Empiricist
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Posts posted by Empiricist
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Immanuel
QuoteHealing potions should be fine, they're supposed to handle just about anything. It's mixing stims that I can't give you any guarantees on.
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Sasha
Well, aside from the arcane nitro injector units, you'll probably want a few things to cut down the weight, things you don't have in stock right now. See, you've got plenty of light materials, but there's a difference between materials that are just light and strong, and materials that go into a kinetic missile, and right now you find your project leaning far far towards the latter. Most of the internals, you're probably gonna need to keep, durability isn't a concern but they still need to function, frame, you probably probably get away with an aluminium alloy that's a lot thinner than normal, slap on some burn out enchants to keep it for just long enough, hmm, could enclose it in a disposable shell that keeps it together. The bike will literally fall apart within the hour after the enchants fail but... though if you do go with that, there's not much point even having a frame, you could just have some enchants to lock the pieces in place, then you're just need the parts that keep the functional components like the engine and wheels connected and moving. Hmm shell won't matter, you can do away with most of the frame, the enchants will have to be custom though, and that means you'll need Sabia for this. Fuel-lines and the like you could probably replace with high surface-tension alchemical fluid; Paracelsus makes those, so that will be much faster to acquire. Seats and handlebars and the like you don't really want to mess with since it affects handling and ergonomics. Might want to get some charms from Aiko? Try and seal some of the pieces in place with paper talismans just in case?
Immanuel
QuoteNo, I can't say that sounds like a good idea.
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Immanuel
QuoteNo. At least not one we will have any problems with providing you. That being said, is there any reason why you need UV light?
We have prototypes for reflexes, magical output, focus, and strength needing test right now.
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Immanuel
QuoteProbably not violently, but I can't guarantee they won't prematurely activate when exposed to larger quantities of ambient spirit energy. Flashbangs should be doable.
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Immanue
QuoteI'll see if I can't requisition the parts for it. For prototypes, well we're just about on of the only military teams here, so there's not going to be many relevant things here, though I do believe there are some healing potions and combat stims in need of testing if you're fine with the risks. Won't do any permanent harm, but I'm afraid I can't make too many guarantees beyond that. The regular kind we can probably supply you with as well, and I can see if any of alchemists can get you something, though as it stands, you probably won't be getting anything too spectacular. There's liability on our part as well so improvised alchemical weapons and the like are definitely off the table for now.
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Immanuel
The typing indicator goes off, but it's a few more minutes before the response pops up.
QuoteThat was you? Well, I don't think it will be a problem with corporate, we'll need to have you sign a waiver though, assert that your actions aren't under our orders.
PS: Care to talk about what you need the leave for? We have other prototypes in need of testing.
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Immanuel
QuoteSay no more. See you next week, hope it goes well.
PS: It's a regular thing.
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Sasha
Well, there's Indra's master, but, honestly the guy's sketchier than the Baron, so he's probably a nope. Tony's probably an option, you think? He's usually the one making the bodies, but he's got to at least know a good cleaner or two, right? Right? An image flashes before your eyes, a raging inferno, a makeshift funeral pyre burning in the middle of the street, twisted remnants of a bike in its center. Okay, maybe not as sure a bet as you thought it'd be, but, still maybe one that will work? Flicking through your contacts, you come across a loose card from a while back, can't remember the exact circumstances but it was sometime shortly after you Awakened. It, doesn't have much written on it, just number and a name: Overseer AI, Designation "Wintermute".
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Sasha
Some of the armaments you can't really make heads or tails of - part of them are reliant on enchantments that have since burned out, though judging by how the constructs fought, it's probably just related to their passive augmentation and spell bolts. But, there are a few things built into the arms you definitely can identify, with some effort of course.
First up, you've got this energy compression array going all the way up the forearms, nestled beneath all the plating, this array just, gathers and shoves spirit energy forwards, nothing too special, but not poorly made by any means. This then connects to the gauntlets, which, honestly are pretty well made. They've got concussive force emitters in the palms and knuckles, some sort of spell rectifier in hands, which are probably how they created those larger beams, and that energy blade. The energy itself seems to be almost... hmm...
After a bit of experimentation, trying to match it with other pieces of gear you've seen and directing a bit of energy into it using a vehicle enchantment module, you find that it's almost like some kinda hippie plant magic just, twisted and weaponized. That does fit how the exoskeletons themselves resemble hedges or ghillie suits, and it's not uncommon for various entities, people included, to use their innate abilities in weird ways rather than learning new kinds of magic. Like say, a diplomacy android using the ability to connect with others and help create agreement to connect with stained glass windows and get their physical properties to agree that they really should be good at brutal murder.
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Sasha
Thinking back over the fight, you recall something, a noise faint beneath the chaos and gunfire, now oh so loud in the silence, reverberating in your mind. It was the screech of pistons, so close they melded into a single noise, and muffled beneath the armor. You remember now, their wearers were talking. They were talking up until that point. And past that, they seemed to change, the pylons went up, they went silent, and they started throwing out those heavier spells. Prying open the armor, you find a mangled corpse and no real mechanisms to have done some of that mangling. The stabbity stabby part of that mangling. Spikes must've been magically projected then.
Hmm. There's something weird in the chest. Looks like some of the spikes have projected additional branches? Curving around in strange geometric patterns in the chest cavity. Guessing that's ritual magic, makers might've skimped out on the size of the Shard needed (and it'll already be a pretty small Shard) by having them power themselves by sacrificing their own wearers. Yeah, sounds about right. What a cheapskate. You'd look for traces of an energy storage mechanism, but chances are it's probably fried already or built into the ritual and you, really aren't the best person to ask about rituals.
You pull something over. A machine, an imaging tool, your standard boxy looking medical device cast in inoffensive beige looking almost mundane save for what it's connected to, this hand held device that traces an otherworldly locus of twisted light. SFSIT. Scanning False-Soul Imaging Tool. Curses, geasa, assorted other bewitchments, rather than using Shards use countless false souls bound to an object to alter its physical properties, and if they're not hidden, this tool can find them. It basically just applies a trivial geis that emits radio-frequency light when it breaks, and it breaks immediately. If a curse or whatever is exposed for some reason, such as say, because the construct that was wrapping it has fizzled, this impairs the geis, causing a signal drop.
Now, normally when someone thinks about constructs, curses don't really come to mind. When everything runs like a damn anime sometimes people forget that there's more to this world than just that, and behind the technology there still must be reason, not a writer smoking, whatever they smoke, or a market research paper. You've, heard of curses in constructs before, they're usually not present in your patients since their Shards can handle everything and they work best on mindless automatons, but you have heard of them, and have installed some experimental modules with them before, they're pretty good for their lower cost, so they do pop up in those more frequently, though not strictly in this same context.
And for combat construct that, you can't imagine to have much of a lifespan, in between apparently constructing itself out of cabin materials and killing its own wearers, it's this matter of cost that comes to mind. Whoever made this would want to keep costs as low as possible as evidence by the ritual, minimize Shard draw and all that.
You slowly sweep your tool across the construct. Something appears in the monitor.
Bingo.
This construct, it's got curses, a lot of curses. What those curses do the FSIT can't tell you, but you can make an educated guess. From what it does tell you, chances are, basically all of the logic is encoded with those. So there will be curses describing broad situations and what the construct will do in general, then other ones describing aspects of those situations and aspects of those responses, going all the way down to the ones hooked up to the internals that let it move. Curses rather than quasi-life or algorithmic logic. Basically hard-coded too, with a set up like this there's no learning, there's no adapting, only what the curses tell it to do. Every situation, every response hard-coded, purpose-built for this single mission. Even killing their own wearers. Even trying to crash the plane. That was all part of their purpose, perhaps not something they had to do, you can't call it either way, but it still was something their makers were willing to have them do, and wanted to have them do should it have proved necessary.
