Question Suggestions for Combat Finals theme

The Canon Cabal (TM) is going to get suggestions and feedback from you, our fans, about the Fall 2007 Combat Finals. As you know, each Combat Final has a theme. This time, we are going to let you, our beloved (mostly) fans suggest themes. This is the time to be creative.

For Combat Finals, there must be options - direct combat with your opponent, trying to cooperate, avoiding combat and outwitting your opponent, etc. There MAY be a preferred strategy - in Spring 07, cooperation was actually the best way to succeed.

So, ALMOST anything goes. Rescue a citizen or hostage, disarm a WMD, scavenger hunt with villains around, races, etc. Be creative.

Also, if we get good ideas, they may be used in future combat finals, both here AND in Gen 2.

Note: when you submit ideas, you are giving the Cabal rights to freely use that theme in any and all canon Whateley Universe stories without conditions. You will get attribution for your ideas.

Let the thinking and suggesting begin

Would repeating last year's theme be fine? I thought they'd actually try to mix them up?

So, no hostages for 2008?

Also Fall 2006 was "Doomsday Device".

How about 'Springtime in Paris'?

Bek D Corbin wrote: How about 'Springtime in Paris'?

On it's face, it seems very vague... But, the students follow the news, so it's clear enough in-universe.

----

"Museum Battle" would be great payoff for all those... well, Museum Battles that have happened... Allowing tons of callbacks.

And could be mixed with 'Springtime in Paris'.

----

For Gen2... How about "Improved Mighty Squid"0? Or something else about the stuff in New York?

Although, perhaps we shouldn't make it too topical...

Suggestions for "Crash" and "Team" finals are valid, too.

What about a large scale rescue operation? Like fighting during the California Wildfires or City Wide destruction event.

I had thought of "tag," where the objective is to physically touch your opponent. With the "Crash" victims getting the Hooligans for opponents.

Not sure if there is enough there though.

The police have been accidentally mind-controlled. Rescue the mayor from the city jail with minimal collateral damage to any party.

Charlie is "trapped" in a rogue subway train somewhere in the Boston network. Find him and get him safely back to his family before the Mole Men reach him. Charlie doesn't want to go back, however, and will actively undermine your attempts to rescue him. He doesn't want to die or be abducted by the Mole Men either, so he won't do anything suicidal. Probably. He's not very bright.

Alien tripods are attacking Kansas City. The tripods contain absurd quantities of deadly toxins, so care must be used in stopping them without rupturing the tanks and rendering the city uninhabitable.

You are sleeper agents deep in a hostile nation, and you've been tasked with killing as many of the locals as possible before local heroes and law enforcement put you down or the fifteen minute timer expires.

Seven suburban families have lost their cats. Recover the cats and deliver them to the appropriate families. Beware the rabid raccoons, territorial homeowners, and roving bands of H1! zealots. There is also one rogue autonomous lawnmower with a hankering for feline flesh, and it's not very picky.

You are each escorting a VIP who wants the other dead. Protect your VIP while eliminating the other. Also, the cruise ship you're on has just hit an iceberg. Go!

There are three Xenomorphs loose in your spacecraft, and the damaged autopilot is locked on and refuses to change. You have fifteen minutes to render the ship safe before it docks with a busy station and turns a big problem into a huge problem. You are also a corporate spy tasked with stealing a document held by the other participant. Minimize casualties.

The Mall of America is having a bad time. The sprinkler system has been damaged by vandals, so now part of the mall is on fire, part is flooding, and part is experiencing a coincidental tornado. Save the day!

Ebola wrote: What about a large scale rescue operation? Like fighting during the California Wildfires or City Wide destruction event.

I think that for the incoming freshmen, large-scale anything poses a problem, because not many high school freshmen would have any of the needed background skills to be anything other than bystanders.

Bounty Hunter, Jr: (Similar to Spring 2007) Give a bounty hunter team of two (or more) 20 minutes to capture and deliver their single opponent to the designated police station. No guarantees given that there will be cooperation or that there won't be competing interests. It may be a good idea to ask ahead of time whether you're transporting a bail jumper or a federal witness or Red Cloud. It might suck if your "partner" was given different winning conditions than your own.

Valentine wrote: I had thought of "tag," where the objective is to physically touch your opponent. With the "Crash" victims getting the Hooligans for opponents.

Like the first round of Boku no Hero Academia's "Provisional Hero License Exam"?

I'm a big fan of the "something isn't right at the antarctic research facility" trope, like in THE THING and that one episode of the X-Files with ... I think it was the parasite that that caused you to go all murdery until you died if there was one in your system, but if there were 2, they mutually killed each other. and the Episode of Doctor Who with Santa.

With raging snowstorm and no communications and no way out... plus that'd play some psychological mind games on them, considering the blizzard storyline.

Heh. This should be fun:

Hero vs Evil Villain's robot army (crash)

Alien-style xenomorph survival. Outlast your opponent or simply survive until the time limit is up.

'Bullet hell' scenario, where the objective is to take out as many units of mutant-hunting soldiers as possible before you go down (crash)

Deadly Obstacle course combat

Urban conflict simulation. Take out the opponent while avoiding being eliminated by roaming terrorists or soldiers. A more relevant simulation to a world where 9/11 only happened six years prior

Deadly baseball with exploding balls and booby-trapped bats

Student v mecha (titanfall-size) battalion (crash)

Recreation of Halloween invasion. Should get some students thrown off-balance

Battle in a rapidly collapsing building. Building is collapsing, and students must either escape or defeat their opponent before the entire structure crumbles.

