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NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

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Alectai said:
I'm unconvinced of our ability to outspend him using Mire Ward, we've seen that he can produce stupid numbers of attacks with iron-shard storms and the likes.
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Sure, but if they're simultaneous, Halting Vortex should still stop 4 of them (it's big enough to defend against one per die, remember). That's better than any of our other options. Like, we're probably losing here, but turning off our best defense isn't a winning play.
 
If Sten is using Hugareida he doesn't need chanting.

We can try rushing in with EWC and Sidestep/Halting Vortex/Reinforce-Shield to tank hits.

Should we be using Odr or forgoing it for this fight?
 
Imperial Fister said:
"I know, but..." He can't meet your eyes. "I swore to protect the innocent, to use every drop of myself towards that goal... but I didn't." His shoulders shake as he shivers head-to-toe, voice breaking as he tries to continue, "there were... there were just so many of them..."

He's... is this a Christian's version of nidheart?
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This seems like a "probably ought to talk with Jerasmus" moment.

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
I don't buy that you should always pick one of Target-Tracking Eyes and Dense Muscles. We need to vary our combat tactics and use both Kindle Spinner and close combat attacks too often (re: so far, every single fight since we got Kindle Spinner down to 2 Orthstirr a pop). We could try and cut down, but limiting our versatility like that seems a bad call.

I sincerely think the loadout we did for the Sten fight (High-Twitch Muscles, Dense Muscles, and Target-Tracking Eyes) should be standard, with adjustments made as needed for specific situations.
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I don't think it's a limiting versatility thing, so much? Like, if we had to invest in both or else lose one of our two attack forms, that woudl be a strong reason to invest in both, but that's not what it is. Right now, we effectively have three options to choose from.
- +2 kindle spinners, +0 chops
- +0 kindle spinners, +2 chops
- +1 kindle spinners, +1 chops

Now, if we look at any given fight, even if we walked into it not knowing which setting it was, we're going to successfully hit home with one or the other of these, unless it comes out as dead even. If it's dead even, then there's no difference between them. If it's not dead even... our ability to predict which one we were going to hit home with in the prep phase for any given fight is going to be better than purely random guessing. So even if our tactics during the fight remained utterly unchanged, we'd generally have better outcomes by making educated guesses about which one was likely to deal more instances of damage.

Then, of course, we can adjust our tactics. It's not a matter of limiting versatility, but yes, if we can push more of the effectiveness one way or the other, and then do that thing more, the results are likely to be better overall. Being able to specialize and synergize is a source of strength, especially when that specialization is not in any way lossy.

Now, the "it turns off shortsighted" is a thing, but only sometimes. It's pretty unlikely to be a thing in the Sten spar, for example.
 
DeadmanwalkingXI said:
Sure, but if they're simultaneous, Halting Vortex should still stop 4 of them (it's big enough to defend against one per die, remember). That's better than any of our other options. Like, we're probably losing here, but turning off our best defense isn't a winning play.
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Neither is accepting defeat from the get-go and deciding to drag the fight out. Mire Ward's a card we haven't played yet (Given how we just established it), and when we combine having Attack Speed 3, dragging him down to Attack Speed .5 means that we've forced him into a position of trying to stay afloat, instead of setting the stage to give him the overwhelming advantage.

Given how he's a blacksmith, he probably gets stronger the longer the fight goes on for as he prepares more and more constructs. Which means our best bet is to try and force him to react to us instead of building up his arsenal to seize victory. Mire Ward puts the Action Economy firmly in our favor, even if he's focused on stacking Action Speed so he can better prepare his arsenal.

More importantly, consider how Mire Ward works, it might not be a Perfect Defense, but any ranged attack that tries to enter it is going to be penalized if it's made of something solid, which his constructs most definitely are. Just to be sure though, @Imperial Fister , does Mire Ward also serve as something that helps against incoming ranged attacks and makes them easier to defend against?
 
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Shard said:
If Sten is using Hugareida he doesn't need chanting.

We can try rushing in with EWC and Sidestep/Halting Vortex/Reinforce-Shield to tank hits.

Should we be using Odr or forgoing it for this fight?
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True, but he's doing something that's not hugareida, but some Finnish magic. And Finnish magic also involves singing/music...

