It's applying the Gambler to the laying the foundations action, and then at the end is noting that the face of the coin being used this turn is the gambler.
I know Johann has been memed to death as a blunt instrument by the thread, but if you'll recall, he successfully fooled Mathilde into thinking he was a Journeyman until the Bursar gave the game away. He has 19 Intrigue. Dude's a certified sneaky bastard.
That's not enough. We're looking at a Magister Patriarch of the Light Order and a three time Supreme Patriarch whose age is in the three digits. If you don't have any supernatural methods of stealth inherent in your sneaking, I wouldn't want to bring you along.
My concern at present is that we have no priestly participant yet, while the Ranald family plot hook dangles right in front of us simultaneously.
We can't merely trace the steps of the original Waystones and expect to get anywhere far - too much knowledge has been lost. We have to be able to come at it from an oblique angle, to bring in new tools and techniques for analysis and engineering both that can do jobs for which the original methods are beyond us.
I haven't kept up with the thread, and I can tell this is one of those times where aim just not going to actually catch up, but I wanted to put the thought out there in case somebody else hadn't. Hopefully it's more than dead weight.
He's got a silver tongue though. He doesn't need to be invisible, just charismatic. Being charismatic is something he generally shows great success in.
There are methods of subtle investigation other than literally sneaking around. Probably more useful ones in this kind of situation, honestly - if it comes down to "hide your actual physical self from an Alric who's on the lookout" I wouldn't even bet on Mathilde, for the same reasons you outlined re: he's terrifyingly experienced and his specialty is the Wind of Revealing Shit. I expect Johann (who also, note, has 20 Diplomacy and a demonstrated ability to use it subtly) will be distinctly helpful for the social portions of the job.
Mathilde can disguise herself as multiple different people and approach someone, figure something out, and then mindhole them to make them completely forget everything about her. Mindhole only works on people's memory of Mathilde, not people's memory of Johann. If Alric is savvy enough and he realises someone is asking around about him, he'll find out something's wrong. Mathilde can make sure he doesn't know anyone's asking for him, but not if someone else is doing the asking.
I considered the social aspects. I point you towards my conclusion on Mindhole not working on people's memories of Johann. Unless Johann is so smooth that he can ask about Alric without ever making it look like he's asking for Alric, I don't trust it.
I unironically believe that he is capable of doing this, yes. Frankly I don't believe it'll even be that hard. Even if Alric is on the lookout for possible spies (which he may or may not even have the spare focus for, under the circumstances) I don't expect everyone around him is going to share in that paranoia.
No, but the people we talk to also talk to other people, and the more people still have memories of Johann the greater the chance one of them lets something vital slip within range of someone who is in fact paranoid about spies. A reminder that Alric is not acting alone, he still has a few loyalists working for him:
And he's already been pushed out of Altdorf, Wissenland and Stirland. The man is desperate and likely to be on high alert, so I don't want to introduce additional variables that could result in failure, even if the failure isn't guaranteed.
Yes, I would very much like the recruit the Nordlander Hedgewise, an insular group that almost certainly worships Ranald's daughter, but otherwise don't seem to agree. Maybe next turn.My concern at present is that we have no priestly participant yet, while the Ranald family plot hook dangles right in front of us simultaneously.
We can't merely trace the steps of the original Waystones and expect to get anywhere far - too much knowledge has been lost. We have to be able to come at it from an oblique angle, to bring in new tools and techniques for analysis and engineering both that can do jobs for which the original methods are beyond us.
I haven't kept up with the thread, and I can tell this is one of those times where aim just not going to actually catch up, but I wanted to put the thought out there in case somebody else hadn't. Hopefully it's more than dead weight.
Eh, I think this just comes down to a differing approach to risk/reward calculus then. IMO zero risk is an unachievable fantasy and would be unbearably boring if it wasn't, & I expect the gain from having a skilled partner will be more than sufficient to make up for the marginal increase in our chance of discovery. Think we just have to agree to disagree on this one.
I'm not sure if I understand your reasoning here. You agreed with a post that said windherding was better than Kurgan weapon studies and then voted for a plan with Kurgan weapon study and no windherding. Did you perhaps mean to vote for [] Plan Starting up debt free, Windherd Edition? Or []Plan Stacking Advantages, Windherd Edition?
