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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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uju32 said:
It doesnt proc for a whole lot of rolls, including most reflexive rolls like soak or willpower .
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Could I get a citation please? As far as I can tell we can spend willpower on pretty much any and all rolls. These are the rules from M20, where the merit comes from:
Game Effects of Willpower
• Willpower has two elements: the permanent Willpower
Trait (tracked in boxes on the character sheet) and the
temporary Willpower pool (tracked in circles). When you
spend Willpower points, erase dots from the Willpower
pool; when you make a Willpower roll, base it on the
permanent Trait.
• As mentioned above under Arete, your magickal ability
is limited by your permanent Willpower Trait.
• To push beyond your character's normal limits, you can
spend temporary Willpower points.
• By acting according to your character's Nature (see the
Archetypes section earlier in this chapter), you can
refresh those spent points and restore your Willpower
pool to its normal confident state.
• Mages start off with a base of Willpower 5 and go upward
from there. Most other characters range between Willpower
1 and 10, with average folks being between 2 and 4.

Using Willpower
• By spending a point of Willpower, you can get one
automatic success for a single action. You may spend
only one Willpower point per turn this way, but you
can use several Willpower points to gain successes over
the course of an extended action. See Chapter Eight, (p.
389), for details.
• When your mage botches a casting roll or faces a Paradox
backlash, you can avert the pending backlash by willing
it not to happen. This costs a Willpower point and
results in the automatic failure of whatever your mage
was trying to do at the time. The Paradox doesn't hit
you at the time, although the Paradox points that would
have been unleashed remain on your character sheet…
adding up… waiting for another opportunity to blow
you into next week. This dodge works only once per
casting. See Staving Off Disaster, under The Paradox
Effect section in Chapter Ten, (p. 549).
• By rolling your Willpower Trait rating, you can help your
mage resist the effects of Mind Sphere magick. Successes
on that roll subtract from the successes rolled on the
Mind attack. The roll's difficulty is usually 6, although
a particularly potent or subtle attack might raise that
difficulty at the Storyteller's discretion. Botching this roll
might end up costing you a permanent Willpower point.
Mages and other supernatural creatures get this resistance
roll for free, but Sleepers must spend a Willpower point
in order to resist Mind magick this way. See Resisting
Psychic Assaults in Chapter Ten, (p. 544).
• A point of Willpower can also dispel a delusion brought on
by Quiet. This requires a successful Willpower roll (difficulty
7, or perhaps higher) as well as that point of Willpower. An
unsuccessful roll will spend the Willpower point without
holding back the delusions. Success also dispels a single point
of Paradox. Essentially, your mage asserts control over the
visions in his head… at least for the moment. (See Rising
Out of Quiet in Chapter Ten, (p. 556).
• You can spend a point of Willpower to ignore all woundbased
penalties, up to but not including Incapacitation, for
one turn per point. Essentially, your mage pushes past
the pain to accomplish an action or two before giving
in to those injuries. See Health and Injury in Chapter
Nine, (pp. 406-409).
• On a similar note, you can spend a point of Willpower
to resist an overwhelming urge or compulsion – the
urge to run, for example, from a furious demigod, or
to surrender to sleep after days without rest. If that urge
or situation continues, though, you may need to spend
more Willpower in order to keep going. And in the face
of some awful challenge – say, in order to laugh while
under torture – you may need to spend Willpower points
even if you, the player, had not planned to do so. It's easy
for players to remain blasé about shattering traumas, but
for characters, that kind of fortitude is harder to come
by and more costly to maintain.
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I don't see any limitation here that prevents us from using it on soak, or reflexive actions or whatever. It's "pushing beyond one's limits". @DragonParadox ?
uju32 said:
Remember, we can already spend Willpower for rolls.
And since Lydia is going to buy Bridge of Dreams 2 in short order for WP regen, Willpower regen is not the issue it would usually be.
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And that gives her free +1 success on all those rolls we can use WP on. That's very good.


Would anyone mind if I switched to Ability Aptitude: Occult ? That, or Natural Leader (because, again, Lydia is specked for summons and leading. And Natural Leader should stack with her native DC reducer charm for leading ghosts)?

