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The Great Soupy-phian Quest to Overhaul Epithet Erased (Part 1) [MORE INPUT NEEDED]

IDK3465

He/Him
299
94
Credits to @Peppersalt43 for helping me with this CRT.

Intro​

It legitimately has pissed me off how little was done with Epithet Erased in the past four years despite an ENTIRE BOOK coming out over a year and a half ago. So, after waiting patiently for something to happen, I finally decided to do it myself.

Initially, when I wanted to make this CRT, I only wanted to add all the new stuff from Prison of Plastic and maybe readjust some of the formatting and scaling. But as I started to work on this, the more I realized there was SO MUCH MORE missing from the profiles. So, I decided to bite the bullet, completely overhaul nearly everything in the verse, and set some new rules for handling it going forward.

By the way, enormous spoilers for PoP are below. If you haven’t read the book yet and want to get to it, do it now. If you’re a fan of the series but unsure if you want to read it, I’d recommend watching the book's first six chapters for free on Jello’s YouTube channel and then see how you feel. (That, and I just want more content for the series, BUY JELLO’S BOOK.)

(P.S. Sorry if this is hard to read; this is my first CRT of this scale, so please bear with me on this, thx.)

Anyway, let’s unpack this sh*t.

Jello’s Statement​

Before we get into all the details, I need to acknowledge something important that I know will be brought up eventually, and it stems from this quote from Jello:

"Everything operates by like… JRPG video games rules in Epithet. You can get shot in the head and it just deals with some damage. It’s super hard to kill somebody."

What Jello’s trying to say here is those in EE can survive attacks from those far stronger than them due to simply taking whatever amount of damage, like a generic goon in a JRPG somehow surviving on one HP from the overpowered player character who’s 30 levels above them. In short, simply surviving an attack doesn't always say how durable that character is.

Using this, you can argue that nobody should scale to anyone. If everybody can survive stuff from those more significant than themselves, who’s to say if they can genuinely survive anything?

But I disagree.
The reason why Jello made this statement was in response to somebody asking about how Mera survived Giovanni’s critical. Mera is depicted as very fragile, so fragile she can’t get bumped without going to the hospital; this is an integral part of her character and the plot as a whole. But what’s also important is that she survives to continue in the series; that’s why Mera survived, not because she would generally be able to, but to serve the sake of the plot, basically, PIS.

Let’s compare that to the example I mentioned earlier; why did the goon not get visibly injured by the player? Because them being unable to attack or move after taking too much damage wouldn’t work for the gameplay, basically, game mechanics.
When you get down to it, these are the same things: the character is not durable enough to do this but does it anyway because reasons.

What I’m trying to say here is that the whole “it’s a JRPG, doesn’t count” argument is just an acknowledged form of PIS and game mechanics. It’s like how a character acknowledging a training montage doesn’t mean they can get significantly stronger in under a minute.

We shouldn’t take the statement to mean, “Anybody can survive anything, so nothing matters.” It’s all just context-dependent. Yes, we should still be careful with how we scale everyone. I’m not saying Mera has 9-B durability (of course not.) It’s just ridiculous to invalidate every single feat because “this other character survived an attack far stronger than themselves,” doing that is just unnecessary lowballing.

If this character survived a hit from and or defeated another, and it makes sense, they scale.
If this character survived something that doesn’t make sense, it’s what Jello talked about and just straight-up PIS/GM.

Besides, disqualifying a character’s feats because “in their universe, everyone can survive this. If they stepped out of it, they’d die.” is so dumb. If someone can take a bullet to the head no problem, they can take a bullet to the head no problem. And it's not like EE bullets are weaker. They can clearly break and affect things like in real life, and (while less feared) they are still weapons in the verse and are still considered dangerous. The whole thing about “minor impact damage” less has to do with guns being weak as it has to do with the durability of everyone in the verse.

People in Epithet Erased are just durable enough to take bullets, and that’s fine.


Agnaa has actually changed my mind about this:
What Jello was talking about here wasn't just acknowledged PIS or GM, damage is an actual component of the verse that can't just be ignored like this, it needs to be acknowledged as something in-universe.

