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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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Guile said:
I don't think we can just assume we can trade in our journeymanlings for newer, better models, no.
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I'm not talking about trade in. I am talking about going to colleges and outright inviting some new ones to work for us in our capacity as wizard of k8p.
 
It occurs to me that Windsage is going to give our Shadowmancer preternatural capabilities when it comes to perception.

One could even call her... a Grey Seer.
 
As for magical duelist, the reason I prefer it over windreader is that, as I ranted about in the sword debate, our vulnerabilities magic and exceptional melee, and we can avoid melee. The last worth-it way to kill us in mass combat is magic and with duelist that can be not worth it too.
 
Guile said:
By the way, it looks like Plan 2 Wizards (Pan+Max) is still up by around 13-14 over Fields of Gold (Johan+Max).

Anybody got reasoning for the 2 Wizards plan?
Is it just because Pan's cuter?
What would we have her do that's more important than the Eastern Valley growing plan?
Buying her rarer plants to try from Barak Varr? Infinite black lotus? Shrine maiden, using Ferment to bolster our tavern?
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Speaking for myself: I would not want Johan as a subordinate. He has his own agenda, has on multiple times demonstrated willingness to conceal that agenda from his fellow wizard, and may in fact be senior to us. This is a disaster waiting to happen; we would basically immediately need to commit to using our personal actions to investigate him, because we can't trust him to play straight with us. Pan is much easier to wrangle, she can still help out the farmers, and she looks up to us.

(Metaphorically. Unless we're, like, on a stepladder. And count the hat.)

On both a character and a practical level, I feel like Pan as a choice blows Johan out of the water. He's still going to be around poking his nose into all sorts of things, sure, and that might result in problems that we'd have to solve, same as if he were our subordinate, but the difference will be that we didn't put him on Belegar's payroll.
 
[X] Plan Fields of Gold

I'm legally obligated to surround Mathilde with guys, and while I admittedly like Panoramia, its true that she's going to stick around anyway and we can visit her if we want.

I'll probably edit winter wolf in here later.
 
One messy tally, coming up.

Windsage -> Avatar -> Magical Duelist are top 3 for traits, with about 20 votes between each.
Taking an active role in EIC is verwhelmingly favored.

Donating to Undumgi enjoys a 23 vote lead.
Two wizards are 6 votes ahead of Fields of Gold.

All in all, the only really contested topic seems to be the journeymanling question

@TotallyNotEvil , enjoy
Adhoc vote count started by Kornet on Oct 4, 2019 at 1:08 AM, finished with 532 posts and 166 votes.
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picklepikkl said:
Speaking for myself: I would not want Johan as a subordinate. He has his own agenda, has on multiple times demonstrated willingness to conceal that agenda from his fellow wizard, and may in fact be senior to us. This is a disaster waiting to happen; we would basically immediately need to commit to using our personal actions to investigate him, because we can't trust him to play straight with us. Pan is much easier to wrangle, she can still help out the farmers, and she looks up to us.
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This is exactly why I want to recruit Johann. We'l need to investigate him anyway, and he'll be more controllable if he's our subordinate.

EDIT: I do like Pan much better though. I just really want Johann where Mathilde can see him.
 
[X] Plan 2 wizards
[X] Leave the EIC alone
[X] Magical Duellist: Anyone unwise enough to try to cast spells you don't want them to will quickly regret it. +2 Learning, +10 bonus to dispelling and inducing miscasts.
[X] Bureaucrat + Practical: Scholarship is just a specific form of paperwork. You can live with it. Combines the two traits, +2 Learning, remove penalty to writing papers yourself.
[X] Donate it to whoever ends up leading the Undumgi.

About Avatar it would be hilarious if Sigmar possess Matilda, ended up as a chosen one to be worshiped by humans, same if its one of the dwarfs ancestor gods. Still it would be quite interesting to see what kind of results if Shallya or The Lady act through her while I doubt we switch worship but acting as the gods wills would be interesting times.
 
TotallyNotEvil said:
Can someone on a PC make sense of the tally? No way of managing this unholy thing on my laggy iPad.
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EIC: Barring a massive twist, we'll be taking a hand in it.
Wizard Plan: Plan 2 wizards has a 6 vote lead on Plan Fields of Gold. Both plans have Maximilian, while the former has Panoramia and the latter has Johann.
Torc of Fire: Barring a massive twist, the Undumgi leader's getting a new shiny.
Traits: Top three are currently Windreader to Windsage at 101 votes, Avatar at 82 votes, and Magical Duelist at 61 votes.
 
