I didn't particularly want cute to win, and I'm a bit dubious of 'optimal strategies' in quests that don't have an explicit goal for winning the quest, but I have to agree with this. If we're going with this, it's better to commit fully to it.
Eh. We've been over why quite a bit. We're going to be relying a fair amount on other people's sympathy for a while. Our biggest threats are probably going to be people, and really big monsters. Reducing the threats from the former is a good thing.
After all, plenty of mages are first-generation mages,...
Not the case in at least two or so worlds we've been to. Vanessa's and this one. Delight theorizes that the extreme heritability of being an Arcane is the main reason that there even are any of them a,ongst humans. One of the things that second+ generation Arcanes would have would be someone to teach them what to do more safely. Thus, that should increase their odds of survival.
The fact that nobles and the well-off would be likely to try and court an Arcane makes the odds of Arcanes being well-off increase drastically, too.
That seems unreasonable and a bit unlikely to me. After all, plenty of mages are first-generation mages, and sheer numbers means that includes a lot of "used to be a peasant" mages. There can't be that much prejudice against lower-class origins in a society where wizards are often born rather than made, at least not on a consistent inter-dimensional basis. We may run into planes where our 'obvious mudblood' background makes people look poorly on us, but frankly they're likely to be pretty shitty places in general, not ones where we want to spend time. And there will be plenty of other places where a wizard of relatively poor background will be looked at without prejudice.
That's the thing, though. It's been pretty variable. On our original world, Talents pop up in random places, but the rich could also get into the schools (I think?). Morgan's world, they're more made than born, as they only get powers if they prove themselves responsible. Vanessa's world, the mages are mostly members of various magical noble families. And here, they're born, sure, but that can be influenced drastically by their parentage. Basically, it's a crap-shoot.
But we've heard of magically gifted royal or noble families on at least three out of four of them (the ones who caused the new system to be put into place in Morgan's world). Our sample size is small, but it's not looking great for Talents like us being the majority anywhere. I mean, I doubt the magic schools on our original world would be financially solvable if most of their students were Talents. Free tuition is a b*tch.
Plus, it frankly feels like selling out to me.
Frankly, mate, that's more your problem than mine. It's not exactly a persuasive argument with me, anyway.
I personally agree about being dubious of "optimal strategies." In the absence of explicit goals, it's much better to commit to a strategy that leaves the character balanced, rather than trying to optimize one trait at the expense of all others.
I don't think I agree with the "commit fully" part of this, because I don't think it's a straightforward case of "the harder we pursue this direction the better off we are." Preternatural gosh-darn cuteness has advantages and disadvantages, and taking it really really super-far wouldn't necessarily better than taking it half that distance.
In this case, it's pretty workable, so far as I can see. Hell, looking nobly born might actually win us a few points with the more lowly born if we show ourselves willing to actually do work.
I also disagree with you about staying balanced, to some extent. Being balanced can actually gimp your ability to do anything effectively if you overdo it. It can actually be a problem in D&D, with builds. Trying to be equally good at everything has a tendency to make you ineffective overall. You need to make some commitments. (I've been doing a lot of build research lately, which has spawned so many character concepts...good thing I enjoy character creation.)
Luckily, we actually have a fairly versatile tool in our elementals, which is well worth investing in. They give us a nice combat niche, summoner/minionmancer-style combat, which can also be applied to numerous other problems, such as scouting and several utility uses. Minionmancers are excellent for 'solo' work, since they build their own 'parties'.
So, we have a method of dealing with violent threats. It's not great, but we know what to do to improve it. Since our elemental 'party members' cover combat, that leaves Melia to focus on other sorts of threats and challenges. Like, say, social situations and research, things the elementals don't help us with.
So I'd actually argue our specialization is, in it's own way, a method to achieve a more balanced situation. We're expanding to cover more situations. Not perfectly, but hey, social advantages/situations in Alivaril quests are a lot less simple than D&D. So there's only so much we can do.
