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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Artemis1992 said:
@uju32
Back awake and on a computer, so here's the quotes:
ExWoD p.33

Highlight mine.

And the other thing:
ExWod p.446
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That seems kind of bad in that it creates an incentive structure that encourages becoming superhumanely strong fast durable and skilled so you can stop burning your extremely Limited essence on your Excellency and use your other more flashy more specialized charms more freely.

Then again maybe that was the point he does say in the book to grab up all the bonuses and the plus ones that you can. As well as allowing exalted to use Mortal sorcery.

ExWod p.445
How do dice caps work?
They don't exist as a general concept. The "Excellence"Charms tell you exactly how many dice they're able to add to a roll, but that limit is just imposed on the Charm itself; it's not a broader limitation on the Exalt. You can stack together as many sources of extra dice as you can lay your hands on.
 
Cavalar said:
1. Despite spending XP on Ox Body, we activated Shintai in the first fight we are taking part in. So people, who said that Ox Body would be enough to avoid using Shintai in the first turn, were wrong.
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Yep, I had told at the time that this exact thing would happen.

In fact, this is even more than what I had predicted, I told we would go Shintai as soon as we were scratched, and we did as a our first move.

Spending XP on Ox-body was a waste.
 
You know something funny I just realized harry probably has actual dots in the etiquette skill since he knows some proper etiquette for certain supernatural species like what counts as provocation, what he shouldn't say, and rules for certain species. Harry just often chooses to ignore it or abuse it cause he's harry. Oh and for the council too I guess.
 
BronzeTongue said:
This seems at odds with how it's been handled so far.

I mean, the first time we used it we got rulings warning us that summoning traps or flooding the plane would be harmful to the human thralls and low tier vampire adds we'd intimidated into compliance:








I get that some things need to be rule zeroed to avoid making the game unplayable, and can see the argument that this particular application is one of them, but it still feels like a 180 from the prior discussion on how we can exploit the charm or what it meant to use it.

It is a pretty ridiculous ability, but it also has a buy in of 20 exp followed by a few limited and permanent feature choices.

Solars can buy the ability to launch attacks that ignore all barriers and pierce perfect defenses. Abyssals can pull things like unmake house sized objects without roll in line of sight and roll to erase any localized abstract concept, like a vampire's hunger and a cop's authority. Infernals summon their hell on earth. Even nastier interpretations to the effect of "fighting a living planet means you better be good for the nastiest environmental conditions it has" aren't that out of line by comparison.

Maybe I'm reading more into it than you meant, but it sounds like we're talking about basically down to fluff that justifies our -1 dc and triggers some of our other charms.
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You know what, fair. I did rule that way, if you guys want to make it as cold as the depths in the heart of summer you can.
 
[X] As with an iceberg the true heart of Iku Turso is beneath the water he has invaded

BSM gives us an advantage under the sea, I feel.
 
Cavalar said:
1. Despite spending XP on Ox Body, we activated Shintai in the first fight we are taking part in. So people, who said that Ox Body would be enough to avoid using Shintai in the first turn, were wrong.
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Nyarky said:
In fact, this is even more than what I had predicted, I told we would go Shintai as soon as we were scratched, and we did as a our first move.

Spending XP on Ox-body was a waste.
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A bit misleading.

The reason why Shintia was activated the very first turn was because Iku is a "Boss" type enemy that arguably warrants it right out the gate. If Molly was fighting some basic bitch vampires and a few dudes with guns people wouldn't have felt the need to go Shintia first turn.

Partly because it could be argued to them that Molly could tank a bullet or two due to her amount of health and so we could save the Shintia for later. On top of that the amount of health Molly has in base affects the health she has in Shintia so your wrong all around.
 
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Yog said:
BSM gives us an advantage under the sea, I feel.
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Iku is an old sea god monster though. He probably has more of an advantage there than Molly who merely adopted the water while Iku was born in it, molded by it. I am really wary of meeting a God in his own element.

Since DP ruled that we can lower the temparature enough to possibly inhibit Iku's soldiers I think we should take advantage of the Shintia effect to do so and aim for the Head ASAP.
DragonParadox said:
He does not rise, as a mountain from the sea, but more it seems to you the very waters of this place recoil from his impossible mass, thousand-headed, thousand-horned, father of plague, bringer of ruin.
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Just to be clear @DragonParadox Not including the soldiers he summoned he only has the one head right?
 
BoredMan said:
Iku is an old sea god monster though. He probably has more of an advantage there than Molly who merely adopted the water while Iku was born in it, molded by it. I am really wary of meeting a God in his own element.