I'm banging my head on the desk about the number of plans that are the same with different names, as well as the votes that just ignored the rules, but it would probably be poor form to tag everyone and tell them to fix their shit.

tryingtobewitty said:
This is exactly why I want to recruit Johann. We'l need to investigate him anyway, and he'll be more controllable if he's our subordinate.
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I agree that we will need to keep an eye on him anyway, but "a subordinate you are pretty sure you can't trust" isn't a subordinate, they're an external agent. If we're gonna be paying someone to work for us, let it be someone we are at least reasonably sure wouldn't throw us under the bus for their own goals.

Johann is probably not our enemy. He might even be our ally! I am just extremely skeptical that he can be our employee.
 
So lets talk about the trait "Avatar" and why I think it's a pile of steaming trash. First here is the text of the trait.

[ ] Avatar: You're growing worryingly familiar with being used as a conduit by deities. ???
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First things first. We don't know what it does. So already this trait is on the back foot because we can't plan future actions around this trait. All the other traits allow us to create plans to best use them. This trait just sits there until BoneyM decides he wants to create a scene. It does nothing further Mathilde's goals. It is completely passive in it's existence, relying entirely on author fiat to even trigger. Good traits trigger often and help you do the things you want to do. Or they allow you to do new things you wanted to do but couldn't. This trait does neither.

But! I hear many cry out in anger. Being an avatar is so cool! Is it? Is it cool? Was it cool when Mathilde lost her sense of self. Did Mathilde have fun when she cried over how Gork was betraying her? Being an Avatar is a quick a dirty way to power. Sure you get power but you also loose your sense of self. You loose your goals, dreams and desires. All to become a expression of power for something that likely does not even care about you. You become a puppet on strings and with a puppet master who likely will not care about the damage he does to the puppet. Becoming an Avatar is a sacrifice. It is the last resort to preserve a fading dream. Is Mathilde in such dire straits that we think she needs to give up her free will to survive another sunrise? I really don't think so.

Then there is the phrasing of the trait itself. All the other traits are framed with a neutral or positive tone. This is the only trait framed in a negative tone. Mathilde does not think this is positive. She is worried about having this trait. People don't worry over good things. People worry over things they think is a problem. Why would we inflict this trait, something that Mathilde would worry about, onto Mathilde? Do we really want to see Mathilde fret over the next deity to take a shot at being her puppet master?

wrecksalot said:
I am voting for Avatar because I really like the imageof Mathilde and Ranald being back to back badasses, as well as the Order Sorcery possibilities.
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Do you have a quote to support your idea of Ranald wanting an Avatar? A god creating an Avatar is a massive breech of free will. The god directly intervenes in a situation and acts according to his will, not always to the will of the possessed. This feels like a huge shift from Ranald's MO. He is painted as a god that values free will. As a god that acts in the shadows and tips the scales slightly. Enough to tip the scales but not enough not remove the need for skill from whomever he is helping. Ranald is the very last god I would ever expect to create an Avatar. So I expect Ranald would be the last god to violate our free will and force us to do something.


Reliable_2IC said:
It was mentioned that the avatar trait would aid in resisting possession, and that alone would be worth a trait.
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Really? I will be honest with you. That resistance feature is nearly worthless. If it acts only as BoneyM has described then it only helps against Chaos God possession. That is like an epic late game crisis event. We should be making decisions to avoid such events. If the resistance spreads to all possession attempts, as is sensible yet not stated, then it becomes even worse. We get a trait that makes us at risk for possession. Then the trait gives us a bonus to resisting possession? Ehhh... What a terrible trait. It's even fighting itself. Its a trait that makes bad decision making worse, by making possession more likely, then encourages bad decision making, by allowing us to better fight possessions.
 
For those who are saying that getting all 4 wizards is an amazing idea I would point out that the two actions that takes plus the EIC one which seems locked in by now would leave us with only 3 personal actions left out of 6 not counting overwork. This combined with as an advisor we're expected to put 2-4 actions doing what our boss tells us basically leaves us with no free time to do personal stuff since I really doubt we can justify just sending minions to do our actual job to do other things when we were hired to be the Magical Troubleshooter due to our personal skills.
 
[X] Plan 2 wizards

[X] Magical Duellist: Anyone unwise enough to try to cast spells you don't want them to will quickly regret it. +2 Learning, +10 bonus to dispelling and inducing miscasts.
[X] Windreader > Windsage: Your magical senses see more than your normal ones. +2 Learning, even more able to see and understand emotion and magical effects in others.

[X] Leave the EIC alone
 
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picklepikkl said:
I agree that we will need to keep an eye on him anyway, but "a subordinate you are pretty sure you can't trust" isn't a subordinate, they're an external agent. If we're gonna be paying someone to work for us, let it be someone we are at least reasonably sure wouldn't throw us under the bus for their own goals.

