[LP CYOA] 傳

I love how everyone wants the Yuchang technique we can learn anywhere since we devise it but forgoes the really RARE Minamoto technique we have no chance learning elsewhere

 

Is he under house arrest? They can come and go whenever they want, no?

Isn't Yoriiwaka guarding Shun?

If you ask treave, Jing will summon them to wherever he is.

 

Don't be such a sperglord; the whole point of this assessment is that Zhang wants to see what kind of a person Jing is and how much time he's going to devote to martial arts, to the exclusion of everything else. The point isn't even about where these skills can be trained, that's irrelevant.

 

Well, so what? What does it change?

The Summit we are training for is in 3 years. There will be timeskips if we go away early. No way this thread will last 3 real time years (because 6 months almost took exactly their real time equivalent).

 

Considering the cap for Swords has been increased thanks to the Sword Saint, and we're a long way from a potential Sword 10 skill set, we're not going to get as much mileage out of it. We will however, get more mileage out of increasing END and neigong simultaneously, because with more endurance, we'll be able to safely tap into our chaotic qi more without hurting ourselves. It's really the best synergy on this whole list.

 

My point is that you're being kinda inane. "We can train that anywhere!" Who gives a shit? The way the choice is structured is such that we're staying here for the next long while.

 

And?..

I am still not getting what are you arguing with me for.

Azira have brought up a point that we may not be able to return to the island. I am saying that for half of this stuff, we don't even need to be on the island.

 

Jing's INT should be higher for theorycrafting. Why would we want to come up with mediocre 'falling pine' techniques when we could be studying 'manly conquerer' techniques?

 

But it's worth considering if you take the unarmed upgrade wich would max unarmed.

 

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but are you talking about what I was saying in response to Esquilax's package? If I remember correctly, that didn't have a strength nor an agility bonus outside of Yuanshi Hundun, so that still wouldn't boost the cap as that's not a passive skill like Reikan.

Anyway, I still want to raise both strength and agility (though especially strength since we have a lot of agility boosts) as high as possible to max out Jing's potential to be the strongest martial artist in unarmed combat, which relies on strength and speed mostly. Having better stats in those makes Jing a better fighter no matter what circumstances he's in, unlike conditional boosts from techniques, and Jing really needs to bring up raw strength agaisnt fighters like the Guo Fus of the world.

 

Not true. treave had said before that a sufficient level of skill, in this case, being a Master of a particular weapon (So, Weapon Skill 8), can allow you to theorycraft and invent new techniques on the fly. Otherwise you'd need to be a genius, around INT 9, to do this sort of thing without the requisite weapon skill. INT 8 would allow us some leeway as well, I'm sure, but treave had said around the time of the tournament that a guy with INT 9 would be able to modify Zhang's lethal techniques into non-lethal ones without making them less effective.

 

Can't we ask Zhang to teach us what he considers would be most useful for us and then proceed to the other Greats (which are Tulu Houdu and Qi Liuwu) ask them to teach us, do some quests for them, investigate on worldly matters etc. It would be a great occasion for us to train on the run while adventuring and investigating on certain matters.

 

Well, not really. If the Flaming Faggot sets you on fire, you want to have a developed neigong instead of raw strength, or a really good dodge from qinggong. It is all situational.

I feel like Jing already has the stats he needs to win any combat, given enough techniques to work with.

inb4 'having 9 STR is better than having 8 STR argument'.

 

I think the idea of improving STR and AGI simultaneously is interesting, but I don't see why we'd then need to rely on our neigong as much if our base stats for them are so high. It's a huge investment at the expensive of a lot of technique. Now, I do think that we should go for some stat boosts, but you are putting way too much stock into physical stats and not enough in technique and skill. You need a bit of everything. We won our fight with Guo Fu only thanks to the fact that we had the benefit of Zhang's training for the previous year and a half, while he had no formal training at the time.

When it comes down to it, our best assets are our neigong, unarmed, and our great potential for swordsmanship.

The whole point of this is for Jing to train what he thinks is useful for himself, not what Zhang thinks is most useful for him. And c'mon, Zhang asking other people to help his disciple who should be figuring shit out himself - it'll be a cold day in hell before that happens. As he often likes to say, if we can't do it ourselves, we're not worthy of being Zhang Jue's apprentice.

 

We are in good position to learn unique and powerful techniques, even if few of them are untested. I do however think we shouldn't discard those techniques so quickly.
Indeed why start now thinking up our own techniques when one of greats has given us permission to develope one of his own techniques. Jing is good at inventing techniques, but Zhang Jue is better.