That said, we really have no idea what he's doing, not much way to find out other than see it in action.

@Imperial Fister, how would a maneuver like "Grab an opponent, fly them into the air with EWC, then drop them" work? Would we need a Trick for that or would it be a Glima attack or...?

Not saying this if the fight for it (especially as Sten is likely to have a "turn into a porcupine" counter, but it's something to keep in our bag of tricks.
 
Shard said:
Should we be using Odr or forgoing it for this fight?
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Definitely foregoing. If we lose we lose.

Alectai said:
Neither is accepting defeat from the get-go and deciding to drag the fight out.
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I'm not accepting defeat, just noting that it's our best defense by a lot.

Alectai said:
Mire Ward's a card we haven't played yet (Given how we just established it), and when we combine having Attack Speed 3, dragging him down to Attack Speed .5 means that we've forced him into a position of trying to stay afloat, instead of setting the stage to give him the overwhelming advantage.
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We're not gonna be able to take Sten out in 5 attacks (plus Mire Ward), and probably won't even get to make 11 (plus Mire Ward) that mean anything, and I don't think we'll be able to force a round end either, so Sten probably gets to make all his attacks either way...I don't think forcing him to make them later is helpful enough to be worth giving up Halting Vortex.
 
Hmmm. I think we start with Leaping Cleave, being willing to use EWC to dodge if necessary. Its defense-breaking stuff should be really good on Sten and I don't think he's seen us use it. Plus, our enhanced speed makes it hard for him to react in time.

Then we go to town in melee as hard and aggressive as possible.
 
Given Sten's throwing out a lot of ranged attacks I'm not sure if even EWC can let us functionally dodge them all.
 
Shard said:
If Sten is using Hugareida he doesn't need chanting.

We can try rushing in with EWC and Sidestep/Halting Vortex/Reinforce-Shield to tank hits.

Should we be using Odr or forgoing it for this fight?
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There's not enough win on the table to make it worth burning Odr. Odr is for fights with serious stakes. "let our brother test our strength because he's concerned for his daughter" isn't that level.
 
So...here's the plan. I'm not 100% happy with it and could be convinced to make adjustments pretty readily, but I think the initial use of Leaping Cleave is correct and so is using Halting Vortex defensively.

[X] Plan Just Keep Hitting Him
-[X] Invest 31 Orthstirr into Combat Pool, 4 into Hugr, 2 into Composure, 4 into Scouting (-41 Orthstirr)
-[X] Activate Punching Up (-35 Orthstirr)
-[X] Stoke Frami (+71 Orthstirr)
-[X] 51d6 Attack (48d6 tricks)
-[X] 31d6 Defense (22d6 tricks)
-[X] 0d6 Intercept
-[X] Put 2 Orthstirr into 4 layers of Reinforce Shield as the combat begins (-2 Orthstirr)
-[X] Close with Sten using a 14d6+2 Honedx3 Leaping Cleave attack enhanced with Lightning Damage (-9 Orthstirr) being willing to use Ember-Wing Cloak to enhance it and dodge mid-flight if necessary (-9 Orthstirr if needed), then follow up with a 14d6+2 Honedx3 Skewer-Flick attack enhanced with Lightning Damage (-8 Orthstirr) followed by a 14d6+2 Honedx3 Power Chop attacks enhanced with Lightning Damage (-5 Orthstirr), then make three 8d6+2 Honedx3 Power Chop attacks enhanced with Lightning Damage (-5 Orthstirr each) then make up to three 4d6+2 Honedx3 Power Chop attacks enhanced with Lightning Damage (-5 Orthstirr each).
-[X] If at any point he distances himself from us, use Ember-Wing Cloak to close with him immediately (-6 Orthstirr).
-[X] If attacked with any Trick Attack use Halting Vortex (-4 Orthstirr each) and if that is penetrated by one big attack or we can't use it (like if jumping with Leaping Cleave) use up to two 16d6+6 Reinforced x2 Honed x3 defenses (-5 Orthstirr each). If we are attacked with a non-Trick attack use up to 9 Reinforcedx1 Honed x2 Defenses using our Defense dice (-3 Orthstirr each, 4d6+6 each) and if that doesn't work and Reinforce Shield is not available, use Halting Vortex (-4 Orthstirr).
-[X] Tactics – Jump Sten immediately taking advantage of our speed and then go to town on him hitting him as hard and fast as we can arrange and not letting him retreat or get to range.

