<span style="font-style: italic">The scythe wielding racoon is an exemplar of a surprisingly common trend - many warriors who rely on nimbleness will use armor only on their arms and legs (sometimes not even the arms), considering the true danger from ranged attacks to be a lucky shot striking the arm or leg and disabling them entirely. The idea is that a forcefield alone is protection enough and effective torso armor is often prohibitively heavy. Of course, as the banditess is about to find out, it is not always quite enough - however, in this case, since there is no 'normal' armor for the blaster's AP to compare against, it does not negate any of the 4 forcefield armor. The blaster damage of 13 comes within a single point of a raise (thus taking her down in a single shot ) - this distinction has no game effect but will be reflected in narrative by the relative severity of a "shake".</span><br/><br/>The two exposed martens squeak in alarm as the distinctive barrel of a blaster pointed in their direction. They tensed as if to dart in opposite directions, getting a look like deer with a train bearing down on them. They looked relieved when it missed, even as they could hear it strike home behind them.<br/><br/>"Awwww *huff, puff* damn *pant* it!" the sprinting, bushy-tailed raccoon girl nearest the train whined as she heard Yasha's spiel. She was so close to making it to cover from the corner of the hovertrain car... but Yasha took the shot just as she was about to dive behind it. There was a loud sizzling sound like a lightning bolt striking as a particle beam tore through an invisible energy barrier. There was a bright flash and a extended, stammering yelp as the dispersed bolt clipped her abdomen and combined with feedback from her forcefield belt to gave her a massive electric shock, bringing her to her knees.<br/><br/>The other two raccoons behind them paused in mid-stride at this sudden escalation, not having recognized the squirrel for the threat she was at such a distance. They exchanged glances, and Redtail could see the familiar dilemma of a violent criminal in their eyes; deciding whether to be scared or angry in response to a raid going bad.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Because of Yasha following up her threat, any taunt or intimidate actions against any of the armored raccoons will receive a +2 until the end of her next turn (not other attacks). This is not a standard rule, and is more reflective the particular nature of these bandits; this is the sort of diplomacy they understand. <br/><br/>To avoid making most encounters too arbitrary, I will be using a simple morale system: once a certain percentage (depending on their nature and motivation) of enemies are either shaken or incapacitated at the end of a combat round, their leader (or a random enemy if no leadership figures remain) makes a spirit test. On a failure, all enemies surrender. On a success, they start to retreat, and will only surrender if caught in melee. On a success with a raise, one or two can continue fighting to cover the others' retreat. These same rules will apply to extras on the players' side, but since they will usually not outnumber the PCs it will rarely be an issue. Wild Cards count towards the total units on a side, but are not forced to retreat or surrender. I will go ahead and add this to the OP.<br/><br/>In the case of these enemies, for the sake of an example, I will encourage a tiny bit more metagaming than usual. The Black Stripes bandits have 'average' morale - loyal to one another and aggressive by nature, but not exactly disciplined or heroic. If 2/3 or more of them are shaken or incapacitated at the end of a round, they will break or surrender as detailed above.</span>