Ima Jansen's page

Light unarmed attack: 8d10 + 1 auto => 8d10 ⇒ (7, 2, 6, 7, 7, 10, 8, 6) = 53 => 6 + 1 auto => 7 successes. Against a Dodge DV of 5, this is enough to hit and therefore knock down Grey-fur. Ima's next action will be on tick 36.

Light unarmed attack: 8d10 + 1 auto => 8d10 ⇒ (8, 2, 8, 8, 6, 1, 8, 7) = 48 => 5 + 1 auto => 6 successes.

Against a 3 Dodge DV (due to coordinated attack), that gives 3 successes. Adding this to her base damage pool of 3d10 for an unarmed light attack and subtracting the 3 points of Red-fur's lethal soak leaves her with 3 dice of damage (sounds familiar).

Damage: 3d10 => 3d10 ⇒ (8, 3, 9) = 20 => 2 successes of lethal damage. (Yay!)

Light unarmed attack: 8d10 + 1 auto => 8d10 ⇒ (9, 7, 9, 1, 9, 8, 7, 2) = 52 => 6 + 1 auto => 7 successes.

I believe that this is against a 4 Dodge DV (until T23), so that gives 3 successes. Adding this to her base damage pool of 3d10 for an unarmed light attack and subtracting the 3 points of Red-fur's lethal soak leaves her with 3 dice of damage

Damage: 3d10 => 3d10 ⇒ (3, 2, 6) = 11 => 0 successes.

Grrrr! I'm beginning to think that this character is going to be rather incapable in combat.

Ima goes this tick as well.

Ima quickly scrambles to her feet, scowling in annoyance.

Miscellaneous Action to Get Up (Speed 5, DV -1); next action on Tick 22.

Actually, Ima, the mention of stunts has made me reconsider - I should have given you a stunt die for your last attack. You can roll another attack die - if it comes up a success, you can roll another damage die as well (or two, if it should happen to be a 10). And you get a point of Legend back.

To be fair, I also need to understand the concept of stunts better. It's been mentioned several times, but I don't really understand it. Anyway, here's the extra attack die: 1d10 ⇒ 6, giving 0 additional successes.

However, I'll make you the same offer I made Xochipilli earlier: you could have spent a Willpower for an automatic success, so rather than take away your hit, I'll let you retroactively spend the point and call it good.

Okay.

Tick 12 - Xoch, Ima and Red-fur all go.

After drawing blood with the quickly snapped front kick, Ima brings her leading foot to the ground, shifts, pivots, and unloads a spinning back kick intended to drive the metal spike of her rear leg's boot towards Red-fur's sternum.

Heavy Unarmed Attack (Speed 5, DV -1): 6d10 + 1 auto, where 6d10 ⇒ (1, 10, 5, 4, 10, 1) = 31, for 5 successes. If I understand correctly, that "just hits" Red-fur's DV 5; if so, then Ima's base damage pool for a heavy unarmed attack of 6d10 plus the single success from the attack less the three points of Red-fur's lethal soak yields 4d10 worth of lethal damage from the kick, where 4d10 ⇒ (7, 6, 9, 5) = 27, thereby producing 2 successes worth of damage.

Starting at T13 up to her next action on T17, Ima's Dodge DV will be 5 and her Parry DV will be 3.

However, that's still a hit, and you've forgotten the other benefit of having Legend: soak can't reduce your damage pool below your Legend score. With Ima's Legend of 3, even after only hitting with one success, she still has one more die to roll for damage.

(1d10 ⇒ 7) So, that's one success worth of lethal damage to Red-fur.

So in this case, you'd just be rolling that smaller, two-die pool for both attacks. Are you sure you want to go that way with it?

Apologies for the delay. I've worked 14-16 hour days every day this week. Anyway, yes, I obviously DID misunderstand how to perform the combination attack. So, no, I don't really think I want to do that, then.

Let's just say she did another quick kick and take the first roll for the unarmed light attack (okay, yeah...I'm loathe to give up the rather nice roll) making it a (Speed 4, DV -1) action so that her next action will occur on T12 and her Dodge and Parry DVs will both become 4 starting on T9.

So, I believe that Red-fur's DV should now be 4 (i.e. one less due to her prior action of killing the passenger, the one that was underway during Ima's first attack). If this is the case, then my 6 successes from the earlier roll should net me a hit with 2 successes.

