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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Nix's Warden said:
Question, I approve of the creation of a Talisman of Protection, but I'm wondering what's the thought process of not having our current greatsword given a rune/getting a greatsword commissioned and runed?
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We (+Max or one of many skilled human smiths) should be able to make a pretty good Ulgu-enchanted sword of our own. A little Take No Heed plus the Shadow Knives piercing when we learn it would go a long way.

It won't be a 15 point Kraggsword but it will be effective.
 
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[X] Many mercenaries look for work at Barak Varr among trades looking to make the long and dangerous trip to the east. See if any can be convinced to join the Expedition instead.
[X] Help Seija teach Esbern to Dispel.
[X] Ask him to teach Johann to Dispel.
[X] Have Ulthar handpick his best sharpshooters to be equipped with envenomed bolts.
[X] Test their skills in battle by sparring with them.
[x] Marshal Titus Muggins
[x] Marksman Codrin Petrescu
[X] Thane Skaroki Grimbrow
[X] Yes
-[X] Talisman
-[X] Protection
-[X] 15 favors

Dwarf runes are absurdly good at making people difficult to kill. Why do we want Mathilde to be as difficult to kill as possible? Well, aside from "she's the main character and we don't want the quest to end", there are several really solid reasons.

Mathilde's best combat spell for deployment in large-scale battles right now is Dread Aspect. This is a fantastic spell which makes her cause Terror, an exceptionally potent and rare ability which benefits from being as attention-grabbing as possible and directly confronting the enemy to maximize its effects. Nothing else on her side's end of the battlefield is likely to be causing Terror while drawing as much attention to itself as possible, which means that to the enemy, she will be the scariest thing lined up against them. To an enemy commander, what is the appropriate response to the really obvious scary thing the enemy has?

That's right: To kill it. Overkill it if possible, so as to restore the fleeing troops' morale by seeing the thing that scared them get struck down. Mathilde is in the kind of position where the order "everyone shoot that wizard!" might actually be given, and that would not end well for her. Yes, she'd pop back after being gibbed by a dozen jezzails or two hundred arrows or whatever, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant and they'd probably immediately shoot her again. Dwarf protective runes are of such potential quality that she could live through such scenarios (they actually have an ignore-all-nonmagical-ranged-attacks rune, 's pretty cool).

The ability to become a huge threat which draws staggering amounts of enemy fire and then shrug off everything that comes at her is such a fantastically potent combination that this is enough of a reason to go for a full protection setup on its own. The intimidation of the enemy, the inspiration of allies, the fact that anyone shooting her isn't shooting someone other than her... there's simply incredible synergy here.

Aside from this, "kill the wizard" is a highly traditional objective for just about everyone, so even if she doesn't decide to activate her Torc of Fire+Dread Aspect combo and then lead a cavalry charge directly at the enemy lines, they'll still be gunning for her just like we've gunned for every enemy caster we've ever seen. Staying in the back line doesn't make her safe when she's almost certainly one of the top five enemy targets in our entire army. As a high-tier caster keeping herself in play is of strategic importance so that she can keep throwing spells and counterspells, and being able to act boldly in the face of enemy counterfire without burning her autoheals (which are very impressive, but limited in number) is great for whatever army she's attached to. Basically, as long as we are confident in Mathilde's baseline countermagic ability, and I think we are, the ability to keep her in play and use her aggressively is a great boon to our antimagic prowess on its own, without needing to invest explicitly in antimagic.

Mathilde's third kind of likely deployment is as a stealth/raiding unit. While the primary form of protection during such operations is speed and subtlety, should something go wrong- and things often do- then staying alive becomes a serious challenge even with heals on hand because of enemy numbers and lack of allied support. A protection talisman could let us accomplish things in this capacity and survive doing them which the other options on the table don't (well, an absurdly killy weapon would be pretty great for this kind of deployment, but I'd rather enchant our own weapon).
 
