Thunder King

GM The blast of flame pierced the shadows. The fiend barely had time to register what was happening before it slammed into his chest, causing him to roar in pain. The Penitent could see the flare up and could hear the sound of pain. It was quite obvious that the hit had not only landed, but had hurt. "Oh, you are going to pay for that, mortal!" He bolted from the shadows, arms out stretched. One hand, clenched in a fist, came soaring towards the Penitent's head. The fiend was angry, nor was he focusing. In his rage, he swung wildly, causing the fiend to miss by a mile! He landed next to the Penitent and managed to turn around before a strike from behind could be landed.

He rolled a 6 for concealment, a failure! and he fails his save Round 2: Penitent: 1 hero point, unharmed Vampire: bruised and he misses

Go ahead and take your action then. Note that he's hidden and you don't know where he is right now unless you want to make a notice check.35 stealth

roll initiative! (he got a 14)

GM The figure came dashing out of nowhere, striking suddenly. The Penitent turned away just in time, causing the blow to glance off of his thick, hardened flesh. The shadowy figure slid away just out of reach and into the shadows. After a second, a low, sinister chuckle came from the darkness. "This is amusing." The figure said. "I don't know what you are, or who you are, but you need to leave. We don't take kindly to such interference. Whether human or monster, I suggest you turn back...now!" It was an obvious scare tactic. An ordinary human might turn and flee, or even some heroes. Not the Penitent, to the Penitent, the figure was showing off, and not too successfully. "You're going to see this through? I haven't had a proper battle in years. Come, mortal, let us test our mettle against one another."

28 for stealth attack roll, 17 Make a TOU save

GM The detective sighed over the phone. "Alright, go ahead and head over there, my men will be over there in about an hour or so. Don't touch anything, I just want you there to see what we see, and be able to follow the leads from there. Thanks for the help, by the way. Be there soon." She had a tired, but grateful, tone to her voice. It was clear this case was bothering and annoying her. Anything the Penitent could do to conclude the case sooner would be an asset to her. She hung up the phone. The evening was drawing on. The Penitent did not know this, but she was already late home from work, already going longer than her shift. She had a solid lead now, and she wasn't going to go to bed while it was still out there, while the trail was still fresh.

GM "No man, sorry." One of the guys said. "I mean, guy just didn't come home one night." Another man spoke up. "I work with him, or did, if, you know, he's not alive anymore." He explained to The Penitent where he worked, and what shift the guy usually worked. He also explained that the individual in question liked to take his breaks out of the east exit of the shop, away from just about everyone else. "I don't remember if he came back from break or not..." He said, shrugging his shoulders. "He was kind of a loner." The evening grew colder, suddenly. The three men became keenly aware that their acquaintance might be dead, or in mortal danger. "I hope you find him, man. It's bad enough without people disappearing."

A combat featuring six PCs would slow down to a crawl by virtue of the sheer number of people involved. A giant robot is not impossible, it's just not something we can run against everyone at once. I, for one, don't want a thread that takes four or five months to complete. This is not dogging anyone's playing or reliability. It's simply a fact of how it works here. Even threads that consist of people who are always on the ball always take longer to complete if there are more people involved. The more people, the more it slows down. My thread proposal, the one I was planning on using, is as follows; Dr. Benjamin Green is a conniving, manipulative, scheming, charming psychotic. He believes, firmly, that humanity is destined for Godhood, and that super powers are the next stage in human potential. This trait alone, however, would not make him all that bad. It's the fact that he also believes that those who do not survive to acquire superpowers are unworthy of living anyway. He is not Apocalypse. He is not driven by visions of conquest or control. He is driven by his firm belief in human potential, and his desire to see it through. He wants power for himself, of course, but that's part of his delusion. If he is to be humanity's shepherd, he must also have great power. So he's been poking at heroes, here, and there. Trying to find what makes them tick, especially those powers he does not understand, like Quintessence and Stormbreaker. He'd use agents and outside forces, make it impossible to track back to him. All so he can see what they can and cannot do. His plan is to harness the energy of these heroes, the powered ones, so that he can grant himself godlike power. Once he's confident he understands the powers of the heroes, he will draw them to himself for his master stroke... He strikes at Quintessence, Stormbreaker and Ironclad, for their power and technology. He is responsible for Voltage's powers (he knows it, Voltage does not) and believes the kid is some sort of harbinger of the future. He would attack King of Suits pre-emptively out of paranoia (having dealt with him before). GranspearZX has approached me on how he thinks this should go down for Crusader, and I've integrated him into the plot in a unique way; Crusader's future version, one of them, is warning him about Dr. Green, and he's going to move in to stop him, being the wild card Green did not anticipate or prepare for. As to why a super scientist villain would target YOUR PC? Well, that's entirely up to you. I haven't defined exactly why Quintessence, Ironclad, or Stormbreaker would be targeted, so feel free to come up with ideas or, if you want, let me do so. This was what I was planning to run. Of course, nothing says we can't involve a giant robot into the above and have the team fight it, :D

Crimson Tiger climbed down from her bike and glanced at Etain. She had to trust that the other girl knew what she was doing. Every muscle in her body coiled to strike. She was going to leap on him the moment it looked like Etain's distractions worked. She glared at the man, looking over his body, searching for weak spots. She was going to hit him fast, hit him hard, and do her best to knock him out in the first hit. She had no idea what Sharl could do, but she figured he'd know how to use his abilities for the situation. As for Tiger? She'd concentrate on the guy right in front of her.

