Book 2 – Text Updates 021

[raphfrk]

Maybe by gaining altitude they can restrict it so that only enemies on the tower can hit them.

I don't think so. Jack was pretty clear they only had a choice of which Archers could hit them, not if any archers could hit them.

Right, but it seems the choices are tower + outer walls or garrison + tower. Even if the tower can hit anywhere in the hex, maybe altitude would allow them be out of range of the other 2 archer locations.

[cloudbreaker]

I believe that one resource that hasn't been considered by Wanda's group is Wanda's spellcasting abilities. She tod Sizemore that she can competently cast spells in other disciplines, but she is only interested in Croakamancy. Given the Arkenpliers have no limit to the amount of units it can decrypt, it seems likely that Wanda does not have to use her own juice. Does this mean she can cast something that will improve their chances of survival? She might not like casting spells from other disciplines, but it seems like whe would like getting croaked even less.

I find this idea interesting. While I'm not sure Wanda's multidiscipline abilities include non-scroll spells, surely she has Croakamancy spells that are not simply "uncroak target unit" spells. At the very least she could probably use her headache spell on enemy fliers.

[BLANDCorporatio]

BTW, not to be a Junior Mod or anything; I'm just trying to learn my way around this community, but is there a sector on this site where we can go to have flame wars?

Uhm, yeeess, yes we do ... it's called the Toolbox, it's fun, check it out!

*crosses fingers*

[regisminae]

The casting off-turn issue needs to have one factor added to it to make sense: the time dilation between hexes. The summer text updates went into rather explicit detail about how time doesn't flow the same in each hex. One could draw from their discussion that while it's possible to scry on an active hex from a distance and even communicate with it, remote casting an active spell such as a veil into such a temporally different environment would be akin to playing darts through a tornado. It would be realistically impossible (though technically just extremely difficult and prohibitively expensive, juice-wise) to pull off.

It is my belief that this issue is resolved by the fact that while absolute time relationships are not preserved between actions as perceived from different hexes, their sequence is. Thus, when an action takes place in one hex and is observed from another, reactions in the other hex that occur before another action is perceived would also be perceived in the original hex before their next action, even if their time span is several hours in the first hex and a few minutes in the other.

[Raza]

Jack dying and getting decrypted could be a great turning point for the battle. Knowing him he could probably make it look like he didn't get back up, and with full juice feign the defeat of the entire remaining force while they really are somewhere and something else completely.

It is strongly implied in the text that arrows are a limited resource for archery units. I am glad to know this.

Weapons pop with units, if the Unaroyal stabber set the standard. I wonder if archers pop with a bow and a quiver of X arrows, which they can fire in a turn and refills completely at dawn. It'd be very erfworld, and set a limit to the damage they could do against opponents unable to strike back, which ranged units have every opportunity to.

But although it must have happened during the retaking of the previously held cities and any new conquests, we have not yet seen an example of a former living GK unit which has been decrypted. Unless I've missed something?

We have; Wanda is stated to have decrypted most of the goblins that dies in the volcano, and implied to have decrypted every other GK unit that died there.

At the very least, the natural allies she decrypted are said to now be GK units, rather than a tribe. This is pretty close as far as in-side factions go.

[Squishalot]

But although it must have happened during the retaking of the previously held cities and any new conquests, we have not yet seen an example of a former living GK unit which has been decrypted. Unless I've missed something?

See the summer updates - Wanda decrypted all of the previously-live Gobwin Knob units from after the volcano. Evidence provided by the comment about gobwins being natural allies while alive vs ordinary units once decrypted

And to the person asking about TBS off-casting, fact of the matter is, casters can't cast off turn in most TBS games. BUT - they can cast once their stack/city has been engaged, most of the time, at least, any games which allow battlespace control (eg, HOMM, as opposed to Warlords).

Edit: Gahh, too slow! ><

[Dancing Cthulhu]

Oh Jack, I do like seeing into that brain of yours. Jack, Trem, Parson, Charlie, Maggie - thinkers are great. And more of your history - what a great way to return to text updates.

