Season 8 Session 1 Beginning of the End?

 

Cast

• Amie-Belle T. W. Lee aka Whisper (Played by Curtis): Cold War era super-soldier/spy that got put in the Freezer, because she got poisoned. After getting thawed out and cured she tried to back to work, and was given an “adjustment period”. Uncle Sam called 2 years later, with work… because once you’re in, you’re in for life. Tagline: “In and out without a whisper.”
• Beauregard K. “Bo” Ratnam aka Wirerat (Played by Brice): Technopath, inventor, and hacker. He specializes in co-opting enemy systems and tech assets. Tagline: “Nice tech – I’ll borrow that.
• Stainless Steel Rat aka “Sir” (NPC Ally): Bo’s best friend and assistant. A sentient drone in the shape of a stylized shiny metal rat mindlinked to Bo. Specialties are rapid repair construction and modifications. Imagine if K-9 and R2D2 made a baby and it looks a bit like a rodent. Tagline: “Repairs and upgrades in progress”
• Derrick K. Ratnam aka Ledgerdemain (NPC Ally): Spin doctor and media liaison for Project VANGUARD. Twin to Bo. Tagline: “Well, actually that’s not how it happened.
• Rafe Hanlon aka Nyx (played by Chris D.): An umbrakinetic petty thief still on work release several years later, on his way to becoming a true agent and hero. Tagline: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
• Layla A. de Blackburn aka Nox (NPC): CIA-trained child assassin all grown up to be Daddy’s Little Monster. Maybe a little mad. Argues with her shadow often. Tagline: “No, we shouldn’t do that…should we?”
• June B. O'Neill aka Prodigy (NPC): Savant with hyper-intelligence that may have cracked the universal power-dampening conundrum. Fresh out of the Meraki Institute for the advanced and gifted. Extremely intelligent, but young (she's 16).
• Vincenzo L. dePrezzo aka Threshold (Played by Rory): Doctor, Mathematician, and Scientist (yes, capitals) and Spatial Manipulator. Threshold can bend space like a pretzel, teleport, obliterate things, and has extraordinary senses. He’d rather be in a research lab than fight. Better known for his work with Doctors Without Borders, the United Nations, and disaster relief than famous battles. Tagline: “I can be there in a snap!”
• Nawang Sonam aka Wan Shi Tong (NPC): Martial Artist with a mysterious past. Thresholds mentor, experienced and highly capable, indeterminate age.
• Eleanor C. Bulli aka "Bubbles (NPC): Manipulates bubbles of energy, short range teleportation, can fly on the bubbles, use them for shields or attack and even see through them.
• Grant L. Wojcik aka Fridge Boy (NPC): Can control ice/cold, but mostly the ability to create ice that explodes. 16 year old emancipated orphan, Our janitor. 
• Rudy A. Coldwater aka Gimmick (NPC): Mildly hyper-intelligent savant. Stutters. Makes very accurate guesses. Typical nerd, not yet 20. Wants to make a difference, assigned to support duties.
• Summer Stratos aka Chain Jacket (NPC): Ferrokinetic
• Vargas Manwell Tilium aka "Impulse" (NPC): Speedster.

Dates: Friday May 8th.

Prison Breakout

We start the new season a few hours after the last session. Most of the prisoners from Rikers got away and the National Guard and a special federal team are on site at the prison.

The Nomads (our team) are told to be "On Call" as were one of, if not the most mobile teams in NYC.

Several members can teleport, pretty much everyone has some form of improved mobility, and of course Threshold can transport the entire team using his portals.

We have some members out on patrol to keep visibility up and reassure the citizens that were on top of things.

Wirerat is in sickbay, again. Complaining about the healthy diet.

The team is reviewing what we know, gathering more intel and distributing it. 

It appears that a group planned the break out and coordinated it very quietly and well. Its possible the attacks on the team were to get blood samples for cloning, though Lindy appears to have a personal reason as well. And Threshold seems to have played an important part in their plans as they made copies of him to create some form of large field that helped facilitate the mass escape.

A few hours after the briefing MedEvac pops in to urgently request Thresholds medical skills. Turns out a high profile patient (name redacted due to Doctor/Patient privilege's) had shrapnel in the brain that prevented MedEvacs healing powers from working. Threshold uses his powers to teleport the pieces out of the brain, MedEvac can then work her magic and the patient will be fine.

