History's Most Mediocre Cultivator (Xianxia Quest)

[Valder]

Dice results have been mediocre (110 successes out of 400 dice). No pill usage in the next portion of the previous cultivation plan. Currently at about an even chance (0.49) to finish this level of Ghost Eyes in the next 3 weeks. Might end up having to throw in some remedial dice to finish it off.

I'm tempted to throw an action on the friends or Father. Just for variety.

[X] [Letter] Of the responsibilities of higher social ranks. You are curious regarding what the Elder does.
[X] [Minor Action] The tutor's patience with Meiling has been wearing thin, and Father has promised to pay you if you spend some of your free time helping Meiling with some of her tougher lessons. (+200 coppers).
[X] [Minor Action] Spend time with Father – You do spend quite a bit of time with Father during training and some social events visiting subordinates. But outside of duty, you could still get to know him better as a person.

 

[Aetharian]

[X] [Letter] Of the responsibilities of higher social ranks. You are curious regarding what the Elder does.
[X] [Minor Action] The tutor's patience with Meiling has been wearing thin, and Father has promised to pay you if you spend some of your free time helping Meiling with some of her tougher lessons. (+200 coppers).
[X] [Minor Action] Spend time with Xiaoli – Now that she's sixteen she should be able to cultivate soon. It might be a good idea to keep an eye on her, if only to make sure she doesn't burn down the entire province.

 

[Sickul]

I'm curious if the tutoring action is just a straight money action or it has more effects than that. Either way I'm interested in trying for the herbs, sure it's risky, but we have permission to take one a month, and it's not like we can do it while we're away at the Sect. Might as well try to capitilize on the advantage talking to the Elder has gotten us while we can.

[X] [Letter] Of the responsibilities of higher social ranks. You are curious regarding what the Elder does.
[X] [Minor Action] Gather the spiritual herbs that the Honored Elder spoke of.
[X] [Minor Action] Spend time with Xiaoli – Now that she's sixteen she should be able to cultivate soon. It might be a good idea to keep an eye on her, if only to make sure she doesn't burn down the entire province.

 

[ConfusedPotato]

[X] [Letter] Of the responsibilities of higher social ranks. You are curious regarding what the Elder does.
[X] [Minor Action] Gather the spiritual herbs that the Honored Elder spoke of.
[X] [Minor Action] The tutor's patience with Meiling has been wearing thin, and Father has promised to pay you if you spend some of your free time helping Meiling with some of her tougher lessons. (+200 coppers).

 

[Tam Lin]

Let's go Light and Shadow for full KIIIINGDOM HEAAAARTSSSS

 

[Pandemonious Ivy]

Gravity and Light/Shadow seems to have some synergy, and might be helpful for utility purposes outside of battle.

I like the writing style here. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's very pleasant to read.

 

[Neptune]

[X] [Letter] Of the responsibilities of higher social ranks. You are curious regarding what the Elder does.
[X] [Minor Action] Gather the spiritual herbs that the Honored Elder spoke of.
[X] [Minor Action] The tutor's patience with Meiling has been wearing thin, and Father has promised to pay you if you spend some of your free time helping Meiling with some of her tougher lessons. (+200 coppers).

 

[Milpy]

[X] [Letter] Write-in.
-[X] On the letter, tell him our woes of not having enough money to buy anything other than the lowest of the pills, and even then you must spend some time without any pill. Be subtle about that, we don't want Elder to think we want HIM to buy us pills, but rather that we are just telling someone we trust about our woes. If our MC can't think a way to be subtle in his letter, may as well not say anything. Also, tell how you are close to breakthrough the Ghost Eyes.
[X] [Minor Action] The tutor's patience with Meiling has been wearing thin, and Father has promised to pay you if you spend some of your free time helping Meiling with some of her tougher lessons. (+200 coppers).
[X] [Minor Action] Spend time with Meiling – Soon you will be gone and will rarely see your sister for two years. It might be good to spend some time with her now.