Johann is probably not our enemy. He might even be our ally! I am just extremely skeptical that he can be our employee.
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Hm. My line of thought started with "anything he does is coming back on us anyway, because from the dwarven perspective we're all part of the same group (i.e. Imperial Wizards)" and my desire to recruit him came from that. You're right though in that Belegar wouldn't see it that way. I'll think on this.
 
Why would the Avatar trait help us with theurgy research? We would want a deep connection to one deity, which we have with Ranald, not experience trying to survive a bunch a deities shoving us full of incompatible energies.
 
Neshuakadal said:
[X] Recruit Panoramia
[X] Recruit Maximilian

[X] Magical Duellist: Anyone unwise enough to try to cast spells you don't want them to will quickly regret it. +2 Learning, +10 bonus to dispelling and inducing miscasts.
[X] Windreader > Windsage: Your magical senses see more than your normal ones. +2 Learning, even more able to see and understand emotion and magical effects in others.

[X] Leave the EIC alone
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Wizards are by plan vote if you want both of them, unless you just want singles.
 
[X] Plan 2 wizards
-[x] Recruit Panoramia
-[x] Recruit Maximilian

[X] Disdain for Sigmar > Polytheist: Your bitterness towards Sigmar has softened with time and distance. You're still not thrilled with him, but as long as his followers are coexisting with those of other Gods, you can deal with it. +1 Piety, removes anti-Sigmarite penalty except when dealing with Sigmarite supremacists and monotheists.
 
[X] Plan Fields of Gold

[X] Magical Duellist: Anyone unwise enough to try to cast spells you don't want them to will quickly regret it. +2 Learning, +10 bonus to dispelling and inducing miscasts.
[X] Windreader > Windsage: Your magical senses see more than your normal ones. +2 Learning, even more able to see and understand emotion and magical effects in others.

[X] Leave the EIC alone

Avatar seems like a horrible idea.
 
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DragonParadox said:
Because odds are we are going to fumble the first experiences, avatar looks like it could soften the blow.
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So you want to get a trait to help with one maybe two rolls? If that is the case we could just do more prep work and get the same result. Having a great relationship with Ranald seems like the best bet to eventually succeed with such research and we have that. If you are afraid of the first few attempts than preparing a proper grounding room seems like it would accomplish the same thing without getting a very questionable trait.
 
veekie said:
As BoneyM pointed out just before the update:
-Mathilde knows the people involved in running it.
-She has a significant share of it.
-She has destroyed an organization just like it as a Journeyman.

Its our problem to deal with. If it goes bad its our responsibility.

[ ] Take an active hand in the EIC
-Costs an action per turn
-College Favor gain for Economic Benefit to the Empire
-If used to spread agents, potential College Favor gain for actions taken and information gathered through it.
-Potential Dwarf Favor for accelerating the rebuilding of Eight Peaks, or Belegar personal approval if not.

[ ] Leave the EIC alone
-Costs nothing.
-If it goes bad then its on our ass.
-None of the gains though.

[ ] Interfere with the EIC
-Costs several actions
-Likely break the EIC up into smaller, less dangerous and less efficient organizations.
-Against the Grey Order's ideals in spirit. They don't smite the potential to cause harm. They aren't 40k Smite First Ask Questions For What inquisitors. Its currently a Benefit to the Empire.




[ ] Return it with your thanks to the Bright College. +2 College Favour.

College Favor is nice, but we're hardly short of it with the paper returns.

[ ] Try to sell it as you pass through Barak Varr. +??gc

...the heck would we want more gold for?

[ ] Donate it to whoever ends up leading the Undumgi.

They'd probably find it very useful if they're to replicate their feat. Adventurers probably don't tend to have a lot of leadership experience, so a little doping in their favor helps them last until they actually have experience leading.

[ ] Donate it to the Winter Wolves of Ulrikadrin.

They...worship a god of winter, distrust magical assistance, and are a high morale group of Knights. They don't need it.

[ ] Keep it around in case you ever want to study non-Ulgu enchantments.

Well its probably worth another paper or two. God knows when we'd ever get around to it though.

[ ] Keep it anyway - you might need to encourage allies at some point.

This seems unlikely.



Mathilde has been excellent priest material for a while now. Heh.

And now for the traits. Hoo boy, so many lovely traits.
To help organize it I'd sort by rarity, then utility.



