In Progress [LP CYOA] Tower

[Baltika9]

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...

It's only a no-brainer if you want those skills.

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.

Ten years old is about the right age to learn how to fight. My grandpa started teaching me at that age, but I'm from the eastern bloc. Caucasian and steppe peoples start their kids even sooner.

Also, you're forgetting that we put down man-eating lizards and a shadowbeasts alone with a knife. Yeah, we got the talent for it.

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.

Jing also liked girls and food. Are we going to chase after boys and starve ourselves just to be contrarian?

 

[ItsChon]

Ten years old is about the right age to learn how to fight. My grandpa started teaching mute at that age, but I'm from the eastern bloc. Caucasian and steppe peoples start their kids even sooner.

Also, you're forgetting that we put down man-eating lizards and a shadowbeasts alone with a knife. Yeah, we got the talent for it.

Irrelevant to my main point. It's fine if we want to go into melee in the future, but I thought we weren't trying to do that this LP? So you're admitting you don't want to go towards ranged?

Jing also liked girls and food. Are we going to chase after boys and starve ourselves just to be contrarian?

Disingenuous argument, come on. We're specifically talking about changing up our build to get a new experience in regards to combat and problem solving. I would have been willing to vote for Traps or Alchemy over any of the other skills if they had a chance of winning because it would have been new and interesting. Too bad everyone is popamole at heart.

 

[Absinthe]

"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.

Choosing strengths and weaknesses is one thing, but having absolutely zero skill in a field is beyond that. And frankly I do think we should get a single rank of speech skill sometime. That doesn't mean we should start maximizing our charisma, pick speech every time, and aim for talker route. It just means that we should pick up a single rank at some point so we don't get completely fucked if we need to tell our side of a story or explain something. And I don't think "specializing is part of the game" would be a good argument against picking up 1 rank of speech skills.

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.

Well the special reason in this case is that it's both a melee weapons skill and an unarmed skill in a single training, unlike all the other options, so in this case, I think there actually is a special edge, yes. And we're not rationalizing. Voting A isn't some kind of vote to reject archery forever and be total Xu Jing all over again. I mentioned before that I reject all-or-nothing type decision-making, so please don't insinuate that arguments for 2A are just bullshit excuses to hide some kind of desire to reject ranged combat and specialize 100% into melee. That's just a disingenuous argument.

 

[ItsChon]

Well the special reason in this case is that it's both a melee weapons skill and an unarmed skill in a single training, unlike all the other options, so in this case, I think there actually is a special edge, yes. And we're not rationalizing. Voting A isn't some kind of vote to reject archery forever and be total Xu Jing all over again. I mentioned before that I reject all-or-nothing type decision-making, so please don't insinuate that arguments for 2A are just bullshit excuses to hide some kind of desire to reject ranged combat and specialize 100% into melee. That's just a disingenuous argument.

Idk, sounds like that's what Baltika wants judging by his post. And like I said regarding Melee,

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).

If you still want to focus on ranged, I see no point in putting an investment right now into melee just so it can be a backup skill later on. Might as well just focus on Ranged and pick up the self defense later.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

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

Why.

 

[Absinthe]

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

B is an option. It's the option to not pick any books. Everyone else is picking A and sub-voting the books they want though. You just forgot about A and B.

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.

I think you take treave's CYOAs to be a little more generous than they actually are. Treave wont shy away from putting us in a bad position if we don't have the tools to deal with it or giving us enough rope to hang ourselves if we make the wrong choices. He won't necessarily asspull a save if we find ourselves trying to do something because of circumstances when we don't have the skills to succeed. The wrong choices, or even the right choices with too little skill, do result in bad ends in treave CYOAs. That doesn't mean there's only one valid way to play, of course, but there is enough room to argue that some options are better than others.

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.

We've already used melee on tentacle monster and the lizard that ambushed us and the girls. Clearly it's already more useful than you describe. Tlalli also asked us to learn something that will help us protect the girls, so I'm going to make the wild and highly exaggerated argument that melee skill as taught by Tlalli will actually help us do that. Besides, we know we're going to end up in melee situations in the future, so it is reasonable to have melee skill for that. And if we want to protect people (like Rain) we have to accept that we won't always be able to move out of the way.

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).

Actually hunter is the most melee-oriented option. None of the backgrounds came with a melee skill, but hunter came with a strength boost. Fish sign brought us back to average strength though.

Idk, sounds like that's what Baltika wants judging by his post. And like I said regarding Melee,

Well I dunno about Baltika's reasons. I have my own. And my reason really is "this dude is going to end up in close quarters fights, so let's not be stupid and develop the skill." I don't anticipate being a melee-focused specialist, nor do I intend that. I only anticipate that melee skills will be necessary for the kinds of situations we'll end up in in the future and that if we don't get it, we'll regret it. I just think we're going to end up in circumstances where a monster gets the drop on us or there's a monster in front of us and Rain or who knows behind us, while we don't have the skill to take on the monster in a close quarters fight. And that will suck.

