Duvors

Enson frowned in annoyance as his spell failed. He hadn't expected any better but it was still irritating. Taking a moment to examine the situation he realized that Kleeck was dangerously close to death. Gritting his teeth he once again tried to reach out through the ether, though this time trying for a different effect. Enson will cast Healing Light on Kleeck.

See my comment in the quest thread. And I think Obfuscate is an illusion spell of some description so I think you'd have to describe the illusion you're casting and what effect you want it to have. Also, your character has no points in Arcana, Nature, Religion, or Occult so you can't cast Obfuscate to begin with. Also, since this is the second time you've responded to something I've said out-of-character in character I think I need to explain and demonstrate the format my posts use: Whenever Lord Duvors has posted in an in character topic using the third-person past tense that has been an in character description of his character's actions and emotional state. Occasionally this has also given insight into the character's thoughts from an outside perspective. "When something is contained by quotation marks that indicates something that the character has actually said. If something isn't contained in quotation marks then it wasn't stated verbally in any capacity." Lord Duvors will write in italics with occasional bolded words in the future tense using terse language to describe his character's actions in a mechanical sense. Such statements will be out-of-character. This is an experimental format and I'm not surprised it's difficult to follow. Honestly though, given how useful being able to use this topic for out-of-character conversations has been I'm starting to wonder if each quest should have an associated group PM for out-of-character conversations. Not sure how well that would work though. Mecabricks is another program for digital building that allows for techniques other programs don't and has an associated blender add-on for making renders with. Somethings to keep in mind however is that it works very differently to LDD and Stud.io, doesn't have Lego's complete parts catalogue, and it allows part clipping by design. That last one might be something of a dealbreaker.

Enson was worried. Not only had they failed to stop the captain, but it almost seemed as if they hadn't accomplished anything. And now his most vulnerable companions were in danger. He thought for a moment,. The spell the Cydonians were using was one he was theoretically familiar with, to the point where he could more-or-less recall how to cast it with a little effort. The problem was that he'd never attempted anything like that before and he wasn't as familiar with it as he'd like to be. Still, he couldn't afford to wait and see what happened. Enson will cast Quantum Transposition on Dunola, moving her to A4.

Well I can't say I didn't expect that. @Goliath and @samurai-turtle, you should attack Trooper A. There's not much else you can do from over there. @Kintobor, @Classic_Spaceman, @KotZ, you might as well attack the captain while she's over there. I'm going to try to teleport Dunola out of harm's way as they're the most fragile, but be warned that the captain could potentially kill anyone over there in a single hit.

Enson was rather nonplussed at the Captain's attempt at witty banter. It seemed obnoxious and condescending more then anything. Still, no point in telling her. Enson will use his Energy Cell and attack the Cydonian Captain.

I forgot Yelana was too far away, I'll have to use the Energy Cell now or we can't do enough damage.

Something I just realized; If myself, @Goliath and @Classic_Spaceman all attack the Captain now and @Kintobor casts an Elemental Evocation at her we stand a very high chance of killing them outright. If I use my Energy Cell (and we're all very lucky) then we might not even need the spell at all and it could be retargeted to Trooper A or B. Also, @KotZ might want to try to use the Defend or Rally actions on Yelana depending on what they prefer. Thoughts?

Enson will attack Trooper A from D3.

@Endgame, I've just realized I can add an extra spell. Is it alright if I take Quantum Teleportation?

