5 days before the release of the Invidia Overlord.
Zaria's PoV:
From the top of the trees, I was grasping one of the branches with my feet while in my half-beast form. From there, I could "hear" the drama play out down on the ground.
A pair of ruffians clad in black kimonos and armed with katanas were patrolling through the brush close to the suspicious building that was spewing out Demonic Seawater. The men are using a lantern, probably to cast some light on their situation, but it only made them an easier-to-spot target for the guys downstairs.
One of the men could hear a branch snap in the bushes and impulsively walked over to see what it was.
His comrade was calmer and tried to stop him, but before the calmer ruffian could let out a voice, a black-dressed, small-sized short stuff emerged from the shadows and knocked him unconscious before dragging his body into the shadows while leaving the lantern behind in the air through a Shadow-type spell.
The assault didn't take more than a few seconds, so fast and unnoticeable that the impulsive ruffian did not notice that his partner was in a pinch. He was too preoccupied with finding the source of the noise he had heard, only to get clobbered by a pair of dark-clothed Dark Elves.
Are they still alive...good. I can still hear them breathing. We have to defeat them, not kill them.
"Okay, gobs and folks. Good job there. Dino, you're up. Carnival time." - Zaria
I fell while returning to my all-human form and instructed Dino, a black-skinned, white-haired Dark Elf recently named so he could participate in these battles outside the Dungeon, to take the clothes of the KO-ed thugs and disguise himself and his Dark Elf partner as the unfortunate duo lying on the ground.
"...sorry Zaria, but I do not understand what you are trying to say." - Dino
"...strip these guys, disguise yourself and your partner to look like these chumps, go inside their HQ, and do some work that would make a virus proud of you." - Zaria
"You're still unclear on some parts, suu~," said Rald the goblin. It was him who knocked out the first ruffian...I think. I can't see the difference between these green guys.
"As fellow victims to that assassin-combi, we should have an understanding of each other's thoughts and ideas. It's the two of you who's at fault here, not me." - Zaria
"Just warning you, but I'll tell master Garami and Boss Chiyome, ssu~." - Rald
"Please! Anything but that!!" - Zaria
Garami alone is bad enough, but Chiyome-sensei is on a whole different dimension!!
Chiyome-sensei, otherwise known as Chiyome Damavand, is one of the "five new bosses" that Garami ordered to protect the five "territories" that we're using as transfer points to reach the areas with Treasure Towers easier. And she ended up calling on something that was practically born to be a "ninja".
To clarify, her race is a "Zetsuei Tsuchigumo", a special breed of the original Tsuchigumo that is made for stealth while retaining the Tsuchigumo's original power, she has the Shinobi class that comes from the Genin class and has lots of stealth-moves, and she has even Assassin as a sub. Plus she is damn good at teaching stuff, so all of us present took classes from her.
Even Garami joined the classes..., and because of that, I'm fearing for the poor chumps that have to face her in Avalar...
"Well then, my brothers and sisters of shared pains, I will be going now," said Dino jokingly as he had finished disguising his face with Shadow-based magic..., he's damn good at this, isn't he? I could swear it's the same guy being knocked out over there in the bushes.
"Good luck, ssu~. If things get hairy, forget this idiot's plans and just get outta there." - Rald
Who're you calling an idiot!?
"True. I will take that to heart." - Dino
Dino, why're you agreeing with this goblin bully!?
"Squeak *nod*." - Tinkletop
Tinkletop!? You betraying rat!! Is the first thing you have to do after a long nap? Stabbing your master in the heart like that!?
"I will be off then," said Dino as he acted his role as the thug from before with his subordinates, leaving us to wait..., and wait..., and wait...
