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Buster
Mr. Magoo, the venerable patriarch of Magoo Enterprises has just been fired as CEO by the board of directors of his corporation. The chairman of the board, Young Mr. Magoo (Mr. Magoo's son) wants complete control of Magoo Enterprises and was planning on politely asking his senile and domineering father to gracefully step down. However, Mr. Magoo became hysterical at the suggestion and threatened to take drastic actions at the company and disown his son. As Mr. Magoo stormed out of the corporate headquarters (at least as anyone can "storm" while hobbling along on a walker), Young Mr. Magoo realized he needed to take immediate actions or he would be ruined. As no one in the company wanted to see "drastic changes" in their little empire, Young Mr. Magoo quickly gained support for an extreme plan to permanently remove old Mr. Magoo from the corporate balance sheets. The board of directors collective spent an Edge point and have conveniently located a team of highly trained assassins that live down the block and already have their gear packed. YOU are that team of highly trained plot devices, uh I mean assassins.

Senile, but extremely paranoid, Mr. Magoo has prepared a bunker below his mansion in the suburbs of the local corporate enclave. Not even his son, Young Mr. Magoo has seen the inside of this bunker. By the time your fixer received the call (and finished his BTL session), Mr. Magoo has already reached his bunker.

Your fixer has proactively tried to find the schematics of Mr. Magoo's mansion and bunker for you, but all records of the bunker have been destroyed long ago by Mr. Magoo's agents. Not even Google Cache has a copy of them.

Young Mr. Magoo has emailed your fixer a copy of the latest medical checkup and corporate profile on Mr. Magoo so you know what you're up against (sorry, no DNA samples or astral signatures). Here is Mr. Magoo's stats:

Attributes:
Body: 1
Agility: 1
Reaction: 1
Strength: 1
Charisma: 1
Intuition: 1
Logic: 1
Willpower: 1

Edge: 7
Essence: 5 (that triple bypass last year went south in a hurry)
Magic: none.
Resonance: none.

Positive Quality:
Lucky

Negative Qualities:
Infirm (feeble, nearly blind, and almost completely deaf)
Uncouth (senile and an old codger)

Mr. Magoo has no cyberware and his extreme senility has robbed him of all skills and knowledges. His only defenses are those in the bunker. Considering his wealth and time devoted to preparing the bunker, the defenses should be considered to be really nasty. He might have bodyguards that are off the corporate payroll and he may have drones, bound spirits, wards, and paracritters guarding the bunker. The bunker does not seem to have access to the matrix.

Mr. Magoo still has friends in other corporations and in the local military and Young Mr. Magoo has informed you that you must kill old Mr. Magoo very soon or enough forces will have arrived to ensure no one will ever reach Mr. Magoo before he can wreak his revenge on Magoo Enterprises and his son.

Teams consist of standard SR4 starting characters (400 bp, etc) each with +200 karma and + 1 million nuyen. Team sizes are 6 characters max. Each character starts with a free Leadership 4 skill with a specialization in Tactics (so you as players can spend days discussing tactics that your characters will come up with in seconds).

House Rules: no custom spells. Aid Sorcery from multiple spirits do not stack (only one Aid Sorcery from a spirit at the same time).

For newcomers to this thread:
Thor shots, nukes, bunker-busting bombs, blood spirits, and ritual assassination spells have already been done to death, so read the thread and make sure you're coming up with something new before posting anything to do with those.

What everyone else has found out (the hard way):
  • Mr. Magoo's army will arrive in less than 24 hours and is essentially invincible. They protect Mr. Magoo long enough for him to transmit his instructions to destroy Magoo Enterprises and his son, then Mr. Magoo dies of a massive stroke. The situation is essentially unsalvageable once the army arrives (my intention is that this adventure is "Game Over" in 24 hours).
  • Mr. Magoo drifts in and out of dementia and doesn't really respond to people in a beneficial way.
  • The grounds of the bunker are covered with popup gun turrets.
  • There are patrols of spirits (both materializing and possession) using Detect Life and Detect Explosives spells and have Elemental Attack (electricity).
  • The spirits have the knowledge skills to know when animals are behaving strangely.
  • The inside of the bunker consists of a nested bunker with an outer hallway guarded by heavy machine gun turrets.
  • The outer bunker and the inner bunker are protected by separate Wards.
  • The bunker has it's own power generator, water reservoirs, Clean Air spells, and there are no pipes leading to the bunker.
What's your move?
Ravor
How soon is "soon" and is there any reason Tarantula's ritual team of death wouldn't work aside from Magoo HOGing it away?? cyber.gif


Sorry, I couldn't resist... wink.gif


hyzmarca
My first move is to kill my fixer after explaining to him that yes, I do still watch classic 2Ds and no, I will not walk into certain death and the hands of Mr. Magoo's blind luck.

