I plan on getting the Encantus. I want to put all of our remaining money in it, in fact, that's a fundamental premise of the plan I have stated repeatedly. If you think 12 points won't be enough to get it, sure. But I think it's enough given how the bidding has worked so far.
And I want to get two Level 3 items instead of one. Which meand I want to risk spending less points this round. Sorry, but your plan looks to risky for me.
I'm pretty sure the plan doesn't care that much about the Scrolls, and is just trying to get them as a bonus. I'm fine with just getting the key.
If he bets equal, we get a coinflip.
I would love to, but it's pretty obvious that isn't going to win at this point. Instead, I'm going for the plan that gives us a shot at getting more than one of the really good items.
He looks more interested in the cookbook, and, as far as i'm concerned, he can have it.
Sure, that's a fundamental disagreement. If one of the bids falls thought we might get enough to bid on 2 items next round, but my plan doesn't rely on that so I won't ask people to count on it. My plan tries to get as much magical knowledge as possible while saving for the Encantus specifically, which is what I have stated. If you want to be the on the next round's mystery boxes, then I can't help you.
There was a large gap in terms of quality between the first round and the second. It seems pretty clear that the next round will similarly be higher quality?
There is such a thing as comparative advantage. The Dog talisman could easily be the most sought after item next round as an example, since it's simple access to a powerful dream of mankind, but would it be really useful to us compared to the scroll or the cookbook? I don't think so. A similar argument could be made about the Wailing Stone this round even; clearly something that can be valuable to practitioners, but the Stone in our hands would see very little magical exploitation for a while as we simply don't have the magical chops to make good use of it. A item that's valuable in general might be less valuable to us specifically, is what I'm saying, and I think magical knowledge is pretty valuable to us right now, so I want to get as many sources of it as possible.
I disagree, since it's far easier for us to get more money than more magical items and knowledge, especially right now. Walking away with money in our pockets would be a severe failure in my mind, since getting magical stuff is what we are here for, not to save money. So in my view, having a decent chance of getting as many items as possible is in our interests.
That's all well and good, but applying those sources of magical knowledge in the quest is going to take actions, mechanically speaking, and I doubt that an item would be less valuable than a source of knowledge at the level of abstraction this quest operates at. Besides that, why do you think the Encantus is the only source of magical knowledge that's going to be in the third round? I understand wanting to play it safe, but even if they aren't sources of magical knowledge, I think that any of the items in the third round would be more valuable than the scroll or the book right now.
Can you tell me the benefits the Ji talisman gets us right now? I'm not trying to be quippy, that artifact is technically doing nothing for us right now even. It's going to be useful if we ever need flight and telekinesis at a personal level, but that's surprisingly hard to come up. The cookbook and the scroll, meanwhile, are things we can develop and build upon, meaning that while it is indeed true it's something that will take actions, the payoffs will be much greater for us than single magical artifacts. Especially since we are a super-scientist that can make incredible devices when pressed. We don't even need the key right now to access other dimensions, for example, it would just make things easier. As they say, sufficiently soft science is indistinguishable from magic.
I doubt that this was the logic used in picking out items for the auction- from a meta perspective, I'm not sure the QM has gone into that level of detail here. Besides that, if you want to bet, I'll bet that even if we don't want the talisman being sold in the auction, there will be an item besides the Encantus in the final round that we'll desire more than the book or scrolls.
