A Simple Transaction I

[DarkSideBard]

In fact this is obviously untrue because Kinslayer comes with no drawbacks. Options which sacrifice something are inherently more powerful than options that don't i.e unshattered.

What's crippling about Uttermost? It buffs all the stuff we actually use by a ridiculous margin and nerfs things we weren't using anyway. The only thing it effects that has actually previously been important is the reduction to protection.

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"The option that has worse drawbacks is stronger because of those drawbacks" is not a very coherent argument, but I'm steelmanning that you actually mean "options that have drawbacks tend to be stronger, because the loss allows the option to remain balanced while being stronger, and that's the way Rihaku designs them". Which is still lacking. Consider that the actual meta-balance of various options by Rihaku means that something strong without drawbacks might be just as worthwhile overall as something balanced with drawbacks: the internal portions of an option are balanced, but so are the various things on offer. Yes, sometimes those balances involve aesthetics, but aesthetics is ultimately what meaningfully underlies much of the quest's enjoyability, supported by the mechanics. I think most people aren't voting for Uttermost, despite its mechanical superiority, because they rightfully scan that the balancing drawbacks are unacceptable to their aesthetic sense of enjoying the quest. I know that if I had an impossibly potent curse that made almost every social interaction a risk, and I had octillions of years to experience it left, and I had been accumulating power for a week and change, I wouldn't choose to give up mitigating it ever in order to squeeze out just a little bit more power. Especially when I don't need to, because there are several other options that are suitable without that drawback.

Also, I trust I don't need to explain why nerfs to luck is obviously terrible for us.

 

[Unelemental]

[X] Punctured Soul
[X] The Ring of Power - Inheritor
-[X] The Unerring
[X] Fierce Quickening

doitforerii.jpg
I'm sure she will be thrilled to meet her new big brother.

I think picking gottagofast options has become pretty much reflexive for me. Anyway, this feels like one of the two most fitting rewards for this fight, and Uttermost is just too rad for me.

As for the complications, despite hearing that they're some of the best, it's still pure torture choosing from them. At least I don't think we'll need social anytime soon? The reductions to Rank, physical and mental hurt, but I doubt our chances of resting without interruptions for a week and True Maiming means having to deal with Apocrypha delivering poisonous and diseased foes to our table for a long time.

 

[BrainInAJar]

Hm... comparing Inheritor: Vanreir vs Stranglethorn

Inheritor + Fierce Quickening: 30 AGI, 15 STR, 27 CON, Unerring
Stranglethorn: 14.5 AGI, 30 STR, 36 CON

Inheritor is actually stronger against the majority of opponents. You'd much rather have doubled action speed than doubled damage, to say nothing of the mobility / logistical advantages of AGI. Unerring is worth more considerably more than 9 CON since you start out with some of Vanreir's skill. You have enough AGI that Stranglethorn isn't unviable, but Inheritor's probably more powerful right now.

Inheritor's just really good, guys. The Rank growth penalty is easily canceled out by another Defining Advancement but you have sources of static +Rank anyway like Preeminence and Form of Rage.

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That's all true, but I kind of want to save Arete and don't want to trap someone's soul in the Ring. Especially if we are drawn towards some sort of surrogate relationship with his sister; I'd find that really creepy. We get penalties to training anyway, so I don't think we will progress the Soul Evocation much anyway.

For power without moral concerns and creepiness, vote Stranglethorn!

 

[Rihaku]

Current vote count?

[X] Punctured Soul
[X] The Ring of Power - Inheritor
-[X] The Unerring
[X] Fierce Quickening

doitforerii.jpg
I'm sure she will be thrilled to meet her new big brother.

I think picking gottagofast options has become pretty much reflexive for me. Anyway, this feels like one of the two most fitting rewards for this fight, and Uttermost is just too rad for me.

As for the complications, despite hearing that they're some of the best, it's still pure torture choosing from them. At least I don't think we'll need social anytime soon? The reductions to Rank, physical and mental hurt, but I doubt our chances of resting without interruptions for a week and True Maiming means having to deal with Apocrypha delivering poisonous and diseased foes to our table for a long time.