"This takes too long!!" - Zaria
"What'd you expect, ssu~? Didn't you say that you were a self-proclaimed master in espionage, ssu~?" - Rald
"Yes, I am, and I know that it takes lots of time to infiltrate a group, but still, we're part of a Dungeon's attack forces! Shouldn't we be more impressive and charge at them with all our forces or something? And what do you mean by "self-proclaimed"!?" - Zaria
"Blame the new rules, ssu~. Also, you're acting "self-proclaimed" right now, ssu~." - Rald
Grr... Well, fine. I know I'm not the smartest person once I get riled up, but what can I say? It's my charm point. But the "new rules" do suck, no matter what anyone else says.
What I and Rald are talking about is the new rules regarding certain Leadership skills. Before the most recent World System update, the one that happened after the festival was finished for good, the Leadership skills were just stuff that lets you work better with others, allow you to make parties with other people, or some taming-type skills.
Now, however, a new function has been added to the Leadership skills. Leader Points, or for short, LP. These points determine how many people you can add to your "group" of whatever kind. Be it members through the [Party] skill or a monster tamed with the [Taming] skill.
All creatures have an initial LP value. It's equal to one's racial rank times 5. A G-rank slime, for example, would have simply 5 LP, but a C-ranked dragon would have 25. Me, who is a D-rank, has 20 LP available from the start.
As for what people one can add to a group or whatever, it differs between the various skills. To make some examples:
[Party] lets you add up to 6 people to your party, but only if they're within your LP limit. A person of the same "genus" as yourself will require the same number of LP as their original LP value.
Dino, who is a Dark High Elf and has 20 LP, could take an E-ranked Dark Elf or a normal E-ranked Elf as part of his party, as they both would require 15 LP to do so. However, he cannot add both, but taking a G-ranked demon-type creature, as Dark Elves are also considered part of the demon genus, would be possible.
But the problem is with creatures from a different genus. Someone like me, a Therianthrope, would cost twice as much as my original LP if Dino wanted to add me to his party, meaning 40 LP.
It's not like all the different genera take twice as much. Rald, who comes from the goblin genus, would only take 1.5 times his original LP due to the goblins' ability to form herds. But a dragon would take easily five times its original amount if the leader is a non-dragon.
And if the genera are opposing each other, like demons and celestials, then the value will increase again. Then there could be genera that have it easier to cooperate and require less LP compared to other genera.
However, it's not like all the Leadership skills share the same "LP pool". [Taming], for example, could still be used and not deplete the LP for [Party].
Speaking of [Taming], it works pretty much the same as before, but you have to match your original LP value with the tamed monster's LP. Evolved taming-type skills are different, as it accepts multiple creatures from the same genus, and it can come with a cost-down function, I think. I don't have such a skill myself.
As for those who still don't have enough LP, other skills like [Leadership] can increase your total LP or skills that reduce the LP cost for specific targets. Though, [Taming] is still only looking at the original LP, so you can't tame a creature with a higher racial rank than your own.
I know all this because I had to study it for this stupid "war". That stupid Garami didn't name enough Dungeon monsters!! She thought that the guys from Babel could act as "leaders" for the Dungeon monsters, but there are no such people here! The only guys that Babel could give us were the stupid adventurers who ended up getting killed or lost on the way up the mountains!
"Can't he hurry back up...*grr*..." I mumbled without meaning it just by thinking of the frustration those idiots have given us.
If I knew we would have so little backup, I wouldn't have sent Akai, Takai, and Furu to gather info. Especially Akai, who has way more LP than me. The only skill I have that could help me there is [Leadership], and since it only gives 1 LP every second level, I have only 33 LP in total now!
"...? Wait, something's wrong here." - Zaria
"What, ssu~?" - Rald
"Why can you have 15 gobs with you when I can only have 1 Dark High Elf with me!? Even Dino couldn't bring that many with him!" - Zaria
"...[Goblin Pack], ssu~. I was given it with the latest update, ssu~. It, and other skills, ssu~." - Rald
"That's unfair! Trade it with me!" - Zaria
"How, ssu~!? And should we be shouting so much, ssu~? Won't the yakuza notice us, ssu~?" - Rald
"...yeah, forgot about that." - Zaria
I should rather forget about my "charm point". It's far from charming to make trouble for people. *Siiiiigh*...
