Shattered Bastions

[Luke Dragneel]

Seems like only Malik since that was how he was thinking of his class/magic

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Which means he's closer to Quill's style of magic than Vey's, at least from what I can tell.

 

[Hell_Yeah]

The woman frowned at the heavy guy's terms, but she understood. "There... is a limit. Mine is Silver. Hark's is likely Gold, if he is fortunate. At your limit, you have a singular [Job], and your lesser ones are consumed to fuel its ascent."

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Is your limit set by some hidden potential stat you're born with, or is it determined by the number of jobs you were able to get early on in order to "fuel the ascent" of the main job? Its sounding like either Outlanders naturally have Diamond (or higher) limits, or the experience buff they seem to get means they can grab a bunch of jobs in record time to start out, which gives them fuel to burn as they advance, depending on how the system works.

I'm seeing why Diamonds are either completely unstoppable or completely harmless. I was assuming Quill was talking about personalities, where 5/6 Diamonds aren't likely to attack you unless you did something to them, and the remainder are murderhobos par excellence, but he was referring to their hyper specialization. Either they are the rock to your scissors or rock (since they're a better rock) and you're screwed, or you're paper or a hammer or pretty much anything else, and can beat them on an axis on which they can no longer compete.

As you go up, do your individual jobs get more specialized, or is it just that you lose your secondary ones and your capacity outside of them as is discussed here? Is Dylan able to pick up a non-axe melee weapon as a [Bloodshot Raider] currently, but will eventually be limited to his two specific weapons and be a nightmare with them, while being useless without them in particular? I'm trying to imagine how over specialized you'd have to be that you have a 5/6 chance of being useless when pretty much anything can be turned into a weapon.

 

[Leecifer]

As you go up, do your individual jobs get more specialized, or is it just that you lose your secondary ones and your capacity outside of them as is discussed here? Is Dylan able to pick up a non-axe melee weapon as a [Bloodshot Raider] currently, but will eventually be limited to his two specific weapons and be a nightmare with them, while being useless without them in particular? I'm trying to imagine how over specialized you'd have to be that you have a 5/6 chance of being useless when pretty much anything can be turned into a weapon.

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So, as to the capability question, remember that a lot, if not most, [Job]s are non-combat oriented.

Vey's [Hearthflame Priestess] is obviously combat capable, even if taken to Diamond, and [Arbalestier] is even more so, but a Diamond Rank [Polyglot] would be defenseless, and [Laundress] would likely get weird about it, able to strip her attackers naked (while cleaning and repairing their clothes and armor in the process, perhaps even improving them), but could not disarm her attackers.

 

[Hell_Yeah]

Fair enough. Based on [Calculant], I sort of assumed something like [Polyglot] WOULD have combat applications, maybe by using runic languages or a spoken equivalent we haven't seen yet. I guess we have a pretty biased sample so far, since the main cast all got their first jobs by fighting monsters, and a lot of the people they'd run into in a caravan would have some means of self defense.
Actually, if most people live in Bastions or are at least primarily non-combatants (which hasn't been stated yet, but that's generally both how this kind of setting usually goes and is more logistically feasible to have a functional society as we understand it), and you're always training your Job when using it, unless there's some correlation between taking combat Jobs and having higher level caps, you would have a heavy skew towards non-combat Diamonds, since they'd be a larger part of the population and presumably have a lower chance of getting eaten by something.

Vey's [Hearthflame Priestess] is obviously combat capable, even if taken to Diamond

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The "even if taken to Diamond" is interesting. DO Jobs start specializing within their own roles as you rank up, so you both lose alternative Jobs and lose breadth WITHIN your main Job?

 

[Leecifer]

Actually, if most people live in Bastions or are at least primarily non-combatants (which hasn't been stated yet, but that's generally both how this kind of setting usually goes and is more logistically feasible to have a functional society as we understand it), and you're always training your Job when using it, unless there's some correlation between taking combat Jobs and having higher level caps, you would have a heavy skew towards non-combat Diamonds, since they'd be a larger part of the population and presumably have a lower chance of getting eaten by something.

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Yes, except, remember, the harder you push yourself, the faster it develops, which is why they all got their first [Job] in ten minutes of furiously fighting for their lives, while the magic one from focused fucking about took hours (which is, itself, stupidly fast, and will slow way the fuck down when they give up their gear). And, the nature of power being what it is, anyone with the potential to be Diamond is likely to pick up a combat job, if only to defend themselves. That said, yes, the skew is towards non-combat-specified job, but a Diamond rank [Chef] will Butcher you in seconds, though, bright side, you will be delicious. [Hearthflame Priestess] and [Calculant] are both non-combat specific jobs, so would retain a degree of lethality, but *how* the lethality is applied would be Fae-levels of specific.

The "even if taken to Diamond" is interesting. DO Jobs start specializing within their own roles as you rank up, so you both lose alternative Jobs and lose breadth WITHIN your main Job?

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If you train one aspect more than others, your Rank Up will reflect that by narrowing, if you train in aspects related but technically outside, your Rank Up might broaden the [Job] you get. It's really up in the air, but it will be fair to an alien, eldritch degree, even if you'd rather it wasn't.

 

[TheManWithoutAPlan]

"Outlanders."

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Ah, so they are freaks in how well developed their mana is in addition to being freaks of growth.

If you train one aspect more than others, your Rank Up will reflect that by narrowing, if you train in aspects related but technically outside, your Rank Up might broaden the [Job] you get. It's really up in the air, but it will be fair to an alien, eldritch degree, even if you'd rather it wasn't.

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Ah, meta-gaming here is not the question of the most optimal choice, but rather what you personally are okay with losing in return for the power you seek.