Kage, Gayle, you're up.

So yeah, shall we find out why he's here and what he's up to or just leave to the Forge?

I don't even remember the backstory or my character's personality.. ;

*cough*

Kage rolled really well, but Kiara...yeah. Not so much. For all you know, Kage just told you to stab the man and start running. Or to start tapdancing to distract him. Or to slap him.

well... at least one of those would be funny and the others bring in some action.

Hehehe. 1 action die to Kiara for a very...creative and in-character way to delaying their arrival at Yukio's house.

Kage, you get there just a little bit earlier than Kiara and the Samurai. You have about two minutes to explain to Yukio and prepare. What's your plan?

Kage's Sneak roll beat the Samurai's Search, despite the fact that there was a rather large penalty for the unfavorable ground and dragging Toshi with him. You've escaped the imminent doom, but you're not really clear and scot-free, either.

Using his newly bought Panache, Kage gains 20 silver income.

Yes, that is deliberately the worst "cowboy" accent I could write.

By request, all of the behind the scenes rolling for this.

First off, Ramma has the best Notice bonus, so he rolls to discover the man trying to blend in. There's not a lot of people around, so it's fairly easy - Difficulty Class 15.

Ramma rolls a 14 + his total Notice bonus of 7 = 21, comfortably over the DC. He discovers the spy.

To adjucate the chase, I'm rolling Athletics. Kiara has the best bonus here, so she's leading with a +7. Having Ramma and Kage help grants her a +2 Discretionary bonus. Further, due to the tight quarters, she gains a +2 Synergy bonus from her Acrobatics. That gives her a total of +11. The spy isn't very good at running away - he has a total bonus of +4.

To successfully catch him, Kiara has to beat him three times out of five rolls - if she doesn't, the spy slips away. A critical success counts as two points for the chase. Let's see how the rolls go!

Round 1: Kiara 3+11 = 14, Spy 19+4 = 23
Round 2: Kiara 8+11 = 19, Spy 13+4 = 17, 1 Point
Round 3: Kiara 20+11 = 31, Spy 11+4 = 15

Now, what Kiara rolled in Round 3 is a natural 20. Beating out the Spy's roll, this is not just a normal success, but a Threat. Kiara spends one of her three action dice to "activate" it, scoring a critical success. That gives Kiara a total of three points in the chase, enough to catch up to the spy and tackle him to the ground!

Okay, now to get some answers. Ramma provides the best Intimidate (+7). I'll give a +3 Discretionary modifier because you guys totally beat him like a red-headed stepchild in the chase, and you're three armed guys versus him. The spy opposes your attempts with his Resolve, which is a measly +2.

Let the Browbeating begin!

Round 1: Ramma 8+10 = 18, Spy 20+2 = 22

Aw, crap. Natural 20 for the spy! Now, if he was a special NPC, I could simply activate that threat and he'd toughen up beyond your abilities. But he's just a mook, so I can't. You fail, but you can just try again, like so:

Round 2: Ramma 7+10 = 17, Spy 11+2 = 13

Good enough. The spy will answer your questions.

Kasumi tries a Sense Motive versus Toshi's Bluff - and Toshi rolls a 1, an error. Kasumi spends an AD to activate, and Toshi critically fails his Bluff check to her.

In other words, for the rest of the scene, she can read him like a book.

Ramma's Notice versus the bandits' Survival/Ambush check:

11 + 7 = 18 vs 5 + 4 = 9. The bandits fail to surprise you and combat opens normally!

And with that, it's Initiative! For the sake of this encounter, you are all in an "X" formation around Toshi. The nearest bandit for each of you is about 15 feet away.

23 Kiara
20 Ramma, Kasumi
15 Bandits
8 Kagemaru

Kiara goes first. In each round, a character - unless otherwise noted - can take two half actions or one full action. Kiara uses one half action to draw her ninja-to. She then uses her second half action to close the distance to her nearest bandit, to give him a good whupping.

