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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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BronzeTongue said:
An example being something like needing to use a suboptimal wiring layout in a bit of custom electronics because the craftsman assembling it has to be able to reach certain places at certain steps. MHM doesn't add tools, but it does let you do things similar to what a lot of small tools would and use what you do have in otherwise impossible ways.
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Or as Yog pointed out, it can help with welding.

One of the most frequent problem you can get when welding little things is *I really wish I had more hands*, because you have the welder in one hand, the solder wire in the other, and no third and fourth hands to take the things you want to weld.

Anyway, my plan is non valid, changing vote:

[X] Yog
 
Yog said:
I will commit the cardinal sin and argue with QM.

Imagine a mechanical clock, like in this video. See the large amount of layered gears and springs? You have to assemble them in order, because after you put one gear in, you can't get to the other with a screwdriver or a tiny wrench. That limits you options in making such a mechanism. Same as when you, for example, are wiring something. You need to put cables into place, or push them through narrow holes. Or if you need to cut grooves into something on the inside of a tiny curved hole. Without telekinesis, even with any possible tool, that might not be possible, because you simply can't get the tool in - there's simply no place for it. With telekinesis you can, because you can exert force on an object, like tightening a screw, holding a spring compressed, etc.

Maybe this won't apply to armor, though I think it should, but it's definitely not just a scale thing.


Yes! Thus! Exactly. Which is why I think pool / 2 bonus to craft is a good idea.
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Hmm... fair, let's say it does not apply to strictly magical projects for which the limitations are literally arcane have nothing to do with space large or small.
 
When we literally already have a perfect tool always, I don't see how it would help. Need to pick something up, you have a hell crane, need to inscribe something you have a machine that does that.
 
DragonParadox said:
If someone randomly pokes them you will get a call to explode the world's most unfortunate vampire, for less random things and being proactive you might want that Helen action.
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Fair enough. I guess they have lived this long, so they don't need their hands held all the time.

That said, I'm almost looking forward to the first time we have to do that. Obviously a bad situation, but the idea of some random vamp going out to get lunch and getting popped like a bloody pimple by surprise exalted interrupt is hysterical.

Molly: "My itinerary today: Investigate Outsider plots, make tanks for a mercenary god, and twist the head off some punk ass vampire"


:V
 
The rules of the charm are very clear though: it doesn't give any bonus, it allows you to substitute your dice pool for the results of your Mind Hand.

If you have high Occult and low Craft this can still be a great deal if you're using difficulty reducers to get a very good result on the Mind Hand roll.

Arguably there's also a potential exploit with using a boosted MhM roll to get more than ten dice on a Craft roll and then use the Craft Excellency on top of that…
 
Earth-Destroyer said:
When we literally already have a perfect tool always, I don't see how it would help. Need to pick something up, you have a hell crane, need to inscribe something you have a machine that does that.
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I agree with this. The Tool Charm always gives us the perfect tool(s) for the job, right?

If we're working on something that needs 16 different independent manipulator arms to hold it in place and perform adjustments mid-construction, the Tool Charm would do that.

How does MHM help when we already have as many tool appendages as we need?
 
Earth-Destroyer said:
When we literally already have a perfect tool always, I don't see how it would help. Need to pick something up, you have a hell crane, need to inscribe something you have a machine that does that.
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Goldfish said:
I agree with this. The Tool Charm always gives us the perfect tool(s) for the job, right?

If we're working on something that needs 16 different independent manipulator arms to hold it in place and perform adjustments mid-construction, the Tool Charm would do that.

How does MHM help when we already have as many tool appendages as we need?
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Because in a number of cases, especially in small scale assemblies, such tools can't exist. There's literally no place to put a tool in. You need some sort of telekinetic assembly.


Like, I really would give a lot to have this in my job.
Earth-Destroyer said:
Now the additional arms form by rage recast, those could make craft to faster.
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That probably expands the bonus. At least in my opinion. You get better at multitasking.


