[Prelude] Game Master's Challenge: Matthew Beckett

[Shurijo]

Beckett begins the shooting range challenge by walking along the indicated path. Holding his pistol out before him, he scans the area until the first target appears in a second story window a few paces ahead and above him.

OOC

notice check vs DC 15, 1d20 + 5 = 11, failed

Target could be friend or foe, unknown.

The first target catches him a bit off guard and he only has a split second to make a decision before he could potentially be shot at. The man pauses hoping to get a better look at the target, but the pause costs him as a round goes flying towards him.

Beckett moves fast, but the round still manages to clip his shoulder opening a small wound on his upper arm. He knows that he'll survive and he's seen much worse hits, but he doesn't know how long the challenge course is and if he'll have time to recover.

OOC

Unknown: Shoot, 25 vs DC 16 (10 + 6 def), Hit
Toughness DC: 15 + 3 (unknown dmg) = 18 DC
Toughness Save: 1d20 + 6 = 16, failed by 2
Bruised

2 HP remaining
1 Bruise, -1 Toughness save

Each Bruise requires 10 minutes to recover, if you "take 10" on the rest save. Each Bruise lowers your toughness save.

Assuming: "wait for a response" means, you're not taking chance at shooting unknowns, let me know if you change the default status for unknowns

Assuming you'll shoot back, but pausing to give you a chance to RP

The target can now be considered to be a hostile/enemy target since it shot at you.

[Hayabusa]

"Damn it!" Beckett curses and convinces himself that it really doesn't matter if he hits a friendly target. This one certainly is not one of those, but the man is now certain not to hesitate anymore if he can identify the targets fast enough. Instead he will just shoot them without any remorse. They're just shooting targets anyway and it's far more important to get out of these challenges and get the one who put him into this ratmaze.

Action

Shoot anything that's not a friendly target.

[Shurijo]

Beckett curses, but continues on with the course. The man moves down the path with his pistol out waiting for the next target to appear. A few steps later, it pop out from behind a corner of a building.

OOC

notice check vs DC 15, 1d20 + 5 = 22
target is friendly

The next target is a bit easier to identify as a non-enemy. He lifts his pistol away from the friendly target to see that the target is in the form of a young girl holding a ball.

OOC

notice check vs dc 15, 1d20 + 5 = 17
target is enemy

action: shoot
1d20 +11 = 17 vs 10 = hit

Beckett then moves on to search for the third target, when it appears directly in front of him from behind a tree. He correctly identifies the third target as an enemy and fires two rounds. Both of the rounds hit and penetrate the target.

A few more steps and Beckett has reached the final segment of the path through the mock city block. With a slight bruise, he shrugs it off and continues on towards the door which lies about 50 meters from the end of the shooting range course.

OOC

notice roll: 22 vs dc 20, pass

However, as he approaches the door and wall, he notices something strange about the wall and exit door. The lack of shadows on the wall indicates that it is an illusion. The man takes a step back and scans the area with his pistol to make sure it's not a trap just moments before two dark clad assassins step through the illusion to face him on opposite sides.

OOC

Initiative: Ninja (1) 17, Beckett 8, Ninja (2) 3
Beckett and Ninja 2, flatfooted

Ninja 1: attacks w/shuriken
1d20 + 3 = 12 vs 12 (10 + 2, flatfooted) = hit

shuriken damage is 3 (2 + str)

Toughness DC is 15 + 3 = 18
Saving throw = 1d20 + 6 = 21, -1 bruised = 20
no damage taken

The realization of the illusion removed the opportunity for a ninja surprise attack, but the pair of ninja still have an advantage. They have been watching Beckett approach the wall and have the advantage of being rested and unharmed.

The first ninja launches an attack with a shuriken. The spinning blades whirl towards Beckett and strike true, but lands within a padded area of his protective vest without penetrating.

Now with two ninja wielding swords and shuriken flanking him on opposite sides, Beckett begins to react to the challenge.

OOC

both ninja are within 10ft range increment, no range penalties

[Hayabusa]

OOC

Both of them are within 10 ft., right?
Fantastic

With a smirk sudden smirk on his face Beckett makes a small motion with his left wrist and an instant later, both ninjas, can't move anymore and everything else within a small area around him doesn't cahnge as well. Since he has enough time on his hands he removes the star-shaped throwing knife from his vest and drops it to the ground.