Edit: And then I'd take a job to steal Scrooge McDuck's Number One Dime.
Buster
QUOTE (Ravor)
How soon is "soon" and is there any reason Tarantula's ritual team of death wouldn't work aside from Magoo HOGing it away??

Mr. Magoo took his favorite pen as he huffed out the door and he did no real work in the office, so you have no favored or oft-used belongings, and he left more than 10 minutes ago, so you have no recently handled objects for sympathetic links. You have no tissue samples for a material link.

"Soon" is an unknown time period, Young Mr. Magoo knows word has spread quickly about Mr. Magoo's declaration of war and it'll be at least an hour and less than a day before the cavalry arrives.
Ravor
Ah, but the true beauty of the ritual team of death is that none of those are really needed with symbolic links. cyber.gif
Buster
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
My first move is to kill my fixer after explaining to him that yes, I do still watch classic 2Ds and no, I will not walk into certain death and the hands of Mr. Magoo's blind luck.

Edit: And then I'd take a job to steal Scrooge McDuck's Number One Dime.

Excellent, says Mr. Magoo in his warbly voice, burning an Edge point has already eliminated an entire team!
Buster
QUOTE (Ravor @ Aug 4 2007, 09:19 PM)
Ah, but the true beauty of the ritual team of death is that none of those are really needed with symbolic links.  cyber.gif

Your team spends the entire day making the symbolic link (Street Magic p29) and by the time they're finished, several armored vehicles full of cyberzombies, magi, and spirits show up at the bunker and whisk Mr. Magoo to safety. Young Mr. Magoo is ruined and his last act as acting-CEO is to sign a contract with another hit squad to come after you in revenge for dropping the ball.

Game reset. Please try again. Insert one (1) game token.
odinson
what about having the phys ad with all the shape changing disguise powers and huge influence skill group go disguised as the son and "make amends" and then the sniper shoot him once he's out of the bunker? is talking right out or what?
Buster
QUOTE (odinson)
what about having the phys ad with all the shape changing disguise powers and huge influence skill group go disguised as the son and "make amends" and then the sniper shoot him once he's out of the bunker? is talking right out or what?

As you approach the gate to Mr. Magoo's estate, the AR doorman flickers to life and a warbly voice says "Eh, who is that? Get off my lawn!". A gun turret pops out of the ground and takes a shot at your feet.
Ravor
*chuckles* Fair enough, although given Magoo's mental state and the fact that no-one knows where the team is a quick ritual mindrape to make him publicly "forgive" his son and retire should in the very least save our hides. cyber.gif
odinson
what about a team of snipers waiting for the extraction team to take Mr. Magoo out of the house? if they take him physically out they have a shot at Magoo and if they drive a car into the house there is always the rocket launchers.
Tarantula
12 hours to make the symbolic link actually. Rushing the job to half the interval from the 24 hours. 1 hour for the ritual. 13 hours later hes dead. Unless he has a huge pile of counterspelling at his disposal (roughly equal to the ritual groups casting pool), hes dead at 13 hours. Period.
Ravor
What does the Matrix have to say about the size of the local sewer systems?
odinson
QUOTE (Ravor)
What does the Matrix have to say about the size of the local sewer systems?

And how much explosive can be carted under his house?
Ol' Scratch
QUOTE (Tarantula @ Aug 4 2007, 08:47 PM)
Unless he has a huge pile of counterspelling at his disposal (roughly equal to the ritual groups casting pool)...

