Ari Posted August 20, 2012 Posted August 20, 2012 OOC for this thread. Riff does some riffs at a music festival, joined by special guests Synth, Blue Jay and Jubatus!
Cubist Posted August 24, 2012 Posted August 24, 2012 'Almost outside (Jay's) hearing range'? This is unusual, since Jay has Ultrasonic Hearing. When's the last time he can recall hearing any sound like that 'nearly unnoticeable hum'? Also: Take 20 'rolls' on all four of Jay's Knowledge skills (those being Business; Current Events; Technology; and Theology & Philosophy) to see if Jay recognizes this 'Alfred Manderley' bloke. Yes, Take 20 on a skill roll normally takes 20* as much time to perform as a regular skill roll, but Jay has Quickness, so he can burn thru that 20* time real fast. His Take 20 'rolls' are Knowledge (Business), 28; Knowledge (Current Events), 28; Knowledge (Technology), 29; and Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy), 29. Likewise, Jay will examine some of Manderley's work with a Quickness-enhanced Take 20 'roll' on Notice, that 'roll' being 29. As well, Jay will inquire with the people who're running this festival, to see who hired this 'Manderley' guy and if they know what he's up to.
Raveled Posted August 24, 2012 Posted August 24, 2012 Blue Jay's Stealth check is Skill Mastery'd at 30.
Ari Posted August 24, 2012 Author Posted August 24, 2012 That is why I chose the word 'almost'! Anyway, Jay recognizes thatKnowledge(Business): "Alfred Manderley" bears an uncanny resemblance to the German-Polish spacecraft engineer Konrad Wlodjyka, whose designs have won him almost as much fame in Europe as his public defense of supervillains. Knowledge(Current Events): Konrad is currently on leave from the European space programme with his wife, Farahilde Moefehnler, one of the CFOs of ThyssenKrupp AG, public whereabouts unknown. Theology and Philosophy don't turn up anything. Notice roll: Succeeds! Jay finds that there are several small pellets concealed in the repair and maintenance work, all emitting an ultra-high frequency exactly like the one he detected earlier coming from "Alfred". The people in charge of hiring the roadies signed on an Alfred Manderley two weeks ago, a man from Wisconsin with over a decade of roadie experience, who had complained the day before of painful headaches that seemed to have receded. He was reassigned to Riff's stage after a dispute with one of the other bands, who accused him of planting something, though they were unable to prove it. To keep the peace, he agreed to a transfer. That Stealth succeeds perfectly, Tona's quarry has no idea she's being followed.
Cubist Posted August 25, 2012 Posted August 25, 2012 So... we've got this guy who's been planting mysterious ultrasonic-emitting devices in sound systems, and has been kicked out of one band's crew for unacceptable behavior. The guy's physical resemblance to a known fan of supervillains in Europe is not comforting, nor is that European gent's evidently high level of technological/scientific expertise. First things first: Whatever the heck those mysterious devices are supposed to do, they don't friggin' belong here, so Jay will find and remove every last one of them. Since the devices emit that weird ultrasonic noise, Jay should have absolutely zero difficulty in locating every last one of them—all he needs to do is follow his ears. Okay... evidence that will stand up in court, just in case… When he's removing a device, Jay will begin by setting up video camera(s) for a permanent record of the removal. He'll use an X-acto knife with an insulated handle to scrape the devices off of whatever spots they're attached to, and once he extracts a device, he'll put it on the sticky side of a length of duct tape (ah, duct tape; is there nothing you can't do?), making sure there's no physical contact between the newly-placed device and any other devices he found and removed earlier. When the length of duct-tape has no more room for new devices, he'll stick it to a kevlar sheet (so that the devices have little or no chance of getting jostled loose) and wrap up the sheet in aluminum foil which should hopefully act as a Faraday cage to kill any signals which might otherwise be received and acted upon by the devices. I'm not entirely sure what sort of game-mechanics apply to the above plan of action, but hopefully Jay's Gadgets power will cover it.
