For what it's worth that charm would not work in this universe, magic is something which is inherent to all humans, but wizard grade magic talent cannot be given, it can only be inherited.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
For what it's worth that charm would not work in this universe, magic is something which is inherent to all humans, but wizard grade magic talent cannot be given, it can only be inherited.
This has several reasons. First, Holden designated Exalted as a local shit-kicking demon-slaying team of superheroes and problem solvers, not empire-builders. There are charms for that, but they really aren't the focus. Every time when ExWoD starts talking about something ambitious and persisting, it ends the segment with a "actually, this is a bad idea, build a magic grenade and murder some rando BBEG or something, instead."
Second, ExWoD is one book, and Holden is One Guy. Typically, to mostly cover the entire thematic space, you need like, 3-4 book worth of charm. Just to cover first priority basic stuff.
Holden's crafting system allows all Solaroids to do that, but engaging with it makes me deeply unhappy.
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1) Noone IC will have a problem using alchemical potions when they are needed; thats always been justifiable. Charity herself used Dresden's anti-illusion vision ointment on her eyes in Proven Guilty when they went to rescue Molly from Arctis Tor.
The problem arises when you try to justify chugging potions as a lifestyle choice to optimize your working hours in peacetime.
We not only have to convince Charity, but Molly herself.
Mechanically efficient choices do not necessarily fit as character appropriate options.
2) Charity should know about Molly's shintai form by now. Molly used it in front of Michael after all.
You can rely on him to keep his wife up to date on information she needs to know.
At least the cliff notes.
Essentially this. And worse, as magic clones they are almost certainly arcane links for a whole bunch of sympathetic magic spells.
Spawning a bunch of vanilla mortal doppelgangers in a battle thus becomes an active liability, because it gives the opposition free arcane links to use for targeting spells at you that you might otherwise dodge or block.
I dont agree.
She's Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness, and she explicitly takes offense to people questioning her word. She'll manipulate you, and deceive you but she doesnt seem to put herself in a position where the victim can claim that she lied to them.
This feels too close to the line to be something that Mab would do, and especially not for a casual conversation with Dresden at the end of the story.
My two cents.
^^^
High ranking NPCs like the Merlin and the Gatekeeper use potions on the regular. Dresden's illusion-dispelling ointment is based on one that Rashid gave him in Summer Knight.
Butcher just doesnt use them for Dresden except as support.
Doubt that.
He has Bob as an advisor, and Bob was enough to make Butters into a successful alchemist despite Butters lacking any magical talent or previous magical experience.
Doylistically, its the same reason why the techbane is so often a problem.
Because a lot of pivotal Dresden plots would have been stopped in their tracks if Dresden could reliably pick up a phone and call Warden HQ in Scotland or McCoy and bring in a Warden war party at several hours notice.
Butcher had to kill off most of the Wardens before he let Dresden call HQ semi-regularly.
Probably the same reason the Red Court War lasted so long.
He used an alchemical potion/ointment when he went into Arctis Tor for seeing through illusions.
Shared it with Thomas, Murphy and Charity. And again in Changes, he used one on a bunch of guard dogs to incapacitate them and another to produce antigravity to slow his fall.
It seems to be a largely stylistic choice on Butcher's part.
Because when we see the Merlin loaded for war in Changes, he's notably wearing a modern bandolier with a whole set of potions in the pouches on top of his wizard robes.
Just because you have someone with the know-how does not mean you have the mindset to make proper use of it. I think the issue with alchemy is that Dresden does not have the patience for the really fiddly stuff. I mean he can do it for big projects with a big pay off like Little Chicago, but keeping a drawer of potions always on call in addition to all the enchantments he has to be is probably more than he can deal with.
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I mean, if you want to get technical about it the fact that it is impossible only means that Solars will find it very hard, and we are not all that far behind them in breaking the rules of reality.
