Personally, the worst aspect of GAMER fanfics is the HP/MP/SP. I dislike dumbing stats and stuff down to percentages and numbers. Like, an author trying to be cute having a character stubbing their toe, losing 1HP. But then, suddenly that character could DIE from having their toe stubbed, or some other nonsense. Personally prefer it when HP/MP/SP are more abstract and not as defined. Making them feel more real, and a little less like game characters. Prefer to just use Status updates for injuries and stuff. Like "Crippled, Stunned, Exhausted, etc..."
Likewise, I absolutely LOATHE Gamer stories that use Gamer's Mind, having it somehow apply to the MC like they are a psychopath/sociopath. Unable to feel emotions too strongly or some such. Better when Gamer's Mind just acts kinda like Occlumency, as a defense against foreign threats while offering stability of mind.
At this point, I have no real expectation of Alchemist ever losing a fight. It's like Onepunch Man, essentially. It's the character interactions that make the story.
Isn't that how it was done in the original gamer comic? He gets like, Mana arrow, then starts escalating from there, adding spin and multiples, and changing and editing it.
Then again, I genuinely think such things would bog down the story. I am not a HUGE fan of the idea of the store, but circumventing it while including other-world effects would have be done with like a daily quest system that rewarded you low level effects you could then refine, combine, and evolve into more mature ones.
Isn't that how it was done in the original gamer comic? He gets like, Mana arrow, then starts escalating from there, adding spin and multiples, and changing and editing it.
Yes and no. His early skills are like that. Endless Mana Arrow barrage being the pinnacle of mana arrow.
But later on, when he has money and potions to burn, he buys a ton of skills from the Abyss market and starts focusing more on those. After a time skip, he pretty much uses just those and a few key abilities he gets here and there either from his own creation of them or from the random skill lottery at certain attribute levels.
There's also the few skills he gets from item drops. Given Alchemist and Player One are fighting DC villains, you can totally go heavy on that, and essentially follow the Megaman route in terms of power progression.
Mister Twister giving something weather related, Poison Ivy giving a plant power, etc.
While the story on the whole is a deconstruction of Gamer fics in general (at least that's what I'm getting from it), the whole store that just lets him buy any power or magic from any universe regardless of tacked on restrictions is kind of lame.
Unortunately I have to agree somewhat with that. But allow me to be kinder and clearer hopefully.
This story has a lot going for it. Well written serious issues, humour, a needed nerf to gamer abilities, an actual story instead of endless information dumps and notifications, and a prolific writing speed.
This fic is heavily exploring how hard it is to deal with issues without being a sociopath and does that well. Emotions are what makes us relate to the characters and signify tension. This is more difficult to write, but much more rewarding for the reader. But this is not specific to gamer fics.
What is a problem in gamer fics and where this fic falls into the same trap is including a shop for powers, dungeons and extradimensional quests now.
The main problems with gamer fics IMO are a) mistaking game mechanics for a story with endless notifications and b) broken abilities that let's you avoid having a story in the first place. Such as an Observe skill that allows you to avoid talking to people because you can get all their secrets with a glance and the cursed ID that allows you to avoid interacting with the world by gaining resources and training in absentia. It trivializes and removes tension.
Just ask what if there was no Player One (or she couldn't take anyone else into her ID at least), and no random excursion to extraplanar dimensions. What if he had to do quests within the world to acquire skills? To gain power and understanding by interacting with it and its people? What if he gained resources by solving problems. (TBF that is happening to a minor degree, but it is not the main source for his improvements.)
In summary, almost everything that happened by dealing with the world and the people is great and could use a huge buff, and everything he acquires from "elsewhere" is bad.
So I'm still glad that the author shared with us for all the stuff that's great. Any story going beyond decent grammar as well as obeying "show, don't tell" and actually be entertaining should be applauded. My thanks to the author.
So i feel like terra chan ignored the week long scenario where alchemist was trapped in a magical book and starved/tormented til he was able to learn how to make a new body
Cuz the new challenges sounds like an elder deity saw that and were like "lol let's do it again" even though it really fucked up alchemist
While the story on the whole is a deconstruction of Gamer fics in general (at least that's what I'm getting from it), the whole store that just lets him buy any power or magic from any universe regardless of tacked on restrictions is kind of lame. Along with IDs, it's one of the worst aspects tagged on to the Gamer in fanfiction to me given the source material.