But, how are we going to index this though?
Well, I think Agnaa explained this best:
I've considered a few ways to deal with that, and I think I've narrowly picked out a winner:
  1. Characters Are Super Durable: There's the obvious contradictions with Mera here. And some added weirdness with how, despite everyone being bulletproof, it's notable for Beefton to be knifeproof. As mentioned, statements (and some feats) about character strengths become weird if they're all barely feeling bullets. And, as mentioned, the comparison of all guns to airsoft rifles seems weird in this light. Finally, the way real-ass-goddamn weapons function within this is weird; why would people be able to swing real-ass-goddamn swords dozens of times harder during cutscenes?
  2. Weapons Are Super Weak: Main thing making this weird for me is Ramsey tanking the log falling on him. That's obviously not a weapon, so the only way this could really function would be if it applied to everything in the verse, which seems incoherent and kinda pointless. Plus, real-ass-goddamn weapons remain a bit weird, why does them being real only make them swing with their real strength during cutscenes?
  3. Characters Have High Endurance: This feels a bit more promising, but still not great. This would mean that a character who gets shot actually has the bullet go all the way through, but their physiology lets them fight through that. This seems weird with Ramsey getting shot, and quite weird with Bugsy getting shot dozens of times; I don't think both of those would've been due to them taking shortcuts with the art. Plus, the original statement of bullets causing "minor impact damage" seems incongruous with this.
  4. Characters Have Passive Damage Reduction: I think this is the only thing that can actually work. I think it'd best work if it exponentially reduced the damage from stronger events. I think it's fine for real-ass-goddamn weapons to be able to bypass this during cutscenes. Only real weirdness left is the airsoft rifles comparison, but I think that leaves it as the best of a bunch of bad options.
Some thoughts on how this could operate:
  • Explanation on the verse page detailing the evidence from the verse, and how we'll have other series interact with it.
  • Place the following at the end of each character's Durability section: "higher with Damage Reduction (Due to this series operating under JRPG/Cartoon mechanics, they can be injured without being seriously maimed by attacks spanning wide degrees of energy output)", with "operating under JRPG/Cartoon mechanics" linking to that section on the verse page.
  • Durability scaling would come from striking strength feats, from no-selling attacks, and from demonstrated/stated superiorities to other characters.
  • We'd treat this at stopping at some point based on the best general showing from the verse as a whole.
  • In matches, they'd just need to take a bunch of attacks from within their damage range before they'd go down.
  • EDIT: And real-ass-goddamn weapons would be able to negate Damage Reduction when used properly.
So basically, everyone gets passive Damage Reduction (though, I think Damage Transferal makes more sense given how this system seemingly functions) and everyone gets "higher/[Tier] with Damage Reduction/Transferal" for their durability. We should also be more careful about how we handle scaling in the future, but how that will work exactly isn't entirely clear rn, so I'll save that for part 2 when I get into the nitty-gritty of scaling chains and stuff.

Star and Level Scaling​

In EE, there’s an in-universe tiering and ranking system, or two, kinda?
Basically, everyone in Epithet has a level for each of their stats, the main three being Stamina (endurance, physical strength, durability.) Proficiency (powers, abilities, skill) and Creativity (variety, adaptability, intelligence.) Everyone is born with all their stats at level one. From there, they can train and learn to improve their stats and overall level.
Levels are split into three tiers from 1-100, ★ (Star / level 1-40), ⍟ (Orbit / level 41-80), & ✦ (Nova / level 81-100). For more convenience, these levels are represented by stars on a character’s card, with the different tiers matching up to 5 stars/tier; the more stars you have, the better in that statistic you are.
For example, a character has seven stars in stamina. This would put them at lower Orbit tier, two stars in, to be specific, which means that they are level 49-56 in Stamina.

Why do I bring this up? Because we need to ask, can we use this for scaling?
The answer is, sometimes…

We can’t always use it because if one character has a higher stat than another, we can’t always guarantee in which way they’re better than the other character. For example, take Percy, who is a trained and athletic police detective and can hold her own against several Bansai Blasters. Despite this, she has a stamina of 1. The reason for that is due to her incredibly low endurance. So clearly, an increase/decrease in stamina doesn't always equal an increase/decrease in strength.
Each stat has more to it than just “this character’s better than this other one.” several factors go into a character’s level that can’t always guarantee they’re better in that specific area.
You could have an infinite amount of power but are shit skill-wise, you could be incredibly weak but have the most powerful weapon, you could be a terrible fighter, but you can bluff and intimidate someone to the point it doesn’t matter, etc.

But just because it may not always be the case doesn't mean you can’t still use it for scaling. Take Howie Honeyglow, the only character as of writing with a completely maxed-out stamina of 15 stars. Jello has gone on to state that Howie is the strongest character physically in the series and has shown to be utterly superior to nearly every other character, with the possible exception of Zora, who could briefly overpower him.
It is clear that Howie’s strength greatly factors into his stamina, and as such, we can pretty much guarantee he’s stronger than any character with a lower stamina stat.
The point here is that if we know the difference between two characters’ stats is due to what we are trying to scale, then it can be used as a solid reasoning for scaling.

In most situations, however, what exactly factors into a character’s stats is unclear. In those scenarios, we should have the main tier be what they’d be through their own feats and an added “likely/possibly” rating for where they’d place with said stats until we better understand the character’s capabilities.