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Yeah, the "average-level" devastating complications are stuff like "Lose 50% of your physical stats for a month," "permanently lose 1 Rank," etc.

That's all true, but I kind of want to save Arete and don't want to trap someone's soul in the Ring. Especially if we are drawn towards some sort of surrogate relationship with his sister; I'd find that really creepy. We get penalties to training anyway, so I don't think we will progress the Soul Evocation much anyway.

For power without moral concerns and creepiness, vote Stranglethorn!

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There's no surrogate relationship, Vanreir is still there...

The alternative is that he dies and simply never comes home that day!

 

[Shard]

doitforerii

[X] Punctured Soul
[X] The Ring of Power - Inheritor
-[X] The Unerring
[X] Fierce Quickening

Well this basically means we got him as a party member. Kind of. Close enough anyway.

 

[Dark Abstraction]

Unshattered would have started us at rank 6 and been picked up from a trivial fight at the cost of not being able to heal our injuries.

I think if you actually look at the options most of the most powerful ones require a drawback of some kind.

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The trend of paying extra taxes for something with altered bang for its buck exists, but that doesn't make it a more powerful option. Because you had to pay those added taxes. Sacrifices are called such because you are losing something; losing options, losing capabilities, losing power in exchange for different power.

Those options aren't more powerful, they're just differently powerful. Because they offer a gain in some respect, but mandate a loss in another. Having one arm that's stronger instead of two means you can cross swords better but you'll never be able to cross swords with one hand and stab them in the eye with your other hand's dagger. Etc.

It specifies pluses so it won't decrease stats we haven't taken any of yet, it just makes taking them in the future less valuable.

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It doesn't make them less valuable, it weakens their ability to give value. It means that we receive less protection than we should, or that we struggle to grow wiser, not that we need less protection or don't need to be wiser.

 

[Cariyaga]

[X] The Ring of Power - Inheritor (3 picks, 2 Arete)

 

[BrainInAJar]

If your argument for Uttermost is "We're not using LCK, WIS and CHA anyway", I want you to read the entire last update again. Prior to their standoff, Hunger didn't land a single blow on Vanreir. How did you think he won? It's definitely not because he was physically stronger. Age and Treachery saw the day for him. Choosing to sacrifice that is quite unwise.

There's no surrogate relationship, Vanreir is still there...

The alternative is that he dies and simply never comes home that day!

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The appropriate reaction is to give Erii proper psychological counsel, not to bind the soul of her brother to a literal stranger and say whatever similarities come out of the mental contamination as "good enough". Have we become some sort of fairy that can't understand human relations? Some new dude who trapped her brother's soul who occasionally resembles him is no replacement for her actual dead sibling and it is insane to think otherwise. Everyone loses someone eventually; part of life is dealing with that. Trying to avoid this by this Frankesteinian solution is just misguided.

 

[Talace]

I'll be honest, I don't really care about Erii! We technically don't know she exists, and she's probably just a worse version of Ceathlynn anyway!

But obviously some voters don't agree with that, and Rihaku makes a cogent point about Inheritor + Fierce Quickening being rather useful. Here are some responses! We save Arete for Ruling Ring, mental contamination from Vanreir might bias us to take unwieldy risks in order to save Erii, we'll be forced to take particular advancements to compensate for Inheritor, Willpower +s and Rank +s are another part of the buffs that we get from Stranglethorn, and we get to benefit from timeskips which is good for our overall mission. Conceded that Inheritor is probably stronger than Stranglethorn now, but Stranglethorn's benefit will scale far into the future, and will also allow us to manage our power budget for other things that increase our stats, like perhaps more 7 Arete Blood Advancements.