I actually kind of agree here in that Alchemist doesn't seem to have the same limitations that the spells had in the source materials.
For instance, the Dungeons and Dragons spells should require a verbal, somatic, and material component, and most have a significant casting time, not just a snap of the fingers. Most can still be cast in less than a minute, but you have to incant and gesture for various fractions of that minute as detailed in the source books, giving time for the spell to be interrupted.
While there are ways to bypass the verbal and somatic components, it greatly raises the spell level, and you can't do that at all for higher level spells since there's a limit of spell level 9.
Bypassing the material component is more difficult, but there is a spell called "blood money" that lets you spend HP for those components.
Alchemist is ignoring these rules. While just about all the D&D computer games ignore the rules for material components (which is why Stoneskin and True Sight seem so overpowered in games like Baldur's Gate, they normally are balanced by requiring expensive material components, while the material components for spells like magic missile are considered trivial in P&P and assumed to be part of a generic "component kit") and somatic components, the games play lip service to the verbal component by making the "silence" spell/status effect prevent most spellcasting and they all allow a chance for a spell to be interrupted.
Even most Final Fantasy games, or at least the alter ones with the ATB system have a delay while spells are being cast. This is most noticeable in Final Fantasy IIUS with Meteor where in most cases having Rydia cast Bhamut is superior because it takes a quarter of the time to cast.
Personally, the worst aspect of GAMER fanfics is the HP/MP/SP. I dislike dumbing stats and stuff down to percentages and numbers. Like, an author trying to be cute having a character stubbing their toe, losing 1HP. But then, suddenly that character could DIE from having their toe stubbed, or some other nonsense. Personally prefer it when HP/MP/SP are more abstract and not as defined. Making them feel more real, and a little less like game characters. Prefer to just use Status updates for injuries and stuff. Like "Crippled, Stunned, Exhausted, etc..."
That I completely disagree with. Gamer's Body makes a person in a real living universe a video game character come to life. Without the HP/MP/SP mechanics applying to them for good or ill, it makes the Gamer power as a whole feel just watered down. I like the idea that "Yeah, if they stub their toe hundreds of times in a day at an early level, they could die from it." Now obviously, if you add in things like armor or damage mitigation, that won't be a serious threat, but I find that ridiculousness an inherent aspect of the power-set.
If a character has the Gamer power, they should interact with life in that odd "only in video games" way. Like, the majority video game characters never use the bathroom, can eat food endlessly, never have to sleep, can wear anything and it'll suddenly fit them perfectly, etc. etc.
That kind of stuff is my bread and butter when it comes to Gamer fics, because there's a lot there you can play with as the writer. A fanfiction that avoids that, and just instead treats them like a normal complex human body with random super powers tacked on just feels lazy to me. It's like they don't truly want to embrace the spirit of what makes the Gamer power so interesting and fun.
The main problems with gamer fics IMO are a) mistaking game mechanics for a story with endless notifications and b) broken abilities that let's you avoid having a story in the first place. Such as an Observe skill that allows you to avoid talking to people because you can get all their secrets with a glance and the cursed ID that allows you to avoid interacting with the world by gaining resources and training in absentia. It trivializes and removes tension.
Not with IDs. You're right there. They're misused all the time in fanfiction. IDs in the manwha explicitly exist not so the Gamer can just level-up without having to even interact with whatever world they live in, but because the original setting had a masquerade and any magical person in that universe could create one. The zombie one explicitly was made not by the Gamer system but by another character using the zombies as an energy source, and Jihan just got wrapped up in it. Generally the Zombie ID coming up in a Gamer fic is a sign that the author doesn't know the source material.
