Monday, May 25, 2015

Shadowrun Report – A Dwarf in Need – Session 4

[This session happened on May 15th.  We had some discussion about the ethics of the situation and things we should think about during play, but mostly we played it as it came and didn’t think too hard about it during the game.]


Player Characters

Void – female human physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Murdoc – male elf kilt-wearing street mage, at home with the hobos
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it


NPC’d Characters

Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)


11:00 AM, Friday, December 27, 2075
[Chronologically, the first thing that happened was 35,000¥ being deposited in our company account per the contract.  However, we all forgot and the GM didn’t remember to tell us about it until things were already started, so I’m putting it here as an aside.]

Void started updating the physical security of Sam’s home by adding or replacing locks.  She also identified places where unauthorized access to the house could be had for later placement of cameras and/or alarms.

The Fin claimed two adjacent guest suites in the underground part of the house, one as the Group HQ for the job and one as secure sleeping space for the Group during the job.

Bookie updated the matrix security on the home by placing a few data bombs on equipment an attacking decker might want to seize control of and then the central security server.  He also set up one Probe and one Tar Baby ICE on the security server as a warning system and flytrap, respectively.  He then went looking for the wet bar listed on the blue prints.  The Fin had already been there and locked up all the good booze, leaving only light beer.  He shrugged and took some back to Group HQ, drinking one on the way.

Sin moved his panel truck into the underground part of the garage and set up drones to supplement the security cameras and as an additional patrol on the grounds (comprised of a fencer drone armed with two katanas).  The drone cameras were set in locations Void had ID’d as potential access points [that were not doors or windows] and in the sniper nests that Prometheus had identified back on Tuesday.  Killroy rigged some improvised mines to hide in the sniper nests as well so the Group could trigger them once an enemy sniper was in position.  [Somewhere at this point the GM mentioned some other cargo vehicles in the garage, but not everyone heard him.  This will become important later.]

Prometheus volunteered to stay awake the entire job, accepting two doses of Long Haul Murdoc had scored from…well…a truck stop, really.  [His drug contact, Gino, doesn’t deal in over-the-counter stuff.  It’s beneath him.]  Prometheus held off taking the Long Haul until 6:00 PM so he would not fall unconscious while still on the premises when the drug wears off.  [It last four days, conveniently the length of the protection job.]

The rest of Friday passed uneventfully.


Saturday, December 28, 2075
During the day The Fin followed Sam around, discretely staying in adjacent rooms and using her boosted senses [from her Adept powers and her spirit companion*] to track his position.  She over heard him coughing several times during the day and then overheard complaining on a call that “either my runner allergies have kicked in or they brought some runner germ in with them”.  The Fin activated her Astral Perception power and verified Sam was not under magical attack or some sort of spell.  She then brought in Sin and his Med Kit to check for anything mundane.  The Med Kit reported that Sam was poisoned and the poison was starting to take a noticeable effect.  It asked if it should administer the antidote.  After a brief internal struggle, Sin told it “yes”.

Based on the data from the Med Kit, the Group estimated Sam was poisoned last Tuesday and would have been dead the next Tuesday if we hadn’t noticed.  Looking at Sam’s schedule for the day, he had three business meetings and lunch by himself before meeting The Fin for to discuss the job.  This suggested that the Eighty-Eights might not be the only ones who want Sam dead right now.

The Fin had Bookie cross-check the members of Sam’s personal staff with previous business Sam has done, looking for anyone who lost big or went out of business after Sam did his thing.  [The personnel records were given over by Sam after The Fin asked for them, his business files were purloined by Bookie on the sly.]  Bookie found four candidates: the garage mechanic, whose 3rd cousin twice removed lost her business due to Sam, and a group of three orphans who lost their home when Sam decommissioned the orphanage and turned it into a hotel but now work for Sam as his cook, maid, and steward (in charge of purchasing supplies for the house).  The Group rapidly decided that the mechanic (Sheldon Marshall) was a coincidence due to the distant relationship with the aggrieved person, but the other three were viable suspects.  A Fly-Spy drone was assigned to the kitchen to keep an eye on things there.


5:00 PM , Sunday, December 29, 2075
Sin was watching the steward bringing in supplies and observed her dropping off part of the supplies in the kitchen.  Just after the steward left the kitchen, Sin noticed a small drone climb out of one of the boxes and exit the kitchen.  Sin set his Fly-Spy after the drone and alerted Prometheus that something was happening.

