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A Simple Transaction I

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Genesys said:
Right, yeah, I totally forgot about that. Though on the other hand, even enemies that offer Rank from 2-picks tend not to be trivial 1-2 pick enemies anyway. So it's really only relevant at the 4-pick level of foe, maybe.
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The real problem is we have never fought a 2 pick foe while having +1 pick that I could find... so we have no way of knowing how common Valor would be. (Which is the obvious pick if it's available, no arete and the sword returns to full useability.)

Every time we've tried it's ended up with us running into a 3 or 4 pick foe instead.
 
Rihaku said:
[ ] A Wandering Magus - Something of a rarity, a lone wandering magician with which you've crossed paths. Enigmatic but cheerful, she's traveling to the Temple to investigate the death of her big sister, whom her prognostications say has departed this mortal coil. Her powers of divination are substantial, but her combat strength is lacking, or so she claims. She'll happily join you and help you breach the Temple if you assist in her investigations.
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This is either a Fairbright, or Sylvie. Or none of the above? Either way, now I'm interested.
 
Sharkey_smt said:
Extremely high probability these are the magic user hunters that try to extract magicians to use in the Empire. If we managed to get them to our side, we will have powerfull ally in the Temple. The magic user in the cocoon is also a nice mystery box. But if we have to fight them, well - 6.5 Rank is no joke. We have sacrificed our form of rage so no triumph card as well. Extremely high risk and reward, do not recommend.
Also if we manage to conquer the temple there is a chance that the team will turn on us to capture us. Two more mages will placate their superiors for the delay and complications.
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The most likely outcome is they'd take the lunar ring, along with a handful of people capable of running the star forges, and re-create the False Moon temple back in the Republic. Whether they'd turn on us as well would depend on our power level at the end of the Temple, and if they think they can use our ring better than we can.

A peaceful outcome where we keep both rings only happens if we can beat the entire team by ourselves without them doing things like taking hostages or finding our secret weakness to poison.
 
[X] To Rank 4.5
[X] A Wandering Magus
[X] +1 Arete, -10% Tyrant proc chance this update

Personally, I just want a chill vacation! While the kill-team might be very nice, I feel like it might be too big a risk.
 
vali said:
A peaceful outcome where we keep both rings only happens if we can beat the entire team by ourselves without them doing things like taking hostages or finding our secret weakness to poison.
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Or the ring jumps to us and makes us strong enough they decide fighting us isn't viable. This is a potential result of having Ruling Ring at the time, since presumably if a contest of primacy is invoked the winning ring gets to take the losers power.

I wonder... Since the Magus reduces travel time and can plot the future if she can aid us in hunting before we return to the temple?
 
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Something to think about:

Picking One Option Here doesn't mean that the other two options don't happen, right? It's just us picking where Hunger intervenes with the world. Say we pick Oracle Girl. Aside from cutting into Gisena Gang's screentime, it also means the Rotbeast Rollers and PMC Peeps still happens as destiny wills it.

What does that entail for Hunger down the line? Does the Rotbeast end up evolving and, eventually, spreading its influence in a wider area? Do the Soldiers manage to return back alive, with the mystery box that will most likely end up powering their nation and cementing the Power Armor to become more widespread and mass production?

A few things to really think about before we end up with the Dao of "All Paths (Not Taken)".
 
I don't want anyone to vote for the Kill-team without a plan to deal with these Rank 6.5 Chads if they turn on us at the end of our journey. Or hell, if they have any designs for the Temple we'd consider unacceptable; such as taking the Ring or suborning the Temple instead of dismantling it. They have 2 Ranks on us; an overwhelming advantage twice over; though thanks to Rank's hyper-logarithmic scaling the difference is likely far worse. That's without accounting for the most powerful mods and weapons a powerful interstellar civilization could buy. It's an incredible long term risk, especially now that we can't mitigate Tyrant anymore; we literally can't accept any deals backed by the Republic. Trusted council might have given us an out; but that's forever outside our reach now. To live and continue with the cards we've been dealt with means not taking the Kill-team now. This is the path we chose with Uttermost.

God; they are such Apocryphal bait too; the Curse might not even need to catch up with us with them around...
 
I do suspect we might run into the magus no matter what. Her power leads her to find useful things for her and she's heading where we will be returning to. If she's still alive when we get there...

BrainInAJar said:
God; they are such Apocryphal bait too; the Curse might not even need to catch up with us with them around...
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I mean, that sort of thing is why it took a holiday to begin with.
 
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[x]To Rank 5.75
[x]A Republic Kill-Team
[x] 1 re-roll to be used on checks this update

Time to free the mage boys. Maybe he has Praxis!?
 
Byzantine said:
Or the ring jumps to us and makes us strong enough they decide fighting us isn't viable. This is a potential result of having Ruling Ring at the time, since presumably if a contest of primacy is invoked the winning ring gets to take the losers power.
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The moment when the contest of primacy takes place will be our greatest moment of weakness. The only circumstances when the contest is safe to initiate are when the Apocryphal curse is sated and we're in a safe and well defended place.

While the contest might involve fighting other ringbearers, my best guess is that it'll be a psychic struggle, like Aragorn fighting Sauron with the Palintir, and the relevant stats to determine who wins are will, astral rank, and arete.

Both Stranglethorn and Uttermost give will, which is interesting. It's not a stat that's seen much so far, but the Tyrant and the Forebear, both tremendously powerful and successful beings, seemed to view it as central to their legacies, so much so that both have it as a major feature in the defining advancement they give. I expect will to become more valuable as our abilities become more esoteric.
 
