How would topple the Coalition?

[Killer Cyborg]

The CS has no way to harm or chase away magic pigeons

Nega-psychics and/or psi-nullifiers, perhaps?

[Killer Cyborg]

Magic pigeons are an easy way to defeat the senses of dog boys. They get confused if there are multiple sources of magic within sensing range.

--flatline

Source?

[flatline]

The CS has no way to harm or chase away magic pigeons

Nega-psychics and/or psi-nullifiers, perhaps?

They can attempt to prevent a spell from being successfully cast, but they can't negate/nullify/whatever the effects of a successfully cast spell. By the time the magic pigeon arrives at Chi-town, it's too late for a nega-psychic or psi-nullifier to use their special abilities.

The last line of the magic pigeon description states "Only a Dispel Magic spell can destroy it". Now, I'm not aware of a Dispel Magic spell, but I assume the author got confused and conflated Dispell Magic Barrier and Negate Magic. I suspect that the author meant Negate Magic, but I can't back that up with a citation.

--flatline

[flatline]

Magic pigeons are an easy way to defeat the senses of dog boys. They get confused if there are multiple sources of magic within sensing range.

--flatline

Source?

RUE p145: "Several psionic or magic characters using their powers over a large, scattered area of the Dog Boy's sensing range will confuse the senses. The mutant canine will be able to tell that there are several emanations and have a fair idea of which direction most are located, but will only be able to accurtely follow the most powerful emenations of psychic energy".

If you interpret the dog boy's ability to sense magic to include active spells, then the pigeon would count as an active spell. If you interpret the dog boy's ability to sense magic only to include the casting of the spell, then this probably wouldn't work as I've described.

--flatline

[Killer Cyborg]

Magic pigeons are an easy way to defeat the senses of dog boys. They get confused if there are multiple sources of magic within sensing range.

--flatline

Source?

RUE p145: "Several psionic or magic characters using their powers over a large, scattered area of the Dog Boy's sensing range will confuse the senses. The mutant canine will be able to tell that there are several emanations and have a fair idea of which direction most are located, but will only be able to accurtely follow the most powerful emenations of psychic energy".

Thanks!

[Killer Cyborg]

The CS has no way to harm or chase away magic pigeons

Nega-psychics and/or psi-nullifiers, perhaps?

They can attempt to prevent a spell from being successfully cast, but they can't negate/nullify/whatever the effects of a successfully cast spell. By the time the magic pigeon arrives at Chi-town, it's too late for a nega-psychic or psi-nullifier to use their special abilities.

The last line of the magic pigeon description states "Only a Dispel Magic spell can destroy it". Now, I'm not aware of a Dispel Magic spell, but I assume the author got confused and conflated Dispell Magic Barrier and Negate Magic. I suspect that the author meant Negate Magic, but I can't back that up with a citation.

--flatline

Well, that's a heck of a loophole, since they can only officially be destroyed by a spell that doesn't exist!


The description mentions that they cannot be harmed by "normal weapons," and I suspect that the intent might have at some point been that they'd be vulnerable to magic weapons, or even mega-damage weapons.
BUT as written, the spell is incredibly over-powered, and as far as I can tell, there's not much that the CS could do about the pigeons directly.

[flatline]

The CS has no way to harm or chase away magic pigeons

Nega-psychics and/or psi-nullifiers, perhaps?

They can attempt to prevent a spell from being successfully cast, but they can't negate/nullify/whatever the effects of a successfully cast spell. By the time the magic pigeon arrives at Chi-town, it's too late for a nega-psychic or psi-nullifier to use their special abilities.

The last line of the magic pigeon description states "Only a Dispel Magic spell can destroy it". Now, I'm not aware of a Dispel Magic spell, but I assume the author got confused and conflated Dispell Magic Barrier and Negate Magic. I suspect that the author meant Negate Magic, but I can't back that up with a citation.

--flatline

Well, that's a heck of a loophole, since they can only officially be destroyed by a spell that doesn't exist!


The description mentions that they cannot be harmed by "normal weapons," and I suspect that the intent might have at some point been that they'd be vulnerable to magic weapons, or even mega-damage weapons.
BUT as written, the spell is incredibly over-powered, and as far as I can tell, there's not much that the CS could do about the pigeons directly.

