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Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

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Evilness42 said:
As we enter the Inner Sect we'll likely have a short period in which to get our bearings and prepare for serious combat again, meaning now is an excellent time to reinforce our foundations and prepare a sideboard for when we'll need it, instead of rushing to max a few things as efficiently as possible to be capable of competing. This, in my mind, is where Archery will come into play again as an effective part of our skillset.

The purpose of FSA, when we got it, was to deal more than scratch damage to our opponents. The art was designed for long-range combat at a Yellow tier, and when we reached Green this 'long-range' factor became irrelevant as the effective distances shortened. This is fine, as we no longer need it as our main burst damage art. Instead, we should be looking to shift the purpose of Archery arts within our build to complement it-specifically, to complement our Stealth focus and make it relevant in combat. As it stands, we have little capacity to do damage when hidden and expect to remain so in the near future. Our movement arts and even some of our AoE arts(ex. FVM and Ashfall) are suited for disengaging, for hiding in the mists and ash.

FSS does not support this. By its very nature, it involves making as much noise as possible in the process of freezing our enemies, swiftly giving away our position. On the other hand, we know that there are Archery arts dedicated towards striking from ambush and remaining hidden or otherwise disengaging afterwards, and that these arts are effective at the same range we specialise in. By acquiring one of them, even if it isn't used in direct peer-to=peer combat, we grant ourselves the opportunity to perform better on stealth-missions and act aggressively without sacrificing a significant portion of our skillset that has thus far been more tertiary than anything.

Archery no longer has the purpose it used to, but it still has a purpose. Don't consider the people voting for it as trying to bring back a single dead paradigm-think of them as trying to make two underutilized ones relevant, synergising them with the rest.
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If we want a backstab art, there is no reason for it to be an archery one, especially as archery is bad for short/mid-range, where backstab is best at. If you want infiltration, archery is also not really good.

This is especially true considering that musical infiltration is a staple in medias everywhere, and musical backstab arts should also not be that rare (or, you know, a backstab art that uses our doots so it has that uncapped musical skill to use).
 
Why would Ling Qi use a strength-focused Saber Art or style? That's asinine from a utility and thematic perspective. There is no reason to expect that Sabering things would be in particular effective to train Ling Qi's Strength, where her other habits haven't. If you want to train strength, train strength. The connection to the Saber is farcical.

Alectai said:
Don't really have a choice in the matter, cultural norms sort of demand we master at least one of the Noble Four Weapons if we want some modicum of respect, and they're all melee.

Unarmed is a choice for peasants and monks--culturally speaking. Which is why that's sort of Ji Rong's thing to be the only unarmed fighter in the year, because he revels in his common thug nature.

Thing is, melee doesn't actually interfere with our style at all--our defenses are stacked enough that someone getting to close quarters combat with us isn't necessarily a death knell, and the only Art we have that isn't compatible with a one-handed melee weapon is FVM--and that may change when we Master it.
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FVM is the only Art we have that necessarily occupies our hands whatsoever. It's also signature Ling Qi. Playing the flute during battle is a significant part of her aesthetic. Instead of everyone trying to ditch actual flute playing, why not compromise the visual impact of the decidedly side capabilities? Shoot arrows without a bow or wield a saber without hands, or whatever. Who cares, we're magic.

The answer to FVM and flute-playing being awkward shouldn't be to give up playing the flute. The answer is to smooth technical limitations in using it which are inconsistent with the limitations of cultivators in other arenas, and to allow for a flute-playing style to be viable on its own merits. FVM has been a gigantic pain in the dick, but that's been solely at the discretion of @yrsillar not some inviolate quality of the universe; a lot of it is early-quest leftovers. It hasn't even been very consistent, as @Erebeal pointed out, with FSS having basically none of the supposedly standard Music art drawbacks or limitations despite them fitting her apparent modus operandi quite well.

Side-note I randomly reminded myself of: holding a weapon talisman allowing its effects to apply to Arts that don't actually use it is dumb. SCS shouldn't gain anything from our flute unless we're incorporating some effort from the flute to the thing we're doing with SCS, FSS shouldn't benefit from the flute unless we're actually playing it on the flute, etc
 
Floom said:
Because learning an entirely new weapon requires time and effort which might be better spent refining the use of a melee weapon that we might actually use (And I sincerely doubt we'll ever use melee anyway since flute blasts are a thing). And the reward? Nebulous and situational, and likely to be overshadowed by other things.

