The issue's that Accretion has few conceptual limits. Rank does everything, it's the king of stats, which is why Crown's such a steal. Difficulty converting Accretion directly into physical power and reliance on deeds are the two that stand out? The Forebear's Blade already does the former (which is strange in context). Muscle Wizard would've done the same by locking Accretion to our body, so that'd be one example.
I mean, we've already seen one thing that looks like a limit: max three items. It makes sense, Arthur has Sword, Scabbard, and Crown; Hercules has Pelt, Bow, and Arrows; Batman has Belt, Cape, and Cowl. More than three's a stretch.

So if I have this right, we can probably punch through that, either through training (Hunger goes boo!) or sufficiently awesome deeds that subsume other items into our legend without destroying them. King of Thieves might have had that easiest, but Evening Sky can probably be made to shelter or swallow stuff with some tinkering.
 
In the short term, we're going to want to either directly fight or run away from enemies. And we don't need it to be the focus in combat; we're already the mildly tanky frontliner in our group.

Your defenses have been buttressed considerably now that you possess the Evening Sky!

In the long term it could be more useful, but Doom of the Tyrant means that we don't respect the rule of law, so manipulating something to attack us is worthless

The ability to force an enemy into an offensive has countless tactical applications! From baiting overextension to dislodging an entrenched foe.

I want to be at 3.75 when the next opportunity comes! Accumulation happens one step at a time.

Well, if you fight a powerful enough enemy then you might get it all in one go, theoretically...

How would we expect to repair the blade just based on Accretion rules? (As opposed to accretion + progression.) Could we just take it somewhere suitably dramatic and reforge it with minimal loss? Would a person's Rank cause their panoply to repair itself?

Depends on the nature of the Blade's legend / history and your combined powers. Some would naturally regrow, others would repair themselves. Your Blade is independently growing in power alongside your own Experience track, but we've just been consolidating that into the build votes for simplicity's sake. Basically you've been getting your effective Experience multiplied by your Ring and then the results doubled by the Blade every time, which is why Hunger has gotten notably stronger despite only fighting two (now three?) moderately challenging opponents.

Non-outsider humans in this setting typically have a Rank between 1 and 3. If each whole Rank represents gains analogous to a full Cultivation Stage, we definitely want to get to 4 as fast as possible. Crown puts us within striking distance, so next time we do something heroic we're eligible for a Rank-up.

Mm, they're not quite like Cultivation stages. The early Ranks are smaller in distance, the later ones are greater. For example, a single peak Organ Refiner can slay dozens or hundreds of Ego Barrier experts, not so for Rank 2 versus Rank 1. To kill hundreds of trained and reasonably well-armed men in single combat would require Rank in the 3s, where our hero started.

In terms of actual combat results, it would be something like:

Low Ranks (1 to 3) - A 1 point difference in Rank is noticeable, 2 points is overwhelming (90%+ favored if other stats equal)
Middle Ranks (3.1 to 8) - A 1 point difference in Rank is overwhelming, 2 points is nigh-unwinnable
High Ranks (8.1 to 10+) - A .5 point difference in Rank is overwhelming, 1 point is nigh-unwinnable

Both the Hero and the Tyrant were around the high end of Middle Rank by the end of his journey.

The fact that he went ham for the fish character wise also actually makes a bit of sense, this isn't a guy who's generally the type to back down, even when it might be wise to. 11 years of losses against the tyrant weren't enough. Nudges to chill that rhetoric by the surviving nobility afterwards didn't stop him. When the Accursed offered him freedom he doubled down instead. Pirate wants to escape? I think not. So it lines up pretty well, maybe if he'd seen the beast before he decided to begin he'd have been fine ignoring it, but once it's on, it's on.

Once you commit, you've got to follow through. It's all about that FOLLOW-THROUGH

This a plus to the powerstat; we want as many of those as possible. Saber is immediately safer, but as long as we get a day of rest we will be fine. We already have Fell-handed Stroke, more Rank would already make it more powerful anyway while still improving literally any of our endeavors, because as you saw in the update, Pressure is bullshit. It's not even comparable to Saber. If we go full Rank=Cultivation levels in EFB just as an analogy; then we would be getting 0.25 Stages for the equivalent of 0.5 Beyond points; it's literally half-off from normal. This is pretty huge and well worth the momentary vulnerability; this is the moment we are least vulnerable to Apocryphal due to having triggered recently as well.

