Dragon Ball: After the End

Deathbybunnies · Apr 25, 2020

Cariyaga said:
If we intend for Kakara to develop her own fighting style, I'd actually suggest figuring out the techniques for it and then training them instead of the Tenshinhan style ones.

The techniques I'd expect for a Kakara style would be something like: Solar Flare, Multiform (Perfect), Team Fighting, Combat Precognition, and perhaps some variant of Hellzone Grenade or Spirit Ball, and Spirit Bomb, while providing a bonus to nonlethal combat.

My dream style nearly a year ago was pretty similar:

Deathbybunnies said:
From memory, my dream "Kakara Style" looked something like this:
Involved Techniques: Genki Dama, Perfect Multiform, Hand-to-Hand [Team Fighting], Solar Flare, Kikoho, Shin Kikoho, Flight, Instant Transmission, [Dodonpa/Kamehameha]
Penalised Techniques: Possibly Hand-to-Hand [Duelling]?

The logic being that with Perfect Multiform any serious fight will always have us using Team Fighting, and never Duelling. By the time we actually develop it, we'll probably have something else we want in there too.

If I were to update it today, it would be pretty much the same. I'm not sure I'd replace anything with Combat Precognition - mechanically these are all skills that get a +10/20/30/40 boost to their rolls, and pretty much all of these are going to be rolled more often than Combat Precog, which while super cool only rolls when we're about to lose the fight*:

PoptartProdigy said:
Upon failing a roll against critical (fight-losing) danger, make a check at DC 100. On a success, reroll the check with the bonus from Combat Precognition added.

I'd actually probably add Flight, thinking about it - I think that might be the most-used skill of all.

I don't think it's worth replacing Tien's attacks with the Hellzone Grenade or Spirit Ball. The Kikoho and Shin Kikoho are interesting for hitting harder than other blasts - there's a mechanical difference, and learning life force manipulation might lead somewhere useful later. The dodonpa is just another blast, though admittedly one that fits in well as a smaller attack to go with the larger Kikohos. I don't think we'd get anything from swapping them out, when we already know them a little bit.

We'll probably end up basing Kakara Style heavily on Tenshinhan Style, as we'll be using several of its techniques and have started learning it:

PoptartProdigy said:
Tenshinhan Style: This form is rarely-practiced, but deceptive for all that. Tenshinhan's form is refined and balanced, offering few concrete advantages, but unlocking the potential to pour the user's life force into an attack. Practitioners have no stylistic weaknesses, and gain a risky but powerful last resort option, in addition to a variety of strange techniques. Involved techniques: Solar Flare, Multi-Form, Four Witches Technique, Kikoho, Dodonpa, Shin Kikoho, Flight.

Solar Flare, Multiform and Flight are all skills we know well and use. The Kikohos are probably our best choice of ki attack, and synergise well with (Golden) Oozaru as it has a lot more "life force" to fuel attacks with. We're also interested in the Four Witches Technique - it's weird, presumably a "passive" hand-to-hand boost, and people have theorised it's good for grappling and restraining people non-lethally. The only technique on this list we don't particularly care about is the Dodonpa, which we can take or leave.

I'm pretty sure we get bonuses to creating styles based on how much of other Styles we know, though we've also been told that we can seamlessly integrate any new insights, so there's technically no rush to do Tenshinhan Style first. Personally, I'd rather get Tenshinhan Style up to Journeyman so that we have something we can use in the short to medium term and to learn the skills, and then start building Kakara Style.

*To be fair, the skill might change over time. If it ever becomes more common than "final roll before you lose" I'd probably go for it.

EDIT: It is a very important roll if it does come up though. Am I overestimating the importance of getting the bonus more often compared to the importance of the rolls it's on? Maybe it's worth dropping something else - I know we don't actually need to roll to use Spirit Saiyan after our nat 100, maybe we drop Genki Dama, since we'll never throw it?

Koraan · Apr 25, 2020

I think about something like that:
"It's a thrickery style. The user never fights the enemy one on one. They use various tricks to disorient and block the movement of opponents. Then, with Instant Transmission, user and their Multiform-copies, even when fighting a larger groups of foes, can ensure numerical advantage against one opponent for several moments necessary to win. Focused to non-lethal combat, it lack a Ki Projectile attacks.
Involved techniques: Hand-to-Hand [Team Fighting], Multiform, Instant Transmission, Solar Flare, (some other debuff/stun, like Thunder Shock Surprise).
Penalized techniques: Hand-to-Hand [Dueling, severely], Ki Projectile (beams)."

HoratioVonBecker · Apr 25, 2020

While good, I don't know that those leverage all of Kakara's unique advantages. I'd definitely want something to let her snipe from stealth and/or extreme range, to take advantage of her ridiculous sensing skill, and some support for keeping Ki Refinement/Overcharge/Kaioken/something going when Spirit Saiyan isn't available. Probably go like this:

Involved techniques: Flight, Instant Transmission, Hand-to-Hand [Team Fighting], Solar Flare, Ki Projection [High-Precision], Ki Projection [Extreme Range], Power-Boosters [Various].
Potential additions: Psychic skills, Stealth.
Penalized techniques: Attacks with a high chance of killing.
Prerequisites: Ki Control [Exceptional], Multiform [Exceptional], Ki Sensing [Exceptional].

