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Vorstallen Magic Preparatory - The Third-Best School for Young Mages in the Nation! Enrol Today!

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Raron said:
But there is a chance of things going horribly wrong! We lost all that by a one step success, and I'm afraid to think what would happen if we rolled a 10 or lower.

Would they really take that risk consistently and as often as they can?
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Not the risk, no. If they could guarantee that specific trade every time, though, they would.

Mana matters because at the heart of things having more mana = more power in a really simple way. Sigils are quick to cast, powerful, and flexible in combat.

In terms of raw combat power Sigils >>>>>> Runes >>> Alchemy. Runes need to be pre-set which means they're incredibly powerful in the right circumstances, but it would be much simpler to learn a spell that let Ulos trigger a dust cloud than to forge bricks. But bricks are cheap and can be charged by his friends - Runes are good because of their utility (can't have a citywide hot water plumbing system with sigils), and because they can last a long time (you can set up traps, alarm systems, create magical maps, etc, etc, etc)

Alchemy is good because of what it does outside combat, for the most part. More hours in a day? Better focus? Better hearing, sight, healing, etc? Alchemists who use their art in combat usually just buff up massively with Concoctions and use their superior speed/accuracy etc to get the edge in the Sigil game.

Usually the reason an Alchemist or a Runesmith can compete with a Sigil caster in combat is because those two disciplines lend themselves to being incredibly rich, and they can burn wealth (in the form of charged runic equipment or constant Concoction use) to be able to be equal with a Sigil caster.

Like, Ulos doesn't even get a class to learn how to fight, it's considered that useless for him. If he gets the drop on someone and kills them, sure, but if he ever faces down a Channeling 3 character in combat without intense preparation and foreknowledge his chances are really, really low. For most characters 5 points of mana is a nice bonus that will increase their power. For Ulos it might mean adding another spell into his combat (retreat) rotation, thereby increasing his chances of survival in a bad situation significantly.

It also means he can charge an additional Brick per day if need be, or charge the Rainbow Hammer for two deadly attacks and have detection spells up. He's so mana-poor even a tiny amount can make a large difference.
 
[X] The Brickworks
[X] Hang Out With A Friend (Lucy Firefield)
[X] Study your Magic Pool

Alchemy is sounding pretty relevant for us, but we have come pretty far with Runes and given up the Alchemy charm already. Maybe we can see if there's an alchemist we could trade runework with for soul potions? Though our situation might be such that only obscure and personalized will do. So maybe we could bite the bullet and give Alchemy a try.
 
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occipitallobe said:
Alchemy is good because of what it does outside combat, for the most part. More hours in a day? Better focus? Better hearing, sight, healing, etc? Alchemists who use their art in combat usually just buff up massively with Concoctions and use their superior speed/accuracy etc to get the edge in the Sigil game.
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occipitallobe said:
"Let me give you a tip, then. Manipulating the soul with runes and sigils is possible, but Alchemy has the best record in terms of potency. That being said, there are several things you might be able to do..."
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I'm tempted to go for both Alchemy and Runes next time, what do you think? Spirits seems like a dead end given our mana
 
We might not be broke if we ask Madavian. Perhaps he could argue that we're tutoring him and thus should be paid? I don't think we'll be able to start working on Alchemy if we don't pick it this term but I could be wrong.
 
In terms of graduation, generally you'll need to be passable in two major areas before the Preparatory will formally name you a graduate. (Runes, Theory, Sigils, Combat Magic, Alchemy, Spirits), or very good at one (rarer and not formally stated, but if you're a genius Runesmith they're not going to fail you over rules). That being said, the Preparatory is little more like a university than a high school - in the sense that you'll usually specialise in one or two things, but also do others here and there.

People sometimes take Basic Alchemy several years into their studies.
 
I kind of want to learn Soul Detection from Miranova, so I think we should try to suck up to her again. Other than that, we should probably focus on options that can't get boosted by willpower.

[X] Suck Up To Miranova
[X] Suck Up To Inukar
[X] Study your Magic Pool
[X] Hang Out With A Friend (Lucy Firefield)
[X] The Magical Map
 
@occipitallobe the Lotus Tea is supposed to boost Ulos' understanding of his soul and magic, is that the trait we just gained or is the trait the 'few extra benefits' that come with the degree of success? To make myself clearer, did his understanding of his own soul progress?
 
