Given we only have 2 charges this whole month, I think we should save them for minion recruiting. Spending even 1 on just basic training feels a little wastedul right now.
Also what's with the plans? There's only 2 yes/no options. Feels kinda unnecessary when the yes option includes a subvote slot anyways.
Learning skills is simple you spend AP to go to a lesson or to learn on your own you then roll the average of the training attributes (most things are just pure mind but some also have the other attributes) with the teacher teaching skill taking the place of your skill in the roll.
so the first sub-rank in a skill actually costs as much as the LAST sub-rank in the same skill... or, in other words, going from novice 5 to adept 1 costs as much as going from adept 4 to adept 5...
Grandmaster also costs proportionally a LOT more than any other rank. the other ones are a bit more than double the previous rank, Grandmaster is FOUR times...
Of course, things aren't straight forward, while going from novice to adapt is juts a matter of XP expert and up require some challenge that pushes your limits to rank up even when they got the necessary XP.
well, the body/mind mix are not worth boosting by default unless we REALLY need to rank them up for some reason, due to the average with body bringing it down by a lot.
That leaves Meditation, Alchemy and Runes.
Alchemy and Runes don't seem urgent.
Meditation is tempting, I think, though I'd wait until we know more about what each skill does specifically. I suppose we could try to make a super-good impression, but it could backfire once we show we can't keep up that level of performance.
I'm leaning towards not using our oath power yet. but if we do, then we should do it on Meditation.
if I get it right we'd roll Mind dice (so in this case 10*5= 50 dice), and the difficulty depends on the teacher's skill... presumably AT LEAST an expert, so we can expect a difficulty of 5 (no skill is 8, novice is 7, adept 6, expert 5 and so on).
50 dice, diff 6... on average we'd get around 30 successes I think, so 30 exp. enough to go to...
if novice 1 also costs 5x, probably only novice 1 or 2. if it doesn't, probably novice 3 I think.
Another argument in favor of waiting: if we can raise our Mind before multiplying it, each extra point there would actually translate to +5 dice WHEN we're multiplying it.
COUNTER ARGUMENT: we're using the teacher's teaching skill to reduce the difficulty of our training. @uri do we roll diff 8 if training a skill on our own out of class? If so, that's a massive help.
COUNTER COUNTER ARGUMENT: all of these lessons are also available next turn. We could just reattend them and use the charges then, if we change our mind.
I think it's a bit premature. We don't know just how quickly we'll need to prove ourselves in any of these paths, and right now our main job is just to... learn.
I'd say let's take at least a couple turns to learn the basics (the classes, the main locations, mission system, library, see if our family tells us anything...) and THEN we can talk.
For all we know we're not expected to pursue any of these paths for a year or more. Right now we should just focus on recruiting, socialing our retainers and new recruits, and see how the lessons and cultivation and mission systems works.
after that we can talk about specializations. Though we already have a medium term goal in the "satisfy the branch and outer school requirements". After all, the faster we get in the branch and outer sections, the faster we get access to presumably better teachers and resources.
I'm inclined towards dropping both charges into Athleticism and Meditation, because something called Iron Body probably uses both and having a quality foundation is helpful in things like this.
why should we spend charges now instead of next turn?
and athleticism in particular is probably a bad idea because it uses an AVERAGE of body and mind, so effectively we're only getting half the dice we'd get by using it for Meditation.
I'd say let's wait one turn. We can probably retake the same class anyway.
It doesn't, I designed this system with the idea that polishing your skill is easy but truly getting better is hard but just getting into something is very easy.
Ok, so up to novice 5 most skills are pretty easy to train.
Then there's a spike for the rank-up, and then it becomes easier again.
We have a STRONG incentive to use the mind*5 power on mind-only teacher-assisted training, to max out gains.
If we use it on training at all, at least.
We definitely should NOT use it this turn I think, as the lessons will still be available next turn. Ideally I'd like to train Mind some too first, as each extra point we get will actually translate to 10 extra dice (so probably 5 exp or more) in the actual training session (tier 2 mind so each point in the stat means +2 effective mind, which our oath power multiplies by 5).
IF after those first two weeks we get no more elders teaching us, then it might be worth it using the skill here, as they lower the difficulty enough to be worth the inefficiency of using the power earlier.
That said, we might want to instead use it for something else. I mentioned coming up with training plans for our actual attributes, but a scheme to recruit valuable minions might also be a good idea, or possibly using the mind boost to better judge what's the best quality material in the library.
And we still need to see if our "play 20 questions with the universe" idea with the lie-detection power is viable
Making a second Oath should be relatively simple, I imagine. We'll find out in class I imagine, and we'll have to be careful about picking a good balance between power and price.
Horkos I imagine will be cultivated through the use of the meditation skill, while iron body through the use of Athleticism.
@uri we didn't ask, but can we spend more than 1 AP on a specific lesson? You specify it for physical work, but it's not clear for the others. The elders after all are likely to only spend so much time teaching, so I imagine there's a limit.
