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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Prospalz said:
Lydia having 3 dots of Academic in no way justifies her having access to Celestial tier charms, this isn't how exigent charmset-building works. Fuck, it is actually pretty good for a celestial charm too, now I look at it. Instant research? DC reduction? This is not a terrestrial charm. This is not appropriate.
@DragonParadox
Look, if you want us to slow down and stop investing 20XP per arc into Molly, this is fine. Sort of. I'd rather see a direct xp flow reduction, to be perfectly frank.

From a mechanical perspective, if reducing speed of Molly's progression is not intended, the shared XP pool puts us in a position where we either buy powerful, XP-efficient charms for Molly or terrestrial charms for Lydia and encourage further attempts to sneak celestial charms into the terrestrial charmset.

This is not good.
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Its NOT a celestial tier charm
The whole thing is benchmarked off the DB charm, with the time acceleration tacked on, and enough caveats introduced to allow for significant chance of failure.

It wont work if you dont have access to a library, archive or group of cooperating experts who can work out the answer.
It doesnt work if the data is encoded or passworded or hidden. It doesnt work if the archives are not accessible
Its primary goal is to speed up shit you can already do. It doesnt make it substantially easier.
 
uju32 said:
-[X]Etiquette 4 3xp
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Isn't this a little premature? We are meeting Mab by Halloween. We are almost guaranteed one or two more rounds of Xp buying by then. Better to spend it on Technology excellency, so we can make a better Dragon's Nest.
uju32 said:
Technology 2 is by Word of QM a necessity for building out the Dragons Nest to modern standards.
And we gave our word, so we will probably begin work there in the next couple of weeks.
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Could I get a quote on that? That would change my plan a bit. And wouldn't an excellency also work? We could lean on Cyber-devils (technology 3) for planning a bit. @DragonParadox could you clarify if we could use CyberDevils to help with the designs here, or if we need to buy Technology 2 ourselves?
uju32 said:
Lydia gets an Essence bump to E2, which is expensive but increases her Essence tank by either 20% or 40%, depending on whether we are using Dragonblood or Liminal Essence totals
Your Essence tier determines how much Essence you can spend in a turn.

At the moment, she can only spend 1 Essence/turn.
She has Kattrin's jacket and her father's armor, whatever it is, so she should be good to do without Ox Body for a month or so.
If she needs underarmor to wear around, we can make some.
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Ok, that's convincing.
 
Brief paraphrase of this arc:

A group of noble scientists* who conducted a complicated set of beneficial** experiments which could significantly push forward the magic science get unprovokedly attacked and mercilessly slained by Princess of Hell and her pet vampires***!

*Let's not linger about appearance of these scientists, ok?
**Beneficial for the scientists themselves, of cause!
***And the servant of White God, but this does not matter, right?

Well, I think it is an appropriate header for the article in some kind of "Midwestern Arcane"! :D
 
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Prospalz said:
Lydia having 3 dots of Academic in no way justifies her having access to Celestial tier charms, this isn't how exigent charmset-building works. Fuck, it is actually pretty good for a celestial charm too, now I look at it. Instant research? DC reduction? This is not a terrestrial charm. This is not appropriate.
@DragonParadox
Look, if you want us to slow down and stop investing 20XP per arc into Molly, this is fine. Sort of. I'd rather see a direct xp flow reduction, to be perfectly frank.

From a mechanical perspective, if reducing speed of Molly's progression is not intended, the shared XP pool puts us in a position where we have either a choice to purchase xp-efficient charms for party infernal, or buy vastly lesser and inefficient charms for the party terrestrial. And further encourage attempts to sneak in celestial charms into terrestrial charmset.

This is not good.
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Look what I am trying to do is keep my workload to a manageable level. I say this as someone who has run multi-year mechanically complicated quests, it is not sustainable for me to handle a Circle's worth of Exalts as NPCs. If you guys want to be efficient that is OK, no one is even forcing you to take Lydia places on adventures, it is just an option you have. I will note however that no matter how powerful Molly is her number of actions is limited and her capacity to be in several places at once is, while not non-existent, limited.

If that leads to a few strong charms slipping through well this isn't creation and those lines are not as clear as they otherwise would have been.