Back in 2000 or 2001 (before I let my original "flatline" account expire), I posted a bunch of magic pigeon variants that I had created for a parody magic OCC that never got finished. I bet a little google-fu might turn those up. Or maybe I can find them on my old backup drive.

--flatline

[Killer Cyborg]

The CS has no way to harm or chase away magic pigeons

Nega-psychics and/or psi-nullifiers, perhaps?

They can attempt to prevent a spell from being successfully cast, but they can't negate/nullify/whatever the effects of a successfully cast spell. By the time the magic pigeon arrives at Chi-town, it's too late for a nega-psychic or psi-nullifier to use their special abilities.

The last line of the magic pigeon description states "Only a Dispel Magic spell can destroy it". Now, I'm not aware of a Dispel Magic spell, but I assume the author got confused and conflated Dispell Magic Barrier and Negate Magic. I suspect that the author meant Negate Magic, but I can't back that up with a citation.

--flatline

Well, that's a heck of a loophole, since they can only officially be destroyed by a spell that doesn't exist!


The description mentions that they cannot be harmed by "normal weapons," and I suspect that the intent might have at some point been that they'd be vulnerable to magic weapons, or even mega-damage weapons.
BUT as written, the spell is incredibly over-powered, and as far as I can tell, there's not much that the CS could do about the pigeons directly.

Back in 2000 or 2001 (before I let my original "flatline" account expire), I posted a bunch of magic pigeon variants that I had created for a parody magic OCC that never got finished. I bet a little google-fu might turn those up. Or maybe I can find them on my old backup drive.

--flatline

I'm thinking TW Pigeon Power Armor, that creates a giant Magic Pigeon around the wearer...

[Hot Rod]

The spell is self limiting only if you are talking about it being taught to casters who then die. I suggested several others where it would not be self limiting with abuse by Shape Shifters, Psychics and Demons. You proposed using anyone and a Talisman to accomplish an ongoing campaign of martyrs upon the Coalition. If you thought it was a waste of a spell, or hard to orchestrate, why suggest it as a tactic?
I haven't been able to find any indication whether or not curses stack. It's not covered in any of the other curse descriptions, I even checked the African Witch who specializes in them and nothing. Most magic spells don't, so I wouldn't think curses do, unless it was a different effect from the same spell, like the Minor Curse spell. However in the case of Death Curse you have a spell that can even affect Alien Intelligences, Gods(who only have a 21% chance to get rid of it) and Old Ones. What's to stop multiple people from cursing them? If anything, I would guess the penalties to M.E, coma/death, poison and disease could stack, as there as some spells you can cast that have permanent debilitating effects that stack with multiple castings, like Create Golem and Enchant Weapon:Minor. If anything could, it would be a spell so powerful it can affect extremely powerful beings through dimensions, like Death Curse can.

The spell has several limits, including 100km/level (if not a temporal raider or shifter), and Perma Death. Cannot be resurrected without divine intervention (and severe loss of power even then). Demons would never use this as their immortality would be ended. It doesn't say it stacks, so it doesn't, 1,2, 100 curses are still only -2 ME, but alot more work for a Deity to remove. Dark deities probably love the CS, the hatred of humans caused by their campaigns would outlast the CS itself without "The Shield", but I doubt they would remove it without payment.

IMC the whole Tolkeen - CS war didn't happen... I don't care if that breaks canon, it makes NO sense that Tolkeen lost by anything other than a smuggled nuke in city centre (and even that would be thwarted if planned too far in advance due to precognition and oracles). The city of Ancient Dragons? Really their best idea was to send a weaker (Shadow) portion of themselves off to fight alongside regular troops? I thought Dragons were supposed to be smart? Not to mention they WOULD leave in a moment via self teleportation if threatened (If you want to live 1000s of years you had better have a good survival instinct!).

Rare as the spell is, I don't see a problem with it. No PC has ever taken it in my game mostly because they hope to be resurrected someday (or they think they're invincible, hard to tell sometimes ). I do think CS Heads of state, and field commanders could easily be targets, and it would fuel their hatred of mages and D-bees even further...