To summarize, the new rules for star/level/tier scaling are:
  • If two characters show specific reasoning for their difference in a statistic other than what’s trying to be scaled, they shouldn’t be assumed to be better or weaker in that category, and that statistic shouldn’t be used as justification for scaling. (ex, if a character is shown to have higher stamina than another due to endurance rather than AP, then don’t automatically scale AP to said character.)
  • Two characters whose difference in a statistic is directly shown to be due to what we’re scaling would be allowed as solid reasoning. (ex, if a character has a higher stamina than another and is directly shown to be due to said character’s AP, they should scale in AP above the latter character.)
  • Two characters whose difference in a statistic has unclear or unknown reasoning should be given one tier for where they’d place with their own feats and another “likely/possibly” rating for where they’d put with star/level/tier scaling. (ex, if a character has a higher stamina than another, but it’s unclear if that’s due to AP or not, the rules above apply to said character’s AP.)
I should probably note that, in the case of proficiency between Epithet users, powers should scale by default for reasons I'll get into later, but just know that proficiency is shown to at least somewhat be tied to an inscribed's epithet, and as such, the more proficiency, the more power. But please remember to check if there are any limits to what said character can do or specific reasons other than epithet energy for their rating.

NOTE: It is greatly preferred for this to be used as supporting evidence of a character's tier rather than main evidence for it, and if it is used as main evidence, there has to be at least some more justification apart from just their level for their rating.

Epithet Energy/Aura as an Energy System​

On our site, we accept a form of scaling called an Energy System. An ES is essentially a way to scale based on an in-universe form of energy like mana, ki, or whatever.
For example, if a character used a spell to make a storm and it requires X amount of mana, then (assuming that it’s at least a Non-Physical Energy System) all spells and abilities that use more mana than it would be more powerful and can, therefore scale above the storm creation spell.

The reason why I’m talking about this is because I want to discuss how this applies to the Epithets and how that’ll affect scaling.

First, let’s see if they even qualify as an energy system before we figure out which type it is:

Throughout the series, it is clear that Epithets aren't just mere abstract words tied to people to represent their powers, but an actual real physical force that exists within all inscribed.
Inscribed have a certain amount of energy they can harness in the form of their abilities without tuckering out, with specific techniques often requiring more power than others to work. This is shown when Molly cannot nullify all of her friends' transmutations, only really being capable of doing two people at once. She also had to return to her bug form to have enough energy to protect everyone from Graham.
This force gives them all their abilities and can be controlled, harnessed, and grow in power by training it. This Epithet Aura/Energy is the power source for nearly all of what an inscribed can do.

This aligns with our energy system definition, as I stated earlier.

Now that we know Epithet energy is an energy system, which type is it?

Limited Energy System​

The requirements of a LES are as follows:

Powers that scale to each other should
  1. Draw from the same source of power (or can convert between the different kinds of power)
  2. Use up a similar amount of power to each other.
  3. Alternatively, it would also suffice to show that the user can invest similar amounts of power into any given technique, should they want to.
1:
2:
  • Lorelai is stated to have created mini pocket realities and earthquakes in her sleep, both likely being around the same level of power (tier 8-7 or so), as well as implied to use up the same amount of energy to each other (very little of it, sure, but the point still stands).
3:

Non-Physical Energy System​

The requirements of a NPES are as follows:

  1. A character or the system they are using needs to fulfill all criteria for a Limited Energy System, but for all techniques.
  2. They have to demonstrate or have reliable statements that all their supernatural or otherwise non-physical powers scale to each other in Attack Potency. Hence, an increase in power / energy should correspond to a proportional increase in the potency of their powers and abilities.
1:
  • As I have mentioned, all of an inscribed’s powers come from how they interpret their Epithet and are, as such, just different applications of the same underlying energy. So, it should stand to reason all the previous rules mentioned apply to all Epithet abilities and users.
2:


There’s also some evidence for a UES, but unlike the previous types, there are many more contradictions, such as how many people’s powers are strong but physically weak. As such, I’ll leave it at NPES for now, but if anyone has solid evidence for a full UES, I’d like to hear it, but please understand that it would lead to some significant wankiness.

Vote Tally​

Agree: 3 (Agnaa, [agrees with the damage system and epithets as a NPES] Tllmbrg, [same as Agnaa] Adem_Warlock69 [same as Agnaa])
Disagree: 2 (Agnaa, [dissagrees with level/star scaling] Tllmbrg [same as Agnaa])
Neutral: 1 (Adem_Warlock69 [star/level scaling])

Conclusion​

I have a lot more I want to do with this verse, but I’ll leave it at this for now as this CRT’s getting pretty long. I plan next time to get into how the scaling will be handled and where everyone will be upgraded to (it’s honestly ridiculous how downplayed the verse is rn like there’s so much tier 9 stuff for everyone, yet none of it is listed in the profiles, wtf.)

Anyway, that’s all for now,

but please, do yourself a favor and…
BUY JELLO’S BOOK. PRISON OF PLASTIC, AVAILABLE WITH AUDIOBOOK NOW EITHER ONLINE OR AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE
BUY BUY BUY CONSUME CONSUME PRODUCT SELL EXCHANGE GOODS AND SERVICES MONEY SPEND SPEND SPE-
 
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No, the acknowledgement of JRPG-style mechanics isn't PIS, it's an integral part of the verse.