EDIT:
And, to be thorough, I went through other books.
V20:
Willpower is one of the most active and important
Traits in Vampire. Because there are so many ways to
expend, regain, and use Willpower, it fluctuates more
than any other Trait (besides blood pool) in the game.
Willpower is a very versatile Trait, so make sure you
understand how to use it.
• A player may spend one of her character's Willpower
points to gain an automatic success on a single
action. Only one point of Willpower may be used in
a single turn in this manner, but the success is guaranteed
and may not be canceled, even by botches. By
using Willpower in this way, it is possible to succeed at
a given action simply by concentrating. For extended
rolls, these extra successes may make the critical difference
between accomplishment and failure.
Note: You must declare that you are spending a
Willpower point before you make an actual roll for
a character's action; you can't retroactively cancel a
botch by spending a Willpower point at the last minute.
Also, the Storyteller may declare that a Willpower
point may not be spent on a given action (such as attacking
in combat).
• Sometimes, the Storyteller may rule that a character
automatically takes some action based on instinct
or urge — for example, stepping back from a chasm or
leaping away from a patch of sunlight filtering through
a window. The Storyteller may allow a player to spend
a Willpower point and avoid taking this reactive maneuver.
It should be noted that the impulse may return
at the Storyteller's discretion; a player may need
to spend multiple Willpower points over the course of
a few turns to stay on task. Sometimes the urge may be
overcome by the force of the character's will; at other
times, the character has no choice but to follow his instinct
(i.e., the character runs out of Willpower points
or no longer wishes to expend them).
• A Willpower point may be spent to prevent a derangement
from manifesting, with the Storyteller's
permission. Eventually, if enough Willpower points are
spent (as determined by the Storyteller), the derangement
may be overcome and eliminated, as enough
denial of the derangement remedies the aberration.
Malkavians may never overcome their initial derangement,
though Willpower may be spent to deny it for a
short period of time.
• By spending a Willpower point, wound penalties
can be ignored for one turn. This allows a character to
override pain and injury in order to take one last-ditch
action. However, an incapacitated or torpored character
may not spend Willpower in this manner.
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No limit on the type of actions we may use it on.

C20:
Using Willpower
¶¶ A Willpower point purchases a single success on a dice roll.
You may only spend one point per roll, but that guarantees
a single automatic success (which also reduces the chance
of a botch). The Storyteller may prohibit this use in certain
situations.
¶¶ The player can spend a point of Willpower to let a character
avoid an instinctive reaction, allowing her to overcome phobias,
control her emotions, or counter imposed commands
or suggestions for a short time (i.e., enough to apply to the
situation at hand). The player spends a point to ignore the
compulsion and do as she pleases. This can be a long, drawn
out, and difficult contest, but sooner or later the character's
Willpower will give out. Note that Willpower may not be
used to counteract a magical compulsion.
¶¶ Willpower can sometimes either contain or control the effects
of Bedlam. Spending a Willpower point lets the changeling
ignore Bedlam's irrationality and weird perceptions. It cannot
cure Bedlam but can lessen the effects and allow the changeling
to regain some modicum of sanity for a short time.
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A storyteller may prohibit the use of willpower on some rolls, but no specific suggestions which rolls those are.

W20:
Using Willpower
Of all the Traits werewolves possess, Willpower is
one of the most frequently rolled and spent because of
the many ways it can be utilized.
• Automatic Successes: Spending a Willpower point
on an action gives the player one extra success on any
roll. Only one point can be spent this way each turn, but
the success is guaranteed. Spending Willpower in this way
completely negates the effects of a botch. Some do not
allow a character to spend Willpower, including damage
rolls or any roll to activate Gifts.
• Uncontrollable Urges: Garou are instinctual
creatures, and can find the Beast within reacting to
stimuli without conscious thought. The Storyteller may
inform you that your character has done something from
a primal urge, like getting away from fire or attacking a
creature of the Wyrm. A Willpower point can be spent to
negate this gut reaction and keep the Garou right where
he is. On rare occasions, the player must keep spending
Willpower points until the character removes himself
from the situation or runs out of Willpower.
• Halting Frenzies: As mentioned previously, a
character flies into a frenzy whenever her player rolls
more than four successes on a Rage roll. This situation
can be averted if the player spends a Willpower point to
remain in control. More information on frenzies can be
found on p. 261.
• Fighting On: When a werewolf is injured, her
wounds can make it hard for her to concentrate, represented
by wound penalties to her actions. By spending a point
of Willpower, she can ignore the wound penalties on a
single roll.
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This one has prohibition on using Willpower on attack rolls and activating gifts, but that's the only book so far, and we did use willpower on magic and I think charm rolls previously, so I am not sure how much this applies.

