IZ2.0: Ashes of Phoenix

Game Master Aloha-Shirt-Samurai

Figured I'd just make a new post since it will put us conveniently with a combat card draw at the top of the new page. Ghiv enters the first round of combat shaken. There is a mild darkness penalty (-1) assuming you're not some sort of cool kid with night-vision cybereyes

The curtain shreds under a hail of gunfire from Alanna's 616. The gigantic, lizard-like genemod beneath it lets out a teeth-chattering screech, and a few of the bullets seem to find genuine marks, but most seem to clatter against the integrated kevlar coating that cover up the weakspots in its scales. Its claws tear off the remaining scraps of curtain and you can see unpleasantly sinewy muscles beneath its thick scales. Its head twitches from one side to the other as its claws dig in and it shakes off the initial burst of fire. The thing has the scars of untidily-performed cyberware augmentation in a couple of places, notably its entire left forearm and its eyes, which lock onto you with cruel, reptilian hate.

Alanna please give me a spirit check at -2. On a failure, you think it would be a really good idea to leave the second floor immediately. The Genemod comes into combat shaken.

On the first floor, the statue stops mid-loop, then begins to play, in alternating Japanese and English, <"THERE IS NOW AN ACTIVE SHOOTER SITUATION. GET DOWN ON THE GROUND AND AWAIT THE ARRIVAL OF YUKOSAWA CORPORATE SECURITY."> The tromping continues, and out of the two nearest hallways, you can see large security bots--what look to be custom modified Ravenlocke Oni models, which have a reputation for borderline-excessive armor plating and outright excessive combat protocols. Every bit as large as the regular models, they stand close to ten feet tall, their armor plating overlapping in a manner reminiscent of old-old-old-school samurai. Though they lack the mounted light gatling of the standard models, they draw and power on six-foot stun tetsubo and step forward, soon picking up speed and running.

Combat Card Draw

Red Joker: Genemod Beastie
Black Joker: Kitsune
King of Diamonds :Ravenlocke Oni [Southwest Hallway]
Nine of Clubs: Ravenlocke Oni [Southeast Hallway]
Five of Hearts: Alanna
Four of Spades: Syzygy 1.0
Three of Spades: N30N
Three of Diamonds: Ghiv

On the Red Joker: The genemod beast screeches again, muscles tensing...

No Shaken Throne: 1d4 + 2 ⇒ (3) + 2 = 5
Run die: 1d8 ⇒ 6

And then it charges at a disgustingly fast pace for its size. Though it can't quite clear the room to reach Alanna, it's scrabbling claws dig in and pull with every motion, bringing it closer and closer until it's only a few meters away.

The Genemod is unshaken and 6 pace away from Alanna. Tough break that it got the Joker to unshake...

Kitsune is up next. 1dr0meda, you have nine combat rounds before the spoofed key expires. The north elevator is 45 pace away from your current location and about 50 pace for everyone else. I'll see if I can get the map to cooperate, otherwise I'll get a google doc set up or we'll just wing it as per usual.

Kitsune looks at both bots alternately and shouts "Halt! I am Kitsune Yukosawa, check your databanks for my picture. I order you to stand down, there is no emergency here, everything is under control."

I figure that will either work or it won't, so I'm not rolling anything...

Spirit!: 1d6 - 2 ⇒ (5) - 2 = 3

Wraith's eyes go big, then flops down as fast as she can through floor onto the statue.

"Whoa. Okay, so...that didn't work," she says, climbing down the statue and keeping her rifle trained on the opening.

Around the time Ghiv was notifying us of what Wraith was dealing with, 1dr0meda calls out, "We can get on the elevator if we get there within 60 seconds and Kitsune provides her half of the pass key. I spoofed it for a short time only."

1dr0meda doesn't wait for a reply. She picks up Syzygy and heads for the elevator. She draws her pistol as she moves.

Run extra distance: 1d6 ⇒ 5

1dromeda's Pace is 4.

The tromping continues, and out of the two nearest hallways, you can see large security bots--what look to be custom modified Ravenlocke Oni models, which have a reputation for borderline-excessive armor plating and outright excessive combat protocols. Every bit as large as the regular models, they stand close to ten feet tall, their armor plating overlapping in a manner reminiscent of old-old-old-school samurai. Though they lack the mounted light gatling of the standard models, they draw and power on six-foot stun...

Might look something like ...

this?

Another view

Ten-Speed, I'm unclear as to the layout of the first floor - can we make it to the elevator *without* getting closer to the guard bots (i.e., are the elevators are in the opposite direction to us than them)? Even so, what's their running speed vs. ours (6+d6)? And with an average run of 9-10" per round, how many rounds would it take us to get to the elevators? Thanks!

They don't have any pictures of the Renraku Oni in the books, 1dr0meda, but I'm pretty sure that was exactly what they had in mind :)

Kitsune: At 9-10 as your average, you could reach it in five rounds. 1dr0meda has nine rounds (including this one) until the key expires. The elevators are to the north, the bots you've seen so far are to the southeast and southwest. It sounds like more may be coming from the northwest and northeast, though.

