I'm obviously missing a reference here. "Candyland" to me is a children's board game that teaches color recognition skills.
Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)
- Thread starter Silently Watches
- Start date
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
It's a reference to a location in my Black Queen series over on FFN. I think I really screwed with some people's heads when that was where the first book of the series started. And yet people still kept reading the series.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Undaunted it is. Give me a minute to update the character sheet, then I'll go ahead and post the AAR.
AAR: Suntan
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
After-Action Report for Arc 13: Suntan
Vacay
Vacay
- The very first vote of this arc was by far the most important.
- First, it determined which combatants you had available for the fights later on in the arc. You chose Vista, Dragon, and Cassiel.
- Second, it determined if you could get that bit of information I hinted at in the last AAR out of Standstill. Instead, she learned that she could stop some simple Master effects (and that several of her colleagues are not mages).
- Third… well, let's just say I'm gonna have a ton of fun with Vista next arc. 😈
- Speaking of Cassiel, if you hadn't voted to bring her along, she would have snuck along instead. I actually had a really cute scene in mind where Dragon (if you didn't bring her with you) or Tim called in a panic because they couldn't find her, and then Taylor heard someone zipping her luggage back up.
- Tim wouldn't have been able to contribute anything directly to the fighting that occurred later on. Realistically the only reason to bring him would be to have his Guardian Beasts accompany him so they could go full Jurassic Park on the Fallen.
- Lacey would have been great for healing up the people who were injured in the fighting, and having no choice but to protect people would have been a good time for some more practice with her Ring Bind. Plus, you know, new spell.
- Kurt… hmm. I was still undecided what to do with him should he come, so it helps that absolutely no one voted for him. Redemption story for sure, possibly with a side of paraplegia after defending somebody from one of the villains.
- Epoch and Maclibuin would have been interesting, and like I mentioned at one point, from the social side of things now was a good time to have him chat with Lacey about magical healing.
- Standstill and Cat Sith had two benefits. One of them was that, like I said above, she has something to tell you. The other was that since they only counted as one person, it would have given you a "free" combatant.
- Just be glad you didn't pick the trio of Tim, Dragon, and Cassiel. That was what I was calling "Hard Mode" in my head since none of them are direct combatants, leaving all the fighting to you, Samantha, and Cailleach. Not that Missy wound up doing much.
- There were three social events to start this arc and lull you into a false sense of security. And because, you know, they were fun. I just didn't want an entire week's worth of them.
- While on the beach, you talked with Missy and then invited her to make the volleyball game a 4-on-4. This was the objectively best choice, since it was obvious Missy was disturbed by her realizations AND you got to social all three girls at the same time.
- Mrs. Stevens was grilling Samantha and Dragon on their relationship to you. Samantha used the now-familiar excuse that she was Danny's girlfriend before he had a bad car accident, and "Diana" just kept on with the maternal aunt story.
- Mr. Stevens's phone call was just work stuff.
- Some kids who were Cassiel's apparent age found her walking along the beach and dragged her into a Frisbee game. Dragon was so nonchalant about the missing Endbringer because Cassiel called her in a panic asking what she was supposed to do.
- Without you, Kayleigh and Laura would have narrowly lost the volleyball game.
- Later that night, you sought out Kayleigh when you couldn't sleep. You spent some time gaming with her and got some advice on how not to lose yourself in your mask.
- Outside the main building, Laura was chilling in the hot tub. Having Kayleigh spot the two of you through a window would have been SO tempting.
- Missy was perched on the rooftop brooding about everything she and Taylor talked about. She's not Batgirl, but not for lack of trying.
- Cassiel was watching cartoons, and Dragon was also present doing maintenance on her gynoid body.
- The next morning, you hung out with Laura and went for a run on the beach. It turns out she has as few friends as you, so you offered to accompany her on one of her patrols back in Philly.
- Kayleigh went to the resort's spa for some pampering.