As I'm imagining it, this is mostly a platform to abuse our powerful tricks. The most obvious, of course, is that we can grapple people and then shoot them from another body - Spirit Bomb, Kikoho, Jaffur's beams if we can get them, maybe Makankosappo, anything else worthwhile that we come across.
Then there's our various melee boosts - psychic lightning, pressure point stuff (when we get it - surely some Seer taught it to an empty room, secure in the knowledge that they would be watched), and most obviously, Perfect Multiform.
Then there's the five-and-a-half power boosts we have/can gain access to - Ki Refinement, Kaioken, Ki Overcharge, Spirit Saiyan, Willpower Push, and Perfect Multiform. I'd like to keep at least one of those up at all times.
(Ideally this style would not rely too heavily on having Multiform duration available. Ideally. I'd kind of prefer its' Legendary refinement be full mental networking, like Jaffur's Synchronicity... although actually, psionics is probably a better way to do that, so our next Multiform trick should probably be duration or recovery speed.)

Crustle · Apr 25, 2020

[X][DESTINATION] Braigh. Lyre's right; all that industry is great for an invasion force, even if you need to adapt it to the task at hand.

[X] Plan Deathbybunnies

Pittauro · Apr 25, 2020

Koraan said:
edit: I vote for it because there no Ki Sense trainings. I hope next turn we can try to use Sight to find potencially teachers for AiO or MS (maybe androids?). And then choose an option that is harder to find teachers for our own research.

I doubt we'll ever find teachers for All is One and Machine Sense.

The whole point of them is that they're New Things! Impossible things!

Koraan said:
"He was fighting a wolf man whose ki he couldn't sense and the wolf had used a poisonous ki technique to blind Gohan." ?
"He was fighting a wolf man whose ki he couldn't sense" ?!
"man whose ki he couldn't sense" !
Hey, @Deathbybunnies! We can into Ki Stealth! Probably, the failure happened due to a poor roll and/or lack of necessary knowledge.
Or that guy used some (probably magical) thing. How strong been he, by the way?
Anyway, I think we should use Sight to see "ways to hide large volumes of ki during the battle" or something like that. Maybe "portable" and/or "without magic".

The wolfmen (there were three, and I think they ALL had ki that could not be sensed) were from other universes, and the fights with them happened in other universes as well. I don't think our sight can go that far, and it's possible that we wouldn't be able to replicate that ability even if it could.

Also it happened in the presence of Zeno, the omni king, the highest (known) god, and his archpriest, the leader (and father) of all angels.

I expect we might have problems trying to use our sight to see events in their presence. It feels like it might be taken as blasphemy of some sort.

Yes, I might be worrying needlessly.

Cariyaga said:
If we intend for Kakara to develop her own fighting style, I'd actually suggest figuring out the techniques for it and then training them instead of the Tenshinhan style ones.

The techniques I'd expect for a Kakara style would be something like: Solar Flare, Multiform (Perfect), Team Fighting, Combat Precognition, and perhaps some variant of Hellzone Grenade or Spirit Ball, and Spirit Bomb, while providing a bonus to nonlethal combat.
e:
A series of queries that I cannot recall if it's been answered before: Can Kakara's multiforms use Sight? How about Combat Precognition? To help someone else (as described in the Combat Precognition blurb)? Multiple of them using Precog at the same time?

Maybe add shin kikoho (We need one big hitter), certainly instant transmission and ki refinement (simpyl too useful to ignore). If we manage to develop it Thunder Shock surprise as well.

Hellzone Grenade and Spirit ball could certainly fit, and with FOUR Kakara they'd actually be much more effective.

It should propably penalize dueling, maybe beam contests too.

mh.. maybe those are a bit too many techniques for one style. Still, it will take some time before we really start to develop it anyway. At the very least we need to perfect the multiform, and possibly train the genkidama/spirit saiyan a bit more.

Deathbybunnies said:
My dream style nearly a year ago was pretty similar:
If I were to update it today, it would be pretty much the same. I'm not sure I'd replace anything with Combat Precognition - mechanically these are all skills that get a +10/20/30/40 boost to their rolls, and pretty much all of these are going to be rolled more often than Combat Precog, which while super cool only rolls when we're about to lose the fight*:

we could probably remove the kikoho from that style, leaving just the shin kikoho. Also it need the Thunder shock surprise whenever we end up learning it.

I'm half tempted to remove the Dodonpa, but I can see the use for a smaller beam.

Koraan · Apr 25, 2020

I forgot destination. Re-vote then:
[X] Plan Deathbybunnies

[X][DESTINATION] Tamrii. Flute makes a good point; loyalty is important for the staging ground for your operations; after the Unsealing, you have a sudden and keen appreciation for making sure that your allies are reliable.

Pittauro said:
I doubt we'll ever find teachers for All is One and Machine Sense.
The whole point of them is that they're New Things! Impossible things!

While they are New Things for Garenhuld saiyans, I have no doubts someone in the galaxy has already get it before. Maybe we should ask Gohan about All is One. And androids, probably, can learn Machine Sense easier than anyone else.
Anyway, I think we should check our possibilities before making a such a big choice.

Pittauro said:
The wolfmen (there were three, and I think they ALL had ki that could not be sensed) were from other universes, and the fights with them happened in other universes as well. I don't think our sight can go that far, and it's possible that we wouldn't be able to replicate that ability even if it could.

It's why I don't say we should try to see that exactly fight. I don't even sure Kakara know about it. Just vague "how I can do it" will work much better (if we'll have a decent roll, but with bad roll it will not work anyway).

Simon_Jester · Apr 25, 2020

Cariyaga said:
If we intend for Kakara to develop her own fighting style, I'd actually suggest figuring out the techniques for it and then training them instead of the Tenshinhan style ones.

