Gunstrider Quest: First Rondo!

File: BattlemapTurn1PNG.png (79KB, 1119x982px) Image search: [Google]

79KB, 1119x982px

Well, Welcome to my Quest! This is going to be a hopefully long running quest focused on GIANT ROBOTS and them fighting, along with political intrigue. This right now is a bit of a prologue, to get people familiar with the combat system we’ll be using, which I created myself. Whenever combat is happening, I’ll be posting a battlemap in hexes, showing US(the character the quest controls and any allies) in blue, and enemies in red. At the end of every post I make in battle, you’ll be given an update into the status of our weapons and character, and you’ll be free to suggest and vote on options.

File: bc51a162d5ada574b7fe435440c4c058bacf76a7.jpg (479KB, 848x1200px) Image search: [Google]

479KB, 848x1200px

Now, let’s look at our Character, Halcyon, and his machine

>Halcyon “Hal” Asher
The name. Self explanatory.

>Ace Level: Steamroller 2
This is Hal’s Ace Level, which will be important later. For now, just now that being a Steamroller means that Ahser excels in close range combat. Like Char.

> Renown : 45 | Instinct: 6
Renown is a stat that goes from 0 to 100, and is a measure of how famous or well regarded your character is. Some abilities are fueled by Renown. Instinct is similar to fate points, and can be spent in combat to power end game abilities, reduce the result of an Attack or Evasion roll by half, Re roll all skill or damage rolls for one turn, or double all of your attributes for a turn. Instinct is a rare precious resource and must be spent cautiously.

>Max Action Points: 12 | AP Recovery: 12 | Health : 16
Action Points are used to act in combat: all actions take a certain number of Action Points to use. AP recovers at the beginning of a turn based on your AP recovery, but can never go above your Max AP. Health is a measure of Hal’s health; if it reaches 0, he dies.

> Critical Soak: 14 | Speed: 8
Critical soak is, well, a character’s plot armor. It acts like Soak does in other games, absorbing damage. Once Soak is gone, it’s gone till the end of the battle. Speed is used to control a character’s movement: a character cannot move further than their speed in hexes, and a machine cannot move further than the Speed of its pilot.

Ability: 30 | Composure: 30 | Endurance: 40
These are Hal’s main attributes, which are used for combat alongside the attributes of his machine. Ability represents a character’s reactive ability and skill, and is used for evasion and Ranged combat. Composure is a character’s mental togetherness, intelligence, and wisdom; Composure is used for guided attacks. Endurance is a character’s physical strength and constitution, and is used for melee attacking.

Now let’s look at Hal’s Feats and special abilities

>Hit and Run
Normally, a character cannot move after attacking. With the Hit and Run ability, Halcyon can move after an attack.

>Raider
With the Raider ability, Halcyon gains +10 Evasion when counterattacked

>Combo
With the Combo Ability, Halcyon gains a +5 bonus per successful hit when making consecutive melee attacks, but must pay 1 AP extra per attack

>Fast Counter
With this ability, Halcyon counterattacks in melee before the enemy attack hits him.

>Advanced Combo
With the Advanced Combo Penalty, the AP penalty from Combo is negated.

File: dcam-004f.jpg (63KB, 342x400px) Image search: [Google]

63KB, 342x400px

Now, let’s look at Halcyon’s mech, a customized A4D Wildcat

>Structure: 12 | Remaining Structure: 12
>Armor: 2 | Remaining Armor: 2
Structure and Armor are essentials to your mech’s operation; Structure is the mech’s health while Armor is it’s, well, Armor. Incoming damage is reduced by your Armor and Critical soak, and any that gets through reduces your Structure. When structure hits 0, its game over.

>Agility: 20
Agility is used to evade attacks!

>Ground Movement: 2
>Water Movement: 0
>Air Movement: 2
>Space Movement: 7
Movements are limits and determinants on how much a mecha can move with a move action. As seen here, Asher’s Wildcat can move 2 hexes on the ground or air, and up to 7 in Space.


>Weapons
Weapons in this game have Six stats, which determine how they can be used and whatnot
The stats are, in order: Type, Accuracy, Range, Damage x hits, Damage Type, and Traits.
Type is what type of weapon: if it is Melee, Ranged, or Guided. Accuracy is the modifier to attack rolls with the weapon. Range is the weapon’s maximum and minimum range in hexes, Damage x hits is the amount of damage the weapon does and hits done by a successful attack, Damage Type is if the type of damage the weapon does (Solid, Energy, or Supreme), and Traits are any traits that give bonuses to the weapon.

The Wildcat’s weapons are, in order:
*Collar Vulcans Ranged +5 1-3 1d6+0x3 Solid +P, PD
Particle Beam Rifle Ranged +15 2-8 1d8+3x1 Energy
Combat Knife Melee +10 1-1 1d6+1x1 Solid +P PA
AIM-73 Falcon Missiles Guided +10 2-8 1d6+1x2 Solid +P

As you can see here, this means the Wildcat… does not quite match up to Halcyon’s piloting style, due to its focus on ranged weapons. However, He’s a good pilot and has you controlling him!

