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Usually only if fighting multiple opponents. To be clear. Also, again to be clear, most defenses do not create openings...that's specific to Clever Deflection.
Knight of Wessex (A Written World Quest)
- Thread starter Alectai
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- Original Fantasy Alt. History
Usually only if fighting multiple opponents. To be clear. Also, again to be clear, most defenses do not create openings...that's specific to Clever Deflection.
Ok, will update post to reflect that.
That said, I still think Clever deflecton is in a decent place right now and other skills might benefit more from mastery.
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As a QM I have no comments on that kind of planning in general. Just clarifying things so such plans can be made with the best information possible.
AeonIlluminate
The power of friendship and aggressive landscaping
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While mastering Vanguard's and Perseverance will be very much likely by the time we're about to become a full Knight, right now were are mainly looking at lowering our fervour costs per round as we don't have too much. From that view, either of our meditations becoming Mastered would save us 3-4 Fervour a round from the second round onwards, as they mechanically eat our replenish. Mastering GKB does nothing to it's cost, and makes it so that we cut functionally everyone we hit with it in half immediately, which while nice, we can already throw it around about once per round from our replenish once we hit 3rd Decade and we are already cutting most people in half or at least crippling them in one hit anyway. However, Mastering Clever Deflection brings it down to costing 1 Fervour from 3, and lets it outrank a LOT of whatever attack moves people will be throwing at us, including most Squires who follow the conventional advice of "Don't Master stuff for a while, it's expensive", while also letting us properly spam our most spamable move.
On an unrelated note, Deadman, how the fuck are we not going to brutally murder our opponents in the competition when we inevitably use our only combat plan of "Spam Clever Deflection, then GKB till they die" and cut the other squire in half, as for some reason I feel like that may be frowned upon.
Either really good healers or the tournament is just until focus break.
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So, I need to consult with Alectai and IF for details, but my assumption is that tournament fights are probably to first blood. For Chivalrics, that coincides with Focus Break the vast majority of the time and is an excellent barometer of who'd win a real fight. It's slightly less of a good measure for some others, but it's convenient and a good way to avoid people dying.
This is very doable for Audrey, by the way. My math says that up against a Squire at the beginning of the 3rd Decade with straight 5s in stats, GKB would need to hit three times to actually cause bleeding...maybe only two if there are a bunch of other attacks in there as well. Insular Squires are very durable.
It's likely a combination of both in practice. As I say above, it's probably first blood technically speaking.
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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I will tell you this and only this
If someone cannot adapt, they will lose
The description of Grace says that in addition to the transformation of Fervour into Zeal, it is also a measure of intuition that leads a person to fulfill the works of God on earth.
Will it ever play a role? For example, in a difficult situation, there will be a Grace check and if successful, we will create a miracle by doing everything in the best way?
Well, or something similar?
Will it ever play a role? For example, in a difficult situation, there will be a Grace check and if successful, we will create a miracle by doing everything in the best way?
Well, or something similar?
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Mostly this aspect of Grace takes the form of providence, which is to say luck. Being in the right place at the right time, rather than doing the right thing...the latter falls more under free will and other stuff.
One example I don't feel bad about telling you is that, on Audrey's foray out to get her armour, with the initial bandit encounter we rolled Grace to see if you got there in time to save the pilgrims from the bandits. A bad enough roll and you would have found only bodies, not even a fight, a ridiculously good one and you might have arrived before violence had quite erupted.
But yeah, thinking of it as the luck stat is probably easiest for modern people...that's not exactly the terms Audrey would think of it in, though. And it's luck in the sense of being in the right position to do Knightly things, not necessarily being perfectly safe, though it does also apply to the quality of some rewards and similar things.
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Thus, Knights are a superhero of the Middle Ages, coming to the aid of the weak and needy just in time. Provided that they are, of course, righteous Christians.
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Very much so, yes. Divine providence, the Grace of God, and all that. A Knight's Grace takes them to the place where God's Plan would have them go.
So while I get what you're saying, from my reading the question wasn't "how our opponents would even last against our awesome strategy."
But more of a "we have this mejor attack were kinda expected to use, how do we not murder our friendly opponents with it".
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I do think I addressed this part of things. For fellow Chivalrics, if you don't uses it after breaking someone's Focus they are near certain to survive...being at full Focus or even partial Focus and any amount of Hama or Armour, and one GKB will not kill any Chivalric likely to show up in the tournament.
Thanes are a little dicier, but even for them it's very unlikely that they'll hit the point where they haven't personally taken any damage yet and also are one GKB away from death. It's not impossible, but then neither are tournament accidents, and it's pretty unlikely as long as you stop at first blood.
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The thing is, the opponents we'll be facing in the future, especially in the tournament are likely to be very tanky (~100 armor as mentioned) and Im not sure how many peer opponents would give us easy opportunities to freely land GKBs after the first time we try it --- which is why I think its worth levelling it to the point where our first GKB does cripple them like you mention.
