Initiative order:

1. Chee'Okee 4s2a1T
2. Mireska 8s4a
3. Ker'see 7s1a
4. Asajj Ventress 6s4a
5. Camouflage 4s3a
6. Varactyl Squad 3s3a
7. Jorin 3s2a
8. Poe 3s2a
9. Clone minion group (4)5w 2s1a
10. B2c(5)2w

B2c(5):
Maneuver: Move to Short
Action: Shoot at Camouflage: Shooting at Camouflage : 3eP+1eA+1eD+2eS 1 success, 2 advantage

Triggers Linked, so that (11-7)*2=8 wounds.

Camouflage:
Incidental: Aim
Incidental: Clanker Killer 2 (2 Advantage)
Action: Shoot at the B2s: Shooting at the B2s : 3eP+1eA+5eB+1eD 4 successes, 8 advantage

Forgot a die (blinded): forgot a die : 1eC 1 failure

3s 12 a, FAB 2.

Yikes. That's a lot of Advantage. Triggers an autocrit and 2 Advantage for Linked (13-6)*2+7*2=21, 21+2=23. 23/35, killing 3. 1/14
2 Strain for Scrap 'em!
2 Advantage to recover 2 Strain
8a2FAB
10 Boost to next.

Varactyl Squad:
Maneuver: Aim
Action: Target the B2s with Auto-Fire, also able to target Ventress, meaning they use her difficulty: Shooting at the B2s : 3eP+1eA+14eB+3eC+4eS 6 successes, 8 advantage

6 success and an autocrit 15-(6-1)+7=17, 17+1=18. 18/14, eliminating the remaining two droids.

2 Advantage to hit Ventress, dealing no damage, then spend 3 Advantage to force her to drop her saber, then Boost to Mireska and Boost to next. I'm assuming Ventress uses Resist Disarm for 2 Strain.

Then @RuusMarev is up for Jorin.

4 hours ago, MrTInce said:

So two setback to Ventress and 4 boosts to the next PC to attack Ventress.

Yes.

2 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Initiative order:

1. Chee'Okee 4s2a1T
2. Mireska 8s4a
3. Ker'see 7s1a
4. Asajj Ventress 6s4a
5. Camouflage 4s3a
6. Varactyl Squad 3s3a
7. Jorin 3s2a
8. Poe 3s2a
9. Clone minion group (4)5w 2s1a
10. B2c(5)2w

B2c(5):
Maneuver: Move to Short
Action: Shoot at Camouflage: Shooting at Camouflage : 3eP+1eA+1eD+2eS 1 success, 2 advantage

Triggers Linked, so that (11-7)*2=8 wounds.

Camouflage:
Incidental: Aim
Incidental: Clanker Killer 2 (2 Advantage)
Action: Shoot at the B2s: Shooting at the B2s : 3eP+1eA+5eB+1eD 4 successes, 8 advantage

Forgot a die (blinded): forgot a die : 1eC 1 failure

3s 12 a, FAB 2.

Yikes. That's a lot of Advantage. Triggers an autocrit and 2 Advantage for Linked (13-6)*2+7*2=21, 21+2=23. 23/35, killing 3. 1/14
2 Strain for Scrap 'em!
2 Advantage to recover 2 Strain
8a2FAB
10 Boost to next.

Varactyl Squad:
Maneuver: Aim
Action: Target the B2s with Auto-Fire, also able to target Ventress, meaning they use her difficulty: Shooting at the B2s : 3eP+1eA+14eB+3eC+4eS 6 successes, 8 advantage

6 success and an autocrit 15-(6-1)+7=17, 17+1=18. 18/14, eliminating the remaining two droids.

2 Advantage to hit Ventress, dealing no damage, then spend 3 Advantage to force her to drop her saber, then Boost to Mireska and Boost to next. I'm assuming Ventress uses Resist Disarm for 2 Strain.

Then @RuusMarev is up for Jorin.

Yes to resist disarm.

Poe:
Maneuver: Tactical Direction (CMg, Maneuver: Aim)
Maneuver: Take cover

CMg(4):
Maneuver: Aim
Action: Shoot at Ventress: Shooting at Asajj Ventress : 3eP+3eB+2eC+1eD+4eS 2 successes, 1 advantage

Boost to next.

@EliasWindrider , Ventress is up.