From what I understand of the system, yes. 'Change Equipment' is defined as an action in the rules, and the rules also define equipment as 'Weapons, Armor, or Tools'. In fact, since the two modes of the weapon are mechanically separate items you should only have one of them in your equipment slot. The other would be in your inventory. @Endgame, the same goes for the Cydonian Captain's Energy Pistol and Plasma Pike, as well as Cydonian Trooper B's Stock Gun and Cydonian Dagger. Also, I feel I should expound my own take on combat strategy: Firstly, I feel @samurai-turtle should make his attack from C6 while @Classic_Spaceman attacks from C1. I want the entire board covered by our long range fighters to counteract the teleportation spells that the Cydonian troopers possess. I have Tester-Three at C6 because his kinetic armor will offer him protection against Trooper B's attacks. Yelana I have at C1 because none of the enemies can currently target that space and Yelana currently has no armor. @Goliath should actually attack Trooper B from D4. Igaz's armor currently makes him the toughest melee combatant we have and the central position will divide the attention of all the enemies and leave him better able to respond to sudden teleportations. @Kintobor and @KotZ, I have no clear idea what you should do. Some part of me feels that Kleeck would be better off at D1 attacking Trooper A and Dunola should be at B6 attacking Trooper B instead, but Kleeck's higher skill makes him better protected then Dunola and B6 is within range of all enemies on the board. I personally want to be at D3 attacking Trooper A, my high skill makes me almost as tough as Igaz so being in range of almost as many attacks while being in a similarly central position makes a lot of sense, especially as I'm also a melee fighter. To be clear, my overall intent is to expose the weakest members of the party to the least danger while ensuring that every character has an ally within supporting range to prevent anyone from being isolated for as long as possible.

@Endgame I'd like to remind you that Kleeck gave the plasma blaster to Igaz, so it should be in his inventory. Also, Igaz's equipment is currently a mess. I count him as having at least three weapons (one of which I'm not certain he actually has) and two pieces of armor equipped when the rules state that he can only equip one of each at a time and only three items total.

Enson was at Kayarr's side almost before he hit the floor, slinging the robot's remaining arm around his shoulder and helping him back up. "Barbarians." he muttered under his breath. As he staggered upright, feigning some difficulty helping Kayarr right himself, Enson reached out a hand to to touch Yelana's arm. "Yelana," he said, leaning towards her and whispering so no-one else could hear, "these are not police officers, these are state security agents. They do not care about reasonable arguments or due process and they certainly do not care about avoiding bloodshed."

"Yes, please. I'd rather not stay any longer. Just one thing though, could you please activate the communicator? There is something happening on the planet that is being broadcast and I'd rather like to catch it." Enson would like to listen to the inauguration ceremony.

Enson looked at Dunola with an expression of barely concealed fury. "You don't get it, do you?" he said, visibly restraining himself from doing something, "The entire point of that was to frame an argument about the inherent value of life. It was a rhetorical question to begin with. But apparently you're more concerned about 'grudges' and other uncivilized nonsense like that. I had quite enough of that garbage on Vin'quo to-" Enson stopped in the middle of his (somewhat condescending) rant as the bizarre image entered his head. He was enraptured by what he saw, seemingly forgetting what he was saying or even that he'd been talking at all. Following a strange intuition, he attempted to see if he could recognize any part of what he was seeing. Enson will attempt a religion check to see if he can recognize the image. Enson had followed the others to the surface, seemingly lost in thought and not responding to anyone if they spoke to him. He was still pondering what he'd just seen and felt that perhaps he wasn't in the best position to talk to anyone at the moment. He decided to take a back seat for the moment and let everyone else talk.

Thank you for all the kind comments, I spent several hours on it and I'm thankful that people like it so much. Also, I want to make it clear that I actually do want to stay and examine the crystal, it's just that in character it doesn't really make sense. Enson is currently mad as hell. I envisioned him as a quiet, responsible, friendly person when this thing started. But between the giant death ray, his constant arguments with Yelana, Jek being stupid and petty, and a teammate he was starting to like suddenly stomping someone's head in and starting to yell and grab things like an angry child have all combined to drive him over the edge of his normal calm into a deep well of untapped anger. And quite frankly I'm starting to lose it as well to a lesser extent. The entire tone of this adventure has been so unpleasant and argumentative that I've honestly stopped enjoying it, and that's on top of all the fighting that's been going on out of character about possible adjustments to the rules. Adding the massive lack of sleep I've been dealing with recently and I'm not really in a fit state to talk to people right now. I think I'm going to take a day or two away from this and see if I feel better and want to come back. I don't want to dislike any of you but I feel if this goes on I might not be willing to talk about this at all and just leave without saying anything and never speak to any of you again. @Endgame @Kintobor @samurai-turtle @Goliath @Classic_Spaceman @KotZ