I think that's fair, but I also worry that as we go against increasingly competent opponents, they won't simply let us spam it willy-nilly -- be it via Ranged attacks, Hama field techniques, grapples, etc. I personally feel prayers are a bit more universally applicable.
Also my bad, wasn't aware outranking moves made a notable difference. If so, it does assauge some of my concerns.
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So, Clever Deflection is fairly widely applicable. It can usually be used against most single-target attacks including attempts to grapple you or ranged attacks (though, admittedly, on ranged attacks it usually won't create an opening...still works to defend). It's less helpful once you're actually in a grapple and doesn't usually do much against AoE, but just to be clear.
Outranking matters in terms of stuff like narrative weight and special effect comparisons. An attack that normally specifically disallows dodging might be trumped by a higher level dodge effect, allowing the dodge to proceed as normal, for instance. That said, it does nothing in terms of direct roll comparisons, not by default anyway. It'd be harder to cancel or make not work, but it's still a rolled defense...if the roll gets beaten you get hit, and outranking doesn't help with the roll.
Clever Deflection specifically also opens up a somewhat bigger opening as it goes up in rank.
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Is that just narrative or dos it has some influences on the mechanics?
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It's mechanically relevant to the tune of a bigger mechanical bonus from said openings, but we're talking an additional +1 or maybe +2 on the roll to take advantage of such an opening, so it's real but not very big.
Huh, I didn't actually know that creating an opening gave a bonus to the subsequent attack, I mean it make sense, I just figured we had to have an opening to use GKB.
Anyway, I've been thinking of a few feats/prayers I would like to get before the tournament.
First of all I would like another way to force an opening, initially I thought a feat which surges/reinforce Hama/armor to then tank a hit in a way that would force an opening for a counter attack but that's would still mean that both of our ways to force an opening would be defensive in nature, which is fine but we probably want to diversify a little.
So, would a faint feat be possible?
Other than that, I would like a perfect defense (and some kind of pierce meditation as well), it isn't something to completely rely on but it has its uses and can be absolutely devastating against certain Foe's. I know its not something that is usually practiced in our part of the world but Reinald should know some.
AeonIlluminate
The power of friendship and aggressive landscaping
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Perfects functionally don't exist for us.
Also, a Meditation idea I had for Hard-Fall Style. Some kind of mirror image effect where it creates a duplicate image of us that is on the opposite side of us compared to what we're doing but is visibly identical so that the enemy doesn't know which side is the real attack. For example, we swing at his left side, and a duplicate image of us swings at his right, and hopefully he can only block one and therefore a bunch more of our attacks get through. Hopefully this falls into the "Trickery" bit of Hard-Fall close enough to work, and we don't have to pray to get a Revelation that allows illusions to do this.
The last part literally say we can in fact learn them from continental knights (which I think ReInald dos count as) they just cost more and aren't actually perfect against our fellows and Norse (well it can work on the Norse, they just have a very specific way to get through it).
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Strictly speaking, GKB does not absolutely require an opening. It's designed to be used with one, but that's a tad different.
You don't really have a Shape to do any of this as a Feat. Both options are plausible as Rotes, though.
I mean, if you want to buy an effect that is functionally useless to you as literally every foe you have fought so far would ignore its special stuff, I guess you can maybe learn one. Reinald probably has a single perfect defense from way back in the day he hasn't used in years...
Like...it would be flatly inferior to Cunning Deflection in every way 95% of the time for you. You can learn it, but I wonder why you would bother.
I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
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This part was already addressed by my Co-QMs
As a Roman Catholic, to attain Christian perfection, you utilize the Lectio Divina. A common analogy for Lectio Divina is 'feasting on the Word'. First you take a bite (lectio, reading Scripture), then you chew on it (meditatio, meditation), next you savor the essence of it (oratio, prayer), and then you digest it, making it part of your being (contemplatio, contemplation). Through this, you increase your knowledge of Jesus Christ and become closer to God.
Essentially, this is the core cycle of Christian cultivation. And yes, as a byproduct of striving for Christian perfection, you don't need to eat and drink as much.
I will admit I'm not entirely sure on the difference between the two, is it just which dice are used for it and narrative or is there more?
Sure, but from my understanding it would be brutally effective when it isn't useless. Also, I just like the aesthetics of it and am willing to act somewhat suboptimaly for it.
I'm not arguing to perfect one, just to get it, so we have it if we ever need it.
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They're very similar mechanically. Lore-wise, Hama usages are Feats, everything else Audrey does magically is a Prayer...instant Prayers designed for in-combat use are Rotes.
The biggest difference is probably what sort of things you can do with them in the first place. Feats are shapings of Hama and work accordingly...Rotes and other Prayers just can't do that specific kind of thing in the first place. Who can get them is also different, as Reinald and his 'no Hama' demonstrates.
Technically speaking, you can probably get one from Reinald, yes. I suspect he only knows one, but he probably does know one from his youth.