Sara Hysaro
Moderator
Posts: 4514
9/29/2013
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Well, the area is a punishment. Seeking the Name quite often will send you here with high levels of Wounds. I bet it's intended to drag on and on to make you question whatever action(s) sent you there. Well, unless you have high enough levels of Watchful to gamble your life with the boatman for decent results.
I don't recall any cards that let you ask your ingame friends, but there is an invite you can send to someone who isn't playing that will decrease your Wounds by 3 CP.
edited by Sara Hysaro on 9/29/2013
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
9/29/2013
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Wounds is probably the easiest Menace to keep low in London - not only can friends help you reduce it without being injured themselves (unlike the other three), but the "Time in bed" storylet that appears in your Lodgings when you're badly wounded is varied, interesting, and can be highly effective. (Nightmares has a lot of cards to decrease it, but a lot will increase it too, even on non-failures - it's probably a toss-up between those two.)
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aira
Posts: 32
9/29/2013
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I can reduce my suspicion from 5 to 0 using only 5 actions if my friends help me. One attempt at reducing my wounds in my lodgings takes 3 actions, and there's no guarantee of results.
I know it's meant to be a "punishment" area, but if I lose an entire day of playing just to get out of the monotonous river, it reduces my desire to play the game. I don't mind going insane or getting locked in prison because those stories are fun. Something interesting is happening. Even aside from the amount of time it takes to get out of there, insanity is far more interesting to play.
Why does going to the river have to be pure "punishment"? Why can't it be interesting, like insanity? And if it can't be interesting, couldn't it at least take a little less time to get back from there?
I think the easiest one to keep low is scandal, since you can reduce that in your lodgings without even asking friends for help. Which is fortunate, because the tomb-colonies are nearly as monotonous and frustrating as the river.
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Sara Hysaro
Moderator
Posts: 4514
9/29/2013
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Time in Bed will always decrease your Wounds provided that you have the acquaintance of the Repentant Forger up enough. I find that the Regretful Soldier is pretty good at tending to your Wounds as well (though I don't know the exact CP value), and eventually a guaranteed option will turn up to lower your Wounds by a full 7 CP. I find it less frustrating than Scandal because I don't need to worry about keeping a margin to avoid an unlucky streak sending me off to the Tomb-Colonies when I don't want to go.
I'll admit that it takes more actions compared to a decent streak in church, but at least it's guaranteed to lower the menace by some amount.
edited by Sara Hysaro on 9/29/2013
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
9/29/2013
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Yeah, but that give your friends several points of Suspicion, that they then have to find a way to reduce. You can ask them to nurse you back to health without any risk to them at all. (And surely the Scandal option in the Lodgings is just as uncertain as the Wounds one - and can even increase Scandal if it goes wrong.)
(By the way, does anyone remember how the Horsehead Amulet works on the Slow Boat? Does equipping one while you're there let you skip a couple of levels of Wounds reduction?)
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Sara Hysaro
Moderator
Posts: 4514
9/29/2013
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Yes, the Horsehead Amulet does work in death.
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aira
Posts: 32
9/29/2013
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Most of these avenues of reducing wounds require high levels though. Clearly if you have high levels, you don't need to worry about death so much. The point I've been trying to make is that if you don't have high levels, the wounds menace is worse than the others. It makes me not want to bother with Dangerous activities, which is a shame, because I like the stories that go with them.
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Blessed
Posts: 46
9/29/2013
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You probably will not care for this, I try to actively avoid cards which implies strongly of failure. Of course the cards do seem to be stacked against the unwary player.
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Sara Hysaro
Moderator
Posts: 4514
9/29/2013
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Time is Bed is independent of levels for the most part. You'll only need to increase your Repentant Forger quality to get a guarantee at lowering Wounds, so even with a low level alt I don't feel like I'm wasting my actions. You can also trade your Wounds for Suspicion in the Carnival, and Tickets are free if you have 67 Shadowy.
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Theus
Posts: 311
9/29/2013
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Using the least efficient way to escape the river is to roll the dice. It will take you an average of 72 actions to escape.
Using the most efficient way (if watchful is low) is to equip a horsehead amulet and use all reducing cards, which will free you in 17-34 actions. If you don't have the amulet, it's just a couple more.
The problem is that the zone is a rather poor experience for low and new players, and rather fun and easy to escape for higher players, and the scale is likely to blame. There could be a lower level chess option that the boatman uses to hook players that would ease this a bit.
edited by Theus on 9/29/2013
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aira
Posts: 32
9/29/2013
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Theus wrote:
The problem is that the zone is a rather poor experience for low and new players, and rather fun and easy to escape for higher players, and the scale is likely to blame. There could be a lower level chess option that the boatman uses to hook players that would ease this a bit.
edited by Theus on 9/29/2013
I think that's a fair summary. It would be nice to have a lower-level option that would be a bit more effective than the slow grind of the opportunity cards.
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Gillsing
Posts: 1203
9/29/2013
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Sara Hysaro wrote:
You can also trade your Wounds for Suspicion in the Carnival, and Tickets are free if you have 67 Shadowy.
