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General Exalted Thread

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Deations said:
I'd have to run the numbers by seeing how much damage the Behemoth does in comparison to armies of dudes. Or I can just type kekekeke, idk.
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If you can make an argument that a 13-dice beastie with 30 motes to his name can "plow through several cities", with the implication that his destructive passage is akin to the glorious annihilation caused by a meteor strike, I would sincerely like to see it.

Deations said:
Man I'm starting to think that maybe people dislike you for a lot more than being a badass real-talker or whatever.
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I freely admit to being a dick. You would be too if you were me, posting in an Exalted thread, responding to (yet another iteration of) this argument.
 
Jon Chung said:
If you can make an argument that a 13-dice beastie with 30 motes to his name can "plow through several cities", with the implication that his destructive passage is akin to the glorious annihilation caused by a meteor strike, I would sincerely like to see it.
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Mata Yadh's got Legendary Size, a soak of 25, and Wall Rending Claws. I'd give it good odds that he can tear through mortal battle-groups, and the city behind them.

Jon Chung said:
I freely admit to being a dick. You would be too if you were me, posting in an Exalted thread, responding to (yet another iteration of) this argument.
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Yeah I mean, it's not like anyone else can get frustrated by having the same argument thrown at them over and over while everyone keeps insisting that no it's the other dude who's being wrong.

It's the cross you gotta bear man.
 
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Omicron said:
No? The failure of your imagination is on you, not on my example.

I would run this as a couple of sessions within the story involving the use of GKS - the Solar, during his preparatory work, would suffer from interruptions by divine forces, likely spirits, forcing them to defend themselves and involving the rest of the circle. If I deem it an appropriate challenge for the group, the preparation of this Charm may allow a Bronze Faction member to pinpoint their location and gather an had oc (but hastily put together, and constrained by the need for proximity) Wyld Hunt to come and hit them. Unfortunately, the limited timeframe (and the fact that Creation is a place in turmoil) would prevent anything like "Bronze Faction circle dropping on the group and murdering them with SMA."

The main problems will follow after the use of this Charm, where the Solar's power is significantly limited, and their location known, forcing them to either flee or begin to set up their defenses for the coming of a stronger, more prepared Wyld Hunt.
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Okay. This is certainly something you can do in response to a chargen Solar starting up the windup for summoning the King of the Monsters or casting Meteor.

Or we could, instead, not allow a chargen Solar to summon Godzilla, set off a zombie apocalypse or fire orbital bombardment attacks from the endless sky. Would this not be a superior option? You, the GM, don't have to figure out a way to stop the chargen Solar from doing any of the above from the other side of Creation to the target zone. That chargen Solar never develops the impression that he, a chargen Solar, is supposed to be able to do this, and therefore his player will not ever resent you because you're spoiling his fun.

Win-win situation here, guys. For everyone involved.
 
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notanautomaton said:
Armies need other metal things. Caltrops, horseshoes, nails, handcuffs, bars for prisons, the list goes on.
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Yes. If the soldiers feel much of anything for basic scutwork and your GM determines that basic scutwork is a meaningful way of furthering your intimacy to your army, then go hog wild. Personally, I wouldn't agree.

Jon Chung said:
Okay. This is certainly something you can do in response to a chargen Solar starting up the windup for summoning the King of the Monsters or casting Meteor.
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A char-gen solar can also take on both. So can other Exalts and supernatural beings.

Jon Chung said:
Or we could, instead, not allow a chargen Solar to summon Godzilla, set off a zombie apocalypse or fire orbital bombardment attacks from the endless sky.
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Nah when you spell it like that it sounds pretty badass and I want it even more.
 
Deations said:
i can't find it in the book
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It just lets me kick everything I can see twice. This is, in fact, less egregious than the effects you apparently already allow (I actually need to have direct line of sight to what I'm kicking!), so why not? We can always invent some justification for how "I can kick everything I can see twice" is not in fact as destructive as it actually says in the description later, right? In fact, I'd even accept a one season cooldown, just to be fair.
 
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Jon Chung said:
Or we could, instead, not allow a chargen Solar to summon Godzilla, set off a zombie apocalypse or fire orbital bombardment attacks from the endless sky. Would this not be a superior option?
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For you, maybe? I fully accept that this might be more within your tastes.

The only thing that would bother me about a chargen Solar using God King's Shrike close to the start of the game and requiring me to answer with a challenge threatening their interruption (but allowing them to go through with the casting if they manage to overcome this challenge) is that a character going for that Charm straight off chargen would be lopsided in terms of Charm choices and annoying to build other plots around.
 
Jon Chung said:
It just lets me kick everything I can see twice. This is, in fact, less egregious than the effects you apparently already allow (I actually need to have direct line of sight to what I'm kicking!), so why not? We can always invent some justification for how "I can kick everything I can see twice" is not in fact as destructive as it actually says in the description later, right? In fact, I'd even accept a one season cooldown, just to be fair.
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I think you should just get Ascendant Battle Visage instead, it more or less lets you go Super Saiyin
 
Omicron said:
For you, maybe? I fully accept that this might be more within your tastes.

