Beyond Heaven (Dungeon Planet) (Inactive)

Game Master MCKhaos

Yeah, I've thoroughly enjoyed the Morley/Bathilda interactions and now the Lyntel/Bathilda interactions. I'm looking forward to the addition.

Hiya, This is Bathilda's player. I've settled on a Rogue archetype with the Shadow, Sniper, and Golemist specialties. Basically, she's fire support and the scout. I'm open to suggestions, though. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts. Nothing's set in stone at the moment.

That said, I do have a little bit of background for her, even if I don't have a name just yet.

So, thoughts?

Only if she and Sona can have tea parties with their robots and golems.

She might grumble a bit, but she'd do it.

Okay, so I have a name: "Nedora" S/N: 5d-1337.5694.42

I also went and did her stats.

Can golems be made into different shapes?

Can... can I dual wield a golem and a chain sword?

In a way you dual wielded Sona and a flame thrower...

I hope so. Each of the golems she creates are going to have a different appearance based on the element it is (btw, what are the elements that are available?) I was also planning on treating her weapons a lot like golems as well, switching forms as the situation demands.

By the way, would it be possible to find a combo SMG/needler-shotgun? Or buy one?

And if the GM doesn't mind, I'd like to pick bonds as I play, since I was kinda thinking that this would be the first time she had ran across any of the crew.

You should feel free to hop in, but it probably isn't a good time to start if your backstory is as a stranger to the group. The Licky Sixes is in space in an apparently dead system. Existing crew we just haven't seen yet could jump in whenever.

Either way, establishing bonds through play is fine. That's what I did with Lyntel.

What stats are you thinking on the needler?

You know, you could go with stow away.

Available Elements

I was actually thinking they pick her up in Kanata. You know the whole Lone Survivor thing, but stow away also works. Whichever is least likely to get me shot by the more trigger-happy robots. (It's not so much the robots, but the trigger happy that's the problem.)

The stats listed in the Dungeon Planet book for the needle gun: near, far, 200 coins, 1 weight
The stats for the shotgun: near, far, reload, +1 damage, 25 coins, 2 weight

I was wondering if I could get both in one PDW shaped package, so something like

Dual Mode PDW (2 weight, Near, Far, Tags:[switchable])
-Shotgun Mode: [Reload]
-Needle Mode: [N/A]

-1 weight than having both, but if she loses it, she effectively loses two weapons, which I think is a fair trade off. Also, how do you feel about shotgun grenade rounds?

I also had stats for the sniper railgun. Do you mind giving me a yay or nay on them.
Scoped railgun (2 weight, Near, Far, Tags:[high-velocity, high-recoil, messy])

Also, many thanks Sona, but I was talking magical elements. I do appreciate the help though, but after the Chlorine and Fluorine Elemental incidents with another project, her creators just stuck with the more traditional elements, like fire, water, air, and earth.

The problem with a Lone Survivor is that this arc is based on investigation of what happened here. A survivor would know what happened, short cutting that. Unless ... Could be a survivor awoken by the devastation without an idea of what happened.

An organic robot experiment waking up with insomnia? Hello, number two :)

Let me think on the weapons.

Gotcha, I'll go with the stow away idea then. If everything's good, I'll pop on over to the gameplay thread.

Feel free to jump in.

Also, it looks like your elementalist move uses whatever elements are nearby. Interesting.

Have fun with that one. :D

Love the intro and response. All smiles over here.

As for weapons, the form of the weapon doesn't really matter in this system, so if you want a convertible needle/shotgun to start with that is fine. Carrying that and a sniper rifle is pretty narratively bulky though, so maybe the sniper rifle folds up?

What about (and I'm going to ask the other PCs to chime in):

Needle/Shotgun: (2 weight, hand: -1 hit, +1 damage, reload; close: +1 damage, reload; near)

Railgun: (2 weight, high velocity, high recoil, messy, near, far

Actually... How do you see the needler and the sniper functioning differently? Asked another way, why wouldn't your character just pull out the sniper rifle for near range?

I'm asking the PCs to chime in because 2BR, Sona, and Kray have all invested moves into weapon versatility.

For grenade rounds, that is a fine narrative justification of you want to spread out a damage roll among multiple targets, the same way Moosh handles AoE.

While Sona can summon ranged weapons to pass off to disarmed allies, DEX is and will remain her dump-stat. Lasers are the extent of Sona's ranged capabilities.