Keep in mind we're basically a baby in the eyes of just about every noble family longer than three generations. There's basically just about nothing we can do about that except outgrow them. Learning one of the four noble weapons won't make a difference, when the issue they take is with the wielder, and not the weapon.
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Us being an "uncultured swine" will also reflect on Renxiang and our circle of friends, and it will be many, many years before LQ becomes powerful enough to simply ignore social customs, and that means years of social checks with an increasingly bigger malus as you go up the ladder that could have been nipped in the bud.

But I expect that our Liege will go from suggesting to learn one of the Noble Four to outright ordering it well before we reach that point.
 
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Arkeus said:
If we want a backstab art, there is no reason for it to be an archery one, especially as archery is bad for short/mid-range, where backstab is best at. If you want infiltration, archery is also not really good.

This is especially true considering that musical infiltration is a staple in medias everywhere, and musical backstab arts should also not be that rare (or, you know, a backstab art that uses our doots so it has that uncapped musical skill to use).
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We've been specifically told by our Archery tutor that specialised short/mid-range Archery arts exist that are suited for us.
 
Shinr said:
Us being an "uncultured swine" will also reflect on Renxiang and our circle of friends, and it will be many, many years before LQ becomes powerful enough to simply ignore social customs, and that means years of social checks with an increasingly bigger malus as you go up the ladder that could have been nipped in the bud.

But I expect that our Liege will go from suggesting to earn one of the Noble Four to outright ordering it well before we reach that point.
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All because we didn't learn how to use a weapon that we very clearly have no incentive to use? I guess nobles are just that petty.
 
Socially everyone's sort of required to use one of the noble weapons, but that doesn't mean you need to get arts that build off it, or use it as your primary offense. Xiulan doesn't. Meizhen doesn't.

We don't need to use a melee weapon -we're getting damage in melee range from music.

But, similar to my arguments concerning holding and dropping bows, if we were to get one I don't think we should have to worry about dropping the flute.
 
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We will learn Noble weapons up to 5 stars by doing physical cultivation, there is no need to invest anything.

FSS is damage dealer, archery and melee are now useless gimmicks.
 
I mean, picking up the saber is fine. It's prooooobably not worth cultivation time, at least not for the next two years. Our schedule is more than packed full. But practicing with the weapon where it's not obtrusive is... it's fine. Funny even, if we train with Renxiang, since Ling Qi's approach to the weapon is going to be drastically different than hers.

It's just not all that sensible a "solution" to (erroneously, I feel) perceived holes in capability, or for training strength in particular.
 
Which is fine--it's why I basically meant "Use it for weapon-agnostic melee arts like Argent Current, or use it for flavor while we sing murderous notes into people's faces". I wouldn't advocate actually learning a dedicated Saber Art unless a perfect one falls in our lap.

Admittedly, I might have done a usual Myself and not clearly stated that was the intent.
 
A musical saber art is very possible. Something like "The end of the warrior : This art is a song describing the fall of a warrior in combat". It would give us some melee bonus and some attack techs using the saber (dot in saber+dot in music for the hit).

Fighting while singing is relativelly common after all IRL and it should reflect in magical xianxia.
 
Alectai said:
Which is fine--it's why I basically meant "Use it for weapon-agnostic melee arts like Argent Current, or use it for flavor while we sing murderous notes into people's faces". I wouldn't advocate actually learning a dedicated Saber Art unless a perfect one falls in our lap.

Admittedly, I might have done a usual Myself and not clearly stated that was the intent.
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Why bother picking a weapon agnostic art instead of a music one that plays to Ling Qi strengths? There are a few scant cases where the weapon agnosticism would be helpful, and if Ling Qi is in melee range of an opponent that is somehow immune to her music retreating would be the smart option.
 
This royal road thing is getting odd. Mother of Learning got added two days ago. Seem porting stuff to Royal Road is now the Thing To Do.
 
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New system prototype
  • Informational
    • Okay, so, numbers and such are still being worked on, but I can share basic tutorials for the system I'll be putting on the front page of the new thread. Here are the first couple, explaining the basic stuff.

