Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
Social Charms.
Nothing lets you survive longer than not having any enemies.
General Exalted Thread
- Thread starter Aleph
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Social Charms.
Nothing lets you survive longer than not having any enemies.
That's why Sol invented Immunity to Everything Technique.
That doesn't work against Shaping and Crippling keyworded things.
grommile
nasty-minded old cynic
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Integrity Protecting Prana covers you against Shaping, of course.
There's the Extended Lifetime Prana charm mentioned in DotFA: Lands of Creation, but it doesn't rely on heroism.
Extended Life Prana I think it was called?
Pretty sure there's two versions, one that was, IIRC, in Dreams and the other that had the heroism thing that I'm pretty sure Plague of Hats wrote up as homebrew.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
Anyway, the real answer to "How do I survive as an Exalt?" is "Stealth, Survival and Resistance Charms. Go find a cave and survive in it for ten thousand years. Lie down. Do nothing. Live for a very long time."
But that is incredibly boring.
The answer to "How do I survive as an Exalt?" is "By making survival a secondary concern and focusing on achieving your heroic goal." An Exalt is a legend. Their works will go down in history and you don't go down in history by living in a cave and avoiding the world. You go down in history for great deeds; defeating armies, swaying kingdoms to a new religion, engineering masterworks, stealing the secrets of the universe, forging alliances between blood enemies.
Your first answer to "What Charms should my Exalt have?" is the question "What does your Exalt want to do?" If your goal is to slay enemies in glorious combat that's one thing, but its only one thing and Exalts can do so much more. There are no "must have" Charms, not even the paranoia combo. You can sub in "loyal supernatural bodyguards" or "defensive artifacts" or "you never saw me" for the standard anti-assassination Charm tech. This goes exponentially more for the fact that you aren't running a game, you are writing a story. So no one is forcing you into Chungian white room optimization fights against perfectly designed murder machines.
You're confusing it with the once-per-day auto-resurrect Charm from Glories of the Most High which works off your inspiring heroism. It's basically the shounen manga hero "I'm not dead yet!" Charm.
But that is incredibly boring.
The answer to "How do I survive as an Exalt?" is "By making survival a secondary concern and focusing on achieving your heroic goal." An Exalt is a legend. Their works will go down in history and you don't go down in history by living in a cave and avoiding the world. You go down in history for great deeds; defeating armies, swaying kingdoms to a new religion, engineering masterworks, stealing the secrets of the universe, forging alliances between blood enemies.
Your first answer to "What Charms should my Exalt have?" is the question "What does your Exalt want to do?" If your goal is to slay enemies in glorious combat that's one thing, but its only one thing and Exalts can do so much more. There are no "must have" Charms, not even the paranoia combo. You can sub in "loyal supernatural bodyguards" or "defensive artifacts" or "you never saw me" for the standard anti-assassination Charm tech. This goes exponentially more for the fact that you aren't running a game, you are writing a story. So no one is forcing you into Chungian white room optimization fights against perfectly designed murder machines.
You're confusing it with the once-per-day auto-resurrect Charm from Glories of the Most High which works off your inspiring heroism. It's basically the shounen manga hero "I'm not dead yet!" Charm.
Final Ray of Light only works once per season, and has that (imo) hefty drawback of the user being stripped of a dot of Essence rating at the end of the scene.
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
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As far as what a Solar wants for surviving a while... here.
Keyword Protection
Keyword Protection
You want to be protected against Crippling, Poison, Sickness, and Shaping. This means Unbreakable Warrior's Mastery (Resistance), Immunity to Everything Technique (Resistance), and Integrity-Protecting Prana (Integrity)
Combat Defense
Not Getting Hit
Not Getting GankedTake Dodge or Parry. Soup it up. If you're willing to sink in a ton of xp, take both. If you don't have much to spare, take Dodge. If you have a good chunk but not a ton, take Parry. Note: you will need some Dodge anyway. I hope I don't need to say it, but make sure to take I
From each you will need scene-long penalty negators (Fivefold Bulwark Stance (Parry), Flow Like Blood (Dodge)), as well as short-term ones (Dipping Swallow Defense (Parry), Shadow Over Water (Dodge)), and a Perfect Defense (Heavenly Guardian Defense (Parry), Seven Shadow Evasion (Dodge)). You will also need a flurry breaker; I recommend Leaping Dodge Method from Dodge, but there are Parry offerings in Ink Monkeys.
Surviving Getting HitFrom each you will need scene-long penalty negators (Fivefold Bulwark Stance (Parry), Flow Like Blood (Dodge)), as well as short-term ones (Dipping Swallow Defense (Parry), Shadow Over Water (Dodge)), and a Perfect Defense (Heavenly Guardian Defense (Parry), Seven Shadow Evasion (Dodge)). You will also need a flurry breaker; I recommend Leaping Dodge Method from Dodge, but there are Parry offerings in Ink Monkeys.
