[Exalted, ?] Most High

It's an average of 18 successes if he attempts intimidation, 14 if he doesn't. But he'll only intimidate if you guys vote him to.
What'd we be looking at for the other options? I'm presuming War's around 20.

I wonder how 20 successes on Ulyssian strategising compares to 14 successes trying to get our ally to very momentarily be honest, in effectiveness. Like, if we have some killer strategy and just tell it to Nilul, she can incorporate her plan into it.

So it comes down to:
Perfect Strategy, imperfect combination of Nilul's plan with Ulyssian's plan (because she would be doing it and we wouldn't know her plan) vs imperfect strategy, possibly slightly better implementation of Nilul's plan (if we can convince her to share her plan, Ulyssian can alter his).
 
[x] Use the Hypercompetence on a War Roll - No, the best option is to continue as you were, and use your technique on a Strategic War roll to analyze the information you gathered today and plan out tomorrow's actions. Also defends you from enemy attempts at striking indirectly, as you discern and counter their strategies peerlessly!

I don't think trading a higher chance at making maximum use of Nilul's plans makes up for a higher chance of getting hit by whatever skulduggery the other competitors get up to.

Besides, we might be able to get an answer out of Nilul without spending FSSA! [/faint hope]
 
[x] Use the Hypercompetence on a War Roll

Either we trust her or we don't, so let's focus on other things since we've decided to stop wasting our energy on mistrusting her intent.
 
Does that +1 specialty in Intimidation really make a difference of 4 average successes?
Well, that and that he can substitute his threat level for an Intimacy to base his roll off.
Considering that we don't know enough of her to key off of anything better than a Minor one at most and are really scary that's probably a large difference.

Edit:
On that note, profiling her would make any future attempts to convince her of stuff a lot easier.
We'd probably still fail with a normal roll, but it is something to consider.
 
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Is the Investigate/Stay In/Poison/Write-in vote over?

Because a Hypercompetence in 'use Saery's mortal spy network' seems like a better use of it than trying to get answers out of Nilul about something she's (presumably) doing for our benefit anyway.
 
Does that +1 specialty in Intimidation really make a difference of 4 average successes?

Uly's Presence Charm (Tiger's Dread Symmetry) lets him re-roll up to 3 non-success dice on attempts to Intimidate people.

[x] Use the Hypercompetence on a War Roll

Either we trust her or we don't, so let's focus on other things since we've decided to stop wasting our energy on mistrusting her intent.

Well, even if you trust her, you might still want to know her plan!

Well, that and that he can substitute his threat level for an Intimacy to base his roll off.
Considering that we don't know enough of her to key off of anything better than a Minor one at most and are really scary that's probably a large difference.

Edit:
On that note, profiling her would make any future attempts to convince her of stuff a lot easier.
We'd probably still fail with a normal roll, but it is something to consider.

Profile is mostly about helping you determine whether you can truly trust her, whereas Ask is mostly about deepening your relationship so that she trusts you more, assuming she is genuine.

Is the Investigate/Stay In/Poison/Write-in vote over?

Because a Hypercompetence in 'use Saery's mortal spy network' seems like a better use of it than trying to get answers out of Nilul about something she's (presumably) doing for our benefit anyway.

Yup, Decompress has won the day. Your write-in was in second, though.
 
[X] Use the Hypercompetence to Ask Her - Combined with a stunt, you could actually get a very respectable result on this roll, if you're lucky. You might also be able to force an answer out of her by intimidating her - that would be mechanically more effective, but might have untoward consequences. If successful, you might be able to connect with Nilul, getting her to reveal more of her plan.

[x] Use the Hypercompetence on a War Roll

Either we trust her or we don't, so let's focus on other things since we've decided to stop wasting our energy on mistrusting her intent.

Because this way we learn her plan so we know whether to avoid the Cathak or Encounter him (and if she is being genuine this will make her trust US more)
 
How exactly would the avoid/encounter choice work? Is it just a meta choice? I wasn't aware they let tournament participants choose their own opponents.
 
The update today should probably be in 2 to 3.5 Hours. Please get your votes / arguments in as soon as possible, so I can start writing.
 
[X] Use the Hypercompetence on a War Roll
[X] Encounter

Apparently we trust Nilul (I can't fathom why) so we should accept that she has a plan and simply try to make the best of it. We can instead focus on preparing our own Perfect plans, and telling them to Nilul so that she can decide how to implement her plan and whether to tell us.
 
Profile is mostly about helping you determine whether you can truly trust her, whereas Ask is mostly about deepening your relationship so that she trusts you more, assuming she is genuine.
I meant that more in the sense that it might reveal some of her Intimacies which should help with the mechanical side of any social roll-offs which seemed kind of noteworthy, not that it's the primary benefit of the option or something.

Of course, not even getting into social roll-offs against Nilul whenever possible by getting her to trust us more would probably be preferable, since we don't really want to blow our hypercompetence on her all the time and have mediocre odds even then.
 
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We voted to trust Nilul, because we didn't want to waste effort on keeping vigil against her. Also, this is likely to be one of our toughest fights, so we'll need all the help we can get. Maybe we should stunt informing Nilul of our plans so she can adjust hers, but if we put off the fight with Polemgaos we'll be tired from earlier fights, which will keep us from using the benefit of the full nights rest we got. Also, Rihaku has mentioned the best plan for victory is to win a clash early on, and we'll need the willpower/bonus for that.
Actually, I think we settled on a compromise option where we didn't waste mental resources second-guessing her, but decided not to trust her:
In his heart, he didn't trust the self-proclaimed Tepet, not fully, but he had decided that devoting so many mental resources to vigilance against one of his friends was likely wasteful

[X] Use the Hypercompetence on a War Roll

The stunt is good, but the idea of having to use FSSA on an ally just to have a chance at getting a straight answer is frankly laughable, and we need all the advantages we can possibly have at this point. If this might discern a weakness in Polemgaos or one of the others, or protect us from their own schemes, then we can't afford not to take that chance. It's not as if Nilul is going to change her plans because we're aware of them, oh no, that would be too much like actual cooperation! The tournament is too important to waste a usage on Nilul if it might mean the difference between success and failure in tomorrow's fight.
 
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[X] Use the Hypercompetence on a War Roll
[X] Encounter


No, let's not waste a Charm on this. As for Encounter, I'm just getting kinda tired of the trust/don't trust/investigate Nilul decision points. I just want the tournament to be over already. We could've been in Yu-Shan with Ivory, or even here with Ivory, but instead we brought her. I should've argued harder against that. Hindsight, eh? Fuck it, let's fight Polemgaus; we win, we get essence 4. We lose, we can walk away from whatever Nilul's planning for this shitshow.
 
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[X] Use the Hypercompetence on a War Roll
[X] Encounter


No, let's not waste a Charm on this. As for Encounter, I'm just getting kinda tired of the trust/don't trust/investigate Nilul decision points.

Haven't there only been two in total? And this one isn't even a full decision point, so it's more like... 1.5?

Of course, not even getting into social roll-offs against Nilul whenever possible by getting her to trust us more would probably be preferable, since we don't really want to blow our hypercompetence on her all the time and have mediocre odds even then.

Luckily, in 3E you don't have to get into roll-offs for social combat, it's just straight up rolling against Resolve. The most likely outcome of two social monsters going at it is both of them being convinced of something. Sadly, because of all the dice tricks, it's almost impossible for Resolve to beat a dedicated social monster, so the best defensive charm is actually the one that lets you substitute motes for willpower. The other social defenses are all extremely specific or have a really long cooldown.
 
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