GM_Foxy's Incident at Absalom Station (Inactive)

Game Master Foxy Quickpaw

"Hold on! Calm the f&&@ down. Okay, we will return to our place of origin! Just leave our ship and we will make reparations for our transgression!"

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 11 + 1d6 ⇒ (1) + 11 + (2) = 14 Well, s~+*.

I think I've tried the diplomatic approach at the outset of every new engagement. Still waiting for that tactic to pay off...

Draws his rifle and ready to fire if the 'robot' takes further aggressive action. Basically waiting to see how Maxim's attempt at diplomacy works out. "I think you need to work on your delivery there Maxim."

Touch: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (14) + 9 = 23
Imagine casts some of her magic and does a charge-slide-duck-touch delivery of the magic.
CL Check: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (16) + 9 = 25
Remove affliction

The form of the Anhamut glitches several times. Once that stops is says "Who are you? Stop the hostilities and put down your weapons!"

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 24 ⇒ (18) + 24 = 42

Gorn nods in approval at Imagine. "That's one way to do it."

Takeda points his rifle at the floor but keeps the butt of it seated in his shoulder ready to raise and fire if necessary.

When the creature had manifested , Voxx's sword escaped it's sheath with a hiss...

Maxim's diplomatic effort forestalls his assault, however. He stands ready , his teeth clenched, waiting for his moment to attack.

"Are weapons are down. We come in peace. We merely observed this spatial anomaly and, in the great tradition of scientific exploration, are seeking to understand its nature."

Sense Motive: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (17) + 4 = 21

"Exploring is good. I support that! What is this spatial anomaly you're talking about?" You get the impression the reboot of the thing is not complete yet.

"A concentric ring of twelve stars. A curious thing indeed, if it were to occur naturally!"

"Ah, that! Are you with those evil cultists?" the inevitable inquires, anger rising in its voice.

"Evil Cultists! Of course not! Don't insult us. We are scientists. See, here's my book." Maxim pulls up his first book - the good one - on the holovid. A seductive female voice begins by reading the title and his name, then the foreward before starting the prologue. The choice of vocal talent was his recommendation. Sex always sells.

He catches himself from being mesmerized for the thousandth time. "What do you know of evil cultists, anyway?"

"I had an altercation with a fearsome group entering the system in an unsafe-looking fleet of vessels. I attempted to speak peacefully with the group but were attacked for my trouble, and then I was shunted into the
Drift."

"You seem peaceable. You're welcome to hitch a ride with us until we drop back into normal space. How many ships were in that fleet?"

"Three of them. One large ship and two smaller." the inevitable tells.

"Fair enough. Make yourself, err, comfortable, and please don't tamper with the coffee-maker. I have the pressure valve tuned just perfectly."

I realize I took this encounter over. That doesn't usually happen. In fact, this has never worked before.

"Hey, we finally managed to solve a conflict without killing someone. That's a first, isn't it?" Imagine comments as the robot thingy makes itself comfortable.

"It would seem Vexx and I are tokens of good luck. Good job Maxim."

Gorn is unsure how to feel since his -missing- the initial attacks has actually helped solve the situation.

"Good job, team. Good job all around," he grumbles.
"Now I'll check the engineering station to make sure the new comer didn't get space dust over everything."

Seeing that the space alien had become , for now, a non-threat, Voxx sheathes his sword and takes his seat once again.

He watches EH-RK pilot the ship, he's a fair hand at steering a ship, but seems the android knows a thing or two he doesn't.

And travel goes on. As you finally leave the drift you face the gate of the twelve stars. It is obvious even from a cursory scan that the system is not a natural phenomenon.

Scans?

From the vicinity of the nearest star, a trio of ships approaches: one large ship and a pair of escorts speeding alongside. All sensors indicate that they are on an intercept course! The comm channels screech to life, and a gaunt man leers toward the camera lens. His skin is dark but is made nearly iridescent by a swirl of glowing nanites. Long, silver dreadlocks and an unkempt charcoal-colored beard frame his face. The distortion of the lens puts a shade of menace to the man’s movements and appearance.

"Are you ready for the end?" The question hisses out from a mouth of brown crooked teeth; a yellowish, soapy spittle flies forth with every syllable uttered. "I am the agent of oblivion! I am the fang of the Devourer! I am the herald of annihilation. I will sing when your bodies—then only shells— drift and twirl through the void, charred amid the tangled wreckage of your ship, and your journey to nothingness is nearly complete!"

