Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

[Vanguard_D]

[X] Offensive approach. Actively work to eliminate the other groups
[X] Scout, remaining in stealth and moving ahead of the group, while circling back around for support in combat

 

[Arkeus]

Our team's pretty aggressively focused, we're at our best remaining aggressive--our character's not so good in a straight fight, and 'Geek the mage' hasn't stopped being good policy just because we're in kung fu wizard genre, so Support is a good way to have us be wrecked.

Aggressive Approach and Scouting I think is our best choice.

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... How does "have the mage be alone in front of the enemy" supposed to stop 'geek the mage'?

Also, our team is not agressively focused at all. No one is ranged so we benefit quite a lot from having a defensive setting, and we have 3 tank characters and a Dex deps beside Ling Qi. An agressive party would be one that has high mobility/range as well as stealth.

 

[FixerUpper]

I don't have time to think up a reasoned vote just now, but I do want to point out that either our teammates don't believe we can really help or NONE of us have dots in war (except maybe the guy who can't talk) hence nobody actually told the absolute beginner what she should be doing.

...this is going to go great.

 

[yrsillar]

The role thing is a retroactive vote as to how Ling Qi presented Herself in regards to fitting their group, it's why I kinda skimmed over the training

 

[eillera]

[X] Offensive approach. Actively work to eliminate the other groups.
-[X] We know nothing about who we are fighting so let them fight each other to learn more and to take them out when they are tired.
[X] Scout, remaining in stealth and moving ahead of the group, while circling back around for support in combat.

 

[Kipeci]

The defensive plan is gambling that we're the fastest, and it risks engaging both groups at once.

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How so? If we go the defensive route, show up and we are first (and we are almost all described as fast) then we're in charge of whatever defenses the place will have to muster. If we show up and we aren't first, we have some time to plan out the attack (it would be rather stupid of the opponents to sally out after all) with almost certain cooperation from whatever other team was left out in the cold. It would be pretty silly of the other group to attack us if they're on the outside because that would just tire them out before attacking the defensive position that actually matters.

What happens if we're aggressive, on the other hand? If everything works out perfectly, we find both of the other groups on this mountain before any of them can make a dash for the fortress and trash both of them. This assumes that we're so fast that we can put down a whole team and encounter another before they make it, which seems wildly optimistic to me. If we only get one in time, then we're weakened and need to attack fortified opponents without help. If we fail in finding either before getting up to the top, then we're in a similar situation to one of the failures described in the last paragraph but we have even less time because we were looking for these jerks instead of trying to scale the mountain.

The only situation where we have a better time in the offensive plan is if we trash both of them before they can get to the fortress, so I would hesitate to characterize the defensive plan as the risky one.

You're forgetting our team. Scouts generally don't try to attack head on; they're the sneaky sneaky type. Our team seems pretty loaded on the offensive front. And being the attacker means we have the initiative; we can dictate how the battle opens.

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Yes, we're loaded on the offensive front with fast and strong people. Let's not blunt that by forcing ourselves to go up against defenses that will sap that strength, OK? We'll have plenty of opportunities to be sneaky in the fortress if we get there first; if we familiarize ourselves with the layout before the opponents can, we can lay a world of hurt on them when they are forced to walk into traps or ambushes. All our sneaky skills won't matter at all if they know where we have to attack from.

Our team's pretty aggressively focused, we're at our best remaining aggressive--our character's not so good in a straight fight, and 'Geek the mage' hasn't stopped being good policy just because we're in kung fu wizard genre, so Support is a good way to have us be wrecked.

Aggressive Approach and Scouting I think is our best choice.

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So make an aggressive approach for the castle if you care about the branding of the term, if our character is not good in a straight fight then we should support her with a defensive position that helps to cover her weakness rather than forcing her to go against a position of strength head-on.

Edit:
Here's my vote.

