Tokka decks are unique in that they take damage on the SHUFFLE, and not the DEAL. Should you happen to shuffle your deck in the middle of a river, or while it's raining, the chance they take damage is increased to 100%.

This was a consideration during the conversion, but ultimately it was decided to leave the water damage in as part of the SHUFFLE. We did remove water damage from the DEAL so players aren't double-dinged, but cards are something you don't want to get wet! (Perhaps the same argument should be made for predicting with charts in the rain...)

You are always warned before the cards take damage, so rest assured that ruining your deck due to an errant rain cloud is not really possible.

-GM Ynami

Shouldn't we realize that there needs to be a point when the "amazing realism" of things taking damage goes too far? I mean, if use damages a fortune's path's deck, (which is their divination tool) all other items that connect one to the what might be, should take damage just from use. If that is the case, using probably make a Cleric/Pilgrim badge take damage from use. Or we could just stop picking on the Fortunes path gypsies.

gameplay > realism

Let's not go down the route of needing food and water now. The selective application of these systems drives me crazy! Consider that some people spend years building their tools and bonding to them. It's ridiculous that this is even a conversation in this day and age. Yikes!

Damian, a voice from the distant and long-forgotten past.

>For what it's worth, a capped deck won't be impacted by this at all since it's immune to the bonds being lowered and thus damage to the physical stats has no meaning for them. Even without weather damage, a capped deck would eventually get there anyway with use without any detriment to it. Thus, this is only an issue during the bonding phase of a deck when it's not capped. Admittedly that is probably most decks, since most people don't cap their tools.

What are you talking about? There are no capped decks. Weather damage impacts all decks and slows down an already excruciatingly slow bonding process.

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https://elanthipedia.play.net/Main_Page

> You are always warned before the cards take damage, so rest assured that ruining your deck due to an errant rain cloud is not really possible.

That's not true. I ruined an altered Tokka deck by shuffling it in the rain and kept wondering to myself "wow these cards take a lot of damage, does my astrology suck that much?" There was no indication that the damage was because it was raining.

And there I was just shuffling because I thought it would be an appropriate affectation to stand around shuffling cards and talking.

So like cool I guess. The div tool I wanted is here, and it has the verbs so at least I can toy with it as fluff. It's unfortunate that the design decision was to make us want to not use them, though. In retrospect I guess it's good I wasn't able to make the auction and try for the set that was up there - I'd feel so ripped off, especially given the price it went for.

I got the verbs. I'm happy with that. I'll just deal without aligning and do a vision for the prediction so I'm not penalized for roleplaying.

https://elanthipedia.play.net/Prediction#Tools

In summary, there is a reason to get a tool with high physical quality. It has little "damage" at the start and takes less damage from use. The physical quality does not give you better predictions, though. It only gives you better bonding chances. Once a tool has a low enough physical quality (enough damage) your bond won't keep going up (on average).

Your bond with the tool gives you better predictions. Once you cap your bond, in all four categories, there's no mechanics reason to use another tool of the same type, ever. Your bond can't go up or down from capped by just doing predictions. It can't change, unless you sever your bond to it on purpose. Only more rare and expensive tools are very likely to reach that point, though.

<<Ok so if I understand correctly:
<<Damage doesn't affect your prediction, it affects your chance to bond.
<<Your bond is what influences your prediction.

Yup, that's correct! The only part you're missing is the construction affects your chance to damage your tool.

<<If the quality of the sun disk isn't what causes it to weight towards falling black instead of white

Tools can't be weighted to move toward the black side at all, outside of using ALIGN <skill> CURSE versus ALIGN <skill>. A tool with no bond to a sun disk has the default chance of turning a bad prediction into a good one. A disk with a very good bond will be more likely to correct a bad prediction to a good one. Since a terrible physical starting quality to the sun disk makes it much less likely to bond this means those bones, on average, will be less likely to be able to turn a bad prediction into a good one and thus you will be more likely to see bad predictions relative to other tools. It wouldn't be able to make more bad predictions on average than a baseline prediction unless you specifically tried for a curse. Think of it like you can't go into negative numbers with the bond level. The closest option we have are mirrors which provide a small potency and duration boost to curses.

The reason he said those tools are very powerful is the overall construction of it: "The overall craftsmanship is very good and the bones should prove resistant to damage." That bit means that the physical qualities are much more resistant to taking damage, so in the long run even the poor starting physical quality of the sun disk should let you get that bond to at least a decent level. I don't know if it would be reasonably possible to cap the bond on the sun disk though since that's such an odd combination of qualities. The other three bonds should be relatively easy to cap at any rate which is why he said it is still very powerful.

As for your deck, I'd still say that you will still have an easier time with your deck compared to a sect shop one since the sect shop tool will degrade its physical qualities faster than yours. Also, the physical qualities are a range, so its hard to say exactly where you are relative to the sect shop tool in that range. Some unsolicited advice: If you haven't already, I recommend learning the Destiny Cipher spell and only doing predictions while it is in place with as much mana as you can manage. Also only ever do predictions with a full prediction pool. Also, as a suggestion, if you aren't already doing it, I have a throw-away tool I use solely for when I want to do predictions on the fly without needing to spend the time casting DC or having a full pool, in order to keep my bonding tools as pristine as possible.