[OOC] The War of the Three

[KoL]

@KoL

Nerd.

@TheWindel

Pff.

[Silvan Haven]

@KoL

You say that but when I look at that many numbers gathered in one place my eyes just kind of slide off.

My question with the rose field had more to do with why it grows faster the bigger it gets. The DnD spell has a set radius of destruction so it's not particularly helpful in that regard.

Sorry if this is annoying you. I'm trying to puzzle through the mechanics of the move not find problems with it.

[KoL]

How depressing of Fran. Such a sad life.

[Lucius Cypher]

Meh. Such is life in the Nexus.

[The 42nd Gecko]

<Snipped quote by The 42nd Gecko>

I get that. I just felt that perhaps it would be best to make it evident, lest people start think that yarn balls are the major currency of the Happyverse.

@KoL

Yarn balls aren't the major currency of the Happyverse? What? I was promised cats.

[KoL]

@KoL

You say that but when I look at that many numbers gathered in one place my eyes just kind of slide off.

My question with the rose field had more to do with why it grows faster the bigger it gets. The DnD spell has a set radius of destruction so it's not particularly helpful in that regard.

Sorry if this is annoying you. I'm trying to puzzle through the mechanics of the move not find problems with it.

@Silvan Haven

The thing is that Epic Spells can be tweaked to the user's taste, at the cost of making them hard to cast, the actual ones in the book are just guidelines for how the math of D&D works for epic level stuff (a quick tip, it's broken as hell). Like I said, I used that as a guideline to see if people understood it better. Don't care for the numbers but the description, is more proper in this case.

And to answer the second question, that's just how exponential math works IRL. The bigger something is, the easier it's for to get bigger. It's all around us the whole time. For example even the sun began as a speck of dust floating in the interstelar gas some day, or like how, if you let a bush and then two and then three, so on and so forth grow in one place, soon enough you'll have a forest. Even something as simple as a snow ball rolling down a hill, gets bigger the bigger it already is (because it has more surface area to gather more snow). Even economy, after all, the richer you are, the faster you get more money.

If you want a small lesson in differential equations, I can explain this even further, an show you the basic equation that can be used to describe almost any exponential growth/decrease (after all, the contrary is real here as well). It's not 100% precise in all cases, which is why there are tons of especial applications for each area, but the base equation from where all others differ is one and the same.

That said, I have to go to college now, to I don't have much time to explain this in detail now. I'll leave you with a video that, while only partially related, offers an extremely powerful insight on something anyone dealing with management of any form and of any resource learns sooner or later:

Life is weird...

And yeah, I love V-sauce.

[BCTheEntity]

@KoL@Silvan Haven I'm kind of inclined to agree with Silvan here, since you mentioned me specifically in your post. As far as I'm concerned, the numbers you put up could mean anything, and as Silvan says, the D&D version has a set radius which Victoire's seems to lack. Besides which, saying it's derived from D&D doesn't necessarily mean anything depending on how much it's been upscaled; if the flowers are strong enough that they literally grant victory once they manage to grow out far enough, there ought to be an associated, presumably extremely high energy cost that, so it seems, simply isn't there. One drop of blood can easily kill everybody within a hundred kilometers in minutes, and the way Victoire sets up means there's not a damn thing anybody can do to stop it. You understand why some people might have their concerns about something like that?

[KoL]

PS: this works even for the number of defects in a production plant. Per definition, 80% of the total problems come from 20% of the causes for problems. That's how you work around production and quality optimization, first deal with the bigger causes, then stop, look at the process again, find the new problems, rinse and repeat ad infinitum, since getting rid of 100% of the problems is impossible, by the very nature of this law and the world itself.

Here's a Wikipedia article that may shed some more light of why, big things get bigger and small get smaller: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution

As you see @Silvan Haven, the roses don't follow any eldritch law that's so hard to understand. The way they grow is truly basic common sense. I just never thought that I would have to go this far into this issue to get people to understand them, I mean, for me they just look logical, I guess I forgot that not everyone can see these patterns so easily.

[Lonewolf685]

Why do I get the feeling this is something heating up if it's spilled from Discord to OOC?

You're fine, just keep it civil -_-

[KoL]

@KoL@Silvan Haven I'm kind of inclined to agree with Silvan here, since you mentioned me specifically in your post. As far as I'm concerned, the numbers you put up could mean anything, and as Silvan says, the D&D version has a set radius which Victoire's seems to lack. Besides which, saying it's derived from D&D doesn't necessarily mean anything depending on how much it's been upscaled; if the flowers are strong enough that they literally grant victory once they manage to grow out far enough, there ought to be an associated, presumably extremely high energy cost that, so it seems, simply isn't there. One drop of blood can easily kill everybody within a hundred kilometers in minutes, and the way Victoire sets up means there's not a damn thing anybody can do to stop it. You understand why some people might have their concerns about something like that?

@BCTheEntity

Still much better and more explained than the powers of nearly everyone else in this RP as well as the fact that I didn't pull these from out of nowhere (and keep trying to add powers to my characters with "assumptions"). Anyone here can say that Victoire always worked like this. It's just the, now I had to go out of my way to explain the logic behind it to please some people and see that I'm still failing.

I mean, isn't there a part on my post saying, "Ignore the numbers, that's just an example", pretty specifically. And the numbers don't mean anything, they are a measurement of area, don't try to play the smart, that's not gonna happen.

Finally, it's not my fault that I play a completely simple and legal character that doesn't ever try to do anything that's not of her description just because "I think she could", and the result is the same always, when plenty of people here know how to deal with it. If you don't do it in time, well, that's not my problem, really.

