Tactical Challenge: Eurostar

[Metaphysician]

In [insert campaign city here], Eurostar has taken a museum hostage. Their demands: 50 million in cash and the release of a european supervillain who was recently captured and extradited to the US for crimes committed abroad. If their demands are not met within 24 hours, they will begin killing hostages one per hour until it is fulfilled. Attempts to enter the building will result in hostages being killed. Lastly, Fiacho mentions that even if they were defeated or forced to flee, "all the hostages would die anyway." There are 118 hostages, including 56 students from a prestigious high school on a field trip. It is unknown who, exactly, from Eurostar is present, aside from Fiacho, Feuermacher, and Durak ( the latter two identifiable due to odd heat signatures ).

How would your character ( or your team, if applicable ) go about bringing this situation to a happy ending ( priority on saving hostages over capturing Eurostar )??

GM's Vault: All of Eurostar is present, in fact, plus about 20 mercenary troops ( think basic VIPER grunt skill level, but less well equipped ). However, Eurostar is intermittently running an infrared spoofer, and if necessary, would activate it full blast, making infrared scanning of the building worthless.

The hostages have been divided into three groups, kept in separate rooms spread throughout the museum, one of those rooms being in the basement covered by an infrared spoofer constantly. Each has been rigged with pyrotechnic explosives ( with suitably sophisticated antittamper measures ) that can be remote detonated by either Fiacho or Mentalla, and is watched by a 2-3 mercenaries with intermittent visits by Eurostar members.

The rest of the mercenaries are patrolling the museum and monitoring the outside, and the Eurostar members are doing likewise, as appropriate to their skills ( except for Fiacho, who remains at the command center of the operation, in offices near the center of the museum ). Near to this is one of three sewer rockets, escape vehicles for getting Eurostar and their mercenaries away from the building in an emergency or after receiving the ransom. The others have access provided to the main floor by means of several fairly large holes busted in the ground.

[Theron]

You've told me their capabilities, what are mine?

I'm going to need, at the very least, a Holocaust Cloak, sixteen gallons of redwood paint, and a chronal manipulator...

[Hugh Neilson]

Hmmm...since I can have any capabilities I want, my tactical choice is:

(a) Obtain $50 million from a financier, with the promise it will be returned to him intact (my 75 PRE, +10d6 Reputation and political contacts will greatly assist me here).

(b) Obtain the European villain's release from prison based on my promise he won't be out long (see (a)).

(c) Give Eurostar what they want and let them leave. Hostages now safe.

(d) Wait 24 hours, at which time my Triggered Teleport Usable Against Others returns the European villain to his cell and the cash to the kind financier.

(e) Activate my Megascale Mind Control, selective, cumulative, continuous, only to make villains forget my powers so I can use the same trick next time it's needed. Too bad I have that "only to make villains forget" limitation, or I could have just Mind Controlled everyone in the building to throw down their arms and surrender peacefully.

[ALTERNATE IRON AGE APPROACH: Storm the building, capture Eurostar and thugs, then use 100d6 Resurrention Healing on all hostages killed or injured.]

I think I agree with Theron's comment...our capabilities need to be defined for this to be a worthwhile exercise.

[SKJAM!]

Presumably, Metaphysician meant your standard player character/player character team, with their campaign-standard capabilities.

Or, if you don't have anyone suitable, assemble a team from published materials/the various threads on the bulletin board.....

I'm going to need more time to think.

[Metaphysician]

Yes, this is supposed to be with characters you have actually played ( ditto team mates ).

[Gary]

Since these hostages are presumably no more than 25 pt normals, I'll simply use my mage to Summon 118 25 pt creatures 40 pts, specific beings (+1) for 80 pts total, well within her VPP. :sneaky:

Then my team will go in and nuke Eurostar... :eg:

[Powerhouse]

It would depend on which team of Silver Knights, at what point in their career, that would be handling this situation.

Lady Silver (team leader): priority would be to the hostages. She herself has often worked with the police in hostage situations (where superhumans were involved) as a negotiator and might be asked to assist. Unfortunately, Fiacho is far more cunning and motivated than just about anyone she's ever had to deal with in this type of situation.

