Boss Fight!
Oct. 9th, 2010 05:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothSo, Friday night we finished up the GURPS game with a boss fight. The boss was something like a 2000 point character (I didn't work out all the points, but he had most stats at 30 including, like, magery, and at least 200 points of wealth... and three levels of increased time rate so that he got to take four actions per turn) and so the party had to cheat rather heavily to kill him. Which was the idea, of course.
As the Lord of the City reappeared from his timeshift, he started casting a whirlwind to fling shard of glass around. The soldier who was standing right next to him (he'd dislodged the wrecked telecaster that had been keeping the lord from shifting back in) was flung back, but not too badly hurt because the 'crappy armor' (in the party's opinion) that the soldiers wore was, in fact, designed to resist shrapnel.
Carnelian ate a powerup, and suddenly there were two of her -- she'd used the clone! This was part of her cunning plan.
Gamble tried to shoot the lord with his modern pistols, but the satyr was wearing a weird, spiky armor that looked like it was part of the skyplant, and the bullets didn't penetrate. The soldier fired back with his laser, which was a lot more effective -- it didn't kill the lord instantly (or even really hurt him that bad) but it did burn through the armor at least.
Meanwhile, the lord -- while maintaining the whirlwind -- cast a couple more spells and flung an Eviscerate at one of Carnelian, but missed. Serene had mage sight up from earlier, and noticed that something was restoring the lord's mana whenever he cast a spell -- something that wasn't anywhere nearby; it was sensing the lord's casting through a limit spell and probably feeding him mana through an arcane connection. Hey -- she had a spell designed to stop this sort of thing, so she cast it, and put a big zone of 'no remotely triggered spells allowed' in the middle of the room, with the lord standing in it. The lord next tried to cast a big nasty doom spell on her, and not only did she resist, but he became slightly fatigued. What the hell?
While the Carnelians each ate an upgrade powerup and vanished, Gamble ran up (using her shield to block the glass shards as she ran through the still-building tornado) to try to stun the lord with her sword, and while she couldn't cut through the plant, the feriphal spine stun effect ignored armor and drained a little more of the lord's fatigue -- enough that he noticed that something was wrong, cast a mage sight to spot the effect, and tried to move out of it. But just as he stepped outside, Serene whipped out a taser and shot him in the chest. He was too arrogant to dodge (actually, he wanted to be damaged while outside the field so that his remotely triggered healing spell would heal him back to full) and somehow the taser effect zapped him with full force despite his many-times-boosted constitution, dropping him to the ground, writhing in pain.
[Serene: "He has to make a health check at -6."
GM: "You know his health is 30, right? ... okay, that's an automatic fail. I guess he's... tasered. What does that do?"]
So Gamble dragged him back into Serene's no-trigger circle, and held him there. He tried to break loose a couple times, but didn't seem to be applying his full strength, or perhaps he'd just never prioritized strength, and Gamble was able to hold him. Serene and the soldier shot him with various weapons until he got fed up and timeshifted out. Gamble and the soldier quickly re-set the shattered telecaster to block him from shifting back in again, thinking that they could prepare things for his return and really slam him when he got back.
Meanwhile, the two Carnelians finished their extradimensional conversations with the Father and returned with new powers. One of them was a powerful mana dampener, that could actually negate all mana in a 20 yard radius when she wanted. The other was a super-powerful physical warrior, specializing in guns, who would run up and shoot him once the mana was negated. But... he was timeshifted out, so... not yet.
But while he was timeshifted, the giant spider started to attack, thrusting its legs in through the walls randomly! It nearly killed both Carnelians, but they'd thrown themselves to the ground ahead of time, which turned it into a glancing hit that they could dodge. It also almost hit Gamble and the soldier, but wasn't quite on target to impale them and just knocked them aside with roughly as much force as a gunshot.
Serene had been waiting for this -- she went insubstantial, cast foolishness on the giant spider to reduce its will, and then possessed it. It didn't have many skills, and she didn't get its memories per se, but... wait a second, someone else was in here! The lord of the city was controlling the spider while he was timeshifted!
The two of them had a contest of wills to try to force the other out of the spider! The lord was much stronger willed, but wasn't able to focus his overwhelming advantage into overwhelming attacks [because of the rule of 16]. Still, each of his attacks *could* have ejected Serene... but none of them did, and she was the first to get a critical hit, and seized total control of the spider. She looked around to try to spot the lord's spirit form since he'd been ejected, but... no. No sign of it. Weird.
