Those Blessed with Talent

[redaeth]

Honestly, at this point, we're probably best off sticking with the spear, and ignoring our claws until/unless we pick up some other skills with good synergies.

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If we do decide on this I think our next purchase (after this one since I do want Comprehend and Analyze now-ish given our mission coming up) should be Spear.

 

[rcnr]

Ignoring the fact that we'd be buying flat stat increases instead of scaling abilities despite our good affinity growth -

- and the fact that we're spending our early experience improving our melee when the one attribute that determines our damage is garbage and will be for the forseeable future...

We only get half the affinity and no damage/accuracy bonus if we use another polearm. Even if we're set on having a weapon on a stick and investing heavily in it to make it worth carrying around, don't we want to play the field a bit, or invest in one that's more versatile?

We're trying to make openings for Autumn, so having a hook would certainly help, and a slicing blade would be great since animals who would have spear-based skills tend to also have poison, and we can't deliver it without breaking the skin.

 

[wayne82444]

Learning other polearm weapons would likely be a skill combination as well- I expect having several X proficiency skills would let them combine into a more general polearm proficiency, and possibly later into a general weapons proficiency if we keep learning new weapon skills. That said to get something like that we would have to spend a lot of exp on weapons skills, so likely not worth the general skill, and the polearm one would be more so we could pick and choose the best type for any occasion.

 

[Adyen]

Honestly, if we're looking for a weapon that can work with animals, a whip might be a good choice.

If we get very proficient in it, we could probably even add poison to it or something like that.

 

[Darkened]

Hiding \ Seeking

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Nifty.

Choose one of the following.

• Train one additional level of Presence Concealment
• Autumn trains Tracker 1
• +3 Perception to Autumn
• +2 Agility for Little Bee

To clarify, training in this case means you'll treat them as studied and can immediately spend XP on them, not that you'll gain the skills to be used.

Ignoring the fact that we'd be buying flat stat increases instead of scaling abilities despite our good affinity growth -

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Higher Levels of proficiency are a multiplier instead of a flat bonus.

Winter Breeze, for example, doubles her affinity with regards to knives, daggers and shortswords and adds 10 to all other swords.

Learning other polearm weapons would likely be a skill combination as well- I expect having several X proficiency skills would let them combine into a more general polearm proficiency, and possibly later into a general weapons proficiency if we keep learning new weapon skills. That said to get something like that we would have to spend a lot of exp on weapons skills, so likely not worth the general skill, and the polearm one would be more so we could pick and choose the best type for any occasion.

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Correct. I'll go ahead and say that if you train three particular proficiencies to 3 you can trade them in for Polearm Proficiency 1. This is common enough knowledge you could ask.

Darkend, you said earlier we can raise stats by working hard. Is it also possible to gain certain skills like Spear Proficiency through focused training as an event skill? Or by doing something special like training constantly for a year and a day?

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It's not impossible given infinite time to manually learn skills. Just like with stats, XP spending will make it happen very quickly instead of after years of work.

 

[redaeth]

• Autumn trains Tracker 1

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I'll pick this, its the most useful for our upcoming mission, either phoenix or fox and I think Autumn has enough XP to buy something like it.

 

[Darkened]

I'll pick this, its the most useful for our upcoming mission, either phoenix or fox and I think Autumn has enough XP to buy something like it.

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Tracker 1: Enables the user to follow a trail, given a sample to smell and pierce through some weak stealth skills. (20XP)

 

[redaeth]

Tracker 1: Enables the user to follow a trail, given a sample to smell and pierce through some weak stealth skills. (20XP)

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Can Autumn buy that immediately? He shows as having 48 XP available.

 

[Darkened]

Yes. As his trainer, you don't strictly speaking have the skill for it yet, but I'll let you have him buy trained skills from omakes or the like.

 

[redaeth]

Added to my vote:
[] Autumn Shade buys Tracker 1

 

[Sirrocco]

Questions for the QM
1) How severe is the effect of str on damage? We have 1 star. Does that mean that our weapon damage is largely inconsequential, or is it merely rather weak? If it's at the level of "largely useless against actual threats", is there anything we can reasonably do that would get it to the "functional (if not truly impressive) as a damage source" level without huge amounts of investment?

