Above 600 instincts?

[Impossible]

Instinct, one of the few stats that have no real benefit from maxing. Most characters generally never come close to capping instinct either, generally leaving it around 100 to 150, with the rare 200. Instinct is the lesser used stats, pretty much ignored and simply there so our characters can react to others on an equal level. It is unneeded to be higher, since seeing someone moving at high speeds is more determined by your speed stat, thus negating the overall usefulness of having instinct, or even senses, go any higher.

This doesn't exactly encourage people to try a different route, instead of always going for the rs mage, or the physical powerhouse. Instinct and senses builds are overlooked, thanks to the combination of the heavy weakness of going past 400 on senses, and instincts fairly lackluster bonuses. Not to be rude or insulting, but for a mental skill like instincts, you would think that you would get a little bit more than animal taming for choosing a type to max it, and the ability to discern strengths and weaknesses. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with taming any animal, but it just seems out of place here, and for the strengths and weaknesses, you could just grab some points in battle analysis.

What I suggest, to encourage people to consider taking a look at choosing a type that favors instincts is to give the stat some more bonuses at the higher levels. Maybe when you hit 700, your mind is able to shift its focus, giving you the ability to think two or more things at once, giving you true multitasking. Your mind and body can work separately, giving you the ability to shift your body into an 'autopilot' so to speak. 800 could go further into this, giving you the ability to think so quickly that your perception of reality slows down, letting you hear see and feel things slower than they're actually moving, giving your body even more time to react, and slowing down your perception even more for every 100 past this point.

Maybe at 900 or 1000, your character has a mind on par with any super computer, able to think a thousand thoughts faster than most could even begin thinking one. You're able to perfectly remember events in your life like a movie, able to store, save, or even erase memories on a whim. Maybe this could also be a defence against abilities that target the mind, able to block out powers or anything trying to corrupt thoughts. At over 1000, your mind could be so powerful, that you develop a danger sense. I realise that it is mentioned to giving you a this in the description, but I have never seen it used this way without it being seen as god moding.

Anyway, at 1000+ you would gain a danger sense, that would give you the ability to sense any threat headed your way, and from what direction. Almost like the spider sense, but more accurate. I don't mean to ramble, but it's just something that I think could help the low number of people who choose to have more than the 'standard' level of instinct' as their stat max.

[Amagai Kuchiki]

Thank you for posting this, I think you have some very solid points.

I think your idea for 700 is perfect.

800, we get a little bit haxy here. I can see particularly unscrupulous people using this as a substitute for speed, which is something we want to avoid. In general, perception of reality slowing is something with a dangerous history on this site (see Nex, for instance).

I think 900, however, would be a perfect spot for your 1000 bonus. The gut instinct that tells you that something is wrong, that you need to dodge now, even if you can't sense it, could be super cool. The downside of not sensing it would mean you wouldn't know what it was, just that you needed to move. Again, however, there is danger here in meaning that if someone has 900 Instinct, they could have 50 senses and no ES and still be capable of reacting to anything, which isn't really what we want here. But I think we could find a happy balance in here.

Your super computer examples, however, verge on skills. Why take points in memory, in learning, if you can just get a high enough Instinct? However, I think the thing that you've described that has the most potential here, is the ability to block people messing with your mind. I don't know exactly how to balance it, but I love the idea of someone with high enough instinct being able to glance at an illusion and saying "that's wrong," to being able to think so fast mind reading doesn't work against them.

Soul, you have some legitimately good thoughts as far as this stuff goes. Don't be afraid to share more in the future.

Also, this discussion is still open for responses from other people, to Soul's comments or mine.

[Hadrian J. Ryan Ⅻ]

As someone who runs a Sensory build, I feel Soul makes a good point regarding Instincts, and I feel a lot of what he brings up could be applied to Senses as well. Senses, in my opinion, has it even worse than Instinct in that it is the only stat other than Speed that you’re penalised for having too much of it. I’ll admit that the reason for this penalty makes sense, but perhaps there should be an ability to invalidate this Sensory overload by having sufficiently high senses? Perhaps at 1000 Senses, one develops ‘intelligent sensory’ that reacts to changes in the environment, and adjusts sensory input accordingly?

