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[Exalted, ?] Most High

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Rihaku said:
They're not Non-Charm dice, I will make that more clear.

It's mostly for out of combat stuff. You get the equivalent of an Excellency in every Ability, only it's better than that because it's at dice cap regardless of how crap your Ability normally is, and you also get the Free Excellency Charm for every Ability. It's probably overpowered.
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The whole once per story unless 3 dice stunt or limit break seems weird.

Is it that OP?
 
Kind of.

It means that we can essentially, once per story add +10 to a dice pool, even if it's something like a rating 4 or something.

So, once per story, we can pretend that we're actually good at making inspiring speeches! Or, you know, actually write an inspiring speech, and get a 3 die stunt to activate it for free.
 
Guile said:
We can't exactly take all our DBs and use them to crush one of the armies without the other two armies... y'know, running around putting towns to the sword and stuff.
Probably why I haven't bothered to re-vote on this one.
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Heretical actively hurts our chances though, at least if we invest enough effort for to get a good result.
Alectai said:
Kind of.

It means that we can essentially, once per story add +10 to a dice pool, even if it's something like a rating 4 or something.

So, once per story, we can pretend that we're actually good at making inspiring speeches! Or, you know, actually write an inspiring speech, and get a 3 die stunt to activate it for free.
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Ah, no, that's once per scene. The other effect is once per story:
Rihaku said:
Once per scene, Odyssial may add his full (Int + Lore) in dice to any stunted Ability roll that does not use Archery, Brawl, Martial Arts, Melee, or Thrown. He may always add up to ten dice if he would break the dice cap for that Attribute + Ability, but still may not add more than ten dice total from Charms.
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It's definitely overpowered.
 
So, given my complete lack of Exalted 3E know-how and my sporadic knowledge of other editions, what exactly does the Perilous tag mean or do? Should we be concerned? Or should Ulyssian's enemies be concerned?

Also, I very much appreciate the battle group bonus evocations, those are nice.
 
Emerald Oracle said:
So, given my complete lack of Exalted 3E know-how and my sporadic knowledge of other editions, what exactly does the Perilous tag mean or do? Should we be concerned? Or should Ulyssian's enemies be concerned?

Also, I very much appreciate the battle group bonus evocations, those are nice.
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Perilous means he can't use it if he's Crashed. Which is Initative 0 or less.
 
Rihaku said:
The character may accept a point of Indefinite Limit, which cannot be released unless he wills it. The duration of his Immortal Blade Triumphant is extended indefinitely, until that point of Limit is released. The Charm will persist even if the character banishes and summons his weapon with Summoning the Loyal Steel, allowing him to free that hand for normal use.
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Rihaku said:
Cloaked in the light of the morning, Odyssial's movements betray a fluid symmetry of form, a grace beyond swordsman or forest predator. The character must accept a point of Indefinite Limit to benefit from this Charm.
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I'm beginning to understand why Odyssial was in a permanent Limit Break. Add a few more evocations like these one, a desire to always be the very best, and...

It doesn't help that triggering a limit break gives him willpower and motes. Thus one wants to do it as often as possible. Repeatedly in the same scene would be optimal.

I'll look through these in more detail later, but many of them are actually fairly flavorful.
 
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Rihaku said:
They're not Non-Charm dice, I will make that more clear.

It's mostly for out of combat stuff. You get the equivalent of an Excellency in every Ability, only it's better than that because it's at dice cap regardless of how crap your Ability normally is, and you also get the Free Excellency Charm for every Ability. It's probably overpowered.
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Wait so we are actually pretty good at social when we use this?
 
Guile said:
What is better than an Ulyssian armed with Ambition? Many Ulyssians.

An evocation to form mirror images for defense, or ghostly Ulyssians armed with swords for offense...

Maybe even cavalry he can order around, playing off Odyssial's banner and past as Strategos.

EDIT: or something like... Bladewind March, pick a location and run there, getting one attack off on every enemy you charge past to get there?
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Or something like Iskanders Reality Marble. Summon up the ghostly shades of everyone that holds an Intimacy of Loyality/Respect/Awe or similiar to Ulyssian/Odyssial to fight at his side. Mechanically it buffs his magnitude and perhaps some might because there ought to be a lot of badasses.

Fluffwise, we can pull an army out of our ass and look really, really amazing. Especially if we can add in Odyssials subordinate Dragonbloods.
 
OK so, I just realized something that I think has passed us all by. Odyssial had a faithful female Dragonblood Lieutenant with a brother who hated him. Odyssial performed the Lathe of Heaven, whose effect propagated to nearby Exalts, and possibly on to those THEY were close to. We've been joking about how Flame and his sister are them reincarnated, but they MIGHT ACTUALLY BE!

