DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Horror ACS: Achtung! Cthulhu - The Black Sun Junkers Ju-52

I will try to keep things active, but as a heads up I am having surgery on my dominant hand next Wednesday. I expect I will be slower about typing, for some strange reason.

One finger at a time..... now that sounds ominous. Take care.

I suffer from a genetic gift from my mother Dupuytren's contracture. It causes both of my pinkies to curl inward. My right hand has become so annoying that I can't put on gloves, and though I work around it, it gets in the way of typing, which I do all day long. So going to get it fixed. Being the disease has no cure, it will return. The question is how fast. We will see.

❤️❤️ good luck ❤️❤️

Thanks!

Better ghost me. Between work and trying to get a little Baldurs gate in with my free time, I am way behind.

Understood.

We all make choices.

With the idea that Ken is out of the loop for who knows how long, do we want to continue with two and NPCs? I am ok either way, just letting you two decide.

I'm good to continue.

That's good for me too.

Then we shall and I will add some of the NPCs into the discussion.

Let's start a new thread The Forgotten Passage.

Pande, we never updated Isabella's character sheet when Lionhawke chose Isabella's spells.

Flawed Spell: The Ogham Sign (Skill: Academia, Difficulty 3, Cost 5 Drain Piercing 1, Duration Instant) - Inflicts a single supernatural creature in Medium range, Power +2 mental stress with Drain and Piercing 2 effects, even if immune to mental attacks. If suffers injury, loses benefits of Invulnerable for scene. If defeated, it vanishes, banished.
Flawed Spell: Wisdom of Frigg (Skill: Observation, Difficulty 1, Cost 3 Drain Stun, Duration Instant) - The spellcaster chooses a single creature within Medium range. Spellcaster gains 3 bonus Momentum that can only be spent to learn information about the creature or create a truth reflecting its weakness.

Because they are Flawed versions, I did not list the extra stuff you can get by spending additional Momentum because you can't for Flawed spells. You also gain an automatic Complication in addition to rolling any 20s. And you can't spend Momentum for extra d20s, you can only gain by generating Threat.

Ok, so only buy d20s by accepting Threat. To my mind both spells require seeing a target, which means lifting the trap door. Do you two agree with that assessment?

Yes, that was one reason I wanted to get that update in here, to understand exactly what the spells do. I acknowledge that I'm definitely the rulesiest rules guy in the campaign though.

And I appreciate it! Part of why I wanted to do this game was to explore the rule set.

Very much expected the need to see the targets. That's how I thought I wrote it.

But what do I have to roll again? LOL

Oh sorry, I read it as: "Don't open the trap door yet, let me cast this spell." But I reread it and it's not exactly that way. But I did want to update the rules on the spells.

Should I go ahead and make a post about popping out, Pande?

Lionhawke, don't roll yet until we know what we're facing because this spell will knock you out a little and also will add complications.

For Wisdom of Frigg, it would be Will + Observation as your target number.

Just to follow up, spellcasting is more complicated than I'd originally thought.

Isabella has to have a "mantle" like a magic wand, a totem, something significant to her.

And in order to cast a "battlefield spell" it had to be prepped and put in the mantle ahead of time otherwise it needs a long ritual. A spellcaster can only prep a number of spells in the mantle according to their power rating. A tradition or research spellcaster starts with 2 plus bonus dice based on Insight or Reason. Dabblers, like Isabella, start with a base 1 plus bonus dice according to Will (so that's a +1).

So, this is important because it means that she would only have two of her three spells in the mantle. She can cast them as many times as she wants but she'd have to pick.

She might rather have the unflawed healing spell and the powerful Ogham Sign that gets to use her very high Academics skill to roll against but is also riskier, being difficulty 3, a roll of 18-20 makes a complication, in addition to the one she gets automatically from it being flawed.

And dabblers, when casting, can boost their power base from 1 to 3 by making some risky challenge dice, possibly generating a lot of Threat.

Do I have this right, Pande?