XCOM-style alien elimination (I know that's already been half-mentioned, but I've been playing that game for 26 hours now. Not 26 straight though. 26 total)

Death Race like at the beginning of the MHA tournament arc

Indiana-jones style relic-recovery. Beat the other treasure hunter to the artifact

Squad-battle, with AI squadmates

Evacuate civilians from a brawl between Champion and a major supervillian (crush)

Get a VIP to safety while under attack by snipers (Crush)

I like that this is stirring ideas.
But (you knew there was one coming, right?)

Develop the ideas a bit. For example, you have a 'tag' game of pillars or boxes or widgets and the first person to claim 3 of the 5 (or n of the 2n-1) wins.. What kind of setting? What kinds of 'obstacle' players? (Villains, random shooters, innocents, etc)? Are there distractions (e.g. the lady's cat in the tree in "The Incredibles")? How do those count? Is body count of villains important? How about casualties among civilians? What's the option for non-combatant types (e.g. Fractious, Aquerna, Bugs)? You get an idea of all the details we have to think about in setting up combat finals. (In fact, we have to do this for MOST of what we write - before we write it.)

If you'd rather reply via PM with your ideas, then go ahead and send me what you've got and I'll get it up for discussion in the canon authors area.

elrodw wrote: What's the option for non-combatant types (e.g. Fractious, Aquerna, Bugs)? You get an idea of all the details we have to think about in setting up combat finals. (In fact, we have to do this for MOST of what we write - before we write it.)

For a powered game of Tag (or Dodgeball), I'd take Aquerna off an arbitrary "non-combatant" list, as she has better mobility than a lot of her fellow students, and more practice at evasion than she'd like. Bugs was introduced with a strong interest in robotics, so she might have one or more utility drones on hand at any time that could be repurposed, in addition to the egg-shaped grenades she already makes. Plus, in Year One, she was dating one of the Mysty Arts folks.


Fractious belongs on the "Not playing in this Arena until she's stable on her meds AND can reliably dial her power down from Lethal" list with kids like Geiger and Ember. Putting her in the Fall 2006 Combat Final was humorous, but was also a demonstration of multiple failures on the part of medical and administrative staff before AND after that event.

"Good morning, Raleigh! It's 6:02. Top of the local news: it's 27 degrees outside right now, and the forecast calls for another three inches of snow by this afternoon on top of the sleet and ice we got overnight instead of rain. Road crews are expected to be able to hit the major bridges and overpasses some time afternoon. Duke Energy and Wake EMC are reporting thousands of homes and businesses are without power, thanks to downed power lines..."

Commuters are already on (or very much off) the roads already. You've been called in to aid Emergency Services. Activities can scale from: directing traffic, individual rescue (with or without EMT units), etc. up to "the Central Prison's backup generators are running low on fuel, some of the prisoners are supers ... and did you know it's partly surrounded by residential areas?"

Penalty: One point off for every year of imprisonment, or $5,000 in fines or civil damages. That might make someone think twice before using a police car (or police officer) for batting practice, or shoving a pedestrian on an iced-over sidewalk.

This actually might be more on topic than off topic, I've begun wondering why they don't run more e&e scenarios in the 'combat' finals? I mean for most of the school it would seem that e&e is more important than brawling with your neighbor over who gets to the finish line first.
Most of the ones we've seen seem to be endurance contests, which is a good idea, but hide from the search party (AKA lynch mob) might be a good idea too...

Evacuate civilians from a turf war between two super villains , with out becoming involved in the fight.

I'm definitely a fan of the idea "minimize damage and casualties" as a theme, like Ketllekorn suggested.

I did write a fair amount of details in a post backing it up, but my browser crashed and I lost it all, and right now I don't really have the motivation to retype it all.

In short, there's a lot of opportunity to also leverage a "morality versus success" angle to each combat final scenario, regardless of whether the student is non-combat, in the survival track, or more prone to brawling. Or on either side of the villain or hero persuasion. Or students like Jadis who claim to be neither.

Does a survival student get more, or less, points for luring their pursuers away from crowds, property, and buildings? Same question if the objective is to obtain a doodad. They're risking their own success. Should students be taking advantage of the chaos and ignoring the damage? Do they make things worse to achieve their objective? It plays well into the recent Imp and Williams sim fight. Or the Three Amigas experience on their summer road trip. Should the Outcasts get something else entirely, due to their very real life experience, and the staff is worried about triggering their PTSD?

A few random crash ideas playing into that theme:
- Venue is a crowded concert, or amusement park or similar. Find Person X (arrest/protect/kidnap/etc.), locate bombs, steal/secure Y, or simply even troubleshoot and repair Z under time constraints and potential threat to property, life, or financial success.
- I second the idea of setting the scenario in a high-end museum. Works for both the thieves and the heroes.
- We know that Erinyes is a fictional creation in WU. Play off a flooded scifi scenario where any damage (caused by either side!) equals lower grades for the examinee! Let the devisors as opponents go wild!
- Playing off the Outcasts and Goobers, summon an extra-dimensional being (selected by Imp? Mrs. Carson? The brainchild of both?) to ransack a historic New England town. Preserve life! Preserve irreplaceable historic buildings!
- A team effort of some type, but speeding down a busy highway in an urban area.

Also, how about a scavenger hunt/solve the mystery type of situation, especially for the low level kids. Even for the higher level kids this makes sense, how to find what you need while avoiding attracting the attention of the 'civilians' that may or may not be mutophobic....

Retrieve The MacGuffin. Somewhere in the cityscape there is a "device". A box, maybe two feet or so on each side maybe bigger, maybe smaller, with a handle on each edge to carry it by. Each student starts in a fifteen foot wide circle on opposite sides of the arena, this is their retrieval zone. The goal is simple, find where the device is being kept, get it, and bring it to your retrieval zone. (Possible complication, the device has an alarm on it that is triggered by handling it too roughly, if this alarm goes off the match ends and the device is considered to have somehow destroyed the city and everyone in it.)

