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- she/her
The only word like Ourobos I've seen in this context is Omphalos which refers to the Imperial Mountain as the navel of the world.
General Exalted Thread
The actual price of artifacts (like other backgrounds) is equal to 3 experience per dot, so no, that Charm is not more expensive than buying the artifacts normally.
It gets worse. Greater Elemental Dragons are elementals of essence 8 or more and have gone completely nuts. The Elemental Dragons are Gaia's souls. The Immaculate Dragons are paragons of the faith and the archetypical example all Dragonblooded are expected to follow. The Immaculate Faith also implies that the Immaculate Dragons and the Elemental Dragons are the same beings, and one of the ways they do that is by stealing the names.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Sorry, you're right, it was omphalos. But I've seen omphalos explicitly used to refer to the dragon under the mountain in at least two books.
- Location
- The end of all things
Alchemicals have access to a vastly improved version of the artifact background that gives three dots of artifacts per dot of the background. It also doesn't cost them extra to take 5 dots of Artifact at character creation, so they can start the game with 15 dots of artifacts for the low price of 5 background dots.
ARTIFACT
The artifacts employed by the Machine God's Chosen run
the gamut from simple-but-efficacious daiklaves and magical-
material-infused armor to complex magitech wonders. Indeed,
magical weapons, armor, tools and technology abound in
Autochthonia. As such, an Alchemical gains three dots
worth of artifacts for each point of the Artifact Background he
buys. Alchemicals may even raise their Artifact Background
all the way to five dots without using bonus points, paying
only one Background or bonus point each for the fourth and
fifth dots. Chapter Six contains a host of uniquely Autoch-
thonian artifacts. Many of the magitech prodigies found in
The Books of Sorcery, Vol. I—Wonders of the Lost Age
are appropriate for Autochthonian games as well.
The artifacts employed by the Machine God's Chosen run
the gamut from simple-but-efficacious daiklaves and magical-
material-infused armor to complex magitech wonders. Indeed,
magical weapons, armor, tools and technology abound in
Autochthonia. As such, an Alchemical gains three dots
worth of artifacts for each point of the Artifact Background he
buys. Alchemicals may even raise their Artifact Background
all the way to five dots without using bonus points, paying
only one Background or bonus point each for the fourth and
fifth dots. Chapter Six contains a host of uniquely Autoch-
thonian artifacts. Many of the magitech prodigies found in
The Books of Sorcery, Vol. I—Wonders of the Lost Age
are appropriate for Autochthonian games as well.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
This applies only at character generation, thus why it is in the section marked Character Generation. Outside character generation you gain them the same way anyone else does: whenever the ST says you do.
Are you sure about that? That doesn't seem like a valid interpretation to me.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Scroll of errata notes that whether or not backgrounds cost XP post chargen is at the ST's discretion. And yeah, getting any artifacts at all also requires the ST to let you.
1xp per artifact dot instead of the usual 3 to reflect the stated abundance of magi tech in autocthonia makes sense though, given the BP discount.
1xp per artifact dot instead of the usual 3 to reflect the stated abundance of magi tech in autocthonia makes sense though, given the BP discount.
It's not. It's a result of the Alchemical specific Artifact Background, which gives them 3 dots worth of Artifacts for every dot they have in the Background, rather than paying 1 experience per dot of Background. Yes, this is needlessly confusing.
As for Backgrounds costing experience... Well, that largely depends on the ST, but most I've talked with consider Backgrounds backed up with experience more important to the character and less subject to the whims of the ST. If you get yourself an Ally but don't pay the required experience he might leave or turn against you. If you do pay though he'll be fairly steadfast unless you do something stupid.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Do charms that negate the DV penalty for attacking (like say, PoCB) also negate the DV penalty for counterattacks?
Depends on the phrasing, but if it's something like 'lessens the penalty for any given action taken by 1,' well, a counter attack is an action, so yes.
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
Nope!
At this point I'm expecting it in Christmas 2016, considering even my most pessimistic estimates in the past have been completely wrong (not as wrong as those that argued until they were blue in the face that it was coming in september).
Giygas
Cutest Sawk i could find. Lucario is a nice extra.
According to the Weekly monday notes of the last week, they had almost finished the post editing(Which presumibly means that the text is ready or at least almost ready) and they also were looking at the last pieces of art(At least i think that it was they are doing, it isn't that clear) and they were going to check about the Layout with what i think is the art director.
And if any of you doubt me.... I bring citations!
So, if everything doesn't come crashing down burning, i believe we will hopefully get it in the first quarter of the year.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
See, I just assume that any reading of the rules which leads to Pants On Head Ridiculous Scenarios is wrong.
By your reading of the rules, if my character picked up, say, a Daiklave and was an Alchemical he would somehow magically out of nowhere get another one dot artifact for free. Because that makes something approaching sense? Maybe the Artifact Fairy conjures them out of nowhere whenever and Alchemical picks one up.
No, of course not. That is blatantly and ridiculously stupid. When I craft a one dot Artifact as an Alchemical I don't suddenly get three of them.
Character Creation rules apply to character creation and only to character creation. Trying to expand them outward to the rest of the game leads to all sorts of bullshit munchkinry.