She's order the team's support staff to start researching last known whereabouts of the rest of Eurostar as well as its links to this villain they want released. She'd also invite speculation and counter-measures for how Fiacho could kill the hostages so quickly and likely come up with three possibilities: remotely linked bombs, bio-agent, or some type of wide-spread mental attack from Mentalla. The first one she'd have Titan, the team's Iron Man type, cosntruct a jamming device for. No real defense for the second one unfortunately though she'd have Speed Demon (think Flash) on stand-by to zip through the building and attack Mentally is required.

Seeking more information, it would fall to Titan with his array of sensors to gleam as much info as possible. IR is only one of his senses so it's probable that he could overcome Fiacho's precautions sufficiently to determine numbers and locations of both enemy forces and hostages. He'd also use his gadget pool to construct a psi-baffler (either lots of mental defense or invisibility to mental senses) to outfit Sentinel (think Solid Snake of Metal Gear Solid fame forced to babysit a team) and Nightshade (elven assassin) who could infiltrate the museum to recon on site. The psi-baffler is to fool Mentalla which seems a reasonable precaution even if it's not known she's there. I'm assuming this is 5th edition Eurostar so Pathera with her enhanced senses aren't a worry.

Outside of that, not sure. Lady Silver, if she was using a VPP at this point, might have a huge sleep spell ready but that would be a last ditch effort since it's quite possible to not affect all of Eurostar. Celestial Knight and Speed Demon would also be ready to swoop in on known hostage locations and pull them out ASAP if the possibility presented itself. Other actions might be to impersonate the villain to be released though I wouldn't be surprised that Fiacho might have someone in place to confirm it's the real person.

Tough scenario overall given how ruthless and smart Fiacho is. Trying to prolong negotiations to buy time might not work since he'd have no hesitation to kill a hostage to prove a point.

[Trebuchet]

Unless you're running an entire team of super-ninjas with Invisibility to Mentalla's mental powers or Galactic Champions-level heroes, this is essentially an unwinnable scenario. The chances of losing some or all of the hostages are simply too high to make an assault feasible. In our team's case, our team's leader Cyberknight(being a billionaire philanthropist in his Secret ID) would simply pay the ransom. He might try to put some method of tracking it on the cash, but probably even that would be too risky.

(Of course, in our campaign Mentalla and Durak are still in the clink from our team's first run-in with Eurostar, along with Ultrasonique and Scorpia. That leaves Fiacho and Fuermacher still at large IIRC.) :)

[Gary]

Unless you're running an entire team of super-ninjas with Invisibility to Mentall's mental powers or Galactic Champions-level heroes, this is essentially an unwinnable scenario. The chances of losing some or all of the hostages are simply too high to make an assault feasible. In our team's case, our team's leader Cyberknight(being a billionaire philanthropist in his Secret ID) would simply pay the ransom. He might try to put some method of tracking it on the cash, but probably even that would be too risky.


Hey, my method would work.


If the GM didn't tear up my character sheet first... :D

[OddHat]

Hey, my method would work.


If the GM didn't tear up my character sheet first... :D

I have a single solo 350 point Egoist character that could wipe up the floor with the whole lot of them, if a GM were willing to let me use him in this scenario. ;)

350 point version of this character:
http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=113420&postcount=119

[Worldmaker]

Oracle would use Mind Scan to locate the hostages... and Oracle is a powerful enough mentalist to laugh at Mentalla... anyway, once located, Bandit would teleport them out en masse. Quark would prevent the detonation of the explosives by putting enough radio spectrum interference into the air that the signal could not get through.

[Gary]

I have a single solo 350 point Egoist character that could wipe up the floor with the whole lot of them, if a GM were willing to let me use him in this scenario. ;)

350 point version of this character:
http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=113420&postcount=119


Yeah, Cumulative is pretty broken according to the current rules. It would work a lot better if you paid 1 pt per +2 pts of maximum effect just like with adjustment powers, rather than a +1/4 advantage for double.

