- Location
- Minnesota
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Hmm, okay, interesting. I guess I'd assumed that they were the synonymous? I definitely want to talk about mutations/etc with Karter when we can
I'm both relieved and filled with dread in equal measure…
Salted Sands (A Caves of Qud-Inspired Cultivation Quest)
- Thread starter I.F. Ister
- Start date
- Original
caves of quod is very interesting,very alien in a way i love. its also really messed up. Everything that lives is sentient. Everything.
if this is the same,then:
our ride could talk. thats not special. having a ride that cant communicate would be weird. The plant we negotiated with could talk. that wasnt a special plant because it can talk. its a plant!of course it can talk. the special part was the explosions.
if not? i dont know.
which is why we need to ask around. get some lore about the surroundings. how stuff works.
(what are the most common dangers in the sands, how do we notice which lifeforms are open to communications,what are the local factions of lifeforms,what are notable places in the surrounding sands, how do you join a caravan,where can we buy a map or directions, what are signs of a good place for foraging, are there especially grimm dangers we should look out fore, how do freelancers make money around here,--------once we are well trusted: is there a black market, is there a place where the rulers laws are not followed, where can we buy info that is not openly shared, how do we awaken ka fast)
also qm,thank you. i will work on a plan tomorrow. or vote if i find one i like.
if this is the same,then:
our ride could talk. thats not special. having a ride that cant communicate would be weird. The plant we negotiated with could talk. that wasnt a special plant because it can talk. its a plant!of course it can talk. the special part was the explosions.
if not? i dont know.
which is why we need to ask around. get some lore about the surroundings. how stuff works.
(what are the most common dangers in the sands, how do we notice which lifeforms are open to communications,what are the local factions of lifeforms,what are notable places in the surrounding sands, how do you join a caravan,where can we buy a map or directions, what are signs of a good place for foraging, are there especially grimm dangers we should look out fore, how do freelancers make money around here,--------once we are well trusted: is there a black market, is there a place where the rulers laws are not followed, where can we buy info that is not openly shared, how do we awaken ka fast)
also qm,thank you. i will work on a plan tomorrow. or vote if i find one i like.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I agree with all of this except the conclusion. Focusing on specific skills over getting at least decent ratings in every stat helps with none of it, and hurts with a lot of it. An investigative mission we'd want Movement 2, Social 2, and at least Perception 2 before engaging in, and getting One-Handed and Unarmed to 2 gets us another 4d100 on combat for less xp than the 2d100 from upping our Gunplay to 4, and certainly way more in combat than raising Crafting and trying to boost our guns themselves.
Like, I'm not arguing we have enough resources, I'm saying that to meaningfully gather them we need to be well-rounded enough to actually achieve needed stuff. Once everything is at around 2 and we have the skills we want we can start going hard on our chosen areas of specialty a lot easier, but until then it's just much less effective and leaves Kell with glaring weaknesses in areas he kind of needs to function.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
We should get at least 2 in every non-combat stat just for basic competence. And Karter's "Sharp Mouth" Trait makes him insult people or otherwise say unfortunate things socially, so trying to rely on him for friendly social stuff seems bad to me (taunting and intimidation are more his speed).
Like, if we get an ally who's legitimately good at social stuff, that'd be great, but I don't think Karter is our guy to rely on for that.
so, unarmed combat gets added to all combat dice? and one-handed too? great!
if it doesnt, why are we getting a little skilled in 3 ways to fight someone? it doesnt help.
also,investigating mission? we dont have that on the quest offer. and we would have barely any dice.
we get at least some xp per mission, and all missions can include combat,its this kind of place.
We are not safe.Growing slowly into things could kill us very easily.
once we can reliably defend ourselves, we can fill out our options.
also , i like the idea of ignoring social in the current situation.
if we fail at searching? we lose some time and opportunities.
we fail at combat? thats it. and theres going to be combat.
we are destined to go back to the sandns,and ieeven without that,something will want to eat us.
also, we high risk,high reward. with good combat, its medium risk, high reward. st least for us right now
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
It does, yes. Well, if we have a weapon that uses it...but as we have hands and a knife they would apply to basically all combat rolls.
That's a decent argument for focusing on Unarmed and One-Handed to 2 before the non-combat skills, not for neglecting the non-combat entirely.
For reference, once we have Gunplay 2, Unarmed 2, and One-Handed 2, we're rolling 7d100+40 or so, and close to on par with what Karter is currently listed with (though that does ignore his cultivation).
