greensun
You shall all burn beneath my light!!!
She should work on her baking.
General Exalted Thread
- Location
- New York City
Hi again folks. I have another conversion I made, and this one I'm feeling a lot less confident in. It's a conversion of the Need Fire from the past editions, the Fire Elemental. I tried to carry over the weird elements. As per my Demons of Malfeas (Which I'd still love feedback on if anyone has used them, or eyeballed them!) the descriptions of the Need Fire in First Edition are in Games of Divinity on page 68 and in the Rolls of Glorious Divinity in Second Edition on page 121.
Need Fires
The Charms/Abilities I highlighted in the Onyx Path post are the ones that I am least happy with. They're not direct conversions, in the sense that I didn't just port their Charms from 1e or 2e over to 3e, but rather they're conceptually inspired by the types of charms they have, and (ideally) flavored to lend themselves to the behavior of the spirit described. If you guys have any better ideas on how to do that with this or the demons, I would love to hear your ideas!
Thanks!
Need Fires
The Charms/Abilities I highlighted in the Onyx Path post are the ones that I am least happy with. They're not direct conversions, in the sense that I didn't just port their Charms from 1e or 2e over to 3e, but rather they're conceptually inspired by the types of charms they have, and (ideally) flavored to lend themselves to the behavior of the spirit described. If you guys have any better ideas on how to do that with this or the demons, I would love to hear your ideas!
Thanks!
Alas, by her very nature Calesco is bad at baking. All her truths are painful and bittersweet at best, and she brings painful enlightenment to those she opens her heart to. Her care brings suffering to those closest to her. Though her honeyed lies born of her kinship to the Dragon are pleasing to the eye, beautiful and well-rounded, they are but skin deep and to imbibe them is to lose the illusion of her falsehoods.
Hence, while her muffins even look nice, as soon as you bite into them they taste weird and floury and then you realise she used salt instead of sugar. And then you politely try to get out of eating any more and instead take Haneyl's cupcakes, whose Metagoyin and Ligerian nature means her baking could be called divine if she wasn't so insistent that she is no mere god.
(Dulmea's cooking is acceptable, even if there is the sneaking suspicion that she was taught to use too many strong flavourings to cover the taste of poison. Echo doesn't bake because she erodes the cooking equipment and then gets distracted half-way through and starts trying to make a giant skeleton from her half-made flapjack. Rathan just prefers to be the one eating than the one cooking)
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It also bites back.
Honestly when you described Calesco, my first mental image was Cross-Breed Priscilla from Dark Souls. Just change the eye color and add a dragon tattoo.
I was kinda surprised that Keris was irritated by the mosquitoes. All she has to do is open mouths whenever they land on her and it's like they're feeding her!
One thing that's been bugging me for a while about her situation with the cherub shrine and messenger spell (and this applies to Exalted in general, I suppose); Wouldn't prayer be an effective communication method? You can pack whatever kind of message you want into it and do it from anywhere with no supplies necessary and I believe that spirits automatically hear prayers, so Keris should be able to communicate with the demons on her ship flawlessly. And if she ever picks up a variant of Cecelyne's prayer-hearing charm, then she can get updates from across Creation. The only problem I can see with prayer-comm is that it's implicitly subordinate and maybe improper for your boss to pray to you, but Calesco would surely love the egalitarianism of it.
samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
Naturally, when he can be bothered to cook, Rathan does well, but he pretty much only cooks what he wants to eat, and I'm guessing that Rathan's palate is different from Keris's. On the one hand, his surstromming is amazing, on the other hand it's surstromming.
Jon Chung
=][=
No, Vicky. This is like saying "Standing out of melee range with a bow is an exploit". The charm straight up hits everything you can see twice. Going to a high place increases what you can see. This "exploit" lets you trivially destroy entire nations like some kind of perpetual motion WMD. The flaw here is not in the player, who decides to go to a high place to use his charm, the flaw is that the charm exists.
To mitigate this flaw, you can choose to explicitly give it a range limit (houserule), or never use it from a high vantage point and only ever in a narrow enclosed space (houserule by stealth). Using it in the most blatantly obvious possible way to use it results in terrible outcomes. What do we call rules like this?
"Oops, that charm is meant to have a range limit of radius X yards per Essence."
Bang. Solved.
You need to both maintain player engagement and suspension of disbelief and not TPK the players. It is trivially easy to not TPK the players if you simply ignore the first set of constraints: deploy no hostiles, or ensure all hostiles have the equivalent of the rat statline, have no attacks and die in one hit. Problem solved, right? Except, nobody wants to play that.
This is why people pay other people to design game systems which have a sweet spot where the enemies are interesting to play with, threatening enough to maintain engagement and interest but not lethal enough that it's easy to cause TPKs. Exalted 2 is a failure at doing so.
What kind of combat strategy are you employing?
