Marullus wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:17 pmDown Below... Báleygr heads for the basement.
Shadrach reports the layout and contents to Báleygr in a subdued tone, then heads upstairs his eyes downcast. He doesn't notice Nora following a minute later, though Oliver remains below with Báleygr. "Grandpa says the rad suits burnt-out years ago, but I can pull the door switch from here behind this lead shield to let you in and out..." His curiosity about the forbidden door is fit to burst out of him.
Báleygr:
This scene goes as Primary to Báleygr. You can continue with the the scene but now with Shadrach giving you a +2 for his help.
The reactor: Do you want to risk longer exposure to try to fix the nuclear reactor, ending radiation safely but at cost to yourself? Do you want a faster total shutdown so that it can't be used as a weapon if captured, but also ending its provision of electricity?
Or are you going to ignore the reactor and just take something that you can rig into an advantage? If so, what kind of advantage? What plan do you want it to support? This is a TL4+ laboratory - small but capable. You can potentially make a TL4 effect happen within a reasonable description (which is already mostly lost on this planet). (You'll be doing a quick run in to grab the thing and the right tools, then you can do your modding outside the radiation.)
Or are you just scavenging for good TL4 stuff, not necessarily weaponizable for the fight ahead? I can let you pick two reasonable non-weapon TL4 gadgets or I can randomize five if you grab things not being picky.
Make a fresh roll and include it. INT+FIX to repair or take what you need to mod a thing. WIS+FIX to scavenge non-weapon tech. (Both are +2 for you, anyway, +4 with Shadrach's help included.) Level of success will determine the quantity of items you are able to get.
Báleygr Gangleri"Thanks, Oliver. Once this is all over I can try a more permanent solution, so you can enter safely."Báleygr enters, not waiting for Oliver to close the door. He heads for the reactor and begins repairs. As time passes and he feels the effects of the radiation, he pauses to cast a spell before continuing on. Once the reactor is under control, Báleygr heads back to the door, grabbing a few items on the way out.
tinker, hacker, sense the need, reinforce tissue to heal radiation, Bioadaptation Augments, panspectral optics - Dangerous radiation and lasers tuned outside the range of visible light are also visible to the user
Plan : risk exposure to fix reactor by relying on innate abilities, thus allowing time for some of the other options - then scavenge for coming battle
Hansel seeing that the barn is in Shadrach's capable hands, Hansel runs back to the house to grab another load of batteries and one of the laser rifles, if still unclaimed, He then dashes back and will examine the farm equipment outside the barn to see if he can jerry-rig some sort of a tank, armored vehicle, or flamethrower. Once he's done the best he can, he'll settle in for the coming battle.
Fix [2d6+2]=9+2=11 That's a pretty decent roll, At the minimum, maybe I can get something running good enough to mow down a bunch of zombies in the open.
Last edited by redwarrior on Wed Aug 25, 2021 1:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
Taavi drives the creaking, bullet-holed, and now fragile truck up the house. He parked it off to the the side, so that it wouldn't be a barrier to the field of fire of shooters inside and on the house. He tries to think how it could be useful in the coming fight. "Mobility," he thinks, "is good for scouting and finding where the enemy is and it what it's doing. But we already know that. It's also good for flanking and flank attacks. And if it had a strong weapon, it might be useful in the undefended cow paddock. But the driver would risk being swarmed and overrun by the zombies." He has a mental picture of that, and it's not pretty.
He runs to the part of the yard where he can best be heard by the most people-- in the barn, on the roofs, wherever. In his best projecting courtroom voice, calls, Anyone have an idea how to put the truck to use in the fight? He then runs back to the truck, pops the hood, and looks for anything-- a loose connection, a jammed mechanism-- anything that might be affecting its performance.
Not sure if can do the driving, thinking and talking and also try to Fix.[2d6-1]=4-1=3Looks like it doesn't matter anyway.
PCs
Dust to Dust (Stars Without Number) - Circuit Counsel Taavi Perttu Big Shiny Island (AD&D 1E) - Theo, low charisma ranger Samurai Adventures (Cold Iron) - Kiyoshi, ronin bushi
WW2 Supers d6 - Luther "Luke" Goodfox
Shadrach will choose moderate coverage of all approaches, as we don't have any real indication of where the attack(s) will be coming from.
