What would readers prefer?

  • Pure narrative quest: no dice will be used, the author will have free reign to decide what happens.

    Votes: 25 59.5%
  • New dice system: the author will design a new, better dice system to add some randomness and risk.

    Votes: 17 40.5%

  • Total voters
    42
  • Poll closed .
Voting is open for the next 1 day, 22 hours
[X] Go all out. There's only six of the bad men in sight: hold nothing back. By magic and lightning, you will purge this corruption from your mountain. If needed, you will call upon your dragon: they will not stop you!
 
[X] Go all out. There's only six of the bad men in sight: hold nothing back. By magic and lightning, you will purge this corruption from your mountain. If needed, you will call upon your dragon: they will not stop you!

Making them lost in the tunnels would be a good idea only if we were confident we wouldn't stumble on some issues, whether it be spiders, closed paths, or their comrades. It doesn't feel like a good plan in these circumstances.

With a mage and an archer, we can do a decent alpha strike. And we can maybe steal their supplies.

We might have some psychological issues killing people, but we were going to suffer them sooner or later. We might as well bite the bullet now, or make them bite the thunder in these circumstances.
 
[X] Go all out. There's only six of the bad men in sight: hold nothing back. By magic and lightning, you will purge this corruption from your mountain. If needed, you will call upon your dragon: they will not stop you!
 
We might have some psychological issues killing people, but we were going to suffer them sooner or later. We might as well bite the bullet now, or make them bite the thunder in these circumstances.
Hmm, if we get stuck in and focused on the big fight rather than picking them off slowly, maybe Ryza won't have an existential crisis of "oh god I'm killing people" until after the threat's gone?

[X] Go all out. There's only six of the bad men in sight: hold nothing back. By magic and lightning, you will purge this corruption from your mountain. If needed, you will call upon your dragon: they will not stop you!
 
[X] Lure them in. You've proven that you can see in the dark far better than any human: if you lure these ones in you and Artemis can pick them off one by one. Thin their numbers until there's none left.

I would pick going all out but I'm worried throwing full power lightning could flashbang Artemis or hit the yeomen.
 
[x] Lure them in. You've proven that you can see in the dark far better than any human: if you lure these ones in you and Artemis can pick them off one by one. Thin their numbers until there's none left.
 
[X] Plan: Sometimes, Half-measures are actually better.
[X] Lure them in. You've proven that you can see in the dark far better than any human: if you lure these ones in you and Artemis can pick them off one by one. Thin their numbers until there's none left.
 
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So... if these guys are reasonably competent, and we try to lure them... they'll send a pair or so of men to check whether the 'bait' noises were just an animal or their target, Artemis. Shouldn't be hard to take that pair or trio out, and that's 1/3rd to 1/2 of the group dealt with. If they're clever, rather than just competent, they'll probably send a message alerting the rest of the overall group, but it'll take time for any reinforcements to arrive. If we're lucky, they have to do this via runner, resulting in 3-4 out of 6 being indisposed, total. If we're unlucky, they don't need a runner to send a message, and they'd have just pinpointed the exit we left from, giving them a rough idea of where we're running afterwards.

Possible failure points... they're either incompetent enough to send only one guy and no runner, making the tactic fairly ineffective since the moment the guy they investigate with dies, they gang up on us, in which case we're stuck fighting almost all of them at once anyways... or they all group up to investigate from the start, though i can't think of any reason why they might come to that decision, especially if it'd leave the exit unguarded.

On the other hand, attempting to nuke 'em all with Lightning right off the bat... if it works, we've preserved secrecy well enough that it'll take 'em awhile to realize the group guarding that exit died. They'll still know eventually, but it'll give us a head start in our escape, and that's useful. However, it also runs the risk of us just not being strong enough to properly nuke the group... but we took the enhancer tablet for Lightning magic, so there's that.

[X] Plan: Sometimes, Half-measures are actually better.
-[X] Set up an ambush, using noise as bait. Nothing verbal, since if they can tell it's Artemis, they'll all go after the noise, defeating the purpose of the tactic, but consistent enough that they have to check to see if it's a person.
-[X] Make use of your night vision; Artemis doesn't necessarily need to see, to aim at the center of a doorway and fire when you signal (poke to the leg, if it won't distract her?). Though you'll probably have to finish the job with Lightning if they send two or more people.
-[X] When the remainder of this enemy squad shows up, nuke 'em with Tablet-enhanced Lightning.
-[X] It's probably best (albeit nerve wracking) to have Artemis keep her eyes closed until the biggest flash of lightning, to avoid blinding her. You can tell her to open 'em after your alpha strike vs the remainder group, she'll need to see to fight anyways.
 
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[X] Lure them in. You've proven that you can see in the dark far better than any human: if you lure these ones in you and Artemis can pick them off one by one. Thin their numbers until there's none left.

