Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

In V20 celerity is a blood point per action. It makes sense to keep Black Wind one Demon chi per round given the additional limits on it and Wan Kuei's smaller pools
System: Each point of Celerity adds one die to every Dexterity-related dice roll. In addition, the player can spend one blood point to take an extra action up to the number of dots he has in Celerity at the beginning of the relevant turn; this expenditure can go beyond her normal Generation maximum. Any dots used for extra actions, however, are no longer available for Dexterity-related rolls during that turn. These additional actions must be physical (e.g., the vampire cannot use a mental Discipline like Dominate multiple times in one turn), and extra actions occur at the end of the turn (the vampire's regular action still takes place per her initiative roll)
Interesting, I missread that one.
Then yes, Vamps will burn through their blood pretty quickly to use Celerity to its full potential.
 
I was assuming people would name vote along with whichever loot vote they wanted, which is part of why I didn't include a loot vote. Would I be better changing the first line to a plan name to vote for?

When I wrote *Too Long, Didn't Read* as the way to reduce the quote, I was being literal, your vote is too long, it is not going to even be read, something the size of Arlatan's proposition is more likely if you don't want to get this effect. Even in universe, this message is so long it's never going to work.

And the problem is that the main vote crafters are still discussing mechanics and forgot about this part of the vote at this point it would seems.

Edit:

Half a mind to find a way to write to remember to discuss what message we want to send in bright neon colors that flash as much as possible just to make sure its's seen, yes it would be petty, yes I would not be liked for it, but at this point I would be willing to take the hit to my reputation if the vote ended up discussed.

Main thing stopping me is that I'm pretty sure it would end up a discussion about what I did instead of a discussion about what I said. If you see what I mean.
 
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Okay, nobody responded at all to my post, so I'm going to just do a write-in myself. At least then we'll have something.

[x] Write in message to send to Emma-O:
-[x] You lean in close, a smile that is more a bearing of teeth. "Here is the message I want you to send your master, Lady Eiko: There once was a fool who called himself king of night eternal. He stole a piece of jade from a rival, and in his carelessness lost it, for he did not understand it. The piece of jade blossomed into a Green Sun, and the fool coveted its power, although it was not for him. He reached out his arm to try and steal its power for himself, but it had grown too great for him to take, and in his arrogance he had dared to harm those that the Sun had declared under her protection, so to punish him for his presumption the entire arm with which he had reached out was lost to him forever, except for a few weak fingers who were not directly involved in harming what the Sun protected, who were allowed to scurry back to their master as a warning. And the Green Sun declared to the fingers that if their master ever dared again to reach out and harm what she had claimed, there would be no fingers left to scurry back. And if the fool dared to flaunt her decree, to dance along the lines of her words while denying her intent, to play with technicalities and word games like the Fair Folk are won't, or to continually harass her people with only hands he wouldn't miss, the Green Sun would reach out herself. She would seek, and she would hunt, and she would burn that which the fool hadn't meant to reach out, in exactly the time and manner where she could hurt him the most, and continue to do so until either the fool learned his lesson, or he was so weakened by the Sun's burns that he was brought down by one of his ever-hungry rivals, and was no longer a threat to the Sun or her people. Do you understand my message, Lady Eiko?"
-[x] If she doesn't, strip away the metaphor in the most blunt and brutal way possible. Once she understands, send them on their way. "I have to go get my people back safely, and cremate an arm that doesn't yet know its dead."


Figured I'd re-use and tweak my poem from before. If anyone has something better, feel free to use it, or to tweak it however you want to make your own version. I really don't care about the loot vote, so do whatever.

Seriously, why am I the only one interested in this part of the vote?
For my part it's that I think victory and destroying the soul of a greater akuma he sees fit to allow the title Kakuri's Will on Earth is message enough.

There's something to be said for sending a literal message, but generally I'd tend towards something with a more elaborate scene and laconic explicit response if doing anything at all.

Something like:
[X] Plan Sending a Scam E(iko)mail
-[X] No, you are not going to take something like this from one who is not your enemy
-[X] [Message Stunt] In the ruins of the lobby Molly moved towards Eiko with a feline grace, walking on the surface of the ankle deep water like solid ground.
—[X] Around her the light of her anima seemed to grow deeper somehow as it flashed among the falling water, like the embers of a cigarette pressed into the flesh of the mundane world.
—[X] As the green hues water dripped from the broken idols of her armor like tears, she looked down and then up as if search for silent watchers.
—[X] Finally, she spoke two words: "Do Not". Her voice didn't drip with venom, nor burn with power. There wasn't a shadow of malice or the creeping chill of cruelty.
—[X] It did however, have an unsettling weight to it. A certainty as inexorable as the sunrise and as alien as the light of distant stars. A touch of something that could not break brushing against a world that would


Which is pretty flowery as a stunt, but the actual words aren't edging into territory where we might accidentally give ourselves enough rope to hang ourselves with by trying to get too clever about things.