Which isn't going to be hard with just two magicial bodyguards and a combination of four or more spirits or paracritters with Magical Guard. All of whom are likely of equal caliber to the runners. Keeping in mind that those protecting him will likely notice the building up of magic as the ritual continues and will not only be able to throw up those safeguards, but send a few spirits and/or assault teams to track the group down. Mr. Magoo also have Edge 7, allowing him to burn 1 per ritual attempt to completely and utterly dominate any hits you get IF he even has to make a Damage Resistance Tests at the end. That effectively buys the defensive team a minimum of almost 8 hours to track you down and eliminate/disrupt you until the rest of the clock runs down.
Ravor
Hopefully my full six million nuyen.gif worth of ( Rating 15 ) explosives. Because the best way to take down a bunker is from the outside. cyber.gif *tounge firmly in cheek*


Jaid
QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)
QUOTE (Tarantula @ Aug 4 2007, 08:47 PM)
Unless he has a huge pile of counterspelling at his disposal (roughly equal to the ritual groups casting pool)...

Which isn't going to be hard with just two magicial bodyguards and a combination of four or more spirits or paracritters with Magical Guard. All of whom are likely of equal caliber to the runners. Keeping in mind that those protecting him will likely notice the building up of magic as the ritual continues and will not only be able to throw up those safeguards, but send a few spirits and/or assault teams to track the group down. Mr. Magoo also have Edge 7, allowing him to burn 1 per ritual attempt to completely and utterly dominate any hits you get. That effectively buys the defensive team almost 8 hours to track you down and eliminate/disrupt you until the rest of the clock runs down.

magical guard won't be enough, and in any event, they don't notice the ritual until it's done. you get your first chance to notice the ritual after the first hour. after the first hour, the ritual is already done anyways.

in any event, my personal solution is to just use a lower force spell that happens to be an indirect spell. this makes counterspelling count only for damage resistance dice, which makes it a whole lot easier to melt mr. magoo's (or, hypothetically speaking, a high-end, non-great dragon's) face off.
bibliophile20
Hell, at this point, you might as well hack into one of the Thor Shot controller platforms; if that doesn't do it, nothing will.
Ol' Scratch
Re-read my post. Namely the minimum requirement of 8 attempts on the ritual team's part, with the first leaving a huge astral signature.

The ritual team could score so many hits that they do 1,000,000P damage. All Mr. Magoo has to do is burn one Edge and, voila, he just scored the equivalence of 1,000,004 hits on his Damage Resistance Test -- critical success!
Buster
QUOTE (odinson)
what about a team of snipers waiting for the extraction team to take Mr. Magoo out of the house? if they take him physically out they have a shot at Magoo and if they drive a car into the house there is always the rocket launchers.

Hmmm, that's clever but I envisioned "Game Over" once the cavalry arrives. I haven't spec'd out the army and assumed they're invincible. As soon as the army of prime runners shows up, Mr. Magoo gives out the orders for his plan to ruin Magoo Enterprises and his son and then dies soon-after of a massive stroke. In a nutshell, there shouldn't be a way to salvage the situation once the cavalry arrives.
Buster
QUOTE (Tarantula)
12 hours to make the symbolic link actually. Rushing the job to half the interval from the 24 hours. 1 hour for the ritual. 13 hours later hes dead. Unless he has a huge pile of counterspelling at his disposal (roughly equal to the ritual groups casting pool), hes dead at 13 hours. Period.

Do you have a page number for that, I thought the 1 day interval was the minimum?
Ravor
Well to be fair, as a NPC Magoo can only HOG once, he doesn't get to burn a single point of Edge per attempt like a PC can.

*Edit*

Of course to be equally fair, I've long since thrown that stupid rule right out of the window, but since we are supposed to belong to a younger videogame raised generation who screams "But it's RAW!" to win arguments it seems like a good enough fit. wink.gif
Ol' Scratch
QUOTE (Ravor @ Aug 4 2007, 09:02 PM)
Well to be fair, as a NPC Magoo can only HOG once, he doesn't get to burn a single point of Edge per attempt like a PC can.

Where is this limitation stated? He's burning one Edge per individual assaults and considering he's dying and WILL die if the rolls succeed, why wouldn't he burn it? It's not his fault the team decided to take an hour to attack him per attack. Regardless, he still just bought himself one hour, with a huge astral signature to track and an army Prime Runners to stop the next.
Buster
QUOTE (Ravor)
What does the Matrix have to say about the size of the local sewer systems?

