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Arbiter
Joined
Jan 18, 2014
Messages
919
It might be. Most people in the jianghu don't fight to kill.

Of course, life-or-death fights are the standard for Jing, so we should hopefully be able to fight him off effectively.
 

ChumBucket

Augur
Joined
May 16, 2010
Messages
349
I am once again going to play devil's advocate here:
1. That girl we will attempt to save is a Zhang, our sworn enemies. She might turn on us mid fight.
2. As treave said, lower neigong is not directly correlated to their fighting strength.
3. Sitting at the sidelines would allow us to use WQS unnoticed and without risk of getting cut in half by a tech before we absorb it.. This also opens up the possibility to test the Taiji/WQS combo so we might not have to fully reveal WQS.
 

tropic

Scholar
Joined
Sep 12, 2010
Messages
129
Thanks for the answer!

That also seems to contradict the idea that D is instadeath for the brave Zhang girl.
 

Absinthe

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
4,062
  1. No. If Zhang Minyue turns on us during the fight, she is destroying her odds against Jian Yixiao. Only Zhang Manxing is that stupid. Besides, Miss Zhou vouched for her. If she did train under the Sword Saint, then she shouldn't be the type either.
  2. True, but the sword demon is not lacking in fighting strength either. It's not a case of skill vs stats. It's a case of skill vs skill and stats.
  3. It also opens us up to that 1v1 we are strongly warned against right now.
Remember, Jing does not trust his own odds in a 1v1 against Jian Yixiao. I don't see why Minyue would suddenly do alright with her vastly inferior neigong while we don't even feel comfortable with our odds. According to Miss Zhou, she wasn't that good before. She must have improved fast from her apprenticeship, but this is ridiculous.
 
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ChumBucket

Augur
Joined
May 16, 2010
Messages
349
Good points Absinthe, but in reference to my previous points:
1. Even we beat back the sword demon we could be injured. We are in the midst of our enemies and sympathy will be hard to find. Heck she may take an opportunity to avenge her brother in that case. She may not be the idiot her brother was, but she might have the family knack for pragmatism and schemes.
3. Absorbing his own skills might give us the edge we need to beat him.

That said you have got me leaning towards B, but I am waiting to see a bit more discuss before I make up my mind.
 

Absinthe

Arcane
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Messages
4,062
1. Miss Zhou would plead our case. Her brother was also a reasonable guy last time at the pirates. The father would be displeased with our presence, but he's an honorbound fool and we would just have saved his ass.
3. Dude tried to snipe us with a sudden kill last time. For all we know, he could end her with a sudden kill this time and we'd just get a single tech before we face him. Otherwise, I agree Wuxiang Qiankun would better our odds against him, but then he would probably just run off into the night again with a new sword. In that case, he will have another sword and possibly learn we have Wuxiang Qiankun. If Jian Yixiao learns the Chengying Sword, we won't even be able to use Wuxiang Qiankun on him in the future because that sword is almost invisible in the hands of a skilled user.
 
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Esquilax

Arcane
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Dec 7, 2010
Messages
4,833
No. If Zhang Minyue turns on us during the fight, she is destroying her odds against Jian Yixiao. Only Zhang Manxing is that stupid. Besides, Miss Zhou vouched for her. If she did train under the Sword Saint, then she shouldn't be the type either.

How would she know that we're here to help her? Look at it from her perspective: We show up in the middle of the night, at the home of the Zhou Clan, who we had betrayed and whose pugilists we killed three years ago so that we could save foreign pirates. Oh, and the cherry on top is that we took the heat for killing her brother. You can't really expect her to act completely pragmatically in that situation. She, and the others here, might see Xu Jing as an even bigger threat than the Sword Demon.

For the record, I do agree that Minyue looks like she will get her ass kicked. She's probably stronger than she looks thanks to her Sword Saint training, but even if she's hiding her true strength, I don't think that she's anywhere near the Sword Saint's strength.

So, quite a dilemma we've got here; intervening risks getting attacked by the people that we want to help (this should be obvious), but not intervening means that the Sword Demon is going to run her through with his sword. We've never heard of this girl before, but even a long apprenticeship under the Sword Saint, even if it was as long as Maniac Training II, ain't gonna cut it against this guy.

So what to do? Troll, of course! We borrow Minyue's sword, clear up the situation with our BRO, the Sword Saint, and hand it back to her in the big Conference. We also draw the Sword Demon on us, but he was coming after us anyways. Whatever, fuck him, he wants to kill us, he can take a number and get in line.