I take it this is not the Corpse Fleet.

Maxim jumps over to the Science console and initiates scans of the small fleet of ships - gathering size and armaments, and whether they have fighters to deploy.

Scanners (Computers): 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (1) + 14 = 15

"EH-RK, keep them to our port side and outside long range until we know what we're up against."

Then Maxim smiles and turns to Gorn. "You wanna tell this buck-toothed clown what we're about?"

Maxim butterfingers accidentally puts the scanners in maintenance mode.

"Oh god, put it out of it's misery already!" Imagine moans.

"Are you ready for the end?" The question hisses out from a mouth of brown crooked teeth; a yellowish, soapy spittle flies forth with every syllable uttered. "I am the agent of oblivion! I am the fang of the Devourer! I am the herald of annihilation. I will sing when your bodies—then only shells— drift and twirl through the void, charred amid the tangled wreckage of your ship, and your journey to nothingness is nearly complete!"

"So that's your name? Herald of Annihilation? Your parents must've hated you.

Listen kid," Gorn says at the view screen, "You've got one big ship--probably compensating for something, that's obvious--and two little b!**&es that don't know how to fight next to you. That's super. Good for you.

Your move, creep."

Takeda, "Okay, Captain, you want me on guns or shall I move my tail to engineering?."

Trying to find my niche. Piloting happens to be my best skill at +15. Engineering is number 2 at +12. My current ward is the ship

Gorn is only good for engineering, or perhaps as a secondary gunnery with his BAB. I think we'll get the feel where we slot best during this battle. Right now I think we want Takeda on the Turret firing the Linked Twin Lasers. We want Voxx on the next gun down the line, depending on arc. The rest of us can figure out where to be after that.

"Take the Nuts, Takeda," says Maxim, referring of course to the big guns on the turret.

"I'm on it." Takeda says and moves to take position.

Would this be more of a console on the main deck like star trek or more of a swiveling seat aka last starfighter or star wars?

Voxx's eyes widen as Gorn's tirade just keeps on going , and going and escalating...

When the the man finished, Voxx leaned over and commented to Imagine, "Uh...did they date or something?"

Later he takes up station on whatever gun need manning...

"Nah, he's just turned on by overboarding violence. Just don't get in the way of his rage boner." Imagine replies to Voxx.

"Captain" she winks at Maxim. "I'll sit here comfortably until you find a task for me. Or shall I serve drinks during the fight, to keep morale high."

Your station looks whatever you like it to. Depending on your choice you might need to blow away the wookie hairs off the seat first though.

This starts with a piloting check for initiative, doesn't it?

Piloting Big Ship: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (2) + 14 = 16
Piloting Fighter: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (15) + 4 = 19
Piloting Fighter: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (1) + 4 = 5

While EH-RK is on the toilet, during the first combat Imagine takes the pilot's seat. "I always wanted to do that."

Piloting: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (19) + 12 = 31

"Wohooo!" Imagine does some crazy s!+$ that leaves the little fighters in front of the Sledgehammer.

"What part of LONG RANGE did you not hear me say, Imagine?"

Voxx and Takeda, we have a space combat map and it is updated. We begin combat only 2 hexes from the enemy, which puts us exactly where we don't want to be - inside their range. The good news is Voxx can hit all three ships with a double-salvo of linked micromissles (4d6 dam) because they're in arc. Also, here's a nice little guide that makes starship combat both easy and fun!

Maxim tries to keep his composure and Encourages (Diplomacy DC15) Voxx to blow these cultist a&$*$!%s to space dust.

Encourage: 1d20 + 11 + 1d6 ⇒ (3) + 11 + (5) = 19 Success! Voxx gets +2 to Gunnery skill roll this round.

"Light 'em up!"

Gorn plants himself in front of the Adaptive circuits power structure. He had barely gotten them capable of handling the massive amount of juice the ship demanded, but hadn't fully optimized them how he wanted.

"I'm going to try running a compression wave through the lexorian subspace capacitor. Voxx, let me know if you explode."

With that he diverts MORE POWER to the weapons.

Engineer it! DC 23: 1d20 + 17 ⇒ (7) + 17 = 24

Success! All damage rolls of 1 now count as 2.

Voxx settles into the Gunner pod for the forward minimissle batteries, poking buttons and glowing indicators until all is just like he likes it.

He listens in on the ship wide tac-net, as his ship-mates do their thing...

Then getting the go ahead, he cracks his knuckles and lets loose with the missiles...