If IDs do come up in a fic, I expect them to be used not just by the protagonist. It needs to not be a level-up box just for them, but something that can be compelling and have consequences for the wider setting the Gamer is in. This story for example does manage to have it be more pertinent than typical because Alchemist doesn't have them, Player One does, and she's a stand-in for the typical fanfic Gamer for the most part. (Though I feel like the story has developed and humanized her to the point she's not really the typical gamer anymore.) Also, the fact the monsters in IDs can be pulled out of them into the real world as a cheap uncontrolled summon makes the entire concept a bit more interactive with the wider setting compared to how they get used in fics normally. Even the future sight of potentially setting off a Zombie Lord on Infinity Island is having consequences at least on Alchemist's psychology going forward, even if the implementation of that was a bit rough.
Observe however... well, people tend to fall in the same trap they do when writing Tattletale in Worm fics. They make it/her work too well in comparison to the source material to a story-damaging degree. In the manwha itself, it's mostly just a way for Jihan to get an enemy's stats. If you limit it to say, Metroid Prime's Scan Visor in terms of how functional it is, or something along that line, it's fine. Revealing passwords or deeply hidden secrets through it needs to be handled with care. A character's background however I'm more okay with. As long as it makes the Gamer want to interact more with the world, that's fine. But making it an information cheat code to avoid communicating entirely, is not. I'd rather it give hints to certain secret information than just blab it out completely myself.
Like, observing Red Arrow could talk about his frustrations with the Justice League, but not the fact he's a clone created by Cadmus from just a surface observation. Stuff like that. Now, if you observe Red Arrow's blood sample through a microscope, results may hint closer at his origin, but wouldn't spell it outright. Not unless Cadmus left a literal bar code on his cells or something.
If a character has the Gamer power, they should interact with life in that odd "only in video games" way. Like, the majority video game characters never use the bathroom, can eat food endlessly, never have to sleep, can wear anything and it'll suddenly fit them perfectly, etc. etc.
So, would being stymied by waist high fences, shrubs and other miscellaneous barriers be an aspect of gamer's mind or body? I would like to see others reacting to a gamer acting like it's some impassable barrier.
So, would being stymied by waist high fences, shrubs and other miscellaneous barriers be an aspect of gamer's mind or body? I would like to see others reacting to a gamer acting like it's some impassable barrier.
That's generally an aspect of the game world rather than the video game character themselves, so I don't think it would apply. It's not like real life is going to throw an auto-scroller at people, or make things suddenly turn-based.
So, would being stymied by waist high fences, shrubs and other miscellaneous barriers be an aspect of gamer's mind or body? I would like to see others reacting to a gamer acting like it's some impassable barrier.
I've been stymied by a chest high hurricane fence. My size 13 feet can't get enough of a foothold to climb it as my feet just slide off when I try and it's high enough that I can't vault it.
I've been stymied by a chest high hurricane fence. My size 13 feet can't get enough of a foothold to climb it as my feet just slide off when I try and it's high enough that I can't vault it.
But you probably are not an action hero with enough ordnance to overload an elevator. Indestructible environments are honestly more of a thing than the fences are, but it doesn't help that the fences are environments, and most of these protagonists have impossible physiques. Once one leaves the realms of action heroes then it is possible to find them blocked by ankle-high fences. Like, yes, there are some examples of things that would realistically block passage, but to someone who has lost their restraint towards such things, most walls are surprisingly permeable.
The thing of this, is that it is part of the game-playing experience. It actually helps in some ways because it would mean that the gamer would be unable to wander off into irrelevant locations. Basically all games have a lot of "railroading" and thus gamers so afflicted would be assured of something at least vaguely relevant to themselves anywhere they are capable of travelling. It would be incredibly restrictive to actually live like that, but it is indisputably part of the experience.
Likewise, the ability to stop and plan your next move is also pretty integral to those games. It has a considerable effect upon how events transpire within the game. The soldiers in something like Xcom behave very differently to the soldiers in something like Starcraft. It just won't be a recreation of the gameplay without it. Now, actually writing a turn-based story would be difficult, and the less said about the inherent squick of any and all social interactions within gameplay the better, but its absence remains a compromise from the ideal. Which calls into question why one would write a gamer story: If one doesn't like game-elements, then perhaps gamer stories are not aimed at them.