On top of that statement you mention, there's also this statement from one of the livestreams:
Q: Do real-ass-goddamn swords do lethal damage in the show?
A: In my head, "real-ass-goddamn" is a classification of weapon, basically a weapon enchantment, and the answer is yes, those are the weapons that can kill people. You still have to put in effort, this is a cartoon universe so it has to be a cutscene equivalent. But no gun in this series is a real-ass-goddamn gun, they're all airsoft rifles.
And this statement from Jello's tumblr:
Q: If you were to use too much stamina, would that put you in a coma?
A: You just pass out, like fainting in Pokemon.
I'm not exactly sure how this should be indexed, but I struggle to take it as "all the weapons are normal, they're just durable" especially because of that last part of the first statement. Plus, if we look at some other stuff, when asked about how strong characters are he says stuff like "Giovanni's as strong as an athlete", which would be really weird if he was a bullet-tanking superhuman that could punch other bullet-tanking superhumans.

I'd rather just use other sources of scaling than the stats, given those issues you've pointed out. Why get stars involved in the scaling if there's other solid reasons for it? And why give a "possibly" just based on the stars when we know there's a lot of other plausible reasons for high/low stamina?

And, it's definitely not an energy system:
  • It's not actually a source of power. An epithet is just a word inscribed on their soul. Having a stamina pool or a limitation does not imply an energy system.
  • They get better at it because you can improve at skills. This doesn't imply that they're getting a larger pool of an energy source.
  • Having different applications doesn't mean there's a shared energy, that's just how some abilities work.
  • They don't imbue objects with "epithet energy". Just, someone who has mastery over their ability can imbue it into an object letting it function through that. There's no indication that they, like, permanently lose some of their "epithet energy" to do that.
So, I disagree with everything.

Still, I appreciate this since the verse is in dire need of changes. I've written up a bunch of notes but haven't had time to turn them into profiles. I've managed to at least make this writeup which could easily be turned into a profile for The Sand King.
 
Ok, first, thank you so much for replying to this, Agnaa; great to see you care about this series again : )
But now I need to back up my arguments:
No, the acknowledgement of JRPG-style mechanics isn't PIS, it's an integral part of the verse.

On top of that statement you mention, there's also this statement from one of the livestreams:
Q: Do real-ass-goddamn swords do lethal damage in the show?
A: In my head, "real-ass-goddamn" is a classification of weapon, basically a weapon enchantment, and the answer is yes, those are the weapons that can kill people. You still have to put in effort, this is a cartoon universe so it has to be a cutscene equivalent. But no gun in this series is a real-ass-goddamn gun, they're all airsoft rifles.
And this statement from Jello's tumblr:
Q: If you were to use too much stamina, would that put you in a coma?
A: You just pass out, like fainting in Pokemon.
I'm not exactly sure how this should be indexed, but I struggle to take it as "all the weapons are normal, they're just durable" especially because of that last part of the first statement. Plus, if we look at some other stuff, when asked about how strong characters are he says stuff like "Giovanni's as strong as an athlete", which would be really weird if he was a bullet-tanking superhuman that could punch other bullet-tanking superhumans.
One of the main points of your argument here is essentially that few in EE are treated or intended to be superhuman, so anything they can survive or any weapon in the series is probably just weaker. The problem is that's in relation to everything in-universe. I can name countless examples of "normal humans" on the site being at superhuman levels. Hell, normal teenage Ben 10, no aliens, nothing, is 5-A. Just because Giovanni is treated as just an athlete, or guns in EE are treated as airsoft rifles, doesn't mean they are that way compared to real life.
This is kinda cringy, but to quote Syndrome for the umpteenth time: "If everyone's super, no one will be."

Also, that statement about how characters in EE just faint, like in Pokemon, doesn't fully relate to this. We know for a fact people can die in EE (take Molly's mom, for example), so we know there's a certain amount of damage someone can take before biting the dust. It's just more common for people to just faint before then. Besides, the question being asked was if someone used up "too much" stamina, not if they completely ran out of it.

