Supercape

"Well, I wouldn't mind taking you for a spin!" replied Lockwood, adjusting his cravatte and handing Blakely his cane. He shuffled his feet slightly, limbering up. "Of course, strictly ballroom for me. I can't be indulging in the peculiarities of dance you have here. All this jive and disco nonsense. No class of you know what I mean!" he said, turning up his nose whilst offering Megan his elbow politely. "A good dance is like a good woman. It liberates the soul, curls the lip, bounds the heart, and trembles the leg!" he declared.

Fleur is up!

"What a splendid piece of engineering!" said Lord Steam as he approached the magnificent cannon. Quick as a flash, his eyes and fingers caressed the copper and brass mechanisms. "Clever! the self ejecting caseless reverse parabolic loading system! with a dual caseless pre-ignition system...quite ingenious! I thought of doing that for Bessie, of course, but it resulted in an unacceptable level of reverse kinetic decay. Just like...ah! here we are...so!!!" With a yank of his hand something important and fragile went clunk inside the machine, and he pulled his hand out holding a broken piece of wire-thin metal. The cannon emitted a sad hissssss....

GM "Sure...sure! Whaddever yah say!" gulped Erasmus, in no position, at this stage, to argue... A little later...just outside of town... The warehouse was surprisingly well camouflaged, almost built into the rock. Inside, steel, forges, and smelters all in good order littered the floor. Two more tanks, nearly fully built, lay inside, gatling guns mounted. If anything, the new models seemed even more advanced than the ones that had assailed the Texan Free States just before. It would not take long to destroy the warehouse, either by the natural power of the heroes, or the vast stockpiles of explosives that had been built there. Sgt McSaunders, having heard of the battle - and, by way of a few bribes and a few bottles of whiskey, the warehouse, landed the zepplin just outside and came to join the party. "Excellent job if I do say so myself!" he said with jollity, swigging a generous amount of gin from his hip flask and twirling his magnificent moustache. "There is a place for you in the Special Zepplin Squad if you ever need a job and an adventure!" he said, slapping them all on the back. "Although I imagine the old man 'M' will want to pin a medal to your lapel and give you a cup of tea and all that. Probably slip you a few gold sterling's if you can squeeze one out of his tight fists too!"

The most obvious comment to make here is - how is this character going to be challenged (in non combat capacity - which is important) when he can shapeshift to any power / skill / feat that suits? i.e. are there any limitations to the variable power? Aside from its legality (bothe technically and the board), both you and people that GM for you (and indeed other players) may well find skeleton key "do anything" character's not fun to play. Variable powers are there to fill a gap that can't be filled in any other way. Ideally they should have some limitation on how they work. We have a couple of shape shifter characters on the site (myself included), but most if not all have some built in limitation so they can't pick and choose any power in the book. For instance, Synth can only grow human DNA. That seems to be what you are going for here, but then a couple of worrying examples get thrown in like immunity (Immunity in a variable power starts to smell very cheesy, as you just get immune to whatever you need at the time), or arbitrary super senses, or concealment.... I just throw in the heads up here! Variable Powers are scrutinized more carefully than practically anything else in terms of powers.

Blast attack from above! a steel guillotine! 1d20+10=27 heck that may hit for a DC 27 Toughness save!

Rene started getting his fire back, although he was flush with fear too. Gallia had scared him like no other, and now she was back. But he was older and wiser now. "I know you well enough to realise that there is little human about you" he replied. "Human's are just pawns to you. Yet without them, you are nothing. Ah! Vile creature. Of all the spirits, of all the undead, the abberrations and beings from beyond that I have met, you are the worst. Because you are born from the human spirit!" He summoned up his arcane energies, painting them onto the world that to him was as real as that of dreams or imagination. A glistening silver guillotine slid from the ceiling, like a feather made of sharpened steel...

So, move action to go to the steam cannon, and then standard action to disarm it. I don't know what roll you need me to make, I'll go with disarm device. 1d20+15=27 Let me know and I'll post IC.

GM At El Heraldo's suggestion, Doctor Cream brightened up considerably. "Say, young man, if you are one of those heroes with healing sooper-powers" he said, prouncing the words with a pleasant southern twang "I could sure use you. Hell, we have a whole hospital here...err...well, that is...if you have time....but anyhow, this officer here, he could sure do with your help...I certainly ain't going to say no!" he said brightly. "We got all kinds of modern medicine down here. But sometimes, well, we can only go so far. Then we gotta call the priest, and hope that are prayers find the almighty's ear. We don't have to many of you capes down south. But we mighty pleased to see you when we do!" He lead El Heraldo to Meddows bed, where the officer was quietly sedated. The man did look in a bad way. His face was bruised, and had burns on one side.

GM "Ha!" laughed Malaise, scanning El Heraldo's eyes. "It has been a long time since somebody dared to kiss me!" she sang, before taking his head with both hands, with strong arms and planting her lips on his. She was full of vitality despite her destitute appearance. Like the swamp, she was filthy but full of life. She tasted of rotten fruit - sickly but sweet. "Although I kiss many!" she laughed giving him a penetrating stare. "You are a colourful little monkey...I like you and your clothes. Full of life. Oui, Oui, full of life! and we know the purpose of life, don't we..hehehehe!" she cackled, holding him in her gaze.

