Okay, so don’t ask how, but I have 7 Nightmares, 7 Scandal, 4 Wounds and 2 Suspicion. If this keeps up, I’m gonna be a dead walking corpse speaking nonsense about names and things beyond mirrors who is sent to a maximum security prison in the Tomb Colonies. DX
Advice on how to lose this please? I’m not a Person of some importance yet either)
Menace reducing items (Laudanum/Tincture of Vigour/ablution absolution)
The last one also reduces scandal but it’s kind of bad at it; it’s very effective at reducing suspicion though. (it also becomes unuseable if you get jailed to many times, so probably try to avoid that when you’re not POSI yet)
Waiting also works, you’ll get menace reducing cards periodically.
The actual penalty for going to a failure state is basically just being forced to grind off the menace before you can do anything else, and for the most part it makes it EASIER to do so. Visiting the mirror marches/the boat/the tomb colonies is pretty effective. Mostly I’d only avoid it if there’s something you want to finish first, or you’re holding onto a rare card or something.
edited by WormApotheote on 10/13/2014
My standard Nightmare reduction is the hot wine stand at the Carnival’s Refreshment Pavilion. For Scandal, I head to church.
There’s a ~50% chance at the hot wine stand to INCREASE your scandal. Church is much less dangerous, though it can still increase scandal.
If you’re right on the borderline and can’t afford any increase at all in scandal, I think your best bet is to just hold out for nightmare or scandal-reducing opportunity cards. Perhaps you should keep company with a particularly Cheerful Goldfish for a while?
Social actions. They do the best menace reduction. Otherwise, you could spam the church storylet in your lodgings for scandal reduction. Several menace op cards will help, but they’re op cards, and thus unreliable. Keep a goldfish on hand–that gives you an extra nine points in nightmares to find a solution.
First get laudnum from the pawnbrokers in the bazaar tab. Drink it to reduce nightmares. Tinctures of vigor from there will also reduce wounds. For scandal, its recommended you find a friend who will accept dupe social actions. You can find this social action under the storylet in your lodgings labeled attend to matters of society and scandal. Sleeping in bed in your lodgings also helps with both wounds and nightmares. For scandal an alternative to social actions is to use the church in your lodgings, but that’s not very efficient. The pass a boxed cat card can be used to reduce some scandal. If you dont want to spend echos on laudnum you can find social actions at your lodgings to confess your nightmares to other players. For wounds social actions you can ask other to heal you. A good place to ask for social actions is this thread here:
http://community.failbettergames.com/topic148-find-friends-for-sparring-dinners-chess--theft.aspx
Other methods of menace reduction are available although these are the basics that are available at almost all levels of play. I’m sure other players might know of more efficient means (I probably do too, but I forget).
edited by NiteBrite on 10/13/2014
If you use the church method for reducing Scandal and hit 8 I suggest staying in the storylet. Unless things have changed you can keep trying without being exiled, and the odds are mostly in your favour.
Also regarding the option of just hitting 8, you may want to invest in +menace items so you can jump into the failure state early, which means you can get out faster. (or alternatively, -menace items so you can grind off a larger amount at once, your choice really :P)
Yeah, as long as you can continue to "Try again" you won’t be sent to any menace area until you choose "Onwards" in any situation. Generally this doesn’t matter but for storylets that take a menace up or down (church, some of the resting your wounds options for nightmares) it is a useful trick to avoid an unnecessary trip.
Now that I think about it, I wonder if you could choose try again, tab over to your inventory, then use a menace reduction consumable without being shipped off…I think I’ll test that next chance I get.
[quote=WormApotheote]Menace reducing items (Laudanum/Tincture of Vigour/ablution absolution)
The last one also reduces scandal but it’s kind of bad at it; it’s very effective at reducing suspicion though. (it also becomes unuseable if you get jailed to many times, so probably try to avoid that when you’re not POSI yet)
Waiting also works, you’ll get menace reducing cards periodically.
The actual penalty for going to a failure state is basically just being forced to grind off the menace before you can do anything else, and for the most part it makes it EASIER to do so. Visiting the mirror marches/the boat/the tomb colonies is pretty effective. Mostly I’d only avoid it if there’s something you want to finish first, or you’re holding onto a rare card or something.
edited by WormApotheote on 10/13/2014[/quote]
Just curious, what is the best way to get into the Mirror Marches instead of The Royal belthleham? I have 21 Memories Of Light, and i am give to understand they keep you away, but I’d kike to know other ways if possible since Memories Of Light are not easy to come by right now.