- Missy decided to start the day off with a big breakfast. She needs the fuel for her implanted generator. You would have noticed that she looked more relaxed and peaceful than she did during your conversation with her at the beach.
- And that was the end of the social side of the arc. It was fun while it lasted. Kayleigh now has five events to her name, Laura revealed herself to be a guaranteed Linker Core (I got tired of waiting for you guys to get on the ball), and Missy is just waiting for a Linker Core mutation.
- Forty villains, four combat capable "heroes", and a spatial barrier. Fun times.
- When the siege started, you chose to check out the situation with Laura first, though you also were immediately passing on information to Samantha and Dragon. Because you were limited to a ground angle, you didn't everyone.
- Had you prioritized evacing all the non-capes, you wouldn't have gotten the information about the Fallen until Laura got back. That being said, it would have made it easier to get some of the vacationers to listen to you later on had you chosen that route.
- Flying to do the surveillance would have shown you everything, but it also would have made you much more obvious and forced you into a fight with the entire Fallen at once.
- After that, you had several choices laid in front of you, from attacking outright to falling back and planning to rushing out to rescue an important character (and the assorted civilians around them).
- Your first choice was to rescue Kayleigh at the spa. This was the target closest to the big group of the Fallen, and it was the one where bad things would have happened if you hadn't gone there first. I actually planned to have a die roll to see if Kayleigh Triggered from everything going on (because I'm terrible like that). Instead you were able to get everybody out with minimal casualties.
- Initially it looked like you were leaning towards attacking the Fallen. That was, uh… let's just say it wouldn't have been the brightest collective decision you ever made. The Fallen wouldn't send out so many of their capes without bringing a few capes with more of a defensive power. As you saw later on, they had two: an anti-Blaster and a precog with danger sense.
- Retreating and regrouping with Dragon would have let you get more information from her and Cassiel, specifically that Cassiel had more information about the Fallen than anyone else at the resort. She just panicked the civilians unnecessarily to throw up a smokescreen for her own retreat, which Dragon took exception to. Dragon was coordinating security, but some of them just didn't want to listen to her. Telling them that she was Diana Richter, computer engineer, rather than Dragon, Tinker extraordinaire, might have had something to do with that.
- Going to Samantha and Missy would have gotten them and the other people with them out of danger, but they had time to prepare and defend themselves.
- Had you gone to the suites first, you would have been able to evacuate Cassiel more quickly than her flying to the activity center.
- The idea to teleport just your friends and allies out of danger would have come back to bite you hard. Numero uno, Dragon would have been unhappy that you intentionally left all those defenseless civilians to die. Numero dos, keep in mind the existence of cell phone cameras and PHO. All it would take is one person taking a photo and surviving to put it on the web, and suddenly a) Calamity Witch and allies are getting slammed and b) more importantly, people ask why Kayleigh is so important to a bunch of capes. There's a gang in Philly who would be especially eager to hurt your friend in revenge for the Privateers hurting one of their capes.
- Your next choice was to
run around like chickens with your heads cut offattack the Fallen headed towards the suites. And apparently a different villain broke the fourth wall because goddamn the paranoia and hopelessness you people were trying to peddle was annoying. After consulting with Cassiel and looking into the future, you finally tried overwhelming them with sheer numbers. It… could have gone worse?- Attempting to teleport out would have been fascinating. And painful. Barriers aren't exactly good things to try to slip through like that.
- Attacking one of the Fallen groups now that they've split up would have worked out better than attacking them all at once. You could have seen Andras the anti-Blaster at work since he was part of the group attacking the restaurant. Oh, and the Ingenue-like Tinker in the spa.
- Evacuating the restaurant or attacking the Fallen attacking it probably would have been the smartest choices because you could collect all your combat assets in one place. Not to mention you wouldn't have had to deal with the crit fail.
- Your final choice was to find and save Missy. Good choice. Because of your crit fail during the previous phase, she was Strangered by Ose. Maybe Cassiel should get some of her grounding reduced in thanks for logic-ing Missy out of it.