Since DP ruled that we can lower the temparature enough to possibly inhibit Iku's soldiers I think we should take advantage of the Shintia effect to do so and aim for the Head ASAP.

Just to be clear @DragonParadox Not including the soldiers he summoned he only has the one head right?
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There is just one island-like mass of arms, heads and horns yes.
 
[X] Plan freeze the earth
-[X] Cut off the head and the body will wither to fall upon and carve into the central mass
-[X] Use the power of your shintai form to freeze the seas by using the ice and snow that surrounds your kingdom, it will block the soldiers effort to reach you and block Iku turso so it wont reach you
-[X] Stunt: With her power, the dreadfull majesty commanded the icy breath of her kingdom, summoning the ice land that surrounds it. The sky turned dark, the water froze and her enemies were impaired with a storm that never ends. And as the thunder of justice itself, she fell from the skies to kill the heretic beast that doesnt belong to her world, the monster who called itself a god.
 
BronzeTongue said:
Why bother letting them try? Liquid oxygen is -218 degrees Celsius to liquid nitrogen's -195.
You ever see someone use liquid nitrogen to freeze a banana and shatter it? Imagine that, but you've got bone critters soaked in lake water trying to exert themselves.

They're magic, so I don't expect it to kill all of them, but it seems like it should deal some significant upfront pain followed by drip environmental damage.
Iku will probably have some way to make himself immune, but it's still something he'll have to pay for.

Is this viable @DragonParadox ?
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Seems a little much.
I dont really want to make things such that fighting Molly requires that you have an anti-shaping defense or environmental charms to prevent auto-losing.

Especially since the signature charm puts the direct benefit to Molly as -1DC to stunts.

Note that there's nothing narratively OR mechanically, by the rules as written, preventing Molly from turning this place into the caldera of an active volcano and the water into lava, with everything that would do to a god-monster that is explicitly aspected as a seamonster. Might piss off the Fae, but it will sure as fuck hurt our enemy more.

But I'm not suggesting that either.
Because the QM would now be obliged to give everyone environmental/antishaping abilities that werent available to anyone besides the tippy top hitters of the setting.

In the interests of controlling escalation, some player restraint has to be exercised.

Artemis1992 said:
You can't try more multi-actions if it would take the DC above 9. Somewhere in the Rules section in Chapter 2 ExWoD.
Also Excellency applies before modifiers.
PC is already out, but I'd swear that's clarified in the FAQ at the end.
Edit: I could swear we have discussed both of these already. Maybe against the Akuma?
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Relevant citations:
multiple opponents
Exalted vs World of Darkness doesn't use the rule for multiple opponents found on page 276 of V20. Burying an Exalt in enemies may be effective due to sheer weight of numbers, but the Chosen have no particular difficulty dancing through swarms of foes and striking them down.
• Multiple Opponents: A character who battles multiple opponents in close combat suffers attack and defense difficulties of +1, cumulative, for each opponent after the first (to a maximum of +4).
You cant debuff an Exalt by swarming them with multiple opponents.

Artemis1992 said:
@uju32
Back awake and on a computer, so here's the quotes:
ExWoD p.33

Highlight mine.

And the other thing:
ExWod p.446
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1) ExWoD pg 445
How about using multiple actions to defend yourself?Can you do that?
Yes, but as noted in Chapter Two, you have to declare you're taking multiple actions when your turn comes up. You can't just add more on after the fact.
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Assuming a dice pool of 10? We can take one (1) attack action, any defense action(block/parry/dodge) or charm and a full move action in sequence. The attack action will be 9 dice and +1DC. The defense action will be 8 dice and +2DC. The Move will be 7 dice and +3DC.Cap on actions is when the net DC(base + penalty) hits 9.

(We can also just move half our full move reflexively without taking an action.)

2) I am pretty sure we discussed the Excellency thing before, and these are the rules we settled on using.
Either back during the museum case, when we started learning Shih Arts, or the fight with the akuma.
 
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uju32 said:
Assuming a dice pool of 10? We can take one (1) attack action, any defense action(block/parry/dodge) or charm and a full move action in sequence. The attack action will be 9 dice and +1DC. The defense action will be 8 dice and +2DC. The Move will be 7 dice and +3DC.Cap on actions is when the net DC(base + penalty) hits 9.

(We can also just move half our full move reflexively without taking an action.)
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I agree on that.
What I meant is that we can't endlessly defend.

The first 6 javelins might get parried, everything else must be soaked.

