NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

1 Unfortunate person with a broken ribcage

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I think the guy with the broken ribcage is dead. The one fighting Sten is still unfortunate, though.

How did you even run out of Orthsirr in two rounds, Stigmar? You should have like 200 Orthsirr!

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Probably not, no. Over 100? Certainly. 200? I'm not sure of that at all. The raid itself actually only granted us just over 110 Orthstirr and we did more than Stigmar (19 of that was for our single combat with the Priest and we were more important in the battles at the Manor as well) while also having more Drengskapr. I wouldn't be surprised if he got 80 or 90 from the Raid, but likely no more than that, and I think he was at less than 100 Orthstirr before that.

Alright, while we should probably tag Stigmar out, I think we should try for a more offensive trick approach. By which I mean nuke him with magic until he dies. He probably has good Hamr, but (hopefully) not so good tricks and Hugareida available.

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He explicitly has a Wind Hugareida. That's probably the single most likely Hugareida after Water to cancel out our fire, and Kindle Spinner doesn't actually do any more damage than a Honed Power Chop anyway. I'd prefer to keep it as a trump card rather than using it right off the bat, though.

A version of the plan going Kindle Spinner is slightly better numerically (five Kindle Spinner attacks are five 11d6 attacks for the same price, doing the same damage), but I worry he can blow the fire back at us and it gives much more information away.

 

[Silverking]

[X] Tag Stigmar Out

[X] Plan Feeling Out Our Foe

 

[Alectai]

Yeah, we just saw back then that tipping off our Hugareida options is very much a liability, not with the Expert in the back watching very carefully. The Sentry realized our weakness too late to save himself, and we could afford to trade by then, while he couldn't.

 

[KreenWarrior]

The Captain seems like a real ass, not stepping in to save his men. I'm assuming he's going to watch us run out of Orthstirr and probably step in somewhere to murk someone when there's an opening. Should definitely keep some Intercepts online.

 

[Shard]

Maybe he's waiting for us to run out of Orthsirr, then kill everyone? More glory. Or he is looking for a worthy foe.

Also, guys, if we Master Sidestep, would we.. unlock like, you know how a lot of Wuxias have dances and movement styles where you walk fancily through attacks - Does Mastered Sidestep unlock those?

 

[Alectai]

Yeah, the Captain's probably trying to use the others to drain our Orthstirr first, the question is if he decides to take an attack of opportunity if he sees one. It's a bit of a risk, especially when we're still at the 'Feeling out the other guy' stage.

Hey @DeadmanwalkingXI , I'm not comfortable with leaving everything in offense when the enemy has an untouched reserve. Could you remove two of those Power Chops and invest them into Defenses and an Intercept? Remember too that Hefty-Halter Chop is more effective on larger targets too, and this guy's Giant Blooded--one of the ideal target candidates. And having an IAT up our sleeve to meddle with the Captain if he decides to intervene somewhere will potentially save us a fair amount of grief.

 

[Shard]

We're full enough on Orthsirr that we can spend it freely. We should, better to clean up a fight ASAP.

Also if I'm reading this right, we can get 20 RS layers from spending 10 Orthsirr? Wouldn't that make us virtually invulnerable?

 

[Alectai]

We're full enough on Orthsirr that we can spend it freely.

Also if I'm reading this right, we can get 20 RS layers from spending 10 Orthsirr? Wouldn't that make us virtually invulnerable?

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Not at all, because all layers collapse from the first Trick Attack that hits them. It's great to have as a safety net, but shouldn't be counted on to save the day.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

The Captain seems like a real ass, not stepping in to save his men. I'm assuming he's going to watch us run out of Orthstirr and probably step in somewhere to murk someone when there's an opening. Should definitely keep some Intercepts online.

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That's fair. I'm not sure how viable it is this turn, though.

Yeah, the Captain's probably trying to use the others to drain our Orthstirr first, the question is if he decides to take an attack of opportunity if he sees one. It's a bit of a risk, especially when we're still at the 'Feeling out the other guy' stage.

Hey @DeadmanwalkingXI , I'm not comfortable with leaving everything in offense when the enemy has an untouched reserve. Could you remove two of those Power Chops and invest them into Defenses and an Intercept?

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Our Tricks have defense pretty well covered. Like, I can't think of anything that gets through them that a Hefty-Halter Chop would actually work against, so we'd be giving up an attack to replace a certain defense with a pretty similarly costed defense that has a chance of failing.

