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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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BronzeTongue said:
It explicitly doesn't offer magitech though, we need to do that ourselves.

I'm not denying it'll be useful, but it feels like a bad buy to me when we can have a planet of people do the research to get ahead or own way but can't expand our hell once it's up.

There are some things, like playing with the outside, where we just need lots of people and a small number of super weapons don't help as much.
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The viability of the plan "they develop it on their own" depends on the time scales of the quest allowing it.

Also, not all magitech is made equal. What I mean by saying magitech is "if the high tech society has magic being practiced openly and magic is wide spread, then the technology involved has to somehow take magic into account". Basically, you can't have neural implants in a society where you regularly encounter wizards.
 
Also, like a few helicopters in battlegrounds were able to kill formar army remanats and civilans with shotguns killed a lot of them as well. These are peers to winter.

So i am not actually worried about the military power of winter.


I actually hope DP buffs them a lot. Like increase there numbers at least a thousand fold.
 
It's a country the size of Idaho, with a population in the millions. At some point, having more quantity ceases to be useful compared to quality, and the Fivefold Courts has a high focus on quality. I don't think there's any situation where we would need more than that, realistically, especially since we're going to be supplementing our minions with an earthly power base.
 
[X] Yes maybe you can make the sleep last less or offer Arawn some means to speak in dreams
-[X] Use occult excellency, spending no more than one essence unless needed to avert failure.
-[x] spend willpower
-[x] [stunt] Digging deep into lore of the ages you invoke the name of the seven deadly winds to blow down and sanctified this ritual

Last roll for this might as well go all out.
 
Yog said:
The viability of the plan "they develop it on their own" depends on the time scales of the quest allowing it.

Also, not all magitech is made equal. What I mean by saying magitech is "if the high tech society has magic being practiced openly and magic is wide spread, then the technology involved has to somehow take magic into account". Basically, you can't have neural implants in a society where you regularly encounter wizards.
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Again, you're building around an assumption contradicted in the text of the perk.

Both in the sense that it doesn't offer magitech directly and in that it would offer something otherwise impossible to do. It's a leap up the tech tree; if it's impossible to work with magic and tech at the same time then the perk can't give it to us.

But that aside, it's possible to have both. The build I posted could do it with the addition of the overcrowded option, and with advanced tech + society a lot of the downsides would be mitigated.

You could do the same by adding it and dropping deadly fauna.
 
BronzeTongue said:
That revelation will be fun, especially if we go with a large and highly populated one.
A planet sized addition would automatically put us at least in the top 5 factions active near the mortal world in terms of pure size, most likely in the top 3.
A state sized hell would still put us up there, but not to quite so absurd a degree.
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Overpopulated city puts us in that range I think.

Yog said:
I honestly tried, but the largest I was able to fit was state sized, and even then I wasn't able to get full devotion in my build. Planet sized is just not practical.
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I havent finished, but my build is:
Starting Points: 5
Size: Average 0 (City size.)
Terrain Accessible 0
Climate Earthly 0
Ecosytem Overpopulated +1
Earthly Flora 0
Earthly Fauna 0
Deadly Beasts +1*
Deadly Flora +1*
Human Population 0
Resident Devils -1
Advanced Social Structure 0
Technology Advanced -2
Loyalty Committed -2

Gaols: Prison Facilities, Hellish Security: -1
Endless Suffering: -1
Lord of the Land: -1

Goals:
-Expand from Average(0pts) city size to Huge(2 pts, Australia size) or Vast(3 pts, small world, bonus goal), relieving Overpopulation
-Dragon Nest anchor acquisition for stable access to Real World
-Keep the dumb Infernal alive

NOTE
*Deadly Flora in the book is +1. Deadly Beasts is -1.
That seems like an error; if Deadly Flora gives you back 1 point because of the hazards, Deadly Beasts should too.
So I accounted for it.
 
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TonedMite said:
Question: Is it possible, through PC actions, to improve certain aspects of our hell over time?
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Yes, for at least one option: the Library/Ritual Space option by Word of QM is something that can be acquired in play.
The rest is a negotiation with the QM.

Hell upgrades absolutely sounds like a useful plot hook that anyone drafting fluff for a Hell should make narrative allowance for, in the event the QM chooses to use the plot hook.
 
uju32 said:
Overpopulated city puts us in that range I think.
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Winter at least is described as having millions of beings in it, so it depends on how overpopulated and what major city.
bengalqueen said:
It's a country the size of Idaho, with a population in the millions. At some point, having more quantity ceases to be useful compared to quality, and the Fivefold Courts has a high focus on quality. I don't think there's any situation where we would need more than that, realistically, especially since we're going to be supplementing our minions with an earthly power base.
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Yeah helicopters can gun down a nearly arbitrary number of people with rifles, but that only applies when you're talking about suicidal human wave tactics from people who can't fight back on the levels you attack from.

