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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

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naths said:
my TRU vs SCS comparison focused mostly on the perfects of the tech.

in fact, the part where TRU says that the user can power through injuries is even more an argument to say that LQ would get injured with option 2.

The thing is that the guy should be using a high-damage skill for this attack. Our best and usual response to attacks is to dodge them, because LQ has a much better p.Avoid than p.Armor stat.


Option 2 goes for tanking the hit, so the relevant stat should be LQ's armor and then her health. With B5 base armor, we shouldnt be able to fully block the attack even with TRU, so the remaining damage wouldbe 'blocked' by our health stat. Which translates to taking an injury

Also i think you are overselling TRU: even a +1 stage boost would get our armor only to A5. And remember that the Penetration stat exists for attackers. If he is any good at that then he doesnt need SS damage to hurt us
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You misunderstand, TRU doesn't raise our armor, it weakens their attack. So an A-Rank attack converts to a B-rank one before it applies to Penetration for instance.

The attack would need to be SS rank to one-shot Ling Qi and force the TRU Perfect to activate.

As I said, I would rather risk taking a wound to eliminate a very dangerous character than assume he'll present us another opening that's better for us.
 
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Alectai said:
You misunderstand, TRU doesn't raise our armor, it weakens their attack. So an A-Rank attack converts to a B-rank one before it applies to Penetration for instance.

He would need to be SS rank to one-shot Ling Qi and force the TRU Perfect to activate.

As I said, I would rather risk taking a wound to eliminate a very dangerous character than assume he'll present us another opening that's better for us.
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I would note here that TRU doesn't have numbers. It "lessens the effect of greater wounds". We don't know exactly what the math is.
 
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Neither option excludes the other later on, right? So I guess the question is whether to put Ling Qi in a safer position or deal the damage when she can.

Reorienting is more appealing to me atm since Ling Qi can deal AoE damage and I'd imagine that would be effective against (presumably) squishy assassin who probably would prefer to avoid an extended fight. It would also allow Ling Qi to hold onto TRU in case the situation gets worse.

Then again, countering, even if it doesn't finish the assassin, could put the assassin in a position where their mobility or stealth is reduced, allowing allies to help fight the assassin.
 