And it seems decryption replaces one weight around the ankles with another... and Jack could probably make a good warlord. I hope he doesn't get decrypted. And I hope he does. I can't imagine a more interesting mind to see afterwards (well, maybe Parson), and if anyone can resist the Wanda love it's him.

And this answered a question I had been quietly pondering for some time - mainly why Slately wouldn't already have started firing on Wanda and her forces while he waited for Trem to finish up in the field.

I remember wondering if it would end up being just Jack and Wanda being veiled and the rest of the forces sacrificed, but I totally forgot about decryption as a factor. Looks like Wanda might be getting her decrypted dwagons soon...

Now I guess the question is, if that works, does Wanda stick around and still try to win, still try to croak Slately, or does she use the opportunity to escape?

Uhm, yeeess, yes we do ... it's called the Toolbox, it's fun, check it out!

*crosses fingers*

I'll be disappointed if it isn't, disappointed I say!

(I'm tooling up later this week.)

W00t! Jack gets some more screen-time, and he sure deserves it. Moar Jack!

Here here!

I would tend to agree, but I'd point out that the Decrypted Archons were units belonging to an opposing Side, while Decrypting dead Dwagons during a Jetstone assault would be Decrypting units belonging to the same Side. This could be a subtle difference. Stanley seems to know that the enemy fallen and Decrypted are loyal to Wanda. But although it must have happened during the retaking of the previously held cities and any new conquests, we have not yet seen an example of a former living GK unit which has been decrypted. Unless I've missed something?

I don't know, where does it say Stanley is aware of the Wanda/Decrypted loyalty? Wanda herself makes Ansom admit he belongs more to her then Stanley, but I don't think Stanley has had such a moment. Parson I thinks suspects as much.

As to the other - I believe as others have said Wanda decrypted any of the croaked GK units from the eruption, though there wouldn't have been many.

Wait. Why the boop are people thinking that Parson actually had in mind making units like tunneling dwagons or land-ships?

He's gaming scenarios - honing skills by making up units and seeing how they play out. That isn't an indication that he expects those units to actually exist or intends to make them.

It's how you prepare for the unexpected - spend a lot of time practising while throwing in impossible units and situations you never expect to see. You'll probably never see those exact scenarios and units - but that's not the point, by then you'll be better at dealing with unexpected things in general.

Indeed. Heh, although if I had a total scenario generator like Jack I'd also have as much fun as possible while learning. Like show me a half spidew/half twoll (Dwider!)...

Basically, they'll have to fight every dwagon twice, and it'll be much stronger the second time. I predict fail for Faq. Also, if Jack dies and gets decrypted... ther's the chance that he'll come back with full juice.

Well Jillian has already told Charlie she has no intention of fighting Wanda. But I wonder if this potential course of action will occur to Parson or Trem? And if it occur to Parson and he tells Stanley will Stanley agree with decrypted dwagons?

And if it occurs to Trem I wonder if he could come up with a plan to overcome it? And even if he doesn't see it coming before hand if Wanda is decrypting as fast as they fall he'll quickly work out (surely) what is going on and that indiscriminately killing dwagons is going to be a big problem as long as Wanda is alive.

I can't help but dislike the part where Jack talks about the "we are croaked" as in "I will die". Even if it's temporary.

I kind of like his cheery pragmatism.

[Sara_is_Cool]

Nice how you shifted the burden of proof of your own claims onto everyone else.

p64 panel 3 seems to be a major hangup. Wasn't intentional and I agree that it's misleading. We'll clarify that for the book.

For the record, the rule is actually pretty simple and I am amazed it's been such a sticking point for people.

•You can move only on your turn, and you can cast only on your turn.
•When an enemy comes to you on their turn, you can engage, and you can cast. This includes when they are attacking your city.

Why could Parson not have ordered a veil to be cast, even if the Foolamancer had been in the group with the wounded dwagons? It was not his turn, and they were not under attack. Once Jillian entered the hex, a theoretical Foolamancer within that hex could have veiled, but it wouldn't have been very effective at fooling her.

Why could Parson have his casters cast on the Coalition's turn, later in the story? His city was being attacked.

