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A Simple Transaction I

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LordOfMurder said:
If it helps even if push wins and we end up taking Gisena it's not that bad! With Gisena around we're more likely to trigger form of Rage when we need to instead of Hunger deciding it isn't dramatically appropriate and just dying!
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That actually is a good point. Keeping our companion safe probably significantly increases the motivation factor.

Orm Embar said:
The Dreadnought's best suited to fighting on the wake of a Form of Rage proc; if I haven't bungled the math, we'd ignore 87.5% of Tired and 56.25% of Exhausted. More constitution also gives us time to get good and angry about who or whatever's burned through that much of our health by the time we're ready for Form of Rage. Also, the tripled stats on our final form'll make that thing laughably hard to kill. We've thought a lot about how the more conventional stats interact with the multiplier, but it applies to the likes of intelligence as well! We don't just fight harder, we fight smarter. And then there's charisma, we've got... +4, currently? 5 if Sharp makes the cut? A +12 bonus is getting into supernatural terror territory.
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Sure.

Now stop Rune King from winning and I'd be happy with it.
 
Here is everything the options give us compiled together:

Rune King: -7 Arete, +1 Strength, +1 Agility, +8 Constitution, +1 Protection, +1 Wisdom, +1 Intelligence, 50% resistance to the Tired Condition, 25% resistance to the Exhausted Condition, [To Shatter Heaven] to all magics we learn, massive synergy with [Iron Curtain] if we end up picking that eventually, can't ever restore our missing eye

Sharp of Eye: -7 Arete, +1 Strength, +1 Agility, +8 Constitution, +1 Protection, +2 Wits, +1 Charisma, +1 eye, 50% resistance to the Tired Condition, 25% resistance to the Exhausted Condition, massive synergy with [Iron Curtain] if we end up picking that eventually

Apex: No Arete cost, +2 Strength, +2 Agility, +2 Constitution, +.2 Rank

Strong Sword-Arm: -7 Arete, +6 Strength, +1 Agility, +1 Constitution, +1 arm, Power of Ruin scales upwards with Strength, barehanded strikes carry the full destructive power of the Forebear's Blade, unlocks Martial Stances: Forebear's Blade, All melee attacks made with Forebear's Blade apply cursed wounds, Septuples the power and speed of the Fell-Handed Stroke, Fell-Handed Stroke can now be used with blade projections

Root and Branch: -7 Arete, -5% penalty for 1 day, -1 Definig Advancement slot, +5 Strength, -1.6 Agility, +8 Constitution, Increase by 20% the value of all future Rank +s, Double the value of future Strength and Constitution +s, Double the value of future Willpower +s, Reduce by 20% the value of future Agility +s, By committing meaningful resources towards a given context and staking out a solid position slowly but increasingly accrue power and influence within that context, up to 5 companions receive bonus Protection, Constitution and regeneration depending on both our relative power levels and their level of loyalty to us
 
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Byzantine said:
The very quotes you just quoted show that we aren't losing options or tactics that use it. Any such loss would be our decision, not because it stops being offered.
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Rihaku said:
Before rushing into Stranglethorn, make sure you want to lean into the concept of a character who is slow but powerful, with all the advantages and downsides that entails.
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What do you think leaning into a slow character entails?
Byzantine said:
Again, we're not even losing all the Agi we picked up in our first fight in the Temple. We aren't suddenly becoming slugs.
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Rihaku said:
But you guys should have clear expectations about what will happen to your speed and not try to downplay it.
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If you want to downplay the speed loss that's fine, hopefully others heed the warning and vote for Stranglethorn with eyes wide open.

Byzantine said:
I just... Are we reading the same thing?
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Wondering the same thing myself.
 
Sickul said:
Yikes, I really recommend you not do this. It's seen as bad form to have others come in and vote just to help a vote win. If Rihaku is fine with vote trading in his quest that's one thing, but to force it upon other QMs and threads isn't right.
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Vote trading has actually been part of this quest for awhile now; people have been making puns about the name of the quest making it a fitting place for it. Personally I don't subscribe to participating, because I like to be able to just pick the vote I like and then argue in its favor without worrying about anything else involved, but it's fine as long as people aren't going crazy with it.

