THIS QUEST IS NEWBIE FRIENDLY

This plot summary:

>http://ironmaster.wikia.com/wiki/Plot_Summary

Should tell you everything important that's happened in the quest so far (though it is occasionally one or two threads behind).

THE IRON MASTER
Health: 1 (3)
Power: 4 (12)

Athletics: 2
Cunning: 3
Technology: 4
Insight: 2
Observation: 3
Nefariousness: 2
Stealth: 1

Powers: Super Strength, Super Speed, AI, SynthSkin, Model T, Mobile Dolls, Ghost Whisperer, Deathless

>Link to rules (including powers list): http://pastebin.com/jgDrRens

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 1/2
Julio Pedone: 2/3
Rica Rivera: 1/2

Resources: 14
XP: 0

When we last left our hero, things were in dire straits as Asrael decided to get involved in a fight between you and Bouncer, which your mechs were catastrophically unprepared for. Asrael has destroyed your mechs and defeated Rica, and Cat, your ace-in-the-hole for this entire confrontation, isn't answering her phone. Julio narrowly escaped assassination by Dead Eye and mysterious mask-wearing person named Lily took the bullet for him because apparently he "still has a part to play," and then Dead Eye defeated Red Death, who showed up seconds later. Asrael arrived to intercept him, however, drawing a pistol with which to finish off the weakened Dead Eye, and perhaps Red Death as well.

You haven't got a lot of material left to work with, but you do have a bunch of Stalkers on your payroll in the region, plus you have a pretty large number of powers yourself...Although the last time you used them in person, it didn't end that well.

File: 1351015665135.jpg-(1.45 MB, 1600x1162, Villain Quest Gang Map 3.jpg)

This map is basically accurate; you control basically all of the former Stalker territory, but only by bribing over actual Stalker gangs with your absurdly high income. We're going to need a new one soon, but since helpful anons are the only reason I have a map at all, I can't make any promises as to when (if ever) we'll get one.

>>21254800
First things first. In the confusion, have our remaining bot go and pick up the cancer serum that Rica was bringing and use it on strike's body. Then try to call up Lily's ghost.

>>21254835

Your maximum PP is currently 12, which means there's no space for even a regular terminator after the six mechs are activated.

>>21254835

Oh, it does occur to me that you could have a regular Iron Guardsman do it, though.

Oh, I got a rules question that I can't figure out.
Lets say we have Two supers Lighting and Bruiser Lightning has really high cunning, a decent powerscore and abysmal athletics. Bruiser has a really high athletics score, enough power to activate all of his meta human abilities and the insight of a rock. Neither has great health. Reading the rules I can't figure out what happens when they fight. I what happens is either
A: They both beat the crap out of each other really quickly because neither has an effective defense against the others attack.
Or
B:
Lighting's lightning strike (which itself is a bit underpowered, compare to enegry beam, which is cheaper and stuns) changes everything to an opposed cunning vs insight roll. Bruiser's athletics and powers are irrelevant as long as Lighting's PP holds out and Bruiser gets flattened.

>>21254912
Meh, whatever. Just pick a reasonably sneaky bloke who is nearby

Rolled 80

>>21254824
lets go handle this our selves grab a few large boxes of asbestos tiles and fire extinguishers to smash into asraels smug face

>>21254824
oh hey, original mapmaker guy here. What did you want done?

>>21255014
That sounds like an excellent way to get ourselves killed. We are in the IM's body, our combat capability is crap remember? Plus even in our swordsman body we would still have two insight.

>>21254977

Okay, concerning Lightning Strike vs. Energy Beam; I compare power sets to each other when balancing, not individual powers, because then there can be a legitimate question of "do I want cheap access to a strong attack power or the same attack power for more XP, but also access to minions" or something similar. So the real question is if Weather Powers is underpowered compared to Energy Powers. But it turns out the answer is still yes, so I'll try to fix that for v.0.6. Thanks for pointing that out.

Right now, the system runs on scenario A. I am considering changing how Cunning attacks work at all. The current model for v.0.6 is to just make Athletics less of a super stat, since balancing that has been really tricky, and given that I may end up having Cunning attacks still work against Athletics once the rules change.

Anyways, back to your regularly scheduled climactic showdown.

>>21254989

You call up one of the East Fifty-Second Stalkers and have him head out to Rica's location. Her charred up corpse is still there; police response times in Compton are bad enough even before supers get involved.

He pulls the Cancer serum out and punches it into the body. Several seconds pass and nothing happens...Does Asrael's white fire make healing impossible? You've never heard of anyone who's been damaged by that fire and not killed...

