In Progress [LP CYOA] Tower

[treave]

Treave, can we ask Tlalli for advice on our injured leg?

She's not a doctor.

 

[Kipeci]

The way I see it, Tlalli found us useful in this excursion mostly due to our Astra skills. We’re crap at fighting except for the not dying part of it, and I doubt that a couple training sessions from her are going to get us anywhere farther than the most basic and fundamental elements. What we can do is build up our Astra skill and become much more competent in the one area where we’re actually helpful for her/other fighters we might get as an escort. Then we’ll also have built up the repertoire to be ready should we come across a combat Astra later. Our personal combat ability doesn’t have to matter if we get attacked if we have someone around who values our skills enough to leap to save us and we’re tough enough to not get chewed up in the meantime... and looking at folks like the Cannibal Duke, we’re screwed regardless of whether or not we have one melee point if someone stronger’s not there to intervene.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

are you bros open to a 3D vote

I'm not overly concerned with the outcome of that vote. Way I see it, even not asking makes us all the more stoic and all.

 

[Nevill]

The way I see it, Tlalli found us useful in this excursion mostly due to our Astra skills.

That was how it started.

“That’s a good way to live,” smiles the old lady gently. “You should keep doing that, especially if you have people to protect. Anyway, we still have a long journey ahead, and it’ll help me out if you get better at surviving. It won’t be easy looking after the two lil’ princesses all by myself, after all. How about it? Want an old goat to teach you a few tricks?”

This is how it is now.

She has other people to look out for, and she would appreciate not having to leap to save us.

 

[Baltika9]

The way I see it, Tlalli found us useful in this excursion mostly due to our Astra skills.

This same logic applies to both Elizabeth and Sophie, then, and can be extended to say that they too must become Astra specialists, because they were invited on this expedition for the same reason they were. Don't be ridiculous.

This excursion involved tracking shapeshifters, monsters that she did not expect literal children to fight. Honestly, these arguments against melee/unarmed fighting are getting ridiculous: oh no, we're never going to fight equally against Alexei /the Cannibal Duke/Rasputin/etc... They are a bad measuring stick for us, since they are high-level encounters andthey will be out of our league for a long time whatever our skill set is. I get that we're trying to get votes by feeding the meme machine, but this is just disingenuous.

Next, many are assuming that Astra proficiency allows you to instantly identify the Astras your opponent is using in combat, and apply counterspells like this is DND and we're a level 25 Archamge. And maybe that's something that can happen at higher levels, but just like with our combat skills, it will be a while until we get there.

Our personal combat ability doesn’t have to matter if we get attacked if we have someone around who values our skills enough to leap to save us and we’re tough enough to not get chewed up in the meantime...

But we're not a very likable person, nor are we personable. I think it is better to become self-reliant in all aspects, starting with combat.

As an aside, it stands out to me that all Astras have been identified to us through scholarly knowledge, or have been identified by its users. No mention of needing an Astra proficiency to identify Astras.

I'm not overly concerned with the outcome of that vote. Way I see it, even not asking makes us all the more stoic and all.

Being stoic is cool, but our Azteca luchador grandma Tlalli is the coolest.

 

[Orbit]

So you're claiming that melee fights are a prologue-only thing (we're in chapter 1 now, btw, not prologue) and in the future our character will never get dragged into melee combat again? Because I'm pretty sure there will be more melee fights in the future, whether we want to or not. So making use of a good opportunity to develop two melee skills is just a good idea in my book.

We might get dragged into melee again, but if we spend some time to learn about traps, bombs and other distraction, we will have an easy time to escape these situations. Remember Legend? Many times Jing was fucked up by opponents despite superior melee techniques because those honorless scum got an ace up their sleeve. I want to have all of those surprises for our enemies, too.

You're new to the CYOA and you're already engaging in Codexian maximalism? Look, I don't subscribe to all-or-nothing thinking here. So let's reverse your argument. Are you suggesting that if our character keeps talking to others, it would be a poor plan of action to develop a single rank of speech skills?