I'd rather just use other sources of scaling than the stats, given those issues you've pointed out. Why get stars involved in the scaling if there's other solid reasons for it? And why give a "possibly" just based on the stars when we know there's a lot of other plausible reasons for high/low stamina?
Ok, you got me there, but I mainly did that as a way to support certain tiers. There are cases where it doesn't make sense (like if we just full-on scaled everyone based on it, Stink of all people would be above most Banzai Blasters, which is ridiculous) and cases where it does (like Zora, who has a stamina of 13 and is treated accordingly as one of the biggest threats in the series) I mainly intended that part to basically be treated case-by-case, nothing concrete. But I get if you disagree, I just kinda wanted to use it for SOMETHING at least.
And, it's definitely not an energy system:
  • It's not actually a source of power. An epithet is just a word inscribed on their soul. Having a stamina pool or a limitation does not imply an energy system.
  • They get better at it because you can improve at skills. This doesn't imply that they're getting a larger pool of an energy source.
  • Having different applications doesn't mean there's a shared energy, that's just how some abilities work.
  • They don't imbue objects with "epithet energy". Just, someone who has mastery over their ability can imbue it into an object letting it function through that. There's no indication that they, like, permanently lose some of their "epithet energy" to do that.
Ok, this is just wrong. Throughout the series, it is mentioned and shown several times that epithets are an actual force as oposed to being something abstract.
Look at when Sylvie has his epithet removed, do you see something? How about when Zora uses up more of her power? Don't see it? I'll tell you, IT'S AN ACTUAL VISIBLE AURA SURROUNDING THEM. Molly literally states she "moved her epithet into her hands." How can you move an abstract concept like a word? In Prison of Plastic, it's mentioned Molly uses "epithet energy" several times!

Epithets are an energy system, and I am not spouting hyperbole by saying that. Besides, Quirks from MHA are accepted as NPES, and I doubt there was any indication of them being a form of energy as blatant as this (if any MHA supporters want to correct me, that's fine. I just wanted to prove that this also applies to epithets, sorry if I messed up somewhere.)
 
Actually, since something needs to be done about the TTRPG mechanics stuff, I should elaborate on that.

I've considered a few ways to deal with that, and I think I've narrowly picked out a winner:
  1. Characters Are Super Durable: There's the obvious contradictions with Mera here. And some added weirdness with how, despite everyone being bulletproof, it's notable for Beefton to be knifeproof. As mentioned, statements (and some feats) about character strengths become weird if they're all barely feeling bullets. And, as mentioned, the comparison of all guns to airsoft rifles seems weird in this light. Finally, the way real-ass-goddamn weapons function within this is weird; why would people be able to swing real-ass-goddamn swords dozens of times harder during cutscenes?
  2. Weapons Are Super Weak: Main thing making this weird for me is Ramsey tanking the log falling on him. That's obviously not a weapon, so the only way this could really function would be if it applied to everything in the verse, which seems incoherent and kinda pointless. Plus, real-ass-goddamn weapons remain a bit weird, why does them being real only make them swing with their real strength during cutscenes?
  3. Characters Have High Endurance: This feels a bit more promising, but still not great. This would mean that a character who gets shot actually has the bullet go all the way through, but their physiology lets them fight through that. This seems weird with Ramsey getting shot, and quite weird with Bugsy getting shot dozens of times; I don't think both of those would've been due to them taking shortcuts with the art. Plus, the original statement of bullets causing "minor impact damage" seems incongruous with this.
  4. Characters Have Passive Damage Reduction: I think this is the only thing that can actually work. I think it'd best work if it exponentially reduced the damage from stronger events. I think it's fine for real-ass-goddamn weapons to be able to bypass this during cutscenes. Only real weirdness left is the airsoft rifles comparison, but I think that leaves it as the best of a bunch of bad options.
Some thoughts on how this could operate:
  • Explanation on the verse page detailing the evidence from the verse, and how we'll have other series interact with it.
  • Place the following at the end of each character's Durability section: "higher with Damage Reduction (Due to this series operating under JRPG/Cartoon mechanics, they can be injured without being seriously maimed by attacks spanning wide degrees of energy output)", with "operating under JRPG/Cartoon mechanics" linking to that section on the verse page.
  • Durability scaling would come from striking strength feats, from no-selling attacks, and from demonstrated/stated superiorities to other characters.
  • We'd treat this at stopping at some point based on the best general showing from the verse as a whole.
  • In matches, they'd just need to take a bunch of attacks from within their damage range before they'd go down.
  • EDIT: And real-ass-goddamn weapons would be able to negate Damage Reduction when used properly.
 
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One of the main points of your argument here is essentially that few in EE are treated or intended to be superhuman, so anything they can survive or any weapon in the series is probably just weaker. The problem is that's in relation to everything in-universe. I can name countless examples of "normal humans" on the site being at superhuman levels. Hell, normal teenage Ben 10, no aliens, nothing, is 5-A. Just because Giovanni is treated as just an athlete, or guns in EE are treated as airsoft rifles, doesn't mean they are that way compared to real life.
This is kinda cringy, but to quote Syndrome for the umpteenth time: "If everyone's super, no one will be."
There's a reason why I generally don't hold that to be the case, but do for EE. It's not just that Giovanni's "treated as an athlete" canonically, it's that that's the reference for his strength from outside of the text. And because he has anti-feats, like being hurt when kicking a vase. And the way those WoG statements are presented seems to be clearly going against this narrative; the response isn't "They survive this because humans are strong here", it's "They survive this because guns are weak and JRPG rules happen".
Also, that statement about how characters in EE just faint, like in Pokemon, doesn't fully relate to this. We know for a fact people can die in EE (take Molly's mom, for example), so we know there's a certain amount of damage someone can take before biting the dust. It's just more common for people to just faint before then. Besides, the question being asked was if someone used up "too much" stamina, not if they completely ran out of it.
Not fully, but I think it does establish that it's an actual mechanic of the world that operates on the characters. Like with the "winning battles replenishes your stamina and fully heals you" thing. It's part of a broader collection to argue against it just being PIS.
Ok, this is just wrong. Throughout the series, it is mentioned and shown several times that epithets are an actual force as oposed to being something abstract.
Look at when Sylvie has his epithet removed, do you see something? How about when Zora uses up more of her power? Don't see it? I'll tell you, IT'S AN ACTUAL VISIBLE AURA SURROUNDING THEM. Molly literally states she "moved her epithet into her hands." How can you move an abstract concept like a word? In Prison of Plastic, it's mentioned Molly uses "epithet energy" several times!
Was gonna argue this, but seeing your last sentence, I went to check, and yeah, Chapter 3 has "Molly covered her hands in glowing epithet energy like boxing gloves", while Chapter 5 has "Molly covered her arm in ☆Dumb☆ energy". Plus, my bad for missing the "requires a permanent proficiency sacrifice" stuff.