But a few moments later, the skin begins to rebuild itself, and then the corpse draws a single shuddering breath...Before dying again. A moment later Rica says through your ghost phone "hey boss, if it's all the same to you I'll just wait until that body's healed before slipping back inside it. Those burns hurt."

>>21255072

Well, right now most of the Stalker turf and a bit of the Hound turf has been claimed by the Iron Guard, but it's probably best not to update the map just yet. The Iron Guard are probably going to be laying claim to the rest of Compton, and the Ronin to Eastside, in the very near future.

>>21255262
currently the best rounded single combatant build uses the Meta human and physic powers set. Physic pumps your insight through the roof with telepathy making you virtually immune to cunning attacks, while meta human turns you into an athletic beatdown machine. The best way to re-balance things is to make a cunning boosting power, as currently it (along with Notoriety which is an entirely different animal) is the only ACTION you can't boost with powers.
TDLR: make it easier to boost cunning.
As for the climatic battle, we're kinda out of guys. Frankly the only fight left is between Asreal and Team Blue, who probably really want the guys head.

Dead Eye turns his weapon on Asrael, who dives for cover behind one of the two wrecked cars, popping out from behind as Dead Eye reloads to return fire, sending Dead Eye himself for cover. The two flit from cover to cover, but Dead Eye's luck is no match for the real thing, and soon Asrael pops around a car behind Dead Eye and puts a bullet through his chest, then tackles him to the ground and wrenches the rifle away from the weakened sniper, clubbing him over the head with it before tossing it to the wounded Red Death. "You can finish him off," Asrael says, breathing heavily and walking towards Lily, "I've still got a few loose ends to tie up."

>>21255474

You still have normal gangsters, Red Death is still in the game (albeit barely) and on your side, plus, while Julio isn't much of a fighter, he's still in the line of fire.

You aren't really a heavy-hitter in the fight right now, it's true, but I didn't want to advance past things in case someone decided they wanted to play kingmaker.

>>21255559
My only suggestion is to call up amp and helpfully inform him that Asreal is clearly running on empty. He's breathing heavily, is visibly wounded and is using a gun instead of fire powers. He'll probably never get a better shot.

Why not just have IM posses a battle doll and get into the battle himself.
It's not like we care that he dies and we can pretend that the battle doll is not IM but some henchman.

>>21255622
Didn't we put Amp out of the game for a while?
Lets call Kestrel instead.

>>21255707

A battle doll is a mech, which you're all out of.

>>21255713

It's been several weeks since that fight, more than long enough for him to have recovered and replaced the gauntlet.

Do you want to call Amp, Kestrel, or both (or neither)?

>>21255741
I see.

Well, I guess we can call Kestrel and have her contact Amp.
Not like we have any more options.

>>21255741
I vote Amp. He probably hates Asrael enough, plus he probably thinks the guy killed a ton of people.

>>21255753
Contact Amp first. No need to draw his attention to our possible partnership with Kestral.

What do we say to Amp anyway?

"Yo Amp, Iron Master here, go and beat this chump that is busting up my business"

>>21255814
Nah, more like "Amp the guy who killed your super friend and crippled your mentor is wounded and out of power, wat do? Oh btw, there are like two more members of team red, right there, who are also totally wounded and can't fight."

>>21255837
Alright, sounds reasonable.

....Do we even know his number?

>>21255863
We are a super hacker villain who learned his secret identity like six months ago, and also more or less subverted his protege. I'm pretty sure we have his number.

>>21255741
get kestrel to give him the call

>>21255903
We usually have problem contacting anyone. Kronos, for example. We know who he is... though I'm not sure if Kronos has secret identity.

Speaking of cell-phones. Something I noticed in earlier chapter when reading archives and wanted to bring it up.
There was a time when we didn't where Kestrel was, it was after Steve told her of his role and gave her a cell-phone. We wanted to contact her but OP said that the cell was turned off.

Something that you should know. EVERY SINGLE cellphone made in the past 10 years can be tracked whenever it is turned on or not, even if its battery is taken out. A turned off cell can be remotely turned on and accessed its data. Every phone is a bug too. They are made that way.

>>21255837

This one sounds good. Amp doesn't respond, just hangs up immediately, but he begins moving in the direction of Compton and calls up Kestrel. "Kestrel, the Iron Master just gave me a call."

"Oh, no! Clearly you're working together! I must immediately tell all the rest of Team Blue to keep you as uninformed as possible while trying to convince you to give up your sinful ways," she responds.