High tech is a great advantage, but there's a balance to be struck.

If we get into a pissing match with an actual supernatural superpower I don't think a society of 5 million, not all of whom can fight, can stop a fey advance even if they have rail guns. Or hold ground against the outsiders if we want to get involved with that.
 
BronzeTongue said:
Winter at least is described as having millions of beings in it, so it depends on how overpopulated and what major city.

Yeah helicopters can gun down a nearly arbitrary number of people with rifles, but that only applies when you're talking about suicidal human wave tactics from people who can't fight back on the levels you attack from.

High tech is a great advantage, but there's a balance to be struck.

If we get into a pissing match with an actual supernatural superpower I don't think a society of 5 million, not all of whom can fight, can stop a fey advance even if they have rail guns. Or hold ground against the outsiders if we want to get involved with that.
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Have you not read battlegrounds. They absolutely can. With some magic support and stuff.
 
Acolyte said:
We should take overcrowded. Its just more people for when we need more soldiers.
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Not if we want a balanced ecology and high standard of living. Overcrowded populations in bad living conditions don't produce high quality personnel.

I will fight and die on the hill of not taking overpopulated. It's a bad decision. It won't be stable by definition.
uju32 said:
My bad. I miswrote.
Anyway, besides getting the details wrong, my general point remains; filling parts of your world with Deadly Flora gives you back 1 point, so Deadly Beasts should as well.
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This heavily depends on QM's ruling, because there might be different reasons for why this was as it was. If nothing else, beasts are mobile, and flora isn't.

Also, gaols are definitely a bad buy, since we can have them built without having to buy them. WIth committed population we don't need them for internal security, and we are unlikely to get so many prisoners that we'll need them before they can be built.
 
Acolyte said:
Have you not read battlegrounds. They absolutely can. With some magic support and stuff.
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Eithniu was deliberately throwing the Fomor away. She didnt use them with any competence, as Cord realizes.

The National Guard helicopters only showed up in time to attack fleeing fomor who had already been wrecked in the field and lost their magic support.
Thats a very different scenario from if they'd actually attacked a fresh force, and got hexus'd out of the air en masse.
 
uju32 said:
Eithniu was deliberately throwing the Fomor away. She didnt use them with any competence, as Cord realizes.

The National Guard helicopters only showed up in time to attack fleeing fomor who had already been wrecked in the field and lost their magic support.
Thats a very different scenario from if they'd actually attacked a fresh force, and got hexus'd out of the air en masse.
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Nah, they could just destroy them from miles away. The formor wouldn't even seem them before rockets started landing on them
 
Yog said:
This heavily depends on QM's ruling, because there might be different reasons for why this was as it was. If nothing else, beasts are mobile, and flora isn't.

Also, gaols are definitely a bad buy, since we can have them built without having to buy them. WIth committed population we don't need them for internal security, and we are unlikely to get so many prisoners that we'll need them before they can be built.
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1) True. Still looks logical.

2) Gaols/Panopticon Security are an essential buy.
That way any opposition who you kill or damn to Hell dont end up in your general population and get up to mischief. Fiat security is much better than that you need to build.

And because its paradigmatic in designing a Yama Hell that there is a means for escape for inmates, your design should account for it, so it isnt easy.
 
[X] Yes maybe you can make the sleep last less or offer Arawn some means to speak in dreams
-[X] Use occult excellency, spending no more than one essence unless needed to avert failure.
-[x] spend willpower
-[x] [stunt] Digging deep into lore of the ages you invoke the name of the seven deadly winds to blow down and sanctified this ritual
 
Acolyte said:
Have you not read battlegrounds. They absolutely can. With some magic support and stuff.
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uju32 said:
Eithniu was deliberately throwing the Fomor away. She didnt use them with any competence, as Cord realizes.

The National Guard helicopters only showed up in time to attack fleeing fomor who had already been wrecked in the field and lost their magic support.
Thats a very different scenario from if they'd actually attacked a fresh force, and got hexus'd out of the air en masse.
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This, and even without the ability to hex technology I'd assume a competent faerie war party can handle fast moving hard hitting air support.

Unless Uncle Sam has outmatched the horrors from beyond reality they've probably seen it before and have an answer to it.

The higher your tech is the more you can automate and the fewer people need to be involved. However, you still need to maintain and support all of that.

The broader your base the more endurance and reach you have with your leverage.

Both together is better than either alone, but I'd rather try catching up on tech than trying to grow our hell a bigger base to work with.

Especially since we wouldn't be behind anyone; we'd be peer level, have more resources than most of them, and be free to openly conduct research few others can.
 
uju32 said:
2) Gaols/Panopticon Security are an essential buy.
That way any opposition who you kill or damn to Hell dont end up in your general population and get up to mischief. Fiat security is much better than that you need to build.