It's also fun because it can equally be taken as a message to Eiko about how unwise betrayal would be while the object lesson is fresh.


Plan name because bad wordplay is the best kind of wordplay, and this is technically part of the con we're trying on him.
 
Do you see my post on this? I think there's an argument to be made for the rules as intended allowing you to make one defensive roll against a group, but requiring "sequential" ones within the same turn.

So Murphy would make one defensive roll against the red king and say a duke attacking at the same time, then reduced for every bonus attack on the same turn.

The multi attacker rule basically just makes being attacked by multiple opponents at once the same as making the worst defensive roll of an equal sized set of attacks from a single source under this interpretation.

Exalts being able to ignore that as the book already specifies would set it up so you can't overwhelm them with waves of mortals. You need the supernatural mojo to operate at super speed or to hit them with a single source of damage significant enough to break their defenses.

I think this makes sense for chaff, but not meaningful NPC enemies.
 
It's worth considering that one of the roles Holden mentions that a Celestial Exalt could play is as the main antagonist for a player rin group of WoD supernaturals. That means that they're intended to be defeatable by four or five experienced vampires or mages or werewolves
 
I have to say that I don't see any point to BronzeTingue's write-in. It doesn't send any useful message to Emma-O or anyone else that might here it.

It's just empty posturing that accomplishes nothing.
 
I have to say that I don't see any point to BronzeTingue's write-in. It doesn't send any useful message to Emma-O or anyone else that might here it.

It's just empty posturing that accomplishes nothing.
There is no real message to send here.

We have to sell the fight and its aftermath for Emma-O and that's all there is.
We can't send any message here that will have an impact.

The message that might get through is soul-killing the greater Akuma after we are done with this theatre.
 
I mean, that's a perfectly correct way of modeling super-speed? If you have a fight between two opponents able to hurt each other, and only one has super-speed, the one with it wins, no contests, nothing beats someone being able to react and attack you before you do anything.

In fact:


I mean Molly also has super speed. If anything she is faster. Which is supposed to be represented by initiative, but with the rules we are working with initiative doesn't seem to be the god stat it normally is in WoD.
 
There is no real message to send here.

We have to sell the fight and its aftermath for Emma-O and that's all there is.
We can't send any message here that will have an impact.

The message that might get through is soul-killing the greater Akuma after we are done with this theatre.

The message we could send here is to other supernatural powers that we are a party they can negotiate with.

That's why I propose that Emma-O can returns the hostages and pay reparations, as that.

We do not want to get into a war to the knife with a Yama King. A single combat focused greater akuma could go through Molly and her current allies like a hot knife through butter.

And this is particularly true for a Yama King we may well want to help redeem.
 
I mean Molly also has super speed. If anything she is faster. Which is supposed to be represented by initiative, but with the rules we are working with initiative doesn't seem to be the god stat it normally is in WoD.

Not exactly? Molly does have some super-speed, but not the same kind and Eiko had a superior one: Moly sprint fast and react fast, the first is irrelevant, the second is what saves her, Eiko reacts fast and attack fast, not the same thing, and why her attacks are dangerous.

Molly have super senses and some ability to follow on it, Eiko has actual super-speed with the action economy and the senses that go with it for a limited time. Molly can win here because she is a tank and the difference in speed isn't the worse, but a fight against any opponents that can literally run circles around you before you punch is decided before it even begins, so representing celerity with a system that will absolutely murder anyone who doesn't have their own form of super-speed is correct.

Edit:

A single combat focused greater akuma could go through Molly and her current allies like a hot knife through butter.

:Citation Needed:
 
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Greater Akuma can get ten dot disciplines (the, 'Oops, was that Bangladesh?' scale), throw around stupidly large dice pools, and the like. Even if you cut that and restrict them to having nine dot disciplines, they're still going to be able to throw down things like nine dot Black Wind, Iron Mountain, Kai and the like. Elder level Kai includes such effects as 'You take seventy unsoakable unparryable levels of damage' aka, you just die without a perfect defence.