 

[Kanata.EXE]

[X] [Letter] Of the responsibilities of higher social ranks. You are curious regarding what the Elder does.
[X] [Minor Action] The tutor's patience with Meiling has been wearing thin, and Father has promised to pay you if you spend some of your free time helping Meiling with some of her tougher lessons. (+200 coppers).
[X] [Minor Action] Spend time with Xiaoli – Now that she's sixteen she should be able to cultivate soon. It might be a good idea to keep an eye on her, if only to make sure she doesn't burn down the entire province.

 

[Nevill]

[X] [Letter] Of the responsibilities of higher social ranks. You are curious regarding what the Elder does.
[X] [Minor Action] Gather the spiritual herbs that the Honored Elder spoke of.
[X] [Minor Action] Spend time with Xiaoli – Now that she's sixteen she should be able to cultivate soon. It might be a good idea to keep an eye on her, if only to make sure she doesn't burn down the entire province.

There is no such thing as 'too much Meiling', but there is such a thing as 'not enough Xiaoli'.

Suyin is our senior in cultivation (and fun to tease - for once we are not on the receiving end of it!), I'd love to take another action with her next month.

 

[Valder]

Shadow and Light both seem to focus a lot on stealth. How likely are we to want to sneak around?

Suyin's Still Waters is a water technique that increases balance. In our earlier spar it was +3 balance for 10 Qi. This translates to adding one dodge dice, or about 7.7 average damage reduction when at full health.

In combat, getting damaged is bad. This is obvious. Getting damaged reduces our fractional health, which is a multiplier to our physical attack, dodge, and defense rolls. Hence the very first hit is a first step on a downward spiral that steadily reduces our ability to do anything in combat.

Mechanically, we have two layers of damage negation. If our dodge roll is higher than the opponent's attack roll, we don't get hit. This has happened in our spar with Suyin. If our defense roll is higher than the difference between the opponent's attack roll and our dodge roll, presumably we don't get damaged.

Dodge boosts (flexibility, balance & speed) get hit with a 1/3 multiplier in the dice conversion. No idea how defense boosts work yet, though if it has a better dice conversion then boosting defense should always take priority.

I suggest choosing 2 elements that are strong on defense/dodge boosts, but that also have the odd utility or attack buffs. @Timewinders any comment on the two most defensive elements? Or is that something to vote to ask the Honored Elder or parents? Seems like it'd be Earth and either Water or Wind or Shadow.


HP:
(base 10) * 10^sqrt(avg phys cult 1) = 100

Physical attack roll:
{(base str 9 * muscle cult 1) + boosts} = 9d10 * 1.4 (martial 4) * 1.25 (spear mastery 2) * weapon mod * health fraction = avg 86.625

Dodge roll:
{(base flex 4 * flex cult 1) + (balance 3 * avg phys cult 1) + (speed 8 * muscle cult 1) + boosts}/3 = 5d10 * 1.4 (martial 4) * health fraction = avg 38.5

Defense roll:
{(base def 5 * def cult 1) + boosts} = 5d10 * 1.4 (martial 4) * health fraction = avg 38.5


Things to note:
Each level of Flexibility Cultivation currently gives us 1.33 dodge dice.
Each level of Muscle Cultivation currently gives us 2.67 dodge dice and 9 attack dice.
Each level of Defense Cultivation currently gives us 5 defense dice.

Suyin had an average physical cultivation of 1.75, which suggests that physical cultivation is divided into 4 components. I assume average physical cultivation is also the stat that determines HP value.

Boosts from techniques do not seem to be affected by the associated cultivation level, which makes some sense because they are themselves tiered anyway.

 

[Sickul]

I suggest choosing 2 elements that are strong on defense/dodge boosts, but that also have the odd utility or attack buffs. @Timewinders any comment on the two most defensive elements? Or is that something to vote to ask the Elder or parents? Seems like it'd be Earth and either Water or Wind or Shadow.

Click to shrink...