Presumably by practicing meditation we'll unlock more oath slots. We don't know what kind of Oaths are available, I imagine the school will help with artifacts like they did before.
IDEALLY I want, as I said, to train Mind first before actually spending a charge on training Meditation, but depending on how good the teacher is we might want to do it first to take advantage of the lower difficulty, especially if they happen to be master-tier teachers.
As usual, we'll have to search for cheats and sinergies. maybe mission rewards will include use of school-owned artifacts to help, for example, or maybe we can pay for tutors. We don't know how much our family can help us either through money or artifacts or again tutors.
@uri we didn't ask, but can we spend more than 1 AP on a specific lesson? You specify it for physical work, but it's not clear for the others. The elders after all are likely to only spend so much time teaching, so I imagine there's a limit.
Not on this ones, the physical one is special because the school is taking advantage of the oath and so the teacher is spending more time teaching. Enough time teaching someone could put 6 AP on the lessons.
Not on this ones, the physical one is special because the school is taking advantage of the oath and so the teacher is spending more time teaching. Enough time teaching someone could put 6 AP on the lessons.
do we know what happens in terms of lessons AFTER the first two weeks? Do we get lessons from inner disciples instead of elders, maybe? do we get to pay for tutors, or earn our access to lessons through quests and favors?
Do the Elders scout for apprentices, maybe? That could be a reason to use the mind*5 power immediately, if it allowed us to get us an apprenticeship...
do we know what happens in terms of lessons AFTER the first two weeks? Do we get lessons from inner disciples instead of elders, maybe? do we get to pay for tutors, or earn our access to lessons through quests and favors?
especially considering that the same lessons are around next turn, so it's not like we're losing our chance if we decide that yes, we want to use this power for the lesson instead of something else.
you know, I just went back and rechecked the oath costs, and... it didn't really click with me, but the heaviest combination was 6 APs of training EACH WEEK, so it would have effectively left us with 1 AP per turn.
if Aurelia is wondering what demon possessed her now, imagine then!
while the third use of our mind power would have been nice, it wouldn't have really been worth it.
...mh... Oath rank is separate from Orthos (though it's also added to it), but it's presumably the COLLECTIVE Oath rank.
If we get another rank 5 oath, we might actually go from 2 uses per month to 5, if more oaths help even previous oath powers, which sounds possible.
This is what a second order oath is, this will be reveled this turn so I don't mind reviling it a bit early.
But there are two branches of progression in oath cultivation 1) getting more oaths 2) increasing the order of your oath (which is basically swearing an oath on the previous oath and increasing its rank).
This is what a second order oath is, this will be reveled this turn so I don't mind reviling it a bit early.
But there are two branches of progression in oath cultivation 1) getting more oaths 2) increasing the order of your oath (which is basically swearing an oath on the previous oath and increasing its rank).
[x] almost two hundred disciples have been granted entrance to the school at least some must be worth something, keep an eye for hidden gems and see if you can befriend/recruit them.
[x] Find the contribution center- follow the directions given to you and go claim your weekly stipend and while you're at it go see what missions are available to you.
[X] Plan: Hitting The Ground Running
-[X] no.
-[X] Physical work by elder Artus (you must spend 6 AP over the next 2 turn's on this action) (this is for your oath).
--[X] 3 AP
-[X] The three fundamentals alchemy, enchanting and combat by elder Zerveas.
-[X] Oaths and their understanding by elder Septima.
-[X] meditation upon the self by elder Valla
-[x] Find the contribution center- follow the directions given to you and go claim your weekly stipend and while you're at it go see what missions are available to you.
-[X] what do you want (if you want) Gallus to pursue?
--[X] We want him to find the Library, dig up the Iron Body Method, and if he's able to get copies for the three of us great, otherwise he'll be able to guide us on how to grab the method ourselves when more time is available later. If there's a choice between getting the copies for all three of us or getting in good with the Librarians, get in good with the Librarians.
-[X] what do you want (if you want) Octavia to pursue?
--[X] We want her to do a cautious investigation of our intake class. Order of priority is: Who are the hidden gems, who are the political players we haven't taken note of yet, who's making trouble already. Politics and connections are an unfortunate fact of life for us, so it's best to get a lay of the land and try to figure out those (mostly) unaligned that we will be able to try to persuade to be aligned at least not against us if not with us.
AN: Well, this took me a bit but I did say it would be slower then my other quest, I do hope you enjoy and I'm of course available for questions.
Deciding that pulling down one of the notices was too risky, Aurora memorized the locations and times of the lessons in the case someone else decided to pull one down -not that there was much of reason for it with Gallus right there- and decided that if she's already awake in this god forsaken hour she might as well go to the physical training now.
She could have stayed and scouted out her fellow disciples but she didn't want to and shell see most of them there.
And really if they didn't show up for a lesson with an elder did, she really care about them?
