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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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chocolote12 said:
I was originally envisaging this as an effect almost so low-level as to be aesthetic, rather than an actual thing, but the more I thought about it the more I realized how incredibly useful a hand on the end of our staff would be. It would certainly be cool enough that it would be worth expending effort on it specifically, rather than asking to have it as flavor text, so that we can get it to move around at will (hopefully by thought).

I won't talk in detail about all the hand puns it would allow us to make (although it would let us make many), or how useful a grabber on a stick would be (reach it through a window and yoinketh whatever's caught our eye). Instead, I'll point out something that didn't stick out even to me at first.

Right now, our ability to fight on a mount is curtailed slightly by our choice of weapon. Greatswords are great, but there's a reason Brettonians consider it a sacrifice that questing knights have to give up their lances; if your opponent is close enough to strike your mount you're way too close to be comfortable. A spear or halberd is just better because it has more reach.

We can't reforge a runic greatsword, and if we did and our opponents got in close anyways we'd be in real trouble because most of our experience is in greatswording and not lancing. In addition, a purely mundane weapon wouldn't be too great with our size and build; unless we could put the weight of our mount behind a spear we'd only scratch up anything actually worth fighting.

Finally, we can't exactly go and ask for another runic weapon to pick up a different style of combat, because that'd be super expensive and it'd require us to carry around a twelve foot long polearm everywhere which would be significantly more cumbersome than a greatsword and fit through less doors.

However, if our dragonbone staff had a hand on the end, then it could just grab on to the end of Branalhune (which we know is light enough to be one-handed, because runic weapons are all hand weapons in the lore and that was translated into the quest this way), and suddenly we've got a sword-spear.

There'd be a lot of mechanical issues with that normally, because holding onto something isn't as strong as affixing it in place, but Branalhune provides its own force upon impact in order to avoid tearing its wielder's arms off, which means we just need to make contact and its runes will handle the rest of the effort. In addition, if it gets knocked out of our staff's hand, rather than either shattering or getting lost, we can just summon our sword back to us and put it back in place.

For the mechanical issues, we'd get something much better than a simple spear. A polearm with a hand on the end would let our staff swing around Branalhune just like we do; it'd have less of a range of motion, but if you think a spear is coming in from a certain angle it'd be quite a surprise to find that it can twist itself in the middle to avoid your guard.
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On one hand, it's a call back to the early Dammerlichreiter days. On the other, I don't know, it's the kind of shenanigan Boney would either hate or love.
 
[X] Plan Fulfilling Obligations v2
I'll be honest and say i'm not super interested in the grand theurgy plans that (to my knowledge) are the main goal of coin study anyway, but i'm definitely more in favor of a second work action over it
 
Slamu said:
Can I convince you otherwise? It sounded like the Besiegers were preparing to either go up to Marienburg or support the canal options given how they were training with boats. They're a good unit, but I think it's more important that Belegar help cover those angles even as he sends us to help with Karag Dum.
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Mostly, I want Gretel for the thing. Someone to deal with undead hordes sounds dead useful.
 
Guys, the reason we are mostly voting for a single direct action this turn is because everything else becomes significantly worse if done this early.

Interviewing merchants is a long shot to being with, inverviewing mechants a year and a half before the earliest departue date is next to useless when we are already collecting information from Qretch and LM Grey, which should have not only plentiful but deeply insightful observations, given they seriously operated on the area.
 
BurnNote said:
I don't like the "hand on staff" idea. That just seems like such a cartoony thing.
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I wouldn't mind it - it's wacky, but magical wacky - but this now sounds like a serious enchantment, and I can't imagine that wouldn't get in the way of the actual core functionality of a staff.

Maybe you could put some kind of hole/latch on the end you could temporarily affix Branalhune to, but I really wouldn't bet on it.

TotallyNotEvil said:
Guys, the reason we are mostly voting for a single direct action this turn is because everything else becomes significantly worse if done this early.

Interviewing merchants is a long shot to being with, inverviewing mechants a year and a half before the earliest departue date is next to useless when we are already collecting information from Qretch and LM Grey, which should have not only plentiful but deeply insightful observations, given they seriously operated on the area.
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Yeah, that's basically a waste of an action.
 
TotallyNotEvil said:
Guys, the reason we are mostly voting for a single direct action this turn is because everything else becomes significantly worse if done this early.