Still, that took care of the big spider, and with the lord timeshifted, there was no other immediate threat. She tapped on the tower and waved to try to let the others know it was safe, and eventually they got the idea. They let the lord timeshift in, and Carnelian B flipped on her mana dampener!
This actually worked better than they'd planned. Not only did it negate the lord's magic, but his armor vanished, and he collapsed to the ground, screaming and holding his head, as his connection to the skyplant was temporarily severed. Carnelian A stabbed him repeatedly, which didn't kill him.
Lord: "Stop... if you kill me... you'll suffer the same fate..."
That wasn't enough to stop her. She cut off his head... which didn't kill him. She stabbed him in the brain... which didn't kill him. Someone pointed out that maybe they should kill him with the magic turned on so that the title would transfer properly, since it was probably a magical effect, so Carnelian B turned it back on for the coup de grace. Um, that didn't do it. Let's try again...
GM: "Okay, make 250,000 fright checks as you link to all the spiders. Or, we can just say you're instantly driven insane."
Carnelian. "That's okay! I planned for this!"
The other Carnelian ran up before the insane Carnelian could do anything stupid, and used a 'cure chronic' powerup on her, which healed her of her immediate insanity. She was still under a lot of mental stress, but she was able to hold her own for long enough to get another upgrade and give herself the mental resiliance to deal with being the lord of the city -- and more importantly, of the skyplant -- without going bonkers.
Then the giant spider with Serene inside climbed down the tower into the main city square, and started dancing, until the sun finally rose over the horizon.
The aftermath was fairly non-apocalyptic, since there was a new, *sane* Lord allied with the Invaders. Carnelian did take down the skyplant, storing it off in various remote valleys and islands in case they ever needed it again, which freed the sun to once more circle the moon. The Federation did come in and take over, but it was a peaceful annexation that left the local government in charge of local affairs. The Templars were brought to heel, and their order banned, but there were no mass executions or anything. Serene starting working on researching a cure for the spider transformation -- since as the new Lord, Carnelian was aware that the people turned into spiders were still themselves inside, just under her direct control whenever she wanted them to be -- and for the maenad plague.
And everyone lived happily ever after. More or less.
last session | next session, different campaign
Next, Keith (who was playing Gamble) is going to GM a Champions game. Most of us have character ideas; we spent the rest of the session working on them a little, but not everyone was finished by the and. I've been finished for *months* of course. 9.9
As the Lord of the City reappeared from his timeshift, he started casting a whirlwind to fling shard of glass around. The soldier who was standing right next to him (he'd dislodged the wrecked telecaster that had been keeping the lord from shifting back in) was flung back, but not too badly hurt because the 'crappy armor' (in the party's opinion) that the soldiers wore was, in fact, designed to resist shrapnel.
Carnelian ate a powerup, and suddenly there were two of her -- she'd used the clone! This was part of her cunning plan.
Gamble tried to shoot the lord with his modern pistols, but the satyr was wearing a weird, spiky armor that looked like it was part of the skyplant, and the bullets didn't penetrate. The soldier fired back with his laser, which was a lot more effective -- it didn't kill the lord instantly (or even really hurt him that bad) but it did burn through the armor at least.
Meanwhile, the lord -- while maintaining the whirlwind -- cast a couple more spells and flung an Eviscerate at one of Carnelian, but missed. Serene had mage sight up from earlier, and noticed that something was restoring the lord's mana whenever he cast a spell -- something that wasn't anywhere nearby; it was sensing the lord's casting through a limit spell and probably feeding him mana through an arcane connection. Hey -- she had a spell designed to stop this sort of thing, so she cast it, and put a big zone of 'no remotely triggered spells allowed' in the middle of the room, with the lord standing in it. The lord next tried to cast a big nasty doom spell on her, and not only did she resist, but he became slightly fatigued. What the hell?
While the Carnelians each ate an upgrade powerup and vanished, Gamble ran up (using her shield to block the glass shards as she ran through the still-building tornado) to try to stun the lord with her sword, and while she couldn't cut through the plant, the feriphal spine stun effect ignored armor and drained a little more of the lord's fatigue -- enough that he noticed that something was wrong, cast a mage sight to spot the effect, and tried to move out of it. But just as he stepped outside, Serene whipped out a taser and shot him in the chest. He was too arrogant to dodge (actually, he wanted to be damaged while outside the field so that his remotely triggered healing spell would heal him back to full) and somehow the taser effect zapped him with full force despite his many-times-boosted constitution, dropping him to the ground, writhing in pain.
