Emma Barnes, Princess (Worm/Princess the Hopeful Quest)

[GardenerBriareus]

@Broken25, the problem with Levinbolt is that if we try to use our magic Glock, we start with our unmodified Dex (2) and immediately take -1 for not having dots in Firearms. That means we'd have to feed it 4 of our 5 starting points just to have a solid 4-die pool for shooting with it, which is absolutely not worth that kind of expenditure. I'll admit I'm not familiar with the average rate XP gain in WoD, but it looks pretty slow, so pinning Emma's survival on not getting into any fights for long enough to start buying up our Firearms skill seems like exactly the kind of thing that ends with her getting romped by a random pipe-wielding hobo.

Now, others have pointed out the flaws in my previous plan of action (The Wisp expenditure bottleneck is blindingly obvious in hindsight, and I'm still not sure how I missed seeing the part where Kensei can run off of Brawl), and I'm currently trying to think of another way to make sure Emma survives Brockton Bay long enough to start leveling.

Still, no Levinbolt at chargen, not with Emma's skill spread.

 

[GardenerBriareus]

Can anyone explain what "Tomoyo's Touch", "True Friend", and "Circle" are?

 

[Broken25]

snip

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The difference from our Firearms rating and our Brawl is a single dot. Or 1xp, since that is the cost per transformed ability dot. I don't consider
that a significant difference.

Now, levinbolt has its advantages. With range, we can ambush enemies much more easily and disable one or two enemies before the battle even
starts. And the synergy with Aria mobility charms is obvious.

Can anyone explain what "Tomoyo's Touch", "True Friend", and "Circle" are?

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Tomoyo: We can summon a lost/destroyed regalia instantly (Instead of spending a turn)

Circle: Our relationships with friends and family, helps to regain wisps.

True Friend: Taylor.

 

[GardenerBriareus]

Wait, what? How do you 'transform' ability dots? Does that mean we'd be sacrificing a point of Dexterity or something?

I've got the WoD Core right in front of me, and I'm not seeing any mention of this. Is it something exclusive to P:tH?

 

[Broken25]

I've got the WoD Core right in front of me, and I'm not seeing any mention of this. Is it something exclusive to P:tH?

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Exclusive to princess.

We have two forms, our normal, disgusting mortal form, and our awesome magical form. Shamefully, we can't spend all our time in our magical form, since we don't follow the Queen of Mirrors. But i disgress.

Anyway, we can expend our xp to learn abilities and atributes that only work in transformed form. They cost less that general abilities that we can always apply. (1xp per transformed ability dot, 2 xp for a normal ability dot) (3 xp per transformed atribute, 4 for a normal atribute)

Transformed abilities, as you see, are cheap at only 1 xp per dot. We only need 5 xp to become a world-class sniper while in magical girl form. (6 if we add a specialty too)

(Of course, there are abilities that we want to be able to use while untransformed, like Expression, but since we will only fight in our magical form, all our combat abilities can be bought cheap)

 

[GardenerBriareus]

... Holy shit.

I'm no longer disagreeing with @Broken25 on taking Levinbolt; I'm now disagreeing with him on including "Always Prepared" and "Twenty Faces".

We need as many dots in Levinbolt as we can spare. Thus, I propose Plan Shoot 'Em All, Let Us Sort 'Em Out:

- Balm ••

- Barrier Jacket •

- Levinbolt • (Multiple •)

Fluff-wise, there's a certain twisted sense to it: Emma wants to be safe from people that try to hurt her, she wants to be able to stop people like the ABB, but most of all, she wants to be able to fix things: she wants it all back, the way that it was. Her Blossoming can't change the past, but it can give her the power to heal other people if they get caught in the crossfire.

As far as crunch, it gives us a ranged weapon that does 1(L) and has a 10-bullet clip, letting us plink away at baddies for up to 10 rounds without spending Wisps to reload (or hose them down in a punishing spray of autofire), along with a point of Armor to help soak any damage that gets through. Plus, Balm should let us cover up the physical signs of our heroing, so that our parents don't find out what's going on when we stagger home at 5:00 AM with a broken arm and four pellets of birdshot in our ribcage.