[x] Defensive approach. Attempt to reach the fort first and hold it against the others
[x] Support, remaining within art range of the group and acting fully in the role as a support

I think for the reasons outlined above that our best option is to rush the fort and try to take it before the others get there. Secondly, support seems the better choice-- it'd be one thing if we'd made her regularly explore mountains and the like to get more of a feel for the nature so that we could trust independent stealthy operation, but we didn't. I don't want a city-slicker, even a sneaky one, trying to sneak up on people out of their element. Instead, she should stick with the group and help everyone speed up; in return, she is far less likely to get squished by some experienced person who happens to run into her.

 

[eillera]

Instead, she should stick with the group and help everyone speed up; in return, she is far less likely to get squished by some experienced person who happens to run into her.

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I didn't think of this portion but with her abilities she should be able to help everyone get to the fort faster too. The only issue I can see is if we get the fort we will have to fight both groups at once and we don't know who they are and how much the defences will really help us.

 

[Hangwind]

[X] Plan: Attack in Defense, Defense in Attack
-[X] Take the fort first, at all costs.
-[X] Station someone there with a ranged communication ability, then send out harassment forces to attack the other teams.
-[X] The person left behind booby-traps the fort as best they can. If the castle is attacked, they rabbit and let their booby traps take apart the other team, while calling the strike teams back to lead the other enemy team to attack the one that has invaded the fort. When both are weak, attack and destroy both.
-[X] Otherwise, harass the other teams. If one gets close to the fort, back to plan one. If a team gets hurt, they can fall back towards the fort.
-[X] In any case, lead the teams toward each other and the fort. They might join forces if they meet too far outside the fort, but once they get close, they likely won't be willing to let any foes inside the castle.
-[X] Scout to capture the castle, then Mixed with whoever the slowest of the team is so that we can keep their speed high enough for harassment attacks.

 

[Kipeci]

[X] Plan: Attack in Defense, Defense in Attack
-[X] Take the fort first, at all costs.
-[X] Station someone there with a ranged communication ability, then send out harassment forces to attack the other teams.
-[X] The person left behind booby-traps the fort as best they can. If the castle is attacked, they rabbit and let their booby traps take apart the other team, while calling the strike teams back to lead the other enemy team to attack the one that has invaded the fort. When both are weak, attack and destroy both.
-[X] Otherwise, harass the other teams. If one gets close to the fort, back to plan one. If a team gets hurt, they can fall back towards the fort.
-[X] In any case, lead the teams toward each other and the fort. They might join forces if they meet too far outside the fort, but once they get close, they likely won't be willing to let any foes inside the castle.
-[X] Scout to capture the castle, then Mixed with whoever the slowest of the team is so that we can keep their speed high enough for harassment attacks.

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I don't think this plan makes sense. I can support a rush for the castle, but I don't get the rushing out of it right after we've gone through the trouble of getting there first, as that negates the value of the position. Your plan then relies on us splitting a team already less one person into halves that both seek out larger teams to harass, which really weakens the support-focused people and leaves either half in a very precarious position should they not elude the other team after an initial strike.

My thinking here is that teamwork will make the dreamwork, and that splitting up into three groups intending to attack two different larger teams at once will go against that ideal and leave us in a bad spot.

 

[Hangwind]

I don't think this plan makes sense. I can support a rush for the castle, but I don't get the rushing out of it right after we've gone through the trouble of getting there first, as that negates the value of the position. Your plan then relies on us splitting a team already less one person into halves that both seek out larger teams to harass, which really weakens the support-focused people and leaves either half in a very precarious position should they not elude the other team after an initial strike.

My thinking here is that teamwork will make the dreamwork, and that splitting up into three groups intending to attack two different larger teams at once will go against that ideal and leave us in a bad spot.

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The problem is that if we go Defense, we immediately become a target as the team with the strongest position. It would just make sense for them to team up against us and crack us out of our stony shell, then worry about who gets the fort.

