A Practical Guide to Evil III: A Series of Unfortunate Peace Treaties

[The Glyphstone]

Mantles could be defeated by arcing fire, even if they had brought them. It would help, mind you, but not be as effective as it would be against archers who weren't all perfectly coordinated at aiming volleys by a single superhumanly intelligent mind. And pushing them would slow down the march across the bridge, so the end result might even be worse. And it still leaves them vulnerable to fire from the flanks anyways - when you're crossing a bridge three men across without safety railings, you have very wide flanks to aim at.

[Tvtyrant]

Mantles could be defeated by arcing fire, even if they had brought them. It would help, mind you, but not be as effective as it would be against archers who weren't all perfectly coordinated at aiming volleys by a single superhumanly intelligent mind. And pushing them would slow down the march across the bridge, so the end result might even be worse. And it still leaves them vulnerable to fire from the flanks anyways - when you're crossing a bridge three men across without safety railings, you have very wide flanks to aim at.

Fair points. I think there were some more steps to be taken there (ogres holding doors seems like an obvious one for running into oncoming fire) but the point of the scene was how bleak the whole thing was and Cat's special relationship with her troops which it did well.

Also her summoning her Name was cool.

[lord_khaine]

EDIT: And even if you lean towards the historians who say longbows couldn't puncture plate, remember that even plate has holes in it. When you fire a few thousand arrows at a time, sheer volume is going to send some of them through vulnerable gaps. When you are firing at a front literally 3 men wide, that's like marching into machine gun fire.

I watched a youtube video of a guy called Skallagrim test his heavy crossbow against a regular chest plate.
And i dont think gravity assist adds quite as much punch as this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMT6hjwY8NQ&t=341s

And would think the shields dealt with arched fire.
Its funny but in a case where the literal representation of a name leaps up and takes a bite out of a castle.
Then the thing that strains disbelief the most is troops dying to massed arrow fire xD

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Mantles could be defeated by arcing fire, even if they had brought them. It would help, mind you, but not be as effective as it would be against archers who weren't all perfectly coordinated at aiming volleys by a single superhumanly intelligent mind. And pushing them would slow down the march across the bridge, so the end result might even be worse. And it still leaves them vulnerable to fire from the flanks anyways - when you're crossing a bridge three men across without safety railings, you have very wide flanks to aim at.

Mantlets are also heavy and unwieldly. Not the kind of weight you want your soldiers to carry when running across narrow bridges. Not saying it might not have been an option, only that it is not a strictly better option than rushing the wall gap to get into melee faster.

GW

[Rynjin]

I'm wondering why they didn't put some kind of roof on the bridge?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I'm wondering why they didn't put some kind of roof on the bridge?

The bridges sit there day and night - the enemy would have plenty of time to smash any roof with their siege engines, so it would need to be built as strong as the floor. But they literally didn't have enough steel to make it wider, so also not enough to add a ceiling; wood burns, and there is no source of hides to cover any wooden structure.

GW

[Rynjin]

Wood burns, sure, but so do people. And the biggest problem is the arrows, given they had Hierophant on full time Wrest duty.

Likewise, sure, the enemy can smash it. Eventually. Likely long after the first wave has passed over.

There is absolutely zero reason not to have covered these bridges, especially since they were as I recall pre-built in Procer.

It just seems like everyone was given the idiot ball for a bit just so we could have that scene of Cat leading the charge.

[The Glyphstone]

If we go in looking for idiot balls, its impossible to not find them.

Wooden roofs sounds like a great idea, then DK sets them on fire with siege engines and now your soldiers are marching into a narrow death funnel that is also on fire. Considering getting them to cross in the first place was the issue, the morale effects of that outweigh 'people burn' significantly.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Wood burns, sure, but so do people. And the biggest problem is the arrows, given they had Hierophant on full time Wrest duty.

Pitch is what is used to set wooden structures on fire. Not magic. Hierophant can't wrest fire from pitch.

Also, people don't burn anywhere near as much as immobile wooden structures since people are smaller individual targets, not one long wooden structure that, once a bit is on fire, it is all on fire. Also, people moved back from the bridge. The theoretical ceiling would have sat there since the first assault, in range of enemy with nothing better to do than shoot at it.

Likewise, sure, the enemy can smash it. Eventually. Likely long after the first wave has passed over.

No, it would've smashed it the previous night, after the first failed attempt.

There is absolutely zero reason not to have covered these bridges, especially since they were as I recall pre-built in Procer.

I gave you several good reasons to not cover them, most of which you simply didn't address, and the rest which you failed to conclusively discard.

It just seems like everyone was given the idiot ball for a bit just so we could have that scene of Cat leading the charge.

No they didn't, but I know better than to try to have a rational conversation with people that throw around terms like "idiot ball" like they are somehow unassailable fact.

Grey Wolf

[The Glyphstone]

To play devils advocate here, if DK had an entire night to do whatever he wanted with the bridge, why was it standing at all? Either pouring acid on it or just sending one of his giant constructs to dislodge it would have ruined the entire thing.