If you still want to focus on ranged, I see no point in putting an investment right now into melee just so it can be a backup skill later on. Might as well just focus on Ranged and pick up the self defense later.

Well, like I said, I think it delivers both melee weapons skill and unarmed skill if we pick melee, unlike all the other options which only boost one skill. Also, unarmed description clearly states that unarmed masters are hard to find in the tower.

 

[CappenVarra]

who wants to be bruce lee when you can carry a magnum revolver?

 

[Baltika9]

So you're admitting you don't want to go towards ranged?

I've been pushing for a hybrid melee-ranged build a-la John Wick since update 3 (I think), in this exact words.

Disingenuous argument, come on.

Perhaps I misunderstood you. I thought you meant that you want to avoid melee/ unarmed specifically because we already did that with Jing. I then applied that same logic to other character aspects. I was a bit of an ass, yeah, but I apologize if I misunderstood you. This is genuine, by the way.

Edit: this is what I want us to become, eventually.

Edit 2: Absinthe, my reasons for going 2A are pretty much the same as yours, plus what I mentioned of my own.

 

[baud]

Eh, would work if it's just one option but there's no way to vote on multiple options since we can only leave one rating.

Or we could use the tool Nevill proposed at the start of the thread. It would just require for everyone to format their votes

 

[Orbit]

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.

Don't forget that voting melee will magically fix our leg. And all the muscles we're building up will give us +2 CHA with girls and pedo bears and everyone is going to call us THE CHAD (yes, with pronoun and in bold).

Really, I wish I had as much faith in treave giving us such obvious superior choices. But I don't think that any of the skill choices where Tlalli has experience will give us wildly different bang for our bucks.

 

[Absinthe]

Or we could use the tool Nevill proposed at the start of the thread. It would just require for everyone to format their votes

Eh, after the latest mess with vote-counting, I'm going to start counting tallies again.

Don't forget that voting melee will magically fix our leg. And all the muscles we're building up will give us +2 CHA with girls and pedo bears and everyone is going to call us THE CHAD (yes, with pronoun and in bold).

Really, I wish I had as much faith in treave giving us such obvious superior choices. But I don't think that any of the skill choices where Tlalli has experience will give us wildly different bang for our bucks.

The difference between "A will give is two skills" and all the nonsense you are taking on is that the former is backed directly by the text of the option. Feel free to reread those options:

Tlalli has offered to train you on your journey. She will teach you a little of everything, but you would like to focus on improving:

A. Melee and unarmed combat. This is Tlalli’s specialty, and being able to hold your ground in close quarters would be important in a fight.

B. Ranged combat. Although not as proficient as her melee skills, Tlalli is still far more adept than you at engaging a target from a distance.

C. Astra usage. You would like to train in your ability to use an Astra more efficiently, and also to understand your current Astra better.

D. Alchemy. As it turns out, all Hunters are expected to know some field alchemy, even if they might not be experts. She can give you pointers to improve.

E. Traps. Having spent a good amount of her life in the wilderness, Tlalli is experienced at both setting and spotting traps.​

It says "melee and unarmed combat" so it's pretty clear that that is what we will be training with A. Two skills, as opposed to one. Treave, can you confirm if we've got it right?

 

[baud]

who wants to be bruce lee when you can carry a magnum revolver?

Because if Bruce Lee is in fist range, you're dead? Because if don't have your weapon, you're (again) dead?

In that regard, since ranged can't win, I'm flopping to A (no conditional), because we'd get better short-term value out of it and Absinthe has a good point.

 

[ItsChon]

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

Why.

Sorry I'm just retarded.

I think you take treave's CYOAs to be a little more generous than they actually are. Treave wont shy away from putting us in a bad position if we don't have the tools to deal with it. And he won't asspull a save if we find ourselves trying to do something because of circumstances when we don't have the skills to succeed. The wrong choices, or even the right choices with too little skill, do result in bad ends in treave CYOAs. That doesn't mean there's only one valid way to play, of course, but there is enough room to argue that some options are better than others.

You're really going to tell me that him not killing us when we attacked the beast at the beginning wasn't an ass pull? Whatever, this is irrelevant to my point. I'm not denying that melee can be useful, I'm arguing that ranged can be just as useful (arguably more so as a ten year-old but whatever) and it's more new and interesting then melee would be.

Whatever though, I flop to C as well along with Baud.

 

[Absinthe]

Uh, baud, did you mean to flop to A? Because I am confused.

 

[baud]

Uh, baud, did you mean to flop to A? Because I am confused.

I am stupid. Thank you, I wanted to vote for melee, but I wrote C instead of A for some reason.

 

[ItsChon]

Well I still flop to C so we're still tied.