    Attributes are a measure of a characters basic abilities in the physical, mental, and social ability. The attributes used in this quest are as follows.
    Physical Attributes

    Strength-The characters raw physical power, in terms of physical force exerted. Used to determine how damaging physical attacks are in combat
    Dexterity- The characters grace and ability to maneuver quickly. Used to determine the accuracy of physical attacks in combat, and characters ability to avoid attacks in return.
    Stamina- The characters general healthiness and robustness. Used to determine the characters ability to withstand physical attacks

    Mental attributes
    Intelligence- The characters overall mental acumen and strength of mind. Used to determine the power of some spiritual attacks, and the ability to dispel the techniques of others
    Wits- The measure of the characters mental reaction speed and ability to keep up in fast paced situations. Can be used to determine accuracy of spiritual attacks, and their ability to avoid them in turn.
    Resolve- The characters ability to stand up to mental and spiritual punishment. Used to withstand spiritual attacks, and bolster ones own techniques against dispels

    Social Attributes
    Presence- The characters force of personality and personal magnetism. Used to determine the power of some spiritual attacks
    Manipulation- The characters ability ability to talk others around and express themselves successfully. Used to determine the accuracy and ability to avoid some spiritual attacks
    Composure- The characters ability to withstand social difficulties without embarassing themselves. Used to withstand some spiritual attacks

    Cultivation Attributes
    Qi: The characters pool of energy, from which the power of their techniques is drawn. It's base value is modified by other factors such as spirit beast upkeep.
    Domain: The attribute measuring the potency of a characters Way, gained at the beginning of the third cultivation realm.

    Skills form general catch all categories for various areas of ability. As cultivators gain skill and focus on these categories, they may sometimes be split into smaller more focused skills. When this occurs, typically the cultivators area of focus will receive a rank up from the baseline, while other categories from the former skill will receive one or more rank downs, depending on the cultivators narrative abilities. When an unfocused skill competes with a focused skill, the unfocused skill receives one rank down.

    Ling Qi has split one category, Expression, into focused skills already at the start of this quest.

    Mental Skills

    Academics- Governs knowledge of history, mathematics, language and other mundane information.
    Bureaucracy- Governs knowledge of procedure and forms within the Empires ministries and other organs of civil service
    Craft- Governs ability to craft mundane items. Used in combination with formations for talisman crafting, and with medicine in pill making
    Formations- Governs the creation of formation arrays. Used to identify and disable existing arrays as well as craft new ones. Skill rank indicates an ability to create basic arrays of lesser rank.
    Medicine- Governs knowledge of anatomy, medical reagents, and ability to perform first aid and more advanced medical procedures
    Politics- Governs knowledge and ability to navigate the webs of interpersonal influence within the imperial court and the clans of the empire

    Physical Skills
    Athletics- Governs contests of physical skill, such as running, swimming or climbing. Used primarily in opposed contests with peer cultivators
    Dance- Derived Subskill of Expression, formed due to advanced focus. Governs the art of expression through physical motion and grace.
    Perceptiveness- Governs the characters basic eye for detail and attentiveness
    Stealth- Governs physical activities related to subterfuge and sneaking. Includes sneaking, sleight of hand and various other forms of subtle movement.
    Survival- Governs the ability to track quarry in the wilderness as well as ability to identify natural dangers and harvest natural materials

    Social Skills

    Art: Derived subskill of expression. Governs the ability to express oneself through the creation of external artistic pieces, such as paintings, sculpture or calligraphy.
    Beast Handling- Governs skill at guiding and taming sub-sentient spirit beasts, as well as performing cooperative efforts with sapient ones, such as riding.
    Empathy- Governs the ability to determine the intent and emotions of others in social situations
    Intimidation- Governs to convince others through use of fear, threats and other forms of coercion
    Music- Derived subskill of expression. Governs the ability to express oneself through music in all of its forms
    Persuasion- Governs the ability to speak convincingly and honestly to others one to one.
    Spirit Ken- Governs the ability to interact with and understand spirits with viewpoints and mindsets diverging from human norms
    Socialize- Governs the ability to interact socially in group settings, such as making speeches or mingling at gatherings
    Subterfuge- Governs the ability to perform various forms of social intrigue, such as bluffing, lying, and gathering information.
    War- Governs the ability to lead and organize others in martial situations

    Derived Attributes form the basis of most combat ability and challenges in this quest, barring direct tests of Base attributes. Derived attributes are formed by the averaging of either two attributes or an attribute and a skill. The Derived attributes used in this quest are as follows.

    Health: Measured by the average of Stamina and Qi, determines how much injury a cultivator can withstand before being incapacitated. Injury will gradually penalize this attribute.

    Speed: Measures the characters ability to quickly cover distances, created through the average of Strength and Dexterity

    Initiative: Measures the characters reaction time, and the order in which they react. Determined by Wits and Dexterity

    Combat Perception: measures the characters ability to pick up on details and keep track of multiple factors in combat, determined by Wits and Perceptiveness.