B
 
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Absinthe

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
4,062
Esquilax...
C. You run in and attempt to steal the Chengying Sword right in front of everyone. If you succeed, that means the Sword Demon’s attention will be focused on you. However, whether you succeed or fail, you are guaranteed to draw hostility from Zhang Minyue and the Zhous, perhaps forcing you into a fight on two fronts.
So our stealth does nothing, they even see us coming before we try to steal it, and you expect us to steal her sword with just 5 sleight of hand?

She can't be that bad.
 
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Smashing Axe

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
2,835
Divinity: Original Sin
D>B I agree with ChumBucket, watching and absorbing all their moves with WQS sounds like a good idea. Let the Zhou get slaughtered for all I care, I just want to defeat cackling madman.
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Arbitrary numbers are being thrown around again. Probabilities of success down to the second decimal are next, I guess.

I don't see why grabbing the sword in full view of everybody would require sleight of hand and not just fast action on our part. There is no trick to it.

That said, I am leaning towards B, as I find it unlikely anyone here would be stupid enough to engage us while the maniac is clearly a bigger threat and is fighting against them while we are not. What happens after the fight, happens. We will have to survive it, first, to worry about it.

Hmmm, does anyone else think that Minyue improving by leaps and bounds in such a short span of time might be due to a legendary manual?
 

Absinthe

Arcane
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Messages
4,062
I think she has some of the Nine Shadows Imprisonment Sword technique, but she clearly doesn't have the legendary neigong.

I don't see why grabbing the sword in full view of everybody would require sleight of hand and not just fast action on our part. There is no trick to it.
Because sleight of hand is the stealing skill. Fast action requires fast hands. Lets ask treave then. Would sleight of hand be involved in stealing the sword?
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
You don't have to have a legendary neigong to be a legendary swordsman. Bai Jiutian would attest to that.

Too much attention is given to raw stats.
 

Absinthe

Arcane
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Messages
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I just agreed with you that she would have legendary tech, but her overall mastery seems to be rather low.
 

treave

Arcane
Patron
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11,370
Codex 2012
Plays a more important role if you don't want it to be noticed. Less if you're snatching it out of her hands, though still relevant. It's hardly possible to sneak over in this situation before she starts fighting so a quick smash and grab is the best option if the sword is what you're after.
 

Esquilax

Arcane
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Messages
4,833
Based on that clarification, I think that we have enough Sleight-of-Hand skill to take it from Minyue's hands and enough speed to run off. That being said, I am still strongly considering both B and D. Even if C works - and I think it will - that means that we've got the Sword Demon, the orthodox sects, the Zhang Clan, and the Zhou Clan/Minyue all hating our guts temporarily. It's difficult to maintain that kind of status quo for long.

Taking the sword won't be nearly as difficult as stopping all of these people from killing us once we've got it.*

Hmmm, does anyone else think that Minyue improving by leaps and bounds in such a short span of time might be due to a legendary manual?

Well, maybe it had something to do with it. If she did learn from the legendary manual that we know that the Zhang Clan possesses, it was certainly a technique and not the neigong boost that forms the basis of it. She could know something like the Nine Shadows Imprisonment Sword, though.

* Nevertheless, we need a spare sword for Lord Zhang to have his voice rightfully heard.
 

Absinthe

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
4,062
No we don't. He's Lord Zhang. They will hear his voice whether they want to or not. He's good at that sort of thing.

I think right now it'd be better to target Jiang Yixiao's swords. He's the bigger threat and we can get massive +Wudang rep by returning the Qixing Longyuan Sword and still have a sword to spare.
 
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Kz3r0

Arcane
Joined
May 28, 2008
Messages
27,013
I know that B will win but whatever, vote A guys, the other alternatives are fighting the maniac alone, suicidal, or helping our sworn enemies that are honor bound to kill us for killing Manxing, this is not our fight.
 

Smashing Axe

Arcane
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Divinity: Original Sin
I know that B will win but whatever, vote A guys, the other alternatives are fighting the maniac alone, suicidal, or helping our sworn enemies that are honor bound to kill us for killing Manxing, this is not our fight.
If that's your reasoning then why aren't you voting D? We'd be sitting on the sidelines observing, that alone will give us some advantage in our next encounter with the maniac thanks to WQS, high perception and intelligence. Also he might be sufficiently weakened that we can mess with him without problem. If not then we can slip into the shadows. I don't see how A has any advantage comparatively.
 

Absinthe

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
4,062
Or he might be in a better position now that it's a 1v1 and not a 2v1.

He could also just run off into the night with his new sword.
 