Prometheus, after watching the video feed from Sin’s drone, alerted The Fin that a potentially hostile drone was in the house.  Void, who noticed something was up, walked over to the video display and said she recognized where the drone was.  The Fin ordered Bookie to locate the enemy rigger and Murdoc to move immediately to the room Sam was in now.  She then stepped into that room herself (it was Sam’s home office) and shut him up by telling him there was an active threat to his life in the house right now.

Bookie dove into the Matrix and started hunting the rigger while running silent.  Bookie quickly found the enemy rigger’s link to the drone and started backtracking it.  He then quickly started marking the rigger’s console until he could determine the rigger’s location in meat-space – the rigger was in Sam’s underground garage!  Bookie relayed this information to Prometheus and then started bricking the rigger’s console.  After one attack on the console, Bookie was then attacked by a previously unnoticed enemy decker!  The two fought furiously in the Matrix until both had to jack out to avoid triggering Demi-GOD attention and involvement.

Meanwhile, Prometheus activated his synaptic booster and raced through the house to the garage, informing The Fin along the way.  [His voice came out a bit higher pitched than normal due to the synaptic booster.]  Void also moved out of the Group’s temporary HQ to get to the enemy drone, while Killroy started searching for the steward.  Void arrived at the drone before Prometheus arrived at the garage and after briefly observing the drone, picked it up and stuck it in a box.

Seconds later, Prometheus arrived at the garage.  He paused to listen, attempting to locate the enemy rigger in the cavernous underground garage.  He heard the sounds of something metallic being assembled from one of four cargo trucks.  [Think 30’ U-Haul moving trucks.]  Prometheus called for Sin to send one of his fencers as back-up as he approached the cargo truck.  The noises stopped, suggesting that Prometheus was not moving as stealthily as he hoped [possibly due to the synaptic booster making him a bit jittery but mostly due to a bad roll of the dice].  Once the fencer joined him at the rear of the truck, Prometheus rolled the back door up, exposing an enemy fencer holding an assault rifle!  He also noticed that the back of the cargo area was noticeably closer than it should have been, suggesting a hidden compartment.

Prometheus fired off a couple of bursts** from his SCK Model 100 submachine gun, which put down the enemy fencer.  Sin’s fencer climbed into the cargo truck, moved to the back of the cargo area, and cut open the wall, exposing the enemy rigger hidden in a concealed compartment.  The enemy rigger responded by tossing a HE grenade between Prometheus and Sin’s drone, far enough away the enemy rigger would be (mostly) out of the blast radius.  With his highly boosted reflexes, Prometheus calmly fired another burst from his SCK Model 100, killing the rigger, and then dove for cover to avoid the grenade’s explosion.  Sin’s drone had just enough time to grab the rigger’s body (and strapped on console) and duck into a corner of the hidden compartment before the grenade detonated.

End of Session


[* I recently sat down with The Fin’s player and re-entered her character into Hero Lab.  Doing so reminded the player how many enhanced senses The Fin has, which is why they suddenly appear in the session notes as she now remembers to use them.]

[** This was an error on our part – when performing two Simple Actions in a combat pass, only one can be an attack action and Prometheus made two.  This is something we (the players and the GM) need to remember about the rules.  Also, recoil penalties are applied before you shoot, not after.  Not a problem here, but something to remember, especially as the two street samurais in the Group tend to favor burst fire for attacks.]


Session 1
Session 3

Session 5

Friday, May 22, 2015

RPG LEGO Mapping Project - Scale Is Important!

In addition to the Shadowrun campaign in which I am a co-GM, I'm supposed to be putting together a superhero campaign using the HERO System, 5th Revised Edition.  [We never updated to 6th edition due to cost and the fact that 5th Rev. Ed. works fine for us.]  The schedule for when the campaign was supposed to start went south when my laptop hard drive crashed last year.  I've spent the intervening time reassembling my campaign note.  Luckily I had a copy of the Illustrator file of my city map saved elsewhere.

One of the things I was having issues grappling with was what the city looked like.  What does the topography mandate?  What kind of and how many skyscrapers does the city have?  How far can a non-flying hero cover on foot without having to run through crowds at street level?

I've lived most of my life in Houston, Texas, which is one of the most sprawling cities in North America.  The city has no natural boundaries and has grown like an amoeba as a result.  [The Greater Houston metropolitan area has a larger urban area than the state of Rhode Island has in total - 1295 sq. mi. to 1212 sq. mi., respectively.]  It also has no zoning AND NEVER WILL, thank you very much.  This makes it very unlike other major metropolitan centers.

