Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
In this case I have good plans for either option, and can't decide which works better. So you're standing in for a dice roll.
Yes, okay. Let's pull back the curtains slightly. Almost every decent game—video game, tabletop, quests, whichever—adjusts the difficulty to the player's ability.
Video games do it by letting you pause the plot to grind, or sometimes by making enemy levels equal to the player's, whatever that is. I'm not sure which I prefer. Grinding is usually boring, but the other option—especially if done badly—makes progression into a bad joke, where the numbers go up without consequence. The better ones at least let you decide which aspects of your character to strengthen.
Tabletop games, or quests—which are kinda the same thing, anyway—also do it by adjusting the difficulty of the opponents you face, but since I'm human, I'm able to be more subtle than computers generally are. For instance, I can have over-levelled opponents accidentally miss seeing you—or where Amu is the one controlling the plot, as she usually should be, I can make sure to warn you in advance if you're about to do something that would call down attention you can't deal with. She also has a safety umbrella at present, inasmuch as JPs exists and is vastly more capable than you. This means I don't need to adjust the strength of opponents, per se; I can instead adjust which opponents you face.
Flipped on its head, you can pick your opponents. Don't attack Manticore head-on; they're too much for you. Even once they're no longer strictly over-levelled, the lengths Amu would need to go to to handle them would traumatise her badly. If they need to be handled right now you can rely on allies, but chances are you can dodge the problem for a while. There will always be some solution, it just might not be direct attack.
(The demon invasion of Seiyo is an example of such an over-levelled encounter. You could deal with the minor demons those spit out in the first minutes, but you had little hope of fixing the hole.)
Mind you, there still are narrative consequences to calling in allies. So there's that.
But when it comes to a single 1 XP bonus, that's noise and you shouldn't worry about it. If you were making a habit of leaving such things on the floor, you might eventually run into trouble.
I'll make sure to let you know if someone mentions it where Amu would hear. Long-term it won't really matter, as you'll be controlling all of them. (Directly or indirectly.)
A: No, two teachers aren't better than one.2a: I don't suppose the XP discounts stack if we magically manage to find more than one good teacher in (subject)?
2b: I don't suppose 'getting out of school' counts as a Major Goal?
B: It could, but I'm not sure it's a smart move.
Yes. More specifically, the more XP you're spending to flash-train the worse it'll get.
<Amu> I have a dream!
<Utau> Are you going somewhere with that?
Adding note. But yes, that is actually how the math goes.
She isn't an expy of anyone in particular, because she's a fusion of at least three different characters. Guess where she got her cooking skill. 🤣
It's the Count! I missed you and your giant brain, though I thought you'd still be busy with the counting.I'll take that as an invitation to bloviate beyond any actual capacity for rational analysis.
And...
...yeah, all three of those are correct. XD
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