I'm not sure what makes you think I'm advocating growing slowly. I'm advocating getting the basics down in the most efficient way possible. Combat could always come up, but y'know what helps avoid that? Not getting surprised (which is Perception), being able to sneak (which is Movement) and talking people out of fighting (or into helping us) which is Social.
Having only combat in our toolbox is dangerous, we should at least have the basics of other problem-solving tools before we go too far down that road. Getting combat stats to 2 first is defensible, but at that point, we want the non-combat ones at 2 before we go too much further.
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- Location
- Oregon
- Pronouns
- Any/All/Allowed
yeah personally I'm noticing the Qud through stuff like "the mount is sapient and so is the plant your weapons come from"
same for the salt and locations, but the whole psychic powers system I take it has been replaced by the cultivation system
Ok,so i have to sleep, but first:
if unarmed is added to any fight,even if we use a weapon, then its the best combat skill,and we should definitly increase it. this is good news,thanks.
if we were on our own, learning a little bit of everything would be good. But in a community,being very sligthly useful in a lot of things, is WAY less good then being amazing in one thing.
look at the quests. They require a singular skill. with rewards scaling with difficulty. so,a specialist built gets more loot and rep than a jack of all, which is important in this moment.
being ok at a lot of things is good. but we can share with the team, and currently somewhat depend on the place we stay at.
not in combat. in combat we have to be able to rely on ourselves. because we are noones priority to defend over their familys.
yes,perception is useful. and yes, social is good.
but i want to maximize shortterm gains,to increase suvivability.
if unarmed is added to any fight,even if we use a weapon, then its the best combat skill,and we should definitly increase it. this is good news,thanks.
if we were on our own, learning a little bit of everything would be good. But in a community,being very sligthly useful in a lot of things, is WAY less good then being amazing in one thing.
look at the quests. They require a singular skill. with rewards scaling with difficulty. so,a specialist built gets more loot and rep than a jack of all, which is important in this moment.
being ok at a lot of things is good. but we can share with the team, and currently somewhat depend on the place we stay at.
not in combat. in combat we have to be able to rely on ourselves. because we are noones priority to defend over their familys.
yes,perception is useful. and yes, social is good.
but i want to maximize shortterm gains,to increase suvivability.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Saying quests only use one skill is a little misleading. Like...our previous quest was theoretically combat-related, but both Crafting and Social wound up very useful during the course of it, and our lack of Movement was a problem even getting there. I'd be shocked if both Movement and Perception aren't relevant to hunting down spawnlings, given the situation, and Perception would certainly be relevant to keeping watch...
Basically, right now we auto-fail anything requiring a Movement roll, and that's a problem. Our odds on stuff with Social and Perception aren't great either...once we have 2s in everything, we're an actual competent, independent, adult who doesn't need hand holding in some basic area of life...which is a big improvement over the alternative.
Now, buying Movement 1 + Riding 1, Unarmed 2, One-Handed 2, and Knife 1 is pretty defensible right now, don't get me wrong, but we;d want to grab 2s in Movement, Perception, and likely Social before we went too much more into combat than that.
perception, we can have our buddy pick it up. its useful, and we dont need two spotters. social,is tempting, i must admit.movement and riding is not that neccessary right now. we are not really exploring. knife? can we use knife and revolvers at the same time? i am really confused about your combat ideas. Are all combat skills counted in every combat? really?
our ally is a close-combat expert.
you sre preparing for many different dangerous situations. if we are in many such situations,being a little good in them,will still see us fail often. lets get really good at doing one kinf of job, do this job several times, gain loot and rep and xp. then buy different skills and equipment to increase skills
our ally is a close-combat expert.
you sre preparing for many different dangerous situations. if we are in many such situations,being a little good in them,will still see us fail often. lets get really good at doing one kinf of job, do this job several times, gain loot and rep and xp. then buy different skills and equipment to increase skills
- Pronouns
- He/Him
One of the listed missions is literally wandering around killing spawnlings. That involves some basic travel...we don't need huge amounts of Movement immediately, but enough to not auto-fail seems worth the investment.
Yes, they all stack. Well, as long as we have a weapon equipped that uses them, and equipment slots are separate for ranged and melee weapons. This was asked of the QM just a page or so ago. It represents us being ready to pull a knife when we get too close for guns and so on.
This strategy relies on us never having to do anything outside our specialty, which is very hard to ensure in a world as unpredictable as this one. Like, yes, we should work on a specialty, sure, but only once we're at the point where we have some resilience vs. random events. Getting enough xp to get all our stats to 2 is not that far in the future, we can have most of them there after just the spawnling hunting mission if we want. Maybe one more mission after that and then we can start aiming for specialties.