Note on the big dodges that they'd normally use Sway (and thus not Hone and fiddle with the dice a tad) but Punching Up lets us assign dice freely so we can save a little Orthstirr there.
 
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Sirrocco said:
There's not enough win on the table to make it worth burning Odr. Odr is for fights with serious stakes. "let our brother test our strength because he's concerned for his daughter" isn't that level.
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Yeah. Given this, we don't necessarily have to win, we just have to show that we're a real warrior who's more or less on his level, the way I figure it.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Yeah. Given this, we don't necessarily have to win, we just have to show that we're a real warrior who's more or less on his level, the way I figure it.
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We're not on his level and he knows it, we just need to make a good showing and not get immediately bodied. Winning would be great for that, obviously, but the man has double our dice pool and likely hundreds of orthstirr on us to boot...he doesn't actually expect that.
 
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[X] Plan Just Keep Hitting Him

looks pretty good, if we want to pull out a win, rushing him early seems to be our best bet.
 
Some questions and suggestions to the thread:
1. We have given up on getting our animals from the Troll-Men, right? They would have already feasted on our hard-earned animals.
2. I propose we checkout if Fasts can hold Frenzy, and if it can, we should semi-permanently dedicate one of our shapeshifting slots to Fast. We are, if I am not wrong, planning to keep 12 pockets, which at 12 orthstirr each, eat up a very significant part (144 orthstirr) of our orthstirr reserves. I would like to know if Fasts are more efficient at holding Frenzy than the Pocket's holding ratio of 3 pockets to 1 Frenzy.
3. Why are we not getting Hugr Infusion Rank 3? It seems achievable in terms of Odr investment, since it takes the same amount of Odr as Hamr Infusion Rank 3.
4. How does Frenzy work? Is it only on tactics rolls, or does it have significance in actual combat too? Can we spend Frenzy, since in the char sheet it is written as 2/2, which kinda implies it is a expendable resource like orthstirr or Endurance?
 
Solar Saiyan said:
Some questions and suggestions to the thread:
1. We have given up on getting our animals from the Troll-Men, right? They would have already feasted on our hard-earned animals.
2. I propose we checkout if Fasts can hold Frenzy, and if it can, we should semi-permanently dedicate one of our shapeshifting slots to Fast. We are, if I am not wrong, planning to keep 12 pockets, which at 12 orthstirr each, eat up a very significant part (144 orthstirr) of our orthstirr reserves. I would like to know if Fasts are more efficient at holding Frenzy than the Pocket's holding ratio of 3 pockets to 1 Frenzy.
3. Why are we not getting Hugr Infusion Rank 3? It seems achievable in terms of Odr investment, since it takes the same amount of Odr as Hamr Infusion Rank 3.
4. How does Frenzy work? Is it only on tactics rolls, or does it have significance in actual combat too? Can we spend Frenzy, since in the char sheet it is written as 2/2, which kinda implies it is a expendable resource like orthstirr or Endurance?
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1) I mean, they'd have to eat really fast to down as many animals as we had, to the point of 'They'd have to be starving or so packed to the gills that this barely was a dent in the numbers'. They were not fighting like people who were starving, and they took heavy losses from the attack as well. We do intend to get what we can back, but we're willing to lose some rather than charge head first into a flagrant Distraction that the Enemy helped set up when our timeline for dealing with Horra is already in the red.

2) We already know they hold Frenzy, that was why we rushed Hamr, they hold 3 Frenzy per Fast. This was literally in the post just now, no experimentation needed, it says right in the Shapeshifting list.

3) Because Hugr Infusions require a Composure Check, and it was only just now that we unlocked Shapeshifting that we can stack the deck hard enough to limit damage in the event that we fail that composure check.

4) It's +1 on every combat roll per point of Frenzy, as well as a regenerating health layer that recovers every combat round as long as you're not being heavily pressured. This is nice to have during combat roll exchanges, but it's even better in things like Social Combat and Tactics because they count as automatic successes instead of just "+1s"

Anyway, that aside.

[X] Plan Just Keep Hitting Him

It's not a masterclass, but it's a solid opening move given our current toolset, let's see where it goes.
 
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