The city I'm trying to create, Capital City, is in Maryland, on the US East Coast and has some history and some geographical constraints.  It should feel like an East Coast city and I'm not really certain how that would look - so I'm making a model.

Out of LEGO.

I pulled down some free topological maps from the USGS for the area I'm using [the Port Tobacco and La Plata maps, in case you are interested] and imported them into Adobe Illustrator.  I then ungrouped everything and started removing topo lines that were not a multiple of 50 feet (that is, I kept 0, 50, 100, 150, 200, etc.).  [Did I mention the USGS puts out really good PDF maps?  They do - they are layered and fairly easy to work with in Illustrator.]  Oh, except for the La Plata, because those people have to be special and did their lines in 20-foot increments instead of 10-foot ones like all the other maps.  Read up on the history of the area and you'll see what I mean.  Freakin' arsonists.

That gave me a simplified topographical map of the area and I used the Illustrator Grid function to put a grid on the whole thing.  I set the grid to four boxes per inch and now had the whole area squared off.  I then looked at the topographical lines and stuck a number on each grid square it a "1" covering from 0-50 feet, a "2" for 51-100 feet, and so forth.

Then I took a huge grey baseplate [LEGO piece 10701] and stacked green 2x2 bricks on it, with one brick going in a grid square with a "1", and two bricks stacked in a grid square with a "2", and so forth.  Until I ran out of green 2x2 bricks.  I then went to the local LEGO store [Houston now has three of them and one of them is fairly close] and bought a tall cup of green 2x2s off the Pick-a-Brick wall.  And then went back and bought another.  And then another.  AND THEN ANOTHER.  I think in two more, I'll have finally covered the first plate.  Only two more plates to go...

[NOTE: this is flat out the cheapest way to buy new LEGO bricks.  For $16.00 I get over 100 bricks.  I haven't counted exactly how many per tall cup, but I verified it was over 80 bricks, which puts it at lower than the $0.20 per brick cost of ordering them individually on line.  I'm about ready to buy a box of them from the store, but buying them one tall cup at a time lets me get them as I have spare money and I get to add to the map more often.  Budgets...]

This gave me a real visual as to what the terrain looked like.  The vertical scale is exaggerated [by a little more than 10 to 1 it turns out], but it lets me see what I'm dealing with and sparks my imagination as to what kind of buildings would go where and how roads would properly flow (or not flow as the case may be).  Then I built some micro-scale buildings to put on the map to start getting an idea of what the city might look like and it really clicked for me and the players I showed it to.

Then I checked the scale and realized that at this scale, a 1x1 spot on the map was 480 x 480 ft in size.  City blocks in downtown Houston and Portland are 260 x 260 ft, meaning that the smallest buildings I had put on the map were about 4 city blocks in size.

Oops.

So, for the moment, I am building just a topo map of part of Maryland, which will give me a good idea of what Capital City is built on.  This is important as it turns out I think I put the airport either on some hills or the main runways facing hills and if so, I'll need to fix that.  Plus the depth of the subway may need some adjustment in some areas.  Later I can take it apart and build specific areas (like Downtown) at a scale where the microbuildings will be the right size.  I'll have enough bricks by then.

I still have no idea how to handle zoning - it's so unnatural to me.

Monday, May 18, 2015

Shadowrun Report – A Dwarf in Need – Session 3

[This session happened on May 11.]

Player Characters

Void – female human physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Murdoc – male elf kilt-wearing street mage, at home with the hobos
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it

NPC’d Characters

Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)



Evening, Thursday, December 26, 2075
Location: The Pleiades Group offices in Queen Anne’s Hill neighborhood, Downtown district

With a deal to broker with the sub-boss of the Eighty-Eights and the authority to do so, the group now needed to locate said sub-boss in order to broker the deal.  At first no one had any idea on how to track down a Triad sub-boss.  Then Prometheus volunteered he might have a contact he could call.  The Fin asked that he give his contract a try, soonest.

Prometheus stepped into one of the unused rooms, closed the door behind him, and called Tomiko Hayashi, an undercover cop working for Knight Errant…and his older sister.  When Tomiko answered, Prometheus replied, “It’s me.”  She immediately asked back, “Which ‘me’ is calling?”  She knows what kind of work Prometheus might do, but as long as he never comes to Knight Errant’s attention, she can treat him as family and not a criminal.  [This is one of the major reasons Prometheus prefers to work as a sniper – fewer witnesses who can identify him and get him in trouble with his big sister.]