HR

[Godogma]

The spell is self limiting only if you are talking about it being taught to casters who then die. I suggested several others where it would not be self limiting with abuse by Shape Shifters, Psychics and Demons. You proposed using anyone and a Talisman to accomplish an ongoing campaign of martyrs upon the Coalition. If you thought it was a waste of a spell, or hard to orchestrate, why suggest it as a tactic?
I haven't been able to find any indication whether or not curses stack. It's not covered in any of the other curse descriptions, I even checked the African Witch who specializes in them and nothing. Most magic spells don't, so I wouldn't think curses do, unless it was a different effect from the same spell, like the Minor Curse spell. However in the case of Death Curse you have a spell that can even affect Alien Intelligences, Gods(who only have a 21% chance to get rid of it) and Old Ones. What's to stop multiple people from cursing them? If anything, I would guess the penalties to M.E, coma/death, poison and disease could stack, as there as some spells you can cast that have permanent debilitating effects that stack with multiple castings, like Create Golem and Enchant Weapon:Minor. If anything could, it would be a spell so powerful it can affect extremely powerful beings through dimensions, like Death Curse can.

The spell has several limits, including 100km/level (if not a temporal raider or shifter), and Perma Death. Cannot be resurrected without divine intervention (and severe loss of power even then). Demons would never use this as their immortality would be ended. It doesn't say it stacks, so it doesn't, 1,2, 100 curses are still only -2 ME, but alot more work for a Deity to remove. Dark deities probably love the CS, the hatred of humans caused by their campaigns would outlast the CS itself without "The Shield", but I doubt they would remove it without payment.

IMC the whole Tolkeen - CS war didn't happen... I don't care if that breaks canon, it makes NO sense that Tolkeen lost by anything other than a smuggled nuke in city centre (and even that would be thwarted if planned too far in advance due to precognition and oracles). The city of Ancient Dragons? Really their best idea was to send a weaker (Shadow) portion of themselves off to fight alongside regular troops? I thought Dragons were supposed to be smart? Not to mention they WOULD leave in a moment via self teleportation if threatened (If you want to live 1000s of years you had better have a good survival instinct!).

Rare as the spell is, I don't see a problem with it. No PC has ever taken it in my game mostly because they hope to be resurrected someday (or they think they're invincible, hard to tell sometimes ). I do think CS Heads of state, and field commanders could easily be targets, and it would fuel their hatred of mages and D-bees even further...

HR

Yeah, I've been pondering that as well - the war with Tolkeen ... there's just too many ways for magic to counter the various methods the CS brought to bear against them... Or at least if their leaders didn't somehow turn into morons. Also, ancient dragons would have really really turned the tide if they had fought with anything resembling their true strength. Plus their ability to sling spells around like they were tossing pennies into a wishing well at the mall. (If I am recalling correctly an ancient dragon has a thousand or more PPE.)

You don't have to have trained soldiers to fight a war when a lot of your populace is made up of high level wizards and you have access to the best Technowizard items in the world. Not to mention just how dangerous an adult dragon is much less an ancient dragon.

[Daeglan]

I would just turn the Splugorth and the Vampire intelligences against them and let them smash themselves on each other. then deal with whatever is left in it's weakened state.

[flatline]

I would just turn the Splugorth and the Vampire intelligences against them and let them smash themselves on each other. then deal with whatever is left in it's weakened state.

There's no doubt that would work if you could pull it off. Out of curiosity, how do you propose starting such a war?

--flatline

[Daeglan]

That would require studying how each entity thinks and operates. then play on those things to trick them into conflict.

[Godogma]

