Yes, but that is 100% universal, so I didn't bother bringing it up. Guess I just assumed everyone here knows basics of tabletop.
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.
Oh wow, just had this revelation.
One of the reasons we want to learn Nehekharan is to see if there's anything we can pillage from it to boost Lingua Praestantia (we shall create the ultimate language!). That's perfectly reasonable for a WEBMAT action.
We don't even need to go looking at waystones or whatever to get our WEBMAT wizards to learn it and see if they do anything with it.
One of the reasons we want to learn Nehekharan is to see if there's anything we can pillage from it to boost Lingua Praestantia (we shall create the ultimate language!). That's perfectly reasonable for a WEBMAT action.
We don't even need to go looking at waystones or whatever to get our WEBMAT wizards to learn it and see if they do anything with it.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
I think if there was any benefit to doing that it'd have already happened.
High Nehekharan isn't like Anoqeuyan or the hypothetical Arcane Khazalid- any wizard can learn it at the University of Altdorf, and some almost certainly already have.
- Location
- Europe
[x] [BEHAVIOUR] Bodyguard
[x] [NUMBER] Trio
[x] [NUMBER] Trio
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I see that Charge is catching up to Bodyguard, so: I think that Charge would make for a really good attack spell, and I can see the appeal. But I prefer Bodyguard because Mathilde frequently ends up in situations where enemies get too close to her for her to keep casting spells, and she instead has to rely on her sword. With Bodyguard, she can prep the spell beforehand and have it activate in those close fights. Hopefully alleviating the most common situation where Mathilde is in mortal danger. While with Charge, Mathilde would still need room and time to cast the spell, so she often wouldn't be able to cast it in time to help protect herself.
- Location
- Finland
I think it's more than sword is our main source of damage so we keep getting into melee range.
Having better ranged spells would mean we are not constantly jumping to stab enemies.
Adding more spells that help at short range make us more able to survive our current tactics, but does little to actually fix the reason why we keep getting into melee.
Having better ranged spells would mean we are not constantly jumping to stab enemies.
Adding more spells that help at short range make us more able to survive our current tactics, but does little to actually fix the reason why we keep getting into melee.
- Location
- North Wales
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I think for efficiency's sake (which is WEBMAT's main virtue), you'd go
[] Learn a skill (High Nehekharan—Written, with Egrimm)
[] Learn a skill (High Nehekharan—Spoken, with Johann)
[] Waystones: Explore the Nehekharan network (with Egrimm and Johann)
Max gets time off.
Provided we roll well, that gets Mathilde herself both halves of the language and a free Waystones action in 2AP. Each member picks up the more useful half of the language for them personally. Johann's benefits from written Nehekharan for example are limited by what he can read with his magnetoreceptive windsight, and I have no idea whether he'd get enough fidelity out of whatever inks they use on their papyrus.
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I'd vote for this honestly. Seems like a good time.
King Arthur
The Once and Future King
My thinking is mostly that .... I think that any problem that could be solved by a knight charging without us, could be solved by us without the knight. So we either want an action saver "handle this while I handle that so two things can be handled instead of one", or an emergency "whenever any situation goes wrong for me a magic knight pops up from my soul and helps me out, explicitly making every single situation safer for me in perptuity as long as the danger is from other people trying to kill me."
That's what I see as the difference between the usefulness of charge and bodyguard with one rider only, speaking only about the use for Mattie and not the use for other people.
Now I personally prefer bodyguard there, especially because I still fully plan to make that Fog Kill Battle magic spell so we can cast it for our ranged target's constantly, which greatly devalues the "range" part of charge, but I'll admit that concept of "tackle two things at once instead of just one thing" is still cool.
......
Seriously though, can we please start Fog Kill next turn? I just want to develop this ranged damage battle magic spell so we can kill the million debates about it. Also real useful, and real cool, and it fills a hole in our arsenal that'd be nice to fill ..... but it'd be great to just have a damage battle magic so we can chill on that conversation just a little bit.
That's what I see as the difference between the usefulness of charge and bodyguard with one rider only, speaking only about the use for Mattie and not the use for other people.
Now I personally prefer bodyguard there, especially because I still fully plan to make that Fog Kill Battle magic spell so we can cast it for our ranged target's constantly, which greatly devalues the "range" part of charge, but I'll admit that concept of "tackle two things at once instead of just one thing" is still cool.
......