[OddHat]

Considering how bloodthirsty he is, I've wondered how long Fiacho survives in most peoples campaigns. The unwritten rule in most of my tries at a Silver Age campaign has been "Sane Villains don't kill, captured killers don't escape, and the Heroes don't kill." Most of my groups would capture Fiacho as-written once, maybe twice, then kill him.

[TheEmerged]

Considering how bloodthirsty he is, I've wondered how long Fiacho survives in most peoples campaigns. The unwritten rule in most of my tries at a Silver Age campaign has been "Sane Villains don't kill, captured killers don't escape, and the Heroes don't kill." Most of my groups would capture Fiacho as-written once, maybe twice, then kill him.

Well, speaking for my campaign, he didn't survive the first encounter. That has something to do with the fact the PC's had been hired to kill them :rolleyes: It was something of a nasty fight at first -- the PC's generally make good use of Darkness vs Sight and a surprising number of Eurostar (relative to most official writeups) have second targetting senses.

How easy it is to void Mentalla depends on how you feel about the interaction between Force Wall (MD) and Mind Scan. A 16 DEF Force Wall to MD (transparent to PowerDef and FlashDef, +1/2 total) comes out to a whopping 60 Active Points before you take length into account and would protect those behind it from not only her Mind Control and such but would in my opinion block Mind Scan as well (unless she got a lucky roll). I required the PC with the power to purchase enough length to englobe to have any effect, and she never managed to get the extra BODY point to drop his 14 DEF version.

[Hugh Neilson]

Considering how bloodthirsty he is, I've wondered how long Fiacho survives in most peoples campaigns. The unwritten rule in most of my tries at a Silver Age campaign has been "Sane Villains don't kill, captured killers don't escape, and the Heroes don't kill." Most of my groups would capture Fiacho as-written once, maybe twice, then kill him.

This comes down to "If you don't want an iron age campaign, don't put the players in iron age situations". I think most players (and most characters) wouldn't play Fiacho's game very long.

If you want your players to respect the lives of the villains, and even the normals, don't present them with "no win" situations.

My current character is pretty free and easy, and cheerful But it wouldn.'t take to many scenarios like the above before he would conclude that it's Foacho's life or countless future innocent peeople's lives. Weighed in the balance, it's pretty obvious which has to take priority. [Hopefully, no one from my group is reading this - his dark side hasn't really surfaced at this point, and it may never happen.]

[Trebuchet]

Hey, my method would work.

If the GM didn't tear up my character sheet first... :DHeh. If I were GMing I'd give you an extra XP for making me laugh out loud. But I still wouldn't let you do that.

Why not simply Summon Eurostar and the mooks instead? You could drop them in the middle of a tank division of NATO troops on maneuvers and start gunnery practice. :)

[Chuckg]

This scenario can be beat with several things...

a) You have to find out about the bomb and detonator set-up. A good invisible or shrinking scout can do this. So can a subtle Telepathy roll on the Eurostar member furthest away from Mentalla... after all, they *all* have to know the basics of where the bombs are (so they don't get caught in the blast radius) and who's holding the detonators (so they know who to block shots for). After all, one of the defining characteristics of Eurostar is that these psychos trust nobody but themselves... but they *do* trust themselves.

b) You then need somebody who can either, via powers or Gadget Pool or simply having a DM who will mercifully let you get the stuff from the cops on-scene for 0-points "scenario equipment", to get yourself a nice radio jammer -- Fiacho and Mentalla can push buttons all they damn well want, if the bombs are inside a Darkness To Radio Sense Group field, they ain't gonna be hearing jack.

(You also need a DM who isn't so sadistic that he builds the detonators as exotic Mind Links and/or quintuply-redundant deadman switches, but then again, presumably the scenario assumes that the DM is being tough but fair.)

c) Alternatively, you need somebody who can defuse the bombs -- whether by being stealth ninja master supreme, a shrinking scientist like the Atom, casting a magic spell of "Transform C-4 Into Play-Dough At Range", etc, etc.

d) Or, if you're going Iron Age, once you know that only Mentalla and Fiacho have the detonators, get yourself some nasty AP RKAs with good Range Skill Levels, and squeeze off some quick head shots from ambush.

