Dungeon Crawler You!

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The face that Moose already has a ton of unopened loot boxes means that the Wheeler Dealer plus Sysop combo isn't just a long term thing.

As soon as we pick it we transfer Moose's boxes over and power level roll up. We should be the best equipped team on this floor by a few miles.
And if they don't like us taking them from someone who isn't acting as a crawler... well we do have a beanie that gives +2 int so if +1 int would be enough that Moose could access their own stuff...
Edit: note that Moose probably hasn't assigned stat points, so Moose could probably just put one or two in int after Moose's interface gets turned on and give the hat back to drew.
 
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And if they don't like us taking them from someone who isn't acting as a crawler... well we do have a beanie that gives +2 int so if +1 int would be enough that Moose could access their own stuff...
Edit: note that Moose probably hasn't assigned stat points, so Moose could probably just put one or two in int after Moose's interface gets turned on and give the hat back to drew.
In the unlikely case that it works:
If Mooses interface gets turned on, they might be eligible for race and class selection.
 
And if they don't like us taking them from someone who isn't acting as a crawler... well we do have a beanie that gives +2 int so if +1 int would be enough that Moose could access their own stuff...
Edit: note that Moose probably hasn't assigned stat points, so Moose could probably just put one or two in int after Moose's interface gets turned on and give the hat back to drew.
Moose's stat points have been automatically assigned.

With Sysop we just need to make a deal with a few Astronomers and maybe a Valkyrie to not open their loot boxes for a few days and sell us the low level ones.
 
THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND :
  • Versatility is good. Defenses are useful. But ultimately, the dungeon requires you to be able to punch up. You need a combat cheat like a Xianxia character. You need the ability to kill things with an absurd amount of hit points.
    • In canon this involves using/crafting a shitton of explosives and custom alchemical items, but also involves "absolute" effects used creatively (for example creating a wall that cannot be broken right in front of a speeding train to annihilate the boss aboard that train).
  • This is a reality TV show. If you're overpowered but boring, you're fairly likely to die horribly for drama reasons where a more appealing. If you have lots of viewers and bring in lots of sponsor money, then you're valuable to the organisers and probably won't be killed as a cheap warning to someone else.
  • Snowballing is everything.Being strong now lets you kill bosses quick and get tons of XP and loot, which makes you even stronger later. "I'll take a weak race now to be stronger later" is usually a bad deal, not just because you'll die but because you miss out on a ton of grinding. Avoid dead ends, but also avoid weakening yourself now.
    • It seems that the dungeon levels are also going to be shorter than usual (just like in canon), so we can't expect to have ages to grind before the level changes and all the monsters get a lot stronger.
This has some obvious consequences ("Scion of Zree is probably a bad choice") and some less obvious consequences ("an incredibly lucky party with amazing defense/stealth/support abilities is probably less survivable than a party with decent defense/escape but amazing boss-erasing tricks").