That's one way to do it. Or we could do something like pick up Wind right now to help us dodge and go either Fire or Lightning for offense early and later both have Arts later on that "enhance mobility greatly".

 

[Valder]

That's one way to do it. Or we could do something like pick up Wind right now to help us dodge and go either Fire or Lightning for offense early and later both have Arts later on that "enhance mobility greatly".

Click to shrink...

I'm a fan of wind myself, and that is an element which will definitely boost dodge, but is unlikely to boost defense. Defense boosts currently look stronger than dodge boosts.

From Father we can learn a wind based speed boost and an attack boost. Getting to go first and delivering a strong first attack might be a good strategy. Our current base stats gives us a stronger offense than defense, and the disparity will only grow as we go up in physical cultivation levels.

I would support Wind and Earth. Plan Heaven and Earth!

 

[Sickul]

I'm a fan of wind myself, and that is an element which will definitely boost dodge, but is unlikely to boost defense. Defense boosts currently look stronger than dodge boosts.

Click to shrink...

Or we go a Wind and either Fire or Lightning build, be high mobility and offensive arts and just learn the Earth defense move?

 

[Valder]

Or we go a Wind and either Fire or Lightning build, be high mobility and offensive arts and just learn the Earth defense move?

Click to shrink...

There must be a reason to specialize. Otherwise everyone would just pick techniques regardless of element. Perhaps there will be elemental affinities to build up to access higher level techniques. We won't know until we put the dice in to complete a technique.

We haven't seen how a basic defense boost gets converted to dice. We haven't seen how or if armor affects the system. Regardless, it currently looks like it takes 3 mobility boosts to match up to a single defense boost. In the absence of other information, especially since this is not an irrevocable choice yet, the rational thing is to do some sparring to test this stuff out.

 

[wingstrike96]

[X] [Letter] Of the responsibilities of higher social ranks. You are curious regarding what the Elder does.
[X] [Minor Action] The tutor's patience with Meiling has been wearing thin, and Father has promised to pay you if you spend some of your free time helping Meiling with some of her tougher lessons. (+200 coppers).
[X] [Minor Action] Spend time with Xiaoli – Now that she's sixteen she should be able to cultivate soon. It might be a good idea to keep an eye on her, if only to make sure she doesn't burn down the entire province.

 

[Timewinders]

Shadow and Light both seem to focus a lot on stealth. How likely are we to want to sneak around?

Suyin's Still Waters is a water technique that increases balance. In our earlier spar it was +3 balance for 10 Qi. This translates to adding one dodge dice, or about 7.7 average damage reduction when at full health.

In combat, getting damaged is bad. This is obvious. Getting damaged reduces our fractional health, which is a multiplier to our physical attack, dodge, and defense rolls. Hence the very first hit is a first step on a downward spiral that steadily reduces our ability to do anything in combat.

Mechanically, we have two layers of damage negation. If our dodge roll is higher than the opponent's attack roll, we don't get hit. This has happened in our spar with Suyin. If our defense roll is higher than the difference between the opponent's attack roll and our dodge roll, presumably we don't get damaged.

Dodge boosts (flexibility, balance & speed) get hit with a 1/3 multiplier in the dice conversion. No idea how defense boosts work yet, though if it has a better dice conversion then boosting defense should always take priority.

I suggest choosing 2 elements that are strong on defense/dodge boosts, but that also have the odd utility or attack buffs. @Timewinders any comment on the two most defensive elements? Or is that something to vote to ask the Honored Elder or parents? Seems like it'd be Earth and either Water or Wind or Shadow.