Combining that with her base damage pool of 3d10 and subtracting the 3 points of Red-fur's lethal soak, as before, leaves me with a 2d10 dice pool for the final (lethal) damage resulting from the kick. My roll, 2d10 ⇒ (5, 5) = 10, appears to again not be quite good enough to land anything but a glancing blow.

As far as I can tell, no one goes on Tick 6 or 7, so now we get to Tick 8: Red-fur, Ima, and Xochipilli.

Ima follows the glancing blow to Red-fur from her roundhouse with a combination kick, first by snapping the same leg back up in a front kick, followed by a spinning back kick with the opposite foot after bringing the leading foot down to the ground.

The game mechanics of the stunt Ima is attempting should work as follows, I believe. This is two attacks made as a single action (see p.190). The first is a light unarmed attack, similar to my prior attack. The second is a heavy unarmed attack. The second attack is the smaller dice pool, so it takes a four die penalty. The DV versus the both attacks will be reduced by one. This compound attack is a (Speed 5, DV -2) action.

• First attack: 8d10 + 1 auto => 8d10 ⇒ (5, 10, 8, 7, 4, 6, 7, 5) = 52 + 1 auto => 6 successes.
• Second attack: (6 - 4)d10 + 1 auto => 2d10 ⇒ (2, 8) = 10 + 1 auto => 2 successes.

As an aside, I used to love this combination when I was still studying karate as a kid. The spinning back kick is one of the most powerful kicks available, being very direct, linear, stable, relatively quick and practically useful in a closer range than a side kick; however, in order to pull it off, it requires a distinctive shift of the leading foot, angling it inward. Thus, when this kick is performed alone, the shift has a tendency to project your immediate intention.

On the other hand, by performing it in a combination after snapping a front kick or roundhouse, one can "disguise" this shift by appropriately placing the leading foot in the shifted position when returning it to the ground in recovery from the first kick. This also has the practical advantage of being good against opponents positioned in stances facing either direction, given the fact that the final direction of the kick's force can be adjusted as needed by proper leading foot placement.

The down sides are that the combination can be a bit slow and that the shifted leading foot placement commits one, in the second half of the combination, to performing this kick or a narrower than normal variety of kicks with the leading leg. Actually, I suppose it's also a rather good stance from which to chamber a reverse spinning backhand punch.

Anyway, returning to the matter at hand, after any possible damage resolution, Ima's next action should be on T13.

Ima: Nice roll! (You're wrong about Untouchable Opponent not doing anything for you, though - it adds +1 to your Dodge DV at level 1.) As for damage, you actually don't have all the information you need to know what to roll yet, because I haven't told you. ;)

Red-fur's Dodge DV is 5 (because you are acting on the same tick, she experiences no effects from her own actions while handling yours), meaning that you hit with 4 successes. (More accurately, you hit and have 3 threshold successes, but that's idiotic. 4 successes works just fine.) So you add 4 to your base damage pool. You then reduce that pool by her lethal soak of 3, and roll the remaining dice. Every success inflicts a Health Level of damage.

I understand what I missed now, which makes it clear why/how Untouchable Opponent is effective. Reading the following sentence cleared things up. "A Scion's Epic Dexterity also adds a like amount directly to his Defense Values." I had mistakenly been adding Epic Dex in before the division, which is why it seemed like Untouchable Opponent didn't have much value until you had a couple of point of Epic Dex (character sheet has been corrected).

Taking into account this correction, and noting your point about effects on DV not applying until the next tick, I'll amend my earlier statement to point out that, on T5, Ima's DVs will become 5 for Dodge and 5 for Parry (down from 6 and 6 on T4).

Okay, so having taken care of those details, I should resolve her damage against Red-fur. Again, reading the Scion book, it says that this should be determined by "(weapon's Damage + attacker's Strength + threshhold successes + 1)". I'm assuming that this means that her "base damage pool", as you put it, is (weapon's Damage + attacker's Strength)d10 = (0 + 3)d10 = 3d10.

So, combining this with the other pieces, it appears that I need to roll a pool of 4d10 in order to determine how much damage Ima just did to Red-fur. So, 4d10 ⇒ (1, 1, 2, 1) = 5 not only gives 0 successes but is quite a "botch" (phoooey!). What happens now?

Also, although it doesn't matter for Ima (yet), do points of Epic Strength count as automatic successes on damage rolls like this, thus following the pattern I've been seeing so far? EDIT: Oh, wait, I just reread your comments in the discussion thread regarding your modifications to the standard Scion soak rules, which answers my second question.