Marullus wrote:
In the loft above, Shadrach stands brooding and alone, silhouetted against the setting sun as he looks out the large, open loft door on the second floor, considering the open fields and multiple approaches. He turns and begins partially filling and stacking grain sacks from the attached silo when he sees Nora approach for where she was watching him work. "I... I wanted to thank you," she says, her tone laden as she reaches up, turning his chin to have him make eye contact. "This isn't your mess, but what you said in there... I want you to know, I appreciate it. I..." her hand drops to rest flat on the chestplate of his body armor, her eye contact unwaivering "I'm glad I don't need to be coy. With you."
Shadrach stiffens momentarily as Nora lays her hand on his chest and his face betrays a certain degree of surprise and uncertainty out of character for the old warrior. "Nora, it's...been a long time. Since my wife died. There hasn't been anyone else. And I can't make any promises about staying or whatnot. But if that's all right by you...well, you're a beautiful woman."
Oliver remains below with Báleygr. "Grandpa says the rad suits burnt-out years ago, but I can pull the door switch from here behind this lead shield to let you in and out..." His curiosity about the forbidden door is fit to burst out of him.
Báleygr Gangleri turns to the boy, contemplating the sealed lab door. "Thanks, Oliver. Once this is all over I can try a more permanent solution, so you can enter safely."
Báleygr unseals the vault doors on the underground lab and enters, not waiting for Oliver to close the door. The room is huge, a level of tech Báleygr has seldom if ever seen, and never here on Earth-9. His mutated eyes see the radiation as waves of coruscating colored light - finding the epicenter, the reactor at the center of the hazard, takes only a moment. With the scouting help from Shadrach, he is able to grab some tools from the table and find the control panels for the reactor. He heads for the reactor and begins typing rapidly, dealing with one error code after the next on the neglected nuclear control system displays. He can see - and feel - the radiation begin to abate as he resets crashed routines, recycles and refills the water reservoirs, and sets the internal virtual assistant to recondition the fissile material.
Walking into the epicenter of the radiation feels like standing in a sandblaster, the effect not only immediate but also worsened by being able to see the glowing light particles tearing at his flesh. Báleygr calls upon his inner strength, the teachings of his mentor in the marshes of his Southern Isles home, murmuring the incantations to heal the wounded flesh sloughing from his body like melting chicken fat. "Báleygr!" squeaks Oliver behind him, outside the door. The boy is wide-eyed, mouth open, as he watches the sores, rents, and tears in Báleygr's flesh open, ooze, then reseal themselves within seconds, the process happening on his exposed flesh over and over again as his body is damaged and then repaired. Incantations only heal the wounds, not prevent them, after all.
The warning bleeps of the reactor change to a self-satisfied status chirp, the submersion pools whirring and glowing with a bluish bottom-lit radiance, and Báleygr sees the radiation abate. It no longer cascades from the reactor, which is no longer failing but reset and restored by its now-functioning operating system to its normal parameters. Oliver breaks into a wide grin as the lights in the hallway and the lab stop flickering and resume a steady, even glow... and Báleygr stops sloughing flesh like a salted slug. "You're like magic!" the boy whispers, wide-eyed.
Báleygr can see that, although the radiation leaks are dealt with, the whole lab is still irradiated and will need a decontamination process. Fixing things took a considerable period of time and he can begin the decontamination cycle as soon as he leaves the room... it will take about twelve hours for the high-tech scrubbers to do their job, but he can pick up something while the countdown on the lab seals begins...
He looks around, his heart leaping at the technology he sees casually stacked in the room. A eight-inch glowing datacube next to him says calmly, "Please. Take me. You're going to need me more than the rest of it." The touchscreens of the faces scroll through blueprints rapidly, the side facing Báleygr resolving into a pixelated friendly smile.
Báleygr:
Well done! That was some epic moves.
Balygyr fixed the radiation, so will have free access to stuff in the vault, but is limited in his quick-grab by encumbrance. In the morning, they can negotiate with the farmers for other items. Also, since he spent his time fixing the reactor, he doesn't have time to mod any of the items but they can be used as-is.
He has 3/6 readied items and 11/12 stowed items. He can have two ready or four stowed items above that at Lightly Encumbered (reduce speed from 10 to 7) and two ready or four stowed above that at Heavily Encumbered (reduce speed to 5).