"As long as we get a day of rest..." The risks keep on accumulating! For what purpose? Balance your gains and greed!

Pass Out because this gets us closer to removing Exhausted, gives us Arete we may need if we get in the robot, but most importantly, resting after this is an important characterization moment in it of itself. As the Hero himself said, it is moments of levity like this that let him march on even in his darkest periods.

Levity requires companions to laugh with! Why squander this precious Affliction-free time when you could improve your bonds, gain mysterious rewards and still sleep later?
 
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[X] Crown
[X] Get In The Robot
Trading some +Gisena for some +Letrizia, because that's the kind of two-timing multi-waifu trash I am!
On a more tragic note, we probably should have a meeting of the minds with the other extinction-event in our party. Maybe if we ask nicely Gorgey will leave some of the juicy bits of the biosphere for us!

I'm pretty keen on Hunger's gusto thus far. He's thrown himself headlong at every problem, and while this method is certainly unsustainable and dangerous, I do like the enthusiasm.
He's got a lot of contrast going on right now. He's hellbent on vengeance and yet stopping to smell the flowers. Even with his wife's tattered memory held close Hunger is gallivanting around with beautiful women. Hero with a Tyrant's curse, black-red ring vs a sunset cloak. Not sure what I'm getting at, here! Wanting for something to build a theme around, perhaps. R.I.P. Sword!
I suppose I get a feeling of tension. Hunger is being open with the others about his curses and his current circumstances, but not really his tragic fall or his mission. Maybe I'm painting in what I'm looking for, but I believe he's still as wounded in heart and mind as he is in body.

Bah, the party is still super new. He'd be a buzzkill if he launched straight into his edgy backstory on the third quest! Better if we do as is customary and wait for everyone to save each other's lives a few times, and then get rip-roaring drunk.

I did quite enjoy the cloak-capturing scene. Something about grabbing onto the night sky in the casual aftermath of fishing up a true monster. It fits well with the legend-growing feat, as the kind of afterthought that's often thrown into heroic epics.

"Killed that dragon real good he did! And then he found a bitching hat!"
 
Right, Cultivation stages are logarithmic(If I remember correctly) while Accretion Rank is hyper-logarithmic, so the multiplicative power gain, theoretically, of Stage 1 to Stage 2 equals that of Stage 9 to Stage 10. Meanwhile, if Rank 1 is a raw power level of X, then Rank 2 is a raw power level of XX​, or XX-1​ times greater than Rank 1, while Rank 3 would be XXX​, XXX-1​ times greater than Rank 2.
The assumption would be that the logarithmic base of Cultivation stages is larger than that of Accretion Rank, but still. Tetrations grow faster than exponentials as expected.
 
[X] Orb - Gain title, [Master Baiter]. ++Manipulation when provoking enemies to attack you, or ++Bait Quality for Fishing and fishing-analogous tasks.
[X] Get In The Robot - Investigate the Armament and its connection with your Curse. Praehihr, it called you. Have the Foremost encountered Cursebearers before? You can, of course, get in the robot later, while the King Fish may be decomposing now. But matters regarding your Curses must take higher priority. Affects characterization.

Now hear me out. We literally radiate power. Pretty soon anything with eyes is going to stop attacking us. That means we'll have to waste time finding them, and then possibly risk our health by fighting them on their turf. Even with high Rank, we'll still be risking our allies' health - and they're a lot less tough than us.

Unless we want our progression to tank in the near future, we should find a way to make enemies attack us. We can probably handle it, especially if we can make it happen on our terms. But to do that, we have to make ourselves look weak or vulnerable despite every indication we're invincible. In other words, increased Manipulation.

Also titles are cool. I like them. I want to see them in action.
 
[X] Orb - Gain title, [Master Baiter]. ++Manipulation when provoking enemies to attack you, or ++Bait Quality for Fishing and fishing-analogous tasks.
[X] Get In The Robot - Investigate the Armament and its connection with your Curse. Praehihr, it called you. Have the Foremost encountered Cursebearers before? You can, of course, get in the robot later, while the King Fish may be decomposing now. But matters regarding your Curses must take higher priority. Affects characterization.
 
Idle thought, as I page through old Cursebearer quests. The fact that all curses are ones that the Accursed is transferring to lighten his own burden implies horrifying things about the Doom of Rivalry.

[X] Crown
[X] Get In The Robot
 
[X] Crown
[X] Get In The Robot


Got to maximise those GAINS, king.

