Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Shane_357]

Arkhan being Neferata's lover never really made sense to me, given he was busy being a pile of bones lying in the desert at the time.

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That was one of the good things about ToL - it made at least Arkhan's feelings for Neferata both make sense and feel real. She saves him from being entombed in a sarcophagus and used as a magical-knowledge pinata by her brother and he helps her with her grand power play to take control of Lahmia. The part were Arkhan is desperate to save Neferata's unlife is really well written imo. In that timeline he gets buried for... I forget how long as Neferata is recovering and she has no idea where he's gone.

 

[Mopman43]

That was one of the good things about ToL - it made at least Arkhan's feelings for Neferata both make sense and feel real. She saves him from being entombed in a sarcophagus and used as a magical-knowledge pinata by her brother and he helps her with her grand power play to take control of Lahmia. The part were Arkhan is desperate to save Neferata's unlife is really well written imo.

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Those feelings only existed in ToL. Them being a couple shows up nowhere else and makes no sense.

I think it also takes a lot away from Neferata to have her lover be the one to complete the elixir instead of herself.

 

[SuperSonicSound]

Strawman.

As well as the responses that basically say 'you want Matilde to die in a tunnel'.

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With respect your argument is essentially that you don't want to cut off risk and dramatic tension, I already acknowledged that it wasn't actually your argument with the comment "In extremis" which is your argument taken to extreme levels. Also it's something of a strawman to say we were saying you want Mathilde to die. It wasn't what I said, it's just that the possibility for Mathilde to die IS something you want to keep. It's sort of intrinsic to your comments about wanting to keep dramatic tension.

No: what I want is for there to be risk and dramatic tension in the jobs we take. I also want us to be ABLE to take a large variety of jobs. As soon as the only things that really cause any tension are dark elf princes and vampire lords, we can either only do the things that bring us into contact with them, with a frequency that frankly would only be matched by Karl Fraz, or we can do the 99% of the other things grey wizards do except without any opposition that could effectively impede us.

I see power creep as slowly but surely cutting off potential stories because they would no longer be challenging or interesting at all, and I mourn that. It feels like heading towards the endgame cul-de-sac, where we either 'win' and get ascend past player control, or lose and die. But in both cases it's a sprint towards the point that we don't get to sculpt and garden the world around us.

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I think you have a warped view on the risks of combat that we have. The dice are more than capable of killing Mathilde stone dead even against relatively scrub tier opponents. We're no where near the point where we can walk through arbitrary numbers of opponents, even basic goblins could kill us with a poor roll.

Any way, after learning that the Pall of darkness training action is actually player suggested I'm pretty sure the answer will be the much less useful "No windsight can't see through it" making this entire discussion irrelevant.

Consider it me dropping out and any one against it winning.

 

[Alratan]

An impotant part of Time of LEgends is that they're IC legends, I believe. Stories that people in the modern day of the setting tell. If a modern day storyteller decided adding Arkhan as Neferata's lover made for a better story, that could be the entire reason that section's there.

I think you have a warped view on the risks of combat that we have. The dice are more than capable of killing Mathilde stone dead even against relatively scrub tier opponents. We're no where near the point where we can walk through arbitrary numbers of opponents, even basic goblins could kill us with a poor roll.

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I think people forget how incredibly lucky we've been at important combat rolls since we headed towards K8Ps.

 

[Akasha]

Arkhan being Neferata's lover never really made sense to me, given he was busy being a pile of bones lying in the desert at the time.

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I dunno. Neferata has always been described as a kinky minx. In fact...

@Omegahugger,

Is there anything you would like to tell us?

 

[HavocKeeper]

By contrast, I don't want to live in a Skyrim world with scaling enemies, so we run into bandits geared out in a regalia that princes can't afford.

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Minor quibble: That's more Oblivion than Skyrim. When you get to level 20 in Oblivion literally everyone is using Daedric (Heavy) or Glass (light) gear. Skyrim just turns them into damage sponges.

 

[Shane_357]

Those feelings only existed in ToL. Them being a couple shows up nowhere else and makes no sense.

I think it also takes a lot away from Neferata to have her lover be the one to complete the elixir instead of herself.

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'Complete' is a strong word. Arkhan did a bunch of mad magical experiments because either a) the woman he loved was dying or b) the patron that was the only thing standing between him and The Naughty Boy Box was dying. Like, really mad experiments. Neferata was the one to reverse-engineer the state Arkhan stumbled into giving her to the point she could recreate the process on Abhorash, Wsoran and the rest.

