[ ] Build a personal suit of power armor (Ludivine von Drake)
DC 95 (Reduced by XP)
77+20+15+20+3=135
Decent Success
Ludivine was a great help with designing your power armor. Definitely the best choice. She knew exactly how to work your own personal style into a suit that was also, you know, good at keeping you alive in a pitched battle. She even helped you integrate a few inators (which you're desperately hoping won't explode) and all sorts of built-in extra features like cupholders and a miniature coffee machine! Sure, it doesn't look exactly like you were planning, but it's still pretty impressive regardless.
Any enemy Martial actions made against Doofenshmirtz directly will be made at a -5 penalty!
Option to outfit troops with power armor unlocked!
Doof gains a +5 to direct combat against enemies on quests!
This only applies on quests if an enemy is directly targeting Doofenshmirtz! It will not apply every time that Doof applies his Martial to the quest roll!
So, in a fight between Doof vs. someone else directly we effectively will have a +10 against enemies...neat.
Also like the fact that we can repurpose the design for our PMC...you guys think that doing so would lower the DC of Reorganizing Them?
[ ] Reach out to leaders of the Zaibatsu (Mirage)
DC 35 (Reduced by XP)
64+18+24+3=109
Critical Success
[ ] Vanessa (Job shadow Mirage)
47
To be continued in Interlude: Executive Summary
So, Mirage did really well in Reaching Out to the Zaibatsu, meaning that Vanessa will probably get some stuff outta it as well, since we put our little visigoth pumpkin on shadowing our Diplomat...definitely not bad at all.
[ ] Recruit from your rolodex: Wasabi (Goofy)
DC 60 (Reduced by XP)
36+18+28+5=87
Decent Success
Wasabi (whose real name eludes you but you wanna say is Joe) was actually fairly easy to recruit. While DEI does have a reputation for eccentricity, Goofy is just about the least threatening person alive (provided he's not in the driver's seat), and was able to quite easily assuage Wasabi's fears. While that may or may not survive first contact with your rather eclectic employee pool, you wouldn't describe most of your employees as 'scary'. You can at least be reasonably certain you are less scary than a literal tiger. His optical expertise and love of minutiae should be a good boon to your enterprises.
Wasabi has been added to your hero units!
I still am not convinced of Wasabis usefulness, considering just how high-strung that guy is. That being said, I am not turning my nose up at another Hero Unit to use, so I am willing to give him a chance at least.
[ ] Move Castle Doofhawk to Doofania (Roddy Blair, King of Lairs)
DC 95 (Reduced by XP)
43+24+29+15+2=113
Success!
To be continued in Interlude: Malf's Castle Moving
I really wish, we had gone with my idea of Comedizing our Supply Lines (while keeping Roddy content by having him plan a Lair for Hego), so that we could have lowered the Doofhawk DC as well as prepare for another idea I had tonight that I´ll be showing you guys in another separate post soon.
[ ] Improve DoofOS Security (Alan Bradley)
DC 115 (Reduced by XP)
3+24+26+20+5+2=75
Dismal Failure
Alan certainly seemed to know what he was doing, right up until he first looked at the source code for DoofOS. You never thought you'd see a grown man be driven to tears by a page full of ASCII characters, but Alan did not take his look into the maw of madness very well. It turns out that the spaghetti code written by L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. does not hold up to any scrutiny whatsoever. It works, it works well, but if L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. has ever heard of coding best practice, it was from the bottom of a well full of water while they had wax stuffed in their ears and from very far away. Unfortunately, Alan's attempt at rewriting it led to him spending many, many sleepless nights in the computer lab just to get it into a workable form. The end result is that, from a front end or security perspective, absolutely nothing has been improved.
[ ] Decentralize your Normbots (L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N.) (72%)
DC 70 (Reduced by XP)
32+38+14-1=83
Success
The Muffinheads managed to not screw this one up either, though things were certainly a close call. They managed it ok. They're not ecstatic or anything, but this is at least sciency enough to keep them to a low grumbling. They spent a lot of time faffing around before eventually deciding to separate your Normbots into disparate network hubs so one cyberattack wouldn't wipe out the whole lot. It's not very impressive, but it gets the job done.
A single attempt to subvert your Normbots will no longer spread to every unit.
[ ] Chat with the Bossman: L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N.
