[Tecumseh]

Sam's money is on a sasquatch. I'll post ICly to that effect. If I put words in Sam's mouth that aren't how he would phrase it, let me know and I'll update what he says.

[Tecumseh]

IC is up. "Drooks" is a Russian expression, as Sam is bilingual.

We're not in initiative passes but we're going to proceed like we are. Go ahead and give me an initiative pass worth of actions for what your PCs do next. Mind the length of your communication if you're using Free Actions, but you can be more expansive if you trade in a Simple for another Free.

Everyone give me two Perception rolls, one for sight and one for hearing. (Mal, you can skip this if you keep actively assensing.) If you spend a Simple Action on Observe in Detail then you can add the +3 Actively Looking bonus.

[Malevolence]

He'll keep Astral Sight up.

<< @Team [Ohanzee] Two low, one high. Coming fast. We're not their quarry. >>


I'm assuming that they are not dual natured, so he'll cast Trid Phantasm and have a veritable army of spirits (okay, like 4) phase in, as well as some areal drones whisper in from out of view. Basically, encourage them to go around us and move on or at the very least give them more targets to waste attacks on. He'll do so subtly, so no centering...


Trid Phantasm (Force 4) [Spellcasting 5 + Magic 6 + Focus 2]: 13d6t5 1
Wow, that... sucks. Almost a glitch.


Resist Drain [WIL 6 + CHA 6]: 12d6t5 3
Drain code is F, so I take 1 stun for my efforts.


Someday, this spell will actually work.


If they ARE dual natured, Ohanzee will just wait for them to make the first move.


In either case, he'll move his head so that he is very visibly watching them, especially the one in the trees. Perhaps not having the element of surprise will encourage them to move on.

[Tecumseh]

@Malevolence
That comm is good.

All three ARE dual-natured.

@Everybody
Upon review, please do not use spoiler tags to put rolls in the IC thread. Aesthetically, I prefer the IC threat to be just IC and not co-mingled, like a story unfolding. Second, and more importantly, Malevolence's incredibly useful trick of hitting the forum's Print button and then using the browser's Find function to look for a certain roll or section doesn't work when said roll/section is under a spoiler tag. Plus, I always go looking for rolls in the OOC forum, so having some in the IC forum generally confuses me.

[rednblack]

Simple: Pocket flashlight
Simple: Hold Action
Free: Comm team.

Is Ace currently under a canopy of trees, or does he have open air above him?

[Tecumseh]

Everyone is in the trees. That said, they are not super-dense and Ponderosa pines aren't the bushiest trees, so odds are good that there's a spot of clear sky above you, or nearby. Here are some (daytime) examples:





Don't forget the perception rolls, one for sight and one for hearing.

Separately, and before I forget, if anyone is playing Shadowrun Chronicles, let me know. Maybe we can meet up and do a couple co-op missions.

[rednblack]

Visual: Percpetion Visual (Actively looking): 12d6t5 5

Hearing: Percpetion Auditory (Specifically "looking"): 10d6t5 2

Took "Specifically Looking" for both.

[Malevolence]

OOC I'm assuming they are Bandersnatches. There appears to be an omission in the description on page 136 where it doesn't mention their Dual Nature, but per page 141, ALL infected are Dual Natured, so I'd guess that pg 136 is incorrect. So, we'll skip the spell casting since it'd do no good.


Also, if I could, I'll trade a simple or complex action in order to mark them with an ARO that also indicates them as infected (which I presume Ohanzee would have seen from their aura unless they are masking it somehow). I'll make a knowledge roll to see if Ohanzee can identify the type. Not sure what the required skill would be, but Ohanzee doesn't have it, so he's defaulting to Logic - 1 anyway.


Identify trio [Logic 3 - Defaulting 1]: 2d6t5 0


Predictable. Saved from a critical glitch by the more than half rule.

[Tecumseh]

Sasquatches are already dual natured, so it's not listed as a "Gained Power" for bandersnatchii on page 136.

Ohanzee does not identify them as Infected. He sees them as sasquatches, although they seem pretty pissed given their peaceful reputation. And it's weird that he can't see them thermographically.

I will say that marking all three with an ARO is a Simple Action. The Matrix Action table lists "Send Message" as a Simple, and that action includes things like sending files. It seems like the closest approximation to tagging and sending an ARO.

But now we get to "how does the world work" issues. Technically, you don't have any Matrix access out here, so what wireless functionality works and what doesn't? I usually rule that commlinks can communicate directly with each other, so you can still comm and exchange AROs within a certain range. (My default is 500 meters, although this is further affected by things like trees and snow.) Many of the wireless bonuses should still work, but I may nix them if I feel that the bonus would depend access to the Matrix as a whole rather than just your local equipment.

