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Even Further Beyond [Complete]

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Redshirt Army said:
Since the spell keeps being brought up:



What interests me here is the "if casting it on themselves" bit, since it seems to imply a mode where we can cast it on others, not unlike the Quickening.

Doubled strength and quadrupled speed, potentially further augmented by Blood based metamagic? That's a pretty hefty effectiveness modifier for the whole party...
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Ah thanks for digging that up, I'd forgotten that one. I think it's worth learning since we have that confirmation of what it'll do at higher realms.
Regarding Blood, it'll take considerable effort to unlock, so I think we should carefully consider whether it's what we want to invest in.
 
George said:
Ah thanks for digging that up, I'd forgotten that one. I think it's worth learning since we have that confirmation of what it'll do at higher realms.
Regarding Blood, it'll take considerable effort to unlock, so I think we should carefully consider whether it's what we want to invest in.
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the cool thing is that with the ring we may simply meet a suitable lich tutor. We now have social undead bonuses :D
 
George said:
Regarding Blood, it'll take considerable effort to unlock, so I think we should carefully consider whether it's what we want to invest in.
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I strongly believe that Blood is the best of the upper level Diagrams for us in the short term. It synergizes with the regeneration of the Ring and provides immediate power, which means we can accomplish greater deeds in the short term and get the XP train going.

Even though the multipliers it adds are modest compared to Beyond point gains, they are applied afterwards in the stack - so even a 1.25x multiplier to Quickening, for example, would be enough to get it from x4 to x5 speed.

In the long run, Fate is almost certainly the most important Sign, guiding both our Artifice and allowing us to hack away at the heroine's destiny. But I think 16 years is plenty of time to aquire Fate in, and Blood is better to get first.
 
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One thing we should be cautious of is the very limited number of Diagram magic spells we can learn. If we develop Llewyn's Prodigious Might, we can't learn a spell designed from the ground up by a Cultivator to synergise with/reinforce the benefits of Cultivation.

Those spells would probably be better.
 
Improving almost any of our spells with Blood sounds pretty cool. Deliberation, Acceleration, Might (if we get it).

But also Mordant Flame. After all, we regenerate and don't actually die from running out of blood, so spending some HP to cast our magic missile is no big deal. Or Teleport; the less time we spend travelling the more time we can spend doing stuff.

And we can get Blood on the way to Vale.
 
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With regards to the Cultivate vs Llewyn's Prodigious Might debate I come firmly down on the Cultivation side of the argument.

Llewyn's looks very powerful, especially backed by the Ring, but we can learn the spell at any time, there is no opportunity cost in waiting because having the spell now doesn't unlock any new options for us, and when we learn it we will want to spend a point on it to maximize the investment.

We need that point to begin Cultivating, remaining locked out of our most powerful magic is not only a social detriment, it also limits our ability to truly plan our advancement because any argument in favor of cultivation has no specifics to point to, we don't have a good idea of How Rihaku is going to handle it.

We can wait on Llewyn's, we have limited points to spend at present, and to many commitments as is.
 
More importantly though, Llewyn uses up mental energy, while Cultivation is just generally superior. Especially if we can find a way to conceal our Cultivation Base.
 
Duquette7 said:
With regards to the Cultivate vs Llewyn's Prodigious Might debate I come firmly down on the Cultivation side of the argument.

Llewyn's looks very powerful, especially backed by the Ring, but we can learn the spell at any time, there is no opportunity cost in waiting because having the spell now doesn't unlock any new options for us, and when we learn it we will want to spend a point on it to maximize the investment.

We need that point to begin Cultivating, remaining locked out of our most powerful magic is not only a social detriment, it also limits our ability to truly plan our advancement because any argument in favor of cultivation has no specifics to point to, we don't have a good idea of How Rihaku is going to handle it.

We can wait on Llewyn's, we have limited points to spend at present, and to many commitments as is.
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Agreed. Llewyn's is a neat effect, but it's nowhere close to the foundational monolith of our build that cultivation must be.

Alectai said:
More importantly though, Llewyn uses up mental energy, while Cultivation is just generally superior. Especially if we can find a way to conceal our Cultivation Base.
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And even if we don't. Hiding our explosive power growth is going to become nigh-impossible within the objective year if we're doing anything right, so such an effect would just provide some minor uncertainty to the exact scale of the impossible heights we've seized in an apparent eyeblink.
 
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The increased time dilation from the ring is most useful for cultivation anyway, and cultivation is necessary before we can seriously consider using elf magic to make another artifact.
 
...We are gonna have a number of choices to make tomorrow and I'm unsure how they will stack up.

In terms of Ascendant signs, I agree that Blood is a must-have ASAP because it boosts any other effect we're going for. In terms of more mundane signs, Flesh will probably offer some healing but I hope we can also get some kind of organ transfer or absorption spell to combo with Organ-Refining.
 