 

[Zampano]

Consider that we landed several ranged blade attacks at the beginning of the fight with the Magus:

Like lightning he twisted, pivoting and striking in a single motion at the space directly behind him, blade-wind unfurling in an arc out towards the horizon. In the midst of its travels it struck true, revealing an elderly man in the midst of some esoteric incantation, bright energies gathered about his fingertips. The mage's face was hooded, shrouded in shadow, but his robes of brilliant white and blue stood out starkly against the grass, and were wreathed in an armamentarium of defensive enchantments, circling spirits and a steely fog that pulled and sickened the eye.

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He swept his blade in wide, carving arcs, launching projected force in every direction, and was rewarded by an incredulous gasp as the magus appeared again, nursing a bleeding arm. Without relenting, Hunger attacked savagely, thrust-projections puncturing the magus' robe and tearing open his hood.

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That's four ranged attacks before the Magus could retaliate. If we'd had Cuts + Fall + Uttermost then we'd have about 1/3 chance of landing a Fell-Handed Stroke critical by this point (1-.9^4 = .3439 = 34% chance of at least one critical).

Ending the fight earlier would've spared us the pain of watching Hunger get floored by a single word from the Magus. Killing things before they attack us is a good survival tactic, too.

 

[LordOfMurder]

Yes yes, we get a thousand cuts a thousand times. My thinking is I'd rather just power up enough that our attacks actually kill our enemies instead of just acting like a magical unhealing papercut. Like if we're so powerful that we don't need to spam attacks like a video game character.

And speaking of stats, I don't get why you're still going on about stats when I've already shown that Strangethorn gives more of the relevant combat stats, both in the short term and the long term, than Uttermost. Recall that Might is Strength and Constitution, meaning that Stranglethorn is literally mightier than the Uttermost, and will always stay that way given the permanent 2x boost. The lost agility can be easily offset with the additional power gained from being Mightier than the Forebear and his Melkor-inspired "Arise in Might" knock-off power.



The guy we just fought was an "overwhelmingly powerful enemy", we rolled a 15 on Breach the Middle, and we already clearly see that 2x wouldn't be nearly enough. He could kill form of rage, which gives .25 rank AND 3x to ALL stats (recall that stats work synergistically). Overwhelming doesn't mean 2x, it means overwhelming.

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I'm getting the impression you don't understand how Thousand Cut's works? It's our strongest attack that strikes with seven times the speed and power of our base, causes unhealable wounds and can crit? Applying it to every attack is literally the same as Van's thrust that just nearly murdered us. If you want an attack that actually kills our enemies it's right here.

Agility is explicitly better than Str, Con is less relevant because Uttermost no longer has to spend extra stamina on Fell Handed so we don't get exhausted every fight. Uttermost also doesn't prevent us from just getting stranglethorn in the future anyway.

Not only is form of rage not guaranteed to proc but it doesn't get the added stats from Quickening. If we could kill him without dying despite the difference being overwhelming, obviously he would have still had a chance to kill us even if we were three times stronger than our base since it wouldn't boost us enough to be overwhelming against him even if the difference between us was only 2x.

 

[DarkSideBard]

Well this basically means we got him as a party member. Kind of. Close enough anyway.

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As I recall, the main benefits of party members is that we can buff them with Dominion: Blood, as well as battle alongside them (so our exertions are seperated, and we can use more complicated tactics). So, no. This is a pale shadow of what having a party member is like. One that literally haunts us forever as a significant mental corruption.

doitforerii

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Can't catch me in a trap like that. I reserve my sympathy to feeling bad that such a thing was necessary, not permanently disfiguring the soul of a child's dead relative for power while introducing severe mental distortions to myself.

Fuck them kids.

 

[Shard]

As I recall, the main benefits of party members is that we can buff them with Dominion: Blood, as well as battle alongside them (so our exertions are seperated, and we can use more complicated tactics). So, no. This is a pale shadow of what having a party member is like. One that literally haunts us forever as a significant mental corruption.




Can't catch me in a trap like that. I reserve my sympathy to feeling bad that such a thing was necessary, not permanently disfiguring the soul of a child's dead relative for power while introducing severe mental distortions to myself.