Within the room, and in the inventory lists he glanced at on the displays, he identifies:
A circular gateway eight feet across - he easily identifies it as one-half of a bonded dimensional magi-portal. (Immovable)
A Comm Server (TL4, Enc 3)
A Lift-Pod containing three Gravcycles (TL4, n/a)
A polished metal semi-circle that wraps the back of the head. (TL5, Enc 1) A wearable psytech device that operates as a Drone Control Link implant without having to be implanted.
Twelve Primitive Drones (TL3, Enc 2 each)
Two Stalker Drones (TL4, Enc 2 each)
Two Sleeper Drones (TL4, Enc 2 each)
One AI Companion (TL4, Enc 2) It's talking to you.
Four tubes of polymorphic nanites (TL4, Enc 1 each)
Ten Portaboxes (TL4, Enc 1 Each)
Eighteen Instapanels (TL4, Enc 1 per three)
Lab equipment sufficient to equal a Toolkit/Pretech (TL5, Enc 1)
Three pairs of Grav Handles (TL5, Enc 1 each)
One Floater Ruck (TL4, Enc 2 when stored)
Drones are all basic, equipped with cameras and sound (and Stationkeeping on the Sleepers) and can be smacked into things as a weapon with damage to themselves. When you have the time/opportunity to do mods, I will allow you flexibility in configuring them with Fittings while in this lab before you depart.
Grav Handles: These sophisticated cargo handling tools are too expensive to justify their use in most loading docks, but when large, heavy objects need to be maneuvered without the help of heavy equipment, grav handles prove invaluable. Each handle requires a type B power cell and will operate for up to one hour on the charge. While attached to an object, the item will rise up one meter above the ground, and can be pulled or pushed by means of the grav handle. The maximum rate of motion of such an object is sixty meters per round. The grav field created by the handle supports even fragile objects that are lifted, but the entire item must be a whole- a statue, a crate, or a tightly-wrapped bundle rather than a mere pile of detritus.
Floater Ruck: This small platform can be reconfigured with sliding cloth panels and a polyceramic support frame to be up to a maximum of 2.5 meters in length and one meter in width. A single Type A energy cell allows it to float silently up to two meters above the ground for 24 hours. It can support up to 250 kilos of cargo while floating along at the maximum speed of a running human. Floater rucks are usually “tethered” to one member of a squad, automatically following them at a distance of some meters, though they can be programmed for remote operation with any standard military compad. The rucks have a maximum range of 300 meters from their controller.
These rucks are prized by fireteams for their ability to carry heavy burdens of ammunition and supplies, but they're also extremely easy to spot when they're floating a meter and a half off the ground. Recon groups avoid using them for reasons of stealth, but some squads will carry a deactivated, compacted ruck just in case a critically-wounded comrade needs to be extracted over rough terrain. They can also serve as makeshift watercraft or swamp boats, floating over calm waters while carrying one soldier at a time. Floater rucks have an effective Armor Class of 9, and 8 points of damage are sufficient to render them inoperable.
[/ooc]
In the Barn...
Nora approaches from where she was watching Shadrach work. "I... I wanted to thank you," she says, her tone laden as she reaches up, turning his chin to have him make eye contact. "This isn't your mess, but what you said in there... I want you to know, I appreciate it. I..." her hand drops to rest flat on the chestplate of his body armor, her eye contact unwaivering "I'm glad I don't need to be coy. With you."
Shadrach stiffens momentarily as Nora lays her hand on his chest and his face betrays a certain degree of surprise and uncertainty out of character for the old warrior. "Nora, it's...been a long time. Since my wife died. There hasn't been anyone else. And I can't make any promises about staying or whatnot. But if that's all right by you...well, you're a beautiful woman."
Nora steps forward abruptly and kisses him, hard, then pushes him away. "Remember that," she adds huskily, then Emile walks up the stair from the lower level. He says, "All secure below... I ain't much for fixing things, but I can help with the defenses." There isn't much else said -- the three of them work well, measuring sight lines from the upper barn-bay doors, filling and stacking grain sacks into makeshift shooting positions, and establishing moderate-cover (+2 AC) shooting stations against the main road, paddock way, and the center of the fenceline. Losing the light, they know its time to face what's coming ahead.
In the Yard...