Tiger's going to calmly climb off the bike and ready to pounce him the moment it looks like his guard is down.

That's enough for them to calm down and cooperate

Supercape, I respect your skills as a GM, and if we need you, I will not hesitate to ask either.

Tiger eyed the area around her warily "I don't trust this place." she said, pointing out the obvious. She rode carefully through the forest floor, keeping her eyes trained on the area around her. She couldn't imagine the scenario they were in, it was so far beyond her typical experiences. What could be causing this? Why would they do something like this? She tried to forget it was a simulation, feeling that they would want her to treat it as real as she could, not like it was a game of pretend. After all, in a real situation like this, she couldn't simply ask them to turn it off, she'd have to just deal with it.

Need to make a Diplomacy check to get these guys to talk. They're nervous about your sudden presence.

I...already have an idea. It will involve the creation of a long-term nemesis for the team, as well as some other, minor threats that they can fight on a regular basis.

Voltage is going to immediately memorize the license plate and description of the vehicle and fire off an email to the police about a suspect involved in the incident with the flies and Spiderbite, as well as the current location of the vehicle. If the guy tries to get away, Voltage is making arrangements to stop him. Voltage will then blast Sam using extra effort, AND he's going to sacrifice -2 from his attack to throw extra power, making a DC 29 TOU save 25(Normal) + 2 (Extra Effort) + 2 (power attack) got a 20 if Voltage hits, Sam has to make a DC29 TOU save

"There's part of it they just didn't want to get rid of, I suppose. There's a pit in there for reasons I don't know." He said, grateful for Spitfire's impromptu torch. This was an interesting scenario. Why on earth would the build it like this? What purpose would that serve? Voltage anticipated that this situation would get stranger than it already was before long. The others, or at least some of them, appeared capable and trained in the art of stealth. Voltage...wasn't. He didn't even consider the idea of stealth. There was simply no way he could sneak. Which, of course, was why he stayed farther back. That and he wasn't built for hand to hand combat.

I got a 14, no miracle here

GM The first address on the list was, as expected, not all that far away. It was likely the home of another worker at one of the local factories. It was a small house in poor repair. The occupant was obviously not concerned with it's outer appearance. There was no car in the drive way, and no one was home. Three men stood across the street chatting about this and that, apparently oblivious to the potential crime that had occurred to someone in their very neighborhood.

"Gah!" Voltage shouted, dodging out of the way. "Sir, the bad people have been beaten." He said, holding his hands up. "If you come along quietly, we can leave, get you shrunk back to normal, and get the bad guys arrested." "We have charges of attempted murder, kidnapping, and probably some illegal arms dealing and drug trafficking too. This guy's going away for a very long time, probably the rest of his life. You don't have to though! I'm sure you can help the police and get any charges you might have had dropped!" He couldn't afford to be nice forever, if Sam didn't calm down soon, he might have to knock him out and then go capture the scientist and make him shrink him. It was worth a try, though.

Voltage is going to ignore the scientist for now and concentrate on trying to negotiate with Sam. I think I'm going to wait one more round before turning to a less peaceful solution.

"I just heard rumors of bad people up to no good around this place." Crimson Tiger said. "I fought some ninjas a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to know whether or not these guys were connected." She looked at the other two young women, and then shook her head. "OH! I'm sorry, I'm Crimson Tiger, nice to meet both of you!" She said with a polite bow. Neither of these girls looked that much older than her. How many teenage girls were superheroes in this town anyway? She was sure it was rare, but...now? Not so much.

Voltage is going to check to see if he can see anything about the basement on the plans. What can Voltage tell King of Suits anyway?

In order to ensure that the new team can get up and running in a reasonable amount of time, I think it's necessary to plan it all out in advance. Step One: The Meetings In order to do this efficiently, let's establish who needs to meet, and who has already. NOTE: If two characters have already met, please PM me and I'll edit this post to include that. Voltage + King of Suits (DONE!) Voltage + Stormbreaker Voltage + Quintessence Voltage + Crusader Voltage + Ironclad (PLANNED!) King of Suits + Stormbreaker King of Suits + Quintessence King of Suits + Crusader King of Suits + Ironclad Stormbreaker + Quintessence Stormbreaker + Crusader Stormbreaker + Ironclad Quintessence + Crusader Quintessence + Ironclad Crusader + Ironclad Feel free to post proposals for different threads. We can meet two at a time, or three at a time, but probably not more. Establishing the Team: One thread won't work with six members, unless we want to have Vanguard established sometime next winter. I had an idea though; Divide the team into two squads Give each squad their own thread Have both threads deal with the same situation from different angles Establish a third OOC thread for coordinating the two teams Use the Coordination thread and PMs to coordinate the teams From there, we can establish Vanguard in the aftermath of the situation. I already have the idea I want to use for this thread, but it may change depending on how the team develops Ideas? Thoughts? Concerns? Thread proposals?