[InvisibleBison]

To play devils advocate here, if DK had an entire night to do whatever he wanted with the bridge, why was it standing at all? Either pouring acid on it or just sending one of his giant constructs to dislodge it would have ruined the entire thing.

Why would he want to destroy it? So long as the bridge is intact, he knows where and how the Grand Alliance are going to focus their attacks, and it's not like their attacks over the bridge were succeeding before Cat's intervention. If he breaks it, they may well come up with a new approach that is harder for him to deal with.

[Tvtyrant]

I'm not looking for nits to pick, the scene just stood out as being out of character with a series that is all about meticulous war planning (remember three chapters devoted to collapsing an artificial hill? Or making a fortress in a swamp?)

It's a really good scene, it just stands out as not being in line with the way the series traditionally does battles.

[Forum Explorer]

I'm not looking for nits to pick, the scene just stood out as being out of character with a series that is all about meticulous war planning (remember three chapters devoted to collapsing an artificial hill? Or making a fortress in a swamp?)

It's a really good scene, it just stands out as not being in line with the way the series traditionally does battles.

That's a very good point. Usually at this stuff he actually goes into the effort of showing how they would beat that with conventional tactics.

[The Glyphstone]

I'm not looking for nits to pick, the scene just stood out as being out of character with a series that is all about meticulous war planning (remember three chapters devoted to collapsing an artificial hill? Or making a fortress in a swamp?)

It's a really good scene, it just stands out as not being in line with the way the series traditionally does battles.

True, that is a fair point. It's been so thoroughly conditioned by now to have them show their planning, we're sort of left with 'okay, so from every other battle we know they have a solid, conventional reason to attack this way...but EE didn't show it to us, we just have to infer/guess'. Does feel odd.

[Rynjin]

Exactly. Besides the point, I'm not convinced by the "the Dead King simply would have countered" argument. Clearly he wouldn't have. Because he didn't. Zero attempt was made to sabotage the bridges in the night.

He doesn't need to know where they're coming from...because without the bridges they ain't coming from anywhere. They're completely stuck without them, hence all of the focus on not letting them collapse.

Likewise, I'm also not convy by the argument of pitch being thrown to burn the bridge. Or the argument that it would be impossible to counter, somehow, unlike magic fire. Because it wasn't used to kill the people on the bridge in that last push. It's clear DK prefers magic wherever possible, and many mundane solutions are ignored.

The Alliance dropped the ball on prep so we could get a cool scene. There really is no other explanation.

[lord_khaine]

They could have had other tricks in the hand.
We did see that without Cats direct intervention the bridge would have been turned into a killing field that could have broken the morale of Callow's army.
I dont think its unreasonable to assume The Dead King didnt think it worth spending resources on trying to bust the bridge when that had likely been expected.

But i still do think it unreasonable they didnt have a better defence against plain skeleton archers.

All the same. They did crack the town.
And are now in a position where their greatest assets. Their named. Can shine (but sadly not SHINE).

[runeghost]

They could have had other tricks in the hand.
We did see that without Cats direct intervention the bridge would have been turned into a killing field that could have broken the morale of Callow's army.
I dont think its unreasonable to assume The Dead King didnt think it worth spending resources on trying to bust the bridge when that had likely been expected.

But i still do think it unreasonable they didnt have a better defence against plain skeleton archers.

All the same. They did crack the town.
And are now in a position where their greatest assets. Their named. Can shine (but sadly not SHINE).

With Arthur running around with his new sword, I wouldn't totally count the possibility of Shine out just yet.

[lord_khaine]

Im actually not certain if Shine will be possible ever again.
Since it seemed in part like it was part of Tariq's final sacrifice.

[The Glyphstone]

Even with that aside, it seems almost a rule that two people will always end up with different Aspects. Even someone gaining the same Name twice, as we've seen with Cat and Hanno, will end up with different Aspects each time. So Shine was likely exclusive to Tariq's philosophy and point of view as much as his power source - Arthur is the Knight Errant, not the Grey Pilgrim. Even with a sliver of Tariq's power in his sword, it'll manifest differently for him.

[InvisibleBison]

Even with that aside, it seems almost a rule that two people will always end up with different Aspects.

And two people do get the same aspect, there's no guarantee it will work the same. IIRC Learn worked differently for Arthur than it did for Cat, and it works (worked?) a third way for Ranger.

[tyckspoon]

And two people do get the same aspect, there's no guarantee it will work the same. IIRC Learn worked differently for Arthur than it did for Cat, and it works (worked?) a third way for Ranger.

Yup. Cat struggled with academic learning and needed to catch up on that Real Fast in order to achieve what she wanted (had to learn how the power structures of Praes worked and all the languages and political intricacies to navigate them), so her Learn was focused on that. Arthur got his Name in the middle of a war where he would fight other Named and Name-level opponents, and needed to learn personal combat skills to survive that, so his version of Learn was tilted to make him a better fighter. And Ranger just wants to be the best at *everything* so her entire Aspect structure is around the theme of 'if I'm not already better than you, I will be very soon.'