He then teleports back to base with the shrapnel which hinders his powers but does not stop him.

Threshold analyzes the shrapnel, determining it is a form of Orichalcum, but silver instead of the usual gold color. It appears to be a power dampener ally instead of the usual energy producing version and it exhibits a slight vibrational frequency. He makes notes and will have Wirerat work up a detector for it when he is feeling up to the task.

Wirerat and his pet A.Is create an army of surveillance drones and hack all the local cameras and surveillance equipment.

Nyx uses his Shadow View power (Clairsentience with lots of modifiers, including Area Perception, +300%) to keep an eye on the area.

The doorbell rings and Threshold decides to check the camera and it appears to be Fracture at our our front door. He goes to talk with her and lets her in where we can all talk in relative privacy.

Fracture says she was used to help with the escape, she was forced to leave and is afraid for her life. She writes a full confession and hands it to Threshold. The only new information she can provide is that their is a mind controller involved.

We elect to hold her in our custody, Nyx suggests we deputize her and explains that will help provide her some protection from being sent back to Rikers until after the emergency is over. Threshold objects to the deputizing but accepts Nyx's argument and does it anyway. Threshold asks her about her powers, specifically if she can sense duplicates she made. She never really tried but can tell when her clones die so he asks Wan Shi Tong to work with her. Prodigy and Fridge Boy jump in to help, making a sense dep chamber to help her focus.

We end the session there. One player was already out and another had to leave for work.

The phone lines started heating up, expecting lots of action next time.

Aftermath

We need to catch some of the bad guys but obviously this was no ordinary breakout. A lot of effort went into this and so something is expected of  significant value from at least some of those freed. What those plans are is our job to figure out. However it appears this was the end game of most of Season 7, of course what happens next is likely to be a whole new ballgame.

Player Comments

I spent some points on less lethal powers, increasing Medic! a level, and getting some medical powers.

An important aspect of a super heroes game to me is the verisimilitude of characters using their powers for something other than crime fighting.

Often characters can apply their abilities to do more regular things faster or better, or otherwise be a useful member of society outside of wearing spandex.

Threshold can teleport and disintegrate things, both useful in real world applications. However he has a strong medical and scientific background and his powers let him see through solid objects and very small details (Scanning Sense, Pararadar with Microscopic 6 and Penetrating 2).

I wanted him to be able to use those powers to do surgery, and the GM let me buy the rest of that toolset,

He has Pararadar with Bioscan, Scanning,  Penetrating 2, Microscopic 6 - allowing him to act as a very good diagnostician. This gives +4 to Diagnosis and he has Medic-22 with some complimentary skills.

It also gives +4 or +2 to things like First-Aid, Forensics, Poisons, Chemistry, Bioengineering (Tissue), and several other skills. Profiling adds another +4 to some of those rolls.

Quick Gadgeteer (Medical), Photographic Memory,

Power Perks: Accessory (Surgical Tools); Expulsion; Expulsion Others; and Medical Sampler to represent teleporting things out of a body and scalpel precision disintegration.

And finally Spatial Surgery which is Healing (Affects Self, +50%; Disease and object removal only, -30%; Reliable 10, +50%; Spatial Manipulation, -20%; Xenohealing, +100%) [150] with cost CP and as an alternative ability for a cost of 6 points.

This last power I am rather proud of. His powers do not make much sense for healing people by restoring HP. But he is basically a built in medical scanner, and the fine tuned disintegration can act like radiation therapy that is more portable and far more precise than most modern medical equipment. He can disintegrate individual cells, teleport or disintegrate bullets and shrapnel. Cut away any tissue, etc.

Pretty much a walking OR, though his powers wont let him stich up or suture anything directly he can guide his hands to do the work with precision (also has Manual Dexterity 1).

I do not really expect this power to come up in game very often, his Medic! skill though is another matter. Costs CP (we use wildcard points) lets him do something very unusual as needed. Even though the campaign has healers who can regenerate flesh his power still gives him an unusual utility, as demonstrated this session.

Technically the Expulsion perk would have probably done the job, or normal use of Medic! in the operating room. But this just looked cooler and was much faster than normal surgery.

These kind of creative uses of a power set or theme really help make the world and characters more fleshed out to me.