Beckett takes a few steps towards and passed the ninjas, so he ends up half a yard directly behind one of them and slightly behind the other one. He takes a very firm stance that will let him easily change his targets, grabs his pistol with both hands and puts it almost at the back of the head of one of these men. He picks the spot were the spine meets the skull and the muzzle of his gun is only an inch away from his target. He'll be able to easily disable one of his opponents even if he moves, because his sudden appearance should stun them at least for a microsecond which is just the time he needs to put a bullet into the brain of the first ninja as soon as Beckett registers that his power is wearing off. The worst case would be that his opponent might actually get his head out of his sights, although it is quite unlikely, but in that case Beckett will just put a pair of rounds in his back without having to adjust his aim very much.

Action

Activate Time Stop!
Remove shuriken.
Walk behind one ninja and point the pistol at his head.

[Shurijo]

OOC

Chalk this one up to rookie GM mistake I meant to say they were within 10ft of you, so there's no range penalty for their shurikens, but they were on opposite sides of you (not 10 ft from each other, just 10ft from you). Let's roll with this, and I'll throw you some more stuff...

After reading up a bit more on Time Stop, I'm going to say that since it's a area power (non-shapeable unless you take extras), it'll be anywhere between 1 and 10ft radius (rank x2). You can't enter within that radius (that could cause some sort of time paradox and break the space-time continuum or something). If anyone accidentally walks into the area then I'll have to give them a saving throw to avoid the area (reflex or something), but they still wouldn't get a saving throw to avoid being frozen.

So for 2 ninja's that'll probably be at least 7-9 ft radius centered between them, just call it 10ft. So you'll be somewhere around 7-10 ft away from center mass. For RP sakes, let's just make this radius/globe thingy shimmer and transparent (sort of like a magic bubble around center point).

Since there's no saving throw (been reading more about that, says that extra should really just be for NPCs), I'm going to make a GM call and say you can only have 1 active time stopped "bubble" at a time. I don't think the rules say how many times you can activate it, but I'm thinking once with no saving throw would be good enough. I'm also going to say that anything partially contained will be fully contained as long as it's mostly within. Example, you can't time stop someone's feet as they are running and make their torso separate from the legs. That would be one cruel villain..

okay back to the ninjas....

Whenever you freeze bad guys like this, I'll consider them at a disadvantage and give you a surprise attack/consider them flatfooted

Beckett freezes time around the pair of ninja and begin to make his way over to finish them off. He moves around the perimeter of the area enclosed by his time control power. The container sphere shimmers as light reflects off it as time seemingly comes to a halt for the two ninja as time continues around them.

As he prepares to release the two frozen in time ninja and pull the trigger of his machine pistol, he hears a sound coming from behind him. Spinning to take a look, it's another masked figure, but it's unmistakably not a ninja. The masked man has a very similar frame and build as Matthew and about the same height and weight.

"Tsk. Tsk. That was too easy. Put down the pistol and let's see how you do in a real fight." The man takes an aggressive stance and begins bobbing and weaving. Matthew recognizes the stance from his Krav Maga instructions and knows that this person could be as well versed in the techniques as he is.

OOC

Introducing a new challenger

The ninja are still frozen in time, it requires a free action to sustain them, if you are knocked out, then they are free.

Initiative: Beckett, Attacker, [Frozen in time] Ninja 1, [Frozen in time] Ninja 2

[Hayabusa]

OOC

Stop someone's feet and let his torso go... A very intriguing thing to do. Maybe I'll go for the villain path...
Although I don't think it works that way. As far as I understood it any object stays unaffected. As for the Power I leave modifications up to you because you already allowed me to even pick that power. And Beckett is using only a pistol and not a machine pistol. I only say it because you used machine pistol in the second paragraph and pistol in the third...

"Well, I can't just leave them like that," Beckett replies cooly although it makes him slightly nervous that there's another opponent and that one hasn't been caught inside the same area as the ninjas. "If you want to face me then I cannot have two pajama-wearing, blade-wielding ambushers standing behind me. I doubt that they're just going to stay out."