I'd definitely consider buying up Twenty Faces down the road, though, if only so we can take best advantage of all the Skills we should be buying up for our transformed state.

 

[cyberswordsmen]

[QUOTE="GardenerBriareus, post: 4563217, member: 9604]
As far as crunch, it gives us a ranged weapon that does 1(L) and has a 10-bullet clip, letting us plink away at baddies for up to 10 rounds without spending Wisps to reload (or hose them down in a punishing spray of autofire), along with a point of Armor to help soak any damage that gets through. Plus, Balm should let us cover up the physical signs of our heroing, so that our parents don't find out what's going on when we stagger home at 5:00 AM with a broken arm and four pellets of birdshot in our ribcage.

I'd definitely consider buying up Twenty Faces down the road, though, if only so we can take best advantage of all the Skills we should be buying up for our transformed state.[/QUOTE]
Levinbolt is initially summoned without any ammo in it so we would need to pay a wisp in order to get those first 10 bullets. (3 without the upgrade)

Your suggestion of getting balm we can't do that. The second dot of balm means we can't buy it until we have already bought some other restore charms, not that it costs two dots to purchase.

 

[racnor]

Your suggestion of getting balm we can't do that. The second dot of balm means we can't buy it until we have already bought some other restore charms, not that it costs two dots to purchase.

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I thought it ment both.

 

[Anzer'ke]

Levinbolt is initially summoned without any ammo in it so we would need to pay a wisp in order to get those first 10 bullets. (3 without the upgrade)

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Are you sure?

 

[cyberswordsmen]

Are you sure?

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Yes. See the bolded part of the GMs post.

Levinbolt •

Action: Permanent
A ranged weapon becomes part of the Princess' Regalia, delivering the force of her will from afar. It can appear as nearly anything; wizards' staffs, futuristic pistols, wands of ice, and daggers that fly back to the hand are all known examples. Whatever the weapon's form, the Princess uses the Firearms Skill to attack with it. Initially the weapon's Damage is 1 but when she attacks the Princess may apply an Invocation to add Damage or additional dice to her pool, this stacks with any damage or bonus dice from Upgrades but in either case the maximum is 5. The Princess may not apply an Invocation to both Damage and Accuracy in a single turn.
The weapon's range is (10/20/40)*Inner Light in yards, its clip holds 3 shots and it allows autofire. The damage can be either Bashing or Lethal and the Princess can swap between them with a Transformation action. The weapon always has a size between 1 and 4. For anyone but the Princess, the Initiative penalty and the minimum Strength needed to use the weapon both equal three + the Princess' Inner Light. For the Princess herself, both are 0 - as an extension of her will, the weapon obeys her desires as well as her own hands.
The weapon is unloaded when the Princess summons it, unless she spends a Wisp as she does so; at any time as an instant action, she may spend 1 Wisp to reload it, conjuring shots directly into the clip.

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[GardenerBriareus]

@cyberswordsman - Alright then, back to my previous plan, "Shoot 'Em Up".

- Barrier Jacket •

- Levinbolt • (Damaging •, Freezing •, Multiple •)

This build is pretty Levinbolt-heavy, but it does give us decent firepower against anyone short of high-tier Brutes. However, even I've got a few reservations about going this heavy into the dakka, so here's some alternates:


"Gunmetal" (still combat heavy, but it's got more balance in offense v. defense)

- Barrier Jacket ••

- Levinbolt • (Freezing •, Multiple •)


"Lone Gunman" (disguise ourselves as E88/ABB/whatever, walk up with our chrome-plated levinbolt TEC-9 tucked down the back of our pants, hose the bad guys down with autofire once they turn their backs, walk away)

- Levinbolt • (Multiple •)

- Twenty Faces • (Disguised •, Masked •)


"Shadows in Gunsmoke" (troll softly and carry a holdout pistol. We can't make very big illusions, but we can definitely make small, fast-moving objects zip across peoples' field of view or wriggle in the corner of their vision to put them on edge, and a rolling ball of intestines with a talking zombie head at the center should scare the pants off the average thug. On happier occasions, we can use our illusions for entertainment purposes)


- Levinbolt •

- Phantom •• (Singing •)

- Twenty Faces •


Opinions?