Also, I definitely understand now how changing the order in which soak is applied heightens the danger potential of any given attack. Even so, it took an awesome roll in the first place to hit Red-fur at all and then a poor roll effectively reduced the damage from the hit to zero. I just went from feeling that Ima might do okay to feeling that she's quite possibly in a heap of trouble.

T4 Actions:

Once she has closed with the foul beast, her leg snaps up and out in an arc, attempting to land a quick roundhouse. T4: move to row 28; interrupt guard action to perform light unarmed melee attack action (Speed 4, DV -1).

Many apologies for the delay. RL got in the way, as it is sometimes wont to do. Anyway, after doing my "homework", I'm pretty sure I mostly understand how this works now, and I've started updating Ima's profile with her combat stats.

One amusing realization this caused is that Untouchable Opponent currently provides her no benefit whatsoever and is probably not really worth it for any character until he/she has two or more points of Epic Dexterity. Oops. I suppose I now have a good early Advancement goal.

Anyway, let's get this show on the road, shall we? When last we visited Ima, she was starting to make an light unarmed attack (Speed 4, DV -1) in T4 against Red-fur. I believe that she now needs to roll (Dex + Brawl): 8d10 ⇒ (8, 8, 4, 10, 8, 7, 9, 8) = 62, giving 8 successes + 1 automatic success for a total of 9 successes (Wow!).

Presuming that this attack succeeds, I'm going to need help determining damage, in part because I still don't understand what threshhold successes are. Also, note that her kicks are treated as lethal rather than bashing damage due to one of the enhancements on her boots.

Finally, due to the -1 DV accumulated by making this attack, I believe that Ima is now at 4 Dodge DV and 4 Parry DV.

Per + Awareness = 6d10 => (3, 2, 10, 8, 10, 10) = 43

Seriously? Seven successes on 6d10? Daddy must have been a luck god...

Does the Wits Auto success count here?

Yes.

Actually, I need to go away for a half hour or so now and do another "study session" regarding Scion combat. I'd appreciate it if you'd humor me this pause before proceeding to T5 so that I can work out the correct mechanics of her attack and followup with a post containing those details.

You guys are free to pick your seating choices (and unlike the actual airlines, I won't even charge you for the privilege!).

1d5 ⇒ 51d29 + 9 ⇒ (14) + 9 = 23

So, let's say that Ima started in seat 23E. Given that, I hope you'll allow me to "rewrite history" in a minor way and have her approaching Red-fur instead of Black-fur, thus placing her at row 24 after her move.

Also, treating the activation of Untouchable Opponent as a reflexive action means that she started performing the Guard action and will therefore be up again at T5, with the option to interrupt earlier.

Trent and Ima also act on this tick.

Again, I'm just figuring this out, so please forgive me for being tedious during these "first times" while I figure out how the Scion system works.

Reading the book, I see that standing is a Speed 5 action. This must done before it is possible to make use of the Move reflexive action. Also, given that Get Object is a Speed 5 action, I'm going to presume that this is the amount of time it takes to unbuckle a lap belt before someone could even start standing.

Also, given the wording of Untouchable Opponent, I believe it can't be activate until one is in able tp dodge, so I suspect that it could not possibly be in effect until one is capable of performing Move reflexive actions.

Also, one detail that I'm having trouble figuring out is what the (Speed / DV) is to spend the Legend point to activate Untouchable Opponent.

All of that said, hoping again that you'll forgive me for being pedantic, something doesn't quite ring "right" (DM dramatic license aside) for me about the fact that Ima might be starting a couple of Speed 5 maneuvers (unbuckle, stand) only now, after two passengers have already died.

Stated differently, if the "sixth sense" of Subliminal Warning is ever going to work properly, I think we need to account for the speed of the actions taken by the wolf critters from the precise moment this scene started (i.e. unbuckling belts, standing up, moving to aisle + activating boon, another move into position + attacking the flight marshall or a move and dash into position: in other words, approximately 20 ticks worth of actions before T0).

Thinking of it this way, from the moment Red-fur started unbuckling his lap belt, we went into "bullet time". This is really the point at which Ima's Subliminal Warning and Epic Wits started jangling, trying to tell her that something bad was about to go down.

So, humor me the learning curve while I work this through. I'm not trying to change anything up to this point but simply to play a though exercise to help myself understand how the system works. I'll label my ticks with a P (for Prelude, perhaps). Anyway, Red-fur started unbuckling (Speed 5, DV -1) at P0. Ima's spidey-sense first tickled at P2.