"Not now, Kestrel," Amp says, "he says he knows where Asrael is. He's tired and hurt, it's the best chance we've had in four years to put that bastard down."

"Are you sure this isn't a trap?" Kestrel asks. "I mean, you got a call from one of the two trickiest villains in the city saying that the other trickiest villain is totally vulnerable."

"It's a chance I'll have to take, and anyway it'll be safer with backup. That's why I called, do you have my back?" Amp says.

"When's the last time you had mine?" Kestrel asks. Amp can't think of how to answer.

>>21255991

Typically contacting people is tricky because super heroes work very hard to leave you with no easy leads, but Amp is a guy you actually took the time to investigate a while ago.

>>21256146
I understand that, of course.
I'm just saying that the phone WE gave her will be always available to track for us.
Other phones, not so much.

I WANT TO PARTICIPATE.

BUT...

>>21256226

Oh, yeah, that's definitely true. I was talking about your first paragraph on top, though.

>>21256346

Okay, I'll bite. But what?

Anyways.

Asrael walks over towards Lily, still alive, though she isn't going to last long. He kneels down, removes one of his gloves, and puts a finger on her neck, checking her pulse and finding it quite weak. "Which way did Mr. Pedone run off to?" he asks.

"I-I won't tell you," she stammers, blood spilling out of her mouth as she does so.

"You already have," Asrael says, running off to pursue. Julio has several minutes' headstart, but he's on his own in contested territory.

The Red Death, meanwhile, has grabbed the gun and begun limping over towards Dead Eye. It's probably the only chance he'll ever have to kill him without even the slightest chance of being punted to Team Black. Asrael was there two minutes ago and wounded him, probably a fatal wound anyway.

The Red Death stands over Dead Eye, who slowly bleeding out onto the cracked and ill-maintained pavement. Red Death lowers the rifle at Dead Eye's head, and then pulls the trigger, Dead Eye too weak to do anything but watch. His head splatters out across the pavement, and Red Death slumps against the car, breathing heavily. Killed by his own cherished weapon. Revenge is sweet.

You have completed Red And White and earned 4 XP.

>>21256425
What was the story between Dead Eye and Red Death anyway?

A moment later, Red Death hears the hum of a sonic blaster gauntlet charging up, and ducks behind the car just before the blast passes through, shattering the windows. Abandoning the rifle (don't want to kill a member of Team Blue), he tosses a pair of throwing knives towards Amp, catching him in the arm, and then makes his escape, limping into one of the cars and driving off. Amp jumps onto his motorcycle to pursue, and within just a few moments he's pulled up alongside the Red Death. He's getting ready to let out another sonic blast when the Red Death swerves towards Amp, sending him off the road and into the pavement, flying off his bike and tumbling across the sidewalk. It's a good thing he's got Durability powers now.

Julio's has a headstart on Asrael, and he tries to lose himself in the urban jungle, but Asrael's high Nefariousness and monstrous Cunning isn't having any of it. You're soon getting a call from a breathless Julio, saying "boss, Asrael's after me, I can't outrun him...Shit, he's almost on top of me," and then there's a gunshot in the background, "fuck, that was close," Julio says, "I don't suppose you have some master plan out of this?"

>>21256487

The Red Death hasn't actually told you. Dead Eye guesses he assassinated someone important to the Red Death, though.

>>21256684
Well, good that did for us.

Told you we should have called Kestrel instead and asked her to help against Asrael, not just sending a Blue who will charge against any Red he sees.

>>21256684
"The fucker is out of power, that why he's using a gun instead. Still wont do any good to engage him alone."

Can we have our gang members nearby help out? At least act as cannon fodder? If so, then do that.
If not, shit, I don't know. Have Julio seek out police and hope they distract Asrael enough?

We could call Kestrel now, I suppose.

>>21256947

You do have a lot of Stalkers in the area. They're Athletics 4 at best (and most of them are Athletics 3), but you do have a lot of them.

>>21256997
Fuckers could take potshots at him and distract while Julio gets away. Just tell them to not group up in small clusters. And have a lot of them attack at once. But not everyone, I don't want to lose the territory.

Also, call up Kestrel and she if she'll come around to help out.

>>21256997
Does red death have a smartphone that we gave him? If so, wipe any sensitiveness data on it, and upload a "Asreal locator app" then have him toss the thing to Amp. In the meantime, use goons to slow asreal down.

>>21256425
oh, and have a random punk grab Lilly and get her to a hospital. She'll probably die anyway, but its worth a shot.

