EA Tien Chi: Rainbow pretender. Ideas?

[Balakirev]

sector24 said:
Earth: Master of the Five Elements get get an Earth pick so they can forge Earth Boots and a Dwarven Hammer, so you don't need Earth on your pretender.

They get E1, not E2. I realize that there's a small chance of E2 with any MFE, but its negligible, compared to the number of turns you take hiring them. So how do you get from E1 to E2, short of empowerment?

[sector24]

I don't think a 20% chance of an Earth pick is that bad, I would just keep recruiting until I got one. But if it's too risky for your playstyle, getting Earth 2 on a rainbow pretender only costs 26 points. If you use Shovah's Naiad path to get Nature then you could change your pretender to:

Air 4
Astral 4
Death 2
Earth 2
Fire 4

A Crone would have 70 points remaining for scales/dominion, or you could choose an Enchantress and have 49 points remaining but you generate an Astral pearl every turn and there are no old age issues.

[Balakirev]

sector24 said:
I don't think a 20% chance of an Earth pick is that bad,

20%? But wouldn't that percentage be drawn from a set that also includes Nature, Death, etc? Please excuse me if this is an elementary mistake on my part. I am new to the game.

[Endoperez]

He could also have said, "the chance of the pick being Earth is 20".
The chance of Master of 5E getting a random is 100%. There are five choices in there, one of which is earth. 1/5 * 100% = 20%.

[Balakirev]

Endoperez said:
He could also have said, "the chance of the pick being Earth is 20".
The chance of Master of 5E getting a random is 100%. There are five choices in there, one of which is earth. 1/5 * 100% = 20%.

Oh, I understood what he meant. I questioned whether the random picks came from a set of 5, since the magical paths are 8 in number. That would have given the chance of getting an additional pick in Earth at 12.5%. So I assume Nature, Death, and Blood are not among the random picks.

Which I should have guessed, given that they are masters of *5* elements. Duh.

That certainly increases the attractiveness of grabbing more Masters of 5E. Thanks to both of you.

[Endoperez]

Click on the question mark to see which paths the mage in question can get. Only Lore Masters, independents available from a couple of rare Astral sites, get full randoms with all 8 choices. All other mages' random picks are much more limited, with usually just 4 or 5 paths to choose from.