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Sasha
The main thing that stands out is that well, the exoskeleton seems to be comprised of cabin materials - plastic, cushioning, carpet, wiring, and aluminium, a lot of aluminium. Not exactly the typical material for armor, indeed, it probably only took your attacks as well as it did thanks to the spirit energy that was no doubt being pumped into it. A bit of a closer inspection and you notice the the positioning of the inner metal. Remember when you blew apart that exoskeleton's armor and found metal piercing basically all the important stuff ever? That, doesn't seem to have been chance. All throughout the body, every piece of missing armor exposes more spikes, all going through arteries and organs. You've the feeling it's the same story everywhere else inside.
It couldn't have been by chance. It couldn't have been from combat damage. This was on purpose. The exoskeletons were designed to kill their own wearers.
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Sasha
Let's see... Okay nitro, you have plenty of. Coolant as well. Burn-out shields, burn-out grip, you have plenty of those in stock too. Drift enhancers typically don't come in burn-out form, if you're gonna drift, you generally intend to keep on drifting and have to reinstall them constantly, while non-recharging shielding is useful for certain situations and grip is good for bad weather, still you probably could rig one up yourself using a combination of those two, that's basically what the are anyway. Main problem's the arcane nitro injectors, you don't actually stock them, and why would you? They're supposed to jam into whatever car you come across, they're for in-field use, turbocharging hot-wired golfcarts and whathaveyous, not things that already come with nitro inbuilt. You'll probably have to order those online and figure out how the hell to integrate them into the damn thing. Normally you could just get Satoshi to fetch you some, but she's undercover right now, something about infiltrating the Appleton Estate.
You've got a couple hours free now.
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Sasha
"Just need the bike, I can handle the rest. Call me if something comes up, gotta run now."
And run he does.
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Tor
QuoteThe Goddard swings around, mounted on Fazine's shoulder to record the footage of the immediate aftermath, making her feel like those daring cable news filmers who are always the first ones to a scene of death and destruction. It would make good BTS B-roll footage for her actual movie. After getting a full roll, Faznie confronted the big man who was playing the trading cards on the plane, summoning real people from their cardboard confines. "Hey Thor! What the fuck is going on?! I catch one flight and then I'm stuck fighting off some ethnatioanlists with a bunch of magic people? How'd you learn to do the thing with your cards? I thought I was the only one who could conjure shit out of nothing, but I guess I'm not that speical after all?"
((Reposting this from the old IC for your convenience. Had to change the text color since it doesn't work well on Reborn's background.))
Sasha
"Not yet..." Oh. "But... I think this job will need me to pull the old switcheroo and y'know?" You in fact do not know, but your gut tells you it involves wrecking twice the number of bikes. "Ah! That reminds me! I'm gonna need security on it. Gonna be leaving it out on the street. Got it all figured out, we pass by that, probably fifteen minutes into the chase? Bike's probably gonna be chugging along, on fire, that kinda thing. But them bam! Jump off the bike, jump on the new one and run them done! It'll be great. Trust me. Trust me. You yeah, need to make no-one hot-wires it." Well, you can't say he's bad for business at least. "Oh and uh, next Tuesday would be great. But I can reschedule the hit if it don't work out."
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Immanuel
"Hands up! On the ground! Now!"
"AARGH! MY FUCKING LEG!"
BANG
PLINK
"AARGH! MY OTHER LEG!"
"Shit! Sorry!"
"Hold you fire goddamnit!"
Wow, not even going to let you stand up dramatically? How rude. And apparently not too hot on the pattern recognition either. You put bolt of plasma in each and every one of their weapons. Okay this part, you can't really hold against them, but if they were smarter and used handguns like a normal, this would've been way harder. Well y'know, without burning their hands and cooking off their magazines at least.
You know how in movies when the hero disables the crooks, everyone just kinda stare for a moment and start suddenly cheering like they rehearsed it? That, doesn't happen here. Instead, before any of the would-be robbers even gets to react to what the hell just happened, one of their hostages, looks like an employee of the bank, is already swinging. After that, the blood's in the water, and all over the floor, and this hostage situation has just about turned into somewhere between a localized riot, and a WWE cage match with the civilians just grabbing whatever's on hand to try and give them a piece of their mind. Which, in the confusion and chaos, seems to be doing a far better job of hurting people than those idiots ever could, at least, judging by the amount of people getting caught in someone else's swing.
Sasha
Soon enough, he arrives, "he" being this eye-patched hexagenerian, hair shot full of silver, suit shot through of bullets, looking less like a hitman and more like Bruce Lee, if y'know, Bruce Lee was in the mafia. The man isn't even halfway through the door when he starts talking.
"Oh Sashaaa... I need a new bike! Nitro! Both kinds! And lots of it too! Lots. Trust me. Trust me here, I need a LOT. Shielding too. Or armor. Whatever's the lighter. Just at the front. Need this to go fast, real fast. Oh! Grip enhancement too. Gonna need all that traction. Drift enhancers too. Burn out enchants are fine, not gonna be riding this for too long."
Loud as always. And judging by the order, soon to be in the market for a new bike. Possibly two new bikes.
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Immanuel
A great thunderclap breaks the still air. Amidst broken glass and burning plasma you make your descent, hostage-takers scrambling away from your terrible wake. For a moment, time seemed to stop. For a moment, the scene was frozen in time, silent, serene.
BANG
"Arggh! FUCK!"
Okay, so... one of these geniuses shot you. They shot you right in the gut. At close range. They are now very rapidly learning why ricochets are dangerous. And also what a gunshot wound and bloodloss feels like. It, doesn't sound like they're enjoying it very much, but that's okay because not everyone likes to learn. The remaining five(?) you think it's five, might be more in the back, immediately start pointing their guns. Some at you, some at the hostages.
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Sign-up thread linked. Prefer keeping it seperate to the docs, because the docs are what I use to resolve combat, so having character descriptions kinda bloats things.
QuoteOkay, slight system change. From now on, you will buy Excel Hypers using Hyper Slots, not Stat Points. Because asking players to trade stat points for additional somewhat more situational Hypers is in hindsight a pretty iffy thing to do. In order to normalize everyone's distributions, level ups will be as follow:
If you have an Excel Hyper:-
+7 Stat Points
(Think of it as me giving your Excel Hyper its own Hyper Slot and refunding the 2 points you spent on it.)
Otherwise:- +5 Stat Points
- +1 Hyper Slot
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+7 Stat Points
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Immanuel
Well, no luck with kittens, but you do find the next best thing: a massive police siege around a major bank, masked malevolent men peering out from behind walls of carved stone guns in hand, no doubt trained on hostages. From you angle in the air you can't quite make out their choice in weapons, but it's definitely a fair bit bigger than a pistol. Big bank, big guns, big prizes.
Hah. Amateurs.
There's a certain science to this all, a science the people inside have failed to grasp. You want big glass windows with southern exposure. Time it right and they become mirrors. No one will even see what happens inside. You want costumes, not whatever godawful balaclava these chumps are wearing, no, big bight, colorful. Something to remember, something to focus on. You cannot stop people from remembering. You cannot force them to forget. But humans are simple creatures, and when you put an elephant in the room, they stare at that elephant, not the evidence, the incriminating, identifying details. You go in, you go out. Two minutes tops. Your getaway driver's waiting outside. They've got a scanner. They drive, they drive smart, not fast. Fast gets attention, fast gets you prison. You go on a high speed chase, you better savor that fresh air while you still can, you're not gonna lose them. No, you slip away. Get the hell outta there, by the time the fuzz show up, you're gone, and they don't know where.
Subtlety. It's all about subtlety. And it's wasted on these chumps.
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Immanuel
((I can roll for random civil sidequests as soon as you make a post wherein you look for trouble.))
Marina
((I got nothing to say here actually, just posting this to confirm that you're doing stuff with Remi and that I didn't miss you or anything.))
Sasha
Corpse delivered. You had a few civilians give you a glance look on the way over, but none for very long, not that you stayed in anyone's sight for too long. Your schedule is mostly clear for the day, foiling assassination attempts being matters that, while generally quick, could be expected to cause quite a lot of questioning and paperwork. Still, you do have a few appointments you couldn't reschedule, the next one coming up is with Tony at just before lunch.