- Had you not chosen to evacuate the restaurant before this (and assuming it was still standing), it would have been a default option unless you were trying to use the restaurant as a fallback position. This required eliminating the Fallen attacking it, though.
- Or you could have attacked the Fallen in the spa or still headed towards the suites.
- Attacking the Fallen near the activity center was one of those choices that I hoping you DIDN'T pick because it would have thrown my plans for the next chapter completely out of whack. Thankfully you had Samantha go to the activity center first to recover, so I only had to kill one enemy cape.
- Thus ended the rescue phases, and those were followed by the "siege" of the activity center. Not that it at all went in the Fallen's favor when you went grim reaper on them. In doing so, you also found out that they had a Tinker on their side who could alter a cape's powers.
- Had you waited to see if reinforcements would show up or used lethal Solar Wrath on them, you would have missed that bit of info.
- Going nonlethal wouldn't have made the fight impossible, but you would have had a harder time dealing with Leraje, the Behemoth cape.
- With that done, it was time to hunt. You and Sam went after the spa group in a nonlethal manner. W.A.S. certainly proved its worth in this fight.
- The suites group was just a bad idea. You had already seen that fighting somebody with a precognitive type of power is tricky, and they had many more hostages they could throw your way to slow you down.
- The hiding group would have been interesting. You would have learned in-character that the source of the spatial barrier was none other than known mage and villain Lilliput. Somebody, I forget who, actually guessed it was his doing over the course of the arc.
- If you're wondering why Taylor didn't have time to grab any of the Tinker's tech to bring back to Tim, there's a very good reason for that. I just couldn't figure out a good Exotic Skill for him that would both be unique and wouldn't be overpowered.
- And of course, while you busy with that, Empusa's group decided to attack the activity center with their army of Mastered hostages. Dragon got you back fast enough it didn't end in a slaughter, and Laura entering Unison with Cassiel helped to deal with Oriax's annoying danger sense.
- Since there was a fight (one really, really long one), you had another opportunity to learn a spell. You chose Reforge Armor, and since that earned you your second cross training, you decided to go after the defensive Undaunted specialization.
- Location
- New Jersey, USA
- Some kids who were Cassiel's apparent age found her walking along the beach and dragged her into a Frisbee game. Dragon was so nonchalant about the missing Endbringer because Cassiel called her in a panic asking what she was supposed to do.
Aww!
Phew! The greatest disaster this arc might have had averted!
Mwahaha! Our master plan of out-waiting your patience so we didn't have to spend an action on it has come to fruition!
Wait...
looks back in thread:
We were out numbered ten-to-one, were surprised, had civilians to protect, had no outside/homebase contact, and we inflicted an 85% casualty rate on them?
Anyone who knows it was us (so anyone with any brains) are going to goddamn terrified of us now!
- If you're wondering why Taylor didn't have time to grab any of the Tinker's tech to bring back to Tim, there's a very good reason for that. I just couldn't figure out a good Exotic Skill for him that would both be unique and wouldn't be overpowered.
Maybe just partway into a overpowered skill? Like how omakes gave (1/X) towards spells?
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Eh, the way most of us read the results for that were that Cassiel couldn't use precog on the guy. This was after the explanation that magic stumped Ziz a good bit. I don't mean to say that your reasoning was bad -it made sense, but it made a very disappointing debut for Cassiel.
I found most of the thread flipping out and overestimating his power to be annoying and tiresome; pretty much had to check out from the thread after a while. I can only imagine how Silently must have felt, especially after they kept doing it after he backed up those that pointed out that the dude wasn't particularly hard to work around.
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After-Action Report for Arc 13: Suntan
- Just be glad you didn't pick the trio of Tim, Dragon, and Cassiel. That was what I was calling "Hard Mode" in my head since none of them are direct combatants, leaving all the fighting to you, Samantha, and Cailleach. Not that Missy wound up doing much.
I've kicking around a crack Omake around that pairing.
"Chapter 13 - Redux. Now with magic dinosaurs."