The Splugorth alone are more than capable of destroying the Coalition whenever they want, all Splynncryth has to do is snap his tentacle....claw...teeth(no fingers, can he snap?). He's just not interested in doing it, and nothing short of all out war is going to make him force his hand. That's why I suggested the nuclear attack, that would kind of make him testy. The Vampire Kingdoms and the Coalition are going to have to come to a head at some point. It would be best to use them when the Coalition is busy doing something else, like dealing with the Xiticix, because if the vampires and them went at it with no other opponents I would be inclined to believe the CS would win fairly easily. At night, the CS is going to have a hard time, although once they start equipping whole divisions with anti-vampire weapons the vamps don't have much of an upper hand. That's why they've been able to get away with it for so long, no one the size of the Coalition has ever threatened them before, they've had to deal with groups like Reid's Rangers and Arzno. What the Coalition can bring to the table is attacking during daylight. The vampires daylight minions have no where near the firepower, and by doing destructive raids on vampire settlements(the human stock has to live somewhere) they can destroy their machinations of war and their food stock. Vampires also have difficultly striking beyond food range, they have to bring their food stock with them(or feed on soldiers if last long enough), can't attack during rain, and can't deal with aerial opponents, something in which the CS is superior to any other group in North America(maybe besides Xiticix). The CS can bomb them from bases thousands of miles away, staying up higher and flying faster than they can, depleting all their resources from behind the lines, nuking the temples and so forth. If it really came down to it, the CS could literally nuclear strikes in the region, which wouldn't do anything to the vamps but would annihilate their food permanently. However if the Vamps get the jump on the CS(move all of their resources close enough), then it becomes a game of attrition that the CS might lose.
It is important to realize that the Splynn HATES the vamps, Splugorth and them have been rivals for millennia. He will never help them, and if it looks like the CS will lose and vamps have a chance at all of North America, he will intervene, not necessarily on the CS behalf, but to make sure the vamps don't get too powerful.

I think the vampires would definitely give the Coalition more problems than you think... If they start following a similar plan to the one the master varmpire in the Arzno book is going to try and use on Arzno - vampires in MDC armor or even just an MDC chest plate are much harder to deal with. Of course they don't have their normal advantages so easily at hand if they do that but they also can't be staked. Also the CS is fighting vampires with much less effective weapons than anyone who's willing to use magic or TW enhanced weapons.

They'd have to cart massive amounts of water around and can't use sunlight spells. The logistics of them keeping enough water handy if the vampires are fighting smart instead of relying on instinct are fairly difficult to keep up.

[Killer Cyborg]

They'd have to cart massive amounts of water around and can't use sunlight spells. The logistics of them keeping enough water handy if the vampires are fighting smart instead of relying on instinct are fairly difficult to keep up.

Wood or silver would work just as well, overall.

[Godogma]

They'd have to cart massive amounts of water around and can't use sunlight spells. The logistics of them keeping enough water handy if the vampires are fighting smart instead of relying on instinct are fairly difficult to keep up.

Wood or silver would work just as well, overall.

Wood vs mdc armor does not work well... silver... I'm not sure about, I've seen talks of silver vibroblades somewhere on the net but I can't recall where... Something about silver base weapon with the tarnow crystal used on it to make it an MD structure and then a vibro field around it. I haven't seen many silver weapons that weren't SD either though.

[taalismn]

[quote="enhancer"]The Splugorth alone are more than capable of destroying the Coalition whenever they want, all Splynncryth has to do is snap his tentacle....claw...teeth(no fingers, can he snap?)..[/quote]


His bubblegum, actually.
Like anybody's going to ridicule him for having a Wigglies habit.

Alternately, if you really want to be cruel, he snaps somebody's back/neck to make it so.

Sorry...couldn't resist.

[Godogma]

I think the vampires would definitely give the Coalition more problems than you think... If they start following a similar plan to the one the master varmpire in the Arzno book is going to try and use on Arzno - vampires in MDC armor or even just an MDC chest plate are much harder to deal with. Of course they don't have their normal advantages so easily at hand if they do that but they also can't be staked. Also the CS is fighting vampires with much less effective weapons than anyone who's willing to use magic or TW enhanced weapons.

They'd have to cart massive amounts of water around and can't use sunlight spells. The logistics of them keeping enough water handy if the vampires are fighting smart instead of relying on instinct are fairly difficult to keep up.

If all vampires followed Xavier Stuarts game plan they certainly would be more dangerous when they assault, or again if they were knocking on the doors of Chi-Town. However, for the moment it's just him, other vampire groups have been fighting against tech for a long time and haven't upped their game. Also, while the MD body armor helps, they can't use it and mist/transform, which means they have to do straight forward assaults, which means the CS would still tear through the armor pretty quick with their superior firepower or aerial bombing(Spectre Deaths Heads going round and round), leaving them vulnerable to conventional vampire weapons, or you just might see bunches of SAMAS with a regular heavy weapon in one hand and a wood(don't ask me, check out Paul Konrad's weapons in the Mercenaries book) or silver rail gun in the other. Also, the Coalition has the resources to do non-stop 24/7 Death's Head transport water runs between the great lakes and the vamps, there is nothing to stop them(vamps have no air support).