Anne wrote: Also, how about a scavenger hunt/solve the mystery type of situation, especially for the low level kids. Even for the higher level kids this makes sense, how to find what you need while avoiding attracting the attention of the 'civilians' that may or may not be mutophobic....

I'd recommend against setting up the "low level" kids for failure like that. Arena 99 is set up to simulate 10-50 city blocks, with buildings up to 4 stories. Twenty minutes doesn't make for enough time for a single person to perform a thorough search in that volume, even using clues that merely require the B.A. in English Lit. and the array of paranormal senses that they don't have.

The freshmen are, with very few exceptions, 13-15 years old. Most are arriving at Whateley with either the required investigative skills or the specialized powers to find needles in very big hay stacks. BMA doesn't teach any of those skills, and it's unlikely that Survival does either, so it's still a huge stretch to assume that even the sophomores will all have the needed skills/powers/time.


If the scenario requires the likes of Outcast Corner, Team Kimba, the Drow Collective, the Tres Amigas, or your Epic/Mythic level D&D party working together to have a better than 50/50 shot of completion in the allotted time, it's best to save the idea for a "crash" or for the backdrop of the upperclassmen's PvP finals.

No matter how boring it may be to have something that even a Dev-2 teenager (with GSD, without other superpowers, with a preference for romance novels over SciFi, average physical features at best) has an honest chance of succeeding at within 20 minutes, that's what the established setting calls for for the majority of the matchups.

---

re: "Morality vs Success"

Personally, I'd rather not see alignment checks beyond legal/illegal incorporated into the scenarios unless the authors and the readers are prepared for more NC-17/R-rated stories featuring children being filmed live in front of their friends and family.

Valentine wrote: I had thought of "tag," where the objective is to physically touch your opponent. With the "Crash" victims getting the Hooligans for opponents.

Not sure if there is enough there though.

Having just seen Ready Player One, I'd LOOOOOVE to see the Hooligans called up as an impromptu team crash in fall '07. Bardue and Caitlin could assemble them vs a cocky upper-classmen team. I could see Absinthe having a blast in that one with deception and fairy bombs.

I would suggest thinking a bit out of the box. Like something that could be conceivably useful for someone in the villain track. After all, if every Combat Final is a "rescue the hostages" scenario, at some point the Syndicate sponsors are going to complain about the oh-so-vaunted Whateley Neutrality.

Example: get McGuffin from fortified position. This could be either an "hero" or "villain" type mission, depending how you look at it. The level of resistance could be adjusted to the power level of the student(s), and it lends itself to various approaches -- frontal assault, stealth, con job...
If the McGuffin is appropriately fragile, ALSO serves to teach students (both heroic and villainous) to consider non-violent means, since a frontal assault might damage the merchandise.

Catch the runner!
An ANT in a blue vest is trying to catch an ANT in a red vest before they can escape to the edge of the arena, you and your opponent are tasked with making sure your respective ANTs succeed.
Are you helping another mutant escape H1 or chasing down an escaped convict? It's up to you!
(note: who's on red and blue teams is assigned by the staff, you choose your role-play, not your role)
The options and abilities available to the ANTs can be modified to tilt the difficulty in the event of a power mismatch between opponents, e.g.: letting the red ANT jack a car vs. choosing terrain with limited escape paths.
Automatic failure if you allow either ANT to be "killed", no quick victory by squishing your opponents robot!
With the staff assigning the teams there will probably be a general trend of escape track students on red team and combat track students on blue team, but I can imagine the reverse occurring when the instructors want to make a point.

Sir Lee wrote: I would suggest thinking a bit out of the box. Like something that could be conceivably useful for someone in the villain track. After all, if every Combat Final is a "rescue the hostages" scenario, at some point the Syndicate sponsors are going to complain about the oh-so-vaunted Whateley Neutrality.

Example: get McGuffin from fortified position. This could be either an "hero" or "villain" type mission, depending how you look at it. The level of resistance could be adjusted to the power level of the student(s), and it lends itself to various approaches -- frontal assault, stealth, con job...
If the McGuffin is appropriately fragile, ALSO serves to teach students (both heroic and villainous) to consider non-violent means, since a frontal assault might damage the merchandise.

Stealing a "priceless artifact" from a museum would be good for that.

Hebblejebble wrote: With the staff assigning the teams there will probably be a general trend of escape track students on red team and combat track students on blue team, but I can imagine the reverse occurring when the instructors want to make a point.

However, there aren't separate escape and combat tracks at the school and the pairings are supposed to be predominantly random.

Hebblejebble wrote: (note: who's on red and blue teams is assigned by the staff, you choose your role-play, not your role)

Observing the choices the students make - i.e., what they decide to do, not what the adults decide for them - is one of the objects of the exercise.

Hebblejebble wrote: Automatic failure if you allow either ANT to be "killed", no quick victory by squishing your opponents robot!

Setting that condition also means that:

1. Disabling either robot ensures that you take your opponent's grade down the tubes with your own.
2. The more disadvantaged agent in this scenario is better off leaving all the work to their opponent until the very end, and only then take a chance at a win or settle for a draw.

The result of either tactic, which doesn't hurt a student who's already failing, is that one or both students' ability to fend for themselves out in the world is never actually tested. If the student getting deliberately screwed over is widely unpopular (e.g., Peeper) then allowing them do-overs burns up time, resources, and perhaps some of the carefully planned matchups, until you get to a student who'll play the game as intended.