I'm against going out of our way to talk to people. Asking for information from people willing to answer is OK. But otherwise I'm all down for shooting first and asking questions later. So given the choice of developing speech or some other skill, I'd likely take that other skill if it fits.

1. No, astra usage will obviously be more useful with more/better astras.
2. Again, stop with the all-or-nothing logic. Just because we're skipping astra skill now doesn't mean we're going to skip it every time, or even most times. It's just that right now the vote for melee skills is more rewarding than the vote for astra skill. We get 2 skills instead instead of one, Tlalli is an expert at melee combat, and we're going to end up in more melee fights anyway, so we should make use of the opportunity. We're still going to get astra skills later. That was never in doubt. Why do you think we're getting the book on astras?

Getting two skills instead of one is pure speculation and even if it's true, maybe we get two ranks if we pick one of those single skill choices instead? Also since Tlalli can summon the power of a god she's probably an expert in astra too. I say we take that opportunity instead.

Melee is for plebs like Andrew who are too dumb to protect harem.

*Laughs in ManTigerPig*

If I remember right, Jing had to be saved by harem after fucking around with nagas. Now imagine getting chained up like that little Andrew bitch and having to rely on Liz to bail us out. Shamefully, really.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Being stoic is cool, but our Azteca luchador grandma Tlalli is the coolest.

That ain't our cool.

 

[Absinthe]

The way I see it, Tlalli found us useful in this excursion mostly due to our Astra skills.

That was how it started.

“That’s a good way to live,” smiles the old lady gently. “You should keep doing that, especially if you have people to protect. Anyway, we still have a long journey ahead, and it’ll help me out if you get better at surviving. It won’t be easy looking after the two lil’ princesses all by myself, after all. How about it? Want an old goat to teach you a few tricks?”

This is how it is now.

She has other people to look out for, and she would appreciate not having to leap to save us.

Nevill just raised a damn good point. Tlalli is banking on us to help protect the girls, which means a combat skill is of immediate value. And on that note, Nevill, would you be willing to switch to A or add it as a ranked preference vote?

 

[hello friend]

Getting two skills instead of one is pure speculation and even if it's true

Dude it's right there in the text. Melee AND unarmed. How do people miss this?

 

[Nevill]

I've not done a single ranked preference vote this CYOA and I am not about to start now.

And as for protecting the girls... Tlalli is banking on us to not require her supervision, and frames it as a question of our survival. Arguably all choices fit the bill, but some may, indeed, have a wider variety of uses than others.

I still want to get one of our skills to a half-decent level. I would rather have a competent shot who is helpless in CQC than a jack of all trades universal build that is only half as effective.

The question of "but what if we have to fight up close?" has a simple answer that, incidentally, coincides with "but what if we have to bluff someone?"
Don't. Play to your strengths.

 

[Orbit]

Getting two skills instead of one is pure speculation and even if it's true

Dude it's right there in the text. Melee AND unarmed. How do people miss this?

This does not mean that we'll get as much of a boost to those two skills as we would get to a single skill.

I'm adjusting my vote to 2 C > E > B, just to decrease the chances of melee winning. Butthurt mode activated.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

but what if we have to fight up close?"

Ah, but what if we want to?

 

[Baltika9]

I still want to get one of our skills to a half-decent level. I would rather have a competent shot who is helpless in CQC than a jack of all trades universal build that is only half as effective.

The long awaited sequel to Build Wars, Build Wars 2: Build Harder.

This seems like a false extreme to me: either we're good at shooting, or we're terrible at everything. No, we can certainly train these skill sets so that we're effective at both close and long ranges. And we have a stated specialist in melee/unarmed who is offering to teach us here and now. Again, why would we order juice at a whisky bar?

Getting two skills instead of one is pure speculation and even if it's true, maybe we get two ranks if we pick one of those single skill choices instead? Also since Tlalli can summon the power of a god she's probably an expert in astra too. I say we take that opportunity instead.

Yeah, but she has a tha god-channeling Astra. We don't, and it's uncertain that we'll get one any time soon. On the ther hand, fightiness is always useful and welcome.

 

[Life of the Party]

III/IV

C

A

 

[Nevill]

This seems like a false extreme to me: either we're good at shooting, or we're terrible at everything.

