Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
That's a weird way to spell "best thing".
Time of the Gods: Into the Amber Age
- Thread starter Powerofmind
- Start date
- Original
Quest
The Great One
- Location
- Everywhere
Dere is love, dere is life
THERE ARE three magics. None of them are important. The first magic is the Word. The second is the Form. The third... well, who can say? Spirits and gods, children of men. Stamping, dancing; painting, laughing. Rituals and blood. They stir the waters of the world, and those waters wash through and along them.
There's a metaphor: An ocean. The world is an ocean, and the currents and tides stir with magic and substance. Great beings flood through the benthic graves of civilizations, and their passing fills the sea with motion.
Spirits and gods, children of men.
The world is an ocean of blood.
It is transitory. It fills the earth beneath like dew. Tectonic motions shape crimson streams through aeons. Towering mountains, immutable, unbreakable - ten billion tons of liquid mass crash against them and break every moment, billowing and flowing away.
And in this slow churn of the world, the mechanisms of Fate administer.
Three nines. The numbers grind together, form a pleasing symmetry. Six nines. Three factorial by the number of miracles. They rotate into perfect stillness, an near-impossibility scooped out in the cavity between them.
Nine nines. Three squared by three squared, the number of stories raised to the power of the world. So nearly impossible, they ought never to be... They lock together, blossom; the cavity swells and devours particles of Fate. It unfolds into a nine-dimensional maw, time and space falling down, down, down...
And those great stones underlying the ocean of the world snap open. The blood stirs. The rituals pound. Fate beckons, and there is only one thing for the Ocean to do.
There's a metaphor: An ocean. The world is an ocean, and the currents and tides stir with magic and substance. Great beings flood through the benthic graves of civilizations, and their passing fills the sea with motion.
Spirits and gods, children of men.
The world is an ocean of blood.
It is transitory. It fills the earth beneath like dew. Tectonic motions shape crimson streams through aeons. Towering mountains, immutable, unbreakable - ten billion tons of liquid mass crash against them and break every moment, billowing and flowing away.
And in this slow churn of the world, the mechanisms of Fate administer.
Three nines. The numbers grind together, form a pleasing symmetry. Six nines. Three factorial by the number of miracles. They rotate into perfect stillness, an near-impossibility scooped out in the cavity between them.
Nine nines. Three squared by three squared, the number of stories raised to the power of the world. So nearly impossible, they ought never to be... They lock together, blossom; the cavity swells and devours particles of Fate. It unfolds into a nine-dimensional maw, time and space falling down, down, down...
And those great stones underlying the ocean of the world snap open. The blood stirs. The rituals pound. Fate beckons, and there is only one thing for the Ocean to do.
Abby Normal
High Clerk of the Ymaryn
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Benthic, huh...
*dictonary app* Benthic: Of or relating to a benthos or benthon
...well that's useful
*Dictionary app* Benthon: The aggregate of organsisms that live on or in the benthos
...Seriously???
(Incidentally, for anyone else unfamiliar with the term, a benthos is "The biogreoraphic region that includes the bottom of a lake, sea, or ocean, and the littoral and supralittoral zones of the shore")
(Good omake btw
)
Abby Normal
High Clerk of the Ymaryn
- Pronouns
- He/Him
PoM said if we did it would be like a vision quest/single cracky update or the like--so if there are any consequences on the main quest it would presumably be like "your visions taught you more about how destructive you can be, unlock and discount Minor Spirit of Destruction"
StellarMonarch
Myrmidon
- Location
- Québec
I come back and the thread isn't on fire for once.
Das gut.
Das gut.
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
Of course, Gaerig is currently surrounded by water.
@Powerofmind - if you are reworking things for balance anyway, I actually have one other change to recommend: amending the way Moonbeam works. Right now, we need a Major Success to proc the trait, which means that on a DC 40 check, we need to have 80+ after bonuses. Astrology 10 gives us a 2*10 = 20 point weak bonus, so we only need 60+ before accounting for that. A rolled 12 counts as a 64, so that would suffice. After adding our strong bonus of +1, that means we only need to roll 11 to proc. And that is today; it is only going to get worse from there as we pick up more bonuses.
