Afterword - Book 1 - Chapter 43 (Patreon)

Chapter 43: She who Dances with Chaos

(Original Chapter Title: She who Dances with Chaos)

Am I allowed to say I love the imagery I'd come up with for this chapter?

Here Ranthia and I differ quite a bit. She dove right in and made her first several decisions on impulse to narrow her options, then focused from there. I would have DEFINITELY had quite a bit of decision paralysis and probably started by cataloging everything available. Still, her system worked for her, though she may or may not have minor regrets in the future.

Class upgrades are always a bit polarizing, and I imagine the build-a-class is more so than usual. Every reader has their own opinions over what paths the MC should have taken—as does her writer—but Ranthia chose her own way. No doubt there are Skills that people will feel Ranthia really should have taken. Some may question if [True Grace] was worth such an investment.

But this was the path Ranthia chose.

It's funny how this chapter showed so much, but there's really little I can say behind the scenes. The editing process gave some examples of Skills she passed on (but it's not an exhaustive list, there were a LOT of Skills) to add more flavor, but overall not much changed. This was a rare class that I didn't even tweak the stats of.

But [True Grace] got a pretty heavy nerf at the last second. It gave +0.05% stats per level originally, but I was balancing for Ranthia at level 700-ish when I wrote this section. I saved my math to illustrate why I made the change:

Elaine gets a 25% boost to all class skills by [Sentinel's Superiority]

Which means that a 4095 (peak near divine) skill is effectively level 5118.75.

True Grace boosts:

0.03 means it caps at a 123.07% (1+122.07) boost. Which would be 9134.7165. No. Matches 25% at level 800

0.05, the original, would have capped at 205.75% (1+204.75). Which would be 12520.4625. Matches 25% at level 480.

0.02 means it caps at 82.9% (1+81.9). That'd be level 7489.775. Hrm. Matches 25% at level 1200.

0.01 means it caps at 41.95% (1+40.95). That'd be level 5812.8525. Matches 25% at level 2400.

0.016 means it caps at 66.52% (1.65.52). That'd be level 6818.994. Matches 25% at level 1500.

Ultimately, +0.01% felt like a better balance. [Sentinel's Superiority] was supposed to be a damned good Skill, granted to the elites that fight to stave off extinction of their race. And since [True Grace] did more than boost stats (okay, yes, so did [Sentinel's Superiority], but imho self-biomancy has more weight than weapon prowess), I didn't want it to seem obviously better.

And now you know! But what's up with those eyes?