 

[NonSequtur]

I am curious about why everyone is so focused on fighting, particularly as we are a Courtless Troubadour, not a Storms Champion.

We don't have to fight, dot in Tempesta aside.

More generally, I'm not a fan of optimisation in a narrative chargen - I doubt the GM is going to toss us an impossible to defeat, impossible to escape challenge and then trollface us because we decided to choose suboptimal charms that fit her character and desires which, in-universe, would presumably determine her initial spread.

 

[Broken25]

More generally, I'm not a fan of optimisation in a narrative chargen - I doubt the GM is going to toss us an impossible to defeat, impossible to escape challenge and then trollface us because we decided to choose suboptimal charms that fit her character and desires which, in-universe, would presumably determine her initial spread.

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Actually, we don't. One of the reasons i want Levinbolt is because Emma Ideal form should include some form of weapon. Right now she has issues with her (Perceived) lack of strenght, and is only obvious that her ideal form is one that should irradiate confidence and security. Having a weapon
is part of that.

And the other charms i proposed aren't exactly combat. Always Prepared is a magical sewing kit. (Although later, i hope to upgrade it to a sonic screwdriver). Celestial dance fits the Aria theme of freedom, and is useful both in combat and without (Plus is a prerequisite for flight). And twenty faces is good for a masked Hero theme, and the upgrades allow to disguise as anything (With also fits well with the fashion theme, since we can choose the clothes)

The only charm i am not very sure about is Barrier Jacket. It enhances our survival chances, but i could see taking a social charm instead.

 

[veekie]

Combat wise, I think basic Levinbolt and Barrier Jacket are enough as a base. That's more combat ability than the average cape or mugger already and then we can spread out for utility.

Now to go through the powers in detail

 

[cyberswordsmen]

@cyberswordsman - Alright then, back to my previous plan, "Shoot 'Em Up".

- Barrier Jacket •

- Levinbolt • (Damaging •, Freezing •, Multiple •)

This build is pretty Levinbolt-heavy, but it does give us decent firepower against anyone short of high-tier Brutes. However, even I've got a few reservations about going this heavy into the dakka, so here's some alternates:


"Gunmetal" (still combat heavy, but it's got more balance in offense v. defense)

- Barrier Jacket ••

- Levinbolt • (Freezing •, Multiple •)


"Lone Gunman" (disguise ourselves as E88/ABB/whatever, walk up with our chrome-plated levinbolt TEC-9 tucked down the back of our pants, hose the bad guys down with autofire once they turn their backs, walk away)

- Levinbolt • (Multiple •)

- Twenty Faces • (Disguised •, Masked •)


"Shadows in Gunsmoke" (troll softly and carry a holdout pistol. We can't make very big illusions, but we can definitely make small, fast-moving objects zip across peoples' field of view or wriggle in the corner of their vision to put them on edge, and a rolling ball of intestines with a talking zombie head at the center should scare the pants off the average thug. On happier occasions, we can use our illusions for entertainment purposes)


- Levinbolt •

- Phantom •• (Singing •)

- Twenty Faces •


Opinions?

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Plan "Shoot em Up" and "Gunmetal" are not rules legal as none of them are from our calling.

Lone Gunman provides us no way to survive retaliation for our attacks and frankly will get us arrested as anything short of killing them in the first strike ends with us dead. A melee weapon can also be used to parry guns can't. You also haven't addressed the need to spend wisps on ammo.