Her mind decided and knowing the general location of her destination, Aurora began to walk.
She only took a few steps before her body shivered as she felt a predatory gaze upon her.
Looking back at her retainers, Aurora could see Gallus smirk.
She knew that smirk, it was the one he always had when he was going to have fun at someone expense.
And this time it was going to be at Her's.
"My lady, aren't you forgetting something?" another shiver rocked her body as he spoke, his tone filed with glee.
"N-No, I'm not forgetting anything".
"Are you sure? Maybe something your family gave you?" his tone was teasing and the smirk on his face has grown wider, wide enough to completely spilt his face.
"Yes! I'm sure!" saying so Aurora turns to swiftly march away but freezes when Gallus pulls out a pair of golden bracelets from his bag but quickly pulls herself together "I-I didn't forget them I just chose not to use them, yes that is exactly what happened" and this is the complete truth -and she will glare at Octavia until she comes to her senses-
"Is that so? do I need to remind you what your father said will happen if you didn't use them?" the traitor says while dangling the bracelets in front of her face.
"You wouldn't!" Aurora exclaims horrified.
"I wouldn't but you know that someone is keeping watch for your father and they would" at least the bastard had the decency to wipe that smirk form his face.
She still remembers the conversation she had with her father about them.
"Aurora, dear I know you don't want them but it's important for your and our family future that you do, as such if I get word that you aren't using them, I'll take away your phoenix pillow."
Not wanting her comfortable pillow taken away, Aroura snatched the bracelets form Gallus hands and put them on.
Instantly her arms felt heavier, before lightening again as the bracelets detected her intent.
Gain:
Bracelets of heavy thoughts (T2)- The wearer of this treasure will feel as if they are heavier, they have been enchanted to only work when the wearer intends to train their body. Effect: 20% of body XP gained by training is also gained by will.
With that argument out of the way Aurora marched away to find the training field her retainers following closely behind.
Finding the training grounds wasn't hard not with the signs literally pointing them to the place.
The training grounds themselves were on a dirt field with a few exercises equipment like weights and jumping rope. It was surrounded by a running track of packed dirt.
Ignoring all of it Aurora set down in the shade of one of singular trees that were present in the field and closed her eyes, enjoying the touch of the wind in her hair.
It wasn't long before more people started arriving in the training grounds.
But whether it was Gallus hideous face or no one wanting to bother the clearly rich and important girl nap, no one approached Auroras group.
Even napping Aurora couldn't have missed the arrival of elder Artus as he his wight Shaked the earth when he fell from the sky.
Opening her eyes and quickly rising to her feet Aurora searched for the elder and it didn't take her long to find him.
Wrinkled dark gray skin greeted her sight, like his skin the elder also wore a robe made of what she could only conclude be metal.
And despite his apparent old age, corded muscles were bare for all to see.
His earth-shaking appearance has given him the attention of all of the disciples in the training ground and he took advantage of it, moving to speak without pause.
"Your body is your foundation, it is the base upon all other is built, swear a thousand oaths and you'll fall to the men who cultivated his body to perfection, I elder Artus will bear the responsibility of setting you upon this path of perfection" his voice sounded like steel striking steel, yet it didn't hurt there was some otherworldly quality to it that put aroura at ease "we will begin with a run to warm up, then follow up with push ups and other exercises, some of which I will teach you today and when your finished you'll do it all again but better and you'll continue to do so until you fall from exhaustion".
The elder fell silent to let the disciples gathered before him digest his words before he proclaimed in a tone that brooked no disagreements.
"begin"
Learning skills is simple, you spend AP to go to a lesson or to learn on your own you then roll the average of the training attributes (most things are just pure mind but some also have the other attributes) with the teacher teaching skill taking the place of your skill in the roll.
You then need to get a certain amount of succusses and then you go up a rank.
The XP formula goes like this (X is the sub rank you wish to achieve):
Novice: 4*X.
Adapt: 9*X.
Expert: 20*X.
Master: 50*X.
Grandmaster: 200*X.
Going up a rank inflict an additional 5X cost (so going form novice 5 to adapt 1 costs 45 XP).
Of course, things aren't straight forward, while going from novice to adapt is juts a matter of XP expert and up require some challenge that pushes your limits to rank up even when they got the necessary XP.
Attributes on the other hand are trained with a set XP to AP ratio, this ratio is determined by your training grounds and equipment.
The formula for training attributes is 5*X*Y2 where X is the score you wish to achieve (1-10) and Y is the attribute current tier.
Now thanks to your initial pick training attributes for you is actually 4*X*Y2 XP.
This means that a normal person going form body 5 to body 6 would need 30 XP, you going form body 5 to body 6 (with your body being in the second tier) would require 96 XP (which is a 24 point reduction from the 120 XP it would require someone normal).
Now let's see how it goes in practice.
