

[rednblack]

Those shooters taking an (at least) -3 penalty for vision mods?

Slightly confused by the flechette penalties outlined above.  They make sense for weapons firing flechette, but is James taking penalties for flechette ammo against a non-flechette source?

For Soak I have: BOD (5) + Globetrotter (12) + Ballistic Mask (2) + Cyber Armor (4) + AP Mod (3) = 26 dice.
Soak: 26d6t5 6
That is a pretty poor roll.  James eats 5S

I'm a little torn on whether I should do Break Away or try to get out of Suppressive Fire.  If I go the latter I'm worried that the shooters will just use Suppressive Fire again this next CT, while the former would at least require some Piloting actions, even if I only make a single hit.  The question is can I make a hit on 3 dice.  Hmm. 

I'm going to go for the REA + Edge test.  I have: REA (7) + Edge (5) - Flechette (3) = 9 dice.
REA + Edge: 9d6t5 5
Good call in this case.

CT2 IP4
Free: Trigger Stim Patch in Auto-Injector
Complex: Pilot V. Suppressive Fire.

Initiative: Initiative: 16+4d6 29

[Tecumseh]

You are not aware of all the vision enhancements the shooters may have available. To my knowledge, I have not missed any positive or negative modifiers. You are free to point out any oversights you believe may have been made.

All fire currently directed at James is flechette.

Break Away succeeds, nice work. You are now outside of the suppressive cone.

The stim patch negates James' stun damage for the next 60 minutes, at which point he will take 7S. In the meantime, there are no wound penalties.

I was going to call for initiative but you've beaten me to it.

CT3 IP1
James: 29
Shooting at fire spirit: 29
Suppressive Fire #1: 27
Grenadier: 26
Suppressive Fire #2: 22
Illeana: 19
Fire spirit: 18

Go ahead and declare and roll, as your action should be independent of the guy shooting the fire spirit.

[rednblack]

You are not aware of all the vision enhancements the shooters may have available. To my knowledge, I have not missed any positive or negative modifiers. You are free to point out any oversights you believe may have been made.

I certainly don't need to know all the mods, etc.  Just mentioning the vision thing because James has Low Light and Thermo, and he's at a -3.  An earlier post said we're in total darkness.  If they're rocking Ultrasound, they should be good to go, until James hits the 50 meter mark, should he make it that far.  None of this needs to be commented on, as it would all be OOC knowledge.

Now that James is standing can he see who's rocking the LMG and grenade launcher?  I can see an Observe in Detail being necessary for this, so it will have to wait until next pass.

James will be using the Break Away Piloting action.  Is James aware of about how much distance he's covered since the air boat went into motion?  I'm also considering Pre-Edging this, but you'll probably need to make some call here as RAW has the potential to be abusive.  On page 204 of the CRB we've got our Chase Ranges table.  We're obviously working in a "Handling Environment," as James specifically wanted somewhere woody, and we're already at Medium range, but I don't buy that 2 hits will get James 81 meters out.  I'd like the advantage to be worth the point of Edge, should the dice gods deem me worthy, but there should be some semblance of realism.  I'll leave that up to you.

For Break Away I have: REA (7) + Pilot Water Craft (2) + Edge (5) - Vision Mods (3) = 11 dice.
Break Away Pre-Edge: 11d6h5 1
Welp.  No rules call to be made at least.

James is at 36/42 Alpha 1/5 Edge

[Tecumseh]

An Observe in Detail will indeed reveal which shooter is which.

Honestly, I've always found the vehicle and piloting rules to largely be gibberish. I don't have Rigger 5 so I don't know if they've added more details that might help clarify the situation. The Break Away test is also a bit goofy because it implies pursuit. What if nobody is pursuiing you? Do you magically come up with some additional burst of speed that the vehicle wasn't previously capable of? Is this the Sprinting version of a pilot test? If you have Rigger 5, let me know.

For the airboat, I'm using the American Airboat AirRanger from Rigger 5 (lifting the stats from Chummer) as a template, even though I have no idea how comparable they are. (The Body and Armor values are different, mostly because I had to roll for the boat before discovering that Chummer knew of something that might be comparable.) Speed is 4, Acceleration 3. The running rate of Speed 4 is 80 meters per CT, which translates into 96kph or 60mph. I have no idea how realistic that is, but it seems reasonable for our purposes.