Taavi drives the creaking, bullet-holed, and now fragile truck up the house through the downpour of rain. Thunderheads are rolling in, lightning streaking across the sky. He parked it off to the the side, so that it wouldn't be a barrier to the field of fire of shooters inside and on the house. He runs to the part of the yard where he can best be heard by the most people-- in the barn, on the roofs, wherever. In his best projecting courtroom voice, calls, "Anyone have an idea how to put the truck to use in the fight?" He is hopeless looking at the engine under the popped hood, but Báleygr heard him and comes to help. "Here..." he steps in with his metatool and adjusts the gravetics of the truck, leveling it out and stabilizing the major damage done in its crash. The flatbed grav-truck is suitable for a mobile shooting platform, if desired.
Hansel seeing that the barn is in Shadrach's capable hands, Hansel runs back to the house to grab another load of batteries and one of the laser rifles. Looking at the farm equipment outside the barn, his eyes the third tractor which someone has already been tinkering with. Definitely has promise. Oliver comes out to lend a hand, "You like the ZombieTractor 3000?" He grins broadly. The harvester on the front, combined with some wheatcutter blades you saw in the barn, would be very effective against whatever fleshy person the driver runs over with it and the cab on top won't stop bullets but offers some decent protection. With Oliver pointing out his customizations, Hansel is able to troubleshoot and get the truck running (and blades whirling) in short order. (Someone can drive the ZombieTractor 3000.)
Darkness Begins...
The proximity sensors at the edge of the valley trigger a warning, speakers on the farmhouse porch blaring a notification that "company is detected." Everything stops for a moment. Time is up.
Nora gets a large duffel bag and heads up to the top floor of the barn. Oliver tries to grab two laser pistols, but is stopped and shooed back into the house with a command to get down to the basement and close all the doors. Old Richard locks the front door and takes his position on his kitchen chair, partial cover provided as he pokes the barrel out of the adjacent window as he was when you sauntered up the driveway.
Everyone position yourselves somewhere on the property and declare an initial action. Roll a 2d6 skill check for the action you're attempting (2d6+Dex+Shoot is acceptable). Tell me your Armor Class. If your action includes attacks, also roll two damage rolls for good measure. I'm going to use a scene-based dramatic resolution as described here.
Hansel hears the alarm from the house as he is finishing up repairs on the ZombieTractor. He quickly hops in and fires it up, and lets it idle, hiding behind the barn, while he jerry rigs the laser rifle's sling to the cabin frame. As soon as it's clear where the main zombie assault has broken through, he mutters to himself this badge must be effecting my intelligence... as he guns the engine, and sets all the blades spinning as he does a couple of donuts through the largest concentration of zombies. As soon as he starts to feel overrun, he straightens the treads out and guns the engine for the safety if the barn, using the laser rifle the whole time to shoot any zombies climbing up the tractor, or those nearest it. As he sprints back for safety, he hopes that Shadrach likes him enough to pick brush some of the zombies off the tractor from a distance. That wasn't smart. That's something for someone else to do next time. Assuming he has survived this run, he'll swap out battery packs and get ready to do it again.
Everyone position yourselves somewhere on the property and declare an initial action. Roll a 2d6 skill check for the action you're attempting (2d6+Dex+Shoot is acceptable). Tell me your Armor Class. If your action includes attacks, also roll two damage rolls for good measure. I'm going to use a scene-based dramatic resolution as described here.
Báleygr Gangleri grabs the essentials, filling his arms to capacity. He wears the polished metal semi-circle that wraps the back of the head and pilots the drones upstairs.
One AI Companion (TL4, Enc 2) It's talking to you.
Two Stalker Drones (TL4, Enc 2 each)
Three pairs of Grav Handles (TL5, Enc 1 each)
One Floater Ruck (TL4, Enc 2 when stored)
Báleygr aims his laser pistol out a window in the rear. He sends the two drones out the open window and using the wall for cover he shoots at the first target he sees within range.
Last edited by cybersavant on Sun Aug 29, 2021 6:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Richard looks at Báleygr's short-range pistol dubiously. "Gonna hit less if you go to the second floor. Might as well stay down here."
Clarifying:
Hansel is staying in the packed-earth yard between the house and the barn for those that make it past the outer defenses.
Báleygr is using a pistol from inside the house, he needs to choose front of the house or back of the house.
Also, Báleygr need to state what, if anything, he took from lab inventory before the fight.
Emile takes position on the first floor. He will stand at the main door, defending that entrance while those outside do their things. He will fire out the door or a near window, whichever gives him better spread. He will shoot any zombies in range. If anyone makes a break for the house from the yard or barn, he will provide cover fire while they come in.