On 1/14/2021 at 3:43 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Poe:
Maneuver: Tactical Direction (CMg, Maneuver: Aim)
Maneuver: Take cover

CMg(4):
Maneuver: Aim
Action: Shoot at Ventress: Shooting at Asajj Ventress : 3eP+3eB+2eC+1eD+4eS 2 successes, 1 advantage

Boost to next.

@EliasWindrider , Ventress is up.

She's going to draw closer on Mireska... @Bellona what's the difficulty?

I think the difficulty is 2 red a purple and 6 blacks unless I missed something.

Two weapon fighting to increase the difficulty by 1

Sobering Mireska : 2eC+2eD+5eS+5eP+1eB+5eF 3 failures, 3 advantage, 3 Light Side, 3 Dark Side

Miss but with 3 advantage activating force assault

Uses 4 black pips (corrupted crystal +1) to recover 4 strain with the ebb/flow power. Total strain is 10.

Force assault : 2eD+3eC+5eP+5eF 1 failure, 4 Light Side, 2 Dark Side

Uses 3 black pips to recover 3 strain through ebb/flow, total strain is 7.

The force is with Mireska rather than Ventress @Bellona do you want to narrate an opposed force push that fizzles?

How about we narrate out of the encounter Jorin flies out, Ventress escapes in the rigger. And we move on. To the aftermath. And transition to discord

10 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

How about we narrate out of the encounter Jorin flies out, Ventress escapes in the rigger. And we move on. To the aftermath. And transition to discord

She just "escapes"? Like that?

11 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

How about we narrate out of the encounter Jorin flies out, Ventress escapes in the rigger. And we move on. To the aftermath. And transition to discord

Ker'see would pursue regardless. I get Ventress is doing well against us but we still have numbers.

3 hours ago, MrTInce said:

Ker'see would pursue regardless. I get Ventress is doing well against us but we still have numbers.

You realize I've been deliberately making sub optimal choices for her, right?

My objective for the encounter was for you to recover the huttlet and for her to escape to torment you another day. I can take the kid gloves off if that's what you want.

Her next attack would be to use move to throw clone minion groups (20 damage plus successes) at pc's starting with Ker'see because she's the biggest threat. For 3 black pips (one is free from a corrupted crystal, so needs to roll2) and a difficulty of 2 purple and 2 black against 5 yellow she can take down the unnamed minion group, Varactyl squad, Ker'see and cammo, throwing the unamed minion group at Ker'see and the Varactyls at cammo meaning she'd no longer have to use reflect and save 3 strain a round, but I'd rather not force every member of Varactyl squad to roll to save or die vs a crit.

OR we can narrate she escapes "just escapes like that".

9 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

You realize I've been deliberately making sub optimal choices for her, right?

Suboptimal, shmuboptimal. That's not the point. Jorin could've dropped the G9 on her if we really want to go that route. It's a nasty game to play, and that's why I don't play it.

9 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

Her next attack would be to use move to throw clone minion groups (20 damage plus successes) at pc's starting with Ker'see because she's the biggest threat. For 3 black pips (one is free from a corrupted crystal, so needs to roll2) and a difficulty of 2 purple and 2 black against 5 yellow she can take down the unnamed minion group, Varactyl squad, Ker'see and cammo, throwing the unamed minion group at Ker'see and the Varactyls at cammo meaning she'd no longer have to use reflect and save 3 strain a round, but I'd rather not force every member of Varactyl squad to roll to save or die vs a crit.

OR we can narrate she escapes "just escapes like that".

Minion groups aren't a single target, there are multiple members of a minion group, and each is sil 1, so each "hit" would deal 10 damage.

All that aside, an orchestrated ending makes the actual play of the encounter meaningless and begs the question of why should we bother playing, and not just watch the Clone Wars? There's already 7 seasons of a great show out there. If we're going to actually play, then play it out. If you want her to actually escape, then have a plan for how she can do that. She escaped in the show by Force-leaping onto an arriving Vulture droid. If you had that happen here (she calls the fighter, next round she Force-leaps onto it), I wouldn't mind. That's within the system. And if she doesn't escape? Well, now we have a prisoner. We're already violating canon. And what happens with Ventress as a prisoner? Why, she escapes, naturally. And while Ventress is a prisoner, who do we face? There are plenty of existing characters out there. Greivous, Durge, Cad Bane, Dooku, or even just legions of droids led by a commander who hides behind the lines.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Suboptimal, shmuboptimal. That's not the point. Jorin could've dropped the G9 on her if we really want to go that route. It's a nasty game to play, and that's why I don't play it.

