pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
Once we finish masterswordswomanship, we shall go on holy quest to find Zharrvegryn.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Think people thought that as a learning focused character we will be fighting at sword range less and less.
But instead we have discovered why the loremasters of Houth consider 'sword really good' as a basic standard.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
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If we specialised in Battle Magic we wouldn't need to jump into melee (as often anyway), but the thread is hesitant to dive into that field because of risk of death from failed Battle Magic, so instead we jump into melee range which is just as risky except this time the risk is from the enemy rather than the magic killing us.
I don't mind either method, but if the thread is willing to have Mathilde risk her life fighting Drycha, I see no reason for us to hesitate diving into the deep end of Battle Magic. Clearly, we're more than up for taking risks.
Gap
Not a Dog
- Location
- The Malleary
On the battle magic, I know there are ready spells to learn and I wouldn't mind learning Pendulum for thematic reasons, but I really want to use the staff to its fullest so I rather "waste" more actions on creating mist based spells. That and apparitions but one step at a time.
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
I am a proponent of Penumbral Pendulum and Pit of Shades learning, but i want to stress that i view the dangers here differently.
Dying in battle vs miscasting is a strange beast, where dying ends the narrative, which si terrible, but getting a bad arcane mark is somehow even worse because there are some that will probably impact our relationships in very bad ways, which somehow feels even worse than the quest ending. I don't want there to be a posibility of reading about the friendships we made being eroded and lost because we acquired AM that erases us from other people's memory.
Its still a risk i am willing to take, especially for mad deetz like those two spells but i still somehow view it as worse result than actual death.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
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I can't speak for others, but the reason I voted for Leader isn't because I think we can take Drycha. Imo, we can't, and it's a bad idea to try. I still voted for it because I think we have less chances of dying if we try to attack her first than by taking the risk of her teleporting behind us while we're busy. I choose between what I saw as a bad option and a worse one.
So basically I'm still opposed to learning battle magic.
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Codex
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I think people exaggerate the Arcane Mark argument. It would undoubtedly be a bad thing, but they're not insurmountable obstacles that would make reading the quest a wholly worse affair.
There is one effect that makes people think you're a trickster. That would put a hamper on forming new relationships, but existing ones would know what's happening and compensate. The really bad one is Forgettable, but I think people forget how it works. It doesn't make people forget you. It makes people forget your face and struggle to recall it. You can still recognise people if they're wearing distinctive clothing, like Mathilde for example. We've already seen Forgettable in the Nordlander, and we can still recall her, we just don't know what she looks like. It would suck, but even Panoramia didn't decide to date Mathilde because of her beauty, although it certainly didn't hurt.
The best way I can describe it is Perry the Platypus. Doofenschmirtz doesn't recognise him without the hat, but with the hat he does recognise him. That's basically Forgettable. Forgettable can also be bypassed by a successful intelligence test btw.
Boney might alter the way it works based on dice rolls though, so what I'm saying might not be entirely relevant, but while I'm not going to advocate for gaining more Arcane Marks or anything like that, I don't honestly think that getting those Arcane Marks would make the quest a worse experience, even if they make things more difficult.
You know mechanically it was a -5 fellowship in the RPG.
Bad, but not game ending (Boney even commented that it wasn't a game ender at some point.
Codex
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Boney works with the narrative effects more than the mechanical ones. The narrative helps inform the mechanics, but forgettable is more signifcant than a -5 Fellowship when you're considering a story rather than an RPG. Different groups would have different ways of handling it, but I think it would be a genuinely bad experience if barely anyone can recall what you look like.
It's not like using battle magic somehow removes the danger of getting into fights, it just (arguably) decreases it in exchange for adding additional kinds of danger. A bad miscast can make a battle harder by causing daemons to manifest, or by injuring Mathilde on top of anything the enemy does. Battle magic can be dangerous even if it works well: critting with our sword is great, critting while casting battle magic could permanently disfigure our soul.
The main advantage battle magic has over stabbing people is its scale: Penumbral Pendulum and Pit of Shades are things that can destroy large enemy units, while the sword is a more personal weapon. But if what we're worried about is Mathilde getting into duels or going on assassination missions, I'm not at all sure that battle magic is superior to improving our sword fighting.