They're basically walking apocalypses by the rules we have for them.
 
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Elder level Kai includes such effects as 'You take seventy unsoakable unparryable levels of damage' aka, you just die without a perfect defence.
What?
This is the only straight-damage power I can find under Kiai:
Cry of Blood
At this level, the Kuei-jin's Kiai powers become so great that he can cause physical injury merely by raising his voice. System: The Kuei-jin spends a point of Yin Chi and rolls Stamina + Occult (difficulty 7). Every success causes the victim to take a number of health levels of aggravated damage equal to the Kuei-jin's Dharma level. Wraiths, spirits, demons, and others who are not entirely corporeal are immune to this power. At the Storyteller's option, characters who are near the Kueijin or his victim when Cry of Blood is used may suffer hearing damage, from temporary deafness (1-10 turns) to rupturing of the eardrums
Sure, dealing your Dharma-level in Agg damage is heavy stuff, but that's not seventy and not unsoakable either.
 
Dharma-level per success so 5 dharma and 4 success = 20 agg, perfect or die.

And it's levels of damage, not dice, which means that in the WoD combat resolution it skips over parrying and soaking, as they're at the stage of dice to hit and dice of damage. Once you talk about levels you're after then.

And Greater Akuma have virtual dharma 7 and can get basic dice pools of twenty and burn chi or use Internalise for more dice or successes.

Right, you can certainly read it like that, but I think that's a bit far out there.

In the same book the higher-leveled Yin and Yang Prana offence-powers deal much less damage.

It's not ambiguous in a 'but you can read it like that' kind of way, it explicitly says dharma levels of damage per success.

And yes, the higher level Yin and Yang Prana powers are a bit shit. The Companion book isn't very good at that kind of thing, because they assumed they wouldn't be in player hands they didn't try to balance them at all.
 
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And yes, the higher level Yin and Yang Prana powers are a bit shit. The Companion book isn't very good at that kind of thing, because they assumed they wouldn't be in player hands they didn't try to balance them at all.
Cry of Blood is not even an Elder Discipline/ not-for-players Power, it's just level 5.

The ability to instagib an Elder Vampire with 8 Fortitude or Iron Mountain in one not-even-very-lucky roll is just nuts, completly out of tune with all other Disciplines I've seen so far.

That's just shit balancing or careless writing.
 
Well, this was an interesting update and went about how I expected. Why are people so... upset? confused? yes, molly is an exalted, a very fresh one, but that doesn't mean others are helpless either you know.
If all those mooks empty their guns while Ablations of Brass and Fire allows us to ignore them, then they propably won't get a chance to reload
But they are not inherently immune to well-prepared foes ambushing them.
PCs shouldn't be immune to things like that, takes the thrill out of it.
WoD is not shonen to have some sort of power levels that make you immune to anything below your own level.

That's a case with canon WoD splats too. Like, a rank 1 werewolf could die to a gang with shotguns (not even silver) if delirium doesn't work. or he could cast magical darkness on them.
Or for another example, as a mokole (were-reptiles) you can start with something like 17 soak dice and ability to inflict delirium on even other supernaturals. at rank 1.
A single combat focused greater akuma could go through Molly and her current allies like a hot knife through butter.
In the same book the higher-leveled Yin and Yang Prana offence-powers deal much less damage.
yeap, kuei-jin disciplines are designed weird XD
you can begin play with 2 extra hands in demon shintai (mitigates penalties for extra actions) and 2 levels in black wind, spend background for spirit-awakened swords. Now you are swinging around 4 aggro damage swords, 4 times each turn at least.
*Also, black wind has weird explanation in the book. do you even spend demon chi when using it in ways that please your demon?
Cry of Blood is not even an Elder Discipline/ not-for-players Power, it's just level 5.
The ability to instagib an Elder Vampire with 8 Fortitude or Iron Mountain in one not-even-very-lucky roll is just nuts, completly out of tune with all other Disciplines I've seen so far.
yeap, some things development team really messed up.
 
Here's the important part:
Opened Eye, or Fivefold Bulwark does explicitly work against all attacks, not just one per turn.
That's why it's 5 Dots, that's why it is so important.
Because you get an automatic defence that can't be overwhelmed by numbers or extra-actions.
You're missing my point. Open Eye/Fivefold Bulwark give an automatic defense, saving your dice and keeping DCs down.
Without them, under the rules quoted upthread, you cant act without stacking dice penalties up for yourself.
Just attacking and defending raises the DC for the second action from 6 to 8, an increase of 33%.

