Those Blessed with Talent

BFldyq · Mar 1, 2015

Hmm, choices, my mortal enemy.

redaeth · Mar 1, 2015

Well, the first choice boils down to do you want to command beasts, the undead or people? I went beasts since I'm stubborn and still want to shapeshift.

Pandemonious Ivy · Mar 1, 2015

Okay, I looked over this for probably far too long, but I think I have something workable:

[X] You have 21 points to divide between your 5 remaining attributes. No attribute may be below 2. Raising an attribute from 5 to 6 costs 2 points. No attribute may be raised above 6.
-[X] Agility 5
-[X] Luck 3
-[X] Perception 5
-[X] Affinity 3
-[X] Stamina 5

[X] Bestial Adept: Fights side by side with monsters after befriending them. Adept at cooperation and capable of taking on a variety of monstrous abilities and appearances after learning them from her allies. (Key attributes: Charisma, Stamina)

This choice is simple. It affords us support, offense, and defense all in one package without overspecializing in one or the other.
Additionally, it'll prevent us from having to rely on our shitty Str stat. Would probably pump up Stamina and Agility to be of any use. (see above)
(The shapeshifting aspect is interesting and depending on what pet we have, we could manage a decent defense, elemental resist, or even something to counteract our shitty Str.)

Also, not even gonna lie, this way lies dragon mounts. So, yeah. Plus, we might be able to level up to where we turn into a full duplicate of a pet. What's better than one dragon? Two dragons. Two fucking dragons.

[X] Actually you have a second personal skill.
-[X] That allows you to move with shocking speed

We can't hit hard, but if we're fast enough, we can compensate that way.

[X] Nope. Money-bags never have anything good in mind for street trash like you. Start running now and never look back.

I feel like this way leads a lot of interesting options. i.e. A Rebellion route if we start getting fucked with. We can go hit up our former gang and get us some followers and see where it goes from there.

Darkened said:
Natural wariness learned on the streets has caused Little Bee's perception to increase by 5

Also QQ, no one wants to make their stats a pretty rainbow.

Does this mean that if we don't put any points into Perception, it's automatically at 5 as a default? If so, I need to edit my plan.

Darkened · Mar 1, 2015

Pandemonious Ivy said:
Does this mean that if we don't put any points into Perception, it's automatically at 5 as a default? If so, I need to edit my plan.

CURRENT perception increased from 6 to 11. IE: From "Decent for a kid" to "Pretty solid for any mere mortal" as a small bonus for redaeth's making the vote count a lot easier for me twice in a row.

Growth potential is still undecided and has not changed.

...

I really need to find a way to clarify the terms here.

redaeth · Mar 1, 2015

Pandemonious Ivy said:
Does this mean that if we don't put any points into Perception, it's automatically at 5 as a default? If so, I need to edit my plan.

What we are voting on is stat growth, not direct stats.

Pandemonious Ivy · Mar 1, 2015

Darkened said:
CURRENT perception increased from 6 to 11. IE: From "Decent for a kid" to "Pretty solid for any mere mortal" as a small bonus for redaeth's making the vote count a lot easier for me twice in a row.

Growth potential is still undecided and has not changed.

...

I really need to find a way to clarify the terms here.

Stat growth rate v Stat strength?

Also thanks.

BFldyq · Mar 1, 2015

[X] You have 21 points to divide between your 5 remaining attributes. No attribute may be below 2. Raising an attribute from 5 to 6 costs 2 points. No attribute may be raised above 6.
-[X] Agility 3
-[X] Perception 6
-[X] Affinity 3
-[X] Stamina 3
-[X] Luck 5

[X] Azure Mountain Path Sage: Possesses keen insight into tactics, eyes that pierce through any deception and read the battlefield perfectly (Key attributes: Charisma, Perception)

[X] Actually you have a second personal skill.
-[X] That allows you to move with shocking speed

[X] Adoption is a big commitment, but you could be noble, practically a queen in your own domain, one step removed from the godlike emperor!
-[X] But is the Han clan really your best option?