26
This didn't go well at all. L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. has just as many issues with you now as they did back in the day, making your attempts to talk with them an exercise in futility. Rodney just glared at you the entire time and the rest of the muffinheads weren't great conversationalists either. They've been getting unpleasantly surly lately, and pretty obviously discontent with the jobs you keep assigning them to… it might be time to start thinking about how to seriously restructure these guys lest they just up and leave, and probably sabotage a vending machine or three on their way out.
...I am getting more and more pissed at LOVEMUFFIN. First, they are doing a hackjob of an OS that - while initially working just fine - turns out to be so crappy code-wise that it drives a seasoned programmer to tears trying to work through it. Then they get all arsey about getting assigned to stuff "below them" BY THEIR BOSS and now they are digging their heels in while we try to work things out.
At least they managed to NOT fuck up our Normbots as well. Let´s just hope for those idiots that ENCOM and/or King Candy doesn´t take advantage of this fuck-up too much or Rodney and his ilk are getting Hoover-Dam-ed after all.
[ ] Investigate Supervillain Attacks (Major Francis Monogram)
DC 75 (Reduced by XP)
17+17+18+10+1=63
Failure
To be continued in Interlude: Plan B
[ ] Research human genetics (Dr. Jumba Jookiba)
DC 70 (Reduced by XP)
90+38+38+30+3=199
Critical Success!
To be continued in Interlude: Plan B
So while Francis suffered a slightly-worse-than-Bare Failure, Jumba just so happened to intervene in some way with a Crit Success of his own - meaning that we are probably looking at a net positive outcome overall?
Fine by me.
[ ] Infiltrate a Hotspot: San Fransokyo (Agent Russ)
DC 75 (Reduced by XP)
59+17+38+5+5=124
Success!
To be Continued in Interlude: Fredzilla meets Agent Unknown
[ ] Max (Job Shadow Russ)
89
To be continued in Interlude: Fredzilla meets Agent Unknown
Mathematically, Russ managed about 3/4 of a crit success and Max shadowing him did pretty well, too? That´s good news for three reasons:
- Max being around might have given Russ opportunity to Toon In himself, boosting results in the process
- Russ showing him the ropes about using the Toonforce will help Max out with feeling better about himself-
- The action taking place on Zaibatsu turf *might* feed into Vanessa&Mirages Reach Out as well.
So I am really happy about this "front" we are fighting on.
[ ] Research Robo-Doppelganger bodies (Wendy Wower)
DC 110 (Reduced by XP)
44+38+28+30+2=142
Success!
Wendy took to her first technical project with gusto, and turned out results immediately. Despite not being familiar with Kronos tech, the development of whisper-quiet advanced motors, heat circulation systems, and synthskin was more than enough to hold her interest. You are now capable of constructing highly realistic and articulated human doubles, along with the AI you had researched to put in it!
Unfortunately, a full study of the original documents contained nothing that should have affected computing performance. It's all quality material, but nothing computational at all, no secondary motherboard or anything. An AI placed into a Doppelganger shell succeeds on the Turing Test more often than one placed into a Normbot, which in turn performs better than one in a purely digital system, but there is no apparent reason why this should be the case! At least now you know whatever is going on is not the product of any specific body; though it seems to change based on the… quality, maybe? Perhaps you need to examine some case studies, or perhaps you're looking at this from the wrong angle…
Ability to create Doppelganger bodies unlocked: combine with AI action to create a full doppelganger!
The source of AI improvement seems to change with some property of their physical forms, but exactly what isn't clear!
Huh...so Doppelganger AI *explicitly requires* the Doppelganger bodies as well to perform at peak performance for some ungdoly reason? Fine by me...now we just need the time, ressources and space to actually throw one together so that we can benefit from that knowledge.
[ ] Hire the Dickens Detective Agency (Large)
71
[ ] Investigate the Middleton Drug Cartel (Dickens Detective Agency (Large))
DC 90 (Reduced by XP)
81+17+55=153
Great Success
With Shego having taken down High Command last month, it was considerably easier for the Commodore and his family to snoop about and assemble a dossier on the cartel that's been plaguing Middleton for the last year or two. Or so you thought! It was only a short time into the investigation that the Dickens realized that the cartel was continuing to operate on a much more subtle level. This led them to search the wreckage of High Command for clues (they refuse to explain how they got access). They discovered the twisted remains of a floorplan with a multitude of empty rooms, no redundancies whatsoever, and a lack of actual function. This all led towards one inexorable conclusion: High Command was a distraction!