I like the idea of moonbeam, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be "every other time you do an astrology action, roll for Legend". At this point we can flat out buy Legend with DE, which I'm pretty sure isn't what you wanted to support.
I'm not sure what the best way to append this would be, though. Patching it so that it procs off of the roll pre-modifier is a simple and effective fix, but it still leaves the "we can pay DE for legend" issue. Yes, I realize that this was the case even when we had bought the trait, but I'm starting to think that wasn't a good idea; I didn't think of how seriously it could be exploited.
Other possible patched versions of the trait include:
I like the idea of moonbeam, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be "every other time you do an astrology action, roll for Legend". At this point we can flat out buy Legend with DE, which I'm pretty sure isn't what you wanted to support.
I'm not sure what the best way to append this would be, though. Patching it so that it procs off of the roll pre-modifier is a simple and effective fix, but it still leaves the "we can pay DE for legend" issue. Yes, I realize that this was the case even when we had bought the trait, but I'm starting to think that wasn't a good idea; I didn't think of how seriously it could be exploited.
Other possible patched versions of the trait include:
- On an Astrology Action Major Success or higher, the DE we paid for the proccing action is refunded at the end of the turn.
- On an Astrology Action natural roll of 15+, we condense a free Ambrosia (not cap breaking)
- On an Astrology Action natural roll of 15+, we get 1 point of accumulating discounts that can be spent on Moon traits.
- Legend we get from Moon-related actions is doubled.
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Abby Normal
High Clerk of the Ymaryn
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I mean, it was a pretty major quest, the reward should be pretty awesome...if he does anything i'd say PoM should reduce the legend gain slightly (iirc its currently the flat number of successes, which means average of 2+ legend), and/or raise the proc limit to 100 (Should drop the current chances from 56% to 29%), just tweak it slightly. That or make it a more powerful legend bonus that procs on moon affinity actions (weirds?) maybe? I think its fine as is, however. Astrology actions are useful, but they don't give DE, they take sustenance, the cheapest one loses some of its natural usefulness if done too often in a turn (1 or 2 study stars = very useful, we should always do so. 4 study stars in a turn...probably not telling us much more, honestly), etc--as is its a 56% chance (65% once we get shrine tier 4 which should be the only boost we get for a while and even that relies on us rolling shrine 4) of a legend roll that gives ~2 or 3 legend on average when it procs. A couple legend a turn just means we don't run out immediately, and unless we glut or start spamming out Ur-children (neither of which aare all that sustainable between sustenance and the high 40 vehemence cost ), that's not going to give us too much of an advantage.
Pandemonious Ivy
Panties, Revolution. Big Drawers. Parachute.
Nope nope nope.
The Legend gain from this option was the main reason people voted for it. Because we have no non destructive way to gain Legend reliably.
That was what sold me and many others, along with the thought that it'd make Moon easier to obtain (we got it the next turn).
So fix balance issues all you like, but don't alter the actual core behind something.
That's because you're in our minds and hearts now, so you were never really gone.
<3
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- Location
- Hell
That very turn actually. Talk about having your cake and eating it.
Were the alternate rewards I suggested not also awesome?
Anyway, yes, it is right for us to get something nifty out of the quest - but there is a difference between nifty and gamebreaking. And sadly, some things that appear nifty at first glance are also potentially gamebreaking if you put it in the context of what we could do to boost it.
We got the bonus at the start of turn 8, which means we've had six turns to see the results, from turns 8 through 13. Assuming I didn't make a mistake somewhere, over these six turns, we've had seven moonbeams accounting for 18 legend. Note that we weren't picking astrology actions to get the extra legend (or I wasn't, at least), so this is basically 3 legend a turn that we get at functionally no cost. Or 2 legend a turn, if you exclude the outlier that is turn 13 (we were seriously lucky there, with two moonlights accounting for +8 legend).
