The Background

Some people on the Psi-Wars discord decided to start doing some practice, PbP combat scenarios. Characters are mostly 300 point character using standard Psi-Wars templates. The combats are “organic seming senarios” with most being “PvP” but some being “PvE” (mooks, monsters, robots, etc.).

One of the characters I made is Rekathim. He is a Space Knight with a Ferthe Halum built around Graceful Form and a three yard step. I suspected that Rekathim would be at least a little broken, but I though it would be fun to see how broken he was in practice. While wearing his carapace, Rekathim has ST 25, Striking ST 40, DX 18, HT 12, Basic Speed 8, Basic Move 12 and DR 60 among other things all for the low price of 40 points.

Since Rekathim uses a psi sword and no blaster, I decided to give him TK Jump to increase his mobility. He makes use of the Lightfoot technique to “fly” and increase his step from two to three yards.

Another player made a Jagarathi Warrior named Persia. Her martial arts style is Hunter’s Way, and she comes with Argentium Claws, the Explosive Slam perk and two instincts, Instinctive Speed and Strength.

I thought that Persia would be an interesting challenge for Rekathim, so I arranged for a battle. Since Rekathim was probably broken, I decided that Persia needed an advantage and though that an ambush would give Persia an edge. The scenario was as follows:

Persia had poor luck in some of her previous fights and learned about Rekathim and his cool armor. She wanted it for herself and decided to ambush Rekathim and steal his armor.

The Ambush Rules

We were not sure how best to run an ambush scenario. Mailanka wrote a blog post on running stealth, but it seemed to give more questions than answers. It was also written from the perspective of stealth against mooks rather than PC vs PC. It did reference Dungeon Fantasy 16 and the ambush rules, so we decided to use them.

The DF ambush rules are found on pages 37-38.

Persia was stalking Rekathim and so used her Stealth skill. Persia’s Stealth was 16, but it was increased by 2 due to Syntech “Catspaw” Slippers.

Rekathim used Hearing or Vision (he should have used smell since he had Discriminatory Smell, but I confused that with carapace upgrade and did not remember that it came standard). We weren’t sure if Hearing was penalized since the Poor Visibility section only mentioned vision, but we decided that hearing was also penalized due to the sound of the nearby streams. Rekathim’s best sense was 13 and at -2 because of “visibility” penalty (again, it should have been increased by +4 due to Discriminatory Smell and possibly without the -2 “visibility” penalty).

Once we had the skills to use, the ambush would be resolved by a Quick Contest to determine if the ambush is successful and how close Persia got before Rekathim noticed.

The Possible Scenarios

There were a few ways the ambush could go:

  • Persia could win the ambush in which case there would be a few options
    • she could reach Rekathim during the surprise round where he would have no active defense available
    • she could reach Rekathim after the surprise round but while he was still mentally stunned
    • she could reach Rekathim after he has recovered from stun
  • Rekathim could detect the ambush

Persia’s claw attack (after activating Instinctive Strength) deals 5d+4 (10) cutting damage. Her slam deals 4d+17 crushing damage (also after activating her instincts). Her Brawling skill is 21, and she has bought off the Dual-Weapon Attack penalty for a double claw attack.

Rekathim’s psi sword attack deals 6d+12 (5) cutting damage at skill 23. His punch deals 4d+4 crushing damage, and his talons deal 4d+6 (5) cutting or impaling damage all at skill 20. Rekathim has 60 DR, 11 HP and 12 HT.

Persia Wins the Ambush

If Persia wins the ambush and reaches Rekathim during the surprise round, she deals about 15-16 penetrating damage on average for an average of about 22-24 injury. With a Dual-Weapon Attack, she deals 44-48 injury. That basically a victory and three death checks on average. Rekathim has Hard to Kill 5, so he is unlikely to die immediately, but Persia should be able to finish off a comatose Rekathim without trouble. Even if Rekathim remains conscious, Persia simply needs to wait for Rekathim to pass out. Alternatively, Persia can target the skull. With Skill 20 and a telegraphic attack from behind, She need only roll against skill 19 and only misses on a critical miss.

If Persia wins the ambush but reaches Rekathim while he is mentally stunned but not totally surprised, Rekathim gets to defend at -6 (-4 from stun and -2 from attacking from behind) before any deceptive/dual-weapon attack penalties. With Dual-Weapon Attack and Deceptive reducing skill to 17 or 15, Rekathim defends at -9 or -10 for nearly the same chance survival. Rekathim requires a critical success to live.

