I still want Robowizard Armsmaster that someone suggested.
Alchemical Solutions [Worm/Exalted] Thread 16: Playful Parasites Pervert Prayer, Perpetuate Plagues
- Thread starter Gromweld
- Start date
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
To take my mind off the unpleasantness of this update, I've decided that I'd rather mull over a potential plan of action.
Emergency Conversion: Sorry, Aisha, but I like Missy better than you. This isn't even getting into who would be more useful - Missy is extremely powerful while Optical Shroud + Industrial Survival Frame would essentially render Aisha invulnerable since Optical Shroud removes her one vulnerability of being detected by cameras while ISF lets her ignore anything that doesn't intend to cause her harm (which nothing will, because as far as the world is concerned she doesn't exist). Chevalier remains a good choice as he combines charisma (we still need someone with good social chops) and beatstick in one convenient package.
XP expenditures - we need to triage here. Several useful abilities/specializations/backgrounds just became available, while two useful specialties are about to expire.
FPoP: I fucking hate that Grom has turned Marrow's Craft ability into another XP sink, but barring us convincing him to go with something reasonable - like, not creating another XP sink - it's something we're going to need to get.
EOA: Well, Medicine just dinged and I think it's pretty obvious why getting it would be smart. However, we also have Dodge to consider as it is directly related to our survival as well as War (Parahumans) which is our major contribution to combat. Firearms (Sniping) ought to see good use should we decided to just go FUCK EVERYTHING and hit the Nine like the fists of several angry god-machines. Presence (Swarms) is probably going to have to expire since I can't really justify getting it over all the other things that we need to prioritize. Background-wise: The Hoverthrone may or may not be useful to us at this immediate point in time depending on what it does, whereas the Insect Drones add noticeably to the durability of our swarms and should help circumvent one of Bonesaw's canon counters to Skitter.
Plan of action: Fuck these guys. Use bullshit magic when examining the video feed to identify where they are or, failing that, backtrace the signal using Int + Lore. We have the 2nd Perception Augmentation and Optical Enchancement's Microscopic Lens submodule - that's FOUR autosux right out of the gate before we even factor in our Perception + Investigation pool of Perception 5 + Investigation 5 + Stunt 2 + Conviction 4 - Sleep Deprived 1 = 15 dice. That would be 11 successes on average, so after two and a half minutes of examining the tape (thank you IEU) we'll have a very good idea of the Nine's location. We also have mile-wide 360 degree vision, can swap normal vision out for thermal, and can see through nine yards of solid obstruction for a measly 1 mote expenditure - even if all that fails for some completely inexplicable reason, we still have the tools necessary to quickly track them down.
Telescopic Lens lets us fire from our new crossbow's max range without penalty, so putting a bolt through Jack's skull from 750 yards is a good opener (unless Shatterbird or Cherish are available, their ability to fuck with our response or our friends makes them higher priority targets). The Diagnostic Overlay submodule means we should be able to avoid any disguise shenanigans since members of the Nine (except maybe Bakuda) are going to have obvious internal modifications, plus it ought to help us identify points vulnerable to attack. Frankly, I just want to put a bolt through the eye from cloak and be done with it.
Emergency Conversion: Sorry, Aisha, but I like Missy better than you. This isn't even getting into who would be more useful - Missy is extremely powerful while Optical Shroud + Industrial Survival Frame would essentially render Aisha invulnerable since Optical Shroud removes her one vulnerability of being detected by cameras while ISF lets her ignore anything that doesn't intend to cause her harm (which nothing will, because as far as the world is concerned she doesn't exist). Chevalier remains a good choice as he combines charisma (we still need someone with good social chops) and beatstick in one convenient package.
XP expenditures - we need to triage here. Several useful abilities/specializations/backgrounds just became available, while two useful specialties are about to expire.
FPoP: I fucking hate that Grom has turned Marrow's Craft ability into another XP sink, but barring us convincing him to go with something reasonable - like, not creating another XP sink - it's something we're going to need to get.
EOA: Well, Medicine just dinged and I think it's pretty obvious why getting it would be smart. However, we also have Dodge to consider as it is directly related to our survival as well as War (Parahumans) which is our major contribution to combat. Firearms (Sniping) ought to see good use should we decided to just go FUCK EVERYTHING and hit the Nine like the fists of several angry god-machines. Presence (Swarms) is probably going to have to expire since I can't really justify getting it over all the other things that we need to prioritize. Background-wise: The Hoverthrone may or may not be useful to us at this immediate point in time depending on what it does, whereas the Insect Drones add noticeably to the durability of our swarms and should help circumvent one of Bonesaw's canon counters to Skitter.
