The saddest part is that a lot of these writers could do better just by playing a couple of games of Crusader Kings 2 first. I'm totally serious - the game does an amazing job of driving home just how precarious it is to be a king in a feudal structure, and how easy it is to become an incredibly terrible person in search of power.
You're not using diplomacy to it's fullest extent if you don't word your peace treaties so they're with the current king so ending them is just an assassination away.The saddest part is that a lot of these writers could do better just by playing a couple of games of Crusader Kings 2 first. I'm totally serious - the game does an amazing job of driving home just how precarious it is to be a king in a feudal structure, and how easy it is to become an incredibly terrible person in search of power.
Speaking of mathematical verification, I know of the method of reducing all traits back down to one (or zero for Abilities) and counting the XP 'refunded' as a math method of verifying optimisation. But what numbers of XP are considered fallen-behind, normal/decent/average, above-average/good etc. 2½e?
Hmm. The picture gives the impression that in its world, every king-wannabe is forced to take a Manipulation-oriented build and/or (to use a Mass Effect term) a Renegade-style approach to solving problems along the way. I wonder if I should start regretting that I took a Cha5 Man1 App5 build for my aspiring empire-builder character.The saddest part is that a lot of these writers could do better just by playing a couple of games of Crusader Kings 2 first. I'm totally serious - the game does an amazing job of driving home just how precarious it is to be a king in a feudal structure, and how easy it is to become an incredibly terrible person in search of power.
I don't think anyone has outlined specific figures, but an explanation of the optimal use of BP to minimize XP costs is floating around somewhere. I think it's basically buying up non-favored Abilities, trying to put Attributes at 1 or 5, and buying up Willpower.
Adult toads can eat 1000 insects in a single day; an appreciable fraction of their body mass. Keris wanted things that would devour raksha rapidly and ravenously. She was actually rather clever in making sure they'd eat each other before starting to devour everything else in the absence of faeries (even if it does make them an utter pain to manage), because otherwise they'd devastate ecosystems whenever they got hungry.
It just... means that unless you're using them every day to feed on a fairly constant diet of raksha that you can keep coming, you're going to have to manage them quite carefully to stop them cannibalising each other.
The problem here is that none of the reasons Mørke has disowned 2e are to do with his characterisation of the Sun. Holden has granted that trying to stat Sol was a bad idea, but writing out who he is? Nope.
I'm not sure that's the actual (simplified) differentiation of the two. After all, genuinely threatening to burn the village and crucify the citizens unless they say where the immaculates went is still Charisma. While using specious intimidation when one lacks either the willingness or the means to back up one's threat is still Manipulation. As is telling your friend that her new red dress doesn't make her fat because you don't want to hurt a friend's feelings (even though it does). At least that's the impression I have over the years from exposure from ST and ST-derived systems. Maybe my memory is tainted with house-ruling/house-interpretation influences.
Thought a bit more about it: it seems to also fit in with the Changeling view of history/society. It almost reads as a direct opposite of the description of Banality by WW's wiki. In fact, I'm wondering if perhaps Changeling's vision of the past is closer to Exalted than Mage's, because Mage seems more elitist (Mages can do magic because only they are enlightened), while in Exalted, magic is much more ubiquitous (Thaumaturgy, lesser wonders etc.). Though seeing Sidhe as the amnesiac Raksha nobles sure would make Sidhe less appealing to many people.
... yeah, uh. The mechanics are, ultimately, an abstraction to give the game some structure and allow adjudication of success beyond "I kill you!", "nuh uh!", "uh huh!". If your end result and simplified method - "Persuade X to do Y", "I make a speech that convinces him" - are the same, the differences come from the exact content of your method, which is where the roleplaying part of a roleplaying game comes in. Now, you can sometimes call for different dice rolls. If my goal is "get into the compound", I could do it by hopping over the back wall or by disguising myself as a servant and walking through the gate in broad daylight. Those would be different pools, as the end goal is the same but the methods are different.
I'm pretty sure this is terrible advice likely to get your character killed.
That's... that's the joke.
This is a real deal-breaker for me, I should note, because it means characters like Moist Von Lipwig or Locke Lamora get shafted at chargen by the mechanics, and that should just never be the case. The charismatic con-man should not be nearly so hard to pull off compared to like, Grima Wormtongue or whatever conception of Lying Liar Who Lies the system seems to run on.
What that sounds like to me is "drop them into Wyld zones and let them feast until you need them again, because fuck raksha."Adult toads can eat 1000 insects in a single day; an appreciable fraction of their body mass. Keris wanted things that would devour raksha rapidly and ravenously. She was actually rather clever in making sure they'd eat each other before starting to devour everything else in the absence of faeries (even if it does make them an utter pain to manage), because otherwise they'd devastate ecosystems whenever they got hungry.
It just... means that unless you're using them every day to feed on a fairly constant diet of raksha that you can keep coming, you're going to have to manage them quite carefully to stop them cannibalising each other.
No, the Immaculate monks, as written, are pretty weak for what they claim to be (ie, five of them is a real threat to a circle of Solars). They also have a lot of artifacts. Unless your ST powers them up or Zerg-rush's them, a competent circle will easily defeat them (note, to be competent, be a sorcerer and summon lots of demons. Still the best spell around.).
I thought that they were supposed to be a threat to a single Solar. A full circle would get likely get a couple groups of these guys, plus a small army of mortal retainers. And that is only if they aren't at the head of a legit legion.
Hrm, I had been told by someone I trust who is pretty good at mechanics that the Immaculates are rather powerful and are a threat to a Solar 1v1 and a serious threat in a group as 2v1 or more.