Seriously though, can we please start Fog Kill next turn? I just want to develop this ranged damage battle magic spell so we can kill the million debates about it. Also real useful, and real cool, and it fills a hole in our arsenal that'd be nice to fill ..... but it'd be great to just have a damage battle magic so we can chill on that conversation just a little bit.
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Strangely enough it was that exact line of thought that made me realize that we could make use of it as a research project in the first place.
Looking at all the posts that were talking about how useful High Nehekharan could be as a source of magical language made me think about how some other wizard would have surely grabbed some a low-hanging fruit by now and anything that wasn't completely incompatible would have already been integrated.
We could then just straight up turn all these ideas about learning languages into a WEBMAT project. Even if some of those low-hanging fruit have been plucked there might still be something there and regardless bringing it up would be a good start for leaning into learning other languages like Anoqeuyan.
Essentially if we want to try and reconstruct the old one's language or boost Lingua Praestantia or anything else in the same vein it makes sense to WEBMAT it. The only thing related to the project we can't WEBMAT is Arcane Khazalid.
It *is* a super strong knight that is utterly invulnerable to nonmagical weapons. So it can presumably kill arbitrary amounts of beastmen or orcs or whatever until they round up a shaman or a champion with a magic sword to fight it. Which is rather killer for morale. Though I suppose with her level of Aethyric Armor and the tireless mastery she could *also* kill arbitrary numbers of enemies. But most wizards aren't Mathilde, and if it ends up being FC instead of battle magic, I'd love for them to have the option to just unleash an unstoppable juggernaut on the Enemies of Man at will. Plus, for Mathilde personally, she can just let it go and then go back to countering enemy casters and casting Miasma at enemy units or something. Or even that Deathfog spell you're advocating for.
- Location
- North Wales
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
My only concern, as I've not looked at the numbers, is if we have enough College Favour spare to pay for 4 classes (2 for us, 1 for each employee) and still have enough for the powerstones necessary to make the orbs. My gut says we'd be cutting it close, as we're unlikely to get any from this turn's paper what with handing over most of the credit to Egrimm and it being a Faded and esoteric topic to begin with.
I guess it can always wait for after the orb drop, when we'd hopefully have at least made back our initial investment of favour on the powerstones.
I believe it's only 1 favour for a class, so we'd have like, 3 left over after buying all our power stones and buying 4 classes. If it's 2 for a class, well, getting even 1 favour from the paper would give us just enough. Ah, wait, Hochlander. Hm.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I guess that could work? It does seem reasonable to bring both of them, since going to Nehekhara sounds like an adventure to me. But while Mathilde can learn a full language in 2 AP because of her Polygot trait, it's going to take more effort for Egrimm and Johann. I wouldn't have them learn the language, go on the explore action, and also participate in another action all on the same turn. If we want, say, Egrimm to help with the Waystone Prototype action on the same turn we learn the language, we might want to delay the explore action to the following turn.
We're currently sat on 42 favour. It costs 5 for each powerstone, and we already have the Ulgu one, so we need 35 for AV. We also need to spend 1 point for the Hochlander. That leaves us with 6 favour to play around with, maybe more if the windfall paper does well.
King Arthur
The Once and Future King
I'm actually still in favor of learning High Nehekharan, at the very least because there's at least one city in Nehekara with human's living in it and I'd love to go there undercover to try and learn things, plus it opens up potential diplomacy stuff, but I just feel like, I don't know, sometimes there's a value in seeing a opposing argument, if only because sometimes it helps you see a strength that's not seen at a surface glance?
Plus, maybe I'm missing something, and I always appreciate further clarity.
......
Anyway,
If it's available to learn as a language .... couldn't we just make a copy of every thing we want read and hire a Dwarf sworn to secrecy to translate it for us, assuming there's still a few that can read the language?
If I remember right, reading about the stuff we want to read doesn't even break any actual rules right, it just looks suspicious enough that no wizard would believe we aren't breaking the rules.
Like, Dwarves really trust us. I don't think they'd go "looking for weaknesses in necromancers, I don't believe you, you must be corrupted, off with you're head", or, like snitch on us to the wizard cops if we call "Wizard Lord secrets" cause Dawi take that seriously.
Is there anything stopping us from just hiring a Dawi to translate the writings for us and have them swear to secrecy? It wouldn't help us with the "figure out the old one language thing" of course, but something to think about.