There is always extra effort to surge, of course! And we are back up to Gabs! Round 7 24 - Gabriel - 0 HP - Bruised x2 23 - Fleur - 3 HP - Bruised 19 - Andriod Captain - Injured x2, Bound 14 - Giain Knight - 0 HP - Bruised x4, Nauseated (+0) 5 - Grue Mutant 1 - Bruised x2 5 - Grue Mutant 2 - Shaken 5 - Grue Mutant 3 - unharmed 5 - Grue Mutant 4 - unharmed 5 - Grue Mutant 5 - unharmed

GM "Just keep her safe!" replied the convulsing, sparking Captain, trying to waving Gabriels spear, but held fast by the vines of Fleur. "bzzzt....kill all humans...." came the automated message from his mouth. "Aiii! Aiii! Kill all humans!" screamed the Grue, echoing his advice in a frenzy, full of ecstasy and rage in equal parts. The insane mutants would not stop, it seemed, intent on rending Giain Knight to pieices if it meant they could get access to the holy children encased in rock. "Kill!!! Kill!!!" they wailed as they gnashed their teeth, and, encircling the poor hero, once again leapt at him and struck with left and right claw, and alien muscle and nail...

It's enough! For reference El Heraldo - 1 HP

Another Brutal Barrage on GK! (Sorry Fox!) 1d20+8=17, 1d20+8=28, 1d20+8=24, 1d20+8=23, 1d20+8=12 Youch....2 regular hits, 1 crit. 2 toughness saves at DC 23, one at DC 28 (with two bruises...) 2 Fort Saves at DC 15, one at 20 (Nauseate attack) Brutal...but at least Cap'n is down!

Tagged!

"Curse you, madame!" said a white-faced Rene, fury bringing him back to life. "A man's mind is his own! not for any ancient spirit to command. It seems the decades have twisted you still further! well, no matter. I may be old in body now, but I am stronger than ever in spirit!" He twirled his paintbrush in his hand, a blue-tinged fog spreading out from it, as faint tendrils, then waves, then a tsunami. "Marceau my friend, my apologies, by these poor men and women must not come to harm. We must have cover of darkness! If they cannot see, they cannot attack us..or each other..." Although it was not dark, the effect was the same, the fog was so thick one could not see one's own hand. For Rene, he saw better with his mind anyway, the beautiful imagery was not impaired...he could see all...

Move action: Bringing out his brush Standard action: Obscuring the area...well, he can still see, anyway. And KoS can, er, cope... Ari> Sorry for gimping your style, it was just what Rene would do in the first instance, to slow everyone down. I'll help Marceau out next round!

Knowledge (Tech) check to work out how to deactivate the andriod DC 20. I'll allow untrained as the Captain will help to a degree with his speech. It's a DC 15 disable device of craft (electronics) check to actually do it, and it will take a full round of him being immobile. Which he is, when snares, but I'll say the fact the snares actually get in the way mean a -5 penalty to that roll (unless you have some cunning abilities to work remotely!).

GM "Yes...there is...." squarked the Captain in Response to Electra's reply, as arcs of elictricity danced playfully between his perfect teeth. "You just need to create a quantum uncertainty flux in my primary neutrino capictors which are located in the posterior region of my intrathoracic simulacrum. Then, you carefully eject the primary and secondary plasma couplings in a reverse nth dimensional loop before finally selecting my fusion electr-magnetic convergance to a mirror parallax configuration..." "*Bzzzt Hzzzt*...It's quite simple once you switch off my *hzzzt ruzabababa* and then rotate the hzuhzuhzu* degrees in a *thzthzthz*ockwise fashion...."

"By Vishnu!" proclaimed Lord Steam, eyebrows arched at the steam powered cannon. "I'd like to get my hands on that!" Seeing the weapon hit home on El Heraldo, he corrected himself. "Point taken!" he quipped. "I'd like to avoid that getting its hands on me!" He dashed forward, weaving left to right in the hope that his sprightly dancing to and fro would make him hard to take aim on. He was quick and nimble, and indeed presented an erratic target. "But perhaps I had better dismantle it first..." he said, more to himself than anybody else, as he eyed up the mechanics of the lethal weapon.

Well he can't quite reach there in one move action... So he will move most of the way there, and for his standard action do a full defence, adding +4 to his defence for next round.

1d20+8=18 and bound! Its toughness 18 snare for reference, uninjured. As the android is now bound, lets skip on to GK!

Quick Q then TK, Lord Steam versus the Steam Gun... How far away is it, and could he dismantle it being a steampunk sceintist? ;)

GM The blast caught the Captain on his shoulder, releasing a blossom of electricity where it ripped open his artificial skin. The android was lifted from the ground, spinning, and sailed over to the other side of the bunker, collapsing in a heat. "Not hard enough-uff-uff!" he jabbered, vexed at Gabriel's seeming lack of effort. "You must stop me...permanently! for...for Penny!" he said, an artificial tear running down his cheek. He convulsed briefly with an artificial seizure...

1d20+9=20 Is his toughness roll, bringing The Captain to Injured x2, Dazed [until 24] Kids are delaying. Fleur is up!