Faznie and Tor
((Aaron is approaching your location, but we can say that he's not quite there yet so that Tor can answer Faznie's questions.))
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Exile
Oh hey! Finally something to do! A puzzle, and one of those dynamically shifting ones at that! So... let's gather up all the details first, there's rubble falling from the roof, that's bad. It's the result from an explosion, a pretty big one at that, which is to say that it won't be predictable and the debris that does come down will probably be pretty big. Oh and the alarm's definitely been raised, but that's not too pressing (fufu~ pressing, get it?) right now.
As 9 out of 10 experts will agree, roofs are big, heavy, and crushy, so... blasting it probably isn't the best idea, going to need a lot of firepower and since she was the lucky person brought in here to help do the damaging... that wasn't something they had much of. Telekinesis could stall, but once it all piles up, they're surely be crushed! Same goes for making another roof, except that new roof will also help crush them, and if her maths was right, being crushed by two roofs is like twice as bad as being crushed by one! And as for mass teleportation, that piece had already been taken last game. A shame.
Still, there are some really interesting things about roofs! They fall downwards, and they don't home in on people! Meaning, they don't need to stop or destroy the debris, merely shift it to the side, create a small hole for the group to fit through.
"Gather up, closer is better! Aim up and blast the debris to the side! Don't aim to destroy it we just need to make sure it doesn't turn us into pancakes! Break up the bigger pieces if they're hard to move!"
Exile aims upwards, phantasmal bolts of shimmering force flickering into existence and becoming phantasmal no more. The idea was simple - hit the pieces right on the side so they don't land on the party. And if need-be, phase shift in some explosive shots to break up pieces too big to move quickly enough.
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OOC and IC. Need a central place to hold the sheets and table of contents and all that after all.
As for Immanuel, it's thanks to Arrowsmith having a character by the name of Gottlieb with two t's.
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Player Characters have been selected as follows
- Faznie Kotvar
- Immanuel Gotlieb (whose name I will forever misspell thanks to Arrowsmith)
- Sasha Estevez
- Tor Svensen
Also I'll be grabbing Marina von Siemens as a Player-Controlled Support Character. Basically the selection was really damn close and your character is linked to a PC so they'll be in the game under your control, but they may not appear in every encounter of chapter depending on what is appropriate and how busy I am at any given time.
OOC will be up when we figure out how the fuck everything fit together.
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The Fuck is This?
Here, have a link. (Warning, the link is to a very large image, I would not suggest trying to access it if you're on mobile data right now.)
I'm looking for 4 players. I'll probably choose them in, let's say a week or so.
Acknowledgements
Credit where credit is due.
Spoiler- AoshimaMichio: for devising the roll system
- KosherKitten: for devising the stat system, and illustrated OP feedback
- King Murdoc: for system feedback, playtesting, illustrated OP feedback, providing an example build, and general moderator advice
- Hukuna the Undying: for illustrated OP feedback, and general moderator advice
- ElfCollaborator: for playtesting, illustrated OP feedback, and providing an example build
- Twinwolf: for playtesting, illustrated OP feedback, and providing an example build
- Powder Miner: for playtesting, and illustrated OP feedback
- Strider: for playtesting, and illustrated OP feedback
- spümpkin: for playtesting
- Lunatic Blue: for system feedback and advice
- IntSys: for illustrated OP feedback
- rustytengo: for illustrated OP feedback
- UrbanSamurai: for illustrated OP feedback, and making the concept the Kuro example build is based on
- GodofGamingRWBY: for expressing interest and basically being one of the main reasons I even made this
- DragonRage: for expressing interest and basically being one of the main reasons I even made this
FAQ
Just a few questions that have cropped up in the past.
SpoilerQ: Is being Awakened a hereditary trait?
A: It depends. Some types of Awakened will always produce Awakened offspring, but ones of more human origin such as Godslayers and Reincarnations usually do not. Usually because there are bloodlines of Godslayers, though they spontaneously start or stop.
Q: What happens when you Awaken?
A: In the case of a human, you start tripping some serious balls during which see something that some would describe as "the ineffable Eye of God", forget who you even are, gain a wealth of knowledge, proceed to immediately forget everything you just learned, and finally remember who you are.
Q: Is the supernatural world a secret?
A: Sort of. No one is interested in keeping it a secret, it'd be better if everyone knew what was going on after all, but for god knows what reason, virtually all ordinary people will completely reject the supernatural and form their own mundane explanations. Often really fucking stupid explanations that no one ever questions. Ever seen someone call the humorless Secretary of Defence a chuunibyou? Because that's the kinda thing that ends up happening.
Q: Why don't the Awakened help normal people?
A: There are a lot of restrictions. Basically a lot of Awakened stuff like healing magic and enchantments depend on the beneficiary having a Shard, and seeing as having a Shard means being Awakened... yeah. Like it's not like you can't heal people and aren't allowed to try, it's just that the effects are so diminished mundane medicine and the like will almost always be invariably effective. There's some things that can be done, and which are being done, like using leylines to accelerate crop growth and whatnot, but still a lot of the real otherwise groundbreaking stuff is dependant on Shards. They're making progress though as of late, so here's hoping.
Q: What is Walpurgisnacht?
A: 16 years ago, religious sites all over Japan caught fire. Why Japan? Because it's always fucking Japan. Anyway following that the rate of Awakenings rose sharply so now there's Godslayers, Aramitama, and everything else popping up everywhere. It was an administrative nightmare needless to say though it's mostly sorted out by now.
Q: Is this based on the real world? Or based on a hyper-stylized anime world?
A: Mostly the real world, barring certain things being butterfly effected by Awakened activity such as Sendo City and its effects on Japan. The other main differences are the weird hair and eye colors, the people dressed like absolute twats, and some people acting incredibly anime without anyone batting an eye.
Q: How do Godslayers and their ilk stack up against other Awakened?
A: Godslayers, Aramitama, and things like Combat Androids are dangerous combatants right off the bat. Things like your more traditional faeries and yokai and whatnot will need to have some sort of innate potential or combat training/experience to match even a fledgling one.
Q: Is there a set distance that marks the border between Ranged and Close Quarters
A: No it's pretty fuzzy and there's no arbitrary distance where the two suddenly swap over. What's Close Quarters for one character may be Ranged for another based on their abilities and weapons. And there are cases wherein both have an influence such as in the case of attacks that unleash a massive AoE centered around the caster.
Q: Can I perform actions without using Hypers?
A: Definitely! The whole point of stat descriptors are to determine what you can do, with Hypers acting as extensions of that functionality. In fact certain technical builds (such as Noriko in the example builds section) use Hypers as situational tools rather than as a core part of their playstyle.
Q: Can I perform multiple actions in a turn? Is there a limit? Does it use multiple results?
A: Yes. No, there's no hard limit save for what is logically possible (most people will have trouble locking blades with a foe while simultaneously milking three cows) though bear in mind you may not execute all of them in a single turn, as in the turn might just end before all of them happen. No, everything single thing you do in a turn runs on a single result.
Q: What happens if I consume the leftmost result in my worldline for a Hyper?
A: The result will be consumed and the new leftmost result will be used for your turn unless you use an alteration.
Q: Will Worldline rerolls be immediate?
A: Yes. I will endeavour to DM you your new Worldline after you declare the reroll so you can put it to use immediately.
Q: Are Worldlines something that exists in-setting, or are they just a mechanical abstraction?
A: They exist in the setting, though evidently not in the same way as they are mechanically represented. Your Worldline is basically an intuitive conception of Various factors such as details you've subconsciously noticed, current battlefield conditions, and general positioning, think of it as your character's gut feeling.
Q: How does focusing stat descriptors work?