>>21257032

You send out an order to about two dozen Stalkers to head towards Julio's location and give him some backup. The rest need to be saved for finishing off the Hounds. You also make a call to Kestrel; apparently she's less willing to watch Amp march off to his death than her phone call would imply. She's followed him to Compton, so she's pretty close.

"Kestrel," you say, "Asrael's trying to kill Julio, I need you to stop him, otherwise Julio will die."

"Asrael?" Kestrel says, sounding a bit worried.

"He's tired and hurt, and someone's life is on the line," you say.

"Yeah, I'm on my way," she says.

Julio's Aegis armor shrugs off the first shot, but the second finds a chink and he staggers a bit from the pain. Julio's not as young as he used to be. The armor will only delay the inevitable.

A pack of five Stalkers pulls up, however, piling out of their car and opening fire on Asrael. Individually they'd be lucky to hit him even once before dying, but in numbers, one of them manages a small wound on the first hail of gunfire. Julio makes a break for it, but Asrael fires a single bolt of white fire after him. The bolt punches into Julio's back, igniting him. Asrael turns to fight off the Stalkers while Julio burns to death. When Kestrel arrives just a minute later, his charred corpse is already unrecognizable.

>>21257634
quick question: For the project Asgard, we need to be able to buy the deathless power for resources. Since we've done it like 3 times, is it possible to get a discount?

>>21257673

During regular gameplay, no, but if you win the quest, I'll fiat that you find a way to do it en masse so you can have your happy ending.

>>21257692
Fuck happy endings, I want to play onwards, past L.A, to other cities. Then we can go from state to state.

>>21257634
Well, fuck.

I guess we Deathless the hell out of him too. Do we have enough resources for that?
Recover his body and put some cancer serum to fix it. I knew this would happen, told you to give him super-powers like strength while we could.

>>21257710
This.

>>21257710

I'm considering sequels and stuff, but the original SVQ was mostly contained to LA and has a defined end point. I don't want to give that up and be one of those quests that wanders aimlessly way past its time, so if I do continue things past LA, it'll be as a separate quest with its own complete plotline, which I'll need some time to prepare.

>>21257716

Two of your Stalkers have already been dropped by the time Kestrel arrives, and Asrael's taken two hits, both resulting in only very minor wounds. Nonetheless, he's struggling to stay on his feet when Kestrel shows up. He probably could've mopped up another dozen or so Stalkers, but a fully powered super should be enough to finish him off.

The two of them trade blows. A bullet from one of the Stalkers catches him in the shoulder, but now they're shooting at Kestrel as much as Asrael. "These goons are yours, now, right? Can you call them off? They're not making this easier for me." Kestrel whispers into her phone, jumping away from the fight with Asrael for a minute and hoping no one hears her. Not like anyone would believe a Stalker or Asrael anyway, but hey.

>>21257962
Tell our goons to BACKUP Kestrel and not to shoot on her.
Damn, can't believe we didn't think of this.

Have some Stalkers grab Julios body and transport it to us.
We should also give a nice money bonus to all the Stalkers involved. Their doing much better job than I anticipated.

Can we get a discount on the grounds that we actually bought rica's deathless twice? Also, we only complete our project in the end? Aww, then how will Frightener try to steal all of our research in a reverse eden tech senario?

>>21258182
Since we have Deathless ourself, this time we shouldn't be spending xp but just resources. So it shouldn't cost us much

>>21258007

Stalkers *are* some of the toughest gangsters in the entire city. The only reason they aren't doing really well is because they're shit at the gang management game.

A few of your Stalkers run to grab Julio's body while the rest refocus their fire on Asrael. Asrael and Kestrel trade blows, until finally Asrael is flung through across the street and through a window into an apartment bedroom.

Asrael pulls himself to his feet and Kestrel dives through the window after him while the Stalkers head around to come in through the main doors. Asrael rushes towards Kestrel and tackles her to the ground, the two collapsing into a heap. "You shouldn't be fighting me," Asrael says, pinning her shoulders to the ground.

She shoves him off, her super strength carrying him into the ceiling, where his body makes a sizable dent, and then rolls out of the way as he comes back down to the floor. The two of them roll to their feet. "You aren't going to try and convince me you're secretly the good guy here, are you?" Kestrel asks, "you're a murderer. I don't care about your stupid, fucked up picture of reality where you're the hero."