Preferably with one of these (http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20641). :)


I don't see where this scenario is 'impossible'. Quite difficult, yes, but hardly un-doable... *if* the party both knows the importance of, and has good capabilities in, stealth and reconaissance.

[Gary]

Heh. If I were GMing I'd give you an extra XP for making me laugh out loud. But I still wouldn't let you do that.

Why not simply Summon Eurostar and the mooks instead? You could drop them in the middle of a tank division of NATO troops on maneuvers and start gunnery practice. :)


Eurostar is far too many points to Summon, especially with the Specific Being advantage needed. 25 or fewer point normals OTOH, are easy. :D

[Trebuchet]

This scenario can be beat with several things...

a) You have to find out about the bomb and detonator set-up. A good invisible or shrinking scout can do this. So can a subtle Telepathy roll on the Eurostar member furthest away from Mentalla... after all, they *all* have to know the basics of where the bombs are (so they don't get caught in the blast radius) and who's holding the detonators (so they know who to block shots for). After all, one of the defining characteristics of Eurostar is that these psychos trust nobody but themselves... but they *do* trust themselves.

b) You then need somebody who can either, via powers or Gadget Pool or simply having a DM who will mercifully let you get the stuff from the cops on-scene for 0-points "scenario equipment", to get yourself a nice radio jammer -- Fiacho and Mentalla can push buttons all they damn well want, if the bombs are inside a Darkness To Radio Sense Group field, they ain't gonna be hearing jack.

(You also need a DM who isn't so sadistic that he builds the detonators as exotic Mind Links and/or quintuply-redundant deadman switches, but then again, presumably the scenario assumes that the DM is being tough but fair.)

c) Alternatively, you need somebody who can defuse the bombs -- whether by being stealth ninja master supreme, a shrinking scientist like the Atom, casting a magic spell of "Transform C-4 Into Play-Dough At Range", etc, etc.

d) Or, if you're going Iron Age, once you know that only Mentalla and Fiacho have the detonators, get yourself some nasty AP RKAs with good Range Skill Levels, and squeeze off some quick head shots from ambush.

Preferably with one of these (http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20641). :)


I don't see where this scenario is 'impossible'. Quite difficult, yes, but hardly un-doable... *if* the party both knows the importance of, and has good capabilities in, stealth and reconaissance.A pretty good analysis, Chuckg. The biggest difficulty comes from the fact that the hostages are in multiple locations. Our team MidGuard could handle one location quite easily, two would be tough but probably doable, three would be...Uh oh.

We've beaten Eurostar before in a straight up fight, and I won't claim it was easy. You may recall my thread on the battle (Woo Hoo! We whipped Eurostar!) last year. If our team was at full strength (Reserve members, second characters, etc.) we might pull it off even in this situation, but I'd hate to risk 150+ innocent lives on it. We do have a very powerful teleporter who could probably carry out all the hostages in just a few trips.

Reconaissance is unfortunately one of our team's weakest points. We've got an invisible MA, but his player only makes about one game a year.

[Metaphysician]

Heh. If I were GMing I'd give you an extra XP for making me laugh out loud. But I still wouldn't let you do that.

Why not simply Summon Eurostar and the mooks instead? You could drop them in the middle of a tank division of NATO troops on maneuvers and start gunnery practice. :)

Because you'd be summoning far more expensive people. I think 200 points is the highest valued character you could summon specifically with a 80 point VPP.

That said, this isn't meant to be an unwinnable scenario. Another potential weakness is the presence of the mercenaries. While they don't know everything thats going on, I'm sure people could find ways to exploit them ( mental control, shapeshifting replacement, simply whacking one if they go off on their own and disguising a PC as them, etc ).

[OddHat]

Because you'd be summoning far more expensive people. I think 200 points is the highest valued character you could summon specifically with a 80 point VPP.