If we go Offense, we pretty much give up the fort to one team while we try to eliminate the other. Worse, at that point we won't be able to team up, even if the enemy team still exists, because they'll hate our guts. My plan allows us to lead them to a situation where two relatively evenly matched teams see a lightly defended fort at the same time. They fight each other for it, then run face first into the booby traps, then we sweep them from behind.

 

[pheonix89]

We've got no trapmaking or ranged comms.

Also, traps are kind of discouraged by the no maiming rule.

 

[Kipeci]

The problem is that if we go Defense, we immediately become a target as the team with the strongest position. It would just make sense for them to team up against us and crack us out of our stony shell, then worry about who gets the fort.

If we go Offense, we pretty much give up the fort to one team while we try to eliminate the other. Worse, at that point we won't be able to team up, even if the enemy team still exists, because they'll hate our guts. My plan allows us to lead them to a situation where two relatively evenly matched teams see a lightly defended fort at the same time. They fight each other for it, then run face first into the booby traps, then we sweep them from behind.

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I think that it may not be that big of a problem if we have the defensive fort, though. The entire point of those is to limit the offensive advantages of the foe; for ex. if we have one big guy and they have two, stick our one big guy in a narrow pass that they can't get around and it's essentially one on one two times rather than surrounding him for a two vs. one, which lends us better odds. Plus, if we have any trap skills on the team at all, I think we could far more effectively make those traps working as five people in the full amount of time before foes show up rather than as one telepath (does anyone have that skill on our side?) doing all the work alone.

If there's any slip-up in your plan with regards to either of the harassers getting out of trouble, there goes just under half the team in a curb-stomp match against another full team. When we're all split up like this, we're also not able to have the overlapping boosts from the relative abundance of support characters on our team; the sum of our parts is substantially less than the value of the whole.

Basically, if you think that we'd have a bad time with one vs. two in a defensive position, I don't see why splitting up into two separate groups for less-than-one vs. two conflicts in the unfortified wilds would be a good idea. If one guy trips at the wrong moment, we won't be able to achieve your objective even assuming we get otherwise perfect telepathic coordination.

 

[LucidProp]

Despite her focus Ling Qi stuttered for a moment and flushed slightly. That… it wasn't but well they had to sit close together, or HOLD HANDS and sometimes Li Suyin needed to use a finger to trace the flow of qi…

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Woah, lewd.

[X] Offensive approach. Actively work to eliminate the other groups
[X] Scout, remaining in stealth and moving ahead of the group, while circling back around for support in combat

 

[veekie]

Yes, we're loaded on the offensive front with fast and strong people. Let's not blunt that by forcing ourselves to go up against defenses that will sap that strength, OK? We'll have plenty of opportunities to be sneaky in the fortress if we get there first; if we familiarize ourselves with the layout before the opponents can, we can lay a world of hurt on them when they are forced to walk into traps or ambushes. All our sneaky skills won't matter at all if they know where we have to attack from.

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You have a very unusual definition of scouting.

Offense + Scout:
Ling Qi will sneak ahead of the group, banking on most young Cultivators being pretty crappy at stuff not related directly to combat locate them, identify them, then head back and report in.
Then the group will descend upon them because we have some serious offense in our team. We keep an eye out for the third group while they fight.
Ideally, this means we intercept them in the open before they reach the fort. This is possible because we entered the arena faster than them, so we can hit enemies in the open.

The tradeoff for going defensive is basically giving the opponents the initiative in determining when and how you fight, in exchange for deciding where you fight. It works well if your enemies are straightforward attackers, but gives the enemy an advantage if they're focused more on esoteric bullshittium that you need to counter, since they'd have time to setup, or if your enemies decide to team up and fight over the fort after taking you out(in which case, defense advantage or not, two to one is not good odds).

The tradeoff for going offensive is that since we're first on the field, we have the option to hit them before they even get to the fort, but this has a higher element of chance because if we take too long or wind up in a three way brawl, results are unpredictable. However, if we can eliminate the second team and then move to the fort after that, we're going to be in a greatly advantageous position.

 

[Arkeus]

You have a very unusual definition of scouting.