GENERIC KILLSTICK: Rate 3.
IRON BOOT: Rate 2 (per foot).
If you down an enemy but are not sure he is all the way dead (or is playing dead), stick one curbstomp on the end of your next flurry, costing your three killstick attacks 1 die of penalty (-4, -5, -6, [-7] instead of -3, -4, -5). Kill confirmed or ruse revealed.
You seem to be eager to defend broken mechanics, bad game states, the intersection of setting with broken mechanics which produces high-probability TPKs and so on with the omnipotent "the GM can fix this" excuse - why?
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- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
... yeah, except:
a) People tend to notice when the Perfectly Innocent Servant Nothing To See Here opens a set of fangs up on their cheek to swallow a bug, and
b) It wasn't the bites that annoyed Keris (because her skin is tougher than a reinforced breastplate), it was the noise. Mosquito whines are loud and irritating, especially to someone with hearing like Keris.
Nuh uh. Oh, an Infernal might be able to get some manner of report from the prayers of their Cult, if they invested in the right Charms, but while spirits get an awareness that someone is praying to them, they're rarely able to pick out individual messages. You have to do something really exceptional to make yourself explicitly heard by a spirit, and sacrificing Res 5 to boost your prayer roll every time you make a report? Casting Infallible Messenger is a lot easier, and a lot more certain to get a message across in exactly the form you want it to be conveyed.
(@EarthScorpion wrote a "hear prayers from my Cult" Charm for Adorjan as well. It's mechanically a Counterattack.
)Nah. Rathan and Dulmea are passable cooks, but not really anything special - they've got mostly mundane, mortal-level dicepools for it. Dulmea is better, but tends to season things strongly out of habit because it makes it easier to hide poison in dishes. Rathan's dishes tend to include a lot of fish. Haneyl is the ridiculously good chef, because her nature is split between being a creature of hunger/appetite and one of regal excellence (meaning she's a discerning gourmet) while her Panoply Charms include equivalents to Keris's "manipulate organic matter" stuff from Flesh-Weaving Tendrils and Ligier's nature as a peerless crafter (just tuned to living things and biotech rather than metal like he uses).
Echo is actually quite good at the preparation bit of cooking - she can get up to the point of having flapjack mix by throwing Cog dice and flurry actions at it - but then she puts it into the oven and has to wait for it to cook. And Echo lives in SUPERHOT time where things are awful and slow and take forever to happen when she's not moving, so she inevitably gets bored and either runs off and forgets about it (so it burns) or starts dismantling the oven in the hopes of inventing a faster way to cook things (so it gets converted into a giant catapult that launches sticky burning caramel goo at the moon). Sometimes in the former case her friends rescue whatever she was cooking, in which case she's a passable cook but a bit sloppy and rushed.
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And here comes the BACKSTORY bit because @Aleph is insatiable and I have like no time to actually do these at once so what y'all get is absolutely tiny and piecemeal 
I feel vaguely attention whore-y for posting so piecemeal but hey, it is what it is.
17:34 Rook So begins bleggage from "Stories have many beginnings."
17:35 Rook "the first time she was born" #justexaltedthings
17:35 Rook hmmm
17:35 Aleph I'm also rather proud that the first sentence after that points out that this isn't normal Exalted.
17:35 Aleph By referencing the Fourth Empress and the Blessed /Isles/.
17:35 Rook Yeahhhhh
17:35 Rook Keris is...
17:35 Rook where are the Scavenger Lands again?
17:35 Aleph East.
17:36 Rook Oho.
17:36 Aleph Near East.
17:36 Aleph The Hundred Kingdoms.
17:36 Aleph Lookshy, Nexus, Great Forks, etc.
17:36 Rook Near Eastern and far South.
17:36 Rook well, now
17:36 Rook that is indeed far apart
17:36 Aleph Yeah, this is an interesting bit
17:36 Aleph because it's something I had no influence on
17:36 Rook slave for two years then... escape.
17:37 Aleph Like, Keris's origins, literally all I gave ES was "mixed race, comes from somewhere down on the south edge of the Scavenger Lands, town was destroyed in a slave raid".
17:37 Aleph That's it.
17:37 Rook Oh wow she *burned* it off her arm
17:37 Rook hardcore as fuck
17:37 Aleph Everything else is him.
17:37 Rook and hm, I see
17:37 Rook and so she meets Rat!
17:37 Rook also I have a soft spot for people whose ethnicity approximates "yes"
17:37 Rook it's not quite where my own is but I'm an enormous mutt myself ^_^;;
17:38 Aleph Bah, server glitch.
17:38 Aleph Last received:
17:38 Rook aaaaand then Rat vanish
17:38 Rook rip
17:38 Rook and ahhh
17:38 Aleph Rook and hm, I see
17:38 Aleph Rook and so she meets Rat!
