Mari rolled 11 using 3d6.  Survival Melee Girl 3 (13).
Mari rolled 12 using 3d6.  Survival Melee Girl 1 (13).

Looks like all three made it now.

The archers start reloading, while the melee girls close in on rifleman.

second 8: riffle fires off a few shots towards the Comanche on foot. she takes a bullet and goes down. The mounted comanche close to within 3 yards of him. The archers finish their second round of aiming. They have -4 (darkness) -3 (range) +2 = -5.

riffle is standing next to the ropes, with his horse on the other side. everyone has seen the ropes. riffle will act first.

Rifleman stands and calmly puts two shots into the closest charging Comanche, then ducks back and under the ropes (with a Step).




OOC:  Attack, Rapid Fire two shots.
19:17, Today: evileeyore rolled 7 using 3d6.  Rifle skill 15 (16 -3 Darkness +1 Tracer Eyes +1 Weapon Bond).  Rcl 3.
19:21, Today: evileeyore rolled 11, 7 using 3d6+1 pi+, 3d6+1 pi+.  Potential Damage.

Rifleman's target actually managed to dodge both his shots.

Mari rolled 8 using 3d6.  Dodge (10).

(I'm assuming the three on horseback get a melee attack on Rifleman each, so here they come.)

Mari rolled 7 using 3d6.  Attack with Spear (14 -3 darkness = 11).
Mari rolled 11 using 3d6. Attack with Tomahawk (14 -3 darkness = 11).
Mari rolled 7 using 3d6. Attack with Tomahawk 2 (14 -3 darkness = 11).
Mari rolled 8 using 1d6+2.  Damage Spear. (imp, so it's 16)
Mari rolled 7 using 1d6+1.  Damage Tomahawk 1. (cut, so it's 10)
Mari rolled 4 using 1d6+1.  Damage Tomahawk 2. (cut, so it's 6)

Are they dismounting?  Are they trying to perform ride-by attacks?  There is only so much room around a person on foot for three horses... plus the horses in the rope corral he just stepped into.

Yeah, if the comanche are simply trotting up to the rope, only one tomahawk can attack or two spears. Fancier movement can bypass this, but none was specified. The one tomahawk attack is because you can't attack someone with a tomahawk who is in front of your horse, they must be to the side. Now, if you jumped the rope and passed him you could pass him with a fair number of riders, but without crossing the rope, a tomahawk attack must have the horse horizontal to the rope. Spears are longer, and can attack someone in front of the horse, but you still can't crowd in well vs. the rope.

The weapon attack rolls will stay, but the Comanches may choose fancier movement or a different configuration.

The darkness penalty is -4, not -3, but the Comanche get +1 for the height difference. They are moving slowly enough to not suffer speed penalties (unless movement changes).

However, do they have a ride skill? they should, but I can't find it, and mounted attacks are capped by riding...

The B.A.T. has Driving (Automobile, Heavy Wheeled, or Motorcycle) (A) DX [2]‑12, so I'd be fine switching that over to Riding.

I swapped it for hiking, but if they've got horses, it makes sense to swap it for riding. That gives them riding at 12, which caps all melee skills. I'm open to some minor skill adjustments in the weapons points.

Or, they're just using riding at default.

I'd say it comes down to Mari's reasoning, did Mari not know Riding capped skills, or was this just overlooked at chargen (noting that the horses were a late addition)?

This was overlooked at chargen. If I would have build them myself, riding would probably be the highest trained skill.

So how do we proceed from here? I'm fine with not everyone being able to attack, but some should be able to. I have no idea why they should not be able to though.

When the horses were added, riding was not added with them. I would at least suggest swapping hiking for riding on all Comanche. I would additionally allow points to be moved from melee combat skills to riding.

Mari is correct that I pretty much built the bulk of the characters here, using the BAT template. We originally were going to do the Comanche on foot, but it just didn't make sense. I didn't think over how big a change to their skills that implied.

Alright, so can we say the ones with tomahawks swap their spear skill plus hiking for riding, and the other way round for the spear girl? That way riding would be high enough in both cases.

