Both, as needed, I guess.
Pretty sure we are all still feeling out how this will work. I expect things will become smoother as we get used to it.
Lol, being a manipulative bastard isn’t my nature, so I need to practice.
Suffice it to say that when T-dub suggested it, Thomas did not seriously consider turning down the offer.
I think it makes sense to table talk for both demons and people. It’s rather schizophrenic but oh well.
Completely OOC I’d say that with supervillains, a big explosion, and a panicked crowd it would be easy to dismiss even eyewitness accounts as mistakes even with just legal insight from Jose and authority figures in the resource officer and superintendent. Through in powers and I’m not too worried about a few issues. But I am interested in how for things go in the world. Do we have to go to great lengths to hide or is this normal supers where a domino mask and some handwaving is enough?
Jose - Lou active @arrendek
Ok Tio Lou. You’re right about wanting to get out of here but I need to know what happened.
Rolled patient espianage for retrocognition [from the rules] Retrocognition on events in the bus barn: 8D10.MAX(8) = [1, 7, 7, 1, 6, 9, 3, 10] = 44
. Two pairs; 7’s and 1’s.
Manuel
Good move lady. He is dangerous and it is always good to be forwarned.
I think I'm supposed to filter in info but since I don't know anything we'll wait.
Turns out we’re leaving for Iowa tomorrow instead of Sunday, so I think I’m going to have to leave things where they are until I’m back (the 31st). Sorry! I know it’s a bit cliffhangery. :(
I’ll try to read the book more thoroughly before you get back. Have a good trip.
Happy holidays to all.
Ok, OOC questions first.
It doesn’t really specify, so sure. Just remember that the scale of it is based on the Devious strategy.
- Completely up to you. Push comes to shove, keeping your host alive to work on taking them to hell yourself is probably more important than keeping another family member alive, but it’s your demon.
- You have full control over Aspect activation, they have full control over Power activation (but they invoke you in the process so you can watch). You can also grant them a Master die but it reminds you of your former angelic nature and is thus painful and something you should attach a high price tag to. You have no other real control, but they should probably be encouraged to stay on your good side.
- Up to you. Check out the guidelines in the book as to what good screwtaping looks like.
- He’s hurting pretty bad but he knows what he’s doing and you don’t. YMMV.
- You have no idea but feel free to lie if you want.
Yeah, it’ll flow more smoothly if you make reasonable assumptions and allow for possible retcons. That said, in conflict (physical, social or mental) the flow is:
- Declare what you’re doing, lowest Cunning to highest, Knowledge as tiebreaker. Make sure that you specify if you’re talking multiple actions and what the size of your die pool is after penalties/Advantage/bonuses, etc.
- Roll. If you declared one action, pick the set you prefer. If you declared multiple actions and got multiple sets, assign them as you like. If you only got one set and you were trying for multiple actions, pick which one you want to succeed at.
- Resolve. For physical actions, the widest set (most matching numbers) goes first, with height (the actual number) breaking ties. If the attack is faster than the defense, the defense doesn’t matter because you didn’t get it up in time. Sometimes this means a faster action will interfere with what you’re trying to do, especially if you’re hit by a physical attack (which knocks a die off your set, possibly ruining it altogether). Intellectual and social conflict are slightly different - in both, you can defend even if your defense is slower than the attack, and you can’t kill someone with them (i.e. take away their last point of Open). Also, since social attacks are meant to secure compliance and/or agreement, targets can avoid the change or damage by agreeing to do what you want.
Obviously, strict declaration orders and waiting until everything’s in to do rolls is not a great idea in PbP so I propose that people post their declared action(s) along with their roll (unless they need my input as to which stats to use), and in scenarios where you have higher Cunning than another character that’s acting (PC or NPC) and need to revise your action, you can do so. I will not have NPCs act on the basis of any expressed actions from higher Cunning PCs as they wouldn’t know them. Once everybody including me has declared and rolled, then we will resolve in roll order.
It’s a pretty high stress situation, and people are running around and screaming and very distracted by the big guy with the scissors for a head. Some degree of caution might be wise, but odds are nobody’s going to believe their classmate or history teacher or whoever actually beat up a supervillain, when they think about it. Whether Aspects are still basically your character’s appearance or not I’m going to mostly leave up to the Screwtapes (though some clearly aren’t, like Non-Euclidean, and Ghost Form almost certainly is). Once things are over you should probably figure out some sort of disguise if you plan to ever use your powers again in public (and you probably will).
The relevant strategy, no tactic. For Flame-Wreathed, Devious. But in this particular circumstance it’s free.
Tallying up, I have these actions declared:
Jose (Cunning 2): Using Retrocognition on the corpse of the Avenger, roll is 2x7 and 2x1.
Maria (Cunning 1): Using Oracle and asking “What should I tell him so he lets everybody go?” Roll is 2x9, 2x7, 2x5.