Plan of action: Fuck these guys. Use bullshit magic when examining the video feed to identify where they are or, failing that, backtrace the signal using Int + Lore. We have the 2nd Perception Augmentation and Optical Enchancement's Microscopic Lens submodule - that's FOUR autosux right out of the gate before we even factor in our Perception + Investigation pool of Perception 5 + Investigation 5 + Stunt 2 + Conviction 4 - Sleep Deprived 1 = 15 dice. That would be 11 successes on average, so after two and a half minutes of examining the tape (thank you IEU) we'll have a very good idea of the Nine's location. We also have mile-wide 360 degree vision, can swap normal vision out for thermal, and can see through nine yards of solid obstruction for a measly 1 mote expenditure - even if all that fails for some completely inexplicable reason, we still have the tools necessary to quickly track them down.
Telescopic Lens lets us fire from our new crossbow's max range without penalty, so putting a bolt through Jack's skull from 750 yards is a good opener (unless Shatterbird or Cherish are available, their ability to fuck with our response or our friends makes them higher priority targets). The Diagnostic Overlay submodule means we should be able to avoid any disguise shenanigans since members of the Nine (except maybe Bakuda) are going to have obvious internal modifications, plus it ought to help us identify points vulnerable to attack. Frankly, I just want to put a bolt through the eye from cloak and be done with it.
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Vista, obviously. Bonesaw has taught her how wonderful making people your friends by force is, and Missy will never give it up. It's not a problem that Dean doesn't reciprocate her crush, she can fix that, no sweat!
That was a joke.
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No.
You do not pick Exalts based on powers, you pick them based on character traits.
By that mien, Vista is Jade.
Everything else, we have the magitech for; I could spec Vista as a fuckscary combat Jade if I so wished.
Our Assembly is non-standard after all; if Auto-kun wanted a standard Assembly, he wouldn't have exalted Taylor as a Soulsteel.
Chevalier, like Miss Militia, serve us better as human allies than as Exalts.
Plus, he's senior enough(and valuable enough) that there would be tons of repercussions to trying to convert him; as a Protectorate department head, and one of their few reliable Stranger defenses, the PRT would go a long way to keep him out of any possibly risky procedure.
Not as valuable as Dragon, but close.
Plus, go look at his reaction to Auto-kun's image.
Selling him on it is not something we can do here.
Ridtom
Good. Bad. I'm the man with the Wand.
Oh god...
Missy: "Love me Dean!"
Penny: "Love me Kinzey!"
M&P: "LOVE US. LOVE US. LOVE US"
I don't think drug sweat would be good for PR.
Now Alchemical!Vista looks like EDI in my head.
Nah.
Number Man lacks empathy, which is continuously emphasised about Viziers.
Number Man would be an Orichalcum. Or maybe a Soulsteel.
Jack Folstam
Refinement of Copper
Hmm. Come to think of it, Assault might work as a Moonsilver. He was able to come up with a completely new fighting style to distance himself from Madcap, after all, and Moonsilvers catalyze from adaptation and innovation.
Flechette might work as a Starmetal or Moonsilver, given that she abandoned the hero side and was able to convincingly fake being Grey Boy'd.
We'd have to give them a similar pep-talk to the one we gave Marrow to catalyze as the right caste. Not to mention get a better read on their in-quest personalities.
Flechette might work as a Starmetal or Moonsilver, given that she abandoned the hero side and was able to convincingly fake being Grey Boy'd.
We'd have to give them a similar pep-talk to the one we gave Marrow to catalyze as the right caste. Not to mention get a better read on their in-quest personalities.
Major issue with Assault: I don't think he'd want to live centuries beyond his Puppy. He and Battery are kind of a package deal.
Re: Plan of action:
The S9's strategy is always guerrilla warfare. They hit hard, hide, hit hard again, hide again, fuck everyone, disappear into the background until next time.