"Let me show you something," Asrael says, and then, as Kestrel lunges towards him, he steps aside and shoves her through a wall. The next bedroom over contains a mother huddling with two children, one looking about seven and the other maybe three. "You see these people?" Asrael asks as he steps through, leaning on the wall for support. "These are the people who die when you throw a car at a Chimera van and miss. They die when stray bullets tear through the walls of the warehouse you're raiding and into the streets and building nearby. They die when you bring down Chimera choppers in the middle of the street." Kestrel is on her feet now, the red of her suit powdered over with white from the plaster, and she can hear the Stalkers breaking the door down in the next room over. "I have killed two hundred and fifty two people," Asrael continues, "what's your body count, Kestrel? Do you even keep track?"

>>21258336

That only works on the Superhuman Abilities powerset. Nothing about stealing the data for the Swordsman serum is going to help you bring people back to life on the cheap.

>>21258459
Well, dang.
How much XP would it cost then?

>>21258429
Damn Asrael, playing mind games. Kestrel is weak to that shit.

>>21258549

4 XP to make someone Deathless.

Kestrel attacks again, forcing Asrael out into the rooms, where the Stalkers start shooting at him, to little effect. Their luck seems to have run out. "So you're saying what, that I should sit and do nothing because someone might get caught in the crossfire? That'd be convenient for you," Kestrel says.

"No," Asrael says, stepping back through an open door and into a laundry room. The Stalkers, apparently unaware that bullets go through walls, stop shooting. Idiot gangsters know about gunfights more from movies and video games than the real thing. "I'm suggesting that we shouldn't be fighting. Remember?" Asrael says.

"You killed thirty-seven civilians in Hollywood," Kestrel says.

"I killed the wardens of an extralegal prison run by a cult," Asrael says, "if Team Blue hadn't been in their thrall at the time I'd have been commended for it."

Kestrel hesitates a moment. "Think about it," Asrael says, and then vanishes a moment later.

It doesn't take long to find out that he's only moved about twenty feet, taking himself back outside to the streets, but that's enough of a headstart for him to get away.

>>21258818
Well, I guess we make Julio Deathless. He is too good of an asset to lose like that.

Did we have Stalkers grab Lily take her to hospital?

>>21258879

Yeah, you sent some random flunkies to pick her up (don't need to be a badass to drive a car), but she was dead on arrival. If you still want to talk to her ghost, that option's on the table now.

Also, that would be the end of Act II. So let's go ahead and set up all the "defeat a gang" events since Act III is where most of those happen. Note that "defeat" is an intentionally vague phrasing; if you end up solidifying an alliance and cutting the city up between you, that's basically the same thing.

Nothing Personal
Objective: Defeat the Family, defeat the Made Man
Reward: 4 XP

Blood And Honor
Objective: Defeat Daimyo Okata and the Ronin
Reward: 4 XP

Hangman
Objective: Defeat the Santos Espada
Reward: 3 XP

Arrows of Bellerophon
Objective: Defeat Chimera
Reward: 5 XP

>>21259058

Oh, also these:

Pale and Inevitable
Objective: Defeat Asrael
Reward: 5 XP

Out of Time
Objective: Defeat Kronos
Reward: 5 XP

>>21259058
Well, lets talk to Lily then and make Julio Deathless.
Perhaps now she can stop being a cryptic cunt and tell us what the heck is up

>>21259213

What exactly do you plan on saying to her?

>>21259240
Ask her what she exactly wanted from Julio, what those things were that she gave him, what order she is from and what part is he going to play exactly.

>>21259297

When Lily is summoned up, bullet holes and all, she is completely silent. Most ghosts this recently dead have quick and panicky breaths (though no air actually gets sucked in or out), are sobbing, or are ranting and raving. No sound at all from Lily.

"Hello, Lily," you say, "can you tell me exactly you wanted from Julio, now? Your cryptic act got kind of tiresome."

"Is Julio still alive? Is Asrael still alive?" she asks.

>>21259690
Why don't you answer my questions first and then I'll tell you what you want.

LURKING LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER, I AM.

>>21259690
"Julio is dead, and Asreal is alive unfortunately. Still, death is a fixable condition."

"I guess my part in all this is over," Lily says. A bitter smile tugs at her ghostly lips. "It's funny. Now I get to see what happens next, I'm not sure I want to anymore." And with that, she fades away...She's only been dead about ten minutes. You've never known a ghost to pass on that quickly, but there's no trace of her anymore. Whatever it was, it seems to have been intentional, so it's probably safe to say she didn't want to tell you anything.

>>21260069
What a cunt.

Okay, lets bring back Julio.

>>21260107

Do you plan on sticking him in his original body? If so, you'll need to Cancer serum it immediately to make it not-dead, so that'll take 3 resources.

>>21260290
Stick it in the fridge. We need to save our resources to build sets this turn.

>>21260290
His body didn't have any special powers, right?