For Intercept Hefty Halter Chop only works if we're within melee range, IAT requires turning off our ability to Halting Vortex, and Halting Vortex itself is likewise melee only...hmmm.

I could add a tactic to leap over to someone's defense with EWC and use Halting Vortex to protect them (and us, at this level it's big enough to protect three people simultaneously) if they look like they're actually gonna be seriously hurt or die. Would that work? That actually doesn't reassign any dice and provides the best emergency Intercept I can think of. That reveals some of our cards, but we'd need EWC to get to them no matter what we actually Intercept with.

Not at all, because all layers collapse from the first Trick Attack that hits them. It's great to have as a safety net, but shouldn't be counted on to save the day.

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It's also great against mundane attack spam (an otherwise annoying tactic with our mediocre armor), but yeah, not so much against serious Trick Attacks.

 

[Alectai]

That's fair. I'm not sure how viable it is this turn, though.



Our Tricks have defense pretty well covered. Like, I can't think of anything that gets through them that a Hefty-Halter Chop would actually work against, so we'd be giving up an attack to replace one of them

For Intercept Hefty Halter Chop only works if we're within melee range, IAT requires turning off our ability to Halting Vortex, and Halting Vortex itself is likewise melee only...hmmm.

I could add a tactic to leap over to someone's defense with EWC and use Halting Vortex to protect them (and us, at this level it's big enough to protect three people simultaneously) if they look like they're actually gonna be seriously hurt or die. Would that work? That actually doesn't reassign any dice and provides the best emergency Intercept I can think of.

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No, you misunderstand, we use Hefty-Halter Chop for our defense, it's a defensive Trick, we can use it to Intercept, but we can also use it in our Defense pool, I'm suggesting we use it on the guy we're fighting to get some more swings off on him. Keep in mind as well, as a Defensive Reaction that leads into a Counter, it can be Reinforced and Honed, which lets us magnify our defensive dice dramatically. So we can turn 9 dice into 3 reactions of 5 dice each. More important, we were told a while back that Hefty-Halter Chop is excellent at taking on larger opponents, which this guy very much is, and we reveal less of our capabilities--certainly, we want to keep Halting Vortex up our sleeve as long as possible.

But I want to have IAT primed for a high-die Intercept if the Captain decides to get stuck in. That should disrupt his rhythm enough to trigger a Premature Round Ending without anyone taking an alpha strike from him. 9 dice magnified by our Rank 3 Hugareida = a 13 die Intercept, a very significant value.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

No, you misunderstand, we use Hefty-Halter Chop for our defense, it's a defensive Trick, we can use it to Intercept, I'm suggesting we use it on the guy we're fighting to get some more swings off on him.

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Right, I addressed that in my first paragraph: That's replacing an attack and a for-sure defense with a 'maybe it works' defense. That just doesn't seem worth it. Especially since its secondary effect is disarming someone and this guy has two weapons so disarming him of one of them is very meh.

Keep in mind as well, as a Defensive Reaction that leads into a Counter, it can be Reinforced and Honed, which lets us magnify our defensive dice dramatically. So we can turn 9 dice into 3 reactions of 5 dice each. More important, we were told a while back that Hefty-Halter Chop is excellent at taking on larger opponents, which this guy very much is, and we reveal less of our capabilities--certainly, we want to keep Halting Vortex up our sleeve as long as possible.

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The hope is to use only Sidestep, with Halting Vortex only used if necessary for something weird like area-effect wind blades that Sidestep can't help with. Which is to say, we're probably only using it on stuff Hefty-Halter Chop wouldn't work on anyway.

And I'm pretty sure, given the dice pools we're dealing with here, 5d6 is just not actually enough to reliably succeed. And this is the 'feel him out' turn, we don't want to be spending 5 Orthstirr on 5d6 defenses if we could be spending 2 with Sidestep and auto-succeeding instead.

But I want to have IAT primed for a high-die Intercept if the Captain decides to get stuck in. That should disrupt his rhythm enough to trigger a Premature Round Ending without anyone taking an alpha strike from him. 9 dice magnified by our Rank 3 Hugareida = A Big Reaction.

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Right, and I'm suggesting that might get us dead since it provides an opening to our current opponent where we lack Halting Vortex. I think using EWC and Halting Vortex to jump in front of him and block the attack is a better, safer, intercept option that doesn't cost us dice (though it's admittedly pricier).