The cartel used their image of absurd, over the top villainy to convince the world they had been crippled, simply as a means to hide their relocation! They must have secreted their operations away somewhere far from prying eyes, somewhere no one is likely to find them. This is great news! And terrible news! It's terrible because this means the drug ring is way more competent than they looked like and are probably planning to expand, but it's good because A. you have a much better idea of how they operate now, and will be able to hold off any inroads into your own land more easily, and B. you now have an extremely juicy bit of info that you're pretty sure Shego doesn't. Now you just need to decide on something to do about that.
DC for the drug ring to infiltrate Doofania increased significantly!
High Command has been revealed as a ruse, and the drug ring is alive and well!
You now have some very valuable information Shego could use! The drug ring might be a good thing to cooperate with Shego on, or at least spend a personal to let her know. Or you could sell her out.
And the Commodore continues to friggin *earn* his money´s worth!
Now the drug cartel will have big problems pushing into our turf (say, is that bonus from us crushing crime in Danville still a thing or did it run out by now?) - yeah for that one.
As for Shego, she´ll have to grudingly aknowledge that we were right to "play Covert Ops" here. I am definitely up for telling her about the cartel having essentially duped her with that High Command (seriously, why would we decide to sell her out here? Doof might be petty, but that would be just a major jerkass move that WILL backfire on us).
That being said, we are a bit tight on Diplo Actions, so we might have to spend one of Doofs(?) Personals to tell her...a small price to pay considering that the cartel poses a threat to us both and us helping her out here will earn us more goodwill that we can found a proper Alliance on.
[ ] Tinker with your Inators
28
You didn't have much time to devote to tinkering at all. Choose one inator to activate:
[ ] The Probabilitor-Inator, doubled!
Every success is a critical success. Every failure is a critical failure. Roll 1d20 for the random event roll, and flip a coin. If it's heads, the 1d20 corresponds to 80-100. If it's tails, the 1d20 corresponds to 1-20.
[ ] The Groundhog-Day-Inator, doubled!
Roll four times for each hero action, and take the worst.
As said before, we should choose the Probability one and prepare accordingly by focusing on low-DC Nationals as well a sat least TRYING to warn our "friends" among the Kings like Shego and Xanatos about that Inator, so that they can benefit as well.
Heck, with Shego we actually could combine us telling her about the cartel with this warning. It would save us an action in a way and since we already were right about investigating the Cartel, she should be more likely to believe us about the Inator as well. And if she decides to ignore our warnings AGAIN, it´s her fault alone.
...Any Chance that we could cram in a warning about TOFFEE in that Talk with Shego while we´re at it,
@Made in Heaven ?
[ ] Start writing a musical
51+40=91
You've been meaning to write a musical for months now, but now that it's finally come down to it, you already had a base to build off. Thanks to the work done by Monogram, Russ, and Temujin you have something to work off of, and eventually you managed to get the first act or so out. It'll still require a bit more refining before it's ready for anything resembling Broadway though.
(Progress revealed: 91/200)
Oh dear, we really made progress on that one, huh?
Definitely a reason to think about investing more into that action next turn - provided we don´t need the PA for more pressing stuff like the Talk with Shego I mentioned above.
[ ] Genghis Khan (Study science and technology)
64
Temujin spent a lot of time going over things with his tutor, gaining a basic understanding of the scientific method and how modern technology works. He's far from being able to understand it on his own, but he can successfully work a phone and turn on the TV, and his knowledge of the sciences has progressed to a basic level as well.
(Progress revealed: 64/200)
(Reward: Reduction in Ghengis Khan's modernity malus!)
Well, if nothing else, Khan now is a slightly more viable option for Martials that require modern knowledge, so I am not complaining at all
[ ] Norm Prime (Try to become a Real Boy)
10
Norm stared at a picture of Pinnochio on the wall for nearly two months and wished really hard.
Norm did not become a real boy.
Poor Norm...Stuff like that convinces me more and more that we might have to have either Alan or Wendy have a look at Norm to finally getting anywhere with his Personals.
[ ] Dennis the Duck (Study the Perfect Sandwich)
5
Dennis started to study the Multiverse's Greatest Sandwich, but was quickly distracted by 625, who demanded to know what he was working on. The two of them hit it off rather well, sharing their knowledge of sandwichcraft and their love of all things between pieces of bread. In fact, it's safe to say that both of them have found a new friend!
Unfortunately, they commemorated their newfound friendship by splitting the Multiverse's Greatest Sandwich.
