Re: FoE: Meadow's Ford

[Aonee]

Akapesh and Flashpoint's Morning Conversation:

[Cptadder]

Owing to personnel differences I'm currently deciding if I want to continue the campaign. I invest 10+ hours a week in this campaign and now when I try and speed things along I'm getting push back from people. My thanks to Moody for coming out this week for Rum. It was a shitty hand I dealt you but it was meant for Rum who I know can be trusted to stretch his mind and think with the entire parties inventory at times. You did your best coming at it with a second hand character.

[tylertoon2]

Owing to personnel differences I'm currently deciding if I want to continue the campaign.  I invest 10+ hours a week in this campaign and now when I try and speed things along I'm getting push back from people.  My thanks to Moody for coming out this week for Rum.  It was a shitty hand I dealt you but it was meant for Rum who I know can be trusted to stretch his mind and think with the entire parties inventory at times.  You did your best coming at it with a second hand character.  

 I apologize for the behavior we gave you this session. We will be discussing things to improve how we run things so we all are more or less comfortable and in general make things run smoothly sometime this week. We will let you know if you have any desire to join in.

Also I would like to thank you for the effort you put forth in this campaign and I hope you will reconsider.

If not, well I hope you will pass on whatever notes you have to whoever we elect to DM if that is the case.

Again Apologies all around and I really hope we can work this out.

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

Owing to personnel differences I'm currently deciding if I want to continue the campaign.  I invest 10+ hours a week in this campaign and now when I try and speed things along I'm getting push back from people.  My thanks to Moody for coming out this week for Rum.  It was a shitty hand I dealt you but it was meant for Rum who I know can be trusted to stretch his mind and think with the entire parties inventory at times.  You did your best coming at it with a second hand character.  

Hey sorry i landed up a little too short, wish I connected sooner but the phone would not skype call.

I've talked to the crew and been updated and I know you would have been right about the encounter, I've been thinking of a few solutions when given the scenario. IT sucks I know

[Cptadder]

The Players (PC)
Aonee as Akapesh (Zebra Alchemist)
AdmiralStoicRum as Back Draft (Dashite Pegasus)
OneMoreDaySK as Alouette (Mute Unicorn Musician)
Obs as Flashpoint (Anti-social Earth Pony Mercenary)
Stone as Draz (Zebra Shaman)
Tylertoon as Smooth Tongue (Unicorn Merchant)

Session 15

This wrap up will be extra short this week since the pre-session RP has already been posted.
This week can be summed up as the party chased down and hog tied one of their own. Fought a haunted abomination and failed to kill it before the session ended.

Dawn of the last four days came exactly on time. The dead lands between the mountains that made up the start of the wide pass into the mountain's marking Equestria's southern border were pock marked with creaking metal structures. Some had been transmission and early waring centers. Others had purposes that could only be guessed at after time and neglect had ground them down. The party despite the fight at nightfall had camped in safety watched over by spirits of hearth and healing thanks to Draz efforts. With this temporary bit of peace a minor party had broken out. Cheap booze better used to clean rust had been passed around. Some ponies would be nursing hangovers in the morning. You can read the rest in the recap posted earlier in the thread. The basics are that Flashpoints act had failed after she got drunk and passed out after taking off her barding to clean it. When morning came and Akapesh woke her she took off in a panic running across on the broken land trying to put distance between herself and the party in a blind panic.

This lead to (1 hour real life) time of chasing her down, sorting things out and getting the show on the row towards their goal.

Marching south the ground found several ruins in their path as Akapesh and Flashpoint talked quietly with each other. It was only after they passed the second corpse that Akapesh called a halt and the group spread out to find clues or information. In typical fashion Flashpoint charged the first sound she her and ran smack into a tumble down building of some sort housing a table full of rotting food, a few pallets of straw... a few corpses and an Emergence Suit.