Talking of developing spells, one of the possibilities that, IIRC, Rihaku mentioned for accessing the Beyond Cultivation required being a Diagram Mage*, and presumably casting a specialised buff spell on yourself. As Beyond Points spent on spells are doubled, then it might be possible to use this to apply the Ring's BP point doubling by spending them on developing a superior version of this spell so that it creates a superior version of the Beyond Cultivation Stage. It would be really nice to only have to spend 1.5 BPs to develop a Further Beyond Cultivation Stage. This is the kind of synergy we should be thinking about. It may not be possible here, but generally going Beyond on tailored Cultivation boosting spells should be considered. It's also one of the few ways we might spend the points to go Even Further Beyond on a Cultivation stage, as I can just about see us spending five points.

One of the advantages of Cultivating up to Peak Ego barrier and then burning it to create an artifact is that Nameless should then have the knowledge about the stage and cultivation from the inside to develop such spells.

More generally, if this isn't possible, I'd say that no spells are must haves any more. We've invested enough in Diagram Magic for now. We've reached our target of getting Chronomancy, so it's time to move on. We should remember that Rihaku told us this:

Rihaku said:
*Just as Planned relies heavily on getting Chronomancy or other Diagram arts of equal utility sometime in the future, which is explicitly risky and expensive. Further, though you are an intelligent child with a talent and inventive flair for Diagram magic, you are not a world-shaking genius as with Cultivation. It will take some thinking and clean execution to get what you need unscathed, though the payoff is admittedly very substantial.
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I'd forgotten that we were naturally a world shaking genius with Cultivation, more inherently talented with that than Diagram Magic.

*
Rihaku said:
Oh, it wouldn't be impossible for the Elder Titans to revise their cultivation bases. In a Cultivation-only world, perhaps, but Elven Artifice is said to be able to achieve almost any effect... Since elven spiritual perfection renders them impervious to even the most horrific torture (unless they are diminished), however, it is unlikely they would ever get an elf to actually make such an artifact for them successfully. It would probably just end up with you indirectly genociding the elves.

This assumes that Baenlixnaire's gambit doesn't require the Cultivator to also be a Diagram Mage, of course...
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What about revealing that our Diagram Magic comes from the Ring? And then pretending to be just a Cultivator.

That has the added benefit of being true and testable, if we really wanted to we could hand the Ring off to Ming and have her demonstrate her own Diagram magic. Downside being that it would make those we tell want the Ring more.
 
Alratan said:
If we're going to make one artifact, why not make two or three different ones.
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Primarily because I don't want to tempt Fate
Rihaku said:
Trying to make multiple Artifacts in succession that do the or similar same things may 'burn out' your Artificing ability or mess with your Fate. The Diagram is much more tolerant of ruthless optimization, while Binary Magic is subject to the whims of a hard Rule 0 GM.
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This reads to me like Binary Magic has the most risk when trying to game the system.

It's based on Sacrifice, not just of the energy, and resources used in it's construction, but so much more then that, and what you are talking about is allot of cheap, virtually worthless sacrifices.

Yes, this stage gives us allot of free Energy to use as a resource, but the energy is the least of the costs associated with Artifice, and the GM, namely Fate, wants us to fail.

I do think we can get one use out of the exploit, sacrifice our first brush with the power of our Fathers and all that.

Which is why I think we need to spend it on a utility artifact that we can leverage to boost all our goals simultaneously.

A Scrying Artifact.

Lets make a Palantíri.
 
I agree that any and all spells learned should aim for helping with cultivation and binary magic in a pretty direct way. Two of our three current spells meet that criteria right now- arguably even Mordant Fire could potentially be used to do 'soul surgery' and remove undesirable ephemeral qualities...

At any rate, while I know some people are dubious as to the benefits Diagram Magic can offer cultivation I'm more optimistic.
 
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Does anyone have a problem trying to get the sarcophagus?
It's something we can do on our own AND if we make that artifact of Rihaku's then we get 5 years per month.
That would let us cultivate very very quickly, and should let us go from Ego Barrier to Higher very fast. So if we NEED to get stronger in a hurry (we find the Hero) then we can drop the 'not really the Thrice Great' act.
 
You seem to be operating on a mistaken assumption, @kildar , that we only "need to get stronger in a hurry" when we find the heroine. This is patently false, and there cannot be a "not really the Thrice Great" act if we want to win.

I'm extremely leery about putting it off for even four months so we can maximize political gains from it - we cannot delay any more then that if we want to stand a ghost of a chance.
 
If I was outlining our time skip it would go something like this.

1.During the day, travel and social with Suizhen, hopefully sparing/training so we can cement her loyalty and get a start on building a combat style. Use Quickening to boost her.

2.During our evening hours Cultivate quickly up to Ego, then Spend our first Brush with Cultivation on a Palantíri type Artifact to boost our capacity to find rare Reagents/Treasures/Dungeons/Teachers/Lich's, and the Heroine, a five fold increase in achieving our goals, both now and in the future.

