November 3, 2022
Day 14 / Dungeon Day 1
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That's a lot to take in. I'm glad I didn't see my options until after I'd finished descending the tree. An ambush attack from the birds during a moment of distraction could have meant a long long tumble all the way to the forest floor.
Rahul thought.
"I can see the option that Martin was hinting toward, and some other good ones as well. Do you guys want to take a look as well?"
He shouted to his friends who were sitting in the tent.
"We thought you'd never ask."
Matt shouted back from inside.
The group immediately marched out of the small tent in a file.
As if they had been waiting for just that.
Rahul realized.
Available Specializations Paths
Name
Description
Path
Rogue
Rogue is the most versatile and generalist specialization available for melee fighters. It involves lightly armored or unarmored combat, favoring stealth, cunning, and agility over frontal assaults. The rogue specialization is the base of a vast specialization tree which includes the scouts, spies, thieves, and assassin paths.
Melee
Dual-Wielding Rogue
A level 1 node in the rogue tree, this specialization focuses on dual-wielding weapons, while retaining the lightly armored agility-based aspect of the rogue class. This is a purely combat-based specialization and will lock you out of subterfuge-focused paths.
Melee -> Rogue
Twin Blade Rogue
A level 2 node in the dual-wielding path of the rogue tree, this specialization builds on the Dual-Wielding Rogue specialization and provides bonuses for using identical, complementary, or otherwise paired weapons. Uneven pairing of weapons imposes penalties.
Melee -> Rogue -> Dual-Wielding Rogue
Berserker
A level 1 node in the rogue tree, the anomalous specialization barely fits within the tenets of the specialization it belongs to. While it qualifies on the light armored and agile combat aspect, it is completely at odds with the stealth and cunning that are usually displayed by rogues.
Those who delve too deep down this path often tread on the fringes of sanity, and it's common for them to lose themselves in a raging trance and die of exhaustion.
Melee -> Rogue
Cold Berserker
A level 2 node belonging to the berserker path of the rogue tree, this specialization relinquishes the rage-induced strength that most berserkers employ in favor of a lasting cold burn. It has various bonuses like frenzy management that mitigate the worst drawbacks of the berserker path at the cost of reduced trance bonuses. As such, those who tread on this path of the berserker path tend to be saner than their brethren on the more aggressive path.
Melee -> Rogue -> Berseker
Brittle Blizzard Berserker
A level 3 node belonging to the berserker path of the rogue tree, this specialization builds on the cold berserker but adds a cap on maximum vitality. The sacrifice in vitality leads to bonuses to other stats and results in a formidable but vulnerable build - a brittle blizzard.
Melee -> Rogue -> Berseker -> Cold Berserker
Rahul projected the notification for everyone to read, and recalled the long conversation he and his friends had with Neha before they entered the dungeon.
His sister had spent most of her time in her former settlement talking to the numerous stewards they had access to, and was a veritable encyclopedia of all things system.
"The way that the system has structured specializations is similar to skill trees in some of those RPG games you used to play. But that's where the similarities end. The way you actually go about picking and managing your specializations is quite convoluted. For your level 25 pick, you will get anywhere between 1 to 10 choices, subject to meeting the relevant eligibility criteria. If you are eligible for too many choices, then the system randomly chooses 10 among them. Some of the strongest bloodlines in the multiverse have traits that increase this number, and it's easy to see how overpowered such a trait can be."
Neha then explained how the choice one made in the first selection impacted that in the future.
"Once you get your choices, think carefully about what you want to do. There are many tradeoffs to consider, but a specialization deeper in a path is always stronger than one at the start of the path. That doesn't mean you should pick a specialization that doesn't suit you just because it is your strongest choice. The short-term benefit is offset by the fact that your further progress along that path would be hindered if you don't have the aptitude for it, and while traveling back up the path to choose a specialization in a different branch of the tree is possible, it's very tricky."
Then Neha got really into the thick of it.
"Going forward, you will get at most 5 choices every specialization, instead of the 10 that you get for the first one. Moreover, all the choices available to you will need to be directly or indirectly linked to your previous choice. For the first one, this isn't an issue, because you start with the base class, which is the root for all specializations trees. But once you are deep within a part, getting out requires a lot of planning and luck. You have to steer the system in a way that you are only eligible for the smallest set of specializations, and those need to be in the direction you want to go. If you end up being eligible for too many options, 5 will be randomly picked, leaving your future to luck."
