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General Exalted Thread

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Jon Chung said:
Toss-up between whether you consider wearing mirror disco pants to be awesome or lame.
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God, all this just made me re-read Obsidian Shards of Infinity.

It's somehow worse than I remembered. Think I'm going to go re-read Changing Breeds with an emphasis on the Unstoppable Shapeshifting Elephants or maybe the section where they copypasted the same typo seven times.

At least that's almost coherent. And doesn't have mechanics that include "The ST lies to you about what just happened," as a mechanically codified effect.
 
Kenainath said:
Thank you for the advice. As for the group bit, I have a group. I brought it up with them. They agreed with him on the issue. Damned patronizing Solars who get SMA without this kind of work...

As for your suggestions, they give me a starting point to work from. The initial Charms up to the Form are meant to grow from the themes of the Yozi applied to war on a mass scale, plus developing the world-body. Then from the Form it branches out into expansions, each themed to a separate Yozi. Those I have solid ideas for. It's the opening that I'm having trouble with.
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Omicron can help you here, take his Octarine Angles of Impossibility style, refluff it, make it wear a funny hat that says " most def 100% Primordial" and run with it.
 
Desus said:
God, all this just made me re-read Obsidian Shards of Infinity.

It's somehow worse than I remembered. Think I'm going to go re-read Changing Breeds with an emphasis on the Unstoppable Shapeshifting Elephants or maybe the section where they copypasted the same typo seven times.

At least that's almost coherent. And doesn't have mechanics that include "The ST lies to you about what just happened," as a mechanically codified effect.
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The really sad thing is that even if you're using my three-charm wunderstyle above, you might actually still lose: the other guy might win the initiative roll.
 
Kenainath said:
Thank you for the advice. As for the group bit, I have a group. I brought it up with them. They agreed with him on the issue. Damned patronizing Solars who get SMA without this kind of work...

As for your suggestions, they give me a starting point to work from. The initial Charms up to the Form are meant to grow from the themes of the Yozi applied to war on a mass scale, plus developing the world-body. Then from the Form it branches out into expansions, each themed to a separate Yozi. Those I have solid ideas for. It's the opening that I'm having trouble with.
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Okay then. I'll do my best to give you the advice you actually want, that being ideas for the entry bits of this Style. I don't know much about balancing SMAs because from what I've gathered it's impossible, so I'll just go in terms of concept and let you decide on how far the crunch should snap the game over its knee.

The theme is "a landscape attacking you".

First charm is "Become One With The World" - attune to the landscape for most of your Personal motes, get $$$$ Peripheral motes back every turn.

Second charm is "Turn It Against Your Foes" - ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS EVERYWHERE, WHEEEEEE.

Third charm is "You Cannot Wound A Mountain" - draw extra health levels from the landscape and shunt damage off onto it.

Form charm is, hmm, "A Universe Against You" - you have full awareness of where everything and everyone on your attuned landscape is, you can attack with flurries that represent the innumerable living creatures of the world striking for you, and you can freely change the terrain to create natural barriers and alter range bands.
 
Aleph said:
Form charm is, hmm, "A Universe Against You" - you have full awareness of where everything and everyone on your attuned landscape is, you can attack with flurries that represent the innumerable living creatures of the world striking for you, and you can freely change the terrain to create natural barriers and alter range bands.
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Tossing this in as a suggestion- the creatures should all take on a Demon-like aesthetic, they're not yet YOUR demons, but that's a start.
 
Aleph said:
Okay then. I'll do my best to give you the advice you actually want, that being ideas for the entry bits of this Style. I don't know much about balancing SMAs because from what I've gathered it's impossible, so I'll just go in terms of concept and let you decide on how far the crunch should snap the game over its knee.

The theme is "a landscape attacking you".

First charm is "Become One With The World" - attune to the landscape for most of your Personal motes, get $$$$ Peripheral motes back every turn.

Second charm is "Turn It Against Your Foes" - ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS EVERYWHERE, WHEEEEEE.

Third charm is "You Cannot Wound A Mountain" - draw extra health levels from the landscape and shunt damage off onto it.