2) Can you tell us what the different classes of available polearms are and their general strengths and weaknesses with respect to one another? Given how gamist this world is, I wouldn't be surprised if there were only 3 to 5 standard types, with well-known differences in utility. Would any of them be particularly useful for us given our combination of low strength and potential for beast-related skills? These seem like the sorts of question we might have asked (and gotten answered, at least in general terms) over the months of training.

I'll note for longish-term strategy that we're likely to have Waaaay more skills to draw from than most. I'm loathe to spend too much exp on "nice to have" stuff for ourselves, because we're really not likely to run out of useful things to do with the stuff - especially given how omakes give training (and thus exp sinks) rather than skills (exp sources).

It's also occurred to me that we probably *do* want to train in claws after all. Even if grappling isn't going to work for us, having a weapon that we can use at any time (like, say, if we're suddenly in a fight at a time and place where carryign an enormous war-spear aroudn would have been impolitic) is just too useful to neglect. It's a shame that spear and claw combo so poorly.

 

[BFldyq]

1) How severe is the effect of str on damage? We have 1 star. Does that mean that our weapon damage is largely inconsequential, or is it merely rather weak? If it's at the level of "largely useless against actual threats", is there anything we can reasonably do that would get it to the "functional (if not truly impressive) as a damage source" level without huge amounts of investment?

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Stars indicate Growth. We have Strength 4.

 

[Larekko12]

Say are there Magical Cranes and do they boost spears and battlefans?

 

[Darkened]

Questions for the QM
1) How severe is the effect of str on damage? We have 1 star. Does that mean that our weapon damage is largely inconsequential, or is it merely rather weak? If it's at the level of "largely useless against actual threats", is there anything we can reasonably do that would get it to the "functional (if not truly impressive) as a damage source" level without huge amounts of investment?

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Without strength your ordinary attacks are probably going to do awful damage. That said, effects that apply status effects on hit, skills that key damage off of something else, etc exist.

2) Can you tell us what the different classes of available polearms are and their general strengths and weaknesses with respect to one another? Given how gamist this world is, I wouldn't be surprised if there were only 3 to 5 standard types, with well-known differences in utility. Would any of them be particularly useful for us given our combination of low strength and potential for beast-related skills? These seem like the sorts of question we might have asked (and gotten answered, at least in general terms) over the months of training.

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Weapons counted here include:

Halberds- Mix of both slashing and bashing
Spears- Piercing damage, good range
Guan Dao- Slashing damage good range
Staff- Bashing damage, (Probably shouldn't count but does anyway)
Scythe: Great at cutting plants, probably pretty useless for combat unless magical or you have skills
Others

Especially as you get quite strong, it's going to depend less on the mundane traits of a weapon and more on what magical gear you can find and what styles/skills work well with it.

The first three proficiency levelsX3 are fairly cheap (though I might drop it to two skills) and gives you the power to equip pretty much any poleish melee weapon you find. Going in one proficiency allows you to use one kind of weapon very well.

Aside from, say, dual-wielding or shield styles or a weapon switching set-up there's relatively little reason to go for more than one unless you want the general proficiency.

At low affinity, these proficiencies help you keep a dedicated weapon up to par. At high affinity they let you do stuff like yoink the sword from the stone even though you have no royal blood or instantly master absurdly complicated/rare weapons enough to use them in a fight.

Say are there Magical Cranes and do they boost spears and battlefans?

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Probably and who knows respectively

 

[Sirrocco]

So, thinking on that...
- Raw weapon damage is going to be poor enough that it's simply not worth optimizing on.
- The damage boost from basic weapon skills is going to be based on that, and therefore also pitiful.

If we want our own actions in combat to be a useful resource, then (and we do), it won't come as easily as for most, but there are still a few ways to achieve it.

