GURPS: Vehicle Hit Locations for Cars Analysis

Precis- I explore some of the wonky oddities surrounding Vehicle Hit Locations

First, this post on explosives is excellent (didn't know Roger had a blog until an hour ago).

I'm going to take a look at vehicle hit locations. This is something that has come up before in Agency 17.

Compared to helicopters (control surfaces), planes (ditto), spacecraft (who wants to inhale vacuum?), and boats (water), cars don't care too much about damage to the exterior. Shooting up the side panels, passenger compartment, or the trunk of a car does jack shit towards disabling the vehicle. The way I see it, a car only has a few real vulnerabilities:

• Engine
• Wheels
• Fuel Tank
• Driver
• Drive train (really starting to get pedantic here)

So let's look at the actual table, piece by piece. I'm going to focus specifically on cars. That means I'll be ignoring things like superstructure, wings, exposed riders, etc.

Body: Powered vehicles that take a major wound must check vs, HT or suffer halved move.

Guinea Pig:
The TL6 Roadster (B464) has ST/HP 42, HT 9f (flammable), SM +2 and DR 4, and counts as unliving.

A piercing attack needs to deal 21 points of injury to cause a check for the major wound. That would be 63 points for a piercing attack (unliving reduces incoming damage by a 1/3rd), 42 points for a large piercing attack (1/2 reduction via unliving), or 21 points of damage for huge piercing or impaling attack.

A quick look at TL5/TL6 rifles in High Tech shows a few that could manage to knock out a car in a single body shot, accounting for -4 damage due to DR:

The TL5 Greener Elephant Rifle (although admittedly extremely rare in Prohibition Chicago) can  pass the test with 6d+2 pi++ damage, a maximum of 34 (after applying for DR 4), 8 points of damage shy of the threshold large piercing attacks have to hit to cause a major wound. A quick look at http://anydice.com/ shows that 6d+2 will deal 21+ damage 36.31% of the time.

The TL6 H&H Royal Double-Express, .600 NE (also extremely rare in Prohibition Chicago) also easily does the job with 5dx2 pi++ damage, doing at least 21 damage roughly 3.24% of the time- before figuring in the x2 portion of the damage text which makes it a much more likely 77.65% chance.

The Steyr-Solothurn S18-1000 is more or less a souped up H&H Royal Express with 6dx2(2) pi++, dealing 22 damage 99% of the time.

As for machine guns:

The Maxim 1-pdr is an interesting case due to the armor divisor of (0.5), giving our poor roadster effective DR 8. Still, with 5dx2(0.5)pi++, it can manage to cause a roadster a major wound 39.97% of the time! This isn't even accounting for the followup explosions (which will wreck any occupants extremely fast).

The Browning M2HB makes the cut, dealing 42 points of large piercing damage roughly 50% of the time. The KPZ DShK-38 has identical damage numbers.

A 12-gauge 2.75" firing slugs (4d+4 pi++) can also hit the 21 damage threshold 2.7% of the time.

Verdict:

The body location mechanics make a good deal of sense- only a small handful of TL5-6 rifles can pump out enough damage in a single shot to potentially knock a vehicle to half move, and two of the three machine guns available are definitely WW2 offerings. Shotgun slugs can also do it, but with abysmally small chances.

Notably, some favorite TL8 anti-material rifles such as the Barret M82A1 don't pack enough wallop to disable a TL6 roadster with a single body shot.

 Glass windows, Large and Small

When you hit a glass window, you make an Occupant Hit check and if that succeeds your attack hits someone inside. Depending on if the window was up or down, they get half vehicle DR or no DR respectively on the attack.

First, there isn't much description as to the size different between a Large Window (a -3 penalty to hit, reduced to -1 for the roadster's SM) and a Small Window (-7 penalty to hit, -5 for the roadster). If a full windshield is a -1 to hit, would a normal car window really be at -5? I mean, the size difference between all the vitals for a human and the skull hit location is much smaller than a full-sized windshield to a car door window, right? It's a maddening bit of ambiguity.

Using our Roadster example, a single occupant would be hit on a 9 or less (37.5%), while two occupants have a 50/50 shot of either of them taking a hit on the 10 or less. Now, this is the straight attack, not the 5 points becoming 1d of cutting damage under Occupants and Vehicle Damage- your 7d+1 Springfield rifle shot plows into someone.

p.470 also includes the following on windows:

An attacker can sometimes target a
vehicle’s occupants directly. This is
only possible if the vehicle has an
exposed rider (E), glass windows (G or
g), or an open cabin (O)...  A rider has no cover; someone in
an open or glass-windowed vehicle
has partial cover (legs, groin, and half
the torso). There is an extra -1 to shoot
into or out of a window unless the
occupant is actually leaning out.

Verdict: Why shoot a window when you can shoot the guy behind it at a -1 penalty? Shooting through the vehicle DR and hitting your main target is a far better bet than relying on Occupant Damage.

Vital Area: 

Vital Area: A powered vehicle (anything with a ST attribute) has vital
areas: engines, fuel tanks, etc. The
wounding modifier for a tight-beam
burning attack is x2; that for an impaling or any piercing attack is x3!

This is where things get really wonky in a way that really rubs me the wrong way. The quote above seems to strongly indicate that Vital Areas do not benefit from Injury Tolerance: Unliving, a trait that most vehicles have. Hilarity ensues.

The M1903 Springfield rifle does 7d+1 pi damage. According to the entry for Vital Areas, it would receive a wounding modifier of x3. 14 damage after DR will hit the 42HP needed to reduce a vehicle to 0 HP immediately- 18 damage before DR. The M1903 will do 18 damage roughly 80.83% of the time with a single shot.

A 12-gauge 2.75" shotgun firing a rifled slug (4d6+4 pi++) will deal 18 damage before DR 15.9% of the time, also reducing the roadster to 0 HP in a single shot. 

I should also mention that dealing 42 points of damage to a vehicle in a single hit will cause 8d of cutting damage inside the passenger compartment due to the 5 points of damage -> 1d of cutting conversion as per vehicle damage and occupants.

Verdict: This is broken.

Wheels:

Damage over HP/(2*Number of Wheels) cripples a wheel. For the TL6 roadster, that's 6 points of damage. Effects of crippling a wheel are the same as a character with an equal number of legs losing one leg.

So uh, time to look up the rules for adding legs or losing legs in Characters? Because looking up extra legs to determine the properties of a vehicle losing wheels is intuitive and user friendly?

A quick look at B.54-55 shows that:

• For 3-4 wheels, crippling 1 reduces move by half.
• For 5-6, each missing wheel reduces move by 20% until only 3 or left (40% move at that point), and then any gone after that stops movement completely
• For 7+, each lost leg reduces move by 10% until 3 are left (40% move at that point), and then losing another stops all movement completely.

Additionally, any damage to a wheel forces an HT check. If it fails, it's immediately crippled.

Hitting the wheel of a SM +2 roadster is just a -2 penalty.

Verdict: Wheels are a primo target for ending car chases, especially since 4-wheel cars are the norm for most modern settings.

Insurance Claims:

Of the hit locations, the body hit location does the best job of mirroring reality- very few weapons available at the same tech level as the sacrificial lamb can reliably knock it out in a single hit, which I feel is very true to life.

On the other hand, the "Vital Areas" hit location is an abomination that seems to completely ignore  that an engine would have Injury Tolerance: Unliving, just like the rest of the car.

Wheels are an interesting case, and I feel that having one become crippled should force a control roll or  give control rating penalties and that the move penalty should be reduced to 25% until two wheels are crippled. 

Windows are another strange case because you can explicitly aim for a window and take your chances that an occupant inside gets hit, or you can just accept a -1 (unless you want to hang out your window like a chump to fire your gun) to try and hit someone inside, who gets partial DR for half their body.

Fix 'er up (my thoughts on potential fixes/solutions and balancing):

Body: Leave as is.

Wheels: The first crippled wheel on a four-wheeled vehicle reduces max speed by 25%. A crippled wheel requires a control roll to prevent a mishap/accident (I highly suggest applying speed penalties using everyone's favorite table to the driving check). A second crippled wheel reduces max speed by 50% and requires another control roll. 

A penalty to handling would probably also be an excellent idea as an alternative to maximum speed reduction or in addition to a maximum speed penalty. 

Windows: Attacking a window directly is a -3 penalty while attacking an occupant directly through a window is a -5 penalty. Choosing to attack an occupant directly dictates who is hit on a success, choosing to attack the window directly means rolling for Occupant Damage on a hit. If that subsequent roll is also a hit, a random occupant is hit by the original attack. If the Occupant Damage check is not a hit, the vehicle sustains damage from the attack, but do not make additional Occupant Damage Checks for the same attack.

