- Location
- USA
Oh god here's a terrible thought. The Apocryphal Curse is the original curse, and all other Curses are a byproduct of it.
A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
Oh god here's a terrible thought. The Apocryphal Curse is the original curse, and all other Curses are a byproduct of it.
Genesys
(Discrete Mokona)
- Location
- California
Well, yes, the assumption is that death for our still-yet-to-be-named MC is neutral utility for me, but my death would be significant negative utility for me, so of course death rate weights higher in the decision-making!
Incidentally, does Tyrant preclude lying that the Cursebearer will comply with a rule, and then later not complying with it? Or is it an immediate, visceral reaction? I feel like that might be a major oversight, considering that government can only punish things that you get caught for. So to live in civilized society, one would just have to lie that they would follow the laws, and then discreetly break every single one of them.
Would be hilarious to need to do, though.
Rihaku
The Internet
*Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.*
He'd obviously argue against Muscle Wizard as an objectively superior option. The others need all the help they can get.
A giant robot might make a superb Accretion foci though..
You are making a ton of assumptions that make no sense. Gesena is superhumanly inteligent, good at socializing, has superhumanly amazing looks, has years of service as one of de facto leaders of her country and so on. She might be not perfectly perfect at any social ever, obviously, but she offers a whole lot, and that's a lot we will need thanks to our Curse. Meanwhile, Cat offers nothing in comparison as far as social is concerned, forcing us to take our Curse head on.
Apocryphal Curse scales directly with our power. Destructor does too. At that rate you will just be running headlong into getting fucked over by your own curses. You can't just powerpowerpower your way through, you need to actively work at mitigating the Curses.
Let's recap Gisena and Curses:
Decimator: Gisena directly reduces power of the Curse - remember that this one needs to be actively curtailed lest we just lose. Gisena allows us to ignore that and leave it for her advancement to keep the Curse in check. Additionally, in this particular situation, we can let Gisena act as our governor while we are in other Realms, thus focusing Decimator on things other than the kingdom we are supposed to rule
Tyrant: Gisana directly reduces the power of this Curse; much more importantly, however, is that she can serve as our agent when talking with other people. She has excellent Social, so we won't feel bad to let her do it, and that would let us ignore many unpleasant situations
Indenture: If you have companions you must mitigate Indenture so you can bring them along; with Gisena this comes prepackaged, so you don't need to spend time and resources finding a way to mitigate the Curse. Her own charisma might help us with finding additional allies too
Apocryphal: As with any other, Gisena reduces this one too. In particular, she has amazing synergy with Accretion/Blade as both reduce Apocryphal and Blade also boosts Gisena greatly
More than anything, however, Gisena makes game much less annoying to play. No having to choose Curse Mitigation over cool powers because we did that in char creation, no having to deal with Tyrant bullshit(as much) and no having to shit into wooden putty instead of state of art magitech toilet.
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Rihaku
The Internet
Just because the votes are equal doesn't meant the argument and omake power is!
- Location
- USA
For all that Gisena is good, remember she's the early/mid game pick and Cat is more late game. It seems like Cat has lots of potential beyond her physical stats. She worked as a researcher for her house and she can upgrade her social stats in time.
For me it comes down to this, I would rather have the hero be the one with the breadth to his powers. He has pretty crazy growth and can go deep into lots of fields and synergize different effects. The Luna build focuses more on his combat strength and turning him into a hell of a sword. Twice Great turns him into a blacksmith who can make other swords, and then gives him orichaleum in Cat.
How can we expect Scepter to upgrade Seals/Accretion?
Cat has opportunity to eclipse us in power much like Suizhen did; however, there is no reason to believe that she will be useful in social or have much out of combat utility. As I've said earlier, comparing the two in absolute terms is difficult as Gisena is someone who can support us whole Cat is someone we can support, so they have different focuses; however, as Progression type with Hunger our advancement shouldn't be an issue either way, so having someone to deal with miscellaneous and otherwise cover our weak spots sounds useful.
- Location
- Pindorama
What assumptions am I making? Our companions are not forced to obey us. If we want her to tone down and play nice, we'd have to actually convince her. That she worked as a Sorceress doesn't prove she would be good at leadership, Morgana was an example of that. By the time we have need of her in specific leadership and negotiation capacities and not just as someone to dodge the Tyrant's Doom, we will likely be far enough that we can provide an adequate replacement. Not as good, but fine.
Meanwhile, there's no guarantee we will find anyone even close to Catherine's talent in this world, and certainly the plot hooks she provides are utterly unique.
