@DragonParadox how much Essence do we have left?
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
EIPP can be activated with willpower and we got a free point at the start of the fight. Why not just use that?
Two, like it says in the update.
- Location
- Brazil
@BoredMan I too think you should switch to willpower so we save the other two motes for any other nonsense that Sandra throws at us after we kill the Dragon.
Willpower can be used to add successes, and running out of willpower is also a big issue. And we are low on both. If we run out, I am fairly sure we can still slay some minor outsiders to replenish essence, but not willpower. So, it's better to use essence right now, I think.
I don't think we should spend either essence or willpower this chaosphere occupies an area we could walk through at a casual pace expending willpower or Essence to deal with the effect when we can stunt getting the Dragon out of that area so our forces and us on our next turn get effectively chunk away at it is a thing we can do so we should just do it.
For real Dragon Paradox said the actual sphere is smaller than the vampire himself in his Dragon form we really don't need to expend any of our extremely Limited resources to deal with it this turn. He may get up and try to move back into the chaos here but he'll have to get up and move back into the chaosphere to do that.
- Location
- Brazil
We may not need it but it would make the scene really cool and in the end isn't that what we all want deep down?
(Quester and exalted players are equal to the Fey of the purest Wyld when it comes to always wanting more cool and interesting stories)
I think there is something pretty cool about just completely ignoring the chaos magic breaking one of his legs and then him getting blasted by a bunch of laser fire despite feeling all confident and arrogant because he got an outsider sphere around him. " Dragon my ass, man you ain't got nothing, get lasered idiot"
Isn't the area centered on him, as in will follow him around as he moves? Even if it's not attempting to bodily throw around a dragon-man without any strength enhancers is a bit of a task.
Don't get me wrong, Molly is pretty strong. It's just in the blacksmith's daughter turned swordswoman kind of way and not Solar with a supernal strength charm one. MHM might do it, but that costs us more essence.
He is pretty large I will admit that but the sweep maneuver and just in general the largeness of your body doesn't prevent you from being knocked over like say if someone who could fly directly into your knee joint with a sword and cause you to fall over because there's the thing we don't actually need to like knock him across the room just having his leg carry a bit too far forward and then he moves to the side too far means most of his body is outside of the sphere.
The sphere as far as I'm aware is cast at an area rather than on the dragon it's any servant of the Outsiders in this area benefits from this any non-servents that strike into it or are in it face the penalty of it it's not anchored on him it's just anchored in that spot that he is in.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
I reread this multiple times and I'm still confused. First of all the Sphere of Chaos is surrounding the Dragon isn't it? Mechanically speaking is it not going to follow him as he moves or is it tied to this one spot in the air? When did DP say that cause the update makes it seem like Molly is currently in it's effect which implies that anytime we are in melee range of the Dragon it's going to affect us.
The sphere is pinned in place, creating the effect at a distance is already quite difficult, getting it to move with someone else it too large of an ask for Sandra. Given the advantages it offers him Molly thinks it is very unlikely the Dragon will move out of it
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
Molly and the Dragon are currently in the air how are we going to knock him over?
If anything you should be trying to cut it's wings off.
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He pulled his massive body into the area made by the chaos sphere curling and scrunching into it to stay there he's not flying anymore.
He is still flying, the sphere's in mind air, he's hovering. This is a shape spun of blood and dark magic, it does not have to follow the laws of aerodynamics.
BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
Not how I read that. It looks like he's twisting and turning to stay where he is airborne. The spell was casted while he was in the air and he is currently in it's AOE so he has to still be in the air. @DragonParadox is that right?
Nvm.
[X] Boredman
There's a point to be made about willpower, but since we got that point it basically takes us back to the reserve we had at the start of the scene instead of dipping lower. Essence regen is thin on the ground unless learning that outsiders can invest people with demonic lores specifically weak against angelic influence counts as enough of a secret to snack on.
Tangential, but I'm also unclear on is the level of immunity we get from EIPP. We're protected from "all such influence" for the scene, but does that mean a specific power or type of effect? If someone blasted us with wave of mutilation for example would we need a new activation or since they're both "blast you with chaos juice" shaping does the first cover it?
It seems to me that the latter case makes more sense, because it's a pricy charm and it forces the opposition to get creative with their effect mixing to make things work rather than just picking a power that's essentially the same but with a different AoE.