I don't think hand works for the shotgun. Hand is meant to be inside the reach of a shortsword. Point blank with the shotgun should be Close.

Similarly, I think a sniper rifle should be Far only, or suffer a -1 to-hit at near range. Possibly piercing, unless that requires special bullets. Armor-piercing pullets, though, might add [ignores armor].

An assault rifle with a grenade launcher might fit the mechanical desires for the gun in question. Close/Near with either normal firing speeds or reload with +1 damage. Mechanically, the difference between spray fire and burst area is negligible.

What I had planned on was using the railgun for sharpshooting and anti-materiel purposes (like blowing away the bad guy's ride) and use the needler/shotgun for close-quarters combat.

Narratively, the railgun takes time to aim, takes time to charge up, and takes time to cool off enough for her to use it again. It's big, bulky, and not at all handy in tight places, though she'll use it in an enemy ship if it has long firing lanes available. I imagined the needler/shotgun is designed for a close combat environment, so in situations where she's finding herself engaged at close range, she'll be whipping it out instead.

All of that said, I actually had two modes in mind for the railgun as well. The first was the anti-personnelle mode that uses small caliber rounds, say about 5mm wide. The second was the anti-materiel mode that would punch a 15mm spike into vehicles and equipment. The second mode would actually require more charging time and proper procedures to avoid dislocating the shooter's shoulder in the process.

I figure the grenade rounds and the large-calibre rounds would be tracked on a round per round basis since they offer a lot more power than the standard rounds. Whether I hit or miss, the rounds gone. This is entirely up to you of course. I'm just posting my thoughts.

I don't think hand works for the shotgun. Hand is meant to be inside the reach of a shortsword. Point blank with the shotgun should be Close.

I agree. Nedora isn't a melee combatant. If someone gets close to her, or into hand to hand, she's going to be in trouble.

Similarly, I think a sniper rifle should be Far only, or suffer a -1 to-hit at near range. Possibly piercing, unless that requires special bullets. Armor-piercing bullets, though, might add [ignores armor].

Given that it's firing a tungsten spike at hypersonic velocities, I think piercing would be good. I also agree with having it take a penalty at near would be good as well since it's supposed to be optimized for far range.

An assault rifle with a grenade launcher might fit the mechanical desires for the gun in question. Close/Near with either normal firing speeds or reload with +1 damage. Mechanically, the difference between spray fire and burst area is negligible.

That works for me. I was actually shooting for something like the XM29, but more compact, so I don't mind it a bit. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the stats for it. :(

Given all of that, I think this might be better.

Scoped Railgun (2 weight, 2 piercing, 2-hands, Tags:[multi-mode, cumbersome, high-velocity, high-recoil, messy])
-Anti-personnel mode (Near: -1 to hit; Far: - )
-Anti-materiel mode (Near: -2 to hit; Far: -1 to hit; armor piercing (replaces 2 piercing); Tags: [punishing (Defy Danger or take half of 1d6, min 1)])

Personal Defense Weapon (2 weight, 2-hands, Tags:[multi-mode])
-Needle mode (close, near)
-Shotgun mode (close, near, +1 damage, reload)

By the way I know I'm a little late, but I'm glad you liked Nedora's intro. Now to see if she can survive the encounter with the rest of the crew.

Nedora, a few administrative things:

1) I gave away two free levels through the campaign so far. The other PC's are now level four. You should start at level 3.

2) Is the Association of Science the faction that created you? I think that makes some sense. They are trying to uncover the secret of magic, and your creation might have been an experiment in that search.

3) You should also have a faction with a Good standing.

4) I'm fine with your weapons as you statted them in the above post. How do you see the cumbersome, high-velocity, and high-recoil tags playing out narratively?

1) Roger, will update in a moment.

2) Yes, and another part of it was to create an organic robot, as it were. She has a serial number and barcode on her right thigh just below the bikini line. I thought about asking if there could be another faction that could have made her, but I figured the Association of Silence would work just as well.

3) I didn't put one for a couple of reasons. One, I don't know who she would have a good standing with, she's been trying to lie low for the past ten years. Two, I pictured her as being something the factions I did list wanting for themselves, or prevent the others from having. If you have any ideas, I'm all ears.

4) Cool, I'll get them added when I get Nedora leveled. As for the tags, see below.

