Right! Should have realized that. But isn't there times when there are numbers added to the total?
If you get a bonus I'll put it in the roll spoiler. Obviously, if you have a penalty, it's already counted into the 'make by #' number.
Percept (by 3, +2 bonus) : Make a 3d6 perception roll, you must roll under your perception by 3 for the spoiler. You get a +2 bonus to your skill check (if you had 11 Perception, you have 13 for this check and must roll a 10 or lower).
Since Paizo has been down, I'll give this until later this afternoon before she calls... so people can voice negative opinions of her ideas, rather than me just railroading us a few blocks over and phoning. I'll give kittiface something to do if no one's voiced any concerns by then. :)
Wednesday Update :
GM Waiting on PCs to decide Go/No Go in fight.
A) If it's a go, new players will be given the option to play some of the bad guys during the fight so they are not kept waiting for a month.
B) If it's a no-go, new players will be brought in.
New Players : Mud & Snapdragon.
Potential New Player : Pixie indicated interest once, but never responded to followup post nor checked in in this thread.
Hmm! It would probably be too silly to have us disguised as henchmen of the bad guys' crew, huh. Fair enough. (And Mud isn't quite as good at disguise)
Hey mdt, I think there's a still one typo to fix on my new sheet:
1u 4) Icarus special (or suck’m down) - 8d6 Dispel Flight (special effect: whirlwind below them), half end +1/4 (30 AP), only vs foes directly above him +½; END 1
(Currently listed as 1d6, not 8d6)
OOC, having a chance for Jubal and Thunderbeard to play NPCs against us sounds fun. In character...I'm not sure it makes sense, but interesting to consider.
Hmm. I don't have any special preference for playing NPCs, but that might be in part because Mud and I haven't used our characters nearly as much as yours (though I'm always generally a junkie for personal character generation, often more than actually playing them).
I think we're leaning towards 'play it safe, we're weighing nearby lives and lives across the world, against doing this.'
Friday Update :
PCs avoid fighting NPCs. Time moves forward, Whip offered different deal. She appears to accept. If nobody objects, time will move forward and new PCs will join this weekend.
Sounds good
mdt, the more I think about it, the more I can not see us going two weeks without doing something about this kidnapping. Unless you want to say we got hit with a time vortex or something, that's fine.
But otherwise, I think we'd have to do something. I like Pulse's idea, but I would add to that -- at the risk of Black Skull's ire and patience, I'd go back there in a day or two and give him an ultimatum. The name of Ice's former employer, or we call in the Russians and give them Ice's location. If Ice won't give his employer willingly, then we'll take Ice, and Whip will offer herself to take his place in the "job."
Of course, Whip will have the rest of the team as backup in case negotiations go south...
Don't forget, that over time you guys should be able to get gear/equipment, or upgrade the base in some way, since you've already spent the points. :)
Side note, you're in a Masonic Temple. That Aegis bought.
Edit: I do not like Whip's idea at all. :P
Not a fan of Whip's plan, myself, (because it puts her in a position to be used as gun fodder for bad guys) but very much on her side in terms of finding *something* to do with that time frame. Especially with a missing persons case, and the Russians involved, I can't see them giving us two weeks downtime without things getting a mite bullet-y.
What can we come up with for a few days that will give us some decent information or leverage (or both!) against Snow/Ice that we could then use? Open to suggestions.
Theoretically, Mud and I just "solved" a missing persons case (that our team was fully incapable of in-character). Maybe that's why we were brought to MO to help y'all? Maybe not.
Pulse could call one of their cell phones and ask for Snow. Repeat as needed until it's very clear that Icy is a detriment. Just say a Russian Mob boss is looking for him, involving the kidnap of his family. :p
Alternately... She could give the numbers to the mob, and the mob could offer to pay the mercs to 'do a job' involving Snow once their current one was over.
The latter is honestly more likely to bite us in the butt.
Well, that was just an off-the-cuff idea. With a day or two, we should be able to do some research into the layout of the plant -- maybe even find someone who worked there. Also a survey of nearby structures and facilities that might be logical targets for some sort of shenanigans.