A: Basically? It's just what happens when your actual capabilities are greater than what the numbers suggest, it naturally happens when you gear particular stats for particular purposes and is more noticeable with more extreme specializations. This just happens because while your general capabilities may match your numbers, the specifics can very well exceed that. Like imagine a cannon with a really low rate of fire but really powerful shots. Yeah its general firepower isn't too high because it really can't fire that quickly and so can't really be used by itself for fire support, but that doesn't mean it won'y utterly ruin whatever it does hit with that abysmal rate of fire.
Q: Are enemies mechanically represented under the same system.
A: Not necessarily no. Enemies tend to have stats like Player Characters, but some of the other details can vary. For instance in the other instance of this game, enemies included Storm Minds which have 5 Resolve and automatically burned 1 point of it each turn until they ran out and perished, and Watcher Tikilords who rather than using Hypers would instead prepare and sacrifice defensive emplacements as part of a Vancian spell system. Less spectacularly, cannon fodder foes may lack the ability to use Hypers or Alterations.
Example Builds
Please read at least a few of them before writing up a sheet, just the builds I mean, not the commentary on them unless you wanna know more about what makes them tick.SpoilerYuki Tatsumaki
SpoilerCurrent Regalia
Chainsaw: A big ol’ chainsaw. Yuki should not be able to hide this. Or move it in long corridors. Or lift it at all. If you tell Yuki this, she will laugh at you as she proceeds to do all of these.Stats
Ranged: 1 - She’s got some range on her buffs and that’s about it.
Close Quarters: 7 - White mages eat your hearts out, this supporter isn’t defenseless. Chainsaws tend to help with not being defenseless - they're rather damaging, giving her overwhelming force. Having gotten a bit more used to the chainsaw, she can actually aim to some degree - although she still relies far more on force than finesse. She does have some attack buffs as well.
Mobility: 4 - Yuki's quite good at closing the distance, being rather quick.
Defense: 5 - She’s not wearing armor so it’s rather confusing how hard she is to hurt. Chuuni-power? She can also, of course, heal, though it's weaker if she doesn't do it via Hyper.
Excel Hyper: 2 - HEALING FIELD.Requiem
HEAVENLY AEGIS: Whenever Yuki heals someone, the target of the heal gets a shield that notably reduces the damage of the next attack they take.Hypers
GUARD BREAK [3]: An overpowering series of strikes that will both hurt and break an opponent's guard.
SALVATION OF THE GODDESS [4]: By which she means herself. She aims to heal one particular ally.
GUIDANCE OF THE MOON [4]: An offensive buff on two allies, guiding their blows towards vital areas and making them hit harder when they get there.
SURPRISE ATTACK (OF JUSTICE) [5]: Yuki surprises the enemy with a strong attack - and with her newfound mobility, seems to teleport behind them to do so. Yuki must not be being directly attacked by her target in order to use this Hyper.
Healing Field [R]: A field of healing magic, mending the wounds of everyone in a sizeable area around Yuki.This is a combat medic build, the idea here is that you just get right up on someone's grill and just keep hitting them. Your damage output isn't going to be too reliable by itself, unless your enemy makes a mistake or an ally initiates you're mainly just going to chip away and exert a fair amount of pressure, but if you do manage to land a good blow, it's gonna hurt like hell, and if your enemy doesn't recover fast enough from it you can just start laying into them.
You're basically going to take a lot of hits because you've sacrificed most of your evasion to focus on quickly closing in on foes and just hounding them as they try to run, so your general durability and heal-spam is going what keeps you going. Of course it doesn't matter how durable you are and how good your heals are if someone hits you with a bind or similar non-damaging effect, and there's very little you can do to deal with it so you'll need to rely on your allies to cover you against that sort of thing.
The heal's ranged so you can just pop it whenever someone needs healing without having to disengage first, and when no one needs it you should just spam the non-hyper healing on yourself to just stack up your aegis and make it easier to get a good hit in. Guard Break is useful for creating openings against foes who parry or block your attacks, though like everything under this system, the break itself is not guaranteed.
Guidance of the Moon is especially effective on the user themselves because it bolsters the finesse your lack and can make your damage output that much more reliable, and even if it doesn't translate into hits, it'll help keep foes on the defensive which is always good.
Now what really makes this build shine is Surprise Attack, it lets you instantly punish foes for attacking basically anyone else, which is especially effective if the attack in question is highly committed and they can't cancel out of it when you fire it off. The surprise factor also makes it probably your most reliable way to get a clean hit in so long as you don't overuse it, and it can be used to force enemies to focus fire on you and away from squishier allies lest you chainsaw them from behind.
"Freida"
SpoilerCurrent Regalia
Case of Infinite Cigars: An unlimited supply of cigars that enhances Freida's magical capabilities, allowing her to temper her otherwise non-elemental magic with smoke and fire.Stats
Ranged: 4 - Freida is neither focused nor deficient in ranged spells and has no particular focus in them, using a variety of arcane projectiles and beams.
Close Quarters: 4 - Freida is neither focused nor deficient in close quarters, punctuating their physical attacks with arcane discharges.
Mobility: 5 - Freida has mediocre mobility, they have limited flight capabilities that allow them to move around or evade attacks.
Defense: 4 - Freida has mediocre defenses, centering around a personal barrier that protects them from harm.
Excel Hyper: 2 - Arcane Solstice.Requiem:
Mystic Realm: Freida may place temporary artificial leylines that they alone hold dominion over. While within the zone of influence of such leylines, their magic is more potent.Hypers:
Focus [3]: Freida enters a period of higher concentration, heightening all their magical capabilities.
Spell Weave [3]: Augments a spell so that on impact, it binds its target with a thread of starlight. It can be made to anchor them to nearby objects or combined with other spells to form snares and tripwires.
Soul Burst [6]: Fredia ignites their very soul, unraveling and burning it to greatly raise their magical capabilities at the cost of harming themselves in the process.Smokescreen [6]: Freida draws further upon their catalyst's powers, altering a spell so that instead of dealing damage, it creates an otherworldly haze that allows Freida and their allies to conceal their actions and movements. The catalyst is sealed so long as the effect persists.
Arcane Solstice [R]: A potent spell that unleashes a highly destructive discharge of energy.A generalist build that bests its foes by exploiting their weaknesses using a highly flexible skillset. You need to be very efficient with your Hypers here because without any real specializations you're really going to need those higher results to have much of a chance when you clash. It's always a question of whether or not using a Hyper will improve your position in the long run.
It's easier than it sounds. With Mystic Realm you can quickly boost all your parameters in a pinch, Soul Burst and Smokescreen aren't actually too expensive as your balanced stats mean that the 6s they burn would've been double-edged anyway and at least when using it for a Hyper, you know the consequences will be. Focus and Spell Weave meanwhile, while not being as spectacular as still quite useful for levelling the playing field and pressing your advantage, again for costs that are relatively cheap for you anyway.
Arcane Solstice, is a fairly versatile Excel Hyper. While its primary application is in creating a wide-aperture beam to overwhelm and blast away unprepared foes, it can be shaped into other forms like a burning blade of energy for close quarters or a blast that counters an otherwise devastating blow. As all your other Hypers are spell modifiers rather than specific spells themselves, investing another point of Resolve can make it very worthwhile, completely immobilising foes with arcane chains, or clouding the battlefield in concealing smoke.
Don't forget to use your Regalia, like much of this build it's fairly modest but quite versatile. Making a spell fire-elemental allows you to ignite your environment or continually damage your foes, while smoke can throw off their aim or conceal further strikes.
Noriko Fuuri
SpoilerCurrent Regalia
Dress & Spears: A dress that magically replaces her clothing and a fairly simple, plain spear. It seems to be made of a series of units that are shaped somewhere between leaves and scales, slightly overlapping one another and colored blue, with white outlines. It's divided in the middle as to not restrict her motion; it also comes with black leggings, but leaves her barefoot.Stats
Ranged: 6 - Noriko's ability to hit and damage at range has grown to be quite threatening, particularly with two spears to utilize and strong wind magic to throw them around with.
Close Quarters: 6 - Noriko is fast and strong, and has a reach advantage over most people trying to fight her in a melee.