I will also note that any companions who can fight remotely near to Molly's level are going to be rare and yet she has charms like VEE that synergize well with having companions so maybe the trade off for empowering the 'weak' Exalted is worth it.
 
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Yog said:
sn't this a little premature? We are meeting Mab by Halloween. We are almost guaranteed one or two more rounds of Xp buying by then. Better to spend it on Technology excellency, so we can make a better Dragon's Nest.
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I dont think it is.

We're looking to raise both Empathy and Etiquette from 3 to 5. At 7XP each, thats 14XP. And that's not counting anything else.
Three months to October. Not sure how many story arcs between then and now.
The critical stuff should get priority, so that we dont end up planning for XP that never shows up.

Yog said:
Could I get a quote on that? That would change my plan a bit. And wouldn't an excellency also work? We could lean on Cyber-devils (technology 3) for planning a bit.
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It was actually a question you asked, apparently:
DragonParadox said:
Craft will be used for many rolls renovating the Last Station, but also technology could be used for some of the fancier stuff. Like if you want to plug in computers down there and actually have them work and access the internet that is past that Craft can do and into Technology
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There's several months of work involved in building the Dragons Nest; its an 8AP project, and we only have 6AP in a month.
Spread out at 1AP/per month, and doubling up twice, thats six months.
Four months if we double up every month.

Thats why Im buying the 2nd dot of Technology and postponing the Tech Excellency.
Its not urgent, not until we are done with Mab.
 
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Why so much focus exp wise on minions? Especially minions we can't use for much and might damage our reputation to associate with.

Ghouls and feral white court vamps aren't exactly the cream of the crop. What are we even planning to do with them?
 
[X] uju32

I'd prefer a 50/50 xp spend split between party members, but since no-ones proposing that I'm going with the highest xp spend on Lydia.
 
DragonParadox said:
Look what I am trying to do is keep my workload to a manageable level.
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One alternative would be that companions gain separate xp based on overall earnings like 1/4. For example, say we earn 20 xp overall, then we spend 20 xp on Molly and 1/4 of it is also put in s seperate pool, which is to say 5xp, for Lydia. So each party member coming in gets the, say 1/4 of what Molly earns.

So it avoids the delema of xp segregation and makes progressing multiple party members easier as in the current system we are deinsentivised to gain more circle members.
 
Yzarc said:
One alternative would be that companions gain separate xp based on overall earnings like 1/4. For example, say we earn 20 xp overall, then we spend 20 xp on Molly and 1/4 of it is also put in s seperate pool, which is to say 5xp, for Lydia. So each party member coming in gets the, say 1/4 of what Molly earns.

So it avoids the delema of xp segregation and makes progressing multiple party members easier as in the current system we are deinsentivised to gain more circle members.
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If you guys want to go for this I'll do it, but this gives you less choices in how to spend XP, if I were a player I would not find this very attractive. Also in my experience even with balanced XP flows there is a danger of the PC leveling up faster as they are present for all the adventures rather than just some of them

This has reminded me of something though, Lydia persuaded Harry to take payment for those wards, given that this is Harry we are talking about that's worth 1 XP

You guys now have 27 to spend.
 
@SCO @Goldfish I made a new plan. If you prefer the old plan, please vote for it by name, rather than for me by name, I think it should work then

[X] Mastery of Waves and Wastes
-[X] Boiling Sea Mastery, 4 XP
-[X] Transcendent Lord of Flies 4 XP
-[X] Mercy in Servitude 4 XP
-[X] Technology Excellency 4 XP
-[X] Technology 2 2 XP
-[X] Lydia
--[X] Essence 2 8 XP