Form charm is, hmm, "A Universe Against You" - you have full awareness of where everything and everyone on your attuned landscape is, you can attack with flurries that represent the innumerable living creatures of the world striking for you, and you can freely change the terrain to create natural barriers and alter range bands.
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That...sounds about right for the general ideas. I'll need to look at other Sidereal styles to fine-tune this, figure out mote costs and minimums, but the Charm concepts are fairly close to what I was thinking of. There would probably be a Charm in there for smearing mortals across the landscape, something along the lines of "A Mountain is Falling on You," to go with the "Turn It Against Your Foes."

Also, by ST decree, I do get one bonus. The initial Charm for this style requires two Primordial Charms from different Primordials, specifically from my patrons, which means Cecelyne and Malfeas. I may have to design the initiation Charms, but that's what they are in the end. Martial Arts initiations locked up in Yozi Charm trees, and you need both to enter the style. I also get those initiations free. However, this locks my hard work away from the rest of the group, which is a small satisfaction.
 
Shyft said:
Tossing this in as a suggestion- the creatures should all take on a Demon-like aesthetic, they're not yet YOUR demons, but that's a start.
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Demonic aesthetics are also likely, yes. Those aesthetics will shift to those of my devas later, when the style continues to build up in the pure Martial Arts tree, or possibly when I design my Primordial tree.
 
Jon Chung said:
The really sad thing is that even if you're using my three-charm wunderstyle above, you might actually still lose: the other guy might win the initiative roll.
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Obviously it needs a fourth charm, which allows you, at any point in combat, your turn or anyone else's, to punch Scroll of The Monk, retroactively unmaking it and returning to the beginning of the scene.
 
Oh, and read through OSOI and phrase your defensive charms to counter its attack methods. Probably can't do much about "I get 3 PDs against every attack", but you can at least go "fuck no" to "you're unconscious and have all your motes drained when I look at you."
 
Kenainath said:
Thank you for the advice. As for the group bit, I have a group. I brought it up with them. They agreed with him on the issue. Damned patronizing Solars who get SMA without this kind of work...

As for your suggestions, they give me a starting point to work from. The initial Charms up to the Form are meant to grow from the themes of the Yozi applied to war on a mass scale, plus developing the world-body. Then from the Form it branches out into expansions, each themed to a separate Yozi. Those I have solid ideas for. It's the opening that I'm having trouble with.
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Well, if you want general....

(I will point out that a lot of the described effects don't really work well with Adorjan, but I'm including her anyways for completeness sake. Also, SWLIHN gets nothing, because I can't think of anything even slightly appropriate for her. You may want to make it only Malfeas, Ebby, and Cecelyne, or you might want to add Kimbery. Just find an appropriate ranged attack charm and an environmental effect)

The Infernal Native Prerequisites for the Style would be Green Sun Nimbus Flare, Sandstrike Blast, Life Blighting Emptiness Attack Thousand Fold Typhoon Hand, and some kind of easily reachable attack charm for SWLIHN (I'd say Mind Hand, but that's not th one and done attack charm that I'd prefer like the others.) Make it clear in the Style that you only need two of these charms to proceed, to prevent wasted Xp from buying non favored Yozi Charms to get it.

(Also, other Exalt types can't learn these Martial Arts due to the need for a close connection to multiple Yozi that Infernals have.)

After the initial prerequisites, you get a Counter attack Charm that lets you invoke it and use the effects of one of the prereqs you bought as part of the Counter attack.

The third Charm would be a supplemental Shaping Touch Charm that lets you impose your own Primordial Urges on them. If you hit, you choose one of your Yozi Excellencies, and they are afflicted with a UMI Shaping Effect that makes them act along the themes of that Yozi Excellency, with penalties to actions if they don't, and bonuses if they do. You are explicitly allowed (and expected) to lay this charm on yourself.

The fourth charm would increase the range of your prereq charms, and cause an environmental effect related to the Charm. Malfeas blights the earth with Green Sun Wasting, Cecelyne turns it into a Place of Desolation, Adorjan creates a tornado that hurts people, Ebon Dragon creates an orb of absolute darkness where only people with Witness to Darkness can make sight based Perception rolls.

And then finally the Form Charm, which reduces the costs of the prerequisites to 0m (Thousand Fold Typhoon Hand still costs 1wp though. Unexpected is too good for it not to.). After that, it doubles the range bonus granted by the previous Charm, and let's you apply a single attack to a group of people of maximum magnitude equal to your Essence.
 