There's a point to be made about willpower, but since we got that point it basically takes us back to the reserve we had at the start of the scene instead of dipping lower. Essence regen is thin on the ground unless learning that outsiders can invest people with demonic lores specifically weak against angelic influence counts as enough of a secret to snack on.
Tangential, but I'm also unclear on is the level of immunity we get from EIPP. We're protected from "all such influence" for the scene, but does that mean a specific power or type of effect? If someone blasted us with wave of mutilation for example would we need a new activation or since they're both "blast you with chaos juice" shaping does the first cover it?
It seems to me that the latter case makes more sense, because it's a pricy charm and it forces the opposition to get creative with their effect mixing to make things work rather than just picking a power that's essentially the same but with a different AoE.
Fell asleep with this open in a tab, so might as well post before I lose it.
Splitting it up into two posts because length:
Gonna try to take some of the things I havent had time to address before bedtime:
A situation where an Exalt cannot defend against more than one attack in a turn explicitly contradicts the words and the spirit of that clause.
2)This ruling has implications beyond just this fight; it would significantly degrade the utility of both Molly's anima ability and the surprise negator charm, or any sort of early warning ability. The whole point of having a surprise negator is to be able to defend against damage from unexpected attack.
But if the danger you detect has a buddy, under this interpretation you are kinda fucked.
3) Holden specifically went out of the way to limit attacks. Not defenses.
Thats the explicit stated intent of the rule choice.
Consider the mechanics.
Your standard five-man party of Tom, Dick, Harry, Alice and Bob get to murder any solo vampire elder because he basically cannot defend against more than 1 person at a time unless he has Celerity and the bloodpoints to spend for extra actions. They might have to sacrifice a party member, but its a more or less guaranteed kill by the time four other people get free attacks against his soak.
===
Or take Molly's second fight, where she had to fight Gorfels and his merry men without Michael, or monks.
Assuming she goes first(1x Attack Action allowed), burns an Excellency and oneshots Gorfels as the biggest threat, and she gets a Defense Action against Ace. Now the other three or four neoNazi goons get to act, and by these rules, she doesnt get to do shit while they blast her full of holes.
===
Or, third scenario, this fight.
If the Hand agents here had brought concussion or frag grenades as part of their loadout, they could reach Sandra from across the room even with her hiding; they are not line of sight weapons, and the US Army's minimum throwing standard as of 2018 was around 25 yards.
Sandra would have been stunlocked or incapacitated/dead if she was only able to defend against a single attack at a time.
Even now, with 4x Hand agents in visual range and 16x others jogging along the borders of a 100 feet wide room at 16 yards/ turn(42 feet/turn), she now has that problem.
The geometry means there isnt enough space to use the cauldron thing as cover anymore.
By comparison, the other interpretation caps the maximum penalty to your defense pool at around DC9 and -4 to -6 dice.
That means that a peak mortal or vampire with Attribute 5, Ability 5(total dicepool of 10) still gets to roll 4-6 dice at DC9 to defend themselves if attacked by a lot of people. Avg 0.8 to 1.2 sux if they get the double 10s rule.
0.4 to 0.6 sux if they dont.
An Exalt with those stats and rocking a full Excellency is rolling 14-16 dice at DC 9.
Avg 2.8 to 3.2 sux
Thats.... not great. But its still enough to help mitigate the ability of crowds of mooks with average stats to ping you to death with normal attacks by penalizing their threshold successes. While a major character, or group of major characters, can and will hurt you even if you have an Excellency running.
Which preserves the reason for being of 5-dot charms like Opened Eye of the Hurricane.
Making mortals afraid? Sure. Making them flee? Much harder. Molly knows this from personal experience.
This isnt a Werewolf-style Delirium effect.
2)The use of combat drugs to overcome combat fear reaches at least as far back as WW1, when the British Army was issuing cocaine and opiates to troops in the trenches. The Germans and Japanese issued meth. Khat plays a role in the Horn of Africa and Yemen, and captagon in the Syrian Civil War.
Nevermind modernday Florida. Bath salts, anyone?
And those are just street drugs.
Modern anxiolytics can have much more pronounced and predictable effects.
This is all modern pharmaceutical science, no magic involved.
I mean, out of nowhere, with no warning? Sure. A dragon showing up has a good chance to break a group.
But against even a halfway warned trained mortal force with modern pharma, the fear strat has issues. And if there's even a lesser sorcerer with Countermagic(Vampire) around, or a priest? Its not really enough.