Another way to look at setting up a general scenario for the Combat Finals: Would the given scenario still be enjoyable to read if it featured two characters that you don't identify with or ship? For example: Grabby vs. Psydoe

"Special Delivery" ( I.e., take this package, deliver it to XXX ) can be made arbitrarily difficult for the courier, who isn't told what's in the box. Just: here's the address and watch out for (rivals, gangs, rival gangs, rival government, etc.) If you want to be cruel to a kid who's known to be careless, put their hardcopy shot records in the box (maybe even toss in a dye pack to discourage peeking). Put a ditch/canal parallel to or across one of the better routes and see if the fast swimmers notice.

From the outset, the environment can be the opponent ("Winter Wonderland" today, "Phoenix in August" tomorrow, urban decay Detroit Style, etc.) but another student or two could be tasked to intercept the package as an opponent. ("Your rivals are expecting an important package being sent from <address> to <address>. Your boss prefers that it becomes lost in transit/wishes to acquire the package.")

I believe that Arena 99 is large enough to consider running staggered overlapping matches, as well as differing variations. For example, call in Murphy as the courier, give Jinx and Absinthe the intercept instructions (Absinthe to steal the package, Jinx to make sure no one gets it). What could possibly go wrong?

Can Miasma get past Grabby if his route crosses a bridge or two?

Does the courier get distracted by the civilian who may be drowning not too far away ... or maybe it's a trap?

Maybe the courier gets through faster than expected. How well can the interceptors cope with their Boss assigning them a new target?

Make the delivery to an urban warzone and change the interceptor role into running interference. Can the students work together?


Various considerations on the students' end of things:
- How much time can a courier afford to waste on avoidance?
- Does it make more sense to hunt whoever's coming after the Maltese Falcon?
- Can their opponent win just by slowing them down?


Crashes:

So, if the Arena is socked in with a simulated blizzard, your opponent's MID identifies her as Nordlys, and the few ANTs you can find are talking in some incomprehensible Fargo-ese, you just might be in one of those "teaching a lesson" matchups.

Drama Queen is a sucker for using her abilities and social engineering to rile people up. Let's see how well that works with a UV like Rottie.

Exquisite vs. Generator (insane levels of pain management) or Shroud (what nervous system?) The idea being that putting her up against WhatIF characters like Ruth (Domoviye), Host (Rose Bunny), or Metro (mine) might be slightly abusive.


In the sims, and for a team Crash, one could theoretically base the terrain off of Middle Earth, then populate it with Shadowrun Orks, the Mongols of Rohan, an Unseelie Lady of Lothlórien, and Hobbits that bear an uncanny resemblance to carnivorous Ewoks. So much for reliance on genre savvy. It's a fantasy setting, so let's set 'electronics' and 'gunpowder' to 'no'. Different teams could be run through different legs of the Fellowship's journeys. Diplomacy shines. Running works. Fighting works. Running gunfights, not so much.

Patient Zero.
Take a crowded city block. Put in one ant that has a commincable 'disease' that has a 1 in n chance of 'infecting' other ants it comes in contact with.
The students are tasked with finding this patient and escort or move it to an extraction point.
Two caveats:
Only one student can be succesful in completing the task (duh)
The more ants are 'infected' the more aggressive they get.

And the hidden twist for students to discover: they can talk to the patient first and get it to cooperate, turning it into a escort mission for them (and blocking off that option for his or her opponent).

Things can easily be scaled down (less ants in the city and making the disease less communicable) and up (not just more ants, but also making more or all of them police officers or soldiers)
And for the catharsis they can throw in a couple of 'infected' MCO power armors to entertain the more destructive students.

I quite like null0trooper's "Special Delivery" idea, particularly the variant with another student tasked to intercept.
It captures the same concept I was trying for in "Catch the Runner", an asymmetric contest over a moving objective, with significantly less overhead complexity.

One, not insurmountable, problem is ensuring that a "mover" doesn't ruin the instructors ability to grade.
Its been noted before that the instructors grade based on the actions the students take rather than whether or not they complete the objective so the contest doesn't need to be fair, or even winnable, but it does need to give students an opportunity to do something grade-worthy.

For example in the spire contest from our first year the students had to stay at the spire and answer questions, so just racing to spire first wasn't an easy win but it's not immediately obvious here what's stopping a teleporter like Murphy from simply hop, skip and jumping to the delivery zone as soon the starting bell rings.

I am quite pleased by the thought going into these suggestions. Very, very pleased. I knew we could count on our fans.

Erianaiel wrote: Patient Zero.
Take a crowded city block. Put in one ant that has a commincable 'disease' that has a 1 in n chance of 'infecting' other ants it comes in contact with.
The students are tasked with finding this patient and escort or move it to an extraction point.
Two caveats:
Only one student can be succesful in completing the task (duh)
The more ants are 'infected' the more aggressive they get.

I could easily see some of the more violent-minded students go in - spot the 'infected person', and wasting them with some kind of plasma rifle or grenade, justifying it as getting any nearby people - who would have also been infected - sanitized as well. Turns and walks out, to a stunned Bardue. "That was easy."

elrodw wrote:

Erianaiel wrote: Patient Zero.
Take a crowded city block. Put in one ant that has a commincable 'disease' that has a 1 in n chance of 'infecting' other ants it comes in contact with.
The students are tasked with finding this patient and escort or move it to an extraction point.
Two caveats:
Only one student can be succesful in completing the task (duh)
The more ants are 'infected' the more aggressive they get.

I could easily see some of the more violent-minded students go in - spot the 'infected person', and wasting them with some kind of plasma rifle or grenade, justifying it as getting any nearby people - who would have also been infected - sanitized as well. Turns and walks out, to a stunned Bardue. "That was easy."