Akapesh had heard of such things, pony efforts by the Ministry of Peace to protect ponies. Created by mixing pony magics and zebra shamanism these suits were designed to survive anything a mega spell after effects could do. Using gems to soak radiation, heat, cold or ambient effects the fabric was designed to reflect or channel energy damage into the ground and away from the wearer. The entire thing was bound together by Zebra shamanism to make it more durable and mold itself to the wearer. The suits while designed by the Ministry of Peace had been bankrolled by Stable-Tech hence the name. The Emergence after the end. To let ponies walk around and survive the land after the megaspells fell. They were rare in the extreme as while they did work mostly to expectations the problem was simply the fact the suits had never been tested for longer than a week. While the suits repaired themselves, and the talismans kept the user supposed with air or water... it did nothing to protect the spirits themselves bound into the suit from running unchecked. While a pony can walk through a landscape of the dead and be troubled for both a moment, these places of anguish and pain would drive the spirits build into the very fabric of the suit mad. Those who attempted to use the suits found themselves hearing whispers and experience random mood swings. The worst and most subtle effect was the spirits desire to get out. As the spirits wanted to break free but could not the desire was imparted into the user. Wearers would sooner or later be they in the middle of a balefire crater or inside a hot zone of magical radiation would remove the suits helmet and quickly die. And one more spirit would be added to the ones try to get free of the suit.

It was not clear who this pony made of bone had been but it lunged towards Flashpoint even as she shot it. Great holes were torn in the suit that began repairing themselves at once thanks to the build in talisman. Akapesh rifle created larger holes that seemed to affect it no better. At the shots and shouts the rest of the party rush to the scene just in time to see the Bone pony slam hard into Flashpoint, it's crush hug seeming to snuff out Flashpoints life even as the rest of the group began opening fire. Even as it took damage it seemed to feed off Flashpoint, it's wounds closing faster as it grappled with her. It took a pony with a lasso and two zebras to pull it off of Flashpoint. It turned grabbing for the nearest Zebra and more gunfire slammed into it. In desperation Back Draft took the safe he still had with him and flew up high to drop it on the things head. It landed exactly along it's back slamming it to the ground and crushing bones. a few seconds later it stood back up.

As they fought they argued about what to do, a dozen ideas were throw out and discarded. Smooth Tongue came close to douse it in flamer fuel only to have the fire to burn itself out in a few seconds. Draz and Akapesh tried to reason with the spirits and received only chaotic responses. After another two exchanges of gunfire, Draz managed to break the suit after it had been shot and slammed a dozen times over. At once the entire suit erupted in a discharge of spiritual energy as the suits gems broke and the suit crumpled to the ground. A few seconds later the skeleton of the pony got back to it's hooves, the suit no longer form fitting but dragging off the ponies body like an old sheet. It was faster now if weaker as it charged Draz, it's regeneration seemingly reduced as bones shot away could only be seen in ghostly after image. The damage dealt now seem to strip away it's material essence as the original spirit made itself manifest using the bones as a body of sorts. It raised itself high to strike Akapesh after catching up with the Zebra only for...

The session to end.

[OneMoreDaySK]

So the session will go on, but what happens when we start up again is right now up in the air.

So right now most are fine with the Sat/Sun schedule, though Sat is preferrable. Rum's schedule is the odd one out though. Maybe put Backdraft on a bus so eventually he can do another BDHeroes moment? And possibly add a character for Moody?

Also, if you need any help Adder, don't heasitate to ask. We'll try.

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

nice cliff hanger bro

[Cptadder]

Sessions will continue however please keep in mind DM has to hand out the following rules as we climb in level.

1. The max level of any weapon skill can not except 90, there is always at least a 10% chance of a miss not counting combat bonuses.
2. If a party member wants to forgo RP they should make that clear to the DM, subsisting roles for playing out a conversation.  It's all right to say "I want person X to give me this info, here is my speech roll"
3. If your turn in combat takes more than five minutes the DM reserve the right to drop a boat on you.  (Not in combat can take all the time it likes)

As for scheduling we are moving to a fixed time baring special timezones.  Friday/Sat/Sunday at 7pm CST/8pm EST

You all pick the day I can fit any of those into my schedule

[OneMoreDaySK]

And with that I get to go respec my Firearms. XD With my rifle being OP accuracy I have to tone down my firearms to 70 to fit Adder's new condition. At least I'm that much closer to ghosting.