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I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
- Pronouns
- He/They
To clear up some potential misunderstanding, minor quests begin and conclude in the same update.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Okay, here's a bare-bones plan for spawnling hunting. This version tries to split the difference between combat and non-combat stats and skills.
[X] Plan Let's Goo Hunting
-[X] Hunting Spawnlings (Reward: $25, 2 XP, 100 Rep) (Combat 3)
-[X] Standing Guard (Reward: $15, 1 XP, 50 Rep)
-[X] Talk to People
--[X] Ask Karter who we could go to in order to find out more about Ka and how to gain it quicker, then talk to those people.
--[X] Ask Karter what he knows about mutations, psionics, being Salt-Touched, and why his mother is like she is
--[X] Ask Karter if there are any local dangers we should look out for.
--[X] Inquire about getting a Melkan Merchant's license/citizenship so that you can act as a proper gunsmith
--[X] Develop your relationship with Scorch-flo, the Bomberbush, to secure a source of gunpowder
--[X] Ask around for information about when caravans show up.
--[X] Ask around if someone has a map that they would allow us to copy.
--[X] Ask around for people with obscure knowledge.
-[X] Spend 9 XP
--[X] +1 Movement Stat, +1 Ride Skill (2 xp)
--[X] +2 One-Handed Stat (3 xp)
--[X] +1 Unarmed Stat (1 xp)
--[X] +1 Scouting Skill (1 xp)
--[X] +1 Social Stat (2 xp)
-[X] Suggest Karter spend 4 xp
--[X] Unarmed Stat 1 (1 xp), Perception Stat 3,
-[X] Purchases
--[X] Combat Knife (+8 to Combat) ($7)
--[X] Sturdy Boots (+3 to Movement) ($2)
--[X] Armor-Piercing Rounds ($12)
EDIT: Added Standing Guard and just about everyone's questions for the locals, no reason we can't do all of those. Switched upping Perception to Social and Karter to grabbing more Perception, that's probably a good call. Ditched the saddlebags for now.
[X] Plan Let's Goo Hunting
-[X] Hunting Spawnlings (Reward: $25, 2 XP, 100 Rep) (Combat 3)
-[X] Standing Guard (Reward: $15, 1 XP, 50 Rep)
-[X] Talk to People
--[X] Ask Karter who we could go to in order to find out more about Ka and how to gain it quicker, then talk to those people.
--[X] Ask Karter what he knows about mutations, psionics, being Salt-Touched, and why his mother is like she is
--[X] Ask Karter if there are any local dangers we should look out for.
--[X] Inquire about getting a Melkan Merchant's license/citizenship so that you can act as a proper gunsmith
--[X] Develop your relationship with Scorch-flo, the Bomberbush, to secure a source of gunpowder
--[X] Ask around for information about when caravans show up.
--[X] Ask around if someone has a map that they would allow us to copy.
--[X] Ask around for people with obscure knowledge.
-[X] Spend 9 XP
--[X] +1 Movement Stat, +1 Ride Skill (2 xp)
--[X] +2 One-Handed Stat (3 xp)
--[X] +1 Unarmed Stat (1 xp)
--[X] +1 Scouting Skill (1 xp)
--[X] +1 Social Stat (2 xp)
-[X] Suggest Karter spend 4 xp
--[X] Unarmed Stat 1 (1 xp), Perception Stat 3,
-[X] Purchases
--[X] Combat Knife (+8 to Combat) ($7)
--[X] Sturdy Boots (+3 to Movement) ($2)
--[X] Armor-Piercing Rounds ($12)
EDIT: Added Standing Guard and just about everyone's questions for the locals, no reason we can't do all of those. Switched upping Perception to Social and Karter to grabbing more Perception, that's probably a good call. Ditched the saddlebags for now.
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I.F. Ister
Fortifying The Thread
- Pronouns
- He/They
For the record, you can do more things, such as talking to people and the like
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm happy to add talking to people into my plan if people have, like, specific people they want to talk to or specific subjects...
I'll also just add asking around about ka and any alternative or quicker ways to gain it. That seems good since I don't think we know exactly how.
I'll also just add asking around about ka and any alternative or quicker ways to gain it. That seems good since I don't think we know exactly how.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Totally true. It's defensible for that reason but I think that the hunting is still better, personally.