You made it sound as if we can parry until our dicepool runs out, which is not true.
The DC reaching 9 is our hard limit and will stay so even if we have multiple arms with our next Rage Recast.
 
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Busy day yesterday.Anyway, back to the current issue.

This is an open lake outdoors, and Molly can both fly and move almost 300 yards in a turn if she's using a full move action in shintai. Move, slash, move seems like a viable tactic, and one that will largely limit the construct mob to attempting to throw projectiles at a moving target, something that raises their DCs to hit.

Artemis1992 said:
I agree on that.
What I meant is that we can't endlessly defend.
The first 6 javelins might get parried, everything else must be soaked.
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Mortalish/low supernatural opponents. Dice pool for a max mortal is 10, maybe 12 for low supernatural/magic gear.
And we have 27 HLs, 14 of them -0.
Simply ignoring them is the best option I can see, especially since we dont want to keep burning Essence on Excellencies.
 
Lets ask the supervillain:
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Thank you.

VOTE
[X] Plan Thanos
-[X] Cut off the head and the body will wither to fall upon and carve into the central mass
--[X] Detail: Strike and move, taking advantage of your mobility to make it more difficult for the tentacles and mooks as much as possible, and your shield to parry whats left
--[X] Action 1: Parry
--[X] Action 2: Attack
--[X] Action 3: Full Move
--[X] Contingency: EIPP to trigger at need
-[X]STUNT: You conceal any concern behind an unimpressed facade as you stare up at the looming bulk of the god-monster, taking count of the swarming humanoids among the heads and tentacles. Then your feet leave the water as you take flight, Dark Sun unfolding in your off-hand even as the freezing rain and wind intensifies, sleet beginning to fall as well. You open your mouth, voice pitched to carry."So you make....constructs of the remains of your mortal victims, and you expect anyone to be impressed?" You shake your head visibly. "Thats just sad." Then you move.


STATUS
Essence 9/15m
Willpower 6/9 wp
HP 27/27

Melee Excellency 3/4 turns
IPM: Immunity to mental fuckery. Scenelong
VLE: Buff to soak. Scenelong
Steelskin: Buff to stamina. Scenelong
Without Honor: +2 dice to all pools while cold remains
All Things Betray: -3DC to Perception rolls. + Perception to Initiative rolls.
Boiling Sea Mastery: -1DC to all rolls
Windborn Stride: x3 base speed. x2 Initiative pool
Anima: Surprise negator
Rage Recast: Flight + Agg damage
Demonic Guide: -2DC to Awareness rolls


SHINTAI MODE
Strength 5
Dexterity 8
Stamina 8 (4 + Steelskin 4[Avg of rolling Willpower 9 + Without Honor 2 at DC 8 - BSM1])

Soak 23 (Base 3 + Shintai 1 + Ebon Scales 1 + Steelskin 4 + VLE 8 + Demon Armor 4 + Without Honor 2) at DC 4 (SWS+BSM)
HL: 27
Base Speed x6 (44 yards/turn x6) = 264 yards/turn


Defense Pool:
Dexterity 8 + Melee 5 + Excellency 13 + Without Honor 2 + Stunt 2 -1 multi-action penalty = 29 dice.
Dark Sun: DC4
Net DC modifiers: (+1 Multi-action penalty) + (-1 BSM) + (-1 Shintai)
Total DC: 3

Attack pool:
Dexterity 8 + Melee 5 + Excellency 13 + Without Honor 2 + Stunt 2 - 2 multi-action penalty = 28 dice.
Demon Weapon Usum: DC6 standard attack
Net DC modifiers: (+2 Multi-action penalty) + (-1 BSM) + (-1 Shintai)
Total DC: 6


RATIONALE
The fight is taking place outside, on the surface of a lake.

We can fly, and we can move faster than Iku-Turso or his minions; 264 yards/turn is roughly an eight of a mile in 3 seconds, or 180 miles per hour. Kiting him by striking and moving both makes it largely impossible for him to use melee attacks when Molly is out of range of him and his constructs, plus it makes it more difficult to hit a moving target, which should be worth a DC or dice penalty to their attacks or defenses.

There are two reasons not to dive underwater
  • Challenging a god on their own homeground is to be avoided unless absolutely necessary.
  • If Nemesis is watching, I'd prefer to display as little about the breadth of Molly's capabilities as possible. The more surprises we can keep, the better.
 
uju32 said:
Seems a little much.
I dont really want to make things such that fighting Molly requires that you have an anti-shaping defense or environmental charms to prevent auto-losing.
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It's a really expensive super mode that we can only use on limited basis. Tactics like this also have some clear readily accessible counters for what it is among exalts.