Moving her out into the open and letting the Amethyst Hand shoot her full of holes. Hell, even running around that thing has not taken her out of range of a grenade toss; modern infantry can throw grenades up to 40m or so, with outliers being greater.
Of course, there's the risk of a grenade being returned.
But according to the current ruling, a single person can only defend themselves against a single attack.
So if you had two people throw two grenades, she could only defend against one and still be able to act.
So as long as Hand agents are tossing grenades, she is either stunlocked due to the need for Full Defense, or she can try to take any action at all. And eat 8+(concussion) or 12+(fragmentation) dice of damage.
We hadnt seen them at this time. So we could be reasonably sure there were traps.
Splitting it up into two posts because length:
Gonna try to take some of the things I havent had time to address before bedtime:
1) The book says, and I quote:
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.
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.
2)This ruling has implications beyond just this fight; it would significantly degrade the utility of both Molly's anima ability and the surprise negator charm, or any sort of early warning ability. The whole point of having a surprise negator is to be able to defend against damage from unexpected attack.
But if the danger you detect has a buddy, under this interpretation you are kinda fucked.
3) Holden specifically went out of the way to limit attacks. Not defenses.
Multiple Actions
Exalted vs World of Darkness uses the multiple action rules from V20 Dark Ages. If you don't own that book, they work like this:
When you want to perform more than one action at a time, you must first declare how many actions you're going to take. Then, the first suffers a –1 die penalty, and also raises its difficulty by +1, with each ac- tion afterward increasing the penalty and difficulty by one additional point. If this would push the difficulty higher than 9, then no more actions can be taken. Ad- ditionally, when using multiple actions, no more than one action may be an attack.
Design Note: This version of the 20th Anniversary multiple action rules was chosen chiefly because while multiple actions can be exciting and useful in moderation, watching characters roll out attack after attack after attack slows play to a crawl when it happens every turn. Many Exalts can trivially generate enormous dice pools, and the "split up your dice pool between your "various actions" version of the multiple action rules were a recipe for disaster in that respect.
Exalted vs World of Darkness uses the multiple action rules from V20 Dark Ages. If you don't own that book, they work like this:
When you want to perform more than one action at a time, you must first declare how many actions you're going to take. Then, the first suffers a –1 die penalty, and also raises its difficulty by +1, with each ac- tion afterward increasing the penalty and difficulty by one additional point. If this would push the difficulty higher than 9, then no more actions can be taken. Ad- ditionally, when using multiple actions, no more than one action may be an attack.
Design Note: This version of the 20th Anniversary multiple action rules was chosen chiefly because while multiple actions can be exciting and useful in moderation, watching characters roll out attack after attack after attack slows play to a crawl when it happens every turn. Many Exalts can trivially generate enormous dice pools, and the "split up your dice pool between your "various actions" version of the multiple action rules were a recipe for disaster in that respect.
Consider the mechanics.
Your standard five-man party of Tom, Dick, Harry, Alice and Bob get to murder any solo vampire elder because he basically cannot defend against more than 1 person at a time unless he has Celerity and the bloodpoints to spend for extra actions. They might have to sacrifice a party member, but its a more or less guaranteed kill by the time four other people get free attacks against his soak.
===
Or take Molly's second fight, where she had to fight Gorfels and his merry men without Michael, or monks.
Assuming she goes first(1x Attack Action allowed), burns an Excellency and oneshots Gorfels as the biggest threat, and she gets a Defense Action against Ace. Now the other three or four neoNazi goons get to act, and by these rules, she doesnt get to do shit while they blast her full of holes.
===
Or, third scenario, this fight.
If the Hand agents here had brought concussion or frag grenades as part of their loadout, they could reach Sandra from across the room even with her hiding; they are not line of sight weapons, and the US Army's minimum throwing standard as of 2018 was around 25 yards.
Sandra would have been stunlocked or incapacitated/dead if she was only able to defend against a single attack at a time.
Even now, with 4x Hand agents in visual range and 16x others jogging along the borders of a 100 feet wide room at 16 yards/ turn(42 feet/turn), she now has that problem.
The geometry means there isnt enough space to use the cauldron thing as cover anymore.
By comparison, the other interpretation caps the maximum penalty to your defense pool at around DC9 and -4 to -6 dice.