EDIT2:
Exalted 2nd edition core:
When a character spends Willpower, he pushes his mind and body beyond their normal limits and attempts to do something extraordinary. A character can spend only one Willpower point in an action to activate one of the effects listed here. Many powerful Charms require the epxnditure of Willpower points to activate, but that expenditure does not count against this limit.
Free success: You can spend of of your character's Willpower points to earn an automatic success. This free success is separate from any that you roll, but it counts toward your total for the actions. You must declare you're spending Willpower prior to rolling for the action. When Willpower is spent in this fashion, the roll cannot botch.
Activate a Virtue: Instead of gaining an automatic success, a character can activate her Virtues to add extra dice to her pool instead. See "Virtures" for details.
Resist Mental Powers: A character may spend Willpower to resist Charms and spells that attempt to control her mind or emotions. See Chapter Five: Charms, Combos and Sorcery, pagges 179-181, for details.
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So, if we go by exalted rules, any time we spend WP, the roll also cannot botch as a side effect. So, in essence, no need for a six dot version. And no limit on what actions it can be used on. @DragonParadox we definitely need a ruling on what kind of rules we are using.

Also, a reminder to everyone that Lydia's excellency uses her temporary WP, not her permanent WP, so merits that improve WP economy are super synergetic.
 
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@Azais @fictionfan @Starlit Horizon @TheGrape @Yzarc @Degorium @CouncilOfShadows I am very seriously considering switching my one point merit buy from Acute senses to either Ability Aptitude Occult or Natural Leader. The first one improves her magic, the second one gives her in essence -4 DC reduction when leading ghosts, and -2 DC when leading in general. Since you have voted for my plan, I don't want to make the switch without consulting, or at least informing you. I am leaning towards Occult, because cooperative rituals are a thing, and magic in general is great, even if it's more Molly's wheelhouse, and I don't want Lydia to completely imitate her. So, what do you think?
 
I'm not sold on the Healing ability.

She is Exalted, she heals clean and fast anyway.
This Merit is very powerful for a Mage, who otherwise heals like a mortal human, but less so for Lydia, who will be fine within days anyway, no matter what.

For example, the Merit brings your healing-time for Bashing damage down to 1 Hour.
But Lydia heals the highest level of bashing within an hour anyway, that's her birthright. Going from Incapacitated to perfectly fine takes her 5 hours in total.

It does speed up her Lethal regeneration considerable, bringing it down from a few days to those 5 hours at max, that are normally for Bashing, but it's still too slow to be combat-relevant.

So all in all, I doubt Spark of Life will ever do anything but reduce her narrative downtime, since we don't have action-missions in so quick succession, usually.
Keep in mind she recovered from a cloud of aggravated-dealing Yin-poison just fine, offscreen. After we fought the Akuma.
 
I would be fine with natural leader, but the occult ability especially when we haven't even unlocked a ritual magic to begin with is kind of not great at least my opinion because we have a cult covered for facts and general usage and we don't have a practical usage to have another occult circle mate.
So yeah I'm okay with natural leader bring on Lydia's ghost Army hell yeah.
Actually disregard everything I just said if we get another person who is also doing magic then maybe we'll actually invest in getting more Magic I'm down for either or I'm trusting you @Yog
 
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Degorium said:
@BronzeTongue I think you're making too big a deal of the Common Sense Merit as well as the idea of common sense. Inherently Common Sense is a knowledge to apply your skills in a practical manner that won't immediately get you fucked up. The common sense of a normal person without magic is distinctly different than a Wizards the same goes for the common sense of a vampire or an exalted. Now if you mean it could prevent them from engaging in activities that are obviously like insane Maybe but that's a very large maybe doing a lot of work. In all likelihood they would pursue whatever grandiose end they have just in a significantly more down to earth manner.

Though it could be argued that Havesh was the only exalt with common sense.
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I think you're underestimating it, and the gap in what constitutes common sense among different groups.

Sure exalts can do more, but they very frequently have the "so focused on could I didn't think about should" problem among many other issues. Taking some time to think about the potential consequences of an action and how other people will feel about what you do would make a world of difference.

The common sense merit provides a broad body of experience/insights to inform your planning, has the storyteller warn you about stupid shit, and occasionally supplies alternative means to achieve the same ends.

Throwing a flag when doing something crazy and suggesting a more practical alternative is what the merit is for, the maybe isn't doing any work at all.

It's not the most powerful merit on the books, but it's a strong contender for the highest general utility 1-dot merit.


