Cowls: A World of Supermen and Subterfuge

[Pandemonious Ivy]

And if it does none of these things?

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Why wouldn't it? If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But based off of what we know about ourselves and the opponent, one or more of these seems likely.

Perfect is the enemy of good. Can't account for everything.

This rather critical element of the plan could be pretty concretely undone by him turning around really fast. We can't do right behind him, we don't have line of sight to his blind spot. The best we could manage is sort of over his shoulder and the best we can do is hope that he doesn't drown us in dice from his Ghost pool or whatever. Trying to teleport Flamestrike is an even worse proposition considering how chunky he is. And even if we succeeded it leaves us exhausted and vulnerable to GODLIKE.

Still not a fan of the witty bantering, honestly. Narratively I don't think it works. But I'll cop to that just being a matter of personal taste.

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1. We're a physically augmented, physical form boosting suit wearing teleporter.

If he can move fast enough in the split second it takes for us to teleport into his blind spot and touch him, to counter us? Running was never going to work.

2. Banter us to buy time. That's what it's usually for. If you have a better suggestion that can use our stats and skills to better the outcome, I'm up for hearing it.

 

[TenfoldShields]

Are we sure they set up the teleporter instead of simply having Plasmius activate a Syndicate base defense?

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Is there a difference tbh? We came to them, they didn't go to us. They picked the fighting space, we didn't. They know what we can do and Plasmius is a bit, fat, fucking questionmark who's had a couple minutes to prep and is backed up by an angry concrete pylon in power armor.

Like...what about this says "Yes. We should totally fight these people. Fuck running away, let's try to take a chunk out of them and hope we don't break our teeth."

If he can move fast enough in the split second it takes for us to teleport into his blind spot and touch him, to counter us? Running was never going to work.

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You have a fair point there (that was a stupid argument on my part) and I don't mean to keep piling on shit as I remember it but the dude can turn intangible at will and has a fuckload of invisible mooks. He's bullshit. Even in setting he's bullshit. We are not sufficiently bullshit to cleverly oneshot him like you're suggesting.

I mean all else aside, narratively it doesn't work. This is the first GODLIKE we've met in the question and the lore has been hyping them in general up as, well, godlike. The QM's probably aren't going to let him get worfed. Even assuming we were in a position to do that.

The fight set up is "survive" not "win" for a reason.

2. Banter us to buy time. That's what it's usually for. If you have a better suggestion that can use our stats and skills to better the outcome, I'm up for hearing it.

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They're here to kill us and they're on a tight schedule. Nothing personal, just good business, means that they won't exactly be keen on chatting us up. We're better off using that time to convince Immolator to help, instead of putting it off.

 

[Pandemonious Ivy]

Is there a difference tbh? We came to them, they didn't go to us. They picked the fighting space, we didn't. They know what we can do and Plasmius is a bit, fat, fucking questionmark who's had a couple minutes to prep and is backed up by an angry concrete pylon in power armor.

Like...what about this says "Yes. We should totally fight these people. Fuck running away, let's try to take a chunk out of them and hope we don't break our teeth."



You have a fair point there (that was a stupid argument on my part) and I don't mean to keep piling on shit as I remember it but the dude can turn intangible at will and has a fuckload of invisible mooks. He's bullshit. Even in setting he's bullshit. We are not sufficiently bullshit to cleverly oneshot him like you're suggesting.

I mean all else aside, narratively it doesn't work. This is the first GODLIKE we've met in the question and the lore has been hyping them in general up as, well, godlike. The QM's probably aren't going to let him get worfed. Even assuming we were in a position to do that.

The fight set up is "survive" not "win" for a reason.

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1. Phasing has been countered I'm the post. If he does it, we do the exact same thing to Flamestrike, who is no way in hell fast enough to counter us. He, if nobody else, will die.

Would you prefer if I changed it to hitting Flamestrike first and not bothering with Plasmius? I think that's the main sticking point.

2. The GMs don't seem the type to deny us well fought victories. If they didn't account for a way for us to win and we came through, I can see a reward for that. Otherwise it'd be railroading and I have more faith in them than that.

 

[NonSequtur]

Is there a difference tbh?