Xavier Stuart seems to be fielding a fairly large force and the vampires could always metamorph bat form and attack the death's head transport after changing shape back to their regular form atop it. Unless they were doing it during the day... But Xavier Stuart has also been mind rolling lots of other folks to work during the day for him and some of them have AA abilities.

Of course it does rely on the secondary vampires heavily, wild vampires would just be herded in to attack as cannon fodder.

But those were just my thoughts on how vampires might be a threat against the CS... I don't really think they're in a position to make a very coordinated attack against any CS holdings for quite a while in any case.

[Killer Cyborg]

They'd have to cart massive amounts of water around and can't use sunlight spells. The logistics of them keeping enough water handy if the vampires are fighting smart instead of relying on instinct are fairly difficult to keep up.

Wood or silver would work just as well, overall.

Wood vs mdc armor does not work well...

The CS can take care of MDC armor.

silver... I'm not sure about, I've seen talks of silver vibroblades somewhere on the net but I can't recall where... Something about silver base weapon with the tarnow crystal used on it to make it an MD structure and then a vibro field around it. I haven't seen many silver weapons that weren't SD either though.

Well, the CS isn't going to be using the Tarnow crystal.
Silver rail gun rounds inflict minor MD, though.

But you use MD to crack any armor, and silver or wood to finish the job.
The CS has plenty of manpower.

[Godogma]

I didn't say they didn't, however it does complicate the issue by meaning you have to use one weapon to wipe out the armor and then another to finish the vampire off all while the vampire is also shooting back at you.

I wasn't saying the CS couldn't handle vampires just that vampires fighting with Xavier Stuart's modus operandi would be more difficult to deal with than otherwise.

[Godogma]

Honestly, a super soaker is not all that effective as an anti vampire weapon... Sure it's water but it's also SDC and doesn't hold all that much water. Even one made of MDC materials still doesn't hold all that much water.

And lets not even get into how fast you can empty a backpack tank if you're using one of those water guns with an electric pump.

Your scenario might work decently against wild vampires, but not against any sort of intelligent ones... If I recall correctly Skelebot AI isn't all that sophisticated and neither are their tactics... I seem to recall something about there being places where tons of them fell that are essentially skelebot graveyards because they had such a high attrition rate.

Of course the CS also trapped them by hiding some active ones amongst the dead ones as a rather nasty surprise but still. XD

[Icefalcon]

I didn't say they didn't, however it does complicate the issue by meaning you have to use one weapon to wipe out the armor and then another to finish the vampire off all while the vampire is also shooting back at you.

I wasn't saying the CS couldn't handle vampires just that vampires fighting with Xavier Stuart's modus operandi would be more difficult to deal with than otherwise.

I feel they would use a split squad tactic (half the squad using MD weapons to crack the armor and the other half with wood and silver). In addition to those tactics, a few dozen Ursa warriors could be added to each company of soldiers for added muscle against direct melee with the vamps.

[Killer Cyborg]

I wasn't saying the CS couldn't handle vampires just that vampires fighting with Xavier Stuart's modus operandi would be more difficult to deal with than otherwise.

What you said was, and I quote:

They'd have to cart massive amounts of water around and can't use sunlight spells. The logistics of them keeping enough water handy if the vampires are fighting smart instead of relying on instinct are fairly difficult to keep up.

Wood or silver would work just as well, overall.

You were talking about water.
I was saying that water isn't really necessary.
That's what happened.

[Killer Cyborg]

Your scenario might work decently against wild vampires, but not against any sort of intelligent ones... If I recall correctly Skelebot AI isn't all that sophisticated and neither are their tactics... I seem to recall something about there being places where tons of them fell that are essentially skelebot graveyards because they had such a high attrition rate.

IIRC, the problem isn't that skelebots are stupid or anything, it's that magic simply has too many variables for them to be programmed to react to.
Vampires have fewer variables than mages.

In any case, skelebots with water weapons would work fairly well, IF they were used in support for live soldiers.
The soldiers crack the armor open, the skelebots hose the vamps down.