The very fact that Sword would have had an easier time had we survived is indirect proof that power does actually help against Apocryphal Curse; in addition, the truly harrowing experiences happen "very occasionally". We can likely mitigate the Curse before a serious proc even without Gisena.
I don't think the Hero would need modern appliances after living for over a decade in a medieval world and having lost his memories of earth.
As we Progress, we can find other ways of working around Doom of the Tyrant too. If it's a question of Gisena supporting us or we supporting Catherine, the latter has far more potential. I don't think the early game advantages of Gisena are good enough against Catherine's late game now that we have the Scepter.
Same argument can be made for either choice - in fact, with Gisena we know that she has integrity which will have her fulfill her Duty, so convincing her to help us destroy evil masters of destiny should be rather simple.
It proves that she has experience at being a leader which, combined with her superhuman intellect and powerful charisma, makes one assume that she will be rather good at leading people. Mind, she doesn't to be absolutely perfect at it, just serviceable. You can keep pretending that she won't be a good choice, sure, but having to downplay other choice rather than point out positives of your own only makes your own argument weaker.
Also, we are just about to enter human city, so we will likely find whoever leads humans in next one to two updates..
"Being more efficient at using artifacts" is not unique talent, merely a powerful one. Your implied plot hooks are intangible value; we may or may not get any specific value out of them; on the other hand, Gisena brings easy to quantify value to the table in this scenario, where our Decimator will make fulfilling our task very awkward without help.
I mean, if your argument is "Curse that is twice a powerful as ordinary Curse can't be that bad" we have a bit of disagreement about basics of this quest. Remember, Decimator alone will make it impossible for us to get past first few worlds unless we go out of our way to reduce it; we can only assume that Apocryphal is that much more potent.
Except we are likely to get Hunger, which makes that rather relevant. Getting rested so we can train is one of the staples of Rihaku's quests too.
Keyword being "find". With Gisena, we have already dealt with good portion of our Curses in both short and long term, so we can focus on fun stuff such as killing monsters and gaining new cool abilities. With Cat, you need to spend your time both babysitting her and going out of your way to mitigate and deal with your Curses instead of having happy fun times Gisena would provide.
I don't think that sheer QoL of choosing Gisena can be overstated. Having to deal with your Curses way less and having to deal with annoying people way less and doing combat and power advancement too is just super nice.
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- Location
- USA
I agree the builds are pretty equal and just differ in where the different type of power rests.
Getting Catherine really embraces this world though in a way that's interesting. Imagine how interesting it will be to have a Rihaku build vote for a giant magical mech!
Also something that hasn't been stated, Gisena's combat usefulness will probably be much lower than it would be on the average world since this is a world of Kaiju and Mecha.
Whereas Cat and Hero can both fight here pretty effectively, and the Sealing Blade might effectively mimic Gisena's ability here if there is mostly energy and not more esoteric things to Nullify.
Getting Catherine really embraces this world though in a way that's interesting. Imagine how interesting it will be to have a Rihaku build vote for a giant magical mech!
Also something that hasn't been stated, Gisena's combat usefulness will probably be much lower than it would be on the average world since this is a world of Kaiju and Mecha.
Whereas Cat and Hero can both fight here pretty effectively, and the Sealing Blade might effectively mimic Gisena's ability here if there is mostly energy and not more esoteric things to Nullify.
- Location
- Pindorama
First, about her Duty:
Rihaku also explicitly stated that she is not a superhuman leader without relying on her Appearance. So yes, I do think it's more likely that we will find someone that can fulfill Gisena's possible social roles than someone with Catherine's talent.
The whole point of Scepter is that we take it to be safe in the immediate-term. We also have ways to advance quickly thanks to Hunger. Why triple-down on that aspect? We will have to protect Gisena as well, if we want her to take a proactive role in things, something that we don't need to worry about with Seals plus Catherine.
We don't need Curse mitigation immediately; It would be nice, but not necessary. Having Catherine would also be nice, and her potential is much higher. Acting with such paranoia is the exact reason you guys wanted to avoid the Sword. Why still be in this mindset?
Thing is, Gisena's combat usefulness is like tertiary for her; we get her so she reduces our Curses and does social, with her mage busting being merely something useful she can do. Her Curse reduction and social means that she saves a ton of time and power picks(which we would need to spend to mitigate Curse/deal with social fallout) which we can spend on upgrading ourselves instead. And, again, doing that is way more interesting that having to spend our collective energy mitigating Curses/dealing with social fallout.