Similarly, what exactly is Ohanzee tagging? He sees something on the astral, and he can certainly slap an ARO on it with his contacts+commlink, but what exactly is the ARO connected to? Ohanzee's gear can't see what he's seeing on the astral, so I'm going to rule that if the targets move then Ohanzee needs to spend another Simple Action to update/reapply the AROs.

[Malevolence]

Ah, so they are.


And yeah, he's only marking their current location and general direction of travel if they are moving. Kind of mentally dictating via DNI "30 meters out in the direction i'm facing, heading towards me and slightly left", and so on. I'm guessing that the technology can tell where your vision is focused, so he wouldn't have to "think" quite so verbally, so it'd be more like "there" or "where I'm looking" and a mental image of an arrow predicting the heading for each one.


I'll update the IC to remove the reference to their being infected. I was going by pg 141 of Run Faster: "An Infected character’s aura always reveals its Infected nature, though this may be masked by metamagic as normal." Of course, it doesn't indicate how many hits you need to get - I just assumed "always" to mean one hit. or even obvious enough not to need rolling. However, that would have had us spotting Katsina's issue much earlier, so it has to be higher. Or they could be masking it. Either way, fixing it in IC.

[Tecumseh]

@Poindexter, action is to you.

I'll move things along this afternoon either way.

[Poindexter]

Where are these drooks? (Int 3 + per 3 + vision spec 2 + image enhance 2 + specifically looking 3)): 13d6t5 5

Sorry for the delay.

[Tecumseh]

To business then!

For simplicity sake, I am going to call the targets #1, #2, and #3.

Here are their locations, according to Ohanzee's AROs:

#1: ground, about 8m from Ace
#2: ground, about 10m from Sam
#3: tree, about 20m from Ohanzee

And here's what each of you can see with the help of Ohanzee's AROs:

Ace: Jack squat
Sam: #1
Ohanzee: all three via assensing

I'll take the liberty of rolling initiative:
Ace: Initiative 2d6+8: 2d6+8 14
Sam: Initiative 2d6+9: 2d6+9 13
Ohanzee: Initiative 3d6+11: 3d6+11 17, divided in half by Combat Paralysis = 9

Initiative order
#1
Ace
Sam
#2
#3
Ohanzee

#1
Charging Ace.
Agility + Unarmed + Charging: 12d6t5 2 hits

@rednblack, Technically this is a surprise attack since Ace can't see his attacker, but I'm going to say that Katsina's spell gives him the opportunity to make a surprise check.
1) Roll Reaction 4 + Intuition 4 + Combat Sense 4 = 12 against a threshold of 3. If you get 3 hits, you can roll defense as normal.
2) Defend against 2 hits.
3) Soak if necessary.

Then action is to rednblack and Poindexter. Ranged attacks are -2 if you can see the target, or Blind Fire if you cannot. No penalty for melee attacks.

[rednblack]

Surprise: 12d6t5 4

So far so good.

Defense -combat sense: 8d6t5 1

I was AFB and pregaming pretty hard when I made these rolls, so I included Combat Sense separately.

Combat Sense: 4d6t5 3

No hit.

CT 1 AP 1
Free: Drop Lancer (It's in sling)
Complex: Melee Attack with Shock Hand: Shock-a-Critter: 13d6t5 5

I'll take that roll.  Base damage is 9S(e) -5AP

[Tecumseh]

What's "pregaming"?

It's unclear what sort of modifier might be applicable given the less-than-visible nature of the adversary. That said, it's right in your face and you didn't take the touch-only bonus, so I'll say things offset.

#1 dodge: 2 hits + 0 hits forgot the Reach bonus = 2 hits

I should have told rednblack to subtract a die from his defense test for having lower reach, but he has 4 hits to the attack's 2 so it's irrelevant.

#1 soaking: 3 hits

The beastie takes 9S and suffers knockdown. It also takes a -5 hit to Initiative and a -1 modifier for the next combat turn.

In one of those "what are the implications of this" exercises, I find myself researching the electrical conductivity of snow to find out if Ace inadvertantly tasers himself. It appears to be a topic of considerable academic research, as I was able to find multiple research papers on the question but no straightforward answer. I even found some research on Colorado snow specifically, but alas it was for the spring snowpack and the air temperature was 12 degrees Celsius.

The short answer is that the electrical conductivity largely depends on the wetness of the snow. For our current scenario, the conditions are relatively dry and cold and the snow is powdery, all of which make it a poor conductor. Furthermore, snow is relatively pure in the sense that it lacks salts and other minerals. Electricity needs free ions for so that the current can flow between the positive and negative ions, which are usually provided by the positive sodium and negative chloride ions. So on both counts this snow is not a good conductor.

So, long story short, Ace is fine.

@Poindexter Action to you.