I'd say that you'd have to warn them that the death of the 'subject' would result in a failure of the combat final. However I think that the logic Nul applied to my 'solve the mystery' idea applies here too. Too complex, too involved for what probably has to be no more than about a thirty minute window.
After all consider 600+ students, paired off that would be 300*30 or somewhere in the vicinity of 9000 minutes That is quite a bit of time, even discounting students like Puppet who can't participate say -10% of the student body and 'team' challenges for Jr and Sr classes, that still means that they probably have to dedicate probably close to a whole week to the event for the lower classes, then another (minimum) week for the upper classes...
Which means that they can't do too many crash/mystery/find the person type of scenarios without taking additional time that they need for regular school activities (like the classes that Bardeu runs) and while the event is in progress, most of the student body (except maybe the freshthings) is going to be at a minimum distracted.
I think though the 'courier' course has a lot of possibilities. It gives you a moving McGuffin and adds just that much more challenge.
I like the idea of an obstacle course, either against an opponent or against the clock as well. Finding several items in a scavenger hunt still seems like it might work, especially if you were against a time limit and knew that someone(s) might be hunting you while you hunted the items on your list. Given the time constraints you couldn't have a large list, and if you had two or more people hunting for the same objects...
Also, really like the idea that they can loose points (maybe even fail the test) if there is too much collateral damage...

Combat finals IS a dedicated time period - one week for Fresh/Soph students, and one week for Jr/Sr students. And with that week, as I calculated in Odds and Ends, a 30-minute spacing is about as much as can be done to get all the students through in one week - which allows 20 minutes for the final and 10 minutes to reset the arena (while all the students run to the bookies).

elrodw wrote:

Erianaiel wrote: Patient Zero.
Take a crowded city block. Put in one ant that has a commincable 'disease' that has a 1 in n chance of 'infecting' other ants it comes in contact with.
The students are tasked with finding this patient and escort or move it to an extraction point.
Two caveats:
Only one student can be succesful in completing the task (duh)
The more ants are 'infected' the more aggressive they get.

I could easily see some of the more violent-minded students go in - spot the 'infected person', and wasting them with some kind of plasma rifle or grenade, justifying it as getting any nearby people - who would have also been infected - sanitized as well. Turns and walks out, to a stunned Bardue. "That was easy."

A grenade would have to be counted as an auto-loss, because the student is splattering infected tissue and body fluids throughout an entire area. That not only increases the risk to bystanders who may contract the disease through the inflicted wounds as well as by breathing the debris in the air, but also to first responders, their families, etc. How many tables at the nearby outdoor cafe get wiped down with the same washcloths?

Hm. A demonstration of that should probably be in or added to the tactics classes: set off a "splash" grenade with uv-reactive dye and show how far (bio)hazmat can travel. [ This would be analogous to what was happening to firefighters after being called out to transformer fires back when PCBs were considered harmless. Think about contaminated clothing/uniforms sitting with the rest of the family's clothes until laundry day. ]

Lemon meringue pies at 20 paces.

A few non-combat student choices. They can probably be altered to some variant with a more direct approach (read: for the combat students).

Magic track: A relay race to fill a set number of containers with water summoning spells, trip photocells with light spells, and various other challenges to test their accuracy and consistency in casting under pressure (simulating the need for escaping or distracting). Points added for flawless runes (if written), points deducted for wasting too much essence when rushing.

Devisor track: Choose to either take a box of random parts, or examine a set of nearly completed tools/weapons and complete it to perform a specific action. It should be set up to test their judgement, focus (not getting distracted), and skill. Sort of a variant on powers testing, but with deliberate false options for success, tons of distracting and enticing parts, all while under a strict time limit. Multiple stages of objectives?

Telepaths: Discern a combination or similar innocent information, while the arena is filled with mentally "loud" students. Scrambler is also present.

Telekinetics: A maze built from transparent material that requires fine control throughout. Definitely a race, direct interference with opponent via the levitated object allowable.

Gadgeteers: Similar to the devisors, but more focused on troubleshooting.

Gadgeteers (alternate): Or even simply a race in the style of Junkyard Wars (direct interference outside of the build area allowable for the combat variant of this scenario, for one key component have exactly two within the arena, one for each team, with one clearly an inferior quality component from immediate visual examination).

Bio-devisors: Simply endure a debate with Princess Jobe for 20 minutes.

JG wrote: You keep players like murphy and Razorback from sprinting to the delivery by tasking them with INTERCEPTING a courier.

And making dead sure they have no idea who their opponent is.

Or you give them an opponent like Aquerna, who ran a teleporter crazy when surprised by him in the Wondercute crash.

In that case, the Crash victims participants can be intercepting the Hooligans.

Low or no visibility conditions (magical darkness, thermal smoke, snow/sand storm) can work against a teleporter as much as they can work for one.

Even someone like Murphy, with a sense for mass, should play it careful around projective telepaths and some illusionists. Hallucinogens and disorienting agents still might work that one first time until her regen figures them out. Teleporting to coordinates might help some, but there always the chance of snagging something light ( Worry less about the forest you can't see for the trees, and more for the barbed wire or briars that you also didn't see. )


On a different note, it would be good to see if experience or power is worth anything when it comes to magicians. For example, Pejuta vs. Majestic.

elrodw wrote:

Erianaiel wrote: Patient Zero.
Take a crowded city block. Put in one ant that has a commincable 'disease' that has a 1 in n chance of 'infecting' other ants it comes in contact with.
The students are tasked with finding this patient and escort or move it to an extraction point.
Two caveats:
Only one student can be succesful in completing the task (duh)
The more ants are 'infected' the more aggressive they get.