Taylor has crazy Perception+Investigation. She can also see through her bugs in a range measured in hundreds of yards. She can find these bastards. Either find a clue... or get a good teleporter (hey there, Strider) and hop around the city again and again until we reach a spot that's a few hundred yards from where they are, allowing us to notice them (they may well have spread insecticide around their hideout to protect themselves from Weaver, but we can still detect them via the absence of bugs).
Then... well, Optical Shroud means Taylor can go Solid Snake on members who stray from the main group...
The S9's strategy is always guerrilla warfare. They hit hard, hide, hit hard again, hide again, fuck everyone, disappear into the background until next time.
Taylor has crazy Perception+Investigation. She can also see through her bugs in a range measured in hundreds of yards. She can find these bastards. Either find a clue... or get a good teleporter (hey there, Strider) and hop around the city again and again until we reach a spot that's a few hundred yards from where they are, allowing us to notice them (they may well have spread insecticide around their hideout to protect themselves from Weaver, but we can still detect them via the absence of bugs).
Then... well, Optical Shroud means Taylor can go Solid Snake on members who stray from the main group...
If any more orthodox Alchemicals make it to Earth, everyone there is going to realize they got off easy.
- Location
- West Michigan
Except they probably know that, and have a countermeasure for it.
Jack Folstam
Refinement of Copper
True, but I was just thinking a bit. Circumstances might change in the future as well.
Note that Mrs. Bearing currently isn't wearing her dress, which means she might mote-tap Weaver as soon as she gets in range with SOPA active, which would be uh, awkward.
Jack has just shown, by blowing up the base, that he's not playing by narrative convention. If we simply accept the challenge of each day as it comes along he's going to get away. We need to get out ahead of them rather than merely reacting.
Fortunately, we DO actually know some things about their tactical situation, and we can make a few guesses.
Each of them is going to attempt to recruit a new member. Assuming Jack wasn't lying, he intends to take 9 days to do this. Normally, staying in the city for nine days would be suicide; Jack relies on being impossible to pin down. He's going to have trouble forcing us to play along with his daily challenge, so he will probably use Bakuda's bombs to blackmail us into playing along. The bombs will be distributed throughout the city, hidden inside the victims he's already taken (note: Decapitating someone and sucking their head into TIE is a valid emergency bomb-disarmament technique. We can rebuild the body later. We can also TIE bombs, and, judging by the door, possibly cranial implants), and probably hidden at the site of each day's attack(s). If we can find some way to disarm the bombs we may be able to cut this entire arc short.
If the Church of Jack is to remain on the air that gives us another weakness to exploit. The broadcast will make it possible to track him back to his true location. He may be disguising that location with tinker tech and conventional means, but we can get tinker tech too. We might be able to get away with jamming his transmission once, but he'll probably just blow people up in petulant frustration if we do.
Jack probably has his escape route mapped out already and he'll want to stay close to it. Unless he relies totally on bomb-blackmail he'll want it to be discreet, since nine days will gather a lot of attention. I would start looking with the river, particularly anyplace with underwater access. We should also keep an eye out for large "dead" areas where there are no bugs, since Bonesaw probably cleaned house.
Jack will continue to use drones and blackmailed parahumans. Not only should we have them all check in, we should have them all continuously check on each other, to make it harder for Jack to isolate them.
Some of these ideas will require tinkerers, but that's OK because there's a place we can get them: Toybox. We have Resources 4 and IEU so we have a lot to barter with for a rush job. If we can get them to build, say, a device that freezes electrical activity in semiconductors, a device like that would probably disable most of the bombs, as long as we have enough devices to blanket the city. Notes I said " freeze" rather than "cut" I don't want to sever the bombs from their power supply, because that might trigger a dead man switch, I want to prevent the detonator from functioning at all.
Or perhaps we hire them to build some signal tracking drones to help us locate Jack.
Narratively, it may not be possible for us to jump the rails, but if it is we can only do it by setting plans of our own in motion.
Fortunately, we DO actually know some things about their tactical situation, and we can make a few guesses.
Each of them is going to attempt to recruit a new member. Assuming Jack wasn't lying, he intends to take 9 days to do this. Normally, staying in the city for nine days would be suicide; Jack relies on being impossible to pin down. He's going to have trouble forcing us to play along with his daily challenge, so he will probably use Bakuda's bombs to blackmail us into playing along. The bombs will be distributed throughout the city, hidden inside the victims he's already taken (note: Decapitating someone and sucking their head into TIE is a valid emergency bomb-disarmament technique. We can rebuild the body later. We can also TIE bombs, and, judging by the door, possibly cranial implants), and probably hidden at the site of each day's attack(s). If we can find some way to disarm the bombs we may be able to cut this entire arc short.