I like Pulse's idea of harassing them -- he might be goaded into calling Whip on the number she left with him, just to work out a deal. But without something else pressing on us, I think the consensus is that we would not let two weeks pass us by with nothing on the Russian case.
So... GM tried to move us forward to get everyone else in. GM got slapped down. I don't want the new PCs showing up in time to offer new options on the previous group. I built the group with the current character set in mind. I'd have to rebalance the group for a new larger group with different power sets. That's why I moved it forward two weeks, so they could have done their work and be gone when the new PCs showed up.
The following things must apply :
1) New PCs cannot be used with the old potential enemies.
2) Stuff with the NPCs occurs on Christmas.
Given those two restrictions, how do you want me to handle the time frame.
Well, I think it's all about the verisimilitude. You appear to want a realistic, present-day sort of feel. That's all fine and good, but our characters are going to live in that world as such. Hence, we're not going to assume we can win all battles, and things like kidnapping and slavery are very real, very awful things.
So, while a "comic book/video game" sort of reality can fast-forward time frames and we can still catch the bad guys before they do anything truly heinous (Schrödinger's plots are totally a thing), that doesn't seem to fit this world you've built. We don't act, bad things are assumed to have happened.
Here's an addendum to that last post, since you asked a question.
I'd suggest moving up the time frame to a couple days, which would give us the added confidence to go after Ice, but in their paranoia after Whip's visit, they've added more defenses (or another meta or two).
As far as option 2 goes, I don't know what Christmas has to do with anything.
The bad guys are doing something on Christmas. You were two weeks before Christmas in game.
I have no problem with the PCs lacking confidence and passing on a fight. There are consequences to that, and they have no way of knowing when that will happen. Having the fight has consequences as well.
From a meta standpoint, I have to do a good bit of work balancing powers vs experience vs numbers. Then add into that the amount of time it takes to do a fight on a PBP, and I really don't want to do a fight and have the new PCs sit out for a month while the fight occurs. I'd rather fast forward past the current bit if you're not going to charge the citadel and get them in and move forward as a new group.
So, I tried to move forward. If you'd rather not do that, then we can reset back to before everyone started getting introduced. But I need people to give me more feedback on what they want to do. I've been asking if you're going to attack or not and it is entirely in character to push against it, but then you can't really complain that you didn't get a chance to do something. I kind of need people to choose a path and go with it, not choose a path and then back out on it when the choice plays out. We can go with a fight, or not a fight, or giving them their time as you agreed, but you need to pick one of the 3 and go with it, rather than second guessing it when I post the results.
*sigh* Sorry, long rambling frustrated GM response.. Tell me what you want to do in the game please so I can do something other than argue back and forth.
I'm cool with whatever the others want.
Went ahead and posted in the intro scene.
As a new PC, I'll just go with the flow.
cheers
MDT, I wasn't try to put a slap down on the GM at all, and I apologize for contributing to your frustration. My only concern was the same as Whip's: the time involved.
I'm down with whatever you as a GM want to do - if it makes more sense for you to move us forward, then let's move us forward. Violet can have some (unsuccessful) attempts to examine the lab where Not-Her-Brother was spotted. We can run up against dead ends on the Werewolf Killer.
I'm cool, either way. Apologies again for adding to your frustration. No smackdown intended whatsoever. Merely concern.
I, as a player, prefer story playing out properly, but I agree that a month of combat is too long.
Pulse would definitely share the info with the mob, but would otherwise trust Whip's merc/military cred to know when she's getting played.
So, in character, Pulse is behind Whip and Vi until they start dangling themselves as bait. Likewise, pinging them and being annoying (she'd probably do texts over voice, from a direct dial, no number.), doesn't happen if group suggests no.
Waiting is in character for Pulse until it becomes out of character for the others.
A brawl on Christmas with a snowman is amazing, though.
I think the question isn't 'are you a jerk out of character?', but 'What does your character do?'
You now pretty well know the consequences, so you can decide based on that. My vote is for 'wait and get the characters in'. I will change if it is out of character for both Whip and Vi.
