Not yet, I need to find the thing
New favorite combat cyborg acquired. Quipping to your god empress in sign language because your jaw is too shot off your face to do it out loud is pretty great. We really should cook up a reward of some kind for these guys.Her left hand signs a complex gesture, fingers bent, crossing open. Unless she uses the cant for which her organization is partially named, right. It is still wierd always-having-known-something you had never thought of before, but at least you are relieved at the answer: "Toothache."
New favorite combat cyborg acquired. Quipping to your god empress in sign language because your jaw is too shot off your face to do it out loud is pretty great. We really should cook up a reward of some kind for these guys.
Just out of curiosity @DragonParadox is lord of the land a purely active thing? I was just thinking about some of the funnier implications of living in a sapient planet sized pocket dimension if it knew you by name and like the cut of your jib.
Stuff like Molly's subconscious lazily diverting bad weather, adding ominous special effects to good stunts, or otherwise "helping" with zero subtlety when it notices them at all.
Over in cyborg!quest the player base they just suddenly get the two dot background "God's Eye: the world wants to help" and the two dot flaw "Divine Diapers: your god is literally a child".
Probably not for a lot of reasons, but it'd be really funny.
1) Wont make a difference.I'm too wary of grenade spam at this point to bother trying to talk them down...
[X] Use Akdin's talisman, that is sure to clear a lot of vampires
Stopping at all does. Trying to take prisoners means we won't be going as hard on them especially considering how fast we tend to finish them all off. They can decide to release VX either way they clearly aren't bothered by friendly fire. I don't see why it wouldn't be a risk regardless.Stopping to offer quarter does not materially affect the level of threat involved here.
And if you think grenades are bad, you are taking the risk of someone releasing VX in these tunnels as a final fuck you.
I was half expecting that to get nixed, but it looks like some people are going to be having a fun trip home.It could technically happen subconsciously yeah since there is no expenditure of Essence.
There's always AtP if we have the essence for it. It's not invisibility, it's attention diverting, so they'll politely ignore the noise we're making.1) Wont make a difference.
We are about to perform a large scale excavation of a tunnel.
Everyone within a kilometer's radius will hear and feel us doing it, and the defenders will be able to see the minute that the digger breaks through the obstruction.
The only real questions here are:
- Are you interested in seeing if you can talk people down? Or are you not?
- Are you offering surrender? Or are you pushing people to fight to the death, with everything that entails?
- Are you interested in intelligence from PoWs, or are you not?
Stopping to offer quarter does not materially affect the level of threat involved here.
And if you think grenades are bad, you are taking the risk of someone releasing VX in these tunnels as a final fuck you.
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2) Sunlight only affects young Rampires.
It doesnt affect Rampires whose fleshmasks are strong enough to allow them walk in daytime.
And it doesnt affect Infected/dhampirs.
And even the Rampires something like this affects arent crippled.
See when Dresden did this exact thing to Bianca in Storm Front at point blank range.
All it does is drive them back; it injures, but it neither kills nor cripples.I smiled at her, and put one hand into my pocket, onto the white handkerchief. "No, thank you. I came to talk."
Her lips parted in a silent, ah. "I see. About what, if I might ask?"
"About Jennifer Stanton. And her murder."
I had all of a second's warning. Bianca's eyes narrowed, then widened, like those of a cat about to spring. Then she was coming at me over the table, faster than a breath, her arms extended toward my throat.
I toppled over backward in my chair. Even though I'd started to move first, it almost wasn't enough to get away from her reaching nails in time. One grazed my throat with a hot sensation of pain, and she kept coming, following me down to the floor, those rich lips drawn back from sharp fangs.
I jerked my hand out of my pocket, and flapped open my white hanky at her, releasing the image of sunlight I'd been storing for use in potions. It lit up the room for a moment, brilliant.
The light smashed into Bianca, hurled her back across the old table into one of the shelves, and tore pieces of flesh away from her like bits of rotten meat being peeled off a carcass by a sandblaster. She screamed, and the flesh around her mouth sloughed and peeled away like a snake's scales.
I had never seen a real vampire before. I would have time to be terrified later. I took in the details as I tugged my talisman off over my neck. It had a batlike face, horrid and ugly, the head too big for its body. Gaping, hungry jaws. Its shoulders were hunched and powerful. Membranous wings stretched between the joints of its almost skeletal arms. Flabby black breasts hung before it, spilling out of the black dress that no longer looked feminine. Its eyes were wide, black, and staring, and a kind of leathery, slimy hide covered its flesh, like an inner tube lathered with Vaseline, though there were tiny holes corroded in it by the sunlight I had brought with me.
It recovered quickly, crouching and spreading long arms that ended in claw-tipped fingers to either side with a hiss of rage.
I drew my pentacle into my fist, raised it like every vampire slayer you ever saw does it, and said, "Jesus Christ, lady. I just came here to talk."
