Steady Stream is less than the beetles, but both synergize with repeat techniques, like beetle charge.
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Ant Cultivator Quest
- Thread starter Tam Lin
- Start date
- Original
[X] [CultivatingLadybug] 7 Food
[X] [AntTechnique] (QiBlood) Qi Burst- Floods your body with Qi, adding +3 to your roll. If the action is a cultivation action, the bonus is +5 instead. Cooldown: 9 Days
[X] Cultivate outside your lair (Medium chance of summoning a ?? Level predator)
[X] [AntTechnique] (QiBlood) Qi Burst- Floods your body with Qi, adding +3 to your roll. If the action is a cultivation action, the bonus is +5 instead. Cooldown: 9 Days
[X] Cultivate outside your lair (Medium chance of summoning a ?? Level predator)
- Location
- California
[X] [CultivatingLadybug] 7 Food
[X] [AntTechnique] (QiBlood) Qi Burst- Floods your body with Qi, adding +3 to your roll. If the action is a cultivation action, the bonus is +5 instead. Cooldown: 9 Days
[X] [Plan] Cleanup
-[X] D33: Cultivate outside your lair (Medium chance of summoning a ?? Level predator)
-[X] D34: Purge the Red Mold from your farm (0/?)
-[X] D35: Deposit the black tarry substance just outside your lair (0/??)
[X] [AntTechnique] (QiBlood) Qi Burst- Floods your body with Qi, adding +3 to your roll. If the action is a cultivation action, the bonus is +5 instead. Cooldown: 9 Days
[X] [Plan] Cleanup
-[X] D33: Cultivate outside your lair (Medium chance of summoning a ?? Level predator)
-[X] D34: Purge the Red Mold from your farm (0/?)
-[X] D35: Deposit the black tarry substance just outside your lair (0/??)
Tam Lin
The Evolution QM
Techniques don't proc other techniques
If we use Beetle Charge for anything, then I'd use it for clearing the Red Mold, as failing to clear it would be really annoying. But I don't think it's strictly necessary.
Are we sure we don't want to deposit the gunk further away? Another predator would be good for our larder. We are injured, but we're healing fast, and a non-cultivating predator will have a hard time hitting us to begin with.
Also, if we're going for Qi Burst, we could use it on the cultivation we're doing this turn.
Are we sure we don't want to deposit the gunk further away? Another predator would be good for our larder. We are injured, but we're healing fast, and a non-cultivating predator will have a hard time hitting us to begin with.
Also, if we're going for Qi Burst, we could use it on the cultivation we're doing this turn.
Tam Lin
The Evolution QM
I gotta ask. Why Beetle Charge for Red Mold? It's only 1 digit. It could be 1 at best, 9 at worst. Seems like a waste of 10 HP
[X] [CultivatingLadybug] 7 Food
[X] [AntTechnique](Lightness) Triple Master- Floods your body with qi, allowing you to move at blinding speeds. Select 3 actions on the day Triple Master is activated and you will perform them at -9. Cooldown: 9 Days
[X] [Plan] Cleanup
-[X] D33: Cultivate outside your lair (Medium chance of summoning a ?? Level predator)
-[X] D34: Purge the Red Mold from your farm (0/?)
-[X] D35: Deposit the black tarry substance just outside your lair (0/??)
[X] [AntTechnique](Lightness) Triple Master- Floods your body with qi, allowing you to move at blinding speeds. Select 3 actions on the day Triple Master is activated and you will perform them at -9. Cooldown: 9 Days
[X] [Plan] Cleanup
-[X] D33: Cultivate outside your lair (Medium chance of summoning a ?? Level predator)
-[X] D34: Purge the Red Mold from your farm (0/?)
-[X] D35: Deposit the black tarry substance just outside your lair (0/??)
Hey Tam, is it possible to specifically cultivate the different Qis so that we keep in Harmony? Like say Cultivating Wood and Fire together, with more wood than fire to keep things balanced?