And there's nothing so kingly or so gainly as a semi-sapient warmech
 
Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by ReaderOfFate on May 27, 2020 at 11:38 PM, finished with 83 posts and 37 votes.
 
We've already put our self into a very dangerous situation for very little reason, so let's take the safest option that is Saber. Also, given the price we've already paid to catch that stupid fish, let's actually benefit from it and figure out what this fish is all about.

[X] Saber
[X] Dress the Fish
 
Depends on the nature of the Blade's legend / history and your combined powers. Some would naturally regrow, others would repair themselves. Your Blade is independently growing in power alongside your own Experience track, but we've just been consolidating that into the build votes for simplicity's sake. Basically you've been getting your effective Experience multiplied by your Ring and then the results doubled by the Blade every time, which is why Hunger has gotten notably stronger despite only fighting two (now three?) moderately challenging opponents.
Wow. So that's like 10x the speed of progression.

Who even needs chronomancy abuse with such crazy multipliers?!
 
We've already put our self into a very dangerous situation for very little reason, so let's take the safest option that is Saber. Also, given the price we've already paid to catch that stupid fish, let's actually benefit from it and figure out what this fish is all about.

While you've pushed me back to Saber, we've already gotten 1 benefit out of the fish in the form of Saber/Orb/Crown. There's also whether or not we're falling prey to sunk cost fallacy to consider.

[X] Saber
[X] Get in the Robot
 
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Looks like Get in the Robot is making a resurgence! Interesting...

While you've pushed me back to Saber, we've already gotten 1 benefit out of the fish in the form of Saber/Orb/Crown. There's also whether or not we're falling prey to sunk cost fallacy to consider.

[X] Saber
[X] Get In The Robot

Was Saber/Crown/Orb worth the risk alone, though? You put yourself in a lot of danger for modest gain...
 
Right, Cultivation stages are logarithmic(If I remember correctly) while Accretion Rank is hyper-logarithmic, so the multiplicative power gain, theoretically, of Stage 1 to Stage 2 equals that of Stage 9 to Stage 10. Meanwhile, if Rank 1 is a raw power level of X, then Rank 2 is a raw power level of XX​, or XX-1​ times greater than Rank 1, while Rank 3 would be XXX​, XXX-1​ times greater than Rank 2.
The assumption would be that the logarithmic base of Cultivation stages is larger than that of Accretion Rank, but still. Tetrations grow faster than exponentials as expected.
Tetration is *way* too fast. From the scale Rihaku gave us, I expect it's closer to 2^(x^2), which gets you a doubling of multiplicative growth rate every fixed number of levels, roughly as Rihaku described.
 
While you've pushed me back to Saber, we've already gotten 1 benefit out of the fish in the form of Saber/Orb/Crown. There's also whether or not we're falling prey to sunk cost fallacy to consider.
A Legendary Fish was part of the reward of the option though so it presumably does something. To be listed while saber/orb/crown was hidden behind question marks probably means the fish is the greater reward.

What kind of murderhobo would we be if we didn't loot the body after defeating our foe?
 
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A Legendary Fish was part of the reward of the option though so it presumably does something. To be listed while saber/orb/crown was hidden behind question marks probably means the fish is the greater reward.

What kind of murderhobo would we be if we didn't loot the body after defeating our foe?

Technically you're trying to graduate from a mere murderhobo to an Emperor! Imperial power flows from the cockpit of a giant robot.
 
Now hear me out. We literally radiate power. Pretty soon anything with eyes is going to stop attacking us. That means we'll have to waste time finding them, and then possibly risk our health by fighting them on their turf. Even with high Rank, we'll still be risking our allies' health - and they're a lot less tough than us.

Unless we want our progression to tank in the near future, we should find a way to make enemies attack us. We can probably handle it, especially if we can make it happen on our terms. But to do that, we have to make ourselves look weak or vulnerable despite every indication we're invincible. In other words, increased Manipulation.
Um, the fact that we have the Apocryphal Curse makes it pretty unlikely we'll run out of fights. We already have a way to make enemies attack us, it's just a pretty troublesome one. Orb is still tactically useful, and it may even be strategically useful should we fight an entrenched polity, but it doesn't patch up any holes in our build or anything; there are ways of removing home ground advantage other than just provoking people into attacking us, anyway. We are definitely not lacking ways to get into fights.
 
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