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Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

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yrsillar said:
Scarlet Thread: A length of formation inscribed cord meant to be worn around the wrist. Upon breaking, the user is transported up to one kilometer in any direction, and gains a two success bonus to stealth against all attempts to perceive them, remote or otherwise, for one hour. User buffered
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yrsillar said:
Yeah if you guys want it I'll do a bit of retroactive editing to have it bought during the last shop vote
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Thor's Twin said:
So, I don't think using the escape talisman in this situation is going to be worth it, at all. This is not an open plain where we can easily see 500m around us and choose a good location. This is a densely packed jungle, and I would be surprised if our vision extended past 200m, and that is because that is the limit of our qi sensing. We don't know the area well enough to choose a location 500m away and if we can't choose a location far enough away, then the escape talisman plan falters and dies before it even begins.
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Scarlet Thread does not have any of those limitations and is a full KM. If anything the broken line of sight helps us.
 
Thor's Twin said:
With this environment, I feel that we won't be able to use the Red String escape talisman to go further than 200m. The environment is far too unknown and we don't have good perception on any location further than 200m in a packed jungle environment. The escape talisman plan won't do what we want it to do in this situation, and that is to give us enough distance to start our buffs in relative peace.
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The lack of knowledge doesn't matter. One of the advantages of the Scarlet Thread is that it protects the user from bad landings.
 
Is it 500m in any direction?

Because if so, just aim slightly up such that 500m is a point in open air just above the jungle canopy. Dropping down into the jungle without hurting ourself seems easier to do than blindly teleporting and not ending up partway inside a tree.
 
BungieONI said:
He's talking about this thing.


Which doesn't specify knowledge of the terrain in its tect. Theoretically I guess it could be a kilometer straight up going by it.
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Its a very strong talisman, and the bonus to stealth after Dharitri is taken out under this environment is pretty strong for us.

Worst case scenario, Liling goes counter ambush predator on us but...Even then, based on what happened during the Mountain ambush it looks like she can't have that presence concealing art run concurrently with her more straightforward combat arts. So she might have to either weaken her own buff cycle, or lose it entirely.

And if she has combat relevant stealth arts?

That's a pretty huge thing to reveal.

Granted, she'd still have to reliably track down Ling Qi anyway. And that's a tall order without Dharitri making those tracking checks with a higher dice pool for her. She'd have to get super lucky in the Mists, which I find unlikely to happen.
 
The Sandman said:
Is it 500m in any direction?

Because if so, just aim slightly up such that 500m is a point in open air just above the jungle canopy. Dropping down into the jungle without hurting ourself seems easier to do than blindly teleporting and not ending up partway inside a tree.
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It's a kilometer, and it explicitly protects us against that sort of shenanigans.
 
Now I did mention the whole kilometer straight up thing, but uh, that's really not safe to do as fall damage is basically inevitable due to how flight rules with our gown work. I don't want to learn first hand what the kind touch of Gravity-senpai feels like during our Final Boss.
 
She might spend the first turn on a self buff, but even if she doesn't Scarlet Thread should more then negate the blood tracking bonus. Assuming that still works if we get healed.
 
Having just had to weed some parts of the yard, I can confirm that there are some real piece-of-shit trees that can completely resprout from their hidden, inch-wide taproots.

It's a possible direction for Ling Qi to take TRF, if a giant tree doesn't really fit with the rest of her theme.
 
My primary thought is that hiding might not be the advantage that we might be inclined to think. Remember, Sun Liling grew up hunting in this kind of environment. If there is a trick to finding something hidden here, she probably knows it, what with her being taught by her grandfather and all. What's more, she probably knows how to move around this kind of environment as well, if not having arts specifically designed to make doing so easier.

Our best bet might be to try and make any environmental advantages null, by keeping close and constantly applying pressure instead of giving her the opportunity to turn the jungle against us.

Fake Edit: This could be a great environment for Zhengui. With all these trees, I bet his root trap would be fantastic.
 
fictionfan said:
She might spend the first turn on a self buff, but even if she doesn't Scarlet Thread should more then negate the blood tracking bonus. Assuming that still works if we get healed.
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It provides two automatic successes for an hour, one of which Liling cancels by being Appraisal Bronze, and the other is canceled by Pulse Tracking(gives approx +2 dice), and Blood which likely does similar. Way back in week 39. The good part is that Liling is affected by distance. Dhartiri has similar bonuses, and Dhartiri is not affected by distance.
 