I'd rather do that when we have a bit less urgency. One thing we've learned is that style mastery confers big benefits. To a large extent, it's not a question of one style being better than another, it's a question of one style being better than zero.

So developing our style bonuses to where we're not so absurdly, ruinously outclassed by highly skilled but equally/less powerful opponents is important. Having at least one style where we're truly effective will also be useful if we're trying to develop something of our own.

Deathbybunnies said:
EDIT: It is a very important roll if it does come up though. Am I overestimating the importance of getting the bonus more often compared to the importance of the rolls it's on? Maybe it's worth dropping something else - I know we don't actually need to roll to use Spirit Saiyan after our nat 100, maybe we drop Genki Dama, since we'll never throw it?

I suspect that the Spirit Bomb skill is used for more than just throwing the bomb. Among other things, I wouldn't be surprised if leveling it up is the key to charging it faster, or reaching out over greater distances.

And since greater distances are often the key to greater power on the one hand... And since the long charging time is by far the technique's greatest disadvantage, even when used to fuel Spirit Saiyan... well, you see the problem.

Pittauro said:
I'm half tempted to remove the Dodonpa, but I can see the use for a smaller beam.

Given that unlike, say, Berra's Goku Style, our fighting doesn't monofocus on melee combat, the ability to use precision ranged attacks that don't just vaporize the fuck out of everything in the general vicinity of "downrange" is desirable.

Terrabrand · Apr 25, 2020

Koraan said:
While they are New Things for Garenhuld saiyans, I have no doubts someone in the galaxy has already get it before. Maybe we should ask Gohan about All is One. And androids, probably, can learn Machine Sense easier than anyone else.
Anyway, I think we should check our possibilities before making a such a big choice.

do remember who TEACHES Goku Spirit Bomb.

I'll give you a hint.

It's King Kai.

It's a god.

It's not Some Dude. It's a guy who knows shit that no mortal knew until he taught it.

To assume there are any people in the universe who didn't learn it indirectly from him is... an assumption.

Especially because we know the wider galaxy forgot it.

And All is One is intimately tied to Spirit Bomb to all appearances.

Cariyaga · Apr 25, 2020

Is it possible to create multiforms but not actually split them from your body? Just create, effectively, other consciousnesses in your head? Because then they could safely use Combat Precognition for Kakara Prime.

HoratioVonBecker · Apr 25, 2020

Cariyaga said:
Is it possible to create multiforms but not actually split them from your body? Just create, effectively, other consciousnesses in your head? Because then they could safely use Combat Precognition for Kakara Prime.

That sounds like either a psychic Reorganization effect, or possibly a whole new technique. Reorganization would almost certainly be the faster, safer, and more reliable route.

googlyeyesultra · Apr 25, 2020

So, my plan (Broad Training) focuses more heavily on training than the leading alternative, and I'm going to argue why that's a good thing.

In about nine months, New Namek is going to be invaded. If we're very, very lucky, that invasion might be led by Haila, the weakest of the leaders. If we're not that lucky, we need to be a lot better to win a fight there, and being able to beat perhaps the next two champions would dramatically increase the odds that the Namekians get to keep their home and that the New Cold Empire can't conquer trivially past them. Plus, if we defend New Namek, I think our odds of getting more wishes is much better - if the Namekians have to flee, they're going to need their wishes for the evacuation and for settling down somewhere else.

After New Namek, we're probably almost immediately going back to Garenhuld, where we'll need to fight a whole lot of mind controlled people, including a number of very strong, very skilled Super Saiyans. We'll have some help from House Senzu, but it won't compare to everything Dandeer will have waiting - likely every Saiyan outside of the House Senzu wards, along with all kinds of magical defenses.

We don't really have the tjme, in my opinion, to dilly dally looking for elite talent teachers and mess around with studying history. We have nine months to make Kakara as badass as she can be, so she can fight her father, Jaron/Jaffur, Jaffur's father, Dandeer, and possibly all at the same time.

In theory, we could wait longer, train more after saving New Namek, but I don't want to leave our people as Dandeer's slaves longer than is necessary, and we need the training now anyways to fight the invasion here.

HoratioVonBecker · Apr 25, 2020

HoratioVonBecker said:
[X] Plan HoratioVonBecker
-[X] Continue Your Training (1 AP): Follow Dazarel's training regime.
-[X] Looking Abroad (1 AP) Staging Ground: Which planet is the invasion set to use for staging?
-[X] Invent a Style (2 AP): Devise something to make better use of what you want and what you have.
-[X] Research Project (1 AP) Ki Overcharge: Learn Taro's trick as well as possible. Perhaps he's training people back home, but if not, he's certainly told Apra a lot.
-[X] Improve a Skill (1 Cause AP) Ki Refinement: You already know this is part of Jaffur's style, and it's useful on its' own.
-[X] To Go Beyond (1 Free AP) Perfect Multiform: Scry on Cell's version to see if it has any final insights to offer. Then complete the technique.
-[X] Improve a Skill (1 Free AP) Spirit Saiyan: Train this up as much as possible, given that it's your trumpcard. Special focus on figuring out how to use it while Masqued.
-[X] Strengthen Host Bond (1 AP)
-[X] Talk to Dazarel (1 AP): Begin trying to teach him the Genki Dama.
-[X] General Training (2 Free AP)
-[X] Socialize With: Snare (1 Free AP)

Thanks to @Deathbybunnies for the improvements this time; namely the name and the sidenote in Multiform training. I think scrying on Cell would be a pretty neat detail to cap this project off, while not being such a big event as to cost an entire seprate AP.