If random hit location is used for a direct hit on an occupant, the legs, groin, feet and half of the torso (1-3 on a 1d roll) are protected by vehicle DR. A closed window provides half Vehicle DR.

Vital Areas:

Reduce the wounding modifiers for piercing attacks to a vital area:

• Huge Piercing: 1.5x
• Large Piercing: 1.25x
• Piercing: 1x
• Small Piercing: .5x

Impaling attacks get a wounding modifier of x1, because who is going to stab an engine block with a spear?

Attacking the engine has a -3 penalty and may only be done from the front or sides.

Attacking the fuel tanks has a -6 penalty (Exception: Externally mounted tanks, -3)  and may not be done from the front on most civilian vehicles. Damage over Vehicle Max HP/5 cripples the tank, causing the Vehicle's range to drop by 75% of its max.

Overall Vehicle HP and Damage:

Gurps currently doesn't have any stated rules (that I've been able to find with a more than casual less than decent search of various source books) on how to handle when a vehicle is disabled from generic damage. I'm willing to bet I've missed something, somewhere, but until I learn about something, I'd probably go with the following:

Once a vehicle reaches 0 or less HP, it needs to check against HT immediately and every turn afterwards or immediately come to a stop.

Vehicle Occupant Damage:

I would make a few changes:

• Called shots to the wheels and fuel tank do not check for occupant damage
• Shots that hit the engine from the side of the vehicle do not check for occupant damage
• Instead of randomly choosing who is hit, a GM may at their discretion cause Vehicle Occupant Damage to affect whoever in the vehicle is closest to where the damage to the vehicle occurs

Thanks:

I'd like to thank Douglas Cole for taking the time to read a draft of the post and getting in touch with David Pulver, who explained what lead to the vehicle hit table during development of 4th ed:

However, in the original draft of 4e, all hit points scaled with square root (like ST) rather than cube root. This had a significant
effect on vehicle hit points. A car, for example, would have had around twice as many hit points as it ended up with and a tank would have
about 3 times as many HP...  

The late change to cube root HP in the final draft, made after I had left the project and was thus unable
to comment, unfortunately affected some rules in subtle ways. The high multiplier for piercing damage was originally intended as a way of allowing
"golden BB" type effects, but with only half to a third as many HP in the final version produces some unfortunate overkill results.

Prohibition Mob: "Even if everyone else was deeply confused, I appreciated the Agency 17 appearance."

Precis - The crew from Agency 17 makes an appearance- and not just a cameo.

The Crew:

Sam: The diplomatic and sociopathic leader of the crew. Sam has been the driving force behind the group's actions since day one, and his feud with Three-Fingers Moran has been a consistent issue for the group.

Red: A 16-17 year old thug whose brother's work in the liftskirt industry got her into organized crime. Red is tenacious, has a fiery temper, and has a lot of maturity issues to work out.

Vinnie: Another thug in the 16-17 year old range, Vinnie is a skulk and thug. Raised on the streets from a young age, Vinnie enjoys gambling, slicing throats and good cigars.

Tony: Tony made sergeant in WWI and made sure that a BAR fell off a truck for his own personal use later. The triggerman of the team, Tony's found himself in the sights of an intrepid bombshell reporter- Rachel.

Isaac: A former cop who has turned into a fixer for various corrupt individuals. Isaac is scary perceptive and would make an ideal serial killer if he were inclined.

Supporting Cast:
Teddy: Sam's brother-in-law and the group's wheelman. Teddy enjoys loud explosions, fast cars, driving fast cars, and causing loud explosions.

Rachel: Possibly the best journalist in the city, Rachel immediately found herself smitten with Tony and is more than happy to dig up information for him. Rachel figures the book she'll be able to write in a decade will be a best seller.

Ben Kincaid: The leader of the Kincaid Outfit, Ben is the boss of the group the players are currently working under. Ben is a smooth operator who would probably be a better fit in an intelligence agency than running a criminal organization.

Senga: Owner of the bar the players use as their base of operations. Legitimate businessman.

SITREP:

Having been ambushed by Moran, the group thinks its time for some payback. They've assembled a team and are ready to take out whatever might be waiting for them back at their hotel.

DC:

Things at their hotel seemed normal, sans the illegally parked car with a single wheel up on the curb by the entrance. Vinnie decided to scout things out.

Due to darkness penalties and a failed perception roll, Vinnie turned a corner and bumped right into someone skulking around.

A firefight ensued. Vinnie managed to avoid getting shot, while for the first few seconds his knife attacks failed to land or penetrate the leather jacket the guy was wearing. Assailant #2 got gunned down by Red before he could get a shot off.

Tony gunned down the remaining gun after he turned and ran. The two guys had been in the process of wiring the car to explode- nobody noticed the cable running to the car parked out front until Red tripped over it in the dark.

The crew decided to grab their stuff and bail.

Sam left the group to canvas capital hill to try and locate where Moran's senator- Cedric O'brien- would be docking once they arrived in DC via Cedric's steamboat. 

Sam found Isaac receiving his final pay for a job he had just finished for Nathan Larson- the newest Senator from Vermont.

Isaac and Sam speak for a moment, and Sam immediately realizes he could use Isaac's talents, asking him for a meeting the next morning.

Sam was then floored when Larson called out to him by name and wanted to have a conversation...

Larson knows Kyle DiGlado, knows that Sam is working for him, and wants to know what brings Sam to DC. It turns out that Larson and Sam's goals align- Sam wants to take out Moran, Larson wants Cedric- his fellow Senator- taken out of the picture.

Moran and Cedric are arriving in DC in a few days and then throwing a big celebratory bash over Cedric's successful campaign.

Larson puts Sam in contact with his team, and makes it clear that Sam shouldn't investigate or dig into the games going on above his pay grade.

Larson's team consists of Virgil, Jack and Johnny Trang, who were the PCs in my previous campaign, Agency 17. The three refer to themselves as V, J and M, respectively, to stymie any attempts on Sam's part to track them down after the fact. Virgil and co spell out their plan (sniping), their willingness to help (if it doesn't endanger them), and wish Sam and the rest of the crew luck.

The session ends with Larson's secretary giving Red a love letter to deliver to Kyle DiGlado.

Next Time:

I have more planning ahead of me than I usually do. There's the boat, the party, the guests, the security prep for the boat, and more to mull over and prepare for. I'm sure things won't go as planned for anybody present, except maybe the Agency 17 guys who will get their man one way or another.

Behind the Curtain

So what's Larson's game, and how is it he's acquired a team from what was a TL8 time and place and now has them in TL6 1920s DC? I'm not telling. The core of the campaign will always be the mobsters trying to make it big- and with the exception of Sam's player, the Agency 17 guys showing up wasn't anything out of the ordinary. What I do in the background behind the curtain to tie my various campaigns together is a side offering for the players I have who stick with multiple campaigns to see the threads connecting them, and for the readers who keep up on my games here.

I'm sure it will eventually lead to a campaign more devoted to exploring the topic as a whole, but for now my guys want to bury Moran for good, and so that's my main focus.

Mr. Insidious Reviews- GURPS Action 4: Specialists

(Disclaimer: I decided to write this review because these are my genuine views of the product.)

Action 4 is undoubtedly an iteration of the Specialty packages Kromm created for his GURPS campaign, The Company, back in 2009. This is a good thing.

Reading through The Company Document (page with link here, direct attachment link here) is interesting, as many of specialties are lifted almost verbatim (I'll bold examples) from the word document to Action 4.

For example, The Languages Speciality from The Company Document (which I'll call TCD from here on out):

Languages

Every Company operative is expected to be bilingual, at least – but a trained interpreter is a valuable resource for a squad, given that there’s no way of knowing where the next job will be. You’re multilingual in the extreme and have a trained ear even for languages you don’t know. This specialty is most effective when paired with something like Impersonation, Social Engineering, or Spin Doctor.

Advantages: Acute Hearing 1 [2]; Language 1 (Native) [6]; Language 2 (Native) [6]; Language 3 (Native) [6].

Perks: Accent (any one for any language known) [1].

Skills: Linguistics (IQ/H) [4].

