Just checking in.  Will do more, later...

However... both Insight & Notice skills are under the previous progressive affliction... so you've got a -5 circumstance modifier, making the results:

• 1d20+12 rolled 26 vs DC22 Will Check - successfully resisted!
• 1d20+8 rolled 19 -5 Awareness Affliction == 14 vs DC20 Perception
• 1d20+6 rolled 8 -5 Awareness Affliction == 3 vs DC15 Insight

So:

Insight:
There is a heavy bulk underneath the blanket.  She's hiding something under there.  Is she doing something to him?  She seems wide-eyed.

There is an odd misshapenness to his face, though.  Looks sort of like a sad puppy or a half-melted wax portrait.

Notice:
Hard to tell what he's holding... It's thick enough that he's holding it open-handed.  Like a baseball, or a grenade.

Will:
You successfully resisted.
Your lowered Intelligence & Awareness now return to it's regular level.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:47, Sun 04 Sept 2022.

"Stop this now." Came a growl from Marie as she crested the ledge and looked squarely at the man. "Stop this now or I will make you see horrors no human should ever see." It was clear she was angry, and having issues maintaining control and could lose it at any moment. The was evident by the fact that her normally dimly glowing eyes, were flashing brighter and back to dim again.

[OOC: I played catch-up on the rolls.

21:22, Today: Marie rolled 23 using 1d20+15.  Insight.
21:25, Today: Marie rolled 27 using 1d20+13 with rolls of 14.  Perception.
21:26, Today: Marie rolled 29 using 1d20+9 with rolls of 20.  Will Check.

I love a natural 20 on a Will save. :)

Also I have a feeling that her Emotionally Unbound complication might be coming into play here.]
This message was last edited by the player at 02:36, Wed 07 Sept 2022.

Marie:
1d20+9 rolled 29 vs DC22 Will Check - Critical Success!
1d20+13 rolled 27 -5 Awareness Affliction == 22 vs DC20 Perception
1d20+25 rolled 23 -5 Awareness Affliction == 18 vs DC15 Insight

Insight:
If it wasn't absolutely honest this was most definitely not a date.  Though, apparently, the pudgy guy wanted it to be.   The girl is sitting because she can't move.  There's a blanket there, but her legs are too closely together.  So, she's either tied or something else is restricting her movement below the waist.

Perception:
Of all things, the pudgy guy appears to be holding... a potato.  He's clutching it with white-knuckled determination.

If you recall some of my bitching about work-woes, this might actually make sense from a metagame standpoint.

Either way, you've made the Will resist, and that also serves to break free from the current affliction.   So, your Awareness & Intelligence return to normal.

Glen froze when Virginia spoke up.   Comically, he spun one way, then the other, but didn't actually see Virginia right off.  He frowned and squinted and shook his head.

Then the pudgy guy looked down at his hand at the rock--grenade?--he was holding.  And his eyes went wide like saucers.  "Oh. My. God."  he whispered with reverential awe. "I'm the fucking smartest god-damn thing ever!"


Then Marie made her appearance.

"Stop this now or I will make you see horrors no human should ever see." Marie's eyes flashed brightly.

"No!" The pudgy guy yelped, and he actually stumbled back three steps, lifting the potato up as if it would be a ward against Marie and Virginia--who he still hadn't seen yet, being so small in her fairy form. "No, no, no!  You can't take this away from me!  She Loves me!  She has to!  She just hasn't seen it yet!"

Klara, however, had seen Virginia pretty much right off the bat, and had watched with fascination as the little fairy had taken a position over the Dawg Bites take-out food boxes.  She cocked her head to one side and shook her own head, bizarrely mirroring Glen's own head-shake for entirely different reasons.

When Marie made her appearance, Klara's eyes also went wide though more tinged with confusion than anything else.

When Glen made his protestations that she just had to love him, her attention snapped back and clarity came back into her expression.  Her mouth set in a cold hard line.

"No, actually."  She said, slowly, coldly. "I don't.  I don't even know you! You were some guy I TA's for, like, a year ago! I tried to tell you nicely, but you didn't get the hint.  I don't love you.  "

The pudgy guy fairly crumpled as if he'd been run through the center of his chest.

"No!" he screamed and the echoes of it bounced off some of the Auditorium and the Chem Lab, possibly even the Life Sciences building.

Glen took three quick steps to stand over Klara...

And.... now's the time to roll for initiative...

Glen rolled 19
Klara rolled 18
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:11, Thu 08 Sept 2022.

23:24, Today: Virginia rolled 21 using 1d20+4 Initiative

"Virginia, that one is our target." Marie said as she pointed to Glen. Marie's voice was cold, but it lost it's emotionless tone. She was full of fury and anger now. Which if everything that is said about her is true, is bad. Very bad for everyone. "Also, she's either tied down, or cannot move because of something below the waist from what I can tell."

