- Location
- Canada
Let's analyze the options:
Being able to help my own native world rather than another one is certainly tempting particularly as all the people who I care about for personal reasons rather than humanitarian ones live here. It's also a lot less dangerous than most fictional worlds. On the downside, the options for native power acquisition are rather limited, to say the least, and no Obols. Also, in theory I don't need to start in this world to help it, as long as I can get a powers to travel between worlds, though who knows how large the metaphysical distance between these worlds is?
I'm curious who these individuals who can't be acted against are, presumably one of them is Rihaku, but what about the rest? And the concept of individuals who do not suffer from that limitation seems even more mysterious...
All of these settings are extremely dangerous and overpowered, all of them including powerful characters with ISH 3+ abilities. On the other hand this does mean that 5 Obols buys you an incredible amount of powers in any of these settings (except Lovecraft where pseudo-humans don't really cut it on the grand stage afaik). So if you want the maximal amount of immediate power possible this is the option to go for.
Exalted (Usurpation, Odyssial present) is very interesting in that it might allow you, if you can help him survive the Usurpation and complete the Lathe of Heaven, to ride the coattails of the Most High as he ascend to the highest possible heights of power. Of course, given Odyssial temperament, this seems extremely difficult to manage. Rihaku did mention a build that could do it in the form of "Auger (the Fairest) plus Blood of Pedigree plus Mandarin targeting Genius plus a highly relevant Sword" but that costs 9 Gifts plus an Heroic Favor and the Sword benefits depend on your own inner nature, so if your inner nature does not provide you with an highly relevant Sword that's not going to work.
Marvel/DC is probably the option among those which offer the easiest path to power acquisition, F/GO offers a really powerful 5 Obols option... There's some interesting possibilities here, none of them particularly safe, but still safer than +1 worlds, though there are more powerful 5 Obols options there.
Some nice possibilities, but 2 Gifts is a lot!
The randomness makes it a lot harder to optimize properly and this come with some obligation in the form of an appropriate quest, but potentially getting a relatively safe -2 Gifts worlds while getting +1 Gift is a pretty interesting deal.
If you just want comfiness this plus Duchess is the build for you as many have noted. The finite (if stupendously large) lifespan sucks and if you have more altruistic ambitions you'll have to pick another build, but otherwise...
If you don't intend to pick any other patrons, this is just a free Gift.
Excessively uncomfy, but 5 Gifts is a lot! Should probably not be picked along with Seraph given the rather incompatible demands they make of you.
Really dangerous but the Heroic Favors options are really broken and it also provide you with an unrelenting string of opportunities. Should probably only be picked along with Genius.
I'm unsure who the Forester is supposed to be. For most of these options its pretty obvious what character they correspond to, but for the Forrester and Mandarin, I'm really not sure...
The Physical options seems really underwhelming. I feel like in most worlds 1 Obol will leave you considerably more powerful than these.
The Mental and Spiritual options are pretty great though. Mental Power is incredible, orders of magnitude improvement in progress in most skills is a real steal at only 1 Gift. Spiritual Power offers so many different benefits, tremendous increase to Will and Charisma and synergy with plenty of magical systems... Finally, Mental Agility just allows you to make better decisions in general which is certainly not an advantage to be discounted.
Very build dependant, but this can be an incredibly powerful option for its cost.
The ultimate in safety technology. As a card-carrying member of the Not Dying gang I consider this almost mandatory for any build without November Sky. Even if you're more risk averse than me you should still almost certainly pick this option if you're going for a particularly dangerous world or are picking Seraph.
Adept level is already quite powerful and achievable in a week to a month and Master allows for ISH 2+ effects. The stats boost is nice too I suppose. On the other hand a single domain is rather narrow and 3 Gifts is a lot.
Still a very interesting option particularly with Mandarin to give you access to 2 domains.
Trillions of millennia is a very long time and 5 Gifts is a hell of a lot of Gifts to spend!
That said it does give you a substantial amount of immediate power, the immunity to divination, precognition and predestination is extremely valuable in some universes, reducing the drawback of something like Overlord make it a lot more tolerable and Grandmaster is utterly ridiculous if you can get there.
