No, moar dakka is the solution to all problems.
Sorry, I had to
Edit: Why is that glowing? Am I the only one who sees that?
Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)
- Thread starter Silently Watches
- Start date
No, moar dakka is the solution to all problems.
Sorry, I had to
Edit: Why is that glowing? Am I the only one who sees that?
- Location
- Ohio
No, moar dakka is the solution to all problems.
Sorry, I had to
Edit: Why is that glowing? Am I the only one who sees that?
Your not crazy, I see it to.
Archeo Lumiere
The Prince's Archivist
- Location
- Lumiose City, Kalos
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
No, moar dakka is the solution to all problems.
Sorry, I had to
Edit: Why is that glowing? Am I the only one who sees that?
It's the smiley, smilies don't hide perfectly behind a spoiler
❤🧡💛💚🐲💙🦠💜👻♠
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dhasenan
always lowercase
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There's an explicit rule in the theme for smilies within spoilers that gives them an 8px blur. Which is kind of cute but also a little weird.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Wait... So because I was trying to vote for Cassiel to sneak along intentionally, you wouldn't allow it, but if we'd tried to leave behind Cassiel you would have forced her on us?
Sorry, I meant to answer this question this morning, but honestly in real world time it's been 3 months since we had that conversation and it took until I was driving to work to remember my reasoning.
It comes down to the difference between in character and out of character logic. Out of character, you are 100% right, there is no difference whatsoever. Either way you're bringing Cassiel along in secret.
It's because the IC implications that I had to veto it. Cassiel would not have wanted to hide in the suites in her fairy form the entire time. Dragon was not going to let her run around without some kind of supervision. That means that from the perspective of the other people on the trip, particularly Kayleigh's parents, there's this adult woman who has an unusual interest in a child that they know they did not see her with in the airport. That would have led to a variety of questions that Dragon would not want to be in the position of having to answer because it would require building a house of cards of lies that would almost inevitably come crashing down.
Now, if Cassiel had snuck along, Dragon and Taylor would have needed to deal with the situation, but they wouldn't have been happy about it.
I sometimes have to refuse or modify votes based on IC logic. Like the vote in 13.5, where I scratched out the part of the vote that involved asking Laura about advice for Missy because there was no way Taylor was going to risk Missy's secret identity if Laura hadn't figured it out. Same thing.
Anyway, that's the big main reason, though there was a second reason. Cassiel sneaking into Taylor's luggage because she wants to see what the beach is like is cute and funny. Taylor shoving her in her bag and saying "Stay there and don't make a sound"? Not so much.
I know, right?
I'm going to have to do some reading on mana pool and spheres of power now. I hope you're happy.
I've never gone into the details that I remember, but each social event is a 5 point bonus on Linker Core roles. Any overflow is a 1:1 bonus to strength.
Of course, considering how I'm chomping on the bit for you to scan somebody and just went through the trouble of reworking the entire Device system, you might find that I'm willing to compensate you for some disappointing rolls…
This is one of the reasons I needed to make 13.x an interlude from Laura's POV. Maybe it's just me, but if I were a player I would want to give her a Device after getting more details of her story, but trying to get you to social her enough to want to social her and flip her was going to be a challenge.
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Well now that Laura knows about Magic we kinda have to social her, and probably Kayleigh, to explain about Magic. We do have some cards that may or may not be useful in flipping her. The offer of Calamity Witch levels of power, the knowledge the PRT is about to curbstomp the gangs with a massive influx of Mages and Guardian Beasts*, and the risk that Kayleigh (if she either has a LC or takes a LCM) may end up on the other side of a fight.
*The newly revised system makes the Philly PRT's mage core vastly more dangerous then it was previously. Before they had 30 Mages and 30 Guardian Beasts broken up into:
- 13 x D-Rank
- 11 x C-Rank
- 3 x B-Rank
- 2 x A-Rank
- 1 x AA-Rank
- 13 x D-Rank Gears
- 3 x Full Gears
- 6 x Offensive GBs (Swords & Rifles)
- 6 x Defensive GBs (Shields & Tomes)
- 2 x Stranger GBs (Masks)
Now however things have changed. The PRT Gears stated on July 9:
and it is currently July 30 so with 16 Gears they should have easily had sufficient time to give every mage a Device.