Except no one ever said that she is "superhuman leader" or that she needs to be one, strawmani-kun. She is just super good at social and more than likely at least decent at leadership, which is more than enough and definitely more than Cat can ever hope to achieve.
As per vote blurb, we are not doubling down on anything. Gisena/Accretion is very consistent build that is good at all stages of the game.
We need to get Curse mitigation at some point; and for multiple Curses too. Remember last quest? Remember how we had to sacrifice perk points and power votes to gain mitigation? With Gisena we don't need to do that. We have all of our Curses covered so we can afford to be active instead. We don't need to worry about getting Indenture mitigated so we can bring our investment along, we don't need to worry as much about putting enough work into mitigating Decimator before it balls out of control, we don't need to worry as much that we didn't mitigate Apocrypha enough for the next proc.
Again, this might be due difference in interpreting how powerful Curses are. I view them as rather vital part of the quest and would rather get them out of the way sooner rather than suffer for the lack of mitigation latter.
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Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
Combat utility isn't relevant, unless they are at or on a similar tier as to us.
The main benefit of taking Gisena is curse mitigation, especially Apocryphal, which with the King is the biggest danger to us right now. In a way that's almost the same as combat utility, except more generalized and arguably better. Also, I rather suspect that when we get hit by Aprochyral we'll wish we had mitigated even more than we had already done so.
It's basically generating plot enemies for us. That's not good. In fact, it's very bad.
(Also she has Social **** compared to everyone else's ***, so by that metric she's better anyway. Cat also starts with *.)
Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Orm Embar
rip, that's what I get for commenting before I actually check the vote tally.
Freedom + Brand of the Champion + Doom of the Tyrant + Three Wishes. I'd immediately Lesser Wish for the Royal Praxis and Least Wish the location of as many individuals immune to the Brand as permitted. Not Progression because the offer alone is a miracle among miracles and I'm not nearly competent enough to hack it against the Apocryphal and the Geas.
Depends if the death of a Cursebearer wastes a Cursebearer slot for him. If it doesn't, even a 99% chance of death would be a low price to be a Cursebearer. I'd do the same as the above but Lesser Wish for a power optimised against the Apocryphal, trading immediate ability and ease of learning for growth potential if possible. Then Least Wish for a year's worth of training in said power. With the short term sorted, turn into a murderhobo hermit and work towards earning a Least Wish by defeating Apocryphal enemies.
I was going to respond earlier but I was too high on this deep lore (?).
Woof. They're totally fucked, their only hope is being absolutely beneath notice. Also, holy shit do we have to be at a high level to get revenge. I knew that would be the case but "transcending linear time" is further than I expected. Our boy might end up stronger than the Nameless by the end of the quest.
Well... at least they might not call our boy an "it"? He'd be powerful but closer to "grizzled super badass that I once called friend" than "face-stealing eldritch horror".
RIP Leviathan, we hardly knew ye.
And I bet it doesn't even help you train CON. God, Curses are truly the worst.
rip, that's what I get for commenting before I actually check the vote tally.
Freedom + Brand of the Champion + Doom of the Tyrant + Three Wishes. I'd immediately Lesser Wish for the Royal Praxis and Least Wish the location of as many individuals immune to the Brand as permitted. Not Progression because the offer alone is a miracle among miracles and I'm not nearly competent enough to hack it against the Apocryphal and the Geas.
Depends if the death of a Cursebearer wastes a Cursebearer slot for him. If it doesn't, even a 99% chance of death would be a low price to be a Cursebearer. I'd do the same as the above but Lesser Wish for a power optimised against the Apocryphal, trading immediate ability and ease of learning for growth potential if possible. Then Least Wish for a year's worth of training in said power. With the short term sorted, turn into a murderhobo hermit and work towards earning a Least Wish by defeating Apocryphal enemies.
I was going to respond earlier but I was too high on this deep lore (?).
Woof. They're totally fucked, their only hope is being absolutely beneath notice. Also, holy shit do we have to be at a high level to get revenge. I knew that would be the case but "transcending linear time" is further than I expected. Our boy might end up stronger than the Nameless by the end of the quest.
Well... at least they might not call our boy an "it"? He'd be powerful but closer to "grizzled super badass that I once called friend" than "face-stealing eldritch horror".
RIP Leviathan, we hardly knew ye.
And I bet it doesn't even help you train CON. God, Curses are truly the worst.
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KidFromPallet
Pokemon Fan
- Location
- Pallet Town
[X] King of Sorcerers
[X] Humanitarian Efforts
Sucks that sword lost, but oh well. Guess we'll just have to argue it even more next Quest.