EDIT: Like, Neferata aged into a dessicated corpse and Arkhan gave up and wandered off to pick a fight with Abhorash. Then she got up, exsanguinated her handmaidens and kicked her brother-assassin's ass.

 

[Omegahugger]

I dunno. Neferata has always been described as a kinky minx. In fact...

@Omegahugger,

Is there anything you would like to tell us?

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Trust me, if I was an immortal vampire queen with enough political knack to have spies and informants hidden across an entire continent, this thread would look much different.

 

[DragonParadox]

By contrast, I don't want to live in a Skyrim world with scaling enemies, so we run into bandits geared out in a regalia that princes can't afford.

High tier enemies have their own bullshit tricks they can pull out. I think that against dark elf or chaos champions, we need as many advantages as we can pile up, because they have enough of their own.

Taylor Herbert also had a ludicrously potent ability.

Also, Mathilde is a wizard. Trying to pile up advantages ahead of time through good preparation is what we should be doing, and it should give massive advantages. It's when we're caught unprepared that it's in theme for us to have problems. Her taking the initiative and taking the fight to the enemy is when she should almost certainly win every time, as otherwise she shouldn't go at all. It's when the enemy sends their own assassins when she's asleep that she'll be in trouble.

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I think there is a scale between 'cakewalk' and 'skyrim world' and I think the way to find that scale is to look at what characters can actually do in character. Have we ever heard IC about Shadow Warriors wading though arbitrary numbers of enemies because they dropped Pal of Darkness on someone and then looked though them like AD&D? I can't recall such an instance even though Volans tier mage sight is sure to be more common among elves than humans by the virtue of their long lives.

Now does that mean I think we should not take the Pal of Darkness option? No, but I suspect it will be balanced in some way so as to fall short of our more optimistic projections. Maybe, it will require considerable mental effort from Mathilde to peer though it, making it more of a burst effort that must be rationed instead of an always on buff, maybe the only way she can see though the spell is by 'thinning' the spell making it so enemies can see through it too just very poorly, or maybe it will be something I have not even thought of, @BoneyM has surprised me more times than I can count.

In conclusion I don't think we the players should worry about balancing Mathilde against the world , the GM has proven time and again that he can balance the world (here used broadly not just for antagonists but the rules of magic) against her.

 

[storryeater]

If Mathilde could consistently beat ten of herself as she is now, she still wouldn't be in the top tiers of the setting; there's plenty of room to scale.

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Heck, she cannot even beat one of the setting's most elite mooks without getting lucky (cuz that is what Bloodthirsters are. Kroak croaked thousands of them and it took twelve of them to kill him when he was exhausted and distracted. Bloodthirsters are super elite mooks )

 

[Alratan]

I think there is a scale between 'cakewalk' and 'skyrim world' and I think the way to find that scale is to look at what characters can actually do in character. Have we ever heard IC about Shadow Warriors wading though arbitrary numbers of enemies because they dropped Pal of Darkness on someone and then looked though them like AD&D? I can't recall such an instance even though Volans tier mage sight is sure to be more common among elves than humans by the virtue of their long lives.

Now does that mean I think we should not take the Pal of Darkness option? No, but I suspect it will be balanced in some way so as to fall short of our more optimistic projections. Maybe, it will require considerable mental effort from Mathilde to peer though it, making it more of a burst effort that must be rationed instead of an always on buff, maybe the only way she can see though the spell is by 'thinning' the spell making it so enemies can see through it too just very poorly, or maybe it will be something I have not even thought of, @BoneyM has surprised me more times than I can count.

In conclusion I don't think we the players should worry about balancing Mathilde against the world , the GM has proves time and again that he can balance the world (here used broadly not just for antagonists but the rules of magic) against her.

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In the fluff during the days of Herohammer, I think you did have short stories where heroes waded through arbitrary numbers of enemies, and could basically only be defeated, rather than tarpitted, by other champions in duels, battle magic, and artillery.

The means by which they achieved this varied, of course.

Heck, she cannot even beat one of the setting's most elite mooks without getting lucky (cuz that is what Bloodthirsters are. Kroak croaked thousands of them and it took twelve of them to kill him when he was exhausted and distracted. Bloodthirsters are super elite mooks )

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Exalted Bloodthirsters command entire divisions of Bloodthirster troops...

Bloodthirsters are literally footsoldiers in the elite units of Khorne's armies.