Under the new system even D-Rankers with Devices end up pretty dangerous after enough time. If the PRT delays a couple months, and unless a disaster occurs the have no need to deploy soon, they could make full use of their new army of Mages. Of which even the lowest (D-Rank) is equal to the average Cape and the highest will (eventually) become extremely versatile. They only have Storage Devices IIRC so sadly those high rankers won't have Busters/Breakers but they will still (eventually) have enough spells to be decent at basically everything.
Incidentally this change also completely alters my previous attempts at valuing how much we could sell LCMs+Devices for. Now even the lowest of mages, as long as they have a Device, will end up with a pretty decent cape level of capability.
Well thats why the TSAB has those line mages with just a storage device.
- Location
- Earth, Sol System, Virgo Supercluster, Earth-1218
I can make it even worse for you
There's a whole Final Fantasy conversion for Pathfinder and it uses the mana pool system instead of vancian casting.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Yeah, I had already thought about that.
In the absolute short term, it drops Tanya Abigail's spell slots down one (because she now starts with 4 instead of 5), but long term? Oh yeah, things get ugly for anyone opposed to the PRT.Now the actual numbers don't make it quite that fast because they didn't start building Devices until July 15, and they needed a week to get the B+ mages armed not to mention all the other mages. Then there's the fact that of the rest of the mages, about half of them are some kind of support staff and not active fighters, so there are only 29 real combatants. Which is still a hell of a lot, and the PRT's nonmages are all eventually getting armed with manatech anyway, so yeah. It sucks not to be on the side of law and order.
Sorry?
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
Uber is saying they are valued far, far higher than previously. Because they are that much better. Even a mostly botched LCM still gives powers on par with a parahuman.
- Location
- Belfast
True, but when you think about it 99% of mages aren't going to be anywhere near Nanoha or Fate levels, just like 99% of parahumans aren't going to be Alexandria or Legend.
It's probably not going to be as unbalanced as some people think on an individual level, but where the PRT has a huge advantage now is in standardization and coordination. Mages can pass information regarding new tricks between themselves, and while most of them will specialize as time goes on nothing stops them learning new things that go counter to how they normally operate.
They'll be like tinker lites as a result, whereas most parahumans can only figure out so many variations on a single ability. Yeah, not a good time to be a villain in Philly.
Pretty much this.
One of the big problems with the idea of selling LCMs is that unlike with Cauldron power levels are completely random. Cauldron had three axes system: Originality (O), Power (P), and Randomness (R). We can kinda control the R factor by adding secondary mutations and Originality is vaguely under our control by choosing what spells to give them but we have no influence over power. Whether a customer ends up with a D-Rank core capable of one spell or a AAA-rank capable of 6 spells (assuming Devices in both cases) is 100% random.
This was a problem because it was pure lottery if you ended up as a low tier grabbag or a powerhouse. Now however even D-Rank mages will (eventually) ratchet up into powerful capes and the lucky ones can (theoretically) break into pseudo-Triumvirate tier given enough time.
With that in mind it doesn't really matter that the power level is random since even a minimum power level is still a worthwhile purchase. Plus the difference between Device and non-Device mages is a lot higher then it used to be which makes selling quite an interesting question.
I may do a re-write later and maybe give a couple examples of of things could go to emphasize it.
Basically there has been some brainstorming floating around of selling a LCM treatment package with standardized cosmetic/minor mutation to prevent significant mutation (i.e. a standard package of anime hair, eye color, and a third mutation of say, elf ears or something) ala Cauldron lite.
But only to people that won't be villains.
Tassadar
The Overlord of Cakes & Toucans!
I believe that part of the deal can empower them too.
The Enhancement tree is really good when combined with Mutagenics.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
I'm aware of that. The apology was for undoing all the thought and research he did in the previous writeup.
And for the fact that now we all know this is going to bug him until he redoes it.
Before I start trying to rework out how selling mutations could work there was something I've been meaning to comment on for a while now:
OOC we know the difference is that Emma was mentally broken by her encounter with the ABB and latched onto Sophia's toxic worldview as a way of holding herself together. We also know that Laura meanwhile honestly wanted to help but was too afraid to step out of her comfort zone but couldn't confront that so threw up lies to justify her cowardice to herself and others. The difference is that when confronted with reality Emma, in canon at least, just shattered as the last thing holding her together broke while here Laura, with a little help from Cassiel, overcame her doubts and chose to be a hero.