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It'll give us a better shot at having a way though it if it's, for instance, keyed to Syndicate IFFs which we can (have Shamus because we're incompetent) potentially fool by loading our biometrics to the Syndicate security that's already partly compromised instead of being keyed to Plasmius and Flamestrike and nobody else because it's a preplanned thing meant to help them get out clean.

invisible mooks

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Not as far we know, thankfully, so we aren't going to get mobbed right off the bat. Maybe keeping them active drains energy or something, which is why he doesn't have an army of them on overwatch.

 

[Pandemonious Ivy]

@notthepenguins @FriedIce @TenfoldShields @NonSequtur

If I change from hitting Plasmius off the bat to just hitting Flamestrike, would that be suitable?

 

[Ridiculously Average Guy]

[x] Follow the White Rabbit

 

[NonSequtur]

[X] Plan: Fucking Leg It
-[X] Throw the bots at them. Maybe they'll slow them down for half a second.
-[X] Sweet talk Immolator into running away with you.
-[X] "SHAMUS, FIND ME AN EXIT (also if you could trigger all the fucking fire alarms and seal the blast doors behind us, that'd be great)."

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Right, okay, my issues with this plan.

It's a waste of the bots. Throwing them with non-lethal, human optimized weaponry is pointless - power armour and rank 3 physical augmentations will let our opponents pretty much ignore them, and, well, as you've so often said this is the killzone.

Immolator will slow us down. He can't move like we can, so we'd have to carry him - literally. Which makes us worse at everything we might need to do to run the hell away, whether it's murder mooks, teleport down corridors or corner like we're in a tile based movement system and have never heard of angles that aren't ninety degrees. He can throw fire to help us, I suppose, but he can only really do that when we're not fighting ourselves, and we've got better fight pools than he does. 11+6 vs 6+3, or about twice as many successes, on average. Meanwhile, if we drag Plasmius away, him with robot fire support vs Flamestrike is far more even - or at least survivable.

 

[Omicron]

Right, okay, my issues with this plan.

It's a waste of the bots. Throwing them with non-lethal, human optimized weaponry is pointless - power armour and rank 3 physical augmentations will let our opponents pretty much ignore them, and, well, as you've so often said this is the killzone.

Immolator will slow us down. He can't move like we can, so we'd have to carry him - literally. Which makes us worse at everything we might need to do to run the hell away, whether it's murder mooks, teleport down corridors or corner like we're in a tile based movement system and have never heard of angles that aren't ninety degrees. He can throw fire to help us, I suppose, but he can only really do that when we're not fighting ourselves, and we've got better fight pools than he does. 11+6 vs 6+3, or about twice as many successes, on average. Meanwhile, if we drag Plasmius away, him with robot fire support vs Flamestrike is far more even - or at least survivable.

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I would add that plan Fucking Leg It relies on running as fast and as far as we can hoping to find an exit.

What if there isn't one? Just running away desperately without doing anything to delay the opposition sounds like a surefire way to end up cornered in a dead end to me. Especially if we try to carry Immolator, who is vastly slower.

Which is why I posted Plan Fuck You This Building Is Mine Now, come on people

 

[FriedIce]

@notthepenguins @FriedIce @TenfoldShields @NonSequtur

If I change from hitting Plasmius off the bat to just hitting Flamestrike, would that be suitable?

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Personally I'd prefer trying to hit Plasmius and if that doesn't work hitting Flamestrike. Though that might be risky, I'm hoping Blink will be good enough.

 

[TenfoldShields]

It's a waste of the bots. Throwing them with non-lethal, human optimized weaponry is pointless - power armour and rank 3 physical augmentations will let our opponents pretty much ignore them, and, well, as you've so often said this is the killzone.

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They can't keep up with us. They're not going to be terribly useful even with guns (last year's model, Flamestrike went up against Syndicate security personnel armed with these same guns and it didn't slow him down, and Plasmius is a mook spawner and beyond cutting edge). We're plenty strong to heft Immolator. And the point isn't to fight. The point is to run the fuck away. It's sort of in the name.

Like...Jesus. This sorta speaks to my main issue to the "stay and fight" plans tbh. Why? Like, why stay and fight? Most of the answers seem to be "because I want to" or "because running away feels flat". Which, ironically, seems a bit flat? We're flat out not equipped to take down enemies of this caliber with the tools we have or even the tools that are on hand. Surviving in sustained combat with them is iffy at best but people are going "no yeah it'll be fine we just have to do x clever thing, stop being such a huge coward".

