The Unseen Servant forums

Turn 13
Taisho sees the woman move to skirt a thicket before her, to her left. A startled uguishi bush warbler cries out, there is a beat of wings amidst brush, and the bird flies away to the east. The woman turns her head and looks up at the standing rock. Taisho sees her face-- it is Akemi, and she sees that she has been seen. She looks smaller than in her loose kimono robes. In her men's clothes and farmer's hat and with her hair tied back she looks almost like a beardless young boy. She turns and faces the gakusho and looks him in the eye, then raises a finger to her lips, the hand holding the unsheathed wakizashi. Her eyes say, "Please-- don't make a sound, gakusho-san. You can trust me." She bows from the waist. Then turns around again, preparing to move.

Primary actions
The man with the yari attempts to shift his grip on its shaft to account for the short distance to his foe Ito. He tries to moves his hands up the shaft to shorten the length between hands and spearhead. The butt end of the weapon sticks between stones behind him. His face shows a look of panic and he turns his head to look and try to pull it free. Ito sees an opportunity for a perfect kenjutsu strike.

The blood-stained man with the naginata continues running and winding through stones behind Omi. To Taisho's and Kentaro's sight he disappears behind a stand of bamboo. Omi is only away that the man ran past him toward his rear a few heartbeats ago.

The dark blue armor man on the rock aims a downward cut at Omi. The blade's tempered and honed edge cuts into the steel of Omi's sode shoulder plate but does reach the bushi's flesh. An instant later there is the twang of a bowstring and a whistling sound growing louder as it rapidly approaches through the air. Kentaro's humming bulb arrow strikes and crashes through the man's armor and thigh.




Yari man rolled a 20 critical failure. I'm going to RP the critical RP effect and you guys can guess what it is.
Marullus, thanks for being fastidious about your arrows count. For future reference, I record every character's actions each turn on spreadsheets. So you won't have to search through posts again if we lose count of something.
Need Ito's, Omi's and Kentaro's actions.

Kentaro looks ruefully at his last arrow, a mere humming bulb. His last shot was shrugged off by the foe and he expects no better. He watches the bamboo stand where the foe ran to his companion's rear (4Pn). He decides to wait, watching, his arrow knocked. When that man emerges into view Kentaro will fire his last arrow at him - even if it misses, it will alert everyone to the man's movements and spoil any subterfuge the man intends...

Kentaro Daikyu [1d20]=14 humming bulb [5d3+3]=10+3=13

When Taisho's action comes up next, he will continue to observe, paying some extra attention to Akemi. There is certainly a bit of time to observe that she is trying to circle behind the bandits rather than coming up behind one of his companions...

Ito and Omi will each strike at the man directly in front of them.

Omi-
Attack-
[1d20]=1 A critical hit!
[1d10]=4
Damage-
[1d6+3]=4+3=7

Ito-
Attack-
[1d20]=17 probably a miss, but in case:
Damage-
[1d6+3]=3+3=6 I don't have Ito's sheet, so don't really know any of his stats

Ito, from atop the rock, strikes at the man below him. His katana hits, but at a slightly less than perfect angle. A plate of the man's scant ashigaru armor deflects the force of the blow away.

Need d10 and d20 rolls for Omi's Crit Success.
Then we'll do NPCs' and PCs' secondary actions. Go ahead and call your secondary action if you like.

Need d10 and d20 rolls for Omi's Crit Success.
Then we'll do NPCs' and PCs' secondary actions. Go ahead and call your secondary action if you like.
[/quote]

Already rolled the d10, it was a 4. Shouldn't need a d20, but I'll roll it anyway:

[1d20]=14

Revised
Omi aims at seem in the the man on the rock's ashigaru armor; his katana strikes perfectly and cuts deeply into the man's side. He gasps in pain, reels, and drops on to the surface of the rock. An instant later the man to Omi's flank stretches forward and delivers a naginata blow strike to Omi's thigh. The man before still works at extracting his yari.

Naginata [1d20]=2 5 HP damage


Revision: I initially had the katana man making a secondary attack. But he's unconscious because has less than 1 HP. But not dead because has more HP then 0 minus his level.
Naginata man is right on the line that divides Omi's side facing and rear facing. I used the side facing modifier. He's at Extra Long Range with a long range weapon (-1 to BCS).
Omi ends with 25 HP remaining.
Omi and Ito have secondary actions. Kentaro too, if he wants to do one of the available actions.

Omi will turn to face the flanking attacker (if he can, since this is not a primary action for him).

Ito will attack at half BCS:

[1d20]=19 Not even close, as the two continue to flail away at one another.

Kentaro continues to hold his last arrow to the string, waiting to fire when the man emerges frombthe bamboo stand.

Ito's katana strikes down at the man awkwardly attempting to free his yari's shaft from the stones. The blade hits, but man's armor saves him from a wound.

Sorry, I missed posting Ito's primary action. Need Omi's and Ito's secondary actions for this turn, if any.

Turn 14
Taisho sees Akemi enter the foliage before her, the bushes with the presence-betraying startled bird. There's the sound of a tiny stone striking a bigger one, around five or ten to the south and west. Taisho looks, sees nothing, and looks back. He sees no sign of the woman, either in the brush or behind it.

Though his armor has saved his flesh from the bite of Ito's katana and he's unwounded, the man below and before Ito lets go of the shaft his yari. The shaft of the weapon hangs at a shallow angle, its butt somewhere between jumbled stones, hard woody vines, or who knows what else. The man can't dare to look back and find out this second. With the heavily armored bushi standing above him, he dares not attempt to draw his wakizashi.

Taisho will Perceive Truth for Effect Number 4 looking in the direction of the stone sound.

Turn 14, first part
The man below and before Ito drops to his knees, raises his grimy hands and face up, and cries Onegai!

Taisho sees nothing notable in the area of the sound of a pebble hitting a stone. But he and Kentaro do see the man with a naginata leave from behind the foliage and run to the west.

The man in dark blue ashigaru armor lies on the rock, unmoving other than breathing shallowly. Blood runs across the surface of the rock and down its side.

Onegai - "Please (don't," in this case). Need Omi's, Ito's and Kentaro's primary actions.

Ito will tell the man in front of him to lie down, spreadeagled.

Omi will look around looking for more bandits.

I guess so as not to fudge, we should say that Kentaro shot his last arrow as planned.
There's a shrieking whistling as Kentaro looses his kabura-ya whistling arrow. It strikes a stone behind the running wounded man.
The man before Ito grunts hai and lies on the ground spread-eagle. There is a scabbarded wakizashi through his belt sash, but he makes no move toward it. It's on his left side and he's facedown with his right arm extended. Ito sees that the man is in no position to reach for it.
Omi scans the field, but sees no bandits, other than the one who gashed his thigh and is now running to the west.
Taisho sees Akemi to the south of his rock, standing and observing the situation with Omi and Ito. It's as if she appeared out of nowhere. She watches the bandit with the naginata run, and apparently flee. She slides the blades of the wakizashi and the knife into her belt sash, turns to Taisho, and again bows.

Any secondary actions, Ito, Kentaro, Omi?

Here's a video, if you want to hear what a kabura-ya sounds like. https://boingboing.net/2021/04/06/japan ... today.html