Ari Posted August 25, 2012 Author Posted August 25, 2012 ...Geez, Cubist. I was just angling for a Disable Device roll there. Anyway, tell me what you make with the Gadgets(I'm guessing a setup that uses Nullify(Technology) or something similar?) and we'll see how it goes.
Raveled Posted August 26, 2012 Posted August 26, 2012 So tempted to have Jay sit down next to them and start babbling in French. Sadly, she's not built for that sort of thing, so instead she'll climb another tree (What? It's a park!) and start getting into her costume.
Cubist Posted August 28, 2012 Posted August 28, 2012 The reason Jay decided to just wrap the gadgets up, rather than try to disable them: He doesn't know what sort of fail-safes and booby-traps they're equipped with, so he figures poking around their innards is a worse bet than screwing up their RF reception. Wrapping them with foil… that's a Dazzle versus "radio sense group", you should pardon the expression. Dazzle is normally 1 pt per rank for a single sense group, and is also normally Ranged. In this case, however, it's clearly got no Range at all, so there's a 1-pt Flaw, and that means 1 pt buys 2 ranks (see Fractional Costs, pg 111 in the Core Rulebook). Jube is going to shoot the works -- pour all six of his Gadget Points into it, for Dazzle 12 -- because he's going to make sure the gizmoes cannot and do not receive nor transmit anything..
Ari Posted August 28, 2012 Author Posted August 28, 2012 Works for me, their transmissions are totally blocked and such.
Cubist Posted August 28, 2012 Posted August 28, 2012 Also: What does Jube know of how the human body, and/or nervous system, is affected by hypersonics of the frequencies he's hearing? Jube's got Knowledge (Technology), and can use Jack of All Trades for Knowledge (Life Sciences); Take 20 on both, for 'rolls' of 29 for the Tech skill, and 24 for the Life Sciences skill.
Ari Posted August 28, 2012 Author Posted August 28, 2012 As far as Jay knows, it can't actually affect the human body in any noticeable way.
Cubist Posted August 31, 2012 Posted August 31, 2012 Now that Jay Xavier has all the hypersound devices, what's he going to do with them? Answer: Consult an expert on sonics -- namely, Riff. The Guitar Genius has vast expertise in the field, so he's a great person to ask, eh wot?
Cubist Posted September 1, 2012 Posted September 1, 2012 Some points you should be aware of, Darksider, in case Riff might want to react to them… One, Xavier is carrying all the hypersound-emitting devides on him. They're covered in duct tape and N layers of aluminum foil, so their sounds are probably muffled, but they were emitting those sounds and Xavier tried not to do anything that would interfere with their functioning. Two, Xavier's speech sounds like a vast collection of sound effects (squeaks/pops/hisses/etc) spliced together in close imitation of a normal voice. If his appearance causes double-takes, it only makes sense that his voice would cause notable reactions, as well. Three, you might want to look over Jubatus' Reputation Chart to see what Riff is likely to know about Jube.
Darksider42 Posted September 2, 2012 Posted September 2, 2012 Riff is making some rolls for those little pellet things. Knowledge Technology 15+18=33! Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 14+15=29!
Ari Posted September 2, 2012 Author Posted September 2, 2012 Riff recognizes the pellets from a long-running experiment performed by A.S.T.R.O. Labs a few months back. Spheres of a similar size and design were used to amplify sound waves emitted from speakers, managing to buffet aloft a large ball of iron. There were plans being laid to attach the technology to search & rescue teams, to move debris and help uncover people buried under buildings. Unfortunately, it proved too unwieldy outside of laboratory conditions to be really useful, and has fallen out of public view as of late. These ones, however, have been modified to amplify each other's sonic waves. The sound being emitted from them seems to have no fixed frequency, falling lower and rising higher almost unnoticeably without apparent reason. In fact, its behavior is vaguely similar to human speech.