Although wood and silver would probably be better in a lot of scenarios.

[flatline]

I think it would be exceedingly difficult for player characters to gain sufficient leverage with any vampire kingdoms to be able to use them directly as weapons against the CS. But if someone has a plan to do so, I'm all ears.

--flatline

[Killer Cyborg]

I think it would be exceedingly difficult for player characters to gain sufficient leverage with any vampire kingdoms to be able to use them directly as weapons against the CS. But if someone has a plan to do so, I'm all ears.

--flatline

This is something that we agree on.
First, the PC would have to KNOW about the Vampire Kingdoms, then they'd have to influence them into going to war.

I don't see any real way to do this without some hefty metagaming and/or GM wish-granting.

[Icefalcon]

I think it would be exceedingly difficult for player characters to gain sufficient leverage with any vampire kingdoms to be able to use them directly as weapons against the CS. But if someone has a plan to do so, I'm all ears.

--flatline

Convince as many "feral" born CS mutants to dress up in CS armor and perform strike raids against vampire kingdom villages and destroy some of their food supply and daytime hiding places. Add to that a mercenary company dressed in Coalition armor. Maybe capture some of the vampires during the day, lock them in airtight containers with their native dirt inside and "deliver them" into the heart of a Coalition mega-city.

[Killer Cyborg]

I think it would be exceedingly difficult for player characters to gain sufficient leverage with any vampire kingdoms to be able to use them directly as weapons against the CS. But if someone has a plan to do so, I'm all ears.

--flatline

Convince as many "feral" born CS mutants to dress up in CS armor and perform strike raids against vampire kingdom villages and destroy some of their food supply and daytime hiding places. Add to that a mercenary company dressed in Coalition armor. Maybe capture some of the vampires during the day, lock them in airtight containers with their native dirt inside and "deliver them" into the heart of a Coalition mega-city.

I'm betting that between Super-Hypnosis (or whatever) and converting people into vampires, the VK's interrogation techniques would break through most ruses.

[Daeglan]

For me the outcomes of these battles is not that important. Who ever wins will have expended resources winning and thus weaker. daisy chain these and then just having to deal with the winner.

[Icefalcon]

I think it would be exceedingly difficult for player characters to gain sufficient leverage with any vampire kingdoms to be able to use them directly as weapons against the CS. But if someone has a plan to do so, I'm all ears.

--flatline

Convince as many "feral" born CS mutants to dress up in CS armor and perform strike raids against vampire kingdom villages and destroy some of their food supply and daytime hiding places. Add to that a mercenary company dressed in Coalition armor. Maybe capture some of the vampires during the day, lock them in airtight containers with their native dirt inside and "deliver them" into the heart of a Coalition mega-city.

I'm betting that between Super-Hypnosis (or whatever) and converting people into vampires, the VK's interrogation techniques would break through most ruses.

I am not saying it is a flawless plan but can be improved upon. For example, like I said, attack during the day only and then get completely out of the area before nightfall. Do not attack the vamps directly (unless you are going with the capture scenario) and even if you do they will not be super effective. Have all of the non-psychics in vehicles or robots and negate the vampire Super-Hypnosis. Any vampire that successfully gets away with one of the attackers would be a problem but can't get very far in the daylight.

As I said, the plan could use some refinement. I am not saying it would work, just offing suggestions because Flatline asked.

[Icefalcon]

For me the outcomes of these battles is not that important. Who ever wins will have expended resources winning and thus weaker. daisy chain these and then just having to deal with the winner.

Destroying any of the stronger powers is going to cause a power vacuum. Just like I believe that the destruction of Tolkien will see more problems (terrorist cells of magic users, expanding Xitixix, etc.) than it was worth.

[Killer Cyborg]

Probably the best way to take out the CS is to infiltrate them, become good, loyal CS soldiers, working your way up through the ranks, and doing your best the whole time to convince them that the Xitixix aren't anything to really worry about.

[flatline]

Pick a resource, say, master psychics, and then create multiple concurrent problems that stretch that particular resource thin or targets them directly. Then, when that resource is fully committed, attack in a new way which requires the CS to either pull those resources away from their current problem (giving that problem a chance to grow bigger) or to assign troops to the newbproblem that aren't optimal to solving that problem. Do this until the CS forces are so tied up that they can't handle whatever your master stroke is.