Tim comes with velociraptors.
It's mostly copy pasting Ch13 and partially remembered lines from Jurassic Park.
That one line by Dragon: "I can't find them, and that worries me." Becomes hilarious when it's clear she's not worried about the Fallen, she's worried about magic dinosaurs developing a taste for human flesh.
At least one member of the fallen would say "clever girl" just before getting eaten.
@Silently Watches
With the arc over would you be willing to say how my 'use Oriax's power against him' plan would have went?
Edit: also, speaking of PHO, I have a feeling that people will figure out that 'Cinder' is Calamity Witch pretty quick since we were rather obvious with our attacks.
Cue PHO going nuts with how much Calamity Witch and co. bodied the Fallen.
With the arc over would you be willing to say how my 'use Oriax's power against him' plan would have went?
Edit: also, speaking of PHO, I have a feeling that people will figure out that 'Cinder' is Calamity Witch pretty quick since we were rather obvious with our attacks.
Cue PHO going nuts with how much Calamity Witch and co. bodied the Fallen.
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Archeo Lumiere
The Prince's Archivist
- Location
- Lumiose City, Kalos
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
Wait... So because I was trying to vote for Cassiel to sneak along intentionally, you wouldn't allow it, but if we'd tried to leave behind Cassiel you would have forced her on us?
Communications is not a strong point of this quest. This is known and accepted by nowWait... So because I was trying to vote for Cassiel to sneak along intentionally, you wouldn't allow it, but if we'd tried to leave behind Cassiel you would have forced her on us?
New Spell:
Also it seems the character sheets have gone back to spoilers again.
Huh. Seems like a pretty damn useful spell against higher end/mid-high brutes and blasters since our knight armor is already fairly tough.
Edit: should be pretty useful once we start going to town on the Fallen.
Spectral Waltz
Scatterbrained Writer
- Location
- Walking the Endless Corridors
You gave us no reason to be hopeful so I honestly don't know what you expected.
- Location
- Ural, Russia, Earth
Note, brooding is good for your wellbeing.
That was a reasonable choice under the circumstances.
I'm a horrible pessimist, so honestly I still can't believe Taylor somehow won with such a low casualties amongst civilians and such big ones amongst the Fallen. I suspect it happened because players were too depressed to make detailed plans for fight, so they gave you the reins and you were tired of their depression and wanted to prove we can do it.
That was me.
- The hiding group would have been interesting. You would have learned in-character that the source of the spatial barrier was none other than known mage and villain Lilliput.
And I guess, he got away and we'll have a 'fun' time in the future when he erects it again but this time we'll be outside, trying to decide is situation desperate enough to risk using Ragnarok.
Can you please explain how his power works, how it interferes with Cassiel's power, what was the most effective way to deal with him?
Because honestly I'm at loss.
One time he basically shutted down Taylor/Cassiel's precognition, but next time suddenly his power was shutted down by Laura/Cassiel's precognition?
@Shaseyu at a guess its because of the newly revealed ability of those who have high enough synch rate to use Bullet Time. Combat precog.
While Oriax may have danger sense he only has human reaction time and human mind to process the output of his danger sense.
What Laura's ridiculous compatibility with Cassiel allowed them to do is effectively jam Oriax's danger sense by using the precog interference to their advantage. i.e. Constantly running Bullet Time to force Oriax's danger sense to trigger constantly, faster than Oriax's human mind can comprehend which turned him into a gibbering wreck since he saw danger from everywhere and couldn't tell what was real or what was false.
@Silently Watches emphasized more than once that Oriax is only human and has to rely on his very human reaction time and mind to process what his power says to him.
Edit: Which is why a plan that would have used his power against him would have worked since he sets up traps before danger arrives. When the danger shifts quickly from one form to another he only has his human reaction time to send that information.
Taylor can murder blend faster than people can react.
While Oriax may have danger sense he only has human reaction time and human mind to process the output of his danger sense.