So yeah, seems non-physical to some extent. I'd just find some bits of scaling (i.e. Molly to Lorelai's world, since Molly's ability works particularly well on Lorelai's specific epithet, while she takes time to Dumb down sheep or animated bears; although idk whether this should break down at the Molly scaling, or at giving Lorelai's stuff big tiers in the first place) to still have their own issues, but a lot of other stuff should be fine. And, there is the concern with how "using more proficiency" can mean improving abilities in other ways than just giving big joule numbers, but that's an issue that extends to more verses than EE, it's just pronounced here with how many haxy things every epithet can do, so blech.

So, suggest passive damage reduction instead of high durability, and largely agree with a non-physical UES. Still disagree with stamina scaling, and urge caution with how the UES stuff is applied.
 
Actually, since something needs to be done about the TTRPG mechanics stuff, I should elaborate on that.

I've considered a few ways to deal with that, and I think I've narrowly picked out a winner:
  1. Characters Are Super Durable: There's the obvious contradictions with Mera here. And some added weirdness with how, despite everyone being bulletproof, it's notable for Beefton to be knifeproof. As mentioned, statements (and some feats) about character strengths become weird if they're all barely feeling bullets. And, as mentioned, the comparison of all guns to airsoft rifles seems weird in this light. Finally, the way real-ass-goddamn weapons function within this is weird; why would people be able to swing real-ass-goddamn swords dozens of times harder during cutscenes?
  2. Weapons Are Super Weak: Main thing making this weird for me is Ramsey tanking the log falling on him. That's obviously not a weapon, so the only way this could really function would be if it applied to everything in the verse, which seems incoherent and kinda pointless. Plus, real-ass-goddamn weapons remain a bit weird, why does them being real only make them swing with their real strength during cutscenes?
  3. Characters Have High Endurance: This feels a bit more promising, but still not great. This would mean that a character who gets shot actually has the bullet go all the way through, but their physiology lets them fight through that. This seems weird with Ramsey getting shot, and quite weird with Bugsy getting shot dozens of times; I don't think both of those would've been due to them taking shortcuts with the art. Plus, the original statement of bullets causing "minor impact damage" seems incongruous with this.
  4. Characters Have Passive Damage Reduction: I think this is the only thing that can actually work. I think it'd best work if it exponentially reduced the damage from stronger events. I think it's fine for real-ass-goddamn weapons to be able to bypass this during cutscenes. Only real weirdness left is the airsoft rifles comparison, but I think that leaves it as the best of a bunch of bad options.
Some thoughts on how this could operate:
  • Explanation on the verse page detailing the evidence from the verse, and how we'll have other series interact with it.
  • Place the following at the end of each character's Durability section: "higher with Damage Reduction (Due to this series operating under JRPG/Cartoon mechanics, they can be injured without being seriously maimed by attacks spanning wide degrees of energy output)", with "operating under JRPG/Cartoon mechanics" linking to that section on the verse page.
  • Durability scaling would come from striking strength feats, from no-selling attacks, and from demonstrated/stated superiorities to other characters.
  • We'd treat this at stopping at some point based on the best general showing from the verse as a whole.
  • In matches, they'd just need to take a bunch of attacks from within their damage range before they'd go down.
I actually like that idea, and it makes sense within the verse, maybe we can classify it also as a passive plot manip or something. It would make scaling a little harder, but I think there's enough there for us to go about it.
There's a reason why I generally don't hold that to be the case, but do for EE. It's not just that Giovanni's "treated as an athlete" canonically, it's that that's the reference for his strength from outside of the text. And because he has anti-feats, like being hurt when kicking a vase. And the way those WoG statements are presented seems to be clearly going against this narrative; the response isn't "They survive this because humans are strong here", it's "They survive this because guns are weak and JRPG rules happen".