Offense + Scout:
Ling Qi will sneak ahead of the group, banking on most young Cultivators being pretty crappy at stuff not related directly to combat locate them, identify them, then head back and report in.
Then the group will descend upon them because we have some serious offense in our team. We keep an eye out for the third group while they fight.
Ideally, this means we intercept them in the open before they reach the fort. This is possible because we entered the arena faster than them, so we can hit enemies in the open.

The tradeoff for going defensive is basically giving the opponents the initiative in determining when and how you fight, in exchange for deciding where you fight. It works well if your enemies are straightforward attackers, but gives the enemy an advantage if they're focused more on esoteric bullshittium that you need to counter, since they'd have time to setup, or if your enemies decide to team up and fight over the fort after taking you out(in which case, defense advantage or not, two to one is not good odds).

The tradeoff for going offensive is that since we're first on the field, we have the option to hit them before they even get to the fort, but this has a higher element of chance because if we take too long or wind up in a three way brawl, results are unpredictable. However, if we can eliminate the second team and then move to the fort after that, we're going to be in a greatly advantageous position.

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Man, I like how in your theory our opponents are too young and inexperienced to have esoteric abilities to detect us (like, say, any kind of animal-sensing), but definitely will have esoteric abilities that would make a defensive position worthless.

Like, let's be honest. The issue with scouting is that we are significantly weaker than the a average student still and we are banking in our ability to quickly be able to find other groups while not being detected. You know what stealth need? time. You know what else? our opponents not being on their guards.

We don't have magic bulshit stealth, nor do we have even normal tracking abilities, and assuming we will be able to detect a group undetected, then come back to our group, then attack, win the fight, then do the same for the other group before that group is able to come up the moutain to the fort is basically wishful thinking.

Odds are much higher that we'll be detected and taken out because we suck.

OTOH, our group is extremely deffensive-oriented. We have only one pure offensive member, he rest are excellent people when it takes to taking care of chokepoints and holding them. Let's use their actual abilities instead of making up plans that contradict themselves.

 

[Koden]

Now that i am in front of a computer.

No. She would be free in the end, no matter the trial, no matter what she had to sacrifice to do it.

The pressure vanished, like a damn burst by floodwater and she felt her qi soar even as awareness returned to her, along with all of her doubts and thoughts, shattering the moment of utter clarity she had just experienced. Even as she opened her eyes and smiled weakly at her excited partner, accepting the girls praise and congratulations at breaking through, that final thought lingered in her head. Was that really who she was when you stripped everything else away?

Somehow it made her feel a little hollow.

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The wish to be Free is fairly typical in Xianxia, so I find that Ling Qi questioning the worth of her core desire to be interesting.

 

[FixerUpper]

Okay, after some thought:

There are three groups fighting here (called A,B,C for ease of interpretation). Possible scenarios:

DEFENSE

1) Ideal Defense: A and B fight, C takes the fort, C defeats the winners of A and B all members being roughly equal.

• We can assume that anyone going the aggressive route is going to wind up as either A or B in this scenario should it come to pass. We should not let it come to pass.

2) Allied Siege: C takes the fort, A and B ally, both gang up on C. Result is a bit up in the air.

• I don't really see this happening when the time limit is a mere two hours and all teams have an impetus to compete, but maybe someone on the opposing side is super good at social combat, or the other two teams know each other or one team is overwhelming enough to threaten the weaker team into attacking on the offchance the stronger team is weakened enough that the weak team can come out on top.

3) Siege in Waves: C takes the fort, A attacks, then B attacks the group that is winning.

• Again, result is a bit up in the air, but probably favors B depending on how devastating the ambush is.

There are variations on that theme, but anything else starts getting a little overambitious, I think, on the part of the defenders. The allied defense (C and B in the fort versus A) is so unlikely I'd wager it impossible unless one of the groups we're against is just that OP in which case all bets are off.

OFFENSE

1) Ideal Offense: A and B fight, C moves in to mop up.