3.Once we've used the exploit to fashion our artifact, mainline Cultivation, we are shortly going to be in Vane, with access to other Lich's, and their spells, notes, and legacies, the Ring grants major bonuses in Lich wrangling. Baen's notes were a major boon in learning an ascended Sign, I think we can wait to learn the next one till we've seen what bonuses to further Diagram efforts we can pull out of Vane.

As for thrice great? Hide the Diagram, we don't plan to spend much time in central, so it should be fairly simple to pass through as just one more Cultivator, if a gifted one. Lets not complicate things here, just don't draw attention to it and it is likely to be overlooked.

Both our lackeys can learn our secret as we can not expect to hide it from close observation without crippling ourselves.

If it gets out? We have the Backing of two major clans, and high social to boot, we can ride it out.
 
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Duquette7 said:
If I was outlining our time skip it would go something like this.

1.During the day, travel and social with Suizhen, hopefully sparing/training so we can cement her loyalty and get a start on building a combat style. Use Quickening to boost her.

2.During our evening hours Cultivate quickly up to Ego, then Spend our first Brush with Cultivation on a Palantíri type Artifact to boost our capacity to find rare Reagents/Treasures/Dungeons/Teachers/Lich's, and the Heroine, a five fold increase in achieving our goals, both now and in the future.

3.Once we've used the exploit to fashion our artifact, mainline Cultivation, we are shortly going to be in Vane, with access to other Lich's, and their spells, notes, and legacies, and the Ring grants major bonuses in Lich wrangling. Baen's notes were a major boon in learning an ascended Sign, I think we can wait to learn the next one till we've seen what bonuses to further Diagram efforts we can pull out of Vane.

As for thrice great? Hide the Diagram, we don't plan to spend much time in central, so it should be fairly simple to pass through as just one more Cultivator, if a gifted one. Lets not complicate things here, just don't draw attention to it and it is likely to be overlooked.

Both our lackeys can learn our secret as we can not expect to hide it from close observation without crippling ourselves.

If it gets out? We have the Backing of two major clans, and high social to boot, we can ride it out.
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My only displeasure with this is that it implies we will hide it in Vane in roughly eight months time.
 
DarkKing98 said:
My only displeasure with this is that it implies we will hide it in Vane in roughly eight months time.
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Eh? That was not part of my plan, mostly worried about getting bogged down in central, the politics there are likely to be more brutal.

Don't real care about hiding it much past that, just don't draw attention to it, no one could expect us to be able to do this, so they wont be looking for it, let then come up with logical reasons for what we are doing/capable of, breaking the rules of reality is not going to be their first guess.

Besides, I think we are mostly going to be out in the field. Should be relatively simple to imply we where provided with a Diagram mage by our father and he's somewhere in our entourage, who can really tell the difference between members of the Help after all?

Really just want to not make the announcement in Central, difference in letting everyone know when we are Standing next to grandfather, then when we are on our own in the heart of Imperial power in back biting Central.
 
Duquette7 said:
Eh? That was not part of my plan, mostly worried about getting bogged down in central, the politics there are likely to be more brutal.

Don't real care about hiding it much past that, just don't draw attention to it, no one could expect us to be able to do this, so they wont be looking for it, let then come up with logical reasons for what we are doing/capable of, breaking the rules of reality is not going to be their first guess.

Besides, I think we are mostly going to be out in the field. Should be relatively simple to imply we where provided with a Diagram mage by our father and he's somewhere in our entourage, who can really tell the difference between members of the Help after all?

Really just want to not make the announcement in Central, difference in letting everyone know when we are Standing next to grandfather, then when we are on our own in the heart of Imperial power in back biting Central.
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Ah, ok. Misunderstood. Sorry.
 
Cultivators of a Realm above are easily able to hide their true power from lower-Stage Cultivators, especially before Dao Cleaving.
 
Redshirt Army said:
You seem to be operating on a mistaken assumption, @kildar , that we only "need to get stronger in a hurry" when we find the heroine. This is patently false, and there cannot be a "not really the Thrice Great" act if we want to win.

I'm extremely leery about putting it off for even four months so we can maximize political gains from it - we cannot delay any more then that if we want to stand a ghost of a chance.
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Enh, it was mostly an attempt to build support for making the sarcophagus.
I'd like to actually start cultivating as soon as possible, but people want to build artifacts.
Plus we need more Beyond Points for each stage.

Honestly, we know that each 'month' will involve (generally) one major and either one or two minor actions.
(Rihaku has said that even when adventuring, we will still take time off to recover since we are spoiled)

So we put a minor action into the sarcophagus each month, the major into adventuring and the last minor into cultivating or social.
we should gain an extra action due to chronomancy, so once the sarcophagus is done, we can use the extra slots to speed cultivation AND be social at the same time.

Lastly, one opportunity cost were are missing is that if we are strong enough, then we can move faster through the Dungeons AND attempt stronger Dungeons.Said Dungeons are likely to have more artifacts and resources right?
 
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