@Kintobor @samurai-turtle @KotZ "You misunderstand me. I'm not asking why it's important to us, I'm asking why people seem to think it has an inherent value. What quality it possesses that other things don't." Only for it to be suddenly snatched out of his in turn. In the heat of his argument with Yelana he had failed to notice how close Enson was to him. "Now now Igaz," he said, smiling in a rather uncomfortable way, "don't take things without asking for them. And don't be rude. Yelana may be bossy and impetuous, but you've hardly been any less gang-ho today. What with making major group decisions for everyone else and all." Enson shifted the blaster to an hand on the far side of his body and head it at arms length, well out of Igaz's reach. And he still had that weird, frozen smile on his face. "You know, it's somewhat fortuitous you've drawn my attention." he said, "After all, you're the only person here who's provided any answer to the question I just asked, even if it hadn't been asked yet. Do you remember killing Jek, Igaz? You should, it only happened about a minute ago after all. Well if you think about it, Igaz, Jek was a Fangreak, a species that isn't particularly rare compared to the Sabrillo. So obviously the rarity of the creature must make it's life more valuable." He snapped the fingers of one of his free hands together, that creepy smile still beaming from his face. Suddenly the smile vanished, replaced by an exaggerated frown. "Wait a moment," he said, "That can't be right. Rarity only determines monetary value, but everyone seems to place a moral value to preserving it's life, which is what I was asking about. And it's not a very good answer anyway because this egg is arguably more valuable dead then alive. In all honesty we'd probably make more money by selling it to some rich person then returning it to Mr. Vannoy." He looked pensive for a moment, before snapping his fingers again. "Aha!" he said, with a return of that unpleasant smile, "I have it! Igaz, when you killed Jek you defended it by saying that he might come back for revenge, something that would've been a detriment to us. Whereas this egg could maybe possibly be used to revive the species, a species that produces more delicious, edible eggs! They could be farmed for their eggs like big lizardy chickens! Thus the value in the eggs life is it's utility!" His face suddenly fell again. "Wait, no," he said, "that's even more of a stretch. If they could be farmed someone would've done so by now, and GLESP hardly intends to do so anyway. And besides, how would you revive them? Kleeck has suggested making slight genetic alterations to clones of this one, but without any other specimens there isn't anywhere to draw the necessary excess genetic material from. And you'd still need a stable breeding population's worth of DNA, otherwise the clones would just inbreed themselves back into extinction again. In fact it's more of a detriment to waste resources on keeping it alive. The most utilitarian thing to do would be to eat it ourselves, but we don't intend to." His face resumed the flint mask it had displayed earlier. "So Igaz," he said in a stony voice, "why do we see any value in this thing's life? It's not a person, it's an animal. It's not going to do anything important with it's life. And even if it was a person that doesn't necessarily mean anything. People have repeatedly shown themselves capable of wasting their lives on stupid unimportant things. Like conquering planets. Or getting rich. But it's life can't have any inherent moral value Igaz, not unless there is something that makes it more important. Because otherwise, if life itself has value, then your killing of Jek is indefensible. Would he have wanted revenge? Probably, but it's unlikely he would have pulled it off or even posed a major threat to anyone. Was he nearly partially responsible for killing the last member of a dying species? Yes, but we stopped him, he didn't pose any more threat to them. He wasn't even going to pose an active threat to us anytime soon. Was he a tyrant with hundreds of planets beneath his heel and armies at his command? No, definitely not. But you Igaz, you were so full of self-righteous anger and fear of future harm to yourself, so full of self-perceived moral superiority, that you killed an unarmed man who was too weak to fight back. You didn't even stop to consider utilitarian concerns, such as the fact that our DNA is probably all over that room now. Or that his is certainly on your boots. I don't think the Cydonians treat murderers very well, do you?" "No we do not." said Enson rounding on Yelana, "whatever it is, it's completely irrelevant to what we're doing. The best thing to do is leave it and the off-market potions, and this gun too." he said, dropping the weapon to the floor and kicking it away. "they're all obvious contraband and we'll have enough trouble getting out without it. Better yet, destroy it all so no-one else can get their hands on it. The credits are fine however, I see no problem with taking thieves's money away from them. And Yelana? The Holo Crystal was damaged on our end, something I've already reminded you of. If you don't start paying attention I'm not going to bother listening to anything you have to say." Yelana got the sense that Enson's brusqueness was more due to his anger with Igaz then any actual disinterest, but he probably wasn't likely to calm down soon. "Now," he said to the group at large, "I suggest we leave for the Initium at once. Yelana has suggested that Tester-Three take the egg in for safekeeping and for once I agree with her. If any of you object you can say so now" Enson will offer the egg to Tester-Three.