[tylertoon2]

And with that I get to go respec my Firearms. XD With my rifle being OP accuracy I have to tone down my firearms to 70 to fit Adder's new condition. At least I'm that much closer to ghosting.

I think you can still level it to 90.

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

... Sorry then we'll have to set BD on the bus. My work schedule is currently and will likely be consistently 4 to close CST Friday Saturday and Sunday. I'm not happy about it but I guess this puts a slot for moody to join.

[Cptadder]

And with that I get to go respec my Firearms. XD With my rifle being OP accuracy I have to tone down my firearms to 70 to fit Adder's new condition. At least I'm that much closer to ghosting.

I think you can still level it to 90.

SK stacked feats and has a weapon with +acc

[OneMoreDaySK]

Could I keep points in firearms up to 84 instead, and have myself fire only aimed shots (1d100-6) with that particular weapon? That way it wouldn't interfere with my other weapons, which would have a 20 point gap (1d100-10, 1d100+4) should I lower it down to 74.

[Cptadder]

Session is set for 7pm CST/8pm EST on Saturday
Moody check your inbox tonight

*Edit
Session 15 xp will be rolled into Session 16. We will start the session over the corpse of the... corpse who used to not be a corpse except always was but is now much less haunted and murderous.

[OneMoreDaySK]

After examination, study, and analysis I can see somezebra getting another helping hoof, or four.

Not entirely sure where I'm standing with point reallocation. On one hand I want to put points into other skills, but at the same time I want to argue that my other weapons wouldn't be as effective without the second -10 bonus I get from Sonata's scope. Hmm. If we're not getting into too many combat scenarios, I think I'd actually be fine with that at Firearms: 70. Or I could promise to only do trickshots with Sonata at Firearms: 84.  Anyone with any opinions on what I should do pointwise?

[Cptadder]

After examination, study, and analysis I can see somezebra getting another helping hoof, or four.

Not entirely sure where I'm standing with point reallocation. On one hand I want to put points into other skills, but at the same time I want to argue that my other weapons wouldn't be as effective without the second -10 bonus I get from Sonata's scope. Hmm. If we're not getting into too many combat scenarios, I think I'd actually be fine with that at Firearms: 70. Or I could promise to only do trickshots with Sonata at Firearms: 84.  Anyone with any opinions on what I should do pointwise?

My opinion try and fill in the gaps. Speech is mostly useless to you. There is an repair pony, a science pony, a semi-survival pony, a trader pony, a MEW pony, pretty much one of every pony. But no sneaking pony.

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

I agree with Adder, there needs to be a sneak,

[OneMoreDaySK]

Whelp, going ninja-sniper-medic-lockpicker to compliment the whatever I called Draz the last time. I need more AP.

[Cptadder]

We are three of six, Sk has an excuse he has been abducted by the French.
Obs, Stone and Tyler are present

[Cptadder]

Due to lack of player attendance (We had 3 of 6) the schedule has been moved to tomorrow same 8pm est time.

[Cptadder]

Short recap of this night
The party defeated a ghost/bone/suit
The party found a gun of considerable size
The party found a corpse tied to a chair with a bullet in the head and paperwork in front of her.
The party crossed a dry lake bed and found the tracks of dozens on dozens ponies froze into the muddy dirt.
Leaving the lakebed they found sand, dirt and worn stone directly in front of them.
Then they found rifle ponies, like 17 of them, or maybe just 7 always on the move
The party got shot... a lot
Then the session ended, we will resume next week already in progress mid battle

[OneMoreDaySK]

Only way we're getting out of this is to have a perfect play next session.

We're up against:
7 V-Rifle Ponies (1 down)
2 H-Rifle Ponies (1 half health)
1 Rage Pony (downed)
1 Bloodwing (Grenade Launcher user & flight)
1 Unknown thing lurking around the back possibly

We have from best to worst numerical combat-wise:
Flashpoint (Dual shotgun EP)
Draz (Boxing SkeleShaman Zebra)
Alouette (Sniper/Sneak/Medic) 
Smooth Tongue (Bomber, problems with dice)
Akapesh (Alchemist with poor quality Recharger)
Backdraft (Doctor with magical energy pistol)

First off, we should've let the sneaky one do the scouting from the ground. Air is faster, but then that gave away our presence and got Backdraft shot up (stop blaming yourself Moody, doing that was totally in character for him, and you know that). Then when it was verified that there were several hostiles, one of our team went LEEROY JENKINS and got shot up for his troubles. Afterwards, there was a rifle pony that was barely standing, but instead of finishing him off and retreating, he only did the latter, which left us with one more hostile.