The idea here is to maximize the XP gain. We sacrifice easy mobility of Rendered Villain Dispersal, and concentrate on crafting instead. This way to should make the best on the Dragon's Nest, and we should make best on making preparations for our next adventures, assuming our next arc is something of a downtime. Lydia is raised to Essence 2 - Uju32's arguments are convincing here. Economics-wise, it's more efficient to buy high-dot charms for her, because hers are 3XP*dot rating, so we save up more, the higher charm we buy. We can't afford high tier charms here and now, so we should wait until the next purchase and straight-up buff her essence. Combat-wise, I am thinking that we might want to make her a summoner with a wide panoply of summoned beings, from a car tank, to a wild hunt, calling restless dead, etc.
uju32 said:
We're looking to raise both Empathy and Etiquette from 3 to 5. At 7XP each, thats 14XP. And that's not counting anything else.
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Get those after the next arc. I am perfectly willing to focus on that then. We need to be at or best in crafting now, I think, if we are to handle the Dragon's Nest now.
uju32 said:
There's several months of work involved in building the Dragons Nest; its an 8AP project, and we only have 6AP in a month.
Spread out at 1AP/per month, and doubling up twice, thats six months.
Four months if we double up every month.

Thats why Im buying the 2nd dot of Technology and postponing the Tech Excellency.
Its not urgent, not until we are done with Mab.
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It doesn't say anything about Technology to 2, only that technology is going to be used. Having Cyberdevils as helpers + excellency more than covers this. Excellency even makes it better.

Still, see my version.

BronzeTongue said:
Why so much focus exp wise on minions? Especially minions we can't use for much and might damage our reputation to associate with.

Ghouls and feral white court vamps aren't exactly the cream of the crop. What are we even planning to do with them?
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We at the very least want them not to intrude.
 
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Yog said:
@SCO @Goldfish I made a new plan. If you prefer the old plan, please vote for it by name, rather than for me by name, I think it should work then

[X] Mastery of Waves and Wastes
-[X] Boiling Sea Mastery, 4 XP
-[X] Transcendent Lord of Flies 4 XP
-[X] Mercy in Servitude 4 XP
-[X] Technology Excellency 4 XP
-[X] Technology 2 2 XP
-[X] Lydia
--[X] Essence 2 8 XP

The idea here is to maximize the XP gain. We sacrifice easy mobility of Rendered Villain Dispersal, and concentrate on crafting instead. This way to should make the best on the Dragon's Nest, and we should make best on making preparations for our next adventures, assuming our next arc is something of a downtime. Lydia is raised to Essence 2 - Uju32's arguments are convincing here. Economics-wise, it's more efficient to buy high-dot charms for her, because hers are 3XP*dot rating, so we save up more, the higher charm we buy. We can't afford high tier charms here and now, so we should wait until the next purchase and straight-up buff her essence. Combat-wise, I am thinking that we might want to make her a summoner with a wide panoply of summoned beings, from a car tank, to a wild hunt, calling restless dead, etc.
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I don't really have a preference between gaining the Technology Excellence or increasing Etiquette, since both plans seem to cover the more essential stuff.

For now I'm just going to vote for both.

[X] uju32

[X] Yog
 
DragonParadox said:
stuff
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Yeah, you are running three(? more?) quests as of right now, workload optimization is the way to go. But shared XP gonna encourage other problems, and there are other ways to manage NPC progression.

Hell, I'd be entirely fine with a QM mandate of "you must spend half all of your xp on Lydia." That would suck with additional circlemates, but it would solve some issues, for now.
DragonParadox said:
If you guys want to go for this I'll do it, but this gives you less choices in how to spend XP, if I were a player I would not find this very attractive.
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This is infinitively preferable to me. I'd be fine with much harsher systems as long as they do not force us to choose between spending XP on an Infernal or a terrestrial Exigent from the same shared xp pool.
 
Yzarc said:
Mind quoting that? Because I missed it and would need to go back and edit my plan.
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My apologies, I cant find the exact quote right now.
Im either misremembering, or not coming up with the right keywords in search.
DragonParadox said:
If you guys want to go for this I'll do it, but this gives you less choices in how to spend XP, if I were a player I would not find this very attractive. Also in my experience even with balanced XP flows there is a danger of the PC leveling up faster as they are present for all the adventures rather than just some of them

This has reminded me of something though, Lydia persuaded Harry to take payment for those wards, given that this is Harry we are talking about that's worth 1 XP

You guys now have 27 to spend.
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-Im for the option that reduces QM workload.
That reduces the chance of the quest abruptly dying,

-1 extra XP? Okay, so I have 2XP to spend.
*checks*
So thats either Athletics 2 for Molly or Occult 2 for Lydia.
Hmm.
 
