We are starting a new fief, which I think should have a lower population than an established fief, no?
Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
- Location
- United States of America
Not necessarily. We don't know what type of infrastructure is already in place, if we are taking over the holdings of a clan that revolted and were killed, if the Cai family is giving some of their more remote and unmanagable holdings to us, or if we are going to be plopped into the middle of a forested mountain and told to get to work.
It could very well be that we are simply the new managers that are coming in and the fief already has a standard size military.
Also note that Cai mentioned we should go well with the Weilu Conservatives. Its quite possibly to use Ling Qi to settle in over an ousted Weilu supporter, with loyalty to the Cais but with the aesthetics to get along with the locals without resorting to harsh measures.
This is the average fief not an established fief.
I would expect at the very least one hundred cultivators to make our army (after all many cultivators might be non army (priests, crafters, ...)).
Now it's perfectly possible that we get something along the line of "everything you conquer is yours" and start with almost nothing, but even then in a few years, we will have an army with hundreds of cultivators from either converted barbarians, immigration or training our own.
This is why we need to discuss the composition of our army. Because we will have one in less than five years.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Even if we start with a new fief, this just means having to try and seduce more guards and people to work under us. This makes being able to give them a basic red/yellow art suite they can use even more important. We also know very well that ten yellow who have arts that work together are much stronger than 10 yellows that don't.
Ling Qi has significantly lower s.def than p.def, and we can't count on other people always using spiritual attacks against us. Furthermore, a support art that increase spiritual defence will typically also increase spiritual offence, if it follows Zephyr's breath/Fleeting Zephyr as well as how Argent Pulse seems to work.
Considering we already have TRF for increasing allies' p.def, we s.def support art fits well for us. Obviously we could also focus more on squad level rather than pure support (so TRF/AC rather than FZ/Argent Pulse), but I do want more pure support art.
If we have insufficient S.def (which we do, especially if we drop AM) we should pick up a PERSONAL S.def art. Trying to grab an area S.def art would give us a weaker area effect instead of a stronger personal effect; and since our problem is a personal lack of S.def and not a lack of area buffs, that is counterproductive.
DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
To take up another controversial subject, did we ever get confirmation of whether we can train EPC 6 or not before Appraisal? If we can, does that mean EPC 7-8 will be trainable in Appraisal-Foundation, or will it be locked until even later?
It's my opinion that we should be training a Cultivation Art every turn if we can, and also my opinion that we want to finish EPC ASAP, but EPC may have some problems with CL locking. Are we allowed to switch to Argent Genesis for a while, switch back to EPC in Foundation, and then when EPC finishes switch back to Argent Genesis (or some more complicated plan depending on how the locks are set up)?
EDIT: I was somehow confused what level EPC was on.
It's my opinion that we should be training a Cultivation Art every turn if we can, and also my opinion that we want to finish EPC ASAP, but EPC may have some problems with CL locking. Are we allowed to switch to Argent Genesis for a while, switch back to EPC in Foundation, and then when EPC finishes switch back to Argent Genesis (or some more complicated plan depending on how the locks are set up)?
EDIT: I was somehow confused what level EPC was on.
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- Location
- somewhere over there.
- Pronouns
- They/It
I'd agree on that. Most of the things that we'd need it for are kinda...not "save or die" things, but "save or get massively inconvenienced for the rest of the fight". And while there are probably AoE versions of such things, it seems like breaking ourselves out and pressing whoever used them is likely a more reliable way to get everyone out than trying for an area defense that doesn't block quite as well.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Of course we can, because we were barred from raising EPC by not completing the Moon Quest, not because it was too hard.
It'd be weird if a Cultivation Art requires you to exceed the limits of when it can be useful before you can train it again.
He said so on Discord back when:
Alectai-02/24/2018
+12 dice isn't gamebreaking if you need 400 successes to level up
Though I suspect EPC 6 is gated behind Appraisal?
Or alternately, EPC 5 is gated by another Moon Quest
Yrsillar-02/24/2018
No, I'll tell you that, seven is the gated point
Alectai-02/24/2018
Oooooh
PrimalShadow-02/24/2018
Even with a caveat of "Does not apply to itself", though that's less of a barrier if the next EPC level requires a ton of successes
EPC already applies to itself
Since it is Yin
Alectai-02/24/2018
Oh
Well then
Huh, the last time we had two EPC stages in a single level, it was because one had a Moon Quest
I suspect we're about due for one
Prospalz-02/24/2018
Didn't we
Yrsillar-02/24/2018
I didn;t say there wouldn;t be a quest
Prospalz-02/24/2018
just had one?
Alectai-02/24/2018
That wasn't a true moon quest
Yrsillar-02/24/2018
just not cultivation gated
+12 dice isn't gamebreaking if you need 400 successes to level up
Though I suspect EPC 6 is gated behind Appraisal?