- Get an awesome weapon that somehow gives us a potent non-str-based effect on hit.
- These will be rare, and we can't really predict what weapon they'll come in. Now, our luck is quite good, so there's a decent chance of us running into one of these at some point. Our affinity growth is also good - so there's a decent chance that if we find one,w e can use it. Until we find one, though, we have no real way of predicting what it will be - which means that we don't want to waste exp on weapon types that won't necessarily be what we're looking for. Exp is precious.

- Acquire some skill (likely by bonding to an appropriate animal) that gives us a non-str-based weapon attack.
- Combos well with the first. In this we have a bit more control, as we'll be able to research magical creatures that might have useful weapon-themed powers of this type. Autumn shade himself may pick up some sort of Shadow Claw ability that does the trick (which would be a strong argument for going with a claw weapon). Still, we're still a bit luck-based here - and it's a good place to leave options open until we know that we have such a skill available.

- Acquire some skill (see above) that gives us a non-weapon non-str attack.
- These are likely going to be a lot easier to find than the weapon-based variety. Just look for creatures that don't seem like they'd have a whole lot of strength but that are known for potent special attacks (flaming breath, poison spit, eye lasers, or whatever). They make an even stronger argument against investing early in weapon effects, as there's a good chance, if we go this route, that we wouldn't ever find it particularly worthwhile to train a weapon. Incidentally, this also has the advantage that are skills are with us everywhere we go.

- Acquire a useful set of skills that use combat turns profitably without direct attack (buff/debuff/heal, most likely).
- very similar to the "non-weapon non-str" attack plan, and combos well with it. Also works well for us as, if we do it right, we're pretty much guaranteed to have effective, buffable friendly types around us at all times.

- Acquire an item or skill that boosts our strength enough to make standard weapon damage profitable.
- This *could* work, but I mistrust it. Any multiplicative effect would be reduced to uselessness by our terrible starting numbers, and any additive effect would require us to somehow find replacements as we leveled in order to keep current. Spending skill points on taking advantage of a buff that will eventually fade to meaninglessness is a lose plan. If we do get something that magically handles this, then it might be worth reconsidering, but I don't really see it happening.

In the end then, we don't seem to get much in the way of short-term advantage out of investing in weapon skills, and any long-term advantage we might get is sufficiently unpredictable as to which weapon it would be useful for that it's best to leave be for now. Not like we dont' have plenty of other stuff to spend it on.

/********/

Pertinent QM questions:
- Are there any item types (magic wands/staves/instruments/etc) that are known for having magical or elemental effects that are not str-dependent and would be available as studied skills, or is that pretty much just a class skill thing?

 

[drake_azathoth]

...Crossbows? Guns?

 

[Garahs]

A bow would have the greatest rate of fire.

 

[BFldyq]

Darkened, noticed an error on the character sheet. Shouldn't Little Bee be level 3, since she levelled up twice?

 

[Adyen]

A bow is also a terrible weapon to use if we intend to have animals fighting in close range.

I mean, yes we can probably start with shooting, but then we get in trouble of not being able to support.

I honestly think daggers/whips/claws are the way to go here, even if we have a low str.

 

[Larekko12]

A Bow is a Str based weapon. The Draw is huge.

 

[redaeth]

Maybe a Kusarigama? I mean we want to tangle and hook things we fight so our menagerie can dogpile them better and they are pretty good at it if you get skilled enough.

 

[Sirrocco]

The trick is, we need something that doesn't care about strength. Bows care abotu strength. The stronger you are, the more powerful the bow can be. Crossbows care about strength in similar ways (various techniques with winches and the like can effectively multiply your strength for the purpose in exchange for much lower rate of fire, but muscle-power is still a big part of it). Guns may or may not exist. If they do exist, they may or may not be viable as hero weapons, specifically because they *aren't* strongly stat-dependent. We don't need to find somethign that's independent of stats - we need to find something that's independent of strength, but depends on something else (preferably stamina or charisma).

 

[wayne82444]

we need to find something that's independent of strength, but depends on something else (preferably stamina or charisma).

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My first thought on reading this was Cait Sith's Megaphone from Final Fantasy 7. The sad thing is while in most quests getting a gag weapon would be stupid, one that is largely based on games is one where it could actually be a viable choice. We might want to ask around about odd weapons, and see what we can find out.