Then she looked towards Glen. "You are not as smart as you think Glen. You might think that is a grenade, but I am a fucking nuclear bomb. If you have ever heard of the Mind Dagger, you should be reconsidering your answer right now. I. Am. Her." She was hoping that her bad reputation would play out here. She didn't want things to escalate because she was not sure how much longer she could maintain control.

[OOC:23:10, Today: Marie rolled 6 using 1d20+4 with rolls of 2.  Initiative.

Welp, guess I'm last. But that could work to my benefit!]

Okay, so here's how combat works in RPOL.

I have pre-defined the NPCs moves in a GM-only private-line.

Tell me what you wanna do.

You can do conditionals (if-then-else) only on folks who are lower on the initiative ranking, but doing so moves you to their position in the initiative for that round.

If your action is made unavailable by the actions of those higher-up the initiative roster (like trying to punch the speedster who's moved way out of range earlier in the round)... well, the story defines what happens.  That's still the action you took.  Mind you, the same thing happens for the bad guys--which is why I predefine their actions each round.

I will build an action-list and eventually fill it all out with the actions & numbers as we go, to support the narrative that we build.

Our initiative roster is:

And, in case it wasn't obvious PC Allies are Blue, Enemies are Red, NPC allies are Purple, NPC unknowns are Gray.


Ooops.  I suppose I coulda put the To-Hit defenses up, since they're not rolled.

Glen's DCs:
Dodge DC13 (for ranged attacks)
Parry DC12 (for close combat attacks)
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:15, Fri 09 Sept 2022.

Virginia was embarrassed for the young man. He was making a terrible scene. Nevertheless, she needed to get his attention.
"Stop!" she shouted!
Wasting no time she leapt from the table into the air, grabbing the top of a chair as she went. Using her disproportionate strength she brought it up, around, and over her head, hurling it at him for all she was worth!

17:34, Today: Virginia rolled 26 using 1d20+6.  To throw chair at pudgy guy.
Booyah! Natural 20! Fairy celebration!
I think I did that right?? It has been a minute.
Plus I thought to dust and then cause an effect would take too long.

@Virginia

Yup, you did it right!
You rolled 1d20(20) + Dexterity:0 + Ranged Combat:6 = Thrown Chair Attack (+26).
A Natural 20 is an automatic success and generates a threat!

As a critical hit, you get to pick one:

1. Add +5 to the effect (damage) resistance DC he's got to roll against
   
2. Add an additional effect at DC15 (for damage) or DC10 (for some other effect that's not damage), but it must make narrative sense (like "Dazzle" to represent momentary dizziness, etc)
   
3. Choose to do an alternate effect (that isn't listed on your character sheet) instead of the straight thrown-chair damage, but unlike normal alternate effects, this wouldn't cost you any fatigue.

--
Only other side note here is that in my build for her, I hadn't defined the nature of the ranged attack.  If you use it this way here, then this will be defined specifically for THROW attacks--no other ranged attacks.  The Ranged attack skill doesn't apply to all ranged attacks.  So, Shooting a gun, bow, blow-dart, ranged dusting, etc... that won't get the bonus.

So, your call.
What kind of attack gets the ranged combat skill +6 bonus?

It's either:

• Thrown chair(+26) with Ranged Combat(Throw):+6 OR
• Thrown chair(+20) without it.

Both of them will be a success vs Glen's Dodge DC13.  Both of them are critical hits.   The first will get you a maximum of 3 degrees of the resulting effect.  The second will get you a maximum of 2 degrees of resulting effects.

@Marie
I agree that this situation is likely well aligned with her complication...

I'm kinda walking the line because I don't want to go all iron-age dark gritty grimdark in tone for the game...

So... how would it come into play to actually be a complication in this scene?  I'm kinda having some difficulty seeing it...  Well, I have some ideas, but not right at this immediate juncture.    Any thoughts?

The ranged combat +6 bonus should definitely be for hitting people with fairy dust!
The Natural 20 effect... let's do the Dazzle. That just makes the most sense. Being hit by a chair sounds like it would disorient you for a moment.

Side note I had thought about just throwing the food at him. But the tone thing, I was not certain of how deadly the threat was. Would the food throw have been a wasted move? Would going medieval on him be too much? Throwing the chair seemed like a good medium.
But the food, that would have been so funny with the natural 20! :-D

I'm of the opinion that I set the general tone of the game through narrative and NPC interactions.  You guys... well, you can do whatever you want--and that will also set the tone.   I just don't want to spend a lot of time deep-diving into the horror.  It doesn't mean the horror doesn't exist... just that we aren't focusing on it.

