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terryclothTonight was the first session of Murdock's BESM game. We did a bunch of stuff, but it was all utterly futile. Snowwy, who'd complained about not being able to min-max his character properly, demonstrated a ludicrously twinky combo... that I plan to pick up for myself next time it's time to add points to characters, so that I can do enough damage to destroy the earth, one time in six.
Umbra, Nathaniel, and Sam were being briefed about a mission to locate additional parts of a strange crystal, when a camera showing scientists testing the crystal went dead under suspicious circumstances. They were immediately dispatched to the bottom floor of the secret base to check it out.
The room on the bottom floor was filled with smoke. Nathaniel made a shield to keep the smoke out so they could breathe, and they slowly moved through the room... but they couldn't see. Every now and then, a strange creature would swipe at the shield, then dart back out of sight into the smoke... Umbra sent a ghost out to investigate, and it was immediately killed. What finally took down the shield, though, was a brilliant laser.
Umbra next released a huge bird that blew away some of the smoke, letting the party see the outlines of two humanoid and two wolf-like figures. One lept over the party's head and ran out of sight, while the other stuck around and directed the wolves, which started fighting Umbra's bird and cloak.
Sam got one of the wolves' attention, and then blew its brains out. Nathaniel snuck close to the remaining humanoid and tried to control her mind: "Let's talk this over!"
"It isn't yours," she said, leaping over his head and running for the elevator as well. He got a good enough look to tell that (a) she was naked, (b) she was covered in fur, and (c) she didn't have the artifact. Obviously, the first person to flee had had it.
Sam wasn't about to let her get away, though, so he blasted her with a powerful shot that threw her 200 yards through solid bedrock. She was unharmed, but unconscious.
While Sam and Umbra tried to clean up the mess and take samples, Nathaniel looked for a way to contact security and/or get to the roof for a quick locating spell. He made it up one floor and got distracted by the organization's vault of previously captured artifacts...
...but eventually a response happened, and the locating spell was cast. The crystal was moving away quickly! Nathaniel and Umbra and Sam got in a van and kept a locator ritual going while tailing the suspect. They followed it into a park, dodging the occasional bicycler or hiker on the narrow maintenance road they had to follow, until they couldn't drive any further.
Umbra picked up Sam and went incorporeal, then flew rapidly after the blip, while Nathaniel kept the ritual going and directed them. They reached the designated coordinates -- the signal had stopped moving -- but there was no sign of the creature they'd assumed they'd been chasing, or the crystal whose signature they'd been actually following.
Poking about in the area, they managed to set off (or possibly, just managed to be present for) a weird display of light and native american script, after which the signal was no longer traceable. They took pictures of the event, and rubbings of the marks left on the trees, and brought them back to headquarters for translation.
While waiting on that, they decided to attempt to interrogate the prisoner. Nathaniel tried to mind-control her again, but she resisted. Again. Umbra offered to try, but she'd covered the camera and for mind control one needs to see the target.
So they tried just talking to her, to no avail. Perhaps truth drugs are in order?
They still have one more lead, the location of an additional crystal fragment in another state. If the prisoner won't talk, they'll have to follow up there.
next week
Basically, it seemed sometimes that everything we tried was futile, for no apparent reason. Our characters had powers that should have let us track and stop the enemy, and get the girl to talk, but they just didn't work. Is that how BESM is supposed to be run?
With that and the stupidly unbalanced combat system (4 pt for a level 1 melee attack requiring 5 energy points to fire and doing backblast damage in a radius at a -1 bonus to accuracy does 90 points of damage. 1 pt 'Kensai' skill gives you a -3 bonus to accuracy when trying to hit a 'vital area'. Hitting a vital area is a +4 penalty, and gives a MINIMUM of double damage, and up to quadruple. Quadruple damage will be 360 points, enough to badly damage a large planet, and destroy it after three hits. Take that as an item of power, for 2 character points. Or instead, for the same price, you could have the ability to create a sight-only illusion of a human-sized figure.) I have to say I'm extremely anti-impressed with BESM.
Umbra, Nathaniel, and Sam were being briefed about a mission to locate additional parts of a strange crystal, when a camera showing scientists testing the crystal went dead under suspicious circumstances. They were immediately dispatched to the bottom floor of the secret base to check it out.
The room on the bottom floor was filled with smoke. Nathaniel made a shield to keep the smoke out so they could breathe, and they slowly moved through the room... but they couldn't see. Every now and then, a strange creature would swipe at the shield, then dart back out of sight into the smoke... Umbra sent a ghost out to investigate, and it was immediately killed. What finally took down the shield, though, was a brilliant laser.
Umbra next released a huge bird that blew away some of the smoke, letting the party see the outlines of two humanoid and two wolf-like figures. One lept over the party's head and ran out of sight, while the other stuck around and directed the wolves, which started fighting Umbra's bird and cloak.
Sam got one of the wolves' attention, and then blew its brains out. Nathaniel snuck close to the remaining humanoid and tried to control her mind: "Let's talk this over!"
"It isn't yours," she said, leaping over his head and running for the elevator as well. He got a good enough look to tell that (a) she was naked, (b) she was covered in fur, and (c) she didn't have the artifact. Obviously, the first person to flee had had it.
Sam wasn't about to let her get away, though, so he blasted her with a powerful shot that threw her 200 yards through solid bedrock. She was unharmed, but unconscious.
While Sam and Umbra tried to clean up the mess and take samples, Nathaniel looked for a way to contact security and/or get to the roof for a quick locating spell. He made it up one floor and got distracted by the organization's vault of previously captured artifacts...
...but eventually a response happened, and the locating spell was cast. The crystal was moving away quickly! Nathaniel and Umbra and Sam got in a van and kept a locator ritual going while tailing the suspect. They followed it into a park, dodging the occasional bicycler or hiker on the narrow maintenance road they had to follow, until they couldn't drive any further.
Umbra picked up Sam and went incorporeal, then flew rapidly after the blip, while Nathaniel kept the ritual going and directed them. They reached the designated coordinates -- the signal had stopped moving -- but there was no sign of the creature they'd assumed they'd been chasing, or the crystal whose signature they'd been actually following.
Poking about in the area, they managed to set off (or possibly, just managed to be present for) a weird display of light and native american script, after which the signal was no longer traceable. They took pictures of the event, and rubbings of the marks left on the trees, and brought them back to headquarters for translation.
While waiting on that, they decided to attempt to interrogate the prisoner. Nathaniel tried to mind-control her again, but she resisted. Again. Umbra offered to try, but she'd covered the camera and for mind control one needs to see the target.
So they tried just talking to her, to no avail. Perhaps truth drugs are in order?
They still have one more lead, the location of an additional crystal fragment in another state. If the prisoner won't talk, they'll have to follow up there.
next week
Basically, it seemed sometimes that everything we tried was futile, for no apparent reason. Our characters had powers that should have let us track and stop the enemy, and get the girl to talk, but they just didn't work. Is that how BESM is supposed to be run?
With that and the stupidly unbalanced combat system (4 pt for a level 1 melee attack requiring 5 energy points to fire and doing backblast damage in a radius at a -1 bonus to accuracy does 90 points of damage. 1 pt 'Kensai' skill gives you a -3 bonus to accuracy when trying to hit a 'vital area'. Hitting a vital area is a +4 penalty, and gives a MINIMUM of double damage, and up to quadruple. Quadruple damage will be 360 points, enough to badly damage a large planet, and destroy it after three hits. Take that as an item of power, for 2 character points. Or instead, for the same price, you could have the ability to create a sight-only illusion of a human-sized figure.) I have to say I'm extremely anti-impressed with BESM.