That said I don't think I would ever pick this over 5 Obols in a +1 verse, that seems better value for 5 Gifts.
8 Gifts... It does give a lot of Stat +s and the Auras are pretty good, but it doesn't seem worth 8 Gifts? If you're going to go for this you'll want to apply Mandarin to it (or to Auger, I suppose...)
This feel like mostly a free Gift?
If you're in a very powerful world this isn't too much of a drawback, but in a weaker one not so much...
"Almost certainly no more onerous than surrendering the irrevocable use of a limb, or half the lifespan of your firstborn child" is a rather ominous line! You really should not pick this lightly, but its not like there's that many ways to get extra Gifts...
I really would not feel good about abusing the Dynasty's generosity this way and the associated cost is very real... I'm not picking this one.
There's some builds who want this for the discount to Auger, but outside of that I don't really see the value in this option.
The Five Obols version is extremely powerful in some worlds and can offer absolutely ridiculous level of immediate power. Even the One Obol version can give a ton of power for ridiculously cheap in the right world.
A rather specialized option. Can be good in a stat build along Princess or to deal with specific problems like Odyssial's Great Curse, but it shouldn't be picked without some kind of specific plan to make it worth it.
Its explicitely stated to offer more direct power and versatility than the Heir's domains while having the same cost. It's not safe though, so you probably want Genius along with it (but you want Genius along with everything, so...). Mental Agility is also valuable to stop you from doing anything stupid.
Certainly extremely valuable but 3 Gifts is a lot! The fact that only certain advancements are kept through loops certainly complicate things, particularly as I don't really have a way to tell which one those are! That said, from statements on the Discord, Ticket works great with Shimmer, so that's one possibility!
You're paying 4 Gifts for a companion with powers which would cost you 5 to acquire, which in theory is a good deal except it doesn't synergize with any of your other abilities you might have (except Princess!) and is dependant on you holding the Auger (again unless you have Princess). There are build that want this, particularly Princess builds, but in most builds its not going to be worth it.
Really powerful, a good combination of immediate power and long term capability. Work very well with Ticket.
Very uncomfy, but the payoff is absolutely insane. The Royal Praxis can scale to levels relevant to the Accursed and you get an easier version to booth! Now you still will never make it that far realistically speaking but still... One should note that this option does not provide you with any immediate power and seems to come with additional risks compared to those already inflicted by picking Seraph, so you really should be picking Genius if you're going for this.
Not much to say here because this is so dependant on what your personal Sword would be like, though obviously all Swords are extremely powerful...
So for my build here is what I'm thinking:
I want the Royal Praxis. I know it will suck to train it and I might not even get that far with it and I might eventually end up in danger that even Genius cannot save me from, but... To have a chance, however small, to matter on the grandest stage, to be able to do the most good possible? In the end, as it has been said: "Do or do not, but always try".
Outside of that I want to help the world of my birth. I could of course, if I progress far enough in the Praxis, just come back to it later to help this world, but I'd rather make it more of a sure thing. Also its a pretty safe place to start my journey.
Overlord is out because of the conflict with Seraph, I do not want to abuse the generosity of the Winter Dynasty so Overcharge is out, Finitude Lacing does not work well with our mundane world and Genius is mandatory. This leaves me with potentially 4 Gifts I can spend.
I think I'll go with the Titan's Abacus as my source of power that doesn't rely on ridiculous amount of effort for progression. It's extremely powerful, it's ideally suited to myself given my mathematical abilities, unbounded personal growth and ultimately manipulation of entire realities should be more than sufficient to massively improve this world, Genius should buy me a good measure of safety in its use and it combine perfectly with Mental Power from Forrester to complete my build.
[ ] Return [0 Gifts]
[ ] The Seraph [+1 Heroic Favor]
[ ] The Forester [1 Gift]
-[ ] Mental Power
[ ] The Genius [2 Gifts]
[ ] Fisherman's Association Membership [+1 Gift]
[ ] A Debt [+2 Gifts]
[ ] Titan's Abacus [3 Gifts]
[ ] Special Dispensation [1 Heroic Favor]
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