[X] To Rank 5.25
[X] A Wandering Magus
[X] +1 Arete, -10% Tyrant proc chance this update

New allies are always great! And I think we can afford to spend some Arete for efficient farming of enemies, faster movement and Totality control. The vacation gives us enough updates to earn plenty of Arete anyway.
 
[X] To Rank 5.25
[X] A Besieged Colony
[X] +1 Arete, -10% Tyrant proc chance this update

Ayt, so maybe ranking up George into something a bit stronger would be nice. The small Arete Offset makes this pick less expensive than it should have been.
 
Taka said:
Something to think about:

Picking One Option Here doesn't mean that the other two options don't happen, right? It's just us picking where Hunger intervenes with the world. Say we pick Oracle Girl. Aside from cutting into Gisena Gang's screentime, it also means the Rotbeast Rollers and PMC Peeps still happens as destiny wills it.

What does that entail for Hunger down the line?
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Interesting question... the Republic Kill-Team aren't a PMC, though! They work directly for the military and likely have quite useful intel!

Does the Rotbeast end up evolving and, eventually, spreading its influence in a wider area? Do the Soldiers manage to return back alive, with the mystery box that will most likely end up powering their nation and cementing the Power Armor to become more widespread and mass production?

A few things to really think about before we end up with the Dao of "All Paths (Not Taken)".
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The Rotbeast probably isn't going to be an issue in even the medium term, as it's quite easy to outscale. The commandos delivering whatever is in that cocoon to the Republic could certainly cause ripple effects down the line though!

BrainInAJar said:
I don't want anyone to vote for the Kill-team without a plan to deal with these Rank 6.5 Chads if they turn on us at the end of our journey. Or hell, if they have any designs for the Temple we'd consider unacceptable; such as taking the Ring or suborning the Temple instead of dismantling it. They have 2 Ranks on us; an overwhelming advantage twice over; though thanks to Rank's hyper-logarithmic scaling the difference is likely far worse. That's without accounting for the most powerful mods and weapons a powerful interstellar civilization could buy. It's an incredible long term risk, especially now that we can't mitigate Tyrant anymore; we literally can't accept any deals backed by the Republic. Trusted council might have given us an out; but that's forever outside our reach now. To live and continue with the cards we've been dealt with means not taking the Kill-team now. This is the path we chose with Uttermost.

God; they are such Apocryphal bait too; the Curse might not even need to catch up with us with them around...
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Hero-Defeating Stance would be quite useful here... of course, given the amount of time and picks you have, there's plenty of ability to spec into a build that hard counters them if combat is your preferred solution, especially with Gisena backing you up. Social (with Gisena taking point) is quite feasible as well, and simply healing Veschlengorge to Rank 7+ would strongly dis-incentivize any form of combat against you. They're nowhere near full power at present, with all involved being wounded and their Armors damaged.
 
Honestly, I want Republic kill team because that seems to be more main plot relevant. The information we might get may change our priorities.
 
Ah ha!

We have gotten offered Valor once from a 2+1 pick, when we took the Quickest Route. So there is precedent for it.

...It's also the only time we've seen a 2+1 pick since Valor became known to us.
 
Guys: Notice how we're in save mode so Rihaku is now ramping us his attempts to get us to spend arete, while when we were spending earlier he was trying to get us to stop.

If we follow whatever he's advocating for at the time without following an overall plan we're going to end up with a total mess of a build again.
 
[X] To Rank 5.25
[X] A Wandering Magus
[X] +1 Arete, -10% Tyrant proc chance this update

Magus seems very useful for the future, while also being not too dangerous.
 
Rihaku said:
Hero-Defeating Stance would be quite useful here... of course, given the amount of time and picks you have, there's plenty of ability to spec into a build that hard counters them if combat is your preferred solution, especially with Gisena backing you up. Social (with Gisena taking point) is quite feasible as well, and simply healing Veschlengorge to Rank 7+ would strongly dis-incentivize any form of combat against you. They're nowhere near full power at present, with all involved being wounded and their Armors damaged.
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Great, "just get Arete and spend it to hardcounter them dummy"! Like we aren't pressed enough for immediate power. I don't want the pressure of having future expenditures be made in an effort to make us safe from our own teammates when we can just get people without divided loyalties. Getting Gisena to negotiate isn't a perfect solution as well, as Hunger himself pointed out. Especially if they choose to use the authority of the Republic to guarantee things.

And that still doesn't cover the fact that when we'd be at the end of our journey, our Apocryphal-free time definitely would have run out...
 
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[X] To Rank 4.5
[X] A Wandering Magus
[X] +1 Arete, -10% Tyrant proc chance this update

build Arete and find the sweetest spot to vacation while not getting killed
 
Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by Byzantine on Jun 20, 2020 at 3:01 AM, finished with 93 posts and 29 votes.
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[ ] To Rank 4.5
[ ] A Besieged Colony
[ ] 1 re-roll to be used on checks this update

This gives us an almost 50-50 shot at removing two of our negative Conditions, which would do more for our survivability in the Temple than anything else. We've still got Lingering Paralysis lowering our attributes by 15% and Chill of the Grave dropping our general effectiveness by a further 5%. Combine that with a chance at novel magics, upgrades for Gisena and Letrizia and another shot at a major benefit and this is a great deal. The only serious concern is the Rotbeast having access to a disease/poison effect...

[X] To Rank 4.5
[X] A Wandering Magus
[X] +1 Arete, -10% Tyrant proc chance this update

Nah champ, miss me with that chance of fucking ourselves over with our Devastating Complication. I'd rather just pick up a support party member and S A V E Arete. Absolutely no chance I'm getting her magic system though, not unless it compatible with us and functions outside the Voyaging Realm. Else, let's just pick up a new party member that could help us in the Temple and potentially cuts our time to Letrizia's city in half.
 
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