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Kenainath said:
That...sounds about right for the general ideas. I'll need to look at other Sidereal styles to fine-tune this, figure out mote costs and minimums, but the Charm concepts are fairly close to what I was thinking of. There would probably be a Charm in there for smearing mortals across the landscape, something along the lines of "A Mountain is Falling on You," to go with the "Turn It Against Your Foes."

Also, by ST decree, I do get one bonus. The initial Charm for this style requires two Primordial Charms from different Primordials, specifically from my patrons, which means Cecelyne and Malfeas. I may have to design the initiation Charms, but that's what they are in the end. Martial Arts initiations locked up in Yozi Charm trees, and you need both to enter the style. I also get those initiations free. However, this locks my hard work away from the rest of the group, which is a small satisfaction.
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At this point I'm going to have to agree with Revlid. Your GM is playing silly buggers, so subvert their intent. Just go grab a bunch of large-scale Yozi charms you wanted all along, refluff them, and go "Yeah, these are totally martial arts charms".

For example, Endless Desert Shintai can be your Form Charm, as it lets you become a giant city-crushing desert and so you can declare that's your world body. Malfeas' The Green Mile which is a wide-area Green Sun Wasting thing? Clearly you're surrounded by an army of invisible demons who function as a disease because they pile onto your foes in such vast numbers that they're resolved as a Sickness, not an individual attack. Cecelyne's flurry? Just make a high essence upgrade of that which hits everyone around you once and say it's because of your demonic hordes. Do you want a perfect soak? Just go take Kimbery's, give it a different Flaw, and declare that you're so tough because you're shifting your injuries onto the landscape itself.
 
Aleph said:
Oh, and read through OSOI and phrase your defensive charms to counter its attack methods. Probably can't do much about "I get 3 PDs against every attack", but you can at least go "fuck no" to "you're unconscious and have all your motes drained when I look at you."
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I plan to. Though as for the PDs, the ST did say that I could create a Charm at Essence 8 that let me either shift the Flaw of Invulnerability or replace it for PDs, though the PD would still have to be viable for the environment it was in. However, if you know the Flaw, you can figure out how to exploit it, I suppose. And my defensive Charms are most definitely being phrased to stop OSOI from pulling things like you mentioned, among other things.
 
EarthScorpion said:
At this point I'm going to have to agree with Revlid. Your GM is playing silly buggers, so subvert their intent. Just go grab a bunch of large-scale Yozi charms you wanted all along, refluff them, and go "Yeah, these are totally martial arts charms".

For example, Endless Desert Shintai can be your Form Charm, as it lets you become a giant city-crushing desert and so you can declare that's your world body. Malfeas' The Green Mile which is a wide-area Green Sun Wasting thing? Clearly you're surrounded by an army of invisible demons who function as a disease because they pile onto your foes in such vast numbers that they're resolved as a Sickness, not an individual attack. Cecelyne's flurry? Just make a high essence upgrade of that which hits everyone around you once and say it's because of your demonic hordes. Do you want a perfect soak? Just go take Kimbery's, give it a different Flaw, and declare that you're so tough because you're shifting your injuries onto the landscape itself.
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This...is going to be fun. While Aleph's ideas are probably going to be the primary foundation for my final design, I am considering certain concessions from the ST for making me do this. Would getting an extra Charm for free per MA Charm be unsuitable, you think, or should I push for more for having to put up with this? Or perhaps I should get extra free MA Charms to start advancing along the lines of the Yozi expansions?
 
Kenainath said:
I plan to. Though as for the PDs, the ST did say that I could create a Charm at Essence 8 that let me either shift the Flaw of Invulnerability or replace it for PDs, though the PD would still have to be viable for the environment it was in. However, if you know the Flaw, you can figure out how to exploit it, I suppose. And my defensive Charms are most definitely being phrased to stop OSOI from pulling things like you mentioned, among other things.
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No. The only defensive technique against OSOI is out of character.

Tell your GM that if they use OSOI against you, and doubly if they use Breathing on the Black Mirror against you, you will stand up and walk away from the table. Make it perfectly clear that if they do that, they are ending your involvement in the game. It is entirely up to them if they do it, but if they do, you quick.

Then if they use it against you, get up, walk away, because they've just shown they value their petty bullshit and power games more than they do any friendship. Draw a red line. If they cross it, walk away. Don't try to bring in in-character defences against it. Don't make charms to counter it. It is a terrible mechanic, should not exist, and if they do it to you when you've told them "No way", they are doing it and crossing a red line.

Walk away.