*Whoooosh*
Mhm, what's that noise? Wind, no, a storm? Storm..., a sandstorm!?
"Hey, what's going on over there, ssu~!?" - Rald
"Crap..., the old man was with the grunts." - Zaria
All of us hiding in the shadows of the bushes could only stare with blank amazement as a tornado of sand burst out of the mystery building. You only needed a small amount of knowledge about these yakuza to know who was responsible.
The man with the title [Desert's Drought], Karasuna Yashinezu...
WHY DID HE OUT OF ALL OLD JERKS HAVE TO BE HERE!?!?
---
| Name: | Zaria Wagarah | |
| Race: | Therianthrope (Rust Bat) | Gender: Female | |
| Level: | 24/65 | |
| Traits: | 2 | |
| Karma Value: | -106 | |
| Main Class: | Shadow Dancer Lv.20 |
|
| Sub Class: | Saboteur Lv.50 | |
| Sub Class: | Shadow Smuggler Lv.2 | |
| Sub Class: | Genin (Wind) Lv.29 | |
| Skills: | 106 | |
| Titles: | 21 | |
| Blessings: | 0 | |
| Skill Points: | 4.4 | |
| HP: 395/395 | MP: 484/484 | SP: 463/463 |
| STR: 443 | VIT: 348 | MAG: 408 |
| RES: 599 | SPD: 802 | DEX: 613 |
| INT: 99 | LUC: 109 | |
Skill List:
| Skill List: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ability Skills: |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Attack Skills: |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Magic Skills: |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Crafting Skills: |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Active Skills: |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Passive Skills: |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Resistance Skills: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Perception Skills: |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leadership Skills: |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Elements: |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monster Skills: |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Titles:
| Title List: | ||||||||||
| Achievement Titles: |
|
|||||||||
| Hunting Titles: |
|
|||||||||
| Status Titles: |
|
|||||||||
---
Kigal-Note/Leadership Skills: [Goblin Pack]
| Skill: | Goblin Pack |
| Skill Type: | Leadership Skill |
| Skill Tier: | 2 |
| Attribute: | --- |
| Effect: |
|
Description:
[Goblin Pack] is a skill limited that only Goblin Pack Leaders and their evolutions can have. It allows them to create and lead a pack of goblins so they can work together and get the special effects of other Leadership Skills the Goblin Pack Leader (or above) may have or not. It is quite similar to the [Party] skill that is gifted by the Adventurers' Union.
In addition, the higher the skill level becomes, the less the Goblin Pack Leader in possession of this skill has to pay to include other goblins into any types of groups produced by the pack leader's Leadership Skills, be it this one or others.
This skill is a new addition included to the World System after the introduction of the Leader Points system was included to it, and to signalize the importance of the E-ranked Goblin Leaders, the D-ranked Goblin Pack Leaders, and the C-ranked Goblin Kings, as opposed to the less rare Hobgoblin evolution that most F-ranked goblins can evolve into.
Rald's comment: It's pretty handy since it means I can focus on letting the other guys do all the hard work, ssu~.
Patreon
Those new rules really suck. You have to have an absurd amount of leadership-type skills to be able to be able to have a [Party] of 6 adventurers at the same level. It practically destroys the adventuring career, as a vast majority of adventuring parties won't be able to have more than 2 or 3 people.
It's easier to level-up leadership skills, and there are specific skills that allow easier combinations with similar characters. Taking Rald as an example, he could use both [Party] and [Goblin Pack] at the same time. Both skills have their own respective LP value.
To be more precise, the user's LP value is not shared across all the different group-making skills. Plus, before the implementation of the LP rule, these extra group-making skills outside [Party] didn't exist.