EDIT: Actually A is now winning by one vote. RIP

 

[hello friend]

This discussion is becoming increasingly autistic and tedious. It's not like a hunter has to fit this narrowly defined archer trapper concept, or that going for melee is going for the new shinie. Why go Hunter if we aren't going for ranged? Why, indeed. Might as well say why get high CON if we don't intend to ever be close enough to the enemy to get hit. Personally, I've been interested in a combination of Astra, Ranged, Traps, and Melee from the start - with a particular focus on Astra. Man it's fine if you want to play a sniper, just stop strawmanning alternate picks. Dumb faggot.

Also, I've just skimmed through this argument, so I don't know who I'm responding to. Just assume it's about you. More fun that way.

 

[Absinthe]

Voting Tally:

Books:

A 22

I 4 (4)
II 8 (7)
III 15 (16)
IV 14 (15)
V 2 (2)
VI 1 (0)​

B 1​

Training:

A 10 (11)
B 3 (1)
C 7 (10)
D 1 (0)
E 2 (1)​

Conversation:

A 8 (10)
B 2 (1)
C 4 (3)
D 9 (9)
E 0 (0)
X 1 (1)​

Votes

USERNAME           │ BOOKS              │ TRAINING   │ CONVERSATION
───────────────────┼────────────────────┼────────────┼─────────────
Kz3r0              │ A I+III            │ A          │ C
Orbit              │ A IV+V             │ C>E>B      │ A
asxetos            │ A IV+III           │ C>B        │ A
CappenVarra        │ A III>II>IV>I>V>VI │ D>B>E>C>A  │ B>A>D>C>E
Egosphere          │ A I+V              │ C          │ A
Nevill             │ A III+IV           │ B          │ D
Baltika9           │ A II+III           │ A>B        │ D>A
hello friend       │ A IV+VI>III        │ A>E        │ D
Azira              │ A IV>III>II>I>V>VI │ C          │ D>A>C>E
Kipeci             │ A II+IV            │ C          │ B
Absinthe           │ A I>IV>V           │ A>C        │ D>!E
Kalarion           │ A II+III           │ B>C        │ A>B
Esquilax           │ A I+III            │ A>B        │ D
baud               │ A II+IV            │ A          │ D
ItsChon            │ A II+III           │ C          │ A
Lambchop19         │ A III+IV           │ A>C        │ C>A
Tigranes           │ A II+IV            │ B>E>C      │ A
Grimgravy          │ A III+IV           │ E          │ A>D
oscar              │ A III+IV           │ E>A        │ C
ERYFKRAD           │ B                  │ A          │ X
MoistCloister      │ A II+III           │ A          │ D
Life of the Party  │ A III+IV           │ C          │ A
Nahel              │ A III+IV           │ A          │ D

 

[Tigranes]

This discussion is becoming increasingly autistic and tedious. It's not like a hunter has to fit this narrowly defined archer trapper concept, or that going for melee is going for the new shinie. Why go Hunter if we aren't going for ranged? Why, indeed. Might as well say why get high CON if we don't intend to ever be close enough to the enemy to get hit. Personally, I've been interested in a combination of Astra, Ranged, Traps, and Melee from the start - with a particular focus on Astra. Man it's fine if you want to play a sniper, just stop strawmanning alternate picks. Dumb faggot.

Also, I've just skimmed through this argument, so I don't know who I'm responding to. Just assume it's about you. More fun that way.

I AM VERY ANGRY AT THESE WORDS I WILL EAT MY OWN SPINE IN PROTEST FIGHT ME

ALSO VOTE RAND PAUL RANGED

 

[Orbit]

It says "melee and unarmed combat" so it's pretty clear that that is what we will be training with A. Two skills, as opposed to one.

I know how to read, thank you. Now please show me where treave wrote that we're going to get as much experience in both skills as we would get in the singe skill choices.

 

[hello friend]

lol wtf is that a bird

is that it's tongue

what am i looking at

 

[Absinthe]

Orbit,

That's a question to ask treave, I suppose. My take is that since it's her specialty she's extra effective at teaching it. If it were just a vote to train two skills to a lower standard than all the other options would train one skill, then I don't see why treave wouldn't just let us train one of them to a higher level instead of giving a single option to suck at both her specialties.

 

[Tigranes]

"takes" aside, unless treave confirms that A gives us a double-dip bonus points, it seems utterly reasonable not to assume it in decision-making.

just vote melee if you like melee and range if you like range boys and then we can skip to the bit where we die because we didn't learn *looks at notes* alchemy?

 

[Orbit]

As if we wouldn't all flop to alchemy at the very last minute...

 

[Baltika9]

Absinthe, you missed Nevill's flop on 3. 3A and 3D should be tied currently.

Also, changing the last part of my vote to 3D.

We're good otherwise, thank you and Nevill both for the tallies.

As if we wouldn't all flop to alchemy at the very last minute...