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Live The Balance (Original cultivation)

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Sir Giraffe said:
And I don't really think moving to hunt is the best idea, it is good because pay more, but my guess is that the garden will be our best or fastest shot to gain a Spirit... Since we deal with spirits there. Our talent is to be a Speaker so the fastest we have a spirit or more, the better.
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Hunting will likely take place outside the sect though, so we have more opportunity to run into interesting spirits in the wild vs staying in the sect. The sect has already been mentioned to be mostly devoid of spirits outside of the gardens which may not have the most versatile spirits assuming we are allowed to contract them.

I do still want to continue the garden job, but I think hunting should be a consideration as well once we are stronger and looking for spirits to contract.
 
Wing101 said:
Make sense try to get a spirit first before trying hunting to capitalize on our talents?
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Yeah, and to Hunt we will need to invest a lot of money and time to rise the combat skills. In the short future, we will continue in the garden anyway, so we have time to see what is best and we can always try one time and see what happens.

Corndog said:
Hunting will likely take place outside the sect though, so we have more opportunity to run into interesting spirits in the wild vs staying in the sect. The sect has already been mentioned to be mostly devoid of spirits outside of the gardens which may not have the most versatile spirits assuming we are allowed to contract them.

I do still want to continue the garden job, but I think hunting should be a consideration as well once we are stronger and looking for spirits to contract.
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I agree. I still want to have one Spirit with us before going to hunt. The spirits in the garden are probably more friendly to people than a wild spirit, and so easier to gain trust and we can have more leeway to some tests or whatever we need to do.

We will need to go to hunt later to train and learn to fight, and see more exotic spirits to befriend, just now is not the better to farmboy.
 
Alectai said:
New follower, a question though--are there differences in quality between "Purchased" techniques and the "Free" ones though?
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Purchased techs start off at a higher level than free techs; however from what Elder Fang said in his lecture they can both be levelled to grow to the same level as you, no matter how far you grow. The question isn't so much 'which one's better' as it is 'Do I want to spend points to get a tech that's more powerful right now.'
 
A 25% gain will rise our Body Stat to I? If yes, I prefer to spend 100 points on this tuition.
Kadmus said:
100 sect points
An inner disciple will oversee your efforts to improve your very self. Dedicate 7 time blocks and gain +25% towards the next letter rank in a stat other than Talent. Works up to and including Letter Rank H.
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@Kadmus
How can we snatch- can we adopt(this is the term?) a spirit? Can we do it now as an outer human? Can we take a garden spirit from the sect for us?
 
I think we should focus on Garden Job and spent the points to raise Stats: Body, Mind & Spirit to G. Then all subsequent learning and cultivation will be much quicker and cheaper.
 
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[ ] Earth is born from the flame.
[ ] Metal is drawn from the stone.

Here are my votes for this side, I want to play into the solidity of our peasant background. Someone who cares for family and old tradition while understanding why.

[ ] The Garden Job. Now that you're an outer disciple, the job pays better, but has commensurate difficulties. +1 sect point per hour per Step increase. At your current level (Second Step Outer Human), offers 13 sect points per time block, plus the Degrees of Success on your Spirit Ken roll.

Let's keep this rolling I like the vibe and we can use this as a spring board to more complicated stuff.


[ ] Free technique.
- [ ] Mental
- [ ] Type: Support
- [ ] Element : Earth
—[ ] Specifics. A technique capable of buffing third parties inside and out of combat. Sub optimal combat performance is acceptable for being able to funnel Qi into others in non combat situations. Empowerment is the key word


[ ] Purchase Technique (50 sect points)
- [ ] Physical
- [ ] Type: Attack
- [ ] Element: Metal
—[ ] Specifics. An attack to make our strikes like . Pretty straight forward.

I don't want combat to be our focus, but this allows utility and offense

finally I would like to buy:

[] a political tutor who will appraise us of how to play the "game" 50 points

our last convo with our urchin friend got me thinking. Let's get ahead of the game. Why get pushed around.

these are my free form ideas, happy for critique. I'll type up a plan later.
 
I would change the elements to wood and water. Dont know about the types and all, but Zhi Gao comes from a village with a lot of trees and constant floods, and now is in a giant ship and works in a garden. Narratively and thematically, wood and water fits better to him.
 
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Earth and Water is another suppressive combination, not a good look.

Earth suppresses Water.
 
Uhtread said:
what about earth and metal?
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Earth and Metal are an Augmenting Cycle

Let me summarize it actually.

Metal--Water--Wood--Fire--Earth--Metal

Each entry augments the entry to the right of it in this cycle, repeating indefinitely.

The suppressive cycle looks more like this.

Metal--Wood--Earth--Water--Fire--Metal

In general, you want the Augmenting Cycle internally, and apply the Suppressive Cycle to your foes.
 
I support a water/wood/fire setup, and I think we should use ranged weapons since that skill works off the spirit attribute, which we will want to keep high for better spirit ken.

My thinking going purely off techniques and ignoring spirits for now, is to grab a wood movement technique and a fire attack technique to start off with, and once we can get a 3rd technique get some kind of water sensory technique or support technique. The flow would be to scope out the enemy with the water technique which would then strengthen the wood movement technique, we then either move into a favorable firing position with our movement technique or if needed run away using the movement technique. If we chose to go for a good position we can then attack with the fire technique which would have been strengthened by our prior movement technique usage.

