You do realise that just like the Creation Slaying Oblivion Kick,
@Jon Chung devised this kind of thing to demonstrate
Yes, I'm aware of his intentions. I have immense respect for Mr. Chung's technical expertise, but we disagree on certain philosophical points.
how broken and requiring GM "No, fuck you if you try this" intervention the Oadenal's manse rules are, right?
The risks of geomantic catastrophe due to enemy action or simple misstep are a major balancing factor in the Oadenol's Codex chapter on demesnes and manses. The point is hammered on again and again, with both specific examples and suggestions of broader categories. It's right there on the first page, even:
Accustomed to thinking of their craft as one that shifted the dragons themselves, the early geomancers coined a cautionary proverb: "Touch the dragon and it may turn over, but no one wishes the dragon to wake."
Demesnes and manses can be noticed from miles away by any essence-user, not just the PCs, or 'much further' with appropriate thaumaturgical divinations. The implication is, if you're living in a manse, you're
not laying low. Demigods or demons might wander by at any time and try to sell you encyclopedias (or whatever it is they do) so you'd better have some sort of plan for dealing with that. The Invisible Fortress, as detailed in a two-part adventure back in 1e, was originally meant to be an exception to that rule... but that was a unique wonder, the pinnacle achievement of Kal Bax's long and illustrious career as quite possibly the greatest human geomancer ever to have lived, the design had some inherent flaws (including, but not limited to, a tendency to drive long-term occupants murderously insane), and even with the addition of a substantial force of demons patrolling the 50-mile radius around it, it still periodically attracted treasure-hunters.
If a supposedly well-optimized manse crumples like tinfoil as soon as some random raksha directs a few generic bandits to build a siege engine and lob rocks at it, before the Wyld Hunt can even get there, the optimization process which produced it neglected some very important factors. There's also the issue that Wyld Shaping Technique isn't a blank check for every conceivable exotic component, so crafting actual artifacts would still require some manner of supply lines.
It's not something you're meant to do in actual play. It's a "you can do this with the rules and it's dumb and it needs to be fixed".
To my understanding there are three things you're not meant to do in actual play, by the core rules: true resurrection, time travel, and rescinding someone's Exaltation while leaving them alive. The common theme there is "no take-backs." Violence has permanent consequences, if you escalate it far enough, and that level of escalation is inherently incompatible with mercy. No simple third option to let Aang stop Ozai without compromising his principles. Exalted says, to me, "alright, sure, you're the Invincible Sword Princess. Now what?" Yeah, that young dragon-blooded is no real threat to you anymore; you could probably even beat him unconscious and leave him alive, if you were so inclined. Would he be any more inclined to listen to reason after he woke up? What are you going to do with all this power?
The combat system is there to define how things will turn out when negotiations break down, whether that's because Arthur and Mordred have fundamentally incompatible goals, or because one of their knights saw a snake and whipped out his sword without thinking. If you're the only one who brought a full paranoia combo and a grand killstick to the party, that probably means you'll be the one deciding who lives and who dies. Might be fun, if you're into that kind of thing, but it's not really obligated to be. As in early editions of D&D, violence is difficult and dangerous, a nasty last resort after stealth, diplomacy, trickery, intimidation, and possibly even retreat have failed.
Chejop Kejack works in an office where any given 'disgruntled former employee' story could lead to an extinction event. You don't even need Creation-Slaying Oblivion Kick for that! There's a
worked example in MoEP: Sidereals for how to wipe out a population using only sidereal astrology, which (unlike a line-of-sight attack) can't be shut down with anything nearly as cheap as stone walls or alchemical smoke bombs. So, he goes to tea parties, and plays politics, and does his best every day to make sure nobody with access to such power ends up in a situation where that's the best way to get what they want. Sometimes, 'hard men making hard decisions' means using your ultimate mastery of the Perfected Lotus to shove a retired embezzler of quintessence through some high-minded idealist's divinely resilient kidney in a dark alleyway; more often, it means negotiating something everyone involved can live with, even if none of them are exactly happy. The Gold faction understands too, which is why they're not willing to teach SMA to the solars they're "guiding." It's just too dangerous, bad enough already needing to trust anyone at all with the powers Solars get access to innately.
I'm fine with the idea of specific mechanical bits being unbalanced or unplayable. Scene-long perfect defenses, excessively stackable equipment bonuses, SMAs with effects so overwhelming or incoherent that resolution would be effectively impossible, sure, all that needed to go. Even Verdant Emptiness Endowment, I decided to patch with a houserule that the user can't grant their own wish without taking an equivalent trait away from someone else first. But mass destruction alone isn't enough for me to call something overpowered. Right in the core book, talking about motes, there's a direct and explicit comparison of the power any given Solar has personally available to that of a nuclear bomb. If you don't like the mechanical possibility of a scene that starts with "you haven't even seen my final form!" to end with a city-sized crater and millions dead, I think that means you're playing the wrong game.