What Laura's ridiculous compatibility with Cassiel allowed them to do is effectively jam Oriax's danger sense by using the precog interference to their advantage. i.e. Constantly running Bullet Time to force Oriax's danger sense to trigger constantly, faster than Oriax's human mind can comprehend which turned him into a gibbering wreck since he saw danger from everywhere and couldn't tell what was real or what was false.
@Silently Watches emphasized more than once that Oriax is only human and has to rely on his very human reaction time and mind to process what his power says to him.
Edit: Which is why a plan that would have used his power against him would have worked since he sets up traps before danger arrives. When the danger shifts quickly from one form to another he only has his human reaction time to send that information.
Taylor can murder blend faster than people can react.
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- Location
- Canada
We missed being seen sharing a hot tub by kayleigh? Nooooo.... the teasing that could have been :<
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Oriax's power works by showing him where a threat to him and his allies will be and some basic information about that threat (Blaster vs Brute vs unclear).
Precognition abilities interfere with each other. That's Worm canon. Because of that, when Cassiel was trying to set up a perfect simulation of what was going to be, his power got in the way and the timeline kept "shattering". When Laura was Unisoned with Cassiel, if they had gotten into an actual fistfight with him, neither of their abilities would have worked correctly because Bullet Time messes with his danger sense and vice versa. Laura would have been fighting pretty much on her own, but that wouldn't have been an issue. As is, they just interfered so much that Laura decided to bonk him in the face.
As for how the "use Oriax's power against him" plan would have worked, it was going in knowing that no matter where Taylor showed up, it was going to be a trap. That's how he used a purely defensive power offensively, by having his allies ready to fight regardless of where she went. Once you know something is going to be a trap, though, you've taken away that element of surprise and are ready to counter it being sprung. It didn't hurt that most of the simulations where Taylor arrived, it was Ifrit who was the first one to attack and had a power that Taylor's Barrier Jacket and Mana Conversion Affinity completely nullified.
I preferred the look of the accordion and tabs (still do, actually), but trying to update the character sheets were becoming a huge pain in the ass because one of them doesn't play nice with BB code. Specifically, it reduces everything to the bare BB code instead of letting me see what it looks like in the advanced view or whatever it's called. The bulleted lists and colors that make up basically all the character sheets devolved into walls of texts, and with redesigning how the non-template Devices work, I decided I just couldn't deal with the frustration anymore.
If Xenforo or whoever fixes that so I can see during editing what the final result will look like as I'm working with it, I'll happily go back to accordion and tabs, but not with how it is right now.
- Location
- Earth, Sol System, Virgo Supercluster, Earth-1218
You've already gone with a different style, but I feel a need to comment on this
Traditional Vancian casting is a pretty poor fit for this, but PSIONICS or Mana Pool variations work better for closer to narrative magic. I haven't seen Nanoha so I can't say about it, but with Psionics / Mana Pool vancian magic you can theoretically know any number of spells, but only use so much mana per cast. Core strength would be your Mana Pool that increases how many spells you can CAST, while experience would inform how many spells you KNOW.
Non device mages would be like Sorcerers, you know what you know and have to permanently swap out spells to learn more spells.
Nontemplated device mages would effectively be like Arcanists / 5e Wizards who know a whole bunch of spells, but only have so many prepared*. Some spells could be cast with the equivalent of a 5e Wizard's Ritual, which is basically "I copied it from the textbook" and takes an impractical amount of time to be useful in combat.
Templated mages are like 3.5's Warmage, who know their whole list off the bat** but are MUCH more limited in what spells they know. Additional spells can be added via Advanced / Eclectic learning (Cross Training) but the number is very limited.
As time goes by all three types of mages learn more spells. A non-templated mage can acquire every spell, but are limited by how many they can prepare / memorize per day.
*Preparing a spell is like cramming for a test, you know it now, but by tomorrow you'll forget about it. Pathfinder has Spell Mastery for "I've actually learned this spell" as opposed to "I cram this spell each morning" but I'm not sure how that would apply to this story.
