Arm/disarm is a free action (SR3#157).  Selecting a clip if you have "selectable clip" is also a free action if the weapon is smart-linked (CC#78).  I assume that selecting a clip is part of arming/disarming weapon.  (It's hard to "arm" without doing an initial ammo selection.)  The free action for switching ammo simply means that you don't need to disarm and rearm the weapon in order to switch ammo.  The alternative is that having multiple clips for the weapon rather than one changes you from being able to activate and fire in one phase to needing two, which doesn't seem reasonable to me.

"Right."  Caduceus looked to his spirit once again.  He used lingo and descriptions that the spirit would understand, but his message as the layman would understand it was, "I want you to cause that limo to have an Accident as quickly as possible so that the vehicle stops moving and stays stopped.  Pop the tires, smear the windshield, pull out brake lines, or whatever else you have to do to get the job done."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:44, Sun 05 June 2016.

Ah.  Typo on my part.  So can I see what the biker is up to?  Is the bike still in the alley?

So, with moderate damage, I'm guessing I'm capable of getting off the roof by myself?

Yes.  Though you'll probably be swearing a bit, at least under your breath.  Between the clinic or myself and Caduceus, we should have you totally back to normal.  (Though you may need a change of clothes before you can go back to work . . . :>)

Awesome juice thanks.  BTW, is the 'selectable clip' option available?  Or are we going with the standard let's use several phases option?  I know I might regret it later on when our opponents start using that feature, but I just kinda wanna know.  And is this limited to only certain guns?

The dwarf curses quietly under his breath as he felt a blast of shrapnel tear through some of his armor.  He quietly prayed for reinforcements to show up as he dove for cover again.

White Duck charges at the sniper. She raises her puppy as a staff to protect her, but the weapon is awkward and her precarious sniper nest on the edge of the building works against her. She blocks the attack at her head, but the sweep catches her. She balances for just a moment on the precipice. White Duck can see her eyes go wide as she realizes what's happening, and then she's gone.

The limo put on speed as it dodged traffic on the avenue. Behind it, the remaining bike peeled onto the road, popping a few stray rounds towards the van. None of them are well aimed, nor large enough to cause real damage. As the limo approached a turn, a nail-covered board fell across the road. Tires scream as they grasp at the asphalt. A quick maneuver and they evade safely.

Noruas from his position no longer needs cover. He can see the limo, the van, and the bike, as they dodge in and out of traffic, heading towards the interstate. He can also see the sedan in front of the clinic, as it takes a moment to reorient.

(Copperhead has already rolled initiative. Everyone else who cares to participate can. As the vehicles move out of range, it'll be very difficult to be effective for the two on the roof, but they can go back and check on Freya if they want, or mop up on the ground, or just take a smoke break.)
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:27, Tue 07 June 2016.

Duck, you wanna help me mop up the leftovers on the ground floor?  Otherwise I don't think the clinic will let us in even if I'm bleeding all over the place like this.  Oh, and please help me loot that sniper's equipment.  I think we all wanna know who hired these guys.

06:52, Today: Noruas rolled 15 using 3d6+10 with rolls of 2,2,1.  Initiative.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:53, Tue 07 June 2016.

Clarification - the board dropped from the limo or someone else?  (And if someone else, did it get dropped in front of the limo?)

The drone swiveled in the air, switching from gel to EX rounds and began laying down a line of suppressive fire about 10 meters in advance of the speeding limo, tearing chunks out of the asphalt and peppering the area with shrapnel.  The message was clear - Stop, or your in a fragging dreckload of trouble.


Phase 1
Free action - switch ammo
Complex action - suppressive fire

10 rounds, not sure if they're spread over 2 or 3 meters to cover enough of the road it's not possible to drive around the hail of bullets.  The limo needs to make a successful dodge test to avoid the bullets.  If not the vehicle gets hit with as many bullets as they fail to dodge.  At that point, the passengers can also dodge, but with only half pool.  If they fail to miss the bullets, I make an attack roll with 6 dice needing 6s for the vehicle and 10s for each of the passengers.  (Or more if the vehicle itself has partial cover from my vantage point ~1000m up.)  Base damage for the vehicle is 5M and for passengers is 11S, subtracting armor.

Let me know what sort of cover the vehicle has for the rest of the turn if it opts not to stop.  I'll describe my remaining 3 phases when I see how the limo reacts.