Why could the Archons cast the DDR spell? They were part of the Coalition and it was now technically their turn. But they could not move because all of Charlescomm's units' move went to zero when Charlie ended turn. Move and hits are restored to full at the beginning of a side's turn, and (re)forming an alliance does not count as starting a new turn.

Why could the Archons "cast" the contract, when it was not their turn? Well, why could they still fly? It's not a spell, it's a natural magic. There's also a heavy dose of "talking is a free action" in that scene, another thing about turn based games that is silly but almost universally true. It's no sillier than food popping at the start of a turn.
__________________
Rob Balder, Erfworld author/co-creator, and creator of PartiallyClips

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last edited by pclips : 03-28-2009 at 04:02 PM.

it was in the sticky named "Erfworld Bloopers", page 8. As he notes, it caused confusion, so he gave a short run down

Edit: I didn't really mean to single you out Dr., it's just that you provided a good lead in for the second quote. I figured this was relevant to post

[kaylasdad99]

BTW, not to be a Junior Mod or anything; I'm just trying to learn my way around this community, but is there a sector on this site where we can go to have flame wars?

Uhm, yeeess, yes we do ... it's called the Toolbox, it's fun, check it out!

*crosses fingers*

Ta!

[random_guy]

Nice to see that we have word of god to clarify the foolamancy discussion.

Now I guess the question is, if that works, does Wanda stick around and still try to win, still try to croak Slately, or does she use the opportunity to escape?

I think she will try to escape. There's FAQ, Jetstone, and Haggar's forces in the battlespace. I don't think winning is a possibility. With all of the cities they have captured, then can build up an army, and Wanda can fall back and bring a larger army to the fight instead of making a risky attack.

[CelebrenIthil]

If they weren't flying, I would have liked to have them try making a barricade between them and the archers using the dwagons(poor little dearies...) -and subsequently their corpses. Then after they have soaked as many arrows as possible on- if it happens to work- the innate bodies, Wanda goes and decrypt the lot of them.
So in short, have the enemy forces wasting arrows on the physical barrier provided by the dwagon bodies before decrypting them, thus saving their HP.

Edit: And also, I'd try to see if I could impair the archer themselves with the dwagons/dwagon bodies.
(yes that post is turning into "100 uses for dwagon corpses")
That bit Jack though about: "The tower could strike any unit in the city's airspace. Within the airspace, they could only choose to deploy their stacks over the outer walls or the garrison. This cost no move, but its only effect was to determine which archers could hit them. And on whose heads their corpses would fall, Jack supposed."
there is potential in that methinks. XD
Given a large enough pile of huge, heavy and dead flying lizards, the areas on the outer wall/garrison where archers can deploy might become compromised...

[pSycHOtic chICkeN]

I don't think Jack is planning on dying in this. ... But I'm pretty sure Jack is making sure that 1st Wanda survives, and 2nd he survives.

It is more likely IMO that Jack is making it clear to wanda that his survival is critical to her survival. He is using a rhetorical trick. He suggests using himself as cannon fodder at the same time as he presents multiple reasons why that would be a mistake.

Ahem. How bloodlessly Jack lays it out. Perhaps he should be Chief Warlord.

That might be useful to give them a bonus. But in terms of planning tactics Jack would be a horrible choice. He is suggesting they might survive by having all of their fighting units adsorb the enemies ammunition. As a strategic argument that there is a chance of survival Jack's statements are sound. Jack has not made any suggestion regarding tactics accept for uncroaking the croaked. Wanda probably could have figured that one out on her own.

[Spot]

Nice how you shifted the burden of proof of your own claims onto everyone else.

Jesus Christ on a crutch! Either I dig through literally years of old posts or I'm a liar?

You have a theory. You have no evidence to support your theory. Your proposed solution to your complete lack of evidence is that others should go find your evidence for you, in order to bolster your theory for you.

Personally, I'm not currently looking for a job as an unpaid research assistant for random anonymous internet posters, so I'll have to regretfully decline your offer of employment.

[pSycHOtic chICkeN]

If they weren't flying, I would have liked to have them try making a barricade between them and the archers using the dwagons(poor little dearies...) -and subsequently their corpses. Then after they have soaked as many arrows as possible on- if it happens to work- the innate bodies, Wanda goes and decrypt the lot of them.
So in short, have the enemy forces wasting arrows on the physical barrier provided by the dwagon bodies before decrypting them, thus saving their HP.

