Habitat for Metahumanity (OOC)

[Cubist]

Just one last post 'round the campfire for me, after Push, then ready to get back into action. ED: Thanks Cubist, never occurred to me KoS'd suffer flashbacks like that, but now that I think about it, it does make sense.

[nods] Given the way you described KoS's Cambodian experiences, it would be surprising if the poor guy didn't have bunches & bunches of lingering psychological issues (see also: post-traumatic stress disorder, among other things). Might be good for a Complication? Or not; it all depends whether you want to go there with your character, natch.

[quotemyname]

You could also consider copying the nightmares complication that Push has. It's three extra points to work with on your sheet...

[quotemyname]

Gonna make a GM post. Cue downtime. There's a whole day that passes. For future reference, I'll need a notice roll from all players. Any super senses you have related to hearing might apply, so point those out in the OOC if you have them. I'd also like for everyone to roll initiative for when it is needed later, that way when combat DOES start, it can get off the ground right away.

Assume your characters are sleeping inside the "command" center during the night. Notice checks granted by normal hearing suffer a -2 penalty. You may be able to neutralize that due to super senses, so let me know what they are if you have them. Note this notice check is a hard one. It's not impossible, especially if you have super senses, but it's going to be extremely hard to pass. However, you ARE heroes, you should at least get a chance at succeeding

Blueshift's quickness allows her to take 20 on Notice. She scores a result of 33 after the -2 circumstance penalty. She fails.

Blueshift's Initiative (1d20+5=13)

EDIT: Remember spending a Hero Point is a reaction. If you'd like to spend a Hero Point to gain an AP which is a Hearing Super Sense, be my guest.

EDIT 2: Quinn, don't roll for your nightmares tonight. The roll from last time applies. Same with Blueshift.

If your character sheets have undergone any edits since this thread began please use the latest version of your sheet as it appears in the character bank only.

[Azuth65]

1d20+7=24 for Wisp's init.

Notice check, 1d20+14=25

[Cubist]

Jubatus will do the Take 20 thing for his Notice check, since he, like Blueshift, has Quickness. Jube's super-senses include Ultrasonic Hearing, and tactile-derived Motion Sense based on detecting/analyzing air currents. If the enemy has been around earlier and left some sort of traces, it may be worth noting that Jube has 'Acute' and 'Tracking' on his Normal Olfactory Sense.

Jube's Initiative roll will be normal -- except, of course, that he's got a honkin' big pile of the Improved Initiative feat, on top of his massive DEX, hence his Initiative bonus is pretty ridiculous.

Notice 'roll': 20 + 9 (Notice skill) - 2 (modifier for circumstance) = 27

Initiative roll: 1d20 + 7 (DEX bonus) + 24 (Improved Initiative) =32

[Ari]

KoS Notice check: (7+2-2) = (7) Blah.

Initiative check: (18+2) = (20) Yay!

[quotemyname]

Unfortunately, ultrasonic hearing only enables you to hear things in the ultrasonic spectrum, which isn't what's causing the failures here. Wisp fails, Jubatus also fails. Sorry you two :(

[Ari]

Don't mean to be rude, but are we letting this go?

[quotemyname]

Not at all. I've been waiting for people to post in character responses to my GM post. I guess I need to make the explicit request: Please throw up a short post about another uneventful night spent around the fire / sleeping in the bunks. In the morning, THINGS will happen We're almost to the action portion of the thread, let's not peter out now!

[Ari]

Thanks! Was worried this would just drift into the ether.

[Ari]

Edit: Nevermind, issue raised non-existent.

[quotemyname]

I was using "costume" in the abstract sense of the word, rather than literal. Costume as in 'costumed identity' rather than 'disguise'.

[Cubist]

What Jubatus is up to in his most-recent post: Jube may not be Crazy Prepared, but he sure wants to be, and he goes out of his way to try being CP. Thus, he's putting together a Master Plan (as per the MP feat) for the upcoming battle. What with Jube's Quickness, he's going to Take 20 for the MP roll, and end up with an INT check of 24, for a nominal Master Plan bonus of +2.

Q: How the heck do you put together a Master Plan for opponents you don't know anything about, in a battle that you have no idea when, if even if, it's going to happen?

A: You don't do that. Instead, you put together *lots* of Master Plans, for a large collection of hypothetical scenarios, and you hope that one of your hypothetical scenarios will be decently close to whatever events end up, like, actually happening.

So... the GM can rule that all of Jube's MP-related efforts are wasted, and there's no MP bonus at all when the fight actually goes down -- this would be perfectly reasonable, because while Jube tries to be Crazy Prepared, it's not clear how close he comes to truly being Crazy Prepared. Or maybe one of Jube's hypothetical scenarios is close enough for jazz, so that it's worth a +1 MP bonus. Or maybe Jube gets lucky and hits the jackpot, for the full +2 MP bonus. Either way, it's fine by me...

