Our retainers asked for some training actions so deaths won't cause loss of knowledge like they currently do.
I'd like to do at least one of those.
That's part of why I framed it the way I did: spreading out Valaya Calls leaves at least one slot open on Turn 49 for other stuff that needs getting done. And training is pretty high up that list.
Because you said that you weren't as certain as you were before we started discussing this, I thought we were in a agree to disagree situation that could only be resolved by asking Soulcake. Due to the fact you responded to my question to Soulcake, I'm guessing I misunderstood something. What did I misunderstand?
Good point, the first stage is probably completed. I agree that merely reading books alone wouldn't be enough. I was thinking he would read some books then realize how much more they know than him about Waystones and could pay for lessons like with Menlinwen. After the lessons, maybe we could start collaborating.
I know the superstorm only comes from wearing Barak Azamar during a Storm of Magic when forging. What I'm concerned about is that as far as I could tell literally no one expected the superstorm to happen so how do we know that is the only surprise? Even if we do know from OOC information, does Snorri seem like the type of person to gamble if there's not an enormous opportunity at stake?
When I said I wasn't as certain as before we started discussing this I meant I moved from 100% certainty to around 90% and I thought I had provided sufficient evidence to dissuade you from this action and we were not in an agree to disagree state, so the misunderstanding was on my part. Now that Soul has removed the support for my own argument there's really no more point for me to oppose it on the generalities and I agree that we can give them Master Runed equipment beyond the Set Bonus. Instead I'm now going to oppose the specifics of it.
I suggested that under the impression that we could give the Hearthguard as much Master runed equipment as we wanted as long as it didn't contribute to Set Bonuses. In that case, according to the quote below it would cost 4 actions total to make a full set of 5 which seems competitive with smelters.
I think the gear slots are identifying what could have Set Bonuses. If I'm right I think those gear slots should get plenty of overflow. If I'm wrong, I think we should build smelters for Adamant equipping and use Karstah to do part 1 for gear slots and help Snorri finish them.
The reason I have that impression is that intuitively speaking it doesn't feel right that we can simultaneously use the Hearthguard as test subjects or give them items we no longer use and have a limited amount of gear we can give them. Also, Soulcake would know that we're not going to have a tier 2 shield without a Master rune occupy a gear slot forever so why would we use a campaign reward on the Hearthguard when it's reduced in value so much when we regift it? The quote below describes the value decrease, The quote was more generous for regifting the shield than I remembered so I'm less certain than I was.
I do not agree with the idea of giving them collections of Master Runed equipment using the multiple items per difficult request rules. The reasons why are these:
Any Master Rune we use in a set of items for them impacts our Rule of Pride limits. We might be able to keep track of where each Master Rune stands in terms of those limits per century (the thread would probably have to create a master list somewhere), but I admittedly have some doubts. In a word it adds complexity. It also restricts us in a way we simply are not right now; if we give the Hearthguard three or four Master Runes of Currents weapons then that's it, if we have any more ideas using the Master Rune of Currents that century we can't make them due to the Rule of Pride.
Another reason that I do not agree with the idea is that if we do make selections of five items and use one action on design and then three actions on building that group of items, then the six actions of effort we end up putting into building them is split between each item. Effectively putting one action into each item is going to reduce quality and thus how effective those items actually are. Even if Productivity procs and we put somewhere between 6 and 9 actions into the whole collection, that still only means two actions per item at most. This is not enough to consistently put those items into T4 I think, and T3s are significantly less helpful in raw mechanical terms. And I think they deserve more effort than that.
So different interpretations on the value of effort. If we are going to give them Master Runed equipment I'd rather use them as a test bed for ideas we put more significant effort into. Singular test bed items at a time, or paired items. That way we can spend more effort on the aesthetics and the reagent choices as well. Also, if we choose to use Anvil Charges on those items, building multiple items at a time means that the power of future Anvil Charges intuitively gets spread between those items, which seems non-ideal for similar reasons to spreading effort. I'd much rather have singular creations we could dump the full power of Anvil Charges into. (It should be understood that I'm not talking about the three Anvil Charges we currently have, but the ones that will come after.)
In terms of what Karstah should be doing, I'd actually rather that she not be used on design. In the cases where we have her help I'd rather have her help in the building sections of things, because seeing them work together however Soul wants to write that is more interesting to me. Furthermore I prefer the more personal connection between Snorri and his hearthguard if he's the one designing the things we make for them.
In terms of the shield, I'm pretty sure it would not have gone into a Gear Slot because its equivalent to what they already have for general baseline equipment.
Good point, the first stage is probably completed. I agree that merely reading books alone wouldn't be enough. I was thinking he would read some books then realize how much more they know than him about Waystones and could pay for lessons like with Menlinwen. After the lessons, maybe we could start collaborating.
I know the superstorm only comes from wearing Barak Azamar during a Storm of Magic when forging. What I'm concerned about is that as far as I could tell literally no one expected the superstorm to happen so how do we know that is the only surprise? Even if we do know from OOC information, does Snorri seem like the type of person to gamble if there's not an enormous opportunity at stake?
That is a solid path I think to talking with her on them, I like the idea. It'll take a long ass time before Snorri is comfortable talking to her about them I think due to his own oaths to Alric. If he'd discovered them on his own I think it'd be easier to talk to her about them, paradoxically.
In terms of the Anvil's surprises, its energy output is the primary thing it does. Based on the Clan Diamondback knowledge we got the Anvil seems to fit as an extension of the idea of drawing on Waystones for power, though it is not a Waystone itself and is probably more powerful than Krum's Waystone. Based on the Diamondback knowledge and the scale of the energy being lesser than during the Storm, then the kinds of bad surprises we might see are more Dhar related like corrupting the location for a while or letting Daemons out until we force it to shut down and both of those are things we can deal with. Surprises not related to its primary thing about energy output are going to be less serious; like attracting monsters or waking up monsters nearby.
Because they should be lower scale issues I don't think we have to be concerned about what surprises we might find. All of that said we should absolutely still get those books. Its going to inform us of any surprises we haven't thought of, which I think is valuable even if I'm not concerned about any of those potential surprises, and its going to be useful when explaining what happened there to the Brotherhood and possibly highlight some other uses. Or as a pipe dream, point us in ways to find more Fulcrums on the peninsula if there are any.