My reasoning: Azure Mountain Path Sage is both valuable, and useful when combined with Adoption. Seeing through deception would is invaluable when dealing with politics and courts, and knowing what enemies are doing is something anyone wants.

I made Luck the tertiary Attribute, due to the fact that good luck is both useful in various tasks, and makes us a lesser direct threat. We're a character that is great at support, but not someone who could threaten others.

As for the Adoption, it can grant us immense power and bonuses. However, are we sure the Han clan would be our best bet? Hell, could we get into one of the Imperial clans? I don't know, but want to find out. Perception and Luck would help us here.

Pandemonious Ivy · Mar 1, 2015

BFldyq said:
[X] You have 21 points to divide between your 5 remaining attributes. No attribute may be below 2. Raising an attribute from 5 to 6 costs 2 points. No attribute may be raised above 6.
-[X] Agility4
-[X] Perception 4
-[X] Affinity 6
-[X] Stamina 3

[X] Charm Using Painter: Capable of using ink and paper to construct powerful monsters out of next to nothing. (Key attributes: Charisma, Affinity)

[X] Actually you have a second personal skill.
-[X] That allows you to move with shocking speed

[X] Adoption is a big commitment, but you could be noble, practically a queen in your own domain, one step removed from the godlike emperor!
-[X] But is the Han clan really your best option?

You missed the Luck stat. Support for the speed mod, though. Woo woo

redaeth · Mar 1, 2015

If you do change your vote please post in thread that you've done so its easier to update the tally.

Also remember that the way the vote is counted, even if 5 people vote for the same specialty, if you all have different stat choices or even a different skill they will be counted as separate.

BFldyq · Mar 1, 2015

redaeth said:
If you do change your vote please post in thread that you've done so its easier to update the tally.

Also remember that the way the vote is counted, even if 5 people vote for the same specialty, if you all have different stat choices or even a different skill they will be counted as separate.

On that note, Adyen has an invalid vote. They seem to have missed that raising an Attributes Growth rate to 6 costs 2 points.

Pandemonious Ivy · Mar 1, 2015

redaeth said:
If you do change your vote please post in thread that you've done so its easier to update the tally.

Also remember that the way the vote is counted, even if 5 people vote for the same specialty, if you all have different stat choices or even a different skill they will be counted as separate.

Good point. Time for Eleventh Hour Lobbying!

redaeth said:
Darkened am I correct in assuming we start at 1 in each stat?

[X] You have 21 points to divide between your 5 remaining attributes. No attribute may be below 2. Raising an attribute from 5 to 6 costs 2 points. No attribute may be raised above 6.

-[X] Agility 3
-[X] Luck 4
-[X] Affinity 4
-[X] Perception 3
-[X] Stamina 6

Though it probably won't win I want it anyway.
[X] Bestial Adept

[X] Actually you have a second personal skill.
-[X] That provides a passive boost to your abilities

[X] Time to enlist in the army

Heaven Canceler said:
[X] You have 21 points to divide between your 5 remaining attributes. No attribute may be below 2. Raising an attribute from 5 to 6 costs 2 points. No attribute may be raised above 6.
-[X] Agility 3
-[X] Luck 5
-[X] Affinity 5
-[X] Perception 4
-[X] Stamina 4

[X] Wild Hearted Temptress

[X] Actually you have a second personal skill.
-[X] That gives you a new mode of perception

[X] Nope. Money-bags never have anything good in mind for street trash like you. Start running now and never look back..