Kz3r0

Arcane
Joined
May 28, 2008
Messages
27,013
If that's your reasoning then why aren't you voting D? We'd be sitting on the sidelines observing, that alone will give us some advantage in our next encounter with the maniac thanks to WQS, high perception and intelligence. Also he might be sufficiently weakened that we can mess with him without problem.
Actually B will be better for no other reason that the maniac is more dangerous that all of them combined, I doubt that they will weken him that much, we should chose a modified B where we help them but not so much to put us in real danger or exhaust us.
 

Smashing Axe

Arcane
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Messages
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Divinity: Original Sin
Or he might be in a better position now that it's a 1v1 and not a 2v1.
That would require him being aware of our presence. And even if he does somehow notice us and go 1v1 he will have expended at least some energy. I get the feeling this guy does a ritual to power himself up before he goes into battle, who knows how long that lasts. Anyway, if we observe him fighting we will have an advantage thanks to WQS and int/per mimicry and counters.
He could also just run off into the night with his new sword.
You mean without killing someone? That doesn't sound like his MO. No, he will fight to get the sword if it's not given upon demand. If he does defeat the girl and run off with the sword before we can counter, then we still gain an advantage in that we now know some of his repertoire and can intuit their counters for next time.

Also if he kills the girl too quickly for us to gain some insight into his abilities, then she would be more burden than aid to us in a 2v1 battle anyway.

Actually B will be better for no other reason that the maniac is more dangerous that all of them combined, I doubt that they will weken him that much, we should chose a modified B where we help them but not so much to put us in real danger or exhaust us.
I doubt the benefit from the piss-weak Zhou intervening to help us of all people outweighs the benefit from Xu Jing's insight into the sword dude's abilities. Better the guy exhaust himself on cannon-fodder than us anyway.

Also if we do win in B, we're very likely to be exhausted and at the Zhou clan's mercy. The Zhang girl's too if she survives. That's not a position we want to be in. At least with D there very likely won't be a girl or Zhou clan to capture us if we go toe-to-toe with sword dude.
 
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Absinthe

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
4,062
Oh no, I think he'd kill her, then he'd run off. And just because she'd get overwhelmed in a 1v1 doesn't mean we can't outfight him in a 2v1.
 

Esquilax

Arcane
Joined
Dec 7, 2010
Messages
4,833
Actually N will be better for no other reason that the maniac is more dangerous that all of them combined, I doubt that they will weken him that much, we should chose a modified B where we help them but not so much to put us in real danger or exhaust us.

If we fight him with our Yuchang Sword in hand, we're already in danger to begin with. This is the exact same thing as B, if we reveal ourselves with the intention of saving Minyue and the Zhou Clan, we have to fight hard anyways. A is a coward's way out that will end with the Sword Demon possessing three swords. Oh, and he'll still be coming for ours after this, so what does this solve? A makes him stronger and merely postpones an encounter with him.

So, based on that, we've got three ways of tackling this problem:

B - fight alongside Zhang Minyue, which runs the risk of the Zhou Clan/Minyue seeing us as a threat. Given that we possess a stolen Emei Sect treasure, have betrayed the Zhou Clan before, are sworn enemies of the Zhang Clan, and have just sneaked into the Zhou Clan Manor, they might see us as a threat as well. Might not be the right time for heroics, but they could be desperate enough to ignore that in favour of dealing with the madman in front of them.

C - We'll attempt to take the blade, something that I think will work. In doing so, we'll be drawing a stupid amount of hate on ourselves from both sides. On the other hand, if we know they're coming after us we can prepare and perhaps lure them into a fight more favourable to us. The Sword Demon is weaker during the day, so we can hunt him then.

D - Could be a case of too little, too late if the Sword Demon kills everybody. WQS will help us, but if he kills Minyue and takes her sword, he's still got three of them. To make matters worse, this man is smart enough to run when he's feeling a bit overwhelmed - if we start getting the better of him, his work here is done anyways, so he'll just run away. Just like he did last time.
 

Smashing Axe

Arcane
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Messages
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Divinity: Original Sin
Oh no, I think he'd kill her, then he'd run off. And just because she'd get overwhelmed in a 1v1 doesn't mean we can't outfight him in a 2v1.
Again, that gives us an advantage. How do you see us winning in B? Do you imagine us being capable of walking away? This guy is at least at BJ's level here, we're going to have to give everything we've got, and even then there's no guarantee. How are we going to get away from the Zhou in that condition exactly?

With B you're proposing we fight in the enemy's camp, exhausting ourselves and very likely putting ourselves at the Zhou clan's mercy. That's not a position I want to be in. Better to observe and gain an advantage over this guy, and proceed from there. He may get away for now, so what? Next time we'll be ready and have a better estimate of our odds and how to counter him. Plus we very likely won't be in the middle of an enemy camp.
 

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