    Social Perception: measures the characters ability to keep track of important factors in social situations. Determined by Manipulation and Empathy

    Hit: The characters accuracy in combat, divided into physical and spiritual. Uses dexterity and an appropriate mastery for physical. Uses manipulation or wits plus mastery for spiritual

    Penetration: How hard a characters attacks hit in combat, divided into physical and spiritual. Uses Strength and mastery for physical, and Intelligence or presence plus mastery for spiritual

    Avoid: The characters ability to avoid attacks in combat, divided into physical and spiritual. Uses Dex and mastery for physical, and manipulation or wits for spiritual

    Armor: The characters ability to withstand attacks in combat, divided into physical and spiritual. Uses Stamina and mastery for physical and Resolve or Composure plus mastery for spiritual.

    In combat the author will compare the combatants derived attributes, then taking into account the effects of techniques, environmental factors and plans, and determine outcomes in an organic fashion arising from this. Please remember that the system's primary function is to give readers who prefer a a crunchier view a point of comparison between the protagonist and any opponents in a combat, as well as provide a concrete measure of growth for the simulation aspects. It does not exist to determine exact outcomes through pure math.

    Having an avoid higher than an enemies armor does not guarantee that they will always miss, but it does make it more likely, and the greater the discrepancy in ranks, the more likely those misses become, but there are no exact percentages or dice rolls involved.

    All attributes, skills, masteries and other factors in this quest are measured using a letter rank system. The rank system is comparative, using the protagonist as a a baseline and comparing others to them. The ranks are as follows.

    Ranks
    UUU-Insurmountable for current cultivation level
    UU
    U-Overwhelming for current cultivation level
    SSS
    SS
    S-Cap at current cultivation
    A
    B
    C- Roughly average ability at current cultivation
    D
    E
    F-negligible

    These letter ranks are then modified by numbers applied by passive bonuses and penalties. The number appending a rank may be increased or decreased by modifiers, and have the maximums detailed below.
    D, E, F: 10
    C: 20
    B: 40
    A: 50
    SSS, SS, S: 60
    UUU, UU, U: 100

    This means that a highest number which can be added to a D rank Ability is 9. If an ability would add one to a D9 ability, it would roll over to C. If one were to instead subtract one from a C rank ability, it would be reduced to D9


    Arts and other effects which give bonuses to attributes do not modify derived attributes unless the base attribute is pushed up a full letter rank.

    The operation to average ranks and determine derived attributes is as follows, if you have an Archery of C and a Dex of A, your Hit with a bow would be determined as follows
    A->B B<-C
    Hit B

    If you instead have A and D…
    A->B C<-D
    B->C10 (the halfway point) C10<-C
    Hit C10

    When a attribute is ranked up or down by an effect, the number appended to it is adjusted based on the number range of the adjusted rank. For example
    C10 attribute is ranked down to D, maximum for C is 20, maximum for D is 10. The ranked down attribute is therefore D5. If this would result in a fractional value, round down.

    Differing cultivation gives penalties or bonuses to an opponent's statistics in comparison to the protagonist. Each level of cultivation beneath yours inflicts a -10 to all derived attributes in comparison to yours, each one above grants a +10. A difference in cultivation realm increases or decreases their statistics a full rank in comparison to yours in addition to the above penalty. This penalty also applies to base attributes when they are being tested against you.

    Example: A cultivator of the Mid Yellow realm with a B10 Hit, has only a E5 rank Hit when up against Ling Qi. (1 rank down and -10 for two stage difference) Similarly a cultivator who has just stepped into the Cyan realm with a A rank Hit has SS20 when contesting Ling Qi.(1 rank up and +70 for a seven stage difference)

    In a fight with multiple combatants, each opponent attacking a single target receives stacking bonus of 5 to hit and penetration per individual. To contribute to the multiattacker bonus and individual must be capable of meaningfully targeting the other combatant. This number may be modified by arts, but may never be reduced below 5 per individual. Combatants of two or more realms below do not receive this bonus or contribute to bonus for others, unless modified by arts. In the case of multiple combatants on each side, the numbers are compared, and the bonus divided accordingly
    Example: A green 1 cultivator is fighting 6 yellow cultivators. The yellow cultivators receive a bonus of 30 to hit and penetration. If 3 red cultivators are added to the 6 yellows, the bonus does not change.
    If 2 yellow cultivators battle 6 reds, the red cultivators receive only a bonus of 15 against each. If there are instead 7 red cultivators, three receive a bonus of 15 and four receive a bonus of 20

    Alright, so here is the basic outline of the system's most relevant bits. I'll get into the way techniques work later on.

    Please keep in mind, if all you care about is the narrative, you can ignore 90% of this for most purposes.
     