Taylor meanwhile doesn't know any of this. The only difference she really knows about is that no one ever confronted Emma. No one ever stood up to her. No one ever gave Emma a "reasons you suck speech". Yeah here Taylor did insult Emma a little the last time they spoke:
So when she reflects upon all this in the coming days, waiting for her friends to get out of M/S screening will give her plenty of time to think, I think Taylor will start wondering to herself; could she have saved Emma? Would things have been different if she had been confident enough to stand up to Emma all those years ago?
I doubt it will be a big deal since CW!Taylor, much like canon Taylor by this point, has more or less moved on from Emma. But those niggling doubts and tantalizing what ifs can be a real pain to ignore.
Taylor dismissed Laura as being no better then Emma only for Laura to turn around and help save the day. This is something that is going to gnaw on her. Why did Laura decide, after everything she had said and every reason she had given, to help after all? Why didn't Emma ever change back to the girl Taylor loved as a sister? What is the difference?
OOC we know the difference is that Emma was mentally broken by her encounter with the ABB and latched onto Sophia's toxic worldview as a way of holding herself together. We also know that Laura meanwhile honestly wanted to help but was too afraid to step out of her comfort zone but couldn't confront that so threw up lies to justify her cowardice to herself and others. The difference is that when confronted with reality Emma, in canon at least, just shattered as the last thing holding her together broke while here Laura, with a little help from Cassiel, overcame her doubts and chose to be a hero.
Taylor meanwhile doesn't know any of this. The only difference she really knows about is that no one ever confronted Emma. No one ever stood up to her. No one ever gave Emma a "reasons you suck speech". Yeah here Taylor did insult Emma a little the last time they spoke:
but that wasn't a verbal beatdown like Taylor gave Laura here.
So when she reflects upon all this in the coming days, waiting for her friends to get out of M/S screening will give her plenty of time to think, I think Taylor will start wondering to herself; could she have saved Emma? Would things have been different if she had been confident enough to stand up to Emma all those years ago?
I doubt it will be a big deal since CW!Taylor, much like canon Taylor by this point, has more or less moved on from Emma. But those niggling doubts and tantalizing what ifs can be a real pain to ignore.
Proto Offscreen Omake:
Tim gains Inspiration points examining tinker tech/ talking to tinkers etc etc...
Let's talk Mutagenics with Bonesaw for a bit.
***** Mutagenics Now with Bonesaw as Attending Physician *****
[ ]Tim and Bonesaw socialize while experimenting on rats.
Day one: Tim - Experiments on rats.
Day two: Bonesaw shows up. Experiments on rats again, but now with power point presentation. Manic levels of experiments.
Day Three: There are no more rats in Philly, they've all been used up in experiments.
Day Four: More charts, more dead rats. This time the rats were imported from New York.
Day Five: Magical flying rats escape containment. Power point presentation and charts ensure prompt action.
Day six:
Tim, Dragon, with attending physician Bonesaw prep Vista for surgery and the first example of the creation of an Artificial Linker Core.
Edit: Alternate Title: Bonesaw and Tim fill out excel spread sheets for 17 hours a day for five days then say "fuck it, let's do this thing"
Tim gains Inspiration points examining tinker tech/ talking to tinkers etc etc...
Let's talk Mutagenics with Bonesaw for a bit.
***** Mutagenics Now with Bonesaw as Attending Physician *****
[ ]Tim and Bonesaw socialize while experimenting on rats.
Day one: Tim - Experiments on rats.
Day two: Bonesaw shows up. Experiments on rats again, but now with power point presentation. Manic levels of experiments.
Day Three: There are no more rats in Philly, they've all been used up in experiments.
Day Four: More charts, more dead rats. This time the rats were imported from New York.
Day Five: Magical flying rats escape containment. Power point presentation and charts ensure prompt action.
Day six:
Tim, Dragon, with attending physician Bonesaw prep Vista for surgery and the first example of the creation of an Artificial Linker Core.
Edit: Alternate Title: Bonesaw and Tim fill out excel spread sheets for 17 hours a day for five days then say "fuck it, let's do this thing"
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Calamity Witch is and S Class mage and a cape who stands shoulder to shoulder with the Triumvirate. This is what S Class means.