Actually, would it be possible to stick an escape talisman on Liling then detonate it? I'm assuming not, but it would be kinda awesome if we could.
 
George said:
We don't have the option to not get stabbed; that happens the first round regardless. Teleporting away is just ceding an action and letting her use her core strategy - meaning we won't get a shot at making her do something unusual. If we blitz Dhartiri, even at ruinous cost, we can make her show how she adapts to that and give Meizhen better intel.
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Teleporting is not ceding an action. Since our speed is close to hers and the teleport lets us start moving immediately when it finishes, teleporting means that both fighters get a bunch of actions separated from each other until Ling Qi decides to stand her ground.

Her core strategy thus far has been to take ten steps forward, stab her opponent, and watch as they die. Trying to stand in place and nuke D-ri means letting her run the identical strategy on us. We can also be pretty sure that D-ri can fade into the jungle or underground in response to attack; Liling fighting sans spirit would be new but we are unlikely to see that due to dying before the spirit.

Raising Kittens said:
Using it takes a standard action, right? Right. So either way we have GCD and our Insight available, and that's it, which means we get hit. Running means she has to chase us down, in her home territory, on a bright, sunny day. While she's already drawn blood. All of which negate our advantages, and all running does is drag things out. Pointlessly, as her buff cycle is stronger than ours, which means she's ahead.

She's already demonstrated the necessary Arts to plow through the Perception checks set up by our Mists and PLR, even if some of that is from her primary spirit.

Our objective is to force her to reveal as many cards as we can. These most plausibly include her Domain Weapon, her Second Spirit if any, any Arts she has for punching through serious defenses, and any emergency tricks.

Running away as you suggest is simply playing her game, as there is nowhere to run to, and means she'll have the setup displayed against Shen Hu, and likely not need more than that.

It was nice being underestimated while it lasted. Pity it won't last.

Edit: Pity it hasn't lasted.
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The point of running is not to hide and strike from ambush. It is to set up all our buffs and all the advantages we can (buffs, turtle, crowtron, FVM + Traveler's End) in a static area while we aren't being stabbed and then dare her to come in after us.

Can she then stomp in and beat us? Yes.

Will she have to do more to beat us than she would if we stay in place and try to damage race her? Also yes.
 
Wiggin42 said:
My primary thought is that hiding might not be the advantage that we might be inclined to think. Remember, Sun Liling grew up hunting in this kind of environment. If there is a trick to finding something hidden here, she probably knows it, what with her being taught by her grandfather and all. What's more, she probably knows how to move around this kind of environment as well, if not having arts specifically designed to make doing so easier.

Our best bet might be to try and make any environmental advantages null, by keeping close and constantly applying pressure instead of giving her the opportunity to turn the jungle against us.

Fake Edit: This could be a great environment for Zhengui. With all these trees, I bet his root trap would be fantastic.
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Except all of the above is only true without Dharitri on the table. We know from the Mountain ambush that Dharitri is her big perception tracker to hunt down stealthy types, and as a wood element spirit of immense pedigree and on her home turf, she likely can casually hard counter any plant manipulating that Zhengui goes for.

Besides, we know what Lilings movement arts look like. Theyre basically wind-aligned blood jets that let her cover distances at high speed or grant her crazy midair mobility like we saw her use against Shen Hu.

She's not suited for ignoring terrain obstacles like Ling Qi is. In that regard, this fight is basically...A kind of reversal of the mountain ambush lol

Only on Lilings home turf instead of Ling Qis familiar territory.
 
BungieONI said:
The problem with the running away plan is that it lets her do whatever she wants. You yourself claim that her buff cycle is deep and powerful, and Dhartiri can buff to. Ergo, her buff cycle is larger than ours and the gap at the start is smaller than at the end. By the mechanics of the system, she is weakest at the first turn, and so if we want to do something actually meaningful we must make use of that relative weakness.

Buff stacking is the core of this system, and has been for a long time. When an enemy is of a higher social pedigree and your buff stack ends in two turns while theirs goes to three or four, while not counting their spirit, it is very ill thought out to try to compare your highest with their highest.

That is the root of my issue with all escape plans. Time is very much not on Ling Qi's side in this match.
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This depends on her buff cycle entirely ignoring her blood theme. So yes if she can ignore her entire theme then her buff cycle will be better than ours without limit. In which case no plan we make matters because we can't predict jack shit. The cost of the ducal clans' focus is that they have themes they have to stick to, which we can use to predict things. Otherwise this whole thing is pointless.