CALLIOPE OPTIONS REVIEW (bolded is best, bolded name is good, non-bolded doesn't interest me) :
  • Catkin is a pure mystery box. It'll probably play very well with the crowd, too.
  • Chronan is absolutely amazing as you level up. Stopping time has so many creative "just fucking die" applications, and it's also a great combat buff!
  • Cygnan has flight and money. It seems solid and useful, but it lacks any "punch up" bullshit. The arms also seem like they'll be inconvenient in combat, and interfere with wearing armor. Unfortunately it brings in Club Vanquisher, which isn't as good as the other club - and they're mutually exclusive.
  • Doppelganger has +10 Con (excellent), and its racial abilities are wildly overpowered as soon as your get crafting (probably layer 4, possibly earlier if you drop the right kind of stuff instead of having to craft it). The shape-changing includes your worn gear, and it doesn't have the usual safeties Doppelgangers get in other games. One of the main characters in the canon books is a Doppelganger, and her ability to just become massive pieces of metal equipment is used in so many creative "kill the city boss" plans that I won't bother listing them all.
  • Dryad is situationally awesome. The problem is that many biomes are not only not forests, they're also often actively killing all your plants. This is even more likely to be the case in places where boss fights happen.
  • Dzichi have a ton of hands and sensory organs, which is amazing for obvious reasons. No big cheese, but probably a significant improvement in your ability to pull item-based cheese.
  • Human has a nice boost to skill progression, but it's too small to offset the opportunity cost of all these excellent bonuses we could be using to snowball.
  • Primal doesn't interest me. Carl takes it in canon, and I've already read that story.
  • Satori is solid. It has a form of detection and attack that bypasses most normal defenses, it scales well, and the only real problem is that the physical appearance might not be the best for PR. Not everyone can have "be a chad" as a race, I guess. This would have been fully bolded if not for the aesthetics of it. The AI not liking their feet is also really, really bad.
  • Syvio are terrible (low Con is suicide, bad aesthetics are reputation are also suicide).
  • Tariaksuq is amazing. Fantastic stealth and escape, good Dex bonus, synergises amazingly well with anything that has sneak attack. The good looks are also great for views.
  • Tortugan Juvenile seems like a bad bet to me. And getting that special knife will likely be impossible unless we have huge wealth cheats : getting a level 7 crafting table is really, really hard.
  • Uphetchug is good in melee, but the bad aesthetics and AI dislike sour the deal for me. Pass.
  • Vahnitri is excellent. Flight, free healing, fantastic aesthetics, and Catcher.
And now for classes :
  • Battle Klepto seems amazing, I'm sold on it. Also I just read that fanfic eaglejarl recommended in the Discord, where the Battle Klepto performs really, really well.
  • Bike Messenger doesn't interest me much. Calliope would probably enjoy it, though.
  • Blood Blade is fantastic if you have free healing. Say, if you're a Vahnitri.
  • Boring Ol' Fighter is... Strange. I hate this on principle (Wizard Supremacist was my kind of thing). On the other hand it's incredibly amazing, especially if picked with Vahnitri (flight and healing).
  • Cowpoke Sheriff has danger sense, which is great. Nothing else is amazing, however.
  • Duelist is fantastic, partly because it has a "fuck you, I'm redefining the battlefield" skill as well as a "turn your enemy's strength against them" skill. The high Cha will also work very well with the viewers.
  • Fire Dancer is potentially very strong. Unfortunately it's based on fire damage, and can't even magically start fires. Expect to struggle against fireproof enemies (common) and in areas where you can't use fire (more common than you'd think).
  • Jinete synergises perfectly with her current fighting style. It actually makes it viable all on its own, solving both the lack of defense and the lack of damage. It's perfect for Calliope.
  • Juvenile Ninja Mutant Turtle would have been perfect with Tariaksuq, but the Tortugan requirement kills it for me. A terrible choice.
  • Monster Truck Driver has the all-important Pathfinder skill, has good defenses, goes very well with her mobile fighting style, and has the very abusable Rush ability.
  • Parkour Tagger is decent-ish, but IMO isn't quite as good as all the rest.
  • Pirate Captain still isn't the best thing around. @eaglejarl the description needs an update, Calliope doesn't have Fortuna's Favoured Child.
  • Professional Bodybuilder doesn't seem like it'd fit her style. I'm also not a huge fan of the vibe it would give her reality TV game.
  • Train Conductor is abusable as fuck. Items granting super-powerful one-off effects a surprisingly widespread, and getting more uses out of them is definitely worth a class choice.
  • Warlock is IMO too money-intensive, for benefits that are associated with PR loss.
  • Washed-up figure skater is not to my liking. We already have a Manager, anyway.
  • Wheeler Dealer is fantastic if we keep sucking up to the AI. And we should definitely do that.
  • WWE Champion is decent, but I dislike unarmed combat so I'm against it. When a big spiky acid-covered slime monster is attacking you, you either need invulnerable hands or simply a sharp piece of metal. Go with the piece of metal, it's easier.
And now for Taylor :
  • Akovishan will be a disaster for his view count. Nope.
  • Big-Brain Gnome seems solid, but canon already does the "traps, traps, bombs" thing. Let's be different!
  • Capreolin is incredibly good. The "crafting minigame" is a source of great and terrible power. It's also a really good fit for how Taylor has been fighting so far.
  • Catkin is a fun RNG. Eh.
  • Doppelganger is still wildly busted.
  • Draconid is decent, but too slow to come online + too incompatible with Taylor's current gear-heavy style.
  • Dryad still isn't amazing.
  • Dzichi is incredibly good for Taylor. He's a gear man, and would really do well with all the hands.
  • Franken will probably wreak hell on his marketability. Nope.
  • Human is a marginal benefit. Nope.
  • Multacorpalan seems risky, but good. If it's anything like D&D 3e's Dvati, then losing a body is a huge disaster but the racial abilities allow for some excellent tricks. Seriously useful.
  • Primal is still nope.
  • Scion of the Zree ruins your view count, synergises with mage builds that Taylor doesn't have, and loses all ability to snowball. Terrible.
  • Suleizul is still good. Free automatic "don't die, get a full restore" healing is nice!
  • Tariaksuq is solid, but seems a much better fir for Calliope than her Taylor.
And now for his classes :
  • Archmage is potent, useful, and works very well at what it does. Unfortunately it wrecks Taylor's current gear-heavy style.
  • Blood Blade is far less impressive for Taylor, who doesn't have Vahnitri like Leo does.
  • Construction Foreman seems like it has huge tactical potential, and a solid buff aura for a melee party.
  • Death Knight is good at what it does, but it's probably not the best for views. I'm also not a huge fan of what it does.
  • Diva would have been a great way to get Manager. Ah well.
  • Elemental Arcanist and Fire Mage are decent combat wizards (Fire Mage has insane damage, and is great in the short term because Fireball is amazing, but once you start running into fire-immune foes you're not really useful). Probably a bit lacking in versatility compared to Archmage, but at least they don't have the "no gear" downside.
  • Lacrosse Junior Varsity Middle is decent.
  • Local-Access TV Psychic has great information-gathering abilities. The high Charisma should allow for some truly insane builds.
  • Metamage is probably the best Mage class available so far. Just fantastic.
  • Pyrotechnics Engineer will definitely be great. It's a bit too similar to the canon novel protagonist IMO, but he does do rather well with his booms :D
    • Note : The Escape Plan skill is incredibly good, because it provides access to the Dungeon Locator. That's about as important as Pathfinder for future floors.
  • Sceptic Tank Cleaner is a solid defense, an attack that bypasses most defenses but is useless against a relatively-common immunity, and good defensive buffs. I like it, but it's not making my shortlist.
  • Sysop is really, really good.
  • Train Conductor is still really good.
  • Tugboat Captain is a great Mage class, and with a luck-based ally right here I'm sure our random spells will be good. And then our class buffs them to heaven and back.
  • Warlock is still trash.
  • Wheeler Dealer is still great.