And the same from Action 4:

 Linguist
25 points
You’re a trained interpreter or just a “citizen of the world.”
You’re multilingual in the extreme and have a trained ear.
Advantages: Acute Hearing 1 [2]; Language Talent* [10]; Language (any at Native) [4]; Language (any other at Native)
[4]; Language (yet another at Native) [4].
Skills: One of Gesture (IQ/E) [1], Lip Reading (Per/A) [1],
Public Speaking (IQ/A) [1], or Writing (IQ/A) [1] – or Linguistics (IQ/H) [1] in a realistic campaign, though Action
doesn’t use that skill.
* When doubling up, choose Cultural Adaptability [10] or
Voice [10] the second time.

So, both include Acute Hearing 1 as well as Three Languages at Native Comprehension. TCD has 4 points in linguistics and a perk, while Action 4 springs for Language Talent and a single related skill at 1 point. This is pretty indicative of a lot of the packages from TCD to Action 4- they ditch perks and they tend to skew skills towards more of an action oriented game.

Records Falsification from TCD:

Records Falsification

You can fake just about any kind of document: identity cards, ledgers, police reports, and (in a pinch) banknotes. Given the Company’s shadowy existence, this specialty is in great demand. Company ops don’t have to do this sort of work themselves – they can request it from their handlers in advance – but field Agents often run into situations and timelines that render such orders infeasible during an assignment.

Perks: One-Task Wonder (Administration defaults to full IQ when filling in/interpreting forms) [1].

Skills: Accounting (IQ/H) [2]; Computer Operation (IQ/E) [1]; Counterfeiting (IQ/H) (from Forgery) [4]; Electronics Operation (Media) (IQ/A) [2]; Electronics Repair (Media) (IQ/A) [1]; Forgery (IQ/H) [12]; Photography (IQ/A) [2].

 And from Action 4:

 Records Falsification
25 points
You can fake documents of most kinds: identity cards, ledgers, photographs . . . even banknotes, in a pinch. To falsify
digital records, tack on Computer Intrusion (p. 13).
Skills: Accounting (IQ/H) [4]; Administration (IQ/A)
[4]; Computer Operation (IQ/E) [1]; Electronics
Operation (Media) (IQ/A) [4]; Forgery* (IQ/H) [12].
* Counterfeiting (IQ/H) defaults to Forgery-2,
which usually suffices because it rarely arises in
Action. If it’s essential to a character concept, take
it instead of Forgery and use Forgery at its Counterfeiting-2 default.

 Both have a spattering of the same skills, although the point values differ a little between the two. Perhaps the biggest difference are the skills that later get removed with Action 4- Electronics Repair (Media) is completely ditched, as is the perk in favor of putting actual points in Administration. Action 4's specialty just makes more sense than the one in TCD.

So what do we know about Action 4?

• Action 4 has effectively been in development for almost 6 years since the specialty packages concept have been kicking around Kromm's head since around that time (at least)
• Action 4 is sleek, lean, and based off something that works- I used TCD for my Agency 17 game and all of my players ended up with very capable, interesting characters to play. I still suggest using specialties to my players to this day, and I'll likely allow players the choice of choosing between the ones laid out in TCD or Action 4.
• Hell, I still routinely build NPCs off TCD to this day.
• There's new specialties in Action 4 completely left out of TCD, such as Journalist, Bon Vivant, Researcher and Fireman, which expands from purely the espionage roots of TCD into incorporating a wider selection of Action Roles.
• Action 4 takes the default agent template of TCD and breaks it down to a lower point total and then encourages people to select from power-ups which allows for even made tailor-made characters without moving away from Templates.

 I only have a few complaints:

• I would love to see this expanded to non-action genres, although many specialties could easily be converted without much effort.
• Somewhat more realistic specialties would also be fantastic

All in all? Action 4 is a solid product, and one that I bought immediately with full confidence that I would get a great deal of use out of it. I personally feel it is applicable for many campaign styles besides Action alone, and that gives it a great amount of utility. I strongly suggest buying it.

Sometimes the worst enemy of a group of PCs is real life.

Agency 17 is over for now. A combination of grad school, work hours changing, going full time and life emergencies caused too much scheduling headaches to continue trying to gather everybody together every week.

Maybe it will return if things settle down, but these things tend to not happen.

In other news, I lost the files for three of my PC's character sheets for the Monster Hunters game I'm running IRL. Thankfully, I'd printed off sheets for everyone a week prior, so I can recreate them without too much fuss.

Action Report: The Stolen Line of Credit (Now with 300% more Action Report!)

I apologize for the unreasonably long delay between posts- I've recently changed careers and that's thrown my writing time under the bus. This post is going to cover some planning, about 4 sessions worth of in-game events.

Last Session, the Agents learned from Operational Support (Ozzy) that Agency 17 funds have been siphoned off an put into what looks like an illicit side business.

The line of credit- specifically a credit card issued to Agents to allow them to get supplies carte blanche- was issued to a team of Agents operating within Europe. It went missing roughly a year prior, meaning that the PCs weren't part of the Agency when this happened, clearing them of being involved.

The Team that Lost the Card:

• William Robert "Tex" Jackson- Imposter extraordinaire
• Martha "Scopes" Franklin- Sniper
• Juan Carlos "JC" Verdes- Heavy Weapons
• Anthony "Buzz" Cortelli- Comms
• Joshua "Colonel" Starke- Tactics and leader

This team is much closer to militant than the players, who are slightly closer to spooks. The players are much more capable at being subtle, while Starke's group is Agency 17's muscle.

Former Members and Allies:

• Rashad has worked both with and most recently against Starke's group. Rashad took the entire squad out of fieldwork for seven months, something they definitely hold a grudge over.
• Ashley "Kitty" Vereen- Previously was the team's face. Presumed dead after an intense firefight in Sudan. Actually had grown tired of Agency 17 and offered her services to the State Security Agency of South Africa.
• Logan has helped look through intelligence gathered by the team
• Ian "Saliva" Cromartie- Demolitions expert and the man originally responsible for siphoning off Agency 17 funds. Now freelances with American PMCs.

The Agents

Virgil Cooke: A former CIA agent, Virgil is a master of acting a part and working the social aspects of covert ops. You probably should avoid windows if he wants you dead.
Jack Herman: Former SAS, Jack is the group's heavy muscle and military man. If the group needs his talents, it's inevitably because something went FUBAR and they need saving.
Nima Caspi: A former IDF combat medic, Nima is perfectly at home driving like a complete maniac and patching up complete maniacs who have taken a bullet or two.
Johnny Trang: Johnny Trang was too cool for LAPD officer school, so they put him into undercover work. Johnny Trang is perfectly at home infiltrating illegal racing rings or snooping on bad guys.
Tobias Stöhner: Gray hat hacker and electronics whiz, Tobias makes computer security experts at the Pentagon break out into a cold sweat when he infiltrates their systems.

As play starts, the Agents sit around for a few hours waiting for Ozzy to try and contact Starke's team. Kyle arrives, immediately questioning the other Agents as to whether they were involved in the car chase and firefight he's heard about on the news. The Agents sugarcoat it by saying that they were trying to secure some shady firearms and the deal went bad. Kyle doesn't push the issue.

Kyle has bad news, however. Agency 17 is moving Tobias to Switzerland where he can assist another team that's ran into cryptography issues. The Agents are suspicious about this, but players don't inquire much on the issue- I've informed them that this is purely to move Tobias away from the action while his player is unable to play due to real life constraints and has nothing to do with the massive conspiracy.

The Agents open the beers provided by Kyle and wait for Ozzy's info. It's brought up that tracking down financial shenanigans is likely Egeman's way of putting the team on ice for a while to ensure they can't meddle as Agency 17 tries to track down Logan.

What follows is the team learning all about Starke's team and the various events surrounding their operations.

The news doesn't paint them in a positive light- the entire team spent seven months out of commission due to some kind of SNAFU in a chemical plant that more or may not have involved Rashad. The crew lost a member in a firefight in Africa, and another left Agency 17 entirely

The Agents head to Rhode Island to question a moving company that charged the company credit card. The employees are helpful, if stupid, and point to a location in upstate New York- the boonies. It seems a woman had them move a large number of watertight heavy cases to a farm of some kind. The Agents pick up immediately on the fact that the entire transaction is suspicious, and they suspect weapons trafficking.

They head to the farm, opting to park the car at the end of the very long dirt driveway and approach on foot. They decide to go for a very long and slow approach. Virgil, Jack and Nima assume overwatch positions in the woods while Kyle and Johnny creep closer.

Virgil spots a sniper spotter team in the loft of the barn. A woman walks across from the farmhouse to the barn, and is confronted by Johnny. She tells Johnny and Kyle to get lost, and draws a gun on them when Johnny isn't encouraged to leave.