Ramma uses his Quick Draw feat to draw and ready his bow as a free action. He has another feat, Bow Basics, that grants him a stance. Combat stances give you various bonuses in specific situations. This one, Deadshot, grants Ramma +2 to all attack and damage rolls with bows, with the drawback that he can't move out of his current location. Ramma's fine with that, so he spends a half action assuming the Deadshot stance.

He then uses his second half action to fire at the nearest bandit with his bow. Ramma's attack roll is 1d20 + 2 (his base attack bonus) + 3 (his Dexterity modifier) + 1 (his Forte in bows) +2 (Deadshot stance), for a total of 12 + 8 = 20. This easily beats the bandit's defense. Now, Ramma rolls for damage: 1d6 (the bow's base damage) + 2 (Deadshot stance), for a total of 7.

The bandit rolls a damage save. He needs to save against a difficulty class of 13 (10 + 1/2 the accumulated damage he's suffered). He rolls 1d20 + 2 (his damage save bonus) for 6 + 2 = 8. Not good enough, lowly nameless minion! He's down.

Kasumi drops into a defensive stance, daring any of the bandits to come get her. She takes the Full Defense action, a full action that grants her +4 to Defense for the round, and stays where she is. Her effective Defense is now 18 (-1 from the armor she's wearing, +4 from Total Defense.)

The bandit Kiara ran up to decides to swing at her with his club. He rolls 1d20 + 2 (his attack bonus) for 10 + 2 = 12. Not nearly enough to beat Kiara's Defense of 17. He tries again, 14 + 2 = 16. Aaargh, so close! But no cigar.

The remaining two bandits rush Kasumi and Kagemaru, respectively. They swing: 20! (+2, for a total of 22 on his attack check.) The bandit hits Kasumi despite her (quite good) Defense. He's wielding a club, which inflict 1d8 subdual damage, and of course he rolls an 8, too! Man, that bandit is good. Kasumi's armor has a Damage Reduction of 3, meaning that she only has to deal with 5 subdual damage. Kasumi must now roll a Fortitude save against 10 + 1/2 her accumulated subdual damage, for a DC of 12, or suffer the Fatigued condition. She rolls 1d20 + 2 (her Fort save bonus) for 11 + 2 = 13 - just enough! Kasumi avoids becoming Fatigued!

The bandit attacking Kagemaru swings: 2 + 2 = 4. Yeah, he doesn't hit. Kagemaru counters with an unarmed attack: 11 + 4 = 15, a hit. 2 + 2 = 4. Bandit damage-saves against a DC of 10 + 4/2 = 12, roll: 6 + 2 = 8. He's down. Kagemaru uses his second half action to move to the bandit whacking Kasumi.

Final result: Two of the bandits are dead. Kasumi has taken a bit of a licking, having 5 subdual damage total. Kiara is adjacent to one survivor, Kasumi and Kage to the other.

The second round should be fun.

Round 2!

Kiara makes with the stabbing. She uses the Deft Swing trick with her attack to substitute her Dex mod instead of her Str mod for the attack roll, ending up with 1d20 + 1 (BAB) + 4 (Dex mod) + 1 (Forte): 19 + 6 = 25, an easy hit. Damage is 1d8 + 4 (Dex mod): 8 + 4 = 12! The bandit tries his damage save against a DC of 16, rolling 3 + 2 = 5. Not even close, buddy. The bandit falls to the ground, dead. Better luck next time. Kiara uses her second half action to run over to the last remaining bandit, who by now must be pissing his pants.

Kasumi uses a full action to Pummel the last bandit, hoping to get some revenge (and spare his life, for the moment). She rolls her normal attack roll, 1d20 + 6: 14 + 6 = 20. It's a hit! Pummeling an opponent allows you to inflict THREE TIMES your normal unarmed damage as subdual damage, and when you're Kasumi, your normal unarmed damage is already 1d6 + 4, nothing to sneeze at. So for this attack, Kasumi rolls 3d6 + 12.

Yes, that's a lot.

In fact, it's a total of 20 points of subdual damage, even with not so good rolls.

The bandit tries to save against a DC of 20 (10 + 20/2) with his small damage save bonus, getting a result of...1. (Total result 3, not that it matters.)