Cumbersome - It's not point and shoot. It takes a moment to get into a firing position and aim it, which means you won't be seeing 360 no-scopes from this thing. It can also be a pain to get through tight spaces with it, even in its stowed form.

High-velocity - the rounds fired are moving at incredible speeds, between mach 3 and mach 5. This has two effects, the first, it tends to punch through things, the second, it tends to create a heck of a pressure wave that can crack or shatter windows if they are close enough to the line of travel. In short, you don't want to use this on anything in space.

High-recoil - it requires a steady, strong grip to control. If the shooter isn't prepared for it, the gun can buck right out of their hands, possibly hurting them. Punishing is similar, except that you have to have everything right as well, or you'll wind up bruising or dislocating your shoulder.

I hope that answers your questions. :)

2BR: king of combo attacks. I'll have to think of a TsuWatFoi trinity attack...

My ultimate plan is to assimilate the entire crew, then the ship, then hijack a planet and use the power of the core to propel the entire thing into other systems.

But don't tell anyone.

Nedora would like to not be assimilated, please. She's already had to deal with a cabal of mad-scientists trying to turn her into a robot with no personality.

Our slow, loud, shiny paladin is stalking across the shadows, guarding our thief, who is attempting to avoid ultrasound motion detection. Yes, now we're a real adventuring party.

Of course, Paladins normally don't have a dial with Maim, Kill, Eviscerate, Annihilate, Nuclear Option, and Sausage settings. Ours also seems to have damaged his Surrender Recognition System and uninstalled his Violence Inhibitor Neurons.

For that matter, Thieves also don't tend to carry around light artillery either. :D

2BR's our Barb in this analogy. As big as he is' he's also pretty quick. Sona's an armed future-cleric, a la robo-cop. She's even Lawful(?).

Very, very Lawful. Disembowlment-due-to-improper-tax-returns Lawful. In a sense, I'd say 2BR is Lawful, Neutral at the very least. Just... designed to be Evil, and very good at it.

While on the topic of robots, how difficult would it be for me to find some lasers? Specifically the internally fueled ones from char sheet. I should've taken them earlier, rather than the flamethrower, but oh well.

Subsection C, paragraph 3 of local tax code gives Sona the right- neigh, the obligation to disembowel you, given she files a properly notarized suspicion of fraud or evasion form in triplicate, and replaces your bowels with the yellow copy. The blue copy is for her own, intimate records.

If she feels like disemboweling you, she might decide she can act as her own notary... The laws are vague on the issue. She can hardly be blamed for human error.

I'm pretty sure she could, would, and might have recently filed for a permit to drop a building on some people...

Although, she also had to spend almost all her money on fancy clothes the others were going to steal. -and she earned that money fair and square by selling files found in an unsecured storage building that may have been attached to the clothing store. She wasn't keeping track.

"Lawful"

Nedora is firmly in the neutral camp. She'll obey the law, unless she's more likely to survive/remain off the grid by breaking it. She doesn't help others, that's too likely to tip off her pursuers, unless helping them can help her stay well ahead of said pursuit.

That said, she is fond of her golems, seeing them as people rather than tools (a trait her creators wished she hadn't developed.) She identifies more with robots than organic humanoids. She also likes making things go boom, which can come in handy when trying to stay free of her pursuit.

Also, I can't wait to show off the railgun. It's gonna be cool!

As promised (and long overdue), I've created a Roll20 campaign to track the battle map. I've made tokens for each of you (depending on when you read this message), and you should be able to move yourselves around.

Roll20 is free, but requires an account. You are not required to use the Roll20 map if you don't want to.

This is the link to join the Beyond Heaven campaign. Once you are logged in to Roll20, click on that link.

EDIT: My artistic skill constantly amazes even myself.

From playing in PbP, I can understand that my ignoring your attack rolls is frustrating. Unfortunately, one of the only ways to really increase difficulty is by requiring the PCs to successfully get into position to attack before making attack rolls. This works wonderfully at a live table. In a PbP, not so much. The reason that these creatures are dangerous is that they are incredibly difficult to find and target. For attacks against them to have a chance, you'll have to first explain how you are able to locate them to bring your weapons to bear. This will likely involve a successful roll (Defy Danger, Discern Realities, whatever you can justify) before you can even make a combat roll.