It's true for this particular choice, because either we have 2+ Ranged, or 1/1/1 in whatever.

I would like to build up our melee once we are decent at the skill I want to be our main.

Ah, but what if we want to?

Well, it's long been known that if you can't but want to very hard, you can.

 

[Orbit]

Nevill just raised a damn good point. Tlalli is banking on us to help protect the girls, which means a combat skill is of immediate value. And on that note, Nevill, would you be willing to switch to A or add it as a ranked preference vote?

I think Tlalli has more than enough combat prowess all by herself to cover our asses. Bringing some utility with our astra, trap or alchemy would make us a far better sidekick.

 

[Nahel]

Books: A; III,IV . Astra and poison for the win.
A Melee combat. With the legendary codex decision making we will never manage to always stay at range.
D: She is our savior and can be a decent mentor.

 

[Absinthe]

We might get dragged into melee again, but if we spend some time to learn about traps, bombs and other distraction, we will have an easy time to escape these situations. Remember Legend? Many times Jing was fucked up by opponents despite superior melee techniques because those honorless scum got an ace up their sleeve. I want to have all of those surprises for our enemies, too.

I think your approach to the CYOA is predicated on the notion that we get to set our encounters on our own terms. There's no way we're going to get all our fights to go our way, since even when we do have the option, there is no guarantee we will make the right choices all the time (it's a given that we'll mess up here and there), and even if we don't want to melee, not having any melee skill at all will make a difference if we find ourselves needing to disengage from a melee encounter.

I'm against going out of our way to talk to people. Asking for information from people willing to answer is OK. But otherwise I'm all down for shooting first and asking questions later. So given the choice of developing speech or some other skill, I'd likely take that other skill if it fits.

That's assuming social encounters will be happening on our preferred terms. If we're in a circumstance where we have to explain ourselves and we have zero speech, it'll hurt us. At least this time we can get the girls to do the talking for us.

Being stoic is cool, but our Azteca luchador grandma Tlalli is the coolest.

That ain't our cool.

I'm not on board with Baltika9's azteca luchador grandma fantasies, but I do think Tlalli is a cool person who just saved our asses (twice) and is helping us out, so I do think she is a person worth getting to know better alright. If we're just looking at it from a perspective of benefits, she's clearly highly capable and high in the hunter's association, but honestly I'm just voting because Tlalli is clearly a person worth being friends with.

This seems like a false extreme to me: either we're good at shooting, or we're terrible at everything.

It's true for this particular choice, because either we have 2+ Ranged, or 1/1/1 in whatever.

I would like to build up our melee once we are decent at the skill I want to be our main.

I'd approve of that logic more if the choice weren't "+1 to ranged skill" or "+1 to both melee weapon skill and unarmed skill." We're probably not going to get this kind of two-for-the-price-of-one deal from a master in the future (especially with unarmed masters being as rare as they are*), so if we're going to get both melee and ranged skills either way, we should really get them in the order that gives us the best payoff. Could you at least add A as a ranked preference vote?

*Unarmed description: "An art with few practitioners and even fewer masters, the skill to engage in combat without a weapon is exceedingly rare in the Tower."

 

[Nevill]

Here, a fresh tally for the butthurt purposes. Unlikely to be updated from this point onwards.
Leading options are bolded.

===Poll===

Books:
I. Stars, Cosmos, Gods - 4
II. Towerspace: A Topological Study - 8
III. Flora and Fauna of the Tower - 15
IV. A Primer to Astras - 13
V. Mathematics Part I - 2
VI. How to Make Friends - 0

Skills:
A. Melee and unarmed combat - 10 (11)
B. Ranged combat - 3 (1)
C. Astra usage - 7 (10)
D. Alchemy - 1 (0)
E. Traps - 2 (1)

Conversation:
A. The association that she belongs to, the Hunters - 8 (10)
B. The monsters that she hunts - 2 (1)
C. The Cannibal Duke, John Bull - 3 (2)
D. Her personal history - 9
E. Nothing - 0

Votes

Books:

Kz3ro - I & III
Orbit - IV & V
Asxetos - IV & III
CappenVarra - III > II > IV > I > V > VI
Egosphere - I & V
Nevill - III & IV
Baktika9 - II & III
hello friend - IV > VI > III
Azira - IV > III > II > I > V > VI
Absinthe - I > IV > V
Kalarion - II & III
Esquilax - I & III
baud - II & IV
ItsChon - II & III
Lambchop19 - III & IV
Grimgravy - III & IV
Tigranes - II & IV
Kipeci - II & IV
Oscar - III & IV
ERYFKRAD - B
MoistCloister - II & III
Life of the Party - III & IV
Nahel - III & IV

Skills:

Kz3ro - A
Baktika9 - A > B
hello friend - A > E > C
Absinthe - A > C
Esquilax - A > B
Lambchop19 - A > C
ERYFKRAD - A
MoistCloister - A
Nahel - A
baud - A

Kalarion - B > C
Tigranes - B > E > C
Nevill - B

Azira - C
Kipeci - C
Life of the Party - C
Orbit - C > E > B
Asxetos - C > B
Egosphere - C
ItsChon - C

CappenVarra - D > B > E > C > A

Grimgravy - E
Oscar - E > A

Conversation:

Orbit - A
Asxetos - A
Egosphere - A
Kalarion - A > B
Life of the Party - A
ItsChon - A
Grimgravy - A > D
Tigranes - A

CappenVarra - B > A > C > D > E
Kipeci - B

Kz3ro - C
Lambchop19 - C > A
Oscar - C

Nevill - D
Baktika9 - D
hello friend - D
Azira - D > A > C > E
Absinthe - D
Esquilax - D
baud - D
MoistCloister - D + leg
Nahel - D

ERYFKRAD - X

 

[Tigranes]

Man, the Skills vote is an almighty pudding of flops. I guess it will continue to keep changing, conditionals, etc. until the last minute.

Melee/Ranged/Astra are all going to confer certain advantages. Without engaging in really detailed what if scenarios, I'll just say that I would like to see us use our Hunter background, our calm personality, our affinity at stealth & navigation (wilderness experience, map astra), our high DEX (the current penalty being temporary).

We did a 'jump in smash things get hurt a lot smile' archetype with Xu Jing. I'm hoping we get to do Stoic Sniper this time, which doesn't rule out secondary use of Astras and other things.

 

[Absinthe]

The basic question still stands, though: Do you really think we'll never end up in melee in the future? Because if so, skipping melee skills now makes sense. If not, we have a golden opportunity for two melee skills in one training session and we should take it. Not to mention Tlalli is leaning on us to help protect the girls on the trip.

Also, I think we're headed more for the "do whatever it takes" type. Sniping will no doubt be a part of that, considering how useful it is, but we're going to be more the ruthlessly practical type using whatever works than a die-hard specialist with a crippling weakness for melee. We're going to end up knee-deep in shit in the future, the kind of trouble we didn't bargain for, so we need to have the skills to be effective in more than one way. I'm also pretty sure that between Rain and the girls, we're going to find ourselves in the position where we need to protect others in the future too, and that means we're going to be in a position where we can't just cut and run or hide in the bushes from a distance. And if we end up in that circumstance without melee skills, we'll either end up meatshielding in the worst way or watching people we wanted to protect get harmed.

 

[Baltika9]

Melee/Ranged/Astra are all going to confer certain advantages. Without engaging in really detailed what if scenarios, I'll just say that I would like to see us use our Hunter background, our calm personality, our affinity at stealth & navigation (wilderness experience, map astra), our high DEX (the current penalty being temporary).

All of those characteristics lend themselves to a good melee fighter as well. Think back to Su Liaojing of Kunlun (?) from Legend: that man was stone cold and managed to give us a nasty thrashing precisely by staying cool under pressure. And DEX also contributes to Unarmed, so we're good on that front.

At its heart, the second choice is about what kind of character we want to play, so it's understandable that we're up in arms about it. This is exciting, tbh, we're neck-to-neck between three choices, though the conditionals are a bit tedious.