The way Rihaku weights arguments in the final victory of an option helps, because people who are just voting to fulfill the simple contract (see? It's so easy!) don't tend to be very invested so they usually don't argue terribly strongly in its favor, so it doesn't demolish the voting system like it would in a First-Past-The-Post quest. It all balances out fairly well.
 
LordOfMurder said:
If it helps even if push wins and we end up taking Gisena it's not that bad! With Gisena around we're more likely to trigger form of Rage when we need to instead of Hunger deciding it isn't dramatically appropriate and just dying!
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Byzantine said:
That actually is a good point.
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The best/worst thing is that this legitimately good point reads like more of a shitpost than the average shitpost. Random worm ambush? Guess I'll die.

w i l l p o w e r is cool, but friendship-bought is fine too.
 
Being slow For our strength level, is really not the end of the world. Even in the near term, the value of having a debuffer we don't have to worry about getting mulched if something brushes past her is a huge increase in effectiveness, let alone the other value having her along and not as anchor gives.

In the long term the 20% agi reduction gets completely overshadowed by +20% Rank alone, not even considering the other benefits.

formalAI said:
If you're wondering about that massive +16 Constitution from Root and Branch, don't forget to take into account the stat bonuses from Vanguard.
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We don't get any I'm pretty sure, the +3 that showed up previously was when it was bundled with its prerequisite.
 
Dark Abstraction said:
Personally I don't subscribe to participating, because I like to be able to just pick the vote I like and then argue in its favor without worrying about anything else involved, but it's fine as long as people aren't going crazy with it.
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That was talking about trading votes in this quest in exchange for votes in another quest entirely.
 
Dark Abstraction said:
I know, it just doesn't really... feel, like there's much weight to the decision to take Rune King, in the form that it currently exists. It's subjective interpretation, so it's one of those things that cant' really be reasoned with, it just... it isn't very cool to me, I guess.
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This was my complaint earlier which is a decent portion of the reason why I wanted to take Gardener's Hallow, because it felt the most like what we might get from a giant burrowing wrym aside from raw stats apex. Of course everyone said no because it was pure potential rather than immediate gains and because it use took time. For what it is worth I think that the tankyness from dreadnaught can be justified as coming from killing the wyrm and rune king can maybe if you are willing to stretch and say that the way hunger did not just keep barreling forewords showed wisdom though is still feels to anti climactic and thematically off to me, but practically it is very good.
 
runeblue360 said:
That was talking about trading votes in this quest in exchange for votes in another quest entirely.
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Trading votes for votes in other quests has also historically happened in Rihaku quests.

Sickul said:
What do you think leaning into a slow character entails?


If you want to downplay the speed loss that's fine, hopefully others heed the warning and vote for Stranglethorn with eyes wide open.


Wondering the same thing myself.
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Being slightly slower is worth being slightly better at reality warping plus being twice as strong, twice as tough and capable of establishing ourself in any context slowly becoming unbeatable in it. Maybe we can establish ourself as a progression cursebearer?
 
Sickul said:
What do you think leaning into a slow character entails?
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Not very much, based on every time I've played with a slow character. There are always tricks.

Sickul said:
If you want to downplay the speed loss that's fine, hopefully others heed the warning and vote for Stranglethorn with eyes wide open.
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The speed loss is meh. Right now it's less than 2 echo's worth, and as we get stronger we'll be able to more than compensate for a minor agility drain, especially since the ridiculous con and str boost means we need to focus on them less.

And this is still ignoring the significant benefit to 20% faster rank growth.
 
Zfglx said:
This was my complaint earlier which is a decent portion of the reason why I wanted to take Gardener's Hallow, because it felt the most like what we might get from a giant burrowing wrym aside from raw stats apex. Of course everyone said no because it was pure potential rather than immediate gains and because it use took time. For what it is worth I think that the tankyness from dreadnaught can be justified as coming from killing the wyrm and rune king can maybe if you are willing to stretch and say that the way hunger did not just keep barreling forewords showed wisdom though is still feels to anti climactic and thematically off to me, but practically it is very good.
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It's remarkably unfortunate that Gardener's Hallow came up at a supremely shit location for it to be a competitive choice. If we weren't doing our best job at Indiana Jones Lord Hunger and the Temple of Doom Moon, I would have supported it in a heartbeat. But, alas, practicality was forced to win out so that we could continue the quest with reasonable enough safety to one day fulfill the conditions to get it offered as an option again.
 