Free Tickets? Do you mean stealing? That still costs an Action, doesn't it? And in my opinion an Action is worth about 1.00 Echo early on, because you can rob a drunk, anonymous wretch and get a Bundle of Oddities with an average sell value of 100 pence. And the 5 Tickets you can steal are only worth 25 Moon-pearls, which you could buy at the Bazaar for 75 pence. Time is money, even if it hurts to hand over Moon-pearls for Tickets. Which I didn't, because I lucked out and got 30 Tickets from Shoshana on the very first try, and after I read about how to raise connections from the conflict cards I got 5 free Tickets every now and then, in exchange for Wounds. So many Wounds. I should follow my own advice, which is this:
1. Rob a drunk, anonymous wretch and sell the loot for 40-160 pence.
2. Buy a bottle of F.F. Gebrandt's Tincture of Vigour for 1.00 Echo and drink half, which reduces Wounds by 3.
3. Save the half-finished bottle until you are a Person of Some Importance...
4. ...or scoff at such long-term precautions and finish the rest of the bottle for another 3 point reduction to Wounds.
5. Repeat until you can walk around without having to use one hand to keep your entrails from falling out.
But I'll admit it: I'm too cheap to have done this. Instead I just avoid things that I know will result in Wounds. Which isn't nearly all the Dangerous choices you'd think. Why, I had both my lungs punctured by a dead man, and that didn't hurt!
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aira
Posts: 32
9/29/2013
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Still on the river, slowly reducing those wounds... And I realized a part of what makes the grind so unpleasant, which I had forgotten about before: not all of the opportunity cards will reduce your wounds. Several will increase it and must be discarded. If you run out of opportunity cards, there is no "pinned" action you can take without risk (assuming you don't have a stockpile of small animals to sacrifice). If your watchful is low enough that you don't do well at chess, you just have to wait for more opportunity cards. I think that might be the most frustrating part. When you're insane, you can drink from the fountain (or various other possibilities if you're in the mirror marches). If you're in prison, you can "observe prison life" and slowly reduce your sentence. But on the boat, you just have to sit and wait and hope your next card will be a good one.
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Endy
Posts: 278
9/29/2013
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Improving odds:
Access to Flit, Forgotten Quarter, Shuttered Palace
Acquaintances: Repentant Forger and Regretful Soldier.
Running Battle in Progress(not sure if impacted by death)
Fascinating in Progress
If you go in cards high you have the best odds for a speedy exit. There is something else but I really don't want to share that until I finish my quest for getting my Laudanum Habit up to 50.
edited by Endy on 9/29/2013
edited by Endy on 9/29/2013
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sonantem aeternum ad terram
Through the darker shadows.
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Sara Hysaro
Moderator
Posts: 4514
9/29/2013
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I don't ever really think about buying tickets unless my Shadowy is too low to steal them or I have access to Mahogany Hall. Buying moon-pearls (or anything really) from the Bazaar just seems to be a waste, even if it isn't. When my Wounds get too high I usually focus on another stat for awhile, and play the Restorative card whenever it comes up. Usually that will be Watchful, so I have more reason to spend Time in Bed. 
aira wrote:
Still on the river, slowly reducing those wounds... And I realized a part of what makes the grind so unpleasant, which I had forgotten about before: not all of the opportunity cards will reduce your wounds. Several will increase it and must be discarded.
And there's your problem - discarding the bad cards. Keep them in your hand so you won't draw them again.
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Theus
Posts: 311
9/30/2013
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aira wrote:
If you run out of opportunity cards, there is no "pinned" action you can take without risk... But on the boat, you just have to sit and wait and hope your next card will be a good one.
The house always loses in dice. It's a 50/50 chance to win or lose. If you win, you lose 3 cp. if you lose, you gain 2 cp. It averages out to 1 cp loss every 2 actions, or 1/2 cp per action. it's probabilistic, not guaranteed, so you will likely see some runs of good/bad luck, but it's what you should be doing if you have actions full and no cards you want to play. (That's unless you want to increase your Watchful without the chance to get Nightmares, in which case you can play chess until Wounds 15.)
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Blessed
Posts: 46
10/13/2013
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Another question about lodgings: Can one character own multiple lodgings? I am sure only one can be active at any one time but can the character own multiple lodgings and second question: will they all count when determining which lodging related storylets unlock?
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Spacemarine9
Posts: 2234
10/13/2013
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Yes and yes.
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Allanon Kisigar
Posts: 164
10/14/2013
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I think there's also a "story" reason for why death is the most harsh of all the menaces. For one, it's certainly the most drastic. Even in the real world, the others are problems that are often fixable. It may not be EASY, but it's often possible. However, death is, well, death. It may not have as strong a hold in the Neath, but it's still quite drastic, and is the only Menace area where there is someone who actually wants to keep you there. To demonstrate, here's a snippet from winning a game of chess with The Boatman at one of the higher levels of Watchful
"The Boatman hisses as he topples his king with a bony knuckle. 'Enjoy it while it lasts,' he growls. 'You're all of you mine in the end.'"
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Urthdigger
Posts: 939
10/14/2013
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I've always found it quite the opposite: That death is the easiest of the menaces.
Scandal is much like wounds when it comes to using cards, but doesn't have a faster option (playing chess).
Suspicion has a method that can get you out instantly, albeit the card is uncommon.
Nightmares go down at the same rate using cards, and going insane damages your various Dreams qualities.
In addition, wounds is the cheapest menace to remove. Getting a player's help removes 5 CP at no cost to them (Minus the action), while all others give the helper 1 CP of menace (and nightmares requires a sudden insight payment). It also has the cheapest item to remove the menace as well.
Personally, I rank the menaces in order of least troublesome to most in the following order:
Wounds - Suspicion - Scandal - Nightmares.
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