Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
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Codex
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He's so forgettable that if we met him I don't remember anything about him. I don't remember his name or when he came up. If I made a profile for him it would be the following:
"Headsman: Rolf's Dad."
and that would be it.
One thing to comment on him would be that he is the unofficial leader/chief, and also that all of his unofficial authority has unofficially passed to his son Rolf, who also holds official authority as our steward.
Or to put it in a slightly clearer way, the Headman held all the Personal authority, and Rolf held all the Positional authority, but now all the Personal authority is held by Rolf, preventing the issue of divided loyalties.
That's totally misrepresenting the depths of his character! He's also got a slightly larger herd. This is very important information.
I mean this is a small village. I do not think there are enough people for the difference of formal and informal power to count. Everyone is nice to the headman and calls him headman, but they all know if they have an issue that actually needs fixing you go talk to the steward. Power exists where people think it exists and in this case that is Rolf with no ambiguity.
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"Slightly above average" was sufficient for Stirland council, back when it was a shithole everyone hated.
(Mathilde is currently Heroic in Learning, Intrigue, and Piety, Impressive in Martial, and very close to Impressive in Diplomacy and Stewardship.)
In a small group is exactly where you get a difference between formal and informal power, because that's where personal relationships matter most. Or to put it another way, the steward certainly has the official authority as a stand-in for Mathilde, but if he wanted something to happen the locals or the slightly-larger-herd-man aren't keen on, it would've been exceedingly difficult to actually make that happen. The opinion of the headsman matters quite a lot, just like the opinion of the local priest would.
With Rolf it was always a little more complicated, because he's got a direct personal relationship to the headsman. But he's now established himself as a local leader and not just stand-in for a distant authority, which means he'll have a much easier time getting things through.
The milk sheep is actually an example. If Mathilde told her stewart (who in this hypthotetical is some outsider who relies purely on Mathilde's authority) to bring in those sheep, it probably wouldn't go all that well, because the locals would have (justified) concerns, and would resent the imposition. Rolf however, has both the authority to get the money rolling, and the cred that even those who are concerned will try it.
Another example is the literacy. Mathilde has no reasonable way of getting them to actually learn, because they just don't see a point. But now that Rolf has formal authority and leadership, he could probably swing it, if Mathilde convinced him it's a good idea. Mind, that itself would still be hard, because there really isn't much use for them, but at least it doesn't require the deployment of skeletons to forcibly sit them down for their abc.
Aliya
Someone I might become
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Hmm. In that case, I think it would be a decent short-medium term goal to push Stewardship and Diplomacy to 20, and Intrigue, Piety and Learning to 30. Martial will nigh always be voted on.
I'd also like to push Magic up to 10 (the theoretical human maximum, which doesn't apply to us because we're not a theoretical human anymore), but I've got no idea how to do that outside of that one Arcane Mark that gives +1 Magic.
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Why? We don't get something special for "all stats at 20." Why should we invest AP on pure stat-boosting, instead of investing AP on stuff we want to do for its own sake, letting the skillups and other bonuses increase our stats over time?
If we're going to be taking self-improvement actions, I'd prefer to be doing inherently cool stuff that might, as a side effect, result in our stats going up (like Branarhune, or apparition binding, or arcane mark control). The closest I'm willing to get to pure stat-boosting at this point is stuff to increase our Eonir diplomacy skill, and that's not because I want the points in Diplomacy but because I want the narrative effects of "Mathilde understands the Eonir better."
Codex
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We used to have an action for stat training, and I distinctly remember us taking it before, but we no longer have it. I'm pretty sure Boney is much, much more conservative about stat buffs at this point in the Quest, and is less likely to provide them. If I were to take a guess, it's to prevent stat bloat.
Mathilde is already attaining a ridiculous stat spread. I wouldn't expect Boney to make it easy to increase her stats at this point, and Boney is also not enthusiastic about mitigating stat bloat with conditionals. I genuinely believe that Boney's been pushing things in a far more narrative direction lately. Not that rolls aren't still part of the quest, but I think he more carefully sets parameters and results than usual and keeps a lot of rolls hidden to preserve immersion instead of making the Quest a roll simulator.
At least, that's my take on it.
It's not even stat bloat, Mathy is just at the upper end of what people can teach in the setting.
Even if we weren't creating a sword style so odd that there is no one that can help, and instead where just trying the usual styles. Getting a 'teacher' would be next to impossible.