 

[Fredo]

We should probably start looking into poisons. They can be a good force multiplier and don't need strength to apply. Lots of options to deploy also. And it kind of works off of stamina because we can build up resistances to the poisons we are going to use and so use them more freely.

Light, fast weapons like a rapier would also be good. More dependant on speed/dex/accuracy for its damage. Probably could be poisoned also.

 

[Darkened]

- Are there any item types (magic wands/staves/instruments/etc) that are known for having magical or elemental effects that are not str-dependent and would be available as studied skills, or is that pretty much just a class skill thing?

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Most things are available to someone as a studied skill for some amount of effort and XP. Your own talents matter. IE: As a high ranked martial class you can probably study most anything vaguely related to combat with enough effort. Pure item creation skills at high levels may be impossible or very difficult to study.

Some skills have prerequisites, though you may be able to cheat these some. (IE: Grabbing Shadow affinity from your class will let you gain quicker, if not cheaper, access to a lot of studied shadow skills.)

To really figure this out, you'd need some research. Well, some weapons are pretty obvious. A crossbow is not going to ping damage on strength for example. Someone might have a skill to add perception to bow damage or the like, but in general a weapon will either not be stat dependent for damage or use strength before skills are added.

Darkened, noticed an error on the character sheet. Shouldn't Little Bee be level 3, since she levelled up twice?

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Thanks, stats were correct after double-checking. it was just hte level that was wrong.

Vote locked in 8 hours.

 

[Sirrocco]

Most things are available to someone as a studied skill for some amount of effort and XP. Your own talents matter. IE: As a high ranked martial class you can probably study most anything vaguely related to combat with enough effort. Pure item creation skills at high levels may be impossible or very difficult to study.

Some skills have prerequisites, though you may be able to cheat these some. (IE: Grabbing Shadow affinity from your class will let you gain quicker, if not cheaper, access to a lot of studied shadow skills.)

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Are there any mage types that are known to run off of stamina and/or charisma? Preferably ones using shadow magic?

Now I'm imagining a Shadow Whip skill that would form a long whip out of shadows that you could then attack with, with damage being dependent on charisma rather than str. That sort of thing would be pretty awesome for us - though also non-trivial to learn, i should think.

Also, we know that class can change how much study something requires. Do different skills cost different amounts of XP for different classes?

 

[Pandemonious Ivy]

I support looking for a giant hornet analogue. It covers a large area of utility for both us and it, and would be very useful no matter what. Spears, poison, flight, speed, size, and probably a new affinity....

 

[Sirrocco]

I dunno. Giant hornets feel so... fragile to me. Once you break the exoskeleton, they have little to no ability to recover. Now, that might not be true with enormous magical hornets in this world, but it's always my gut reaction. Complicating that is the fact that while they may wind up being spear-themed, their stingers are too much a part of their own bodies to get any defensive benefits from reach.

Size is a double-edged sword. There is no best size. There isn't even any size that's clearly better than any other size. They all have advantages and disadvantages. On the down side for hornets, though, "giant flying stinging thing" is likely to hit the "no I won't let it in the house" threshold smaller than a number of other options.

 

[UrsaTempest]

I dunno. Giant hornets feel so... fragile to me. Once you break the exoskeleton, they have little to no ability to recover. Now, that might not be true with enormous magical hornets in this world, but it's always my gut reaction. Complicating that is the fact that while they may wind up being spear-themed, their stingers are too much a part of their own bodies to get any defensive benefits from reach.

Size is a double-edged sword. There is no best size. There isn't even any size that's clearly better than any other size. They all have advantages and disadvantages. On the down side for hornets, though, "giant flying stinging thing" is likely to hit the "no I won't let it in the house" threshold smaller than a number of other options.

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What about a hive of giant hornets?

 

[redaeth]

There is a lot to be said about bugs. Unless they are in your face you aren't going to be paying much attention to them. And giant hornets themselves are quite nasty as far as bugs go. The utility you can get out of one outweighs the supposed downside of any sort of exoskeleton related fragility.

Especially in a world with healing spells. It's not like in real life.