Raron said:
[X] Bestial Adept
-[X] Agility 3
-[X] Luck 4
-[X] Affinity 4
-[X] Perception 3
-[X] Stamina 6

[X] Actually you have a second personal skill.
-[X] That provides a passive boost to your abilities

[X] Indentured Servitude is only a few years of your life in exchange for status, connections and a small fortune

Xicree said:
[X] Monster Tamer- Those that recruit and tame powerful beasts
- - [X]Bestial Adept: Fights side by side with monsters after befriending them. Adept at cooperation and capable of taking on a variety of monstrous abilities and appearances after learning them from her allies. (Key attributes: Charisma, Stamina)

[X] Actually you have a second personal skill.
-[X] That provides a passive boost to your abilities

-[X] Agility 2
-[X] Luck 3
-[X] Affinity 2
-[X] Perception 5
-[X] Stamina 6

[X] Indentured Servitude is only a few years of your life in exchange for status, connections and a small fortune.

Pinging those who are closest to my own vote, since this isn't an individual vote, but a block vote.

Firstly: I figure that since we're voting on growth rate here, it's smart to spread them out as much as possible. At the very least, nothing below 3, right? So we won't have abysmal growth for everything. 6 for growth? It's a waste, I say. Those extra two points could be used to raise two others to 5. So we can have 3, 3, 5, 5, 5. Or 3, 4, 4, 5, 5 and rainbow like our GM mentioned.
Point is, it'd still provide steady growth, but it wouldn't be one extraordinary one. Which is fine.

Secondly: We have a Street Rat with a Leader affinity. High Charisma and Low Strength. This speaks to someone who's likely to be paranoid on principle, and probably someone who's gotten their hands dirty on occasion. So we have IC reason to take a class that would allow us to augment ourselves in case we need to throw down as well as have a tank to handle stuff we can't hit hard enough. Thus Bestial Adept. We have a companion (or more) that can serve a given function and act as a distraction while we figure out where we want to hit ourselves. It's the most balanced, arguably.

Watermelon: All of the additional skills seem nice, but I just really want something that would lend itself to getting us out of tight spots. Speed/teleportation/etc (whatever it is) is definitely not to be underestimated. It'll probably have the most utility overall if not the most overall pay off.

Blue: I am willing to change my vote on the deal to just about anything but slavery. Seriously. Please no.

redaeth · Mar 1, 2015

The reason I picked the ability boost is because we are going to be shapeshifting, the better our abilities the more we get out of it. A speed boost isn't actually all that useful compared to being even better at our specialty.

As for 6 Stamina? I want at least one Genius level stat beyond charisma. There is a reason why it costs an additional 2 points after all.

rcnr · Mar 1, 2015

Indentured servitude is great for high charisma, because it puts us right next to important people for extended periods, while defanging us. You can be wary of a charming little girl who is incapable of harming you for a year, maybe two, but several?

The military won't care how wonderful you are as a person if their friends are dying because of your mistakes, getting adopted sells ourselves short by buying us premade package of allies and enemies that we can't change, and going it alone means we get capped once we step on somebody's toes without even knowing who we pissed off.

Pandemonious Ivy · Mar 1, 2015

redaeth said:
The reason I picked the ability boost is because we are going to be shapeshifting, the better our abilities the more we get out of it. A speed boost isn't actually all that useful compared to being even better at our specialty.

As for 6 Stamina? I want at least one Genius level stat beyond charisma. There is a reason why it costs an additional 2 points after all.

We can ask, but at the moment I'm under the assumption that we can only have one pet as a base at a time. So there very well may come a point where we have a defensive/brute/strength type transformation and that extra speed/movement technique might make our build much more viable. I doubt that he'd include just a simple +1 Agility as an option where everything else is dope.

Fine. I can grok the 6 Stamina. But can we put everything else at least at 3? No reason not to.

rcnr said:
Indentured servitude is great for high charisma, because it puts us right next to important people for extended periods, while defanging us. You can be wary of a charming little girl who is incapable of harming you for a year, maybe two, but several?