High points of this plan in particular:

Gets to work on building our own style. Tenshinhan isn't bad, but I think nine months worth of AP in our own style will give better results, even playing catchup, than the same investment in Tenshinhan. (Remember, Tenshinhan's only major situational bonus is getting to spend life energy, and it has no built-in support for Refinement, Overcharge, Precog, lightning psionics, or anything else we come across. Or for fighting nonlethally. Or, actually, any particular support for Multiform - the normal version just isn't useful enough in combat.)

Picks a bunch of synergistic stuff, including a probable gamechanger (Ki Overcharge). I'm quite hopeful that grabbing Overcharge and Refinement at the same time will unlock a Control talent, given that we're already at Exceptional, but perhaps I'm being too optimistic.

Our ability to beat Haila presently depends on our ability to overpower him, which kind of needs Spirit Saiyan. Figuring out how to use that while Masqued would, thus, be incredibly useful.

We'll get some good team dialogue, and bonding time with the first person Kakara's ever met who's likely to really get her. Whatever wins, I really want to see her bond with Snare.

*bangs on pot*
Anyone willing to consider this? I think it's genuinely better than Deathbybunnies', but I haven't had much feedback.

Koraan · Apr 25, 2020

Terrabrand said:
To assume there are any people in the universe who didn't learn it indirectly from him is... an assumption.
Especially because we know the wider galaxy forgot it.

Who say that will be easy?

edit:

HoratioVonBecker said:
Anyone willing to consider this?

Well...
I think, before we'll try to invent our own style, we need to learn existed, and maybe not only one. IIRC, Poptart said it'll help with creating. At least we'll be able avoid stupid mistakes.
I like Talk to Dazarel, though.

Terrabrand · Apr 25, 2020

Koraan said:
Who say that will be easy?

This is an utterly irrelevant response when my point is literally 'there is a high chance 0 people who fit your description exist, and ergo no amount of searching will find them'.

That's not retorted by 'well we harder!'. If you think it's likely enough to be worth risking, fine, whatever. But acting like I was talking about 'difficulty' and not 'this may be actually impossible and not merely very hard as a route to success' is ridiculous.

Pittauro · Apr 25, 2020

HoratioVonBecker said:
That sounds like either a psychic Reorganization effect, or possibly a whole new technique. Reorganization would almost certainly be the faster, safer, and more reliable route.

I suppose it could also be some kind of elite talent. IT would make the user more capable of multitasking, reducing the chances of being taken by surprise and allowing for more complex plans and moves. I don't like it that much though. Perfect Multiform is certainly better.

googlyeyesultra said:
After New Namek, we're probably almost immediately going back to Garenhuld,

correction: if we can afford to I'd definitely want to try the hell challenge instead. It would probably depend on how ready we feel to go through hell, to challenge Dandeer, and how bad the situation on Garenhuld is.

googlyeyesultra said:
In theory, we could wait longer, train more after saving New Namek, but I don't want to leave our people as Dandeer's slaves longer than is necessary, and we need the training now anyways to fight the invasion here.

yes, it would really depend on the situation on Garenhuld. If it's mostly stable taking 1 to 3 months to train in the Afterlife would likely be a good idea, and a relatively safe way to train ssj2 (I kind of expect us to unlock it during Namek's invasion. it would fit, narratively speaking, especially if the invading royal is around that level of strenght).

HoratioVonBecker said:
*bangs on pot*
Anyone willing to consider this? I think it's genuinely better than Deathbybunnies', but I haven't had much feedback.

1) we don't yet have all the pieces to start creating our own style, and it would probably be better to wait at least until we complete perfect multiform for it, as it would likely be one of our key moves. For the invasion the "good enough" Tien style will work, and we can really start to build our better and DEFINITIVE style later. It's not like we're losing all the time we use developing Tien Style, it should help us in developing Kakara's too.

Really, if we can afford to I think we should develop Kakara style only after the invasion, and possibly after we return to Garenhuld (or, alternatively, once we reach the Afterlife and get some help developing it).

2)I'm not really that interested in ki overcharge right now, but that's just me.

3)I could see there being an elite talent that allows us to combine ki refinement and ki overcharge, but that would likely require a great mastery of both. It would take a lot of time. Right now I'd prefer to just focus on Ki refinement, as it's the one technique that doesn't actually have any big draw back (ki overcharge would tire us pretty quickly, and we don't have access to senzu anymore.)

4)Spirit Saiyan is just an application of the spirit bomb/genkidama. You'd want to train that, not the spirit saiyan. And we can't really train it right now. We can only train it while manifested, we only have access to a few namekians to practice with, and we can't hide our ki while using it. We'd be sensed by anyone close enough. There's a reason we mostly trained it under the Katchin dome on Namek.

5)Dazarel is DEFINITELY not ready for the genkidama, and failing to use it would only make him more pissed. We'd need to talk to him for quite some time and start to slowly influence him and change him before teaching him the genkidama could possibly become a good idea.

Terrabrand said:
This is an utterly irrelevant response when my point is literally 'there is a high chance 0 people who fit your description exist, and ergo no amount of searching will find them'.

That's not retorted by 'well we harder!'. If you think it's likely enough to be worth risking, fine, whatever. But acting like I was talking about 'difficulty' and not 'this may be actually impossible and not merely very hard as a route to success' is ridiculous.