What has to be decided then so that the attacks can get resolved?

you've assigned 10 points to riding in each case. how about moving 6 from each of the "Off" skills and leaving two in their bad weapon?

You need to say which Comanche are attacking, and are each jumping the rope, or are they stopping near the cowboy?

Sure, that's fine.

I'd say one tomahawk girl jumps the rope, the other one and spear girl attack without jumping. As far as I understood, that should be possible?

You probably don't need to jump the rope, that would be harder than just "crashing through" (it's not like the rope is tied to stable posts or anything, just brush) and a failure on the Riding or Jump check is probably far worse than failing to convince the horse to push through the rope (which is just the loss of one attack, rather than a fall from the horse or breaking a horses leg and a fall from the horse).

My suggestion is on the 'crasher' a Quick Contest between Riding skill and Horse's Will.  On a Riding crit success the Horse crashes through, no worries.  On a sucessit crashes through, but gives some penalty to the attack (which might not matter with it being capped at riding), and on a Failure the horse balks and refuses to crash the ropes.

Ok, The position should be doable, though I had to build a diagram to show the positions.

https://drive.google.com/file/...pYS/view?usp=sharing

Okay, so with 16 points in the skill they have Riding skills of 16 (impressive).  Then they dropped their 'off weapon skill' to 2 points.  So the Tomahawk girls dropped Spear to 2 points and Spear Girl dropped Axe/Mace to 2 points?  Giving them 12 with their 'off-weapon' skill?



So then to clarify, Spear Girl rode up first (the first attack roll) and attacked?  This order sort of matters.

I guess so, why is there a difference?

It means both Tomahawk Girls will have to jump/crash the ropes... since Retreating* is always a combat option (unless there is no space to retreat to).


* Taking a Step away as part of an Active Defense roll.


Useful Diagram:
https://i.imgur.com/Vns2GVP.png  (for some reason RPoL post code doesn't recognize this as a link, weird)





And just to move things along...


Rifleman takes the spear to chest and stumbles away gasping...

OOC:  Rifleman dodging Spear Girl.  Failed.
19:18, Today: evileeyore rolled 13 using 3d6.  Dodge 11, (10 + 1 Retreating).

Damage 8 imp - 1 DR = 7, 14 Injury.

19:22, Today: evileeyore rolled 12 using 3d6.  Rifleman HT 12, Consciousness check.

I think we're waiting on a pair of Riding rolls from the Tomahawk Girls to finish this off?

Yep!

My apologies, I got violently ill and it took a while to get the bug out of my system.

Here are the riding rolls:

Mari rolled 14 using 3d6.  Riding roll 1.
Mari rolled 8 using 3d6.  Riding roll 2.

No worries!  Glad to have you back.

Both horses crash through the ropes (will saves were 13 and 14, both failures, and both riding rolls succeeded).

Rifleman still reeling from the spear wound manages to stumble and weave away from the Comanche's tomahawks!

He then takes a further step back* and fires at both of their horses (one hit, one miss)!


OOC: Spending 4 FP.

Feverish Defense +2 Dodge, -2 FP.
15:24, Today: evileeyore rolled 11, 6 using 3d6,3d6.  Two Dodges, Dodge 12 (10+2 Feverish Defense).

Followed by All Out Attack (Determined), Ranged Rapid Shot 2, Flurry of Blows, 2 FP.
15:39, Today: evileeyore rolled 7, 13 using 3d6,3d6.  Two shots at the horses, Guns (Rifle) 9 (16 - 4 Shock - 3 Rapid Shot - 2 Darkness + 1 AOA + 1 Weapon Bond).

15:52, Today: evileeyore rolled 7 using 3d6+1.  3d+1 pi.  Potential damage to horse.


* I know he can move up to half his move (at this point (after injuries) that's 2 Move), but I'm not sure how far away his horse is.

This whole "shoot the Comanche's horses" is hoping they foul one-another and jam the Comanches up 'when the horses panic'.  If they aren't "gun trained" they should be spooking hard.  The other hope was that both would hit, take out both horses and the Comanches would be jammed up having to get up and Spear girl would be hampered by the fallen horses giving Rifleman a second or two to recover and either run away or fire for effect.

I suspect that this tactic has failed...