Honestly, this is not a balanced reward for the quest, given what the other options looked like. More importantly, it is unhealthy for the quest, since it means we are more-or-less never going to have a true lack of Legend.
I did the math above; it procs on an 11, which is half the roll table even before you start thinking about crits. I don't think your calc here is right. (Or it could be me that is wrong, I suppose; double check?)
It means that we never have to struggle for Legend. I think that is a problem.
Abby Normal
High Clerk of the Ymaryn
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Like i said, i could see a slight increase in successes needed or decrease in legend gained, but i think the overall idea is good.
As for the math: you have a 55% chance of rolling an 11 or higher. a double 10 with +1 Strong, +20 weak, +crit is 55 + 20 + 20 = 95, which is enough. A double 8, the next highest crit, is 36 + 20 + 20 = 76, which is not high enough. That means theres 56% chance overall.
You are right; I had misunderstood what you said last time (I thought you meant 56% was the failure chance, not the success chance).
Anyway, this does mean it procs more than half of the time. At 2 legend per proc, that means that we get ~1 legend per astrology action.
I'm not sure what to say to that? I've outlined my reasoning; I don't see how I can respond to "but i think the overall idea is good" when it is presented without any counterarguments.
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
I like the idea of basing it on Natural Rolls rather than modified. Makes it a bit more "special" when it happens, or at least rarer.
- Location
- A thousand blind windows
No, but we are Lost in Time and Space.
Quest
The Great One
- Location
- Everywhere
We aren't lost. We know exactly what we're doing.
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
We are adventuring, like our dear husband.
Quest
The Great One
- Location
- Everywhere
We are breaking the Space-Time Continuum in our Quest for Discovery. This isn't adventuring, this is SCIENCE!!!
Note the all-caps.
I'm pretty sure that encountering Harzivan meeting Gaerig can only end in Science!!!
Specifically Harvest Moon and Black Sun being used as part of a ritual to turn the 'Obsidian Wall of Fear' that the Obsidian God is using as an avatar into the 'Bone Wall of ever Exploding Terror'. The Obsidian God, rather obliterated by discordant metaphysical effects of having an suddenly incompatible avatar, ends up sacrificed and ends up fuel Harzivan's ascension... Specifically as the basis for a new afterlife.
Thus Harzivan's afterlife ends up on the top of a crazy well defended mountain with a giant wall of flaming bone fortificationsl constantly radiating a Terror aura ... a wall that is semi-constantly exploding outward as the angry confusion it broadcasts reaches peaks. It is also constantly regenerating and a dozen randomly colored suns that radiate their own flavors of Awesomeness. Firestorms, sandstorms, glass storms, windstorms, and gold storms dance through the sky. All in all the place is made of Amazing. Each sun shines down on a different themed land.
You can also make suggestions for how to make things even more Awesome... only the suggestions have to be made as Awesome sculptures. Those haaaaave to be dragged up Mountain Scary Awesome and dragged through the shining City of Awesome just to be presented. If it is indeed Awesome enough it gets dragged off to the Sculpture garden of Awesome and so it shall be.
People think this is all to prove yourself worthy... but really its just because Harzivan is too lazy to see people he doesn't really care about... so its all to get enough time to do his own Awesome projects, like that series of giant, metal, living sculptures of his animal aspects that all combine into one even more Awesome, even more giant living metal sculpture thing, or that entire land which replaces the water cycle with the booze cycle.
---
Gaerig meanwhile learns that explosions are the key of truly Awesome things... like when the Icy Disk of Doom got hit by Harvest Moon and the ritual of sealing went comically wrong in her favor. Now she needs to vasty increase her influence so she can find more people and spirits in need of exploding.