All right; this was my big player assumption: When the consolidation of the game was announced, then I figured we'd get the new additions immediately so we could hit the meat packing plant. Yes, I freely admit that was an out-of-character assumption, but I also figured it would work well in the game. We went in expecting one meta, we found four. Snowjob's rep was that he's a really powerful one, too, so I thought we'd need a nearly full squad to take him down. Add in three other unknowns, on their home turf with a couple machine-gun goons, (and losing Goo), and I thought that fight was way over our heads.
So, I figured one of two things would happen: A couple days later we get Ice's location, or a couple days later we get reinforcements. Because it has in fact occurred to Whippoorwill that black skull was lying when he said he'd let her know when he was finished, she wouldn't wait forever.
Waiting two weeks or more plays fully into skully's hands, and loses any hope of rescuing the princess. That is a complete, utter, and epic fail in my eyes.
When we chose to back down that night, I don't think there was any real consensus that we wouldn't go and fight at a later date. Maybe that was the impression you got, but speaking for myself, Whip wouldn't do that. She's not ready to give up on trying to be a hero.
So I don't know what kind of retcon you want to do, but basically, I feel waiting those two weeks is unacceptable.
Give me a day or two to figure out what to do.
You will encounter people you can't defeat the first time. That is classic comic book. However, in general, a majority of your fights are going to be in the 'moderate to difficult' range.
As a GM, especially in Hero system, it's rather complicated to balance out fights. It takes a good bit of work. For example, I can build two characters at 1000 pts each. The first one could be taken down relatively easily by two of your characters. The second one could wipe out your entire team without breaking a sweat.
Trying to keep it in the 'moderate to difficult' range requires some thought on my part, especially when adding in a character like Snapdragon or Mud, much less both.
*sigh*
It very likely also requires a ton of -practice- and system jiggering to make it work, too (i.e. your statistics table that you used to show us that we were virtually equally tanky. Just different things worked.)
I recognize the effort you're going to, and just know I'm enjoying the game, regardless of how things are playing out. For all that it matters, we could go back to the factory the day after and they moved. That realistically solves all of the complications, and then becomes neat when the christmas thing happens (if it does).
Not ideal, but I -personally- like it. :)
Or whatever you go with. :)
I'm fine with either. (Our game slowed down, and I'll still be here in a month, regardless).
There's also the third option of "we move the story along while the fight plays out" (in spoilers, discussion thread, or something else) but that might rightly be too hard to manage. I'm also much more of a "narrative over realism" GM when I run things, so my ideas tend to err on the side of story vs substance.
I tried to make Snapdragon less of a game-breaker than my usual characters, when it comes to balancing fights, though that may not be so.
MDT: Updated version of Violet sent to you, as mentioned earlier. Point re-jiggering complete, pulled some powers Violet hasn't (and wouldn't) used/developed. Corrected some others. You've got mail!
Speaking of. I have an idea for a power, but I'm not sure exactly how to work it.
One problem we keep running into for Hotaru, is that radio is generally too fast for her to reliably 'veto' before a message gets sent. Is it possible to design a power that reroutes cell signals and such through her, and then she has the ability to 'veto' sending something onwards to the intended recipient? I have absolutely no idea how to build something like that.
I figure it should lock her out of using other powers, though.. or at least be difficult.
This is Violet, not going in to the extensive and disturbing symbolism of peaches and femininity after Hotaru's comment. ;)
Side note: Maybe just adding 'Rapid' 1+ times to her radio sense would work?
Re: Symbolism: You may have noticed that despite tons of shared interests and maladies (Hyperactive, innattention, fiction of all kinds), Hotaru hasn't shown any signs of interest beyond friendship with Rocket. :)
I the player figured that out early on. Violet is perhaps the only factual sapiosexual on the planet (well, other telepaths might be, too), so she could care less about a person's orientation as long as they're happy.
But Rocket needs to come get his fruity delights soon or the thread will have escaped him.
Where IS that boy?
Rocket, despite being a speedster, is one of the more busy folks in the group offline. :P
Rocket can work off of Pulse having pinged his cell phone when food was done if he'd like. :)
Just a note, Life Support (doesn't need to eat) doesn't mean you can't eat. That's a character choice. It's perfectly fine to say 'my character can't' if you have the power, but it's optional. Even an android with it could 'eat' if the player wanted (although it would mostly be trash compaction).