Artus is teaching you athleticism, which is a mind/body training skill so you roll 10 dice, Artus is also a really good teacher, in fact he's the best in the school with his grandmaster 3 teaching so your success threshold is 3 so every dice above this number is considered a success.
So, you end up with 10 dice S>3 but this isn't the end, you've got to consider situational modifiers.
In this case, teaching a large crowed imposes a +2 penalty for your success's threshold bringing it to S>5 but the penalty is reduced by half by the "crowd teacher" talent which lowers all penalties and difficulties in teaching a large number of students at once by half.
Further the "physical teacher" talent lowers the success threshold by 1 so long as you're teaching a body skill.
So, with both of those talents he brings the success threshold back down to S>3.
But we aren't done yet.
Your teachers do more than just give you their teaching skills, they have a few actions they could do to improve your learning speed.
In this case Artus is using "motivate" which is a heart+ fellowship challenge, he rolls and gets 57 successes, now when directed at a crowd "motivates" allows success number of students to add half their willpower to their dice pool for training the skill.
But the "crowd teacher" changes the number of students motivated to success*2, this means that 114 disciples out of the 167 attending are motivated.
But Artus has a fellowship talent called "overflowing positivity" which allow him to fully motivate a crowd so long as 2/3 of them are already motivated, so all of the disciple's attending are motivated and get to add half their will power to their dice pool.
Your willpower score is 6, half of that is 3 so you roll 13 dice S>3.
For a total of 73S (the benefit of having a grandmaster teacher) 4/4 to novice 1 69s remain, 8/8 novice 2 61s remain, 12/12 to novice 3, 16/16, 20/20, 5/45 to adapt 1.
There was a slight moment of hesitancy before a few of the disciples started to run and drugged the rest of the disciples with them.
Then the torture started and Aurora ran exerted herself like she has never done before.
Laps, pushups, sit ups, weights, jumping ropes and a hundred other exercises all designed to push and abuse every thread of muscle in her body.
At some point, elder Artus came around and slapped a talisman on her back that everything harder as he said that with her body she could push more without injury.
Speaking of elder Artus, he was everywhere, beside doing the exercises beside them, the elder was a whirlwind, correcting postures and offering words of encouragement.
The elder seemed to have the time for every single one of the hundred and fifty or so disciples present.
There was something about him and the way he helped you that made you want to push harder and even Aurora wasn't immune to it, as something deep inside urged her to push on despite her wish for the softness of her bed.
By the time the lesson came to an end Aurora was heaving for breath and collapsed on the soft dirt at the earliest opportunity, Octavia collapsed beside her, while Gallus seemed unaffected by the workout.
The bastard! He should at least feign his suffering so she could feel better about herself.
Aurora only realized that elder Artus was calling out for some of the disciples to stay behind because her name was one of the first out of his lips and it gave her an excuse to stay in the soft dirt.
By the time Aurora caught her breath only two dozen disciples stayed in the training ground, although a matching number of older disciples soon arrived.
All of them possessing some gray sheen in their skin.
At their arrival the steely voice of elder Artus spread throughout the training grounds "Here at the Iron Oath school we value dedication above all else be you a scion of the five great families or the poorest of the poor it is in hard work and consistency that you become greater then you were" taking a pause elder Artus took the time to lock eyes with all the disciples in the clearing -aside for Gallus and Octavia- "And for those willing to put the work in the sect is willing to expend much. I will now call your names, when I do so step forward and go with the disciple, I point out for you they will explain the rest"
Aurora was the third name called and elder Artus pointed her toward a young woman with long black hair, when Gallus and Octavia went to follow her the women shacked her head so Aurora released them to their own tasks as she followed the young -but still older then her- woman out of the training ground.
When they were far enough away the women turn around and Arura could finally get a good enough look at her face, she was beautiful in the kind of way Arura family was, the kind of way that spoke of cultivation, her blue eyes seemed to shine as she spoke "Greeting junior sister, this one is Aspa Kalloti and outer member of the medical pavilion" saying so she bowed her head very slightly in greeting.
'Ah she's form the lowerfamilies', the slight head tilt even though she is Aurora superior and the subtle sign she made with her fingers, signals her respect for the Protus family and would only be done by a noble of lower stature.
Clasping her hands together Aurora bowed back, deeper then Aspa did but not as dip as would normally be expected from a junior to her senior, for doing so would dishonor the Kalloti family "Gretting senior sister, this one is Aurora Protus a disciple aspirant".
Both women held their pose for a few moments before Aspa snorted in amusement "I see you've been taught well"
"Of course, one of my first lessons"
And it was, since Aurora could speak, she has been taught on how to not shame her family in social gathering and her skill has been refined since then.
Choose a talent for the equitique skill.
[] Equitique 101- many cultures share the same basic rules regarding Equitique and so long as you stick to them you can be sure not to offend, lower the penalty for equitique checks when interacting with different cultures additionally decrease the bound for major failure.