Just wanted to point out to Rudy though, that the benefits of having high Stats often overlap with Skills. For example, high Healing Expertise gives you advantages that can also be gotten through Damage Recovery, Pain Tolerance and Poison Tolerance, and even 450 Instinct gives people a pseudo-Analysis type Skill. Even Light/Dark Aura gives Lack of Fear and Illusion Resist if you max it out. So, would it be that big a deal if Instinct overlapped with Memory, Learning and Illusion Resist? The reason being that its impossible to have more than 400 in Instinct/Senses/Energy Sensory unless you build your character to fit a type that boosts those stats.

Still, I feel the suggestions made are really good.

[Impossible]

Thank you both for taking your time to respond to this, I truly appreciate it. I can see your concerns for perception alteration Rudy, especially if someone has done something similar to that in the past. I wasn't able to find your example due to the search bar errors, but I'll take your word for it. I also have to agree with John on his points, and add that having high stats can even copy some techs. For example, having a high enough strength can give the owner a kind of hierro, making you durable to withstand car crashes, bull trampling, and even gives you the ability to mend your bones back together, and that isn't even including the shockwaves.

Those who focus rs also get some abilities that resemble techs as well, though not as much as strength. At 600, they get a blinding flash of light and a menacing effect, with the latter made stronger at 800. This means that rs builds instantly get something that can overload the senses of a sensory build, and they get a similar ability to that of the 'Cog' stage of willpower, pretty much for free. 1000 rs or more is similar to strength in that they both can deflect weaker energy attacks, although rs needs to be at least 100 rs higher that what it blocks, while strength can be even 1 point higher. Also not sure how these interactions would work against class 1 or 0 abilities. These are just two stat examples, and like John stated about healing and the light/dark stats, there are more. Like free anti-stealth from having high senses or energy sensory.

In my opinion, skills are meant to be taken to imitate higher stat bonuses in order to round out or balance your character, so they aren't just a one trick pony. Most people, from what I've seen, generally take at least one mental skill, usually analysis, either one, to go along with their builds, even though they would get something similar from putting 300 or 450 in instinct. That's why I think it's still fair to put those skill-like abilities on instinct, especially if you consider that fact that few type classes even offer instinct as a bonus.

Back to what perks you would gain, if true multitasking is something that could be considered something passable, what if 800 was, instead of slowing your perception, it was a form of advanced control over your senses. This would primarily be for the high senses builds. Taking note of what john said, maybe this stage would let you shut off parts of your mind or body, effectively turning off one or more of your senses? Just a thought, seeing as it's fairly weird that you can affect your senses from instinct, but if this stat revolves around your mind, it might be something it can do.

I agree with your thoughts to swap the danger sense with the supercomputer mind, seeing as one does more than the other. As to the 50 senses, 900+ instinct, 0 es build, I think it would go just like having the 50 senses, 50 instinct, and the very high es. I don't think enough people would take the stat combination for it to make an impact, and even if it did, there aren't many types that could support that build. For the last bit, going on the anti-illusions, I'd say one could balance it but making it so that you can see that there's an illusion, but that they could not break out of it by instinct alone.

You would be able to say that 'oh, I'm in an illusion, blank blank and blank details are ever so slightly off', but without points in illusion resist, or an ability to break illusions, you are unable to break it. For the anti-mindreading, I love that idea. I'd say maybe you could resist mindreading if you have x amount of rs over them, but that goes against the spirit, heh, of having a higher stat. If anything, I would recommend that if the person trying to do that has anything less than 200 of the afflicted person's instinct, that they would only hear a cluttered mess of words, pictures, and they would be constantly bombarded with harmful thoughts, or that they would be thrown into a mindscape, similar to that of a soul room, where the owner has all the control, but unable to kill the foe.

And on the topic of 'a thousand thoughts a second', how do you think this would interact with the skill 'mental incantation'?

[Amagai Kuchiki]

Bunch of different, good stuff here. Another mod should weigh in at some point, ideally.

@john: Senses might also be in need of a buff, but it's also probably one of the best stats in the game to just sink 300 points into. The amount of BS you can get away with more than 150, but less than like....400 senses, is absolutely absurd. If we buffed high end senses, we'd need to nerf the middle ground, because right now its balanced to be good for anyone who wants to sink points into it, but not as broken if its your main stat (because again, sensory main stat builds tend to be abused by assholes). Especially given the existence of filter techniques, the taxation of one technique slot in order to effectively utilize your stat isn't unreasonable. Hell, RS also needs techs to be useful, and it is by no means weak.

