My reading was that the damage doesn't get an ace if you are striking do do damage to an object. I think any trait roll can ace, although it some cases, an ace may not make any difference to the result. Might need to reread that myself.
The trait roll can ace, which is to help beat the opponent's parry, especially if it is high and you can get extra damage if you specifically attack his hand (called shot -4). However, if you only target the gauntlet, then you are correct, no Ace bonus damage. I once had a Jedi Star Knight in another game and that was his favorite tactic.
Fortune - you said "...put some information PC's might know or things they might notice under a spoiler...". Thing is, I would have no idea what kinds of things a player might want their PC to know. I couldn't have predicted that you'd want that specific Notice roll and an Occult roll.
ALL - anytime you want to make a "passive" roll (scan the room, search your mind for knowledge, etc.), just go ahead and make the roll, don't ask permission first. Consider it a Free Action. I'll decide if it's relevant before evaluating the result.
Hellion - please see my OOC comments to you in Gameplay...
VeeSix - virtually any roll can Ace, the only exception I'm aware of are damage rolls for Breaking Things.
I wasn't suggesting you should have anticipated my questions. I mentioned the technique for situations where you know PCs may want/need information that a roll can facilitate. It can reduce the number of posts needed to accomplish the determination of who knows what.
I can't think of any situations where I could anticipate that the PCs would want specific information - can you suggest a few? Thanks!
Angel - by RAW, this is how it would work :
You're grappling two opponents, so two Athletics rolls at -2 each for the MAP.
They each get an opposed Athletics roll to avoid being grabbed.
The Entangled and Bound states don't really apply here, but Entangled says "the victim can't move" (which I assume means walk around), which sounds good enough for me, so you'd have to get a Success on both opposed rolls (4 or more higher on your rolls than they got on theirs).
So : 2 Athletics rolls at -2 would both have to be 4 higher than their opposed Athletics rolls. Not very good odds at all...
Then if you manage to grab them both, you could only make a single Strength roll (like for a punch) that would do the same damage to both (unless you've got the Brawler, Bruiser, or Martial Artist Edges). But the odds of a single die doing enough damage to Incapacitate them ("render them unconscious") are very small. The odds of making them both Shaken are better, but they could recover from that in just one round.
If you'd like to try it, roll it! If you'd like to do something different, you can change tactics.
I can't think of any situations where I could anticipate that the PCs would want specific information - can you suggest a few? Thanks!
Here's an example: The group enters a room looking for information about who lives there or enters a crime scene looking for clues about what happened.
Put something relevant under a spoiler for a notice success and something additional under a second spoiler for a raise.
Or, in the room is a contraption. A success on a science roll would reveal something about what it is supposed to do. A raise would reveal how it is able to do that, if that is relevant, or maybe just a secondary purpose.
If doing research about something could reveal some important information, then put that information under a pair of spoilers, one for a success and another for a raise perhaps allowing either a research roll or a common knowledge or academics skill if appropriate.
Similar things might apply for skills like academics, common knowledge, hacking, occult, or survival.
Basically, any situation where you might ask people to make a roll to see if anyone knows something or notices something or can figure something out. By putting the information to be discovered under spoilers, you allow each PC to roll and learn the information independent of each other and you don't have to make a second post to reveal what the PC rolls might provide. The first PC to get a success can share that information with others or keep it secret as desired.
An example from the Runelords game: You asked for a notice roll at a door. Assuming there is something in particular to notice, maybe some noise inside to indicate what might be inside, you could put the result of a success under a spoiler.
In the New West Rifts game, the GM asked for a notice roll as well, so depending on what is there to be noticed, that would be another place where a spoiler could speed things along.
WhtKnt - another thing that's limiting you is your bare-handed attacks. A single damage die isn't going to be able to take down a lot of the kinds of opponents you're going to be running into. If you want to do non-lethal damage, a metal baton would add d6 (RAW says d4) to your damage. If you don't mind doing lethal damage, gauntlets with the Energy Weapon and Power Weapon mods would do Str+2d6, or Str+d6+d10 on a Raise. Or you could add those mods to any ordinary medieval-type hand-held weapon, like swords or maces, and add in the weapon's damage die as well.
It looks like you optimized your build for ranged attacks, but it'll be hard to avoid melee combats entirely since opponents can come to you.
Remember you can always choose nonlethal as well it just gives a -1. Not sure how that functions with ranged power attacks, but I almost bet there's a modifier or it could be flavored as more of a stunning effect than like. Shooting a beam of molten cosmic energy through someone.
WhtKnt - you could probably find (or have made) a baton with the Energy Weapon and Power Weapon modifiers, so you'd be doing d10+d8+d6 Fighting damage, 2d10+d8 on a Raise.
Hellion - his ranged attack isn't a Power, but an ordinary blaster, which has a "non-lethal" setting on it (but you're right that the Power can be used non-lethally too).
I'm not opposed to retconning it, but since Angel probably hasn't had much (if any) experience fighting people, it would make sense that she didn't know how little damage her bare fists could do.
Your call. If you want it now, I'll retcon it in.
ALL - new rule : feel free to describe your attacks as targeting arms, legs, head, groin, etc. But unless you use the phrase "Called Shot", I won't impose any penalty to hit (or bonus to damage).
Did a review of posts and we were both wrong about the number of bennies Fortune should now have left.
She starts with 6 (1 extra from Young Hindrance, Luck and Extra Luck edges)
There have been 3 jokers drawn by PCs in the past two melees (initial skirmish on porch and subsequent ambush.
Fortune has cast 5 spells and used 3 rerolls, so she is down to her last benny. She'll stick to combat.
Ok, this combat is taking too long. I picked Parries and Toughnesses that I thought would be challenging but not tough, but I obviously made them too high. So I'm lowering them by 2 starting with Round 6.
I also gave them damages that I thought would be challenging but not tough, but apart from two multiple-Acing rolls, they haven't hurt you too much. So I think I'm ok there.
I made them Wild Cards (well, they at least have a Wild die) in order to have any chance of hitting you. And while they may have hit occasionally, they're not doing much damage, so I'm not worried about that.
Just letting y'all know my thought processes...
It's all right with me. If you want a rationale, perhaps there is some residual effect of Fortune's spell to lower their fighting and shooting dice, making them less effective at defense.
Sorry for the delay been a bit consumed by Foxhole and Darktide as brain bleach for the last 2 weeks of crapfest at work.
Not really sure how to extrapolate on your thoughts Zen, but I've been trying stuff beyond just normal attacks to try and help get this done with, my dice just hate me apparently lol.
It's one of those things that shows that the system really isn't built to handle Pbp speeds.
I'm confused, Ganger 2 was shaken before I hit, you rolled to recover(because you forgot) it recovered, then I hit and shook it, then it acted without rolling for shaken again?
Yeah, sorry, I try my best, but I can't catch everything...
But, since he didn't even hit, we can just say he didn't act.
gonna try to get something on the board tonight, if not tomorrow when i'm off work for sure.
I'm wondering if there is a better system than the one Zenfox uses to start each new round, with a bunch of spoilers that I imagine take a long time to generate and/or update. I'm thinking better for Zenfox, easier to keep track and post.
I'm thinking create a spreadsheet on Google Drive. Put a row for each character, PC and NPC, and columns for all the details. Share that with a link that allows all the players to see the link and open the spreadsheet (view only would be fine as you may not want players changing data). Then just update the things that change and repost the link to the spreadsheet or keep the link the the profile header of the GM..
Such spreadsheets are relatively common in PBP in my experience, often used to keep track of treasure found and help with dividing it and figuring out shares.