The city records show there are no sewer or water lines going to the mansion. The agent at the records office matrix node mentions that some of the estates in that development have their own septic systems and wells, this estate might be one of them.
Ravor
QUOTE (Shadowrun Fourth Edition; page 277)
Sometimes, however, a prime runner may get caught in a situation where he can’t help dying in the open. In this case the gamemaster can invoke the Hand of God to bail out the prime runner. To use the Hand of God, the gamemaster permanently burns all remaining Edge for the prime runner.


Of course then we get to scream about RAW some more in order to hash out whether or not Magoo gets to count as a Prime Runner or not. wink.gif
Ravor
Hmm, what does an astral recon turn up? Note that no-one is dumb enough to actually try to buzz through the bunker, just enough to get a sense of any wards.
kzt
It's underground. How long do you plan to spend on this recon?
Buster
QUOTE (Ravor @ Aug 4 2007, 09:54 PM)
Hopefully my full six million nuyen.gif worth of ( Rating 15 ) explosives. Because the best way to take down a bunker is from the outside.  cyber.gif  *tounge firmly in cheek*

This might work, the GM says innocently...

Your team (in this reset timeline) has collected a (literal) ton of conventional explosives over the years which has cost them, say a million nuyen. By great cleverness, they have hidden it from the authorities' chemsniffers in their hermetically sealed basement all this time and it's ready for transport. There's literally a ton of it, so it'll need a large truck to transport it. How do you execute your plan of attack (be thorough)?
Buster
QUOTE (Ravor)
Hmm, what does an astral recon turn up? Note that no-one is dumb enough to actually try to buzz through the bunker, just enough to get a sense of any wards.

Ditto what kzt said. I'll need details (and stats).
Tarantula
QUOTE (Buster)
QUOTE (Tarantula @ Aug 4 2007, 09:47 PM)
12 hours to make the symbolic link actually.  Rushing the job to half the interval from the 24 hours.  1 hour for the ritual.  13 hours later hes dead.  Unless he has a huge pile of counterspelling at his disposal (roughly equal to the ritual groups casting pool), hes dead at 13 hours.  Period.

Do you have a page number for that, I thought the 1 day interval was the minimum?

Yeah, you can rush the job on any extended tests to half the interval. SR4, 59.

Funk: The ritual group can just as easily send force 1 spells at him every hour until his pool burns to nothing. They can resist the drain easy, so repeats are simple. So, thats 12 hours for the symbol. 7 hours to waste his edge. And hes dead on the 8th. So, after 20 hours of the prep.

As far as tracking, tracking the group is impeded by the lodge they're within. So, thats +20 to the threshold to find them because of the barrier.
Ravor
The bunker may be underground, but the mansion isn't, this is a quick flyby of the grounds, and maybe of the mansion itself if defenses aren't detected...

As for the stats, well there are none at the moment, before I create an advanced runner to actually go through this in a semi-realistic fashion I'd want to be sure this game was actually going to get off the ground and I wouldn't be expected to mirco-manage a full team of six runners. cyber.gif
Buster
QUOTE (Tarantula)
Funk: The ritual group can just as easily send force 1 spells at him every hour until his pool burns to nothing. They can resist the drain easy, so repeats are simple. So, thats 12 hours for the symbol. 7 hours to waste his edge. And hes dead on the 8th. So, after 20 hours of the prep.

If by pool, you mean counterspelling pool:
QUOTE (SR4 p. 176)
Note that Counterspelling is not “used up� after it defends
against a spell—it continues to protect the designated characters
against other spells until the magician decides to end it.


If by pool, you mean Edge pool, I'm not sure why Mr. Magoo would spend Edge against a Force 1 spell.
Ravor
With tounge back in cheek, well I'd dig a tunnel using my custom "Shape Anything" Spell of course. cyber.gif
Buster
Oops, sorry forgot to call "no custom spells". I'll add that to the first post. Also, Aid Sorcery from spirits do not stack, so can only get Aid Sorcery from one spirit at a time.
Ravor
Then you leave me no choice but to learn Shape Earth, Shape Plastic and Shape Metal, you orge you! wink.gif
Buster
The frogurt is also cursed.
Moto42 Again
Forget the bunker.
If the money is good enough, we penetrate the house itself to a point just above and center of where we beleive the bunker itself it, then...
Shaped, nuclear, charge.
If it don't work, tough.

__________________
cyber: : And we never had to work again. biggrin.gif
sarcastic.gif : Thats because no-one was ever willing to hire us after that!
Particle_Beam
QUOTE (Buster)
Also, Aid Sorcery from spirits do not stack, so can only get Aid Sorcery from one spirit at a time.