Or alternately, EPC 5 is gated by another Moon Quest
Yrsillar-02/24/2018
No, I'll tell you that, seven is the gated point
Alectai-02/24/2018
Oooooh
PrimalShadow-02/24/2018
Even with a caveat of "Does not apply to itself", though that's less of a barrier if the next EPC level requires a ton of successes
EPC already applies to itself
Since it is Yin
Alectai-02/24/2018
Oh
Well then
Huh, the last time we had two EPC stages in a single level, it was because one had a Moon Quest
I suspect we're about due for one
Prospalz-02/24/2018
Didn't we
Yrsillar-02/24/2018
I didn;t say there wouldn;t be a quest
Prospalz-02/24/2018
just had one?
Alectai-02/24/2018
That wasn't a true moon quest
Yrsillar-02/24/2018
just not cultivation gated
I've been thinking about Abyssal Exhalation. It's one of our more thematically potent Arts, even if not everyone appreciates the aesthetics. The way that the techniques tie into and bolster each other is interesting and... satisfying for lack of a better term; it feels like a very cohesive Art. Unfortunately, the abundance of conditionals, reliance on on-damage effects, setup time, and middling peak even when everything is going right produces a lackluster result. I have some ideas on how things could be tweaked to better achieve its strong theme's promises.
Passive which gives attack dice stacks on enemy damage:
-Clarification on what "damage" is. BEV refers to damage from Stygian Breath, but that technique doesn't cause damage. Is qi drain 'damage'? Is armor degradation 'damage'?
-Make the stacks communal for the whole Art, including worms, both building the stack and benefiting from it. Not a heart Art, but worms are still tethered to the user's qi. There's no fundamental difference between the Breath that has already been placed on the field benefiting from the passive attack stacks, which it does, and the worms. Both independently acting constructs on the field.
-Give stacks for each point of damage done instead of each time damage is done, or increase duration + have duration refreshed whenever a new stack is added; on-damage is a significant limitation and one the Art can't effectively leverage
Crawling Horror:
-Worms should gain qi if they damage enemies, mimicking the user's passive but on a smaller scale
Black Earth Voraciousness:
-Conditional boost that relies on Breath should be automatic if the technique is active, not relying on 'damage' in the last turn
-BEV should give any currently grappling worms a free bonus basic attack; thematically it's using the worms as a conduit for the user's hunger; not as overpowered as it may seem given weak AP, DV, and dice values
-Qi gained for the user via BEV should be duplicated into active worms
The biggest things are that the passives need to support and be supported by the constructs for the Art to actually accomplish what it (appears to) sets out to do, and the conditionals in BEV need to confer a practical benefit instead of just hitting parity with less complicated Arts. AE takes a full 3 turns to attempt a maximized BEV and it's currently a crapshoot whether the previous setup will even stick to do its job because nothing realistically helps them stick. It's clear AE is an Art intended to be used in conjunction with other Arts instead of standing on its own, but other Arts will benefit just as much or more from supportive Arts, so that doesn't adequately explain the fragility of AE's showing.
Edit: also, for the record, I oppose turning AE into a music Art.
Passive which gives attack dice stacks on enemy damage:
-Clarification on what "damage" is. BEV refers to damage from Stygian Breath, but that technique doesn't cause damage. Is qi drain 'damage'? Is armor degradation 'damage'?
-Make the stacks communal for the whole Art, including worms, both building the stack and benefiting from it. Not a heart Art, but worms are still tethered to the user's qi. There's no fundamental difference between the Breath that has already been placed on the field benefiting from the passive attack stacks, which it does, and the worms. Both independently acting constructs on the field.
-Give stacks for each point of damage done instead of each time damage is done, or increase duration + have duration refreshed whenever a new stack is added; on-damage is a significant limitation and one the Art can't effectively leverage
Crawling Horror:
-Worms should gain qi if they damage enemies, mimicking the user's passive but on a smaller scale
Black Earth Voraciousness:
-Conditional boost that relies on Breath should be automatic if the technique is active, not relying on 'damage' in the last turn
-BEV should give any currently grappling worms a free bonus basic attack; thematically it's using the worms as a conduit for the user's hunger; not as overpowered as it may seem given weak AP, DV, and dice values
-Qi gained for the user via BEV should be duplicated into active worms
The biggest things are that the passives need to support and be supported by the constructs for the Art to actually accomplish what it (appears to) sets out to do, and the conditionals in BEV need to confer a practical benefit instead of just hitting parity with less complicated Arts. AE takes a full 3 turns to attempt a maximized BEV and it's currently a crapshoot whether the previous setup will even stick to do its job because nothing realistically helps them stick. It's clear AE is an Art intended to be used in conjunction with other Arts instead of standing on its own, but other Arts will benefit just as much or more from supportive Arts, so that doesn't adequately explain the fragility of AE's showing.
Edit: also, for the record, I oppose turning AE into a music Art.
Yeah, just dropping it entirely is an entirely viable - and possibly even desirable - option.