In this case Ulos was slated to get something like Ether Manipulation (normal people wouldn't, but normal people don't get a weird interaction between the Curse of Transferal and Ghost Lotus Tea) on a non-critical success - more mana in some form, basically. The trait he got was better than the 40-59 roll trait. The 80+ and 95+ roll traits were better as well with each step.
 
Odd, for some reason I apparantly stopped watching this quest. Anyway, nice that it's back.

occipitallobe said:
[ ] Relentlessly Practice Magical Combat - Use some of your little magic to practice your Spellweaving. Abraham will help you, using his progidious Magic Pool to help you deal with, avoid, and retreat from spells. Gain a Training Roll on the lower of Combat: Evasion and Combat: Retreat, as well as a Training Roll vs Channeling. This will help Abraham practice his own Magical Combat. Willpower Upgrade offers a second Training Roll for the applicable Combat Skill. Shooting at you with fireballs is not easy for Abraham, who will spend 1 Willpower undertaking this Action.
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@occipitallobe, I am puzzled by the description. It supposedly offers a training roll to Channeling, which is a stat and I really doubt we can raise it that easily. On the other hand, it doesn't give a training roll for Spellweaving. Is this a mistake?
 
Gingganz said:
@occipitallobe, I am puzzled by the description. It supposedly offers a training roll to Channeling, which is a stat and I really doubt we can raise it that easily. On the other hand, it doesn't give a training roll for Spellweaving. Is this a mistake?
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The Spellweaving is the training roll versus Channeling.
That action gives us d5 x 2 (Physical Stat (I'm actually not sure about this, since we never trained Combat skills)) to Combat: Evasion or Combat: Retreat and d5 x 1 (Channeling Stat) to Spellweaving.
 
[X] Study Group
[X] The Magical Map
[X] Hang Out With A Friend (Lucy Firefield)
[X] Relentlessly Practice Magical Combat

I would like to make a case for Magical Combat. Yes, the advancement rate for Spellweaving sucks, but it is also the only subject we are seriously bad at. I would like to get it up to barely competent. Also, we will at some point need to be able to run away from combat, so we should study that, too.
 
Gingganz said:
[X] Study Group
[X] The Magical Map
[X] Hang Out With A Friend (Lucy Firefield)
[X] Relentlessly Practice Magical Combat

I would like to make a case for Magical Combat. Yes, the advancement rate for Spellweaving sucks, but it is also the only subject we are seriously bad at. I would like to get it up to barely competent. Also, we will at some point need to be able to run away from combat, so we should study that, too.
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We get training for Combat:Retreat for next few classes. It should teach us the basics, and for everything else there is Abraham.

We are currently barely competent and the resources it would require to get it to competent means a lot of resources diverted from something which we are actually good at. Would you rather learn several new potions/runes, develop new and interesting skills or spend dozens of actions (3 points per a action invested on average, and we need 33 to get our Spellwaving to 10). We should still get 18 more points on average (since it rolls 2d5 on Spellwaving, in class and 1d5 if we practice on our own) from classes, this may get redirected into other skills now but you get the point on how inefficient it is. We suck at combat, and that is why we have other people/resources to do it. The entire reason we got a fairly deadly weapon is so that we wouldn't have to put a giant investment in combat situations, and could neglect Spellwaving. It's a valuable stat normally, but as it currently stands we just have no use of it. We are not going to throw fireballs at people anytime soon.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by occipitallobe on Jun 27, 2020 at 3:06 PM, finished with 25 posts and 9 votes.
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There's currently a three-way tie for the second and third Actions. If anyone hasn't voted or would like to change their vote, I'll accept it as a tiebreaker. Otherwise I'll roll a D3 and knock out the loser tomorrow.
 
I haven't voted for either of these and I don't mid voting for the map, considering we've already started creating it.
[X] The Magical Map
[X] Study your Magic Pool
[X] Go to the Marketplace
[X] The Brickworks
[X] Suck Up To Inukar


Edit: adding my previous votes as well
 
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And once again we are in a three way tie, have people considered not going to the study group this week ? It just isn't going to do much in the state we are so it is better to leave it to when we have our willpower and do the action that don't need it, specialy since hanging with Lucy should improve all our future study actions, work smarter and not harder is the name of the game people.
 
Zaratustra said:
And once again we are in a three way tie, have people considered not going to the study group this week ? It just isn't going to do much in the state we are so it is better to leave it to when we have our willpower and do the action that don't need it, specialy since hanging with Lucy should improve all our future study actions, work smarter and not harder is the name of the game people.
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Acceptable reasoning.

