- Location
- Pindorama
But that just confirms we need to put our ass into the fire for Rank increases. We have made it out of this with our behinds only a bit singed, so we should take it now unless we want to spend even more for it later.
A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
Rihaku
The Internet
But when you do something really difficult, you may gain back all that Rank or more! Assuming you don't have access to alternate means of Rank development at that juncture.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
Given we have Hunger and Forebear's Blade, it was 'worth' killing 10 giant monsters and 10 pirates as a Progression Cursebearer. What a crazily synergistic pick. Seram was, what, level 30 at this point in time?
- Location
- Pindorama
We just did something really difficult though. Don't you like to say that power now is more power later? More Rank let us be able to challenge even more difficult things, which means not only more Rank, bur more Progression in general. More Rank know also gives us some leeway with regards to developing other means of Rank accumulation, since we'd already have a head start.
Seram was also dogshit at start, while we started with full anime level of power.
Right now, we are likely overall weaker than Seram as he was when he fought Gisena, although we should eke out a victory due to Evening allowing us to resist direct effects of his aura.
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
We actually started fairly weak. Full Anime levels of power is when the hero is back to near his prime.
Rihaku
The Internet
Yup, and you received Experience appropriately. But Experience does not translate into Astral Rank without some means of conversion!
Yes, but the other options offer power as well. Now that you've bought Fell-Handed Stroke, the ability to use it with longer reach is quite relevant and in many situations offers more power than .25 points of Astral Rank. The ability to defer the cost of using it once per battle is also very good, especially right now when you are unable to use Pressure most of the time.
Well yeah, Seram had at least two major grinding sessions by that point and had also killed hundreds of level-appropriate encounters in the orcs! More than two, actually, since that was well after he'd started optimizing with training with Jeanne's assistance.
As to whether you could kill him, well, he still has kinetic Amplitude so your only real edge would be Accretion Rank and Charisma, since Evening Sky's resistance isn't immunity. Remember that he survived Witch Slayer attacks throwing axes at hundreds of miles per hour. I imagine he'd win almost every time unless you engaged him under very favorable circumstances. Plus, he's only got the one Curse to deal with.
DarkSideBard
Flying, without moving on
With this in mind, it may be that prioritizing taking survival utility techs when they show up is a better rank investment than actually accumulating small rank ups. In that sense it's like building up to each Rank achievement rather than pulling them down into our reach via unlimited progression. Plus, you know, actually having a lot of sustain is good if you want a long legend.
I'll take a lesser sig promotion, if you'll let me use this as the associated quote
We could cause shockwaves by dashing and could cut with projection blades, that's pretty anime to me.
Even then I don't see us growing much before we get to the city; but we shall see.
Rihaku
The Internet
Sure.
You did just buy the Evening Sky!
What an odd thing to say....
- Location
- Pindorama
But the problem is that Rank doesn't seem to "independent" of ourselves so to speak; that is, if we make things easier for ourselves, we will gain less Rank too. So taking survivability might actually make Rank ups harder to find by making us have to search for stronger foes. It just seems safer to me take the Rank now. Especially since we are Exhausted for now and have that whole thing with the Devourer later, we might not actually get time to build our legend for a while.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
LordOfMurder
Bhaal
- Location
- Australia
Isn't it still quite a distance to the city and we have the apocryphal curse and a mech that attracts monsters?
Actually I wonder if it's the Decimation that's attracting the monsters or is it just a result of having a sufficiently large rank?
Given after our very first fight we were offered the opportunity to increase our rank by something like 4 or 5 levels there will probably be chances to raise it the next time we fight something decent.
Edit: Actually unshattered said 3/4 of our apex and Rihaku said our apex was near the end of the mid tier of ranks(rank 3.1-8) so maybe raised to around rank 6? Not sure how the math works out.
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The explanation we were given is that Armaments stabilize space with their presence - I assume the Astrals monsters don't like being prevented from invading the real world and can sense the source of the barrier. Whether that's the actual truth is a different question, maybe Armaments simply look super-tasty to them.
- Location
- Pindorama
But that offer required the sacrifice of parts of our Progression, significant ones in fact. We can't use Unshattered as proof we will be offered free Rank ups, quite the opposite in fact.