HP:
(base 10) * 10 (from physical cultivation) = 100

Physical attack roll:
(base strength 9 * muscle cult 1) = 9d10 * 1.4 (martial 4) * 1.25 (spear mastery) * weapon mod * health fraction = avg 86.625

Dodge roll:
(base flex 4 * flex cult 1 + balance 3 * avg phys cult 1 + speed 8 * muscle cult 1) /3 = 5d10 * 1.4 (martial 4) * health fraction = avg 38.5

Defense roll:
(base def 5) * (defense cult 1) = 5d10 * 1.4 (martial 4) * health fraction = avg 38.5


Things to note:
Each level of Flexibility Cultivation currently gives us 1.33 dodge dice.
Each level of Muscle Cultivation currently gives us 2.67 dodge dice and 9 attack dice.
Each level of Defense Cultivation currently gives us 5 defense dice.

Suyin had an average physical cultivation of 1.75, which suggests that physical cultivation is divided into 4 components. I assume average physical cultivation is also the stat that determines HP value.

Boosts from techniques do not seem to be affected by the associated cultivation level, which makes some sense because they are themselves tiered anyway.

Click to shrink...

Most defensive elements are probably earth and shadow. I am planning to have qi start to be passively used to heal damage after the first few rounds after getting hit. Also, I can still make changes to the combat system if it looks like it's heavily unbalanced.

 

[RideTheWalrus]

[X] [Letter] Of the responsibilities of higher social ranks. You are curious regarding what the Elder does.
[X] [Minor Action] The tutor's patience with Meiling has been wearing thin, and Father has promised to pay you if you spend some of your free time helping Meiling with some of her tougher lessons. (+200 coppers).
[X] [Minor Action] Spend time with Xiaoli – Now that she's sixteen she should be able to cultivate soon. It might be a good idea to keep an eye on her, if only to make sure she doesn't burn down the entire province.

 

[Timewinders]

Okay, I'm closing the vote now. Winning vote:

[X] [Letter] Of the responsibilities of higher social ranks. You are curious regarding what the Elder does.
[X] [Minor Action] The tutor's patience with Meiling has been wearing thin, and Father has promised to pay you if you spend some of your free time helping Meiling with some of her tougher lessons. (+200 coppers).
[X] [Minor Action] Spend time with Xiaoli – Now that she's sixteen she should be able to cultivate soon. It might be a good idea to keep an eye on her, if only to make sure she doesn't burn down the entire province.


Also, can you all let me know what you think about the combat system (from what you've seen of it anyway)? I can tweak it to make it more balanced. I've also been thinking that I might need to make the wounded penalty a bit less punishing. Like perhaps instead of a percentage of HP, you don't get a penalty until you're down to 70% of your total HP, and then a larger penalty when you get down to 50% or 25% or something.

 

[Milpy]

Also, can you all let me know what you think about the combat system (from what you've seen of it anyway)? I can tweak it to make it more balanced. I've also been thinking that I might need to make the wounded penalty a bit less punishing. Like perhaps instead of a percentage of HP, you don't get a penalty until you're down to 70% of your total HP, and then a larger penalty when you get down to 50% or 25% or something.

Click to shrink...

I think you are right in that it would be more RPG like to make debuffs by stages (75%, 50%, 25% and so..), but I think it's more realistic the way it is (action * HP%). So, for me I'd like more if you let the mechanics (in this aspect at least) the way it is, rather than changing it.

 

[Nevill]

It grants too many advantages for executing alpha strikes. I am all for nerfing it/reducing its impact rather considerably.

 

[Timewinders]

I think you are right in that it would be more RPG like to make debuffs by stages (75%, 50%, 25% and so..), but I think it's more realistic the way it is (action * HP%). So, for me I'd like more if you let the mechanics (in this aspect at least) the way it is, rather than changing it.

Click to shrink...

It grants too many advantages for executing alpha strikes. I am all for nerfing it/reducing its impact rather considerably.

Click to shrink...

Hmm, perhaps rather than stages I'll keep HP% as a factor but reduce the amount of penalty it causes? Perhaps multiply the rolls by the square root or cubic root of the HP% or something.

 

[Valder]

Hmm, perhaps rather than stages I'll keep HP% as a factor but reduce the amount of penalty it causes? Perhaps multiply the rolls by the square root of the HP% or something.

Click to shrink...