I could easily see some of the more violent-minded students go in - spot the 'infected person', and wasting them with some kind of plasma rifle or grenade, justifying it as getting any nearby people - who would have also been infected - sanitized as well. Turns and walks out, to a stunned Bardue. "That was easy."

Yes. It should be made clear that the goal is to get patient zero out (because a cure for the disease that it is immune to should be in its blood and either you want to make a medicine or you want to prevent a medicine to be made). Killing patient zero would be a failing grade and killing infected ants would ding your grade

Regarding the finding aspect of the scenario, this does not have to be particularly difficult. It just has to be not glaringly obvious which ant is patient zero. Taking a minute or two for observation should be enough. The idea is to give smart students a chance to shine if they spot the patient first and cautiously guide it past their opponent.

For additional fun students would start at each other's extraction point, ensuring that they have to get past each other with patient zero.

I do not think it is possible to come up with a scenaria that does not favour some class of mutation or mindset. And we have to be honest and admit that a big part of the reason to have these combat finals is to drive home in stubborn student skulls that they should take at least one semester of Ito Sensei's BMA. And another one to learn to actually use their brains every now and then

I personally would scale back Erianaiel's "Patient Zero" idea to just getting a VIP ANT (VIA?) to an extraction zone, without any infection element.
The infection producing an indirectly controlled difficulty that increases exponentionally over time seems very hard to calibrate to expected student performance.
The student experience would be very similar to the ideal case of Patient Zero (from an educational POV) if the instructors can directly control what ANTs can be hostile and what can set them off
(e.g.: having MCO or police around that only react if they see active powers or a disturbance of the peace).

A possible modification is to have target be indistinguishable from other ANTs at the start of the match and become increasing obvious over time, increasing the reward for a very observant students without making the challenge impossible for everyone else.

quick note: I think the easiest way to ensure the students compete with only one winner is to give each student a separate extraction zone in a different location.

Just don't use Caitlin as Patient Zero.

Unless you are using Hank, Hippy, Jade, Razor, Ribbon, or one of the other high level regens and/or bricks.

I supposed that the theme could be Catch the suspect/hostage. The teachers could sometime be used as the suspect or hostages.

ebony841 wrote: I supposed that the theme could be Catch the suspect/hostage. The teachers could sometime be used as the suspect or hostages.

I'd forgotten that they sometimes do call in staff to fill roles.

The big challenge I see for catching "suspects" is finding someone who doesn't want to be found before the time runs out. On the positive side, most folks who use invisibility or illusions don't also erase sound and scent and probably can't hide from a psychic if they're in the esper's "line of sight". Search methods like that, and their drawbacks, are probably covered in Survival and not in Basic Martial Arts.

In fact, they can. Illusionists such as Whisper and Absinthe could easily conjure up illusions that mess with smell and sound. Furthermore, I still remembered how Lady Hydra used her skill to hide from Fey's magic sight, Toni's Ki sight and Jade's empath and magic detections.

ebony841 wrote: In fact, they can. Illusionists such as Whisper and Absinthe could easily conjure up illusions that mess with smell and sound.

It's not impossible to do, but we haven't seen them hide themselves behind illusions that hit all senses at once. Whisper was managing sight and sound as "Chloe", but the odor spell Absinthe put on Centurion was a separate illusion from her others. The more spells a magician is sustaining, the more difficult everything gets in terms of concentration and essence needed. It takes additional work to hide or disguise the use of magic.

Also, it's possible to get the illusion wrong. In terms of smell, neither girl has the olfactory sensitivity that Kodiak or Diamondback has. Neither Whisper nor Absinthe knows how Elaine Nalley really smells the way Wyatt Cody does, making that a likely place for an Essential Flaw to show up. The mind-effecting aspects of an illusion might still convince the minds of people around them but the range at which their body's own scent can be picked up may be greater than the effective range of the spell.

ebony841 wrote: Furthermore, I still remembered how Lady Hydra used her skill to hide from Fey's magic sight, Toni's Ki sight and Jade's empath and magic detections.

They were shown a digitized photo of Lady Hydra from back in the 1960s. They were NOT shown what she would look like 40 years later to their specialized senses, so they had nothing other than visual appearance to go by.

I hope Elaine doesn't smell like Wyatt.

I've got a couple possible combat finals themes in my writing prompt tool box for consideration. I'll start with my misunderstanding of the Spring 2007 theme. The theme I crafted was basically 'historical flashback' survival, with a flash-forward for good measure. I timed the prompts at 5 minutes prep and 30 minutes survival, but that could be reduced to 20 minutes survival to match the timings given earlier in the thread. The prompts I crafted on this theme are as follows (citations available upon request, as the spam filter didn't like all my links):

Fool's Fight Prompt:
Sensei Ito tilted his head as he looked over the next pair. "Turn the clock back to the early '90s and take a step out of your Bronx brownstone. It's a nippy day here in the big apple, with highs expected to be in the mid 40s. The weather is expected to be cloudy with a chance of ... City buses? Who comes up with these forecasts anyways? You have five minutes to prepare and need to survive thirty minutes. Any questions?"

When stepping out, the students find themselves standing at the end of the Brooklyn bridge, right as the Fool's Fight is about to kick off.

Grand Forks mutant riot prompt:
"Welcome to early 70s in Grand Forks, North Dakota. A battered wife is acquitted by a jury in the death of her abusive husband. It's something that might make the local news, but otherwise not something that's usually noteworthy. However, she lives across the street from you, and there's a burning H in her front lawn. You have 5 five minutes to prepare and 30 minutes to keep your rear end out of the fire. Any questions?"