I don't think it's unreasonable for the bar to fighting a living hell dimension when it's in its 110% murder mode to be "must be this environment proof to ride".
 
BronzeTongue said:
It's a really expensive super mode that we can only use on limited basis. Tactics like this also have some clear readily accessible counters for what it is among exalts.

I don't think it's unreasonable for the bar to fighting a living hell dimension when it's in its 110% murder mode to be "must be this environment proof to ride".
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A certain weakness to endless masses of mooks is traditional for Exalted though.

We are greatly reducing that through our soak , but the principle stands.
 
BronzeTongue said:
It's a really expensive super mode that we can only use on limited basis. Tactics like this also have some clear readily accessible counters for what it is among exalts.

I don't think it's unreasonable for the bar to fighting a living hell dimension when it's in its 110% murder mode to be "must be this environment proof to ride".
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Among Exalts, sure. But this is not(currently)an Exalt-centered setting.
That interpretation just seems a little....much that we can kill off an army with a passive stunt.
There's supposed to be 5-dot charms for shit like that, like World-Grinding Devastation and All-Devouring Depths.

Its mechanically accurate, but given the setting, its one of those interpretations that I would argue that we, who control the PC should exercise restraint about, because you are essentially making it necessary that the QM has to escalate to challenge you, in a setting where there's established power levels and capabilities.

Take it that Molly doesnt want to damage Summer/the territory of her hosts.
Or reveal exactly how far she can warp reality to the eyes of friends and foe alike.
There's any number of potential reasons IC.
 
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Artemis1992 said:
A certain weakness to endless masses of mooks is traditional for Exalted though.

We are greatly reducing that through our soak , but the principle stands.
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Traditional weakness isn't a strong argument. There are plenty of charms that make bringing more guys an actively bad idea.

An Abyssal going at a horde of vampires with their retaliation and spirit killer available for example effectively has an essence pool equal to twice the mook count as long as you're unable to separate them from the swarm.

We keep complaining about infernals being weak and then applying nerfs on the areas we gain back from in RaW.

We paid a very high buy in price for this:

DragonParadox said:
I do not want to unduly influence proceedings but I will say this much, that Signature would be particularly terrifying to anyone with a deep understanding of magic, so elder wizards and up. The thing about it is you do not only go 'I reject your reality and substitute my own', you also replace it with a living alien city which implies an unspeakable amount of control of your power no matter how you do it.
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Adding caveats to it after the fact that nerf it down to walls and the DC mod just makes us less able to keep up.
uju32 said:
Among Exalts, sure. But this is not(currently)an Exalt-centered setting.
That interpretation just seems a little....much that we can kill off an army with a passive stunt.
There's supposed to be charms for shit like that, like World-Grinding Devastation and All-Devouring Depths.

Its mechanically accurate, but given the setting, its one of those interpretations that I would argue that we, who control the PC should exercise restraint about, because you are essentially making it necessary that the QM has to escalate to challenge you, in a setting where there's established power levels and capabilities.

Take it that Molly doesnt want to damage Summer/the territory of her hosts.
Or reveal exactly how far she can warp reality to the eyes of friends and foe alike.
There's any number of potential reasons IC.
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When has the solution to a pissed exalt been to bring an army of two bit mooks? Sure multi-attack is a thing, but unless the exalt stays still and lets you kill them good luck with that.

Nobody is complaining that Ancient Sorcery is out of scale with the setting's magic and should similarly be kept in check since everyone around us so far as been unable to match it within its niche. Nor are there any strong arguments that Mab twisting time in Winter or something should get axed because it's hard to deal with if you pick the wrong fight.

This tactic would have only been partially effective against the Jades, and being the environment means that it's difficult to go all out when we have people we like around who can't take it. As in the first time we used it.

In terms of encouraging escalation, you're literally voting to ignore them. If there's any feedback that would say to escalate it's that.

Ultimately people who aren't powerful enough or tank it or clever enough to manufacture a situation where we don't want to use our power certain ways should be absurdly punished by it for the same reason a mortal running up and challenging us to a sword fight should be.

We aren't a level adjusted raid boss, Molly is hell mode.
 
BronzeTongue said:
When has the solution to a pissed exalt been to bring an army of two bit mooks? Sure multi-attack is a thing, but unless the exalt stays still and lets you kill them good luck with that.

