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A Simple Transaction I

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Hirorubie said:
How would you folks rate Odyssial in a fight vs the Hidden Masters? Is he the success we have to measure ourselves against?
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*waggles hand*

Odyssial's power was vast and varied; nonetheless, he was slain by the Exalted Host.

If he has time to prepare, there's basically nothing he couldn't surmount. He was building the counter to their efforts (king stands alone) when they struck him down.

That said, The Hidden Masters are well in excess of our estimation. It's possible that they could be another force capable of smothering Odyssial in the midst of his apotheosis. (the early bit anyway, the ascension never ends)

If he's just dumped in a world like Hunger was and made vaguely aware that some force out there is out to get him, then no.
 
To note, even when Hunger was in a worse situation vs Tyrant, he took out time to relax, and per his direct words to Gisena, if he didn't, he would not have even lasted long enough against the Tyrant to begin with.

When is an appropriate time for Hunger to relax, if not when there are in fact no pressing threats?

If I were to suspect, Evening Sky is probably 1 pick a day (fighting 2 or 3 pick enemies and stress resulted) since it is innately lower risk and thus less fitting for the Ring Hunger. Still pretty fast though. Using it as relaxation alone is I suppose possible but rather inefficient.
 
BrainInAJar said:
The opportunity for that was probably Forsaken Mask back in chargen. But we took the Apocryphal Curse instead, so we are kind of committed. Again, only the next Apocryphal proc is worse while we get to keep the Signs forever; and we will have access to Pillars to heal all out conditions with a bit of investment, so long-term I absolutely think it's worth it. Power can not only mean more safety, but more latitude for action as well, which is often returned in the form of more power for us. It's less safety in the immediate for much more safety later; absolutely worth it in my opinion.
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And then the Apocryphal scales up, rendering the extra gains nominal. Once again, trying to outscale Apoc by making it worse is a losing preposition. It is a fight Hunger will lose. If not in the quest proper, in the epilogue.

Finally, just because Forsaken Mask lost doesn't mean that relaxing individual votes are now suddenly against the point of the quest. If they were, why is Rihaku even allowing them?
 
BrainInAJar said:
The most positive outcome is the the current leading vote by any metric you care to name; even a hit to Mental Stability now is worth it to secure the power necessary against future hits later. Power is fundamentally safety, especially in Rihaku quests; throwing that away for a momentary peace of mind is foolhardy at best.

To Quest is to suffer, yes.
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Cursebearer's Strain is a death sentence; it increases the threat we face next fight relative to our power to an unconscionable degree.
 
Shard said:
And then the Apocryphal scales up, rendering the extra gains nominal. Once again, trying to outscale Apoc by making it worse is a losing preposition. It is a fight Hunger will lose.
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BrainInAJar said:
Apocryphal scales imperfectly and only its next proc is strengthened, while we get to keep the Signs forever. Moreover, all of our problems don't reduce themselves to the Apocryphal Curse; the number of sticky situations deliberately caused by Apocryphal is far lesser than the number of dangers we accept willingly. Against that, more power is absolutely more safety.
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BrainInAJar said:
The opportunity for that was probably Forsaken Mask back in chargen. But we took the Apocryphal Curse instead, so we are kind of committed. Again, only the next Apocryphal proc is worse while we get to keep the Signs forever; and we will have access to Pillars to heal all out conditions with a bit of investment, so long-term I absolutely think it's worth it. Power can not only mean more safety, but more latitude for action as well, which is often returned in the form of more power for us. It's less safety in the immediate for much more safety later; absolutely worth it in my opinion.
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Shard said:
Finally, just because Forsaken Mask lost doesn't mean that relaxing individual votes are now suddenly against the point of the quest. If they were, why is Rihaku even allowing them?
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Oh, I don't have a problem with relaxing votes, but we will face harrowing situations no matter what we do, is the point. You shouldn't vote for Research because of some thematic disagreement, but because it has absolutely incredible value, the most out of any option. Just because we can relax doesn't mean it's the best thing to do.
George said:
Cursebearer's Strain is a death sentence; it increases the threat we face next fight relative to our power to an unconscionable degree.
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Not really. We have survived 100% Apocryphal procs fine before, and while we were much less powerful and without access to the restorative properties of Pillars. We even successfully ouscaled Ber not once but twice, the poor fool. It's something absolutely doable.
 
BrainInAJar said:
Not really. We have survived 100% Apocryphal procs fine before, and while we were much less powerful and without access to the restorative properties of Pillars. We even successfully ouscaled Ber not once but twice, the poor fool. It's something absolutely doable.
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we got lucky. we've already faced fights with substantial chance we straight up died, like Vanreir.
Rihaku said:
Current vote count?



Vanreir was considerably more dangerous than that!
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BrainInAJar said:
Oh, I don't have a problem with relaxing votes, but we will face harrowing situations no matter what we do, is the point. You shouldn't vote for Research because of some thematic disagreement, but because it has absolutely incredible value, the most out of any option. Just because we can relax doesn't mean it's the best thing to do.