Take Resistance. No really, take Resistance. You want that soak. Durability of Oak Meditation (with Armored in Righteousness Stance if you use armor), Spirit Strengthens the Skin, Iron Kettle Body, Invincible Essence Reinforcement. There's a healing Charm in Ink Monkeys Resistance you also want, but I forget the name. Make sure to grab Adamant Skin Technique - you want a Perfect to fall back on if you fail to dodge an attack that will do serious damage to you.
Reflex Sidestep Technique is a requirement. Otherwise anyone and their mother can surprise attack you and splatter all your health away.
Not Dying When Someone Drops You In Space/Turns the Air to Acid Snakes
You probably want to be able to survive this. Two answers, which overlap a bit but aren't mutually exclusive. Element-Resisting Prana and Steadfast Elemental Emperor Stance let you tank the environmental damage of most things, and Eternal Elemental Harmony makes it cost effective.
Chaos Repelling Pattern immunizes you from people going 'lol physics is my bitch' to you, as it forcibly resets physics to normal in its radius. This also makes things like acid snake mist fail, generally speaking.
Chaos Repelling Pattern immunizes you from people going 'lol physics is my bitch' to you, as it forcibly resets physics to normal in its radius. This also makes things like acid snake mist fail, generally speaking.
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Invincible Essence Reinforcement (from Ink Monkeys) is pretty nice too, if wanting to boost soak without mote usage. It's just like Ox-Body in that you can buy it multiple times.
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
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Whups, yeah, good point. Get Invincible Essence Reinforcement it's great, and also that channel a virtue to gain health levels back Charm because it's broken as shit.
In first edition, in the Storyteller's Guide FAQ, they explicitly mention that oWoD is a canonical possible future to Exalted. Therefore, at least in First Edition, you can break even the most perfect, unsullied shards of the Solars into pathetic mewling mockeries of their original might who easily die to single, non-heroic mortals with handguns.
Given that the themes, power levels, and everything else of Exalted change drastically at least once every edition, this is as valid an answer as to whether it's possible to weaken an Exaltation shard as any other.
I'm sure you could actually do a good Gamer fic that was basically Gamer by way of Unknown Armies and Spec Ops: the Line-the main character increasingly becomes so inhumanly capable and so obsessed with completionism that he doesn't actually accomplish anything good because he's basically grinding skills and cheevos because he can, ceasing to see humanity as anything more than a sandbox playground ("okay, now that I've cured cancer, my next achievement is to finish the Holocaust!")
The problem is the people who incorporate it into a huge multicross... are not those people.
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I look at Ink Monkey's charms with suspicion, because several of them get pretty ridiculous.
For example, IER gets you ridiculous soak early on. At the minimum stats to buy the charm (Essence 2, Resistance 3) and Stamina 5, you can have a natural lethal/bashing soak of 14/14. You can reach that right out of chargen, and that's from a single always-on charm with no prerequisites.
Other chargen charms (like SWSS for Infernals) will get you soak of around 5.
For example, IER gets you ridiculous soak early on. At the minimum stats to buy the charm (Essence 2, Resistance 3) and Stamina 5, you can have a natural lethal/bashing soak of 14/14. You can reach that right out of chargen, and that's from a single always-on charm with no prerequisites.
Other chargen charms (like SWSS for Infernals) will get you soak of around 5.
I really like this interpretation. A sudden switch from incomparable heroism to despicable villainy while your teammates look on in total shock, only now understanding the thing that they've been traveling with this whole time.
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
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No, it's from three Charms. The fact that they all have the same name is kind of irrelevant.
Right, forgot to count the repurchases.
Still, permanent 14/14 natural soak, or 8/8 if you just buy one. I think that beats every comparable charm hands-down.
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
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At low Essence and Resistance and a single charm purchase, yes. DoOM matches it at Resistance 5/Essence 3, and only gets better. IER, on the other hand, doesn't scale except with Stamina and repurchases.
If you have Stamina 5 but don't want to invest in Resistance, IER is better. If, on the other hand, you're actually putting points into Resistance, other Charms give better soak and scale better. DoOM + IKB+ AIRS gives you 15 soak at its minima and Stamina 5 (E3/Resistance 4), while IER gives you 14 for three purchases. At 5/5/5, DoOM + IKB + AIRS gives you 20 soak for 3 purchases, while IER gives you the same for five.
The fact that it is permanent is really nice, and I don't really like its design, but it's not this hands-down superior Charm you claim it is if you're already going into Resistance (which, if you're going Paranoia-OK, you already are).
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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With Strength 3 and Resources 1, you can get 10L damage straight out of chargen with a great axe. As a mortal. Without charms.
With Artifact 3, you can get 14L/4 damage instead. But yeah, spending a charm to get a permanent natural soak of 8 is totally ridiculous.