[] Customs of the sun- your home the empire of the sun is host to a diverse range of cultures and subcultures, each one boasting of centuries of traditions and customs and you have learned many of them, when rolling an equitique check against someone whose culturally form the empire of the sun roll with advantage (roll twice and keep the higher result)
[] Refind presence- through countless lessons the refinement of the high class has become second nature to you, it is in how you speak, in how you walk and in how you interact with others, when such a refined presence is advantageous, roll all heart challenges as if your heart was 1 higher conversely when such a refined presence is disadvantages roll all great challenges as if your heart was 1 lower unless you've succeeded in an acting/deception challenge (be advised that attempting such a check and failing may incur additional penalties/effects).
[] Shell of formality- formality is often a bland tedious processes meant to allow to parties to interact without hostility or fear, you have learned to use it to your advantage, you may roll an Equitique challenge to aid in other social challenges (things like intimidation, haggling concealing information and so on).
"With the dispense of formalities, I think it's about time to speak about why I'm here" Aspa says.
"My regard" Aroura replies "yet I'm not sure what I have done to merit such".
Aspa tilts her head slightly "is it not obvious? The school recognizes the burden of the oath you swore and rewards you for it"
'For her oath?' Aurora thought wondering why she was never told about this before swearing the oath either by her family or the school.
"For the dedication you have shown and the willingness to go above, you receive two rewards" Aspa begins "the first is the favor of the school, this isn't something that can be quantified but the elder and school administration will look upon you more favorably opening doors and giving you priority in your requests and purchases through the contribution hall"
"I am honored to have it" even with the realization that having the favor and attention of the elders probably meant more work for her Aurora couldn't not deny the benefits of it.
"The second is my services"
"Your services?" Aroura asks intrigued.
"Yes, for the next two months we will meet every day after you've done your exercises and I'll massage your muscles to both help prevent injury and stimulate muscle growth"
"Where will we meet?" Arura asked.
"I'll show you to the medical pavilion today and we'll meet there for the next two months" saying so Aspa began leisurely walking.
"Oh, and you have a choice to make" she suddenly said.
"A choice" aroura replied.
"Yes, while I will be using Horkos to increase the effectiveness of my technique, there are a few things a could add but they are only partly covered by the school"
"How much would they cost?" if there was one thing Aurora didn't lack it was money.
"Not much but it's in contribution point"
'Contribution points?' "But I don't have any yet" Aurora said.
"True but one of the benefits of being in the school favor is being allowed to go into the negatives for a time" Aspa said and then stopped in the middle of the road they walked down and added in a flat "needless to say, abusing this fact will lead to a revocation of your favored status".
After this they continued walking through the sect until they reached a large structure with a large sign proudly declaring this to be the medical pavilion.
It was then that Aspa turn to Aurora and asked "well have you raced a decision?"
Choose 1. (note: you would be able to change this later).
[] None- aurora will not buy any additional consumable and only receive the benefit that Aspa technique would provide, she would also not go into debt. (1.2 Xp modifier for body).
[] Refined olive oil (2 contributing points)- refined olive oil is oil made of spiritual olives and as such is cheep for the effect it provides. (1.5 XP modifier for body).
[] Spiritual herbs bath (10 contribution points)- far more expensive is paying for a relaxing bath of medical and spital herbs, of course the effect Is much greater as well (2.0 XP modifier for body)
Your efforts have borne fruit for spending 3 AP on training your body you receive 5 10 (training ground rate upgraded du to second tier of body) XP per AP for a total of 30 (before the modifier you get to choose above) bringing you to 30/96 to body 6, additionally you receive 6 XP toward will from your treasure, bringing you to 6/64 to will 4.
Additionally you may ask a question of your senior sister wich she will answer to the best of her ability.
"My lady, aren't you forgetting something?" another shiver rocked her body as he spoke, his tone filed with glee.
"N-No, I'm not forgetting anything".
"Are you sure? Maybe something your family gave you?" his tone was teasing and the smirk on his face has grown wider, wide enough to completely spilt his face.
"Aurora, dear I know you don't want them but it's important for your and our family future that you do, as such if I get word that you aren't using them, I'll take away your phoenix pillow."
Bracelets of heavy thoughts (T2)- The wearer of this treasure will feel as if they are heavier, they have been enchanted to only work when the wearer intends to train their body. Effect: 20% of body XP gained by training is also gained by will.
pretty good, yeah. this way physical and willpower trainings are taken care of, basically.
We just need to find out how to train mind and heart. And we want to raise the various stats to 10 (20) as quickly as we can to boost the skill training.
I admit they're not what I expected for a training item.
Maybe if we're not all training at the same time we can give them to our retainers for their own training? You said the Elder is devoting enough time for even 8 (or was it 6?) APs worth of training I think, so if we split the time the three of us spend at his lesson we could in theory all use them.
Ignoring all of it Aurora set down in the shade of one of singular trees that were present in the field and closed her eyes, enjoying the touch of the wind in her hair.