Mobility: 5 - Once again, she's fast, and can actually jump and fly about on gusts of wind.
Defense: 2 - She's not made of spun glass, but her fighting style and Regalia lend themselves more to evading attacks entirely than taking them, and it shows.
Excel Hyper: 0 - None.Requiem
Divine Winds: Noriko has ludicrously precise control over wind as well as a general sense of how the air around her moves, external to her natural ones. This allows her to manipulate a spear in a fair distance around her almost as precisely as if she were holding it in her hands, as well as having more subtle effects on her mobility.Hypers
Vasavi Shakti [3]: Noriko's spear(s) grow in size, and then crashes down on the opponent at high speed.
Manavastra [4]: A high-speed dashing attack combining elements of ranged and melee assault. It creates a corridor of wind that carries Noriko forward, and her weapon can be tossed forward ahead of her without ill effects (for her, at least).
Varunapasha [5]: A strike that knocks up a grounded target, and then dashes at them three times in succession, juggling them in midair and knocking them higher with each hit. Hits four times on airborne targets without the initial knockup. Afterward, can follow up with a strong downward strike.
Vayvayastra [6]: A violent gust of wind pressed into razors that blows over and slices at everything in a wide cone in front of Noriko. However, this also "expends" her winds, temporarily disabling her Requiem and grounding her.An offensively geared skirmisher build capable of both harassment and blitzkrieg. Your general level of aggression really depends on how well your foes can counter your mobility versus how easy it is for you to just impale them with a giant fuck-off spear.
You won't actually be using your Hypers too much so you can save your high results for your turns instead and making sure you'll dodge incoming attacks. They're powerful yeah, but for most of them it comes at the cost of them taking the form of specific techniques you'll need an appropriate opening to use. The general strategy is to just use your spears and their enhanced accuracy to impale and pin foes, they're especially dangerous against foes that rely on mobility due to how they home in and can leave their victims momentarily unable to dodge.
Foes that rely too much on soaking hits too will be disadvantaged by your skillset, after all even if you don't deal too much damage with it, an impalation will more often than not stop a charge in its tracks.
Your main Hyper will be Vasavi Shakti, it's cheap, it's a modifier and not a technique like all your other ones, upping the impact force and damage of your attacks. Manavastra is good for closing in and immediately applying pressure so long as your foe can return fire in time, especially since your mobility is geared more towards agility than speed. Varunapasha is good for tacking in a hefty amount of damage to vulnerable foes, especially when followed up with Vasavi Shakti, though only if it's safe to commit to the attack.
Vayvayastra is the tricky one, as it basically reduces all your capabilities for a while, most notably removing your ability to easily retrieve or guide thrown spears, so it's fairly powerful but quite situational as well. It's best used either when what you lose wasn't being used anyway, or as a devastating finishing move against biological targets, pumping blades of air through a wounded foe's arteries to inflict a simultaneous heart attack and stroke, rupturing blood vessels as they go.
As far as defenses go, just focus on dodging, you're better at dodging than your mobility score itself implies since you're focused more on the agility aspect than on the speed aspect. Homing attacks actually aren't too much of a problem either so long as they aren't too dense since a spear strike or blast of wind will often, at the very least, throw such attacks off-course for a bit.
"Rook"
SpoilerCurrent Regalia
Templar's Armor: A set of heavily decorated plate armor that repulses damage and afflictions alike.Stats
Ranged: 0 - Rook has no ranged capabilities of his own.
Close Quarters: 3 - Rook has no direct attacks at close range but is able to deploy bindings to ensnare and restrain his foes.
Mobility: 6 - Rook's heavy armor slows him greatly, however his signature teleportation magic allows him to swiftly "castle" swapping his position with that of his allies, a technique that he can execute almost reflexively. He is also capable of other kinds of teleportation but only through his Hypers.
Defense: 10 - Few attacks leave a mark on Rook, while curses and bindings slide right off his armor.
Excel Hyper: 0 - None.Requiem
Eyes of Heaven: Rook is able to summon rays of light. They're weak, short-lived familiars incapable of attack, and trivial to destroy, though capable of flight and quick to deploy making them useful as scouts and as targets for castling.Hypers
Providence [3]: Rook summons a swarm of rays of light at once.
Payload [4]: Rook's next castle can target an allied attack so long as the attack takes the form of a seperate entity like a projectile or spell or the like as opposed to an action like a slash or a stab.
Guardian Angel [5]: When Rook castles with an ally about to be struck by a close range attack and takes the hit in their place, by using this Hyper he can immediately counter with a powerful binding spell.
Jaws of Purgatory [6]: A powerful binding spell that hunts down and ensnares all foes at close range at the cost of temporarily disabling Rook's teleportation.A dedicated tank. If you do run this, it's basically impossible for you to win a fight on your own due to having no way to actually deal damage. Okay yeah you could probably bind someone and just start punching them in the face, but it's not exactly going to be expedient unless you're up against a glass cannon or something. But as long as you're with allies, it won't really matter.
You'll be an utter nightmare of fuckery. Enemy about to whack a squishy mage? Swap places and stop them dead in their tracks with a binding spell, leaving them a sitting duck. Enemies in a fortified position? Get a scout or summon in, swap places with them, maybe drop a few binds and start swapping in the heavies. Note that because your close quarters stat is focused entirely on bindings and nothing else, your bindings are markedly more powerful than what the numbers suggest, meaning it's not going to be fun being on the receiving end of them.
The rays of light are an insurance plan of sorts, you should just be constantly pumping them out as they let you swap into positions where you have no "real" allies at, the mass summon hyper is good for overwhelming foes who try to shoot them down to deny you options, or just to saturate an area with swap options. Plus while they're weak by themselves, when paired up with an ally with mass buffs, they can turn into a real nuisance. Attacks will blast through rays of light without any loss of power but if they're now all suddenly shielded, well, that changes things doesn't it?
You'll probably have a bunch of conditional actions, things like castling to an ally if it looks like they're about to be hit, firing Guardian Angel if your first bind fails to stop a foe's attack before it hits you, that sorta thing.
Payload is good for all-round fuckery and fast movement, it's not too hard to shoot down rays of light, but a bullet? That's a lot harder to deal with. And what better way to bid adieu to your enemies than to have an ally drop a bomb and swap places with it, teleporting it right in the middle of their formation?
Jaws of Purgatory is best used when you're sure you'll catch most of your enemies with it, no need to castle if everything's immobilized and struggling to move let alone attack right? Blow a point of resolve to execute it at the same time as Guardian Angel and it'll be one hell of a bind.
Ianthe -Prototype-
SpoilerCurrent Regalia
Malefic Blessing: An innate Regalia of sorts with no physical form. It acts to amplify the effects of Ianthe's Requiem.Stats
Ranged: 11 - Ianthe's magic is split between two main things, the first is harassment, completely eschewing direct damage in favor of disrupting her foes through all manner of supernatural trickery with the ultimate goal of making fighting back futile if not possible. The second is in using Boundary Manipulation, twisting the nature of reality on a far grander scale to directly ruin her foes.
Close Quarters: 0 - Ianthe prefers to fight at range, portaling away should a foe stray too close.
Mobility: 5 - Ianthe can float, through for actual evasion and movement she prefers using portals. Her mobility on foot is no different to that of an ordinary person though.
Defense: 3 - Everything but physical attacks hits Ianthe pretty hard though she is able to keep her mind somewhat clear even when reeling from a blow.
Excel Hyper: 0 - None.Requiem
Inverted Curse: When Ianthe harasses a foe she brings more and more of the reality surrounding them under her control, the effects thereof only growing apparent with her more decisive shows of force. The more Ianthe disrupts a foe, the greater Boundary Manipulation's power when used to target them.Hypers
Guardian Devil [3]: Ianthe places a temporary reality marker upon an ally. Ianthe is able to swiftly and pre-emptively disrupt foes who try to attack that ally in exchange for the disruptions suffering from reduced output.