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[X] Yes
-[X] Talisman
-[X] Protection
-[X] 15 favors

[X] For the sake of your curiousity, sit in on some of the meetings between the two Kings.
[X] Many mercenaries look for work at Barak Varr among trades looking to make the long and dangerous trip to the east. See if any can be convinced to join the Expedition instead.
[X] Barak Varr is a trading hub; go shopping with her and employ your good name among dwarves to see if there's seeds of anything useful to be found.
[X] Dwarf technology may be off limits, but the technology of other races are not and there could be all sorts of useful gadgets coming in from overseas. See if you can pick anything useful up with him from the vast markets of Barak Varr.

Hm. That is a rather solid argument for the protection talisman.
 
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How would a sword enchanted with Shadow knives and take no heed even work, what it ignores armor and becomes hard to notice, how do you not notice the giant magical great sword that just cut your friend in half?
 
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[X] Yes
-[X] Talisman
-[X] Protection
-[X] 15 favors

[X] Have them help you teach your fast-growing familiar simple commands.
[X] Help Seija teach Esbern to Dispel.
[X] Ask him to teach Johann to Dispel.
[X] Master Runelord Kragg the Grim (?)
 
No7sHere said:
How would a sword enchanted with Shadow knives and take no heed even work, what it ignores armor and becomes hard to notice, how do you not notice the giant magical great sword that just cut your friend in half?
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Magic! It's someone else's job to fight that crazy unarmed(?!) Wizard. And the mental contradiction might just cause some tasty Confusion, too, and be self-Ulgu-fuelling. And it only has to work for a moment...
 
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DarkLight140 said:
Dwarf runes are absurdly good at making people difficult to kill. Why do we want Mathilde to be as difficult to kill as possible? Well, aside from "she's the main character and we don't want the quest to end", there are several really solid reasons.

Mathilde's best combat spell for deployment in large-scale battles right now is Dread Aspect. This is a fantastic spell which makes her cause Terror, an exceptionally potent and rare ability which benefits from being as attention-grabbing as possible and directly confronting the enemy to maximize its effects. Nothing else on her side's end of the battlefield is likely to be causing Terror while drawing as much attention to itself as possible, which means that to the enemy, she will be the scariest thing lined up against them. To an enemy commander, what is the appropriate response to the really obvious scary thing the enemy has?

That's right: To kill it. Overkill it if possible, so as to restore the fleeing troops' morale by seeing the thing that scared them get struck down. Mathilde is in the kind of position where the order "everyone shoot that wizard!" might actually be given, and that would not end well for her. Yes, she'd pop back after being gibbed by a dozen jezzails or two hundred arrows or whatever, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant and they'd probably immediately shoot her again. Dwarf protective runes are of such potential quality that she could live through such scenarios (they actually have an ignore-all-nonmagical-ranged-attacks rune, 's pretty cool).

The ability to become a huge threat which draws staggering amounts of enemy fire and then shrug off everything that comes at her is such a fantastically potent combination that this is enough of a reason to go for a full protection setup on its own. The intimidation of the enemy, the inspiration of allies, the fact that anyone shooting her isn't shooting someone other than her... there's simply incredible synergy here.

Aside from this, "kill the wizard" is a highly traditional objective for just about everyone, so even if she doesn't decide to activate her Torc of Fire+Dread Aspect combo and then lead a cavalry charge directly at the enemy lines, they'll still be gunning for her just like we've gunned for every enemy caster we've ever seen. Staying in the back line doesn't make her safe when she's almost certainly one of the top five enemy targets in our entire army. As a high-tier caster keeping herself in play is of strategic importance so that she can keep throwing spells and counterspells, and being able to act boldly in the face of enemy counterfire without burning her autoheals (which are very impressive, but limited in number) is great for whatever army she's attached to. Basically, as long as we are confident in Mathilde's baseline countermagic ability, and I think we are, the ability to keep her in play and use her aggressively is a great boon to our antimagic prowess on its own, without needing to invest explicitly in antimagic.

