Lash of Rage is open to counter-spelling, that is what he was telling you, great for killing non-casters, not so great for anyone trained in counter-spelling as Arnianna has proven herself in canon.
Direct damage spells/effects arent supposed to be open to counterspelling, IIRC the counterspelling rules correctly; we cant do it, and they cant either.
Furthermore, Seeker is supposed to be good at CQC.
He certainly had the whole Agg damage venom on his claws for actual physical attack, which is why I voted to move her into his CQC range, instead of using her as a bludgeon to hit the other vampires in the cabin.
Im not trying to relitigate the turn, so forgive me if it comes off that way.
But Seeker's actions there make no sense to me as a set of tactical choices by someone who came to kill Arianna.
He's fucking around.
Its like having an armed killer, who is known for killing people with blades, have an immobilized enemy at close range, shout that they are wearing a bulletproof vest and then pull a rifle off his back to shoot at the person at the other end of the hall instead.
Ignoring the tomahawk thats in his right hand.
Or the fact that a bulletproof vest offers no protection against a large caliber rifle.
We have only been facing one vampire so far, because it was only one turn, and they are taking time to transform. Next turn we are going to be facing every vampire.
Narrow corridor.
4m wide internally at its widest extent BEFORE you account for the seating and furnishing.
Thats space for maybe 2 or 3 people to fight abreast.
Like I said, I spent time eyeballing the battlefield yesterday before making a plan, which is why it wasnt out until after dark.
I don't want to get too salty about it, but I do think we should take the note that when ambushing you should ambush and not stop to talk. Because the opposition gets a vote and once you stop you lose the momentum.
We DIDNT stop to talk. That was a stunt. Thats why it was in the stunt.
In a combat turn, without the use of extra action charms and abilities like Celerity, you get one Offense Action and one Defense Action. I voted Molly to use her Offense Action to immobilize Arianna, and then a Movement Action to reposition her so Seeker could kill or disable her without contest. While holding her own Defense Action in reserve.
Or he doesn't want to eat a death curse because he doesn't have perfect shaping defenses. He's probably got something given his eating habits, but you don't get old by taking risky bets. I wouldn't be surprised if he's very careful to render his prey helpless before trying to eat.
His reply to this exact question IC heavily implies that is the case at least.
With EIPP we could have just gutted her without worrying about that though.
Wizard death curses are
wizard death curses. Mortal human only. Thats one of the things the White Council has going for it.
Arianna Ortega is a whole different species.
Seeker has been around for centuries; he knows this.
And given that his kind predate on mortal wizards, they obviously dont have all that much fear of it anyway.
Yes, we have huge advantages just by being exalted.
But to parry plasmacannons or lightning we should still have to craft an item or buy a Charm.
It's not like an unopposed hit caused us much harm, as you say, we can soak aggravated.
And from a gameplay perspective:
Let our enemies have some chance of hurting us by getting creative, like Vampire building into bloodmagic, because the alternative is just using higher numbers to get through to Molly, which is simply less interesting.
With respect? No, thats not how it works for Celestial Exalts in this setting.
You might as well use that reasoning to justify why we should need charms and items to soak agg, or why we should do the same to prevent being possessed, and so on.
From a gameplay perspective: We chose a technomagical Hell of five billion people, mortals and spirits alike, as a background.
We werent especially worried about making things fair for enemies when we made that set of decisions.
Especially not starter villains like the Red Court.
Thats not the same thing as a stomp, mind.
But we arent supposed to go out of our way to give enemies freebies to make them feel like they are doing damage.
They are supposed to play smart.