New Trait:
[ ] Infiltrator: Nobody seems to guard anything well enough to keep you out. +2 Intrigue, +10 bonus to infiltration.
-Rarity: Common. We're a Grey Wizard. Any major arc is likely to have a significant infiltration element.
-Utility: Modest. It lets us do a thing we're already good at doing, with spells supporting it.
Would take this as Head Ranger, not otherwise.

[ ] Scout: Sometimes the best weapon is knowing where everything is. +2 Intrigue, +20 to infiltrating all but the highest-security areas.
-Rarity: Common. We're a Grey Wizard. Any major arc is likely to have a significant infiltration element.
-Utility: Modest. It lets us do a thing we're already good at doing, with spells supporting it. Its more powerful for getting a view of the area than Infiltrator, but less powerful for sabotage and assassinations. So better for Greenskins( who don't tend to HAVE high security zones) than Skaven.
Would take this as Head Ranger, not otherwise.

[ ] Assassin: Combat is easiest when the other person doesn't realize they're in it. +2 Intrigue, +40 bonus against unaware targets.
-Rarity: Uncommon. We don't actually go out intending to assassinate. It just happens. We'd probably see it again, but not without either some luck or unusual risks.
-Utility: When we take a shot at a target of opportunity...they tend to die. +40 would put us into 60% crit chance, which would likely kill anyone not literally impossible to kill in one hit with our weapon.
Would take this as Head Ranger, not otherwise.

[ ] Avatar: You're growing worryingly familiar with being used as a conduit by deities. ???
-Rarity: Functionally unique. We aren't going to be able to deliberately trigger gaining this. Speak now or forever hold your peace.
-Utility: BoneyM had explained the gist of the ???. Namely, Mathilde actually can try to do something rather than be a helpless sockpuppet when possessed by divine power. This can be helping the God along, deliberately using the right time and place to offer the God a connection, pushing them, or plugging the pipe they stuck in you to Ranald. Opens up the Theurgy path, a stronger divine connection means you could ask Ranald to help with experiments, and we established he's chill and likely to play along as long as we maintain the proper courtesies.
Take it! Take it!!

[ ] Polyglot: Your time with the Dwarves has revealed that you have an ear for languages, and learn new languages much faster.
-Rarity: Rare(we got it by learning Khazalid through osmosis), but can be deliberately triggered by learning another language.
-Utility: I don't think theres that many languages that while we're in the Eight Peaks area, it'd prove useful.
If we were Head Ranger I might consider using Polyglot with Infiltrator to learn Skaven/Goblin languages if they had a distinct one to get intel.
If we were Steward I might consider using Polyglot down the road to engage in Ind diplomacy.
As it is, low priority.

[ ] Marksman: Blackpowder is a wonderful thing. +2 Martial, +10 to attacks with blackpowder weapons.
-Rarity: Common. We use a gun as our main sidearm.
-Utility: Well, shooting better. Guns are neat, we're living with the premium manufacturers of OP guns, so that might be nice. Its not urgent or anything though.
Low priority. Distant maybe as Head Ranger but I reckon the dwarfs have lots of good gunners to learn from if we wanted that.

[ ] Collegiate: They say managing Wizards is like herding cats. Herding cats isn't actually that difficult. Can manage three other wizards per action spent.
-Rarity: Rare(but Common for Court Wizard position). As long as we spend a lot of time wrangling wizards this will keep showing up.
-Utility: Very narrow utility for now, but if we wanted to attract more wizards to the Eight Peaks area we'd need this trait and its upgrade if we wanted to be able to do anything other than wrangle them.

[ ] Magical Duellist: Anyone unwise enough to try to cast spells you don't want them to will quickly regret it. +2 Learning, +10 bonus to dispelling and inducing miscasts.
-Rarity: Rare->Uncommon. Hard to set it up on purpose...but on battlefields our main role is basically dispelling anyway, and we got a nice big bonus to dispelling greenskin magic so getting this to show up again won't be hard.
-Utility: Being able to sabotage enemy battle magic never hurts, but we don't actually get involved in THAT much magic duels.

Changed Traits:
[ ] Wolf Familiar > Winter Wolf Familiar: Turns out Wolf is a late bloomer. Wolf will grow large enough to ride upon.
-Rarity: Uncommon. I THINK the trigger is just feeding Wolf lots.
-Utility: Given the horrible backlash of getting a familiar killed and Wolf simply not even a quarter as durable as we are with the Belt and Seed, AND Shadow Steed being a better mount in all circumstances...I'm not sure theres any beyond getting more of best pupper and Ulrican respect.

[ ] Brave > Daredevil: Runic protection, magical protection, magical healing... why are people scared of combat again? +2 Martial, immune to fear/terror effects.
-Rarity: Uncommon. Think we need to face and beat terror effects or just demonstrate courage/risktaking to develop this.
-Utility: Never faced a significant terror effect to date. Don't think the local enemy types are big on it either.


