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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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DragonParadox said:
I agree, but when two aspects of her characters clash one approach is not really more IC than the other and other consideratiosn come into play, practicality, what we the voters what to see her doing etc...
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She is a perfectionist
She is a ravenous learner
She is prided of being a wizard
She is immersed in a culture that doesn't believe in 'good enough'
She is a risk taker (so many Assassinated Orcs)
She worships the gambler.

There are so many aspects of her that would finish her magic education over 'just to risky' it's not funny.
 
DragonParadox said:
That is not worth it in my mental calculus and calculus is the key word here. Let's break this down by math

The crit fail range is 1-5 so that's 5% on a 1d100
The crit success range seems to be 100+ (I could go with 95+ but I'm being generous) . With Mathilde's learning that is a 27% chance to crit succeed

So that is 5+27= 32 chance of miscast for each spell there's two spells so a 53.76% chance that we will be rolling on the miscast chart at least once. Worse than coin flip odds.
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An arcane mark is one of the possible extras that might happen on a crit-success for learning a spell... but there are other things on that table. Such as, for instance, getting a spell mastery, like happened with Universal Confusion.

You are exaggerating the danger, significantly.
 
ninjafish said:
Eh we risk getting marks every time we cast a spell, no point in not learning all of the spells.
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There's a massive difference between a low level risk of Arcane Marks during the execution of our duty and an additional risk of Arcane Marks learning something we don't need.

One is unavoidable, the other both avoidable and of questionable benefit in any case and, given how garbage most of the remaining Arcane Marks are, our goal here definitely ought to be delaying their acquisition as long as humanly possible or, better yet, dodging them altogether.
 
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I kinda want the Al-Ulric to be a secret evil infiltrator, so we can get our Bond on. Uncover his nefarious plan, get captured, escape from a deathtrap using one of K's gadgets, then stop him at the last moment, with the handsome older man of the movie behind her on her horse.

I would like to point out that the boss of James Bond only goes by M. Coincidence? Yes. Inspirational? Also yes.
 
Jyn Ryvia said:
She is a perfectionist
She is a ravenous learner
She is prided of being a wizard
She is immersed in a culture that doesn't believe in 'good enough'
She is a risk taker (so many Assassinated Orcs)
She worships the gambler.

There are so many aspects of her that would finish her magic education over 'just to risky' it's not funny.
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This is getting silly if we are going to break down IC motivations to have more check points in a list I'll say:

She is intimately aware of the dangers of miscasts
She has seen how Reginald's arcane mark limits him
She greatly values the social connections two of those marks could damage
She is immersed in a culture that is very risk adverse
She is a calculated risk taker (those dead ors were actually useful dead)
She wants to prove the reliability of magic to the dwarfs so less marks the better

For the record I do not think the hair splitting helps there are IC motivations both ways which means it is very much up to individual voter preference.
 
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You know for our boon we could ask for one of those "border prince certificates", one that we have a reasonable chance of actually conquering and keeping.
Some of the border provinces are likely to become pacified in the near future as trade begins to flow from the south, and we owe it to that little Stirlandian girl to one day add "Princess" to our titles.
Further pro's include:
-Imagine how many goats we can fit in our new kingdom, with our new goat nobility including titles such as "Really big herd"-man and "slightly bigger than previously considered big herd"-man.
-We can ask for diplomatic immunity for friendly wizards.
- ????

I'm only like 30% serious about this.
 
You know, with all this fuss about arcane marks, I'm reminded of what Kragg had to say on the subject--and Mathilde's rebuttal--not that long ago even.
BoneyM said:
"You're a reliable sort, more so than some Dwarves I've known. But the source of your power is unfettered and whimsical. It's why you've power despite barely entering your fourth decade, and it's why you've been able to do as much as you've done. But-" he looks to the lantern that flickers uneasily in his grip, and then to your shadow cast by his lantern, or what little he can see of it as it peaks out from behind you, hiding from the Runelord's scrutiny. "It's betrayed you in the past, and it will in the future."

You fight back a frown at his words. As much as you consider Ulgu to be yours, he's not wrong, and your recent forays into even the simplest of Battle Magics reinforce his point. You have not tamed Ulgu, you have merely made yourself a conduit to its liking, and all energies born of the Aethyr are capable of capriciousness. "It's the weapon I have," you say simply. "And I will use it to defend this Karak."
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The thing is, we're going to get Arcane Marks, unless we start playing extraordinarily safe with our magic. It's just a part of being a Wizard, and being a Lord Magister especially. I rememeber reading more than once that you can recognize an LM by the fact that they have most, if not all, of their Wind's Marks. Spell crafting, stressful situations, enchantment... we're at the point where everything except mundane casting runs the risk of gaining an Arcane Mark, and it will only get worse as we grow more powerful. I'm not going to try to argue whether getting the extra spells would be useful or not, since neither side has any evidence either way, but just using the risk of Arcane Marks over something that we don't know is going to be useful applies to pretty much everything else we could do. There's a reason the "try it and find out" tag exists.
 
Pipeman said:
One is unavoidable, the other both avoidable and of questionable benefit in any case and given how garbage most of the remaining Arcane Marks are, our goal here definitely ought to be delaying their acquisition as long as humanly possible or, better yet, dodging them altogether.
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I do not think "most" of them are garbage, but... that is just a technicality, as the worst of them is so damn bad.