Lets just get him a battle doll

We should also contact red death, see if he has anything better to do than work for us.

Anyone who hasn't seen this thread before, it's more game than quest, I highly recommend it. It's got a solid premise and clear but flexible rules and guidelines.

>>21260107
that's pretty pricy lets make sure he wants to even come back first

Rica is back in Carson, within your territory, looking down at one of her old masks. The Cancer serum has regenerated enough of Strike's stolen body to the point where it's usable, and accelerated the healing of the burns, but it didn't heal everything, or at least, not fast enough. Horrible scars are left all across the body, and it would cost a lot of money to make enough serum to get rid of those scars, more money than the Iron Guard can spare right now.

For a moment, she felt young and vulnerable again. Like the night five years ago she'd stumbled out into the streets, face covered in dozens of cuts, one eye blinded and she wasn't sure if it was from all the blood dripping into it or if an eye had been cut out. Her entire face was a mess of pain and she couldn't tell exactly where the cuts were and she wasn't sure if the rain was helping or making it worse. Wasn't even sure if she was going to live.

But she could never really die now. She stands up, sliding the mask on. There's still some Hounds to clean up, after all. "Next time," she says as she heads towards the door, "next time, you son of a bitch, I swear it'll be you who walks away with scars."

A man in red sits in a room lit only by the struggling light of a single candle miles away, his leg in a cast, but it won't be long before that heals. He holds a picture of a bride and groom in their early twenties near the candle, and then places it just above the fire until it, too, is aflame. Slowly, the picture crumbles to ash. "The assassin is dead," the man says, "Neil Cadden dies with him. Now there is only the Red Death."

Miles away again, in a Palos Verdes apartment, Sofia Span scrolls down a webpage, doing what she always does when she's upset: finding someone to punch. Scrolling through years-old news stories to find out exactly what happened January 21st, 2008, when Asrael was officially exiled from Team Blue, she finally sighs and leans back in her chair. If there's not really a bad guy, then who're the good guys? When the leaders of every side are famous for lying, who do you trust? Fighting human traffickers was a lot more straightforward.

>>21260854

Julio definitely wants to come back. There are people who aren't scared to find out what happens after you pass on. Julio Pedone is not one of them.

>>21260415

He's been in the revenge business so long, now that it's over, he's not sure what to do with the rest of his life. He's certainly not averse to signing up with the guy who helped him off Dead Eye, though.

>>21261138
Come on, bring back Julio.

>>21261138
Bring Julio back I guess, then see if the Red Death wants a more permanent position in our organization.

I had a thought: Lets start putting up false information about all the other supers online, on small under established conspiracy websites, primarily anti-Scientology, and we can start pushing Kestral closer and closer to the dark side.

>>21261138
then offer him a job.

>>21261296
why bother with false info? Use ghosts to find out real info.

So.
Ronin, taking care of them sets up up with a nice batch of xp, and with Okato footing the bill on making his three swordsmen of The Rising Sun (im just going to keep throwing out names until they fit/stick) we can work on the whole Building a better city. Franchising, turn to the Stock markets, corporate buyouts, and insider trade, we should lean toward those crimes now, less people hurt, more people gain. When the Daimyo and the Iron Master become more PEOPLE magazine and less LA's Most Wanted. Play up eachothers public images more, the Ronin throw a Japanese culture festival, The Iron Master reworks the education system raising grades and making jobs, Become the army the public adores when they walk the streets. Use our loads of drg money to buy more businesses, subvert CEOs or owners to 'sell' to us, replace them with robot doubles, we dont need to be spotless.

>>21261428
Well fine if you wanna just post the horrible truth online I guess you can do that.
I'm betting Behemoth likes bar sluts.

>>21261138
We can rise to greater heights then ever before Red Death, with you working with me, we can turn about this ruin and decrepit city to something better, something, Iron.

>>21261619
why not both? truth and some lies

File: 1351042507893.gif-(35 KB, 220x182, explainfurther.gif)

>>21261651
Yellow News?

We Know Just The Guy.

>>21261679
Woo deployment of propaganda, we're like real criminal masterminds now.

>>21261643
his whole character revolves around his obsession with his wife. We are a necromancer with a proven skill at bringing the dead back to life. The recruitment offer practically writes itself. (true, she's almost certainly passed on. But we are by far his best hope.)

You print out another spell and bring Julio back to the land of the living and recruit the Red Death. That leaves your AP looking like this:

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 1/2
Julio Pedone: 2/3
Rica Rivera: 1/2
Red Death: 2/2

Resources: 14
XP: 0

Sound good?