There's nothing inherently wrong with retreating under these circumstances and even shouldering Immolator we're rolling a fair number of dice. Dude's like a hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred, pounds max. We could literally curl that one handed.

Like maybe you could make the argument that "by skimping out on an obvious bossfight you're going to irk the QM's" but, idk, GODLIKEs have been fairly well hyped up as being superhuman badasses who eat bullets and shit out artillery. I think running away is pretty understandable.

What if there isn't one? Just running away desperately without doing anything to delay the opposition sounds like a surefire way to end up cornered in a dead end to me. Especially if we try to carry Immolator, who is vastly slower.

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An entire portion of the plan and three bonus die are given over to Shamus looking for an escape route and throwing up barriers between us and the deadly duo. So, uh...okay I guess?

Not really sure what you're looking for here.

 

[Omicron]

An entire portion of the plan and three bonus die are given over to Shamus looking for an escape route and throwing up barriers between us and the deadly duo. So, uh...okay I guess?

Not really sure what you're looking for here.

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'With ten successes on his roll, Shamus can confirm with absolute 100% certainty that there is no way out of this building.'

is what I'm worried about here.

 

[TenfoldShields]

'With ten successes on his roll, Shamus can confirm with absolute 100% certainty that there is no way out of this building.'

is what I'm worried about here.

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Then he looks for a structural weakspot (it's a big fucking office building there's going to be a few) where Immolator can melt us a way out? And uh...fuck dunno.

Immolator uses [Plasma Control], [Tactical]/[Technical] (not sure which would be appropriate), [Ex Gang Member] (he's thought over how he might have to bail before, how he could do it, pays to have a way out) to melt through a likely spot. 3d6


And then we drop into the sewers or a side-street or where the fuck ever and Immolator decides whether to come with us or not based on our negotiation role earlier and how fucked he thinks he is. There? Does that work?

 

[NonSequtur]

They can't keep up with us. They're not going to be terribly useful even with guns (last year's model, Flamestrike went up against Syndicate security personnel armed with these same guns and it didn't slow him down, and Plasmius is a mook spawner and beyond cutting edge). We're plenty strong to heft Immolator. And the point isn't to fight. The point is to run the fuck away. It's sort of in the name.

Like...Jesus. This sorta speaks to my main issue to the "stay and fight" plans tbh. Why? Like, why stay and fight? Most of the answers seem to be "because I want to" or "because running away feels flat". Which, ironically, seems a bit flat? We're flat out not equipped to take down enemies of this caliber with the tools we have or even the tools that are on hand. Surviving in sustained combat with them is iffy at best but people are going "no yeah it'll be fine we just have to do x clever thing, stop being such a huge coward".

There's nothing inherently wrong with retreating under these circumstances and even shouldering Immolator we're rolling a fair number of dice. Dude's like a hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred, pounds max. We could literally curl that one handed.

Like maybe you could make the argument that "by skimping out on an obvious bossfight you're going to irk the QM's" but, idk, GODLIKEs have been fairly well hyped up as being superhuman badasses who eat bullets and shit out artillery. I think running away is pretty understandable.

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Are you talking to me, or someone whose plan was [] sword them hard? I haven't suggested we stay and fight, while your plan involves deliberately taking along dead weight. If we're trying to run like hell we shouldn't do something that means, for instance, we can't use our major mobility power nearly as often.

Then he looks for a structural weakspot (it's a big fucking office building there's going to be a few) where Immolator can melt us a way out? And uh...fuck dunno.

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And the disintegrating barrier that extends around the building?

 

[Omicron]

Then he looks for a structural weakspot (it's a big fucking office building there's going to be a few) where Immolator can melt us a way out? And uh...fuck dunno.

Immolator uses [Plasma Control], [Tactical]/[Technical] (not sure which would be appropriate), [Ex Gang Member] (he's thought over how he might have to bail before, how he could do it, pays to have a way out) to melt through a likely spot. 3d6


And then we drop into the sewers or a side-street or where the fuck ever and Immolator decides whether to come with us or not based on our negotiation role earlier and how fucked he thinks he is. There? Does that work?

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Maybe!