[quotemyname]

I've heard you discussing Jube's boy-scout level preparedness in the past. So I'm going to allow this. You can reasonably assemble any number of possible battle scenarios given the current layout of the terrain. An attack from the jungle/sea/air. Having to adopt defensive perimeters/positions, etc. There are quite a few variables involved, but Jube would be the type of person to keep all of them in mind, AND have a plan for dealing with all of them, or at least the ones that he can think of (represented by your roll). So Jube can take 20, representing meticulous effort spent on gathering intel and planning. Cool.

I'll allow the bonus on the following conditions. Give me five (or more if you'd like) reasonably specific situations, and what "the plan" would be in response to them. Then if any of them come to pass, or come close to coming to pass, you can activate the plan and get the bonus. I've already got the plan of action for the baddies written down, so no worries about me changing it up on you to avoid your bonus, right?

You'll also need to have Jube detail his plans to the rest of the PC's so they can be "in on it" Otherwise, they won't count as 'allies' for purposes of the plan. If they don't know it, how can they follow it, and thus get the benefit. Your post can even be something along the lines of, "Jube sits people down and says, 'okay, now here's what we do.'" I'd just like to see something along those lines, even if you edit into the previous post.

Sound reasonable?

[quotemyname]

Cubist, throw a post up here when you're done having Jubatus make his 'rounds' so I know when to move on, okay?

[Cubist]

Jube's evaluation of the group: Apologies to anyone who believes I've misrepresented their character. While I can read everyone's character sheet, Jube only knows what he's learned from research and/or talking to other characters. Which means that Jube has greatly underestimated the King of Suits, as far as I can tell. If Jube knew that Marcel had experience with Cambodian jungle warfare -- and, more importantly that Marcel survived the experience -- he'd be thinking "guerilla warrior" rather than "noncombatant".

Now, about Jube's alleged Master Planning: In just about any situation, we're probably going to want Blueshift in the air as an undetectable sensor platform. If she's not in combat, she avoids the combat-stress-induced unreliability of her cloaking device, right? Likewise, it's hard to imagine any situation in which we wouldn't want our own private comm network.

So in any scenario, the first thing Blueshift should do is pull commlinks out of her belt and have Jube distribute them to everyone (speed is cool!). If Jube isn't available, Wisp is an acceptable second choice for transporting commlinks to their users (teleporting is cool, too!). Naturally, this works best if Blue has a little advance notice, but even if we're caught by surprise, it should help after the initial shock.

Similarly, no matter what's going on, it just makes sense for Push to play the role of Big Friggin' Gun; for Jube to zip around drawing fire while attempting to incapacitate enemies as and when he can; and for Wisp to 'port on top of whoever looks like they're not expecting it, and whale on their enemy butts from surprise.

On to the five sample Master Plans which Quote asked me to provide...

---

Sneak attack at night

If we have sufficent advance notice: Get everyone up and battle-ready before the enemy shows. Jube and Wisp zip around drawing fire and doing whatever nasties they can manage; Push just friggin' murderizes whatever he deems a suitable target; Marcel covers Push's back; Blueshift flies around invisibly overhead, seeing all and making sure nobody is caught by surprise.

If anyone is awake when it happens: Wake up Jubatus (speedster) first, Blueshift (coördinator) second, Wisp (self-sniper) third, Push (big gun) fourth, Marcel (supernumerary) fifth. The speedster and teleporter are the first combatants because they can take the battle to the enemy quickest, meaning 'draw at least some enemy fire away from the remaining sleepers'. We form up to the 'canonical' battle deployment as and when possible.

If nobody's awake, and the first sign of attack is the enemy firing a shot: As per 'if anyone is awake', except modified as needed according to the damage done by the shot.

---

Sneak attack during the day

With advance notice: Assume combat formation before the enemy comes, and (try to) take them down before they can hurt us.

No advance notice: The enemy gets one free shot at us, presumably. We do our best to form up, modulo any damage that results from the enemy's opening salvo, and fight back.

---

Battle is joined, and the enemy has someone who can ignore/neutralize the powers of [insert hero name here]

If direct power-use is no go, try indirect power-use. Example: Suppose the enemy has someone who's immune to Push's kinetics. In such a case, Push should try other stuff like, how about if Push levitates/throws 3/4 ton of lumber at the guy? Or rip the ground out from underneath the guy, and use that chunk of dirt to throw the guy way the heck up into the sky, or even into the ocean? Apart from that, Push can also focus his attacks on those of the enemy who are not immune to kinetics, and let Jube and/or Wisp hit the kinetic-immune dude.

Jubatus and Wisp don't really have any damage-causing powers, as such -- they just hit hard and/or fast -- so 'immunity' to Jube or Wisp is likely to be more in the line of being generally tough or invulnerable or some such. Here, the idea is to exploit the mobility advantage; if the 'invulnerable' enemy is within the cargo-carrying limit of whichever hero, try physically moving said enemy way the heck out to hell-and-gone. Into the ocean would be nice, if possible.