tl;dr : Scion of Zree is a terrible idea. Calliope has excellent combat synergies available, and they're so good that I'm considering just not taking Wheeler Dealer. Taylor should probably be a Sysop, but he does have great mage classes and a solid crafting race + class if we want to stick with the item theme.
 
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[X] Plan: Wheeling, Dealing, System Screwing
-[X] Leo
--[X] Race: Doppelganger
--[X] Class: Wheeler Dealer
-[X] Taylor
--[X] Race: Scion of the Zree
--[X] Class: Sysops
@kalugin @Energy @Pyran @DaOneInDaCorner @KreenWarrior @fictionfan @schlega

Would you be interested that contains as much screwing of the Showrunners and Zree'ing for Tay but keeps our 1T views Race (Doppelganger) around and lets us (in the words of TalonofAnathrax) use her in so many "kill the city boss" plans that they couldn't be bothered to list them all.
Doppelganger has +10 Con (excellent), and its racial abilities are wildly overpowered as soon as your get crafting (probably layer 4, possibly earlier if you drop the right kind of stuff instead of having to craft it). The shape-changing includes your worn gear, and it doesn't have the usual safeties Doppelgangers get in other games. One of the main characters in the canon books is a Doppelganger, and her ability to just become massive pieces of metal equipment is used in so many creative "kill the city boss" plans that I won't bother listing them all.
(also, seems canon agrees with my ideas about doppelganger)
 
Toboe, I'd have voted for you if you didn't take Scion of the Zree. That's a terrible choice. You lose out in current snowballing potential, massively increase your odds of dying (or of failing to save teammates, Taylor has plot armor), and more importantly you're stuck at Charisma 3 which murders your PR game.
This is a reality TV show, and losing sight of that means dying. Scion of Zree is a trap to kill powergamers who forget that they're also meant to be Youtubers.
 
