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Look I will say this with regards to the concerns @Glau and others have been bringing up, from a narrative perspective it would make perfect sense for the seemingly simple assassination which we took with an enormous margin (reflected in Mathy's confidence) to have some kind of hidden danger which then reflects on our own hubris and then it turns out that the pride was a sign of subtle Slaanesh corruption that we have been carrying since Vlag or something, but this is not a stand alone story, this is a quest and the mechanics will have their say. Everything does not run on the laws of the narrative which demand that pride goeth before the fall, it runs on the established aspects of the world which we have seen and to some extent even measured.
 
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Here, I gotta disagree. There is always the chance combination of a wrinkle and a botched roll.

Ranald has a sense of humor.

Those risks exist in theory, but they are very unlikely to become realized risks, because Dame M. Weber is good at handling things, but Dame M. Weber has also spent time in a Scooby-Doo montage on a bad infil before - multiple times.

Excrement occurs, and I think you discount the possibility.
Do you remember the time we have sparred with Boris and rolled nat1 and accidently killed him? Neither do I because it doesn't happen like that so I don't know wtf you are talking about.

At certain level your skill outmatches the random chance which why Boney just wrote Boris and Mathilde being frustrated as they had a very unsatisfying spar on a Nat1 roll.
 
There is always the chance combination of a wrinkle and a botched roll.
See, the funny thing here, there's an exact same chance of rolling a nat 1 on any roll that might be made. I tried to write out a list of possible consequences for both approaches, and gave up because, while there's a lot of things that might try to inconvenience Mathilde, none of them stand the slightest chance of endangering her mission in either case.
 
Yeah this. I personally don't think getting caught and then sneaking away into the night is the same as "Nighttime Visit" I think its better

Seriously random servant wanders in for arbitrary reason, sees creepy figure doing something, screams, then one second later there's nothing but a now dead Tzar is bang on for Lahmian getting caught and then having to scarper. Additional bat illusions can help. And yes I think Mathilde could still easily get away and not be detected during this. I can see a thread more obsessed with "Just as Keikaku" planning trying to intentionally set this up, before being shot down as being too luck dependent. If this happens actually via pure unplanned coincidence? Praise Ranald.

I went for Heart Attack since I think it meets the entirety of the brief better, any plausible hiccups in the plan as written can be fairly smoothly worked with to meet the brief of "dead Tzar with Lahmians implicated," and potential pure downsides aren't actually that much different from "Nighttime Visit's." Since being caught falls under "not actually that much of a downside" the main one I can think of is "sudden unknown magic protection ready to do something unpleasant if we magic into/in the bedroom." And that applies just as much to Nighttime Visit since I'd think any unknown protection would activate upon any unknown magic vs having a time delay trigger thats short enough for Visit to work but catch Heart Attack.
This is a great summation for an argument for NHA, and I endorse it wholeheartedly.

Note: I voted NV and I stand by it - I'm a sucker for the KISS principle - but I don't think everyone voting for NHA is insane or irrational. NHA is a more risky plan by virtue of greater exposure, but in the event of changes to circumstance NV remains a perfectly good fallback.
 
Do you remember the time we have sparred with Boris and rolled nat1 and accidently killed him? Neither do I because it doesn't happen like that so I don't know wtf you are talking about.

At certain level your skill outmatches the random chance which why Boney just wrote Boris and Mathilde being frustrated as they had a very unsatisfying spar on a Nat1 roll.
That didn't happen because Boris wasn't secretly a Khornate champion, or unexpectedly poisoned or drugged, or cursed, or ...

This is why I accounted for both a wrinkle and a botch.

See, the funny thing here, there's an exact same chance of rolling a nat 1 on any roll that might be made. I tried to write out a list of possible consequences for both approaches, and gave up because, while there's a lot of things that might try to inconvenience Mathilde, none of them stand the slightest chance of endangering her mission in either case.

I agree, and I'm not trying to say that it's something to be frozen up by - just a possibility to be aware of. Dame M. Weber is, as I have said, very good at what she does.
 
See, the funny thing here, there's an exact same chance of rolling a nat 1 on any roll that might be made. I tried to write out a list of possible consequences for both approaches, and gave up because, while there's a lot of things that might try to inconvenience Mathilde, none of them stand the slightest chance of endangering her mission in either case.

Interruption 1: It is Vasily the heroic martial captain of the Kreml Guard
First Clash: 1 vs 100: Grievous wound
Second Clash 1 vs 100: Mathilde is killed
Does the Seed work: 1 Mathilde's hand had been cut off in the struggle: Mathilde is dead and her memory is forever dishonored

Bad enough rolls can make anything worth rolling for fail, that is the point of the system.
 
Interruption 1: It is Vasily the heroic martial captain of the Kreml Guard
First Clash: 1 vs 100: Grievous wound
Second Clash 1 vs 100: Mathilde is killed
Does the Seed work: 1 Mathilde's hand had been cut off in the struggle: Mathilde is dead and her memory is forever dishonored

Bad enough rolls can make anything worth rolling for fail, that is the point of the system.

1/100.000.000 chance is quote something to talk about.

I am not sure why you would focus on something like that but it is quote something.
 
If Mathilde is interrupted, she has to stop casting Matrix. Whether that's to cast Shroud or Mindhole or to stab the intruder is irrelevant. The point is that she needs to start from scratch, and if the person who interrupted her doesn't return from the Tzar's room, then his guards are going to be suspicious, investigate, causing Mathilde to once again stop casting Matrix and deal with the new interruption.