Yog said:
@Azais @fictionfan @Starlit Horizon @TheGrape @Yzarc @Degorium @CouncilOfShadows I am very seriously considering switching my one point merit buy from Acute senses to either Ability Aptitude Occult or Natural Leader. The first one improves her magic, the second one gives her in essence -4 DC reduction when leading ghosts, and -2 DC when leading in general. Since you have voted for my plan, I don't want to make the switch without consulting, or at least informing you. I am leaning towards Occult, because cooperative rituals are a thing, and magic in general is great, even if it's more Molly's wheelhouse, and I don't want Lydia to completely imitate her. So, what do you think?
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You sure I can't sell you on common sense? It doesn't have a numerical benefit, but the improved decision making ability can have significantly outsized impacts.

Like suggesting to Lydia that tossing Daniel into the nevernever alone might be a bad plan, or that giving a demon she's known for a few days at most the ability to render her helpless from anywhere on the planet could be dangerous.
 
Artemis1992 said:
I'm not sold on the Healing ability.

She is Exalted, she heals clean and fast anyway.
This Merit is very powerful for a Mage, who otherwise heals like a mortal human, but less so for Lydia, who will be fine within days anyway, no matter what.

For example, the Merit brings your healing-time for Bashing damage down to 1 Hour.
But Lydia heals the highest level of bashing within an hour anyway, that's her birthright. Going from Incapacitated to perfectly fine takes her 5 hours in total.

It does speed up her Lethal regeneration considerable, bringing it down from a few days to those 5 hours at max, that are normally for Bashing, but it's still too slow to be combat-relevant.

So all in all, I doubt Spark of Life will ever do anything but reduce her narrative downtime, since we don't have action-missions in so quick succession, usually.
Keep in mind she recovered from a cloud of aggravated-dealing Yin-poison just fine, offscreen. After we fought the Akuma.
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And we have healing potions. Which we can supply Lydia with.
Degorium said:
I would be fine with natural leader, but the occult ability especially when we haven't even unlocked a ritual magic to begin with is kind of not great at least my opinion because we have a cult covered for facts and general usage and we don't have a practical usage to have another occult circle mate.
So yeah I'm okay with natural leader bring on Lydia's ghost Army hell yeah.
Actually disregard everything I just said if we get another person who is also doing magic then maybe we'll actually invest in getting more Magic I'm down for either or I'm trusting you @Yog
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In regards to this, if going for social, I actually am gravitating towards
Regal Bearing (1 pt. Merit)
Aristocratic charisma is your birthright. Although you
might not actually hail from a noble family, your presence radiates
dignity. Posture, features, tone of voice, aura of dominion
– you're got them all. People defer to you as a reflex; subtract
-2 from the difficulty of your Social-Trait rolls whenever you're
trying to make an impression, and while certain folks will want
to take you down a few pegs on general principle, most people
are inclined to respect you even if they don't necessarily like you.
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It's very IC for Lydia, and works well narratively. Less combat oriented, yes, but more growing into being a queen, especially the queen of the dead.
BronzeTongue said:
You sure I can't sell you on common sense? It doesn't have a numerical benefit, but the improved decision making ability can have significantly outsized impacts.

Like suggesting to Lydia that tossing Daniel into the nevernever alone might be a bad plan, or that giving a demon she's known for a few days at most the ability to render her helpless from anywhere on the planet could be dangerous.
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She has her father as a sort of substitute common sense. It's just that her common sense is different from that of others. You might be convincing, I'll have to think a bit. The synergy for -4 DC on ghosts is very compelling.
 
@BronzeTongue
Common Sense would say the deal with Lash is all upsides. There is no Universe where Lash can get away with abusing her faith that won't immediately get her killed and faith draining does not kill the person who is getting drained anywhere near fast enough to prevent Lydia herself from finding Lash because at this point I'm certain that Lydia is stronger than she is so In return to providing a vital resource that an Ally needs to continue using their powers you get an investment of Supernatural strength it's all good.
 
I have to run, so an update for my plan for now. I switched Acute Senses for Regal Bearing, which gives you, well, Regal Bearing and -2 DC adjustment on trying to impress someone. Coupled with native -2DC on social interactions with ghosts, Lydia gets -4 DC in her role as the queen of the dead, which is very, very impressive. We can start building her as the queen the turn after the next one (next one we get her a 5 dot anti-shaping defense, and a hopefully we have enough resources to build that those 3 dot armor splendors for her and us, and 1 dot weapon splendor for her).

I may still switch if persuaded, but for now this looks like it works well.