Though, of course "how many actions would this actually save us, will it actually save us any time" is a potentially valid response to this though process because, like, finding this Dwarf might very well take AP, see how long the weaver things been going. Though, we might be able to sneak translator into our library actions, and just throw it into the super restricted section?
If people primarily want this for diplomacy and figuring out the old one language, this idea does nothing for you, but if you just want to read Nehekharan this might be something to think about.
Unless I'm wrong and we can't get a Dawi to translate this for us of course, I could be misreading things, or maybe I missed a post.
Yep, still totally useful for regular wizards. Charge is great for the random magister, I prefer bodyguard because I think even if a wizard tries to play it safe and focus on distance stuff, like, find a way to attack the wizard and artillery is some pretty basic tactics, and most enemies of humanity don't do a ton of ranged stuff so they'd probably do it via charge or stealth stuff mid fight. Plus it applies to non big battle scenarios, like "gonna sneak around, if I mess up and am discovered, bodyguard can give me the chance to run away".
Still, charge is undeniably useful in situations where Bodyguard isn't for people other then Mattie, so I can't say one is better then the other. Also, if someone were to argue that that Charge will keep more wizards alive then Bodyguard, my primary concern for non-Mattie wizards, due to tipping the scales more heavily in big battles so the battles are less likely to get to the point where a single "Rider" is needed to try and keep the wizard alive ..... that's a valid argument and I'm not entirely sure you'd be wrong in saying that.
So, yeah, totally valid.
Yep, like I said, the power of doing things at once is pretty fantastic.
I prefer Bodyguard, because I prefer it as an emergency "something has gone wrong" safety switch, and I think if we are just charging into battle it'd be like having permanent back up the whole battle which is rad, as I assume it'd stay active the entire time we are fighting .... but "do this while I do that" is super valuable, even if it potentially means we'd have to take the time to cast the spell more often after it ends thing with it's target or we have something else that desperately needs charging.
Again, valuable, I can't say Charge is bad, I just think Bodyguard is stronger at least for Mattie.
Plus, maybe I'm missing something, and I always appreciate further clarity.
......
Anyway,
If it's available to learn as a language .... couldn't we just make a copy of every thing we want read and hire a Dwarf sworn to secrecy to translate it for us, assuming there's still a few that can read the language?
If I remember right, reading about the stuff we want to read doesn't even break any actual rules right, it just looks suspicious enough that no wizard would believe we aren't breaking the rules.
Like, Dwarves really trust us. I don't think they'd go "looking for weaknesses in necromancers, I don't believe you, you must be corrupted, off with you're head", or, like snitch on us to the wizard cops if we call "Wizard Lord secrets" cause Dawi take that seriously.
Is there anything stopping us from just hiring a Dawi to translate the writings for us and have them swear to secrecy? It wouldn't help us with the "figure out the old one language thing" of course, but something to think about.
Though, of course "how many actions would this actually save us, will it actually save us any time" is a potentially valid response to this though process because, like, finding this Dwarf might very well take AP, see how long the weaver things been going. Though, we might be able to sneak translator into our library actions, and just throw it into the super restricted section?
If people primarily want this for diplomacy and figuring out the old one language, this idea does nothing for you, but if you just want to read Nehekharan this might be something to think about.
Unless I'm wrong and we can't get a Dawi to translate this for us of course, I could be misreading things, or maybe I missed a post.
Yep, still totally useful for regular wizards. Charge is great for the random magister, I prefer bodyguard because I think even if a wizard tries to play it safe and focus on distance stuff, like, find a way to attack the wizard and artillery is some pretty basic tactics, and most enemies of humanity don't do a ton of ranged stuff so they'd probably do it via charge or stealth stuff mid fight. Plus it applies to non big battle scenarios, like "gonna sneak around, if I mess up and am discovered, bodyguard can give me the chance to run away".
Still, charge is undeniably useful in situations where Bodyguard isn't for people other then Mattie, so I can't say one is better then the other. Also, if someone were to argue that that Charge will keep more wizards alive then Bodyguard, my primary concern for non-Mattie wizards, due to tipping the scales more heavily in big battles so the battles are less likely to get to the point where a single "Rider" is needed to try and keep the wizard alive ..... that's a valid argument and I'm not entirely sure you'd be wrong in saying that.
So, yeah, totally valid.
Yep, like I said, the power of doing things at once is pretty fantastic.