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Neha proceeded to explain Shahid's situation.
"For example, Shahid had received specializations in the Sniper tree and the Command tree. However, his choice in the command tree was the starter Commander I, which allowed him to control up to 10 combat units and had only marginally better stat modifiers than his existing ranged class. His options in the Sniper tree on the other hand went as far as the level 3 choice Sniper Sergeant, which had much stronger perks, skills, and stat modifiers, at the cost of limiting most of his capabilities to ranged units. He had hit level 25 while leading the retreat of the women and children of Jafrabad, and given the dire circumstances, he had made the decision that would his people immediately. Now wants to undo that decision and go into the Commander tree, because of the more versatile and generalist nature of the path that will allow him to better command and train non-ranged troops."
Seeing the confused audience, Neha pulled out a notebook and a pencil.
"Excluding the irrelevant ones, these are the choices Shahid got. You can clearly see why Sniper Sergeant was so appealing."
[https://i.imgur.com/I8EpWT2.png]
"Now that he is a Sniper Sergeant, if he wants to go into the commander tree, he has to make sure that most if not all his actions are driven towards meeting the conditions for the Commander specializations. There is no possibility of jumping between trees, and the options given need to be connected to your current specialization, directly or through the other offered choices. As such, his ideal second set of picks would look something like this - a quick and direct path to commander II in addition to the one single inevitable upgrade to sniper sergeant that he's bound to get after leading The Hundred for so long."
[https://i.imgur.com/qtz8bvD.png]
"Unfortunately, it's quite likely that he would accidentally end up fulfilling the conditions for some other specializations too, and get multiple follow-ups to the Sniper Sergeant, or any of its ancestors. For example, he had been training you all to fulfill certain requirements for Commander II, but that could just as easily land him the Trainer I specialization, which has many of the same conditions. In that case, he would have to pick Commander I, landing him at a place where he could have ended up at level 25 itself. That would set him back by a lot, and make things really tough till his next specialization, but it'll still be salvageable if he's able to directly jump to Commander IV or V when the next opportunity comes."
[https://i.imgur.com/6hXd9sP.png]
Neha continued.
"In the worst case, he might not end up getting the option for Commander I at all. He could still put it all on the line, going back to Sniper in order to get closer to Commander I and increase the odds of getting into that path next time, but that would be way too much of a gamble."
[https://i.imgur.com/fcA8Nxu.png]
Some of that had been confusing to Rahul, but Neha had got her point across. Simply put, it was much easier to make a good decision to begin with than to switch paths later.
Now that he had received his own set of choices, everything his sister had said to him came together.
So, in my case, there are effectively 2 paths I can go down, both under the rogue specialization. One is focused on my proficiency with dual-wielding small weapons, and given how I always fight with my two blades, it'll directly boost my general combat capabilities. The other is basically the system recognizing my regular use of the cold trance, and making it official by giving me a path that revolves around such trances. The Brittle Blizzard Berserker is obviously what Martin had wanted to guide me toward, when he asked me to cap my vitality under ten percent of my total stats.
From what Neha told us about stat modifiers and how they increase the deeper we go into paths and trees, the Brittle Blizzard Berserker is the best choice.
It's also a mouthful to say.
Rahul added.
[https://i.imgur.com/Uttwr4h.png]
As much as he would have liked a simple decision, things were a bit more complicated.
Getting a level 3 specialization for my very first pick is excellent, but Neha had warned me about the perils of making a very niche choice at the start.
Rahul recalled her exact words.
"What happened with Shahid is just one case study of how choosing a very strong specialization early on can go wrong. In his case, he had gone ahead and picked something out of desperation rather than preference. But one can end up regretting their path choice even if they had made it wholeheartedly in the first place. Before I get into that, let me explain a few more things about specializations."
After a long semantic tangent in which Neha explained the difference between trees, subtrees, branches, paths, and nodes, she got to the point.