Minion groups aren't a single target, there are multiple members of a minion group, and each is sil 1, so each "hit" would deal 10 damage.

All that aside, an orchestrated ending makes the actual play of the encounter meaningless and begs the question of why should we bother playing, and not just watch the Clone Wars? There's already 7 seasons of a great show out there. If we're going to actually play, then play it out. If you want her to actually escape, then have a plan for how she can do that. She escaped in the show by Force-leaping onto an arriving Vulture droid. If you had that happen here (she calls the fighter, next round she Force-leaps onto it), I wouldn't mind. That's within the system. And if she doesn't escape? Well, now we have a prisoner. We're already violating canon. And what happens with Ventress as a prisoner? Why, she escapes, naturally. And while Ventress is a prisoner, who do we face? There are plenty of existing characters out there. Greivous, Durge, Cad Bane, Dooku, or even just legions of droids led by a commander who hides behind the lines.

I agree. Each Ventress fight seems that you never want us to actually fight her for more than a couple of rounds before she escapes and we never get a satisfactory conclusion from it.

9 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Suboptimal, shmuboptimal. That's not the point. Jorin could've dropped the G9 on her if we really want to go that route. It's a nasty game to play, and that's why I don't play it.

Minion groups aren't a single target, there are multiple members of a minion group, and each is sil 1, so each "hit" would deal 10 damage.

All that aside, an orchestrated ending makes the actual play of the encounter meaningless and begs the question of why should we bother playing, and not just watch the Clone Wars? There's already 7 seasons of a great show out there. If we're going to actually play, then play it out. If you want her to actually escape, then have a plan for how she can do that. She escaped in the show by Force-leaping onto an arriving Vulture droid. If you had that happen here (she calls the fighter, next round she Force-leaps onto it), I wouldn't mind. That's within the system. And if she doesn't escape? Well, now we have a prisoner. We're already violating canon. And what happens with Ventress as a prisoner? Why, she escapes, naturally. And while Ventress is a prisoner, who do we face? There are plenty of existing characters out there. Greivous, Durge, Cad Bane, Dooku, or even just legions of droids led by a commander who hides behind the lines.

I'have been treating minion groups like squads, a single target one sil larger, no one objected when Shin Ethan did so on the ground floor of Ker'see's sniper nest and hurled the battle droids into the air ceiling and let them take falling damage as a rider.

I'm perfectly willing to play that out, I just thought PCs would rather not.

48 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

I'have been treating minion groups like squads, a single target one sil larger, no one objected when Shin Ethan did so on the ground floor of Ker'see's sniper nest and hurled the battle droids into the air ceiling and let them take falling damage as a rider.

Well, there were a couple things in that encounter that I would have objected to, but missed. One or two other things from that encounter have come up before.

I'm reluctantly okay with treating minion groups as sil 2. I disagree that they should be, but it isn't a big deal. However, I certainly disagree that it is a single target. So if you have six droids standing near one another, not in a group, you can only move one of them without activating Magnitude, but if you have six grouped together, you can throw them all? Or activating Magnitude allows you to throw four of the droids, or 24 if they are grouped together? I certainly disagree with that.

Especially because it contradicts the RAW (not to mention the RAI) in other ways. For example, when Blast triggers against a minion group, each minion takes wounds which are then pooled. So if you hit a group of 5 B1s with a Frag Grenade (1s2a), it deals 4 wounds, then 4(7-4)=12, for a total of 16. Same for falling.

44 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Well, there were a couple things in that encounter that I would have objected to, but missed. One or two other things from that encounter have come up before.

I'm reluctantly okay with treating minion groups as sil 2. I disagree that they should be, but it isn't a big deal. However, I certainly disagree that it is a single target. So if you have six droids standing near one another, not in a group, you can only move one of them without activating Magnitude, but if you have six grouped together, you can throw them all? Or activating Magnitude allows you to throw four of the droids, or 24 if they are grouped together? I certainly disagree with that.

Especially because it contradicts the RAW (not to mention the RAI) in other ways. For example, when Blast triggers against a minion group, each minion takes wounds which are then pooled. So if you hit a group of 5 B1s with a Frag Grenade (1s2a), it deals 4 wounds, then 4(7-4)=12, for a total of 16. Same for falling.

This is how squads work by RAW. Can you give me a reason that the rules for a squad, which is a special case of minion group, should behave differently than the generic case minion group?