Package inspered by Zhang Jue

Essentials:

6. Artistic skills +2 ( 2 months)
13. Intensive sword training with Zhang Jue (Sword +1, 2 months)
14. Intensive hand-to-hand combat sessions with Zhang Jue. (Unarmed +1, 6 months)
16. Learn the Fanfeng Feixue Sword technique devised to counter Huashan. (+1 Sword, 3 months) 13
17. Learn the Wuni Fist technique devised to counter Shaolin. (3 months)
18. Improve your understanding of the Chuzhan Fist technique. (2 months)
19. Improve your understanding of the Shouwang Mad Claws technique. (2 months)
25. Undergo strenuous neigong training to unlock your potential (Neigong +2, 6 months, Yuanshi Hundun now gives +2 to STR, AGI and END)

Total time: 26 months.

Optional:

15. Learn the rare Minamoto-style Kenjutsu focusing on quick draws and flowing attacks from Yorimitsu. (+1 Sword, 3 months)
21. Attempt to learn a random new technique of Zhang Jue’s choosing, that he created from his travels in Nippon. (2 months)
22. Further improve your mastery of Reikan by training with Yoriwaka. (+1 Reikan PER, 1 month)
27. Focus on qinggong practice by running around the island with the tigers, naked. (Qinggong +2, 6 months, Kuanglang Step now gives +2 to agility and increased ability to shrug off grabs)

 

I could see an argument for an STR/AGI boost provided we don't go for the neigong training. If our base level of STR and AGI are going to both be higher, then going for the neigong training strikes me as diminishing returns, especially since we don't have the END to tap into that much of our qi. I could see a focused, 24 month build with the STR stat boost and a strong focus on Unarmed/Swords going down like this:

13. Intensive sword training with Zhang Jue (Sword +1, 2 months)
14. Intensive hand-to-hand combat sessions with Zhang Jue. (Unarmed +1, 6 months)
19. Improve your understanding of the Shouwang Mad Claws technique. (2 months)
20. Train to create a new self-taught sword technique based off the Yuchang Sword. (+1 Sword, 3 months)
27. Focus on qinggong practice by running around the island with the tigers, naked. (Qinggong +2, 6 months, Kuanglang Step now gives +2 to agility and increased ability to shrug off grabs)
28. Intensive strength training. (+1 STR, 5 months)

I could see this being effective. I'd rather go with the strength boost because our neigong would push our power up to 10, while we have the qinggong boost for our agility anyways, in addition to the one already present thanks to Yuanshi Hundun. Going for a boost to both STR and AGI is total overkill, however. Completely unnecessary.

 

This is the classic "I want my cake and eat it too!" argument. Theoretically, yes we could learn a good portion (but not things like Minamoto swords, or ZJ specific skills) of this stuff off-island, but its naive to think we can just stop in the middle of the next chapter and pick the exact upgrades we want when we want them.

 

What I was talking about was that while upping the neigong that also boosts strength and agility is all well and good, what happens when that neigong is gone as has happened a great number of times already? You're left with the basic stats, so you shouldn't neglect those just because the shiny neigong skill approaches. No, I plan to boost both. As to if he could win any fight, well, how about the one just now the Guardian of Metal? He simply wasn't strong enough to land in good hits even with the most devastating of his techniques, and the thunder-breaking kick of Yang Xue certainly wasn't a weak technique.

If we go with my plan and take both the base stat boosts and the neigong, we can get strength to 11 and agility to 12. Treave said that agility level 11 was at around where the masters of the pugilist world played ball, so taking both upgrades puts us within batting range of the masters in terms of ability in those stats within two years. If it's a huge investment, I'd say it's worth it. The regular ones boost up the cap to be sure that we won't run into a ceiling with unarmed (that would be an awfully shitty thing to run into when we can avoid it) and have Jing as still a world-class fighter even if he runs into some sort of circumstance that demands he not use his neigong (say if he needs to be extremely fast yet also precise, which the raging, unpredictable surge of Yuanshi Hundun wouldn't work out with) and Jing's strength just needs to be better anyway since against foes like Guo Fu and the Guardian of Metal he simply wasn't strong enough to leave much more than glancing blows throughout his battles with them. The Yuanshi Hundun boost even further improves his skills to the master range when he's in a fight, which is obviously helpful when these masters can often attack faster than the eye can follow and so on. Jing needs the strength boost and the speed to keep up.