Specifically Harvest Moon and Black Sun being used as part of a ritual to turn the 'Obsidian Wall of Fear' that the Obsidian God is using as an avatar into the 'Bone Wall of ever Exploding Terror'. The Obsidian God, rather obliterated by discordant metaphysical effects of having an suddenly incompatible avatar, ends up sacrificed and ends up fuel Harzivan's ascension... Specifically as the basis for a new afterlife.
Thus Harzivan's afterlife ends up on the top of a crazy well defended mountain with a giant wall of flaming bone fortificationsl constantly radiating a Terror aura ... a wall that is semi-constantly exploding outward as the angry confusion it broadcasts reaches peaks. It is also constantly regenerating and a dozen randomly colored suns that radiate their own flavors of Awesomeness. Firestorms, sandstorms, glass storms, windstorms, and gold storms dance through the sky. All in all the place is made of Amazing. Each sun shines down on a different themed land.
You can also make suggestions for how to make things even more Awesome... only the suggestions have to be made as Awesome sculptures. Those haaaaave to be dragged up Mountain Scary Awesome and dragged through the shining City of Awesome just to be presented. If it is indeed Awesome enough it gets dragged off to the Sculpture garden of Awesome and so it shall be.
People think this is all to prove yourself worthy... but really its just because Harzivan is too lazy to see people he doesn't really care about... so its all to get enough time to do his own Awesome projects, like that series of giant, metal, living sculptures of his animal aspects that all combine into one even more Awesome, even more giant living metal sculpture thing, or that entire land which replaces the water cycle with the booze cycle.
---
Gaerig meanwhile learns that explosions are the key of truly Awesome things... like when the Icy Disk of Doom got hit by Harvest Moon and the ritual of sealing went comically wrong in her favor. Now she needs to vasty increase her influence so she can find more people and spirits in need of exploding.
Dream Logic
An offseason swallow
- Location
- In transit
It just occurred to me, we're not alt-SV's river mother. We're the shadow spider...
Bit late for estimates, so have actuals instead. No idea if this helps or not, but whatever. Bored, truck's late again.
DE RoI, turn 13.
DE expended on DE generating actions:
Blessing for Growth: 24
Direct Fish: 12
Calm Seas: 8
Guide: 6
Lure: 6
Total: 56 DE spent.
Harvest Moon not included: done before, done peacefully. Astrology not included.
Income:
Blessings: 26
Vehemence: 6 * 5.6 = 34
Rites: 10
Total: 70
PB not included.
RoI: Income/Expended = 70 / 56 = 1.25
Vehemence:
Calm Seas: 7, 12 - minor failure, moderate success; est. 1-2 Vehemence.
Direct Fish: 15, 11 - major success, minor success; 2-3 Vehemence
Guide: 16 - major success; 0-1 Vehemence
Lure: 7 - minor failure; 1 Vehemence
Estimating Harvest Moon at 0 VE actual and 0 VE potential, due to the way it was used this turn.
Thank you Capricious One for the extra 2 Vehemence from failed rolls. At least that looks like what happened...
DE RoI, turn 13.
DE expended on DE generating actions:
Blessing for Growth: 24
Direct Fish: 12
Calm Seas: 8
Guide: 6
Lure: 6
Total: 56 DE spent.
Harvest Moon not included: done before, done peacefully. Astrology not included.
Income:
Blessings: 26
Vehemence: 6 * 5.6 = 34
Rites: 10
Total: 70
PB not included.
RoI: Income/Expended = 70 / 56 = 1.25
Vehemence:
Calm Seas: 7, 12 - minor failure, moderate success; est. 1-2 Vehemence.
Direct Fish: 15, 11 - major success, minor success; 2-3 Vehemence
Guide: 16 - major success; 0-1 Vehemence
Lure: 7 - minor failure; 1 Vehemence
Estimating Harvest Moon at 0 VE actual and 0 VE potential, due to the way it was used this turn.
Thank you Capricious One for the extra 2 Vehemence from failed rolls. At least that looks like what happened...
Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
Okay, awake now, post now. Lock with pretty shiny lights.
There is a species of spider that lives underwater. We could pull it off.