My issue with this story is the sheer wealth of available sources. Dungeons and Dragons gets up to some rather impressive shenanigans, some of which is actually credible even to the likes of Superman. Even high level fighters, which are a bit of a joke, are still the kind of thing that... I just can't see Batman coming anywhere close to that level of combat ability. Batman would find a way to defeat them, obviously, Batman is the protagonist of the entire setting afterall, but they are still massively superhuman based upon what is, seemingly, pure skill and experience. Whole treatises could be extolled as to what Wizards can do at high levels. Like, how many people in D.C. can escape from a Forcecage? I am not even sure that a Flash or a martian can phase through one...
I am not really sure about Final fantasy, I have little experience with J.R.P.G.s, but fighting through an army of tens of thousand of tonnes of sturdy clockwork war machines seems right up their alley, and some of their summons have landed big hits upon big targets, and are somewhat implied to wield forces that perhaps are incompatible with the ongoing existence of planets in the general vicinity...
Putting all of these together, along with seemingly-easy access once he got a big paycheck from Player One, it is pretty clear that he is holding back a vast amount of combat potential from, at a minimum, his actions in zombie-deprived realms of existence, and isn't even particularly specialised towards combat, given his crafting proclivities(which don't seem to have produced much gear? I mean, fair enough, a new body is a priority, but one would think that subjecting some living metal to eternal suffering as a mobile telephone case would represent little in the way of distraction...).
For all that Project Gamer Version Two has not fallen into most of the pitfalls of power fantasies, it is still swinging around potentially setting-breaking possibilities, and we have relatively little idea of what Player One has available...
While i don't find it an issue, I do feel this is an important thing to note. The amount of story-breaking things (spells/items) the protagonist can buy for relatively cheap is held back only by the authors decision to not include them—which is a good thing, imo, as it would otherwise become a crack-fic very quickly. There's a good list of games with "mid-tier" items/spells that could remove practically all tension in a story unless they were heavily restricted.
Off the top of my head, there is a starter ability in Tales of Maj'Eyal (roguelike game) called "Disruption Shield" which makes you essentially immune to all damage, turning any damage the caster receives into mana and then exploding violently if the caster's mana reserves are full (while also giving the caster additional resistance to arcane damage). The spell is cast instantaneously and can be kept up indefinitely, as long as the caster doesn't take enough damage to fill their reserves. Alchemist having that ability in this story would let him face the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman in combat for at least a short exchange before they overwhelmed the shield.
Serling really was motivated when it came to learning how to shoot.
She sucked, sure, but everyone did when they started out.
Without the money conversation that had fed into him admitting to stripping a military base down to the nails he'd actually had to offer to teach her, rather than her asking.
Beyond that though, things had basically been the same.
"Hey, you're doing really good. Just keep it up!" Alchemist shouted to her from her side.
They both had large plastic earmuffs on. She hadn't asked where he'd gotten bright orange safety vests from, which was good. He didn't plan on explaining.
They'd been at this for a while and her aim wasn't getting any better, but Serling was shooting with a lot more confidence. Whenever they'd stop to reload, he'd have her repeat the basic rules of using a gun for him.
She probably thought he was being patronizing, but it was how he'd been taught.
Rule one; Treat the gun as though it's always loaded and the safety is off.
Rule two; Unless you're planning to kill them, you never point a gun at a person. Unless you're planning to shoot it, keep your finger off the trigger.
Rule three; You're not just shooting the target, but what's behind the target. Make sure you know what that is.
Rule four; You flick the safety off before you pull the trigger and it goes back on immediately afterwards.
She'd made a few mistakes here and there, but until it's ingrained deeply enough to be done without thought, such things happen. He just had to gently remind her.
Before coming out, he'd briefly stopped by to talk to, well, at Red Tornado. Mentioning taking her out to shoot, asking him to let the local authorities know that nobody was being murdered on Mount Justice, that sort of thing.
...And he'd asked if Green Lantern was available to answer a question, which had been answered in the positive. He'd made up something about wondering if they might have some kind of sympathetic connection through the Green light of Will to the planet wide mystical plant biosphere known as the Green.
This time around, Red Tornado hadn't offered to come out and help teach Serling how to shoot, and that was just another item on the list that he really would've goofed if he'd let Zombles out to play.