I'm inclined towards an initial lure and then if something goes weird hit hard break out and go.
 
[X] Lure them in. You've proven that you can see in the dark far better than any human: if you lure these ones in you and Artemis can pick them off one by one. Thin their numbers until there's none left.

I'm inclined towards an initial lure and then if something goes weird hit hard break out and go.
Could i entice you to vote for my write-in? Since it's basically what you're looking for.
 
[X] Plan: Sometimes, Half-measures are actually better.

Narratively speaking, I gotta wonder if this may come from Artemis or us from some memory.
 
[X] Go all out. There's only six of the bad men in sight: hold nothing back. By magic and lightning, you will purge this corruption from your mountain. If needed, you will call upon your dragon: they will not stop you!
 
[X] Go all out. There's only six of the bad men in sight: hold nothing back. By magic and lightning, you will purge this corruption from your mountain. If needed, you will call upon your dragon: they will not stop you!
 
[X] Go all out. There's only six of the bad men in sight: hold nothing back. By magic and lightning, you will purge this corruption from your mountain. If needed, you will call upon your dragon: they will not stop you!

I want Artemis to see that Ryza doesn't... well she's clearly mentally a child, but she's definitely not a human child and the combat inability that implies. And better Artemis learns that before she actually attempts a sacrifice play to protect Ryza.
 
[X] Plan: Sometimes, Half-measures are actually better.

It's like breaking concealment in XCOM 2 - set everyone to fire on the first thing that moves in range, then wait until some poor sap triggers the avalanche. Alternatively, instead of waiting, have your artillery unit fire on the densest group, then watch the fireworks as everyone else gets chewed up when they try to run for cover.
 
[X] Go all out. There's only six of the bad men in sight: hold nothing back. By magic and lightning, you will purge this corruption from your mountain. If needed, you will call upon your dragon: they will not stop you!
 
[X] Go all out. There's only six of the bad men in sight: hold nothing back. By magic and lightning, you will purge this corruption from your mountain. If needed, you will call upon your dragon: they will not stop you!
 
[X] Go all out. There's only six of the bad men in sight: hold nothing back. By magic and lightning, you will purge this corruption from your mountain. If needed, you will call upon your dragon: they will not stop you!
 
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Adhoc vote count started by SoaringHawk218 on Dec 12, 2021 at 7:28 PM, finished with 23 posts and 20 votes.

  • [X] Go all out. There's only six of the bad men in sight: hold nothing back. By magic and lightning, you will purge this corruption from your mountain. If needed, you will call upon your dragon: they will not stop you!
    [X] Plan: Sometimes, Half-measures are actually better.
    -[X] Set up an ambush, using noise as bait. Nothing verbal, since if they can tell it's Artemis, they'll all go after the noise, defeating the purpose of the tactic, but consistent enough that they have to check to see if it's a person.
    -[X] Make use of your night vision; Artemis doesn't necessarily need to see, to aim at the center of a doorway and fire when you signal (poke to the leg, if it won't distract her?). Though you'll probably have to finish the job with Lightning if they send two or more people.
    -[X] When the remainder of this enemy squad shows up, nuke 'em with Tablet-enhanced Lightning.
    -[X] It's probably best (albeit nerve wracking) to have Artemis keep her eyes closed until the biggest flash of lightning, to avoid blinding her. You can tell her to open 'em after your alpha strike vs the remainder group, she'll need to see to fight anyways.
    [X] Lure them in. You've proven that you can see in the dark far better than any human: if you lure these ones in you and Artemis can pick them off one by one. Thin their numbers until there's none left.


All in is currently winning, so if you want to play cautious, the two plans should try and combine.
 
Personally, I'm keen not to have Ryza get Loud as a Dragon in front of Artemis.

If we're wanting to keep the cavaliers safe, perhaps we go after the two bandits watching them, so we can free em and deny them an advantage?
 
[X] Plan: Sometimes, Half-measures are actually better.
-[X] Set up an ambush, using noise as bait. Nothing verbal, since if they can tell it's Artemis, they'll all go after the noise, defeating the purpose of the tactic, but consistent enough that they have to check to see if it's a person.
-[X] Make use of your night vision; Artemis doesn't necessarily need to see, to aim at the center of a doorway and fire when you signal (poke to the leg, if it won't distract her?). Though you'll probably have to finish the job with Lightning if they send two or more people.
-[X] When the remainder of this enemy squad shows up, nuke 'em with Tablet-enhanced Lightning.
-[X] It's probably best (albeit nerve wracking) to have Artemis keep her eyes closed until the biggest flash of lightning, to avoid blinding her. You can tell her to open 'em after your alpha strike vs the remainder group, she'll need to see to fight anyways.
 
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