I think Tlalli has more than enough combat prowess all by herself to cover our asses. Bringing some utility with our astra, trap or alchemy would make us a far better sidekick.

She puts us to shame in every category, I'm sure, from astra proficiency to bootlegging hooch. We're trying to pick what to do if stuff goes south, which will likely mean combat. And I'm sorry, but I don't see the Tome of Theseus becoming a real-time mini-map with enemy markers at level 2, if we even will get it there.

I'm not on board with Baltika9's azteca luchador grandma fantasies, but I do think Tlalli is a cool person who just saved our asses (twice) and is helping us out, so I do think she is a person worth getting to know better alright. If we're just looking at it from a perspective of benefits, she's clearly highly capable and high in the hunter's association, but honestly I'm just voting because Tlalli is clearly a person worth being friends with.

I agree with this 100%, the 'azteca luchador' bit is my way of having fun and giving her a cool label. You gotta admit that it's pretty on point: she put a shapeshifter in a headlock and tried to twist it's head off, and then executed a WWE-style dropkick on the Duke. There's only one question: is she ready to take on Macho Man Randy Savage in the fight of the century?

Like I said, having fun. I do this to all the characters I like.

 

[Tigranes]

"Will we never end up melee in the future" isn't a useful question to ask, because I can also ask, "will we never end up having a conversation in the future?" Yet we were happy to roll a low CHA dude that can't talk his way out of a broken condom. Why? Because we understood that (1) there are often multiple solutions to problems, and (2) choosing our strengths and weaknesses is part of the game. A low melee character will find a way to solve the problems we face in the future, perhaps by sneaking, repositioning, using our mobility.

Anyway, I should stop. There's a lot of overrationalising going on and I really don't think there's some special reason that melee (or ranged or astra) has some special edge here. I like Ranged, and I think it suits our Hunter, and I think we should hybridise but not too much. If someone says no Ranged is shit I like Xu Jing II melee whirlwind bro, that's cool, let's just be up front about it.

 

[CappenVarra]

treave for the sake of clarity: in the skill vote is "melee and unarmed" actually worth twice the learning points of any other option, and meant to be the no-brainer choice?

that's not the way i'm reading it, but some people (tm) seem to be...

 

[ItsChon]

Honestly exhausted. ERYFKRAD You put B, A, X but B isn't an option when it comes to the books??

-Your method doesn't account for that.-

It does because that's when you do the next run off to check for C. I didn't write as much in my original post because the next run off wouldn't have changed the result. If, for example, we had an extra vote for B this current voting period, so B and C would be tied at 6-6, and then with the conditional coming in from Cappen the vote would be 7-6, we would flop the C conditionals. Upon seeing that B would still lose 9-10 in comparison to A, we would reflop all the B conditionals towards C, to get the current 10-10 tie right now. You did as much now, but C and B were tied, so you just tabulated the results of both flops.

Anyway, I should stop. There's a lot of overrationalising going on and I really don't think there's some special reason that melee (or ranged or astra) has some special edge here.

That's the problem. I get so tired of people trying to sit here and explain to me why x decision is better than y decision when it really all comes down to how we prefer our character to be played. There literally already was another CYOA where we played as a melee dude and people want to do it again. Very boring if you ask me but whatever.

Regardless, now C and A are tied. I don't even care at this point which wins I just want the next update lmao. I'll hold off on adding any conditionals to my post because other people might flop, but I'm thinking of probably going with C because melee is just not as interesting and practical for a ten year old.

That's what some of y'all seem to not be taking into account. Everyone here is trying to play off this investment into melee as a temporary thing and it doesn't have to be our ultimate end goal, but we're literally ten years fucking old right now. Literally any one of us should be able to kill Wrinkly if we were fighting bare handed, and I guarantee I could put the fucker down regardless if he had a knife in his hand or not. Now what do you think these actual predator monsters or hostile humans we run into are going to be able to do to him? Now if we give him a bow, or even let him use his sling shot, he can do some damage while staying out of Tlalli's way and being out of danger himself. It makes far more sense to take melee now as an investment in the future while we get bigger and stronger, but that's not really where we want to take our character I thought (why the fuck else did we vote on hunter).