The military won't care how wonderful you are as a person if their friends are dying because of your mistakes, getting adopted sells ourselves short by buying us premade package of allies and enemies that we can't change, and going it alone means we get capped once we step on somebody's toes without even knowing who we pissed off.

I just wanna point out that anything that tries to make slavery look like a good option is a trap in any sense. It just screams from the gut "nope".

redaeth · Mar 1, 2015

Pandemonious Ivy said:
Fine. I can grok the 6 Stamina. But can we put everything else at least at 3? No reason not to.

My own vote has 2 stats at 3 and 2 stats at 4. So already covered. Only Xicree has a couple at 2.

rcnr · Mar 1, 2015

I just wanna point out that anything that tries to make slavery look like a good option is a trap in any sense. It just screams from the gut "nope".

You overestimate the amount of freedom we actually have. We push the wrong boundaries and we get killed. We make the wrong enemies and we get killed. We don't know what those boundaries are, or who those enemies are, and we're the weakest we'll ever be.

I'd rather sell our freedom for a safe place to grow and make allies than stumble around in the wide open world until we walk into a bear trap.

Garahs · Mar 1, 2015

Keep in mind that any shapeshifting we gain will be limited by our strength gain of 1. So changing into a dragon would look impressive... right up until we tried applying that power.

I'd rather sell our freedom for a safe place to grow and make allies than stumble around in the wide open world until we walk into a bear trap.

Then why are you for choosing the servant option?

BFldyq · Mar 1, 2015

rcnr said:
getting adopted sells ourselves short by buying us premade package of allies and enemies that we can't change

I think your overestimating our character's abilities, and underestimating the power granted by being part of the Eight Great Noble Clans or the Four Imperial Clans.

redaeth · Mar 1, 2015

Garahs said:
Keep in mind that any shapeshifting we gain will be limited by our strength gain of 1. So changing into a dragon would look impressive... right up until we tried applying that power.

Shapeshifting would be kinda useless if it doesn't effect your physical stats. Also the strength of 1 is stat growth, not our actual strength. Our actual strength is 4.

Pandemonious Ivy · Mar 1, 2015

Maybe we should figure out what we even want out of a protagonist in the first place.

Do we want a tank-like build? A stealthy build? Mage esque build? What do we want?

I want dragons. I always want dragons. And I support just about anything that leads to dragons. I'm a simple guy, at the end of the day.

redaeth · Mar 1, 2015

Pandemonious Ivy said:
We can ask, but at the moment I'm under the assumption that we can only have one pet as a base at a time.

I'm unsure where you get this assumption. Since the entire point of a charisma type would be having access to multiple animals.

rcnr · Mar 1, 2015

BFldyq said:
I think your overestimating our character's abilities, and underestimating the power granted by being part of the Eight Great Noble Clans or the Four Imperial Clans.

Even if the benefits are close, or favor being part of the clans, the fact that it makes our highest stat redundant makes it a bad choice.

That we have no say over what we do as an indentured servant is a benefit, because we will be protected just the same while not being accountable for our actions in service to our employer. And eventually the contract will run out, and we can decide for ourselves who we hold on to and who we toss away. We'll become more powerful and wealthy without having to make any promises past the date that we're set free.

Garahs · Mar 1, 2015

Bestial Adept: Fights side by side with monsters after befriending them. Adept at cooperation and capable of taking on a variety of monstrous abilities and appearances after learning them from her allies. (Key attributes: Charisma, Stamina)

The way I read it is we'd learn how to breath fire from dragons, call down lightning from behemoths, grow wings and fly (appearance), etc. You can't really learn how to have natural strength. It's the blue mage/enemy materia option.

Strength gain/stat growth, same thing.

Pandemonious Ivy said:
Maybe we should figure out what we even want out of a protagonist in the first place.

See very first vote. We're a leader type.

Pandemonious Ivy · Mar 1, 2015

I got that. Leader type. What are we leading? How do we want to lead? From the front, leading the charge? From the back, directing and managing? Somewhere in between, helping allies and fucking up enemies?