He keeps the muzzle pointed at the back of the ninja's head and squeezes the trigger as soon as he moves.

Action

Hold any action except the Free Action to maintain Power. If the attacker gets closer than I'll aim at him and even shoot him. He has been warned. Sort of.

[Shurijo]

OOC

You can maintain your time stop on the ninjas at the same time you're battling the new guy. Since it's a free action to turn it off, as long as your conscious then you can maintain the time frozen area effect.

Yeah, you're right about the all inclusive bit about the power. Targetting the legs would make it consume the torso as well. I forgot about that. The only real GM fiat on the power will be that you can only have 1 active instance of the power at a time.

And let's just say that if you forget about it, then it goes away meaning if you freeze somebody and then 3 days later realize that you forgot to unfreeze him, then he eventually became unfrozen sometime before 3 days. There's no max duration, but I'm going to say that sustained means you need to be awake, conscious, and have the presence of mind to know that it's active (e.g. not forget about it). Distractions would require a concentration check, I think.

The new challenger laughs and replies, "Why don't you just keep them there until after our contest? Keeping them suspended would ensure a fair fight between the two of us and they're no fun anyways. They don't even talk."

The strange man stays a good distance away from Matthew and doesn't come any closer as Beckett walks over to the ninjas.

[Hayabusa]

OOC

I almost assumed that the 'time bubble' wouldn't stay active that long. Although I didn't think of the opportunity/possibility to just create one after the other. Limiting it to only one active Time Stop is totally okay.

"Yeah, I know that, but I don't like the possibility of two or mabye even three incoming attackers in case it doesn't work that way," Beckett says without considering the man's idea. "Even if it's a very slim or impossible chance. There have been cases where even those odds have been defeated. Hell, as far as it looks, an alien lifeform has abducted and put me in his maze, where I just met a pair of ninjas on a shooting range. I doubt that any other man can say that he experienced something similar. Not that I think of it, maybe you just shed away your human disguise and turn into a seven-foot cockroach with razorsharp claws and teeth."

He doesn't even tremble as he keeps his weapon trained on one of the ninjas. "You know, I'm just doing it anyway, so if you want to come and get me, be my guest," Beckett says and doesn't think about an imaginary sphere anymore, virtually deactivating his powers.

Action

Delay any actions until Time Stop is deactivated and he can act again. (And shoot one of the ninjas.)

[Shurijo]

OOC

Oh, also, I have machine pistol listed on your char sheet. a regular pistol is cheaper (and has lower attack bonus and no auto-fire, I think). If you want to swap out the machine pistol for a regular pistol, we can adjust the char sheet after this is over. you'd probably get 1 ep or something for the downgrade.

doing GM fiat below, so we can get into hand-to-hand fighting just please don't time stop the new guy just yet

The two ninja in the time stopped area suddenly realize that their target is gone and as soon as they spin around they find Beckett's pistol pointing directly at one of them. With a slow and even pull of the pistol's trigger, a single bullet is fired and connects directly with one of the ninja's skull sending him to the floor.

The other ninja snaps too and pulls out a shining katana embellished with dragons and other mythical creatures, but as soon as he makes a move a shot rings out and he too falls quickly to the floor by a single gunshot to the head.

Beckett quickly spins back to the newcomer to find him holding a pistol pointing at the now deceased second ninja.

"Now that's settled. Let's try this mano a mano." He holds out his pistol to the side with his trigger finger raised and not near the pistol grip. "I want to see if you're as good as I am."

[Hayabusa]

OOC

Awww.
No, I can understand why we should do a little combat. BUT I'd let Beckett freeze it if it looks like he get beaten too badly.
Hmm, I could use a grenade for that one EP...

"You certainly want to find out if you can defeat me?" Beckett asks his opponent. "I don't even know who the hell you are and if you're another rat in this maze."

Beckett holsters his pistol anyway. He still has an ace up his sleeve if things turn out too end with him lying on the floor. He takes a neutral stance leaving his hands down. "Alright. Bring it on!"

OOC

I just remembered that I took the feat Well-Informed, so if the man is at least remotely similar or even someone else from Beckett's past you'd tell me, right?