Big problem was we were spread too thin vs that many enemies. So each enemy only needed to land one shot, then run. Another one is that a lot of the team decided to go with MEW instead of firearms. Leaving us with only one capable gunslinger with too many jobs to fill, and too many guns to juggle with not enough AP to do so.

Out of our control was the very good crits the enemies landed on us.

No option for retreat since we'd just be falling back to the lakebed, which would make us easy pickings for the marksponies. Hmm. Maybe if the Zebras can summon a fog, then it would cut down on distance, letting Draz gap-close with melee without having to deal with distance shots, and if we can get Flashpoint up again he can deal heavy with close range shotguns. Alouette could join in with her own shotgun, but she's barely standing on a leg right now. Fog could confuse them enough for her to recover.

Right now the plan was for me to drop the frag item down for Smooth to pick up and use, then get out of firing range, while Backdraft (once again) saves Flashpoint.

Question Adder, does Flashpoint count as holding until the end of the turn, or skip while stunned? Also, requesting that I revert my skill points so I'd actually be able to hit things a bit more. I'd promise to only do shots with at least 10% chance of missing, So the V-rifle would be only trickshots, and everything else would be a -10 at most for the moment.

... Yeah, as anyone can tell, I'm kinda upset. Don't want to lose her, but she won't turn tail and run, especially after the little convo she had with Akapesh.

[Cptadder]

In every fight I always try and throw in something special.  Here's a list

Fight 1:Intro with a bang
Four raiders armed with a mix of shitty rifles.
One melee raider who pushed his target with every target trying to get them surrounded by his fellow raiders
Bang-A raider with a battle harness and more guns than he knows what to do with.  Used a mix of crude explosives and his ranged attacks were all cones thanks to having over 7(!) guns strapped to his battle saddle most of them only vaguely aimed in the same direction as his heavy rifle.

The idea of the fight was for the melee to push a party member into a square where the rest could ponypile them.  Meanwhile Mr Bang would simply add backup or fire into melee.  He instead exploded thanks to Smooth Tongue.

Fight 2:Ash soldier
The Burning Mare
To date no one has fought the burning mare but she demonstrated resistance to energy weapons, the only weapon anyone has tried to use on her this campaign.  Known to have an AOE flame aura and both ranged and melee balefire attacks.  Burns hotter the closer she gets to her target.

Flashpoint managed to run, if he had tried to fight he would have died horribly.  But he might have learned a few things about the Burning Mare's fighting style before... again I stress dieing horribly.  


Fight 3:Zombie ponies
Stable 39 top floor
Ghoul party.  Easy to kill but numerous swarming Ghouls.  The party fought scared and managed to miss most of the unique mechanics of this fight as they fought two or three ghouls max instead of the planned nine or ten.

The idea was to bury them in ghouls, ducking into side rooms would result in even more ghouls showing up but the party used doors to their advantage and ran from the threat rather than trying to charge it head on.

Fight 4:Up and eaten
Two magic using Ghoul unicorns using disabling magic while a Ghoul Pegasus and a few normal ghouls provide the hurt.  One ghoul put ponies to sleep or tied them down.  The other floated ponies making melee useless.  Both had an excellent darkness spell that let them fight as if invisible making ranged useless/dangerous.

Thanks to use of doors the party made this an easy affair as they only faced one or two ghouls at the same time. Flashpoint did get disabled and separated but again smart use of doors let them save him and free him before the ghouls could feast on the free floating food.


Fight 5:Please present ID
Robots who could each 1hit KO the party thanks to plasma arms but were held back by programing to let the party have two full rounds to jump them.  Also vulnerable to trick shots or deactivation.  These things were tough but held back by their lack of group coordination and in some cases preexisting damage.

The party managed to blitz their way through until Akapesh managed the disable trick and took the rest down.