According to the timeline in the wiki, there were mutant riots in 1972. This places the participants in the middle of one, sparked by the acquittal of said battered wife. The local H1 branch objected and sought to take justice into their own hands. The fact that other mutants got swept up in the chaos is just icing on the cake - for the H1 members.

Rager's Night Prompt:
Gunny Bardue stepped over to the door and turned to face the students. "For your combat final, you will be taking a short step back in time and a long jump to the land down under. It's Christmas day in Darwin and there's a rager on the loose. Your mission is to stop them or divert them from populated areas. You have five minutes to prepare and thirty minutes to complete your task. Any questions?"

After stepping out of the start booth, they find themselves in the middle of Rager's Night. A play-by-play of this event can be found in Parkour Jam Hooligans. Erik Mahren estimated the rager in question was an Exemplar 3/Regen 3/Rager 3. For this scenario, the rager will most likely be scaled down to Exemplar 2/Regen 2/Rager 2, with the goal of providing a matched opponent.

Battle of the Bulge Prompt:
Gunny Bardue gazed at a point on the wall for a moment before turning to the pair. "Ok kids, here's the deal. It's Christmas Day 1944, and you got drafted by Britannia and Uncle Sam to help counter the threat of the Nazi Theme agents. The German army is making their last big push of the war, and you're stuck in the middle of it. Fate being the fickle lady that she is, you managed to get caught in a little town called Bastogne right before the German Army surrounded it. Now, they're prepared to wipe your little pocket of resistance off of the map. You have five minutes to prepare and thirty minutes to survive. Any questions?"

As hinted in the brief, the students are in the middle of the Siege of Bastogne, a major event in the larger Battle of the Bulge. In the Whateleyverse, one of the weapons employed by the Nazi party in World War II were their Theme Agents. In this version of the Whateleyverse, in addition to the Panzergrenadier regiment, the 26th Volksgrenadier Division also received one of the Angsthandlers (Fear Mongers) as reinforcements. In this case, the Angsthandler is a major GSD case, with a Gargoyle-like appearance. He is an Exemplar 2/Manifestor 2 (lightning).

Operation Gunnerside Prompt
Gunny Bardue put his hands on his hips and looked down at the students. "Listen up ladies. You've been recruited by Uncle Sam for a special operation. It's the end of February, 1943 and you've been air dropped into Norway. Your mission is to destroy the heavy water electrolysis chambers at the Vemork Hydroelectric Plant. You have five minutes to prepare and thirty minutes to complete your mission. Any questions?"

Although something of a foot note in larger record of World War II, Operation Gunnerside marked an important turning point in the Axis atomic weapons program. In this version of the Whateleyverse, the hydroelectric plant was guarded not only by baseline troops, but also by one of the Schattenherren (a class of Nazi Theme Agents). In this case, their mutant opponent is a Warper 2l (teleportation) with TP 2(rec) (Passive telepathy) and a preference for bow weapons.

Selma Prompt:
Sensei Ito looked over the pair with a calculating grin. "Welcome to the sixties. I hope you've got your walking shoes on as that's just what you're going to do. For this combat final, you can check your holdouts at the simulator door. It's freedom summer and you are members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. You are in Selma, Alabama, preparing to march to Montgomery to show your support for voting rights for all. The march is to be a peaceful one, though rumors are circulating that the White Knight has taken offense to these plans. Your goal is to divert his attentions from the rest of the marchers without resorting to violence."

Once the start booth door opens, the pair find themselves preparing to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday. In this version of the Whateleyverse, a mutant by the name of the White Knight (flame manifestor, flying) has joined the state troopers who are blocking the march.

Selma 2 Prompt:
Gunny Bardue gave the students a hard stare as he pondered something. "Let's change things up a little. Rather than setting the clock back on you, we're looking forward. Forward to 2035 to be exact. However, it seems that history is about to repeat itself. You are in Selma, Alabama, preparing to march to Montgomery. This time around, you are marching as part of a mixed group of baselines and mutants in support of mutant rights. Before you head for the start booth, you'll need to divest yourself of all your holdouts. The plan is for this to be a nonviolent march, though the news broadcasts are abuzz with rumors of a Humanity First counter protest. You have five minutes to prepare and will be in the simulator for thirty minutes. Any questions?"

Once the start booth door opens, the pair find themselves preparing to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. As they will quickly discover, Bloody Sunday is set to repeat itself, this time with H1! protestors blocking the path of the marchers.

My second theme is a bit more problematic in terms of timing, but could potentially be turned into a 'running circle' combat final. The prompt (as laid out in my notes) is as follows:

Headmistress Carlson strode out into the middle of Arena 99. After slowly turning around to survey the audience, she spoke. "For those in the cape and mask lifestyle, lairs are a way of life. Whether it's a Gizmatic TS-100 series rent-a-lair or a massive base built to your exacting specifications, you will encounter them. They are places to break into, break out of, and live in. And sometimes, the lair you have to break into or out of is your own."

"For this semester's combat finals, you will run through the arena twice. On your first trip through, you will break into a lair that one of your classmates designed. Once you reach the heart of the lair, you will utilize the built-in defenses to protect yourself from it's owner. Once the owner reaches you, you will make your escape. On your second trip through, you will repeat the process, this time breaking into your own lair."

Rather than utilizing a student design, the staff could have a dozen or so 'stock' designs, and rotate students through in groups of 5 or 6. One student would start in the 'heart' of the lair and control the automated defenses. Once their opponent reached the control room, they would bug out, dodging the remaining defenses. After exiting, the simulator would 'reset', and the exercise would repeat with the next student. The student who lead off the round would finish the round by breaking into the lair as the final student defended it.