Just to be clear:
If we took the gather food action twice in a row and used Beetle Charge on both...
For the sake of Steady Stream(and other techniques that work based on repeat actions), would that be 2 gather food actions (1 charge) or 4 (3 charges)?
Costs us two days of farm food or 0.4 Food if we don't clear the Red Mold (plus the value of a second action slot doing something else, which is 10.5 progress ~ 1 Food), versus the equivalent of 0.233 Food and some increased risk if we get further bad events to use Beetle Charge.
Depends on what it takes to clear the mold whether this is +ve expected value or not. But if it's an eight or a nine, which I'd assumed it was, then the chance of failing on a single roll is like 35-40%.
But as I said, we probably don't need to - if it's like, a 5 to get rid of it or something, then we've got a good chance of clearing it.
While I've got you here, would you mind a quick mechanics question? If a counterattack roll is a draw, who wins? (Apologies if this is in a previous post and I've just forgotten.)
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[X] [CultivatingLadybug] 7 Food
[X] [AntTechnique] (QiBlood) Qi Burst- Floods your body with Qi, adding +3 to your roll. If the action is a cultivation action, the bonus is +5 instead. Cooldown: 9 Days
[X] [Plan] Cleanup
-[X] D33: Cultivate outside your lair (Medium chance of summoning a ?? Level predator)
-[X] D34: Purge the Red Mold from your farm (0/?)
-[X] D35: Deposit the black tarry substance just outside your lair (0/??)
[X] [AntTechnique] (QiBlood) Qi Burst- Floods your body with Qi, adding +3 to your roll. If the action is a cultivation action, the bonus is +5 instead. Cooldown: 9 Days
[X] [Plan] Cleanup
-[X] D33: Cultivate outside your lair (Medium chance of summoning a ?? Level predator)
-[X] D34: Purge the Red Mold from your farm (0/?)
-[X] D35: Deposit the black tarry substance just outside your lair (0/??)
I want to break down the techniques and explain why QI burst is the best.
[] [AntTechnique](Lightness) Triple Master- Floods your body with qi, allowing you to move at blinding speeds. Select 3 actions on the day Triple Master is activated and you will perform them at -9. Cooldown: 9 Days
- This one is strictly bad. 3d20-27 (three D20 rolls at -9) is strictly less than 1d20. 1d20 averages 10.5. 3d20-27 averages 4.5. We get more progress on stuff not using this technique than we do using it and not by just a little. Each of the rolls has effetely a 50% chance of doing nothing because the -9 eats the roll down to a zero. MAYBE that gets better if we train it, but it's going to take a lot of reduction to that -9 for it to be worth it.
[] [AntTechnique](Hardness)(Water) Steady Stream- Every time you repeat an action, Steady Stream gains 1 charge. The next time you select a different action, Steady Stream expends all of its charges, granting you a +1 for every 3 charges of Steady Stream. When Steady Stream expends its charges, gain 1 Water Energy.
- The game mechanics prevent us from being able to repeat actions with regularity. We MUST stop and get food. We MUST stop and cultivate. We MUST stop and deal with problems that arise due to bad rolls. Worse, it means we are restricted from repeating actions too much because we develop water deviation uncontrollably and run into problems because of that. If we run into a situation where we DO want to repeat an action over and over we must stop and correct. This is bad.
[] [AntTechnique] (QiBlood) Qi Burst- Floods your body with Qi, adding +3 to your roll. If the action is a cultivation action, the bonus is +5 instead. Cooldown: 9 Days
- Meanwhile this has no downside. Every 9 days we just get a +3 to a roll. That's GREAT. +3 to the roll to attack a predator means we likely take zero damage doing so. +5 to almost every other cultivation roll means we advance about 25% faster. This is great. It has no downside.