That said, this isn't meant to be an unwinnable scenario. Another potential weakness is the presence of the mercenaries. While they don't know everything thats going on, I'm sure people could find ways to exploit them ( mental control, shapeshifting replacement, simply whacking one if they go off on their own and disguising a PC as them, etc ).

I was thinking that it would be pretty easy to take out the mercenaries and patrolling Eurostars for the stealthier members of my group. We have both mentalists and super-skill persuaders. The biggest problem wold be any NPC hostages directly under the eyes of Mentalla or Fiacho. Very hard to one punch either of them (for my team), though we could take them down. If they chose, they could take at least a few hostages with them.

In which case they might not survive capture, but that's gritty realism for you.

[Vorsch]

Standard super heroes couldnt win here, after all they are built to have straight fights.

Most supers are normal people with super powers.

A team of Batman clones could disable the bombs but woulnt have the firepower to take eurostar.

result player fustration, big fight, lots of dead hostages

[Worldmaker]

Considering how bloodthirsty he is, I've wondered how long Fiacho survives in most peoples campaigns. The unwritten rule in most of my tries at a Silver Age campaign has been "Sane Villains don't kill, captured killers don't escape, and the Heroes don't kill." Most of my groups would capture Fiacho as-written once, maybe twice, then kill him.

In one of my FTF campaigns, Force accidentally killed him by blowing up the helicopter he was escaping in while trying to disable said aircraft.

[Chuckg]

> Standard super heroes couldnt win here, after all they are built to have
> straight fights.

I think the whole point of this scenario was to encourage diversity. :)

> Most supers are normal people with super powers.

... when they start out. After they've earned some experience, they should, you know, be experienced.

It's sort of like the difference between Gen13 and the WildCATs. Both of those two teams notable amounts of power. But only one of them would have any hope of resolving this particular situation without *booms* going off. (Yes, even without Void. :) )

This is because on the one side you had firepower and enthusiasm, and on the other side you had firepower and experience -- and some sneaky skills.

> A team of Batman clones could disable the bombs but woulnt have the
> firepower to take eurostar.

And a team that had both stealth/recon people *and* straight fighters could do both.

> result player fustration, big fight, lots of dead hostages

Only if your players don't have any team diversity, or you're running a small group -- but of course, a small group shouldn't be expected to handle a massively wide-spread crisis situation without some friendly NPCs to help...

[JeffreyWKramer]

... a small group shouldn't be expected to handle a massively wide-spread crisis situation without some friendly NPCs to help...

Or, alternately, if the GM was sadistic, Foxbat might show up to give the PCs a hand!!

[OddHat]

Or, alternately, if the GM was sadistic, Foxbat might show up to give the PCs a hand!!

Somehow I can't see this scenario in a Forbat friendly campaign. ;)

[ChuckB]

A couple of thoughts:

- Challenge Eurostar to fight out in the open, insult them ,call em chickens, etc. to try and get them pissed off enough that they don't think clearly (kind of risky and they wouldn't go for it anyway because the GM has put too much effort into the hostage thing).

- Offer to have our group take the place of the hostages (try to appeal to Fiacho's megalomania, etc) - Also very risky for obvious reasons.

- Threaten to kill the European villain in custody if any of the hostages are hurt or killed (this might work because it sounds like Eurostar needs this villain for something, unfortunately it's a very iron-age style solution that might be too hard to pull off except as a bluff).

- Have the PCs disguise themselves as super-villains and "attack the museum for purposes of looting it" (if Eurostar really believes these are supervillains trying to take advantage of the situation, they won't kill the hostages because there'd be no point and it'll hopefully throw Eurostar off their game).

[Dr. MID-Nite]

Well....my particular group has The Living EGO as a member. His astral form(Clairsentience) would make it easy to see what they're up against...and he's more powerful than Mentalla. So....between him and the brains of Lightmaster and Guardian....a stealthy plan to save the hostages could be arranged. We'd like to get Eurostar too of course, but first things first...save hostages...then...if there's time and opportunity...thrash Eurostar like the little b*****s they are.....