Recall our fight with Guo Fu. It's only because of our natural strength and speed that we were able to respectively even attack Guo Fu (remember that Yandi couldn't even figure out how to attack him once he'd broke his sword on the guy, and other foes could only get anywhere against him by attacking en masse) and avoid enough of his attacks and keep following up on our own to finally knock him out of the stage. If we had just the techniques, well, remember how the Claws didn't even dig into his thigh? Remember how the Bloody Diamond Horn may have cracked a rib at most? We can have the best techniques in the world, but without the substance to use them to their fullest, we might as well have nothing.

When Jing cruises on with 8 unarmed combat and the resulting ability to come up with techniques of his own on a regular basis, that's great, and we'll be able to set up a wider pool of techniques than the ones we have today. As for me, I think our current spread of techniques is pretty fine, and find adding on an extra anti-Huashan one or whatever against our current enemies small minded when we can instead boost our general stats against all the future that is to come. Masters come up with and counter many new techniques over the courses of their matches, why should we stay out of their play grounds in terms of strength just to add a few more to Jing's repertoire? The novelty hasn't even worn off on Yang Xue's stuff.

Why are you voting for endurance when it isn't even related to our neigong anymore? It'd be one thing if you were voting for the full set of neigong boosting traits, but you're not. It's mystifying.

 

Holy crap, can we tone down the packages discuss until tomorrow? Let's first decide on the timeframe and then tear at each others' throats about it.

 

Everyone wants people to check out their package. I haven't revealed mine yet, but trust me it's rather robust.

 

This is also a function of Xsaora Vairya having much better techniques than us too. I think that this technique vs stat dichotomy is a false one and shouldn't really exist in the first place. I mean, the motherfucker is on Zhang's level, so of course throwing our best shit at him wouldn't put him away for good.

Well, like I said, there's sort of a dichotomy between technique and stats where there shouldn't be. We would have been able to break through Guo Fu's neigong quite easily with the Yuhe Finger, so I think that investing in two stats is complete overkill. Pick one that you think is most useful, and stick to it. I dunno, throwing in the kitchen sink and including every boost that we can possibly find at the utter expense of combat techniques seems very short-sighted, and I think that there needs to be a balance between improving our inner strength/stats as well as an improvement in our overall combat skills and techniques. We aren't really going to find a boost to Shouwang Claws out on our own, for example.

Btw, a +1 boost to STR would still bump up the Unarmed cap to 9 and the Sword cap to 10. So we don't need to invest in both to boost the cap, in case you're wondering. One would suffice.

It is related, just not directly:

As I understood it, cultivating our chaotic qi can harm us if we really tap into it deeply. With an extra END point, we can tap cultivate our qi without causing those self-inflicted internal injuries that occurred when we fought in the Hundred Man Battle. The physical injuries (and stat penalties we incurred) were caused by the pugilists, but the internal injuries were a result of our exertion is what really hurt us. Investing in endurance will allow us to be a bit more free with how we utilize our qi, which is why it's such a great synergy.

I mean, just because, for example we can theoretically have our Yuanshi Hundun at Lvl 15, doesn't mean we won't die in the process of using it because our body is too fragile to handle it. Of course, I'm being a bit hyperbolic with this particular example, but I'm sure you understand the gist of it. I believe this is how our qi works and the benefits of an END boost, correct, treave?

 

Perhaps we can dock our packages and come to an understanding?

 

I'm still of the opinion that the One Year Clevian (22, 25, 32: +1 Reikan, +2 Neigong, +1 Int) is the way to go.

High int is mandatory for learning on the fly and developing our own moves. Since we're going to be back in the world, I think this is the way to go. It's also good for politicking, which we will have our hands full with.

I also think the sooner we are back, the better. While no critical events might happen if we timeskip all the way, I think it is better to build up alliances for what is going to happen in the future, and there are some very good opportunities we shouldn't be wasting (at the very least, Young Tigers' Tournaments promise techniques). Learning on an island is cool, but adventuring has proven to give us the highest rewards the fastest.

 

I'm still opting to maximise a certain combat skill so that we can be the best at something and hold our own against BJ, guardians of metal and everyone else.

But baltika's right let's first choose a time frame first. Let' s close the polls for this in two days.

 

Treave must get off on inducing metric fuck tons of discuss.

Timeframe
18-30 months I actually prefer the longer end. Jing hasn't trained anywhere near as much as his orthodox peers.

What I want:
3 (sabre) 1 month
6 (art) 2
15 (kenjutsu) 3
22 (reiken) 1
25 (neigong) 6
26 (qi absorb) 3
30 (END) 6
=22 months
I'd add
18 or 19 (unarmed tech) 2
13 (swords) 2
20 (self taught) 3
some other 1 month skill (prefer spear or traps)
=30 months. 2 1/2 years.