2 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

This is how squads work by RAW. Can you give me a reason that the rules for a squad, which is a special case of minion group, should behave differently than the generic case minion group?

For the simple reason that a minion group is not a squad, and the silhouette rule is a special rule for squads.

1) Minion groups by RAW are treated as a single target for the purpose of making attacks and making attacks against them... the only part in question, not explicitly spelled out by RAW, was what sil that single target was.

2) a squad is a minion group, and I see no reason the silhouette of a generic minion group should be any different than the silhouette of a squad (special case minion group), what about squads would make them a different silhouette than general minion groups?

3) you already agreed to a minion group being 1 sil larger, which was the only relevant part of squads

57 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I'm reluctantly okay with treating minion groups as sil 2.

RAW/RAI is not on your side.

That's my ruling.

First off, I've got answers to every single one of your points, but I'm letting it slide so I can address the bigger issue.

Look, my patience is running really short. I understand the demands of real life, but I have multiple issues (some of which I am sure others share) with your GMing. This is not constrained to the recent incident. You are unresponsive when asked a question, you don't give us much information up front, necessitating questions which you then don't answer until either a significant delay or they are asked again, and you hardly seem to plan anything. Almost every encounter you come up with is half-baked and/or doesn't make much sense, and deciding that Ventress just "escapes" is just one example that shows arbitrariness and a lack of forethought, and your threatened alternative is a method that isn't RAW and is considered unsporting, only further reinforcing the perception of arbitrariness and lack of forethought.

You pawn off a lot of the actual running of the game, and then counter our actions with perceived frustration at our decisions or interpretations of your will. I'm done with this half-in, half-out approach. Please take the time to actually run the game the way you want to run it, back off and give us more breathing room, put the game on hiatus, or bow out and leave the running of the game to others, either deciding that you don't have the time or picking up a PC yourself.

But I'm not continuing under the current arrangement.

8 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

First off, I've got answers to every single one of your points, but I'm letting it slide so I can address the bigger issue.

Look, my patience is running really short. I understand the demands of real life, but I have multiple issues (some of which I am sure others share) with your GMing. This is not constrained to the recent incident. You are unresponsive when asked a question, you don't give us much information up front, necessitating questions which you then don't answer until either a significant delay or they are asked again, and you hardly seem to plan anything. Almost every encounter you come up with is half-baked and/or doesn't make much sense, and deciding that Ventress just "escapes" is just one example that shows arbitrariness and a lack of forethought, and your threatened alternative is a method that isn't RAW and is considered unsporting, only further reinforcing the perception of arbitrariness and lack of forethought.

You pawn off a lot of the actual running of the game, and then counter our actions with perceived frustration at our decisions or interpretations of your will. I'm done with this half-in, half-out approach. Please take the time to actually run the game the way you want to run it, back off and give us more breathing room, put the game on hiatus, or bow out and leave the running of the game to others, either deciding that you don't have the time or picking up a PC yourself.

But I'm not continuing under the current arrangement.

This is not meant as an insult, but I've gotten the impression that you are young with not much in the way of life experience or responsibilities... so that's where this next story is coming from

Until you're the parent of 2 or more small children, who are constantly interrupting your full time job because you're all home because of the pandemic and your wife can't keep up with the kids because she's very pregnant and you're behind on 2 out of 3 of your projects at work, and you have to make this work because you're wife is going to be on reduced and then no income because of maternity leave and you're financially supporting your mom and her parents... while you're taking time out from work to help your very particular sister find a house in your city because she wants to move close to you so your kids can have cousins to play with and your helping connect your talented software architect brother in law with the right people at the corporation you work for so they'll be able to afford the house... (his current job title at the company he works for in Atlanta GA, is director of Architecture)

no you do not understand the demands of real life.

The point is I can't currently put more time into this game than I am now, and things aren't going to better when my third child is born (who currently has a small hole between his ventricles, and may need open heart surgery before he's 1 year old, currently we plan to name him Caleb Elias but if he's born on my birthday we might give him my name) I'm going to become the primary caregiver for my two oldest children, because my wife will need to focus on Caleb.

And I actually count myself as being lucky because I have a stable job where I can work from home and have good health insurance. But although my company offers 6 weeks of paternity leave at 70% salary I can only take 2 weeks off because of finances. And I'm unfortunately going to miss Caleb's birth because I'll be home taking care of Samuel and Abigail because we can't leave them with someone else because of the pandemic.