Kyle shoots her in the gut with his oversized revolver as Virgil takes out the sniper in spectacular fashion. A man busts out of the barn with a shotgun, only to take a 3-round burst from Jack which kills him immediately.

The Agents swarm the scene, securing the woman and the spotter who is still alive. Lindsey, the woman they shot, is in rough shape, saved only by the shoddy bulletproof vest she was wearing and Nima's supreme skill at patching up bullet holes. The spotter can't stop retching, and is obviously very traumatized at seeing his friend's head explode thanks to Virgil.

Kyle and Jack confirm the farmhouse is clear while tossing the place for intel. Johnny quickly finds the cases the moving company transported- they're full of assault rifles and a bunch of M79 grenade launchers.

A car drives up the driveway to the farm. The Agents immediately scramble to hide their presence. Some men with pistols get out of the car and search the area. Upon finding Lindsey's blood on the ground, they pile back into the car and leave.

The Agents decide to confiscate the weapons.

What follows is a long standoff between the Agents and the three cars worth of men who show up armed and ready for a fight. Johnny unwisely tries to pose as US Marshalls- a choice of agency I felt was stretching the lie very thin. 

Things degrade once a boss of some kind shows up, leading to a very one-sided firefight. Jack ends up spraying down at least eight people by scything through their legs with rifle bullets, the other Agents also taking shots and downing enemies. The players suffer no injuries and quickly subdue or kill every assailant.

The Agents realize law enforcement is on their way. The grab the boss and Lindsey, and get make a break out of the area.

They make for a safehouse Ozzy had stashed away and get ready to interrogate their captives.

The man they grabbed is named Richard. He turns out to be the local head of the Grandsons of Liberty chapter, and is only middle management. This disappoints the agents, who were under the impression that he was higher up the food chain.

It quickly becomes clear that claiming to be US Marshals was a poor decision as the Grandsons have been colluding with a corrupt Marshal- Butch Harris. Harris bankrolled Lindsey's transaction with the moving company, and was also responsible for keeping law enforcement pressure off the Grandsons.

The Agents convince Richard to give up his phone passcode so they have a number with which to call Butch.

What follows is a long conversation about how to handle the captives, how to handle Butch, and how to secure the missing credit card. It's eventually decided that Butch is too well connected with law enforcement to try and lure him out at the current time- the Agents do not want Butch claiming that they've created a hostage situation, bringing the FBI's HRT down on their heads.

The group contacts Ozzy and asks him to see if Agency 17 can leverage Butch into not working with the Grandsons.

Jack's phone rings. It's their mysterious informant who has been feeding them information since just after the incident over the Mediterranean Sea. They want to meet the Agents, in person, because they're in imminent danger...

Notes:

• Player talk one session ended up going into mounting a Punt Gun on the back of a van for use dissuading pursuit.

Action Report: 404 Witty Title Not Found

The Agents

Tobias Stöhner: Gray hat hacker and electronics whiz, Tobias makes computer security experts at the Pentagon break out into a cold sweat when he infiltrates their systems.
Virgil Cooke: A former CIA agent, Virgil is a master of acting a part and working the social aspects of covert ops. You probably should avoid windows if he wants you dead.
Jack Herman: Former SAS, Jack is the group's heavy muscle and military man. If the group needs his talents, it's inevitably because something went FUBAR and they need saving.
Nima Caspi: A former IDF combat medic, Nima is perfectly at home driving like a complete maniac and patching up complete maniacs who have taken a bullet or two.
Johnny Trang: Johnny Trang was too cool for LAPD officer school, so they put him into undercover work. Johnny Trang is perfectly at home infiltrating illegal racing rings or snooping on bad guys.

We had everyone but Tobias' player again. I'm likely going to be devising something for Tobias to do that will keep him engaged long term.

Holed in up an abandoned EB Games, the Agents were very aware that they were being watched, having spotted the sniper set up in the building opposite their location.

Jack and Virgil sprung into action, heading out of the fire exit into the alley behind the building. The lookout posted there was taking a leak at the exact wrong moment (hello critical failure on a natural 18) and quickly when down when Jack scored a crit (6 vs skill 16) with his knife to the man's neck artery.

The other Agents quickly steal glances at the surrounding area, spotting two more men obviously watching the store.

With the alley lookout taken out silently, Virgil and Jack manage to flank the other two men on lookout.

The Agents coordinate their fire. Nima and Logan both open fire on the sniper right as Virgil and Jack take out the lookouts.

Jack storms into the building the sniper is in, taking out a man wielding a shotgun in the stairwell on the way up.

Virgil goes up the back staircase. They surprise the sniper inside, taking him captive.

The team goes to their vehicles, about to leave when two vans approach very rapidly.

Nima immediately escapes with Tobias and Logan, leaving Jack, Johnny and Virgil to cover their escape.

Despite having superior acceleration to the vans, Johnny isn't able to lose them with pedal to the metal. The first van slams into the back of their car, doing relatively little damage.

Jack leans out the window to line up a shot.

The leading van opens its side door and a man hangs out the side, blazing away at the Agents. Virgil scrambles to get his rifle from the trunk of the car from inside the passenger cabin- not a fun time.

The man hanging from the side of the van manages to clip Jack's right arm with an AP round from an AK-47, immediately crippling it. A few seconds later, rifle in hand, Virgil obliterates the man's head, causing his lifeless body to flop onto the pavement, only to be run over by the second van.

Johnny does some aggressive driving to try and get Virgil and Jack better shots on the lead van, by braking hard and allowing the lead pursuing van to pass them, which he pulls off excellently.

The vans move to try and box Johnny in. His attempt at a PIT Maneuver doesn't go as planned, although it does cause the van to slow down enough that it falls behind its partner.

Its partner rams into the back of the Agents' car, again more or less ineffectively. The door of this van opens as well, and a second man hangs from the side of the van, gun at the ready.

Virgil headshots the van driver, almost causing the pursuing vans to collide as the dead driver causes the van in the lead to swerve violently across the road.

The van still with a live driver gives up the pursuit.

 The Agents crash at a motel to collect themselves and talk with Logan. Monson clubbed him over the head and then questioned him closely about Egeman's involvement in Agency 17. Besides Monson's betrayal, Logan appears to have escaped Agency 17.

The captured sniper is not particularly helpful, although he does inform the agents that a huge Italian fellow called in a favor from a local mob boss for goons, and gives them information on where to find them.

The decision is made to meet with Ozzy to at least maintain the appearance of working with Agency 17. The Agents regret having to abandon Logan so soon after getting him out of the frying pan, but he takes this in stride, commenting that he'll be contacting Rashad for a new bodyguard- preferably a professional.

Virgil almost suggests Wade, which isn't a terrible idea, although I was leaning towards introducing Xavier as Logan's new protector.

Ozzy meets the team at the old theatre where they first met Logan. His request for their services turns out to be because an Agency 17 line of credit- specifically, a credit card given to a team for purchasing supplies on the Agency's dime- has been used for a great deal of things that Ozzy finds suspicious.

The Agents listen closely and then request to talk to the team that originally had the card.

Notes:

• I had a whole encounter planned with Mr. Monson, but the Agents' decision to escape a potential firefight lead to me scrapping it. Virgil's player got to hear some of my plans for the fight and his reaction was "Nope nope nope. Not interested in fighting that."
• Logan's not in a good place. Nima's aware of some stuff she hasn't had an opportunity to share with the other Agents just yet involving the possibility that he's been abusing prescription pain meds...
• I'm hoping to work things so that the Agents can follow the New York leads and still help Ozzy out. I'm going for a layered plot approach, or putting more irons in the fire, as it were.
• The mooks all rolled TERRIBLY this session, except for the one shot that hit Jack. This included two crit-fails, as well as really poor damage rolls on the vehicle slams.
• A ST 18 individual can wear an assault vest with trauma plates, a ballistic helmet + visor, riot gear for the arms and legs, and boots, while carrying a SPAS-12 one-handed with a large entry shield in the other hand and still not be encumbered. (A small taste of Mr. Monson.)
• Jack passed his HT check after the car chase, meaning nothing wrong with his arm once it heals.

Following up on a comment from Douglas Cole- Ballistic Leggings

Quite a while ago, Douglas Cole commented, wondering if ballistic leggings actually see any use.

Preparing for my Agents' fight that's to come in the next session, I decided to dig a litte.

Slate reported that James Holmes, the perpetrator of the Aurora movie theater shooting wore a fairly full set of body armor during the attack, including "ballistic leggings, a throat protector, a groin protector, and tactical gloves". Beyond that, google is a wasteland of advertisements for 'tactical' gear.