That means that a peak mortal or vampire with Attribute 5, Ability 5(total dicepool of 10) still gets to roll 4-6 dice at DC9 to defend themselves if attacked by a lot of people. Avg 0.8 to 1.2 sux if they get the double 10s rule.
0.4 to 0.6 sux if they dont.
An Exalt with those stats and rocking a full Excellency is rolling 14-16 dice at DC 9.
Avg 2.8 to 3.2 sux
Thats.... not great. But its still enough to help mitigate the ability of crowds of mooks with average stats to ping you to death with normal attacks by penalizing their threshold successes. While a major character, or group of major characters, can and will hurt you even if you have an Excellency running.
Which preserves the reason for being of 5-dot charms like Opened Eye of the Hurricane.
1)Point of order: Intimidation check. Not rout check.
Making mortals afraid? Sure. Making them flee? Much harder. Molly knows this from personal experience.
This isnt a Werewolf-style Delirium effect.
2)The use of combat drugs to overcome combat fear reaches at least as far back as WW1, when the British Army was issuing cocaine and opiates to troops in the trenches. The Germans and Japanese issued meth. Khat plays a role in the Horn of Africa and Yemen, and captagon in the Syrian Civil War.
Nevermind modernday Florida. Bath salts, anyone?
And those are just street drugs.
Modern anxiolytics can have much more pronounced and predictable effects.
This is all modern pharmaceutical science, no magic involved.
I mean, out of nowhere, with no warning? Sure. A dragon showing up has a good chance to break a group.
But against even a halfway warned trained mortal force with modern pharma, the fear strat has issues. And if there's even a lesser sorcerer with Countermagic(Vampire) around, or a priest? Its not really enough.
This would have worked best, IMO.
Moving her out into the open and letting the Amethyst Hand shoot her full of holes. Hell, even running around that thing has not taken her out of range of a grenade toss; modern infantry can throw grenades up to 40m or so, with outliers being greater.
Of course, there's the risk of a grenade being returned.
But according to the current ruling, a single person can only defend themselves against a single attack.
So if you had two people throw two grenades, she could only defend against one and still be able to act.
So as long as Hand agents are tossing grenades, she is either stunlocked due to the need for Full Defense, or she can try to take any action at all. And eat 8+(concussion) or 12+(fragmentation) dice of damage.
We were told there were Outsiders present.
We hadnt seen them at this time. So we could be reasonably sure there were traps.
COMMENTARY
-Pish.
Claiming slavery that he knowingly sold himself into does not justify him trying to murder tens of millions of people to get himself out of it again.
-Three times.
Repeating something three times has magical power in the Dresdenverse. Sandra has repeated the same "Im sorry Molly" twice. Im guessing that a third repetition is meant to trigger something.
-
This suggests that Sandra's bosses here are Raksha, or used to be Raksha.
Only Raksha would be interested in the narrative and dramatic framing of a plot to kill tens of millions of people.
Probably Unshaped Raksha.
Which leads me to suspect that the Sin-Eater might itself be another Raksha god-monster.
Regardless, that means sunlight aint gonna do shit here.
Raksha may be CoDs, but they tolerate the sun just fine.
-I pointed out that Dresden would be a priority target earlier, and I was right.
That said, AFAIK Outsiders are vulnerable to physical damage. The cornerhounds in Battle Grounds were vulnerable to sound. The ones attacking Demonreach got shanked by the Wild Hunt just fine.
- An Investment of a 2nd-dot Earthbound Evocation is a fairly big deal.
Especially since mortals only have access up to 3 dots. I have to wonder WHY they gave her this one. Appallingly powerful, but very niche applications. Panic button, maybe?
Not to start shit, but I always found that argument...odd.
Im genuinely relieved they had to send what looks like an archmage to Vegas to subvert the Dragon and break the seal.
It would be a lot more distressing if just any average cultist can come this close to gutting a continent.
On both a narrative and mechanical level.
Mortals have a Faith potential. However, Sandra is apparently a mage, and thus a supernatural.
Worth noting: Living supernaturals canonically have a MUCH higher Faith potential than normal mortals, and are thus of particular value to the Fallen both for pacts and possession.
The Imbued/Hunters start at Faith 5, for example, and can go all the way to Faith 10.
Mages specifically have between Faith 8 and Faith 10, according to Demon the Fallen Storyteller's Companion page 65.
(Yes, that has implications for Lydia, but I would just justify it as you intentionally letting her Faith potential grow with Essence level, giving her additional upgrade path options. She's only 16 after all.)