Haha I just considered suggesting that. See my first point below.


From what we currently know of the combat system so far:
- There is an obvious first strike advantage. This is realistic though. Something to consider is that this is mainly an issue while HP pools are small relative to damage dice. This makes for short fights at our novice level, so again it's realistic. If HP scales faster than damage the issue resolves itself, though fights might get too long at some point. I would prefer to keep it as is for now.

- The stat array we generated from chargen when put into the current system favours attack and defense over dodge. This is separate from boosts and I do not have an issue with it.

- Both defense and dodge contribute equally to not getting damaged. We know dodge boosts get penalized by 1/3. We don't know about defense boosts yet. More information required. I am worried that if defense boosts gets direct conversion to dice then it would overpower dodge boosts. A consideration if so is to change the system such that Dodge dice = (flex+speed)/2 and Defense dice = (defense+balance)/2. To simulate keeping your balance even while blocking.

 

[Timewinders]

Haha I just considered suggesting that. See my first point below.


From what we currently know of the combat system so far:
- There is an obvious first strike advantage. This is realistic though. Something to consider is that this is mainly an issue while HP pools are small relative to damage dice. This makes for short fights at our novice level, so again it's realistic. If HP scales faster than damage the issue resolves itself, though fights might get too long at some point. I would prefer to keep it as is for now.

- The stat array we generated from chargen when put into the current system favours attack and defense over dodge. This is separate from boosts and I do not have an issue with it.

- Both defense and dodge contribute equally to not getting damaged. We know dodge boosts get penalized by 1/3. We don't know about defense boosts yet. More information required. I am worried that if defense boosts gets direct conversion to dice then it would overpower dodge boosts. A consideration if so is to change the system such that Dodge dice = (flex+speed)/2 and Defense dice = (defense+balance)/2. To simulate keeping your balance even while blocking.

Click to shrink...

The equation I've been using for HP is 10*(10^(square root of avg phys cult)). Considering that physical attacks scale linearly with physical cultivation, battles probably won't be that long. So it would probably be better to nerf the wounded penalty. I'll probably end up going with square root of the HP%.

As far as dodge vs defense boosts, I was planning to balance it via qi costs, i.e. a defense boost of 3 would probably cost 30 qi vs. Still Waters costing 10 qi. Also, I was thinking of having it so that in the future when you get arts to buff everything you can only have one buff up for a given stat at a time. So it would also be useful to learn arts that enhance speed, flexibility, and balance even if their effects are individually smaller than a defense art.

 

[Valder]

The equation I've been using for HP is 10*(10^(square root of avg phys cult)). Considering that physical attacks scale linearly with physical cultivation, battles probably won't be that long. So it would probably be better to nerf the wounded penalty. I'll probably end up going with square root of the HP%.

Click to shrink...

Avg Phys Cult: 1, HP: 100.0, our avg attack: 86.625, HP/attack = 1.154
Avg Phys Cult: 2, HP: 259.5, our avg attack: 173.25, HP/attack = 1.498
Avg Phys Cult: 3, HP: 539.6, our avg attack: 259.875, HP/attack = 2.076

Even at avg phys cult 3 (a long way away) one full unblocked attack is enough to reduce us to half HP, which probably ends a spar. Speculation: If ambush mechanics exist that negates the opponent's ability to dodge or defend they would be overpowering.

During our spar Suyin was at avg phys cult 1.75. She had 210.3 HP, slightly more than double our HP pool.

As far as dodge vs defense boosts, I was planning to balance it via qi costs, i.e. a defense boost of 3 would probably cost 30 qi vs. Still Waters costing 10 qi. Also, I was thinking of having it so that in the future when you get arts to buff everything you can only have one buff up for a given stat at a time. So it would also be useful to learn arts that enhance speed, flexibility, and balance even if their effects are individually smaller than a defense art.

Click to shrink...

That works, though it strongly incentivizes maintaining the strongest attack and defense boost we can afford before considering the other types. I'm still all for wind and earth really.