Not fully, but I think it does establish that it's an actual mechanic of the world that operates on the characters. Like with the "winning battles replenishes your stamina and fully heals you" thing. It's part of a broader collection to argue against it just being PIS.

Was gonna argue this, but seeing your last sentence, I went to check, and yeah, Chapter 3 has "Molly covered her hands in glowing epithet energy like boxing gloves", while Chapter 5 has "Molly covered her arm in ☆Dumb☆ energy". Plus, my bad for missing the "requires a permanent proficiency sacrifice" stuff.

So yeah, seems non-physical to some extent. I'd just find some bits of scaling (i.e. Molly to Lorelai's world, since Molly's ability works particularly well on Lorelai's specific epithet, while she takes time to Dumb down sheep or animated bears; although idk whether this should break down at the Molly scaling, or at giving Lorelai's stuff big tiers in the first place) to still have their own issues, but a lot of other stuff should be fine. And, there is the concern with how "using more proficiency" can mean improving abilities in other ways than just giving big joule numbers, but that's an issue that extends to more verses than EE, it's just pronounced here with how many haxy things every epithet can do, so blech.

So, suggest passive damage reduction instead of high durability, and largely agree with a non-physical UES. Still disagree with stamina scaling, and urge caution with how the UES stuff is applied.
Alright, sick! Btw, I think we should just scale Molly to whatever she's shown to destroy (i.e. Graham) as it's not like Lorelai wanted to KILL Molly, she just wanted to play pretend, so she probably was just holding back, but that'll all come later when we get into the nitty gritty of scaling.
 
Not seeing plot manip at all tbqh.

The Graham stuff is just weird, because I think it's either that Molly's power directly counters Lorelai's in some way (Molly dumbs things down, Lorelai augments them to make them louder), or because Lorelai's "dream bubbles" are less real than other summons like the sheep/bears (since we need some way to explain Dumb not working as well on them). It's just hard to square the latter with the damage being real, and the surface of them being as hard as iron.

Maybe we could give two ratings for Molly's stuff, only scaling to Lorelai for other sound-based powers? idk
 
Not seeing plot manip at all tbqh.

The Graham stuff is just weird, because I think it's either that Molly's power directly counters Lorelai's in some way (Molly dumbs things down, Lorelai augments them to make them louder), or because Lorelai's "dream bubbles" are less real than other summons like the sheep/bears (since we need some way to explain Dumb not working as well on them). It's just hard to square the latter with the damage being real, and the surface of them being as hard as iron.

Maybe we could give two ratings for Molly's stuff, only scaling to Lorelai for other sound-based powers? idk
I think we should just save that for later, I personally don’t think Molly can completely destroy one of Lorelai’s bubbles, I think it’s more so she’s just the only one who can reach Lorelai and make her stop.
 
Yeah that's fair. Molly can't just evaporate the whole thing, and Lorelai never wanted to focus everything into an attack to kill Molly. Does kiiinda bring up the question of why Lorelai can't make a smaller super-durable wall, maybe she can't, or maybe she just lacks the imagination for it.

Should I call in some other people to comment?
 
I agree with Agnaa's positions besides one
Not seeing plot manip at all tbqh.

The Graham stuff is just weird, because I think it's either that Molly's power directly counters Lorelai's in some way (Molly dumbs things down, Lorelai augments them to make them louder), or because Lorelai's "dream bubbles" are less real than other summons like the sheep/bears (since we need some way to explain Dumb not working as well on them). It's just hard to square the latter with the damage being real, and the surface of them being as hard as iron.

Maybe we could give two ratings for Molly's stuff, only scaling to Lorelai for other sound-based powers? idk
Yah I don't think it makes sense, I think the story clearly just frames Molly being the scissors to Lorelai's paper. Plus by this logic Beefton is a better summon than an entire pocket dimension which seems wrong so
 
I agree with Agnaa's positions besides one

Yah I don't think it makes sense, I think the story clearly just frames Molly being the scissors to Lorelai's paper. Plus by this logic Beefton is a better summon than an entire pocket dimension which seems wrong so
Again, we'll get into scaling later, but does that mean you think Molly and Beefton are in tier 9-8 (scaling from Graham), or does Molly just not scale whatsoever?
 
Btw, while two staff members have already accepted parts of the CRT, I still think I’ll wait for more people to give their opinions. This has some big changes to the verse overall and the more we all come to an agreement, the better.
 
Wait a sec, we directly see Giovanni get injured after being attacked by Beefton, so it can’t be simple damage reduction/transferral. But at the same time damage is still meaningless until you lose all of it, but it also isn’t as we just saw???

God, this is so confusing to index…
Oh no I think it's still meaningful, just in a reduced degree.

Sylvie was taken to the hospital due to the minor injuries he'd sustained, and Mera's bones were broken.