[Dragonus45]

Didn't the Hedge Wizard also have a version of Learn that was commented on by Warlock as being unusual in some way? I'm fairly certain she did. I would reread the chapter to double check but reading that chapter tends to make me quit the story.

[lord_khaine]

Even with that aside, it seems almost a rule that two people will always end up with different Aspects. Even someone gaining the same Name twice, as we've seen with Cat and Hanno, will end up with different Aspects each time. So Shine was likely exclusive to Tariq's philosophy and point of view as much as his power source - Arthur is the Knight Errant, not the Grey Pilgrim. Even with a sliver of Tariq's power in his sword, it'll manifest differently for him.

When it comes to aspects SHINE was a special case. The Grey Pilgrim always had it as it was tied to the role.

[Dragonus45]

That seems to be at least in part because the first Grey Pilgrim wielding a star to beat up Procerans was so tied into the legends about the name that a Grey Pilgrim who didn't have it might not even be recognizable as the same name. I figure it's a toss up if Arthur gets that particular aspect or not from Peregrine but it's not impossible, actually the more I think about this the more likely it seems. It does share a name with what Levantine call dawn and was made from materiel literally called down from the sky using that specific aspect in the most powerful way it could ever have possibly been used. Heck I see a world where Peregrine and Shine wind up intertwined in a similar way to Shine and the Grey Pilgrim used to be.

[tyckspoon]

That seems to be at least in part because the first Grey Pilgrim wielding a star to beat up Procerans was so tied into the legends about the name that a Grey Pilgrim who didn't have it might not even be recognizable as the same name. I figure it's a toss up if Arthur gets that particular aspect or not from Peregrine but it's not impossible, actually the more I think about this the more likely it seems. It does share a name with what Levantine call dawn and was made from materiel literally called down from the sky using that specific aspect in the most powerful way it could ever have possibly been used. Heck I see a world where Peregrine and Shine wind up intertwined in a similar way to Shine and the Grey Pilgrim used to be.

I would not be surprised if Peregrine the sword ends up being intimately involved in Arthur's stories and possibly influences one of his Aspects (I suspect, for example, that it will be remarkably easy to use as a tool for channeling Light, and Arthur may have an Aspect that forms around that or at least is first used with Peregrine.) I will be quite surprised if he winds up with specifically Shine or a derivation thereof - that was attached to the Name and lore of Grey Pilgrim and the Pilgrim's Star, which explicitly was broken and used to level a significant geographical area. It is quite possible that nobody will ever have Shine again, at least not in any way that is related to Grey Pilgrim.

If Arthur does get something more directly influenced by Peregrine as the Grey Pilgrim's legacy, my bet would be on something similar to Kingfisher Prince's Aid. Something that draws him toward the places where he most needs to act, and possibly empowers him to do so once he gets there - that would be in line with the expected behavior of a Knight Errant as well as the roving mentor figure that was the Pilgrim.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Didn't the Hedge Wizard also have a version of Learn that was commented on by Warlock as being unusual in some way? I'm fairly certain she did. I would reread the chapter to double check but reading that chapter tends to make me quit the story.

Yeah, Warlock noted that Learn is usually exclusive to transitional names, because on a permanent name it's completely busted (and he used Ranger as an example of that).

[Thomas Cardew]

Didn't the Hedge Wizard also have a version of Learn that was commented on by Warlock as being unusual in some way? I'm fairly certain she did. I would reread the chapter to double check but reading that chapter tends to make me quit the story.

Her aspects were (presumably) Learn, Repurpose, and Reiterate. Warlock read her lips to find out Learn; we don't see it in bold. He noted it was it was unusual for a full name to have. Not that the version itself was strange in some way. Quote in spoiler. He also thought in the preceding chapter that "[she] relied on providence more than the average hero, in his eyes. By Heavenly mandate she would always have the exact trick needed to escape the trouble she was in..."

Spoiler: Calamity II

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Warlock began to insert his will into an array, but ceased when he felt his relays being tapped into. The girl had found one of them, and instead of following to the next in the line was… mapping out the inner workings? He saw her lips move on his scrying screen, reading the word. Learn. Wekesa’s face creased in wariness. It was one thing for a transitional Name like Squire or Apprentice to have that aspect, quite another to see it in a full-fledged Name. Ranger was living proof of how dangerous it could be, given enough time to accumulate weight. The Hedge Wizard smiled in triumph, then created another relay to add to his own system. Using that, she immediately followed the current down to his current location. Her face appeared on the scrying screen ahead of him, looking back.

[halfeye]

This seems to be heading toward a conclusion.

[Rydiro]

Classic Cat in this chapter. "I ignore people I don't know."
Did that habit cost her at one point yet?

[lord_khaine]

I cant really see who Cat is ignoring in this chapter because she dont know them.