It wasn't long before more people started arriving in the training grounds.
But whether it was Gallus hideous face or no one wanting to bother the clearly rich and important girl nap, no one approached Auroras group.
The formula for training attributes is 5*X*Y2 where X is the score you wish to achieve (1-10) and Y is the attribute current tier.
Now thanks to your initial pick training attributes for you is actually 4*X*Y2 XP.
This means that a normal person going form body 5 to body 6 would need 30 XP, you going form body 5 to body 6 (with your body being in the second tier) would require 96 XP (which is a 24 point reduction from the 120 XP it would require someone normal).
so we get a 20% discount, in addition to starting from tier 2.
nice.
it also means that going from our Body 5 to Body 10 would take... 96+112+128+144+160= 640 exp. Let's see how much we get in 3 APs worth of training now...
Artus is teaching you athleticism, which is a mind/body training skill so you roll 10 dice, Artus is also a really good teacher, in fact he's the best in the school with his grandmaster 3 teaching so your success threshold is 3 so every dice above this number is considered a success.
So, you end up with 10 dice S>3 but this isn't the end, you've got to consider situational modifiers.
In this case, teaching a large crowed imposes a +2 penalty for your success's threshold bringing it to S>5 but the penalty is reduced by half by the "crowd teacher" talent which lowers all penalties and difficulties in teaching a large number of students at once by half.
Further the "physical teacher" talent lowers the success threshold by 1 so long as you're teaching a body skill.
So, with both of those talents he brings the success threshold back down to S>3.
Your teachers do more than just give you their teaching skills, they have a few actions they could do to improve your learning speed.
In this case Artus is using "motivate" which is a heart+ fellowship challenge, he rolls and gets 57 successes, now when directed at a crowd "motivates" allows success number of students to add half their willpower to their dice pool for training the skill.
But the "crowd teacher" changes the number of students motivated to success*2, this means that 114 disciples out of the 167 attending are motivated.
But Artus has a fellowship talent called "overflowing positivity" which allow him to fully motivate a crowd so long as 2/3 of them are already motivated, so all of the disciple's attending are motivated and get to add half their will power to their dice pool.
assuming a master-tier skill in fellowship, it implies he rolled with diff 4, so he should have around 90 in Heart. Which implies Tier 5 attributes at least, and possibly tier 6 or 7.
For a total of 73S (the benefit of having a grandmaster teacher) 4/4 to novice 1 69s remain, 8/8 novice 2 61s remain, 12/12 to novice 3, 16/16, 20/20, 5/45 to adapt 1.
we get more than one roll per action. maybe it's 1.5 rolls per action rounded up? in that case there's an incentive to doing odd numbers of AP per turn in training...
aaaand we went from NOTHING to Adept 1. That's pretty impressive.
and... Adept 5 should cost us 18+27+36+45= 126 successes. So we should probably make it in another two weeks of training at this intensity.
Expert 1, ignoring extra requirements, would cost 100 successes all on its own, so we might reach it in the third week?
That said we don't know if the elder will still be available in the third week. Probably not, I assume he'll teach a different skill instead.
But this is the SKILL exp. what about the body exp?
At some point, elder Artus came around and slapped a talisman on her back that everything harder as he said that with her body she could push more without injury.
Aurora only realized that elder Artus was calling out for some of the disciples to stay behind because her name was one of the first out of his lips and it gave her an excuse to stay in the soft dirt.
By the time Aurora caught her breath only two dozen disciples stayed in the training ground, although a matching number of older disciples soon arrived.
All of them possessing some gray sheen in their skin.
At their arrival the steely voice of elder Artus spread throughout the training grounds "Here at the Iron Oath school we value dedication above all else be you a scion of the five great families or the poorest of the poor it is in hard work and consistency that you become greater then you were" taking a pause elder Artus took the time to lock eyes with all the disciples in the clearing -aside for Gallus and Octavia- "And for those willing to put the work in the sect is willing to expend much. I will now call your names, when I do so step forward and go with the disciple, I point out for you they will explain the rest"
[] Equitiqe 101- many cultures share the same basic rules regarding Equitiqe and so long as you stick to them you can be sure not to offend, lower the penalty for Equitiqe checks when interacting with different cultures additionally decrease the bound for major failure.
[] Customs of the sun- your home the empire of the sun is host to a diverse range of cultures and subcultures, each one boasting of centuries of traditions and customs and you have learned many of them, when rolling an equitique check against someone whose culturally form the empire of the sun roll with advantage (roll twice and keep the higher result)
[] Refind presence- through countless lessons the refinement of the high class has become second nature to you, it is in how you speak, in how you walk and in how you interact with others, when such a refined presence is advantageous, roll all heart challenges as if your heart was 1 higher conversely when such a refined presence is disadvantages roll all great challenges as if your heart was 1 lower unless you've succeeded in an acting/deception challenge (be advised that attempting such a check and failing may incur additional penalties/effects).