The bots are big and have long legs. Their base pace is faster than yours, but they don't get a run die. :)

On the King of Diamonds and Nine of Clubs:

The security bots pause temporarily, looking at each other, and one of them scanning down over Kitsune. <"Kitsune Yukosawa, scanning..."> It waits for a moment, then dings as the scan completes. <"Profile not found. Fifty percent genetic match, Keiko Yukosawa."> It snaps its baton back down, turning the stun field back on, as they resume movement.

Count it as a temporary stun. They lose their action to the scan this round, but it won't work a second time. They're about five pace out from the bulk of the group now.

Kitsune shouts so that all can hear "Ok, that didn't work, I say we RUN for the elevators!" And proceeds to do so.

Running: 1d6 ⇒ 1

Are we all going to have to make 5 or more running rolls to see how fast we get to the elevators, or can you just use our average?

So, are we running for the elevators, or standing/fighting. Because Ghiv is next to useless against robots...just letting you all know.

"Alright let's GO!" Wraith shouts, sprinting after Kits.
Run!: 1d6 ⇒ 2

Apparently I'm not super effective either. You'd think having one of the bigger assault rifles in the game would make me effective an' stuff. But not so much. Obviously we're going to need one thing....

1dr0meda did not get a card.

Use the post above for 1dr0meda's action this round (run). But next round, she will probably weigh attempting to hack one of the encroaching Oni's, so please indicate distance from 1dr0meda to each hackable adversary. (1dr0mea's range is now 72 feet.) I forget if Syzygy has her own TAP or if she is essentially piggy-backing via WiFi or some such on 1dr0meda's TAP.
Syzygy will probably try some kind of spam attack, so if her range is based on her smarts, her range will be 48 feet.

Woops! Sorry 1dr0meda. I know I pulled a card for you I just must not have pasted you into the order. My apologies.

For the sake of keeping track of things without a map (*stern fist shake towards r20*) I'll take your average, assuming everybody runs and nobody's making any heroic last stands. :) That means the party moves
10 pace per round.

Also, to be fair, you're very effective against almost all targets with the big guns. It's just that this particular critter is obnoxiously large... And this security has been customized to counter professional corpsec. :)

Round 3 Combat Card Draw:

Black Joker: Kitsune
Sleeved Card: N30N
King of Diamonds: Syzygy 1.0
Jack of Diamonds: Alanna
Ten of Spades: Renraku Oni (Southwest)
Nine of Clubs: Renraku Oni (Northeast)
Eight of Diamonds: 1dr0meda
Seven of Clubs: Renraku Oni (Southeast)
Five of Spades: Ghiv
Five of Diamonds: Genemod Beastie
Four of Hearts: Renraku Oni (Northwest)

As the party runs north to the elevators, the tromping noises continue as the lights illuminate the northeast and northwest hallways. Two more Oni stomp towards the northmost hallway, trying to cut you off.

Dealing in N30N on a sleeve since she took no action last round. 1dr0meda, I'll let you know how close the nearest Oni is once their actions have passed, but unless she runs towards them, they will be out of Syzygy's range on her action. Kitsune, N30N, Syzygy and Alanna are up.

Are these Oni operating with TAPs on? If so, could Syzygy try to program on the fly some kind of hyper interference to make it harder to see those in the radius of her range? Perhaps some kind of ghost images that might be mistaken for reality? Or maybe just a spray of colors and geometric shapes to interfere with line of sight, at least to the extent it is linked into their TAP. Perhaps something that could interfere with smart gun links. I thought there were rules for such attempts, but I can't find them now, so maybe this is not possible.

Running and drawing Katana.

Everyone please note, Running incurs a -2 MAP to any other actions (that require rolls) taken while running.

1dr0meda and Syzygy - please see some thoughts in Discussion. I was going to post them here OOC, but it got to be kind of long...

The Oni have wireless interfaces. Not proper TAPs since they're not sentient, but they are hackable. I'm very open to any creative use of hacking for alternate attacks, or in the case of robots, harming their fine motor control, etc. Bear in mind however that you do still need to hack past their firewall, which is a regular action. That seems to be the way Gunmetal Games balances hacking against physical combat.
Now that I have more experience with Shadowrun deckers, I... Don't fully agree, but it's a pretty easy compromise in exchange for a lot of potential power.

Creating an engram on-the-fly is a Knowledge: Programming roll which I don't believe Syzygy has. However, if 1dr0meda creates an engram on-the-fly she could easily pass it to Syzygy for use. I'm also assuming you can hack collaboratively (as long as you are both in range) and a firewall breach from one will allow attacks from the other. An area-of-affect attack engram is not a bad option right now as you get to the north hallway in a couple of actions and the bots will likely have to cluster once you do so. It also hits automatically once you breach their firewall, unlike most other engrams.

Alanna, you're up as well. I'm assuming you're going to be running with everyone, but you do already have your weapon out and could fire on any of the Oni.

Sry. Just now saw that I'm up.

Run!: 1d6 ⇒ 6

Not gonna fire so as to concentrate on running more.

Running!: 1d6 ⇒ 4

Sorely tempted to start lobbing grenades at the samurai robots, Neon nonetheless recognizes the tactical situation and runs for it with the others....

Ping?

Pong?