It was probably time to take a break now though, Serling's arms were shaking and the end of the barrel of the handgun was wobbling.
"Alright! Unload your mag and we'll go to town for a break!" Serling didn't say anything to him, but she did put the last four rounds into a wooden dummy that used to look like Cheshire.
The following few minutes weren't exactly interesting. He took the weapons from her and confirmed they were empty, double checked the safety on them both and dropped them into his inventory.
"Here, help me pick up the brass and we can go." He handed her a small metal bucket before crouching down in the dirt. Barely a moment later and she was down there with him. For a few moments the only sounds in the clearing were...
Nothing.
Alchemist paused for a moment to pull off his ear protection, letting him hear the wind gently blowing through the leaves.
This was... Actually really nice. He hadn't done something like this since his own father had passed on.
"Hey Roquette!" She turned to look at him, blinking owlishly when he tapped at his ears.
After a moment if incomprehension it seemed to click and she pulled her earmuffs down around her neck.
"You're doing great!" She really wasn't. "I think you're picking that up faster than I did!"
She really, really wasn't. But it got her to smile and that was important after yesterday.
"...Thank you." She mumbled when they were nearly done. "This is actually a lot more fun than I expected."
"Yeah." He answered easily. "It's loud and the guns are heavy, but there's something primal and fun about making things go boom."
He probably shouldn't mention his attempts at making his own fireworks as a kid. That hadn't gone well.
"You mentioned going to town?" She asked as she grabbed one of the last few shotgun shells on the ground. "What are we doing?"
"Grocery, then gun store. I can't give you any of mine since they're extradimensional duplicates and you don't want to have a gun that's registered to someone else pop up in your stuff if something happens." Alchemist pulled out one of the spent bullets from the bucket she handed back and considered something.
He snapped his fingers and it was surrounded in a golden glow, warping for a moment before the plastic tube sealed shut.
Neat. Repair worked on bullets!
He'd save that for later though. Instead he put the spent ammunition away in his inventory and stood up, wiping his hands off on his trousers.
"Though for that, we're going to need your I.D.. You do have that, right?" The woman patted at her pockets for a moment before coming up with a wallet.
That was... Nice? He'd thought they were going to have to go back to base to get her purse.
"What do I need my I.D. for?" Was she serious? He'd just said- Right, Star City is in California.
"So the gun store can run a background check. That'll take a few days and you won't get your guns until it comes back clean of felonies." Yeah, it was the U.S., but there were -some- safeties to keep legal guns out of the hands of repeat offenders.
She seemed content with that answer, at least, and the walk to town was made in peace. Alchemist used that time to look through the shop to see what had changed and how he needed to change his plans.
The majority of the weapons he'd been considering were right out. They involved going to important game locations and probably fighting the original wielder. Alchemist may have been a lot of things, but none of them were that good.
He did eventually settle on an iteration of the Enhancer Sword. There were a variety of them from the various world of Final Fantasy, some clearly stronger or weaker, but he grabbed the one from Final Fantasy Seven. It offered the highest magic boost for the price, twelve-thousand GP... And no boss fight.
There -were- stronger swords, but how that actually affected their ability to cut, he had no idea.
Guns had been a pretty hit and miss category. They tended to either be very, very good... Or hot garbage, depending on the game. Again, a significant number of the especially good ones were hidden behind boss battles. A fantastic option, Vortex Abandon had a lot of amazing stat bonuses, but would require he fight a raging elemental goddess who could brainwash anyone without arbitrary immunity.
However he found another option, probably an oversight, but one he was going to take advantage of before it got closed off.
From the spinoff slash continuation game, Final Fantasy Seven: Dirge of Cerberus was a large handful of guns. Handguns, rifles, assault rifles that were called machine guns because that's what people understood off the cuff... Anyway, for a simple comparison, the Zastava he was fond of cost about eight-thousand GP.
Pretty close to its cost in real life, too.
The Gigant Hydra he was looking at cost fifty-four thousand GP. To start with. The full complement of equipment for it, the barrel, a power booster, scope and accuracy booster altogether brought the price up to one-hundred and fifty thousand GP.
Yes, he bought it, but only after second, third and fourth thoughts on the matter.