Prometheus explained to his sister that he had a friend who needed to talk to someone that her employers might keep track of, Shek Wei Zhe.  Tomiko recognized Shek Wei Zhe’s name and questioned why her brother needed to talk to a Triad sub-boss.  Prometheus explained that his friend had a legitimate business deal to broker, but time was critical, “Talking only – nothing illegal.”  Tomiko agreed to check and promised to get back to Prometheus in an hour and a half.  Remembering that it was the day after Christmas, he wished her “Merry Christmas” and hung up.  Then he remembered he hadn't got her a gift.

While waiting for the call-back from Tomiko, Prometheus pulled Bookie aside and asked Bookie to hack into Amazon and create a gift card for T. Hayashi, but date it so it showed a purchase date of two days ago.  Bookie asked why he would do that and, after a pause, Prometheus replied, “Because I have the 1000¥ right here.”  [See after the End of Session for a detailed comment.]  Bookie accepted that answer and set about hacking the Amazon Gift Card system and retroactively buying a card two days ago.  Rather than transfer the funds, he hacked the system to create a 1000¥ card from nothing and sent it (two days ago) to the number Prometheus provided and pocketed the money Prometheus gave him.  [How could this possibly go bad?]

Just before Tomiko called back [exactly one minute before, according to the GM], Bookie had the gift card created and sent with a purchase date of December 24.  Prometheus answered Tomiko’s call and she gave him Shek Wei Zhe’s current location – an underground casino in Snohomish.  She then added, “Your Christmas gift is at Uncle Luke’s,” to which Prometheus replied, “I didn't know what to get you, so I got you a gift card from Amazon – has it arrived yet?”  In the back ground Prometheus could hear the ‘ding’ of Tomiko’s commlink.  She checked the message and said, “It just arrived.”  “It must have been caught up in the last minute crush,” Prometheus said before hanging up.

After Prometheus hung up, he shared Shek Wei Zhe’s location with The Fin.  The Fin wanted protection when going into a casino looking for Shek Wei Zhe, but not so much Shek Wei Zhe wouldn't meet with her.  So she took Killroy as her official bodyguard and Prometheus and Void as hidden back-ups.  Sin would be monitoring feeds from the Fly-Spy he put on each of the four going to the meet.  He and Bookie stayed at the office with Bookie accessing video feeds where available near and in the casino and Murdoc protecting their bodies.

A block from the casino’s location, Void and Prometheus got out of the car and moved on foot to get into support positions in case things went bad.  Sin, jumped into the car from the office, drove the car the rest of the way.  The Fin was dressed to the nines (along with a physical disguise to change her appearance enough to avoid direct identification) and moved like a casino pro [which her backstory supports].  After passing through the weapons check [it was an underground casino, not a legitimate one], The Fin asked to speak with the manager.

The manager came over and asked how he could be of service.  The Fin introduced herself as Ms. Rai and explained she was here to make a business proposal to Shek Wei Zhe, but had never met the man and did not know his face.  She asked the manager if he could make a formal introduction as Shek Wei Zhe should be most interested in the business deal.  With The Fin pouring on all the charm, the manager said that Shek Wei Zhe was occupied right now, but would be available in 30 minutes.  Would the lady like to wait at one of the tables until then?  The Fin agreed and sat down at a baccarat table.

Thirty minutes later (and up 2000¥), The Fin and her bodyguard (Killroy) were escorted to a small private room in the back.  Sitting behind a table was a very pretty young man who greeted her.  Sensing that this couldn't possibly be a sub-boss of the Eighty-Eights, The Fin asked if he was Shek Wei Zhe.  The very pretty young man asked what business she had that needed to be discussed.  The Fin explained she was representing the current owner of the property at 25738 Polk Street and had an offer for Shek Wei Zhe that would allow his organization to re-occupy the property.  She then asked again if the very pretty young man was Shek Wei Zhe.  A voice from the corner of the room answered, saying, “He is not, but I am.”  

Shek Wei Zhe then dropped the invisibility spell and stepped forward from the corner he had been waiting in.  He was an older man with a more worn appearance.  He and The Fin negotiated for the next 15 minutes.  At the end, Shek Wei Zhe was only willing to pay Sam 52,500¥ a month for ‘rent’ and hush money and no more (2500¥ less than the minimum Sam would accept).  The Fin suggested this might just be a short term problem with Sam and that possibly a new deal could be arranged with Sam’s descendants.  This caught Shek Wei Zhe’s attention and he openly wondered when this issue might become a problem for Sam’s descendants.  The Fin replied, “No sooner than Tuesday.”  Shek Wei Zhe then asked The Fin if she knew anyone who might be available for such a job.  The Fin admitted knowing a group who could do the work, but they were under contract until Tuesday.  Shek Wei Zhe thought about it and then agreed to pay 55,000¥ this month, due to this new information and the possibility of it being a short term arrangement.  He also said he has a job for Ms. Rai’s friends “once they have completed their current contract.”