• Basically the same as Ideal Defense, minus the fort. You'd somehow need to engineer a scenario like this one because the likelihood of ALL the teams choosing to go offensive seems a bit remote.

2) Kite
C shows up on A or B's radar, rabbits away and gets A or B to pursue to some sort of strategic location.

• Needs a rabbit.
• Probably the only way to engineer an ideal offense. But you'd need 1) to know where both A and B are, 2) get both groups to commit to an offense. It's probably within a scout specialized team's capabilities, not ours.
• Unless we are willing to rabbit, not very practical.

3) Attack Attack Attack
C goes after A and B before either can get to the fort.

• Unless you're at an overwhelming advantage in terms of fighting ability, I don't see why you'd do this.

----

We're in a three-sided war and this isn't a RLS game where the resources spent to fight can be recovered by conquering another side. Whoever can stay out of the fighting the longest has the advantage because this is very much a case of 'whatever doesn't kill you makes you weaker.'Neither Qi nor health is can be trivially recovered so we should do our best not to waste them.

So, after all that I guess what I think we should do is:

Go Camping: C goes near the fort, then hides. Waits for A and B to show up and tear each other up, then goes in for the kill. Dangerous, if either of the other teams can scout worth a damn.

• This ofc assumes we are operating on real world logic and not 'NO THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL CHUNKS OF XP WE GOTTA COLLECT THEM ALL.'
• Also, it runs the risk of alienating our noble-bred allies because this is definitely the sort of scavenger-like strategy a girl raised by the streets would come up with, not those raised in a more martial culture. Given that our strategy relies on everyone staying patient and not breaking cover, their impatience and dislike is actually dangerous.
• Finally, relies on the fort not providing such a defensible location that one team could conceivably hold off two.

Thoughts?

 

[veekie]

Man, I like how in your theory our opponents are too young and inexperienced to have esoteric abilities to detect us (like, say, any kind of animal-sensing), but definitely will have esoteric abilities that would make a defensive position worthless.

Like, let's be honest. The issue with scouting is that we are significantly weaker than the a average student still and we are banking in our ability to quickly be able to find other groups while not being detected. You know what stealth need? time. You know what else? our opponents not being on their guards.

We don't have magic bulshit stealth, nor do we have even normal tracking abilities, and assuming we will be able to detect a group undetected, then come back to our group, then attack, win the fight, then do the same for the other group before that group is able to come up the moutain to the fort is basically wishful thinking.

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Misrepresentation.

Based on everything we've seen so far:
-Young Cultivators in the combat class have proven to be VERY KILLY. This is known fact. Everyone else dropped out.
-Young Cultivators in general are not stealthy. We already know this, barring backgrounds similar to us, they generally learned a lot more etiquette or esoteric ways to fight .
-Young Cultivators in the combat class do not have the ability to reliably detect us. We already know this, we've proven to be able to sneak past most people without exotic senses or significantly higher level. And they're not very common

Scouting IS dangerous, but from everything we've seen, the people in this class have already been deselected for subtlety at least twice, and selected for combat prowess as much.
As such, it's a given that they would be successful at leveraging a fortification's defensibility, because that's what the class is about! But locating an opponent who does not seek to engage is much more difficult.

Thoughts?

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Went through the same chain of logic.
However, we entered first, so we're likely to be able to grab the fort OR get a free swing at Team B before Team C can take the fort due to timing advantage

I basically see only two winning strategies:
1) Beeline for the fort, rely on the enemy not being socially savvy enough to team up. Noting that many of the Cultivator come from old, immensely political families, who might well accomplish that.
2) Ambush one team, then beeline for the fort. Rely on our ability to find them before they find us, then leverage a surprise offensive quickly. Noting that we don't know a lot of people, so may be surprised.