[X] Plan Graceful confidence
-[X] A point of Faith can be converted into 10 freebie points. These points can be used to buy or improve traits such as Attributes, Abilities or Willpower. They cannot be used for improving Backgrounds.
--[X] Willpower: 4 points
--[X] Self-Confident merit: 5 points
--[X] Regal Bearing: 1 dot
-[X] Supernatural Awareness: Roll Perception+Awareness (Dif 7) to notice the spiritual feeling of a place (Places of loss, pain, etc.) and to notice nearby magical effects, demonic power etc. Just assume they always have a slightly weaker version of the Sight active.
-[X] One point of Faith bestows one of the enhancements of the demon's apocalyptic form. To benefit from the enhancement, the mortal must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 6). Success allows the mortal to use the enhancement for a scene. The demon can bestow more than one enhancement, but he must spend a point of Faith on each. Lash can impart one of their high-Torment special abilities if desired at the cost of a temporary Torment point.
--[X] Low Torment: Marble Flesh, +4 Soak Dice Against all damage
 
Degorium said:
@BronzeTongue
Common Sense would say the deal with Lash is all upsides. There is no Universe where Lash can get away with abusing her faith that won't immediately get her killed and faith draining does not kill the person who is getting drained anywhere near fast enough to prevent Lydia herself from finding Lash because at this point I'm certain that Lydia is stronger than she is so In return to providing a vital resource that an Ally needs to continue using their powers you get an investment of Supernatural strength it's all good.
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The Faith-Drain would kill Lydia (assuming she buys up to 10 WP) in 23 Rounds. 10 WP, 13 Health-levels, then death.
Which is a bit more than a minute.

If, and I don't think she will, Lash joins an enemy of ours, like Nick, she could threaten to drain Lydia over a distance with no risk to herself besides later retribution.

Lydia has permanently made herself a hostage for Lash here and as much as I don't believe she will abuse this, the option very much exists now.
 
Yog said:
Could I get a citation please? As far as I can tell we can spend willpower on pretty much any and all rolls. These are the rules from M20, where the merit comes from:

I don't see any limitation here that prevents us from using it on soak, or reflexive actions or whatever. It's "pushing beyond one's limits". @DragonParadox ?

And that gives her free +1 success on all those rolls we can use WP on. That's very good.


Would anyone mind if I switched to Ability Aptitude: Occult ? That, or Natural Leader (because, again, Lydia is specked for summons and leading. And Natural Leader should stack with her native DC reducer charm for leading ghosts)?

EDIT:
And, to be thorough, I went through other books.
V20:

No limit on the type of actions we may use it on.

C20:

A storyteller may prohibit the use of willpower on some rolls, but no specific suggestions which rolls those are.

W20:

This one has prohibition on using Willpower on attack rolls and activating gifts, but that's the only book so far, and we did use willpower on magic and I think charm rolls previously, so I am not sure how much this applies.

EDIT2:
Exalted 2nd edition core:

So, if we go by exalted rules, any time we spend WP, the roll also cannot botch as a side effect. So, in essence, no need for a six dot version. And no limit on what actions it can be used on. @DragonParadox we definitely need a ruling on what kind of rules we are using.

Also, a reminder to everyone that Lydia's excellency uses her temporary WP, not her permanent WP, so merits that improve WP economy are super synergetic.
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As far as I recall you cannot spend willpower on willpower rolls since you are already invoking the stat to even have the roll to begin with and you cannot use it on soak since it's not a thing you are doing, it's just 'how tough is your body'.
 
Yog said:
She has her father as a sort of substitute common sense. It's just that her common sense is different from that of others. You might be convincing, I'll have to think a bit. The synergy for -4 DC on ghosts is very compelling
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That's fair. Her father is a help here, but there's value in having that sort of upgrade to your internal decision making process.

It's fair to appeal to different perspectives for stuff like Daniel, though I'd argue the lack of grounding in how others might react is itself a bed blind spot to have, but there's nothing I'd ever label as sensible from anywhere in the world that okays opening up your soul to powerful spirit of at best dubious background you've known for less than a work week.

Molly is basically her safety net; which isn't a bad insurance policy to have, but it won't undo whatever harm she suffered in the meantime if Lash did end up going bad.

This isn't the first time she's made that mistake either. Lydia let Corpsetaker talk her into allowing a possession. Sure she didn't know the full score at the time, but she certainly seemed to know about the occult at a fairly decent level in the general sense.

Knowing enough to summon and bind ghosts should implicitly come with the knowledge to understand why letting powerful ones you've known for less than a day ride around in your skull is a horrible idea, but she did it anyway.