Gunnery: 1d20 + 9 + 2 ⇒ (16) + 9 + 2 = 27
Damage: 4d6 ⇒ (4, 3, 5, 4) = 16

Bot Takeda?

Gunnery=1d20+BAB+Dex Mod+Pilot Ranks+Captain Bonus
For Voxx: +9+3+4+2 = +18
For Takeda: +9+4+8+2 = +23

Voxx - Fire at will
Missiles remaining rolls(Forward)
Gunnery: 1d20 + 18 - 4 - 4 ⇒ (14) + 18 - 4 - 4 = 24
Gunnery: 1d20 + 18 - 4 - 4 ⇒ (10) + 18 - 4 - 4 = 20

Laser Net(Port): 1d20 + 18 - 4 - 4 ⇒ (13) + 18 - 4 - 4 = 232d6 ⇒ (4, 4) = 8

Takeda - Fire at will
Twin Laser(Turret): 1d20 + 23 - 4 ⇒ (16) + 23 - 4 = 3510d8 ⇒ (4, 6, 5, 2, 8, 1, 4, 2, 6, 5) = 43
Coil Gun(Starboard): 1d20 + 23 - 4 ⇒ (2) + 23 - 4 = 214d4 ⇒ (2, 3, 4, 1) = 10

Voxx fires a full salve of missiles at the threee ships. Every enemy vessel is hit, but the shields absorb the damage. The ship to the left takes another hit from the laser net, depleting the shields and scratching the hull.

Takeda gets out the big gun and blows away the remainder of the right ships shield and damages the hull. Then he adds some more damage with the coil gun. The fighter's lights go out and it drifts slightly off the formation, floating disabled into space.

That's how you shoot that space buckets to pieces.

Before the light goes out on one ship the whole "armada" fires back though. But they only hit once doing a minor dent in the front shield of the sledgehammer.

Big Ship
Gunnery(coilgun): 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (7) + 14 = 214d4 ⇒ (2, 4, 1, 2) = 9
Gunnery(high explosive missile launcher): 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (4) + 14 = 184d8 ⇒ (4, 8, 7, 6) = 25

Small Ship
Gunnery(high explosive missile launcher): 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (2) + 10 = 124d8 ⇒ (5, 3, 6, 4) = 18
Small Ship
Gunnery(high explosive missile launcher): 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (12) + 10 = 224d8 ⇒ (3, 2, 4, 4) = 13

You made your point, but we really needed to treat this like a practice run for the fight against Omenbringer. We didn't learn anything about how to maneuver at long range or fend off missile attacks. If this was just for expediency because we don't appear to have a couple players active, that's fine, as long as we take the ultimate battle more seriously.

Edit: If we were doing this properly, we'd get reactions against their missiles with our Laser Net and turret-mounted Flak Thrower.

Is the party up?

If you know how to do it, add the post with the rolls for it.

Ok, I misread the rule for Point weapons. We do get a reaction against the missiles, one shot for each point-based weapon in arc. I'll go ahead and roll for this first round so we can keep going (learning), and afterward it will be each Gunner's responsibility to make this counterattack roll.

High Explosive Missile Launcher speed = 12, so DC22.

Voxx, Laser Net: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (19) + 10 = 29

Takeda, Flak Thrower: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (5) + 8 = 13

That knocks out one of the incoming missile attacks.

Sorry, didn't know we both got to shoot. I thought it was just one gunner round unless you did the push thing.

Ok, so it is maximum of 1 gunner per turret but we can have multiple gunners. I was monitoring, just thought we opted for Voxx's weapon.

One gunner per arc, I think. I gave the bonus to Voxx because Takeda has the better skill bonus. Everyone can blaze away.

It was the third missile that hit, so...

Piloting Large Ship: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (2) + 13 = 15
X-Wing: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (11) + 11 = 22
X-Wing: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (18) + 11 = 29
Next round
1. Engineering.

Pilot: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (8) + 12 = 20
"So where do you want to go now?" Imagine asks, making her miss the opportunity to stay ahead of all.

2. Obviously the piloting phase too.

Balancing Shields DC29: 1d20 + 13 + 1 ⇒ (16) + 13 + 1 = 30

The advantage is to move last. Who won the Piloting check this round? We ideally want to react and keep the micromissles on arc.

Sorry, can't hear blue text. I need a proper captains order to screw it up. ;)
The X-Wings won initiative, though one of them won't go anywhere. The big ship lost and will go first. We go second. Moved the lame ass ship on the map.