Does it work better than my own idea? If I thought so I wouldn't have bothered to write up my own vote

 

[TenfoldShields]

Are you talking to me, or someone whose plan was [] sword them hard? I haven't suggested we stay and fight, while your plan involves deliberately taking along dead weight. If we're trying to run like hell we shouldn't do something that means, for instance, we can't use our major mobility power nearly as often.

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If we leave Immolator behind he's probably going to die man. He's wounded. He's tired. He's already fucked up once and gotten seared by Flamestrike, he's going to make more mistakes. And they need to kill him too since he's a loose end. The fact that he's probably the only one actually in the building potentially willing and able to help us (and also the only one who knows the truth of what went down besides us and Shamus) means that he's fairly fucking valuable.

And apologies I guess. Everyone jumping down my throat about the super shit plan I apparently dropped in their breakfast cereal blended together a bit.

And the disintegrating barrier that extends around the building?

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They have to deactivate it when they leave. Regardless if they've found us or not. All it means if that we wouldn't have to go through the front door and into the teeth of the waiting Justice Brigade or whatever.

Maybe!

Does it work better than my own idea? If I thought so I would have bothered to write up my own vote

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I have no fucking idea at this point and I'm pretty sure the QM's are dragging it out just to torture us.

 

[NonSequtur]

If we leave Immolator behind he's probably going to die man. He's wounded. He's tired. He's already fucked up once and gotten seared by Flamestrike, he's going to make more mistakes. And they need to kill him too since he's a loose end. The fact that he's probably the only one actually in the building potentially willing and able to help us (and also the only one who knows the truth of what went down besides us and Shamus) means that he's fairly fucking valuable.

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4. Can we bring others with us when we teleport?

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Yes, but it drains a lot of energy. I'd make a rough estimate of being able to teleport about half a dozen times when carrying that much extra mass before passing out from the energy drain.

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Six teleports. 4 minutes. At least one of them used to leave the foyer, and we can't actually collapse unless we're okay with Shamus being on his own and us probably getting dragged in by the supercops, so we've got maybe one teleport every minute, as opposed to being as carefree with them as we were when we took on security.

You want to make that trade?

 

[TenfoldShields]

Six teleports. 4 minutes. At least one of them used to leave the foyer, and we can't actually collapse unless we're okay with Shamus being on his own and us probably getting dragged in by the supercops, so we've got maybe one teleport every minute, as opposed to being as carefree with them as we were when we took on security.

You want to make that trade?

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Actually my vote just has Vector using her Captain America physique and muscle suit to book it out of the lobby while the bots die gallantly and Immolator sucker punches the dudes behind her (or goes down fighting if he doesn't help) because I didn't want to exhaust her trying to teleport with a burden so...

...not really?



She's faster than Flamestrike even without Blinking I think. And Ghost-dude (I keep misspelling it so he's Ghost-dude now) is about as fast? Dunno. He'll probably rely more on his creatures than try and settle it in CQC I think.

 

[NonSequtur]

Dunno.

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Enhanced physical capabilities, rank 3, higher than mental augmentations, which are only rank 2. Capable of- the physical reanimation of corpses. What? Summons ectoplasmic "wraiths", capable of walking through walls

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Without us teleporting or leaning on a suit which we can't use indefinitely he's probably faster than us in an office environment. And this is just the unredacted stuff. I don't want him to get close, tbh, because I figure he'll whack us with ectoplasmic constructs, Green Lantern style.

 

[Vindictus]

Without us teleporting or leaning on a suit which we can't use indefinitely he's probably faster than us in an office environment. And this is just the unredacted stuff. I don't want him to get close, tbh, because I figure he'll whack us with ectoplasmic constructs, Green Lantern style.

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Unless I'm mistaken we have Physical Augmentation at rank 3 as well:

Codename: Vector
Powers:
Physical Boost [3]
Teleportation [4]

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So before we factor in teleportation and phasing through walls, I think we should be about equal in speed.

This is, of course, assuming that our physical boost isn't factoring in our muscle suit. It might be.

Either way, we should be way faster than Firestrike, who has only civvie level physical augmentation [rank 1?] and a slower power suit than us, so if we do decide to run we've probably only got to worry about Plasmus.

 

[Tempera]

This is, of course, assuming that our physical boost isn't factoring in our muscle suit. It might be.