All is one sounds a lot like the revelation some incredibly wise monk might reach with enlightenment.

I completely expect that hypothetical monk to die without never managing to teach it to anyone else.

Rather than try to search for a teacher for a talent we can already get and that is highly unlikely anyone else would have, I'd rather go with something like a vision of where to find a good teacher in general. My best bet would be Yardrat IF it still exists. (well, as long as we can't reach the afterlife)

Deathbybunnies · Apr 25, 2020

Simon_Jester said:
I suspect that the Spirit Bomb skill is used for more than just throwing the bomb. Among other things, I wouldn't be surprised if leveling it up is the key to charging it faster, or reaching out over greater distances.

And since greater distances are often the key to greater power on the one hand... And since the long charging time is by far the technique's greatest disadvantage, even when used to fuel Spirit Saiyan... well, you see the problem.

Dang, that's a fair point.

Since we're discussing creating Styles and people are proposing possible loadouts, I'll note that most Styles have 6-7 Involved techniques, and a few Penalised techniques. The most efficient Style in this sense is Tenshinhan Style, with 7 Involved techniques and no Penalised*. Since we're going to be mostly basing any personal Style on Tenshinhan Style, we can hopefully use that as a starting point and go to 8 Involved and 1 Penalised, though that isn't guaranteed. My "dream" Style I quoted from a year ago has 9 Involved techniques and 1 Penalised, which is probably overoptimistic.

Optimistically we might be able to get away with that if we add another Penalised technique like "Lethal (All)", but everyone designing Styles should just bear in mind that we probably aren't going to be able to cram every skill we like in there.

On an extremely tangentially related note, it would probably be worth designing an Oozaru Style at some point. We've been told that right now, Oozaru don't get Style bonuses because existing Styles are made for a Saiyan/Human body plan, not an ape's.

*I think this used to be balanced by Tenshinhan style getting smaller bonuses, but that got removed. To be fair, it's probably still balanced by how quite a few of his moves are pretty niche, and Multiform is near-useless in a fight.

HoratioVonBecker said:
That sounds like either a psychic Reorganization effect, or possibly a whole new technique. Reorganization would almost certainly be the faster, safer, and more reliable route.

Reorganisation would be safer if it didn't mean effectively giving Dazarel root access to our brain. If we find an experienced Psychic we would consider trustworthy I'd be willing to drop what we were doing and do it with them, but not with Dazarel.

Pittauro said:
1) we don't yet have all the pieces to start creating our own style, and it would probably be better to wait at least until we complete perfect multiform for it, as it would likely be one of our key moves. For the invasion the "good enough" Tien style will work, and we can really start to build our better and DEFINITIVE style later. It's not like we're losing all the time we use developing Tien Style, it should help us in developing Kakara's too.

Really, if we can afford to I think we should develop Kakara style only after the invasion, and possibly after we return to Garenhuld (or, alternatively, once we reach the Afterlife and get some help developing it).

To be fair, we've had WOGs that we can update the Style trivially as we get better information and experience from other Styles, so there's not really a concern of starting Kakara Style too early. I'm personally of the opinion that it'll take a long time to bear fruit, so we should get Tenshinhan Style up to Journeyman first so we aren't fighting completely unskilled in the meantime, but there is an argument for just getting started on it.

Having seen how long it's taking us to get to Journeyman without a teacher, I definitely don't think we should keep training it after we hit Journeyman - we won't hit the next tier before the invasion, and possibly not until we get back to Garenhuld! Creating a new Style would be less affected by a lack of resources (though not unaffected, I would imagine.)

Even if we did create a Style, I'd probably want to train Tenshinhan Style further once we got back to Garenhuld, both because it would probably improve our personal Style, and because it makes for a very good fallback if we're ever forced into a position where we can't use Team Fighting, whether because of an Elite Talent (like Berra's) or because we can't use PM.

Cariyaga · Apr 25, 2020

Deathbybunnies said:
Reorganisation would be safer if it didn't mean effectively giving Dazarel root access to our brain. If we find an experienced Psychic we would consider trustworthy I'd be willing to drop what we were doing and do it with them, but not with Dazarel.

Erm... Dazarel's been told if he fucks around with us one of the gods will kill him. He's pretty thoroughly cowed.

Deathbybunnies · Apr 25, 2020

Cariyaga said:
Erm... Dazarel's been told if he fucks around with us one of the gods will kill him. He's pretty thoroughly cowed.

That's the main argument for it, yes. But fiddling with our brainmeats gives him the opportunity to do something subtly, which Gohan is likely not to catch, not being a Psychic himself (and possibly only having a limited view).

If we could find some foolproof way of proving whether he'd added anything we didn't want - a truth-checking spell, maybe? - and we said we'd use it at the end of the process, I'd be a lot more comfortable doing so.

There's also a question of him changing us in ways that we wouldn't agree with, but that he doesn't view as detrimental - becoming less kind, etc.

Pittauro · Apr 25, 2020

Deathbybunnies said:
Since we're discussing creating Styles and people are proposing possible loadouts, I'll note that most Styles have 6-7 Involved techniques, and a few Penalised techniques. The most efficient Style in this sense is Tenshinhan Style, with 7 Involved techniques and no Penalised*. Since we're going to be mostly basing any personal Style on Tenshinhan Style, we can hopefully use that as a starting point and go to 8 Involved and 1 Penalised, though that isn't guaranteed. My "dream" Style I quoted from a year ago has 9 Involved techniques and 1 Penalised, which is probably overoptimistic.