Not really. We have survived 100% Apocryphal procs fine before, and while we were much less powerful and without access to the restorative properties of Pillars. We even successfully ouscaled Ber not once but twice, the poor fool. It's something absolutely doable.
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Meh, voting for value VALUE by itself is kind of missing the point in the quest, almost in a numbers go up brr kind of way. And if that was the point, Praxis is just more efficient than any combination of Intensive Research synergies.

As for Apocryphal proc survival.. we actually almost went and killed ourselves over Ber by going straight to the Temple. We survived only due to grabbing 2x 25 Arete advancements. Our responces to Apocryphal has pretty much always been a combo of 'get Arete advancement to solve problem' which, okay if people want to mine for Arete endlessly, I guess that works.
 
Shard said:
Meh, voting for value VALUE by itself is kind of missing the point in the quest, almost in a numbers go up brr kind of way. And if that was the point, Praxis is just more efficient than any combination of Intensive Research synergies.
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I think this is why I really would love to be voting for Sightseeing, you can't buy a scene like that for 26 Arete or whatever it is we're giving up. Once it's gone, it's likely gone as the press of events begins to push us ever onwards.
 
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BrainInAJar said:
Not really. We have survived 100% Apocryphal procs fine before, and while we were much less powerful and without access to the restorative properties of Pillars. We even successfully ouscaled Ber not once but twice, the poor fool. It's something absolutely doable.
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Apocryphal procs scale with us mostly, so how much power we have is irrelevant unless its out scaling it specifically.

We have fought all of one 100% Apocryphal proc, the pirate. Ber was after we did some initial mitigation, and that 90% Apocryphal fight ended with one companion crippled and us so spooked that we threw ourselves into the Temple (where we almost died multiple times) to make sure we didn't die to him later.

The Rotbeast, a 90% strength proc that we explicitly did outscale thanks to it happening right after the Temple, was literally a single option away from killing us regardless of all the power leveling we did in the Temple. We rolled so low that if we didn't burn a Nat 1 on stopping Quickwater before we engaged it (an option we picked not at all because it happened to be safer but for other rewards) we'd have been slain while miles inside of it away from any rescue.

These are 90% procs, I have no appetite to deal with whatever nonsense a 130% proc is going to throw at us even with the scaling we've done, especially if we don't have to.
 
Shard said:
Meh, voting for value VALUE by itself is kind of missing the point in the quest, almost in a numbers go up brr kind of way. And if that was the point, Praxis is just more efficient than any combination of Intensive Research synergies.
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There are plenty of characterization benefits from Hunger giving his all for the realms under him; especially given how his Style of Rule turned out. Only the max synergy vote address both the realm and the mage-extraction problem, which can be an important characterization beat. It absolutely has narrative and characters benefits, it just also has a ton of value as well.
Shard said:
As for Apocryphal proc survival.. we actually almost went and killed ourselves over Ber by going straight to the Temple. We survived only due to grabbing 2x 25 Arete advancements. Our responces to Apocryphal has pretty much always been a combo of 'get Arete advancement to solve problem' which, okay if people want to mine for Arete endlessly, I guess that works.
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Enohthree said:
Apocryphal procs scale with us mostly, so how much power we have is irrelevant unless its out scaling it specifically.

We have fought all of one 100% Apocryphal proc, the pirate. Ber was after we did some initial mitigation, and that 90% Apocryphal fight ended with one companion crippled and us so spooked that we threw ourselves into the Temple (where we almost died multiple times) to make sure we didn't die to him later.

The Rotbeast, a 90% strength proc that we explicitly did outscale thanks to it happening right after the Temple, was literally a single option away from killing us regardless of all the power leveling we did in the Temple. We rolled so low that if we didn't burn a Nat 1 on stopping Quickwater before we engaged it (an option we picked not at all because it happened to be safer but for other rewards) we'd have been slain while miles inside of it away from any rescue.

These are 90% procs, I have no appetite to deal with whatever nonsense a 130% proc is going to throw at us even with the scaling we've done, especially if we don't have to.
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I'm pretty sure Ber triggered before the mitigation, at least Rihaku implied such. And I don't think you get to claim the rolls would have went exactly the same had we chosen different options either. And people did pick Quickwater first because it was safer, too. We do try to play safe when the procs do happen to us, really.

Point is, with our Rank, our Perfect Defense and our access to Signs and Pillars, we are in fact much better equipped to deal with Apocryphal than we ever were previously. And we know the Apocryphal can be scaled in the short-term, which is where this proc has the greater chance of happening anyway. We can absolutely roll with this, and even Rihaku stated this is the most efficient combo. Doing this is in fact doable.
 
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There are true mitigation options for Apocryphal for the record. Rihaku has explicitly acceded to the Nameless plan, and even if we don't go with it, Apoc doesn't properly scale to companions. Having a party where everyone is sort of on the similar level mitigates Apoc due to scaling to a lower power level.
 
Sightseeing/Regency and Regency/consolidate combined are the same votes as the Strain option but are splitting votes too. Idk which to consolidate with!!!
Adhoc vote count started by Thomasfoolery on Sep 30, 2020 at 11:17 PM, finished with 389 posts and 61 votes.
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[X] Cursebearer's Strain
[X] Study the Blade x1
[X] Study the Blade x2
[X] Study the Blade x3
 
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