I very, very much favor Seals over Accretion, so it's only one of the top two for me. Like, again, we only get 2-3 effects with Accretion in the short-mid term, so if we use one strengthening a robot or sword or whatever we're wasting very valuable slots. Meanwhile Seals can also be used to enhance those things, if to a lesser degree, and Seals can be used for things like training multipliers and curse mitigation too. Don't sleep on utility effects, EFB would've crashed and burned without the Diagram's utility.
I'm optimizing for Curse mitigation right now, given that's like, the most important thing for the entire Quest. We don't need Caethlyn for power because we've chosen the Sceptor, and I view reducing the quality of opponents in the late game thanks to mitigation being worth more than Caeth's increased potential as compared to Gisena. Plus, our first task requires social, which we absolutely need a competent minion for.
[X] Humanitarian Efforts
Sucks that sword lost, but oh well. Guess we'll just have to argue it even more next Quest.
I very, very much favor Seals over Accretion, so it's only one of the top two for me. Like, again, we only get 2-3 effects with Accretion in the short-mid term, so if we use one strengthening a robot or sword or whatever we're wasting very valuable slots. Meanwhile Seals can also be used to enhance those things, if to a lesser degree, and Seals can be used for things like training multipliers and curse mitigation too. Don't sleep on utility effects, EFB would've crashed and burned without the Diagram's utility.
I'm optimizing for Curse mitigation right now, given that's like, the most important thing for the entire Quest. We don't need Caethlyn for power because we've chosen the Sceptor, and I view reducing the quality of opponents in the late game thanks to mitigation being worth more than Caeth's increased potential as compared to Gisena. Plus, our first task requires social, which we absolutely need a competent minion for.
Blorcyn
Canon quaquaversal
- Location
- United Kingdom
[X] Humanitarian Efforts
[X] King of Sorcerers
Though I'll switch to Luna Conquerer if needed.
My suspicion is that the + charisma of Humanitarian efforts means that the bro-giant will actually be way more beneficial and profitable to our geas and perhaps to positive, philanthropic character development. Still, that said, I am a simple man. I see a rare social bonus, I take the social bonus.
Furthermore, considering we've taken Vengeance, a MC who we can begin to steer towards forming mitigating relationships, to avoid basement behaviour would be good. This gels well with King of Sorcerors.
I want Gisena for her character, her magic nullifying, and her progression method and science skills. She's a good all-round package. Furthermore, without the Praxis, we know that we may not have omni-dimensional abilities. Considering this, and that we've gone progression over combat. - that we've chosen improvement over direct combat ability - I think a broad foundation that can build wide across a great many worlds (either before or after our ultimate enemy) would be ideal.
[X] King of Sorcerers
Though I'll switch to Luna Conquerer if needed.
My suspicion is that the + charisma of Humanitarian efforts means that the bro-giant will actually be way more beneficial and profitable to our geas and perhaps to positive, philanthropic character development. Still, that said, I am a simple man. I see a rare social bonus, I take the social bonus.
Furthermore, considering we've taken Vengeance, a MC who we can begin to steer towards forming mitigating relationships, to avoid basement behaviour would be good. This gels well with King of Sorcerors.
I want Gisena for her character, her magic nullifying, and her progression method and science skills. She's a good all-round package. Furthermore, without the Praxis, we know that we may not have omni-dimensional abilities. Considering this, and that we've gone progression over combat. - that we've chosen improvement over direct combat ability - I think a broad foundation that can build wide across a great many worlds (either before or after our ultimate enemy) would be ideal.
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- Location
- Pindorama
If Scepter was in fact completely fucking pointless for our immediate survival and we immediately need to mitigate Apocryphal to live, then what was the fucking point of choosing it?
Yes, Gisena does offer utility in being very good at mitigating Curses, so we can focus on combat. But conversely, if we have Catherine focus on combat, we can afford to mitigate the Curses ourselves. Should we choose Accretion, we need to actually find out how to make findross to power up Nullity. But with Seals plus Hunger progression, powering up Catherine is very straightforward.
I don't think Curse mitigation is needed in the immediate because Rihaku straight up told us that we have very good odds with the Scepter before he even offered us Gisena. I am merely taking him at face value.
If you are taking her because of she might help the immediate vote, remember we don't know when we will meet her.
I still am very curious about her backstory and her general circumstances, that's why I'm voting for her. But this sentiment that Gisena is this no brainer is mistaken in my opinion.
Yes, Gisena does offer utility in being very good at mitigating Curses, so we can focus on combat. But conversely, if we have Catherine focus on combat, we can afford to mitigate the Curses ourselves. Should we choose Accretion, we need to actually find out how to make findross to power up Nullity. But with Seals plus Hunger progression, powering up Catherine is very straightforward.