Toboe, I'd have voted for you if you didn't take Scion of the Zree. That's a terrible choice. You lose out in current snowballing potential, massively increase your odds of dying (or of failing to save teammates, Taylor has plot armor), and more importantly you're stuck at Charisma 3 which murders your PR game.
This is a reality TV show, and losing sight of that means dying. Scion of Zree is a trap to kill powergamers who forget that they're also meant to be Youtubers.
Have you seen the alternative plan for the "no Zree" faction?
[X] Plan: Wheeling, Dealing, System Screwing alternative
-[X] Leo
--[X] Race (L): Doppelganger
--[X] Class: Wheeler Dealer
-[X] Taylor
--[X] Race (T): Doppelganger
--[X] Class: Sysops
 
Have you seen the alternative plan for the "no Zree" faction?
Dual Doppelganger is IMO not worth it. You only need one.
I'd make Taylor a Doppelganger, and make Calliope a Vahntiri. Fast healing and mana regen has insane utility, adding in flight and defenses is just icing on the cake.

EDIT: even if we don't just do the exact same Doppelganger cheese as in canon, "I can make my limbs out of the metal from my gear" has good synergy with Taylor's usual "explosives and chemical weapons" strategies.
 
Luncthime catchup and responses!

ch 24.4 has been updated with answers to a lot of questions, especially about Scion of the Zree.

@eaglejarl can we ask Levi whether or not he thinks we could potentially get High Roller with character actor?
Did you mean Rollup? If so then no, Levi has said that he is very confident you will not get that through any means other than being a Wheeler Dealer.

Has Taylor gotten any stat points since then?
Crawlers earn 3 stat points every time they level up, so at level 2 they have 3 points, at level 3 they have 6 points, etc. Taylor currently has (15 - 1) x 3 = 42 stat points to distribute.

We can borrow the mutable ring and the beanie for a bunch of stats if we wanna go Zree.
Those add to your effective stats, not your base stats. You need to get your base Int and Con up to 50 in order to metamorphose.

Snowballing is everything.Being strong now lets you kill bosses quick and get tons of XP and loot, which makes you even stronger later. "I'll take a weak race now to be stronger later" is usually a bad deal, not just because you'll die but because you miss out on a ton of grinding. Avoid dead ends, but also avoid weakening yourself now.
Note that canon!Carl disagrees; every build choice he makes is oriented around long-term advantage even at the expense of short-term disadvantage. For example, taking Primal instead of Human started him off the equivalent of 5 levels behind on stats.

Fire Dancer is potentially very strong. Unfortunately it's based on fire damage, and can't even magically start fires
Check the skill description for Fire Dancing: "Oh, yeah, also you can burst into flames for up to (Skill Level) minutes, cooldown 2 hours."

Pirate Captain still isn't the best thing around. @eaglejarl the description needs an update, Calliope doesn't have Fortuna's Favoured Child.
Done, thanks.




Note: It's everyone's responsibility to make sure that their vote is tallied the way they want it to be; I'm not going to do the work of combining them. There is a large plurality of voters who want the same thing but have formatted their votes differently, are therefore showing up separately in the tally, and are therefore not supporting each other. Example:


[] Calliope: Doppleganger + Wheeler Dealer

[] Plan: Wheeling, Dealing, System Screwing alternative
-[] Leo
--[] Race (L): Doppelganger
--[] Class: Wheeler Dealer
-[] Taylor
--[] Race (T): Doppelganger
--[] Class: Sysops

This is why I asked people to vote by plan.


Also, @Dreaming Circuit , "Combat Klepto" isn't a thing. You want "Battle Klepto". You're right that 'Combat Klepto' would have been better for the consonance, but I didn't think of it.
 