The only thing that would bother me about a chargen Solar using God King's Shrike close to the start of the game and requiring me to answer with a challenge threatening their interruption (but allowing them to go through with the casting if they manage to overcome this challenge) is that a character going for that Charm straight off chargen would be lopsided in terms of Charm choices and annoying to build other plots around.
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Here we have an answer of "Yes" to the question "Should a chargen Solar Exalt have the ability to launch strategic nukes anywhere in Creation?".

Followup question: care to elaborate on why?
 
Deations said:
Mang, if I thought this shit was indefensible I wouldn't be up until three in the fuckin' morning arguing the same shit with you. This post is what's indefensible, now I'm just tired.
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You've been arguing it by narrowing its scope and scale beyond the rules as stated. For example, when the volcano was brought up, you assumed it'd "smoke ominously" for long enough for someone in the Iron Age to figure out a counter. Why is this the correct reading instead of "like the Mt. St. Helens eruption, you have no real warning unless you have complex scientific equipment that doesn't exist in Creation?" Why is Pompeii an invalid analogy?

Yes, it would be more balanced to assume that there's a valid counter for it. That's kind of the point @Jon Chung is making. You shouldn't have to assume a valid counter.

Your other argument has been "look, if your GM does this they're a bad GM." And that's fair to say. It's also not a defense. I should be able to use a book with a GM who lets me use anything in the book and uses everything in the book without stepping on or around landmines.

Which is kind of the whole thing. God King's Shrike and Dual Magnus Prana probably wouldn't matter except for the trend. They make people ask "if you have these charms, what kind of crazy broken shit am I going to see in other places?"
 
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MJ12 Commando said:
You've been arguing it by narrowing its scope and scale beyond the rules as stated. For example, when the volcano was brought up, you assumed it'd "smoke ominously" for long enough for someone in the Iron Age to figure out a counter. Why is this the correct reading instead of "like the Mt. St. Helens eruption, you have no real warning unless you have complex scientific equipment that doesn't exist in Creation?" Why is Pompeii an invalid analogy?

Yes, it would be more balanced to assume that there's a valid counter for it. That's kind of the point @Jon Chung is making. You shouldn't have to assume a valid counter.
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The charm doesn't even say if it happens too quickly for anyone to react to it or not, just that 'a disaster happens.' I'm assuming yes, you're assuming no, and we're both fucked.
 
Deations said:
The charm doesn't even say if it happens too quickly for anyone to react to it or not, just that 'a disaster happens.' I'm assuming yes, you're assuming no, and we're both fucked.
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Generally, when a Charm says it does a thing, I assume it does exactly that thing, plus possibly anything needed for that thing to make the slightest lick of sense (and sometimes, this being Exalted, not even that), and does not in fact do things it doesn't say it does. When a Charm says it makes a volcano erupt without mentioning that it makes the volcano smoke ominously for days beforehand, I do not charitably assume that it makes the volcano smoke ominously for days before it erupts. I might houserule that it does, but we've already gone into why this is not a sensible defence of the Charm.
 
Random Entity said:
Generally, when a Charm says it does a thing, I assume it does exactly that thing, plus possibly anything needed for that thing to make the slightest lick of sense (and sometimes, this being Exalted, not even that), and does not in fact do things it doesn't say it does. When a Charm says it makes a volcano erupt without mentioning that it makes the volcano smoke ominously for days beforehand, I do not charitably assume that it makes the volcano smoke ominously for days before it erupts. I might houserule that it does, but we've already gone into why this is not a sensible defence of the Charm.
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I'm assuming it takes time for a meteorite to make landfall, that it takes time for a sleeping behemoth to wake up and head to a major population center, that an army of ghosts cannot teleport from their Shadowland to your backard, and that at the very least some pressure has to build inside a volcano before it explodes while the Volcano god grits his teeth and goes 'motherfucker, that's not on the schedule! YOU FUCKERS DOWN THERE RUN! RUN NOW!'
 
Deations said:
The charm doesn't even say if it happens too quickly for anyone to react to it or not, just that 'a disaster happens.' I'm assuming yes, you're assuming no, and we're both fucked.
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No, I'm assuming "no" is a valid answer to the question. There's a difference.

If God King's Shrike had been a vague charm which had been vague about the level of disaster that befell the target, just that it'd be a major inconvenience and require effort to deal with, this would have been okay! People would probably not look at "This causes a major inconvenience to a kingdom" and decide "this is actually a charm that lets me become a one-man ballistic missile submarine." If it had been detailed about the minimum level of warning and the potential counters and exactly what sort of doomsaying was required (and that required like, actually running around being a doomsaying preacher preaching fire and brimstone instead of hiding in a bunker somewhere) that'd be no worse than some of the 2E Solar Circle Sorcery WMDs or the Soulbreaker Orb.