Thomas (Cunning 2): Walking over to the Headsman and attempting to plant False Memories. Roll was 2x2. I’d offer you a surprise bonus because he wasn’t expecting demon powered individuals buuut you’re kind of noticeable with Glory on.
Alex: (Cunning 0): Passed.
I believe we need an action from Brad (@arrendek) (Cunning 2).
The Headless Headsman (Cunning 1)
The Headsman has completely lost it and begins hurling crackling bolts of electricity from his hands into the crowd. He is splitting actions and targetting two random adults (the art teacher and one of the admin staff) with Sly Cruelty and a 2 point weapon bonus from Dominator Strike for a total dice pool of 9 dice. Lightning bolts: 9d10 38 That is a 3x2 and 2x5.
PS: There are collateral damage rules, and I will be beginning their use as of this round. :)
Alex Gibson invoked
Late addition if ok. I know I shouldn't be reacting to the others really, but hope this works.
Alex nervously shoved his hands in his pockets as the others start forward.
Wait, what’s that?
He pulled his keychain out of his pocket: two small horsehoes connected by short lengths of chain, with a metal ring around the two chains…a gift from Sarah some time ago. She knew how bored he got in departmental meetings. He used to take the ring on and off with both hands under the table.
Alex realized the keychain was glowing and he felt compelled to take the ring off, though this hardly seemed the time.
Alex's Dark Ritual
Brad Stevens
He’s going to lightning my people?? How about no.
Brad closes the gap between himself and the Headsman as fast as possible, activates That Hideous Strength, and kicks him right in the nuts (since there’s no face to be punching).
“Halt!”
I'm going to need help with the dice to roll.
@Juan_Raigada needs to decide an element that his demon is obsessed with (examples include alliteration, rhyme, breakdancing, a particular color, carrion-eating birds, etc) and then you select an action that involves that element to form your Dark Ritual. Has that happened? Changing your action is fine, since the order of activity wasn’t established originally and that doesn’t affect anyone else, I don’t think. Just gotta have both sides input on the ritual.
A direct melee attack is Open Courage until your demon is invoked, Open Cruelty thereafter. So base pool is Open Cruelty here. That Hideous Strength applies a weapon bonus based on your Cruelty - 1 pt is a +1, 2-3 is +2, 4-5 is +3. So +3 for you. And he hasn’t seen you yet (I know I said you’d stand out with Glory, and you do, but I changed my mind about its relevance here, since he isn’t targetting you because you declare after him and he wasn’t aware you were a threat), so I’m going to call that a +2 surprise bonus. Total of 5 points of Advantage from the two bonuses. You can apply some or all of that Advantage to increase your die pool, or you can bank on getting a set and increase its width, or both.
Well Thomas is the one in full Glory mode. Brad, however, has some flames dancing around him, which will give him some nice bonus damage AOE to the Headsman.
I’m Flame-Wreathed, not Glorious. So I add my Devious (3) to my attack (Open Cruelty is 7), and my Cruelty is a 3 so it should be +2 for THS, right? So total 5 points of advantage anyways? If that is the case, I want to do +3 to width and +2 to dice pool. So 9 die pool with a +3 width overall, does that sound right?
Help check my math:
Base Pool (Open 4 + Cruelty 3): 7
THS (Cruelty 3 = +2 Weapon Bonus) : +2 (maybe this is the only thing which counts as an “advantage”?)
Flame-Wreathed (Devious 3 into pool) : +3
If only the +2 counts as advantage, then I’ll use that to width +2 and my pool will be 10.
If all +5 is advantage, then I’ll go width +3, pool 9.
If I also get a +2 surprise bonus, then width +4, pool 10 regardless of whether or not Flame-Wreathed counts as an advantage.
Also, when should I start going with multiple attacks instead? :)
Yup. Juan said puzzles, spatial reasoning, etc., so that seemed about right to me.
Sorry, got the characters mixed up. Flame-Wreathed is explicitly a direct addition of your Devious score to your Open Cruelty pool, and not a bonus of any kind, so not Advantage. (Which is less flexible, but also doesn’t get turned off by several types of defensive power. And you can get above ten dice with it.) You do still get the weapon bonus from That Hideous Strength and the surprise bonus I specified for a total of +4 Advantage. Multiple actions using the same dice pool just knocks one die off the pool (and you need to roll multiple sets to get both), it uses the smaller pool if you’re doing two different types of action. So you’re definitely in multiple close combat attack territory already.
How would a width bonus be applied if I went for multiple attacks? Can I just split it up however I want, like +2 and +2?
I double checked both the multiple actions and the advantage sections and didn’t see any official ruling on the matter, but I am thinking that makes sense.
Let’s just stick with the single attack right now. One good kick in the nuts, pool 10, width +4. Can you do the honors on the site please, I’m mobile at the moment