Optimistically we might be able to get away with that if we add another Penalised technique like "Lethal (All)", but everyone designing Styles should just bear in mind that we probably aren't going to be able to cram every skill we like in there.

On an extremely tangentially related note, it would probably be worth designing an Oozaru Style at some point. We've been told that right now, Oozaru don't get Style bonuses because existing Styles are made for a Saiyan/Human body plan, not an ape's.

*I think this used to be balanced by Tenshinhan style getting smaller bonuses, but that got removed. To be fair, it's probably still balanced by how quite a few of his moves are pretty niche, and Multiform is near-useless in a fight.

the oozaru style is a good idea, though it's sadly not a priority. Ki overcharge should probably be part of that style too.

Developing such a style should probably wait for that research project on combining base ki pool and oozaru ki pool though. It would be quite annoying if we developed the style to then immediately discover a way to access that power in base form.

About the original style... yeah, we'll likely have to choose more penalties and possibly reduce the number of involved techniques.

we could start by penalising both dueling and crowd fighting (we'd mostly use team fighting anyway), and most style also had the "ki projection, all except involved techniques".

We'd also have to choose one or maybe two signature techniques. Probably perfect multiform and/or genkidama.

Deathbybunnies said:
To be fair, we've had WOGs that we can update the Style trivially as we get better information and experience from other Styles, so there's not really a concern of starting Kakara Style too early. I'm personally of the opinion that it'll take a long time to bear fruit, so we should get Tenshinhan Style up to Journeyman first so we aren't fighting completely unskilled in the meantime, but there is an argument for just getting started on it.

Having seen how long it's taking us to get to Journeyman without a teacher, I definitely don't think we should keep training it after we hit Journeyman - we won't hit the next tier before the invasion, and possibly not until we get back to Garenhuld! Creating a new Style would be less affected by a lack of resources (though not unaffected, I would imagine.)

Even if we did create a Style, I'd probably want to train Tenshinhan Style further once we got back to Garenhuld, both because it would probably improve our personal Style, and because it makes for a very good fallback if we're ever forced into a position where we can't use Team Fighting, whether because of an Elite Talent (like Berra's) or because we can't use PM.

good point. It would likely be much easier to develop our own style on Garenhuld where we can spar and compare it against a wide variety of different styles, but that is even more relevant to the tien style. I agree that at this point we should bring it to the next rank, and then we could maybe let it wait for a while.

Deathbybunnies · Apr 25, 2020

Pittauro said:
the oozaru style is a good idea, though it's sadly not a priority. Ki overcharge should probably be part of that style too.

Developing such a style should probably wait for that research project on combining base ki pool and oozaru ki pool though. It would be quite annoying if we developed the style to then immediately discover a way to access that power in base form.

About the original style... yeah, we'll likely have to choose more penalties and possibly reduce the number of involved techniques.

we could start by penalising both dueling and crowd fighting (we'd mostly use team fighting anyway), and most style also had the "ki projection, all except involved techniques".

We'd also have to choose one or maybe two signature techniques. Probably perfect multiform and/or genkidama.

good point. It would likely be much easier to develop our own style on Garenhuld where we can spar and compare it against a wide variety of different styles, but that is even more relevant to the tien style. I agree that at this point we should bring it to the next rank, and then we could maybe let it wait for a while.

True about an Oozaru Style potentially becoming obsolete. I think the transformation might always have a niche for kaiju fights, though.

I know Duelling is when you're 1v1, Team Fighting is when you're 2v1 and that Crowd Fighting is when you're 1v2. I always forget whether you just roll Team Fighting for 2v2, or if Crowd Fighting is in there too somehow. If it's the former, then yes, Penalising Crowd Fighting would be a good call.

The Genki Dama is cool and all, but I think Perfect Multiform is the obvious signature technique here. We're literally optimising this Style with the intention that we're never not using multiple bodies to force Team Fighting - it's the foundation of the whole thing. If we're ever forced to not be using Team Fighting we should probably just switch to Tenshinhan Style until we can.

HoratioVonBecker · Apr 25, 2020

First off, thank you for the feedback, @Pittauro.

Pittauro said:
4)Spirit Saiyan is just an application of the spirit bomb/genkidama. You'd want to train that, not the spirit saiyan. And we can't really train it right now. We can only train it while manifested, we only have access to a few namekians to practice with, and we can't hide our ki while using it. We'd be sensed by anyone close enough. There's a reason we mostly trained it under the Katchin dome on Namek.

Point. Until/unless we manage to get it quieter, it's a massive infohazard. Going to have to drop that then.

Pittauro said:
5)Dazarel is DEFINITELY not ready for the genkidama, and failing to use it would only make him more pissed. We'd need to talk to him for quite some time and start to slowly influence him and change him before teaching him the genkidama could possibly become a good idea.

Hah, see, that's the beauty of it. He definitely isn't ready for it, but he currently has no real incentive (in his mind) to make the sort of changes that would let him be. He views relationships as transactional, everyone ought to be in it for themselves, might-must-make-right-because-otherwise-I'm-a-monster type of thing.
This, though? Our motives are transparent, but the reward is equally clear. If he can learn it, he can fight, and he might even be able to break his seal, eventually. It'd certainly go a long way toward convincing Kakara to help with that.

Deathbybunnies said:
Optimistically we might be able to get away with that if we add another Penalised technique like "Lethal (All)", but everyone designing Styles should just bear in mind that we probably aren't going to be able to cram every skill we like in there.