Fuck them kids.

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Very well, alternatively:

doitforstats.jpg

Uttermost being totally rejected of course. Never mitigating a curse? Boo.

 

[Dark Abstraction]

Fuck them kids.

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Fuck Erii.

No really, fuck her. She's a shitty "have a daughteru to rescue" pandering fantasy

We already have a daughteru - Letrizia. And we are failing to protect that smile already; she got char-broiled by Bearic and it took us days to heal her wounds because we picked weak passive healing at the time and didn't get the much more potent active healing from the Ring of Blood until very recently.

 

[Talace]

I agree that Uttermost probably gives us more offensive options! Again, it's about taking an acceptable mix of offense and defense, and being the STRONGEST does nothing if we simply get attacked first and get splatted against the wall. Consider a build that goes Dreadnought + Iron Curtain + Stranglethorn. After a meaningful investment in stacking CON and using that to shield against Exotic attacks, we would be able to stack Might as often as we want to and receive massive increases in offense and defense. Alternatively, we could pursue a build that just takes Ring options to come closer to the EFB without fear of getting outscaled in terms of Not Dying. More CON means more to regen which means battle regen becomes even more valuable. Wounds become a thing of the past!

 

[Strange9]

Stats good!
[X] Punctured Soul
[X] The Ring of Power - Inheritor
-[X] The Unerring
[X] Fierce Quickening

 

[Unelemental]

The thrust of argumentation against Inheritor is really interesting.
...We're not actually doing it for Erii, guys, I just don't think Vanreir as a drawback is too bad.

 

[Zampano]

In the fight with the outriders, we landed blade projections at the start of the fight that did not manage to kill mooks:

There was a sudden splitting, a schism in space-time around them, but Gisena whipped about and dispelled it before it could finish forming, nudging him with her left shin as she moved. He turned to the right, blindly firing blade-winds, and caught the materializing form of an enemy patrolwoman. She was heavily armored, wearing a scale coat of emerald with an open-faced helm of the same color, and riding atop what appeared to be a fledging drake. Instinctively he flared his ring, suppressing her blood and enhancing his own. She turned pale, expression confused as his first blade-winds landed.

His first cuts struck her armor and damaged it, but failed to pierce through. His follow-up swiftly decapitated her mount, and as she tumbled he rushed forward, plunging his blade into her sternum with eviscerating force. Before she had time to react, he struck again, ending her life as her compatriots finally arrived upon the scene.

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Against the Archer, we landed several grazing blows that could've ended the fight had they been able to "inflict cursed wounds from which spirit and will leak as freely as blood" at "septuple the power and speed" of normal blade projections with "one-third more damage with a one-tenth chance to inflict critical damage"

This time his blade-winds failed to land, warping around the archer to graze instead of murder, their buzzsaw edges first leaving sandblasted streaks of blood against the man's flesh, then failing to connect at all

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[DarkSideBard]

Honestly, at some point we'll likely have the power to overcome the vast, vast majority of immediate martial threats. That's when Apocryphal will start to proc in ways that threatens people, places, or assets we care about instead. At that point, all the direct combat strength in the world won't help, as we'll need esoteric utility, +luck, +wis, +cha, social ability, or some other way of making things safe. Which is why taking any options which permanently tank the value of those is not a good plan.

 

[Dark Abstraction]

The thrust of argumentation against Inheritor is really interesting.
...We're not actually doing it for Erii, guys, I just don't think Vanreir as a drawback is too bad.

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Correction: You aren't doing it for Erii. But I guarantee that there are people who will buy into the "save the tragic woobie daughteru" line as part of their desired AESTHETIC. So it bears a need to argue against.

As for Vanreir, I don't care about him as a person enough to want to provide him a room in our head. And I don't think that the rent he pays is enough compensation to do it out of more pragmatic concerns. If we pick up a Soul Evocation, I want it to be our own; Imprisonment. Rather than contaminating Hunger's personality and behavior with someone else's, it would be an affirmation of self and would derive its power from that. That's my AESTHETIC.