Bloodless Murk can be used to both dodge one attack and teleport to a nearby shadow to avoid more attacks.
Who Strikes the Wind can be used against Essence +1 attacks if you spend 2 Essence on the use.

None of that is absolute, but it can get you out of a bad situation.
And again, you only need one action to change the field back in your favor in many situations.

One Erupting Fury Rebuke to break all the mortals toys and render them harmless, one Sun-Denying Spite to cover the battlefield in darkness and make ranged attacks against you impossible, one Faster Than Sight to make mortals loose track of you.

You have a lot of option to avoid bad situations, or to improve the situation if you do get into one.
And with an Exalts inherent toughness and a bit of help from Ox-Body you are extremly likely to get the chance to improve the situation even if you are somehow caught in an ambush.

I can't overstate how much squishier vampires can be due to their lack of extra-health and limited soak.
Bloodless Murk doesnt work in direct sunlight, or against anti-Creatures of Darkness magic or anti-CoD magic-enhanced attacks.
Who Strikes The Wind doesnt work if you're still.
All the Infernal PDs are deliberately hobbled like that in ExWoD as a carryover from Ex2.

===
WoD Vampires have their Fortitude-equivalent, and can have combat regen by spending blood points.
Kueijin would have to spend Yang chi, but can similarly heal.

Kuejin using Demon Arts literally have an overdrive charm equivalent regenerating Demon Chi/turn, so they arent running short of combat juice midfight like Exalts might. Risk of Fire Soul, but thats it.


In-setting?

Rampires in the Dresdenverse are supernaturally tough enough that if you dont hit their blood reservoir, they can walk off headshots; Murphy had to shoot one half a dozen times in the head before it stopped moving in Love Hurts. And Dresden has cut them in half with fire and had them still alive and screaming in Changes.

Whites have literal Wolverine regen as long as they are wellfed; we see Madrigal Raith regrow his ankles after they got shotgunned by Thomas Raith in Proven Guilty.
And Blampires are just fucking bullshit against anything not a bane like garlic or sunlight or holy water or fire.

You underestimate just how tough a lot of supernaturals are to mortal attack in our place.
Its just that in canon most of them are seen in fights with ppl who know their strengths and weaknesses.
And Fire always deals Agg, especially when wielded by wizards.

Eiko is an Elder, or at least equal to one in some aspects (maybe thanks to investments).
She transformed into her Demon Shintai in 2 turns, that's a level 6 power.
Probably an Investment.

She doesnt appear to be Elder-equivalent to my eyes, which implies at least the potential for broader based competency outside her primary focus. If she was Dharma 6-equivalent, for example, you'd have been looking at 6 dot trait maximums, and 12-ish dice pools prior to any buffs.

I would be much less cavalier about a shikome assassin that potentially had Dex 6, Brawl 6 as base stats before activating Demon Shintai or Black Wind.
Or Appearance 6/Charisma 6/Manipulation 6.

Remember:
A combat Attribute 6/Ability 6 shikome with Demon Shintai 5 and Black Wind 2 has effectively 18 dice by putting all their BW points into auto successes.

Shintai plus VLE. We had high soak and enough damage to kill it very quickly.
Also it wasted time by using that Breathweapon and rolling badly for it.

Okay, I'll stop arguing now because it's really too late for me.
But before getting further down in the details you have to keep in mind that we are already very capable for an Essence 2 Exalted.
Vampires need good weapons or Disciplines even beyond multi-action speed to have a realistic chance of injuring us.
Eiko could do it because Demon Shintai is a big boost, I think.
A Whampire would have much worse odds, unless they are fully combat-specced with both Celerity and high Potency to give their attacks the necessary impact.

Just calm down, keep in mind that it's not necessarily intended for young Exalts to solo Elder Vampires or groups of well-prepared mortals, unless the Exalt is pretty combat-focussed.
We are pretty combat-focussed, though not as much as an all-in Dawn or an Infernal with Lanka/Skinned Alive as favored could be.

Good night.
With shintai up and an Excellency, we're rolling 26 dice(28 with a stunt) on Dex + Melee and had a HP pool of 23 HLs.
Like I said, we'd have gotten mauled attempting to 1v1 the godmonster Iku Turso if we had to worry about getting hammered by multiple actions and had to suffer penalties for each parry.

