Thanks for the reminder on Counterspelling. Flickr gets to live! . . . for now. He ended up with 4 hits on 6 dice, but I'll cover that in an rpol post once I figure out what he's going to do with his turn.
The Spirit did roll Drain, and not particularly well. I'm not sure that he'll go Force 9 a second time.
I adjusted my Initiative down another 5 because of some unclear wording on the Pre-emptive Parry Free Action. From page 122 of
R&G:
"This action allows the character to use the Parry Defense option (p. 170, SR5) for an entire Combat Turn for the price of the normal Interrupt Action by making their defense active instead of reactive."
So, it essentially turns a Parry into a Full Defense freebie, arguably being much better than Full Defense -- skills and specs are cheaper than attributes and are likely to be higher -- and I don't see it as being cheaper than Full Defense in terms of Initiative. I was playing it as: Spend 5 Initiative on the Free Action declaring Pre-Emptive Parry, and then spend 5 Initiative on a Parry Interrupt, but that Interrupt lasts the entire turn. If James only needs to spend the 5 as a Free Action that's great, but I wanted to let you know my thinking.
James will attack twice this CT, and save Reading the Defense for the next CT.
For the first attack: AGI (11) + Close Combat (7) + Touch Only (2) - Called Shot (4) - Held Action (1) = 15 dice.
Melee Attack:
15d6t5 9Capped at 7 for Accuracy. Hell of a roll, though. Should be enough for a glancing cut.
Second attack: AGI (11) + Close Combat (7) + Touch Only (2) - Called Shot (4) = 16 dice.
Melee Attack:
16d6t5 4I would have much rather those rolls been reversed, but such is life.
Initiative:
Initiative:
16+4d6 32Corrected Initiative is 28 once James takes his Free Action.
Assuming James goes first, he will:
CT2 IP1Free: Pre-Emptive Parry
Complex: Reading the Defense
Once I know the results of those two last attacks I'll put in an IC.