 

[Lightwhispers]

I mean, personally, when I hear "if we develop this ability we'll be able to curbstomp" I interpret it as "Boney will make developing that ability appropriately difficult so we can't curbstomp without earning it".

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Really, many of the threats it would allow curbstomping, Mathilde is already pretty-well equipped to stomp. It would, admittedly, speed up the process quite a bit.

The specific type it would give her the greatest boost against are elite mooks with high Willpower/Leadership (so, dangerous to fight, but no special gear/ability to counter magic, and not susceptible to Terror/Bewilderment).

Currently, if Mathilde has her buffs active, she really is scary for mooks. Dread Aspect inflicts Terror, plus her shadow stabs you. Cloud of Confusion will hit everyone nearby with a Bewilder. Shadowsteed gives her enhanced mobility, if available, as does Smoke and Mirrors. And, of course, she has several ways of not caring about what armor you have. (Branalhune, Shadow Knives, and even her revolvers have Armor Piercing.) If she doesn't have time/position constraints, she can pick them off while invisible.

That said, against Hero/Lord tier enemies, Mathilde's peer combatants, a lot of that is less useful. Likewise, if she doesn't have a chance to prepare, or is somewhere that spellcasting is contra-indicated. I'm not particularly worried about Boney losing opportunities for Mathilde to be threatened. I also definitely want to see what Pall looks like through Magesight, and if it's even possible to see through it. Maybe by the equivalent of polarizing lenses, or something similar?

 

[Ericwinter]

So a random aside, but I'm mildly surprised nobody thought to make a plan for Light Wizards and Damsels, without Runesmiths at all. I'm not particularly invested enough to do it myself, but it seems weird.

 

[SITB]

With respect I didn't ask BoneyM to add the See through Pall of darkness action to the list and I believe no one else did. This is an ability that BoneyM thinks is a potentially natural outcropping of our existing choices and traits.

It's also no more of an I-win button than casting invisibility is. It's powerful it works exceptionally well against mundane enemies. It is not an i-win button. Any more than our sword is a I-win button.

You can make anything sound unreasonable if you frame it a certain way. Also, the next tier of Windsight isn't going to be obtained from learning to see through pall of Darkness, the point of the action is that our current tier is probably capable of it.

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Even beyond what picklepikkl posted, I mostly expressed my doubt that seeing through pall of darkness would ever be a I-Win-Button, furthermore I doubt the utility of seeing through pall of darkness in the first place.

The later portion of my post was doubting that trying to see through pall of darkness is all that useful to developing Mathilde's windsight, and given that you have used that as a selling point, I don't think I was wrong to argue that trying to see through Pall Of Darkness is not really essential in developing Mathilde's windsight.

 

[storryeater]

Exalted Bloodthirsters command entire divisions of Bloodthirster troops...

Bloodthirsters are literally footsoldiers in the elite units of Khorne's armies.

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Yeah, that's why I cannot take complaints about power creep on this quest seriously. That, and the fact each turn is half a year. Saying Mathilde is power creeping means that pcs should never be powerful enough to affect the setting the way other beings... no, other humans are. Its not only Chaos elite mooks that can beat us, there are multiple humans that we cannot beat.

Magnus would eat us for lunch. Sigmar(human version) has defeated stronger. Nagash wouldn't even notice us. Settra would make us die of old age just by listing his titles. Even for more immediate humans, Dragomas and other high tier LMs would 100% defeat us, unless the dice get really wonky, and mid and low tier LMs will give us a good fight. The only reason I claim we may survive black magistership is because most LMs and other monsters are tied up on other threats. Sure, we performed some legendary unprecedented feats, but circumstances were on our side, and other people have done so too.

 

[SuperSonicSound]

BoneyM has said if we want another tier of wind sight trait at the end of an arc or adventure we explicitly need to do windsight stuff before i learned that the pall of darkness action was a player requested action that was all we had that fulfilled that criteria.

Regardless already conceeded that the action is probably worthless.

 

[ReImagined]

So a random aside, but I'm mildly surprised nobody thought to make a plan for Light Wizards and Damsels, without Runesmiths at all. I'm not particularly invested enough to do it myself, but it seems weird.

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Bringing dwarven runesmiths with the dwarven expedition to the lost dwarf-hold just makes a lot more sense than either of the other two.

BoneyM has said if we want another tier of wind sight trait at the end of an arc or adventure we explicitly need to do windsight stuff before i learned that the pall of darkness action was a player requested action that was all we had that fulfilled that criteria.