It was an immensely powerful rifle capable of knocking a Behemoth off its feet. The range was phenomenal, as was the accuracy. Unfortunately, it was also impossibly heavy, so much so that it slowed a (Unwilling) magically enhanced super-soldier down to a crawl while he was wielding it and it was strictly a single shot bolt action rifle, it couldn't accept a magazine.
Thankfully, Alchemist didn't need an I.D. to buy a generic rifle bipod at the gun store. Especially since he had a few from the last time he'd been there in the zombie I.D.
The last thing he bought, practically an afterthought after that spending spree, was a spell he was going to need soon.
Shrink Item, a transmutation spell from D&D. Its effects were incredibly simple, but no less useful. It could miniaturize a target's dimensions, limited only to non-living targets.
It was three-hundred and seventy-five GP.
And it was probably going to see more overall use than the gun.
-----
Thinking on the way the day went, Alchemist had to hold back a laugh. Serling had picked out two guns that were nearly identical to what she'd practiced with. A Mossberg 500 pump action shotgun and a Taurus G... Something. He hadn't paid much attention. He was competent with a handgun out to about fifteen meters and even then he preferred a short barrel rifle.
The thing that had him laughing was how he paid for Serlings purchases.
He'd sold Legacy Firearms and Coins their own gold coins back to them.
So in a couple of days he'd be taking Serling back there to get her new 'Babies' and collect his change.
Now though, they were back in the cave. Superboy, Powergirl and M'gann were back as well. Back from their first day in human school.
Unfortunately for them, they got to start directly in High School.
Hormones, posturing, social climbing and cliques galore. Bruce couldn't pay him enough to do that, once had been enough.
"-and there were so many people, and they were all thinking and feeling so much!" M'gann seemed to love it though.
Alchemist simply nodded along as she spoke, preparing the second half of dinner. The vegetable stew was simmering along nicely and he planned to have salmon with it. He was slicing the lemons he'd bought earlier when he got a notification about a message.
~~ FROM: Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan! ~~
~~ So I went and had a look at the whole Seru-Kai killing all humans thing and you're kinda right. Except it doesn't work on Gamer's Body. Or at least it doesn't work quickly on Gamer's Body. Shi Wa survived for a bit before he got discombobulated, I'm sure a better Gamer would be fine.
Either way, you don't have Gamer's Body. Kind of my bad. Totally keep forgetting that.
Just use your dragon form. The place is hostile to human life, not dragon life.
Duh ~~
Well, he just had one thing to say to that.
~~ To: Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan! ~~
~~ Thanks for the heads up, Aqua! ~~
Was it petty?
Well... Yes.
That did give him a solid option though, but as seemed all too often the case lately it wasn't one he could immediately act on. He was still clumsy as a dragon and he still hadn't figured out how to fly. He needed time and a place where he could work on that without too many distractions.
It also meant he'd be on a time limit, one with a potentially lethal end. It depended on how much exposure he could have to a hostile reality before he expired.
"-then one of the other girls suggested I try out for the cheer team and I thought that sounded like fun! So when tryouts happen I want to do that!" Leslie flashed the chatty redhead a thumbs up even as he mentally debated his options.
Cheer squad was absolutely out unless he wanted to wear a mascot suit, and he hated playing organized sports. He might love music, but he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Mind, neither could most of the other band kids but that wasn't really the point. Maybe AV club? Chess clubs weren't much of a thing anymore and he was only a casual player and what the hell was he thinking?
Alchemist put down the garlic cloves he'd been mincing and shook his head.
Right, he got distracted.
Terra said the Instant Quests would return him to where he was in time-space when they were completed, but that he couldn't stop them halfway or leave. So if he found one that was doable for him, that'd be all the time in the world where he could practice...
Now, which one would offer him a large space to try and fly in without having too many things that could actually succeed at trying to kill him?
He sprinkled some salt and pepper on the pink fish fillets just before putting them in the oven and finally settling on an option.
Leslie hovered over the selection for the Incorruptus Blueprints. Half a million GP, putting him down to a little under one-million left... But The Rift, the place it would be taking him to, it was a massive location removed from local space, filled with undead, elementals, demons and giants. Except for the starting location, at least that's what he remembered...