Either way, we should be way faster than Firestrike, who has only civvie level physical augmentation [rank 1?] and a slower power suit than us, so if we do decide to run we've probably only got to worry about Plasmus.

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The physical power boost does not include the power armour.

You can reasonably expect to be significantly faster than Flamestrike's. You can expect to be slightly faster than Plasmius, but one of his listed powers is phasing through walls, so he has the edge in maneuverability.

 

[Pandemonious Ivy]

This latest bit of WoG helps solidify my stance that we shouldn't run without taking one of them out. It'd be all too easy for us to get cornered and then that asshole pops out of a wall to help make things better.

Vote Plan Catastrophe

Vote for a better future

 

[notthepenguins]

Plan Catastrophe is incredibly unreliable. It relies on being able to execute a very specific set of actions without interruption, requires that they actually do what you think they will (your speculations re: the energy shield's effects on Plasmius are totally unsupported), leaves us totally out to dry if something unexpected comes up, and most importantly expects a GODLIKE to go down like a chump.

This is not a scheme I would like to base our continued survival on.

 

[Arcus]

Hmm. Why not try a bluff?

Pretend that we were briefed beforehand, that we knew from the start that this was a recruitment mission. Flamestrike probably won't buy it, but with a little luck we'll confuse Plasmius, who won't know which of us to trust. Though we don't know what his intelligence augs do...

 

[Pandemonious Ivy]

Plan Catastrophe is incredibly unreliable. It relies on being able to execute a very specific set of actions without interruption, requires that they actually do what you think they will (your speculations re: the energy shield's effects on Plasmius are totally unsupported), leaves us totally out to dry if something unexpected comes up, and most importantly expects a GODLIKE to go down like a chump.

This is not a scheme I would like to base our continued survival on.

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Could you be more specific? I'm suspecting that you're exaggerating.

Such as the very specific set of actions? Like, it's very simple. Teleport, touch, teleport, release.

Not sure how difficult that'll be.

As for out to dry, well, unless I'm mistaken there's a lot of room to handle other issues but the obvious ones are taken care of. No other plan is fool proof and most of them are running... from someone as fast as us that can go through walls.

I don't see how that's more guaranteed in any way, especially if its something expected. Hitting the dude who everyone knows is more powerful than you is rarely expected.

Re: Energy field.

I said that by throwing him into it we would either kill him, short out the barrier, or at least get him out of the way for a while.

Why that last one? Because he's going to get hurt at least a small bit and he's going to be hitting the ground from several stories up.

So it's supported by common sense, unless you have a better theory.

Hmm. Why not try a bluff?


Pretend that we were briefed beforehand, that we knew from the start that this was a recruitment mission. Flamestrike probably won't buy it, but with a little luck we'll confuse Plasmius, who won't know which of us to trust. Though he does have those damnable intelligence augs...

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That's in mine, but it's only a stalling technique, not the main thrust.

 

[notthepenguins]

Could you be more specific? I'm suspecting that you're exaggerating.

Such as the very specific set of actions? Like, it's very simple. Teleport, touch, teleport, release.

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Assuming that they will have no way to deal with our ability to do that is incredibly shortsighted. Remember, they know our powerset and are actively planning to kill us. They would not have taken this tack if they didn't think they could actually do that, and "teleport your opponent away from you" is not exactly an outside the box strategy they couldn't have expected.

As for out to dry, well, unless I'm mistaken there's a lot of room to handle other issues but the obvious ones are taken care of. No other plan is fool proof and most of them are running... from someone as fast as us that can go through walls.

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You have no plan for what happens if "splode Plasmius with the energy field" fails. No plan for how to talk Immolator into joining us. No plan at all to deal with Flamestrike, who threw down with Plasmius and Immolator for an extended period.

Hitting the dude who everyone knows is more powerful than you is rarely expected.

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Because it is an extremely dumb idea. "But they won't expect it!" doesn't actually make it less dumb.

Why that last one? Because he's going to get hurt at least a small bit and he's going to be hitting the ground from several stories up.

So it's supported by common sense, unless you have a better theory.

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We -- notably not a GODLIKE -- can cut apart tanks, and other supers can survive this kind of punishment.

He will not even be mildly inconvenienced by a several-story fall.