Cubist Posted September 5, 2012 Posted September 5, 2012 The first thing Jube will do, when he hears that voice saying "Who are you? Where am I?", is locate its source. Cubist expects that source to be the hypersound pellet he didn't reduce to power; whether that's true or not, Jube will use his swivelable ears and also move around, the better to catch any variations in tone and volume and etc. Wherever the voice is coming from, Jube will choose to respond to it as if it genuinely were the simple cry for help it appears to be. No, he doesn't really believe that, but putting up a pretense of acceptance won't hurt anything, right? Jube will say, "My name is Jay, I'm not sure where you are. Can you describe what you see around you?" He'll speak at the voice-source like he's talking to someone right next to him; maybe the voice will respond in kind, maybe it won't. We shall see. If no response, Jube will pick up the foil-wrapped debris of the powdered pellets and head back to Riff.
Ari Posted September 5, 2012 Author Posted September 5, 2012 The source of the voice and noise is all around Jay and a part of all the other sounds he hears. The hypersound pellet that went unsmashed is no longer emitting any noise whatsoever. The source is unmoving and drops radically in volume even if only slightly moving away from it. As for the rest, best thing would be to post Jay doing so IC!
Cubist Posted September 8, 2012 Posted September 8, 2012 "Complutense University"? Cubist hasn't heard of this, but a quick Google reveals a "Universidad Complutense" in Madrid, which suggests that Constance could be a Spaniard. Okay, gonna do some Knowledge (Whatever) rolls, to see what Jube can recall about this 'Complutense University' off the top of his head. We have a Knowledge (Business) roll (1d20+8=25), and a Knowledge (Current Events) roll (1d20+8=17), and a Knowledge (Technology) roll (1d20+9=17), and a Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) roll (1d20+9=12). Also: What language is 'Constance' speaking? If she's 'talking' to Jube thru some sort of telepathic link, this is prolly a moot question, but if there's any actual spoken language involved, perhaps Jube would recognize her tongue. In this context, it may be worth noting that Jube speaks Spanish as well as English (and French, too, but that language is less likely to be involved here).
Ari Posted September 8, 2012 Author Posted September 8, 2012 Constance is speaking English, there's a slight British accent. Business: the Universidad has recently been in superb financial health due to an explosion of extraordinary devices designed by the students there. Current Events: An exhibition was held there a few weeks ago demonstrating several new super-science inventions themed around the manipulation of sound, which was abruptly closed after an inexplicable tragedy occurred during. Chief among the objects being exhibited was a machine capable of transforming other forms of energy into sound. Theology/Philosophy: Most of the student body is of a socially liberal political bent.
Ari Posted September 9, 2012 Author Posted September 9, 2012 Okay, what we have here is a PL8 minion(the 'core essence' or whatever departing with that other version of the man) equipped with the following: STR16 DEX14 CON- INT10 WIS10 CHA 10 ATK: +8, DEF: +6, Init +6, Grapple +11/18 w/Super-STR TOU: +4; FORT-; REF +5; WILL+3 Improved Initiative, Accurate Attack Elongation 2; Immunuity 30(FORT); Protection 4; Snare 7 Super-STR 7 So Fiating that his attack roll for a Snare hits, DC17 REF save.
Raveled Posted September 9, 2012 Posted September 9, 2012 Blue Jay's Reflex save, vs DC 17 Snare. (1d20+12=24) :mrgreen: Hm. So water man has no degree of Insubstantial, then?
Raveled Posted September 10, 2012 Posted September 10, 2012 Blue Jay Def +6. Blue Jay has +15 attack with unarmed. So she can full Power Attack and still hit the bugger. Heck she could go partially Defensive Attack if I wanted to be particularly cheesy. Standard Action: Unarmed attack w/ +5 Power Attack vs. Minion. Taking 10 on attack roll for a 20, hits, DC 25 Toughness save. Move Action: Retreating 30 ft away from the water thing.
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