As I understand it:
Shadrach is on the barn.
Hansel is driving the zombie combine.
Báleygr, Richard and Nora are in the house. Or is Nora in the barn?
No one is operating any drones.
That leaves someone to watch the cliffs at the back of the house (unless Báleygr does).
Taavi's AC is 13. Rifle ammo - 20. Pistol ammo - 17. If he has line of site to Hansel's tractor, he'll shoot any zombies approaching it. Taavi's a prudent guy, he won't take any wild shots that could accidentally hit Hansel, unless the situation is really desperate.
Taavi goes to the roof of the house with his semiautomatic rifle, his laser pistol, his semiautomatic pistol, and his backpack with rifle shells and battery packs. The pistol isn't optimal for long range, but it will have to do if he runs out of shells. He lies prone and fires at zombies to the front. After every three shots, he looks back at the cliffs for any activity.
From his perch in the barn loft, Shadrach fires up his actuators and begins siting in on the closest zombies. "Grim, go keep those things off Hansel." The creature bounds down to the barn floor and streaks out into the lowering gloom, seemingly eager for the fight against the creatures.
He toggles his comms. "Anybody have eyes on Petr?"
The automated warning comes to a stop, everyone scrambling to take positions, then... wait. Thunder beats overhead like a drum, forking lightning branching across the sky. The rain falls thicker and heavier, fat drops falling like a volley of tiny mortar rounds, splattering in the puddles now in the hardpacked earth between the farmhouse and the barn. Ensconced within the house, Oliver's voice comes across everyone's earpiece radios. "They're at the outer fences... ooop... past the outer fences. I'm watching through the scarecrows... there's... there's so many of them... where'd he get them all... they, well, a lot don't really have skin. They..."
"Get off the microphone, Oliver," says Old Richard firmly and the radio goes quiet.
In the barn loft, Shadrach and Nora crouch in shooting positions behind the piled grainsack-sandbags, breathing shallow with anticipation as they watch out the loft's bay doors. The rain buffets outside, but the floodlights shine outward, showing movement at the horizon, across the fields. Shadrach carefully sights his rifle, waiting for them to close. Nora lifts 'Azrael' from the floor - a tinkered and refitted plasma cannon of dubious construction. "You're fuckin' with the wrong wolf baby... this war is mine," she says solemnly into the night and pulls the trigger. A crackling ball of blue-white energy thumps out, arcing through the night sky. FOOOOM! The fields beyond the inner fence light up as the glowing projectile expands on impact - briefly they see the shambling hordes, scores of zombies, a half-dozen of them flailing as they melt in the projectile's blast. "I am the fire," she whispers cold and quiet. FOOOOM! FOOOM! FOOOM! The projectiles fall into the mass in the outer fields, but the throng keeps coming. Beside her, Shadrach's joints whir as he aims and fires round after round through his combat rifle in cold, calculated precision. He picks off those zombies running ahead, each rotting or skeletal head that pops over the sheet metal of the inner fenceline explodes like an overripe watermelon, no foes crossing the inner fence along the field boundary... yet.
Partial success from Nora has limited effect on the Field front. Full success from Shadrach prevents breakthrough.
In the yard, Hansel sits atop the jerry-rigged harvester, rigging his laser rifle's sling to the cabin frame. Under the cabin's roof, the motor rumbles with silent power beneath him, rain splattering on the engine cover and dampening his clothes. "Nobody's on the road... they're skipping the road..." comes Oliver's voice again, tense. "Wait... they're in the paddock lanes! Hansel! They're in the paddocks!" Hansel throws the tractor into gear and it roars forward, the wheatcutter blades spinning on the front, a vortex of steel.
"This badge must be affecting my intelligence..." mutters Hansel as he guns it towards the paddocks. The throng of mostly-dead jamming into the wide paddock lane like so much irradiated cattle splatter into gobbets as the spinning wheatcutter blades mow into them, but there are just too many. After a few donuts at the leading edge of the mob, scrabbling hands and bone fingers clamber up the sides of the tractor and Hansel tries to gun it back to the open space of the yard. His shots with the mounted laser rifle are ineffectual... a half-rotted face imbued with only the single emotion of violent rage heaves up onto the windshield and clambers towards the open sides of the cab. Just before it reaches Hansel's exposed flank, the shadowy form of Grim, the almost-dog, leaps from behind and tackles the creature off the tractor. Grim and the zombie struggle as they fall, knocking a few others off the side of the tractor and giving Hansel the opening to floor the throttle in desperation back towards the yard of the house. Hansel exhales in relief that he is uninjured, but there's no sign of the Grim amidst the throng of zombies in his rear view mirror...