[X] Hang Out With A Friend (Lucy Firefield)
[X] The Magical Map
 
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[X] The Magical Map

[X] Study your Magic Pool

and

[X] Hang Out With A Friend (Lucy Firefield)

Have won.


I'll continue with my bit-by-bit posting as I did for the last turn if that people feel that worked. Some updates might be ~400 words, some might be ~2,000.
 
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8.1.1 - Design Turn
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    • The map, Ulos concluded, was going to be a lot of work.

    Henrietta finished her work, as well. They'd gone over books, theories, and Henrietta had several useful texts on runes Ulos would never have thought to access. The benefits of family, he supposed.

    The map itself had a few options, and they needed to come to an agreement on several of them. Henrietta, he had found, was willing to yield to his judgement, but made no bones about disagreeing when she thought it was wrong.

    For this mini-turn, Ulos is preparing to make the Magical Map. He will roll on constructing it as soon as the mini-turn is done. Taking choices Henrietta likes yields a bonus modifier to the Relationship Roll associated with this Action, taking those she dislikes offers a penalty. Please note the DC for being able to construct the Map starts at 0.

    Feel absolutely to free to write a plan and plan vote. The options and complexity of the whole thing got away on me. Bear in mind Ulos gets +20 to Clay Crafting, Henrietta gets somewhere between +15 and +20 for Metal, and somewhere between +10 and +15 for Stone (she has more connections re: equipment and can borrow stuff from home at need to a degree).

    The Material:

    [ ] Stone - Requires carving and time, but the map is of moderate resiliency. No DC modifier.

    [ ] Clay - The least resilient, but also the easiest to make. Ulos is good at crafting clay to begin with. Lowers DC by 10, but the Map is far more breakable.

    [ ] Metal - Requires etching metal. Henrietta has some experience in metal runecraft. Henrietta's preference. Increases DC by 20, but the Map is close to invincible.

    Detection - the thread must take at least one of these options, but can take them all:

    [ ] Life Detection - The Map detects life - only above a certain size, as to not be overwhelmed by grass, insects, animals, etc. It will pick up lifesigns in its designated area. +20 DC.

    [ ] No Life Detection - Leave it out. Henrietta sees Life and Motion together as redundant and does not want to take both.

    [ ] Motion Detection - The Map detects motion, though only above a certain size or velocity. Attacks, people, small animals. +20 DC.

    [ ] No Motion Detection - Leave it out. Henrietta sees Life and Motion together as redundant and does not want to take both.

    [ ] Illusion Detection - The Map detects illusions of any kind, though only detects the location of the spell, not the effect. Henrietta would like to add this. +30 DC.

    [ ] No Illusion Detection - Leave it out.

    Display Features:

    [ ] Simple Light Display. Displays lights on the surface of the map. Does not display in 3D. -10 DC. Henrietta thinks this is a little beneath the both of you in terms of design appearance and does not want to take this option.

    [ ] 3D Display. A display of lights that becomes a three-dimensional holographic display when detecting something above or below ground level. +10 DC

    [ ] Name Features. A keyboard made of lights can store information on each detected entity. Resets when entities walk out of range. +5 DC.

    [ ] Persistent name features. Once named, the Map will remember each detected entity forever (unless their life energy is disguised somehow). +15 DC Requires Life Detection, requires Name Features.

    Area - (keep in mind the Map does need to be in the area it's detecting, you can't watch the Dorms from the Classrooms):

    [ ] The Dorms - Simple, the Dorms in which you and others live. A useful, but limited area. -10 DC.

    [ ] The Dorms & Surrounds - The Dorms, and some distance around them. Useful for keeping track of people within a few hundred metres of the Dorms.. -5 DC.

    [ ] The Dorms, Surrounds, and Classrooms - Still limited, but can protect you in the classrooms you all current go to on a weekly basis. Henrietta's strong preference.     +15 DC.

    [ ] Dynamic Mapping - Will map out any area you carry it to and will maintain detection within a few hundred metres. Massively increases the flexibility and powers of the Map. +40 DC.

    Etherial Closure:

    [ ] Mana Bleed - Mana discharge rate is doubled, but runes that allow Bleed are far, far easier to carve. -10 DC. Henrietta finds the idea of magical bleed as part of the design repugnant, and does not want to take this option.

    [ ] No Additional Work. No DC change.

    [ ] Attempt Closure - Mana discharge rate is halved, but the Map is more difficult to carve. +20 DC.
     
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