Alratan said:
Arguably there's also a potential exploit with using a boosted MhM roll to get more than ten dice on a Craft roll and then use the Craft Excellency on top of that…
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Craft excellency first, then bonus from MHM. Same as with WHWH
 
Independent of the crafting mechanics stuff, there are a few things I think we should put on the list to build if we can work out the AP for it.

First would be a CSR necklace. Right now we're making do with bottles of bleach in cars, but having a little bit of liquid in some jewelry that we can open up to hop in and out of would let us use it more on the fly. We could also do things like smuggle ourselves places by hoping in and having someone else carry it around.

It's not absolutely necessary, but it's a nice convenience factor for something we're going to be using a lot.

Second would be making that BSM layer suit. Something to put on which lets us subtly use the charm at all times instead of running off to the restroom to have a bath in the middle of negotiations with vampires or whatever when we need it.

Third would be simple ammunition for MHM. Explosives should be trivial, as well as something like a bracelet we can trivially break up into shrapnel. Not a lot, but just something to help if we get stuck somewhere and the environment doesn't have anything super useful.
 
[x] Plan Investing in the future
-[x] Tools Redeemed: Thinking back on that paraphernalia you looted from the Fomori tantalizing insights come to mind... and more immediately relevant it will mean you can finally stop mooching of Harry's equipment. (Gain Alchemy Laboratory Halved XP price for reaching Alchemy 4)
-[x] A friend in need. You promised Rosie that you would help and so you will, with problems material and ethereal
--[x] Talking to the family, you do not like Mrs Wilsom and the feeling is mutual, but as your experience at church yesterday showed you do not have to like someone to turn on the supernatural charm. Maybe you could work something out, or at least explain some of what her daughter is going through
-[x] Blackest Name: In the final ritual to help Arawn you invoked something old and hungry, something that seemed to resonate with the purpose of the ritual, its name writ in a long forgotten tongue. Thanks to Bob you now know it involves the would-be-Draculas of the supernatural world, the Black Court. Maybe Lydia can help
-[x] Restoring the Last Station: Restoration efforts have been going well and according to Adam some more of the people down in the tunnels have shown interest in their newfound wealth and comfort (6/10)
-[x] Cauldron Bubble, your new friends in the Ordo Lebetis could use more help, maybe not as... enthusiastic as the last time, but they are small fish in a very big and scary pond
--[x] See what's up with Helen, there is something eating away at Helen you are sure of it, something dark and strange, dark and strange is your specialty
-[x] Chariots for the One Eye: As part of her deal to ally against the Will of Kakuri you promised Odin vehicles hit for his warriors, time to show your chops.
-[x] Forge an armlet that activates CCC as a permanent basis. [Stunt] A band of solid gold inlaid with diamonds forming the image of a Glorious sunrise.

Get our debt cleared, work on the dragonnest, and deal with social problems this month. While setting up to learn alchemy at the next chance, and investigating the neverborn.
 
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Yog said:
Because in a number of cases, especially in small scale assemblies, such tools can't exist. There's literally no place to put a tool in. You need some sort of telekinetic assembly.
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Scientists and engineers are already capable of making tools so small they can only be seen under powerful magnification in order to assemble machines composed of a relatively small number of individual molecules. If this is possible using mundane technology, it definitely should not be an issue for the Tool Charm.
 
So... I'm not going to lie I like the idea of Molly making all these infernal tools dace in a cyberpunk ballet, but at the same time I have been convinced that adding dice was not intended by the author and I do just make a very long argument about that speed aspect of the shintai charm that depended on that so what MHM is going to do vis a vis crafting is allow you to take on vastly larger projects, more so than the station. Like do you want to build your own battle-ship? I am not going to question that. Do you want to build a giant dome over the city of Chicago that is invested with the power of its patron god? Mab might have something to say about it but I won't. Does that sound fair @Yog ?
 
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I mean, we get ANY tool we need to do something. We do not need to build tools to build tools. We just get the tool required to do the task regardless of how advanced it is. We should be able to manifest tools that can theoretically exist but cannot be built by us or anyone else at the technology level that exists.