Interviewing merchants is a long shot to being with, inverviewing mechants a year and a half before the earliest departue date is next to useless when we are already collecting information from Qretch and LM Grey, which should have not only plentiful but deeply insightful observations, given they seriously operated on the area.
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This really feels like a task that incentivizes peaking at the right time yeah. I don't think we really need to be too concerned about marking off our time sheet month by month in comparison to being able to looking at the time frame of the task as a whole.
 
Also, Chaos Wastes are nasty, that's true. But we aren't going to be meeting Grimnir at the Polar Gates or anything like that people.

If wizards can toss spells at literal armies of daemons during a Storm of Chaos, with Greater Daemons in the field and the freaking Everchosen dueling the Emperor two streets over, then they can absolutely walk around the shallows of the Wastes for a bit. Having more magic availble also means you don't have to pull deep to get things to work, as it'd be in more starved areas.

Here's a reminder that Sylvania is so fucked up that the dead spontaneously rise up. And the battle wizards seem to be doing more than fine there, and those are the guys who work with the most volatile magic.

There are wizards who make fighting Chaos their life's work. Unless they are Journeymen, lets not presume to know better when we actually have very little experience with anything Chaos.

We don't even have the option to call in favors for this. We'd be calling for volunteers only.

It's not a trifling matter, and every single wizard knows it. But it isn't a one-way road to hell either.
 
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chocolote12 said:
However, if our dragonbone staff had a hand on the end, then it could just grab on to the end of Branalhune (which we know is light enough to be one-handed, because runic weapons are all hand weapons in the lore and that was translated into the quest this way), and suddenly we've got a sword-spear.
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I am 200% in favor of a staff with a hand. Not just because we can use it for awesome sword-staff shenanigans, but also because it has so much mundane utility and it's so hilariously on-brand. We're guaranteed to eventually be presented with some artifact or target hidden behind a flesh-eating force field, for example, and a hand on a stick is a perfect answer. Plus I want to see the dwarven reaction. Can you imagine Kragg seeing us wield Branalhune like that?

(I still want Mathilde to throw Branalhune at something...)
Rotekian said:
It is unlikely that the magical equivalent of non-magical plate (instead of mail) will make the difference between surviving a scouting action or not surviving a scouting action. It might make a difference to being wounded or heavily wounded of course so it is a nice-to-have.
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Having better defenses is good, but the real win with an upgraded set of Aethyric Armor is the mastery buff that makes us physically tireless. Right now we can only maintain Aethyric Armor for a few minutes, and we occasionally start a fight without it up and have to spend some time casting it. Even with the Shadow Steed available, being able to maintain a dead sprint for fourteen hours solid would be a big deal.

[x] Plan Keep It Classy

I believe that we're going to be taking enough assignment-related actions in the upcoming turns that we don't have to worry about how much we're doing that's strictly related in this single turn. I also believe that many of the options are far better taken later on, notably the recruitment efforts and the actual scouting.

Even then, I believe that our current efforts, even though they're not strictly related, are enough to present as pursuit of our assignment when taken in combination. Anti-Chaos training plus tools for keeping our spellcasting stable and improving our capabilities for a long-haul mission, for example, a pretty indicative of what we expect to be doing.

I'm also very happy that we're starting off talking to Qretch, because it gives us time to write a paper before we leave if he gives us anything particularly good. In fact, I wonder if he'd be happy enough fucking over the Chaos Dwarves that we could straight-up write a paper with him:

[] Write a paper: Insight on Chaos Dwarf Strategy + Tactics, with Qretch as co-author
 
I wonder if if would be possible to get a detachable runic 'bayonet' that attaches to a staff that's made to be able to be couched like a lance.

Get one with the Master Rune of Daemonslaying and go to town.
 
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Something to consider is that Roswita will be looking to end the war against the vampires soon. I feel like Mathilde would want to be there to fight in it.
 
On the future-turn planning, I think the real cincher is talking with the Ice Witches next turn. We should either get a flat "no", or we can get a prevision for when they will be able to help, thus determining the proper timeline.
 
I'm not super into the Hand-staff, (seems kind of "Riddler's question mark cane" to me), but I wonder if you could practice with the Rune of the Unknown enough that you'd be able to disappear it from your hand, and re-appear it to either hand or staff at will.

Although, I do think the greatest roadblock to the scheme-plan would be having a Runic weapon so close to a Magic staff; with both of them being powerful examples of such, I'd bet anything they'd interfere with each other badly at that distance.

(like, especially if you want to make the staff's fingers move through magic, the magics would basically be touching at that point)
 
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