If the Church of Jack is to remain on the air that gives us another weakness to exploit. The broadcast will make it possible to track him back to his true location. He may be disguising that location with tinker tech and conventional means, but we can get tinker tech too. We might be able to get away with jamming his transmission once, but he'll probably just blow people up in petulant frustration if we do.
Jack probably has his escape route mapped out already and he'll want to stay close to it. Unless he relies totally on bomb-blackmail he'll want it to be discreet, since nine days will gather a lot of attention. I would start looking with the river, particularly anyplace with underwater access. We should also keep an eye out for large "dead" areas where there are no bugs, since Bonesaw probably cleaned house.
Jack will continue to use drones and blackmailed parahumans. Not only should we have them all check in, we should have them all continuously check on each other, to make it harder for Jack to isolate them.
Some of these ideas will require tinkerers, but that's OK because there's a place we can get them: Toybox. We have Resources 4 and IEU so we have a lot to barter with for a rush job. If we can get them to build, say, a device that freezes electrical activity in semiconductors, a device like that would probably disable most of the bombs, as long as we have enough devices to blanket the city. Notes I said " freeze" rather than "cut" I don't want to sever the bombs from their power supply, because that might trigger a dead man switch, I want to prevent the detonator from functioning at all.
Or perhaps we hire them to build some signal tracking drones to help us locate Jack.
Narratively, it may not be possible for us to jump the rails, but if it is we can only do it by setting plans of our own in motion.
The drain is 1 mote per minute.
Honestly, thinking about that makes me really want to Exalt Aisha, just for the looks on their faces. The snarkiest most adorable assassin ever.
We don't even need the bugs they have iris remember. and as soon as he enters our range we have them.
And... They have no idea that we have a rangefinder on Iris.
Cassiemouse
Market Atheist
I personally think Chevalier as an Orichalcum is the next one we should consider. Depending on how we react to the PRT we might have to go rogue soon and taking him with us would be better than having him as an enemy.
Chev is a good guy - not just a hero by faction, but a hero by behavior.
So long as we go rogue without going evil, he's likely to not be our enemy... but he's not likely to be our ally.
Also, I don't know about going rogue.
If we can negate - or turn-around - this Jack Slash/Simurgh smear campaign, we will have a LOT of leverage with the PRT, at least among those capable of feeling shame or responsibility (hint: the heroes will even if the Cauldron-appointed jerks won't)
So long as we go rogue without going evil, he's likely to not be our enemy... but he's not likely to be our ally.
Also, I don't know about going rogue.
If we can negate - or turn-around - this Jack Slash/Simurgh smear campaign, we will have a LOT of leverage with the PRT, at least among those capable of feeling shame or responsibility (hint: the heroes will even if the Cauldron-appointed jerks won't)
only problem is we would go totemic as we came in range. so they would know we are coming.
Where is this stated again?
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
No, and this instance is particularly egregious because it does not require constant charm activation on Marrows part in order to function. Breaking down a wall is a simple feat of strength action which does not require any charm activation at all in order to work properly. The charm that counts strength twice for the purposes of feats of strength is always on and Marrow already knows about it, and IEU was already up and running.
There really isn't a good reason for Marrow to go with the DOOM COMBO unless you're shoving the idiot ball in her hands in order to mote tap her for DRAMA.
Actually, if you'd read the post that veekie was replying to you'd realize that this was in response to veekie dismissing the suggestion that Marrow not understanding her charms was the reason for her only being able to use PTA in an on/off fashion.
You guys are over-thinking things. We get 9 successes on average for Perception + Investigation rolls (at the low low cost of 4m/2succ with the 2nd Perc Aug, which is low enough to be mote neutral and can thus be performed indefinitely), 11 sux if we channel conviction. This is more than enough to easily track down the Nine, and thanks to IEU it only takes two and half minutes to examine the video/crime scene for clues.
And all this is before we take into account our 360 degree, 9yard mass penetrating, thermal heat sensing, mile long 20/20 vision.
Diagnostics Overlay + trick shot (-1 accuracy) = emergency bomb extraction via crossbow surgery.