@Arcanestomper a few questions:
1. Which family member would it be most 'proper' to go to with the Plantation Request. Like...who is it correct to go to with "I've invented a potent new product, we need supplies to make it." and explain the whole situation? We don't have to go to that one, but knowing who we'd be expected to make the request of seems relevant.
2. After supplies are secured, can we assign the Hall to brewing the Rusted Lotus Elixir? I'm guessing yes, but would like to make sure.
3. How exactly would we improve our new Rusted Lotus Elixir? Is that just another Grand Project or what?
4. Have we learned all we can from the Bountiful Lily Elixir, or does it have more secrets yet to reveal with study?
1. There are essentially four options.
The first is going to your brother. This is the most straightforward as he handles a lot of administrative work as your mother's right hand man. Stuff that isn't completely front and center to the clan's goals. If you get his support you'll have a fairly solid basis of support. No major upsides. No major downsides.
The second is going to your mother. She is very busy. So by making this decision you are attempting to position the Rusted Lotus as being a major pillar of clan strength. If you convince her then you'll have the full backing of the clan, but it better work out or you're going to lose a lot of Face.
The third option is your sister. She doesn't have a lot of clan resources, but she is personally very strong and has an elite guard. With her support you could probably forge right into the most dangerous areas of the wilds and find the best location for the plantation, but she'll want a cut of the profits. Probably in the form of elixirs for her subordinates. On the other hand success or failure will only impact your relation with her rather than the rest of the clan.
The fourth option is a little unconventional. You could seek out an elder and try to win their support for your own personal faction. If you choose this option I would generate a few different elders you could try to work with. Most of them would not be able to provide as much support as your close family members, but you'd be getting them into your camp. Which given that your faction currently consists of the Silver Grass Pavilion would boost your strength. And it would give you someone on your side if you need to negotiate with the elders for things.
2. Yes, you can. You can do it now. They can take the action. It'll just cost spirit stones after the first one. Which since they can't complete more than one per turn wouldn't be an actual issue.
3. You would take the research action again.
4. I forgot to take that off the list. If you had another bountiful lily elixir you could reverse engineer it again to help refine the Rusted Lotus, but unfortunately you used it all up.
@Arcanestomper can we do a write in to research fire techniques?
I think we should bite the bullet and take on another technique with a fire aspect. We seem close to committing to another breakthrough and should make a big change like this before then. Ideally the technique would be one which buffs combat against metal cultivators plus some other utility function. Drivers in my mind include:
-Reducing our biggest debuff (fighting metal cultivators)
-Adding variety to our cultivation
-Leveraging our "free" alchemy boosts to get up to speed quickly
Yes, though you aren't the greatest at coming up with new techniques that aren't alchemy.
Huh. Okay, we definitely need a clarification on that, I think:
@Arcanestomper how does this actually work? Could Zhege Liang actually get bonuses to fighting a Metal Cultivator with a Fire School? Would his current penalties go away? How do the elemental opposition rules actually work?
It's mostly about what Qi is hitting you, or the opponent. So a metal technique would hurt you more even if it came from an Earth Qi cultivator. And the same for you learning a fire technique for use against metal cultivators. The downside is that converting your qi into a different type is less efficient. So any wood qi technique you had would always be stronger than a technique of another element that was the same level.
Combat boils down to a bonus and a 2d6, but I have not worked out the numbers for off element techniques. It would definitely help, but it wouldn't completely erase the penalty. Right now I'm going with Liang simply not having a lot of combat experience so he doesn't have an intuitive understanding of how it all works out. If you pursue this route I would add more details.
I also need to ask on how '
Lead a Grand Project' work, as in we need to constantly spend one actions on that one we start (Or the other corrupt alchemy elder use the time we don't spend a action on as excuse of not leading at all, or take credit from our ?),
or after we start it, the rest of Pavilion will continue work on it and just our guidance from time to time after reach certain stage of that project ?
If just spend one action would be enough to finish the 'Kasjan Dispute', then not sure we can do 'Represent the Zhuge Clan (Goal 10) (Diplomacy)' in time because it have 2 dice of 5 to finish it since we don't have any skill on it. I want to see what the possible reward we get from that badly, but I guess we can't afford it due to 'Accusations of Inexperience' is also a thing, unless the reward from that diplomacy choice great enough to worth the risk of that clock run out ?
So can you give us hint on what benefit this one give ? (and about 'Face test', are those type of actions even worth it most of the time with any benefit if there are other options that don't need the test ?). Because at this point that actions will gone forever after we solve the dispute then
@Arcanestomper
There is a difference between leading a grand project and assigning the silver grass pavilion. With the first you are actively involved in the research and administration. Your active participation helps give them a bonus and also lets everyone see how well you do. So if you do not take the actions, then the pavilion might actually finish the project on its own, but you would not get the actual completion bonus of publicly leading a grand project. Only the mechanical benefits of whatever it was. It's about fame and recognition.
Succeeding on the Face test would be representing the Zhuge clan well. You would gain recognition inside and outside the clan. At minimum this would mean an increase Face. A middling success would come with some gifts. And very good success might result in a new character offering to join you as a retainer because they are so impressed with you.
This is the sort of thing you could get with most Face tests that don't have set rewards. You'd get more opportunities for it if you pursued diplomacy.
@Arcanestomper - while we're asking questions... is the "ask a family member for help" a matter of asking them to take their own personal time to provide assistance or asking them to somehow hook us up with pertinent resources or something? I feel like the two are
not the same, and would call for different family members.
It's a bit of both. The more successfully you pitch the project to them the more likely they are to personally intervene to help you. It would be very hard to get your mother to personally help out of course.