If Persia reaches Rekathim after he has recovered from mental stun, Rekathim is still in trouble, but he has a real chance to survive. Persia can reliably take -8 in Deceptive Attack penalties to give Rekathim a -7 (-4 in Deceptive Attack penalties, -1 from Dual-Weapon Attack and -2 from attack from behind) to defend. Rekathim can make a Acrobatic, Feverish, Retreating Dodges for a net -2 for a Dodge of 12. Persia has a good chance to end the fight if she lands a single hit, but Rekathim has a decent chance to dodge. If Rekathim dodges, Persia’s ambush advantage is lost.

Rekathim Wins the Ambush

If Rekathim detects Persia and is not surprised, his superior mobility allows him to create enough distance to begin “flying” and either escape or fight with a major reach and mobility advantage. The three yard step allows for easy “step around” attacks, and he may even be able to arrange beginning his turn behind Persia for a free, undefendable attack.

Additional Obstacles

Even if Persia defeats Rekathim, she has a few obstacles to overcome before she can steal his armor:

  • if the carapace remains conscious, it can fight Persia in Rekathim’s stead
  • Persia must kill Rekathim without also killing the carapace
  • Persia must keep the carapace well fed while it recovers
    • Rekathim’s body would make a short term source of nutrients
  • Persia must bond with the carapace
    • She has a high enough HT that she probably succeeds with the bond
    • The bond costs 40 points total

The Actual Fight

The fight was pretty interesting. Due to a series of player/GM errors, we ran the scenario where Persia won the ambush but reached Rekathim after he recovered from mental stun. He managed to dodge, so we had an actual fight. Rekathim won in the end but made use of Acrobatics and retreats to defend comfortably.

The mistakes we made were:

  • I forgot the Discriminatory Smell (Rekathim and Persia would have tied with this)
  • Persia activated her two instincts as a free action when they should take a ready maneuver each
  • We did not take Persia’s increased Basic Speed from her instinct into account when determining turn order
  • Rekathim activated Lightfoot as part of his move when I think it should take a Concentrate maneuver (Rekathim has such higher mobility than Persia that this error was inconsequential)

Rekathim as Ambusher

As a thought experiment, what if Rekathim tried to ambush Persia?

Rekathim’s Stealth is 18, and Lightfoot should give at least as much a stealth bonus as Syntech “Catspaw” Slippers.

Persia has no special senses and a Per of 11.

20 vs 9 means Rekathim should easily win by enough to strike Persia in the surprise round (even with a margin of 1, he can reach her easily with Lightfoot and a Move of 24).

Rekathim cannot easily ambush with a noisy, glowing psi sword, but he can use his talons for an All-Out (Double), Dual-Weapon Attack for 4d+6 (5) impaling for 40 injury each or All-Out (Determined), Dual-Weapon Attack to the vitals or skull. Each of these are high probability instakills, and since he his faster, he can get a second turn of attacks while Persia is still mentally stunned.

Another Abush Scenario

We ran another combat scenario between another Jagarathi named Sylvar and a Shinjurai princess named Wen-Rey.

Sylvar had more common Carbide Claws instead of the Argentium Claws and was an Assassin rather than a Warrior but still used Hunter’s Way as his style.

Wen-Rey was a Security Agent who used Shineido as her martial art and dual wielded Shotos.

The scenario was that Wen-Rey was escorting a VIP who was studying certain genetically modified animals somewhere in the Sylvan Spiral. The VIP also had a mook guard, and Wen-Rey brought her maid and robot. Sylvar believed that the VIP was oppressing the asrathi and thus needed to perish.

Sylvar had Stealth 20.

Wen-Rey had an effective Vision of 17 with the help of a hyperspectral sensor on her helmet.

Sylvar won the QC and started 10 yards away. He couldn’t reach anyone during the surprise round, but he Heroic Charged Wen-Rey and clawed her spine from behind. Wen-Rey did not defend even with Luck. Sylvar took out the the entire group almost before anyone could act.

Lessons Learned

Ambushes are highly effective. The surprise round followed by mental stun is significant. It is even worse for characters without Combat Reflexes.

Wen-Rey was both physically and mentally stunned. What is supposed to happen in that case? I assume that they require separate but simultaneous recovery with a Do Nothing maneuver.

Ambushes in PvP can be interesting once or twice, but they practically turn combat into a single Quick Contest that heavily favors the ambusher (at least in Psi-Wars). They get boring quickly.

Asrathi Instincts require a Ready maneuver to activate. Perhaps they could use a technique that grants them Reflexive and possibly a technique to Link two instincts to allow activating two at once.

Persia needs a shield or some sort of armor before attempting to slam Rekathim. Using the DFRPG rules for slams, she receives a more serious injury slamming Rekathim that she deals due to Rekathim’s armor. Rekathim is still better off dodging (and exploiting his three yard step to circle around her) and still takes serious blunt force trauma from a successful hit.