The Fin returned to Sam’s place to present the agreement and get Sam’s signature on the appropriate papers.  She also discussed with him the bonus monies on the contract and that The Pleiades Group had achieved both conditions and wanted confirmation they would get paid, even though the main part of the contract had not actually started yet.  Sam agreed, but the bonus monies will not be paid until the end of the main contract (the protection job).  This was acceptable to The Fin.

[At this point we backtracked in time to allow Murdoc’s player to use the three preparation days to wrangle some spirit support.  It didn’t go well and he only ended up with a single Force 5 Fire Spirit.  Turn’s out it didn’t go well because we were rolling too many dice for opposed summoning test, so we’ll have to re-do those rolls again.  Sigh.]

11:00 AM, Friday, December 27, 2075

The Pleiades Group arrived at Sam’s place in Bellevue to officially start the protection job.  Prometheus was wearing the Green Mohawk Dude earring to disguise himself, The Fin and Void were physically disguised, and Murdoc was physically masked to look like a “hot babe”.

End of Session


[When Bookie’s player asked why he’d hack Amazon for Prometheus, everyone around the table stopped to see how I’d have Prometheus answer.  My first thought was “Because I am heavily armed and know where you sleep.”  Then I realized that, while Prometheus would normally use that as his reply, he would have a different answer for people he works with and I had to think up a different answer on the spot.  The GM stated he thought Prometheus was going to mention he was heavily armed and I answered “It was the first answer, but Prometheus wouldn’t say that to teammates, so he had to come up with a different answer – hence the pause,” and everyone at the table laughed.  This is how I know I’ve successfully developed Prometheus’ personality and gotten it across to the other players – they have a feel for what he might do or say.]

[Before this session, I sat down with another (long-time) Shadowrun GM and we discussed the ethics of the situation and what were the likely consequences of the PCs either taking a job to whack Sam after this job was over or selling paydata on the improved defenses.  There is a good chance that the Pleiades Group could earn a point in Notoriety as a result and Svetlana’s loyalty (the Fixer who brokered the job originally) to The Fin might drop, either temporarily or permanently.  Mitigating factors are the limited number of people who would know (Sam, Shek Wei Zhe, and Svetlana) and the low likelihood of the two who lived to talk about it.  It depends on how good a client Sam was for Svetlana and whether or not she thought The Fin might be angry at her for possibly setting The Fin up against the Eighty-Eights.  This is a good ethical quandary for the players to work their way through and I’m eager to see how things play out.]

Session 1
Session 2
Session 4

EDIT: corrected the date the game happened.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Shadowrun Report – A Dwarf in Need – Session 2

[This session happened on May 4, 2015 (Star wars Day).  Two players could not make the game, so we did mostly in-game prep work.  As a result of the role play, we really started dis-liking the client.]

Player Characters

Void – female human physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant


NPC’d Characters

Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Murdoc – male elf kilt-wearing street mage, at home with the hobos



Tuesday, December 24, 2075
With the job accepted, several members of the Pleiades Group started investigating the situation at the client’s home.  Void checked onsite security by sneaking on site to physically inspect all access points and locks – without alerting the current security people that she was doing so or to expect her.  She made notes as to what kinds of upgrades would be necessary once the Group was officially on the job.  Prometheus prowled the area around Sam’s house (often on other people’s property), looking for possible sniper positions able to target Sam’s guards.  He found several good ones and some iffy ones, but made note of all of them.

Wednesday, December 25, 2075
Prometheus spent Christmas Day moving from sniper position to sniper position, popping Sam’s guards with rubber bullets until they took proper cover and stopped standing out in the open.  This took most of the day.  By this time the guards knew a new security team was prepping to move in, so Knight Errant was never called in as a result and Doc Wagon doesn’t handle bruised egos.