Nobody is complaining that Ancient Sorcery is out of scale with the setting's magic and should similarly be kept in check since everyone around us so far as been unable to match it within its niche. Nor are there any strong arguments that Mab twisting time in Winter or something should get axed because it's hard to deal with if you pick the wrong fight.

This tactic would have only been partially effective against the Jades, and being the environment means that it's difficult to go all out when we have people we like around who can't take it. As in the first time we used it.

In terms of encouraging escalation, you're literally voting to ignore them. If there's any feedback that would say to escalate it's that.

Ultimately people who aren't powerful enough or tank it or clever enough to manufacture a situation where we don't want to use our power certain ways should be absurdly punished by it for the same reason a mortal running up and challenging us to a sword fight should be.

We aren't a level adjusted raid boss, Molly is hell mode.
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Ancient Sorcery? The only Ancient Sorcery spell that works on this scale is Rain of Spiders, and it both requires 5m, a third of Molly's current dice pool to cast, and it can be defended against by simply going indoors. Dance of Obsidian Butterflies is cheaper(3m), smaller scale(100 yards x 30 yards x 10 yards) and can also be defended against mundanely.

This tactic would have killed off the Jades.
Most of them are tougher than humans, but are no more immune to damage from extremes of temperature than these guys we are staring at, any more than they are immune to getting stabbed by sharp swords.

We are discussing a Signature effect of a charm that already comes with a primary benefit.
I dont really think it's supposed to obsolete the 5-dot charms explicitly designed to kill mobs.
Its mechanically legal, but I think there's narrative and thematic reasons for restraint.

Thats just my opinion.
 
[X] Plan Elsa Ain't Nothing
-[X] Cut off the head and the body will wither to fall upon and carve into the central mass
-[X] MiM the minions when enough of the collective dies to qualify.
-[X] [Stunt] Letting loose a peal of laughter that rang like thunder, Molly unfurled Dark Sun and took to the sky. "Oh honey, let me show you yours"
—[X] In something less like change and more like suddenly noticing what was already there the sky directly above turned the grasping black of the deep wastes, dark like nothing on earth could be.
—[X] Below, where once there was a lake rested a mighty river. In its depths streams of glowing dust spread, like ink spilled into a full glass.
—[X] As each servitor fell to the deadly cold it seemed to drink something absolutely essential from them, a pulse running along the nearest streams of light. Though they looked no different in death, there was something unquantifiably less about them.


MiM to get motes back. Not much point in hiding it after we functionally announced its use to the white court after killing an outsider with it in view of their elders.

As to showing the Shintai stuff; when would be better? We're fighting an outsider empowered god and his small army of undead constructs in a duel where we don't have to worry about anyone else getting caught in the middle of things.

I doubt the only trick he had was pretending to be an oil spill. This isn't the time to play around and pretend this guy is something we can toy with.
uju32 said:
Ancient Sorcery? The only Ancient Sorcery spell that works on this scale is Rain of Spiders, and it both requires 5m, a third of Molly's current dice pool to cast, and it can be defended against by simply going indoors. Dance of Obsidian Butterflies is cheaper(3m), smaller scale(100 yards x 30 yards x 10 yards) and can also be defended against mundanely.

This tactic would have killed off the Jades.
Most of them are tougher than humans, but are no more immune to damage from extremes of temperature than these guys we are staring at, any more than they are immune to getting stabbed by sharp swords.

We are discussing a Signature effect of a charm that already comes with a primary benefit.
I dont really think it's supposed to obsolete the 5-dot charms explicitly designed to kill mobs.
Its mechanically legal, but I think there's narrative and thematic reasons for restraint.

Thats just my opinion.
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My point on Ancient Sorcery was not about combat, it was that it functionally does the same thing within its portion of the narrative. Nemesis is only acting like this because we have the ability to mess with it and chose to do so.

Pretty sure that jades can access environmental protection stuff, at minimum the big Akuma would have made it and he was the only one who actually stopped us from doing whatever we wanted.

Plenty of charms cover each other's bases, and I wouldn't say this particular one actually does simply because it's expensive and limited use per arc. We've already burned Shintai on the first action of this one, it won't be a trivial exercise to use it again anytime soon.

As to being something other than the exact system text; see RVD and our dice adjusters. We teleport with a stealth charm and use landmines as an enchantment aid. Infernals live and die on this stuff in ExWoD.

This is what the thing was bought and sold for, what we talked about doing with it, and an expression of the core of Molly's power. Literally her signature writ with the greatest tool of change she has.

Getting cold feet and nerfing it now that we're actually doing it doesn't seem mechanically necessary or narratively congruent.
 
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