Ruinous Providence [4]: Ianthe marks a foe, her influence around them growing with each passing moment. When she uses Ruinous Providence again, the current mark is removed and she gains a brief boost to her magical output targeting that foe, the boost being proportional to how long the mark was active for.Exit, Stage Left [4]: Ianthe opens a portal and makes a swift exit, for when foes get a bit too close for comfort.
Boundary Manipulation [5]: Ianthe unveils the true extent of her powers, the ability to manipulate the boundaries that define and differentiate concepts and entities. What she does with this often varies though it's usually spectacular.A support build exists to fuck your enemies, requires a decent amount of environmental awareness to be know how to maximize your ability to harass and impair, and a little bit of coordination to help allies make the best of it.
Be aware that your Ranged stat is deceptively high, you're weaker than the numbers suggest, the price of having so much versatility in it. But well, you've got the tools to make the most of it, and with a bit of creativity, that versatility will pay for itself. To compensate for that, you've got Ruinous Providence. You just drop it on someone, someone who you'll actually expect to survive for long enough, and when you need to do something a little more lethal or a little more dangerous to them, you pop it and whack them. Be careful who you choose though, you can only have one active at any given time, though of course with later level ups you could always raise that cap or make the activation 'free' so you're not stuck waiting for another 4 to set it off.
Guardian Devil is more or less a defense buff but due to how it works you'll be running it off of your main stat of Ranged rather than needing to bother with defense, it has some drawbacks of course, but seeing as you're already balancing between Debuffer and Nuker with a general emphasis on versaility, you really don't wanna split your attention any further lest your powers end up too anaemic. Usage is pretty straightforwards, if someone tries attacking your ally, you just try and fuck them in the most debilitating way possible. It's not just for squishies either, sure a tank doesn't need more protection, but since your 'protection' comes in the form of tripping portals and reality-twisting fuckery you could always use it to try and force their assailant to make a fatal mistake.
Now comes the main event, the pièce de résistance - Boundary Manipulation. It's powerful, but it's also versatile, you gotta foot the bill for it somehow, so that's why your Requiem, your Regalia, and half your Ranged is dedicated just to it, makes sure it's as dangerous and as unpredictable as you'll want it to be. When there's a big bad motherfucker you need to get rid of, this is what you'll use. You harass them, you stack up Inverted Curses on them, and then you drop this. It's incredibly open-ended so you got plenty of options. Wanna reinforce the distinction between mind and body, removing their ability to make their body do anything? Go for it. Wanna remove the distinction between them and your image of them? Go ahead, make what you see no different to what they are, and just close your eyes. Might not kill them, but it'll hurt like hell.
Direct attacks with this are particularly effective on foes that rely too much on shields and the like, because this has no attacks actor, they're not gonna be able to put it between you and them, at least not in any meaningful way, though such attacks do suffer quite a bit from foes focusing more on general effect resistance.
But of course, for those foes there are always, less direct ways, explode the air around them, fire objects through portals, that sorta thing, best part is, since Inverted Curse increases your magic output rather than its effects on the victim, indirect attacks still benefit fully, after all, the higher your output, the more things you can hurl their way.
Oh and Exit, Stage Left? That should pretty self-explanatory. If someone tries to punch you in the face, drop that and run. This is also why your Defence is somewhat focused on keeping a clear mind even when struck, it lets you still drop that even when struck by a lighter attacks so that you don't end up getting combo'd or anything.
Minato -Alter-
SpoilerCurrent Regalia
Origin Indexer: A prototype device with a metaphysical link to the Origin, allowing its wearer to access the very memories of the universe. It takes the form of a small wrist-mounted device resembling a calculator in interface. The Indexer, when activated, forms a set of light armor (Origin Suit) around the wielder to protect them from the otherwise dangerous data channeling it performs. The Origin Suit is literally just a futuristic maid outfit that is a great deal more protective than it ought to be.Stats
Ranged: 3 - Minato Alter's only ranged technique revolves around the usage of Varunapasha, which he focuses entirely on.
Close Quarters: 7 - Minato Alter is quite adept at fighting in close-range as a result of his Godslayer training, general experience in brawls and physical blessing.
Mobility: 0 - Minato Alter doesn't really exhibit any mobility beyond the norm for a baseline human.
Defense: 7 - His suit provides moderate protection (somehow), but it's Minato Alter's sheer willpower and refusal to go down that makes up most of his defensive ability.
Excel Hyper: 2 - True Regalia Replication.Requiem
Imperfect Regalia Replication: Minato Alter can imitate Regalia using the Origin Indexer, granting him the ability to copy the Regalia contained within the universe's memory; once summoned, Minato Alter can detonate it, sacrificing it to either protect himself from an attack or heavily damage an opponent. However, the effects of his copied Regalia are weaker than on their original wielder, acting as little more than explosive summoned blades.Hypers
Spear of Doom [3]: Gae Bulg, spear of Cu Culain, one of the Regalia that Minato has Alter has perfected the summoning thereof. Manifests as a conflagration twisted into the form of a spear with steel in place of flame, as soon as it embeds in an object, it fills it with barbed tendrils. As with other false Regalia, he can destroy it to protect himself from attack or to damage an enemy heavily.Sea God's Noose [4]: Varunapasha, astra noose of Varuna, one of the Regalia that Minato Alter has perfected the summoning thereof. Manifests as a jet of quicksilver that tethers its victim and drags them over to its master. The drag may be canceled into an explosion instead.
Phantom Reverie [5]: Minato Alter disrupts the power supply of one his own False Regalia, causing it to briefly flicker out of existence allowing him to bypass guards and parries.
Silver Storm - Night of the Black Snow [6]: Minato Alter releases the limiters on the Gaia Core for a brief moment, greatly amplifying his replication speed for the duration at the cost of continually damaging his own body from the strain.
An aggressive tank that drags foes over and trades blows until their foe can no longer stand. You basically wanna stock up a few weapons and then drag people over, tanking their blows and retaliating with explosive attacks that leave them vulnerable to follow up.
Your defenses are actually kinda mediocre, you've got a bit from your stats, and a bit more from your Regalia, but you're more focused on willpower which helps you resist certain effects, and more importantly here, recover from attacks. Willpower's not going to make it deal less damage, it's not going to reduce the secondary effects either, but I'll put it this way, when some big bad asshole looking like a cross between Lord Humungus and Jason Voorhees starts choking you with lightning, you get to smile and jam a blade into that son of a bitch's heart, no delay at all. It's not strictly just a matter of pain tolerance, a blow can be pretty rattling, it can send people into a panic, or at the very least make you fuck up, willpower-based defenses? That helps protect you from it. And of course, your Requiem lets you detonate your weapons, so when it comes to trading blows, you'll probably win. Even if you foe has will-power based defenses, unless their weapon has as much impact they'll still be off-balance and you'll be in a better position overall for follow up. In fact, the whole point of Phantom Reverie is to force a trade. Phase your weapon through theirs and let each strike, see who's the bitch when the smoke clears. Guess what? It sure as hell won't be you.
Sea God's Noose is your main tool, it's fairly powerful even with only 3 in ranged since the entire stat is dedicated entirely to this one move. It should be fairly self-explanatory. Enemy far. You no smash foe when they far. Noose move foe close. You smash. You'll want to have Spear of Doom up and maybe one or two non-hyper False Regalia weapons up when you do it. Hit them immediately with the spear and if they're fleshy and not too heavily armored it's going make it harder to run or fight, plus filling you foe's veins and arteries with murderous barbed wire will make the explosion that more dangerous since it's trying to tear out of their damn circulatory system. Now it may be tempting to detonate it immediately, but you actually don't want to. As long as they're in close quarters with you, the impairing effects are more important because they make it harder for them to stop you when you summon more stuff to stab and blast them with. You'll really only wanna detonate it if they're going to remove it, escape, or you really need to disrupt them for something. It's a pretty versatile tool, but again, it doesn't work too well if the target's armored or lacks blood vessels and whatnot.