From a nearby board up building, in front of the limo, as though by Accident!

Separate question - can gel rounds pierce vehicle armor?  In principle, if I'm shooting at the driver with gel, the 7S damage would become 3S (if the vehicle has 4 armor).  But I'm wondering if you'll disallow that from a realism perspective.

I'll play it by ear, but realistically, gel rounds aren't likely to cause any damage.

They certainly won't cause damage to the vehicle - hard to "stun" a car (though they may well  create nasty dents).  The question is whether you can essentially fire rubber bullets through an armored windshield and knock out (or at least give a nasty headache to) the driver.

Not initially, no. Blow out the windshield first. If it's not armored, that's not too hard. If it is, well...

Duck's eyes turn to Nouras as he speaks up, tinged pink, widened and full of what can only be interpreted as fury. By contrast, his countenance itself was calm and placid. There was something about his look that might remind one of a jaguar that caught sight of its prey. The first part of the dwarf's sentence seemed like a slow-motion blur in the background to him.

His muscles tense, and he snakes forward, closing the distance between himself and the dwarf in a swift, reflexive action. He finds himself within striking distance before he hears the words and recognizes the situation as one that has been resolved by violence.

There was something about that look in the woman's eyes when he pushed her from the ledge that struck him.

"She was shooting at other people with lethal intent, including my stubby little buddy."he'd told himself as his expression calmed and his posture relaxed.

"This guy, who's this fuckin guy?" asks his own inner voice of itself.

"Calm down self, this guy's your stubby little buddy. Don't kung-fu this one." it replies.

"Sorry about that man, adrenaline. You gotta kinda work yourself up in order to break people with your hands, yanno? Damn, almost got you there." he laughs.

He snaps on his mempo.

"I'll get you into that clinic, man, but we have to get you off this roof. That is one *nasty* gutshot. Let's have a little fun, shall we? I'll carry you down. Put pressure on that until we can get it tended. Got your credstick handy?" Duck draws a fancy handkerchief from the inside pocket of his suit. With his card tricks, it isn't entirely unlikely that it would be tied to numerous other fancy handkerchiefs, but alas, it is just the one. He hands it to Nouras as if he didn't want to get any blood on him.

18:57, Today: White Duck rolled 12 using 2d6+6 with rolls of 3,3.  Initiative, ROUND TWO?!?!

Duck's Mempo: https://img1.etsystatic.com/04...l.660849347_o0ge.jpg
This message was last edited by the player at 00:21, Thu 09 June 2016.

Noruas thought he was seeing things when White Duck was seemingly a blur, appeared closer to him in what seemed like an instant.  He shook his head as if trying to fix an old trid with terrible graphics.  He opened his eyes again, and there was White duck with a face mask on.

Nice mask, he comments, while keeping one hand on his wound.

He gratefully accepts the handkerchief and presses it against his wound.  He replies, Nah, I think I can get down by myself.  As for the clinic bills, let's see if our sniper has any cred on her that we can use.  It's only fair since she was the one that caused this.  And let's grab her gear as well, we could possibly use it in the future.  It's not like she's gonna need it anymore.

And with that, he heads down the stairs grimacing painfully with each step.

12:08, Today: Caduceus rolled 1 success using 1d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 4.  Initiative (+6).
Total of 10.

With his spirit already out there causing accidents to help them out, Caduceus moved to where he could get a good view of the limo in case anyone decided to get out and try to run.  He put one of his concussion grenades from his satchel into his hands (although he doubted he would end up using it) and then scanned the area with his astral sight to make sure nothing magical was going on that would surprise them later.

The limo takes evasive maneuvers as it passes through the rain of bullets. Meanwhile, rounds punch through commuters, leaving cars screaming and crashing. The limo turns hard to duck into a side street, momentarily breaking contact. Hiding maneuver, 4 successes. Its maneuver score is 10 lower than yours. The road between you just turned from Restricted to Tight, owing to car crashes.

Caduceus: Can't do astral perception from the van either. You need to either open a window, or astrally project. From the rules thread:

"-Transparency on the physical has NO bearing on transparency on the astral. You can't cast astral spells through closed windows unless you're dual-natured." (This is different from canon.)

Meanwhile, White Duck and Noruas can get back to the ground if they care to (WD much faster, between the wound and the long legs). There's not much to scour from the rooftop; a pair of binoculars and some netting with the sensor camouflage pattern. Most likely everything else went over the edge with her.

