Remove ads

Shards of a Broken Sun [Megaten/Shugo Chara/Exalted]

Reader mode
Baughn said:
Amu only has Illusion 1. She's only capable of making tactile illusions if she's effectively stunting it with one of her charas—leaning into their themes—and the ribbons you're talking about would be huge; Ran can do ribbons, but that's definitely pushing it. On the other hand, a bowl of jelly large enough for someone to land in would also be huge. You can do either of these, but I think you should be prepared for Amu to fall over afterwards.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I was hoping it would use Biokinesis. That's what gets used to make cookies and we now have 2 points in it. Was kinda hoping that making jelly would fall under Bio too.

Oh well. Plan C is it.

[X] Help Everyone.
-[X] Transform. Arm up. Heart Rod on the right, Bubble Wand on the left.
-[X] Nadeshiko's having trouble keeping up with multiple speedy bird-demons. Slow them all down. Launch Honey Bubbles, as sticky as you can make them, while doing everything else.
-[X] Sense where Tadase is. Look through 1-A's windows. Map a clear trajectory from the windows, through 1-A's doors and to the point you think Tadase is standing in the corridor beyond.
-[X] Use Sweet Applique to adorn the Heart Rod with a ribbon sporting the very large, visible words: "Get Out: Platinum Heart".
-[X] Spiral Heart. Launch the Heart Rod through 1-A's windows, out the door, curving it as close to where you think Tadase is standing in the hallway as possible. Make the sparkling trail of your Rod as impossible for anyone inside to miss as you can. Leave the Rod for him to grab.
-[X] Kukai is ferrying people by hand. Ask Nadeshiko if she can make a zipline out of her kimono obi, leading from the roof to ground, to help him evacuate people.
-- [X] If she can't, tell her to ask Kukai whether he can.

Shugo Chara Party may not be canon in this quest, but Nadeshiko did have an attack called Angel's Raiment in it where she extends her kimono's obi sash to restrain an enemy. I have no idea if Amu ever learnt about it here so just in case she never did, I'm not calling the attack out by name.

Kukai might actually be able to conjure a proper zipline since his Chara's specialty is sports and he can make sporting gear, so that's the backup if Nadeshiko can't (or maybe he's already planned to and we just haven't seen him).

The downside, of course, is that while Nadeshiko is busy with that, we're stuck playing Honey Bubble Danmaku with the Strixes. Oh well, I'm sure Amu has enough juice left for that. It's the only thing she'd be doing psionically at that point, until Tadase triggers Platinum Heart (which I assume he's footing half the cost for, so still less than if we did it all ourselves).

....It's kinda a shame Dia's back asleep, her costume comes with a wireless headset and if we had that, we'd be able to call Utau completely hands-free.
 
PistachioCookies said:
I was hoping it would use Biokinesis. That's what gets used to make cookies and we now have 2 points in it. Was kinda hoping that making jelly would fall under Bio too.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The cookies? That's biokinesis and illusion. The extra point does help, just not with scale.
PistachioCookies said:
....It's kinda a shame Dia's back asleep, her costume comes with a wireless headset and if we had that, we'd be able to call Utau completely hands-free.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That's... definitely a guess...
 
Throwing honey at our problems is practical, but I think the stunt rules encourage us to get a bit fancier. So, @Baughn, how does this work for a stunt to help Nadeshiko?

-[X] Drawing on Ran's athletic specialization, you conjure a pair of jump ropes, then cap their ends with giant jawbreakers courtesy of Su, for a pair of makeshift bolas. While Nadeshiko has the strixes distracted, you lob the bolas and wrap them around the enemies' wings to bring them down, then pin them to the ground with honey so Nadeshiko can finish them off.

I'm hoping this isn't too draining, and counts as Dex+Thrown+Telekinesis.
 
Last edited:
From what I can tell (and vaguely from what I remember from the last version), how much dice a stunt is worth in this quest seems to depend mainly on the risk. Riskier stunts get more dice.

The idea seems to be that, since the chance of the base action working are iffy to begin with, the dice are sort of meant to compensate slightly.

Even though no dice were rolled for the Humpty Lock vote, we got told that if it had been, it would've been worth 2 at base and 3 with more detail, seemingly not because it was particularly elaborate (it was more or less just donating the lock + telepathy) but because it potentially sacrificed our Humpty Lock. I mean, it DID sacrifice our Humpty Lock (at least temporarily). No pain, no gain, basically.
Simon. Andersen said:
And also it's kinda feel like it's goes againts the spirit of the vote.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You complained there were too many fires going on, I've given my suggestion on how to try put them all out.
 