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Note that canon!Carl disagrees; every build choice he makes is oriented around long-term advantage even at the expense of short-term disadvantage. For example, taking Primal instead of Human started him off the equivalent of 5 levels behind on stats.
To be fair, canon!Carl himself does in fact snowball. He starts with an amazing item, quickly turns that into even better and better loot, and is effectively constantly among the highest-level and best-equipped crawlers.
He makes choices with an eye on the future (for example he takes a class that can easily find stairwells), but he also snowballs all the fucking time. The Primal race choice is honestly the only counter-example I can think of, beyond "not murdering innocents for power".
 
To be fair, canon!Carl himself does in fact snowball. He starts with an amazing item, quickly turns that into even better and better loot, and is effectively constantly among the highest-level and best-equipped crawlers.
He makes choices with an eye on the future (for example he takes a class that can easily find stairwells), but he also snowballs all the fucking time. The Primal race choice is honestly the only counter-example I can think of, beyond "not murdering innocents for power".
"Hey, Carl, there were babies in there." Donut.
"Wait, what?" finished setting up the explosives.
The babies got exploded (Book 1)

The thing about the Zree race is that it's probably more than 5 levels in both loss of stats and also the disadvantages like tripping and breaking our entire body because we're made out of fucking bug glass.
 
He makes choices with an eye on the future (for example he takes a class that can easily find stairwells), but he also snowballs all the fucking time. The Primal race choice is honestly the only counter-example I can think of, beyond "not murdering innocents for power".
  • Primal (effectively -15 to stats as compared to human)
  • Gathering the pieces of the Gate of the Feral gods instead of doing the Air and Land quadrants the easy way
  • Agent Provacateur vs Guerilla or Revolutionary
  • Swole vs Prison Bitch or Stepson
  • Arguably, not killing Orthrus during the world quest, although that was an investment in reputation, not direct power

 
Adhoc vote count started by RandomOTP on Sep 21, 2022 at 4:13 PM, finished with 128 posts and 17 votes.
  • 25

    [X] Plan F*ck the Showrunners
    [X] Plan: Wheeling, Dealing, System Screwing alternative
    -[X] Leo
    --[X] Race (L): Doppelganger
    --[X] Class: Wheeler Dealer
    -[X] Taylor
    --[X] Race (T): Doppelganger
    --[X] Class: Sysops
    [X]plan pure cooperation
    [X] The murder train has no brakes.
    -[X] Calliope: Catkin
    --[X] Calliope: Bike Messenger
    -[X] Taylor: Dryad
    --[X] Pyrotechnics Engineer
    [X] Calliope: Doppleganger + Wheeler Dealer
    [X] Taylor: Doppleganger + Sysop
    [X] Taylor: Multacorpalan + Sysop
    [x] (Drew) Magical Boy
    [X] Plan: Wheeling, Dealing, System Screwing
    -[X] Leo
    --[X] Race: Doppelganger
    --[X] Class: Wheeler Dealer
    -[X] Taylor
    --[X] Race: Scion of the Zree
    --[X] Class: Sysops
    [X] Fight and Steal
    -[X] Leo picks Catkin and Battle Klepto
    -[X] Taylor picks Primal and Sysop
    -[X] Drew picks Democratic Senator
    [X] Juvenile Mutant Skater Turtle
    [X] Game Over
    [X] Immortal Leo
    [X]plan Tricked Ya!
    [X] Calliope: Catkin + Wheeler Dealer
    [X] Calliope: Tortugan Juvenile + Wheeler Dealer
    [X] Calliope: Tortugan Juvenile + Boring Ol Fighter
    [X] Taylor: Scion of Zree + Sysop
    [x] (Leo) Combat Kitty
    [x] (Drew) M*A*S*H 4077
    [X] Plan: Think of the Money!
    -[X] Drew
    --[X] FCA Copy Class: Hitman
    [x] (Leo) Gato Gaucho
    [X] La ángel de jabelinas
    -[x] Calliope
    --[x] Vahntiri (angel)
    --[x] Jinete
    [X] Plan: WDSS, with a side of dragon.
    -[X] Leo
    --[X] Race: Doppelganger
    --[X] Class: Wheeler Dealer
    -[X] Taylor
    --[X] Race: Dragonid
    --[X] Class: Sysops
    [X] For the fans
    -[X] Leo
    --[X] Race: Catkin
    --[X] Class: Combat Klepto


Current status of votes. The QM has expressed an interest in voters keeping to an "Action Plan" system, since there's much crossover between the individual-character votes and the existing action plans. I've deleted my personal individualized votes, and encourage others to do the same.