I'm not saying she's stupid or something, but Lydia clearly has that exalted recklessness in spades.
Degorium said:
@BronzeTongue
Common Sense would say the deal with Lash is all upsides. There is no Universe where Lash can get away with abusing her faith that won't immediately get her killed and faith draining does not kill the person who is getting drained anywhere near fast enough to prevent Lydia herself from finding Lash because at this point I'm certain that Lydia is stronger than she is so In return to providing a vital resource that an Ally needs to continue using their powers you get an investment of Supernatural strength it's all good.
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Common sense would point out that Lydia doesn't know Lash or her character very well and that people can be stupid. They can also be pressured by various means or make bad decisions due to bad information.

She also doesn't and can't know what Lash is capable of beyond what she willingly admits because no one like Lash has ever existed before.

There's such a thing as too much paranoia, but I don't think the bar of "know the person to be poking your soul a more than cursory level and have some idea of what their true capabilities are" is unreasonably high. As it stands she's effectively trusting Molly and the good intentions of a stranger to keep her safe.

As to the rest? You're wrong about Lydia's ability to personally handle this.

Demons can pull willpower from their thralls whenever they like at range. They can also take it in large chunks, up to their faith rating in single action. Remember that Lydia's excellency depends on temp will power, by doing this Lash would be sucking dice right out of her pool to do anything about the problem.

I'm not saying Lash is definitely going to do this, but if something in the motives views of a woman she doesn't know change on her Lydia's best bet is Molly keeping her safe while she's out of willpower and her excellency isn't working.



Artemis1992 said:
The Faith-Drain would kill Lydia (assuming she buys up to 10 WP) in 23 Rounds. 10 WP, 13 Health-levels, then death.
Which is a bit more than a minute.
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I wasn't thinking about the damage, I was referring to her being drained of essence using the shaping defense she doesn't have yet. Presumably if Lash made a move she'd wouldn't make it a half assed one.

Without it, or simply if it fails, the willpower drain would leave her open to social attacks and operating on mortal dice pools fairly quickly.

Assuming hypothetical traitor Lash isn't stupid such a strike would come at a time where being out of willpower and excellency dice would be fatal.
 
@Artemis1992
That doesn't sound right because I don't think you can pull more faith down than you can actually hold. Another thing is that being able to kill her in less than a minute supposedly wouldn't actually prevent anything I said would happen. During that entire time that scene would count as a focus to find Lash. Super Sonic Molly Carpenter lives in the same city as Lydia who is not afraid of death. So feels her willpower being drained calls Molly says Lash is responsible.
Lydia Falls unconscious or whatever happens when you hit willpower zero and begins taking Health damage either Molly arrives with health potions or has already taken care of Lash because we have focuses that would tell us where Lash is to handle that situation.

That supposes that Lash tries something in ambush. She tries it anywhere else and she almost certainly gets found out and get "mysterious ways" out for violating free will.
 
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There's also the fact that we can theoretically pull Lydia into the Fivefold Courts to keep her from permanently dying, but I don't know how the Wheel would handle a death-based Terrestial-tier Exalt, so...
 
There's also the fact that Lydia with her High Intelligence almost certainly made it so lash's part of The Pact means that she can't actually harm her in a material way on purpose which lash definitely knows ravaging would do which would break the pact preventing her from ravaging her to begin with (God there needs to be a better word for this) .
 
BronzeTongue said:
I wasn't thinking about the damage, I was referring to her being drained of essence using the shaping defense she doesn't have yet. Presumably if Lash made a move she'd wouldn't make it a half assed one.

Without it, or simply if it fails, the willpower drain would leave her open to social attacks and operating on mortal dice pools fairly quickly.

Assuming hypothetical traitor Lash isn't stupid such a strike would come at a time where being out of willpower and excellency dice would be fatal.
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Degorium said:
@Artemis1992
That doesn't sound right because I don't think you can pull more faith down than you can actually hold. Another thing is that being able to kill her in less than a minute supposedly wouldn't actually prevent anything I said would happen. During that entire time that scene would count as a focus to find Lash. Super Sonic Molly Carpenter lives in the same city as Lydia who is not afraid of death. So feels her willpower being drained calls Molly says Lash is responsible.
Lydia Falls unconscious or whatever happens when you hit willpower zero and begins taking Health damage either Molly arrives with health potions or has already taken care of Lash because we have focuses that would tell us where Lash is to handle that situation.

That supposes that Lash tries something in ambush. She tries it anywhere else and she almost certainly gets found out and get "mysterious ways" out for violating free will.
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Lash doesn't have to be nearby to drain Lydia literally to death.
She can explicitly do it from the other side of the planet.