I think the jury is still out on whether they see any use within military organizations or not. I'll probably end up running with riot gear for the attackers.

That said, if anybody wants to shed light on the topic, I'm not the only one who would find it interesting to know!

Action Report: Pariah Dog

The Agents

Tobias Stöhner: Gray hat hacker and electronics whiz, Tobias makes computer security experts at the Pentagon break out into a cold sweat when he infiltrates their systems.
Virgil Cooke: A former CIA agent, Virgil is a master of acting a part and working the social aspects of covert ops. You probably should avoid windows if he wants you dead.
Jack Herman: Former SAS, Jack is the group's heavy muscle and military man. If the group needs his talents, it's inevitably because something went FUBAR and they need saving.
Nima Caspi: A former IDF combat medic, Nima is perfectly at home driving like a complete maniac and patching up complete maniacs who have taken a bullet or two.
Johnny Trang: Johnny Trang was too cool for LAPD officer school, so they put him into undercover work. Johnny Trang is perfectly at home infiltrating illegal racing rings or snooping on bad guys.

Tobias' player was absent again. Still unsure about his continued participation, but we'll see how that goes.

Virgil is held by some very pissed off police officers and hospital security. His Secret Service badge passes intense scrutiny, and Johnny's prior bribe of the local security detail buy them a good word. When it's discovered that the 'nurse' wasn't an actual employee, they grudgingly allow Virgil to leave.

The other Agents return to the safehouse. They trawl the web, coming across some schematics for the safe they pulled from the Copperhead warehouse, although their initial attempts to defeat the lock fail.

Virgil later cracks it open upon his return, as he actually has lockpicking.

The safe contains a lot of first-hand evidence that incriminates three US Senators in cooperating with the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico. The Sinaloa feeds information to the DEA that allows them to target the Los Zetas, the DEA avoids the Sinaloa, and the congressmen and certain individuals within the DEA get a cut.

There's also a voice recording:

"We have the means to implicate them as cooperating with the Zetas Cartel."
"How?"
"You don't need to know that. All that matters is that we get paid."
"I'm arranging that now."
"If you try to double-cross us, you'd better believe we will make sure that everything you touch withers and dies."

 
The Agents get in touch with Kyle, who stops watching the GAO Chairman's home. They decide to visit the congressional offices to get a scoop on what the dirty senators are up to.

(IMPORTANT NOTE: I didn't fully research the congressional offices and learned I played it wrong- there's three, and technically all senators share some huge office buildings, they don't have individual places like I assumed at first. None of my players caught the discrepancy, although it can be easily dealt with should they notice.)

Security at the first office is fairly lack, consisting of two security guards and an alarm system that's been stuck in an alert state for the last few weeks- silenced by an admin who got sick of hearing it go off for no reason.

The Senator's office turns out to be fairly boring- he doesn't watch porn from the office, the safe under a painting only has a financial ledger, some scotch (stolen by Kyle), and some cigars.

The Agents leave and then hit up the next congressional office. The security system here has been obviously bypassed, and they find a security guard, dead from a stab to his abdomen, as they head upstairs.

What follows is one of the worst showings by enemy NPCs ever. The operative fails all of his perception check, getting swamped by Jack, Johnny and Virgil who all manage to grapple him and take him down. They handcuff him, leaving him prone.

They toss the already tossed office, finding the senator's sensitive paperwork as well as a brick of cocaine.

Johnny goes about making the entire scene look like a robbery gone wrong, and leaves with Virgil and Kyle. Jack shoots their handcuffed prisoner with the security guard's gun and then makes a mad dash for the fire escape before the guard on the ground floor responds.

The Agents return to the safehouse and get a night's rest. Come morning, the news has already caught onto the death of a Senator and is going nuts. The rumors do mention ties to the Los Zetas Cartel, including the bloodbath that went down at the Copperhead warehouse.

Tobias has cracked into the dead Senator's files and phone, uncovering an e-mail:

"EA Confirmed. GAO and problematic senators will be framed as per plan."

Kyle suggests calling Egeman with the new discoveries. The Agents state that they've uncovered a plot for multiple innocent US Senators to take the fall for the two surviving corrupt Senators, and that they've secured the intelligence Soto had gathered.

Egeman tells them their mission is over, and that they are to report to New York to meet up with Ozzy to deliver the intel. He approves of how they've enabled the other team present to do their work.

This confuses the Agents, and Egeman reveals that cocaine stolen from the Los Zetas (way back when) has used to frame a few problematic politicians as cooperating with the Sinaloa cartel, taking heat off from the truly corrupt Senators.

In fact, the brick they recovered was part of the take they got in Mexico.

This leaves the Agents stunned. Virgil feigns approval, the only thing that stops Egeman from getting suspicious. The call ends, and there's a few tense moments as Johnny strongly considers killing Kyle.

They get away from Kyle and contact Logan with an update. Tobias begins duplicating the intel from Soto's files. Then they get a call from Nima- Natalia is at the hospital.

Fearing that Egeman has ordered Natalia, Johnny drives the team through D.C. like a man possessed. They find Natalia sitting next to Nima outside Soto's room. She's happy and chipper, and simply gives Johnny back the modified FN-Five Seven she took from him in Turkey, before skipping away.

They receive word from Logan, who wants to meet them in NYC.

The Agents drive to NYC, and then Nima and Johnny stage a race to ditch Kyle while they still can.

Logan's meeting spot is a rundown EB Games. The place is deserted, and a note on the cash register denotes that Logan is downstairs.

Upon getting downstairs, they find Logan bound and gagged to a chair, obviously having been subjected to some serious physical abuse.

Logan indicates that his Agency 17 bodyguard, Mr. Monson, has betrayed him.

Just in time for the ambush.

Action Report: Congressional Misconduct

The Agents

Tobias Stöhner: Gray hat hacker and electronics whiz, Tobias makes computer security experts at the Pentagon break out into a cold sweat when he infiltrates their systems.
Virgil Cooke: A former CIA agent, Virgil is a master of acting a part and working the social aspects of covert ops. You probably should avoid windows if he wants you dead.
Jack Herman: Former SAS, Jack is the group's heavy muscle and military man. If the group needs his talents, it's inevitably because something went FUBAR and they need saving.
Nima Caspi: A former IDF combat medic, Nima is perfectly at home driving like a complete maniac and patching up complete maniacs who have taken a bullet or two.
Johnny Trang: Johnny Trang was too cool for LAPD officer school, so they put him into undercover work. Johnny Trang is perfectly at home infiltrating illegal racing rings or snooping on bad guys.

Tobias' player was absent the last two sessions summarized here and I'm currently dubious as to his continued participation. But anyways, without further delay...

The team takes a weak or so to get to the US. Kyle spends the time getting to know the Agents, questioning them closely about their previous missions, starting with the operation in Turkey. Virgil correctly surmises that Kyle is an ex-cop of some caliber, and does his best to ensure Kyle thinks the team is competent.

The Agents carefully omit some information from Kyle:

• They avoid disclosing their working relationships with both Rashad in Brazil and Wade in Turkey
• The discussions with Logan centering around the possibility that a mole is operating within Agency 17 are completely avoided.

Johnny takes the time to get to know Shaka, the pilot responsible for saving their bacon back on Arthur Bingham's ship. Shaka is friendly, boisterous, and immediately takes a liking to Johnny because he understands what it's like to pilot a helicopter. When asked about the pilot sent by Agency 17 to take out, Shaka is able to fill in a few details. The pilot was trigger-happy, and a lone wolf. He enjoyed taking out targets, and was drawn to helicopters for their destructive potential. He didn't really fraternize much.

Kyle calls a briefing and is prepared with a long powerpoint filled with slides documenting official Agency 17 policies and procedures- 90% of which he clicks through rapidly, going past such gems as the 'Always pay your parking fines' policy, the fact that Virgil's cache of weapons in Maryland was against A17 policy, the sexual harassment guidelines, as well as the official guidelines for requesting gear.

Intel from Miguel- their previous contact in Mexico- indicates that a Sinaloa boss of some kind, one Alejandro Soto, is arriving in Washington DC with four goons that will serve as his bodyguards. The Agents question what their role in the mission is, and Kyle doesn't have any clear answers. It sounds like a meeting of some kind will be taking place, and likely something crawling with multiple alphabet soup agencies.

"You should embrace our position as wolves among sheep, Johnny." Kyle says. "We're the big boys in the spook world."