The main advantage battle magic has over stabbing people is its scale: Penumbral Pendulum and Pit of Shades are things that can destroy large enemy units, while the sword is a more personal weapon. But if what we're worried about is Mathilde getting into duels or going on assassination missions, I'm not at all sure that battle magic is superior to improving our sword fighting.
- Location
- Czech Republic
There is also
[ ] Attempt to gain control of one of your Arcane Marks (specify which)
[ ] Attempt to gain control of one of your Arcane Marks (specify which)
What I meant was that it's surmountable if we are unlucky to get it.
But the think is: we don't just get arcane marks from learning spells.
we got a lot of the ones we did from them because we spammed them for a few turns in a row.
You can get them from creating battle magic
you get them from enchanting.
You get them from miscasting.
You get them from critical 100ing sometimes.
You can get them from just casting in high magic places.
We can't do our job and not risk arcane marks.
It's like a lion tamer being fine with the normal lions but thinking that the white lions are more likely to bite off their arm, and the black lions as less likely to bite off their arm.
All the lions want to bite off your arm dude, your just used to the normal lions.
Learning battle magic is no more likely to create Arcanr marks the. Every other thing we will be doing magical as a wizard leading an magical experiment.
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deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
He does have the Cabal, but whether that's comprised of members of the College he corrupted or already-corrupted people he recruited into his own pseudo-College depends on source, as ReImagined and Codex said.
Also, now I can't get the image of Egrimm saying "I'm with the Kabal" like the Hearthstone card out of my head.
- Location
- Utrecht
Mathilde as a learning focused character can focus on more Esoteric magic.
If she needs to fight, cannon sword to the face solves most problems.
But having a wmd in your pocket is always handy.
If she needs to fight, cannon sword to the face solves most problems.
But having a wmd in your pocket is always handy.
- Location
- Outside the Box
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- She/Her
Not all risks are equal. Even if the danger were to be exactly the same, Mathilde losing her life in battle in an attempt to defend others is extremely different from her dying in an attempt to check off Battle Magic #7 from the standardized list. One of these is a story I'd far rather read than the other, much as I'd rather neither happen at all.
Moreover, the former is a risk we can and continue to reduce through skills, equipment, and allies. The latter? After we got the Staff of Mistery, we moved to have Mathilde learn Melkoth's Miasma ASAP, and we've got a list of potential future mist-based BM we could develop more spells from in the future. I have no doubt that the second Mathilde finds or gains something else that makes learning more BMs from the list safer, we'll have her do so immediately. But until then, it's hardly worth doing compared to the absolute backlog of other useful and powerful things she could do instead. (And mist spells are an entire degree more powerful in Mathilde's hands than other spells anyways.)
That all said, I disagree with the idea that learning more BM would reduce Mathilde's inclanations towards swordswomanship. There are many mages who can rain down fire and destruction from afar, but assassinating enemy leaders and other super-combatants is something Mathilde is uniquely suited for. Between her unique sword and her arsenal of Mastered spells, she's far better at doing so than most, if not all, of her fellow Grey Lord Magisters. Heck, if there'd be one BM that would suit her best, rather than the Pit of Shades or The Penumbral Pendulum I'd say it would be a spell to teleport an entire army unit for a surprise attack. Too bad it's a Storm of Magic exclusive spell, IIRC. (Ah, sorry I couldn't find or recall its name.)
While we won't be able to teleport an army, if we bind enough red riders with the Gehenna's golden hounds trick, we'll be able to drop a unit of heavy cav behind enemy lines whenever we feel like it. Thats why I feel like that battle magic is more suited to mathilde than the rest.
though given the seed, our skill level with magic and the ability to control our arcane marks, I don't think we truly have much to fear from battle magic.
While I'm pro 'finish the spell book', I need to point out that the seed can't fix 'blown up'.
That entirely depends on how blown up we are. It also won't fix portal to the warp, but that's only if we fuck up both the casting and the grounding rolls.
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
The sole miscast Mathilde has seen blow people up set fire to an entire town district, and reduced the caster to ash. The district kept burning for several days and IIRC, still sometimes catches fire on sunny days. The Seed can't fix that kind of blown up, I suspect.
I didn't know it still caught fire, that's hilarious.
Ulgu seems far less likely to make massive walls of burning flame than Hysh or Aqshy.
but yes the danger is there.
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
Ulgu would probably tear a hole in reality instead, yeah. Or make everyone forget the entire district exists the second they step out of it.