 

[Alectai]

Right, I addressed that in my first paragraph: That's replacing an attack and a for-sure defense with a 'maybe it works' defense. That just doesn't seem worth it. Especially since its secondary effect is disarming someone and this guy has two weapons so disarming him of one of them is very meh.



Right, and I'm suggesting that might get us dead since it provides an opening to our current opponent where we lack Halting Vortex. I think using EWC and Halting vortex to jump in front of him and block the attack is a better, safer, intercept option that doesn't cost us dice.

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Uh, the Captain getting stuck in triggers a Premature Round Ending, as it's a significant change to the status quo. The point is preventing him from leveraging the opening from intervening into dropping one of our company by having a reserve Intercept ready to go.

We don't want to spam Sidestep because we just saw it gives the other guy an opening to set something up--using it tactically? Sure, go ahead, but it has limitations, and Wind Hugareida are probably also fairly good at Area of Effect stuff. I wouldn't count on it to be a panacea, and Halting Vortex is good enough that we don't want the other guy trying to plan ways to neutralize it before we even reach the Boss Encounter.

You also seem to be misunderstanding Hefty-Halter Chop Trick too. It's literally "Respond to a guy attacking you by attacking them back and trying to hit them first." The disarm-thing is Shatter-Wrist Trick. Hefty-Halter Chop is just knocking them away with your own attack before they hurt you. Isn't it? @Imperial Fister ? Even if it's a disarm... If we do it twice, he doesn't have weapons anymore, and loses everything but his Glima dice pool--I'd still call that a win.

 

[I.F. Ister]

You also seem to be misunderstanding Hefty-Halter Chop Trick too. It's literally "Respond to a guy attacking you by attacking them back and trying to hit them first." The disarm-thing is Shatter-Wrist Trick. Hefty-Halter Chop is just knocking them away with your own attack before they hurt you. Isn't it? @Imperial Fister ?

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You're thinking of Contested Movement, which is where you try to attack them first. HHC attacks the weapon and, if successful, disarms them while also stopping their attack.

However, Shatter Wrist could be useful here.

 

[Alectai]

You're thinking of Contested Movement, which is where you try to attack them first. HHC attacks the weapon and, if successful, disarms them while also stopping their attack.

However, Shatter Wrist could be useful here.

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Okay, yeah, that'll work better, thanks for the clarification on which Trick would better suit my intent. Is Shatter-Wrist Trick solely an Attack or can it be used Defensively as well?

Still, all that aside, if the guy loses access to his weapons--either because we snapped his wrists or because we disarmed him, he loses a lot of his dice pool, which means we've set him up for defeat.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Uh, the Captain getting stuck in triggers a Premature Round Ending, as it's a significant change to the status quo. The point is preventing him from leveraging the opening from intervening into dropping one of our company by having a reserve Intercept ready to go.

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I'm not sure it triggers a premature round ending before we get stabbed for leaving ourselves open.

We don't want to spam Sidestep because we just saw it gives the other guy an opening to set something up--using it tactically? Sure, go ahead, but it has limitations, and Wind Hugareida are probably also fairly good at Area of Effect stuff. I wouldn't count on it to be a panacea, and Halting Vortex is good enough that we don't want the other guy trying to plan ways to neutralize it before we even reach the Boss Encounter.

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We absolutely want to spam Sidestep in this round, I think, because he doesn't know enough to plan to take advantage of it. Then, next round when he plans to do so, we do something else and surprise him like we did the last guy. Getting people to think you need to rely on something you don't is a good tactic, I think.

You also seem to be misunderstanding Hefty-Halter Chop Trick too. It's literally "Respond to a guy attacking you by attacking them back and trying to hit them first." The disarm-thing is Shatter-Wrist Trick. Hefty-Halter Chop is just knocking them away with your own attack before they hurt you. Isn't it? @Imperial Fister ? Even if it's a disarm... If we do it twice, he doesn't have weapons anymore, and loses everything but his Glima dice pool--I'd still call that a win.

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As Imperial Fister notes, no, Hefty Halter Chop is a disarm. Contested Movement is a counterattack, but as that's a pure Hamr thing and this guy has Giant's Blood it's not a good call here.

Still, all that aside, if the guy loses access to his weapons--either because we snapped his wrists or because we disarmed him, he loses a lot of his dice pool, which means we've set him up for defeat.