EDIT: Oh, or you can get 19B/4 damage for the same investment.
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Failed? Solar Exaltation doesn't involve some sort of test, and it doesn't imply success. It doesn't require displaying heroics or even having immediate need. All the canon Infernals could have been Exalted as a Solar at the instant they otherwise received the demon's offer.
The circumstances that Solars have Exalted in are sufficiently varied as to defy simple categorization. It often happens before, during, or after an incredible achievement, but it can also happen after a horrible failure. It can happen after they have survived a great ordeal, but it can also happen when they are literally dying. Sometimes it happens seemingly just because it was fated.
Given all of this, I find the idea that Solars are actively selected at a high level quite compelling.
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Ok, so, I was looking at the various Infernal quests that have been popping up recently, and I thought of a homebrew Heretical Charm I think is awesome, but am worried may be overpowered.
I haven't worked out any details, but the basic idea is that it builds off of Black Mirror Shintai and any other Shintai Charm, and allows you to spend an extra willpower when activating a Shintai charm to temporarily replace your charm list with every charm belonging to the Yozi the Shintai is from that you meet the minimums for (I'm not saying Essence minimums because SWLIHN, at least, has a charm that requires Integrity and Virtue minimums).
Is this a bad idea, and is there any way to make it acceptable? I know that the fact that Witness to Darkness is a prereq of BMS makes it a bad idea to go for it without knowing what you're doing, but other than that.
...Also, I've never seen a Szoreny charm set, so I'm not sure if this would work better building off of one of his charms instead of BMS.
I haven't worked out any details, but the basic idea is that it builds off of Black Mirror Shintai and any other Shintai Charm, and allows you to spend an extra willpower when activating a Shintai charm to temporarily replace your charm list with every charm belonging to the Yozi the Shintai is from that you meet the minimums for (I'm not saying Essence minimums because SWLIHN, at least, has a charm that requires Integrity and Virtue minimums).
Is this a bad idea, and is there any way to make it acceptable? I know that the fact that Witness to Darkness is a prereq of BMS makes it a bad idea to go for it without knowing what you're doing, but other than that.
...Also, I've never seen a Szoreny charm set, so I'm not sure if this would work better building off of one of his charms instead of BMS.
Walker of the Yellow Path
Ho There!
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It's kind of broken.
It's expensive to get, but being able to completely switch out your capabilities is very powerful, and nearly impossible to define good rules on.
Yes
No.
...
To expand a little further, no, it's a terrible idea because it removes the element of opportunity cost from your charm purchases. That's the same reason the incredibly bad 3E Socialise Charms are as incredibly bad as they are. Any mechanic to temporarily get the use of Charms is bad.
Moreover, it's potentially even worse, because Infernal Charms are Essence-based. "Every charm you qualify for", combined with the E4 prereq of BMS means that you qualify for vast swathes of a Yozi's charmset - and worse, it's uncapped. Because you can basically just make up any Yozi Charm within the themes of that Yozi and say you now know it. On the fly.
I don't have to explain how that's bad.
Ok, everything else you said I already knew about, and wasn't sure if it was balanced by needing something like 30+ charms to get to, but this definitely pushes it over the edge. So, thanks, I think I get it now.
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
Or there are no available Solar shards goes without saying. But I digress.
Just to follow this up, because I think the 1e Storyteller's Guide (while obviously working from an earlier, rougher take on Exalted and its themes) is a lot truer to the intended foundations of the line than most of the wildly conflicting justifications which came after it:
If you can get your hands on it, or the PDF, its a really enlightening look at the origins of the game as a whole. Though some things still hadn't fully gelled yet (like the majority of the metaphysics, dynamics of the worlds outside Creation and notable splats like the Sidereals) its something I'd recommend anyone looking to dig into Exalted as a media piece should read. It spells out a lot about where they were coming from in the late OWoD-era, without getting caught up in using setting precedence to try and retroactively explain dramatic shifts in author focus.
If this were fluffed as allowing the Yozi to possess you (temporary Akumaization?), you could have some kind of harsh drawback like requiring all actions while the Charm is up to be in direct fulfilment of your Urge, or give the ST veto power over everything you do, or just straight-up become an NPC. Bare minimum should be that all your Intimacies, Virtues and Motivation are replaced by approximations of the Yozi.
This would have some niche uses such as popping Scarlet Rapture or Devil-Tyrant Avatar in a city you don't like, but would generally be undesirable.
The big problem, of course, is that you'd have to maintain multiple character sheets of single-Yozi Charmsets and do some thinking about how you'd actually use that list in practice. And then you run up against the reason you didn't do that in the first place, which is that Yozi Charmsets were not written to be self-sufficient and you'd probably lose a lot more competency than you'd gain.
All that said, I think this could be an interesting idea for an Infernal antagonist, rather than a PC.
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