 Kyle reckons the mission will be easy. Stake out the airport, follow the Sinaloa Boss
 and crack beers once they know what he's up to.

The conversation turns to logistics. Johnny tries to get the gun Natalia took from him back, but Egeman deflects that line of questioning. Kyle hints that Natalia might be on the tail of Logan. The Agents compare notes in the hours they have before arriving in the Chesapeake Bay, recalling that Egeman was greeted by a man associated with Agency 17 right after the mission in Turkey, and noticing that he's not currently on the ship.

Traveling to DC goes without a hitch, and the team is provided a suburban safehouse complete with an under the floor safe loaded with four silenced pistols. Nima and Virgil go out on a 'shopping' trip, stealing multiple cars. Nima's take on the last mission when asked by Virgil is that somebody really didn't want the group talking with Arthur Bingham. Virgil takes some time to get in contact with Wade, trying to subtly suggest there's some pay involved if Wade will give Virgil some information on whoever hired him to kill Lorin.

Meanwhile, while Kyle watches the local news, Johnny and Jack talk about what Johnny learned from Shaka. They're convinced that Shaka is not involved in whatever events surrounded them being attacked by an Agency helicopter, but the other pilot is fishy to them, likely chosen because of his wanton disregard for human life.

Virgil finishes up his portion of the shopping trip by going to the most popular Quake forums online and posting carefully crafted posts designed to make Logan's hotword senses tingle. He hits up the top five forums, before rejoining Nima and getting back to the safehouse.

The plan for the airport is simple. Virgil will place a bug on Soto. Jack will watch him from inside. Nima and Johnny will both be outside posing as taxi cabs. Kyle will be nearby outside.

Soto's security team ends up driving onto the tarmac of the airport, getting swarmed by the TSA (Natural 18 crit-fail, right there). Soto's departure from airport security is delayed a few hours. Jack notices a man watching Soto, but unwisely doesn't do anything about it.

Virgil placing the bug on Soto gets immediately overshadowed when the man Jack spotted walks up to Soto and stabs him with a knife, repeatedly, including a good stab directly to the throat. Jack rushes in to try and keep Soto alive once the guy with the knife flees, applying first aid.

Kyle and Johnny give chase in their car. Johnny is by far the better driver compared to the attacker, who tries a little too hard to push the motorcycle he's on to perform. After getting onto the freeway their target loses control when he drifts over some rumble strips attempting to pass a semi on the right.

Kyle handcuffs him and throws him in the back of the cab.

Soto is taken in TSA care, while the team meets back at the safehouse. Virgil has received information from Wade, basically detailing that Wade was hired by a rival arms dealer cartel to take out Lorin so that they could then start supplying the PKK- a niche they've been starting to fill since the team left Turkey.

Johnny and Jack begin interrogating the guy who attacked Soto.

"Tick tock." Is all Kyle says.
"What's the hurry? Alejandro is probably dead."
"I have a meet and greet with a hooker in an hour and this interrogation will kill the mood." Kyle says. "I need time for my manhood to recover."

 The man has a few Zetas tattoos, and resists all attempts to pry information out of him. (Critical success!) The team resorts to going through his phone, discovering Alejandro's true reason for visiting the United States- he's here to inform on certain members of Congress for taking money from the cartels in return for ensuring DEA cooperation in certain areas of enforcement.

Virgil does some detective work, quickly finding that Soto is indeed alive and at a nearby hospital. Thanks to some forged identification made by Tobias, he's able to convince the local cops watching over Soto that he's also been attached to babysitting duty.

A few days pass before Soto wakes up. Virgil grabs his cache of gear from Maryland, Kyle watches a lot of TV, Nima does some more shopping, picking up a crash kit and guns, while Johnny and Jack trade off watching Soto.

Soto cannot speak, a result of being stabbed in the throat. Writing on a pad of paper, Soto indicates that all of his evidence is in a briefcase- which has gone missing.

Meanwhile, Jack, who hasn't replaced his phone recently, is contacted by someone with eerie knowledge of their operations via text:

I HAVE IDENTIFIED THIS NUMBER AS BEING RELATED TO ANAMOLOUS ACTIVITY WITH 86.7% CERTAINTY. ARE YOU FRIEND OR FOE OF HUMANITY?

DATA SHOWS CHANCE OF VIOLENCE IN ITALY. APPROACHING 90%. CORRELATION TO ARMS TRAFFICKING STRONG BUT UNCONFIRMED.

JET FUEL USAGE UP OVER WESTERN EUROPE, INDICATING MOVEMENTS OF THREE PLUS BLACK HELICOPTERS. MIND CONTROL UNLIKELY.

I WILL BE IN TOUCH.

 Jack sends back some (really well done by the player, to the extent he got an extra point at the end of the session for it) coded messages intended to discern if this person is Logan attempting to initiate contact, but it isn't the case.

Logan does get in touch with Virgil, sending only a terse message that he's under observation and will be in touch with the group soon.

This is followed by Johnny and Jack doing some detective work at the airport. Using fake credentials and a cop's savoir-faire, Johnny manages to get access to security tapes, while Jack looks at the lost and found luggage. They determine that somebody found Soto's briefcase, took the contents, and replaced them with women's underwear. Johnny gets the footage. They discover that the person responsible for the switch got buzzed into secure areas using a TSA badge issued to an officer who hadn't turned up to work for a few days.

They decide to give the TSA Agent a visit. While Jack slips around the back of the house, Johnny knocks. Hearing movement inside, but with nobody answering the door, a firefight ensues when Jack sees two men inside preparing an ambush.

The fight is fast, and ends very poorly for the two men inside. Jack shoots one through the kitchen window, causing the second man to retreat into the house.

There's a gunshot from inside. Johnny rushes in and kills the second man as he's turning around for the TSA Agent he just executed.

Jack and Johnny attempt to clean the crime scene as well as make it look like a robbery gone wrong. They don't have time to search for clues considering the police response, but they nab one of the intruder's cellphones before leaving.

It pays off. Shortly after it receives texts asking for the status of the TSA agent. Tobias is able to track down its location- an old warehouse, previously contracted by the Smithsonian before too many items started 'falling off trucks'.

Virgil stays behind in the hospital to ensure Soto isn't assassinated. Kyle follows up on leads showing that Soto was trying to contact someone in the Government Accountability Office.

Jack, Johnny and Nima head for the warehouse. A guy exits the side right as Jack is nearby, and Jack gets him in a chokehold. One unconscious guard later, Jack and Johnny slip inside while Nima waits with the car.

The warehouse is empty, except for an office on the second story where five men are lounging around, being racist about Latin Americans. They're a local gang, contracted by the Zetas to do some grunt work.

Jack and Johnny take up positions near the doors. They locate themselves so when the men leave the office they'll have the door between them and their targets.

Nima honks her car horn outside a few times, to convince the men that the Zetas are outside looking to make the exchange.

What follows is Johnny quietly convincing the man they left up on the catwalk to cause no trouble, handcuffing him and leaving him in the office. Jack opens fire on the lead man, dropping him. Confusion reigns amongst the crew, and only one manages to escape Jack and Johnny inside, at which point Nima rams him with her car.

Yelling at injured and scared local gangsters gets results, and the Agents promptly find the firesafe the gang leader stored the documents from Soto's briefcase in. The Agents leave just before the real Zeta cartel members show up- they doubt any of the local gang will survive the wrath of the most notoriously bloodthirsty drug cartel.

Virgil manages to stay on task during the long and boring hours waiting. Being very crafty (Hello Craftiness Talent 4), trying to impersonate a nurse (even with skill 14 in acting and disguise) around Virgil is a bad idea, as a would-be assassin learns when Virigl interrupts her attempts to switch out Soto's IV for something a little more... deadly.

There's an extended struggle as Virgil and the assassin vie for control of the syringe she pulls out of her pocket. Virgil eventually gets her into an arm lock, forces her to the ground, and finishes her off with a telegraphed all-out attack (determined) punch to the face.

Both Virgil and the assassin are detained by hospital staff until the police arrives. That's where we ended for the evening.

Notes:

• Kyle mentions that Interpol agents rarely make the grade when it comes to Agency 17 standards. The last one to qualify as a candidate- Agent Larson- died in Turkey during the investigation into Lorin's gun running operation due to a fragmentation grenade.
• All my players think the mysterious texts are coming from a male. I've decided to make the character female purely to play on their expectations.
•  Virgil didn't have the brawling skill up until this point.