The only way to win is not to play.
 
Walker of the Yellow Path said:
Well, if you want general....

(I will point out that a lot of the described effects don't really work well with Adorjan, but I'm including her anyways for completeness sake. Also, SWLIHN gets nothing, because I can't think of anything even slightly appropriate for her. You may want to make it only Malfeas, Ebby, and Cecelyne, or you might want to add Kimbery. Just find an appropriate ranged attack charm and an environmental effect)

The Infernal Native Prerequisites for the Style would be Green Sun Nimbus Flare, Sandstrike Blast, Life Blighting Emptiness Attack Thousand Fold Typhoon Hand, and some kind of easily reachable attack charm for SWLIHN (I'd say Mind Hand, but that's not th one and done attack charm that I'd prefer like the others.) Make it clear in the Style that you only need two of these charms to proceed, to prevent wasted Xp from buying non favored Yozi Charms to get it.

(Also, other Exalt types can't learn these Martial Arts due to the need for a close connection to multiple Yozi that Infernals have.)

After the initial prerequisites, you get a Counter attack Charm that lets you invoke it and use the effects of one of the prereqs you bought as part of the Counter attack.

The third Charm would be a supplemental Shaping Touch Charm that lets you impose your own Primordial Urges on them. If you hit, you choose one of your Yozi Excellencies, and they are afflicted with a UMI Shaping Effect that makes them act along the themes of that Yozi Excellency, with penalties to actions if they don't, and bonuses if they do. You are explicitly allowed (and expected) to lay this charm on yourself.

The fourth charm would increase the range of your prereq charms, and cause an environmental effect related to the Charm. Malfeas blights the earth with Green Sun Wasting, Cecelyne turns it into a Place of Desolation, Adorjan creates a tornado that hurts people, Ebon Dragon creates an orb of absolute darkness where only people with Witness to Darkness can make sight based Perception rolls.

And then finally the Form Charm, which reduces the costs of the prerequisites to 0m (Thousand Fold Typhoon Hand still costs 1wp though. Unexpected is too good for it not to.). After that, it doubles the range bonus granted by the previous Charm, and let's you apply a single attack to a group of people of maximum magnitude equal to your Essence.
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All solid ideas, and they'll find their way into my final work at some point, either as Yozi expansion ideas or to work with Aleph's ideas.

As for the Infernals only martial arts, that's already handled. Martial Arts initiation Charms, each Yozi has a version of both of the Charms, but you need one Charm each from two different Yozi to begin learning. Possibly plus two attack Charms from two different Yozi, ideally the same as the ones you get the initiations from.
 
EarthScorpion said:
No. The only defensive technique against OSOI is out of character.

Tell your GM that if they use OSOI against you, and doubly if they use Breathing on the Black Mirror against you, you will stand up and walk away from the table. Make it perfectly clear that if they do that, they are ending your involvement in the game. It is entirely up to them if they do it, but if they do, you quick.

Then if they use it against you, get up, walk away, because they've just shown they value their petty bullshit and power games more than they do any friendship. Draw a red line. If they cross it, walk away. Don't try to bring in in-character defences against it. Don't make charms to counter it. It is a terrible mechanic, should not exist, and if they do it to you when you've told them "No way", they are doing it and crossing a red line.

Walk away.

The only way to win is not to play.
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That...is going to find its way into my dealing with this never happening again. No Obsidian Shards of Infinity, or I walk. I've had enough of this particular annoyance. Also, I am getting the creative freedom I want with my Third Circles, and probably I'm going to go for 'This style expands an Infernal's view, allowing them to learn one other anima power from the other Castes,' and get the Fiend power. Plus free or reduced price Charms that let me patch a few glaring holes I need to get rid of.
 
Kenainath said:
This...is going to be fun. While Aleph's ideas are probably going to be the primary foundation for my final design, I am considering certain concessions from the ST for making me do this. Would getting an extra Charm for free per MA Charm be unsuitable, you think, or should I push for more for having to put up with this? Or perhaps I should get extra free MA Charms to start advancing along the lines of the Yozi expansions?
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No. What I am saying is "Don't play his petty power games. Find Yozi Charms you want. Say they're Martial Arts Charms. Ignore the spirit of his 'you can't buy your own damn Charms' rule flagrantly, and if he objects point out that he is breaking the rules because by RAW, you can learn your own native Charms with days of training time.