Dennis and 625 have both received a loyalty boost! The Multiverse's Greatest Sandwich was declared to be delicious!
...If that Loyalty Bonus isn´t both permanent and significant, I am gonna throttle those two halfwits for ruining our prospects at boosting our food income tremendously...
Also, is it possible that Dennis just CAN´T roll high? I´ve never really seen him roll in the double-digits before, now that I think about it.
[ ] Kitsune (Train Janna)
69
When Janna showed up for her scheduled 'training session' with Kitsune, she was surprised to find one of her mortal enemies waiting for her instead. Some loathsome little kappa with a beard was grinning malevolently with a beak full of teeth for all of four seconds before Janna retaliated with a spell designed to exsanguinate her target. 'Ludo' dodged, and kept up the act for the next two hours, during which Janna demonstrated an increasingly lethal array of spells that caused an inordinate amount of property damage to the Mongol Training Grounds. Kitsune finally returned to her proper form when she declared that Janna's performance was satisfactory, telling her that she did well before having a cackle at her expense.
Janna's Martial has increased by 2! Leopold got a good workout and his bonus has increased by 2 as well!
...Who was Leopold again?
Anyway, I am definitely not complaining about those boni.
[ ] Janna Ordonia (Find Marco)
70
To be continued in Interlude: The First Day of Christmas
[ ] Throw a Christmas Party
You decided that, with all the people in DEI spending time in Doofania around the holidays, it would be a good idea to hold a little Christmas Eve party for folks before they went home for the holidays.
To be continued in Interlude: The First Day of Christmas
So, Doof just decided to throw a Christmas party for his employees and Janna managed to get a lead on Marco there of all places? Fine by me
That being said, I am more than a little worried about this omake being connected with the omake "Twelfth Day of Christmas" that got teased in invisitext in the wake of *Moolah & Magic*, implying that something in either omake might rip the Magical Masquerade wide open.
[ ] Tobe and the Vagabond Ninja (Study the Jo-Lan Scrolls)
96+5=101
To be continued in Interlude: Absolutely No Jutsu
...Yep, Tobe just critted his Personal thanks to the Power of Love...
That happened, I guess.
[ ] Janus Lee (Custom Design: Russ Spycycle)
83
After forcing Janus to sign a document agreeing that it did not, in fact, exist, Agent Russ allowed the man access to his 'Spycycle'. You've never actually heard him call it that, but he didn't argue when you did so you're going to assume that means it's the official name.
The vehicle has technology in it that has apparently been appropriated from a UFO crash several decades ago, allowing it to both hover and produce a powerful energy beam from a cannon disguised as a headlight. It also has an extremely strong seatbelt for some reason. Janus got to work with perfect professionalism, tweaking fueling lines, improving performance, and reworking the hover drives. In addition to increasing speed and damage output, Janus also brought the power of the engines up to the point that the Spycycle can now become properly airborne, rather than just hovering six inches over a surface.
The Spycycle now grants full flight to Agent Russ!
The Spycycle's combat bonus has been increased by 2!
So, one of our heaviest-hitting and most important Hero Units can now just straight up fly as well?
No complaints here at all.
Figures that the "Spycycle" is kinda-confidential as well, onsidering that it seems to be crammed full with more than a little alien tech, with officially doesn´t exest according to that part of the Masquerade (which will continue to be a thing even after the Magical part croaks this/next turn, remember)
Well...that could have gone...better...
We should invite all the other Kings to see our Musical, make it into our version of the Gala or the Auction.
With *better security* if possible.
Might be a bit too "short notice", though.
So, Doof is a CEO/Mad scientist with purple and green power armor. We're Lex Luthor now.
Hell, one of our enemies is a nonhuman from another world who is a respected pillar of the community (Toffee).
We are neither bald nor balding, though.
Although, I consider Xanatos more of a "pillar of the community" than Toffee anyways - especially on their respective turfs.
The description for that action mentions making trash cans self aware. If LOVEMUFFIN can't figure out how to have fun with a recycling program like that even on a critical success, there is no hope for them.
You know, that reminds me of that time the German city of Bremen outfitted their trashcans with presses (better space management), fullness sensors (better retrieval management), *GPS* (theft prevention?), REALLY TINNY sound modules with animals sounds...oh, and they were solar-powered.
Suffice to say, the citizens of Bremen din´t like that "blatant waste of money" at all.