Gisena is not the sole purveyor of mitigation. We will not spend the rest of the quest with unmitigated Curses if we don't chose her. And when it comes to late game potential, Catherine is substantially better.
I don't think Curse mitigation is needed in the immediate because Rihaku straight up told us that we have very good odds with the Scepter before he even offered us Gisena. I am merely taking him at face value.
If you are taking her because of she might help the immediate vote, remember we don't know when we will meet her.
My point isn't that Gisena was superhuman, but the fact that Catherine doesn't offer an "Unique" talent. By your admission she doesn't have superhuman social and by the fact we can mitigate the curses ourselves, neither does Gisena.
I still am very curious about her backstory and her general circumstances, that's why I'm voting for her. But this sentiment that Gisena is this no brainer is mistaken in my opinion.
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[X] Luna Conquerer
This seems quite solid, just need to raise our profile as a strange vigilante hero that comes and goes like the wind capturing the imagination of the populace (I.E. fight monsters and look good, but never talk to anyone so they never realize what an asshole you are) until we've grown enough we can start taking over.
Twice Great also seems like quite a good build and I wouldn't mind it, the others I'm less keen on though Muscle lacking mid game is quite an issue to me considering the Apocryphal, Sorcerer is okay but not to my taste.
[X] Cut Off The Head
I'm assuming this will have the superior fight gains with hunger, so since I'm thinking of a route that doesn't lean on charisma for the time being I'll go with this. Should also have a better chance to get more inside information about the various secrets of the world.
This seems quite solid, just need to raise our profile as a strange vigilante hero that comes and goes like the wind capturing the imagination of the populace (I.E. fight monsters and look good, but never talk to anyone so they never realize what an asshole you are) until we've grown enough we can start taking over.
Twice Great also seems like quite a good build and I wouldn't mind it, the others I'm less keen on though Muscle lacking mid game is quite an issue to me considering the Apocryphal, Sorcerer is okay but not to my taste.
[X] Cut Off The Head
I'm assuming this will have the superior fight gains with hunger, so since I'm thinking of a route that doesn't lean on charisma for the time being I'll go with this. Should also have a better chance to get more inside information about the various secrets of the world.
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- Location
- USA
But I think she is able to get there with our Support. She's basically the the perfect target for buffing so as our abilities grow 500% it multiplies her own abilities.
There are a couple of reasons to take Cut Of The Head. I will assume that we are talking my own option here, but your choice shares many similarities:
- It's safe to assume that Cut Off has some sort of hidden reward similar to Charisma, possibly even greater given increased danger. This might not be the case, of course, but it likely is
- With Luna we have Gissena around, so we can afford to let Charisma buff go in favor of perhaps more relevant reward
- With Hunger, taking on the most powerful foe of the field will likely yield greater absolute results
- With Accretion, taking on gigantic Kaiju will likely do wonders for our legend
Again, as per blurb:
This choice is strong at every point of game. We choose Gisena because this choice rocks and having her around means that we won't have annoying choices where people argue if we should take Curse Mitigation now or later.
Also, again, your argument slowly moved towards downplaying severity of our Curses. You might want to revise it.
Except I've never stated that Gisena needs to be "unique" talent? She offers a ton of value, which is what we want.
- Location
- Pindorama
In straightfoward challenges. I didn't even say the option isn't strong. I said we might have trouble figuring out how to make findross. It might take a significant detour in which we might want to do other things. But the Hero will still be strong with all those mitigated Curses.
The "downplaying the Curses" bit is driving me mental. When Rihaku talks about the risks we might face as a Progression type, he must take into account the Apocryphal Curse. Thus, when he said the Scepter gave us good odds of surviving the immediate term, he must also be considering the Apocryphal Curse. What the hell is there to misinterpret? Did he lie and the Scepter doesn't give us very good odds of safety in the immediate term?
Catherine also offers a ton of value, just not as much value as Gisena immediately, she's explicitly the late game option. Again, none of those technically offer anything "unique", the Scepter is supposed to protect us in the early game, we don't even know if we will have Gisena for the results of the next vote. Why the hell triple down on safety like this when we can invest for a better late-game?
The main advantage to fast mitigation of Apocryphal to my view is a better chance of a smooth upward growth curve. Should lessen the risk of something happening that we likely survive but stalls us out dealing with it or sets us back some other way.
A slow/bad start will compound against us quite a bit all game, so there's a lot of value in hedging against it.