Then, when the CS forces are stretched to their limit in every direction, attack via some new venue with enough force to topple them.

Of course, the CS has A LOT of manpower, so you either need to have lots of allies, or be extremely resourceful and opportunistic to pull this off. And you have to implement your plan relatively fast because if you take too long, the CS will have time to adapt its forces and methods to your distractions and that lessens the impact of each of your distractions.

And now you know why my strategies usually focus on a small number of people doing something that requires a proportionately larger number of people to respond to.

--flatline

[Godogma]

I wasn't saying the CS couldn't handle vampires just that vampires fighting with Xavier Stuart's modus operandi would be more difficult to deal with than otherwise.

What you said was, and I quote:

They'd have to cart massive amounts of water around and can't use sunlight spells. The logistics of them keeping enough water handy if the vampires are fighting smart instead of relying on instinct are fairly difficult to keep up.

Wood or silver would work just as well, overall.

You were talking about water.
I was saying that water isn't really necessary.
That's what happened.

Look, I was just listing the most effective weapon in the general arsenal against vampires. Wood and silver both are options yes, but if the vampire is wearing something as simple as a MD breastplate they're much less effective on their own... Yes, you can arm members of a squad with MD weapons to chew through the armor and others with silver or wood - but have you seen how many rounds they go through per burst with the railguns the coalition uses? That's a lot of wood and silver!

Water avoids the necessity of staking them or chewing through that MD breastplate, it would hit and run over and through the cracks.

Either way they're going to need a fairly hefty supply chain.

I wasn't trying to state the only way to deal with them just the most effective I saw for the Coalition which doesn't use magic. Assuming of course that the vampires weren't wearing EBA instead of just the simple breastplate.

[Godogma]

I think it would be exceedingly difficult for player characters to gain sufficient leverage with any vampire kingdoms to be able to use them directly as weapons against the CS. But if someone has a plan to do so, I'm all ears.

--flatline

This is something that we agree on.
First, the PC would have to KNOW about the Vampire Kingdoms, then they'd have to influence them into going to war.

I don't see any real way to do this without some hefty metagaming and/or GM wish-granting.

I quite agree with that as well, the Coalition is of course running some vampire hunting teams but there's no real reason in the books currently for the Vampire Kingdoms to start up with the Coalition as a whole instead of just fighting those teams like the other vampire hunters.

[Killer Cyborg]

I wasn't saying the CS couldn't handle vampires just that vampires fighting with Xavier Stuart's modus operandi would be more difficult to deal with than otherwise.

What you said was, and I quote:

They'd have to cart massive amounts of water around and can't use sunlight spells. The logistics of them keeping enough water handy if the vampires are fighting smart instead of relying on instinct are fairly difficult to keep up.

Wood or silver would work just as well, overall.

You were talking about water.
I was saying that water isn't really necessary.
That's what happened.

Look, I was just listing the most effective weapon in the general arsenal against vampires.

No, you were talking about water and sunlight as if they were the most effective weapons in the general arsenal against vampires.
I was pointing out that wood and silver are just as good, if not better.

Wood and silver both are options yes, but if the vampire is wearing something as simple as a MD breastplate they're much less effective on their own...

Water can't get through a MD breastplate either.

Yes, you can arm members of a squad with MD weapons to chew through the armor and others with silver or wood - but have you seen how many rounds they go through per burst with the railguns the coalition uses? That's a lot of wood and silver!

Yup.
I have to agree, water would be cheaper.

Water avoids the necessity of staking them or chewing through that MD breastplate, it would hit and run over and through the cracks.

Some, maybe, depending.
Just hope they don't have a raincoat, trench coat, cape, leather, or other water-resistant or water-proof clothing.

[Mech-Viper Prime]

me personally i would use nano bots designed to seize control of the cs robot, cs power armor , and cs gaint robot as well as any high tech equipment(weapons, weapons systems and and other hi tech devises), kinda what nexus does, just not at the lethal level she does it. As well as inform prosek and rest of his high command, while i have no problem with them keeping there jobs, but they there be a few changes, mostly in policy , what i wouldn't tell them is I would also have nano bots inside them, so if they think of fighting me , well they're dead.