I'm not sure Acceleration really helps us here, in terms of figuring out how quickly the boat gets up to speed. For comparison purposes, Acceleration 3 is a high value, the same as sports cars and racing bikes. Scanning strangely relevant pages on Wikipedia, it seems that there are plenty of production motorcycles that can go from 0-60 in 3-4 seconds. Since you gave the order to go back in CT1 IP2, we'll stay that you are now at top speed by the end of CT2.

The good news is that you're flying along at 60mph and are putting some serious distance between you and the shooters every IP. The bad news is that you now need to make regular Handling tests (or trust the airboat's meager Pilot) every CT in order to avoid plowing into a tree at 60mph.

To keep things simple, we'll say that you traveled 40 meters during CT2. Earlier I said that the small island with the thick tree was 3 CTs away, but at that point I didn't think that the airboat could accelerate quite as quickly as it actually can. We'll say that it was 100 meters away originally and you have since covered 25 meters of that. You have 75 meters to go.

You are now 40 meters away from your original position, but you don't know how close the shooters were when they opened fire. Presumably you are further away from the 7 o'clock position shooters, but you may actually be nearer to the 4 o'clock position shooters now.

Late to a meeting. More later.

[Tecumseh]

Shooting at Fire Spirit: Agility + Firearms + Bulky + Smartlink + Take Aim: ?d6t5 4 hits

Fire spirit dodge: Reaction 11 + Intuition 8 - Background Count 5 - SA Burst 2 - Wounds 2 - Third Attack 2: 8d6t5 0 hits, my poor fire spirit!

Fire spirit soak: Body 10 + Armor 9: 19d6t5 8 hits, decides to roll well on the soak but not the dodge.

Spirit soaks 8 plus 5 auto-hits. That leaves 3P unaccounted for. The spirit is now up to 10P.

I'll resolve the rest later.

[rednblack]

Honestly, I've always found the vehicle and piloting rules to largely be gibberish.

Yep.

I thought they had made some sort of vehicle speed table in Rigger 5, but if so I'm having a hard time finding it.  There is this[/u]]http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=22807.msg419909#msg419909this post which makes a lot of sense.  To back that interpretation up, page 173 of Rigger 5 says, "Speed is defined as a general value rather than a rate of meters per turn."  That all said, the approximates that we've been using in this game -- reducing meta movement down to AGI, AGIX2, etc. and applying speeds to vehicles -- has worked pretty well for us. 

Is this the Sprinting version of a pilot test? If you have Rigger 5, let me know.

That was my intention with the roll.  It seems that what I wanted, though, was the new Change Speed action, which is a Simple Action -- could've taken that Observe in Detail after all -- that allows you to increase speed up to your Acceleration rating in a combat turn.  Speed may only be decreased by 1 in the same period of time -- not mentioned but that should be much longer for boats.

For the airboat, I'm using the American Airboat AirRanger from Rigger 5 (lifting the stats from Chummer) as a template, even though I have no idea how comparable they are. (The Body and Armor values are different, mostly because I had to roll for the boat before discovering that Chummer knew of something that might be comparable.) Speed is 4, Acceleration 3. The running rate of Speed 4 is 80 meters per CT, which translates into 96kph or 60mph. I have no idea how realistic that is, but it seems reasonable for our purposes.

Just looked it up.  It's a really good pick, actually.  Flavor fits what we're doing quite well.

To keep things simple, we'll say that you traveled 40 meters during CT2. Earlier I said that the small island with the thick tree was 3 CTs away, but at that point I didn't think that the airboat could accelerate quite as quickly as it actually can. We'll say that it was 100 meters away originally and you have since covered 25 meters of that. You have 75 meters to go.

You are now 40 meters away from your original position, but you don't know how close the shooters were when they opened fire. Presumably you are further away from the 7 o'clock position shooters, but you may actually be nearer to the 4 o'clock position shooters now.

That works for me.  Just to make sure I'm understanding everything, the water craft has traveled 40 meters total, but is only 25 meters closer to the island, correct? 

Also, they did nerf Break Away in Rigger 5, though.  Now a Threshold is set by the Terrain -- 0 can be a threshold -- and any hits above that threshold shifts the Range category up by 1. 

Are James and Illeana still in the Mana Surge?

[Tecumseh]

I intentionally did not divide the airboat speed in half. Some quick searching suggested that 60mph was not unrealistic. Or, just as importantly, was more realistic than 30mph.

A Change Speed action seems unnecessary because you are already going at the vehicle's maximum velocity, unless there is a type of Sprinting action that I don't know about.