>>21261817
He has JUST let that part of his life go. Do not bring it up.

>>21261919
Sounds good

>>21261919
..... that was kinda lackluster... I expected some more exposition.

It's good ofcourse

>>21261919
Can we have red deaths stats please?

Also, as I've mentioned before, another rules patch was going up at the end of Act II, which just ended. So here that is:

>http://pastebin.com/cVXaZb4x

The major changes:

>Mundane weapons and armor have been rejiggered slightly to make mundane armor less powerful, since the current setup often leads to padded sumo situations where it's really hard to get a shot off. I fear the solution may end up going to rocket launcher tag instead, so I may end up increasing the way HP is determined.
>It is now possible for a large number of enemies to flank a smaller number of opponents. It doesn't work like D&D flanking.
>Weather Powers renamed to Air Powers and several related powers were collapsed together into Weather Control. Still kind of an underpowered set, but the rename has opened up room for some expansion once I get around to it. No one in LA uses Air Powers, so this isn't really a priority right now.
>Several powers were taken from Super Human Abilities and moved to Nature Powers, specifically the Natural Weapon line and the Animal Senses line. This should hopefully do a little bit to make Super Human Abilities less god tier.
>On a related note, the bonuses granted by the Super Strength and Super Speed lines have been reduced. As it was, the only way to compete with super strong or super fast enemies was to insta-gib them on the first turn or else be super strong or super fast yourself. Hopefully the bonuses will now be big, but not overwhelming.

>Duplication and Density Control were combined into Molecular Reconfiguration.
>The Mechs and Ghouls powers have been altered to be less infinitely flexible. All mechs now have to share the same build, which can't be altered once set. You can buy extra builds for 2 XP each, at which point your mechs can switch between builds the same way they do now. The goal here is to encourage mechs with more balanced statlines rather than reconfiguring them to be hyperspecialized for whatever situation happens to come up. The system really isn't working right if one power can be used to overcome nearly any situation just by flattening it with raw numbers.
>Also, the XP price on Mechs has been bumped up, but since you already have it, that doesn't really make a difference.

>>21261950

It is indeed kind of lackluster, because Red Death seriously doesn't require any sort of persuasion. Any kind of pitch at all would get a pretty simple "alright, I accept" from him. At least, so long as you don't say something catastrophically stupid.

>>21261966

Sure.

H5 P4 A5 C4 T2 I6 O5 N2 S3

Powers: Peak Strength, Meta Speed, Enhanced Senses, Kung Fu, Karate, Signature Weapon (Staff)

>>21261985

Oh, I should note that you can, of course, make a new build for the mechs taking into account the new rules changes. You don't have to use one of the old ones.

Oh, also, the way Empathy and Telepathy works were slightly rejiggered, mostly in that Telepathy now requires a shitton of PP to turn on. Makes it so that guys like Mesmer can toss it out, but anyone who burns PP regularly to fight really can't just use it whenever they want. Someone also mentioned that you can't buff Cunning, which isn't actually true; the Tao and Tao Master powers from Martial Arts boost your Cunning (though not by very much).

I don't know if interest has died off an hour early or people are busy typing up their angry tirades about the latest rules changes, but to be on the safe side I've archived the thread and put my local fire department on speed dial.

>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/21254712/

>>21262317
Still say we should thrown down an action in starting the propaganda machine.
Down with Team Blue and Scientology!

>>21262064
Red death has super strength, we bought it for him.
Also, OWW, that rule change. (not that I disagree with them mind you, but still, brutal)

>>21262317
>>21262332

yeah, I'm just waiting for the result of proposed suggestions

>>21262317
I've mentioned it in a couple of threads, but we really need to set up a legitimate Geek-Squad equivalent. This should grant us access to a shitload of protected networks.

>>21262392

Oh, yeah, sorry. I just copy/pasted a statline I hadn't updated in a while. Right now I have two sets of stats for most heroes, a full stat block and an abbreviated version. I should probably get rid of one or the other altogether. I am bad at formatting my notes.

>>21262332

Can I ask why Scientology is suddenly in the crosshairs again? You'd barely mentioned them for like ten threads and it seems weird to suddenly rage against them just 'cause Asrael mentioned them. Which is not to say they're not a worthy target; just curious.

I think that strait athletic brawlers (like behemoth) got horribly shafted by the changes, due to the increase in the protection value of mundane armor. Also, any chance you could give the Mechs a small pool of initial xp to assign to partially make up for the fact that they can't customize their loadout anymore?

>>21262481
Forget about Scientology, we are trying to discredit heroes. Heck, I bet we could dig up some truthful, juicy details about them if we dig enough and post not just lies.