A Lash who is intend on killing Lydia doesn't have to do so in a situation where her drained Willpower becomes a problem, she can just go straight through to death.

As for her Faith-Limit, Lash can always use Ravaging to enhance a Lore-Invocation, meaning she can cast the 1-Dot Light power every round, enhanced by the drained Faith. There, no issue with her reservoir being full, she can push through until Lydia is a corpse.
 
DragonParadox said:
As far as I recall you cannot spend willpower on willpower rolls since you are already invoking the stat to even have the roll to begin with and you cannot use it on soak since it's not a thing you are doing, it's just 'how tough is your body'.
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I can absolutely live with that. What about that "rolls you use a willpower point on can't botch" rule Exalted 2E has? It's not in other books, and I absolutely can see arguments both for and against it.

Even if it doesn't do that (and I wasn't counting on it to do so), it's a very solid boost to Lydia's everything. And it's actually viable for Lydia to have excellency in everything. I mean, it would take 18 XP for Lydia to become capable of applying excellency to her everything. And at WP10 + this merit, her excellency is better than ours, flat out.
BronzeTongue said:
That's fair. Her father is a help here, but there's value in having that sort of upgrade to your internal decision making process.

It's fair to appeal to different perspectives for stuff like Daniel, though I'd argue the lack of grounding in how others might react is itself a bed blind spot to have, but there's nothing I'd ever label as sensible from anywhere in the world that okays opening up your soul to powerful spirit of at best dubious background you've known for less than a work week.

Molly is basically her safety net; which isn't a bad insurance policy to have, but it won't undo whatever harm she suffered in the meantime if Lash did end up going bad.

This isn't the first time she's made that mistake either. Lydia let Corpsetaker talk her into allowing a possession. Sure she didn't know the full score at the time, but she certainly seemed to know about the occult at a fairly decent level in the general sense.

Knowing enough to summon and bind ghosts should implicitly come with the knowledge to understand why letting powerful ones you've known for less than a day ride around in your skull is a horrible idea, but she did it anyway.

I'm not saying she's stupid or something, but Lydia clearly has that exalted recklessness in spades.
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Those are all very fair points. I think I'll stick with Regal Bearing for now, as I think it's a bit more in-character for the kind of upgrade my plan outlines, but they are fair. We might want to talk to her at some point. And if a majority of people who voted for my plan prefer Common Sense, I would obviously switch.
 
Yog said:
I can absolutely live with that. What about that "rolls you use a willpower point on can't botch" rule Exalted 2E has? It's not in other books, and I absolutely can see arguments both for and against it.

Even if it doesn't do that (and I wasn't counting on it to do so), it's a very solid boost to Lydia's everything. And it's actually viable for Lydia to have excellency in everything. I mean, it would take 18 XP for Lydia to become capable of applying excellency to her everything. And at WP10 + this merit, her excellency is better than ours, flat out.

Those are all very fair points. I think I'll stick with Regal Bearing for now, as I think it's a bit more in-character for the kind of upgrade my plan outlines, but they are fair. We might want to talk to her at some point. And if a majority of people who voted for my plan prefer Common Sense, I would obviously switch.
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I'd say you can still botch, but obviously only if your original roll was a double botch and those are quite rare.
 
[X]Plan Deaths Daughter: 3 Faith points
-[X] 1 Faith: Marble Flesh, +4 Soak Dice Against all damage
-[X] 1 Faith: Supernatural Awareness: Roll Perception+Awareness (Dif 7) to notice the spiritual feeling of a place (Places of loss, pain, etc.) and to notice nearby magical effects, demonic power etc. Just assume they always have a slightly weaker version of the Sight active.
-[X] 1 Faith: 10 freebie points. Can be used to buy or improve traits such as Attributes, Abilities or Willpower.
--[X] +4 Willpower: 4 freebie point
--[X] +Spark of Life: 5 freebie points
--[X] +Ability Aptitude: Occult : 1 freebie points
[X]Plan Deaths Daughter and Demon's Disciple
-[X] 1 Faith: Marble Flesh, +4 Soak Dice Against all damage
-[X] 1 Faith: Supernatural Awareness: Roll Perception+Awareness (Dif 7) to notice the spiritual feeling of a place (Places of loss, pain, etc.) and to notice nearby magical effects, demonic power etc. Just assume they always have a slightly weaker version of the Sight active.
-[X] 1 Faith: 10 freebie points. Can be used to buy or improve traits such as Attributes, Abilities or Willpower.
--[X] +4 Willpower: 4 freebie point
--[X] +Spark of Life: 5 freebie points
--[X] +Common Sense: 1 freebie points
 
Ultimately I think Self-Confident is better because it's more proactive. It helps Lydia to do things. Spark of Life feels good, and allows Lydia to survive better (also heal better, actually), but it's ultimately defensive. Self-Confident is more broadly applicable. It's going to see more use, I feel.