You have traveled 40 meters total since you gave the command to the boat to go (CT1 IP2). You have traveled 25 meters since I said there was an island with a tree in front of you (CT2 IP2). The 15 meters traveled during that CT represents the acceleration of the boat (i.e. the fan getting up to speed) and changing your course to the east.

Next grenade: Agility + Heavy Weapons + Aim: ?d6t5 4 hits

You get to dodge this one. I believe the dice pool is Reaction + Intuition. It seems like Moving Vehicle +3 should apply, so it will, The wording is unclear but it appears that the limit may be Handling, which would be 4.

Fire spirit using Fear: Magic 8 + Willpower 8 - Background Count 5 - Wounds 2: 9d6t5 3 hits
Goon resist: Willpower + Logic: ?d6t5 2 hits

Another goon jumps off into the swamp to get away from the flaming will o' wisp.

The suppressive fire stops behind you. ICly, James may attribute this to a need to reload, given the 9 seconds of sustained suppressive fire.

You don't know if you've left the mana surge or not, but Illeana still looks incapacitated.

Next
Roll to dodge
CT3 IP2

[rednblack]

Where is the wording that implies a Handling limit on Defense tests in vehicles?  Related question: what happens with a Glancing Hit on AoEs?  I'm hesitant to go Full Defense, if James and Illeana would still be soaking damage.  Does James have Partial Cover?

For defense I have: REA (7) + INT (6) = 13 dice.
Defense: 13d6t5 8
Well, 4 at the worst, and dodged the frag out of it at best.  I forgot the 3 dice for inside a moving vehicle, but rolling now just seems redundant. 

Ok, Piloting for this CT is taken care of so James is going to try to return fire.

CT3 IP2
Simple: Observe in Detail
Simple: 6 round burst at grenadier
Free: Switch Firing Mode to FA

For Observe in Detail I have: INT (6) + Perception (6) + Visual Spec (2) + Vision Enhancement (2) + Specifically Looking (3) - Vision Mods (3) = 16 dice.
Perception + Specifically Looking + Visual: 16d6t5 3
Not great percentage-wise, but 3 hits is enough for Obscured, so I imagine that lets him see the grenadier -- and LMG chummer if the GM is feeling charitable.

The Alpha is on a sling, but not at the ready.  I'm going to make a Quick Draw test, and then take the -2 penalty for firing a large weapon without using both hands.  I figure James will have both hands on it, but this seems like the best way to handle the crunch.  Let me know if that's too much, and we'll figure out something else.

For Quick Draw I have: REA (7) + Firearms Group ( = 15 dice.
Quick Draw: 15d6t5 6

For recoil I have: Free (1) + STR/3 (3) + Gas Vent III (3) = 7.

For shooting I have: AGI (11) + Firearms Group ( - Attacker Inside a Moving Vehicle (2) - Vision Mods (3) = 14 dice.
Shoot Grenadier: 14d6t5 3
Pretty weak.  I'm really tempted to use that last point of Edge, but I feel it may be more necessary for a botched Defense test.

I'm seeing Smartlinks listed on the opposing rolls, so I'm going to roll that separately.  Maybe they remembered to bring their Satellite Link, or maybe I get the dice.
Smartlink?: 2d6t5 0
No help, regardless.

Grenadier is at -5 to defense.  Base damage is 11P -6AP

James is at 30/42 Alpha 1/5 Edge

[Tecumseh]

When dodging a Ramming attack the target (if a vehicle) rolls Reaction + Intuition [Handling] (p. 203).

Page 205 says "When a vehicle is attacked in combat, the driver rolls his Reaction + Intuition as the defense part of the Opposed Test. Drones roll their Pilot + Autosoft [Handling]." So Handling is not explicitly listed for a driver but it is for a drone on Pilot.

It's another inconsistency and there are good arguments on both side. For using Handling, it's used to avoid ramming attacks, and by drones, and seems reasonable/logical. For the case against, the Limit is not consistently given, nor is there precedent for avoiding Physical attacks being limited by the defender's Physical limit (although this isn't a bad idea).

I'm going to say it is limited by Handling because it seems logical that there's some loss of dodging ability between controlling yourself (REA+INT) and controlling a vehicle manually (also REA+INT).

In this case the grenade gets 0 net hits and scatters. Scatter: ?d6 11 meters

James successfully evades the grenade, which explodes outside of its effective range.

Observe in detail: you see a burly metahuman. Your best guess at this distance/speed/condition is a short but muscular ork. He/she is behind half a tree stump that looks like it was recently chewed up by APDS ammo.