File: BattlemapTurn2PNG.png (80KB, 1119x982px) Image search: [Google]

80KB, 1119x982px

Now, let’s see if we can’t cut this down from Four-on-One to Three-on-One. Each of the three Space Jurens are within six hexes of us, so let’s use that Beam Rifle on them!

Combat in this system works on a roll under system, with the target for the roll being the sum of the pilot’s relevant attribute and the accuracy of their weapon. In this case, Halcyon has an Ability of 30 and the beam Rifle has an accuracy of +15, meaning we have to roll a 45 and under to hit.

But, this is where the use of AP can turn the tide in his favor. Attacking with ranged and guided weapons cost 4 AP compared to the 2 AP of melee weapons, meaning we’ll reduce Halcyon’s bank of 12 AP to 8 to fire the rifle. But before we do that, there’s another action he can take, Aim

AIMING spends AP to increase the target number of an attack roll. For every 3 AP spent, the Target Number will increase by 5. Thus, we can spend 6 more of Hal’s AP to increase the Target Number to 55!

With a roll of a 52, the Juren directly in front of us is hit! But, it has a chance to roll to evade, but with a roll of 54, it doesn’t! As said earlier, Damage for the beam rifle is 1d8+3x1, so with a roll of 7, that’s 10 damage! It doesn’t kill the Juren, but it’s worse for wear.

Afterwards, Hal uses his last 2 AP to pull back a bit, spending 1 AP per hex moved. If he really wanted to move, Hal could Dash Move, spending 1 AP for every 4 hexes moved while quadrupling their speed, but it would immediately end us turn regardless of how much AP was left over.

Now for the enemy rushes forward, Arm guns on the three Space Jurens opening fire while the Da Juren stays back. Through luck and ab it of careful maneuvering, none of the attacks (an 81, 86, and 66) manage to hit, and the turn is open. What should Halcyon do next?

>>62158
Uh, Take a shot at the most damaged Juren?

Your quest sucks man

>>62111
like it so far

>>64306
backing

Also not to be rude, but nobody's going to read that enormous wall of text, (I just kinda skimmed) Could you maybe cut it down a bit in the future? I know this is the start and you feel like you need to get a bunch of information across but this is a bit much, especially without player interaction until the very end

>>62068
Formatting. From what I'm reading, your writing is solid, but use some damn double line breaks and space everything.

>>62129
see, you're already doing it for your char sheet anyway!

>>62158
Too much too fast, and you ended things off with a
>wat do?

I'm throwing you a bone though, and backing >>64306

you're still better than most other QMs throwing themselves in without reading the pastebin or reading up on other quests.

>>62068
maybe give some options of wat to do

Take it from a guy who ran a hybrid tactics game/quest thing. Do not dump the whole system on them from the get go. Handle the crunch behind the scenes and show the players numbers only when relevant.

Don't tell the players about action points and speed etc... give them a choice of pre-set actions that within the mech's capabilities, ask for a roll then process the crunch behind the scenes.

As the game goes on gradually reveal more of the rules as you garner more players and interest. Eventually you'll be able to take the training wheels off but you need to make things more accessible at first.

File: vms-15.jpg (44KB, 400x400px) Image search: [Google]

44KB, 400x400px

>Less Wall of Text, Less Rules
Okay, I can do that. *AHEM*

>Take a shot at the most damaged Space Juren

Most pilots would've already called things quits already, but you're different. You know that you can handle these four pirates, or mercenaries, or whatever they are, no problem! But as confident in your skills as you are, you've been playing it defensively, letting these enemies get closer and closer while thinking you're a small fry.

They were close enough, time to do your job. With a quick check in your rear cameras to ensure that yes the freighter is safe, you focus everything on the three Space Juren's closing in, their main optics glowing ominously. Compared to your Wildcat, the Juren is heavier and less mobile, but has far more armor than your lanky machine and is far better in melee. A shame for these three pilots that the Space Juren does away with any sort of melee weapons. A bigger shame that your Beam Rifle has another shot left in it.

You shoot fast and waste almost no time closing in, ejecting the used up heat sink from your rifle without bothering to chamber another as you shift it to your machine's left hand, the quick release mechanism on your mech's forearm shunting the dull blade of a Armored Dragoon sized combat knife into its hand. You don't dash in and strike directly, instead slipping into the space between two of the pirates.

Two of them can't shoot at you from this position, water vapor flaring and rapidly icing as its released from their machines to try and change direction and heading, but they can't do it fast enough and they're obviously shaken by your forceful advance. Your knife isn't very impressive, but you're sure it'll be enough. As is, you won't be able to get all of them before they can react.

Do you focus all your efforts on the initial one while ignoring the others, or do you keep your eyes open for any opportunities that may present themselves?

>>81225
Dash up and do the knife violence on the unlucky juren!

>>81225
Get right up in their shit and stab anyone who looks at you funny. Advanced combo means that you don't need to pay extra to make more attacks, so let's just slam our wedge of hardened metal into these guys as many times as we can.