The vampire hissed and started toward me with a gangling, weirdly graceful step. Its clawed feet were still wearing the three-hundred-dollar black pumps.
"Back," I said, taking a step towards it, myself. The pentacle began to burn with the cold, clear light of applied will and belief—my faith, if you will, that it could turn such a monster aside.
It hissed, and turned its face aside, lifting its membranous arms to shield its eyes from the light. It took one step back, and then another, until its hunched back was pressed against a wall of books.
Incidentally, someone might be using an AtP like effect on us right now.You wonder if the reason Harry had taken the chance to kill the people behind you and not the thing that might have been in front of you is that he had been unknowingly nudged not to interact with whatever that had been.
It does effect them. Rampires can't actually fight all that well in their flesh masks. So even when fighting an old Rampires you are much better off doing it in sunlight.) Sunlight only affects young Rampires.
It doesnt affect Rampires whose fleshmasks are strong enough to allow them walk in daytime.
Thats offset by saved time on having to go through traps and ambushes if you get their people to turn.Stopping at all does. Trying to take prisoners means we won't be going as hard on them especially considering how fast we tend to finish them all off. They can decide to release VX either way they clearly aren't bothered by friendly fire. I don't see why it wouldn't be a risk regardless.
Wasn't it said earlier that the infected rampires are mostly young and new? They'll be ready for us with grenades or otherwise so even just driving them back is good.
Just to be clear: This is not true. Not in all situations.Dead Rampires are a net good, I see no reason not to kill everyone here we can get away with.
Dont have the Essence for it, as far as I can tell.There's always AtP if we have the essence for it. It's not invisibility, it's attention diverting, so they'll politely ignore the noise we're making.
As we've seen multiple times in the past, for the purposes of the quest if you don't know to have your mental defenses up effects that deliberately work to make you forget or ignore them can slip through. Unless Sandra has someone with perfect mental defenses currently running in that room or we roll poorly we could essentially pull a stealth excavation.
Reasonably sure thats not true, based on the fight at Chitchen Itza.It does effect them. Rampires can't actually fight all that well in their flesh masks. So even when fighting an old Rampires you are much better off doing it in sunlight.
Molly needs to deliberately spend essence to counter mental effects right? Maybe we should be using a mote if discreet mind magic is being used on our party right now.Incidentally, someone might be using an AtP like effect on us right now.
Molly directly thought about the possibility that someone's SEP field pushed Dresden to hurl grenades into a bunch of half-reds and then just set the possibility aside
Could a mental effect like this prevent us from choosing to activate IPM reflexively or at all, though?Molly needs to deliberately spend essence to counter mental effects right? Maybe we should be using a mote if discreet mind magic is being used on our party right now.
Could a mental effect like this prevent us from choosing to activate IPM reflexively or at all, though?
Haven't you had the case where we can be affected by UMI (or whatever that was) before IPM can be/is activated (the fight w/ Gorf), potentially precluding us doing so at all? Or, perhaps, manipulating one's perception of reality so that they choose not to activate it, rather than directly preventing them from doing so. Also, how would that mesh with Perfect UMI (if that even exists)?No, keeping you from activating a charm would be direct compulsion... at which point you would have the choice to trigger IPM as a reaction.
Haven't you had the case where we can be affected by UMI (or whatever that was) before IPM can be/is activated (the fight w/ Gorf), potentially precluding us doing so at all?
IPM is literally her third or fourth line of mental defense.Could a mental effect like this prevent us from choosing to activate IPM reflexively or at all, though?
Presumably Molly has her anima banner and caste mark up anyway.No, keeping you from activating a charm would be direct compulsion... at which point you would have the choice to trigger IPM as a reaction.
IPM is literally her third or fourth line of mental defense.
First it has to beat her normal Willpower roll, then it has to beat her Intimacies if applicable, then it gets activate and bounce off Impervious Primacy Mantle.
And if its a magic spell, it has to beat her Wits + Occult reflexive counterspell.
Presumably Molly has her anima banner and caste mark up anyway.
Which means the surprise negator effect should be up anyway.
Any effect of that sort is probably Obvious to her.
It's her only line of defense against a perfect effect, which we do know that at least some entities in DF and WoD have. Also, for instance,
Would this be effective against something which directly alters her intimacies, rather than inducing her to abandon them, to another entity's desires? Assuming that it gets past her other defenses (whether through ludicrous amounts of dice and/or willpower/essence-tapping, or a Perfect effect)Any attempt to cause or force the Infernal to betray, undermine, or abandon her Intimacies automatically fails. Furthermore, she may reflexively spend 1 Essence or 1 Willpower to become immune to all thought and emotion-altering magic for the rest of the scene.
It's her only line of defense against a perfect effect, which we do know that at least some entities in DF and WoD have. Also, for instance,
Would this be effective against something which directly alters her intimacies, rather than inducing her to abandon them, to another entity's desires? Assuming that it gets past her other defenses.