If we need to manipulate something at the atomic level would we not just summon up a nanite swarm? Maybe a gravity manipulator to move stuff around inside other stuff. Maybe a forcefield generator. Any tool that is at least in theory POSIBLE to build can be summoned, even tools that do not yet exist.

I mean, clearly path of least resistance is applied and we get the more practical option if such an option exists, but Exalted tends to treat absolute statements as actually absolute. ANY TOOL is an absolute statement.

On that note you can use nanites to build more nanites. I vote we make a nanite swarm for Chippy. He could use a better body than our cellphone.
 
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A thought about Rendered Villain Dispersal, I note that drinking a hiding place disrupts it but aside from the ick factor is there anything preventing an Infernal from hiding in a person?

Humans are basically just bags of various liquids after all.
 
XenonPrime said:
A thought about Rendered Villain Dispersal, I note that drinking a hiding place disrupts it but aside from the ick factor is there anything preventing an Infernal from hiding in a person?
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If her hiding place is disrupted or dispersed (such as by dashing out the contents of a cup of coffee, or someone drinking it), or else evaporates or otherwise vanishes, the Infernal is forcibly ejected.
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Sadly, this is not allowed. Alas.

...That said, hiding in a set of very damp clothes or exceeding wet hair might be possible. Hiding in someone's bloodstream and then exiting via sweat is also technically legal, I think.
 
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Goldfish said:
Scientists and engineers are already capable of making tools so small they can only be seen under powerful magnification in order to assemble machines composed of a relatively small number of individual molecules. If this is possible using mundane technology, it definitely should not be an issue for the Tool Charm.
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As a scientist and engineer - you are vastly overestimating us, and I am badly failing at explaining why this would be a gamechanger and no amount of tools, safe for effector fields, which are essentially telekinesis, or star trek replicators, would equal this.
DragonParadox said:
So... I'm not going to lie I like the idea of Molly making all these infernal tools dace in a cyberpunk ballet, but at the same time I have been convinced that adding dice was not intended by the author and I do just make a very long argument about that speed aspect of the shintai charm that depended on that so what MHM is going to do vis a vis crafting is allow you to take on vastly larger projects, more so than the station. Like do you want to build your own battle-ship? I am not going to question that. Do you want to build a giant dome over the city of Chicago that is invested with the power of its patron god? Mab might have something to say about it but I won't. Does that sound fair @Yog ?
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I can live with anything, but I think that the point of "fine" manipulation is a bit missing. Still, that's helpful for making our own subway line between our house, Last Station, Lydia's house and Dresden's apartment.

As I said, I can live with this, and I can find use for it. Like building a huge underground circle around Chicago.
Fouredged Sword said:
I mean, we get ANY tool we need to do something. We do not need to build tools to build tools. We just get the tool required to do the task regardless of how advanced it is. We should be able to manifest tools that can theoretically exist but cannot be built by us or anyone else at the technology level that exists.

If we need to manipulate something at the atomic level would we not just summon up a nanite swarm? Maybe a gravity manipulator to move stuff around inside other stuff. Maybe a forcefield generator. Any tool that is at least in theory POSIBLE to build can be summoned, even tools that do not yet exist.

I mean, clearly path of least resistance is applied and we get the more practical option if such an option exists, but Exalted tends to treat absolute statements as actually absolute. ANY TOOL is an absolute statement.

On that note you can use nanites to build more nanites. I vote we make a nanite swarm for Chippy. He could use a better body than our cellphone.
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The ruling was that we got hell-themed stuff that was limited to the cutting edge of mundanely possible. I.e. no antigravity because humans can't do antigravity, and no star trek replicators because we can't do that, but yes to very precise 3D printers and stuff like that.
 
[X] Yog
I like your explanation for your plan's reasoning.

Completely unrelated, when we get around to shooting devils into space, I still want to possess the International Space Station for the style points.
 