 

[Unelemental]

Honestly, at some point we'll likely have the power to overcome the vast, vast majority of immediate martial threats. That's when Apocryphal will start to proc in ways that threatens people, places, or assets we care about instead. At that point, all the direct combat strength in the world won't help, as we'll need esoteric utility, +luck, +wis, +cha, social ability, or some other way of making things safe. Which is why taking any options which permanently tank the value of those is not a good plan.

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Indirect challenges? I think the intention is to take the associated 25 Arete option and Cut Anyway. How high the chances of getting this 25-Arete instead of getting distracted or going for the Ring is a different question, of course.

 

[Dark Abstraction]

Indirect challenges? I think the intention is to take the associated 25 Arete option and Cut Anyway. How high the chances of getting this 25-Arete instead of getting distracted or going for the Ring is a different question, of course.

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We've already got investment interests in two EFB's, with two or three more that we haven't put anything down on that were appealing. As interesting as they all are (and we would want all of them if we could get all of them, obviously), I'm not interested in adding yet another to the list. Especially since I don't really find "my special attack is all of my attacks" to be especially enticing at this juncture.

 

[Rihaku]

Vote count?

The appropriate reaction is to give Erii proper psychological counsel, not to bind the soul of her brother to a literal stranger and say whatever similarities come out of the mental contamination as "good enough".

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You fundamentally misapprehend the nature of the option. You can directly convey the thoughts of the real him, who is still around, to his sister by acting as a go-between. Again, Vanreir is still there. His soul is still present, though as Hunger's prisoner. Certainly it is preferable to being dead.

But even if the option were as you understood it, I think one should deeply consider the perspective of the bereaved and deceased before labeling something "creepy" and insisting that they instead accept the loss on the basis of your judgement thereof. To be frank, IRL even if that something is "creepy" it would be an extremely small price to pay for even a fraction of what was offered here.

I'll be honest, I don't really care about Erii! We technically don't know she exists, and she's probably just a worse version of Ceathlynn anyway!

But obviously some voters don't agree with that, and Rihaku makes a cogent point about Inheritor + Fierce Quickening being rather useful. Here are some responses! We save Arete for Ruling Ring, mental contamination from Vanreir might bias us to take unwieldy risks in order to save Erii, we'll be forced to take particular advancements to compensate for Inheritor, Willpower +s and Rank +s are another part of the buffs that we get from Stranglethorn, and we get to benefit from timeskips which is good for our overall mission. Conceded that Inheritor is probably stronger than Stranglethorn now, but Stranglethorn's benefit will scale far into the future, and will also allow us to manage our power budget for other things that increase our stats, like perhaps more 7 Arete Blood Advancements.

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Weren't you guys going to take the best option now in order to survive?

Indirect challenges? I think the intention is to take the associated 25 Arete option and Cut Anyway. How high the chances of getting this 25-Arete instead of getting distracted or going for the Ring is a different question, of course.

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Who needs Protection or Charisma when you have SORD?

 

[Unelemental]

As for Vanreir, I don't care about him as a person enough to want to provide him a room in our head. And I don't think that the rent he pays is enough compensation to do it out of more pragmatic concerns. If we pick up a Soul Evocation, I want it to be our own; Imprisonment. Rather than contaminating Hunger's personality and behavior with someone else's, it would be an affirmation of self and would derive its power from that. That's my AESTHETIC.

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Okay? But this doesn't replace our original Soul Evocation, see how Vanrir combined how own Unerring and his father's Blade to get Unerring Blade, for the low, low price of falling apart dying within three years. Which is a hint not to do something like that until we can bear the strain, I suppose.

I just don't see getting contaminated with a swell linear guy like him as a big malus.

 

[Dark Abstraction]

Who needs Protection or Charisma when you have SORD?

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The Forebear. Because he had both. If we only go for MUH SWORD MEME LOL we're doing it wrong.