To pull some example numbers out of my ass, the idea is that the ability would do something like:
  • Turn 50 joules into 21 joules.
  • Turn 100 joules into 30 joules.
  • Turn 1000 joules into 95 joules.
  • Turn 10,000 joules into 300 joules.
  • Turn 100,000 joules into 950 joules.
  • Stop functioning at 1,000,000 joules, letting all of it go through.
The actual numbers would be left imprecise, and be based on feats from the show, but that's the general idea.
 
Oh no I think it's still meaningful, just in a reduced degree.

Sylvie was taken to the hospital due to the minor injuries he'd sustained, and Mera's bones were broken.

To pull some example numbers out of my ass, the idea is that the ability would do something like:
  • Turn 50 joules into 21 joules.
  • Turn 100 joules into 30 joules.
  • Turn 1000 joules into 95 joules.
  • Turn 10,000 joules into 300 joules.
  • Turn 100,000 joules into 950 joules.
  • Stop functioning at 1,000,000 joules, letting all of it go through.
The actual numbers would be left imprecise, and be based on feats from the show, but that's the general idea.
It’s just… weird, you know?

It’s strange to have this whole system where only part of the damage actually counts, but with iffy direct statements or showings. Like, at what point in doing this do we start getting into headcanon territory regarding what these rules mean? And besides, how in the hell are we gonna handle scaling if every single feat can be hand waved as damage reduction/transferral?

I don’t know, it just feels off somehow to ignore all this stuff even though the characters are directly shown to be capable of surviving it. We should really get some staff involved to help out as this is a VERY unique situation that’s kinda hard to adapt to our standards.
 
I don't see it deterring scaling much, it probably just makes the "Knocked down/out but survived" scaling invalid.
Even then the big survive feats can also probably be indexed as "Up to Tier with Damage Reduction" I think at least.
 
Ok, I’m kinda getting ahead of myself here, but…

Would these feats count as either damage reduction/transferral or actual durability?
 
Ok, I’m kinda getting ahead of myself here, but…

Would these feats count as either damage reduction/transferral or actual durability?
Putting aside how they're both invalid, if they were valid, I'd say the former wouldn't scale to base dura since they both got injured, while the latter would since she no-sold it.
 
Putting aside how they're both invalid, if they were valid, I'd say the former wouldn't scale to base dura since they both got injured, while the latter would since she no-sold it.
I don't think them just being "injured" is enough to disqualify it, the one who took the full brunt of it getting knocked out does tho I feel
 
I don't think them just being "injured" is enough to disqualify it, I feel like the one who took the full brunt of it getting knocked out does tho
I think it has to since that's kinda the point; that a wide variety of attacks can injure them.
 
Putting aside how they're both invalid, if they were valid, I'd say the former wouldn't scale to base dura since they both got injured, while the latter would since she no-sold it.
Hold on- how are they invalid exactly? I've actually found 9-C to be pretty consistent for Molly imo.
 
Hold on- how are they invalid exactly? I've actually found 9-C to be pretty consistent for Molly imo.
I left comments on each; the former is an invalid way of doing that calculation as the banzai blasters fell off before Indus impacted the wall, meaning they took far less force. The latter is invalid as it involves full-body KE with speeds that ordinary humans survive; people live falling off a second-story building, and people live running into each other with a combined speed of 12 m/s.

Technically it gives superhuman (i.e. 9-C) results but it shouldn't, as our tier borders are based off of punches. Humans jumping and running land in 9-C, but we still index ordinary humans at 10-B.
 
I'm not very familiar with those types of calcs, but nothing jumps out at me as wrong with it. My only issue would be with consistency (i.e. a few sentences beforehand, despite her anger, Molly's smacks against Lorelai are described as "useless little baby hands weakly bashing against her clothes"), and how that plausibly means the staff was weaker (I'd guess due to it being hollow).

Although I guess there is the possibility of her breaking it in a similar way, but using her leg as a fulcrum, which I think would reduce the results.
 
I'm not very familiar with those types of calcs, but nothing jumps out at me as wrong with it. My only issue would be with consistency (i.e. a few sentences beforehand, despite her anger, Molly's smacks against Lorelai are described as "useless little baby hands weakly bashing against her clothes"), and how that plausibly means the staff was weaker (I'd guess due to it being hollow).

Although I guess there is the possibility of her breaking it in a similar way, but using her leg as a fulcrum, which I think would reduce the results.
Well, for consistency:
  • Trixie in prologue A is capable of scratching a wall hard enough to produce a stream of sparks.
  • Several of Giovanni’s Banzai Blasters were capable of breaking through glass in the first episode.
  • Sylvie survived a CRITICAL 13 amped baseball to the face in ep 2
  • I know that you have issues with this, but, later in chapter 7, Molly survives falling down a dumbwaiter.
  • And, of course, the whole bullet thing.
All these are within 9-C from what I can find, so it’s actually pretty consistent imo
 
For some characters I'd agree, for others I wouldn't. Guess we'll have to wait and see.
 
I checked, you didn't account for it properly.
 
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