Mathilde's third kind of likely deployment is as a stealth/raiding unit. While the primary form of protection during such operations is speed and subtlety, should something go wrong- and things often do- then staying alive becomes a serious challenge even with heals on hand because of enemy numbers and lack of allied support. A protection talisman could let us accomplish things in this capacity and survive doing them which the other options on the table don't (well, an absurdly killy weapon would be pretty great for this kind of deployment, but I'd rather enchant our own weapon).
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That's a lot of good reasoning (mine was mostly Dark Magic = Scary). I'm changing my vote to Protection. Tiny Tank Wizard sounds fun.
 
[X] Yes
-[X] Talisman
-[X] Protection
-[X] 15 favors

[X] Have them help you teach your fast-growing familiar simple commands.
[X] Help Seija teach Esbern to Dispel.
[X] Ask him to teach Johann to Dispel.
[X] Master Runelord Kragg the Grim (?)

Looks like a solid set of options to me.
 
Khepri14 said:
...So yeah, I'm thinking Johann needs to be discretely disappeared as it were. Sure he says that if it's run off warpstone that he'll drop it and leave it alone, but that's what he said, not what he (possibly) actually plans to do*. And I'd rather not have him going nuts and huffing warpstone on our watch in the middle of a reclaimation of a Hold, which is almost assuredly to get the Dawi to blame us, since we took leadership over the wizards, and make us lose all our rep.

*Mathilde herself basically said in the update that he was too glib about it that she wasn't certain he was being entirely truthful.
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I think he is genuine also killing one of our very few wizards even though he hasn't done anything yet is not a good idea.
 
Do we really want to spend 15 points worth of Dwarf Rep for a single item? This will be the second time we've done something like that, and it seems...almost irresponsible. There's a lot of things Rep could be used for, even in this campaign, do we really want to use so much of it so early?
 
EVA-Saiyajin said:
Antimagic can be offensive as well as defensive. Forcing Miscasts on enemy wizards, outright ripping spells from their minds, taking power they use for spells and using it for our dispels, etc.
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Sure it can - but there is a question of what is actually practical.

We are speaking about talisman, and while Dwarves are incredible at that things, external tool have inherent limitations. Such as lack of precision. Lack of range. Antimagic being more of a field rather than anything possible to shape into projectile. For example, I fully expect antimagic to shot down all spells Mathilde have on at the moment. Shadowsteed? Puff. Aethyric Armour? Puff. And what's more - she cannot cast magic when effect is in play.

Antimagic is good in situations where disadvantage of stripping protections and potentially sending mathilde tumbling from suddenly non-existent horse is outweigthed by benefits. That happens mostly when Mathilde messes up and miscasts - because then we know that effect will hit and will be painful.

Other situations... let's consider few types of situations:
a) Enemy caster about 20 meters casting a quick, low-level spell.
b) Enemy caster about 100+ meters of casting advanced ritual-like spell.
c) Various enemies in an army casting spells.
d) Dhar-tained place with unknown effect.

That should cover majority of encounters. Sure, not all of them, but most common ones. Now let's consider how antimagic would fit into that:

a) Situation is best solved by shoting few bullets into brain of a enemy caster. That is a reason why Mathilde bought revolver. Here, using antimagic is not worth stripping Aethyric Armour and/or Shadowsteed.
b) Very unlikely that field can reach that far - and either way casting Pit of Shades solves majority of problems. Mathilde also have her own dispel either way... which would not work if she tried to use antimagic.
c) Once more, very unlikely that field would reach that far.
d) Here it is useful... but it also leaves Mathilde powerless. Best approach may be analyze place and then destroy it (or call priest to consecrate it).

So yeah, antimagic is incredible boon - but in majority of situation there are equally viable alternatives to antimatic. The point where it shines are miscasts. Mathilde will be casting battle magic sooner or later. Miscast in it can outright kill her and end the quest. That is what is important to avoid - once we have it (and we will with 15 points) we can focus on general protection.

Hence "Protection/Antimagic".
 