- Location
- Minnesota
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[x] Plan: Burgeoning Gunsmith
-[x] Karter XP: Unarmed (1), Gunplay (3)
-[x] Kell XP: Social (2), Perception (2), Movement (1, 2), One Handed (1), Unarmed (1)
-[x] Shopping: Combat Knife (7), AP Rounds (12), Sturdy Boots (2) (Total: 21/32, 11 remaining)
-[x] Actions:
--[x] Talk with Karter about Ka, Mutations, being Salt Touched, and what the deal is with your aunt.
--[x] Inquire about getting a Melkan Merchant's license/citizenship so that you can act as a proper gunsmith
--[x] Develop your relationship with Scorch-flo, the Bomberbush, to secure a source of gunpowder
--[x] Minor Quest: Standing Guard
Okay, here's a plan now that I'm at a computer.
I concur that relying on Karter for negotiations is probably not the best plan, so instead I went with bringing his gunplay in line with his one handed, and adding a die of unarmed as a saber only uses one hand. For our advancement, a pretty well rounded but not combat focused spend, as hopefully there won't be much/any combat this turn. Instead a focus on skills that we'll need to perform gunsmithing: social for negotiations, perception for scavenging, and movement to get around the local area. So far as shopping the combat knife and AP ammo seem like the best value for money to me, and the sturdy boots is more so for the narrative aspect. I feel like buying the AP ammo now to have it on hand vs waiting to make some ourselves is probably for the best, just so we have something to fall back on in an emergency.
So far as actions, they're mostly about getting set up to do some gunsmithing. A merchant license will let us sell things worth more than 5$, which is pretty vital, and we need steady access to gunpowder to make good on our promise to make ammo for Karter. Standing guard meshes well with the rest of the town-centric actions.
-[x] Karter XP: Unarmed (1), Gunplay (3)
-[x] Kell XP: Social (2), Perception (2), Movement (1, 2), One Handed (1), Unarmed (1)
-[x] Shopping: Combat Knife (7), AP Rounds (12), Sturdy Boots (2) (Total: 21/32, 11 remaining)
-[x] Actions:
--[x] Talk with Karter about Ka, Mutations, being Salt Touched, and what the deal is with your aunt.
--[x] Inquire about getting a Melkan Merchant's license/citizenship so that you can act as a proper gunsmith
--[x] Develop your relationship with Scorch-flo, the Bomberbush, to secure a source of gunpowder
--[x] Minor Quest: Standing Guard
Okay, here's a plan now that I'm at a computer.
I concur that relying on Karter for negotiations is probably not the best plan, so instead I went with bringing his gunplay in line with his one handed, and adding a die of unarmed as a saber only uses one hand. For our advancement, a pretty well rounded but not combat focused spend, as hopefully there won't be much/any combat this turn. Instead a focus on skills that we'll need to perform gunsmithing: social for negotiations, perception for scavenging, and movement to get around the local area. So far as shopping the combat knife and AP ammo seem like the best value for money to me, and the sturdy boots is more so for the narrative aspect. I feel like buying the AP ammo now to have it on hand vs waiting to make some ourselves is probably for the best, just so we have something to fall back on in an emergency.
So far as actions, they're mostly about getting set up to do some gunsmithing. A merchant license will let us sell things worth more than 5$, which is pretty vital, and we need steady access to gunpowder to make good on our promise to make ammo for Karter. Standing guard meshes well with the rest of the town-centric actions.
CedeTheBees
Probably high right now
- Location
- Somewhere
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[x] Plan: Burgeoning Gunsmith
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm just guessing, but I don't think combat stats are omni added together, even if they normally are? I imagine that, like, if we are ever involved in a fight where we are sniping from a super far position, and not engaging in melee at all, our non gunslinging combat dice might vanish?
Which isn't often, and we can make it less often by getting good, as the kids say, and being able to be in that melee.
I do think we should get a skill to go with our stats, rather than going straight to melee 2. Like grabbing Melee (Gunkata) or Melee (Knives) and Unarmed (Kicks). they don't add as much as dice, but they unlock options, and as seen by Scavenging, can reduce difficulties.
Which isn't often, and we can make it less often by getting good, as the kids say, and being able to be in that melee.
I do think we should get a skill to go with our stats, rather than going straight to melee 2. Like grabbing Melee (Gunkata) or Melee (Knives) and Unarmed (Kicks). they don't add as much as dice, but they unlock options, and as seen by Scavenging, can reduce difficulties.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is probably true, but the other combat skills are definitely still worth it.
I agree with this longer term, but especially for combat, it seems like we should get the stats to around 2 first.