Yog said:
As a scientist and engineer - you are vastly overestimating us, and I am badly failing at explaining why this would be a gamechanger and no amount of tools, safe for effector fields, which are essentially telekinesis, or star trek replicators, would equal this.
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I realize that what we can currently do in this field is crude and rudimentary, but the fact that we can do it at all should be enough to qualify for the Tool Charm to do it very well. Isn't that how the Charm works?
 
Prospalz said:
Sadly, this is not allowed. Alas.

...That said, hiding in a set of very damp clothes or exceeding wet hair might be possible.
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Well that's the thing, drinking disrupts it, sure, you can't go in that way.

But a stomach is a bag of liquid, an eye is a bag of liquid.
If an appropriate channel were available could an Infernal hide in said liquid directly?

It isn't too difficult to open and close the human body these days.
 
BronzeTongue said:
Should there also be an option for playing guard dog for the Ordo, or is that something they'll call on us for as needed?
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I think it's reasonable to assume that we are on all of their speed dials in case of emergency.
BronzeTongue said:
I agree that getting something set up would be good, but I don't think a significant number of therapists are likely to be reporting to anyone.

We're talking about a massive and defused industry that's set up specifically to avoid that happening. It isn't fool proof, but subverting it such that a majority of people are aware and capable of reporting on supernatural stuff would be too much to hide even with magic on your side.

It's not even about ethics or anything, it's a problem with information control at scale that makes conspiracies like this hard.
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You might be right. I just thought that, well, talent manifests in teenagers. Magical talent is a new and significant change in one's life, and a source of major disruption. If it is associated with any seer-adjacent ability (anything to do with spirits, oneiromancy, clairvoyance, etc)... I can see young adults and teens with a new magical gift and no magical background going to therapists and being checked into psychiatric hospitals in a statistically significant percentages.
BronzeTongue said:
I'd like to handle it sooner, but if we wait on this we should also wait on the formal vamp event. Those should happen on the same turn so that we can kill Madrigal with a minimum of fuss related to our nonaggression pact.

Doing so wouldn't be a violation by the actual terms of our agreement, but it wouldn't look very good. Introducing ourselves by offing someone to show where the lines are and then settling into the new boundaries is a better play politically.
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Yeah, I can see it, and I hestitated a lot. But Order of Cauldron has us on speed dial, and naagloshii is a more pressing danger. Honestly, I would delay Rosie, but she's pregnant and thus on a timer, and we promised and it's important too.
Goldfish said:
I realize that what we can currently do in this field is crude and rudimentary, but the fact that we can do it at all should be enough to qualify for the Tool Charm to do it very well. Isn't that how the Charm works?
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TTC is great, but it's not unlimited. As I understand it, and let @DragonParadox correct me, it can give us tools with the functionality of the best cutting bleeding edge technology that is in principle possible for mundane humanity, and accelerate its functionality ten times over. But no more. So if we are completely incapable of gravity manipulation (and we are), then we can't make gravity manipulating tools.
BronzeTongue said:
Independent of the crafting mechanics stuff, there are a few things I think we should put on the list to build if we can work out the AP for it.

First would be a CSR necklace. Right now we're making do with bottles of bleach in cars, but having a little bit of liquid in some jewelry that we can open up to hop in and out of would let us use it more on the fly. We could also do things like smuggle ourselves places by hoping in and having someone else carry it around.

It's not absolutely necessary, but it's a nice convenience factor for something we're going to be using a lot.

Second would be making that BSM layer suit. Something to put on which lets us subtly use the charm at all times instead of running off to the restroom to have a bath in the middle of negotiations with vampires or whatever when we need it.

Third would be simple ammunition for MHM. Explosives should be trivial, as well as something like a bracelet we can trivially break up into shrapnel. Not a lot, but just something to help if we get stuck somewhere and the environment doesn't have anything super useful.
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Interesting ideas. For MHM we should look into hydraulics for projectile launchers. And BSM layer suit is basically a Dune stillsuit. Which, yeah, is an interesting proposition.
 
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