A partial success for Hansel and a failure by Grim on the Paddock front. Hansel thins the assault but is himself in mortal danger. Grim absorbs the threat (Hansel uninjured) and Grim is knocked out of the fight in the process.
The substantially thinned mob of zombies follows Hansel out of the paddock lane and into the farm yard, breaking through past the flank of the barn as Hansel circles to prepare for his next run. Taavi on the roof and Old Richard in the front window of the house are ready for just this occurrence, however, picking the remaining zombies off of the Zombie Tractor 3000 at long range then turning to each zombie that emerges from the now-open paddock gate. Sacrificing his comfort to have a clear view of both front and rear with his rifle, Taavi is soaked to the bone by the downpour of rain, but pleased with his first real success with the rifle. Emile stands under the front porch roof, six-shooters in hand, and cleans up the stragglers that make it to mid-yard on approach to the house, bodies now littering the yard at 50 to 100 yards out. The government flatbed truck, repaired and useable as a mobile platform, idles and floats on its grav system next to the front porch in case it is needed.
Taavi and Old Richard with full successes and Emile with partial success for defense on the House-Front area. The lessened zombies that progressed after Hansel's partial success and dispatched efficiently and the house itself remains unthreatened from this vector.
"I... I've lost all the outer perimeter fences!" comes the scared voice of young Oliver over the ear pieces.
Standing at the back door of the house, half-covered by the doorframe, Báleygr configures his arm-full of tech gathered from the basement lab. Sliding the smooth steel headband on so it rests above his ears and wraps around the rear of his head, he lowers the pair of green-tinted lenses over his his eyes and tests the heads-up display now integrated onto his field of view. The two sleek, round drones rise silently on their anti-grav systems and float out the door and into the sky as he pulls out his small laser pistol and prepares to defend the rear of the house against assault. The six inch display cube glows a soft blue, the soothing mechanical voice speaking from it, "Ahhh... the drone controller is a wise choice, sir. If you open the access port with the physical toggle on the right side, I can assist with interpreting the feeds for you by interfacing directly with your neural connection..." Báleygr finds he can process the three visual streams as long as he remains stationary at the doorframe and is pleased the drones respond to his mental command. They show a clear visual of the top of the house and the sodden Taavi, then flank left and right respectively to inspect the cliffs at the rear. He sees at least two dozen creatures, shadowy monsters rather than formerly human zombies, clambering down the cliffs already and into the rear yard of the house. They will be on him shortly and his laser pistol is clearly not enough...
Partial success for Báleygr alone at the rear of the house and a bonus capability of two employable drones rescued from the lab. (Per Drone Control Link device, he can command 1+Program (2 for Báleygr) drones with his Move action instead of a Main action.) As a partial success with overwatch capabilities, he overcomes their surprise and is able to react while they're on approach, but the threat is already too close for him to counter at-range.
Through the rain Taavi spots the monsters clambering down the cliffs and rapidly crossing to the back of the house. Damn! pops out of his lips. He runs to the edge of the back half of the roof, lies on his belly, and begins firing at the closest monstrosities.
[2d6+1]=11+1=12[1d10+2]=10+2=12[1d10+2]=4+2=6 Question: Since this is scene-based vs. turn-based, how do we keep track of bullet ammo used? (Taavi started with 20 rounds. And the rifle's magazine holds 6 rounds. If he would have to reload during this scene, he'll use his semiautomatic pistol instead (1d6+1 damage)).
PCs
Dust to Dust (Stars Without Number) - Circuit Counsel Taavi Perttu Big Shiny Island (AD&D 1E) - Theo, low charisma ranger Samurai Adventures (Cold Iron) - Kiyoshi, ronin bushi
WW2 Supers d6 - Luther "Luke" Goodfox
It is assumed you are reloading appropriately, and you can run out of ammo as a twist/complication (on a miss or partial success). Common twists are losing a capability (i.e. running out of ammo), Getting injured, or having partial or no success at your goal (i.e. the zombies get through). It depends on the narrative and I choose.
I assume Báleygr will share the news of the rear assault on the radio ear pieces. Which will allow you to still act to aid at the back of the house.