There are plenty of greatswordsmen to teach a beginner, a good few experts to teach other Greatswordsmen, a handful of masters to teach the experts and one grandmaster for whoever can both afford him and is good enough to take up his time.
So 'buying stats' just isn't possible at this point for most things.
Everything is hitting demising returns.
Codex
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I wasn't even talking about the ones about teaching. We took an action to train our Piety by ourself (well, with Ranald, but he is his usual self). That wasn't a teaching action, we just improved our Piety, and I remember we raised it by a good bit. I don't think we could ever do that again.
The important question is if 20/30 breakpoints are actually breakpoints. A single point more doesn't really do that much, it's just a +1. Not bad, but also not that important. What matters is what they mean.
A character at 10 martial will be get significantly different results on the same roll as one at 20, simply because one is an average dude and the other is a competent professional. But what about 19 vs 20? If the impressive/heroic categories are a thing for more than just getting an idea of a stat values meaning there's an actual breakpoint there. A 19 vs 20 fight then means a fight between a professional vs a hero, and the advantage would be a lot more than just 1%. But if it's just as a general value range, then it would have no impact beyond that +1, and it would be a nearly even fight.
From my experience with Boney's approach, it doesn't matter. That single point is just a +1, and the ranges were purely for intuition on the meaning of the values. That's the context where he gave those values, and takeing them out of that context doesn't seem sensible. What matters much more is relevant skills and traits.
Kazador for example has somewhat anemic marital (he's at 15, he doesn't even rate as impressive), but he's extremely good at the specific thing he does, because he stacks a bunch of skills and traits. In nearly all circumstances, Mathilde would beat him as a general. Except it doesn't matter, because to Kazador would only fight under one set of circumstances, and in those he would dominate. The only exception is if Mathilde commanded some undead skaven, in ambush warfare, where she'd get to stack traits and skills as well.
A character at 10 martial will be get significantly different results on the same roll as one at 20, simply because one is an average dude and the other is a competent professional. But what about 19 vs 20? If the impressive/heroic categories are a thing for more than just getting an idea of a stat values meaning there's an actual breakpoint there. A 19 vs 20 fight then means a fight between a professional vs a hero, and the advantage would be a lot more than just 1%. But if it's just as a general value range, then it would have no impact beyond that +1, and it would be a nearly even fight.
From my experience with Boney's approach, it doesn't matter. That single point is just a +1, and the ranges were purely for intuition on the meaning of the values. That's the context where he gave those values, and takeing them out of that context doesn't seem sensible. What matters much more is relevant skills and traits.
Kazador for example has somewhat anemic marital (he's at 15, he doesn't even rate as impressive), but he's extremely good at the specific thing he does, because he stacks a bunch of skills and traits. In nearly all circumstances, Mathilde would beat him as a general. Except it doesn't matter, because to Kazador would only fight under one set of circumstances, and in those he would dominate. The only exception is if Mathilde commanded some undead skaven, in ambush warfare, where she'd get to stack traits and skills as well.
Yeah, IIRC those went away around the time of the expedition (magister exam still had it), because Boney rejiggered the stat system, and from that point on, you got stats based on skill advances and traits, no pure increases anymore.
Fair, but I don't look at those that much. I do look at the loooooong list of possible actions, and think 'we should write that paper' or 'let's finish up the sword style' or 'let's make some more magic!' or 'I really want those mark control actions'. Progress on that front matters a whole lot more than just even numbers.
I will say that there are at least 'some' narrative/conceptual differences between high level rolls and low level rolls.
E.g the dual between Mathy and Boris: that Nat 1 if they were low level characters would have been a lost arm, but because they were both 'heroic/impressive' it just led to. Bit of swordsman blue balls.
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The equivalent of a mutual "I could totally wreck you, but I can't cos I like you."
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
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Are there any mechanical benefits to Magic 10? At least on a narrative level, it has to be something, I guess, but I'm trying to look up benefits of further magic and coming up blank.
Aliya
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We might get some exotic options not available until we go beyond human limits. Also, I think casting becomes easier, even battle magic.
K von Carstein
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How are we not theoretical humans anymore? Sure we got arcane marks, but we're still fundamentally human.
Iirc if we hit 10 our soul becomes pure ulgu. At the point we don't know what happens.
Debatably. It starts getting all Ship of Theseus as soon as someone gets their first Arcane Mark.