The fact that Rihaku hasn't teased with the potential of a defining advancement better suited to us than stranglethorn tells me that they are either far, far away, or there aren't any we are likely to encounter (and survive) any time soon.
 
So I get that Stranglethorn is very very good, but do we really have to take it now, when agility has been twice shown to be something we really need in this dungeon. Also while the hit to agility we take now is small it will only get larger the more we grow so we really can't argue that it is truly negligible. I don't want to have to take options to mitigate an agility penalty when there may very well be options that I really want to go after like Hallow. This is not saying that Stranglethorn is bad or useless but it doesn't feel like what we need right now and while the rank growth increase is amazing we need to actually start growing our rank.
 
Byzantine said:
The fact that Rihaku hasn't teased with the potential of a defining advancement better suited to us than stranglethorn tells me that they are either far, far away, or there aren't any we are likely to encounter (and survive) any time soon.
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Or we just aren't really doing the things that would proc them. We have done fuck-all in regards to situations relating to sociability or rulership, and I am willing to bet dollars to donuts that there'll be a Defining Advancement relevant to that.

What we have done, is do our best impression of Killfuck Soulshitter, the bringer of bloodshed and ruin upon all before him. And Stranglethorn seems to do a bang-up job providing assistance in that kind of endeavor. Not to say there aren't other Defining Advancements that might also help out that sort of action catalog, but this is the first to pop up in that capacity.
 
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Given how Dreadnought is apparently a safer build, I'm switching my vote for Sweeping the Outskirts to pushing in further

[x]Dreadnought
-[x]Rune King
[x]Apex
[x]Bring Gisena
[x]Push in Further
[x]Search For Humans
 
Dark Abstraction said:
Or we just aren't really doing the things that would proc them. We have done fuck-all in regards to situations relating to sociability or rulership, and I am willing to bet dollars to donuts that there'll be a Defining Advancement relevant to that.
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What I mean is Rihaku is focusing his anti-stranglethorn arguments entirely on the agil penalty rather than the cost of a defining advancement slot. This makes me suspect we aren't going to encounter another similarly powerful pick for some time.

(On that note, I find it very frustrating when Rihaku is very clearly supporting one option over another even when they are relatively close.)
 
[X] Push in Further
[X] Dreadnought - Echo, Dreadnought's Bearing
-[X] Rune King
[X] Strong Sword-Arm

I have been fighting for SORD GOD since forever, can we finally take OVERWHELMING OFFENSIVE MIGHT to start murderizing this Temple and finally solve the mystery of this place?

I don't mind Rune King either, mostly because one eyed warrior mages are like the best man. It's definitely the coolest option here.
 
[X] Push in Further
[X] Don't Bring Gisena
[X] Dreadnought
-[X] Sharp of Eye
[X] Strong Sword-Arm
short term power no maiming, may change later but seems pretty wacky to vote for multiple actions, or pick two builds that have completely different optimal actions

Orm Embar said:
The Dreadnought's best suited to fighting on the wake of a Form of Rage proc; if I haven't bungled the math, we'd ignore 87.5% of Tired and 56.25% of Exhausted. Valuable, given the thread's proclivities. More constitution also gives us time to get good and angry about who or whatever's burned through that much of our health by the time we're ready for Form of Rage.

Also, the tripled stats on our final form'll make that thing laughably hard to kill. We've thought a lot about how the more conventional stats interact with the multiplier, but it applies to the likes of intelligence as well! We don't just fight harder, we fight smarter. And then there's charisma, we've got... +4, currently? 5 if Sharp makes the cut? A +12 bonus is getting into supernatural terror territory.
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btw orm the math is indeed bungled
25% reduction = 75% severity. So 0.75 squared = 0.5625, 56.25% severity of exhausted, or 43.75% reduction total, 18.75% additional from existing.
For tired, 0.75 * 0.5 = 0.375, 37.5% severity of tired, or 62.5% reduction total, 37.5% additional from existing.
 
Honestly, whenever I look at Stranglethorn all I see is a Salt Mine. I can already tell that if we get it we're going to get people arguing "No we shouldn't take vote X, its got agility and that's less efficient for us!" and "Yes we have to take vote X, its got agility in it and we're slow!"

And this will happen every, single, fucking, TIME, that we get a build vote with agility in it as one of our major options.

Personally, that relitigation and frustration sounds particularly unpleasant even for a Rihaku quest.
 
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