Fight 6:Hello nice pony
The first slaver fight.  The party would come up on a split up slaver group.  If they played along they would be jumped by all five.  Otherwise they had two melee ponies outside and all the ranged ponies inside.  They would have used the building terrain against their foes as they moved around the jail using melee and shotguns to carve up the party.  Fun would be added by the flame pony who used an inferno to aoe splash things and gradually set the place on fire if not left alone long enough.

The party stumbled their way to victory.  My rolls as the DM were particularly shit.  Smart ponies used the roof to fire down on poor melee ponies.

Fight 7:Prep time does not always make you Batman
Knowing exactly what was coming for them and being on the defensive I let use with foes.  There was nine in total.  A leader, two snipers, three shotguns, some psychos all of them tough, armored and equipped.  The would come from the south west and the party would have every chance to suck them in and ambush them.

They failed to do that turning this into a tough fight that put two of the party downed but alive.  Their leader escaping along with two other ponies.  The group failed to entice them into the jail before attacking and the one trap they set was rather anticlimactic  

Fight 8:Not so mobile suits
ROBOTS of DOOM, terrible melee robots with average if inaccurate ranged weaponry.  Armored and reinforced to make energy weapons more useful.  Even equipped with AoE flame grenades when two more ponies got melee range.  However they were limited by being in essence almost totally immobile thanks to rust greatly reducing their threat.  As well they only engaged Zebra by default then used a round robin targeting system where each switched target to the thing that attacked them in order of attacks.  So if smooth shot one they would all shoot at smooth even if Flashpoint and Draz also attacked them that round.  They would all fire at smooth once then switch to flashpoint then draz then to whoever fired at them last.  

A nasty surprise but nothing the party could not handle, even if they did not check to see if the robots all had an AoE grenade defense... or more than one grenade.

Fight 9:A proud lord
The party faced a pony that was pure bone inside a Emergence Suit. Made of technology, magic and shamanism the suits made you nearly immune to the effects of post megaspell terrain. It laughed off radiation, fire, freeze and most anything else. But there was leakage between the suit, the spirit bound to it and the user. Sooner or later the user would try to escape the suit even as the spirit would, they would fear small spaces and eventually on purpose or accidentally kill themselves after repeated use. The party faced one such, hating all things and feeding off of life and freedom it itself was denied.

This fight was in three stages as first they had to fight the suit and spirit trapped together which was meant to be a terrible fight for anyone who wandered into melee range. By putting the Bone Pony in a confined area I trusted my players would never back up and make the thing chase them but instead they all went point blank and we were a few seconds away from a dead party. In this form magical energy was useless and gun attacks the most useful with bonus damage dealt. It regenerated quickly in this form.

In the second form as the suit itself broke down but the spirit remained trapped with the shell of the pony melee was best to break the body of the pony up. Bonus damage for melee and unarmed reduced damage for anything else. Regeneration was greatly reduced in this form.

The last stage was pure spirit with guns, melee and unarmed doing nothing. Magical energy and magic itself the only things useful. However the spirit was weakest in this form and regenerated not at all.



The last fight? Fight 10? Still in progress

[Cptadder]

The Players (PC)
Aonee as Akapesh (Zebra Alchemist)
AdmiralStoicRum as Back Draft (Dashite Pegasus)
OneMoreDaySK as Alouette (Mute Unicorn Musician)
Obs as Flashpoint (Anti-social Earth Pony Mercenary)
Stone as Draz (Zebra Shaman)
Tylertoon as  Smooth Tongue (Unicorn Merchant)

Session 16

Combat!
No sooner had the Emergence Suit destroyed itself than the pony within animated and began attacking the party.  This second form of the Bone Pony was even faster than the first if seemingly no stronger.  But unlike the first time they had fought it the suit seem to drag off it's body rather than moving with it.  A few short exchanges of gunfire later it was down again, it's very bones smashed into dust.  Only for it to rise a third time, for the third time it came at them.  This time it's form was as a pure spirit, nothing more than a stirting of the air, motes of dust and the odd shard of bone making a pony shape that charged towards the Zebra's faster than ever before.

