Alchemical Solutions [Worm/Exalted] Thread 18: Ravaging Rapscallions Rapidly Regret Regular Rampages
- Thread starter Gromweld
- Start date
You know, from what I've heard, if we were a 3rd Ed Solar, we'd already be Essence 5.
And apparently, we'd be an Elder Solar with that Essence rating.
- Location
- The word mines
How are 3rd Ed. Alchemicals and others looking, or are they not out yet?
I've heard there's mention, but they're not out yet.
- Location
- The end of all things
Not quite. There's two kinds of experience: XP, and
Also consider: Backgrounds, now called Story Merits, cannot be purchased with in play with XP. We have spent well over a hundred XP on backgrounds.
Ask again later. Like in 2021 or so. Seriously. They are literally last on the list, and there are at least 10 major splats ahead of them.
I'll assume every Charm purchase will come with all known submods preloaded, just like SoPA did, but that we'll have to meet the pre-requisites and pay appropriate XP to unlock their functions?
Would cut down on Vat visits, so that we'd only need to go into the bodyshop for new Charms, custom submods, Essence and Attribute upgrades, as well as healing Charm amputations and loadout swaps.
Assuming any of our Alchemicals will be able to afford the massive Charm panoply common to canon Alchs, of course.
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Gromweld
Learning By Mistake
You should not assume that. Shard-Charms have all their pre-reqs installed because Autobot doesn't expect us to ever return to where he "made" the new Alchemicals (hint: that location is not Autochthonia). Any more 'bog-standard' charms beyond the initial loadout will not have all their submods installed for free/by default.
I've got an idea for that, which came about when I was thinking of ways to fix the XP bloat we've acquired up until now as well as a way to get us Vat access.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, as is usually the case), it involves Iris making himself useful.
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
Iris, like his greater self Autochthon, cannot avoid being helpful. It is his nature.
Gromweld
Learning By Mistake
If someone else takes these things at "character creation", perhaps.
Hmm, Mobile Sensory Drone is relatively cheap(Perception 4, Per Augmentation, bonuses for Int 3, Cha/Man 3, Dex 3, Str 3, Per 5), could go nicely on AlchemicalMissy, especially if she's going to be social/battlefield control, as she's probably one of the more well rounded candidates we have, AND would have strange effects on the drone's range limit with her power.
Likewise with Transcendent Multimodal Artifact Matrix(Wits 3), which...easily goes on pretty much anyone who can spare it.
Likewise with Transcendent Multimodal Artifact Matrix(Wits 3), which...easily goes on pretty much anyone who can spare it.
- Location
- The end of all things
Sure, if you want her to have a swarm body, or whatever exactly the *fun* surprise of taking this charm would have given us.
IAT, she's no more 'funned' than any other Alchemical, and it ensures human form.
Especially not when it costs 5 motes to deploy each drone, so she couldn't turn into a swarm in the first place. You need a hundred motes to release enough eyeball sized drones from your body to run out of mass.
Pretty sure it won't be the bad kind of fun stuff. More like having every body part be detachable, which is pretty cool for a robogirl.
Eh.
I would have thought Autobot would have the foresight to worry about the relative lack of defenses that a Nowhereverse vat would suffer from, compared to the massive defensive works that is the norm for a vat complex back home.
Especially after watching what happened to Brockton Bay.
Dropping the required downtime for his agents in Nowhereverse would seem to be a priority, especially since they are on a deadline of sorts.
Oh dear.
*battens down the hatches*
Why?
Missy is a Shaker; she can detect people in her field when she extends it IIRC.
There is no need for her to expend a Charm slot on MSD.
Plus, familiars share senses with their primaries anyway.
I expect both Missy and Armsmaster would come with TMAM.
Missy in particular, because TMAM+Essence Pulse cannon makes her a Blaster 5; add an artifact with an Elemental Lens and she becomes a Blaster 7-8.
Then load a suit of superheavy plate in there as well.
Colin OTOH would probably load his TMAM with whatever he tinkered up, starting with his halberd and armsdriver.
And if he got an Essence cannon, it would probably go in his eyes or on a shoulder mount as an auxiliary weapon.
I'm still of the opinion that dedicating another two motes for Celestial Battle Armor is worth it for all the extra goodies that comes with it.
Celestial Battle Armour is a five dot artifact, it is also has a repair rating, this means an Alchemical has to be Essence 6 to have it in Transcendent Multimodal Artifact Matrix
Oh and Super Heavy plate is 5 dot (edit never mind), however it doesn't have a repair rating so a bit more likely, but no one would start with it, at best a Reinforced Breast Plate or Ashigaru Skirmish Armor
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I don't believe CBAs are on the table.