If you tried to pull this shit in my game I would diret you out the door and tell you to stop munchkining.
Backgrounds costing xp is a balancing factor for Charms that grant backgrounds. Look at the Cecelyne wish-granting Charms, which allow you to grant Backgrounds as a Training effect (at 3xp per dot).
This is why TMAM costs 3xp per dot, because that's the default rules balance for granted background dots via Charms.
Because having two sets of Background rules for Alchemicals is any less "pants on head retarded"?
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Wait what? How are you even getting this?
if you craft a daiklaive, it costs 2xp under the "alchies have cheap artifacts" ruleset. No magically appearing artifacts.
"He takes no DV penalties from attacks made with the chosen weapon" is the wording. Now, using the rules of English, "counterattack" is a subset of "attack," but exalted also has things that "count as counterattacks" but are not attacks and at least one of these comes with charmtext that says "reduces DV by one as normal for a counterattack." There's also the fun part where RAW is that counterattacks reduce DV by one - but there are attack modes that inflict higher DV penalties (eg, thrusts) and this is not accounted for.
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azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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- He/They
Well, if you interpret the rules in a stupid way, yeah, you're going to get Pants On Head Ridiculous Scenarios.
What would actually happen, is that you spend 3xp for a dot of the Artifact background, and have a floating dot for later use.
Look at how ridiculous that isn't!
Or what Chloe said. Either one works, really.
In that case I'd rule 'it's an attack, therefore, yes.' The important bit is that it resolves (in full) from step 1 to 10, skipping only step 9 as it's a counter attack and such attacks cannot be counter-counter attacked.
As for 'counts as a counter attack,' that's merely to allow you to make use of the Charm in step 9 of attack resolution.
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Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
As a note, Step 9 is counterattack, rather than step 7 (which is soak). Thanks for your help with this.
You saw nothing, I assure you.
Kylar
In Training Forever
- Location
- Canada
Uh, as per multiple WoG this is false. They are most often often referred to as her children, not a part of her.
And yes, I know there is text support for them being her souls. Personally, I find it dumb, given Gaia's whole thing is she left Creation to go explore, and the only reason she comes back is Luna, yet five major parts of her souls are anchored to Creation? Way to mess up themes. It also make little sense given the whole 'Creation is our big shiny mansion to relax in'. Fixing a major part of yourself to work to keep your house working is not relaxing, and the Primordial response for this sort of thing in every other case was 'make a god/behemoth to do it'. Really, its only there because some freelancer inserted it without thinking about setting consistency, which was a depressingly common occurrence in 2e.
Well, in a mixed game? Considerably less so.
Look, the thing about TMAM is that it is balanced against thing like GSS (which, mote drip and holy idiocy aside, it does quite well), not a fairly deliberate twisting of the Alchemical's Artifact background for more Artifacts. And yes, this is totally a deliberate twisting of RAI. There was actually a WoG on the issue on the old forums, in the gigantic post-Alchemicals release thread.
A lot of this issue come down to how STs handle raising backgrounds in play. Since that is completely up to the Storyteller, there is no one answer. Personally, I would never allow this reading: its deliberately done to maximize Artifact gain, and as @Anasurimbor has pointed out, it actually causes balance problems. Not to mention 'floating dots' of artifact is kinda tedious bookkeeping. Also, this is actually very simple: you use the MoEP Alchemicals Artifact background at chargen, and the corebook one for raising in play. Simple, and doesn't run into balance issues, or leaps of logic for how you are getting those extra artifacts in somewhere like Creation. That goes double if a mixed party is in play, when not everyone is going to be on the same Artifact background.
Also, the whole issue could be very easily solved by the simple expedient of altering the xp cost per dot for TMAM, to reflect the adjusted cost of the Artifact background for this particular reading of the rules, instead of the fairly basic assumption each dot of Artifact cost 3xp and not 1xp. FYI, every single game I have been in or seen that allows for XP to be used for raising Backgrounds in play uses the former interpretation, not the latter.
I wasn't even talking about TMAM.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Neither was I.
Cheap artifacts may be bad design (Haven't gotten into the mechanics enough to say), but "magic artifact appearance" is BS reasoning and we all know it.
Kylar
In Training Forever
- Location
- Canada
It was what the argument was about, because @Anasurimbor was calling it a bad charm for charging more per artifact then just buying the Background with XP. See:
And other people called him out for his reading of the rules being twisty and not as intended.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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- He/They
I, personally, was addressing a stupid interpretation of the rules. I don't really give a fuck about the charm's balance; simple fix is to change the xp cost so it's equal to the Background, so if you decide that Alchemicals in Autochthonia get 3 dots of artifact per dot in the Background, it doesn't become a shitty version of the Background, and if you decide they get 1 dot of artifact per 2 dots in the Background (because you hate magic kung-fu cyborgs having magic weapons for some reason? It's an example, who gives a fuck. Play your fucking game however you enjoy it.), it still isn't better or worse than the background.
Hey, look, I fixed it.
Also, I don't see why Alchemicals in Autochthonia getting cheaper artifacts is unintended. It's like Terrestrials in the Realm or Lookshy getting cheaper artifacts. The support structure is there, and they're incredibly influential in the system by design, so they should get a benefit out of it. Home field advantage and all that shit.