Awkwardness aside, AE is highly redundant with our existing music arts. Both FVM and FSS do AoE better, and the one thing it has going for it - summons - it's weak at because they're really just a supplementary part of the art rather than its focus. It's arguably never going to be the right choice for us.
We'll have to reassess after this level, but yeah. At the moment, FSS better leverages AE's passives and that just feels weird. The Art needs to love itself more. It's not so much that it's underpowered as that it doesn't quite empower itself in the way that it looks like it's supposed to.
If it gives us the 'Burrow' movement type at any point I wouldn't mind keeping it active for the utility of that alone, but we can probably find a more fitting art that does the same thing, so...
Keep it, but don't use it - teach it to someone someday. It's a good Art, but not for Ling Qi.
Keep it, but don't use it - teach it to someone someday. It's a good Art, but not for Ling Qi.
- Location
- scrabbling
The thing I'm thinking about is if Biyu will have the same affinity for Darkness qi that Qi does...after all, her formative memories won't be of want and need in the same way. Ling Qi already has problems with her art suite being patchwork, after all, and I don't think the thread will go in for specifically raising Biyu to be greedy or anything. Even if Biyu is talented and can get along as well as her sister (who needed quite a bit of luck, you'll recall), if there's no coherence to the Ling arts then there's not nearly as much benefit for the scions of the house for being nobles even if there are increased expectations.
Then we negotiate for Sun element arts from the other Weilu scion houses and use that as an excuse to establish harmonious relations with them.
*shrug*
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
To be fair, Darkness isn't a natural element for Ling Qi either, her natural Affinity is Wind.
I think a Wind/Wood based foundation would probably be reliable. And it shouldn't be too hard to pick up a few basic Arts to go with that, and design a few more by the time Biyu is ready to go to Xianxia Hogwarts.
Since barring unexpected delays, we're still looking at having a good four, five years of Cyan (Which should be the level where we can design solid Arts) before Biyu is ready to go.
I think a Wind/Wood based foundation would probably be reliable. And it shouldn't be too hard to pick up a few basic Arts to go with that, and design a few more by the time Biyu is ready to go to Xianxia Hogwarts.
Since barring unexpected delays, we're still looking at having a good four, five years of Cyan (Which should be the level where we can design solid Arts) before Biyu is ready to go.
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- Location
- scrabbling
Darkness is pretty natural for a character who constantly describes herself as a "greedy girl." Just because there's no mechanical heritage affinity doesn't mean that Ling Qi isn't very well-suited for Darkness arts. There are other instances of characters matching their preferred elements, too. For example Meizhen has mentioned that she's no good at her aunt's Metal arts, for example, since she's so emotional under her face, and got a special assignment from Elder Ying to improve her understanding of community via an Earth art, for example. By no means should mechanical or heritage bonuses describe the entirety of what's natural to a character, which is primarily a piece of the narrative.
And if you make the argument that it goes the other way (not that I'm saying that you are), that Ling Qi is greedy because of her Darkness and that people can just pick whatever arts to build their own personality or something, then that's just foolish, because every time she has an experience of her Darkness she relates it back to her time on the streets. And Meizhen wouldn't be so emotional, because she has every reason to learn Suzhen's preferred Metal, but she hasn't.
I think...personally, I would like Ling Qi's Darkness to be more broadly integrated into the clan's culture. There's nothing wrong with wanting things, after all, and it was the depth of Ling Qi's want that led her to run away. Darkness and want has showed up as the most fundamental part of her personality. By comparison, other than the imagery of flight she got in Yellow breakthrough, Wind just hasn't figured into her narrative. If she only sort of wanted to be free, she wouldn't have run. But she wanted very badly to be free, so she ran. And I'd like Ling Qi's narrative to figure into the cultivation culture of her house. She can't teach some narrative that she's never had, after all...cultivation has always been about being true to yourself.
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- Location
- scrabbling
We're told that Darkness is hunger pretty explicitly. So if anything, Darkness is equal to "need" (among other things), and "need" is even stronger than "want."
This is what is said about darkness.
Darkness isn't just hunger.
DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
We are very good at meridians, and AE has passives that are good at supporting our good offensive Arts, and also good at reinforcing the things AM is supposed to do. With AM being capped after 5 I kind of like just cruising along with AE for a while to supplement AM. If we eventually get a good pure summoning Art it may even boost the Worms. So I think there are a lot of reasons to believe AE will louse around being half-useful for a long time before actually being unequipped, which makes me reasonably happy to keep training it as YR2 opens.
What can we expect to be good and trainable immediately? FVM will be capped, SCS may or may not be capped (I would tend to expect not, since FVM is its sister Art), and AC and AS are uncapped. I would much rather put actions into AE than AC or AS, personally. We could of course aim to immediately get a new Art, but without a need to rush I'd prefer to get an Art that starts at CL 8 or 9 to one that starts at CL 7.
There's also Argent Four to consider gated behind AS and AC, but I'm not too excited about an Earth/Heaven Art starting in Green if we're trying to eventually condense our elements instead of expand them to even more.