That is why I used general categories, rather than specific techniques.

Deathbybunnies said:
Reorganisation would be safer if it didn't mean effectively giving Dazarel root access to our brain. If we find an experienced Psychic we would consider trustworthy I'd be willing to drop what we were doing and do it with them, but not with Dazarel.

I don't think it would, actually. I think what would happen is that Dazarel would teach us the theory, and we'd have to do all the modification ourselves - remember that his psychic gifts are sealed too.
I also don't think it has so much to do with "who we are" as it does with "how organized are our senses and memories". Right now we've got a better-than-typical implementation of the tag-structure-with-occasional-indexes that humans use, and we're not capable of focusing on more than about one and a half tracks simultaneously. After reorganization, we'd have a fully indexed, highly optimized database, and the ability to cleanly divide our mind between different tasks - reading a book with each eye and hearing a third one on audio, that sort of thing.

Simon_Jester · Apr 25, 2020

Deathbybunnies said:
To be fair, we've had WOGs that we can update the Style trivially as we get better information and experience from other Styles, so there's not really a concern of starting Kakara Style too early. I'm personally of the opinion that it'll take a long time to bear fruit, so we should get Tenshinhan Style up to Journeyman first so we aren't fighting completely unskilled in the meantime, but there is an argument for just getting started on it.

Having seen how long it's taking us to get to Journeyman without a teacher, I definitely don't think we should keep training it after we hit Journeyman - we won't hit the next tier before the invasion, and possibly not until we get back to Garenhuld! Creating a new Style would be less affected by a lack of resources (though not unaffected, I would imagine.)

Even if we did create a Style, I'd probably want to train Tenshinhan Style further once we got back to Garenhuld, both because it would probably improve our personal Style, and because it makes for a very good fallback if we're ever forced into a position where we can't use Team Fighting, whether because of an Elite Talent (like Berra's) or because we can't use PM.

Also, I suspect that it is MUCH harder to create and achieve mastery in a new style, if one has not already mastered at least one existing style.

Deathbybunnies said:
I know Duelling is when you're 1v1, Team Fighting is when you're 2v1 and that Crowd Fighting is when you're 1v2. I always forget whether you just roll Team Fighting for 2v2, or if Crowd Fighting is in there too somehow. If it's the former, then yes, Penalising Crowd Fighting would be a good call.

I don't know. Firstly, Crowd Fighting might apply when you're fighting in a team but significantly outnumbered. Secondly, Crowd Fighting may have applications that aren't immediately obvious. For instance, if you're fighting a swarm of much weaker opponents and trying to move effectively without killing any of them.

The Genki Dama is cool and all, but I think Perfect Multiform is the obvious signature technique here. We're literally optimising this Style with the intention that we're never not using multiple bodies to force Team Fighting - it's the foundation of the whole thing. If we're ever forced to not be using Team Fighting we should probably just switch to Tenshinhan Style until we can.

Logical. On the other hand, we may end up in a position where we can't put two Perfect Multiforms on the same opponent at the same time- so disadvantaging Dueling or Crowd Fighting is a bad idea. Perfect Multiform has other applications (e.g. being able to fight 3-4 enemies at once), but then you're dueling at least two of those multiple opponents, not ganging up on them.

Cariyaga · Apr 25, 2020

Deathbybunnies said:
That's the main argument for it, yes. But fiddling with our brainmeats gives him the opportunity to do something subtly, which Gohan is likely not to catch, not being a Psychic himself (and possibly only having a limited view).

If we could find some foolproof way of proving whether he'd added anything we didn't want - a truth-checking spell, maybe? - and we said we'd use it at the end of the process, I'd be a lot more comfortable doing so.

There's also a question of him changing us in ways that we wouldn't agree with, but that he doesn't view as detrimental - becoming less kind, etc.

Alternately we can just... talk to him. I mean, improving social links with him to the point that he cares about us for reasons beyond his own self-benefit is another way to go about it.

Simon_Jester said:
Also, I suspect that it is MUCH harder to create and achieve mastery in a new style, if one has not already mastered at least one existing style.

I don't know. Firstly, Crowd Fighting might apply when you're fighting in a team but significantly outnumbered. Secondly, Crowd Fighting may have applications that aren't immediately obvious. For instance, if you're fighting a swarm of much weaker opponents and trying to move effectively without killing any of them.

Logical. On the other hand, we may end up in a position where we can't put two Perfect Multiforms on the same opponent at the same time- so disadvantaging Dueling or Crowd Fighting is a bad idea. Perfect Multiform has other applications (e.g. being able to fight 3-4 enemies at once), but then you're dueling at least two of those multiple opponents, not ganging up on them.

We could also aim for Elite Team Fighting and look to get a talent where we can roll team fighting as long as there's multiple friendly fighters in a fight, regardless of whether they're fighting the same person as we are.

Deathbybunnies · Apr 25, 2020

Simon_Jester said:
Also, I suspect that it is MUCH harder to create and achieve mastery in a new style, if one has not already mastered at least one existing style.

Oh, sure. But we can integrate that new knowledge afterwards seamlessly, so I don't think we lose out on anything.

Simon_Jester said:
I don't know. Firstly, Crowd Fighting might apply when you're fighting in a team but significantly outnumbered. Secondly, Crowd Fighting may have applications that aren't immediately obvious. For instance, if you're fighting a swarm of much weaker opponents and trying to move effectively without killing any of them.

Possibly! Questions for Poptart, if we do start making a new Style. I think dodging much slower, squishier opponents would be an application of Flight, though.