Yes that works; that’s why I’d recommend them over other options before POSI: they can’t fail, you can use them even if you’ve accidentally gone too high, and they’re fairly effective. (Especially the suspicion one)
You can’t do it once the storylet to exile has appeared… except for the death one, which doesn’t immediately move you to the boat (though you can’t perhaps not out of it, it’ll just pop up again if you try that). You can also rearrange your gear to reduce menaces before the autofire storylet pops.)
You need at least one memory of light (which is consumed upon leaving)
The easiest way is probably to just to do horizontal conversions, you can turn 50 of any 50 pence item into memories of light that way.
One of the storylines from the Implacable detective can give memories of light but someone else will have to explain that in more detail since I haven’t done it.
An option that makes it extremely easy once you’d done it, but is pretty difficult to reach is to become a Glassman, but that requires 5 notability and PoSI. It pays 5 a week, so you basically will never run out unless you’re TRYING.
edited by WormApotheote on 10/13/2014
[quote]The easiest way is probably to just to do horizontal conversions, you can turn 50 of any 50 pence item into memories of light that way.
edited by WormApotheote on 10/13/2014[/quote]
Forgive my ignorace, but Horizontal what? You’ve lost me. Can you explain, keeping in mind the more math you use the more lost i will be? XD
edited by Kylestien on 10/13/2014
Okay, any item that’s 50 pence (well not any, but the ones used in the normal crafting trees) you can convert to 51 of another item that’s 50 pence, like eg tales of terror > compromising documents (and then compromising documents into memories of light). If you do that enough times it goes in a loop, so you can convert any of them into any other.
The storylet to do that is accessed from the item.
So if you already have, say, 50 tales of terror, turning them into memories of light are easy.
You can also convert phosporescent scarabs and lamplighter beeswax up into memories of light, but they’re a lot less common than say, tales of terror.
Thank you for telling me this WormApprentice. it will be useful when I need items.
Also thank you to NiteBrite and Delmar Tramontane for sending me 2 sips of Hesperderian Cider and nursing me back to health respectively. I sincerely appreciate it. Especaily the Cider. i was always curious what that did and waned it but never expected to so much as get a sip with such a high price in the bazzar. XD
Have a look at the table linked in my sig line - that will show you what converts into what horizontally.
With Scandal being the only menace that a non-PoSI can’t easily cure with a potion, I’d recommend siding with the Church vs Hell on their faction conflict card Brimstone or frankincense? I’d also recommend cycling through Counting the Days, specifically rushing through 6-9 if necessary, since all the other values have a CtD option to reduce Scandal by 3 CPs. My goal is usually to make the most out that menace reduction, not to get through the cycle as quickly as possible. But I frequently have to work hard to get Suspicion up enough to power through the 6-9 range. Then again, if you can get invited to An exclusive dinner party you wouldn’t have that problem, since wounds are easy to acquire from A misfortune at the Carnival. I sure do like those cards. ;)
The ablution absolution DOES lower scandal, but the amount is really small (it might only be 1 cp even without posi) so it’s probably a bad idea to use fro that for anything other than ‘oh crap i let scandal hit 8 when i had a valuable card in my hand’ situations.
Yes, and for a PoSI I’d even add Nightmares as a menace that can’t be easily cured with potions, since the reduction is 1 CP/Action while also giving Wounds +1 CP.
EDIT: Turns out that I remembered incorrectly. Wounds would be -2 CP/Action for PoSI, and for Nightmares it’s -3 CP (plus the usual +1 CP Wounds), and the really bad efficiency isn’t from being PoSI, but from the laudanum habit, if it rises too high. Though it costs Actions and a card to bring it back down, so that worsens the overall effect I guess.
edited by Gillsing on 10/13/2014
Yeah I only have used those the tincture of vigour and laudanum to save rare cards since becoming POSI.
The ablution absolution won’t drop you two entire levels with one bottle once you’re POSI but it’s still quite effective for suspicion.
In order to set up this grind, you’ll need to activate the Deranged Medium case from the card. Then, go to Ladybones and do the mystery until Mouse: So Little Time hits 6. Then you can leave it alone and do stuff until your nightmares hit 8. You’ll head to Parabola. There, use the Ivory Mirror (the one with all the snakes) until you hit Mouse 3. This will, guaranteed, give you enough levels of Cat to finish the case in Ladybones once you leave the menace area. Unless perhaps you were spectacularly unlucky when you started the case.
The case pays out about 30 memories, iirc. If you’re really lucky, you get sone brass as well.
From the cat and mouse storylines I’ve done you should be able to pay your way through the first leg for a fairly trivial amount.