At no point is Mathilde's life in danger. At no point is the Tzar in danger of surviving.

What's in danger is the plan to use the Matrix, and it's fail state is an escalating alarm that there is an assassin in the palace when Boris specifically requested "leave no evidence".

At the very least, our reputation is on the line—do we want Boris to think of us as the Grey Wizard who got spotted in the Tzar's chambers? Even if no one identifies us, he'll still know it was us, and he may come to believe that our reputation is overstated, that we botches the murder of his father through incompetence, and that could affect his relationship with both us and the waystone project.
 
Regarding magical items: it should be noted that Boris does have a kickass magical weapon, so I find it unlikely that the Tzar doesn't have a magical weapon of his own. That's probably not relevant as far as magical defences go, but yeah he does probably have at least 1 magical item.

Regarding divine artefacts: when she spoke to us about the Tzar and his heir Ljiljana did say that Boris "respects the Gods properly", seemingly in comparison to his father, so I doubt the Tzar is the recipient of some divine protection. It's impossible to entirely rule out the presence of some divine relic or something, but I don't think it's very likely and I do imagine Boris would've mentioned if this was an issue.

In any case magical items pose a complication to any plan, not just Nighttime Heart Attack. The real additional risk (such as it is) that's unique to Nighttime Heart Attack is that more time spent in the palace is more time that someone could interfere. If there's someone in the palace that could fuck up our plan then spending more time in the palace makes it likelier we run into them. I don't think that sort of thing is very likely and I think that Mathilde could probably deal with any plausible interference, which is why I'm voting for that plan, but I think it's a bit much to claim that there's literally no additional risk.
 
What's in danger is the plan to use the Matrix, and it's fail state is an escalating alarm that there is an assassin in the palace when Boris specifically requested "leave no evidence".
"Leave no evidence + Leave evidence of Lahmians" is a pretty clear directive to just not get truly caught as ourselves.

If a Lahmian gets caught while escaping, that's not a smoking gun that will concern him; he literally asked for that.
 
... What's in danger is the plan to use the Matrix, and it's fail state is an escalating alarm that there is an assassin in the palace when Boris specifically requested "leave no evidence".

This is wrong, isn't it? I thought the goal here was "the right evidence" rather than "no" evidence. To that point:

In any case magical items pose a complication to any plan, not just Nighttime Heart Attack. The real additional risk (such as it is) that's unique to Nighttime Heart Attack is that more time spent in the palace is more time that someone could interfere. If there's someone in the palace that could fuck up our plan then spending more time in the palace makes it likelier we run into them. I don't think that sort of thing is very likely and I think that Mathilde could probably deal with any plausible interference, which is why I'm voting for that plan, but I think it's a bit much to claim that there's literally no additional risk.

Speaking as an NV voter, there is an excellent argument that has been made that makes being "spotted" an actual win condition - as Chocolote refers to (and A_somebody summarized earlier), being seen as a Lahmian doing creepy things serves the narrative. Dame Lady Magister Mathilde Weber has already been seen leaving the country, so it's an easy masquerade.

Additionally, rather than allowing a failure-cycle to continue, an emergency-pivot from NHA to NV is as easy as pulling a knife. That would cut short that escalating failure sequence, no?

...

Sorry, I'll see myself out.
 
I think the Tzar may be cannier and more able than the thread or characters believe but I also think there being a struggle would be rad so

[X] Nighttime visit with style
 
I think the Tzar may be cannier and more able than the thread or characters believe but I also think there being a struggle would be rad so

[] Nighttime visit with style
Being canny and capable doesn't generally help much when you're asleep. I'm certain Vlad is actually very capable in his fields of focus and interest, but unless those include 'stopping intangible and invisible assassins approaching me while I'm unconscious' then it's supremely unlikely to help.
 
You know, with the direction the discussion is taking, I'm legit starting to think that the worst-case scenario is that the assassination goes so smoothly that it's not challenging enough to increase Mathilde's Assassination skill.

THIS IS A JOKE
 
Regarding magical items: it should be noted that Boris does have a kickass magical weapon, so I find it unlikely that the Tzar doesn't have a magical weapon of his own. That's probably not relevant as far as magical defences go, but yeah he does probably have at least 1 magical item.
Boris got his from the Ice Witches, I'm not sure that Vladimir would accept one from them.
 
Boris got his from the Ice Witches, I'm not sure that Vladimir would accept one from them.

I think related to that point about the narrative what is setting off our collective OOC paranoia is stuff like this. Vlad reads like the tutorial mission you give a rookie assassin early in the game so they feel powerful. But at the same time all the things about him that make him like that are consistent with previous information and characterization. He is a lazy ruler, whose people bear him no particular loyalty, whose heir is on our side and who hates his own country's magical practitioners.
 
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Vladimir might have inherited some rune stuff, or possibly got some stuff from Vlag.

Admittedly, I don't actually believe he does, or that it would hinder Mathilde just in case he does, but I wanted to mention the possibility because it could happen.

Just not very likely.
 
I think if a Servant wanders in during casting, Boney should roll a 1d100 to check for windsight. But why? Cause sometimes you need to tempt god.
 
Just wanted to chime in about Mathilde getting caught.

The Alarm spell exists, and I think Mathilde '27 INT, 29 LRN, MGC 9' Weber can figure out how to finagle a *lesser magic like into giving her sufficient warning to safely abort / skip to murder.
 
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