Actually, Leslie put a pause on that for a moment and headed back to his room. Once there, he removed a set of boxers from his inventory and used Synthesis: Fusion to feed two spells into them.
Protect and Esuna. It added an additional three-hundred and ten points to the defense stat and offered total immunity to status ailments.
He was going to call them his Clean Undies!
On his socks, he used one different spell and Protect again.
Blink worked exactly as intended, providing a significant bonus to evasion... But apparently he could not stack Additional Equipment Enhancements.
Ah well, it was still a massive bonus. The enchanted equipment -did- stack with the spells he'd cast directly on himself.
Satisfied with his meager preparations, Alchemist clicked continue on the purchase screen.
And between one blink and the next, he found himself standing on cracked flagstones, surrounded by broken pillars and slowly swirling purple in the far distance.
There was nothing alive near him. Nothing undead, either. He could, however, just make out the shape a large, almost goatlike creature in the distance carrying a crude axe.
Alright. Alright, he could work with this.
He slowly spun around, getting a good idea of this spot, this one safe location so he could teleport back to it before stripping off his clothes.
-----
Meanwhile, not that far away, a nigh-incorporeal demon, a succubus in this world, began floating back where it came from.
The crazies were always too much trouble to deal with.
/AN
Patchnotes! Metamagic has been renamed to spellboost to help avoid further confusion!
I think I got everything, but if anything stands out, please feel free to correct me!
Name: (@**&@%$#%) Leslie Winters
Race: Human
Level: 42
GP: 952675
USD: $250,169,050
Stats-
VP: 7
HP: 1200
MP: 682
-STR: 16
-VIT: 60
-DEX: 7
-AGI: 16
-INT: 91
-WIS: 91
-LUK: 8
Abilities:
-Alchemy
--Transmutation (78)
--Conversion (30)
--Advanced Homonculus Creation (1)
-Divination
--Scrying (12)
-Magical Engineering
--Living Steel Manufacturing and Production (Max)
-Fusion
--Synthesis (28)
Spells:
--Final Fantasy series!
-( FFII )
-Esuna (16 -Max)
-Life (16 -Max)
-Teleport (16 -Max)
-Cure (16 -Max)
-Blink (16 -Max)
-Protect (16 -Max)
-Toad (16 -Max)
-Flare (16 -Max)
-Osmose (16 -Max)
-Break (7)
-Haste (12)
-Berserk (11)
-Shell (9)
-Curse (1)
-Holy (8)
-( FFXI )
-Dispel (6)
--Dark Souls series!
-Repair (28)
-Twisted Wall of Light (25)
-Hidden Weapon (1)
-Hidden Body (2)
-Cast Light (2)
-Dark Blade (100 -Max)
-Carthus Flame Arc (1)
-Blessed Weapon (1)
-Lightning Blade (1)
-Crystal Magic Weapon (1)
-Frozen Blade (1)
--Dungeons and Dragons
-Prestidigitation (26)
-Regenerate (9)
-Dragonkind -Form of the Dragon- (4)
-Create Food and Water (1)
-Create or Destroy Water (5)
-Create Effect -Bind Demiplane- (1)
-Various create item skills removed to save space.
--Dragon Warrior
-Ironize -Kaclang- (1)
Inventory:
-Weapons
--Nagrarok (Atk: 1, Evade +50%, On-hit: Toad)
--Magic Wellness Stick (On-hit: Heal)
--9mm Semi-Automatic Carbine (Nothing special to note)
--Zastava M93 .50 Caliber Long Range Rifle (Nothing special to note)
--Enhancer (Atk: 43, Int: 16)
--Gigant Hydra (Atk: 799, assuming unbugged power booster gives 95% bonus, else 676)
-Equipment
-- Lichbone Pendant (Dark/Negative Damage +100%, Dark/Negative Damage Resistance +50%)
-- Midnight Cowl (Intelligence -10, Wisdom +20, Dark Damage Resistance +75%)
-- Bootyshorts of Evasion (Defence +15, Agility/Dexterity +10, Respect -20)
-- Life Grail (HP regen +200/min)
-- Magic Grail (MP regen +50/min)
-- Clean Undies (Defense +310, status ailment immunity)
-- Missing Sock (Defense +310, Evasion +160)
-Skillbooks
-- Transmutation (read)
-- Scrying (read)
-- Advanced Homonculi by C.Grande (read)
-- De Le Metalica (read)
-- Synthesis: Fusion (read)
-- MP Boost (Failed!)
