I think he's still a fair bit above us rather than a peer like Gabriel...but beating him should be possible, yeah.



I'm generally on board with #1 and #2. #3 is tricky to combine with #1, though...not impossible, but tricky.

I think that if we combined #3 with #2, then we avoid the problem of not having enough dice to get past rolled defences, and would really sock him good, given how the damage scaling works.

Like, if in our first turn we throw one hard attack, then a bunch basic attacks (adding to the Stoked Dice we start with), the damage bonus we would have for our Stoked Strike with Contested Movement would be... quite a lot IIRC.
 
I think that if we combined #3 with #2, then we avoid the problem of not having enough dice to get past rolled defences, and would really sock him good, given how the damage scaling works.

Like, if in our first turn we throw one hard attack, then a bunch basic attacks (adding to the Stoked Dice we start with), the damage bonus we would have for our Stoked Strike with Contested Movement would be... quite a lot IIRC.

Works in theory, but only if we don't get a round break before the Basic Attacks are done, and the basic attacks very likely don't get through. Hmmm.
 
Works in theory, but only if we don't get a round break before the Basic Attacks are done, and the basic attacks very likely don't get through. Hmmm.

I think Basic Attacks not beating a defence has not necessarily ended a round before?

Or at least it didn't when we fought Gabriel and has the hilarious exchange when we were both hitting eachother and not beating the other's defences. I think what tends to trigger a round break is when we learn something important which would logically change our plans, or when we get hurt.

If we key the Contested Movement to trigger either the first time he's throwing a hard attack against us which is liable to get past our other defences, or on whatever attack he throws after we're done with our Basic Attacks, then it should get through. Maybe with not as many Stoked Die as we like, but I think even with just our starting Stoked Pool, the damage is liable to be quite a lot, IIRC? Even one or two Basic Attacks and we're off to the races.

Oh, I've thought of another thing: We should consider using Slice-Asides as part of our defence, because they chain into Basic Attacks and prevent the enemy using any active weapon defences against the Basic Attack if the Slice-Aside was successful.
 
I think Basic Attacks not beating a defence has not necessarily ended a round before?

Or at least it didn't when we fought Gabriel and has the hilarious exchange when we were both hitting eachother and not beating the other's defences. I think what tends to trigger a round break is when we learn something important which would logically change our plans, or when we get hurt.

It doesn't, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is it gives a lot of time for him to do round ending things while we're just throwing attacks that don't work, and if he ends the round we only got off the basic attacks that happen before that and thus wind up with fairly minimal gains. Like, if he's as fast as us, doing 8 basic attacks gives him time to do 8 things...that's an issue. Not an unsolvable one, but a real one.

It is, of course, better if we're faster than he is.

If we key the Contested Movement to trigger either the first time he's throwing a hard attack against us which is liable to get past our other defences, or on whatever attack he throws after we're done with our Basic Attacks, then it should get through. Maybe with not as many Stoked Die as we like, but I think even with just our starting Stoked Pool, the damage is liable to be quite a lot, IIRC? Even one or two Basic Attacks and we're off to the races.

Depends on if he also has Stoker State. Which he may. His own Stoked Pool could then come into play, which is a possibility we need to be aware of.

Oh, I've thought of another thing: We should consider using Slice-Asides as part of our defence, because they chain into Basic Attacks and prevent the enemy using any active weapon defences against the Basic Attack if the Slice-Aside was successful.

I continue to think this is probably less good than Hefty-Halter Chop. Especially since HHC probably just does this guy damage since his weapon is his face (ie: wolf jaws), and disarming it thus messes him up.
 
Last edited:
It doesn't, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is it gives a lot of time for him to do round ending things while we're just throwing attacks that don't work, and if he ends the round we only got off the basic attacks that happen before that and thus wind up with fairly minimal gains. Like, if he's as fast as us, doing 8 basic attacks gives him time to do 8 things...that's an issue. Not an unsolvable one, but a real one.

Well, we could throw them with enough dice so they aren't just wasted attacks. Maybe only like, four, rather than eight.


I continue to think this is probably less good than Hefty-Halter Chop. Especially since HHC probably just does this guy damage since his weapon is his face (ie: wolf jaws), and disarming it thus messes him up.

Are we sure he doesn't have like, a sword or some kind of weapon he's going to use alongside or as a prelude to this?
 
Well, we could throw them with enough dice so they aren't just wasted attacks. Maybe only like, four, rather than eight.

Basic Attacks definitionally can't add dice from Combat Pool. We can use Sharpen, but that gets really expensive to hit good numbers of dice, especially given the low damage the attacks wind up dealing (spending 25 Orthstirr for a 50d6 attack that deals only 5 damage is a bit lackluster value for expenditure).

To be clear, I'm not completely against this or anything, just noting logistical hurdles.

Are we sure he doesn't have like, a sword or some kind of weapon he's going to use alongside or as a prelude to this?

IF noted in discord he's unarmed. Something I assume will be in the initial post for the combat as well.
 
Last edited:
I think he's still a fair bit above us rather than a peer like Gabriel...but beating him should be possible, yeah.



I'm generally on board with #1 and #2. #3 is tricky to combine with #1, though...not impossible, but tricky.
different rounds
we should make sure to avoid using fire-based attacks in the fight. and be prepared for him to bring his Fylgja to bear.

hey Blackhand, what was your Fylgja?

might want to save halting vortex for a big attack. our family likes them, and if he doesn't know we have it he's unlikely to use puncture.
we should probably rely on gale and weapons more in terms of Hugareida? as its non fire? not sure what else we have(besides Standstill )
do we have any interesting Seidr stuff? he likely doesn't know seidr, at least less then us, as its more female thing. so it might give us an edge used wisely
 

Possible.

we should make sure to avoid using fire-based attacks in the fight. and be prepared for him to bring his Fylgja to bear.

might want to save halting vortex for a big attack. our family likes them, and if he doesn't know we have it he's unlikely to use puncture.
we should probably rely on gale and weapons more in terms of Hugareida? as its non fire? not sure what else we have(besides Standstill )
do we have any interesting Seidr stuff? he likely doesn't know seidr, at least less then us, as its more female thing. so it might give us an edge used wisely

Our Ignition stuff still does more damage than Gale Spear even through his fire resistance (though barely), since he should only have Fire Resistance 2. But just normal weapon attacks are likely our go-to to avoid it. I think we get stuck in and use Mire Ward to slow him down and go to town. Our likely uses of Weapon Hugareida are more defensive.

In terms of Halting Vortex, I'm reluctant to rely on people making unforced errors like not using Puncture on their big attacks vs. serious opponents.

And no, our combat seidr is all defensive...unless he starts in with illusions and stuff it's not useful here, probably.
 
Last edited:
I wonder if the soul resonance between the Blackhand fragments is effective wordless communication between us. Might be how we got our intuition in addition to how Hal knew we were spying on him.
 
Back
Top