If he forbids you from learning your own Native charms, he is cheating. So just take the Native charms you wanted anyway and refluff them just enough to get past him.

I'm going to say this clearly and bluntly. Sidereal Martial Arts Charm should not be more powerful than Solaroid Charms of equal Essence. The only reason there is a misunderstanding about this is because when the original Sidereal Martial Arts Charms were written, there were no high essence Solaroid Charms. "An Essence 8 SMA Charm is more powerful than an Essence 5 Solaroid Charm" is no more meaningful than saying "An Essence 5 Solaroid Charm is more powerful than an Essence 2 Solaroid Charm".

Everything you can do in SMAs that isn't dumb bullshit that shouldn't exist, you can fit somewhere into Abyssals, Solars or Infernals. Everything.

Therefore, just make or find the Infernal effects that you want and tell him they're SMA things.
 
EarthScorpion said:
No. What I am saying is "Don't play his petty power games. Find Yozi Charms you want. Say they're Martial Arts Charms. Ignore the spirit of his 'you can't buy your own damn Charms' rule flagrantly, and if he objects point out that he is breaking the rules because by RAW, you can learn your own native Charms with days of training time.

If he forbids you from learning your own Native charms, he is cheating. So just take the Native charms you wanted anyway and refluff them just enough to get past him.

I'm going to say this clearly and bluntly. Sidereal Martial Arts Charm should not be more powerful than Solaroid Charms of equal Essence. The only reason there is a misunderstanding about this is because when the original Sidereal Martial Arts Charms were written, there were no high essence Solaroid Charms. "An Essence 8 SMA Charm is more powerful than an Essence 5 Solaroid Charm" is no more meaningful than saying "An Essence 5 Solaroid Charm is more powerful than an Essence 2 Solaroid Charm".

Everything you can do in SMAs that isn't dumb bullshit that shouldn't exist, you can fit somewhere into Abyssals, Solars or Infernals. Everything.

Therefore, just make or find the Infernal effects that you want and tell him they're SMA things.
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Thank you for your advice, and I will put it to use. Thank you for your time and your guidance in helping me figure out how to do this. Now, if I might be excused, I need to get some sleep.
 
Immunity From Structure
Cost: - Type: Permanent Duration: Permanent
Keywords: None
Mins: Essence 6 Prereqs: Invulnerable Wounding Futility, Soul Sieve Transmutation

The Primordials forged all structure and form in the Time Not that was Before Creation. Thus all structure must suborn itself to their will. Once the Infernal learns this Charm he becomes immune to all Martial Arts. Any effect which involves rolling a Martial Arts rating, using a weapon with a required Martial Arts rating, using a Charm with a prerequisite of a certain number of dots in Martial Arts or has as a prerequisites any other Charm which does or an artifact that enhances Martial Arts or a Sorcery that aids Martial Arts or a thaumaturgy or any other effect. If the words "Martial Arts" appear in the description of the effect at any point it utterly fails to have any effect on the Infernal or his actions.

There, now you can beat OSOI.
 
...why, exactly, have you not quit the game in question? Because your GM is an asshole with asshole icing on top for pulling this on you, and the other players apparently back this bullshit. To be honestly, nothing's worth that.
 
Aaron Peori said:
Immunity From Structure
Cost: - Type: Permanent Duration: Permanent
Keywords: None
Mins: Essence 6 Prereqs: Invulnerable Wounding Futility, Soul Sieve Transmutation

The Primordials forged all structure and form in the Time Not that was Before Creation. Thus all structure must suborn itself to their will. Once the Infernal learns this Charm he becomes immune to all Martial Arts. Any effect which involves rolling a Martial Arts rating, using a weapon with a required Martial Arts rating, using a Charm with a prerequisite of a certain number of dots in Martial Arts or has as a prerequisites any other Charm which does or an artifact that enhances Martial Arts or a Sorcery that aids Martial Arts or a thaumaturgy or any other effect. If the words "Martial Arts" appear in the description of the effect at any point it utterly fails to have any effect on the Infernal or his actions.

There, now you can beat OSOI.
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But Aaron...

This Charm makes me immune to it's own effects.

:V
 
On an alternative note, if he demands you just develop Infernal Martial Arts, instead of specifically a new Style, you could always homebrew some high-Essence expansions to Infernal Monster Style. I mean, it's still bullshit and I'd recommend you quite the game, but you might compromise with him that way.
 
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