Shadows in Gunsmoke is a better idea but it still works better with a melee weapon instead of a gun also it is short a charm. Two dot charms just represent how much other charms you need from that charmset before you can buy it (two dot charms need one, twenty faces works for it). I recommend barrier jacket.

I am curious about why everyone is so focused on fighting, particularly as we are a Courtless Troubadour, not a Storms Champion.

We don't have to fight, dot in Tempesta aside.

More generally, I'm not a fan of optimisation in a narrative chargen - I doubt the GM is going to toss us an impossible to defeat, impossible to escape challenge and then trollface us because we decided to choose suboptimal charms that fit her character and desires which, in-universe, would presumably determine her initial spread.

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Not dying is a priority, and in Worm people will want us dead if we try to make things better. Also combat charms are non-favored for us which means that if we get them outside of char-gen they cost a lot more xp compared to now where it doesn't matter so comparatively it is best to buy the basics now. Also Emma's views of capes likely includes some level of combat as a requirement.

 

[Broken25]

Hum, I had forgotten about the Charm Max. Is the highest level at which a charm can be purchased, including upgrades. In our case, with Inner light 1, is only 3, which means that if we take Levinbolt and a couple of upgrades to the clip size we can't get more upgrades for damage or wharever. Hum.
This almost makes me prefer Kensai.

(The other fun alternative i thought is to buy the bag of holding charm and fill it with mundane weapons, Homura style. Alas, it would take too much time to set it up. And as i said, i think a weapon should be part of our regalia)

Lone Gunman provides us no way to survive retaliation for our attacks and frankly will get us arrested as anything short of killing them in the first strike ends with us dead. A melee weapon can also be used to parry guns can't. You also haven't addressed the need to spend wisps on ammo.

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?? We just need to left them incoscious. Levinbolt allows to do bashing damage.

 

[veekie]

Mmm, Twenty Faces is NICE.
And Dim is Nice Guy

 

[racnor]

I am curious about why everyone is so focused on fighting, particularly as we are a Courtless Troubadour, not a Storms Champion.

We don't have to fight, dot in Tempesta aside.

More generally, I'm not a fan of optimisation in a narrative chargen - I doubt the GM is going to toss us an impossible to defeat, impossible to escape challenge and then trollface us because we decided to choose suboptimal charms that fit her character and desires which, in-universe, would presumably determine her initial spread.

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I certainly agree that our plan should not be based entirly on combat. Social and crafting is going to be a big part of this game.

Actually, we don't. One of the reasons i want Levinbolt is because Emma Ideal form should include some form of weapon. Right now she has issues with her (Perceived) lack of strenght, and is only obvious that her ideal form is one that should irradiate confidence and security. Having a weapon
is part of that.

And the other charms i proposed aren't exactly combat. Always Prepared is a magical sewing kit. (Although later, i hope to upgrade it to a sonic screwdriver). Celestial dance fits the Aria theme of freedom, and is useful both in combat and without (Plus is a prerequisite for flight). And twenty faces is good for a masked Hero theme, and the upgrades allow to disguise as anything (With also fits well with the fashion theme, since we can choose the clothes)

The only charm i am not very sure about is Barrier Jacket. It enhances our survival chances, but i could see taking a social charm instead.

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If you do feel that barrier jacket is OOC, perhaps you should go for the celestial dance upgrade swift instead? I still prefer Barrier Jacket to that though.

Hum, I had forgotten about the Charm Max. Is the highest level at which a charm can be purchased, including upgrades. In our case, with Inner light 1, is only 3, which means that if we take Levinbolt and a couple of upgrades to the clip size we can get more upgrades for damage. Hum.
This almost makes me prefer Kensai.

(The other fun alternative i thought is to buy the bag of holding charm and fill it with mundane weapons, Homura style. Alas, it would take too much time to set it up. And as i said, i think a weapon should be part of our regalia)

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We can use our invocation to upgrade the damage. Also, I just realized that average human defense will reduce our kensai dice pool to the level of our levinbolt dice pool. Levinbolt it is.