Be honest with me, that goblin is inspired by gobta isn't he?
Rather, it's more difficult to find a goblin that doesn't add "ssu~" at the end of their sentence in this world.
@Greydra goblins from goblin slayer
@Saver every other goblin in Tensei that's not Gobta
That LP update sounds extremely annoying and I'm not sure what problem it solves.
It's more so people have to spend more skill points and to promote leader-type and strategist-type classes/races.
@Greydra No it is a bad idea. make a better sense that the group would be uncoordinated(works with no or fewer bonuses. and to large a group Negative Bonuses) But basically, destroy the Roleplaying aspect. And it makes leadership-based characters less powerful. Real-world Example you can have 100 men in the military-led by an Idiot officer and they basically be a MOB and ineffective and get in each other way dying in friendly fire. Or you could have Vlad the Impaler Leader a 60 of Farmers and they slaughter the 100 Solders in the previous Example. I mean what is the Logic? The officer tells the 100 guys in the US Army Sorry I got only a 2 Leadership can only have 6 men?
Game Logic Breaks Real World mechanics.
Better Every Party Member past the Limit Minuses Skills. (representing they are confused.)
Trap finding Offensive skill Defensive Skill etc
. As extra guys get in your way till they get killed off and wounded would slow you down counting as 2 instead of 1 and 4 if knocked out cold.
So you could still go in with 200 men but they are confused only get in the way and many wind up dead.
A Dungeon could instead of having Party Limit could instead come with an Aditional confused Limit.
Hey Mazes Confuse Tunnels are tight! One rolling Bolder 200 dead!
So a Maze would only let 2 Explore Safely unless you had a Big leadership skill..
So say your limit is 5 . In maze its 2 . Every Exstra Guy passed the Party limit minus Everyone's skill. But Leadership could increase the Number by say 1 a skill rank.
( a Maze type Say is a multiplier 4x confused penalty.) Leadership would reduce this penalty say by 1 per rank. And a Dungeon and some Leaders (Vlad Dracula) could come with an Anti-Leadership Skill affecting the party (he is scary).
And as long groups are under the limit each extra guy adds 1 to all skills for every person extra past 1.
Trap finding Offensive skill Defensive Skill etc
A confusing or scary NPC would have an anti-Leadership skill Allowing a Sinbad Acrobat Type or Death Knight Dracula to run through a crowd of soldiers that never get their bonuses for the group unless there was a Leadership NPC on their side (" Block Door and Windows u idiots! It's but one MAN! Archers FIRE" )
If you like larger groups you could decide on bonuses for group size Being Plus 1 or Minus 1 for every 5 or 10 people instead of 1 to 1.
I May not be a Writer but I am a Great GM.
When I set up dungeons this is how I stopped players (bards) from sending in a Mob 200 Human Sheep ahead of them.
@dragondeathlord People can still work together with each other. Those 100 soldiers can still be led by the general. There's nothing that says that not being in a Party makes it "IMPOSSIBLE!!!!" to cooperate with each other.
The LP is to prevent people from overusing Party-creating skills and Party-status-boosting skills like [Encouragement], which increases the stats of people in the same party, and to prevent Dungeon owners from getting massive armies out of their Dungeons too easily.
Also, many people before said that summoners should sneak into enemy lines and summon hundreds of monsters at the same time, so the LP idea is to prevent that too.
Finally, your examples are too difficult to understand. What were you trying to show here???
@Greydra a real-world mechanic for people working as a team and people working like Keystone Cops is based on a good leader.
@Greydra The Summoner example didn't really make sense. With the old system or even after update system they wouldn't be able to sneak into enemy lines because they would most likely lack the skills necessary to sneak around successfully and skills for summoning would have limit on how much you would be able to summon as was the case with all examples we had before the update and that's not counting the MP needed for the summoning which would make it such scenario wouldn't occur anyway and that's not even counting the time needed to cast the magic and the attention it would bring on the summoner after the first summon making that strategy not really viable and that's not even counting that most summoners wouldn't be good enough at everything needed for it and skill be a good enough summoner for such strategy to work. Those who are good enough anyway are exceptions rather than the norm and there is hardly a need to change the rules of how things work just to f*ck them over.