Why not make a flying barricade? They should be able to bubble gum glue dwagon corpses (dead-precrypted or alive). They could also scavenge the dwagon armor and build a little bunker for Wanda.

If magic, battle crap or breath weapons can hit the archers that should be high on the list of options. Decrypted archers could then use the arrows on the still living archers.

The dead decrypted flyers will not fall on Jetstone troops, but arrows that miss will. Moving targets are very difficult to hit. Check for instance the battle of dunkirk in WWII. Even though dive bombers were much faster than destroyers and the destroyers always stayed at sea level the bombers still missed most of the time. Adding foolamancy, smoke from brown dwagons, gas from green, and maybe foolamancy, smoke and/or other distractions from the archons would decrease the number of arrows finding a real target.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

Heh, Sylvia looks so unimpressed with Jack. And it does look rather bad for her and Oss - Jack pointing out most of the units there are alive and can be preserved, maybe, if Wanda can decrypt them fast enough.

I think she will try to escape. There's FAQ, Jetstone, and Haggar's forces in the battlespace. I don't think winning is a possibility. With all of the cities they have captured, then can build up an army, and Wanda can fall back and bring a larger army to the fight instead of making a risky attack.

That's what I think to, the tactic at the very least will likely insure (if Jillian doesn't get involved) that Wanda's dwagon force isn't entirely wiped out so Wanda should be able to escape and hightail it to safety.

If magic, battle crap or breath weapons can hit the archers that should be high on the list of options. Decrypted archers could then use the arrows on the still living archers.

I assumed Wanda's decryption ray was limited to the airspace they currently occupied, hence Jack's "And quick enough to catch us as we fall." - if she isn't quick enough they'd fall out of range/into another zone.

[pSycHOtic chICkeN]

Regarding the whole "a side can't cast during the enemy's turn" thing, I suppose I should ask some questions regarding turn-based RPGs (my own experience is related only to dungeon-crawling adventurere parties, and is about 28 years out-of-date anyway, so please bear with my ignorance):

First of all, in the experience of those who have gamed before, has a caster ever been able to initiate casting when it wasn't his turn? If not, how does this rule differ from the rules everyone's used in D&D in the past?

Secondly, even with this rule in place, has the rule ever been invoked to prevent a caster from casting defensively during melee? The do use melee in Erfworld, do they not?

I'll concede that in D&D, a caster can only cast what has been prepared during the caster's turn. But I'll also note that the D&D rules template doesn't overlay perfectly with that of the Erf-iverse, and that in Erfworld, a caster's abilities (as opposed to scroll-based spells) are a matter of juice, not turn-based spell preparation.

Please argue me out of my current position that the authors are not breaking their own rule. I'm certain that I'll find it quite educational, even if my view doesn't change.

I played second edition AD&D. Both D&D, and 2nd AD&D are owned and produced by TSR incorporated. TSR incorporated does not own Rob Baldner. Rob makes the rules in his text updates. The only time we might see rules coming from a different source is the pictures created by Xin. Rob may have been influenced by TSR but has not given us any reason to believe the rules match.

AD&D 2nd edition was not a turned based game. Rounds and turns exist in the rules but they are measurements of rates of activities. In most respects dungeons and dragons plays out in the same way as real time combat. When two combatants encounter each other they check for "surprise" at the same time. If neither is surprised and they have the same range, they roll for initiative at the same time. Obviously the attacker with initiative gets a chance to hit before the enemy gets a chance to hit. But that is also true in real world earth.

Also in AD&D spells had casting time. In practice it plays out like players and NPCs are taking turns. That is mostly a practical effect of rolling dice. A meteor swarm can be descending at the same time that a bolt leaves a crossbow. The bolt could fatally wound the wizard even if the meteor swarm kills the archer. On the other hand a caster could start a spell and it would be interrupted if a bolt shot him/her in the throat before the verbal components were finished.