- Location
- Georgia
There's a lot of projected self loathing in there, too. Emma was too weak. She couldn't save herself. She barely even tried to save herself. Every time she sees Taylor, she is reminded of who she used to be, the weakling who deserved what almost happened to her.
This doesn't excuse her behaviour, but there is some room for understanding why and how she was broken. According to Dragon, Sophia was likely extremely pressured by her own shard. The only one of the three that we can't see any motivation for is Madison, beyond just being a toady. Again, all three are still responsible for what they did, there's just more to it than things tend to get simplified to by authors.
Alternative day six:
TaliesinSkye
Occasional Editor
- Location
- Northeast Ohio, United States
Just caught up. That was quite a ride. I really enjoyed it, @Silently Watches. Thank you.
Player choices were occasionally painful towards the beginning; not recruiting Tattletale was a huge missed opportunity in particular. Things seem to have gotten better over the second half or so, though.
I was curious whether it might have been possible to nail a retreating Leviathan with a Ragnarok hit while it was sufficiently far from the city to avoid collateral damage. I also wondered what the Enforcers were up to during the battle, we didn't see much from them. I would have expected coordination, maybe asking if any of them were also capable of Breaker-level bombardment spells.
Come to think of it, is there a minimum Linker core rating for people to join the Enforcers?
Player choices were occasionally painful towards the beginning; not recruiting Tattletale was a huge missed opportunity in particular. Things seem to have gotten better over the second half or so, though.
I was curious whether it might have been possible to nail a retreating Leviathan with a Ragnarok hit while it was sufficiently far from the city to avoid collateral damage. I also wondered what the Enforcers were up to during the battle, we didn't see much from them. I would have expected coordination, maybe asking if any of them were also capable of Breaker-level bombardment spells.
Come to think of it, is there a minimum Linker core rating for people to join the Enforcers?
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- Location
- Georgia
For all of Tattletale's strategic usefulness, she rubs a lot of people the wrong way, for a number of admittedly understandable, reasonable reasons on top of the unreasonable ones people love to cling to. As canon shows, she almost literally cannot shut up to save her own life. Without Taylor's help, she would have died so many times in canon Worm.
TaliesinSkye
Occasional Editor
- Location
- Northeast Ohio, United States
Yes, her shard pushing her to create conflict. Not her fault, (or at least not entirely, there may well be some underlying desire to show off that the shard is leveraging to get what it wants) but people understandably have trouble with it.
It's a shame we couldn't save her and push her in Dragon's direction at the very least, though. A team up like that could do great things.
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- Location
- USA
The two Enforcers who showed up were Erga, who did come over to coordinate for the "pin it with Epoch and blast wildly while Phantasm and Breakdown attack from another dimension" part of the plan ; and Teana, who is the Breaker capable mage they have (that i'm aware of) but Erga noted the canon fact that she's unable to use Flying magic so she couldn't keep up with the plan I believe. Not sure what they did otherwise in the battle, maybe hung back to assess and wait for good moments to take shots.
Then again, also not entirely clear why lacking flight (or needing to adapt an odd method for it, like Subaru) seems not uncommon in Nanoha anime. Didn't get very far in her part of the anime before I got distracted from binging.
TaliesinSkye
Occasional Editor
- Location
- Northeast Ohio, United States
She's capable of a Breaker level bombardment spell but not flight? That's weird. I thought Breaker level bombardment was an A or AA class thing and flight a B class.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
If you look back at the early Alexandria interludes, Eidolon was worried Lexi and Legend were going to recruit Taylor to take his place in the Triumvirate. They weren't, but the possibility certainly was there.
It's not really clear in canon. I'm positing for the purposes of this quest that they need to be A+ so they have the power and versatility to handle major magic incidents on their own.
As Racoras mentioned, Erga was helping out with blasting Leviathan. Teana was helping with evacuation IIRC.
Mm hmm. Canon never goes into why Teana can use Starlight Breaker but not flight. My pet theory is that just like RL, people all have different strengths and weaknesses, and Teana is just worthless at flight spells. Maybe she can't get the spell to work at all, or maybe she can do the initial math right and can power it but then can't control it and so it's just too dangerous for her to try flying around.