(Also, @eaglejarl, did you mean to vote for that one plan?)
 
Funnily enough, I'd have voted for your plan if you had anything but the zree as Taylor's race.
Me noticing that you aren't the Zree guy, whoops.
To be exact i have 2 plans, one with Zree, one without.

And sure, as a general rule I'm perfectly happy to help other crawlers, although my priorities are Drew's survival first and the survival of his party members second. Everything else is a distant third."
When we are done here, would you help our friends in the Astro Army? If they have good picks that means they can contribute more to cooperation with our party, and we have more interesting things to SysOp copy.

The fishes don't like the SysOp class, can they make the AI remove itfor new picks in the future?
I may be the only one that currently has the 30 int, but we all have the 1T views before Floor 3, and with the actionable "Skill: Character Actor" from Former Child Actor...

Note: It's everyone's responsibility to make sure that their vote is tallied the way they want it to be; I'm not going to do the work of combining them. There is a large plurality of voters who want the same thing but have formatted their votes differently, are therefore showing up separately in the tally, and are therefore not supporting each other. Example:


[X] Calliope: Doppleganger + Wheeler Dealer

[X] Plan: Wheeling, Dealing, System Screwing alternative
-[X] Leo
--[X] Race (L): Doppelganger
--[X] Class: Wheeler Dealer
-[X] Taylor
--[X] Race (T): Doppelganger
--[X] Class: Sysops

This is why I asked people to vote by plan.
Is my plan ok for you format wise?
Also: The tally bot is picking up your examples as votes.
 
Would you be interested that contains as much screwing of the Showrunners and Zree'ing for Tay but keeps our 1T views Race (Doppelganger) around and lets us (in the words of TalonofAnathrax) use her in so many "kill the city boss" plans that they couldn't be bothered to list them all.

Why yes I would.

[X] Plan: Wheeling, Dealing, System Screwing
-[X] Leo
--[X] Race: Doppelganger
--[X] Class: Wheeler Dealer
-[X] Taylor
--[X] Race: Scion of the Zree
--[X] Class: Sysops
 
I've just made a second plan, which admittedly is not nearly different enough to all the bugheads on here... (well at least it doesn't contain bugs.)
 
The way this vote is formatted is so confusing and annoying. I see the tally, but can't see WTF the leading plan even is without clicking on a name a going to a whole new window. Annoying.

Anyway here are two plans I think could work. The first is "better", while the second aims to stick with our current shticks to develop our viewer count.

[X] Plan Sysop + Wheeler without becoming a Cha 3 slug
-[X] Calliope : Doppelganger Wheeler Dealer
-[X] Taylor : Multacorpalan Sysop


Scion of Zree promises long-term power, but being a Cha 3 slug will be horrific for our viewer count. And viewer count matters A LOT in this reality TV show pretending to be a dungeon. Scion also makes us a lot weaker in the shrot term, which could lead to death, maiming, reduced grinding, and dead friends. Instead, this build takes the excellent Multacorpalan race.
I seriously considered taking Doppelganger instead of Multacorpalan, but I think the Teleportation shenanigans and gear-multiplication might prove even better than the big engineering stuff that Doppelganger allows for. Note that each Multacorpalan has its own mana total, which isn't just the main total divided around. This should mean Taylor will be able to use any spells a lot more than anyone else, effectively turning him into an excellent party mage.
Multacorpalan also has INSANE alpha strike abilities for this exact same reason, letting you blast blast blast with multiple bodies all at once when a boss turns up.

Edit: Changed Calliope's race for class compatibility reasons. It used to be Vahnitri.
EDIT 2 :
[X] Plan: Wheeling, Dealing, System Screwing Multacorpalan
Vote consolidation.

[X] Plan maintain tactics, improve power level
-[X] Calliope : Jinete Chronan
-[X] Taylor : Capreolin Pyrotechnics Engineer

With this, Calliope becomes a super deadly speed fighter while Taylor remains an item-based bullshit monster with deadly melee (for now) and deadly explosive game (for now and later).
 
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