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Zedman7054 said:
Do we really want to spend 15 points worth of Dwarf Rep for a single item? This will be the second time we've done something like that, and it seems...almost irresponsible. There's a lot of things Rep could be used for, even in this campaign, do we really want to use so much of it so early?
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I don't, but the only vote that stands a chance against blowing everything on this item is using ten Favors instead of fifteen.
 
Favor like money is there to be spent especially if it improves our chance of surviving, and in regards to saving favors for use after we return to the empire I wouldn't worry nothing could possibly provide us with more favor than helping in reclaiming a Dwarf hold.
 
Zedman7054 said:
Do we really want to spend 15 points worth of Dwarf Rep for a single item? This will be the second time we've done something like that, and it seems...almost irresponsible. There's a lot of things Rep could be used for, even in this campaign, do we really want to use so much of it so early?
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PsyFarrow said:
I don't, but the only vote that stands a chance against blowing everything on this item is using ten Favors instead of fifteen.
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I very much do.

We will be getting more rep as campaign will progress. We will be contributing, and will have opportunities to shine. And please note, that it is not matter of 'blowing everything' - it is matter getting true top-tier level of equipment. Something that is literally unique, and being gamechanger. It is an opportunity.

We have chance to get best runelord in existence, to create unique legendary-tier artifact. Do You have any idea how uniqe this opportunity is? How many hoops and loops non-dward needs to jump through to even speak with Kragg at all?

Spending less favour would still give us something great. But please remember, that magical items does not stack. Or do it in limited way. It is not possible to get fifteen rings with 'protection +1' and have 'protection +15'. It one wants to have 'protection +15' then he needs to go to legendary craftsman and commisio legendary-tier artifact.

Which is exactly what we are doing.

To sum it up, it is not case of 'blowing everything' - it is case of spending favour in as efficient and beneficial way as possible. We will not get another opportunity like that, so it's important to make best use of it.
 
[X] Yes
-[X] Talisman
-[X] Protection
-[X] 10 Favors

[X] Have Ulthar handpick his best sharpshooters to be equipped with envenomed bolts.
[X] Marshal Titus Muggins
[X] Have them help you teach your fast-growing familiar simple commands.
[X] Introduce him to the dwarven smiths so he can try to convince them to teach him.
[X] Dwarf technology may be off limits, but the technology of other races are not and there could be all sorts of useful gadgets coming in from overseas. See if you can pick anything useful up with him from the vast markets of Barak Varr.
 
DiceOfStupidity said:
I very much do.

We will be getting more rep as campaign will progress. We will be contributing, and will have opportunities to shine. And please note, that it is not matter of 'blowing everything' - it is matter getting true top-tier level of equipment. Something that is literally unique, and being gamechanger. It is an opportunity.

We have chance to get best runelord in existence, to create unique legendary-tier artifact. Do You have any idea how uniqe this opportunity is? How many hoops and loops non-dward needs to jump through to even speak with Kragg at all?

Spending less favour would still give us something great. But please remember, that magical items does not stack. Or do it in limited way. It is not possible to get fifteen rings with 'protection +1' and have 'protection +15'. It one wants to have 'protection +15' then he needs to go to legendary craftsman and commisio legendary-tier artifact.

Which is exactly what we are doing.

To sum it up, it is not case of 'blowing everything' - it is case of spending favour in as efficient and beneficial way as possible. We will not get another opportunity like that, so it's important to make best use of it.
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I'll be honest, I don't mind the idea of protecting ourselves, my problem is that this is the second expensive artifact that we have commissioned within this campaign. Literally within the same week of the Seed. I just don't like the idea of such a spending spree. Yes we'll get some more Rep, but I'd like to keep some kind of buffer incase something happens.
 
No7sHere said:
How would a sword enchanted with Shadow knives and take no heed even work, what it ignores armor and becomes hard to notice, how do you not notice the giant magical great sword that just cut your friend in half?
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Mostly it wouldn't work. Take No Heed is much weaker than a lot of people in the thread like to imagine. Take No Heed loses its effect when you speak to someone, let alone attack; it's only good for being ignored when you're doing nothing or almost nothing.
 
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