Thursday, December 26, 2075
The Fin and Prometheus spent time tracking down the beef between the Eighty-Eights and Sam.  The two made a surprisingly effective team, working their way through the Metroplex’s hit man community.
The Story:
The Eighty-Eights were evicted from their primary building in Snohomish by Sam.  The Eighty-Eights sub-boss involved is Shek Wei Zhe and he knows Sam as Robert Khordaldrum.  The Eighty-Eights and Sam may have done business in the past and the Eighty-Eights are of the opinion Sam knew that the building was theirs.  On top of this, there is supposed to be a regional Triad meeting happening there on December 30th and the Eighty-Eights will lose major face if they cannot host the meeting properly in their own building.  Few know about the eviction and the Eighty-Eights want it to stay that way.
Sensing an opportunity, The Fin asked Sam for a meeting to find out what Sam’s beef is with the Eighty-Eights.  After dinner they talked.  Sam wanted the building to put a hotel there.  He knew the Eighty-Eights were there, but that’s why he hired the Pleiades Group: he wanted them to whack the necessary Eighty-Eights to make the problem go away.  As The Fin was broadcasting the meeting to the rest of the Group, this statement was recorded.

The Fin asked what it would take to get Sam to agree to let the Eighty-Eights resume occupancy of the building.  He was expecting to make a profit on the new hotel of 50,000¥ a month, so he’d accept that plus 10% as hush money.  The Fin asked if he would authorize her to make that deal and he agreed, drawing up a legal document allowing her to negotiate with “the previous tenants”.

During this entire conversation, Sam was abrasive and verging on abusive and the entire Group saw and heard him.  This led to speculation on whether or not the Group could complete this contract and then get paid by the Eighty-Eights to either whack Sam or sell paydata to them on the improved security features and access codes.

End of Session

Session 1
Session 3

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Combat Cheat Sheet - Physical Combat Sequence

[Due to a trade conference this week and the game not making last week due to all sorts of things, this week is only this cheat sheet.  We did play Session 2 of "A Dwarf in Need" this week, so there will be a proper write-up next week and a cheat sheet on vehicle chases.]

This expands on the terse description of determining the combat sequence in the Shadowrun 5th Edition rulebook.  Where they went for compactness, this version goes for clarity.

Physical Combat Sequence
Shadowrun, 5th Ed.

Process (p. 173)
1. Declare
        a. Attacker declares attack (Step 3.A on the Initiative Sequence)
        b. Defender declares type of Defense:
                • Standard Defense Test (Reaction + Intuition)
                 Block: Melee only, -5 Initiative, add Unarmed Combat dice to this Defense
                        Test
                 Parry: Melee only, -5 Initiative, add melee weapon skill dice to this Defense
                        Test
                 Dodge: -5 Initiative, add Gymnastics dice to this Defense Test
                 Full Defense: -10 Initiative, add Willpower to all Defense Tests for entire
                        Combat Turn
2. Attack
        a. Attacker rolls their Combat Skill + Attribute ± modifiers [Limit]
        b. Apply Wound (p169), Environmental (p175), Recoil (p175), and Situational (p176)
                modifiers.
3. Defend
        a. Roll Defense Test (based on declared defense in Step 1.b) and apply Wound,
                Environmental, and Situational modifiers.  Compare to the Attack Roll:
                 Attacker > Defender: Attacker hits
                 Attacker = Defender: Grazing Hit – no damage, but contact was made. Touch
                        attacks happen.
                 Attacker < Defender: Attacker missed
        b. If Attacker hit:
                i. Add the Attacker’s net hits to the weapon’s damage
                ii. Apply the attacks AP (if any) to the Defender’s armor for a modified armor
                        value (AV)
                iii. Compare the modified damage to the modified AV:
                         If Damage ≥ Armor: Physical damage is done
                         If Damage < Armor: Stun damage is done
                iv. If the modified AV > 0, the Defender rolls Body + modified AV to soak damage
                v. If the modified AV ≤ 0, the Defender only rolls Body to soak damage
                vi. Each Hit rolled by the Defender reduces the damage taken by 1.  If the damage
                        is reduced to 0, the attack bounced.
4. Apply Effect
        a. For each point of damage that made it through, fill one box on the Defenders
                Condition Monitor.
                 Wound modifiers for each filled row on the Condition Monitor now take effect.
                 If damage taken from a single attack > Physical limit, the target is knocked
                        down.
                 Knockdown is automatic if the target takes ≥ 10 boxes of damage.

Remember:
Shooting at a Running character has a -2 die penalty
Shooting at a Sprinting target has a -4 die penalty
Combat Actions table: p163
Matrix Actions table: p214
Magic Actions table: p276