[Hotrod]

(blah blah blah)

That's an imposter! Seize him!

Welcome to the boards. Kudos on the tasteful name selection.

[Daeglan]

me personally i would use nano bots designed to seize control of the cs robot, cs power armor , and cs gaint robot as well as any high tech equipment(weapons, weapons systems and and other hi tech devises), kinda what nexus does, just not at the lethal level she does it. As well as inform prosek and rest of his high command, while i have no problem with them keeping there jobs, but they there be a few changes, mostly in policy , what i wouldn't tell them is I would also have nano bots inside them, so if they think of fighting me , well they're dead.

An interesting idea. You would have to gain access to the majority of CS equipment to have a chance at destroying the upper echelon, and take care of equipment at every other major CS base and city as well, lest they be used in defense. That would be very difficult with a 1-10 person team. It would probably serve better as a tool of civil war than trying to fight your way through all of Chi-Towns defenses, making the Coalition use all it's resources to put down the sudden insurrection. I think the best application of the nano-bots though would be in creating wars with neighbors, all of them. It would be difficult for the CS to deny it was them when every type of equipment they have is used in the attacks, from the skelebots all the way up the Firestorm Mobile Fortresses.

You have the nano bots sit dormant for months or years only infecting equipment with no detrimental effects till you know you have a thorough infections of a very very large chunk of the CS.

[Godogma]

Speaking of nanobots, you could try and release the nanobot plague from splicers.

Thankfully the computer that runs the nano-bot plague isn't even in the same dimension; that's a quick way to reduce the whole world to using nothing but magic... Or if you could find another one of the strange alien intelligences that gave the Splicers their bio abilities I suppose humanity could use that sort of technology like in Splicers.... But then the only thing I particularly like about Splicers were the Packmasters and Gorehounds.

[Illendaver]

So me and a group of fellow GM's were having a spirted debate on how we would run a game where the sole objective was to topple the Coalition. After a couple of beers, we were some what flabbergasted and I decided that I will go to the Rifts community to shed some light. Now before we get started I wanted to lay down some ground rules.

Firstly I'd like to define "topple the Coalition". By topple we mean to either eliminate, significantly reduce there presence, or reduce their credibility as a significant threat.

Nextly - we have a couple of rules.
1. It has to be a strategy that could feasibly be enacted by a group of players (1-10 PC's)
2. Your limited to OCC's that are plausibly available to North America. They may not be native, but must be plausibly available.
3. No meta-classes (You can't just send in 10 cosmo knights to kill Prosek)

So how would you do it? What would your plan or overall strategy be. Who and what would you need to do it?

The entire strength of the Coalition is that they are a large group working together. However, Free Quebec leaving the Coalition opens the door for others to be able to. If your end goal was to just make the Coalition as weak as possible, I would start in Iron Heart. Iron Heart has always played second fiddle (Third while Free Quebec was a member) to Chi-Town, and they never liked being stuck in Free Quebec's shadow, I am willing to believe a skilled speaker can point out that the Prosk administration is NOT the best thing for Iron Heart, that Chi-town has been intentionally keeping Iron Heart's tech behind the "capitols". Play up to the entirely human nature of Greed and Envy, then begin a racist rant and publicly complain of increased monster activity after the fall of Tolkeen (And quietly make plans to re-instate a standing "Iron Heart Militia" to go hunting and take the fight to the wilderness again, criticizing anyone and everyone who naysays this short of the Prosks themselves, and as the movement gains momentem quietly question if the Prosks do enough) and I know for a fact that you can overcome the blinding "Patriotism". Roll your self up a Rogue Scholar who specializes in ancient government and has a great public speaking roll. This would probably be a more "Role playing" over "Roll playing" in fact, with a char and game goal like this, I doubt you will ever get into combat unless you are tracking down a CS propaganda spy who overheard you talking in private with the leaders in Iron Heart. I suppose I would think of this much like turning Palpatine from StarWars loose against the Coalition States. This would take at least 10 years to fully realize though. Once Iron Heart goes, it suddenly becomes Chi-town the bully trying to force everybody to listen to their laws instead of a benevolent Emporer.