Similarly Dharti is themed around her flowers eating up other people, then feeding that strength back into Sun Liling. Can she buff without this? Probably, but in no way should it be nearly as strong as when she has had the chance to actively drain qi from battlefield clashes.

What we do know however is that she is a very capaple burst damage opener. She can pile on a decent load of buffs fast in order to get in her intial hits to trigger up her buff cycle, alththough this seems to come at the cost of stamina, hence her partnership with Dharti. The disparity will be highest initially because Sun can is good at insta-buffing to get her real buff/debuff cycle going.

Wheras if we start out with 10 ring defence instant and disappear our high initial defence can be used to ensure that the aggravated damage we take is downgraded to a type we can heal. That gives us a defence dice bonus and up to 4 points of semi-perfect blocking, and downgrading two (perfect) points of agg damage to lethal. On our move only Zhengui can then put up his ashfield in prep for healing us and the Horror can grant us our temp health boxes and attempt to dispel any techs Sun managed to put on us in turn 1.

Our buff cycle is not dependent on a theme of bleeding our opponents of their strength, so if we can force a confrontation where we are fully buffed while Liling has only has her initial burst buff plus a little extra from Dharti and her one hit we stand the best chance of actaully landing our attacks.
 
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On the other hand, lol, she won't be able to get away with such a flagrant home field advantage again.

Anyway, with our new insight. A full defense opener, Twilight Beauty, Express the Horror (And have it pop DWV) and Zhengui (Popping Ashfall and being ready to heal). Thousand Rings Unbending, Hundred Ring Armament, and Grinning Crescent Dancer.

Should give us enough that we can endure a few rounds with her--and it'll bait out Dharitri too most likely.

Second round should be IPF into Spring's End Aria into Ten Ring Defense, bolstering our defense further while getting our chaff set up.
 
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Now, I know it isn't likely no matter what plan we use, but can you imagine if we beat Sun after she explicitly said she's taking us seriously?
 
Hangwind said:
Now, I know it isn't likely no matter what plan we use, but can you imagine if we beat Sun after she explicitly said she's taking us seriously?
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No matter what, after she's stated she's taking us seriously every minor concession or loss of face on Lilings part is going to be magnified exponentially the more we do.

If she takes us seriously from the start and we still manage to take down Dharitri? That alone is basically going to make all this shit completely blow up in her face.

As a matter of fact, by recognizing us as a serious threat from the start, she gets a lot of leeway to let Ling Qi drag out the fight so long as she doesn't take any losses during the match itself. Her taking a long time to take out Ling Qi isn't "failing at punching down" anymore.

It's "being wary against a legitimate threat".

She's put a check on the running and stalling game right from the start. Well done, honestly :V
 
One factor to consider, sure, there is a dense, lush forest, Sun's home territory.

Can that be... Fixed with an application of Hoarfrost Caress? Killing all vegetation within a wide area and turning things into a frozen icescape changes the terrain dramatically.
 
I kind of want to set Ling up to say something like-
"That's the second time I got my butt kicked in those jungles."
I just see no reason to have ill will on a personal level. In respects to our allies have issues sure but we don't really have a Personal feud with Sun, yanno what I mean?
 
jacobk said:
Will she have to do more to beat us than she would if we stay in place and try to damage race her? Also yes.
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Here's the thing. We can assume this. But the evidence for supporting that assumption is sparse on the ground. Like, how much tougher do you think we are than Shen Hu or Lanhua? It's probably less than ten dice given their defensive spec. Thus to beat us in the fortress mode you proclaim, she goes as far as Shen Hu and then stops.

This really just wraps back around to the same logical fallacy I already pointed out to you. If, Liling can beat us to unconsciousness in less than three turns and buffing all that time in a damage race, when we have our full buff stack going. Then, her buff stack at three turns is enough to overwhelm our buff stack at three turns.

So, that is as far as she needs to go, in either scenario based on your assumptions and mine.

Now for the slightly different situation of us losing initiative. If, we lose initiative and Liling gets first strike, then Ling Qi will suffer more damage faster and the damage race will end faster. This is the context of my argument.

However, if we lose initiative and if we assume she can stab us down in the first three turns, as in your argument, then we lose that health and assuming we survive, teleport away. Thus, Ling Qi now has reduced maximum health she can heal to due to aggravated damage, and Liling need only buff to third turn levels to defeat her.

Thus nothing is, again, shown to be new.

Anyway @TehChron I think I'll be voting for your plan. I like it better than mine.
 
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