Or maybe we just duplicate. That's our power. We are a duplicator. We lead ourselves. Someone help with this write in option. It'll be hilarious.

redaeth · Mar 1, 2015

Garahs said:
The way I read it is we'd learn how to breath fire from dragons, call down lightning from behemoths, grow wings and fly (appearance), etc. You can't really learn how to have natural strength. It's the blue mage/enemy materia option.

Strength gain/stat growth, same thing.

Well since we are interpreting this differently the only way to be sure is to ask Darkened. Darkened will Bestial Adept effect stats? Or only abilities and appearance?

Darkened · Mar 1, 2015

Pandemonious Ivy said:
and rainbow

Huh? Rainbow would be
1 (red), 2 (Orange) , 3 (yellow), 4(Green), 5 (Blue)), 6 (Indigo), 7 (Violet) and intelligence unranked

I'd even rearrange the status sheets to put strength at the top!

redaeth said:
The reason I picked the ability boost is because we are going to be shapeshifting, the better our abilities the more we get out of it. A speed boost isn't actually all that useful compared to being even better at our specialty.

Ability? Do you mean affinity? Or having the key ability stamina at 6 since that will effect more abilities?

Affinity is the 'item user' stat. Chiefly it lets you equip better tiers of weapons/armor/accessories and also draw out better abilities out of those items if it's high enough. It'll also help with using weapons and tools effectively.

For example, a monk type would get very very little out of affinity, while a musician who depends on instruments or a weapons master would rely in it a fair bit.

If anyone wants to ask questions, please do. Most of this isn't intended to trap you or trick people into anything. It would help if you ping me via each post so I don't miss any, though I will try to answer anything if I spot it.

Pandemonious Ivy said:
We can ask, but at the moment I'm under the assumption that we can only have one pet as a base at a time. So there very well may come a point where we have a defensive/brute/strength type transformation and that extra speed/movement technique might make our build much more viable. I doubt that he'd include just a simple +1 Agility as an option where everything else is dope.

One of the Bestial Adepts Core Skills is "Monstrous Bloodline" At level 2, it will safely allow you to use "Blood Contract" with a single pet, while higher levels will increase this number.

Blood Contracts allow you to maintain long term relationships with a pet and unlock progressively stronger shapeshifting and monster skills to learn based on that pet's characteristics (IE: There's a dragon tree or a fire monster tree, not necessarily a "7 toed, 3 eyed frog" tree.

However, there are several supplementary skills like Friendship Bond to help tame monsters for short or mid-term lengths without gaining as many core abilities. In this sense, it's a leader rather than a warrior or scout because you can have a large team you rotate around, while keeping a few core members who benefit you dramatically.

The downside of Bestial Adept is that even if a pet dies the blood exchange holds, though a sufficiently similar species might allow you to replace the slot.

On the other hand, bestial adept is probably the best at working with pets and at raising individual pets vs large numbers of minions. It's around the top of a martial class for actually training and improving animals. IE, No, you don't need to stubbornly avoid using any skills at all until you find an A rank monster to tame, but you can pick up an average pikachu and help raise its rank in time.

As for using shapeshifting, you'll probably not get the best results with strength themed monsters, unless you find ways to work around your strength limits. However, if you go stamina 6, agility 6, you'll get crazy high results with say a golem type or a speed type monster. The specialty has a very high degree of freedom to define your own growth patterns, though it tends to work best with the physical stats. Of course a butterfly monster might not even use strength at all instead of some weird charisma based poison skills.

Some transformations at high level might boost specific stats, but probably not to the level that you could do more than make yourself relatively average strength-wise.

So, while the "I turn my hands into claws and tear you to shreds while double-teaming you with my pet dragon army" is the most direct image of the class, that's hardly the only way to use it. It's versatility is incredibly high, with the caveat that unlocking that versatility requires some care.