Of course my ideal setup may change dramatically depending on how spirits work.
 
To answer a few questions:

- The sect's free movement ability around Wood would allow unimpeded movement through forests and leave no tracks so long as you are walking on grass/through plants.
- To adopt a spirit, you will need to invest one block a day to it for a week. You'll need to tell me what kind of spirit you are after and what you think it should do. You'll then get 7 Spirit Ken rolls to see how good and how close to what you're after you find.
- You will need to buy 4 training sessions per stat per letter rank up.
 
Nice i thinks we should get the spirit first purchase 1 ranged attack train the skill and stockpile points to up mental thoughts?
 
So, after reading Kadmus reply, I think we should invest something into a spirit. After all having double spirits is our shtick if I see it right. Maybe one of those flower spirits he likes so much? He described them as full of energy and vitality, a support spirit? Then again he also said they only live for a year, does that change when we bind(?) them?
I am also in favor of any wood as a primary, but I would go with water as the secondary. If for no other reason than that this sect is an ocean aligned sect.

Other than that I think we should at least bring our mental stat up to par with the other stats.
 
[X] Ma Gang.
[X] Zhang Shui.
[X] Water drips from the blade.
[X] Grass sprouts from the drops.

[X] Plan Points for Stats
-[X] The Garden Job. Now that you're an outer disciple, the job pays better, but has commensurate difficulties. +1 sect point per hour per Step increase. At your current level (Second Step Outer Human), offers 13 sect points per time block, plus the Degrees of Success on your Spirit Ken roll. (x2)
-[X] Physical Cultivation
--[X] Once reaching the third step change this block to Mental Cultivation.
-[X] Mental Cultivation

As for techniques points are better spent for getting our Stats up so going for the free techs seems prudent, since we're on a boat we'd want the ability to walk on water sooner or later I reckon. I'm not too concerned about playing the augumentative/suppresive element game at this purchase. We'll get to the next step soon enough and then we can get Wood or Fire.

[-] Free: Wavedancer's Footwork.
- [-] Mental
- [-] Type: Move
- [-] Element: Water

[-] Free: Water-Compressed Physique
- [-] Physical
- [-] Type: Attack
- [-] Element: Water

Edit:
removed x's from the technique vote
 
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@Kadmus Do spirits advance with us and gain new abilities or grow stronger as we progress or are they more static? Also is lifespan a concern for the spirits?
 
Spirits will grow with you. Their lifespans are paired to yours, if they live less time than you would normally, and they are no longer reliant on a stationary object like a plant for their existence. You become their plant, essentially.
 
[X] Grass sprouts from the drops.
[X] Fire is raised from the kindling.

I like these two since they tie into wood. One answers were wood comes from. And shows were it goes.

On the other hand I would also like something as
[] Trees cover the earth
which would be an insight into the suppressive cycle instead of the reinforcing cycle
 
A couple ideas I have for possible spirits are an earth element cicada spirit and a wood element dandelion spirit.

The cicada spirit could potentially loosen the ground under our foes making them more prone to tripping. It could also serve as a scout if it is an adult since it would be a flying insect, later on when we become a soldier it might be usable for long distance communication, or for improving morale among the troops with its song, it might even be able to use sonic attacks. Plus cicadas have a lot of symbolism in folklore that I think fits really well with our situation.

For the dandelion spirit, I think we could lean into their nature as nearly impossible to kill weeds and get some kind of passive healing boost, they also form large taproots to store nutrients so we may be able to use it as a sort of storage of our own for health or qi. They also disperse their seeds on the wind so the spirit might be able to manipulate air currents which would be useful for guiding ranged attacks or ensuring we get the best coverage with any sort of gas based technique, smoke bomb type stuff or poisons etc.

Not really sure if insect spirits are a thing though so the cicada might not be a possibility.
 
In my eyes, we either think short term (the sect and ship), mid term (the war), long term (our life beyond military service) or some kind of mix. For example, we could get the Move technique that lets us travel faster and leave no tracks in the woods, but when will we get the chance to make use of that?

Personally, now that we're past the super short term (making Disciple), I think that raising our Talents, while an investment mostly geared towards the future, is too good to pass up, so that would be my priority. As far as techniques go, instead, we get so many (up to 144) that I think that beginning with the short term sounds wiser, and that going specific and powerful is better than broader and weak. That said, I can see that changing depending on a few factors, and either way, I'd like to know more before deciding, so...

@Kadmus
1) What do we know about the war in which we will have to take part? Stuff like the nature, abilities and technologies of both our side and our enemies', the kind of terrains/battlefields involved, common strategies/tactics used, what will be expected of us, etc. If we know nothing or very little, what would be the best use of a time-block meant to rectify our ignorance on the matter?

2) In your Sect Points informational post, there is no example of Physical Move technique. Is it because the combination is not available for some reason, or was that just an oversight?

3) You've mentioned multiple times that things like techniques and spirits will be able to grow/develop with us (and that lower grade doesn't necessarily mean worse/lower value). Can you tell us more about this process? Specifically (but not limited to) what happens when two cultivators in different realms get access to the same/a similar one at the same time.

Thanks in advance for the reply.

Edit - 4) Could it be that Talents can't be raised, or is there just no way we currently have access to/know about? Are we stuck at our current ranks in those categories?

5) You said to tell you what we'd like the spirit we want to be able to do, but could you give us some examples of what's possible?
 
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