Although I'll say that Ima would have been alerted and "surveying the scene" at this point, I suspect that, thinking about it more deeply, there is no possible way that Hero-level Scions (and possibly only very hair-trigger Demigod-level ones) could possibly have a big enough dice pool nor enough automatic successes to detect four nearly simultaneous lap belt unbucklings. I definitely could see in higher level games where this might be the case, though.

So, let me fast-forward a bit to P10, when all furries had unbuckled and at least started to stand. At this point, Red-fur made his reflexive Move action into the aisle and toward his position at the back. It would also be the point where he started to activate his boon.

So, at P12, two men had now stood, nearly simultaneous to each other, one of whom was in the aisle moving toward the back and 40% into his cloak-swirl wolf transformation. Further, two other men were halfway through standing up, also nearly simultaneously.

Four men standing up in a plane nearly simultaneously seems reason enough for an alert Scion whos spidey senses are jangling to start becoming more concerned. Given this, I've convinced myself that it is appropriate to say that Ima would have started unbuckling her lap belt at this point.

By the time her belt was unbuckled, at P17, the rest of the furries had also finished their standing actions, had moved into the aisle toward their starting positions, and were in the process of transforming. Red-fur and Black-fur were both fully transformed.

So, I think it's very safe to say that Ima started standing up during this tick, yelling "Seal the cabin!" while doing so. Meanwhile, Black-fur simultaneously started his attack on the poor unsuspecting air marshall in the front of the cabin.

Since I'm performing this prelude analysis not to rewrite the flow of time before we engaged but in part to understand if it was even reasonable to presume that Ima would have been unbuckled and standing when it began, I'll assume that Black-fur's melee attack on the air marshall was a Speed 5 action, taking the same amount of time as Ima's stand action (although I see from Red-fur's first in-game action that it was probably more likely a Speed 4 attack).

As such, at P20 = T0, Black-fur was still in the process of killing the air marshall, Red-fur just said "Come out, come out, little godlings!" and started murdering a second passenger near the back of the plane, and Ima was in the process of standing.

Now, at P22 = T2, the air marshall is dead at the hands of Black-fur at the front of the plane, who is also simultaneously starting another action (which is apparently waiting), and I've come to the beginning of Ima's first real turn and the current tick.

Ima moves out of her chair into the aisle of the plane and starts heading toward Black-fur at the front of the plane.

This is a reflexive Move action (Speed 0, DV -0) that allows her to move up to 3 yards, which should get her into the aisle and perhaps one row in either direction on most domestic jets. Also, if I understand Move/reflexive actions correctly, Ima can still start another action at this point.

So, I want to know two things. First, I'd like a rough diagram of the plane and the positions of our seven combatants within it (basic seating charts for most passenger plane models are easy to come by, so this could be as simple as a URL pointing us to one and seat/row numbers for each character and furry

Using this MD88 seating chart, for example, note that each economy row is approximately 2 1/2', each first class row is about 3', and that the cabin is approximately 35 yards long, including first class rows, economy rows, and open spaces.

Second, I really need to know the answer to one of the questions I started this post with, which was regarding the mechanics of activating Untouchable Opponent, since it makes the difference whether I'll be spending Ima's next ticks doing that or something else; however, for the sake of keeping things moving, let's presume that she either starts the Guard (Speed 3, DV -0) action if Untouchable Opponent is reflexive/free or starts the action to activate the knack otherwise.

As Ima moves forward, she slides naturally into a comfortable defensive combat stance with the subconscious ease and fluid grace of a master martial artist.

Anyway, thank you for humoring me the lengthy preceding P-time analysis. I definitely have a better feel now for the pacing of Scion, and I think I'm going to grow to love "bullet-time".

Oh, and...um, I'll have to ask for your pardon in advance for being a bit overly "detail-oriented" at times. I'd like to blame my training for it but know that it is simply my nature.

So, I'm not trying to nitpick here, but I'm still learning this system, and your results make me second guess my understanding of how successes are determined.

Black-fur: 5d10 => (2, 10, 8, 3, 4) = 27, for 3 successes
Grey-fur: 5d10 => (6, 8, 5, 6, 1) = 26, for 1 success
Red-fur: 5d10 => (10, 9, 7, 6, 8) = 40, for 5 successes

Results all as expected.

White-fur: 5d10 => (8, 2, 2, 2, 5) = 19, for 3 successes

Why was this not 1 success?