While everyone else was distracted by the odd crystal Enson reached out and gently picked up the egg, turning it about in one hand and examining it dispassionately. "You know," he said after a moment of quiet contemplation, "something's been bothering me. Even if we return the egg successfully to Vannoy and it hatches and generally goes on to live a long and fulfilling life, that's not going to save the species in the long run. I mean, it's the last of it's kind isn't it? Who is there for it to breed with? And even if there was another Sabrillo for it to breed with you still wouldn't get a stable breeding population out of that. At most you'd get a couple generations of one or two individuals before the inbreeding catches up to them. You can't clone this one either, Mr Vannoy already explained the difficulties with that. And even if you could you'd still only get a bunch of copies of the same individual." He healed the egg up so he could examine it from below, the same hard expression on his face that he'd had since Jek was killed. "In fact," he continued, "it's not as if it would have much of a life anyway. It would have no other members of it's kind to interact with (though if it's solitary in nature that point is moot) and it would probably be kept in captivity it's entire life to ensure it's safety. It would live alone in an enclosure far away from the planet of it's birth. And when it dies there will be no more Sabrillo's, making this whole thing an exercise in futility. A bunch of fools trying to save a species that's already extinct." He turned to look at his companions, seeming to notice their presence for the first time. "So tell me," he said, "why is this egg's life so important?" *Ahem.

"We could've looked for something to restrain him with," Enson said emotionlessly, "it wouldn't really have been that much effort." His gaze flicked up to the door, his expression frozen in a mask as hard and sharp as flint. Raising his hand as if indicating the others to follow him, he stepped forward through the frame. "Come," he said, "no sense in waiting here now."

"No no no. He's no threat to us, killing him now would be pointless and self indulgent. Not to mention petty. Tying him up should suffice for our purposes. Not right next to something that was stolen from them though, that's a rather obvious attempt to frame him and they might not buy it. Especially as he probably wasn't on the planet when it was stolen."

Perhaps I should explain in more detail. The idea of the grenade is that you throw it at a square (occupied or otherwise) and it does damage in a three-by-three area centered on that point. Those affected by it would still subtract their armor plus skill successes from the damage but you'd still be hitting multiple people. The point of the grenade launcher is that it massively increases the range you can throw the grenade and by extension allow for more precise placement at longer ranges. I was thinking of it also adding your artillery proficiency to the damage but I wasn't sure about that. I will admit however that I'd forgotten that you couldn't have two pieces of equipment of the same type equipped at once. Maybe making grenade launchers tools instead would work? Funny you should mention that. This is a large, three dimensional grid concept I've been working on. To go through it point-by-point: Cover. Several of the squares on this grid are occupied by various objects, these are cover and cannot be moved through. The big yellow pipe and the yellow drums act as total cover, meaning that you cannot target someone if your firing angle on them passes through the space they occupy. The horizontal arrangement of red and blue piping act as partial cover, meaning that they act as some form of bonus to a character's defense roll if between them and the attacker. The walls of the manager's office (that big box thing) act as total cover, but only from certain directions for reasons to be explained later. The lip beneath it's window (the black bit) is the same for directly things below it. The window itself isn't however. Concealed areas. The manager's office cannot be seen into by the players as the window's blackout glass is currently activated. If the glass is turned off or destroyed, or is a player enters the office, then the interior will be revealed. Players can make attacks against squares that are currently concealed even if they don't know weather there are enemies there or not. In this example an attack against those squares would destroy the glass and reveal the office, but this might not be true for all forms of concealment. Enemies. In this example enemies are represented by all those nanofigs around the place, as would heroes if there were any on this board. For different scales one could use minifigs or microfigs for the same purpose. Elevation. As you can see several bits of the map are at different levels then the rest with the neighboring grid pattern continuing up their sides to show distance from the ground. The two ways to interpret this would be either to say that the height is added to the distance when calculating range, or that distance and the height aren't added but if one or the other is larger then the weapon's range then you can't hit the target. I personally prefer the latter. Deployment zone. The current area is so large and populated with enemies that it would strain disbelief for the heroes to deploy anywhere in it. Instead green squares are used here to indicate spaces where heroes could deploy themselves. This area would be just a three-by-three, but the presence of that cover so close to it adds some extra spaces to it's size. The green tiles would be removed after deployment. This is a cutaway view where anything blocking the view of revealed spaces has been removed. However since the Manager's office hasn't been revealed it's interior is not shown. And here is a view where the manager's office is revealed. As you can see it's walls do not take up the entire space of the squares they're situated in, this is why they only provide cover from certain directions.