A vampire who couldn't eat without throwing up might take a low level distinctive feature for it (Throws up if eats anything other than blood) for example.
Much like how Violet is immune to narcotics and sedatives, but can still get drunk off her butt in fine form.
I think Mud doesn't see a reason to eat, since he can't taste food and doesn't gain anything with it.
Janice actually has that disadvantage; she can't digest food, and her "eating" is also somewhere between throwing up and trash compaction.
Rocket, despite being a speedster, is one of the more busy folks in the group offline. :P
Rocket can work off of Pulse having pinged his cell phone when food was done if he'd like. :)
Yeah, work and family have me extra busy at the moment--and some work writing that's slow for me especially eats into my PBP time--but I'm excited to get to join into this scene (and will take you up on having just pinged me).
Thanks for understanding!
No worries, amigo.
Don't forget that Violet and Rocket need to talk.
Talk.
Mud was very careful with his reply. He didn't enjoy food anymore, because he has the physical limitation of not being able to taste or smell. He turned the food down, so someone else could enjoy it.
I imagine Mud could eat anything, because his insides would turn to rock and grind it to mud. Hmm. Ironic description.
Cheers
Sorry I missed this post from a while back:
Personally, I think that having multiple Bricks is a good thing.
Aegis is going to focus on defense so it will be pretty easy to have two bricks with different builds.
I still think Aegis should hire Violet to be her Admin. She (Aegis) is a very brusque and short-worded speaker, and could use someone to be a more loquacious public face for whatever the heck her "company" is supposed to do. I just have a really bad feeling that it's going to bite us in the future. But I guess we'll see!
I'm fine with saying Aegis hired her if you'd like, she's kind of been avoiding it since she's used to doing her own work but considering how long they've worked together she'll share, her company is an offbranch of Sinclair labs That does R&D for weappm manufactures
My OOC vote:
We bring the two new folks in (so they aren't waiting on the sidelines).
I like the idea that we let Replikate/Shimmer know that we're planning an assault, and they send us those two as backup (or speed up their transfer/ask us to wait a few days to get them here as backup).
I know that means you'll need another few days to (re)balance the fight, but we can use that getting to know each other.
Yes, I definitely like the idea of bringing them in.
"Fine by me but closing the distance between me and Frost could be a problem, ideas for that?"
Piggyback ride? Remind me, what are the mechanics of your 'desolid' state? I know you can use STR so you can hang onto me, and you certainly wouldn't weigh too much in that state. If useful, I could run past the spot you want to start, you could hop off, and then I can continue my running attack.
(I know Aegis might hate the idea, but it might be the right way to get in there.)
mdt, if there are mechanical things for us to consider in that, please let us know.
You'd probably have to decelerate for her, or it'd be more like a speedster throw... or being tossed out of a moving vehicle.
Otherwise, sounds cool. It's also maybe worth having her wait for Celerity to try to run through her, and desolid as a response. 'CLANG'
Aegis is likely going to hate a lot of ideas that will work perfectly so she'll have to be taken down a few pegs to be a team player
as far as desolid goes I know she can decide not to fall into the ground with will but not sure about being moved while desolid
Mechanically, you (Aegis) can touch and interact with the real world easily while you're Desolid. I just looked at your sheet - and you can touch and interact with things while you're Desolid, but it costs you 3X Endurance to do so.
The good news is that it only takes 5 to 10 STR to hold on to Rocket while he's running, so you'd only spend, like, 3 END per phase you moved on to hold on to him.
Also, I'm going to suggest that you buy Clinging (up to your full power STR) at some point in the future - Bricks who can Cling are ridiculously effective in taking care of certain types of bad guys. If that's not your speed, levels in Martial Grab, to counter Martial Artists who are effective at escape maneuvers.
"Speedster throw" actually seems like a cool speed trick to pick up, if you're looking for ideas.
And Mud might be a better thematic choice for "clinger" than Aegis (who has weight instead)
It works for both, though I agree Mud is the more 'obvious' choice. The fact that Aegis has density control means that as she gets better at it, adding a Damage Shield (Cling) would be awesome.
Oh! I thought you meant "...to reduce knockback." Huh.