JayTar
Idea briefcase
[x] It seems I have the powers of a general or a despot and so it it within my reach to proclaim an pause on certain curses upon those who serve me so long as that service is true
Just say it plainly. It's a lot less dramatic, but sometimes drama is not appropriate.
Like now for example, when it sounds awfully like a demonic temptation.
Just say it plainly. It's a lot less dramatic, but sometimes drama is not appropriate.
Like now for example, when it sounds awfully like a demonic temptation.
Thing to keep in mind is that we don't have a number of really high impact keystone combat charms. We still hit people once per round. We don't have a scene-long reflexive dodge. Our soak isn't maxed out. No weapons. Etc.
With the passives they are decent rn, but unless there is a way to further boost them, they are going to be rendered totally irrelevant somewhere around late E3. Well, for combat, anyway. Instead of just being totally irrelevant from get-go, mind.
That could be partially fixed with Shih Arts or Path magic, I suppose. Making them Fomori/Bakemono is also goode.
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fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
[x] It seems I have the powers of a general or a despot and so it it within my reach to proclaim an pause on certain curses upon those who serve me so long as that service is true
Shih arts would be good, but path Fortune magic would make the Shinta autoclones godly as they are temp their is no reason not to just jump straight to Death Cursing whatever we are fighting.
- Location
- Germany
Can you deathcurse people if you are not genuinly expecting to die from physical destruction?
If you know you will be remade without loss?
If you know you will be remade without loss?
I'm going to say no on that one. Death curses work off of all the magic you could have done if you had not been killed at that point. If you are not actually missing out on that potential there is nothing to fuel the curse.
How much magic is really bound up in their lifeforce? Is that magic unique to them or is it OUR lifeforce regardless of if it's a clone or not?
Because it would suck to die because our clone used a deathcurse and burned out our soul by mistake.
[X] "Let me give you a demonstration, please? Could you grab me a refill? I swear, it's not dangerous" you say, indicating to your almost empty cup. When he returns, you explain further: "Did you notice your hunger quieting while you were helping me? Apparently, being a scary and powerful being comes with a sort of authority. And that authority extends to those who follow me, even in such minor things. Think of it as a health benefit package to employment. It's an automatic incentive program, not anything incurring any sort of debt or cost"
COMMENTARY
-The training scene says hilarious things about Molly's new pain thresholds.
The monk didnt know old Molly, and Molly herself hasnt really noticed it as anything out of the ordinary. I wonder what hapoens if someone a little more normal ever walks in on them.
-On the bright side, he has much better calibrations for if he has to train any other semi-divine students.
I do wonder what he thinks about Molly literally soaking up the first Devil Fighter techniques in weeks, and as part-time study at that. Moderately terrifying I suspect.
-Noting that entire scene of interaction with Devisimar is worth revisiting.
Its notable that he's probing Molly for most of that interaction, and becomes noticeably less tense when she keeps talking with the same attitudes she had at normal.
I wonder if he noticed Molly's new aura of command against CoDs.
Or it might just be that he felt Molly go shintai in the museum. Which he conspicuously didnt ask her about.
Which suggests he probably asked Dresden. Or maybe Michael.
-Worth noting that I dont think Molly mentioned taking lessons from the old monk to Dresden.
So Harry knowing about it is evidence of a significant amount of back channel chatter about Molly's condition going on behind her back between the adults involved in her life.
-Steelskin being unlocked is very good news. Something to buy at next XP spend if we can shake loose 3XP.
I would love the Celestial Eyes/Perception one, but its 4 dots, and unfortunately Devisimar either doesnt know or is unwilling to teach Devil Fighter techniques that advanced.
-Thoroughly enjoyed the Bob/Molly scene.
COMMENTARY
Hmm. Coffee might be a gift that Molly can make and send around for Christmas.
Buy a batch of green beans, then roast and grind them with a Craft Excellency and Tool Constructs, and put them in custom containers. Should last longer than whiskey.
This was a social rout.