Please do not assume, however, that information available to others is also available to you unless they share it. It is not feasible for Taavi to glance back over his shoulder and see creatures who are made of shadow, moving at night in the dark, through a raging downpour, a half mile away. Báleygr invested a scene to get his TL4 drones for overwatch and it is his opportunity to shine in sharing the unique discoveries from their work. Without drones scouting close up, it would have been a surprise attack.
While facing the front and shooting from the roof, Taavi has been looking back to the rear after every few shots, trying to cover both sides. (Didn't know if anyone was covering the back side of the house).viewtopic.php?f=1074&t=11254&start=80
Sorry, should have read through more carefully. I thought GM just missed part of my earlier post. These things happen in PBP. OK, Taavi is still shooting toward the front and watching the area in front of the barn, glancing to the rear every few shots. And wiping rainwater from his eyes.
Last edited by jemmus on Sun Sep 05, 2021 1:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
PCs
Dust to Dust (Stars Without Number) - Circuit Counsel Taavi Perttu Big Shiny Island (AD&D 1E) - Theo, low charisma ranger Samurai Adventures (Cold Iron) - Kiyoshi, ronin bushi
WW2 Supers d6 - Luther "Luke" Goodfox
Standing at the back door of the house, half-covered by the doorframe, Báleygr configures his arm-full of tech gathered from the basement lab. Sliding the smooth steel headband on so it rests above his ears and wraps around the rear of his head, he lowers the pair of green-tinted lenses over his his eyes and tests the heads-up display now integrated onto his field of view. The two sleek, round drones rise silently on their anti-grav systems and float out the door and into the sky as he pulls out his small laser pistol and prepares to defend the rear of the house against assault. The six inch display cube glows a soft blue, the soothing mechanical voice speaking from it, "Ahhh... the drone controller is a wise choice, sir. If you open the access port with the physical toggle on the right side, I can assist with interpreting the feeds for you by interfacing directly with your neural connection..." Báleygr finds he can process the three visual streams as long as he remains stationary at the doorframe and is pleased the drones respond to his mental command. They show a clear visual of the top of the house and the sodden Taavi, then flank left and right respectively to inspect the cliffs at the rear. He sees at least two dozen creatures, shadowy monsters rather than formerly human zombies, clambering down the cliffs already and into the rear yard of the house. They will be on him shortly and his laser pistol is clearly not enough...
Partial success for Báleygr alone at the rear of the house and a bonus capability of two employable drones rescued from the lab. (Per Drone Control Link device, he can command 1+Program (2 for Báleygr) drones with his Move action instead of a Main action.) As a partial success with overwatch capabilities, he overcomes their surprise and is able to react while they're on approach, but the threat is already too close for him to counter at-range.
Báleygr Gangleri follows the AI's suggestion, then activates his comm. "Surprise attack at the rear. I'm not the best equipped for this." He'll shoot his laser if in range, or alternately use his biogun. "AI, what's your designation, and tactical suggestions?"
Last edited by cybersavant on Tue Sep 07, 2021 11:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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OK, Taavi is still shooting toward the front and watching the area in front of the barn, glancing to the rear every few shots. And wiping rainwater from his eyes.
I just wanted Báleygr to be able to have his own moment and share IC. Now that he's given the warning, you're able to respond by switching to the rear... you took positioning in the rain to allow you to easily switch between front and rear of the house.
Hansel listens to the radio chatter about a break-through and hems and haws for a few moments. It sounds like Tavvi is shifting to cover that… Muttering there’s something wrong with this badge…I know it.. as he revs the motor and makes another pass through the thickest group of zombies again.
Shadrach quickly lifts a hand to shield his face from the light of the balls of lightning spewing from Nora's weapon. "That's a powerful weapon, but pure hell on the night vision," he mutters. As one wave falters, he takes advantage of the momentarily lull to swap magazines and thumb rounds from one half-full magazine into another, dropping the empty mag into a cargo pocket on his left leg. "Still, right effective against a wave attack like this." He gives her a grim smile and settles back prone, aiming at the zombies mobbing the tractor.
He toggles his comms again. "Baleygr, how's it going back there? More zombies, or something else? Tavvi, you backing him up? Call out if ordinary bullets don't do the trick."
OK, Taavi is still shooting toward the front and watching the area in front of the barn, glancing to the rear every few shots. And wiping rainwater from his eyes.