But not stronger, and much weaker this time as charged onto a landmine that Smooth Tongue had placed earlier.  However being mostly air and hate it's weight was insufficient to trigger the mine. Not that it mattered as seconds later when gunfire and hooves proved unable to hurt it, magical energy was able to put it down for the third and final time.  The party gathered to lick it's wounds which got worse as Akapesh accidentally triggered the landmine the Bone Pony had been standing on as he attempted to gather it's remains for disposal or burial.  Smooth Tongue had set the landmine without letting else know where it was.  A mistake that nearly blew Flashpoints hooves off.  But both Akapesh and she managed to stay up despite a landmine going off in their face.  

Healing parceled out the group searched out the area looking for anything of value and finding very little.  What they did find was a ladder leading down into a crack in the ground hidden in the base of the old building.  Alouette and Draz went first while the rest stayed above to search.  What they found was curious.  It's clear the corpse inside the tower were killed by the Bone Pony.  But outside?  Bullets, laser marks, piles of ash told of a one sided battle.  Four ghoul bodies stuffed behind some rocks told of what looked like execution killings, each shot at close range from directly behind.

Below the old battlefield the party searched cautiously find little danger and further curiosities.   In the cave was four rough beds and one well made if dusty bed.  There was an old cold fire pit and entire set of cooking facilities, an old desk was crammed into the back of the cave.  Of note was the ghoul unicorn tied to the chair in front of the small desk with a neat hole in the back of her skull, as well the pile of ghoul skulls piled in a rough pile in one depression inside the cave.

Splitting up Alouette put Flashpoint under for surgery and healing, Draz went to check the bone pile and Smooth Tongue looked at the desk.  Draz found a mostly intact ghoul under the bones which for some reason someone had slit open to put almost four hundred caps by cutting open the corpse and shoving it in among the decayed organs.  By the tables Back Draft and Akapesh poked at pre-war glasses and dining plates.  No food in evidence but everything neatly stacked up as if waiting the next meal.  At the desk Smooth Tongue found a bundle of papers written in short pony legalese of which Smooth Tongue himself knew a great deal.

The papers were a bit of a jumbled mess.  There were directives for a meeting, two Stable Depots were mentioned and locations given.  One Depot they had visited, one they had not.  Also contained were personal correspondence of a very sensitiveness sort describing what would ghoul was going to a certain male ghoul when she saw him next.  It was graphic, intense and and way to anatomically descriptive for most readers tastes, Smooth Tongue set it aside for further reviewing later.

Talk turned to what this place was.  No one had any good ideas and they had already used up half the day traveling here.  The party pressed on, they had an old lake bed to cross and only three days left to search after today.

(Part 2 up later)

[OneMoreDaySK]

Let's see. Plans we got so far:
My idea, which is insane.
Trying to pull of a nigh impossible speech check to convince them to stop fighting for a moment.

Um... Not sure if we got anything else. It really just falls down to whether or not the dice roll in our favor next session...

Ooh! What if we throw Moody's character in there, leveled and equipped scaled to our current condition? He can lend a hoof in getting us out of the situation, and then can have some angry words with the Enclave of our group (if we make it out) which would put Rum on a bus.

But then Moody would have to RP both of them... Um.. Maybe an out of session thing between the two?

[Moodyman90]

So I need to talk to Adder about equipment and also with Adder and Rum to hammer out backstory. Would have done so yesterday but was worn out by the time I had time to do so. My self appointed deadline is today so I've dropped the ball but I do have a character sheet with distributed points and selected perks.

[Cptadder]

K I'll be online after 8pm est
8pm is a very familiar deadline

[Moodyman90]

My main problem lately has been dad has gone from somewhat lazy "It's 4:30, lets knock off" Winter mode to "It's 5:45 and there's still four more hours of good daylight left to work with!" Spring mode. Most of my post after 9:30 AM and before 6 PM lately has been me on my phone, excluding overly rainy days and I get Sundays off if I'm lucky.

[Cptadder]

moving this to 2030, have to make a run to the other place, should be an hour turnaround

[StoneSlinger88]

Moody, I could probably answer a few questions for you-- I asked Adder a few truckloads of them last night.

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