Duck gets back to the ground and retrieves his card. He also rifles through the woman's things to see if she had any information on her. In spite of his rifling, he doesn't take the rifle. His priority was assisting Nouras, who for all he knew could be bleeding out, so he'd let the dwarf handle picking up the rifle himself if he wanted it that badly. Instead, after looking for information, he removes his mask, then moves back to the back door of the clinic and knocks, or looks for some sort of intercom.

"Uh, hello? We've neutralized your attackers, but one of our guys is injured. We, uh, still have credits. Mind helping us out?"

I'd have been pretty careful to lay down my line of fire in such a way as it wasn't impacting other vehicles.  I.e. I wouldn't actually hit other vehicles.  I didn't picture this as a rush-hour situation?  That said, panic-driven crashes do seem realistic, so no problem with that.

And the rigger rules around this are definitely dumb.  Hiding and relocating should be opposed tests.  As it stands, his driving skill plays into his ability to get away, but mine doesn't play into my ability to find him again.  I'll propose some ideas when this combat are done. :>


Copperhead swore as the limo ducked out of sight, maneuvering to try to pick the vehicle up before it had a chance to lose her completely.


Target: Signature 2 + 4 successes + 3 for "tight" -2 for exactly 10 difference in maneuver score = 7

The rules say I can use sensors or perception and perception has more dice, so . . .

quote:

14:51, Today: Copperhead failed (no successes) using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 7 with rolls of 5,2,2,5,4,2.  Relocate.
14:51, Today: Copperhead failed (no successes) using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 7 with rolls of 5,1,4,4,5,2.  Relocate again.

14:52, Today: Copperhead failed (no successes) using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 7 with rolls of 2,2,5,5,4,2.  Relocate 3.

I screwed up there.  I should have done positioning on that last roll.  Oh well.

quote:

14:55, Today: Copperhead rolled 27 using 4d6+12 with rolls of 1,4,6,4.

Next CT, I'm going to spend first two actions "positioning", using all driving pool, then try again to locate - hopefully the positioning will give me a -4 instead of a -2 advantage and I'll lose the +3 for tight because he'll be beyond the accidents.

I guess I may as well just declare actions for next round seeing as I presume all he can really do is accelerate and continue to try to hide.

Maneuver score:
Vehicle +5, Terrain 0, Speed 0,

quote:

16:40, Today: Copperhead rolled 17 using 12d6 with the Shadowrun, Open Test with rolls of 4, 1, 2, 6+6+5, 5, 5, 3, 4, 3, 1, 1, 4.  Maneuver score.

So 22.

He'll be -3, -10, Speed/10 and whatever he gets on his open test.

quote:

16:46, Today: Copperhead rolled 6 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 2 with rolls of 3,4,(6+3)9,4,5,2.  Accelerate.

Speed of 9, so that's 54 meters/turn at end of this turn, so +5 to maneuver score next round.

quote:

16:48, Today: Copperhead rolled 12 successes using 12d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 2 with rolls of 2,4,4,4,(6+1)7,3,4,(6+3)9,5,5,4,5.  Positioning.

So that's +12 to maneuver score next round

Relocating again:
Signature 2, +4 (+ more?) escape bonus, +0 normal terrain (assuming he's clear of the crashed vehicles by this point), -4 (assuming I beat his maneuver score by more than 10)
So base TN of 2, adjusted by whether he hides from me this time.  But this time, he'll hopefully be at +6 for my higher maneuver score and may miss his -2 for tight terrain.

quote:

16:53, Today: Copperhead rolled 5 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 2 with rolls of (6+1)7,2,1,3,5,3.  Locate.

Hopefully that's enough . . .

18:00, Today: Caduceus rolled 1 success using 1d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of (6+4)10.  Initiative (+6).
Total of 12

Caducus silently cursed the RV's lack of easily openable windows as his senses slipped back to physical space.  He called back his spirit once more and said to it, "Keep tabs on the vehicle you are causing Accidents for and keep me up to date on where it is.  Don't let it escape your Search."

Then, not wanting the limo to escape them, Caduceus felt it was time to take measures to slow it down.  For that he shifted his spiritual self from the City domain to the domain of the Wind spirits.  A denizen of that domain would be able to slow down the limo's movement, or speed up their own if necessary.