As for the purse thing, we have no larceny so we'd have to resign ourselves to having only a few things inside or pulling random objects out of the bag, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem since aira gives us access to the Dread Panopoly of the Silent Wind conjured upgrade so we can have throw-able items appear in our hands and then poof back to the bag when the turn ends.

Mmm, Twenty Faces is NICE.
And Dim is Nice Guy

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Dim is indeed awesome.

 

[cyberswordsmen]

We can use our invocation to upgrade the damage. Also, I just realized that average human defense will reduce our kensai dice pool to the level of our levinbolt dice pool. Levinbolt it is.

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Can you explain why defense subtracts from the kensai dice pool but not the levinbolt one? I am not aware of any rule that lets ranged weapons bypass defense, and the dice pool for kensai (if made a brawl weapon) is currently 1 higher due to us having a dot in brawl but not in ranged or melee.

?? We just need to left them incoscious. Levinbolt allows to do bashing damage.

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With a 1 damage ranged weapon? Combat would go like this.

We open fire and do enough damage to piss them off. They then charge us and stab the shit out of us because we brought a airsoft gun to a knife fight and can't use it in melee without penalties and lack any defense abilities, and can't parry because we have a gun.

 

[Broken25]

Can you explain why defense subtracts from the kensai dice pool but not the levinbolt one? I am not aware of any rule that lets ranged weapons bypass defense, and the dice pool for kensai (if made a brawl weapon) is currently 1 higher due to us having a dot in brawl but not in ranged or melee.

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Actually, defense only applies against melee atacks. You can't dodge bullets.

There are a number of complications involved in combat,
such as a targets Defense trait (which is subtracted
from any melee attack dice pools targeted against him),

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There are supernatural powers that allow to use defense against ranged atacks.
(Like the Danmaku Dance upgrade for Celestial Dance, that we should get later, btw)

 

[veekie]

Scent Falsehood as well, though its not critical. Good for dealing with conspiracies.

For Want of a Nail is basically: Learn Trigger Event, Mesmerise for View Trigger Vision.

Bottomless bag...fun, but we'd need to join someone with Tinker gear to make it really worthwhile

Celestial Dance vs Barrier Jacket...I'd note defense inapplicable fights point to the Jacket due to gunfights.

 

[veekie]

I am not aware of any rule that lets ranged weapons bypass defense, and the dice pool for kensai (if made a brawl weapon) is currently 1 higher due to us having a dot in brawl but not in ranged or melee.

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Defense is normally inapplicable to guns, you're stuck with using cover.

We open fire and do enough damage to piss them off. They then charge us and stab the shit out of us because we brought a airsoft gun to a knife fight and can't use it in melee without penalties and lack any defense abilities, and can't parry because we have a gun.

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No parries in WoD without special merits. No penalties to firing guns in melee either

 

[racnor]

Can you explain why defense subtracts from the kensai dice pool but not the levinbolt one? I am not aware of any rule that lets ranged weapons bypass defense, and the dice pool for kensai (if made a brawl weapon) is currently 1 higher due to us having a dot in brawl but not in ranged or melee.

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Defense does not apply to firearms by default. Supernatural abilities that let you do that are pretty common.

Scent Falsehood as well, though its not critical. Good for dealing with conspiracies.

For Want of a Nail is basically: Learn Trigger Event, Mesmerise for View Trigger Vision.

Bottomless bag...fun, but we'd need to join someone with Tinker gear to make it really worthwhile

Celestial Dance vs Barrier Jacket...I'd note defense inapplicable fights point to the Jacket due to gunfights.

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On the other hand, the celestial dance upgrade Danmaku Dance gives us firearm defense for only 1 exp.

 

[veekie]

On the other hand, the celestial dance upgrade Danmaku Dance gives us firearm defense for only 1 exp.

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Leaves surprise then. Moderately acceptable then.

 

[racnor]

Anyway, I feel that I have been persuaded now.
[] Plan Sniper Seamstress