17:38 Aleph Aleph She has almost certainly gone for someone's throat with her teeth at some point in her childhood.
17:39 Aleph Aleph Possibly multiple times.
17:39 Rook 17:37 Rook also I have a soft spot for people whose ethnicity approximates "yes" 17:37 Rook it's not quite where my own is but I'm an enormous mutt myself ^_^;;
17:39 Aleph poor keris
17:39 Aleph : (
17:39 Rook is what I said
17:39 Rook and :<
<snip derail about ethnic background>
17:41 Aleph Anywho
17:41 Rook yes!
17:41 Rook back to... Rat
17:41 Rook Rat is gone
17:41 Rook Keris goes ham
17:41 Aleph : (
17:41 Rook ;;
17:41 Aleph dammit keris
17:41 Rook poor Keris ;;;;;
17:41 Rook awww
17:41 Aleph "Keris had a plan. She'd hatched it alone, without Rat's guidance, so it wasn't an especially well-thought-out plan."
17:41 Rook Keris blames... Makoa
17:41 Aleph this is basically the story of her life
17:41 Rook Makoa Kasseni
17:41 Rook that's a cool sounding name actually
17:41 Rook I like it!
17:41 Aleph yyyyup
17:41 Rook I like Ma- names :3
17:41 Rook (I am not at all biased)
17:42 Rook (nope nope no ma'am)
17:42 Aleph Kasseni was basically the Guild member in charge of the Nexan slave trade.
17:42 Aleph Or rather "indentured servant" trade.
17:42 Rook Kerris goes to CINNABAR ISLAND to confront the CINNABAR GYM to get the REVENGE BADGE
17:42 Aleph
17:42 Rook she gets all Ocean's 11 up in this bitch
17:42 Rook aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand then *flops*
17:42 Rook wel
17:42 Rook welp
17:42 Rook rest in peace
17:42 Aleph a failure of conviction
17:42 Rook aaaand then EXALTION
17:42 Aleph or possibly valour
17:43 Rook oh wow
17:43 Aleph that first combat was great
17:43 Rook she just went full Godfather on this
17:43 Aleph Yeah, uh
17:43 Aleph *blushes*
17:43 Rook I like :3
17:43 Aleph ES was not actually expecting me to kill those slaves.
17:43 Rook lol
17:43 Aleph They had exposition.
17:43 Rook rip
17:43 Aleph But Keris was like "REVENGE"
17:44 Aleph and he was like "... fuck, wut do"
17:44 Rook under Dulmea's direction she--oh woww
17:44 Aleph and ever since he's refused to put NPCs with plot-critical information within her engagement range.
17:44 Rook LOOT
17:44 Rook LOOT LOOT LOOT
17:44 Aleph SO MUCH LOOT
17:44 Rook Keris would make a good Tenno
17:44 Rook that is the Loot chant
17:44 Rook it is holy
17:44 Rook say it with me now Keris
17:44 Rook LOOT LOOT LOOT
17:44 Aleph Yeah, that was, um
17:44 Aleph Basically right
17:44 Aleph I made a Past Life roll to determine what the Loot was
17:44 Rook aaaaaaaaaaaand Malfeas now
17:44 Aleph and channelled as many Excellency Dice as I could
17:44 Rook lol
17:45 Aleph while standing over the corpse of my Past Life for a 3-dot stunt
17:45 Aleph and, uh
17:45 Rook loooooool
17:45 Aleph SUCCEEDED TOO WELL
17:45 Rook NO SUCH THING
17:45 Aleph YAMAL TOOK OVER
17:45 Rook IT LED TO COOL BACKSTORY
17:45 Rook THEREFORE NO SUCH THING AS TOO WELL
17:45 Aleph I WOKE UP OUTSIDE IN THE MIDDLE OF CONVERSATION WITH ARIANNA
17:45 Rook lol
17:45 Aleph IN A LANGUAGE I DIDN'T SPEAK
17:45 Aleph (much bluffing ensued)
17:45 Aleph (so, so much bluffing)
17:45 Rook "Orange Blossom" now I'm just imagining
17:45 Aleph (also some accidental arson)
17:45 Rook an Infernal trio of Power Puff Girls
17:45 Aleph *wince*
17:46 Aleph yeah, uh
17:46 Rook that's a helluva mental image
17:46 Aleph I made a bit of an enemy in orange blossom
17:46 Rook "a bit"
17:46 Rook is this going to be like
17:46 Aleph probs gonna regret that
17:46 Rook actually a bit a-bit
17:46 Rook or is this
17:46 Rook "welp"
17:46 Aleph ...
17:46 Rook "brb getting the lube"
17:46 Rook "this is gonna suck one day"
17:46 Aleph I sort of showed her up in front of the entire Althing?
17:46 Rook ...
17:46 Rook wlep
17:46 Rook welp
17:46 Aleph After - to her mind - going behind her back and flouting her authority?