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  • Informational
    • A question: What is our gameplan when LQ is forced into a fight where fleeing is not an option and our music is rendered useless either through some kind of counter art or absence of suitable instruments because of enemy action?
     
    Shinr said:
    A question: What is our gameplan when LQ is forced into a fight where fleeing is not an option and our music is rendered useless either through some kind of counter art or absence of suitable instruments because of enemy action?
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    "We Die", basically.

    Which is why I don't feel we should absolutely hitch literally everything to our musical prowess at this stage of the game, especially since the passive stack meta is gone.
     
    Shinr said:
    A question: What is our gameplan when LQ is forced into a fight where fleeing is not an option and our music is rendered useless either through some kind of counter art or absence of suitable instruments because of enemy action?
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    It'd be tough to counter our music since it can still affect people who can't physically hear it. It's conceptual music basically. There are counters, still, but I doubt here will be hard counters.

    As for lack of instruments, we have arts that work off singing.
     
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    Shinr said:
    A question: What is our gameplan when LQ is forced into a fight where fleeing is not an option and our music is rendered useless either through some kind of counter art or absence of suitable instruments because of enemy action?
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    How strong is the opponent? If it's a peer, we probably lose. If it's someone weaker than us, we have various ways to deal with it.

    For example, Ji Rong? Our music was barely used in our battle with him.
    Alectai said:
    "We Die", basically.

    Which is why I don't feel we should absolutely hitch literally everything to our musical prowess at this stage of the game, especially since the passive stack meta is gone.
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    This is a silly reason. There is no scenario where one is competitive against peers when they are forbidden their two main areas of focus. If it's not a peer, we should be fine even then.
     
    Shinr said:
    A question: What is our gameplan when LQ is forced into a fight where fleeing is not an option and our music is rendered useless either through some kind of counter art or absence of suitable instruments because of enemy action?
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    You could ask the same question about anything: "What is our gameplan when our archery is rendered useless either through some kind of counter art or absence of a weapon because of enemy action?"

    Same thing. Tbh, not a huge problem beyond the obvious. Firstly because we keep our weapons and gear in storage rings, so we always have them. Secondly because we still have Vocals, which is basically music unarmed.

    Someone super specialising into countering music though is fairly low percentage because of how generally unhelpful such a thing would be to them. Music cultivators aren't exactly common after all. Being an anti sword cultivator would be far more useful.
     
    Only in the short term though, where we can presume that we will always have a fair shot at a contest--but even then, a one trick pony (Who worse, has her one trick as public knowledge) is inevitably going to run into Problems and find themselves having a hard time advancing, because their rivals are just going to pick contests that disfavor their One Trick, or if it becomes a fight, they'll just talk to their buddies and load up on talismans and equipment that weaken your key advantage.

    That's precisely why even Meizhen says you need at least three elements in your build, and switches between Urumi lashes, general hydromancy, venom--and now as we've seen, her whole "Tunnel Sneks Rule!" tactic. Because if you're throwing three different threat vectors out as a matter of course, someone has to split their focus.

    But if literally all of our key moves have a single vector that can be intercepted, it becomes a lot easier for people to kit themselves against us. So trying to club everything into "Music is the only method of attack we should indulge in" is going to have us hit a brick wall once we start running into people who can actually afford cheap, rush gear on short notice to win a challenge for position.
     
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    That briefing of the new attributes and skills does explain why our Music is at S-rank: we had two specialties in Expression for Music, Vocals and Woodwind Instruments, covering our Singing and Flute respectively, and Woodwind Instruments was at Specialty 2.

    In other words, we had three ranks of Specialties for Music effects in Expression, and Eight dots of Expression. That's a lot of musical power, that is.

    E: Oh hey, we've also got Dance! Cool!

    Arkeus said:
    For example, Ji Rong? Our music was barely used in our battle with him.
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    It forced him to burn his domain weapon to get the reset by nearly killing him and dispelling the second hit of Hoarfrost Caress. This allowed our domain weapon to get through and start it's stacking debuffs. That, combined with PLR, is what drained his Qi.

    So while it was barely used, it was used at a critical moment.

    Alectai said:
    Only in the short term though, where we can presume that we will always have a fair shot at a contest--but even then, a one trick pony (Who worse, has her one trick as public knowledge) is inevitably going to run into Problems and find themselves having a hard time advancing, because their rivals are just going to pick contests that disfavor their One Trick, or if it becomes a fight, they'll just talk to their buddies and load up on talismans and equipment that weaken your key advantage.
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    Another reason to push formations.

    Though we might manage to turn challenges against us into music competitions on occasion. That'll be fun. For us. Not so much for the first person to run into it.
     
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