Simon_Jester said:
Logical. On the other hand, we may end up in a position where we can't put two Perfect Multiforms on the same opponent at the same time- so disadvantaging Dueling or Crowd Fighting is a bad idea. Perfect Multiform has other applications (e.g. being able to fight 3-4 enemies at once), but then you're dueling at least two of those multiple opponents, not ganging up on them.

Berra specifically has an Elite Talent to force someone in a Team Fight to be Duelling him instead, so I think that unless we let ourselves get split up we can keep it as Team Fighting?

HoratioVonBecker said:
Hah, see, that's the beauty of it. He definitely isn't ready for it, but he currently has no real incentive (in his mind) to make the sort of changes that would let him be. He views relationships as transactional, everyone ought to be in it for themselves, might-must-make-right-because-otherwise-I'm-a-monster type of thing.
This, though? Our motives are transparent, but the reward is equally clear. If he can learn it, he can fight, and he might even be able to break his seal, eventually. It'd certainly go a long way toward convincing Kakara to help with that.

Assuming he managed to learn it, there's a non-trivial chance that he would continue on anyway. He's a literal alien, and might have an alien mindset.

Cariyaga said:
Alternately we can just... talk to him. I mean, improving social links with him to the point that he cares about us for reasons beyond his own self-benefit is another way to go about it.

To be honest, I'm not sure we'll ever get that far. Still worth putting in the actions though.

I've actually kind of been wavering all day on whether to swap out Historical Insights for Talk to Dazarel. Last time we got a rundown on Freeza's actions after the Fall, which might actually be a crucial payoff if we do end up going through Hell and run into him. On the other hand, we'll never change Dazarel if we don't put in the time and effort.

Cariyaga said:
We could also aim for Elite Team Fighting and look to get a talent where we can roll team fighting as long as there's multiple friendly fighters in a fight, regardless of whether they're fighting the same person as we are.

Probably worth checking that's not actually the default already, but yes.

Pittauro · Apr 25, 2020

Deathbybunnies said:
True about an Oozaru Style potentially becoming obsolete. I think the transformation might always have a niche for kaiju fights, though.

I know Duelling is when you're 1v1, Team Fighting is when you're 2v1 and that Crowd Fighting is when you're 1v2. I always forget whether you just roll Team Fighting for 2v2, or if Crowd Fighting is in there too somehow. If it's the former, then yes, Penalising Crowd Fighting would be a good call.

The Genki Dama is cool and all, but I think Perfect Multiform is the obvious signature technique here. We're literally optimising this Style with the intention that we're never not using multiple bodies to force Team Fighting - it's the foundation of the whole thing. If we're ever forced to not be using Team Fighting we should probably just switch to Tenshinhan Style until we can.

I think 2v2 is still teamfighting.

Good point about the signature techniques. We might actually wish to develop two styles at some point, one for perfect multiform and team fighting and one for spirit saiyan and dueling/crowd fighting (though the second one would definitely be a late game thing)

HoratioVonBecker said:
Hah, see, that's the beauty of it. He definitely isn't ready for it, but he currently has no real incentive (in his mind) to make the sort of changes that would let him be. He views relationships as transactional, everyone ought to be in it for themselves, might-must-make-right-because-otherwise-I'm-a-monster type of thing.
This, though? Our motives are transparent, but the reward is equally clear. If he can learn it, he can fight, and he might even be able to break his seal, eventually. It'd certainly go a long way toward convincing Kakara to help with that.

You have a decent point, but I still believe we should talk to him a bit more before we commit to such a trying project.

Simon_Jester said:
Logical. On the other hand, we may end up in a position where we can't put two Perfect Multiforms on the same opponent at the same time- so disadvantaging Dueling or Crowd Fighting is a bad idea. Perfect Multiform has other applications (e.g. being able to fight 3-4 enemies at once), but then you're dueling at least two of those multiple opponents, not ganging up on them.

if we ended up in a situation that required dueling or crowd fighting the logical thought would be to change to tien style though.

Deathbybunnies said:
Assuming he managed to learn it, there's a non-trivial chance that he would continue on anyway. He's a literal alien, and might have an alien mindset.

this. We know that the Genkidama requires you to understand how all ki is connected, but that doesn't necessary mean you can't go with a "it's all connected, so it's all mine, so who cares about the others, they only live to give me my ki" mentality.

Or, in other words, there's a non-zero chance that Dazarel might unlock a corrupted, kind-of-evil version of the Genkidama.

Deathbybunnies said:
To be honest, I'm not sure we'll ever get that far. Still worth putting in the actions though.

Dazarel is more or less in the position Vegeta was far away in the past.

It took him something like a decade of living on Earth, the death of his son-from-the-future, and sacrificing himself for his family for him to actually become a decent person.

Dazarel might be redeemable, but it won't be the work of a few months.

Deathbybunnies said:
I've actually kind of been wavering all day on whether to swap out Historical Insights for Talk to Dazarel. Last time we got a rundown on Freeza's actions after the Fall, which might actually be a crucial payoff if we do end up going through Hell and run into him. On the other hand, we'll never change Dazarel if we don't put in the time and effort.

or if we meet him and he's still alive. I'm still convinced he's the "Old Enemies" option.

Dragon Ball: After the End

Imperfectly Aligned

the Ordainer

Handsome Gentleperson

Imperfectly Aligned

Imperfectly Aligned

the Ordainer

Handsome Gentleperson

Imperfectly Aligned

Handsome Gentleperson