Now, what happens if you're getting hammered by artillery or you just dragged in a big bad melee unit or some speedy fuckwit you have trouble stabbing? Silver Storm, costs health, but whatever you're taking hits anyway so if you're running this you're probably packing healing items or a healer or something, and more importantly, if you're using it right, the damage you take from the cost will be lower than what you would've taken from combat anyway. By supercharging your Requiem you'll be able to just overwhelm foes with explosion spam, blasting and pinning them. Incoming attack? Mitigate with an explosion. Sturdy foe? Stagger with explosive spam. Foe's too fast? Let's see if they can dodge half a dozen explosions.
"Kuro"
SpoilerCurrent Regalia
Tsukikage no Tsurugi: A chainsaw and double-barrelled shotgun which may be summoned and dismissed independently of one another.Stats
Ranged: 4 - While Kuro is no stranger to a firefight, he's better versed in close-quarters combat where they can better direct their foes into his traps, as such he has a trouble scoring direct hits against most foes, though he's still able to suppress and pressure with grazes and the like.
Close Quarters: 8 - The mix of suddenly appearing traps combined with a pair of powerful weapons makes Kuro quite a threat at close quarters especially given his skill in wounding and debilitating his targets.Mobility: 4 - Kuro prefers using traps for offense and defense, as such his ability to evade or close in is quite dependent on how well his traps are suppressing foes.
Defense: 3 - Kuro's not the most durable, though he can still take a few hits.
Excel Hyper: 0 - None.Requiem
Always Prepared: Kuro always has traps in place, consisting of things like plastic explosives, bolder traps, and heavy caltrops (better known as bear traps). He can reveal them in battle and use them to ensnare and damage his foes; there's no magic involved here, he's just that prepared.Hypers
Distract [3]: A sneaky distraction performed by throwing a molotov the target's way. Remember kids, they can't see you if they're on fire!Dastardly Snare [4]: Thanks to careful planning, the next trap Kuro reveals will be much more precise than usual.
Smoking Gun [5]: Kuro reveals a wound he's inflicted upon their foe in a previous struggle. The target must have been in a position wherein it was feasible for him to make the attack to inflict such a wound using his Regalia.
Shadow Takedown [5]: The shinobi silently brings down a target by running up to them and beating the shit out of them with jumping punches and flying dropkicks, possibly throwing a chair or two. Works best against weakened foes.
Yup it's another asshole build, this one with a more offensive bent, focusing on blitzing foes down and going for the execute when the opportunity presents itself. It's a build with a lot of threats and the idea is to basically force your enemies to always be thinking before everything they ever do "Is Kuro gonna fuck me?".
So you've got your Requiem, it basically just lets you conjure traps out of thin air without any casting even, this gives you plenty of noncommittal attacks. You don't need to really physically attack to damage and ensnare your foes, just be close enough to them. At longer ranges you probably won't really be hitting someone unless they're winding up or recovering, well not without Dastardly Snare at least, but a few sudden explosions oughta keep enemies guessing.
Smoking Gun is your other surprise fuckery skill. Basically you just wanna get sorta near people? Like, you don't have to directly attack them if you don't want to, though dropping traps is, as always, encouraged. They're now a viable target. You wanna unveil it at just the right moment, when a wound will mess everything up. Keep in mind it doesn't matter how much impact or knock back the hit had, when you Smoking Gun a foe only the lingering effects like damage are inflicted.
The important thing to remember about Smoking Gun is that it's not supernatural at all. It's literally just a consequence of you being a sneaky asshole. What this means is you won't have to worry about things like magic resistance, instead it's impacted by traits like the target's reflexes, defensive skills, and the like. Basically all the stuff that would block or mitigate one of your regular attacks. And it just so happens that like half of those factors are things that get fucked when you're stuck in a bear trap or halfway through eating a claymore. Think of it as rewriting events so you did another action, it's not guaranteed to be perfect hit, your foe would've done something to dodge and mitigate it and all that, but it certainly catch people of guard. Just, make sure the event you chose was a good time to attack, otherwise you may find that your foe didn't actually take any damage from it.
Distract is well, harassment. You're just hitting the guy with a molotov, its effects and benefits should be pretty self-explanatory, they're probably on fire right now, you didn't have to put yourself at much risk, and it's probably pretty distracting, even a foe immune to fire could have their aim thrown off by the smoke and flames after all.
Finally, you've got Shadow Takedown, basically, you just run up to a foe who's vulnerable and who isn't receiving covering fire or anything, and beat the shit outta them. Doesn't really matter whether or not it kills since you'd have fucked them up and weakened them further anyway. It's powerful, but it does take a bit of time, so if only got time for a quick shot, consider just giving them both barrels instead.
"Shiro"
SpoilerCurrent Regalia
Interfacing Gloves: A pair of bewitched gloves that help Shiro focus his mime powers allowing them to conjure invisible implements, they don't really last too long though, dissipating shortly after focus is lost.Stats
Ranged: 0 - Shiro doesn't really have anything that can be launched out of the cloud.
Close Quarters: 10 - Shiro is proficient in the use of both blades and throwing knives, though the latter only works within his chalky cloud. He's not too good at direct combat, but can launch dangerous surprise attacks especially with a larger cloud.
Mobility: 4 - Shiro is quite fast within his plume of chalk dust but is rather slow outside of it.
Defense: 5 - Shiro isn't too durable himself, but as long as he remains in the chalk cloud, he's able to block and deflect incoming attacks.
Excel Hyper: 0 - None.Requiem
Realm of Chalk: In combat, Shiro hides within a cloud of chalk dust that confounds the senses of foes who stray into it. He is able to expand it, especially through particular hypers, though attacks that strike it causes it to shrink.Hypers
Engulf [3]: A plume of dust explodes outwards, extending the cloud and enveloping foes caught in it.Devour [4]: Enemies caught within the cloud take a sudden burst of damage as the dust tears at them from all directions disorienting them further.
Expand [5]: The cloud of chalk dust explosively expands, dealing no damage but quickly covering a larger area.
Decoy [6]: Immediately after being struck, Shiro may reveal that the attack only hit a chalky decoy, thus escaping the effects of the hit and seemingly teleporting elsewhere within his cloud. This requires that they drain dust from their cloud however, greatly shrinking its size after use.
A peculiar close quarters build with the ability to impair all foes within range and continually extend that range. Effectively, what the combination of your Requiem and stat descriptors do is make it so that everything under that cloud of chalk is considered to be in close quarters for you, potentially giving you an absurd range for a predominantly melee build.
Adding to this, your offense and defense benefit greatly from being in the dust, so as long as you keep it up, you'll be able always be fighting from an advantageous footing. The downside of this of course, is that you're reliant on it as well. If someone blows away enough of the cloud you're gonna struggle without allied help. Now note that what's most dangerous to you often aren't particularly damaging or crippling attacks, sniper rounds for instant, won't be too much of an issue as long as you're hiding, however explosives, concussive strikes, and the like, things that can blow away the dust are a much greater risk. You're particularly vulnerable to area damage, a large plume of dust isn't exactly hard to miss, and a gust of cutting gale or a local carpet bombing is gonna play havoc on it.
Expand is basically your all-purpose tool. It's a 5 to maximize its potency. Drop it at the start of combat to immediately get something to work with, drop if after eating a blast to try and recover, or just use it push an assault. Engulf is your more tactical tool, use it to suddenly throw off a foe's aim and attack them, expanding your territory at the same time. It's not as powerful but it's a hell of a lot more spammable at least.
Devour turns your entire domain into AoE attack with the plus of also making it even harder to fight inside it for a while, this is basically your question mark, drop it when your cloud has a foe or two in it and you're unsure of what to do. The disorient helps allies strike and evade, it helps you ambush even better, and the damage might give you some new openings to make the most of it. If not, well, you still got some free damage in at least.