So, my argument for Technology excellency over Etiquette:
1) We need Etiquette for Mab, primarily. When dealing with lesser beings, if they are Creatures of Darkness, DPE more than suffices. If they are not, we have Etiquette at 3, and we have Usum to fall back on.
2) We need to maximize XP gains. This means buying charms that give us more XP later earlier, so the sum total of XP is higher. In this respect I feel that Technology Excellency is more likely to help us right now tan Etiquette. Maybe we could switch it to RVD, but if we are focusing on the Dragon's Nest next, then going with Technology excellency is the best way to go. We need it to design stuff like CCC abusing ankle bracelets, renovating Dragon's Nest, bringing Harry to the 21st century, etc. Buy now to buy more stuff later.

Etiquette is more than likely to sit there waiting for encounters with Mab or other beings of the same weight class, where 3 points won't suffice. It's not an immediate purchase. It should be bought as close to when we need it as possible.
 
Prospalz said:
Yeah, you are running three(? more?) quests as of right now, workload optimization is the way to go. But shared XP gonna encourage other problems, and there are other ways to manage NPC progression.

Hell, I'd be entirely fine with a QM mandate of "you must spend half all of your xp on Lydia." That would suck with additional circlemates, but it would solve some issues, for now.

This is infinitively preferable to me. I'd be fine with much harsher systems as long as they do not force us to choose between spending XP on an Infernal or a terrestrial Exigent from the same shared xp pool.
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OK then for the sake of not confusing the vote I am going to leave this round of spending as is and then have a meta vote on how you guys want XP apportioned in the future. Does that sound fair?
 
For my part my problem with Lydia getting high power charms is partly that terrestrials being as strong as celestials - especially random demigods from the modern era - kind of wears the shiny off of proper exalts, and partly who her dad is.

If she was Odin, Morrìgan, or Hades' daughter it'd be easier to swallow her being a liminal+ terrestrial, but Arawn has come off like such a chump that I struggle to take invoking him for power very seriously.

The only gods from DF canon that I'm aware of doing worse than him are the ones the red court ate/keep trapped in their basement.


Yog said:
We at the very least want them not to intrude.
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Melee and intimidation excellencies do that already. We might even get exp for it.

I do want minions at some point, but I'd prefer it if we had some idea of how we're going to get a return on our investment before spending exp.

If the only thing they can do without screwing it up is guard the nest then HMP gun turrets or robot arms with chainsaws would do the job just as well and only cost crafting time.

uju32 said:
So thats either Athletics 2 for Molly or Occult 2 for Lydia.
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We were talking about how having a circle made specialization viable earlier in the thread. Given Molly's occult score it's probably more effective to spend the extra exp on something else if it goes to Lydia.
 
DragonParadox said:
If you guys want to go for this I'll do it, but this gives you less choices in how to spend XP, if I were a player I would not find this very attractive.
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It would reduce the amount of xp Molly's circle members get but Molly is the primary character so it is not a bad tradeoff.

It also makes getting new circle members easier, so it is a trade off for their lowered growth.

The pros would be that we are no longer mechanically discouraged from seeking out new circle members. That is worth our circle members having a /4 or /2 growth as compared to Molly.
 
BronzeTongue said:
Melee and intimidation excellencies do that already. We might even get exp for it.

I do want minions at some point, but I'd prefer it if we had some idea of how we're going to get a return on our investment before spending exp.

If the only thing they can do without screwing it up is guard the nest then HMP gun turrets or robot arms with chainsaws would do the job just as well and only cost crafting time.
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You know, I am not totally opposed to switching it to RVD. I mean, let's think what can give us more XP before meeting Mab:
RVD: opens up the world, or at least Great Lakes area for us to travel, strongly expanding our operational range. This allows us to travel (alone) and do stuff for XP. Also simplifies essence recovery a lot with a simple pendant filled with bleach.
Mercy in Servitude: Helps us recruit minions and opens XP gains through those.

Honestly, it's a question for me. The first encourages travel. The latter concentrating on Chicago.
 
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