So, yeah, the food woulda been funny.  But both serve.

Virginia hefted the chair and, even in her diminutive form, she flung it at Glen.

Glen, entirely oblivious and confused as to why the chair had been moving in the first place, couldn't comprehend what was happening, and so he couldn't dodge it.  The chair hit him, knocking him back a step or two.

He looked horrified and his eyes darted left and right.

The thing in his hand seemed to glow with a greenish light, as Glen set his jaw in stubborn determination.

He took several steps to the table and grabbed the first thing that came to hand--one of the take-out boxes--and flung it with a short, strangled scream, at Marie who was still floating above him menace unadultered in her eyes.

The take-out box missed, of course, but the contents of the box, a cheeseburger and fries, with lots of ketchup, splattered across Marie's front.

Glen dove behind the girl grabbing her by the shoulders.  She looked utterly terrified as Glen loomed closer.

"Klara Morten!" Cortez called out, his voice oddly displaced.  "We're here to save you!"

"It's the Potato!"  She screamed.

The ketchup was the last straw.   Marie reached a hand out almost lazily, and touched Glen's mind...

--
OOC:  Marie I'm sorry if I wasn't clear on the process.  I was looking for an action from you so that I could build the entire scene.  It wasn't a post in initiative order thing because RPOL is asynchronous and it'd make us wait even longer that just waiting on me...   I chose an action that seemed in line with what you had described.

That being said... Can you describe what Marie's putting into Glens mind as the illusion?

Also... of course this whole situation fits with her complication.  So of course you get the hero-point for that!

This message was last edited by the player at 17:52, Sat 24 Sept 2022.

And, here's the mechanical breakdown...

I won't be doing this all the time, but I really need to refresh myself on the mechanics.

• Virginia - threw one of the picnic chairs at Glen
  
  • rolled 1d20(20) + Dexterity:0 = Attack (+20)
    
    • Glen rolled Toughness(+14) vs Damage(18) and takes 1 degree of damage
    • Glen also takes on the Impaired (Visual) condition because of the critical hit "Dazzle" effect.
      He's now at -2 for visual senses.
• Glen throws a take-out box at Marie:
  
  • rolled 1d20(+5) - Dazzled(-2) - Dexterity(-1) = Attack(+2) - FAILED to HIT
  • Glen dives beside Klara, partially hiding behind her.
• Klara screams - immobile, cannot get away from Glen
• Marie (via GM Fiat) - Cast Illusions on Glen at full power
  
  • GM rolled 1d20(+18) + Illusion(+10) = DC28
    
    • Glen rolled Will(+11) vs DC28 - Glen FAILED the WILL check
• Cortez lands on the roof on the far side - passed STEALTH check
  
  • Rolled Calm(+15) effect vs Klara's WILL resistance(+24) - Cortez Failed to calm Klara
  • Attempted to Resist Glen's mental affliction - FAILED the WILL check, he's still with the INT/AWE decrease

This message was last edited by the GM at 17:46, Sat 24 Sept 2022.

Next Round:


Glen's DCs:
Dodge DC13 (for ranged attacks)
Parry DC12 (for close combat attacks)
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:46, Sat 24 Sept 2022.

Virginia did not know what "It's the Potato!" meant but the shriek alarmed her. It was go time!
She flew right into his face and took a swing with her fist. If he had not seen her already, he would now!

20:42, Today: Virginia rolled 22 using 1d20+2.  to punch Glenn.
Booyah!

It's always Frustrating when a Player goes dark during combat.  I mean, we could all see it coming and I hope to hell Marie's player gets through the darkness, no pun intended.   I'll call it a lesson and shorten the ramp-up substantially in the next chapter.  I dragged our heels for way too long on this one.

• Virginia punched Glen - Straight Strength-based damage roll.
  
  • Virginia rolled 1d20(20)+2 for a ToHit(22) vs (Glen's Dodge(12) + Impaired/Dizzy(-2) - Definitely a SUCCESS
  • Virginia has a Raw Attack of 15 + Strength(6) or Attack(21)
    
    • Glen rolled (Toughness(+14) + Bruised(-1)) vs Virginia's Attack(21) for 8-points of Damage or two degrees of failure
    • Therefore, Glen now takes:
      
      • An additional rank of bruised - All his Toughness checks are now at -2
      • He also takes on the Dazed condition (limited to Free actions and a single Standard action)
• Glen tries to use Klara as a human shield, seemingly more worried about whatever Marie had done to him than Virginia's obvious presence.
  