"The specialization tree is vast with millions of choices spread across thousands of trees and encompassed within hundreds of thousands of paths. We don't even know how deep the tree goes, because individuals keep all the information about their specialization secret. Common choices available for the first specialization are of course widely known, not at all valuable, and even taught to children in school. Everything else is not public knowledge, and lies on a scale ranging from 'information that can be brought from a merchant for small sums of money' to 'secrets that can fundamentally shift the whole power balance of the multiverse'."
She explained further.
"All the powerful factions of the multiverse draw their strength from unassailable monarchs, access to vast resources, and seemingly limitless armies. But while all that can last decades or centuries, the only thing that keeps them powerful through the passage of millennia upon millennia is exclusive access to an exceedingly rare and powerful path that their progenitor had uncovered ages ago and that gets passed down through generations."
Neha then proceeded to explain what happens when information about such paths is leaked.
"If the information about a faction's exact skills and modifiers is leaked to one's enemies, it's a severe setback that would allow the said enemies to improve their strategies and hone their skills to counter the faction's ability. If the information about a path's various eligibility conditions is leaked, that will allow the enemy to train their own units in that path, completely erasing all of the faction's advantages in battle. Throwing resources may delay the downfall of the faction, but the end is inevitable."
"Finally, if a powerful secret path is somehow revealed to the masses, then any commoner can attempt to fulfill the conditions to get those rare specializations. Not all the conditions would be easy to fulfill even if one knows about them, but many can get the specialization anyway, and the system eventually downgrades the rarity of the path and reduces its bonuses."
So someone discovering a rare powerful path is not just good for them, but also for their descendants and other members of the faction that they built around that path.
Somewhat like how a great idea could create a billion-dollar business around it. That company will surely guard its intellectual property with all its legal might.
Rahul had thought, and Neha had connected the theory to practice.
"What I'm trying to say is, if you pick something versatile like Rogue or Elementalist mage for your first specialization choice, you are making a safe choice that guarantees access to widely known paths in your second pick. Of course, that also means that you'll be weak, so it's not what I'm recommending. But what I'm advocating against is going too far on the other extreme and picking something very niche. For your second specialization, you run the risk of finding yourself at either the end of the road, or in the middle of a road that you don't like."
Neha had strong opinions about the vitality suggestion Martin had to her brother, and the next part was directed straight at him.
"For example, your 10% vitality specialization, whatever it may be, might turn out to be a path with only one way to go forward - progressively reduce the fraction of stats you invest into vitality to unlock subsequent levels. Your only option would be to either bite the bullet and keep reducing your Vitality, or go back up the path until you find something else that is promising. Of course, it's unlikely that a path doesn't have branches that allow alternate means of progress, but the trick is finding those branches without any guidance from ancestors who have already traveled that path and know its secrets."
Neha had gone on to explain much more about specializations, but this is the part that was bothering Rahul now.
I definitely don't want to go down a chain where my next specializations are Very Brittle Berserker, Very Very Brittle Berserkers, and so forth.
Then he directed his thought toward his other options.
As much as Neha's warning made sense, I am not going to pick something generic like Rogue just because it is a well-known and safe option. Nor do I want to take the middle ground and pick any of the level 1 specializations.
If I'm okay with low vitality, the Brittle Berserker is a no-brainer.
In case I don't want a specialization with that particular drawback though, I still have two good options. I can either go for the Cold Berserker or the Twin Blade Rogue.
Cold Berserker likely has many other paths that don't have anything to do with keeping a stat under ten percent, and I can further progress along any of those paths. But then I can still do that by picking the blizzard berserker now and then going up the chain and going down some other path like Shahid. As opposed to the horrendous task ahead of him, I'll only need to go one step up to the Cold Berserker and then one step down into a class that's effectively a sibling of Brittle Berserker.
Twin Blade Rogue is promising for a different reason. I truly enjoy fighting with both my hands with small weapons and if I can get bonuses for that, it'll truly help my fighting proficiency. I also don't really like the fact that going down the berserker path will mean that I'll be at my best when I'm in a trance, and not in control of my faculties.
Frenzy management might help with that, but to what extent?
Before Rahul could confuse himself any further, he heard Daniel clear his throat.
Looks like my friends are done reading. My thoughts have been all over the place, so I could definitely use some unbiased level-headed advice.