** Fun fact, Beguilers, Warmages, and True Necromancers are the only classes that can actually cast spells above their normal level using Versatile Spellcaster since they know their whole spell list from the start.
((Spheres of Power is an interesting twist on Vancian casting that fits other types of narrative combat, but doesn't fit the established structure of this story as well as the above idea. It works somewhat well for a Harry Potter style caster though. ))
Non device mages would be like Sorcerers, you know what you know and have to permanently swap out spells to learn more spells.
Nontemplated device mages would effectively be like Arcanists / 5e Wizards who know a whole bunch of spells, but only have so many prepared*. Some spells could be cast with the equivalent of a 5e Wizard's Ritual, which is basically "I copied it from the textbook" and takes an impractical amount of time to be useful in combat.
Templated mages are like 3.5's Warmage, who know their whole list off the bat** but are MUCH more limited in what spells they know. Additional spells can be added via Advanced / Eclectic learning (Cross Training) but the number is very limited.
As time goes by all three types of mages learn more spells. A non-templated mage can acquire every spell, but are limited by how many they can prepare / memorize per day.
*Preparing a spell is like cramming for a test, you know it now, but by tomorrow you'll forget about it. Pathfinder has Spell Mastery for "I've actually learned this spell" as opposed to "I cram this spell each morning" but I'm not sure how that would apply to this story.
** Fun fact, Beguilers, Warmages, and True Necromancers are the only classes that can actually cast spells above their normal level using Versatile Spellcaster since they know their whole spell list from the start.
((Spheres of Power is an interesting twist on Vancian casting that fits other types of narrative combat, but doesn't fit the established structure of this story as well as the above idea. It works somewhat well for a Harry Potter style caster though. ))
Traps only work when you can't walk in with overwhelming power.
"OK, plan is: Go here, stab whoever's there, keep stabbing til everyone's dead"
"OK, but what if it's the Breaker who changes size?"
"I stab her with a 10,000 degree blade"
"The telekinetic?"
"10,000 degree blade"
"Fire manipulator?"
"Check if Mana Blades still work, if not smack with a big chunk of steel AKA the polearm bit of our blade"
"A hostage?"
"OK, don't stab a hostage, stab the Master next to them."
dhasenan
always lowercase
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I feel for you, I really do.
- Location
- Ohio
Pretty sure we weren't scanning them because even with their social bonuses they are still under 50% chance of actually haveing linker cores. (This is assuming I managed to dig up on how that works is right. I'm gonna feel so dumb if I was blind and missed that info in rereading the informational posts)
And so coupled with being burned by bad rolls (thank you negative results being more easily remembered than good, I hate you as a phenomena) and wanting to make damn sure that people we've already built up a rapport are the ones who remain important, were unwilling to risk them not haveing a core with such low odds.
Sure there's the fallback plan of mutations, but would they be willing to take it? We don't know, so that's a pretty risky gamble. While many people here may not bat an eye at them, I'm not so confidnent members of the general public would say the same, especially in a world that has such a built up view of the importance of disguises in heroics. Would they take power if they knew they wouldn't be able to hide it?
Or maybe these are just my thoughts.
While that may be kinda true for Kayleigh (not everyone is interested in recruiting her) for Laura I'm fairly confident the issue was that she was, and still is, a villain. She might be more friendly and approchable then the average villain but she is still a villain nonetheless. Scanning for a Linker Core before we flipped her, if we succeeded at all, would have just been creating yet another magic using villain. Just like Mags (female Dragonslayer) and Lilliput (Barrier creator during the recent Arc).
Speaking of Liliput. She's a priority target when we start burning down the rest of the Fallen.
For social events we should pick talking to Legend/Alexandra to demand everything they know about the Fallen including real identities, and socializing Kayleigh and Laura.
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I like this format better because it makes searching for things easier. I don't have to figure out which tab and locate it in the long page, I just hit <CONTROL-F> and find the details I'm looking for.
FTFY. Stabbing everything really is the solution to all of our problems.