  • Glen now has partial cover
• Klara was having none of that and though she was still immobile--both legs in a full-leg cast--she too started hitting Glen.  (Shje's right thyere, so Glen is not partially covered from her)
  
  • Glen  takes another Bruised level (-3 now) and since Dazed is already on the board, he's now also Staggered (moving at half normal speed)
• Marie Telekinetically hit the potato out of Glen'd hand
  
  • She drops the mental illusion
  • Disarm Attack using Move Object is a Ranged Attack, so 1d20(+16) + Dexterity(+4) + Ranged Attack Advantage(+5) + Disarm Action(-2) + Partial Cover(-2) = Attack(21) vs DC13 - Easily a success
  • Glen rolls 1d20(+5) + Toughness(+2) + Bruised(-3) for Resistance(+4) vs Move Object(12) for 2 degrees of failure.
  • The potato  goes flying from <Red>Glen's hand</Red>

This message was last edited by the GM at 04:14, Wed 05 Oct 2022.

Virginia whalloped Glen right in the face, but his eyes were wide and horrified and his mouth was twisted in a rictus scream of silent torment.  Whatever he was facing, feeling, he was consumed by it.  Hitting him was almost too easy!

The force of Virginia's blow forced Glen' to rock back and, for a moment, there seemed to be a moment of clarity, a semblance of awareness.  His eyes shifted to the girl, still sitting against the roof-top HVAC unit, and his lips contorted into a snarl of rage.

He fairly dove behind her, sending the remaining take-out carton scrambling in a spray of ketchup and french-fries.

The girl screamed and slapped Glen across the cheek, sending him staggering to one side, almost into the RTU.

He crouched down, but even as he did so, his wrist snapped back as a bright glowing blue hand seemed to come out of nowhere and slap him.  The thing he'd clutched in his hand went flying to the ground at the far end of the rooftop, against the raised lip, where it spun for a moment.

It was exactly as Klara had said.  It was a lumpy, misshapen potato. But it was green potato.  Almost glowing with some sort of insidious energy.

"Woah." Cortez said as he stepped around the corner to scoop it up.  "That's rather unsettling."

In Cortez hand, the potato did... nothing.   He looked at Glen, who cowered behind Klara and glowered at him, and then glanced again at Virginia and Marie.  "And it's suddenly a lot quieter."  He said.  I hadn't been aware of the background noise.  I just assumed it was the usual inane chatter of the student body..."

Marie:
True enough, there had been a low-level of background noise, not unlike a hissing on an old record stuck at the end of a track with the needle endlessly playing over the same vinyl  end-point.  With what mastery and training she'd learned to keep her powers in check, she'd built up the psychic defense and automatically filtered it out.  But with it gone she could sense it by it's absence.  The potato?  Or Glen?

Glen is still cowering and glowering, but he's not really in much of a fighting condition...  What do you want to do now?  With Marie MIA and dealing with real-life stuff, it's your lead, Virginia.

We can RP it or talk about it... how do you wanna wrap up the scene?

I'mma gonna start on the introduction of Gezri, so will be starting a new thread for Punching Bag and Virginia with options for the others to step in when ready...

So to end the scene. With Glen sort of cowered I would have dusted and gravity pinned him while we freed Klara. Let's say I sent her down with Marie to meet EMT's to take her to the hospital for an evaluation to make sure she was ok.

I would have called in the mutant cop division we were talking to at the start to deal with and assess Glen.

Then I would confer with the professor over exactly what the green potato actually was. And decide if that was something I felt I should take for safe keeping or hand over to....?

Jesus, I let time slip by me again.  I'm sorry.

Okay.  To wrap up.   The potato Glen had been clutching is indeed a weird and wonderful thing.  And Glen will whine when it is taken into custody...

Eventual research shows that Glen is a biology major.  He's not a particularly good one.  But he has a work-study job tending the garden in the Life-Sciences greenhouse, where, apparently, this potato--and others--were cultivated.  This had to do with one of his directed-studies courses.

The three hot-spots on campus correspond with various incidents of Glen's emotional abuses... from his point of view, of course.

• Dawg Bites - where Glen had had a part-time job.  He was recently fired for wasting time and accusations of tampering with the food...  particularly interested in the french fried.
• Guthrie Hall (Psychology) - Glen apparently approached Klara, who had been a TA in one of Glen's electives.  She turned down his advances but has zero memory of such.  He made that much of an impression.  It was only with Cortez help that she was able to dredge up the memory.
• Red Square - Glen approached Klara again and was turned down in a rather public manner that  had a couple of people laughing at him--well he thought so, anyway.  And that caused another meltdown.

One of the possible clusters coincides with Glen's off-campus residence.   The other... unknown.

But.  bottom line.  The potatoes do appear to be related, somehow to Exalt.

Jeez, that really did take a long time to get there, didn't it?  I'll try to make the next scenarios short and uncomplicated!