[ ] Blooded > Campaigner: You've seen more than your share of battles. +2 Martial, +10 bonus to fighting alongside others.
-Rarity: Uncommon. Could get it from more wars?
-Utility: Consistently useful, but it doesn't stand out a lot. The bonus is very easy to trigger any time we're not infiltrating though.

[ ] Bureaucrat + Practical > Warrior of Paperwork: Scholarship is just a specific form of paperwork. You can live with it. Combines the two traits, +2 Learning, remove penalty to writing papers yourself.
-Rarity: Unless we stop writing papers, this will keep showing up.
-Utility: For now we have Maxmillian as Designated Writing Minion. For now its not useful.

[ ] Practical > Collaborator: Though you still prefer fieldwork to paperwork, you've found that as long as someone else is doing the actual writing, you're capable of producing some amazing papers. +2 Learning, +20 bonus to dictating papers.
-Rarity: As long as we keep writing papers collaboratively we'd see this again.
-Utility: Assuming we retain a write minion we get REALLY good at consistently churning out good papers. Or we could spend some favor on artifacts to help write better.

[ ] Practical > Hands On: Wait, you can just get other people to do the paperwork? Why didn't I think of this sooner? +1 Diplomacy, +1 Stewardship, +1 Martial, +1 Intrigue, -1 Learning, +10 bonus to insights developed 'in the field' (as opposed to careful laboratory study).
-Rarity: Rare. We'd need to get good paper material out in the field again, and its hard to get good observations while fighting for your life.
-Utility: It helps with getting it to happen consistently AND grants a crazy good broad stat bonus. Does merry hell on the proper scientific process though.

[ ] Windreader > Windsage: Your magical senses see more than your normal ones. +2 Learning, even more able to see and understand emotion and magical effects in others.
-Rarity: Rare. We'd need to get some experience using our Windreader intensively, with other wizards to contrast how THEY see their winds, in a high energy environment.
-Utility: Windreader has consistently been very useful in fluff, despite limited mechanical benefits. Being able to see and understand emotions should also help Mathilde with diplomacy a bit, on top of getting better data off studying magic.
Normally it'd be pretty high up, but with us being Court Wizard? UP, almost all the way.

[ ] Disdain for Sigmar > Polytheist: Your bitterness towards Sigmar has softened with time and distance. You're still not thrilled with him, but as long as his followers are coexisting with those of other Gods, you can deal with it. +1 Piety, removes anti-Sigmarite penalty except when dealing with Sigmarite supremacists and monotheists.
-Rarity: Uncommon. Its not like Sigmarites are raging assholes. Out on the frontier they're actually useful, and their hate directed at greenskins helps with a lot of woes. We'd see this again probably in a number of guises.
-Utility: We've barely ever encountered the drawback, since we're leading an organization of non-humans, and Wizards. Sigmar is not known to be significantly represented here, and the Wizards who DO follow him are usually of the Light College(which we have college rivalries on top).
Not really important at all.

So my vote:
[X] Take an active hand in the EIC
[X] Donate it to whoever ends up leading the Undumgi.
[X] Avatar: You're growing worryingly familiar with being used as a conduit by deities. ???
[X] Windreader > Windsage: Your magical senses see more than your normal ones. +2 Learning, even more able to see and understand emotion and magical effects in others.
[X] Plan recruit everyone!
[X] Plan One step after another

So looking at the vote count...I think recruiting all of them is worth it. We lose 1 personal action over the Recruit 2 plans, and gain 6 actions out of minion actions.

Just think about how much more convenient it'd be to investigate magical curiosities if we have Esbern and Seija patrolling with 4 actions together to find problems.
With an actual wizard seeing the issue we'd have more useful feedback than the dwarf Rangers are likely to give, and the two of them took down a weakened Dragon Ogre, so they can be expected to survive discovering things. Ghur has flight at one of the lower difficulty levels we can expect to find as well, between Raven form and animal informants they can cover more territory than anyone but ourselves.

Then we decide if we or Johann needs to go fix it ourselves with the report. Or both if its big shit.

Esbern and Seija are a major underestimated recruitment option, because for 0.5 actions they come in a pair of double strength actions, almost as good as Johann, and certainly less likely to complain about being dragged away from his studies!

Yes, their spell selection is pretty small at present, but as a Magister employing them we're allowed to sign for them to learn spells as necessary. The action efficiency of managing them pays for itself.
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BoneyM confirmed that Wolf option is now or never and may be the only time sensitive vote. I can quote him if you like.
 
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