We can get Lydia good defenses and fast healing with healing potions and splendors. We want her to be able to do more, I think.
 
Votes tied.
Adhoc vote count started by Yzarc on Dec 6, 2023 at 6:00 AM, finished with 91 posts and 16 votes.
  • [X] Plan Graceful confidence
    -[X] A point of Faith can be converted into 10 freebie points. These points can be used to buy or improve traits such as Attributes, Abilities or Willpower. They cannot be used for improving Backgrounds.
    --[X] Willpower: 4 points
    --[X] Self-Confident merit: 5 points
    --[X] Regal Bearing: 1 dot
    -[X] Supernatural Awareness: Roll Perception+Awareness (Dif 7) to notice the spiritual feeling of a place (Places of loss, pain, etc.) and to notice nearby magical effects, demonic power etc. Just assume they always have a slightly weaker version of the Sight active.
    -[X] One point of Faith bestows one of the enhancements of the demon's apocalyptic form. To benefit from the enhancement, the mortal must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 6). Success allows the mortal to use the enhancement for a scene. The demon can bestow more than one enhancement, but he must spend a point of Faith on each. Lash can impart one of their high-Torment special abilities if desired at the cost of a temporary Torment point.
    --[X] Low Torment: Marble Flesh, +4 Soak Dice Against all damage
    [X]Plan Deaths Daughter: 3 Faith points
    -[X] 1 Faith: Marble Flesh, +4 Soak Dice Against all damage
    -[X] 1 Faith: Supernatural Awareness: Roll Perception+Awareness (Dif 7) to notice the spiritual feeling of a place (Places of loss, pain, etc.) and to notice nearby magical effects, demonic power etc. Just assume they always have a slightly weaker version of the Sight active.
    -[X] 1 Faith: 10 freebie points. Can be used to buy or improve traits such as Attributes, Abilities or Willpower.
    --[X] +4 Willpower: 4 freebie point
    --[X] +Spark of Life: 5 freebie points
    --[X] +Ability Aptitude: Occult : 1 freebie points
    [X]Plan Deaths Daughter and Demon's Disciple
    -[X] 1 Faith: Marble Flesh, +4 Soak Dice Against all damage
    -[X] 1 Faith: Supernatural Awareness: Roll Perception+Awareness (Dif 7) to notice the spiritual feeling of a place (Places of loss, pain, etc.) and to notice nearby magical effects, demonic power etc. Just assume they always have a slightly weaker version of the Sight active.
    -[X] 1 Faith: 10 freebie points. Can be used to buy or improve traits such as Attributes, Abilities or Willpower.
    --[X] +4 Willpower: 4 freebie point
    --[X] +Spark of Life: 5 freebie points
    --[X] +Common Sense: 1 freebie points
    [X] Plan Divine Scion
    -[X] A point of Faith can be converted into 10 freebie points. These points can be used to buy or improve traits such as Attributes, Abilities or Willpower. They cannot be used for improving Backgrounds.
    --[X] Willpower: 4 points
    --[X] Brawl 2 : 4 points
    --[X] Eidetic Memory : 2 point merit
    --[X] Stamina 2 : 10 points
    -[X] One point of Faith bestows one of the enhancements of the demon's apocalyptic form. To benefit from the enhancement, the mortal must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 6). Success allows the mortal to use the enhancement for a scene. The demon can bestow more than one enhancement, but he must spend a point of Faith on each. Lash can impart one of their high-Torment special abilities if desired at the cost of a temporary Torment point.
    --[X] Low Torment: Marble Flesh, +4 Soak Dice Against all damage
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Yog said:
Ultimately I think Self-Confident is better because it's more proactive. It helps Lydia to do things. Spark of Life feels good, and allows Lydia to survive better (also heal better, actually), but it's ultimately defensive. Self-Confident is more broadly applicable. It's going to see more use, I feel.

We can get Lydia good defenses and fast healing with healing potions and splendors. We want her to be able to do more, I think.
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I would expect that with self confidence Lydia would take less damage on average as well.
 
I think the Confidence-merit ultimatly runs contrary to an Exalted build.

You have lots of Charms that reduce difficulty and as soon as something is DC5 or less, the merit is inactive.
 
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