Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

As an aside, I've been playing with an idea for a ranged weapon for Molly to give us some flexibility and hopefully avoid huge exp investments.
Specifically something based on the ADS, which was the US army's pain beam project that was under development from 2002-2007.

The basic idea is to use a special wide are microwave emitter to induce pain in people's skin without long term damage. Which it was actually very effective at; the average person hits their pain threshold and bails at 3 seconds of exposure, and I don't think any test subject could stand more than 5.

The thing about this is that it's a function of power and wavelength. You can increase the power to increase the damage, though it's considered too cruel and inefficient energy wise to use as an actual weapon with mundane tech.

For us that might not entirely be the case, because PoRA provides power for a broken system. We could design something that has a man portable emitter/capacitor system attached to a huge generator element and then only build the emitter part. Which ideally would give us a weapon that starts at "painful but harmless" and cranks up to "flay ray" at need.

Which is pretty nasty, but gives us a range of lethality to work across for different situations. At the high end I think there's a good argument for it being outright lethal damage, and TA applying to it so we can shoot Agg at people just as we could with a gun.

The other advantage of this would be that we're talking about a point and click aiming since it's an em radiation weapon, which should simplify actually hitting things.

We could also build full versions around portable diesel generators, add a microcontroller and some actuators, then stick a cyber devil in it for our own sentry turrets if the concept works out.

Building something like that could be complicated, but since we're talking about a technology that seems to be designed to be appropriated by the wicked city and Lanka in addition to being contemporary to the quest's timeline I think it's likely in reach.

tldr: we're playing the villain exalt type, let's build ourselves a death ray and give an irresponsible amount of power to our cyber devils. :V
I think our relativly cheap (XP-wise) sandblaster should take priority.

For people who can be stopped by a low-intensity pain-ray, our sheer intimidation is propably enough.
For those that require higher power, might as well use the Sandstrike Blast.
 
I think our relativly cheap (XP-wise) sandblaster should take priority.

For people who can be stopped by a low-intensity pain-ray, our sheer intimidation is propably enough.
For those that require higher power, might as well use the Sandstrike Blast.
Sandblast strike is deeply annoying to me because it's paying exp for a fixed weapon. It can't get any better or really benefit from many synergies.

And the point about the pain ray is that making it not dangerous is the hard part. If you add more power you can make it much more dangerous. PoRA, which we want anyway, would allow us to design one that's supposed to be used with a larger power source and just carry the broken off emitter around we could dial in how much hurt we want.

Getting your skin burned off is pretty damn lethal past a certain point, so I think the max output would qualify for TA as well. Which means we could do Agg damage with it, unlike the sandblast charm.
 
Sandblast strike is deeply annoying to me because it's paying exp for a fixed weapon. It can't get any better or really benefit from many synergies.
In E2, there were various elemental lenses that allowed to boost the damage from blasty charms like Sandblast.

We'd need to discuss it with DP, but some some sort of a crafted foci should be possible at Enchanting 2-3.

But yeah, I sure wish it scaled with something.
 
I think we're better off making super-tech smartguns (well, smart grenade launchers) rather than messing around with microwave guns or even ranged charms
 
Votes as they stand.
Adhoc vote count started by Yzarc on Jan 28, 2023 at 9:44 AM, finished with 42 posts and 7 votes.

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Do you mean When the Tigers Broke Free? Even if she could somehow force an engagement (which, as you point out, she can't), I'm still not sure how willing she'd be to break every road into a one-mile circle of Chicago.
I don't think that it actually breaks the roads. It renders them temporarily unusable.
 
Regarding ranged weapons - combat (industrial) lasers. PoRA solves energy supply issue. Hell, it might even solve ammunition issues for kinetic weapons. In which case, make a f*cking boltgun, WH40K style. That's the cheapest option, XP-wise.
 
Regarding ranged weapons - combat (industrial) lasers. PoRA solves energy supply issue. Hell, it might even solve ammunition issues for kinetic weapons. In which case, make a f*cking boltgun, WH40K style. That's the cheapest option, XP-wise.
"Do you have a permit for that doom Lazer you're carrying?"
"I still have the files if you want them, just deleting stuff off a computer possessed by one of Clippy's friends does not actually get rid of it beyond recall. Do you want it?"



