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A Simple Transaction I

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Seriously. Can we just... not take the aggressive, reckless choices? The plumed offering is fine. It gives us what we need, quickly, with few additional drawbacks. Pursuing bonus shinies with every single action, at the risk of suffering crippling setbacks, is how we get into death spirals.

Rihaku said:
1) Evening Sky makes you immune to nonmagical munitions below the level of Little Boy
2) Undying Vanguard Gisena is overall as well-defended as you
3) Gisena can run in, Tide of Nullity the enemies, then point blank detonate one of Veschlengorge's missiles / a crockpot full of her cooking for massive damage! You don't even have to do anything!

Think of the utility!!
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Lord Hunger:

"You fiend! I can literally end all human life and civilization on a continent just by standing around scratching myself for several years in a row, and even I think weaponizing Gisena's cooking is an unconscionable war crime!"
 
Simon_Jester said:
Seriously. Can we just... not take the aggressive, reckless choices? The plumed offering is fine. It gives us what we need, quickly, with few additional drawbacks. Pursuing bonus shinies with every single action, at the risk of suffering crippling setbacks, is how we get into death spirals.
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I'm considering Wolf within our capacity to handle. 80% it goes perfectly, 20% we need to take longer to heal than expected. But if we pair it with Second Stage as everyone seems to be doing that isn't a time increase.

The question is if we want our second pick to be the one that can heal our companions in minutes or the one that will heal us all over the next couple weeks.
 
Byzantine said:
Between 80% and 40%, below that is critically.

We take about ~20% HP a hit right now based on the two blows we've taken so far, so I'm considering being 2/5th dead as serious.
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It gives you enough Constitution that you end up considerably stronger than before. Also, you already have a powerful defense in the Evening Sky and your boosted Agility (which it boosts even further), so it's not as personally risky as you'd think! With all the immediate Con stat boosts it's actually one of the safest options!
 
MoeDeathStar said:
Bro i've been lurking on Rihaku quests since before smart phones were a big thing, and I know you've been around.

We both know the board's never going to ease up on taking risks. It's only getting cold feet now because the threat of death is explicit this time rather than implicit.

Our only options are to get the options that allow us to safely see the risks through.
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I've personally chilled out a bit since the death-or-glory days when we did shit like dueling an Immaculate Monk as a mortal, but yeah, the propensity for risk-taking is hardly new. It's always gratifying to hear from people who've been following these quests since the beginning; the sense of continuity and community's heartwarming.

The Tyrant Beast's unappealing not only due to the 10% chance of death, but because of the 40% chance of perpetuating the vicious cycle we're stuck in. We're already dealing with overlapping wounds and exhaustion, how much worse will it be with poison or something similar added? To my mind, half the outcomes are negative, because they introduce new maluses that'll take more time/updates to resolve. Maybe we could buy our way out of whatever consequence by purchasing Pitiless Maw and going hunting, but that widens the window of companion vulnerability.
Rihaku said:
You can go ahead and vote for it, if we don't have enough Arete by the deadline then we'll go with a fallback option.
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Might as well throw my hat in the ring, this does capitalize on those relationship boosts people seem intent on picking!

[X] The Plumed Offering -
[X] Forebear's Blade - Echo of the Forebear + Undying Echo + Undying Vanguard - 7 Arete.

'Join or die' plays better when we can truthfully claim that, 'No, really, I can't heal you unless you mean it.'
 
Rihaku said:
Gisena can run in, Tide of Nullity the enemies, then point blank detonate one of Veschlengorge's missiles / a crockpot full of her cooking for massive damage! You don't even have to do anything!
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Just goes to show you that being a truly terrible cook is the same as being a pretty good chemist! Truly, this is the attestation of genius.
 
Hmm. Of all the builds, I like Wolf/Pristine Star/Shine Bright and Offering/Undying Vanguard the best. Those both solve our immediate problems quickly. Undying Vanguard gets us more stuff but it's also 7 Arete vs 2. Eh, Vanguard seems to be picking up steam, I'll join in.

[X] The Plumed Offering -
[X] Forebear's Blade - Echo of the Forebear + Undying Echo + Undying Vanguard - 7 Arete.

EDIT: On second thought, I'd prefer to spend less Arete.

[X] The Mire Wolf
[X] Evening Sky - Pristine Star
[X] Evening Sky - Shine Bright
 
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Plan based tally incoming, with a tally by line possibly coming in another post.
Adhoc vote count started by Conjured Blade on May 31, 2020 at 11:56 PM, finished with 119 posts and 31 votes.
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[X] The Tyrant Beast
[X] Evening Sky - Pristine Star
[X] Hunger - Pitiless Maw

Honestly, I think this is a pretty good deal, for all there's a 10% chance of insta dead.
 
Line based tally incoming
Adhoc vote count started by Conjured Blade on May 31, 2020 at 11:59 PM, finished with 121 posts and 32 votes.
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Guys, are you sure it's wise to rely on Pristine Star when you're in danger of potentially being outscaled by a Gamer analogue? You and Letrizia will both be wounded for several days while he's recovering and training!
 
Byzantine said:
I'm considering Wolf within our capacity to handle. 80% it goes perfectly, 20% we need to take longer to heal than expected. But if we pair it with Second Stage as everyone seems to be doing that isn't a time increase.