Last edited:
PistachioCookies said:
From what I can tell (and vaguely from what I remember from the last version), how much dice a stunt is worth in this quest seems to depend mainly on the risk. Riskier stunts get more dice.

The idea seems to be that, since the chance of the base action working are iffy to begin with, the dice are sort of meant to compensate slightly.

Even though no dice were rolled for the Humpty Lock vote, we got told that if it had been, it would've been worth 2 at base and 3 with more detail, seemingly not because it was particularly elaborate (it was more or less just donating the lock + telepathy) but because it potentially sacrificed our Humpty Lock. I mean, it DID sacrifice our Humpty Lock (at least temporarily). No pain, no gain, basically.

You complained there were too many fires going on, I've given my suggestion on how to try put them all out.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
There's nothing about risk in the stunt rules. Here's the description from the informational threadmark:

Baughn said:
Stunts are supposed to add flair and narrative depth, while providing mechanical benefits. Fundamentally the idea is that, instead of simply voting "Amu does / tries this", you describe how she does it, how that interacts with the environment, etc. You will be scored based on how entertaining it sounds, and how well I can fit it in the story, but note that the lowest possible score is +0, and that's unlikely; there is no possible case in which stunting your votes will reduce her dice pool.

In practice, +1 should be achievable on just about every vote, with +2 easy with a bit of re-reading, and +3 feasible if you feel you need to push it. If it's something that makes you sit up, go 'wut', and chuckle, then it's likely to be a viable stunt. If it makes you go 'ooh, that's clever', that's also a good stunt. You get the idea.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
And the stunt levels:

Baughn said:
Levels of Stunts:
  • One-point stunts are clever or interesting actions that are a step above basic descriptions. They might include using the environment in a simple way or an interesting attack maneuver.
  • Two-point stunts are more elaborate and creative, often involving complex actions, dramatic use of the environment, or interactions with other characters in a significant way.
  • Three-point stunts are rare and represent moments of exceptional creativity or narrative significance. They are often pivotal, game-changing actions that can alter the entire plot of the story.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The Humpty Lock thing was a 3-pointer because of its creativity and narrative significance, not because of the risk.
 
So if one sets up a creative tag team with Nadeshiko against the two birds, possibly with some narrative significance to their history, then one can get more stunt bonus, I see I see. Hmmm...
 
Quine said:
There's nothing about risk in the stunt rules. Here's the description from the informational threadmark:
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Nominally speaking no, there's nothing about risk in the stunt rules.

But from what I recall from the last thread, the higher-value ones were typically also the riskier ones. Usually the ones where somebody took a guess at the mechanics behind the physics or the world and ended up guessing correctly. Perhaps I am simply misremembering, but that was the impression I got left with.
 
Quine said:
Throwing honey at our problems is practical, but I think the stunt rules encourage us to get a bit fancier. So, @Baughn, how does this work for a stunt to help Nadeshiko?

-[X] Drawing on Ran's athletic specialization, you conjure a pair of jump ropes, then cap their ends with giant jawbreakers courtesy of Su, for a pair of makeshift bolas. While Nadeshiko has the strixes distracted, you lob the bolas and wrap them around the enemies' wings to bring them down, then pin them to the ground with honey so Nadeshiko can finish them off.

I'm hoping this isn't too draining, and counts as Dex+Thrown+Telekinesis.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Works perfectly fine. This seems like a 1 or 2 point stunt, depending on the exact wording.
PistachioCookies said:
From what I can tell (and vaguely from what I remember from the last version), how much dice a stunt is worth in this quest seems to depend mainly on the risk. Riskier stunts get more dice.

The idea seems to be that, since the chance of the base action working are iffy to begin with, the dice are sort of meant to compensate slightly.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I can see how you'd get that impression, but-
PistachioCookies said:
Usually the ones where somebody took a guess at the mechanics behind the physics or the world and ended up guessing correctly. Perhaps I am simply misremembering, but that was the impression I got left with.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This is what I'm actually going for. Deducing something that was never stated explicitly is a good way to get a three-dice stunt, as is impressing me with your audacity. If it'll lead to a good chapter, I'm a lot more likely to try to encourage the behaviour.

It's just that either of those usually also comes off as risky, but it's not the risk in itself that's rewarded. Fundamentally the stunt rules exist to encourage having a good time in the quest, and if it ever conflicts with that, it's the rules that'll change.
 