[] Shell of formality- formality is often a bland tedious processes meant to allow to parties to interact without hostility or fear, you have learned to use it to your advantage, you may roll an equitqe challenge to aid in other social challenges (things like intimidation, haggling concealing information and so on).
1) Lower penalty with different cultures. sounds basic. Probably not that important until we start travelling or talking with foreigners a lot
2) roll twice with people from our same empire. Sounds more important and useful in the short to medium term.
3) so effectively +2/-2 dice depending on context, with the value going up as we go up in tiers.
4) use etiquette to assist other social skills.
Personally I think the best one is the second one.
Aspa tilts her head slightly "is it not obvious? The school recognizes the burden of the oath you swore and rewards you for it"
'For her oath?' Aurora thought wondering why she was never told about this before swearing the oath either by her family or the school.
"For the dedication you have shown and the willingness to go above, you receive two rewards" Aspa begins "the first is the favor of the school, this isn't something that can be quantified but the elder and school administration will look upon you more favorably opening doors and giving you priority in your requests and purchases through the contribution hall"
"I am honored to have it" even with the realization that having the favor and attention of the elders probably meant more work for her Aurora couldn't not deny the benefits of it.
"The second is my services"
"Your services?" Aroura asks intrigued.
"Yes, for the next two months we will meet every day after you've done your exercises and I'll massage your muscles to both help prevent injury and stimulate muscle growth"
hey @uri , at this point you can tell us, would there have been something more if we took the heaviest oath possible? Not that I think it was ever really a possibility, especially not with miss "only 7 APs" Aurelia.
considering this favor... maybe we can ask for personal lessons when we're using the mind *5 bonus. We'll see how it goes.
"True but one of the benefits of being in the school favor is being allowed to go into the negatives for a time" Aspa said and then stopped in the middle of the road they walked down and added in a flat "needless to say, abusing this fact will lead to a revocation of your favored status".
Choose 1. (note: you would be able to change this later).
[] None- aurora will not buy any additional consumable and only receive the benefit that Aspa technique would provide, she would also not go into debt. (1.2 Xp modifier for body).
[] Refined olive oil (2 contributing points)- refined olive oil is oil made of spiritual olives and as such is cheep for the effect it provides. (1.5 XP modifier for body).
[] Spiritual herbs bath (10 contribution points)- far more expensive is paying for a relaxing bath of medical and spital herbs, of course the effect Is much greater as well (2.0 XP modifier for body)
Your efforts have borne fruit for spending 3 AP on training your body you receive 5 10 (training ground rate upgraded du to second tier of body) XP per AP for a total of 30 (before the modifier you get to choose above) bringing you to 30/96 to body 6, additionally you receive 6 XP toward will from your treasure, bringing you to 6/64 to will 4.
Additionally you may ask a question of your senior sister wich she will answer to the best of her ability.
10 exp per AP... assuming max bonus (*2), that means it would take us... calculated before, 640 exp, so 64 APs, which we can bring down to potentially 32. And we HAVE to train 12 APs per month, so that's... a bit less than 3 months to reach Body 10 at max effectiveness. Specifically 11 weeks.
ok, we can ask ONE question.
I'll write a few possible ones. Uri, if we already know the answer IC tell me and I'll remove the question from consideration
1)What's the best way to gain contribution points?
2)What should I prioritize in the first few weeks?
3)Any advice on what are the best things to spend Contribution Points on?
4)What's, in your opinion, the best advice you can give me?
5)Any advice on how to behave in regards to the specific elders who'll give lessons to us newcomers? Things to do or not do to stay in their favor?
Ah, so going all in on your Oaths gets you recognition, though I'm quite curious if they see the Maximum Oath as dedication or as folly?
Vote wise I'm leaning
[ ] Spiritual herbs bath (10 contribution points)- far more expensive is paying for a relaxing bath of medical and spital herbs, of course the effect Is much greater as well (2.0 XP modifier for body)
One, it's super in character to go for the relaxing pampering option and I'm inclined to indulge in that character trait, mostly because it's funny.
Two, Gains Are Worthwhile. Two weeks at this pace will get us to Body 6, solidly putting us ahead of everyone still in Tier 1 of Body and giving us more dice for more advancements. @uri does the increase in this XP also increase the Will XP we get? If it does then this is super worthwhile.
We're going to be getting our Sect Allowance and learn how the Contribution Center works this turn, so I'm willing to dip into debt for a turn and then find out if 10 points per week is a reasonable amount of upkeep to account for (1 action spent getting 10 CP to double the effectiveness of 3 or more actions seems very efficient all told, getting essentially a 50% boost in results (4ap effort results in 6ap rewards) while also getting whatever other benefits doing that specific task would provide), or if we should go for cheaper benefits next time.
Question wise, I'm leaning three ways.