Agents of Agency 17: Nima Caspi

Nima was originally intended to fill in some gaps within the party that existed while Alex was still around providing thieving opportunities and before Johnny showed up as a potential wheel man. Most importantly, nobody in the group had put more than one or two points into first aid, and none of them had surgery. Along with that, nobody in the group had driving capabilities up to high-speed car chases.

Using Kromm's excellent specialty packages, Nima was created with the following four: Field Medicine, Tactical Driving, Fixer, and Infantry Training, working off the concept that she was a former IDF Combat Medic.

Her standout skills are First Aid 18, Driving (Automobile) and Smuggling both at 16, and Guns (Rifle) and Merchant both at 15. With surgery 14 she could also work professionally as a surgeon, thanks to bonuses for routine tasks, good equipment, and the other benefits one enjoys working in a hospital.

Nima's primary weaknesses are hand-to-hand combat (13 in Judo and Brawling) and she's only effective socially when attempting to acquire gear. She also entirely lacks technical skills not covered by Soldier, which I should probably raise as it covers a great deal of things she would be proficient at.

On the personality side of things, Nima does enjoy being around people and helping them, a large part of why her medical skills are as honed as they are. That said, she drives like a fucking maniac, gleefully attempting maneuvers behind the wheel that others would refuse to attempt.

Besides the usual advantage package that everybody who gets into combat loves (combat reflexes and fit), Nima's rocking Daredevil and Danger Sense. Daredevil is a great choice for someone who takes grossly unreasonable risks, and Danger Sense is the perfect thing for someone driving your vehicle when IEDs and land mines are a potential threat.

Overall, Nima has done a great job of supporting the group while not overshadowing anyone else (except maybe Johnny's driving).

Action Report: Backstabbed

The Agents

Tobias Stöhner: Gray hat hacker and electronics whiz, Tobias makes computer security experts at the Pentagon break out into a cold sweat when he infiltrates their systems.
Virgil Cooke: A former CIA agent, Virgil is a master of acting a part and working the social aspects of covert ops. You probably should avoid windows if he wants you dead.
Jack Herman: Former SAS, Jack is the group's heavy muscle and military man. If the group needs his talents, it's inevitably because something went FUBAR and they need saving.
Nima Caspi: A former IDF combat medic, Nima is perfectly at home driving like a complete maniac and patching up complete maniacs who have taken a bullet or two.
Johnny Trang: Johnny Trang was too cool for LAPD officer school, so they put him into undercover work. Johnny Trang is perfectly at home infiltrating illegal racing rings or snooping on bad guys.


The Agents boarded the ship without issue, and promptly set up shop. Everyone got to work schmoozing with the staff, their neighbors, the security personnel, as well as looking for Vivian.

Tobias quickly got to work taking over the WiFi on the ship, introducing some advanced traffic shaping to ensure he got crisp reaction times while attempting to work- also booting off everyone torrenting at the same time.

Johnny used his cover as an Interpol Agent to get on the goodside of ship security. Meanwhile, Jack rubbed shoulders with a man presumably from HMRC- The British equivalent of the IRS- named Harley Gunroy. The two have a pleasant conversation, during which Harley lets slip that there Belarus goons on deck four, a fact he learned by bribing the ship staff. Harley and Jack are joined by Harley's wife, Jane, after which they part ways after agreeing to have dinner a in a day or two.

Having located the security office thanks to Johnny's snooping, Tobias and Virgil set up a small scale pyrotechnics display out of the contents of a janitor's closet, smoking security out of the office so Virgil can slip in and plant bugs on their systems for Tobias to use. It goes off without a hitch.

Despite the Agents' best efforts, Vivian is nowhere to be found.

Early the next morning, Johnny comes across two men kicking in a door. He interferes, starting a fairly nasty gunfight. Johnny's first salvo of shots takes out the larger of the two men. He and the remaining foe trade ineffective fire for a few rounds before a man emerges from the room that was being broken into with a knife.

The guy shooting at Johnny hears him coming and blasts at the guy with the knife, seriously injuring him. Johnny takes the opportunity to shoot him dead.

The wounded guy the goons were attempting to reach by breaking down the door turns out to be Interpol- investigating Italian Mafia connections to the drug trade. The agent is gravely wounded, and only survives due to Nima's supreme capabilities as a combat medic.

By this time the other Agents have been roused, and Tobias has already used their new surveillance capabilities to ensure the others' movements aren't recorded. Jack, Nima and Johnny toss the room that was being broken into, and Johnny catches a whiff of cocaine, which is leaking from a crate hit during the gunfight. The Agents load the dead men onto a luggage dolly and conceal it with a tarp, while Nima and Jack get the interpol agent to a room.

Virgil sloshes bleach everywhere, to give the appearance of a cleaning job gone wrong, improvising another incendiary device to set off once everyone else is clear.

The rest of the day is relatively uneventful as the Agents go back to fruitlessly searching for Vivian. The Interpol Agent is barely stable, and nobody in the group is comfortable explaining to the medical facilities on board how they found a gunshot victim.

Late that night, someone starts jamming all radio signals on the ship, hard. The noise is loud, obvious, and it even intrudes on the team's radio communications. While Tobias tries to track down the jammer, the team almost entirely ditches their headsets due to the feedback.

At this point, Virgil is creeped up on by Vivian, who was alerted to their presence by the queries launched by Tobias against the passenger manifest. She believes the Agents are on board to assassinate her for her association with Arthur Bingham- much like how she believes they got George Hardings killed.

After a short discussion, Vivian makes it clear that the team is going to be picked up by another ship and taken to a location to discuss things with her organization. Amazingly, the team agrees to the meet, despite the possibility that it's a trap.

Jack calls Logan to let him know about the meeting.

Vivian arranges everything, bribing the staff on the bottom decks to allow everyone close enough to the water line to comfortably change ships. The wounded Interpol Agent is brought along because he can't survive without Nima's vigilance.

They're immediately shown to a room where there's a conference table and they're seated across from Arthur Bingham.

Arthur informs them that he was NSA, that the team lost him his job, and that he believes that they got George Hardings killed- if they didn't pull the trigger themselves. He states that they're working for the wrong side, that he can see how the killings in France (courtesy of Natalia) are interrelated to events in Turkey, going so far as to state that he can see the FNORDS.

Arthur has clearly become a little unhinged in the months since he last met the Agents. The conversation is strained, ending up with Arthur storming out of the room. The Agents briefly talk about what to do while searching the room for bugs or cameras, finding a few.

It's at that time that four men with submachine guns come to escort them under decks. The team prepares to attack them- just in time for a massive explosion to rock the ship.

In the chaos, the team strikes out and takes out the men who were supposed to be escorting them, quickly taking over their weapons.

Turns out a helicopter attacked their ship with a rocket. It sprays the Agents with minigun fire, only hitting Nima with shrapnel. It moves closer, about to launch another attack on the team when it is strafed by another helicopter, and crashes.

What then ensues is a mad dash as the Agents attempt to prevent Vivian and Arthur Bingham from evacuating the ship as an aerial battle starts between yet a third helicopter that has appeared.

The Agents fail to stop the evacuation chopper from lifting off, although Virgil and Tobias both scored hits on the pilot and Bingham, respectively. The second chopper to appear wins the aerial battle and hails them on the radio- he's their ride home, sent by Agency 17.

The Agents quickly search the ship, stealing any information they think might be useful, as well as making sure the wounded Interpol Agent is evacuated on the chopper.

Upon returning again to The Salvation, the team is greeted by Egeman who apologizes for the fact that Agency 17 has been compromised. He promises that the leaked has been contained, and takes the chance to introduce them to their new handler, Kyle.

What Went Down:

Upon learning that the Agents were going to be in contact with the group that's actively backing Arthur Bingham (thanks to Jack's call to Logan), Egeman ordered an attack helicopter to take out Vivian, Arthur and the Agents in one attack.

Distrustful of Egeman, Logan caught wind of this plan and ordered another Agency 17 helicopter out to save his team's bacon. Logan's copter took out Egeman's, as well as the helicopter sent by Arthur and Vivian's agency to guard their evacuation.

Logan is now on the run, knowing full well that Egeman will have him tortured and killed for preventing the death of the Agents.

Kyle, meanwhile, is not as he appears. Rough, blunt and rude, it all hides a very strong critical thinker and tactician. Kyle has not really drank the kool-aid, although I'm sure my players will assume he's under Egeman's thumb.

Dissecting a Problematic PC/Player Issue: Tobias

So, I'll start with Tobias' character sheet.

Note: Due to how the character sheet program renders, two of his Electronics Repair skills aren't showing their specialties- Electronic Warfare, Computers,  and Sensors.