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the same bandit who had two perfect rolls last round now has a perfectly awful roll. Maybe he's the ancestor of Dirk Tang!, but whatever the case, he's done. Now, failed damage saves actually have one of two results: if the damage that triggered it was lethal, the character dies. If the damage was not lethal, he's knocked out. Since subdual damage is not lethal, the last bandit keels over, very very thoroughly unconscious.

And that's the fight, ladies and gentlemen!

To quote the Joker: Note to self, need to order more henchmen...good ones this time.

And for scheming, here's Kasumi!

"First, we have to undress these four bandits, and dress ourselves in their clothing. I have my makeup kit with me, so I can disguise us as bandits. They might be a pretty close-knit group, so I don't think these disguises will last very long. We have to scout the camp from the outside, then we strike. Toshi and I both know how to ride, so we'll go for the horses, with Ramma covering us from outside the camp, maybe on a hill or in a tree. Now, we'll need a distraction to get close to the horses. You two are ninja, right?" Kasumi smiles. "It was a little obvious. How do you two feel about assassinating a bandit leader who tells his underlings to murder anyone who enters the forest? Quickly make your way to the tent, act as if there's some kind of urgent message for Eagle that you have to deliver. Once inside, hit him fast, cut your way out the back of the tent and sprint for the forest. Toshi and I will use the confusion to escape with the horses. Does anyone object?"

So, that was our first session played in Wave! I'm not quite wild about the die rolls hanging in the middle of it, but it does make for a good record of things. Not to mention it was a ton of fun. I hope everybody enjoyed themselves.

Organizational crap: Next post will cover Kiara and Ramma leaving the group, as well as Adam's character making his entrance. Note that this will conclude this thread and send the remaining characters to Level 3, so get back to me with what you want from your level-up. After that, a new IC thread will start, because I like having them in bite-sized pieces like these.

Further exposition taken down temporarily to let the discussion continue.

Kasey's plan for the Fortress:

punkey0: They climb the hard way, get into position, while Yukio and Kasumi take Nagiko and the other Red Dragon guy up the front door.
punkey0: They snoop around, try to find out what they can about the hit on Yukio and provide cover, while Kasumi does her thing up front as well.
punkey0: Two lines, no waiting, so everyone has something to do.

Everybody cool with that?

EDIT: Note that Yukio's getting disguised so she hopefully won't be made on sight.

That's about the same I've thought of, with the little change that Yukio shouldn't be going through the front door. Her needed skills to get by disguised are practically non-existant. Even if Kasumi takes over the job of getting her disguised, she's bad at staying disguised. I think we might be better off with Yukio climbing.

I threw together a quick sketch of what the academy guys know about the Red Dragon Clan fortress. Interpret thusly: The yellow is the path leading up to it. You come up the mountain in the lower right corner and it loops around in a serpentine off-screen to the left. The light gray is mountain. On the way, you have one "tower" of rock that you pass twice: once on your way left, and then again before you get underneath the fortress itself. The path past this tower and the rock face on the other side is narrow and provides the fortress with a sort of natural gate that slows down potential attackers. The top of the tower is a little higher than the rest of the fortress.

The red squares are guard posts, known hotspots of Red Dragon guards. Those are mostly bowmen who can rain fire down on you. Of course, it's a matter of lighting at night. The small "gate" between the tower and the rock face are lit with torches from above, as are all guard posts. The lower approach is not lit, but you'd have to be pretty nuts to climb a mountain pass in the dark without your own torch. Well, nuts or a bunch of ninjas.

After the "gate" you enter a landing. The actual fortress is about fifty feet up from there. Visitors and supplies are winched up to the fortress proper via a rope elevator basket - which is why part of the fortress structure is overhanging there. What you can't see is that this requires structural braces against the rock face, so this section of the rock is pretty sheer but gives you something easier to climb about two thirds of the way up. As you can see, this part of the fortress also has increased guard presence and is built so it's a chokepoint.

The remaining guard strongholds you see are towers overlooking the surroundings and whatever's inside the fortress walls.

Crap, forgot to scale this. Figure that the "gate" is just about narrow enough for a wagon to pass through, so...about six feet.