It's in the uncanny valley of being just crunchy enough to sabotage its narrative aspects and just narrative fiat enough to sabotage its mechanical aspects. Rules say things.

It goes and lists a bunch of examples of things that it can cause and the damage it does. The next thing you expect to see is something about how you might be able to stop it. At which point the book shrugs and goes "um, I dunno. Make something up, I guess? Or don't. Whatever floats your boat."
 
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Deations said:
I'm assuming it takes time for a meteorite to make landfall, that it takes time for a sleeping behemoth to wake up and head to a major population center, that an army of ghosts cannot teleport from their Shadowland to your backard, and that at the very least some pressure has to build inside a volcano before it explodes while the Volcano god grits his teeth and goes 'motherfucker, that's not on the schedule! YOU FUCKERS DOWN THERE RUN! RUN NOW!'
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It doesn't need to be very much time in any of the cases, though. The army of ghosts is probably your best case - they're limited to marching speed, after all - but the meteorite might take a few minutes or a couple of hours to go from visible to impact, the behemoth might have been sleeping under a major population centre, and the volcano might likewise take only a few hours, or maybe as much as a day, to go off. Yes, you can say it takes longer, but you are assuming that - and assuming it takes the bare minimum amount of time that makes sense, since the Charm doesn't specify any lead time, is in my view both reasonable and natural.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
No, I'm assuming "no" is a valid answer to the question. There's a difference.
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The disasters in question don't just materialize out of thin air. They're all natural phenomena that are possible for the setting and the area the people are in. At the very least, I don't think a Volcano materializes out of nothing ala Black and White.

MJ12 Commando said:
If God King's Shrike had been a vague charm which had been vague about the level of disaster that befell the target, just that it'd be a major inconvenience and require effort to deal with, this would have been okay! People would probably not look at "This causes a major inconvenience to a kingdom" and decide "this is actually a charm that lets me become a one-man ballistic missile submarine." If it had been detailed about the minimum level of warning and the potential counters and exactly what sort of doomsaying was required (and that required like, actually running around being a doomsaying preacher preaching fire and brimstone instead of hiding in a bunker somewhere) that'd be no worse than some of the 2E Solar Circle Sorcery WMDs or the Soulbreaker Orb.
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I'd prefer it were handled that way, but right now I'm just arguing against the idea that there's no counter or defense against it.

MJ12 Commando said:
It's in the uncanny valley of being just crunchy enough to sabotage its narrative aspects and just narrative fiat enough to sabotage its mechanical aspects. Rules say things.

It goes and lists a bunch of examples of things that it can cause and the damage it does. The next thing you expect to see is something about how you might be able to stop it. At which point the book shrugs and goes "um, I dunno. Make something up, I guess? Or don't. Whatever floats your boat."
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I do NOT think it would be untoward if, when a Behemoth descends upon a city the PCs are in, and instead shrugging and chocking it up to fate they'd instead just smile and think 'yeah I wanna fuck Godzilla up.' The charms, at the very least, assume that the Behemoth goes out and destroys, it doesn't retroactively declare everything destroyed by the Behemoth.

Random Entity said:
It doesn't need to be very much time in any of the cases, though. The army of ghosts is probably your best case - they're limited to marching speed, after all - but the meteorite might take a few minutes or a couple of hours to go from visible to impact, the behemoth might have been sleeping under a major population centre, and the volcano might likewise take only a few hours, or maybe as much as a day, to go off. Yes, you can say it takes longer, but you are assuming that - and assuming it takes the bare minimum amount of time that makes sense, since the Charm doesn't specify any lead time, is in my view both reasonable and natural.
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The virtue of this, I think, is that the GM can simply choose whichever option is best for her players and her game, given that there's nothing telling her what she can or cannot do within the context of the Charm.
 
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I love how we're arguing so much about two Charms, one of which we've been told is probably at the top of stuff to be cut for the final product and the other's likely in the same space.

Man, it's almost like I was completely right to be worried about this leak!
 
Creation Slaying Oblivion Kick Tangent:
Effects that allow you to build momentum off of multiple opponents at once feel like the realm's of high essence boss fights to me - rather than something like a Deathlord counting upon bigger numbers to stop a circle of Solars from gaining too much ground against them they can unleash stuff like this later in the fight to turn the tide in addition to the classic "THIS ISN'T EVEN MY TRUE FORM!" presumably followed by a new join battle roll and recovered health levels.
 
Deations said:
The disasters in question don't just materialize out of thin air. They're all natural phenomena that are possible for the setting and the area the people are in. At the very least, I don't think a Volcano materializes out of nothing ala Black and White.
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Well actually, the Charm itself says something about that. Oh right...

God-King's Shrike said:
Through this Charm she reaches realization of a certain calamity that must happen, and her consciousness is recognized, in turn, by the universe. In this instance, what the Solar realizes she causes to happen.
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Given that the Solar is just spawning this disaster into existence in the first place by sheer force of their "I'm a Solar so fuck you", it is hardly a given that it needs to have anything resembling conventional ideas of plausibility.
 
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