 

[Raron]

[X] Offensive approach. Actively work to eliminate the other groups
[X] Scout, remaining in stealth and moving ahead of the group, while circling back around for support in combat

 

[Koden]

It would have to be next week though, because the day of Instructor Zhou's test was here. When she arrived at the training field that day the stern man had simply commanded that they group up as they wished, not batting an eye when one group reached as many as fifteen people, or when some went alone. She of course went to stand with Han Jian and his group. After a short time, the man had lead them further up the mountain to a plaza overlooked by a stone pagoda, in the center of the plaza was a complex ring of black tiles surrounded by stone pillars carved with glowing characters.

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Another argument for scouting
The team sizes are not the same, so finding out how many people are in the other groups should be our first priority.

 

[TotallyNotEvil]

[X] Defensive
[X] Support

The instructor is looking for soemone that fulfills the given objective.

The objective is to hols the fort. We are holding the fort.

 

[Arkeus]

Misrepresentation.

Based on everything we've seen so far:
-Young Cultivators in the combat class have proven to be VERY KILLY. This is known fact. Everyone else dropped out.
-Young Cultivators in general are not stealthy. We already know this, barring backgrounds similar to us, they generally learned a lot more etiquette or esoteric ways to fight .
-Young Cultivators in the combat class do not have the ability to reliably detect us. We already know this, we've proven to be able to sneak past most people without exotic senses or significantly higher level. And they're not very common

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.....

None of those three points are true.
-Young Cultivators in the combat class have proven to be VERY KILLY. This is known fact. Everyone else dropped out.
Young cultivators in the physical class have proven to be very determined. We haven't tested at all combat ability. It's not a combat class so far. So far, it's a "push your physical abilities to the limit" class.

-Young Cultivators in general are not stealthy. We already know this, barring backgrounds similar to us, they generally learned a lot more etiquette or esoteric ways to fight .
What? Seriously, what? We have seen none of this. This is pure wishful thinking. I'm also not sure why "esoteric way to fight" doesn't include sensing/invisibility/etc.

-Young Cultivators in the combat class do not have the ability to reliably detect us. We already know this, we've proven to be able to sneak past most people without exotic senses or significantly higher level. And they're not very common
No, no we haven't. Ling Qi has shown no ability to stay hidden at all.

Here is the actual quote:

She had gotten a little out of practice when it came to gathering information, but it was all too easy to fall back into old habits. Keeping an ear and an eye out for a mark, an idle question asked in passing while waiting in line at the supply house. Using a few basic tricks to obscure her appearance while asking said questions. Over the next few days she narrowed it down until she figured out which girl owned the pendant. Happily the girl, Hua Ying, seemed rather proud of the thing and wore it openly, which made things easier.

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Yes, what Ling Qi did was hide how she looked when gathering information and talking to peoples so that they don't remember what she looks like... She didn't hide herself at all.

Scouting IS dangerous, but from everything we've seen, the people in this class have already been deselected for subtlety at least twice, and selected for combat prowess as much.

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I will say, again, none of this is true.

Another argument for scouting
The team sizes are not the same, so finding out how many people are in the other groups should be our first priority.

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Wouldn't scouting in this scenario make things worse? If a team is one person we probably won't find them (and they might find us instead), and if there is a huge group there are higher odds of being caught.

 

[tricholysis]

The wish to be Free is fairly typical in Xianxia, so I find that Ling Qi questioning the worth of her core desire to be interesting.

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The willingness to sacrifice everything is a lot less typical. Protagonists often get away with doing silly things because they can't sacrifice anything and That's The Right Answer (TM).

 

[Nevill]

I have to agree with 2 out of 3 points by Arkeus. I don't know what our faith in Stealth capabilities is based on, except for two dots on character sheet. So far the only stealth we've been practicing is the art of remaining a part of the croud and appearing to be unremarkable and easily forgettable. For obvious reasons, this is not quite the skill that is required from a scout whose job is not to be detected at all.

[X] Defensive
[X] Support

That said, I think both options could work, the offense just involves more wild cards, and thus the uncertainty of the outcome is greater.

 

[Serous]

[X] Defensive
[X] Support