I'm curious, where is this written? In the basic rulebook, only Aid Study is limited to one spirit.
Ravor
It's a perfectly logical and reasonable House Rule that closes off some abuse.
Buster
No nukes, Thor strikes, Shedim, or warp drive breaches: only conventional explosives. If you describe exactly how you are getting your truckload of explosives to the bunker, maybe you'll make it (the GM cackles evilly).
Ol' Scratch
QUOTE (Tarantula)
Funk: The ritual group can just as easily send force 1 spells at him every hour until his pool burns to nothing. They can resist the drain easy, so repeats are simple. So, thats 12 hours for the symbol. 7 hours to waste his edge. And hes dead on the 8th. So, after 20 hours of the prep.

As far as tracking, tracking the group is impeded by the lodge they're within. So, thats +20 to the threshold to find them because of the barrier.

That completely silly and irrational Availability 40 (assuming you're implying that it's Rating 20) lodge, you mean? That's also assuming they need to track the team down, as opposed to the actual lodge itself (which is specifically mentioned in the text for Astral Tracking).

"Yeah," the army of watcher spirits, normal spirits, and projecting magicians report, "we couldn't find the source of the effect due to this big dome that got in the way. But the dome itself? That's at [insert address here]."

And, again, the Edge burning is the last resort if the oodles and oodles of magical protection fails. Which it won't against a Force 1 spell.
Fix-it
Thor Shot.

I win.
Buster
QUOTE (Fix-it @ Aug 4 2007, 11:07 PM)
Thor Shot.

I win.

The GM says "No"

QUOTE (Me)
No nukes, Thor strikes, Shedim, or warp drive breaches:  only conventional explosives.


Also, no Transformers.
Buster
QUOTE (Particle_Beam)
QUOTE (Buster @ Aug 4 2007, 10:49 PM)
Also, Aid Sorcery from spirits do not stack, so can only get Aid Sorcery from one spirit at a time.

I'm curious, where is this written? In the basic rulebook, only Aid Study is limited to one spirit.

I assume it's a typo, so consider it a house rule because it still isn't fixed in the errata.

Thank goodness the game designers totally busted my munchkin by limiting the number of bonus dice I can use in my spell learning test.
Ravor
What is the ruling on custom cyberware suites?
Buster
QUOTE (Ravor @ Aug 4 2007, 11:27 PM)
What is the ruling on custom cyberware suites?

Do you have a link to that controversy thread? (and page number if long)
Ravor
Eh? Unless I missed something I didn't think cyberware suites had created a controversy, not yet anyways...
Ol' Scratch
It's basically just another 10% Essence and price reduction for a "set" of cyberware implants that make sense together, offered as a brand name package.
Tarantula
QUOTE (Buster @ Aug 4 2007, 09:43 PM)
QUOTE (Tarantula @ Aug 4 2007, 10:36 PM)
Funk:  The ritual group can just as easily send force 1 spells at him every hour until his pool burns to nothing.  They can resist the drain easy, so repeats are simple.  So, thats 12 hours for the symbol.  7 hours to waste his edge.  And hes dead on the 8th.  So, after 20 hours of the prep.

If by pool, you mean counterspelling pool:
QUOTE (SR4 p. 176)
Note that Counterspelling is not “used up� after it defends
against a spell—it continues to protect the designated characters
against other spells until the magician decides to end it.


If by pool, you mean Edge pool, I'm not sure why Mr. Magoo would spend Edge against a Force 1 spell.

I meant edge. And because the casting magician spends edge on the roll to initially gain edge dice and have all 6's explode. Removing the force limiter for those edge dice & any exploded 6's. Alternately, since the drain is (f/2)-1 (for Slay Human)they could just as easily cast it at force 6. This would be a base of roughly 12P with them resisting 2S per cast. Enough to make him burn edge now?

Funk: Given that the team has amassed 200 karma and 1mill nuyen, they can easily perform 20 rituals to raise the lodge at force 1. And then improve it by 1 force per ritual.
Ol' Scratch
QUOTE (Tarantula)
Funk: Given that the team has amassed 200 karma and 1mill nuyen, they can easily perform 20 rituals to raise the lodge at force 1. And then improve it by 1 force per ritual.

I have no idea what you just said.
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