Phase 1 he uses another service from his city spirit (Search)
Phase 2 he conjures a wind spirit.

Conjuring a Force 3 Wind Spirit
18:11, Today: Caduceus rolled 5 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 3 with rolls of 3,4,4,4,3,1.  Conjure Force 3 Wind Spirit.
5 services, 0 used

Drain Test
18:12, Today: Caduceus rolled 4 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 3 with rolls of 2,4,4,4,5,2.  Drain Test.
No damage.

Noruas eventually reaches the ground floor and pulls out his cellphone.  He takes a picture of the sniper's face and puts the phone back in his pocket.

Duck, do me a favor and grab the sniper and her gear.  I'm sure the clinic could use whatver is left of her body as payment for my treatment.  I didn't bring enough creds with me, so the equipment might also be handy to trade as well.  Well, if it comes to it, we can trade all of the stuff minus the ammo.  I'm sure we don't need other people to have more loaded weapons pointed at us.

Caduceus's spirit disappears--hopefully not for the last time, as Caduceus slips between domains.

The wind spirit appears on command, as a puff of thick, diesel smoke (and no sense of personal space). "Whaaaaattt?" it gasps at Caduceus.

White Duck rolls the sniper over and digs through pockets. She packed light, probably realizing not much would be required for this. An energy bar, a bottle of water, a trauma patch, a knife, some paracord, a pack of chemically-impregnated plastic stick "cigarettes", plus her camo-pattern armored jacket and about a dozen and a half EX explosive rifle rounds. Her rifle landed not too far away and doesn't look any better for the wear. The butt is broken off, the scope ruined, and the gun will need some TLC before anyone is willing to hold it next to their cheek again.


The traffic isn't 'rush-hour', but you're definitely not alone here, and the limo was heading towards bigger roads with more traffic. Now that its veered off, that may not be the case. And yeah, I thought the Hide rules were weird too, maybe to give the characters a chance to survive serious opponents. It is sort of opposed, but... not really. I don't think there's anything else like it in the book. Also worth noting, Positioning wouldn't have helped you--the bonus applies on the next Combat Turn.

Copperheads scanners come up empty and there's no sign from the little drone (as a note, I hope that Copperhead hands watching the drone feeds over to someone else while driving. I don't know that the drone is smart enough to find the car by itself.) Copperhead adjusts her search pattern, as Autonav brings up maps of the local area and the major intersections. Copperhead knows she has to be careful--they aren't too far from go-gang territory, and that would add a pretty nasty touch to this encounter.

Then the limo blasts out of an alley, tires squeal as it turns into traffic, then again as it dives into the next alley, moving too fast by half. For the moment, at least, Copperhead has visual.

(At this point, everyone else has additional actions, as the rigger actions took their entire turn.)

Noruas finds that no, going down a ladder is not faster than going up, unless you don't especially care about the ending. White Duck finds the back door to the clinic seems to be pretty well closed up, but the loudspeakers boom, "GO AROUND TO THE FRONT FOR SERVICE. IF YOUR FRIEND CAN'T DO THAT TELL HIM TO LAY DOWN AND DIE A LITTLE AND WE'LL SEND A PICKUP."

Van is parked back in the alley, blinkers on and surrounded by probably 30 meters worth of thermal smoke (popped 4 grenades inside a pretty narrow space).  I'm jumped into the drone.  It has better sensors, maneuverability and fire-power, plus it's pretty much out of range of anything that can shoot back.

For the next round:

quote:

15:38, Today: Copperhead rolled 36 using 4d6+12 with rolls of 6,6,6,6.  Initiative.

Oooh yeah . . . :>

quote:

15:57, Today: Copperhead rolled 8 using 6d6 with the Shadowrun, Open Test.  Maneuver score.

So my maneuver score is 5+0+5+12+8 = 30
His is -2, -2/-4 (depending on whether he's still in "tight" terrain), speed/10 and his open test.

I'm holding action until I see what he/she does.  On his turn I'll take a free action to see if there's anything I can drop (utility pole or something to block the exit of the alley).  I need something I can drop by shooting it, that is unlikely to cause civilian casualties and that there's no chance of the limo getting past without taking significant damage.  Also, I need a sense of how hard it's going to be to make that happen.  I'd rather not shoot the limo, but will if that's obviously the best solution.

"Bingo mudder-fragger"