So my thoughts are that
- The Accursed's power of Praxis is powered by self and sacrifice, meaning his curses probably are the origin of his own power
- Access to Praxis requires the Accursed's approval.
- Cursebearers are thus likely an operation of Praxis, even if they themselves don't happen to get access to directly using Praxis
- The method of creation for Armaments taps into this lineage of power that traces back to the Accursed and thus is an extension of the Accursed's power and curses.
- The Accursed operates at such a level that his ontology is probably, well defended, weaponized, and an extension of his will.
- By which I mean encountering any chain of cause and effect that interacts at any point with the Accursed means you are within an extension of the Accursed's will. No timeline can interact with him without his approval. In order for you to have a past in which he existed, he must allow his causality to do so.
- Thus any timeline that does is probably both part of him on some level, and the equivalent of a weapon or tool or limb
- And no, I don't mean the timeline leads to someone that can face off against a foe of his I mean that the entire timeline ITSELF is a weapon or tool.
- Also all of this is super low level stuff way below the level of power he actually operates at
LordOfMurder
Bhaal
- Location
- Australia
However it didn't cost any Arete, so it seems probable that we'll get rank increasing options that do. I don't think arguing that something as basic as rank increases will be impossible to attain makes any sense.
Apparently he was at the height of his stronk before being cursed so this seems unlikely.
Rihaku
The Internet
Well, in the short term it's definitely safer to take Saber now!
There are a number of ways to approach the problem of fighting foes stronger than you. Offensive supremacy (Lord Reaper) to kill them before they can act too many times, defensive supremacy (Evening Sky) to neutralize their attacks and outlast them, lateral supremacy (Nightmare Praetor) to overcome them with circumstance, and so on and so forth! And more powerful enemies, regardless of difficulty, do still yield more Experience, which still translates directly into power if not Rank...
I don't like to do so as it can "spoil" the update (and even putting it into spoiler boxes causes people to spoil themselves and subsequently regret it). The winning votes are usually posted at the dividing line between the update and voting choices, however.
No, Astral denizens prefer to attack Armaments when Rits occur, and the Rifts created by Astral travel tend to occur around active Armaments. This is what Letrizia knows.
Hm... are apex predators super tasty?
An interesting theory! I would say that your last point means that one does not need to operate out of concerns for practicality at such stages, so there is no particular need to curate the timelines one may or may not be associated with.
- Location
- Pindorama
I didn't say it was impossible, I said we need to put our asses in the fire. Since we already paid for this with our Exhausted condition, as we would have paid Progression for Rank with Unshattered, it makes sense to take the Rank now and not pay another price for it later, whether that would be wounds, Arete or Progression.
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We were told that he's a mere shadow of what he had been once (and I think there was something about lots of super-entities Cursing him, though I don't remember the details), so while the Curses -> power theory does make some sense, especially in light of the fact that shutting off one of our four Curses also disables 25% of Progression (but then Apocrypha is worth 2 Curses, so who knows?), that somewhat contradicts what we know.
Edit: Unless we ignore the Odyssial hints and go with this suggestion, so he would have gotten the power through the Curses, slowly bleeding his potential as he creates Cursebearers? But then why would he do that? Hard to imagine someone like that going "oops, I've taken too many Curses to get here, let me back up some".
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Zampano
🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
- Location
- Simping for DSB
An alternative would be a frequently-updated character sheet threadmark, curated either by you or any thread regular. I haven't always known what the vote was for, given the various consolidation votes & speed with which the story is moving.
Blorcyn
Canon quaquaversal
- Location
- United Kingdom
This really impressed me. Did you come up with it on the fly following the arrete choices, or did you have it in the wings, waiting to mix it up until there were three things chosen?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I guess that's fair... though anyone who cares to can just look up the winning vote, so I'm kind of at a loss to see how it would be a form of spoiler...
This way the action economy is inclined in the direction of not getting spoiled. Someone can still scroll down and find out if they want to know immediately, but it requires more effort than opening a spoiler box (or worse, getting spoiled whether they want to or not if it's just out in the open), so a greater percentage of people who don't really want to get spoiled but can't hold their curiosity back is saved from themselves.I guess that's fair... though anyone who cares to can just look up the winning vote, so I'm kind of at a loss to see how it would be a form of spoiler...
No, we aren't all rats partaking in a grand social experiment, please move along citizen.