Also its suggesting that we were at mortal risk with Don Juan's rampire covert action teams when we approached them alone.
And against the Fomor servitors accompanying Rhys the Ragged.
And against the malks in Undertown.

Essentially, a single Rampire hit team is now a mortal threat, which is not what I was led to believe by the ExWoD mission statement.
Do recall this was the vision of ExWoD:
Picture this, if you will:

Elysium. All the best-dressed monsters in the city have gathered to see and be seen. There's
a commotion outside the doors, and conversations stall as immortals tilt their heads and
listen. The door opens and an unconscious ghoul falls through it. A wave of alarm ripples
through the room, followed by anger and hunger.

The figure in the doorway is human, you see. Mortal. Some of them can smell the sweat on
his skin, hear his heart pounding in his chest. It's just a kid, 18, 20 tops, skinny, with a wild
mop of carroty hair, standing there backlit by a street light. He's got a gym bag. The room's
silent enough to hear a pin drop, certainly quiet enough that everyone hears him swallow
and unzip the bag. Half of them could be across the room in a heartbeat to end this, but
eternity's a long time and there are, eventually, so few surprises.

He pulls off his shirt, revealing nothing very impressive, and then brings two objects out of
the gym bag. The first is the saddest, shittiest mall katana you could ever imagine. The
second is a rubber horse-head mask, which he pulls on before stepping out into the gallery
light.

The first vampire is just starting to laugh when the icon of a blazing sun erupts, shining
gold through the rubber mask, and then the killing starts.
A single Solar walking into a nightclub full of vampires, and killing everything that even looked at him funny.


This has nothing to do with soak though, how multiple actions work relative to parry and dodge is independent of what you are, if it worked like that it would have to work like that for everyone. Murphy fighting the Red King could parry/dodge every single one of his super speed attacks as easily as the last no matter how many he throws up. This is not a rule for Exalted, if you want Exalted exceptions to the rule on multiple actions then you guys should get a charm or other form of magic that does that
The point I was making is that rules for Exalts =/= rules for mortals.
This holds true for soak, healing times, countermagic defenses et cetera. It isnt really fair to use mortals as a relevant comparison.

Someone wielding a Sword designed to level the battlefield of fights against everything from hobs to Blampires to Fallen Angels, Dragons and Titans doesnt really operate by mundane mortal rules in combat either.
At least as long as they wield the Sword.

And sometimes when they dont; we do see Micnael deal with multiple Red Court attackers in Grave Peril without Amoracchius, and he ignored multiple attacker and multiple attack prmalties

Exalted canonically had reflexive flurrybreakers for dealing with multiple attacks, to avoid the embarassment of getting killed by mortals with sledgehammers. Or in this case, handguns.
Their general absence here in the charmset implies they arent necessary,


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What Im trying to convey is that under these rules? Base InfernalMolly is already carrying penalties to her actions.
Just deciding to attack and defend represents a process of stacking a 33% difficulty increase on her chosen second action, as it goes from what would normally be DC6 to DC8.

Scenario 1: One Action In A Turn(Excellency, no buffs)
Full Attack/Full Defense: 20 dice at DC6

Scenario 2: Two Actions In A Turn(Excellency, no buffs)
Attack: -1 dice, +1 DC = 19 dice at DC7
Defend: -2 dice, +2 DC = 18 dice at DC8

Scenario 3: One Action In A Turn(No Excellency, no buffs)
Full Attack or Full Defense: 9 dice at DC6

Scenario 4: Two Actions In A Turn(No Excellency, no buffs)
Attack: -1 dice, +1DC = 8 dice at DC7
Defend: -2 dice, +2DC = 7 dice at DC8

▪▪▪▪▪
Forgive me if it seems a little pedantic.
But mechanically, this appears to be a rather significant nerf to Molly's capabilities and survivability.
In my opinion.
 
*Also, black wind has weird explanation in the book. do you even spend demon chi when using it in ways that please your demon?
Three types of chi: Yin, Yang and Demon.
You spend Demon Chi on Demon Arts like Demon Shintai and Black Wind.

Thing is, kueijin have what Exalted would classify as overdrive: chi recovery, at least for Demon Chi.
So if they are using a Demon Art like Shintai or Black Wind, they are recovering Demon Chi almost as fast, or faster, than they are spending it.

So while an Exalt is managing Essence in combat, kueijin generally know they wont run out of combat juice.
They might frenzy, but not run dry of juice.
 
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