IMO a good dungeon master should try to remove the effects of turns and any descrete math or quantum effect created by dice. Dice are there to represent a continuous probability curve. A bastard sword could do 3.14 hit points of damage but we just ignore the decimals most of the time. If a player had exactly 0 hit points a good DM should pull something like "actually that 6 points of damage was really 5.8 but you are bleeding and will lose the 0.2 hitpoints if you don't act fast...". That would not have been breaking or bending any rules.

[effataigus]

Gah! Exciting!

I am a little blown away by this text update. This is my first time reading one after paying attention to the forums. There are answers to a ton of questions that have been circulating around in here. The information is packed in densely, entertainingly, with narrative flow, and is tied together seamlessly by Jack's completely in-character musings. This update gave us more information to go with regarding how much juice Jack still has, whether they're actually over the city or just at the city's edge, whether they can out-distance the arrows, whether Spacerock has tower defenses, whether corpses fall, if Wanda can decrypt off turn, whether Wanda can decrypt in other zones, how stuck are they with respect to the zones, and whether is Sylvia source of ideas or just bonuses and intense glares. Artfully written!

There are a million things for Jack to do if he gets more juice... especially fake Wanda's death while she decrypts those that are dying... but I don't want to see (or not-see) that happen.

Also, Charlescomm gets another turn before GK

First of all, in the experience of those who have gamed before, has a caster ever been able to initiate casting when it wasn't his turn? If not, how does this rule differ from the rules everyone's used in D&D in the past?

Regarding the D&D question: D&D isn't the best turn based analog as has been mentioned, but the most recent version of D&D does allow off-turn casting when preconditions are met. These situations are similar to spells cast in conjunction with "contingency" before an encounter in older versions of D&D though, so arguably not. But yes, I was on the forums a couple of weeks ago posting questions about casting off turn... makes sense now, but it was confusing at the time! Nice to know it has been addressed explicitly.

A bastard sword could do 3.14 hit points of damage but we just ignore the decimals most of the time.

If killed by a bastard sword, the target tastes key lime pi.

[multilis]

If this is like some games I know, my tactics would be:

Tower defenses: Try to divert to meat shields as Jack suggests, perhaps a foolomancy veil or distraction can work. (Unknown if tower defenses can be blocked, in most games I have played they can't be but computer ai may pick poor targets)

Archers: If unlimited ammo and can always target you, you need to kill if possible. If limited ammo then run odds on whether try to kill or try to dodge arrows.

Casters: Wanda can try to disrupt with her own spells. Archons help as possible, both ranged attacks and spells.

Special attack trick, best used on casters: Target caster with a (wounded) dragon from directly above. Dragon dies before reaching target but continues to fall. Decrypt dragon when as close as possible and dragon immediately suicides to kill caster. There is a small chance as well that Wanda can decrypt units in a different zone of city, just as archons could help teach dancing to different zone, so may be loophole of letting a dead unit fall then decrypting to suicide attack king, etc.

Decrypt any enemies you kill if possible, enemy casters try to decrypt when their former nearby allies are distracted. (If casters are useless for magic after decrypting, perhaps they can still act as distraction/enemy may not know that)

[Diodri]

He leaned forward and tapped the Arkenpliers with his cane, affronting the Decrypted and annoying Wanda. "...must be spent again. Provided you are alive. And quick enough to catch us as we fall."

Soundtrack for the next battle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNQUhqFZ3h8

I was more thinking a song like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU5LMG3WFBw

[JustDoug]

Nice how you shifted the burden of proof of your own claims onto everyone else.

Jesus Christ on a crutch! Either I dig through literally years of old posts or I'm a liar? Are those my only options here? Can't you accept that I'm telling at least what I believe to be the truth without demanding that I do hours of research to back up my memory? Isn't anyone at least deserving of the common courtesy of assuming that they are not conspiring to deceive without being subjected to personal attacks? I would certainly hope so.

Never done scientific research, have you? Or legal work. The burden of proof is with the person making the assertion. It's "I can prove what I'm saying is true," and not, "You have to disprove what I'm saying." Unless you look good in a tinfoil hat, you have to be able to back up what you're saying.

For a perhaps amusing example of your modus operandi at work, seek out the meme, "Glenn Beck Raped and Murdered A Young Girl in 1990."