We can assume that she has something that she has prepared. Isabella knew that she would be facing the Black Sun and likely would have set the workings in place. Just describe whatever the mantle item is in play. (I am willing to be flexible for this scene, and she can decide in play. There is no need to hamstring anyone at this stage. We are about to have the BIG scene.)

Yes, that is precisely how I read things! I will double-check, but it looks like you covered everything.

Let me write a post with the popping up to peek.

Holy Earthworm Jim, Batman!

LOL, welcome to the big scene!

Big Scene ideas...

Boy these characters are complicated! Not sure if I get this right.

And, just as a reminder: The Effect dice work like 1 and 2 are a 1 or 2 as normal, 3 and 4 are a blank, 5 and 6 are a 1 plus Effect.

Swann: Because his Enfield Service Revolver is reliable, I think he shoots first as there's little chance of a complication. Maybe best to aim at the Black Sun leader. Coordination + Fighting is a 13 and he crits on a 4 or less. He should use a salvo so he does 4D Vicious (which turns those 5 and 6 rolls into 2 damage). He can also use the Aim minor action before the shooting to be able to reroll one of the d20s, I think?

Walker: She also has a reliable Enfield Service Revolver. And when she takes the Aim action because she is a Sharpshooter, in addition to the reroll, she gets a free extra d20 and adds Piercing to the attack. She could also grab two Momentum from the pool to also add Piercing, which would make her shot a Piercing 2. Her target is also a 13.

Nilsson: Probably most effective for him to cast Hammer of Thor. His roll to succeed is Insight + Fighting (11). The basic result is on a single target he gets to do power (currently 2D) + 4D with the Area effect. Which means for every effect he rolls, he can do the same damage to another target Close to the first one.
The cost is 3D Drain, Piercing 1. So for each effect rolled he takes a fatigue (which lowers his total stress) and also adds Piercing which would mean the damage rolled in the 3D to himself ignores up to that amount of his 2 Courage.
He also has some interesting options.
He could use Mystical Power to bump his base power to 4D, making it 8D on the damage. But if he does then all his allies each take 1 mental stress for each Effect he rolls on the cost. That kind of seems worth the risk.
He also could use A Price to Pay if his spell roll is successful. Doing so gives him two Momentum to spend on the spell effect. Which is nice because he could add Vicious or Stun to the attack for two Momentum. For one Momentum he could change Area to Piercing 2 but I think the nice cluster of bad guys means he wants Area. A Price to Pay adds 2D to the spell cost which is bad for everyone and it's Physical instead of Mental stress which he's less resistant to.
He also has the Momentum pool he could spend which is ... 6? Might be worth spending at least one so he has 3 d20s because we don't want this to fail with the high cost to pay.
My thought is follow with him and see how many bad guys he can get with this: Mystical Power and Hammer of Thor.

Crook: Can he be sent to bite a rope to free a prisoner?

Gregg: He's not a bad shot (11) but he's the worst of the NPCs and uses machine guns which you can't Aim. He does have a pistol that if he Aims it, gains Intense which adds another Injury if he inflicts an Injury, which... all of this is really complicated hahaha. But maybe it's more reliable for him to go free a prisoner.

Jean-Jacques, probably best to run in with his axe if the big worm thing is around? Or free a prisoner? I don't know. I just spent like 90 minutes trying to understand the rules.

I have to sit down with the rules and go over the numbers. Thank you for doing this! It will help me take a clearer look at things. That is exactly why I wanted to run this game.

A point, though, is that since the trap door is in an alcove, the PC/NPCs can sneak up into that alcove and set this scene up the way you have expressed. A meta-comment: the Black Sun operatives are busy with the ritual, so there is a very low risk of doing so.

Does that sound like your plan?

Maybe, but my plan was more like it seems like there is extreme urgency to act immediately.
If it were possible instead to use some Stealth and free the villagers enough to get them out of harm's way when the firing started that would be even better. I think Lionhawke would like to do that based on their earlier post. Momentum can be spent for extra actions, right?