Pandemonious Ivy · Mar 1, 2015

Yessssssssssssssssssssssssss, glorious infodump.

So, improving everything is smart. I think my suggestion works better now. Though the Affinity thing makes me want to tweak it one last bit.
Luck 3
Affinity 4
Perception 4
Stamina 5
Agility 5

Solid stats.

rcnr · Mar 1, 2015

For example, a monk type would get very very little out of affinity, while a musician who depends on instruments or a weapons master would rely in it a fair bit.

Darkened: Is Piper of Hamelin part of that "relies on instruments" category? One of the draws behind it (for me at least) was that it had only one key attribute.

Raron · Mar 1, 2015

Pandemonious Ivy said:
Good point. Time for Eleventh Hour Lobbying!

Pinging those who are closest to my own vote, since this isn't an individual vote, but a block vote.

Firstly: I figure that since we're voting on growth rate here, it's smart to spread them out as much as possible. At the very least, nothing below 3, right? So we won't have abysmal growth for everything. 6 for growth? It's a waste, I say. Those extra two points could be used to raise two others to 5. So we can have 3, 3, 5, 5, 5. Or 3, 4, 4, 5, 5 and rainbow like our GM mentioned.
Point is, it'd still provide steady growth, but it wouldn't be one extraordinary one. Which is fine.

As already stated I would also like our Stamina to be 6 for a greater growth. so I would have 3, 3, 4, 4, 6 (Stamina). And honestly I have no preferences on the extra personal skill.

Pandemonious Ivy said:
Blue: I am willing to change my vote on the deal to just about anything but slavery. Seriously. Please no.

From what I understand slavery is the lesser evil out of all the avalible options.
If we join the army we will level up quickly, but not efficiently since the odds of us running into a event which can give us more cheat skills is unlikely to happen since we have no command over where we go. I should also mention that it was said in IRC that max level is 1000, but the highest number encountered was 200 and that was on a few hundred year old mega boss monster (Source: Darkened on IRC. So we will reach a practical limit on our level sooner or later.)

<Rarony> Is there a max level in the game?
<Darkened> 1000
<Darkened> In practice, past 200 is almost unheard of.
<Darkened> And even that's most likely super dangerous centuries old raid bosses rather than humans

.

Adoption just seems like a "let us kidnap that kid and brainwash him for the glory of our familiy"
And running away has the same problem as the army, we have no idea where we can find events (unless we join some kind of Adventurers Guild, but we will easly be tracked by the empire which has few dozen A ranked minions which can take us with ease at our current level. From what I read in tutorial, you don't want to get on the empires bad side, and a A rank running away sounds just like that.
Indentured Servitude seems like the least of all evils, we get traning, we get money and connections and at the end we are evil overlady suspision free. The only downside is that we could be brainwashed, but almost every option includes that (and this one seems less likely).

BFldyq · Mar 1, 2015

Darkened, would you mind talking about the advantages and disadvantages of Azure Mountain Path Sage?

Also. if we choose to investigate adoption opportunities, could we then change it to Indentiture or Army service?

Those Blessed with Talent

It's pronounced Be-Fled-Ick

Stubborn pedantrist

Making the rounds.

Experienced.

Stubborn pedantrist

Making the rounds.

It's pronounced Be-Fled-Ick

Making the rounds.

Stubborn pedantrist

It's pronounced Be-Fled-Ick

Making the rounds.

Stubborn pedantrist

Dangerously Chuuni

Making the rounds.

Stubborn pedantrist

Dangerously Chuuni

Soil Surveyor

It's pronounced Be-Fled-Ick

Stubborn pedantrist

Making the rounds.

Stubborn pedantrist

Dangerously Chuuni

Soil Surveyor

Making the rounds.

Stubborn pedantrist

Experienced.

Making the rounds.

Dangerously Chuuni

Experienced.

It's pronounced Be-Fled-Ick

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