Of the 5 that remain, 2 barely matter, one is very good (+1 magic), one is bad but, alone, would be worth the risk for the good one (people not trusting us as easily is not a good thing, but the effect seems to be relatively small, new people we meet won't trust us anyway while people we have a good relationship with won't be swayed by such a small effect)... and one is so bad it is near quest breaking or nonstandard game over bad (the way our character works, we need others to remember us to do good).

If we find some way to somehow neuter forgettable, I am all for rolling the arcane mark gatcha, but forgettable is just not worth it, no matter what, its an insanely bad malus.
 
Just in case anybody forgot, the last time we finished a complexity level, we got +1 Magic out of it. I THINK that was the tier above it, so it might not occur this time, but we might get an additional bonus outside of just having the spells.
 
So, do we have any idea what the Ar-Ulric actually wants from us? My theory is that he wants us to convince the Ulricans in K8P to come back and fight his holy war for him, because their walking out undermines his narrative in some way.
 
BurnNote said:
Burial advisor Mathilde: Does he need Morr priests?
Exotic animal handler Mathilde: How did you even get spiderratpuppies?
Anton Friend Mathilde: Well, if anything in the Empire needs his touche...
Horse Racer Mathilde: That would be a dumb bet, but everything those two have gotten up the last few years have been dumb.
Assassin of Kings/Hardcore Security Tester Mathilde: It's sad that isn't totally implausible.
Skaven Expert Mathilde: Middenheim does have a rat problem.
AP Hell Mathilde: *screams externally*
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Memoir Writer Mathilde.

It turns out he likes Asarnil's new cult following.
 
storryeater said:
I do not think "most" of them are garbage, but... that is just a technicality, as the worst of them is so damn bad.

Of the 5 that remain, 2 barely matter, one is very good (+1 magic), one is bad but, alone, would be worth the risk for the good one (people not trusting us as easily is not a good thing, but the effect seems to be relatively small, new people we meet won't trust us anyway while people we have a good relationship with won't be swayed by such a small effect)... and one is so bad it is near quest breaking or nonstandard game over bad (the way our character works, we need others to remember us to do good).

If we find some way to somehow neuter forgettable, I am all for rolling the arcane mark gatcha, but forgettable is just not worth it, no matter what, its an insanely bad malus.
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Forgettable isn't nearly that bad. Just because they can't recognize our face doesn't mean they don't know us, or recognize our many deeds and whatnot. All it means is that other distinguishing features become necessary for anyone who can't just say "oh, you're the grey wizard". It doesn't make us some kind of memetic not-person.
OmegaS said:
Just in case anybody forgot, the last time we finished a complexity level, we got +1 Magic out of it. I THINK that was the tier above it, so it might not occur this time, but we might get an additional bonus outside of just having the spells.
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Boney has already said just learning spells won't get us any more Magic stat. We have to either invent some or get special traits.
 
OmegaS said:
Having a fully rounded education?
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A full education by the standards of the rushed by necesity work Teclis did to give the Empire some kind of mages worth the name. The thing to remember about standard spells is that they are not the sum total of Ulgu lore, nor are they some kind of philosophical heart of its study, they are just what Teclis considered practical during the Great war against chaos. Instead of rolling for two mostly useless spells why don't we invent useful ones of the same complexity?
 
So last thing, before I stop (for now)

not only is Arcane mark less likely than masteries, (we need to crit a roll, then get a 1/6 in a roll and then get one of the bad ones in a roll) these two self-improvement actions:

[ ] Gain enough control of your unruly shadow to still it temporarily.
[ ] Gain enough control of your attraction to smoke and gases to have it collect away from your face. (NEW)

Implies that we can limit any negative effects.

not implying getting a bad mark is not bad, but we can damage control if we feel the need.

(actually might be a good idea to look at these two anyways, might get that point back in Diplomacy.)
 
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DragonParadox said:
A full education by the standards of the rushed by necesity work Teclis did to give the Empire some kind of mages worth the name. The thing to remember about standard spells is that they are not the sum total of Ulgu lore, nor are they some kind of philosophical heart of its study, they are just what Teclis considered practical during the Great war against chaos. Instead of rolling for two mostly useless spells why don't we invent useful ones of the same complexity?
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P / Cloak Activity: Allows you to perform an action while appearing to perform something entirely different for up to half a minute.
It lets us pretend to shoot someone while we instead stab them! :V
 
DragonParadox said:
Why would we gain that from learning standard spells, not even particularly complicated ones at that?
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It's not an immediate threat anymore, but I do recall us actually being in danger of a nega-trait because Mathilde came to the conclusion that she didn't know enough spells, and that was why she kept nearly dying. Everything can be useful, you just have to find the right time and place.
 
LightLan said:
P / Cloak Activity: Allows you to perform an action while appearing to perform something entirely different for up to half a minute.
It lets us pretend to shoot someone while we instead stab them! :V
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Ericwinter said:
It's not an immediate threat anymore, but I do recall us actually being in danger of a nega-trait because Mathilde came to the conclusion that she didn't know enough spells, and that was why she kept nearly dying. Everything can be useful, you just have to find the right time and place.
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We literally have better spells for those jobs, all of them, terror is better than fear and illusion/invisibility is better than cloak activity in 99% of cases

Anyway it's almost 1 AM for me I'll argue this further when plan voting comes around if it looks like learning those spells might win.
 
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