[Serene: "He has to make a health check at -6."
GM: "You know his health is 30, right? ... okay, that's an automatic fail. I guess he's... tasered. What does that do?"]
So Gamble dragged him back into Serene's no-trigger circle, and held him there. He tried to break loose a couple times, but didn't seem to be applying his full strength, or perhaps he'd just never prioritized strength, and Gamble was able to hold him. Serene and the soldier shot him with various weapons until he got fed up and timeshifted out. Gamble and the soldier quickly re-set the shattered telecaster to block him from shifting back in again, thinking that they could prepare things for his return and really slam him when he got back.
Meanwhile, the two Carnelians finished their extradimensional conversations with the Father and returned with new powers. One of them was a powerful mana dampener, that could actually negate all mana in a 20 yard radius when she wanted. The other was a super-powerful physical warrior, specializing in guns, who would run up and shoot him once the mana was negated. But... he was timeshifted out, so... not yet.
But while he was timeshifted, the giant spider started to attack, thrusting its legs in through the walls randomly! It nearly killed both Carnelians, but they'd thrown themselves to the ground ahead of time, which turned it into a glancing hit that they could dodge. It also almost hit Gamble and the soldier, but wasn't quite on target to impale them and just knocked them aside with roughly as much force as a gunshot.
Serene had been waiting for this -- she went insubstantial, cast foolishness on the giant spider to reduce its will, and then possessed it. It didn't have many skills, and she didn't get its memories per se, but... wait a second, someone else was in here! The lord of the city was controlling the spider while he was timeshifted!
The two of them had a contest of wills to try to force the other out of the spider! The lord was much stronger willed, but wasn't able to focus his overwhelming advantage into overwhelming attacks [because of the rule of 16]. Still, each of his attacks *could* have ejected Serene... but none of them did, and she was the first to get a critical hit, and seized total control of the spider. She looked around to try to spot the lord's spirit form since he'd been ejected, but... no. No sign of it. Weird.
Still, that took care of the big spider, and with the lord timeshifted, there was no other immediate threat. She tapped on the tower and waved to try to let the others know it was safe, and eventually they got the idea. They let the lord timeshift in, and Carnelian B flipped on her mana dampener!
This actually worked better than they'd planned. Not only did it negate the lord's magic, but his armor vanished, and he collapsed to the ground, screaming and holding his head, as his connection to the skyplant was temporarily severed. Carnelian A stabbed him repeatedly, which didn't kill him.
Lord: "Stop... if you kill me... you'll suffer the same fate..."
That wasn't enough to stop her. She cut off his head... which didn't kill him. She stabbed him in the brain... which didn't kill him. Someone pointed out that maybe they should kill him with the magic turned on so that the title would transfer properly, since it was probably a magical effect, so Carnelian B turned it back on for the coup de grace. Um, that didn't do it. Let's try again...
GM: "Okay, make 250,000 fright checks as you link to all the spiders. Or, we can just say you're instantly driven insane."
Carnelian. "That's okay! I planned for this!"
The other Carnelian ran up before the insane Carnelian could do anything stupid, and used a 'cure chronic' powerup on her, which healed her of her immediate insanity. She was still under a lot of mental stress, but she was able to hold her own for long enough to get another upgrade and give herself the mental resiliance to deal with being the lord of the city -- and more importantly, of the skyplant -- without going bonkers.
Then the giant spider with Serene inside climbed down the tower into the main city square, and started dancing, until the sun finally rose over the horizon.
The aftermath was fairly non-apocalyptic, since there was a new, *sane* Lord allied with the Invaders. Carnelian did take down the skyplant, storing it off in various remote valleys and islands in case they ever needed it again, which freed the sun to once more circle the moon. The Federation did come in and take over, but it was a peaceful annexation that left the local government in charge of local affairs. The Templars were brought to heel, and their order banned, but there were no mass executions or anything. Serene starting working on researching a cure for the spider transformation -- since as the new Lord, Carnelian was aware that the people turned into spiders were still themselves inside, just under her direct control whenever she wanted them to be -- and for the maenad plague.
And everyone lived happily ever after. More or less.
last session | next session, different campaign
Next, Keith (who was playing Gamble) is going to GM a Champions game. Most of us have character ideas; we spent the rest of the session working on them a little, but not everyone was finished by the and. I've been finished for *months* of course. 9.9