[] [AntTechnique](Lightness) Triple Master- Floods your body with qi, allowing you to move at blinding speeds. Select 3 actions on the day Triple Master is activated and you will perform them at -9. Cooldown: 9 Days
- This one is strictly bad. 3d20-27 (three D20 rolls at -9) is strictly less than 1d20. 1d20 averages 10.5. 3d20-27 averages 4.5. We get more progress on stuff not using this technique than we do using it and not by just a little. Each of the rolls has effetely a 50% chance of doing nothing because the -9 eats the roll down to a zero. MAYBE that gets better if we train it, but it's going to take a lot of reduction to that -9 for it to be worth it.
[] [AntTechnique](Hardness)(Water) Steady Stream- Every time you repeat an action, Steady Stream gains 1 charge. The next time you select a different action, Steady Stream expends all of its charges, granting you a +1 for every 3 charges of Steady Stream. When Steady Stream expends its charges, gain 1 Water Energy.
- The game mechanics prevent us from being able to repeat actions with regularity. We MUST stop and get food. We MUST stop and cultivate. We MUST stop and deal with problems that arise due to bad rolls. Worse, it means we are restricted from repeating actions too much because we develop water deviation uncontrollably and run into problems because of that. If we run into a situation where we DO want to repeat an action over and over we must stop and correct. This is bad.
[] [AntTechnique] (QiBlood) Qi Burst- Floods your body with Qi, adding +3 to your roll. If the action is a cultivation action, the bonus is +5 instead. Cooldown: 9 Days
- Meanwhile this has no downside. Every 9 days we just get a +3 to a roll. That's GREAT. +3 to the roll to attack a predator means we likely take zero damage doing so. +5 to almost every other cultivation roll means we advance about 25% faster. This is great. It has no downside.
[X] [CultivatingLadybug] 7 Food
[X] [AntTechnique] (QiBlood) Qi Burst- Floods your body with Qi, adding +3 to your roll. If the action is a cultivation action, the bonus is +5 instead. Cooldown: 9 Days
[X] [Plan] Cleanup
-[X] D33: Cultivate outside your lair (Medium chance of summoning a ?? Level predator)
-[X] D34: Purge the Red Mold from your farm (0/?)
-[X] D35: Deposit the black tarry substance just outside your lair (0/??)
[X] [AntTechnique] (QiBlood) Qi Burst- Floods your body with Qi, adding +3 to your roll. If the action is a cultivation action, the bonus is +5 instead. Cooldown: 9 Days
[X] [Plan] Cleanup
-[X] D33: Cultivate outside your lair (Medium chance of summoning a ?? Level predator)
-[X] D34: Purge the Red Mold from your farm (0/?)
-[X] D35: Deposit the black tarry substance just outside your lair (0/??)
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What about passive bonuses? For example if we do an action 3 times and build up a +1 bonus for Stream of Water THEN activate Beetle charge repeating the action twice does the +1 apply?
I could see 2 possible outcomes based on what you have said in thread.
1 - Activating beetle charge prematurely ends Stream of Water. We lose the built up bonus.
2 - Beetle Charge and Stream of water don't interact. The initial action gets the Stream of Water bonus and counts as 1 action towards it, but the beetle charge bonus action does not.
Tam Lin
The Evolution QM
It would be 2 in this case.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] [CultivatingLadybug] 7 Food
[X] [AntTechnique] (QiBlood) Qi Burst- Floods your body with Qi, adding +3 to your roll. If the action is a cultivation action, the bonus is +5 instead. Cooldown: 9 Days
[X] [Plan] Cleanup
[X] [AntTechnique] (QiBlood) Qi Burst- Floods your body with Qi, adding +3 to your roll. If the action is a cultivation action, the bonus is +5 instead. Cooldown: 9 Days
[X] [Plan] Cleanup
Tam Lin
The Evolution QM
If a counterattack roll is a draw then you receive 0 damage. Because the damage for an opponent's counterattack is your total roll-the enemy's total roll.