Enson clapped his hands together. "Excellent work everyone. I suggest we make haste to the vault before people start to realize something's wrong. Kleeck, as that pistol you were using is redundant with your new goggles I suggest giving it to Igaz. He looks like he can use it." Enson bowed to Igaz as he handed Enson his share. "Thank you." he said. "And Tester-Three," he continued, turning to face the robot, "I forgot to thank you for this Energy Cell you gave me at the time. Allow me to apologize." Enson will spend two points to increase his Spirit to three. He will then cast Healing light three times on himself, Kleeck, and Dunola. @KotZ @samurai-turtle @Endgame

I don't think it's been indicated anywhere that artillery are explosive, and making them automatically so lowers the number of things that could be grouped into that category. What if someone wants to carry an artillery railgun or a giant laser as their main weapon? I've been thinking about that actually. My idea is that you could have grenades for each damage type as consumables that scale like weapons (so the lowest tier of grenades would do one damage, then it would go up to two, then three, and finally four) that deal damage in an area around them and can be thrown out to long range, with the caveat that you can't add any of your weapon proficiencies to the damage. I also had a concept for a special type of artillery weapon to go with them: Grenade Launcher (Special Artillery Weapon) Special: This weapon does not have a Quality or Damage Type. When this weapon is equipped, you may use it to fire a grenade to any point within artillery range. This action consumes the grenade used, you may not use this weapon if you have no grenades. To be honest, all the ranged non-artillery weapons in the game have implausibly short ranges. It's a concession to the fact that most battlegrids aren't going to be very large and to keep melee weapons useful. Weird, I thought that was how the original suggestion had it. But looking it over again I'm inclined to agree with you. That sounds interesting. Perhaps the current move-or-attack system could be kept for artillery, long and short range could move once before attacking, and melee could move twice. Though perhaps having such a system on top of the alteration to success chances might be a bit too much.

... @Endgame, I'm expecting what I'm trying to work like a normal attack other then explicitly trying not to kill Jek. Is that correct?

"So the Sabrillo, who has never done anything to anyone good or bad, deserves to die because you're angry at your employer for paying you to engage in standard animal care activities?" Enson shook his head. He wanted to tell Jek there were other, less childish, ways of dealing with dissatisfaction with one's job, like going on strike. He even had a pithy quote about how one shouldn't accept employment as a stablehand if they're now prepared to shovel dung every day. But at this point he was too tired of arguing with people to want to say anything. He took the brief moment he had to consider what to do. He had intended to attack the robot even before Yelana had thought to order him to, but now he was starting to think different. Jek was a petty idiot who was angry with the world for it's perceived unfairness who had by chance been in the perfect position for his final outburst to actually have major repercussions, but he didn't deserve to die for it. Still, he'd have to ask Vannoy about the working conditions at GLESP later. Enson will attempt to knock Jek unconscious.