For one, Elizabeth brings in magic, which is a huge factor.
For two, we won't be charging in and making it easier for them to do it, as you suggest.
On the Road to Elspar [Book 1] (Dryad Mercenary Schoolgirl Quest)
- Thread starter Kei
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
For two, we won't be charging in and making it easier for them to do it, as you suggest.
cB557
voOOP
Oh please, you're acting like aggression means charging into the middle of the enemy without any thought. If you assume that level of competence of any of these plans they'll look terrible.
My point is not even about the goddamn bandits, but mercenary ethics.
We argued a signal for help. It was used, but we should decide to not heed it? The idea alone is disgusting to me.
I don't even want to hear a lick about 'hard choices' and 'mission importance' here. If we want to be trusted as a squad leader, then we need to care for the safety of our members. A mercenary leader that sacrifice members for objectives will soon find itself working alone. And if we want quality over quantity, this is even more important. This is about having those under you trust you.
cB557
voOOP
We are helping. Splitting the enemy helps the other two as well, and squashing the enemy before they can organize for a proper fight will be safer for them just as it's safer for us.
Nope. We have no idea what they are facing, remember? So you cannot say that for sure.
cB557
voOOP
Killing the enemy in a fight is always helping. And again, you're accusing me of making assumptions while rejecting out of hand any plan that doesn't take the other two needing immediate assistance as a given. There's reasonable measures to prevent worst case scenarios, and then there's what you're doing. Giving up the initiative like you suggest puts the squad at risk in its own way, and much more reliably than not regrouping.
Muramasa
Best Girl
I think Elizabeth can understand why we didn't just drop everything and go dashing off to help them out if doing so could possibly make things worse for everyone involved. Sometimes it's better to deal with your own problem first if you can do so quickly so that it doesn't compound and complicate the problems on the other side.
All signs point we can probably deal with this lot with little trouble if we act now. Then we can go and wrap up the problem on the other side.
Well, if that vote win, you better not be surprised if the instructor fail Neianne as a leader for this job. I know I won't. It's not like there's much initiative left anyway now that the bandits are already on alert.
cB557
voOOP
I wouldn't panic too much. Even if I'm dead wrong, this is a narrative quest. A tactical fuckup in a training mission is only going to majorly screw us over if the QM thinks that'll be engaging.
I'm not worried for our lives at this point. I'm not seeing those bandits as a huge threat, but I do worry about our evaluation. We already have enough issues without the fact that you guys decided to ignore the goddamn help signal. And I worry that much about it because I see two outcomes to it, given who sent it.
Elizabeth wasted it on nothing or call us: Certainly grounds to get pissed off and try to work our better signal in the future and make sure everybody respect them. And Stephanie never get to decide to split up again.
Elizabeth and Stephanie found an actual valid threat: Well, we get a F for sure if we ignore it for starter, because that would be asituation where each second count. Then I'm not sure what Stephanie and Elizabeth would think about them being ignored when they sent it.
The second is not a 0 chance of that happening. Given I don't see the bandits as a real threat to us, especially if we regroup, I don't care to sacrifice the initiative here. As a merc, taking a risk for so little is worthless.
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You're still delaying it. Maybe it's nothing or Elizabeth just wanted us to come here. Or maybe, if there was no instructor, you would find corpses instead because of that delay.
We don't know what they found, only that Elizabeth sent the signal. That's all I care about. And I don't care to gamble.
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Which is exactly what Eleanore is doing regardless of what we vote. It's not unreasonable to interpret following right behind her as also doing so.
cB557
voOOP
It's combat, it's always going to be a gamble. Giving up the initiative like this could mean we get to them only to be overwhelmed anyway, or find them already overwhelmed, when taking the initiative could've let us handle them when they were vulnerable and taken the pressure off of the other two.
Now you're confusing yourself. Right now, Elizabeth and Stephanie are not pressured by this camp. And if they're good enough to overwhelm us regrouped, they sure are good enough to do the same if we attack now anyway.
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cB557
voOOP
The estimate on how far away the signal is is just 300 meters away. They're not under attack by this camp right this second, but they're gonna be within the space of this fight.
This actually serves as a counterpoint to your second point here as well, since it's not a matter of taking on a surprised enemy vs taking on a prepared enemy with a larger force of our own. It's a matter of taking on one surprised force and then taking forming up with the rest of the team to take on another force vs taking on two forces at once alongside the rest of our team. You're selling regrouping as letting us have a better ratio of enemies to friendlies, but the enemy is going to be regrouping too so it's not likely to actually do that.
Sorry, but wrong.
Or they ran into more than a handful of guards. More they can handle by themselves. We do not know and I don't care for assumptions here.
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cB557
voOOP
It's not complete surprise, but they're still haven't seen us and they still won't be properly organized.
Yeah, but how likely is that compared to the other possibilities, how much can we do in that circumstance, what'd the ability of the other two to just disengage be, etc. If you're worried about assumptions, I'd say there's a lot more versatility to "take the initiative and wipe out a sizable chunk of enemy forces" than there is to "drop the initiative and regroup". Regrouping is the right call if the other two are facing a force that they can't disengage from or at least lame it out against, and that they can't hold out for long against, but that they can hold out long enough against for us to reach them, and is threatening enough to be all those things but not so threatening for facing both them and this camp at the same time to be too much of a worry. But if any of those aren't the case I'd go with taking this camp out, and even if those all are the case taking this camp out would still be a decent plan.
But they're on alert and will have arms in a second the moment they see us. Give that up, we don't have surprise any longer.
And once more: We have NO idea what they are facing. There is no if or but about it. From what we know of Elizabeth, I can only draw two options: She's serious or she forgot what the signal was for. I already wrote my expectations above. And my decision remains unchanged: Needless risks are pointless to take.
cB557
voOOP
It'll take more than a second to grab their weapons, and even if all of them are armed by the time we engage them, there's a difference between everyone being armed and being organized. You might have your sword, but that doesn't mean you know what anyone else is doing or where the people you work well with are or really what the situation is at all beyond "there is a fight". That still leaves them in a pretty exploitable position.
Again, the signal only means "there's trouble," it doesn't mean they're absolutely facing an overwhelming force any need our help right away. Can you really not imagine any other reason that Elizabeth might not be subtle with her lighting magic? She loves that shit.
Quit it with talking about not making assumptions and needless risks and then pushing preparing for a fairly specific worst case scenario over the strategy that's actually flexible and not based around too many assumptions.
What part of no longer having the elemnt of surprise was not clear? Besides, you think we'll cross the distance between us and them in amatter of one or two seconds or something?
And yet you yourself assume it's nothing important. Just because she MAY fuck around with the signal is not a reason to be irresponsible and assume that when the signal is used.
cB557
voOOP
I just explained why we still have some element of surprise. I'm not gonna do it again. We're not gonna close the distance in two seconds, they're about fifty meter away, but they still haven't seen us and they're looking the other way so they're not going to be forming up against us as we make a mad 50 meter dash to them.
I'm not saying it's nothing important, I'm saying there's a lot of things it could be other than "we're being overwhelmed and we need assistance right now," and even if it is that, unless there are several other factors in play it'll still be better to take out this camp first, because if we don't then we'll be reinforcing our squad at the same time this camp reinforces the other group, and then the situation is likely to be all five of us being overwhelmed and we'll have to be reinforced by the instructor. That's not to say the reinforcement has to shake out that way, but it could quite plausibly, and I disagree that it's the safe plan.