He looks at you funny. "What for?"



To be honest you must be returning a look of equal incomprehension. "Leverage? A bargaining chip with enemies the White Cout or the Raiths in particular? The prestige of being the one who break the story on a scandal this size? Though I guess we could keep it to use against Madrigal Raith in the context of the White Court given that he is mixed up with this whole Thule Society Naagloshii thing."



Harry just shakes his head and mutters something about swimming with the sharks.



Well duh, that is why you make a shark-tooth knife to defend yourself.

I would have added

"Being a politically aware to you can do your duty as a U.S. citizen at the next election."
 
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"Do you have a permit for that doom Lazer you're carrying?"
Funnily enough, doom lasers don't require a license to carry, as long as you have no power supply. And just to demonstrate what I am talking about:
This is the easy to google portable laser cutting tool:


The thing itself is a size of a rifle. The power supply (what the cables are for) is about a size of a truck. There are systems (I have seen the specific one I am linking to) that cut reinforced concrete from a hundred meters away. Since PoRA makes power supplies unneeded and solves the issues with lens upkeep, and we can make fantastic quality diamonds (for lenses and heat transfer), we could, in fact, make a doom lazer that should cut through armor plates like butter.
 
Regarding ranged weapons - combat (industrial) lasers. PoRA solves energy supply issue. Hell, it might even solve ammunition issues for kinetic weapons. In which case, make a f*cking boltgun, WH40K style. That's the cheapest option, XP-wise.
PoRA is unreliable with our current stats.

I'd much prefer either the charm or a real weapon.

Thinking about our stats, a throwing-weapon would propably be best for us.
Raising Athletics is a good idea with many applications, raising Firearms is limited.

Getting some enchanted knife or chakram that returns to our hand would be perfect.
 
PoRA is unreliable with our current stats.

I'd much prefer either the charm or a real weapon.

Thinking about our stats, a throwing-weapon would propably be best for us.
Raising Athletics is a good idea with many applications, raising Firearms is limited.

Getting some enchanted knife or chakram that returns to our hand would be perfect.
Both appearance and technology are good things to raise. What kind of exalt are we if we are not at Appearance 5+? We have to have some vanity. And even now, 4 dice (or 6 if we have WHWH active) at 6 difficulty (or lower, depending on BSM and other charms being active) should reliably give us a success.
 
Sooo... I've been reading up on various WoD Disciplines to see what I can steal to use in this quest and I found this thing in one of the early source books on blood magic

Oneiromancy

Source[16]
  • Portents: Receive visions after waking that allegorically refer to future events of one's life
  • Foresee: As Portents, but works on another individual
  • Dreamspeak: Send messages to someone through their dreams
  • Augury: Gain answers to questions from another person's dreams
  • Reveal the Heart's Dreams: Learn what someone most desires and fears from their dreams
Note the distinct lack of anything remotely blood or vampire related in this thing. I think it might be better dream magic than the mortal sorcery of the same name and you get usable information about a person without the utterly broken power that is Divination.

So what do you guys think would this be a good fit for Rose? I am not going to change it if you guys do not want to since it is a bit of a nerf at higher levels given the lack of dream manifestation.
 
Sooo... I've been reading up on various WoD Disciplines to see what I can steal to use in this quest and I found this thing in one of the early source books on blood magic

Oneiromancy

Source[16]
  • Portents: Receive visions after waking that allegorically refer to future events of one's life
  • Foresee: As Portents, but works on another individual
  • Dreamspeak: Send messages to someone through their dreams
  • Augury: Gain answers to questions from another person's dreams
  • Reveal the Heart's Dreams: Learn what someone most desires and fears from their dreams
Note the distinct lack of anything remotely blood or vampire related in this thing. I think it might be better dream magic than the mortal sorcery of the same name and you get usable information about a person without the utterly broken power that is Divination.

So what do you guys think would this be a good fit for Rose? I am not going to change it if you guys do not want to since it is a bit of a nerf at higher levels given the lack of dream manifestation.
Seems like a really good fit to me. That's a nice powerset for an NPC auxiliary to have. It's not like we're going to be bringing Rosie with us on Vampire hunts or anything strenuous.
 
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