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I'm actually pretty down for replacing some or all of the attacks with Shatter-Wrist Trick. It's not any more expensive and, as you say, would be useful. I'm pretty sure it's exclusively an attack, though. How many should we try, do you think? Just two, or more?

 

[Alectai]

Okay, this needs clarification then.

@Imperial Fister . If the Captain decides to get involved, does he get a full round of actions or just one move before we get the New Round?

 

[I.F. Ister]

@Imperial Fister . If the Captain decides to get involved, does he get a full round of actions or just one move before we get the New Round?

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Captain getting involved, depending on how he does so, would either instantly end the round or give him a move (likely to do something big) before the round ends

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Okay, this needs clarification then.

@Imperial Fister . If the Captain decides to get involved, does he get a full round of actions or just one move before we get the New Round?

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This isn't actually my worry, for the record. I'm worried that our current opponent will get a last action or two before the round ends to take advantage of our distraction and leaving ourselves open if we use IAT to intercept the Captain (also, obviously, the dice wind up wasted if the Captain doesn't intervene this round).

@Imperial Fister is that possible?

 

[Alectai]

Captain getting involved, depending on how he does so, would either instantly end the round or give him a move (likely to do something big) before the round ends

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So if we were to reserve an Intercept to try and interfere, he wouldn't be able to then instantly leverage that into a nova on us before we get a chance to react, correct? He gets one move and then the round ends whatever other condition we're in?

 

[I.F. Ister]

@Imperial Fister is that possible?

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If the Brute is alive/able to fight at that point, then he might take a swing at you.

However, I find myself doubting that he would be an a position to do either at that point.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

If the Brute is alive/able to fight at that point, then he might take a swing at you.

However, I find myself doubting that he would be an a position to do either at that point.

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Well, the worry is if this all happens this turn, and killing the brute this turn seems possible but not a sure thing. If it happens later we can put off worrying about it.

So if we were to reserve an Intercept to try and interfere, he wouldn't be able to then instantly leverage that into a nova on us before we get a chance to react, correct? He gets one move and then the round ends whatever other condition we're in?

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For the record, this is what I'm currently thinking of for our potential Intercept:

-[ ] If the Captain moves into melee and attacks any of our allies we will use Ember-Wing Cloak to leap between him and them and Halting Vortex to stop the attack (-16 Orthstirr total)

Along with replacing three Power Chops with Shatter-Wrist Tricks to try and disarm our current foe.

Does that work?

 

[Alectai]

Well, the worry is if this all happens this turn, and killing the brute this turn seems possible but not a sure thing. If it happens later we can put off worrying about it.



For the record, this is what I'm currently thinking of for our potential Intercept:

-[ ] If the Captain moves into melee and attacks any of our allies we will use Ember-Wing Cloak to leap between him and them and Halting Vortex to stop the attack (-16 Orthstirr total)

Along with replacing three Power Chops with Shatter-Wrist Tricks to try and disarm our current foe.

Does that work?

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Yeah, I suppose. Might be better to adjust that then to "If the Captain winds up something big, intercept with our wide area shield and our super-mobility Trick", since if he decides to just use a big AoE Trick, we don't actually do anything about that.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Yeah, I suppose. Might be better to adjust that then to "If the Captain winds up something big, intercept with our wide area shield and our super-mobility Trick", since if he decides to just use a big AoE Trick, we don't actually do anything about that.

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Fair, I'll adjust the wording to him either attacking or trying anything big. What do you think about the number of Shatter-Wrist Tricks? I'm feeling very undecisive about how many to try.

 

[Alectai]

Fair, I'll adjust the wording to him trying anything we think we can do something about. What do you think about the number of Shatter-Wrist Tricks? I'm feeling very undecisive about how many to try.

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Three should be good, maybe put a contingency in for something different with the last attack if we have both of his wrists fucked by the time we get to it? A good Firebomb Strike for a finisher might be nice given its damage output and bonus dice.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Three should be good, maybe put a contingency in for something different with the last attack if we have both of his wrists fucked by the time we get to it? A good Firebomb Strike for a finisher might be nice given its damage output and bonus dice.

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Firebomb Strike is actually only on par with Honed Power Chop for damage by default, IIRC (it's 2-4 while Honed Power Chop is 3...FBS is good for other reasons that don't seem to apply here), and I'd rather keep our incendiary stuff under wraps for the moment, but I'll add the language replacing one of them if both his wrists are already broken.