She's probably casting.
Three times repetition is a powerful motif in the Dresden Files for compelling magical beings; Dresden has used it to compel even Walkers to reveal information they would rather not, like their names.
Unfortunately for them, Molly has both EIPP and IPM.
Cant be compelled.
I dont see it.
The entirety of Dresden Files canon thus far is largely seen through the PoV of a homebody baby wizard whose initial magical education was deliberately incomplete, who had the regular wizard certification tests that would test that shit waived because he murderized his previous master, and who has had a literal conspiracy try to keep information from him for most of his life.
We have very little idea IC of what goes on outside Chicago, or inside the Council itself; Dresden has kept his distance from the rest of the wizard community. He's done it so thoroughly that we are sometimes surprised by things that are apparently supposed to be elementary concepts in Dresdenverse magic. Like conjuritis.
Setting-critical elements like the Oblivion War, he is canonically entirely ignorant of.
And it isnt like we havent seen multiple archmage tier feats from both good and bad guys mentioned in the series.
I could literally go book by book with a breakdown if you insist, starting with the Gauntlet manipulation of Chicagoland by Bianca and Mavra in Book 3.
EDIT
Just occurred to me to clarify: Are you objecting to Archmages, or Arch-Spheres?
Those are two different but related things.
You must be an Archmage to have Arch-Spheres, but you dont need to have Arch-Spheres to be an Archmage.
They dont. Its a Lore 2 effect. The not!Earthbound who gave it to them can spam that tier of effect for free.
Under their mechanics, they also get to add Urge dots to their Attributes, up to 5 dots per category, so they are rolling superhuman dicepools to do this from jump, even before using other Lores to boost their dicepools further.
And they can spend Faith to apply Mastery to it, and expand its dimensions and duration.
DtF is not the most mechanically rigorous of gamelines, but with this particular implementation doesnt actually appear to be an issue.
- Location
- Germany
An Exalt takes no penalty to their attacks, or other actions, while surrounded by foes.
What you seem to overlook, deliberatly or not, is that defending is rarely the best options against groups.
Kill them, stun them, escape, become impossible to target, scare them, use any of the myriad of supernatural powers that allow you to improve your situation.
Do not let yourself be hit by a large number of foes, at least not more than once.
As far as I can tell the only way to be an efficient tank in WoD is high soak, but there are many ways of not having to tank.
We should deal with the multiple actions when we are not in the middle of combat, I cannot change the mechanics in the middle of combat anyway.
1) if you lose an intimidation roll badly enough +5 successes, you are going to start running as a mortal. The resonable only way you are pushing though 19 dice of intimidation as a mortal is to pay the willpower
2) Combat drugs powerful enough to deal with the above would severely degrade one's ability to fight. The effect is technically NMI in the sense that Molly's super-materials chain mail is technically mundane crafting
1) if you lose an intimidation roll badly enough +5 successes, you are going to start running as a mortal. The resonable only way you are pushing though 19 dice of intimidation as a mortal is to pay the willpower
2) Combat drugs powerful enough to deal with the above would severely degrade one's ability to fight. The effect is technically NMI in the sense that Molly's super-materials chain mail is technically mundane crafting
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- Location
- Germany
I'm just against the Arch Spheres.
Arete 5+ is no issue, certainly not a gamebreaking one.
Hell, Harry is already at 5 dice, of course Senior Council or people like Cowl or Kemmler roll more.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Wasn't it an actual Plot Point from Battle Grounds that a Wizard casting their Will upon something three times will force an attempt to bind them? No matter how powerful the target is or how potent their protections are? If her going "I'm Sorry" is triggering some sleeper spell she put on Molly, then the third call will just activate it and presumably force a contested Will roll--something that she's probably stacked heavily in advance for just this occasion, since she's prepped for everything else apparently.
And that's why the whole "Thrice I ask and done" thing always works, and the other side never tells them to fuck off, because they have to submit to what the demand is or start a fight, and the circumstances aren't usually favorable to starting a fight at that time.
And that's why the whole "Thrice I ask and done" thing always works, and the other side never tells them to fuck off, because they have to submit to what the demand is or start a fight, and the circumstances aren't usually favorable to starting a fight at that time.
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fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
That's not a wizard thing that's a fey thing. And we are not a fey.
Edit: Wait missed that you are talking about battlegrounds the book I have not read. I guess that they might have changed the rules there.