I prefer Bodyguard, because I prefer it as an emergency "something has gone wrong" safety switch, and I think if we are just charging into battle it'd be like having permanent back up the whole battle which is rad, as I assume it'd stay active the entire time we are fighting .... but "do this while I do that" is super valuable, even if it potentially means we'd have to take the time to cast the spell more often after it ends thing with it's target or we have something else that desperately needs charging.
Again, valuable, I can't say Charge is bad, I just think Bodyguard is stronger at least for Mattie.
- Location
- Earth
Boney confirmed that we can study them without knowing High Nehekharan:
Regarding language classes, are we sure that we can split it between spoken and written like that, and also, why wouldn't we put both Johann and Egrimm on both parts?
- Location
- North Wales
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I am, to be honest, extremely skeptical that we're going to get the Foundations action done in one turn with no followup. I think the best realistic case for this turns action will be that it lets us figure out exactly how the existing Waystones pull off their trick using Dhar propulsion such that it could be replicated.
And then we'll get the option of sticking with that solution (bearing in mind we currently only have dispensation to study the Dhar usage, not to replicate it), or pick from a range of followups looking for an alternative. And I'd rather go for an alternative that isn't illegal to do within the Empire.
We've been told we can study the written language separately from the spoken, and that it would potentially (and only potentially) be doable in one action for us where both would certainly not be. We've not been told if the inverse holds and spoken is equally likely to be done in 1AP, but it does make some sense.
As for putting both Johann and Egrimm on both parts - they don't have the polyglot trait and would need significantly more time than us to learn the entire language. Giving each of them half halves their AP commitment, which is important if we want them to be doing anything else on the same turn (like going on the trip). There's also then the question of why they both need to learn both halves rather than one learning and the other not.
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Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
There's also a second sentence to that.
Sure, we can attempt it.
Doesn't mean it's not going to be harder than if we knew the language.
And Boney also confirmed that trying to do so would mean being subject to all the obvious unpleasantness of trying to study something using dictionaries without knowing the language. When that something is personal research notes and prophesies, that sounds like a rather bad idea.
Also, as mentioned previously, Johann is blind. So... I dunno how well his windsight does with picking up ink.
- Location
- Earth
Sure, I'm not advocating that we do it, just noting that the option exists, since the context of @King Arthur's question was doing it without knowing the language ourselves, and that would've been another way to do it.
Inks aren't an issue for him, but it might be trickier on the actual Waystones.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Though Nehekharan scrolls wouldn't exactly be using standard Old World inks- google says the ancient Egyptians mainly used soot and ocher.
- Location
- Hiding in the walls.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Most of the stuff we want to study is high-tier illegal artifacts, including one that might arguably be considered near the Liber Mortis in terms of restriction, since it's the notes of one of the authors on a related subject. Personally, even given our relations with the Dawi, I consider that a concerning degree of risk.
Even if we set that aside, however, we're faced with a notable problem: The odds of finding a Dawi scribe who knows High Nehekaran seem exceedingly low. The odds of finding a Dawi scribe who is intimately familiar with Zhufokri nonsense seem even lower. The odds of finding one who's competent to translate what is effectively the preliminary phases of an advanced technical paper on Zhufokri nonsense written in High Nehekaran centuries ago by someone whose original cultural context was even further removed from the present seem so miniscule that if we do manage to we should probably assume they're actually a daemon trying to tempt us and shoot them.
And these are Dawi, not humans (and that was important to the premise), so even if we were okay with getting what would quite possibly be a literally dangerously flawed translation, this isn't a problem we can solve by simply offering them exorbitant rewards until they agree to do it anyway. If they don't think they can do the job to the proper standard, they will not do the job.
Even if we set that aside, however, we're faced with a notable problem: The odds of finding a Dawi scribe who knows High Nehekaran seem exceedingly low. The odds of finding a Dawi scribe who is intimately familiar with Zhufokri nonsense seem even lower. The odds of finding one who's competent to translate what is effectively the preliminary phases of an advanced technical paper on Zhufokri nonsense written in High Nehekaran centuries ago by someone whose original cultural context was even further removed from the present seem so miniscule that if we do manage to we should probably assume they're actually a daemon trying to tempt us and shoot them.
And these are Dawi, not humans (and that was important to the premise), so even if we were okay with getting what would quite possibly be a literally dangerously flawed translation, this isn't a problem we can solve by simply offering them exorbitant rewards until they agree to do it anyway. If they don't think they can do the job to the proper standard, they will not do the job.