Also, from what I remember dungeon monsters can't leave the dungeon without being named (I don't remember if there are others requirements) and there is also a limit for how much monsters you can have in the dungeon plus the long ass time needed to name every monster so a army isn't viable for a Dungeon Master either considering it would take too damn long anyway for one to be able to create one as most dungeons do not level up as fast as Garami dungeon do.
Frankly, the biggest point of the update is that the world seems more game-like than before. I know it's weird to mention that when the world with a system was part of the thing from the very beginning but frankly, before the update it did seems to mechanic as if the world itself was a game to the point that even with the excuse given for it's existence it did seems rather banal, just a bad excuse for the system which seems to something out of one of those shitty virtual reality stories where everything is so nonsensical that there is no way for one of those games would ever work... I'm not trying to insult the story or saying it it like those trash stories but the updates did make things rather disappointing considering it doesn't really makes much sense considering that those examples given are out of the premise that the skills did not have a limit before which doesn't seems to be the case as there was never any example of that before considering that we never had that big of a group before and everyone had a Party Skill which does seems to be needed to even be part of one and aside from sharing exp there isn't any other effect mentioned before (any buff to stats would be pretty small anyway and it's not like a unlimited number of people could be added to the party as that would make its level pointless and there does seems to have a Clan skill which I assume is the evolution of Part which would make the member limit even bigger.).
Frankly, it doesn't seems to change much considering the skills should have had a limit before (Aside from Garami Champion ability of multiplying SPs but that's a God Blessing so it doesn't truly count) anyway and it nerfs groups from others races from forming groups which does makes things even harder considering the difficult of getting SPs for most people.
EDIT: Also, I forgot to mention this but regarding the "too mechanical" part (Yes, I know its a artificial system but there are some silly things that does seems weird to exist when it's reality rather than game) before the Azi Dahaka (is this correct?) point of view of him thinking of trying to create new spells there wasn't even any hint of spell creation being possible so it was rather shocking as well as it did seems that everything was needed to be done by the system and creating new spells and abilities didn't seems possible.
@LMaltez TOO LONG!!
Jokes aside, LP is more aimed at tamers and summoners. There are a lot of skills now focused on summoning "tokens" and mythical creatures now, beings that are basically living magic attacks that can be resummoned even if they are defeated. Some of them don't even need LP if they're from some unique ability like Extra Skills, but even then, that's only because that creature is the main focus of that Extra Skill, and it is limited to just a few beings.
Other than those few exceptions, LP is mainly to limit people like summoners from preparing an army of their own. The MP requirement for keeping them active has been negated. Necromancers like say Garami never needed to pay much for that anyway, and I didn't want some Ainz Ooal Gown-copycat, someone who builds an army of the undead and try to take over the world, to appear as well. That would be too boring.
The naming part of Dungeon Monsters and allowing them to leave the area is something that's prolly gonna be faded out during the next System Update. Or be limited to certain War/World Quests like the one the gang is doing in this arc.
Also, buff effects are to be enhanced, not to mention that they're already free to use. No passive consumption of MP or SP or whatever, so they were pretty OP if you think about it. Limiting how many can get that "blessing" was needed.
And another thing: [Party] and similar skills will not only share the EXP, but it will also generate bonus EXP out of the blue. Free EXP is yet another thing that makes limiting how many people can be in your group important.
And for the part about Azi Dahaka, he is called a "CALAMITY" for a reason. Spell creation is NOT a thing in the World System, but that mad lad went out and did it on his own. It's not for anything that he has the following Extra Skill in his position:
[Grand King of Summons - Solomon]