What's more, the reason they have their particular bloodline may be because of a working ODYSSIAL had done on them in the High First Age! Talk about making your own rival.
 
[X] The Scarlet Flag Prophecy

Our odds just improved massively, and we can't let Zao down atthis juncture. Undermine Syn at every opportunity we get and figure out how to stalemate the three armies in the meantime. Uly is pretty beastly even without the prophecy.
 
Usernames said:
I wonder if Ulyssian/Odyssial get social buffs by leading with example of excellence and perfection?
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Ulyssian is starting to develop new branches off of Ambition--one of them lets him use it to manuever his enemies around (Dump one point of the weapon's Defense rating, in exchange for being able to punt your victim a Range Band)
 
[X] Heresy
I like these odds, especially when we make silly Siddies Sid like mad. They want to escalate, we shall graciously play with them.
 
So, as to what we should get next with our XP, I would say that the last Evocation of Ambition on our current Essence level (though I'm somewhat unsure if it is under Essence 5 in the first place) would wrap up things nicely. Don't know the exact details, as its the only Charm that Rihaku hasn't updated since the first Artifact update. For example, things like Ready in Eight Directions Stance should last only for one round, which the Evocation might change.
Rihaku said:
Adamant Evocation, Eightfold Immortal Bulwark - The character's Fivefold Bulwark Stance, Immortal Blade Triumphant, and Ready in Eight Directions Stance may be simultaneously activated with a single Simple action. This counts as a Form Charm.
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Anyway, I have to admit that one of the new Evocations, that being What Rouses Glory and its Inexhaustible, had me cracking. Its a power Ulyssian has fantasized for, till now. "I can restore my Essence and the strength of my will while also training at the same? Finally, something optimal."
 
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meianmaru said:
Not only that, it may push Anys to doing something even more rash before we are prepared to face her. Especially if we start slaughtering the foes gathered at Luseng with worrying speed...
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Heretical is slow moving and very much an indirect vector of attack.
Buffing up Zao and stopping Anys Syn's ability to erode his influence is very much blatant and far more likely to result in her attempting to escalate against him, especially if she hears we might be win at Luseng and gain our own power base, before she has even started dismantling Zao's.

Anys Syn's plan is to have us hopefully killed and at the very least occupied in the Satrapy positioning, while she focuses her attention on weakening Zao.
That's why the update was called Divide; Conquer.
If you're afraid of Anys Syn doing something rash before we're ready, visibly frustrating all her plans to stop us is very much the opposite of what we want to do.

The basic thought behind the Scarlet Flag approach to our overall conflict with Anys Syn is that we essentially just fend off this attempt to harm us.
The ideal result is that Zao loses none of his power, we come out of it with a very rich Satrapy behind our back and an established repuatation as a great Hero of the Realm.
The obvious risk here is that as it becomes more and more clear that her plan is not working at all, Anys Syn will go for another strike. This may not turn out too bad for us, given that she might make a mistake we can exploit, but, as you said, her acting too quickly is easily going to be dangerous and since even the ideal result is just Zao's forces, Uly and a very rich Satrapy against someone currently controlling the entire Realm, we'll still have to come up with and enact schemes that actually tilt the odds in our favour.

The basic thought behind the Heretical Prophecy on the other hand is that we kick off a very indirect, but potentially very threatening assault of our own.
Zao may lose influence while we do so, but the navy has always been a diminishing force and Zao is totally going to die.
Seriously though, the ultimate result of this would be that our faction's focus moves very much away from Zao and his political influence, which does seem somewhat appropriate once we start surpassing him in power, especially given how often we've decided that his preferred course of action wasn't a good one.

And while Anys Syn will still (hopefully) get reports of our success, the fact that she is successfully acting against Zao should reassure her. The effects of the Heretical Prophecy are slow moving and subtle enough that they are anything but immediately apparent and, once they do become apparent and even recognizable as a Solar's work, they'll have enough momentum that she needs to deal with them somehow and that she can't get rid of them by moving against us alone.
The hope here is that, once things in Luseng are more or less dealt with, Anys Syn will have too much to worry about our grassroots movement to move nearly as strongly in response to our survival of the suicide posting and that, while Zao's influence was diminished, us getting much more free time again will allow us to both counteract that and increase the pressure on Anys Syn to even greater levels.

The risk that we won't actually have the time to cultivate the Heretical Prophecy is a real one, yes, but even if we don't get another chance to continue on this for quite some time, kicking off the whole thing and allowing the first step to propagate should keep this course of action available for a while and we do kind of need to find ways to strike at Any Syn, if we want to prevail against her, and the potential ultimate payoff of Heretical Prophecy is so very ridiculously good that it seems very much worth it.
 
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