-- Heward's Handy Handbook of Magical Mysteries (read)
-Consumables
--Nectar X61
--Magic Carrot X77
--Heal Berry X99
-Spellbooks
-(Read spell books have been removed to condense space)
-- Necronomicon X3 (Unread)
-- Shrink Item
-- Shadow Evocation
-- Shades
-Familiars
-- ??? Dragon Egg
-Miscellaneous
-- Metal Sample "Necrodermis"
-- Metal Sample "Darksteel"
-- Magical Nectarine Pit X2
-- Darksteel Magic Condenser ???%
-- The Journal of Gofard Gaffgarion (Requirements not met!)
Perks:
-Bright Soul (MP regen +50%)
-Shining Soul (MP +50%)
--Combined effect! Magical attunement is now visible!
-Spellboost: Expand (Double spell area of effect OR double spell duration)
-Spellboost: Lock (Persistent spell effects are more difficult to dispel based on level. Mastered spell may be cast permanently until dispelled)
-Spellboost: Pierce (Spells ignore magic resistance. Up to 50% at max level)
-Spellboost: Minimum Powah! (Spells retain potency when multicast. Up to 50% at max level)
-Spellboost: Entangle (Spells may be cast on objects or foes sharing history with the target) -Magically Apprenticed (Spell values are increased by 10%. Spell costs are reduced by 10%)
-Magically A-Practiced (Spell Values are increased by 20%. Spell costs are reduced by 20%)
-Adept Arcanist (Spell Values are increased by 30%. Spell costs are reduced by 30%)
-Wizened Warlock (Spell Values are increased by 40%. Spell costs are reduced by 40%)
-Hero Of Rime (Ice and Cold based damage and effects +50%, Ice and Cold Damage Resistance +25%)
-Polymind (Maintain human levels of consciousness within animal forms)
-Greatest Wilder (Retain spellcasting capabilities within animal forms)
-Crafter's Luck (25% chance to receive duplicate crafted item)
--Special Perks
-Briar's Dream (+1HP/MP per minute. +1VP per day.)
Edit: While the two terms are often used interchangeably where I'm from, magazine is in fact the correct word between 'Magazine' and 'Clip' for handguns. It's been corrected to help avoid confusion.
A clip is often a single solid piece of metal used to feed ammunition into the magazine of a long gun (Rifles, carbines, etc...) but has mostly been replaced with the standard removable magazine in modern firearms.
To simplify;
A clip is a device used to load a magazine.
A magazine is a device or holding area where ammunition is fed into the chamber of a firearm.
So I was just playing Fallout New Vegas, and I gotta say it is a setting chalk full of guns galore. Stuff that would probably be a good investment all around. A good starting point would probably be Laspistols as they're pretty cheap and it's ammo which is micro cold fusion so buying one and it's ammo could allow for some upgrades not only for your armory but for the justice league and potentially your own body. Besides guns Fallout is chalk full of technology that's helpful all around. An example off the top of my head is buying Fixer and a bunch of drugs have them analyzed and Make something like that turbo injector perk, other stuff could be buying a pip-boy as it depending on how you view it could open up a whole other inventory to store and that's with Fallout's backward technology imagine what one properly made with alien technology can do!
Some other settings for good stuff are:
Terraria
MGS
Hollow Knight (not much but all around good shit)
MTG
LoL
WoW
Ect.
Would it be a good idea if Alchemist tried using Conversion to transmute a bullet's outermost layer into a different substance like the Cold Iron or Celestial Bronze to be more effective against certain opponents?
Or would that make the bullets unsafe and cause them backfire/explode?
I don't know much about firearms or materials science, so something that sounds good in theory ("transmute bullet into Kryptonite") might be terrible in application ("OH GOD I'VE BLOW MY HAND OFF!!!").