Blueshift being our 'forward observer', the relevant form of immunity would be stuff that obscures her Super-Senses. She should watch out for, even track if at all possible, unexplained blank spots in her sensor suite.

---

The enemy uses illusions to impersonate (some of) us

We should work up some code-phrases ahead of time -- special knowledge which the enemy would not know, and which would therefore expose any such imposture. Once an impostor is exposed, pound on the illusion-caster (if we know who that is), then on the enemy who did the impersonation.

We're not likely to have a lot of time to spare during battle, but if we can figure out how to mess up the illusion-caster's power, that would be nice...

---

The enemy sends endless waves of minions at us!!!

Push is the go-to guy for taking down an entire crowd of mooks in one shot, or at least put up a force field to keep the mooks away from anywhere, or anyone, they shouldn't ought to be near. Blueshift's aerial vantage point will assist her in IDing the source of the trouble, whereupon Wisp and/or Jube can pop over there to deal with that source.

[Ari]

These are some very good plans, Cubist!

And I'd say that Jubatus has Marceau pegged pretty fairly as the group's least able member, due to him relying on stealth rather than straight-up attacks, not to mention that being a guerrilla fighter in this environment would be nearly impossible for him due to his nearly crippling phobia of forests :roll: Actually re-doing his powers, feat and skill setup to make him a bit more useful and specialized, not much call for jack-of-all-trades when I can just go all stealthy ranged fighter, eh? I'll put up the edits once this thread's done to avoid confusion.

[quotemyname]

Momentary Ruling: I like it!

Jubatus:

"Sneak attack during the day", and "The enemy sends endless waves of minions at us!!!" will both likely apply in the coming posts. (Though not in the way that you're hoping). So I'm going to grant a +3 Master Plan Bonus here. Ya dun good, kid

That all said, I think you guys are in for a nasty surprise here. I'll boot up the next portion of this thread when I'm at work tomorrow. Make sure you're all ready ;)

[quotemyname]

I'm finally updating this thread! But first, just a quick recap. Nothing you haven't already seen:

Gonna make a GM post. Cue downtime. There's a whole day that passes. For future reference, I'll need a notice roll from all players. Any super senses you have related to hearing might apply, so point those out in the OOC if you have them. I'd also like for everyone to roll initiative for when it is needed later, that way when combat DOES start, it can get off the ground right away.

Assume your characters are sleeping inside the "command" center during the night. Notice checks granted by normal hearing suffer a -2 penalty. You may be able to neutralize that due to super senses, so let me know what they are if you have them. Note this notice check is a hard one. It's not impossible, especially if you have super senses, but it's going to be extremely hard to pass. However, you ARE heroes, you should at least get a chance at succeeding

Blueshift's quickness allows her to take 20 on Notice. She scores a result of 33 after the -2 circumstance penalty. She fails.

Blueshift's Initiative (1d20+5=13)

EDIT: Remember spending a Hero Point is a reaction. If you'd like to spend a Hero Point to gain an AP which is a Hearing Super Sense, be my guest.

EDIT 2: Quinn, don't roll for your nightmares tonight. The roll from last time applies. Same with Blueshift.

If your character sheets have undergone any edits since this thread began please use the latest version of your sheet as it appears in the character bank only.

[quotemyname]

As no one made their checks, we're all oblivious to what's going down outside. In the morning, things happen! Blueshift never sleeps, and Jubatus only catnaps, so they'll likely be the first to see what's happening. I'll have Blueshift pick up on it just to speed things up. The rest is in the IC.

[quotemyname]

RE: That last post...

The people that Marceau sees are just normal Haitian citizens. Granted they're holding farm tools, but they are in no way 'brandishing' them or shaking them or being in any way threatening with them. They don't even look hostile. For all he knows they could very well be persuaded to help the building...

Getting any better idea of what they want (sense motive) would require him to be outside. (Blue automatically passed the DC 15 sense motive that tells you they don't look hostile, and relayed it to the group).

[Ari]

Whoops! Sorry for the metagaming! Should I amend my post?

[quotemyname]

That's up to you. Given the evidence (now that I've cleared it up), is your standing post something that Marceau is likely to actually say? If so, it stays, if not then feel free to edit.

[Cubist]

Jubatus' intent is to take all the toys away from the zombies. Assuming he can do this thing (it seems likely, but with Haitian zombies, who knows what surprises they might have up their sleeves?), he's going to use an indelible marker from his Vest Of Many Things to mark each item with a binary code-number, and a matching code-number on the forearm of the person he took the item from. Just to make sure everything gets back to its proper owner when the smoke clears, right?

And yes, Jube is going to (try to) disarm the crowd right now. Meaning, before these guys actually use their implements of destruction. The plan is to deposit all the shovels and rakes and etc at the airport, miles away from here. Yes, Jubatus is a suspicious and cynical soul...

[quotemyname]

The "zombies" themselves do not actually resist. But I need you to make me a will save.

Did we roll initiative already? If not, do so.