And certainly, the benefits of stats and skills overlap a lot, but its also telling to notice how those skills are used on site. I think no one other than AKH has Damage Recovery, and only 1-3 people have Pain Tolerance, most opt to go for Strength of Will instead. Light/Dark Aura is weird because its free, but sure, it had benefits that are underused. But my main point is if we take an underused skill, and make a stat benefit that could replace it, we're probably killing the skill. The only people that will take it are people that can't get their instinct that high, and few of those builds even want it. I'm not saying it should mean that we cannot give it that benefit, but that we need to be careful.

soul : Rundown of the Nex thing: Nex was an a Strategiest Akki with a fighting style technique that "Slowed his perception of the world down by 100x". This lead to an infamous moment of him trying to utilize it like a 100x speed boost. He got his shit wrecked by Okusa, a Kenpachi, regardless, but it went down in site history as one of the arguments against fighting style techniques, and against sensory builds. 

Your point about the benefits of high strength and high RS are fair.

Also, you're right that Instinct allowing you to selectively shutdown senses is weird, but I'm almost okay with it? I don't like that it removes an existing weakness to senses (the technique tax of them having to use a balanced technique to shut down senses), but I'd certainly be open for discussion of that? I'd want it to take a lot to get to, however, since it's a massive deal.

I think your proposed anti-illusion stuff seems very reasonable, I'd back that. High instinct can identify illusions, but cannot terminate them freely.

Your proposed Instinct-off basically of someone trying to read the mind of a high instinct build also works for me. There's a similar rule in Pathfinder where mind reading someone with like 10 INT more than you stuns you for a round. It's also a time honored trope. I like the mess of words and confusing thoughts a lot more than the mindscape, personally.

I think saying that high Instinct Builds mentally incantate faster than normal is fair. But I obviously wouldn't but a number on it.


I think we've entertained a lot of solid thoughts here, I hope another mod finds time to look this over.

[Douma]

rpforumbleach.proboards.com/thread/8391/gift-sensory-stat-builds I hope that this might help the conversation about using instinct to prevent a sensory overload.

[Impossible]

I appreciate you posting that, because I wasn't aware it existed. So maybe not something that is already a tech, though my earlier point with high stat points in rs and str doubling as minor techs still stands, maybe 800 could a utility thing, or maybe something akin to imitation, or maybe we just boost 700 and change it to 800. I'd honestly prefer to avoid that outcome, so if anyone wants to pitch in their ideas, I would be more than happy to hear your opinion.

[Zeich Yajuu]

While I like the idea of this conversation, I honestly feel that compared to stats like our physicals/spirituals, sensory stats have far too much potential to be broken as they hit higher levels. Sure, a high-powered attack using RS or STR can obliterate someone, but you still have to hit with it; avoidance is always possible (or rather, should be, lest it fall afoul of our illegal rules). For the most part, RS and STR are simply numbers designed to combat other numbers. They are mechanical in nature, for the most part. SpPr is much the same way, normally limited to only Releases for power, and otherwise only provides cutback (another clash of number versus number that is easily gotten around with Release) and Reiatsu amounts.

Let's look at what high senses can do. In fact, let's bring up a major point that happened in a canon thread: Kento versus Yoko. On a ruling from Royce, who is one of the most impartial judges I have ever met, Kento was able to make use of 450 senses to not only detect Yoko from a far distance away, but also to detect when, in combination with 200 Instinct, that she was about to fire a sniper rifle on him. Why? He could hear her heartbeat. He could detect the sound of the gun's trigger being pulled. He could hear her breathing speed up before the shot. Therefore, before the shot went off, he was already out of the way. Now this was with a sniper rifle, meaning a fair distance away, and against only 450 Senses. And those Senses were able to completely overcome that distance between them and enable Kento to, again with his Instinct factored in. This means that when we hit 600 and start really accomplishing godlike feats, we can do some crazy things. This is why there are penalties at higher levels of Senses, and why we probably do not need even more extreme senses. A proper Senses/Instinct build has an enormous amount of nullifying power.

Instincts I do need to think on a bit myself, but I'd also like to hear from Kento, as he's been here even longer than I have. I just wanted to weigh in on senses.