Decoy is, a quasi-heal of sorts. You really can't take a hit, and as much as it hurts to shrink your own cloud, it sure beats being pinned to a wall getting wailed on by an angry space whale or something. It lets you effectively negate an attack on reaction and instantly counter by teleporting elsewhere and launching a surprise attack from there. Note that the shrinkage happens after usage, not during it, meaning you'll likely get your sneak attack off first before the shrink happens, though I still wouldn't exactly recommend teleporting to the edge so that you're outside your cloud afterwards, that's, kinda just asking for trouble.
Pia Delacroix
SpoilerCurrent Regalia
Signal Booster: An intrinsic aspect of Pia's Requiem, it serves to simply amplify her Requiem's effects.Stats
Ranged: 4 - Pia's rather mediocre ranged capabilities are greatly enhanced with whatever knowledge her Requiem gleans.
Close Quarters: 4 - Pia's rather mediocre close quarters capabilities are greatly enhanced with whatever knowledge her Requiem gleans.Mobility: 4 - Pia focuses more on avoiding and mitigating damage than really running around them much, this is further enhanced with whatever knowledge her Requiem gleans.
Defense: 7 - Pia deflect and mitigate attacks fairly well, and should that fail, take a hit. This is further enhanced with whatever knowledge her Requiem gleans.
Excel Hyper: 0 - None.Requiem
Tech Support: Pia is able to call tech support on, just about anything, revealing all sorts of secrets and details if she so asks. The main limitation of course being how long it takes to start getting answers.Hypers
Analysis Boost I [3]: Pia speeds up her analysis, reducing the time needed for her to get her next piece of useful information.Analysis Boost II [4]: Pia speeds up her analysis, reducing the time needed for her to get her next piece of useful information.
Analysis Boost III [5]: Pia speeds up her analysis, reducing the time needed for her to get her next piece of useful information.
Analysis Boost IV [6]: Pia focuses, speeds up her analysis, reducing the time needed for her to get her next piece of useful information at the cost of distracting her, making it much harder to fight effectively whilst doing so.
A stall build that focuses on slowly acquiring intel and using that to improve all aspects of its play until its able to trivialize its foes. You'll be focused entirely on your Requiem, though since you actually don't have any innate abilities or weapons, there's a bit of an emphasis on acquiring various pieces of gear to help you fight.
Mind you, non-Regalia gear can and will get broken or run dry, so take that into account before you try to parry a cement pillar with a sword or show up with a T/C G2.
Still you're focusing entirely on your gimmick, so it's gonna be one hell of a gimmick. The basic idea is that it's gonna take quite a while to get anything really without using your Hypers, but the information can be very valuable like precisely where to strike a foe to deal catastrophic damage or ways to deal with the various abilities and techniques. Plus since it's just information, there's nothing stopping you from sharing it all with allies, though with your stat descriptors you will of course be benefitting the most, so long as you're packing the right tools anyway.
Your Hypers are, yeah, they're there to make sure that you get your information ASAP, that's why all of them are just the same thing with differing levels of effectiveness, it makes sure you'll always be able to do it unless you completely trash your Wordline anyway. Keep in mind though that you probably would wanna still keep some good results around for the more dangerous attacks you can't reliably evade or block/parry/tank with 1s and 2s alone, so make sure you weigh the costs first.
Also note that the information you request will make quite the difference, for instance against a highly aggressive foe you may not be able to stall for too long against, you may wanna focus on getting information regarding how to defend against and disrupt its attacks so that you can just start negating its moveset while you wait to learn how to land a killing blow, whereas against a super tanky nuisance, defence probably won't be too big a concern.
Valeria Gottlieb
SpoilerCurrent Regalia
Missile Whip: It's whip, but made out of miniature missiles. It's constantly lengthening as more micromissiles are fabricated and pushed into its formation.Stats
Ranged: 5 - Valeria's options beyond close quarters are entirely dependant in both range and power on the length of her whip.
Close Quarters: 7 - Valeria's missile whip is constantly growing. She's quite skilled with it for the purposes of both offense and defense.
Mobility: 0 - Valeria doesn't really exhibit any more speed than a normal person.
Defense: 7 - Valeria is able to protect herself using her ever-growing whip to block and intercept attacks. She's also at least somewhat durable.
Excel Hyper: 0 - None.Requiem
Marksmen: Valeria's Hypers are especially effective when attacking from afar.Hypers
Lengthen [3]: Valeria pumps spirit energy into her fabricators, temporarily increasing her micromissile production rate.Lock On [4]: Valeria locks onto a specific part of her target with Ruya's right eye, allowing her to adjust her attacks to be better at striking and damaging it.
Kinetic Slam [5]: Valeria bewitches her whip using Abraham's left arm, wreathing it in kinetic force and accelerating it to strike its target with incredible force.
Guillotine [6]: Detonates a variable quantity of micromissiles, shortening the length of the Valeria's Regalia in exchange for a powerful attack that sends white-hot shrapnel tearing into its victims.
A ranged unit that needs a bit of set up time before it starts crippling its victims from afar, allowing it to dismantle them at its leisure. Don't let the stat distribution fool you, you're a ranged marksmen with close quarters capabilities, not a close quarters specialist.
What you'll wanna do is to drop a Lengthen or Lock On right off the bat. Lengthen will probably last around 3 Turns at the cost of not giving an immediate surge. Doesn't matter really, you'll be getting more in the long run and while your defenses are partially dependent on whip length, it's no big loss when you weigh it all up. Its benefits should be self-explanatory, you wanna lengthen your whip more so that get more range as soon as possible. Lock On, that helps you disrupt and cripple. You wanna whip people where it'll trip them up, not necessarily where it'll hurt. This is another buff, probably around 3 Turns or so as well, you don't want it to be burst or anything because you want to use it in conjunction with other Hypers.
Now the other reason why you want Lengthen up and to keep it up is your main attack will actually be Guillotine. It's a cut weaker than most 6s since its variable, but being variable is quite important. After all, even without Lengthen up, detonating a single missile won't hurt much, and with Lengthen you can afford to detonate more and keep on going. Lock On is important too, helps jam the shrapnel in all the right places and debilitate your foes further. The explosive nature is a nice plus as well, helps play keep-away and believe me, you'll wanna play keep-away because your Requiem encourages it, makes your hypers more crippling and more damaging
You don't really wanna go overboard with Guillotine unless you're really sure. Like if you've grappled your foe with it, or know you need to dish out a lot of damage and that the cost is worth it or something, because whenever you sacrifice a larger portion of your whip you're basically lowering your all-round effectiveness. Now the other really nice thing about this is, since you can minimise the impacts of it, you can use it as a "safe" way to consume 6s. Yeah shortening your whip hurts a bit but it's predictable, recoverable, and it's something you can account for as opposed to the consequences of using that 6 to run your actions when you're not sure if you've enough an advantage to negate its bite. Better the devil you know and all that.
Kinetic Slam's a great all-round tool. Your whip's a pretty versatile weapon after all. You can use the side of your whip with it to slam people into things, use its tip for a powerful precision strike, or even to help aid your defenses. It's good for keep-away, good for making openings for follow up, this Hyper's useful in most situations really.
Character Sheet
Y'know, the thing you need to fill-in to sign up for this trainwreck?
SpoilerName: Your name
Age: Your age
Gender: Your gender
Appearance: Text only pleaseBackground: You're already Awakened, though you you're probably gonna have too much combat experience right now. Maybe an Aramitama kill under your belt if you had a team to back you up, nothing major though.
Preferred Location:
Preferred Quest(s):
Preferred Modifier(s):
Current Regalia:
Stats: (19 Points to Distribute)
Requiem:
Hypers: (4 Slots, not including Excel Hypers)Finally
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[IC] Tengoku no Owari CT, Chapter 1.2
in General
Posted
Sasha
Ring. Ring. Ri- "Sasha." That, wasn't question, more just a statement, a confirmation. "I will be free on the weekend. What do you need?" Y'know, she could at least pretend to be a bit happier. Or at least make it sound like she wasn't annoyed with your very existence, you're pretty sure at this point that you're cordial, but apparently Sabia likes her kool-aid to taste like cardboard.