I get the impression Thomas' Hunger currently feels like a mouse in the presence of a very large cat.
At least he isnt fleeing the cafe in fear.
I wonder if Justine would ping for CoD
Then again, we dont know when she got infected by Nemesis. She might still be clean.
Molly hasnt noticed they are siblings yet.
I mean, they dont look alike much; Dresden's like three quarters of a foot taller despite being younger, and they have different coloring. But the way they backtalk each other is a dead giveaway. And they both wear matched pentacles around their neck IIRC.
Hmm.
Demonic Primacy of Essence yields a -2 difficulty reduction when dealing with Creatures of Darkness, yet we're rolling at DC5.
That suggests that we would have been rolling at DC7 against Thomas normally, which is described as Challenging.
We still rolled him hilariously though. And he is one of the most powerful Whites alive, at least when he's well fed.
I wonder how Lara would do.
She's several centuries old I think, instead of Thomas' forty some years, but she isnt old enough to count as an ancient vampire. Maybe her position as de facto head of the White Court translates to extra metaphysical oomph.
Pretty poor in ExWoD though.
The Prayer Eating charms that enable it are pretty expensive for what they do, and its minimal gain.
I think the only real resource regen is owning a Dragons Nest.
Sun Denying Spite + Essence*clones rocking Rage Recast aspects + VLE + Wind Born Stride at E3.
No Excellencies, probably getting same Shih Art buffs affecting main body.
Yeah, that's what I said. CSM alone mostly outperforms that charmline. Fulfill Prayer would be interesting if Fortune wasn't just kind of all around better, though.
Yeah, that's factored in. If main body scene-longs buffs like Open Eye of the Hurricane and Thousand Swords affect clones, they are fine-ish. If not, then this all this only slightly numbs the gap, and they need Shih or Bakemono stuff to not sharply fall behind. Preferably both.
I'll write up the "maxed" clone + permitted passives and maxed Molly comparison at some point just to be sure, with support AoE charms factored in for both. As I am eyeballing rn, it really doesn't look good.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Current tally
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[x] It seems I have the powers of a general or a despot and so it it within my reach to proclaim an pause on certain curses upon those who serve me so long as that service is true
And swapping to the vote that has an actual chance of winning because I really don't like Yog's vote.
And swapping to the vote that has an actual chance of winning because I really don't like Yog's vote.
While SGI could be used as support in a fight that is not what it is mostly for IMO, a primordial does not use their sub-souls on the same field of battle it is on, well OK first of all they might not fit on the same field of battle, but even beyond that the main function of such investments of one's will is that they can take independent action. There was some talk a while about maybe making Wolfram and Hart only not evil, welll that is a business that is going to have a lot of delicate positions with access to sensitive information. Being able to get people of literal flawless loialty and very good skills in those positions would be really useful.
Oh no, perfectly loyal underlings is 10/10, would recommend. They got even better with "passive charms are retained" ruling.
We - or I, idk - are mostly grappling with what its signature is supposed to be, which spawns a bunch of (bonus?) clones when you activate the shintai. You activate the shintai when shit goes down.
But against anything that warrants activation of the Shintai... Well, I'll try to write out how the math goes tomorrow or maybe later today.
Just noticed this conversation and I feel like it is something worth drawing attention to in order to make a wider point, information degrades as it is passed along, specifically when we are talking about really esoteric stuff like 'what is a shintai?'
Michael can feel the skien of reality flex as a many-eyed darkness crowned in fire peels back the very laws of nature, but honest as he may be, he is not going to describe the precise nature of his experience to Charity for much the same reason why he did not talk in detail about getting disarmed and what he knows about beings who can do that. So Charity is left with the mechanical details, flight and the armor, the supernatural grace, all things that are obviously impressive but not qualitatively different from all your other powers.
Yeah I will be honest, that does not seem very useful to me either. I mean situationally if you just need more actions in the initiative order maybe, but that does not stand up to many of the alternatives.
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[X] Yog