From playing in PbP, I can understand that my ignoring your attack rolls is frustrating. Unfortunately, one of the only ways to really increase difficulty is by requiring the PCs to successfully get into position to attack before making attack rolls. This works wonderfully at a live table. In a PbP, not so much. The reason that these creatures are dangerous is that they are incredibly difficult to find and target. For attacks against them to have a chance, you'll have to first explain how you are able to locate them to bring your weapons to bear. This will likely involve a successful roll (Defy Danger, Discern Realities, whatever you can justify) before you can even make a combat roll.

To follow up on this, and using 2BR's most recent attack roll as an example. In live play the conversation would go something like this:

2BR: I charge down the hallway and attack the first distortion that I find with my claws.

GM: The creatures are fast, and they were sprinting down the hallway by the time you could react, disappearing from view. How do you find them?

2BR: I guess I follow them, looking for signs of their passing.

GM: Well you find it! As you reach the room labeled barracks and look inside there are definite signs (bodies being chewed on by invisibles etc.) What do you do?

2BR: Can I tell where they are based on what is happening to the victims?

GM: Sounds like you are trying to discern realities. Roll it.

Something like that. I hope this makes sense and explains why I've responded to the attempts to attack these things in the way that I have. The threat they pose isn't large HP and high damage to you. The threat they pose is that they are going to murder these innocent sources of information unless you guys figure out a way to stop them. They are not even particularly interested in the robots.

Personally, I just roll if I think there might be a roll involved, and suck it up when "reality" doesn't conform to my character's intentions. If I roll the wrong roll, I trust the DM to swap out the modifiers, or ask for clarification/ give me options. At the moment, though, Sona figures the easiest way to combat something you can't see is to counter-attack, so she's sticking with defense.

It may be a good idea to get out ahead of these situations by dropping a note in the "we're starting combat" phase that outlines this limitation, giving one or two straight-forward-but-sucky options. As a DM I know it's hard when you describe something fifteen times as invisible, and the players still expect to roll a single H&S to hit them, but a little hand-holding goes a long way to curb expectations.

The GM waves his hands hypnotically.

You want to look at the Roll20 battle map. You want to look at the Roll20 battle map!

I'm in! Luckily I had a ROll20 Account Already!

You should be able to move your tokens around now.

I'm with Adam. The difficulty being that I can't post as often as I would like, so the process of going "I attack!" "Great, now roll dice" and only seeing that one day later is rather frustrating. Even more so because I'm on mobile and the dice rolling is agonising. From now on, if I say, "I go after a thingy with my claws, ignoring anything that gets in my way, and using my up the ante skill", would it be possible for you to roll anything that needs rolling, should I have the possibility? This will only be till Monday though, and would assist me greatly.

Sorry, I figured if distortions were readily seen well enough to not require a roll, they'd be clear enough to be able to take aim at. Not that it matters, but I'll try to keep that in mind through the rest of the encounter.

S'okay. You'll get attacked, Sona will lay into the thing with her pole-tazer and redirect the hit to herself.

Now, looking for an executive ruling from MC on this one: Considering a Defender could redirect more than one attack to herself, can she dump more than one hold into "deal your level in damage"? Is that something you'd need to see in practice to pass judgement on?

No need to apologize for any of this. We are still trying to work the kinks out, and I'm a novice when it comes to GMing PbP.

I'm going to think on several options for long term solutions to this and bring them to the group, but for the immediate encounter the only thing to keep in mind is that you should include how you happen to be able to target the creatures. If you want to throw in an unspecified 2d6 roll into your posts so I have something to work with, that might also help.

2BR, are you mobile only all the time? The reason that I ask is that I don't think Roll20 works on mobile. If your only access is mobile, then I will find another option for battlemaps.

Sona, in response to a single attack you can spend all of your hold. However, you can't select the same option twice for the same attack. Redirecting more than one attack to yourself doesn't violate this rule because you are acting in response to separate attacks. So ...

Attack 1: Redirect
Attack 2: Redirect
Attack 3: Redirect

vs.

Attack 1: Damage; Damage; Damage

I hope that makes some sense.

Not here to debate, just askin' how the ship's bein' run. *salutes*

Back on deck tomorrow evening, as it happens. Roll20 is perfect for me.

It's... it's beautiful

*single tear*

For the record, the technician operations make a firm distinction between what heals a creature and what heals a robot. Sona's never taking a healing operation. They exist, she's just not going to do it. She'll build you a better arm later.

Edit: OMG that's a lot of 5's and 6's!