For a 300 point character, Tobias has a decent chunk (123 points) slotted into skills. This is great, however I'm sure all of you noticed that he has five different types of Electronics Operation somewhere between skill level 14 and 17. This goes along with also have almost every specialty of Electronics Repair as well. That's 11 skills, 35 points, all with significant overlap. Even with the harsh default of -4 between specialties, Tobias would be rolling at IQ (13) for most Electronics Operation checks (before familiarity penalties and similar circumstantial factors that are largely mitigated by being Cross-Trained).

So there's some hyper specialization going on, and it gets worse when you consider his computer skills. Between Computer Operation, Programming, Cryptography, and Mathematics, he's got another 24 points spent.

59 points in Tech related skills, over half of his budget. Now don't get me wrong, this is a very kick-ass suite of skills for a character, but it has issues:

• With Cyrptography 17, there's almost nothing Tobias can't crack given enough time. Babysitting a laptop for three weeks while it chugs through encryption keys isn't glamorous or fun. A lot of the information gained isn't immediately relevant or is attainable through social prowess.
• Tobias' other capabilities with technology are also frightening, approaching skill levels nobody else will conceivably hit as a complete package, ever.
• That said, with few exceptions, most places don't have tech people savvy enough to deal with a character like Tobias. His real problem is gaining physical access to most machines- past that having him roll is almost a waste of time.
• Opposed rolls would be great- except I can't justify too many people being as exceptionally skilled as Tobias is at such a small segment of skills.
• Things become very binary- either he breaks into a system or doesn't. The information is immediately relevant or not- and if it is immediately relevant it's like the players acquired it too easily.
• An unimaginative player might have difficulty knowing how best to use the character

A character like this is awesome, but only in the hands of a player who brings the right cards to the table:

• A team player who is okay working out of the lime light in a supportive role
• It's well suited for someone who frequently has issues playing due to scheduling conflicts. It's very easy to hand-wave their PCs actions compared to somebody, say, trying to schmooze with an oil executive.
• Even with the above point in mind, this skillset requires a lot of awareness of what is going on.
• Being able to improvise and think of tactics to achieve a goal is definitely a must.
• It's well suited to a player who wants to be good at something who doesn't feel compelled to constantly roll dice

This really first came to my attention when Tobias' player was blatantly rolling just too well to actually be rolling. Too many crits, not enough failures, even on tasks rolled at default or against relatively low skill levels in the 10-12 range.

I've spoken with him and offered him the chance to respec things around to something that might fit his preferred play style better, although it would not be campaign ending to lose a player given that the other three are excellent in all regards.

I'm interested in feedback, as I'm definitely not doing a full analysis, mostly focusing on the character's primary niche.

Action Report: Not a Vacation, Damnit

The Agents

Tobias Stöhner: Gray hat hacker and electronics whiz, Tobias makes computer security experts at the Pentagon break out into a cold sweat when he infiltrates their systems.
Virgil Cooke: A former CIA agent, Virgil is a master of acting a part and working the social aspects of covert ops. You probably should avoid windows if he wants you dead.
Jack Herman: Former SAS, Jack is the group's heavy muscle and military man. If the group needs his talents, it's inevitably because something went FUBAR and they need saving.
Nima Caspi: A former IDF combat medic, Nima is perfectly at home driving like a complete maniac and patching up complete maniacs who have taken a bullet or two.
Johnny Trang: Johnny Trang was too cool for LAPD officer school, so they put him into undercover work. Johnny Trang is perfectly at home infiltrating illegal racing rings or snooping on bad guys.

RCP Members:

David Franklin Myers: Assassinated by Jack at Dodgers Stadium. Agency 17 asset.
Danny Jenkins: Captured by Agency 17 and is now enjoying enhanced interrogation techniques at the hands of Egeman Atalar. Was giving information to the CIA.
(Hopefully that helps keep you guys straight who is who).


The Agents were given two weeks to themselves for R&R, even with Logan's suggestion that they use that time to follow leads, research loose ends, and generally try and get a picture of what's going on around them.

The American news media went absolutely nuts over the shooting at Dodger Stadium. We're talking something along the lines of Current Affairs (Headline News) +5 here to see if random Joe Schmoe has heard about it. Thankfully, Agency 17 already had a contingency in mind, leaking a doctored security camera tape to the media while ensuring the real footage was lost.

The rest of the coordinated killings done by the Agents against RCP staff get reported for a week before all mention of them in the press stops- suddenly. News outlets drop the subject, articles that previously spoke about it online throw 404 HTML errors, and print publications refuse to acknowledge or speak about the issue.

Their operation in Brazil isn't mentioned at all in the media circles they follow.


The Agents' break ended up lasting a month. During this time Virgil spends his time in Berlin and Switzerland. Johnny's time was spent in Spain, drinking and hitting on the local women. Jack also lounges around for a month, except he decided to take in the French Mediterranean coast. Tobias spends his time trolling the internet for fun. Nima disappears, returning once the break is over wearing a race car driver fire suit.

Called to Italy to meet with Logan, all of the Agents walked into the room refreshed and ready to go.


A stark contrast to Logan, who was obviously sleep deprived. Mr. Monson, Logan's bodyguard is present, looming and threatening as always.

The Agent's next mission is to protect a woman named Vivian Mercer, who is traveling to the US via a cruise ship. Vivian is believed to be a target of the FSB due to her unique situation- her father was ex-KGB, she currently works within the American Embassy in London, and she may have had a romantic 'entanglement' with Arthur Bingham.


The conversation turns to equipment. It's decided that Nima can likely smuggle silenced pistols on board, but not much else. Tonfas and garrotes make the list, as does a signal booster for the team's radio communication headsets. Additionally, Logan has gotten them VIP passes to ensure that Vivian can't evade them by entering invitation-only clubs or areas of the ship.

Virgil raises an important question during the briefing, asking why Agency 17 is moving forward with the operation given their overall lack of concrete intelligence to work with.

The conversation then takes a turn towards the serious. Agency 17's interest in Vivian could be one of a few things, or even a blend of different motivations:

• She could be targeted by a group Agency 17 is currently opposed to
• She could be a target for recruitment by Agency 17 and the Agents are the vetting team
• Surveillance of her activities to gather information
• Determining how much Arthur Bingham told her during their past relationship

One of the Agents then point out that Natalia seems to have ended her killing spree across Western Europe about the same time that Danny Jenkins- the captured CIA informant- should be waking up from his medically induced coma. Logan asks Mr. Monson to leave the room, and plays some music on repeat to prevent the bodyguard from eavesdropping.

Logan spent the month that the Agents were on breaking looking into RCP, coming to the conclusion that David Franklin Myers, who was shot by Jack at Dodger's Stadium, was an asset for Agency 17. This statement prompts a flurry of questions from the Agents concerning the electronics that were going into the drilling site as well as whether lines are being crossed within Agency 17.

Logan denies the electronics equipment being A17 issue, instead revealing that Jenkins was cooperating with the CIA, thereby getting too close to Myers who was collaborating with Agency 17. Logan also assures Virgil that the team sent in to toss the RCP office in Brazil wasn't CIA.

Jack asks if killing RCP was intended to camouflage the real target.

"It was likely a move to ensure that anyone David told died along with him." Logan says. "It is one of the two things that concern me. The first is the possibility that our organization has been or will be compromised."

He continues. "The second is what if this was someone shouting fire in a crowded theater, and we killed four American citizens as a response."

 Virgil immediately brings up the moral quandary surrounding bringing a man like Egeman Atalar into the organization.

At this point someone brings up how strange it is that they'd have a mission involving another individual connected with both the Russian mob and British Diplomats, leading the team to crack open the information they stole from Arthur Bingham's laptop.

(Two of my Agents have Intelligence Analysis- Virgil at a 13, Johnny at a 12. Logan's also scary good at it given his activities coordinating field teams during the Cold War.)

What they find looking through the data is startling. Arthur Bingham cast a very wide net when compiling information to plug into his conspiracy theories, and it's clear a lot of the activity attributed by him to Agency 17 wasn't done by Agency 17 at all.

All of the events seem ideologically motivated, purposed towards entrenching the power and wealth of an oligarchy, while destabilizing the world however possible.

 The Agents are now convinced there's another organization at work, one much like Agency 17. They discuss bringing this information to their superiors within Agency 17, before deciding to do the current mission to see where that leads them...

Four days later and the Agents establish themselves on a massive cruise ship, about to begin the search for Vivian Mercer.