With that said you're now probably STARTING to get an idea of the "demands of real" life (but what I've told you is just the tip of the iceberg), and I wouldn't trade my set of blessings and challenges for anyone else's because I'm living the live I want. And my wife and kids and job come before the rpg and I'm going to need to step away from the game sooner or later so it might as well be now so we don't lose you as a player.

FWIW her BACKUP escape plan (in case she can't make it out on the rigger) is the high altitude speeder bike, so her escaping wasn't ever in question even if things go sideways... I just thought we could collectively narrate a more satisfying conclusion to this encounter (who knows maybe the party would decide to make a tactical withdrawal since they've accomplished their objective, capturing her might not be worth the price you'd pay)... the major plot points i wanted to be accomplished have been so... it was time to wrap it up... the "threat" as you call it was actually a warning of how viciously Ventress would fight if cornered/in danger of being captured... a perfectly reasonable narrative justification for turning up the heat. Just because I can't be more responsive and delegate narration to players so they can describe their characters more heroically than I have time to... doesn't mean that I don't have a plan.

My last act as GM will be to award xp... I'll include a parting gift.

6 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

no you do not understand the demands of real life.

The point is I can't currently put more time into this game than I am now,

My last act as GM will be to award xp... I'll include a parting gift.

I do understand, far better than you realize, and on top of that I have good friends who have had children with significant problems like you describe. I'll be praying for your family.

I'm not saying you're being neglectful, I am saying that these are the circumstances.

Thank you, I think that is probably the best resolution. No hard feelings.

@Bellona , @MrTInce , @RuusMarev , @SuperWookie , I have a plan for how to finish off this session, but I want to get your buy-in since there are a couple ways of resolving this:

In the movie, once they took the monastery, they had to deal with an attack by the Separatists and then deliver Rotta to Jabba. To do this, they split into two teams: Obi-Wan and Rex stayed at the monastery while Anakin and Ahsoka delivered Rotta to Jabba, which involved an encounter with Dooku and an encounter with Magnaguards. I'd skip the first and play out the second, since I'm not ready for another boss fight yet.

My plan would be for Ventress to escape and the Separatists to arrive. Jorin has to escape through hyperspace, and one or two PCs (preferably two, a pilot and a gunner) follow in the G9. The remaining PCs stay behind and fight the Separatists until reinforcements arrive.
I'd suggest Mireska (this game's best parallel to Obi-Wan, and the 212th's general) and Camouflage stay behind while Ker'see(+the Duchess) and Chee'Okee follow Jorin in the G9.

These events would happen simultaneously in the game, but in-universe the delivery would happen about 18 hours later due to hyperspace travel times. I can sort out the sequence of events in the doc.

The alternative would be to complete the remainder of the session with minimal opposition and move on to the next story as soon as possible, starting "fresh," if you will. I'm amenable to whichever you four prefer, erring on the side of cutting it short even though my preference would be to play it out.

I'm happy to go see Rotta home with Jorin.

Same.. if Jorin can do a good job at piloting and astrogation

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

@Bellona , @MrTInce , @RuusMarev , @SuperWookie , I have a plan for how to finish off this session, but I want to get your buy-in since there are a couple ways of resolving this:

In the movie, once they took the monastery, they had to deal with an attack by the Separatists and then deliver Rotta to Jabba. To do this, they split into two teams: Obi-Wan and Rex stayed at the monastery while Anakin and Ahsoka delivered Rotta to Jabba, which involved an encounter with Dooku and an encounter with Magnaguards. I'd skip the first and play out the second, since I'm not ready for another boss fight yet.

My plan would be for Ventress to escape and the Separatists to arrive. Jorin has to escape through hyperspace, and one or two PCs (preferably two, a pilot and a gunner) follow in the G9. The remaining PCs stay behind and fight the Separatists until reinforcements arrive.
I'd suggest Mireska (this game's best parallel to Obi-Wan, and the 212th's general) and Camouflage stay behind while Ker'see(+the Duchess) and Chee'Okee follow Jorin in the G9.

These events would happen simultaneously in the game, but in-universe the delivery would happen about 18 hours later due to hyperspace travel times. I can sort out the sequence of events in the doc.

The alternative would be to complete the remainder of the session with minimal opposition and move on to the next story as soon as possible, starting "fresh," if you will. I'm amenable to whichever you four prefer, erring on the side of cutting it short even though my preference would be to play it out.

Would we do the escape in this forum, or move to Discord?