Last edited:
Quickshot0 said:
So if one sets up a creative tag team with Nadeshiko against the two birds, possibly with some narrative significance to their history, then one can get more stunt bonus, I see I see. Hmmm...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If I had to guess what a 2-dice stunt might be in this situation, it could be something like Amu asking Nadeshiko whether Nagihiko and his Chara Rhythm were around, requesting to borrow Rhythm, paying 2 WP to load and Chara Transform with Rhythm, conjuring a beatbox radio and then blasting ultrasonic sound at the birds.

Amu has never done a Chara Change with Rhythm in canon and doesn't know Nadeshiko is Nagihiko and while it could provide narrative weight in revealing the truth, it's also risky and I don't dare do it.
 
PistachioCookies said:
Huh. Just out of interest, is it actually possible for Nadeshiko to switch to Beat Jumper on the fly and conjure a beatbox that can blast ultrasonic sound?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I need to refresh my memory on Rhythm, and before I can do that, I need to rsync a whole lot of anime over to my laptop. I don't remember Rhythm being able to do something like that, but I could be forgetting?

Many of the psionics in the story (meaning: Everyone except Amu, Ami, Utau, potentially Saaya, and Kana's group) aren't capable of doing anything outside what their charas provide them. Though some push it more than others.
 
Baughn said:
I need to refresh my memory on Rhythm, and before I can do that, I need to rsync a whole lot of anime over to my laptop. I don't remember Rhythm being able to do something like that, but I could be forgetting?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I don't recall him ever doing that either, but the Chara is called "Rhythm" and Nagihiko wears headphones when transformed, so I had a thought it might match the theme. Oh well, nevermind then.

The only option that I can really see with room for a 3-dice stunt on based on anything to do with figuring out world physics/metaphysics is the option to close the rift. And I don't think anybody is having good feelings about that, even with a 3-dice stunt, given the difficulty level. In the case of that one at least, having more dice is definitely offset by the base difficulty.
 
For even a 75% chance on closing the rift, we'd need the difficulty to go down to 4 and at least 12 dice.

I can think of a way to get to 12 dice, but there's no guarantee on the difficulty going to to 4.

That way involves a hugely risky stunt that assumes Dia is currently awake (probably a reasonable assumption given she got mentioned in the chapter), running to Tadase, using Dia to access the Road of Stars while borrowing power from Tadase via the Platinum Heart joint attack and then guessing that the Road of Stars is the same thing as the Sea of Souls, which is humanity's collective cognition. And then having Amu use herself and Tadase as a conduit for humanity's past cognition of the classroom, including memories from the soul of the one who got crushed to death just before, tapping into the Road of Stars' ability to facilitate time travel to do a time reversal on the whole classroom to close the rift.

This would attempt to use Stamina + Integrity + Empathy as opposed to Stamina + Occult + Illusion, giving us 7 dice to start with, plus 1 from Dia specializing in time travel, plus 1 from doing it jointly with Tadase, 2 from burning WP and then another 2, assuming the stunt is worth at least 2 dice, bringing it to 13 dice.

This is still not especially good odds unless the difficulty comes down to 4, which there is no way of guaranteeing.
 
Last edited:
If anybody has the balls to go for it, here it is written in vote form:

[] Rewind Time - Close The Rift
- [] Dia is with you. You felt her blending with Ran and Su earlier, when you reached into that road of stars, that ocean of minds. That sea of souls. You reach for her light.
- [] The rift is a mental hole. A cognitive void. But right next to it, once bright, now flickering, you feel Tadase's determined presence. Tadase is proof that a strong enough cognition can stop the void; so it follows an even stronger one can push it back- one stronger than yours or Tadase's alone.
- [] Go to Tadase. Tadase had dived with you once before into that starlit road, back when you were looking for your lost Charas. With luck, he can lend you strength once more.
- [] Before, you went into the future and possible futures. Now, you rely upon Dia's navigation to search the past, to find the memories and souls of those who knew the classroom as it was before the rift erased it.
- [] One of your schoolmates now lies beneath the rubble. You use their last thoughts as your first stepping stone towards those other souls.
- [] Platinum Heart: You open your heart and mind, empathically linking yourself to Tadase - and one by one, to all the other souls that remember the room as it was before the rift.
- [] Using yourselves as a conduit for their thoughts and feelings, you form a combined cognitive web between all the room's past occupants that, between you all, are able to reconstruct the mental space of the room, exactly as it was before.
- [] With you and Tadase as the lynchpin of this great web of many, many, past souls, you push.
- [] Bring past to present. Fill the void. Close the rift.

If there is even one person who votes for this, I will also switch my vote and go for it too, just to reward their ballsiness.

@Baughn - Unless it's a completely un-viable stunt?
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top