“Escape Room.” You're racing the clock to get out of the room/building you're trapped in. There re clues that will help you get out, and also hindrances such as red herring clues, the person who locked you in, maybe your opponent. Points for not just smashing your way out, working together, turning the tables on the kidnapper...

“Disaster”: The student is in class or at a concert and all hell breaks loose. The parking garage collapses and traps them. A bomb goes off near them. Super brawl that get out of hand and crashes the event. Sharknado... what ever. Does the student duck and cover to save their hide? Fo they end up looting the place? Do they drag an injured person to safety? Do the 'sacrifice' themselves doing something heroic? Did they make things worse with their actions? Go watch a First Responder drama and throw the kid into one of the situations that crop up in a season. Personally, if I was the staffer running this one I wouldn't tell the kid what was coming, let the disaster be a surprise. I was binge watching Chicgo Fire and PD when this idea cme to me.

“Jinkies!!” It's a Scooby Doo episode; Weird thing X has happened. Figure it out. What's the student's approach to do that? How do the react when Ol Man Jenkins or who ever ramps things up? What if it isn't Ol Man Jenkins like they thought, but something else?

I don't have much flesh for this scenario, but “Lamplighter”. Dude is nuts and there is enough run-ins with him that the school might wanna 'introduce' the students to him in a controlled situation. Might be folded into another scenario.

Not just Lamplighter, there are plenty of supers that could show up to complicate things, both hero and villain, and they could be changed out to scale the difficulty for different students.

Escape Pod - The combatants are on a spaceship that is about to explode and there is just one escape pod left that seats only one. The combatants must find that three circuit boards that they must use to activate the escape pod and install them before dying a firey, explodey death.

bergy wrote: Escape Pod - The combatants are on a spaceship that is about to explode and there is just one escape pod left that seats only one. The combatants must find that three circuit boards that they must use to activate the escape pod and install them before dying a firey, explodey death.

And when they get ready to leave, they find the escape pod is occupied by a bear ....

First they have to negotiate with the AI controlling the escape hatch that they have the right to use it.

"I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that..."

throw in the potential for building a jury-rigged escape pod

Don't forget the security code.

1... 2... 3... 4.

If you search the ship REALLY well you'll find the young stowaway... now what do you do?

DanZilla wrote: If you search the ship REALLY well you'll find the young stowaway... now what do you do?

Look for the ketchup

Step One is to remove a fourth card for insurance against being left behind.

Not that stowaways have rights, but:

I'd wonder why the stowaway didn't escape with the rest of the crew and passengers when the alarms went off. Maybe their job was to sabotage the ship in the first place, or the damage was the result of their actions?

Or, after finding that their pockets are full of left-behind swag and essential life pod circuits because they planned to leave me behind to die, I think that some little bastard is getting handcuffed to a stanchion.

Here's a theme:
The Floor is Lava

Apply this to any objective, be it capture the mcguffin, hit the button or rescue. Only applicable to those who don't fly or teleport, may get someone like Phase who has to stop to turn effectively

If you fall in the lava, you get to be nicknamed "Stef Murky."

Sir Lee wrote: If you fall in the lava, you get to be nicknamed "Stef Murky."

Maybe they will nickname them Bumpas !!

Thinking about it a little more, both combat finals we have seen were themed pretty heavily towards the superheroing/supervillaining.
But the school goes out of its way to drive home the official position that they are not teaching the students to become a hero or villain.

So why not focus on a different aspect of the realities of being a mutant in most of the world: the severe risk of having a bloodthirsty mob coming after you.

* * *
Devise to freedom

You have been outed as a mutant and for whatever reason lies (or the truth) about you have been spread, stirring up a frenzy of paranoia and terror. and now H1!, the KoP, the MCO or even the Army is after you. You have managed to slip away but your hunters know you are in the city and roughly which block. They have set up a cordon to prevent you from escaping and are about to send in search teams to arrest you (if you are lucky). What they don't know is that in the area you are trapped in is a devise that will let you escape to a safe area.
Only it is at the other end of where you start, and it is a one shot devise so only the first mutant who activates it makes it out safely.
* * *

This scenario can easily be finely tuned to the student's ability (and 'I win' powers can either be prohibited or prevented by e.g. sniper teams to prevent flyers to escape easily. For low power students a mob of H1! fanatics would be enough of a challenge. At the high end of the power scale the Army would support the MCO and they could have arbitrarily powerful anti=mutant weaponry available. Or a couple of teams patterned along the dragonslayer's (or Wondercute!) tactics.

As an alternative
* * *
The underground railroad

You are tasked with getting a family of six or so mutANTs to safety where somebody will guide them to the next leg of the underground railroad to less mutant hostile lands. Your usual partner got caught at the other side of the cordon, it was put up that quickly, so the organisation has sent the first person available to assist you.
Your task is simple enough. Together you must get the family across the city to the drop off point without being outed as mutants and without getting killed. Evading the search teams that are beginning to enter the new cordon, searching for any mutant or superpowered individual. Officially to detain them and move them to an internment camp.
The problem, besides it being an escort mission, you don't know your assigned partner and you have no idea if he is a genuine member of the organisation or is in fact an infiltrator seeking to shut down the underground railroad.
* * *

You can also play into the idea that seriously injuring the mobs will only make them justified in their position that mutants are dangerous, and all supervillains should be treated as Class A threats. Very much evoking a few of the X-men story threads.

All things Ribbon has been worrying about since she got her super strength, and a point Jadis has made repeatedly. Which, coincidentally, is something that the Three Amigas are still learning from time to time.