Regardless already conceeded that the action is probably worthless.

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Why would being a player suggested action make it not a windsight related one? It still fulfills the criteria. And it definitely doesn't make it 'probably worthless.' Is your reasoning solely that it isn't protected by being straight from the QM?

 

[BurnNote]

No accounting for Neferrata's taste on lovers, I guess.

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It makes a lot of sense when you remember she grew up in Nekhara. That place puts a whole new meaning to bonedaddy.

 

[Ericwinter]

Bringing dwarven runesmiths with the dwarven expedition to the lost dwarf-hold just makes a lot more sense than either of the other two.

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Yeah, but I also saw a lot of fear and worries that the it could cause a whole lot of problems, even after the revelation that the Karag Dum Runesmiths probably haven't done anything too bad. Eh, it's not a big thing, just mild surprise on my part.

 

[Glau]

So a random aside, but I'm mildly surprised nobody thought to make a plan for Light Wizards and Damsels, without Runesmiths at all. I'm not particularly invested enough to do it myself, but it seems weird.

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I can't speak for others, but I never really saw the point of a light wizard or two, and I was pushing for heavy cavalry rather than more casters. But given the pushback on runesmiths I can see where you are coming from.



W/r/t power levels, my general attitude is that the concept alone is an imposition of game-logic that degrades the realism of any seeing it is applied to. I see real power levels as going from 'suck' to 'average' to 'maybe three times as good' as the outer limit. I've seen IRL single sword fighters pick apart groups of twenty, but even those fighters die if they are trapped into a 3-on-1: the bigger feats are feats of manuever.

I think that Skyrim screws itself in wanting the hero to level up and become a badass- in fact, most RPGs do. (Shooters, ironically, tend to be better about this.) The problem they have is that doing so makes the game boring, so opposition has to scale as well, which undermines most of your growth anyways. (NPCs twenty levels below you with better gear and more hit points? Well, at least it's an entertaining fight!)

So I see the best solution to the power tier distortions of reality as not bloating the hero's power.

Going the other way just leads to salt. Either things are way to easy (and realistic to the hero's specialness) or the hero keeps losing to 'scrubs' and players get pissed of because they have been told, repeatedly, that the hero is way beyond those threats.

I like the idea that we could die to goblins and bad luck. It keeps things grounded. It makes the characters act on ways that are more real, to me.

IDK one of these days I'm going to build a virtual reality game where leveling makes you weaker, until at the top level people get no computer assist, but first levels are bumbling demigods. Your reward for getting better would be getting your plot armor removed, and knowing you are *good* enough to win without it.

 

[NSMS]

IDK one of these days I'm going to build a virtual reality game where leveling makes you weaker, until at the top level people get no computer assist, but first levels are bumbling demigods. Your reward for getting better would be getting your plot armor removed, and knowing you are *good* enough to win without it.

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Something like a multiplayer Godhand?

 

[Glau]

Something like a multiplayer Godhand?

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Maybe? Never played it.

Also, thought that was a Beserk reference at first and had to Google.

 

[Redshirt Army]

Something like that would attract an awful lot of smurfing.

 

[T_of_A]

Remember when we first saw Mathilde travel in pitch darkness using nothing but her Magesight? IIRC it was when we scouted all those snotlings on the way to K8P (link), and while she was prefectly able to see there was a time delay to her perception. It's why @BoneyM vetoed galloping through the Underway at full speed on a Shadowhorse : she'd smash her head into a stalactite before it registered to her magesight. She hasn't shown significant range imitations on her magesight before (she's used it from one side of the valley to the other during the battles against orcs), which suggests that the problem really is a time delay. Maybe this is because the Winds don't perfectly mirror reality, maybe it's because she needs time to interpret what she sees, etc.

I predict that seeing through Pall of Darkness will have similar issues : sure she can see through it, but not well enough to be very confident while fighting. And of course it's even more of a problem for her opponents who have to wave their swords around at random hoping to hit her - but she can no longer properly block if she can't see their weapon's movements in time.
So it's a good solution, but it won't always be a perfect auto-include in every single combat situation.

 

[Glau]

Something like that would attract an awful lot of smurfing.

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Your theory being that power tiers tend to settle at a place where a higher-level player can beat a lower-leveled player who is actually smurfing? I can see it as a balance mechanism- I think it sacrifices the worldbuilding for multi-player capability, but it makes some sense.