Not yet anyway, not in the Nowhereverse.
For one thing, we do not have hearthstones to run them.
For another, she'd need to take TIE to keep it around since it would not fit into a TMAM(5 dot magitech artifact with repair rating).
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True, but Superheavy Plate is singularly unimpressive even when errata'd as a 3 dot Artifact.
Eh, granted.
Edit: Did some fact checking and corrected an error on my part.
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FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
Umm, why use up a valuable charm slot for TMAM when you could just pick up the Artifact background at character creation instead?
Alchemicals get 3x the bang for their bonus point bucks so it's a very powerful starting option. We could get Celestial Battle Armor, a five dot weapon, and still have another five dots left over if we got Artifact 5.
One last thing - this is a bit meta but I think it's the most important - if an artifact is manifested via charms it is essentially a part of you. Contrast this with an Artifact gained via Backgrounds - they are stand-alone things that exist separately and independently from you. This is important because it gives Iris (and our tinker buddies like Dragon) something to twiddle with to help them figure out the differences between the Nowhere and Somewhere rule-sets. Meaning, in addition to having awesome toys to play with we'd also be advancing our greater goal of figuring out how to bring Autochthon to Earth-Bet.
Alchemicals get 3x the bang for their bonus point bucks so it's a very powerful starting option. We could get Celestial Battle Armor, a five dot weapon, and still have another five dots left over if we got Artifact 5.
One last thing - this is a bit meta but I think it's the most important - if an artifact is manifested via charms it is essentially a part of you. Contrast this with an Artifact gained via Backgrounds - they are stand-alone things that exist separately and independently from you. This is important because it gives Iris (and our tinker buddies like Dragon) something to twiddle with to help them figure out the differences between the Nowhere and Somewhere rule-sets. Meaning, in addition to having awesome toys to play with we'd also be advancing our greater goal of figuring out how to bring Autochthon to Earth-Bet.
She doesn't actually detect people, she only feels the added load on her field the more creatures are in it, and we know it doesn't differentiate between Person and Bug, given that a sufficiently concentrated mass of bugs makes her powers fizz.
But the drones do a number of things here:
-Remote social interface. Any of our socially oriented Exalts will find it extremely useful with conversing with or coordinating people remotely. Think what we can do with our bugs, except it's got a MUCH greater range and isn't as creepy.
-Remote sensor with all that can be packed into Alchemical Bullshit senses, including the possibility of getting Unsurpassed (Sense) Discipline effects loaded on every single drone.
-Telepathic, it allows for communications without external leakage, with anyone who has the drone nearby.
-Unlike our swarm however, the drones are part of her body, meaning it potentially has the capacity to act as a range extender for her power without having to cover the entire intervening distance with her power(and pay the effort surcharge for number of units in the area). I THINK this is the 'fun stuff' surprise we missed out on, considering what it might do for our SoPA if we had it.
-Coupled to IEU, she can then use the drones to provide battlefield control support for any individual on site team within the city.
-[j/k] Rocket punch option
Overall, a useful addition, and one she should qualify for easily, while also not being very costly. A suite of social charms, a suite of sensory charms, a suite of mass combat charms and Alchemical Combat Basics works fairly well.
Transcendent Multimodal Artifact Matrix makes combat charms a relatively low priority due to packing a good armory(there's very little to be said for combat ability once you throw in a daiklave and artifact armor), and her own power makes hard defenses less vital, as long as she can sense an attack coming, she can warp space to not be there.
The key is being aware of anything she can't tank incoming, which is where sensory charms come in. Secondary Sensory Upgrades with Mobile Sensory Drone is extremely powerful when you have an ability like that.
Take 20 charms:
-Fourth Charisma Augmentation x2
-First Wits Augmentation
-Fourth Stamina Augmentation
-Fourth Perception Augmentation
-Tunnel-Fighting Tactical Omnibus Implant
-Omnipresent Guardian Directive
-Patrotism-Provoking Display
-Motivational Vocoder
-Radiant Iconography Array
-Pattern Facilitation Module
-Programmed Catechism Rebuttal
-Integrated Artifact Transmogrifier
-Husk-Sculpting Apparatus
-Transcendent Multimodal Artifact Matrix
-Industrial Survival Frame
-Anticipatory Simulation Processor
-Mobile Sensory Drone
-Optical Enhancement
-Secondary Sensory Upgrades
Remember with All The Submodules version, it comes with an array of useful robot pets as well as a full armory of armor and weapons, which the PRT cannot remove(due to being body parts)!
Personally, I think Missy's Shard-Charm should come with a sub-module that allows a Perfect Dodge or Perfect Parry, because she's basically making the attack miss her.