[X] [CultivatingLadybug] 7 Food
[X] [AntTechnique] (QiBlood) Qi Burst- Floods your body with Qi, adding +3 to your roll. If the action is a cultivation action, the bonus is +5 instead. Cooldown: 9 Days
[X] [Plan] Cleanup
-[X] D33: Cultivate outside your lair (Medium chance of summoning a ?? Level predator)
-[X] D34: Purge the Red Mold from your farm (0/?)
-[X] D35: Deposit the black tarry substance just outside your lair (0/??)
[X] [AntTechnique] (QiBlood) Qi Burst- Floods your body with Qi, adding +3 to your roll. If the action is a cultivation action, the bonus is +5 instead. Cooldown: 9 Days
[X] [Plan] Cleanup
-[X] D33: Cultivate outside your lair (Medium chance of summoning a ?? Level predator)
-[X] D34: Purge the Red Mold from your farm (0/?)
-[X] D35: Deposit the black tarry substance just outside your lair (0/??)
There is actually one benefit I see for Triple Master. Which is doing a cultivation action as well as other things. We don't need to perform well on a cultivation action. We just need to do it regularly. So if we split a Triple Master action between it and something else we can still get some progress in on other things on the days we need to cultivate.
However that is a fairly secondary benefit, so I didn't end up voting for Triple Master.
However that is a fairly secondary benefit, so I didn't end up voting for Triple Master.
Yeah, then it seems like a +6 in a D20 keeps us fairly safe indeed.
[X] Plan Qi- Boosted Cleanup
-[X] [CultivatingLadybug] 7 Food
-[X] [AntTechnique] (QiBlood) Qi Burst- Floods your body with Qi, adding +3 to your roll. If the action is a cultivation action, the bonus is +5 instead. Cooldown: 9 Days
-[X] D33: Cultivate outside your lair (Medium chance of summoning a ?? Level predator) [Qi Burst: +5]
-[X] D34: Purge the Red Mold from your farm (0/?)
-[X] D35: Deposit the black tarry substance far from your lair (0/??)(Medium chance of encountering ??? Level predator. Predator encountered will fight to the death)
This takes advantage of our cool new technique, and also has us gunk-clearing further from home, which will take slightly longer than nearer, but has a good chance of netting us some tasty food. Another food stockpile would be really useful, as we could dedicate our time to getting another farm set up, rather than needing to forage.
It also seems likely to me that leaving gunk on our front doorstep might lead to another cultivator predator on a bad event roll, which is normally a good problem to have, but might significantly complicate things if it spawns while we we still need to cultivate outside.
[X] Plan Qi- Boosted Cleanup
-[X] [CultivatingLadybug] 7 Food
-[X] [AntTechnique] (QiBlood) Qi Burst- Floods your body with Qi, adding +3 to your roll. If the action is a cultivation action, the bonus is +5 instead. Cooldown: 9 Days
-[X] D33: Cultivate outside your lair (Medium chance of summoning a ?? Level predator) [Qi Burst: +5]
-[X] D34: Purge the Red Mold from your farm (0/?)
-[X] D35: Deposit the black tarry substance far from your lair (0/??)(Medium chance of encountering ??? Level predator. Predator encountered will fight to the death)
This takes advantage of our cool new technique, and also has us gunk-clearing further from home, which will take slightly longer than nearer, but has a good chance of netting us some tasty food. Another food stockpile would be really useful, as we could dedicate our time to getting another farm set up, rather than needing to forage.
It also seems likely to me that leaving gunk on our front doorstep might lead to another cultivator predator on a bad event roll, which is normally a good problem to have, but might significantly complicate things if it spawns while we we still need to cultivate outside.
It's still only once every 9 rounds, and we still end up doing the other things badly.
It is one of those things I could see being super overpowered... once we train it up a bunch.
But then again I think the same can be said for QI burst. If we can push QI burst into larger and larger bonuses we could turn it into quite the beast.
And we can use QI burst to train QI burst.
We gain 1 water energy when we stop repeating, not 1 per repetition.
That is a huge difference from your description.