In the same glance, you see a troll with an LMG (at the 4:30 position). He/she appears to be swapping a clip or a belt or something to that effect.

Quick draw is for "pistol, pistol-sized weapon, or small throwing weapon" (p. 165) so the Alpha doesn't qualify. I think you need an adept power to quick draw anything larger than a machine pistol. You could potentially quick draw a different weapon.

[rednblack]

I'm going to say it is limited by Handling because it seems logical that there's some loss of dodging ability between controlling yourself (REA+INT) and controlling a vehicle manually (also REA+INT).

Makes sense to me.

Ok, so since the Alpha can't be fired, I guess I'll spend the second Simple Action Readying his weapon.

ETA: Range on grenadier ork and LMG murder troll?

[Tecumseh]

CT3 IP2
James: 19
Shooting at fire spirit: 19
Suppressive Fire #1: 17
Grenadier: 16
Suppressive Fire #2: 12
Illeana: 9
Fire spirit: 8

Shooting at fire spirit
Shooting at fire spirit for the fifth time: Agility + Firearms + Bulky + Smartlink + Take Aim: ?d6t5 2 hits
Fire spirit dodge: Reaction 11 + Intuition 8 - Background Count 5 - SA Burst 2 - Wounds 2: 10d6t5 4 hits

Fire spirit dodges.

Suppressive fire #1
Suppressive fire #1 is going to ready a grenade and throw it at the fire spirit. Agility + Throwing Weapons - Range: ?d6t5 3 hits
Fire spirit is going to dodge: Reaction 11 + Intuition 8 - Background Count 5 - Wounds 2 - Second attack 1: 11d6t5 5 hits

Grenade gets no net hits and scatters: 1d6 4 meters

The good news is that the grenade bloops into the water and detonates underneath the surface. The bad news is that it sends up a spray of water that splashes the fire spirit, much to its dismay. This does not cause immediate damage but applies a -4 modifier to the spirit's actions.

Grenadier
Grenading James again: Agility + Heavy Weapons + Aim: 10d6t5 5 hits

That's for you to dodge, same as before. It has more hits than the boat has Handling but you can still make it scatter.

LMG
Suppressive Fire #2 is actually the LMG. Having completed whatever he or she was doing last IP, he or she squeezes off a full-auto burst: Agility + Heavy Weapons + Smartlink: ?d6t5 6 hits, this is within the weapon's Accuracy so all hits are kept

Illeana uses the Protecting the Principle Edge maneuver from Run & Gun. From her prone position, she heroically flings herself in over James and eats the incoming fire. She does not get a dodge roll but I am going to roll the dice for Partial Cover and Moving Vehicle since those should still count.

Modifiers: Partial Cover 2 + Moving Vehicle 3: 5d6t5 3 hits

That still leaves 3 hits, so she gets to soak 13P +2AP. Body 5 + Lined Coat 9 + Ballistic Mask 2 + AP 3: 19d6t5 5 hits

The modified damage rating does not exceed her modified armor rating, so the damage is Stun instead of Physical. Illeana takes 8S. This exceeds her Physical Limit (which is 7 at the moment), so she suffers Knockdown.

The Edge maneuver makes her Initiative score 4, then she loses 2 more due to damage. Her new initiative score is 2.

Fire Spirit
Using Fear: Magic 8 + Willpower 8 - Background Count 5 - Wounds 3: 8d6t5 5 minus 2 hits because I forgot the -4 penalty for exposure to water
Goon resist: Willpower + Logic: 6d6t5 2 hits
Goon selection: Goon selection: 1d5 1

Yet another goon flees into the swamp.

Illeana
Free: <<are you okay??>>
Complex: probably taking some deep breaths (hold action)

Next
Dodge your grenade
CT3 IP3

[rednblack]

For Defense I have: REA (7) + INT (6) = 13 dice.
Defense: 13d6t5 5
Fingers crossed on the scatter, and I again forgot the +3 for being inside a moving vehicle.

I'm not sure if Illeana had an IP1 action, or if she was incapacitated in some way.

How are we playing the Suppressive Fire?  Illeana is now prone.  I'm assuming that James will need to be as well to avoid taking any damage during IP3, or will James be able to act unimpeded this pass.  I'm just not sure how that Interrupt actions pairs with Suppressive Fire. 

Bah, I had to set this down, and now I have to leave it.  Will write up IP3 actions soon, and stuff about Fear soon.

What's the distance between James, and the grenadier, the troll, and their distance from each other?