Rob

[Chimpira]

This comes down to "If you don't want an iron age campaign, don't put the players in iron age situations". I think most players (and most characters) wouldn't play Fiacho's game very long.

If you want your players to respect the lives of the villains, and even the normals, don't present them with "no win" situations.

My current character is pretty free and easy, and cheerful But it wouldn.'t take to many scenarios like the above before he would conclude that it's Foacho's life or countless future innocent peeople's lives. Weighed in the balance, it's pretty obvious which has to take priority. [Hopefully, no one from my group is reading this - his dark side hasn't really surfaced at this point, and it may never happen.]
I get your point but I try to drop similiar type of problems into my campaign from time to time (although I generally tailor such a scenerio for my game so that it is possible for my players, although they might have to stretch their resources to the breaking point). I find that it is easy being a hero if they do not have difficult situations to face and my greatest roleplay opportunities with my players came from some very difficult situations. That being said, if it is a campaign with nothing but these scenerios then there could be a major problem if you did not sign up to play an Iron Age game.

[Hugh Neilson]

I get your point but I try to drop similiar type of problems into my campaign from time to time (although I generally tailor such a scenerio for my game so that it is possible for my players, although they might have to stretch their resources to the breaking point). I find that it is easy being a hero if they do not have difficult situations to face and my greatest roleplay opportunities with my players came from some very difficult situations. That being said, if it is a campaign with nothing but these scenerios then there could be a major problem if you did not sign up to play an Iron Age game.

I've bolded what I consider the key here - to map out not only the probelm, but also at least one reasonable (if difficult) means by which the heroes can solve it.

And a campaign without variety is doomed to die a swift death in any case, so I'm always interested in new ideas.

[Powerhouse]

One thing I considered was that this situation doesn't quite seem right for Fiacho and Eurostar. Sure the tactics are theirs but not the target or goal.

They don't need money since they have tons of it already. Also, with their power level and abilities, it shouldn't be that tough for them to break the villain out of jail. Even if Eurostar wasn't enough by itself, Fiacho has more than enough contacts to get some extra firepower.

I think the PC's would wonder what Fiacho REALLY wants. Maybe this scenario would be even better if they took over the G-7 conference with all those world leaders and they made some really serious demands.

Now of course you REALLY can't screw up with the leaders of the free world hanging in the balance.

[Chuckg]

Well, the simplest explanation is that what Fiacho really wants is for the heroes to be massively discredited by a huge loss of innocent life on their watch.

Hence, his attempts to rig the scenario for such difficulty. The ransom demand is a pure smokescreen... what Fiacho really wants is for the chance to shock the nation (or the world) with a hideous massacre of innocents, and to do so under circumstances where the heroes will share at least some of the blame.

Of course, in purest comic-book fashion, this is exactly the sort of thing that heroes step to and *stop*... but hey, that's also exactly the sort of things that villains *try*.

[Intrope]

One thing I considered was that this situation doesn't quite seem right for Fiacho and Eurostar. Sure the tactics are theirs but not the target or goal.

They don't need money since they have tons of it already. Also, with their power level and abilities, it shouldn't be that tough for them to break the villain out of jail. Even if Eurostar wasn't enough by itself, Fiacho has more than enough contacts to get some extra firepower.

I think the PC's would wonder what Fiacho REALLY wants. Maybe this scenario would be even better if they took over the G-7 conference with all those world leaders and they made some really serious demands.

Now of course you REALLY can't screw up with the leaders of the free world hanging in the balance.
Well, it may be that the Villain Eurostar wants to free is being kept in an undisclosed location (or kept in a moving vehicle, etc.) such that they can't find him. All the power in the world does you no good if you can't find a target!

But I agree that this seems a little low-brow for Fiacho.

[Metaphysician]

Well, my own idea/justification was multiple:

-The european supervillain in question is someone Fiacho wants to recruit, obviously

-Fiacho wants to inspire additional fear of Eurostar in the world at large

-Fiacho is very vengeful, and for whatever specific reason, viewed the capture and extradition as an offense by America, a country he despises

OTOH, I do like the G-7 conference idea. . .