[Silvan Haven]

The question was more one of where it gets the resources to grow like that. My bad for wording it incorrectly. I've asked it before but normally it gets buried under the avalanche of people with problems about Victoire.

Are the beds essentially giant mana vacuums that draw in the surrounding ambient magical energy or is it more of a biological thing?

Edit: Gaaaaaaaash dan it BC. I'm trying to go for non-hostile learning here.

[Lonewolf685]

@BCTheEntity@KoL@Silvan Haven

Civil. Remain Civil.

This discussion should be taken as hypothetical discourse for sake of sating curiosity, nothing more. Victoire is going to be an NPC after this battle so I don't see the point in making the discussions any more emotional then that.

[BCTheEntity]

@KoL Yes, I know how math works. I understand the logistics behind exponential growth. I'll thank you not to patronise me as if I'm stupid. My problem isn't with understanding how the ability functions; it's why you the GMs think an ability that has an exponentially larger area of effect over time, with no extra energy input from the creator beyond the initial offering (and as Silvan points out, no stated method regarding how it gathers energy to grow in that exponential pattern), and which is on its own strong enough to kill every enemy PC, is not in any way "broken". Maybe it is technically legal by the game's rules, but for some reason, I highly doubt you'd let any bog-standard player have an ability which was anything like as devastating as Victoire's blood roses.

Moreover, there seems to be an assumption on your part that players should be forced to build their own characters in a manner that actually lets them counteract an ability like this, in particular to handle the manner in which it's deployed. The specific build they'd need involves... well, running it through my head, I'd say easily-repeated teleportation, some form of cleansing aura strong enough to erase all the roses in an area that may or may not be very small, a very wide-ranging detection ability that lets them sense demons and demonic constructs so that they know where Victoire and the roses are to begin with, and most likely abilities specialised toward countering Victoire's moves such as anti-teleportation. Those are all pretty specific powers, and lacking even one means the character cannot stop the roses alone, either because they lack the means to do so outright, or because to do so would involve metagaming that I can only imagine would be slapped down immediately; I could write up an example sheet for such a character, and it may be that a teleporter could gather a team of characters with those powers in tow, but at the end of the day, it's a lot of effort to go through to stop one character from winning every fight for their faction.

@Silvan Haven@Lonewolf685 Technically, Victoire is still in the game as a PC right now. And I am trying to be as civil as I can about this. I'm not flinging insults around or anything, merely voicing my thoughts.

[KoL]

The question was more one of where it gets the resources to grow like that. My bad for wording it incorrectly. I've asked it before but normally it gets buried under the avalanche of people with problems about Victoire.

Are the beds essentially giant mana vacuums that draw in the surrounding ambient magical energy or is it more of a biological thing?

Edit: Gaaaaaaaash dan it BC. I'm trying to go for non-hostile learning here.

@Silvan Haven

So that was the question, huh? The answer is simple. They are plants, magical undead plants, in fact. Plants grow as long as there's space for them to grow. The roses never ever used magic power to grow.

They used to require blood and, in fact, still do.

The blood to power them comes from the armies that everyone ignores. As said in the very first battle of the RP, Victoire usually sacrifices lesser demons to kick start her roses and, after that, anyone who who dies powers than up.

People keep forgetting about the mooks, I just don't see why this was ever an issue. In places where there's native life, like Arcadia, , anything in their path bites the bullet too.

[TheWendil]

And yeah, I love V-sauce.

@KoL

Nerd. Why do I keep you around again.

[KoL]

@BCTheEntity

Your thoughts have been acknowledged and ignored. Have a nice evening.

[The 42nd Gecko]

I mean, it's not particularly surprising that you don't have to add things to your bio, seeing you have the ability to come up with whatever spell you want as long as it's thematically appropriate once per battle. And most single categories of Victoire's abilities are more expansive than other character's entire power lists. Most people who manipulate an element have 3-4 things they can do with it, you have 3-5 elements you can do everything with. For example, in your succubus power list, if you used your shapeshifting to give yourself a physical boost, you would literally have Fran's entire power list minus equipment, and then a whole bunch of powers on top. Just Victore's Succubus nature, if given Fran's equipment, would be stronger than Fran on every metric.

[Lonewolf685]

I mean, it's not particularly surprising that you don't have to add things to your bio, seeing you have the ability to come up with whatever spell you want as long as it's thematically appropriate once per battle. And most single categories of Victoire's abilities are more expansive than other character's entire power lists. Most people who manipulate an element have 3-4 things they can do with it, you have 3-5 elements you can do everything with. For example, in your succubus power list, if you used your shapeshifting to give yourself a physical boost, you would literally have Fran's entire power list minus equipment, and then a whole bunch of powers on top. Just Victore's Succubus nature, if given Fran's equipment, would be stronger than Fran on every metric.

@The 42nd Gecko

If you are trying to debate a point that because KoL is thorough with listing all possible connontations of her powers, as opposed to just saying Blood Magic, Shadow Magic, etc., that it is a bad thing as opposed to some one who just says they control Fire magic and then try to leach the heat from all living things because in their mind Fire is tangentially related enough for that to work?

Please, just no.

[Lucius Cypher]

Is there another fight? Time to bust out the riot gear?

[BCTheEntity]

@TheWindel@KoL Yeah, no, I don't think I can keep playing this game anymore. There's a large combination of factors at play here, not all of which involve the GMs, but that last dismissive comment from KoL pretty much seals my opinion on both you and the game, and I don't see myself enjoying this to a greater extent in the future. @Banana, you can have control over Maceroy and Harvester; kill them off, turn them into NPCs, I don't care, but obviously give Harvester back to Spiffy if he wants control over him again. Maybe I'll see some of you around in other games; if you want to chat with me, add me on Discord, or just PM me on this site. Goodbye.