And because its paradigmatic in designing a Yama Hell that there is a means for escape for inmates, your design should account for it, so it isnt easy.
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Gaols as a special dedicated feature for point buy are definitely useless. The population of our hell would be in multiple millions, and would be immortal. At least some population would be dedicated warriors. I think we all agree on this. Unless we are going to be committing a lot of mass murders against people we want to end up in our hell (we don't have to send them there, after all), they can be held without a dedicated facility that costs points.

The difficulty of escape, at least in my build, is based on the terrain and weather conditions, as well as wild life.

We can have gaols built without costing points. If anything, I would argue that Grand Grimoire would be more useful as a buy.
 
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Acolyte said:
Nah, they could just destroy them from miles away. The formor wouldn't even seem them before rockets started landing on them
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No they couldnt.
For one thing, urban environment with ground clutter and civilians. For the second, weaponized techbane dumpsters every plane in the air and absolutely wrecks radio communications for ground troops. Just like Eithniu's doomlaser fried everything unshielded and electronic in Chicago as a side effect of being fired once.

Even tanks will have trouble working.
If the fomor had been fresh and competently led, I'd have given them better than even odds against an equivalent force of US troops.
 
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[X] Yes maybe you can make the sleep last less or offer Arawn some means to speak in dreams
-[X] Use occult excellency

Yes for using the excellency, no to using willpower. We still have the Mab negotiation coming. Plus with the massive amount of dice a willpower expenditure here will have a relatively small effect.
 
lord2trp0522 said:
[X] Yes maybe you can make the sleep last less or offer Arawn some means to speak in dreams
-[X] Use occult excellency, spending no more than one essence unless needed to avert failure.
-[x] spend willpower
-[x] [stunt] Digging deep into lore of the ages you invoke the name of the seven deadly winds to blow down and sanctified this ritual
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I suppose we could use a stunt, but I don't really like this one to be honest. We can't actually cast for one, and I'm not sure what these winds you're referencing are or if we want their attention.

Maybe something like this?

[X] Yes maybe you can make the sleep last less or offer Arawn some means to speak in dreams
-[X] Use occult excellency, spending no more than one essence unless needed to avert failure.
-[X] Stunt: Taking a deep breath, Molly reaches out towards the curious place in her head where her knowledge of the secret powers of the world rests.
-[X] As she turns her attention to Matthews and Arawn, her aura flares. It sharpens without brightening, and pierces without illuminating what it touches. For a moment, something ancient beyond all reckoning and almost painfully young by any measure regards the pair with countless eyes of fire.
-[X] "Okay. Let's get started"
 
BronzeTongue said:
Both together is better than either alone, but I'd rather try catching up on tech than trying to grow our hell a bigger base to work with.
Especially since we wouldn't be behind anyone; we'd be peer level, have more resources than most of them, and be free to openly conduct research few others can.
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I'd do both.
I've looked at some of the theoretical numbers necessary for a human population to maintain and advance high technology, and its apparently strongly implausible with a population smaller than eight figures. Network effects matter, apparenly.

Yog said:
Gaols as a special dedicated feature for point buy are definitely useless. The population of our hell would be in multiple millions, and would be immortal. At least some population would be dedicated warriors. I think we all agree on this. Unless we are going to be committing a lot of mass murders against people we want to end up in our hell (we don't have to send them there, after all), they can be held without a dedicated facility that costs points.

The difficulty of escape, at least in my build, is based on the terrain and weather conditions, as well as wild life.
We can have gaols built without costing points. If anything, I would argue that Grand Grimoire would be more useful as a buy.
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The people our PC feels strongly enough about to commit to a Hell are the worst of the worst, and we are potentially going to butt heads with agents of the Yama Kings. We literally have an Enemy Background that involves the partners of Fallen Angels, and we have no way of knowing if their coins/partners come with them.

You are very much underestimating the threat levels IMO.

The Yama Kings regularly lose prisoners in the equivalent of skivvies, in terrain conditions way worse than anything Molly would find conscionable, and they have been doing this longer.
A proposal to go without the fiat-backed version of Gaols/Hellwide Security is just penny wise and pound foolish.

My opinion.
 
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BronzeTongue said:
This, and even without the ability to hex technology I'd assume a competent faerie war party can handle fast moving hard hitting air support.
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I would have assumed that but battlegrounds seriously hurt my ability to trust their competence
uju32 said:
No they couldnt.
For one thing, urban environment with ground clutter and civilians
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Most of the us combat recently has been urban combat its not a new problem.


uju32 said:
For the second, weaponized techbane dumpsters every plane in the air
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Planes and helecopters can rain hell from miles away, the techbane is seriously short ranged for that. And satellites exist, especially in the US mainland, artillery wouldn't be need observers.

Fair point on the radio but its something they can fallback on. Army has been wargamming emp strikes for decades now.

The point about the doom laser is moot since its something only someone like mab would have. A warpart is hardly going to bring the queen with them
 
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