>>21262481

Man, I am abusing the shit out of my semicolons lately.

>>21262481
I just read the history thing on the Wiki, fuck if i'd had know they were that big in this world we could have done so much more to them.

>>21262510
Oh, and all the powers we can buy them are now both weaker and more expensive.

>>21262510

I completely forgot to add in another rule I'd thought of, but hadn't written down. I edited the 0.6 version since it's still so new (though I really try hard to avoid this sort of piecemeal rules updating to stop the ground from shifting under your feet like quicksand); Meta and Super Strength now allow your unarmed attacks to ignore mundane armor.

I am pretty happy with how powerful the mechs are right now. The Mechs power does not need to be able to win entire battles on its own.

>>21262638
Then here are our new stats for are mechs:
H6 P2 A6 C0 T0 I6 O0 N0 S0
Super Strength
These things are going to get massacred.

>>21262728
And put Julio into one

Rolled 14

>>21262638
Hi! I'm playing in game right now using the .5 rules. One question I and my GM have: If an attacker and a defender roll the same number, what happens?

>>21262728

Yeah, you're right, focusing all their spare XP onto a single one of the ACTIONS just so you can boost one stat into the stratosphere while leaving them practically blind to stealth opponents and completely incapable of sneaking or preventing themselves from being hacked is probably going to end poorly. If you concentrate your mechs on being good at only one thing, they will only be good at one thing. That is not a bug; that is a feature.

Kestrel just beat Asrael bad enough to force him to retreat on 9 Athletics, and that was before the rules nerf which, remember, affected every other super just as much as it did you. Asrael, the antagonist whose whole shtick is having an absurd amount of numbers in exchange for everyone hating him forever. Red Death is pretty typical of an Athletics-splurging combatant. Under the current rules, his Athletics is 9.

>>21262766
not really worth it. Plus these Mechs are MUCH weaker, I'd estimate there about 1/3rd as strong as they were before the update. Basically, we need to find that cloning tech soon so we can actually be a decent personal combatant again, because our central strategy of having our mechs fight for us won't really work anymore.

>>21262781

Nobody takes damage.

I revise my rules like every two weeks because of how unbalanced they are. I'm seriously amazed people are playing my system over Champions or M&M.

>>21262864

Jesus Christ. Mechs with that statline have higher Athletics than literally anyone else in the entire city except Behemoth and Bouncer, who have the same, and that's before you add in the fact that the new flanking rules mean that so long as you have at least three mechs their target's Athletics is effectively 2 lower. Do some math before whinging about how weak the mechs are, because I'm seriously sick of hearing about "worthless" mechs that can go toe-to-toe with half the supers in the city.

>>21262860
I'll regigger the stats, then.
We need:
High health, because that's keeps us alive, high athletics, because that's what we fight with, high insight, because otherwise cunning heroes are going to massacre us. Minimum power, because we don't really need it. We can dump on notoriety, because we can't use it anyway. We can afford to dump Observation, because they'll have to beat our insight roll anyway when they sneak attack. We dump cunning because we have no cunning attacks. It's a 8 foot tall mech who you've mentioned numerous times suffers massive penalties to stealth, and we can't afford to give it a very good score. I'll take your point about tech though.

>>21262985

8 feet gives you zero penalties to stealth. You don't start taking stealth penalties until you're 10-feet or more.

Note to self: Add size rules into paste sometime.

>>21262728
New stats
H4 P1 A6 C0 T3 I5 O0 N0 1
Meta Strength, Meta durability

>>21263044

That has 4 unused XP by my count.

>>21263044
>>21263367
bump I back to six, and bring S to 4. I'll admit, I mostly miss the utility builds we used to have, the command mech and jailbreak bot were tons of fun, even if they weren't that mechanically powerful.

>>21263367
add peek speed and O1 what does that bring us to?

>>21263542

That'd still leave you with 1 XP left over.

>>21263523
yeah, me too

this kind of kills the entire appeal behind IM

>>21263542
peek speed by itself is basically worthless.

Alright, I need to be going for now. We'll pick this up again tomorrow.

>>21263567
the entire reason I was ok with spending 12 xp on getting 2 immortal henchman and working on turning a third.
fuck sakes we could have bult 3 Mechagodzillas for that

6 Super Vehicle that could have been 6xp super powered suites/Mechs

with out being able to rearrange Terminators or Mechs to anything it takes away the background motives I though we were going for with IM build the body for the job. create a better humanity by being able to slip into the right body for the right job be it mechanical or organic