That is not how it works though.

``` the user gains some measure of their primeval resilience,ignoring minor wounds entirely, and lessening the effect of greater ones ``` isnt an 'attack reduction' it is a 'damage reduction'.

We have 3 interactions:

Hit vs Avoid [to determine if we are hit at all]
Armor vs Penetration [to determine if the attack does damage]
Damage vs Health [to determine how much damage it does]

damage reduction applies on the 3rd interaction. And I think TRU will reduce the damage. From lethal damage down to an injury. I am not sure how big said injury would be, but it should be noticable.
 
jacobk said:
We know this guy can style all over everybody's perception arts. We don't know that he can OHKO a geared up Ling Qi. Note that even CRX takes a while to put Ling Qi down. Sure, he could possibly beat us in an extended fight, but that's what friends are for.
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Actually, I don't think we know this. We know that his stealth beats greens who aren't expecting assassins out of nowhere. This is an excellent use of stealth mind you: Why make things harder on yourself?

I also have qualms about taking this guy's best hit on the principle of "well we won't immediately die". Assuming plot armor it might have a better chance of taking this guy out (assuming the enemy doesn't just force Ling Qi to flee round two), but I'm not sure it makes sense in universe. Also, if HC doesn't kill him, it's not like it'll be harder for him to run away when Ling Qi doesn't have her perception techs up.
 
BlackWink said:
This is definitely the least amount of warning we'd get. It attacked right when we were distracted by the immediate threat for a reason after all.

Ofc it could be both the least and most but I find that unlikely considering we haven't used our perception arts yet.
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If he vanishes right back into stealth then we will be dumped into the middle of a boss fight. We won't have Xiulan staring right at us throughout the fight. AFAICT, Xiulan's attention is the only reason we have any warning at all. If we go for the shadowport option, I'd half expect that we don't notice the next strike until it connects.

The other problem with the avoid + AOE plan is that it could lead to a lot of dead allies.
 
Ling Qi is a teamplayer, and to neutralize the threat here she's going to take a hit for the team.

On an other note: would a heavy wounded Ling Qi be reason enough to have Zhengui upgrade his heal skill?
 
I'm liking the dodge and reorient thing. I'm pretty sure that's reusable whereas tank and counter isn't. But tank and counter at least guarantees a chance for a hit, whereas we might not if we dodge and reorient. Hmmm...
 
Khepri14 said:
I'm liking the dodge and reorient thing. I'm pretty sure that's reusable whereas tank and counter isn't. But tank and counter at least guarantees a chance for a hit, whereas we might not if we dodge and reorient. Hmmm...
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It's not that reusable, Ling Qi's energy reserves are at about 50%. Roughly enough for 2, maybe 3 more shadowports presuming she does nothing else. And it doesn't actually stop the ninja from trying again when the situation is more favorable.

It costs 20% of our max reserve--roughly--to use either of these techniques, but only one then gives us a chance to remove a threat from the board.

It's a resource game, Ling Qi has taken largely superficial damage but has spent about half of her Qi reserves. Paying out Health to get a chance to remove a threat from the board seems to be a better option than saving our Health but leaving an extremely dangerous threat-in-being on the board.
 
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[X] Defend and Counter

Unless Ling Qi has some REALLY good dispels of her own that can let her get through this guy's stealth, every hit he lands on us is going to be a crit like this one. Smash him and trip him up so Xiulan can get in a hit too.

EDIT: Moratorium should be over, chapter was posted at 6:53 and it's 9 now.

EDIT x2: Ling Qi can steal qi from things, right? What was the art that let her do that? Is it wise to do that to the bugs around here?
 
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So in terms of the vote, TRU seems to be about making a sacrifice play to try and take out the assassin, while SCS evades this ambush attack leaves him the choice of escape or fight (against 2 aware peer opponents).

As I see it, killing the assassin would be nice but it's not necessary; tracking down things like him is precisely what higher level kill-squads composed of people like Liao Zhu are for.

Whereas risking (and likely taking) major wounds and an unknown potency poison in this very much not-over-yet shitstorm carries the immediate short-term risk of taking us out of the fight, and might even result in some long-term harm that affects our training. Even if we potentially get insights from getting injured, the cost could be significant.

So overall:
  • TRU:
    • Take the hit, risking a major wound and unknown effectiveness poison.
    • Tag assassin with HR, vastly increasing odds of a subsequent kill.
      • Assassin tagged with HR, just need to sing CtE to disrupt any cloaking and try to land a killing blow.
      • May still have an exit strategy good enough to get away.
    • LQ probably not much help for any subsequent fighting for the rest of the event.
  • SCS:
    • Likely completely negate the surprise attack.
    • Frontal confrontation between half-tank LQ+Xiualn vs assassin.
    • Assassin may choose to run instead. Leaves a problem for later (for us or the sect), may cause more chaos before sect forces arrive proper.
    • Combat tactics stuff;
      • Our perception of B20 likely hits A+ with techs up, and we may burn the 1/month +30 perception boost to reach high A.
      • We boost Xiulan's perception by a full rank up to ours as a Domain Effect.
      • With the penalty for the assassin after getting seen, it would be exceedingly hard for the assassin to pull off another sneak attack.
      • If the assassin disengages, we will likely wade into the mist to help Zhengui with the centipede; if the assassin tries attacking us or Xiulan then, he'll be in the mist. A mist we can instantly detonate as a high damage spirit nuke.

If we knew reinforcements were imminent TRU would've been more tempting, but as-is trading damage for damage seems like too much risk. Better to clear the board and engage a frontal fight which is definitely not as planned for the assassin, and if he runs then he runs and we or someone else will deal with him at a later date.

(leaving aside that the first instinct we should cultivate is to move, not tank)

EDIT: vote
[X] Move and Reorient
 
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[X] Defend and Counter
[Activate Thousand Rings Unbreaking, and immediately counter with Aria and Hoarfrost Refrain, while Sixiang disrupts the enemies techniques. Use the enemies proximity against them to land a decisive wound.]

Heres the thing.

This state of affairs represents an utterly phenomenal change of pace if the fighting is widespread, and the Not!Skaven are fielding a fourth realm kaiju on top of everything else. As the assassin in question has gotten past every other detection system fielded in the villages thus far there is only one thing to do:

Kill it, quickly. Then take its corpse to Elder Jiao to examine for intel and for Li Suyin to autopsy.

The sooner it dies, the sooner it can be secured, and Elder Jiao would be most pleased to have an opportunity for him and Xin to stretch their secret-stealing muscles after god knows how long.

Moreover, everyone present is already exhausted. A drawn out battle favors neither Ling Qi nor Xiulan. Its outright safer to finish this quickly and decisively, moreover, TRU confers a type advantage by means of survivability.

Leta exploit that ruthlessly.
 
I'm voting on narrative grounds, under the assumption that this isn't a trap vote and there are reasonable trade-offs here.

[X] Defend and Counter
 
Alectai said:
It's not that reusable, Ling Qi's energy reserves are at about 50%. Roughly enough for 2, maybe 3 more shadowports presuming she does nothing else. And it doesn't actually stop the ninja from trying again when the situation is more favorable.

It costs 20% of our max reserve--roughly--to use either of these techniques, but only one then gives us a chance to remove a threat from the board.
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Assuming Ling Qi's boosted perception isn't enough to find the assassin. And assuming the assassin is effectively taken out by one round of attacks, like exactly none of Ling Qi's peers ever are. Like I said, it's not like it'll be harder for the fucker to run if Ling Qi doesn't put her perception techs up.

[X] Move and Reorient
 
jacobk said:
If he vanishes right back into stealth then we will be dumped into the middle of a boss fight. We won't have Xiulan staring right at us throughout the fight. AFAICT, Xiulan's attention is the only reason we have any warning at all. If we go for the shadowport option, I'd half expect that we don't notice the next strike until it connects.

The other problem with the avoid + AOE plan is that it could lead to a lot of dead allies.
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For your first assumption it's also possible that It will immediately flee now that it's assasination failed. It's not confirmed that it will go into boss fight mode.


Remember that Sixiang noticed the same time as Xiulan.
yrsillar said:
Xiulan's shout drew her attention, even as Sixiang let out a wordless cry of alarm in her head
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Besides this is when everyone is completely unprepared with no forewarning. Giving only 50% that we notice an attack before we are dead is extremely low.

Alectai said:
Paying out Health to get a chance to remove a threat from the board seems to be a better option than saving our Health but leaving an extremely dangerous threat-in-being on the board.
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That seems like picking the first available trade to remove a piece vs reorienting to look for better trade.
 
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