The question is if we want our second pick to be the one that can heal our companions in minutes or the one that will heal us all over the next couple weeks.
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Am I losing track, or do we have no other means of healing ourselves besides the one we're picking now?

Because I can admittedly see why that's a difficult choice... though if we can get 7 Arete and Maw it's no longer such a problem.

Rihaku said:
Guys, are you sure it's wise to rely on Pristine Star when you're in danger of potentially being outscaled by a Gamer analogue? You and Letrizia will both be wounded for several days while he's recovering and training!
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[grunts]

Well, IF we take a rest period in which to get Maw with 7 Arete (as you implied we could) AND IF we can do that and still get Undying Vanguard (to rapidly heal Letrizia), then that argument works.

Can we do that?
 
Since Undying Vanguard hasn't gotten much momentum...

[X] The Mire Wolf
[X] Evening Sky - Shine Bright
[X] Forebear's Blade - Second Stage
 
Shard said:
Honestly the big argument against Tyrant is the fact that Rihaku is using the Forum Dice Roller.

Which is.. not great.
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Indeed.

Simon_Jester said:
Am I losing track, or do we have no other means of healing ourselves besides the one we're picking now?
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Pretty much. Hence why I'm opposed to Vanguard as is.

For the love of... this is the second time I've rolled 2 1's in a set of 10. And I've only done it twice!
Byzantine threw 10 10-faced dice. Total: 57
1 1 6 6 3 3 1 1 6 6 7 7 10 10 10 10 9 9 4 4
 
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Rihaku said:
Guys, are you sure it's wise to rely on Pristine Star when you're in danger of potentially being outscaled by a Gamer analogue? You and Letrizia will both be wounded for several days while he's recovering and training!
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And what are we supposed to do exactly? The only self-healing options are Pitiless Maw (which doesn't heal Letrizia) and Second Form (which isn't really a heal). Undying Vanguard gets us some extra stats to make up for our injured state I guess.

Complicating matters is that Shine Bright is far and away the best option for healing Letrizia outside of Undying Vanguard, but doesn't self heal.

As far as I can see, there's no plan which gets rapid heals for ourselves and Letrizia. I guess you're saying that we want to prioritize ourselves to ensure we have the Cursebearer fully operational if gamer boy comes back? But the only way to rapidly heal ourselves and also help Letrizia is Pitiless Maw+Pristine Star, which requires Tyrant Beast. Lots of people myself included don't want to dive right in to another risky play.

The second best option for getting ourselves back online while still helping Letrizia would be Offering/Vanguard, which I guess is why you're pushing it so hard. The problem with that is it puts us into Arete debt, which I believe exhausts us again? We just did that and it didn't work out so well.
 
George said:
testing, need 11 rolls for this tool
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wow, now even the forum software is getting in on the unbsubtle warnings against our death spiral

Rihaku said:
Guys, are you sure it's wise to rely on Pristine Star when you're in danger of potentially being outscaled by a Gamer analogue? You and Letrizia will both be wounded for several days while he's recovering and training!
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I'll admit, the strongest argument for Second Stage to me is specifically that Gamer guy. Imagine his face when it turns out the Hidden Boss that almost wiped his party was actually super wounded in their last fight and has another stage besides.

Really leaning into that Tyrant a e s t h e t i q u e.
 
[X] The Tyrant Beast
[X] Evening Sky - Shine Bright
[X]Undying Vanguard

Super spend build only possible with the tyrant beast! Ultimate waifu pandering with findross options and party buffs! Conceivably possible to get enough arete for before the update!
 
LordOfMurder said:
[] The Tyrant Beast
[] Evening Sky - Shine Bright
[]Undying Vanguard

Super spend build only possible with the tyrant beast! Ultimate waifu pandering with findross options and party buffs! Conceivably possible to get enough arete for before the update!
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Die screaming if you roll a 1 on a d10! Suffer crippling stat penalty that causes death by screaming in next encounter if you roll a 2!
 
[X] The Mire Wolf
[X] Evening Sky - Pristine Star
[X] Evening Sky - Shine Bright

Can't believe I missed an opportunity to meme last update.
Rihaku said:
By walking into her strike, controlling the angle, he'd directed the blow down the path of his existing wound, minimizing the damage. Still, the pain was intense even under the soporific numbness of the Evening Sky. She'd widened the cut broadly and managed to nick his intestines. Not a wound that would trouble him much, if he were at full strength. As it was...
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Yo dawg, I heard you like Apocryphal Procs, so we put a stab wound in your stab wound so you can bleed out while you bleed out!

Which is to say, no Tyrant pls
 
runeblue360 said:
I'll admit, the strongest argument for Second Stage to me is specifically that Gamer guy. Imagine his face when it turns out the Hidden Boss that almost wiped his party was actually super wounded in their last fight and has another stage besides.

Really leaning into that Tyrant a e s t h e t i q u e.
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...You know, the idea of suddenly throwing surprise two-phase boss in the guy's face is a compelling argument. We could beat him with his own video game tropes.
 
I think the base option gives us all the Healing we'll need. Let's save up the Arete and get something truly spectacular!
 
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