"What do you think I should be doing?" or an equivalent "Please Advise Me Senpai" question is half taking the easy way out of putting the ball back in her court, especially if we're able to phrase it in a way that flatters her, but at the same time we just don't know what we don't know, so deferring to our elder student isn't wrong.
"How do I join the Inner Sect?" or a similar "How do I get my Maximum Grind On?" question would give us specific goals to pursue for a general "Rise Quickly So Our Dad Doesn't Take Our Pillow Away" ambition, and let us kick certain questions of "What do we want to do with our life?" down the road a while further.
"This is the best bath I've ever had in my life, how the hell do I join the medical pavilion?", or ya know a more polite way of asking that , would be setting ourselves on a very specific track way early, but at the same time it would position us to pursue specific qualifications and resources ASAP and also feed the narrative of "Kouhai Seeks Senpai's Guidance!" that we have going on here for some really nice benefits, especially since this is literally our Senpai's career path. Us being from a higher noble house would be a benefit to her and her house, in terms of "Why would she bother?", so there's a lot of potential give and take that can work out here, and getting in on the ground floor of our development in terms of Healing Techs would make our faction (because we're kinda required to make a faction regardless of what route we take because Noble Politics) have a nice edge to it compared to other not-even-branch-Sect-let-alone-outer-Sect-factions.
Plus it would give us a reliable Skill/Subskill to dump our Mental Boost Charges into, different Medical Specializations!
Probably a mix of both. It's dedication to the point of folly, but then again it's a commitment you can't go back from, so I imagine they have no reason to not take advantage of such foolish children at that point.
If they're going to spend... 2/3 of their time on training, you might as well make sure they train well. With so much time devoted to training I imagine they have incentives to make them the future warriors of the sect, in addition to suggest to them ways to bend the Oath to train a varied skillset when possible.
Two, Gains Are Worthwhile. Two weeks at this pace will get us to Body 6, solidly putting us ahead of everyone still in Tier 1 of Body and giving us more dice for more advancements. @uri does the increase in this XP also increase the Will XP we get? If it does then this is super worthwhile.
and as I said 11 weeks will max out our Body stat.
Though admittedly it's unlikely we'll do physical training for all 11 weeks. At some point we'll learn how to do mind training instead, and will do that too.
But yeah, if at all possible I'm in favour of using the multipliers. The question becomes this: is the double progress worth the APs it will take to gain the contribution points to pay for this?
We're effectively getting the first 20% for free, another 30% for 2 points, and the remaining 50% for 8 points.
So, are 1.5 APs of body exp worth 10 contribution points? We don't know, because we don't know how many points we can get for 1.5 APs worth of actions on average.
"What do you think I should be doing?" or an equivalent "Please Advise Me Senpai" question is half taking the easy way out of putting the ball back in her court, especially if we're able to phrase it in a way that flatters her, but at the same time we just don't know what we don't know, so deferring to our elder student isn't wrong.
"How do I join the Inner Sect?" or a similar "How do I get my Maximum Grind On?" question would give us specific goals to pursue for a general "Rise Quickly So Our Dad Doesn't Take Our Pillow Away" ambition, and let us kick certain questions of "What do we want to do with our life?" down the road a while further.
inner sect is mostly irrelevant I think. We already know the requirements for Branch and Outer, we might as well focus on those and worry about the Inner only once we're at least done with Branch goals.
[X] Customs of the sun- your home the empire of the sun is host to a diverse range of cultures and subcultures, each one boasting of centuries of traditions and customs and you have learned many of them, when rolling an equitique check against someone whose culturally form the empire of the sun roll with advantage (roll twice and keep the higher result) [X] Spiritual herbs bath (10 contribution points)- far more expensive is paying for a relaxing bath of medical and spital herbs, of course the effect Is much greater as well (2.0 XP modifier for body)
[X] Any advice on how to behave in regards to the specific elders who'll give lessons to us newcomers? Things to do or not do to stay in their favor?
[X] Shell of formality- formality is often a bland tedious processes meant to allow to parties to interact without hostility or fear, you have learned to use it to your advantage, you may roll an equitqe challenge to aid in other social challenges (things like intimidation, haggling concealing information and so on). [X] Refined olive oil (2 contributing points)- refined olive oil is oil made of spiritual olives and as such is cheep for the effect it provides. (1.5 XP modifier for body).
, would be setting ourselves on a very specific track way early, but at the same time it would position us to pursue specific qualifications and resources ASAP and also feed the narrative of "Kouhai Seeks Senpai's Guidance!" that we have going on here for some really nice benefits, especially since this is literally our Senpai's career path. Us being from a higher noble house would be a benefit to her and her house, in terms of "Why would she bother?", so there's a lot of potential give and take that can work out here, and getting in on the ground floor of our development in terms of Healing Techs would make our faction (because we're kinda required to make a faction regardless of what route we take because Noble Politics) have a nice edge to it compared to other not-even-branch-Sect-let-alone-outer-Sect-factions.