17:46 Aleph With, um
17:46 Aleph one of her biggest rivals?
17:47 Rook ssssch
17:47 Rook ssssssch let me miss implications and be tired sssch it's ok
17:47 Rook RAT
17:47 Rook HELLO, OLD CHUM
17:47 Aleph SO MUCH HATE
17:47 Aleph *fumes*
17:47 Rook "the silent wind herself" oh man
17:47 Aleph Yeah, that was fun.
17:47 Aleph Where by fun I mean terrifying.
17:47 Rook Mama Adorjan!
17:48 Rook new soul
17:48 Aleph ^_^
17:48 Aleph echo wheee~
17:48 Rook Keris come back with some support
17:48 Rook confrontation goes.... non-lethally!
17:48 Rook that's about as well as one could have hoped for
17:48 Aleph um
17:49 Aleph non-lethally for her, maybe
17:49 Rook oh, lol
17:49 Rook well "was as emotional as it was heated" but didn't say more
17:49 Rook so I'm like "oh hey he didn't get shanked"
17:49 Aleph Keep reading.
17:49 Aleph That was actually a shatterpoint. She could have abandoned the Reclamation right then and run away with him. But... well...
17:49 Aleph : (
17:50 Rook ...
17:50 Rook :<
17:50 Rook nuuuuuuuuu
17:50 Rook Rat D:
17:50 Aleph : (
17:50 Rook and Sasi is pregnant!
17:51 Aleph Yeah, she wasn't too pleased about Keris blindsiding her with that.
17:51 Rook oh wow
17:51 Aleph I do love how Keris keeps managing to surprise her.
17:51 Rook rip Ogi
17:51 Rook looks like Keris keeps surprising *Keris* too
17:51 Aleph Well yes.
17:51 Aleph Keris still regrets that.
17:51 Rook > It was then that she internalised one of the three unspoken truths of Malfeas - that there is no love without pain.
17:51 Aleph It's where her "Mortals Are Fragile" Principle comes from.
17:51 Rook what took you so long baby girl
17:51 Rook
17:52 Rook aaaaand then she asks Sasi for help in REVEEEEEEEEEENGE
17:52 Aleph Heh.
17:52 Rook "pitched battle with a First Age hungry ghost when she returned to her past life's tomb, an attack by a Lunar Exalt and Sidereal interference in Sasimana's plan to put a Yozi cultist indebted to her on the Council of Entities" good Lord
17:52 Rook that sounds like its own story
17:52 Aleph Honestly, someday I may convert that arc to logs.
17:52 Aleph because it was... yeah, it was eventful.
17:52 Rook and they got Kasseni!
17:52 Aleph They did.
17:53 Rook even though she tried to nope out
17:53 Rook and then WAIFU MODE ENGAGE
17:53 Aleph <3
17:53 Rook and then VACATION
17:53 Rook and MIND-DEVLING
17:53 Rook ANOTHER SOUL
17:53 Aleph Rathan!
17:53 Rook SORCERY
17:53 Aleph And those bits, you will get to see.
17:53 Aleph Well, not Rathan.
17:54 Rook ... she turned Kasseni
17:54 Rook into a bracelet
17:54 Rook Fucking Exalted.
17:54 Rook That is all.
17:54 Aleph ...
17:54 Aleph that's, uh
17:54 Aleph ... /sort/ of true...
17:54 Rook "Sorcerously forging her tortured mind into a bracelet"
17:54 Rook How else should I read that?
17:54 Aleph yeah, it was more like she... well, read on and find out.
17:54 Rook oh dear
17:54 Rook in payment for aid Keris agrees to gtfo!
17:55 Aleph Orange Blossom really does not like Keris very much.
17:55 Rook and then description which I have already read
17:55 Rook alrighty!
17:35 Rook "the first time she was born" #justexaltedthings
17:35 Rook hmmm
17:35 Aleph I'm also rather proud that the first sentence after that points out that this isn't normal Exalted.
17:35 Aleph By referencing the Fourth Empress and the Blessed /Isles/.
17:35 Rook Yeahhhhh
17:35 Rook Keris is...
17:35 Rook where are the Scavenger Lands again?
17:35 Aleph East.
17:36 Rook Oho.
17:36 Aleph Near East.
17:36 Aleph The Hundred Kingdoms.
17:36 Aleph Lookshy, Nexus, Great Forks, etc.
17:36 Rook Near Eastern and far South.
17:36 Rook well, now
17:36 Rook that is indeed far apart
17:36 Aleph Yeah, this is an interesting bit
17:36 Aleph because it's something I had no influence on
17:36 Rook slave for two years then... escape.
17:37 Aleph Like, Keris's origins, literally all I gave ES was "mixed race, comes from somewhere down on the south edge of the Scavenger Lands, town was destroyed in a slave raid".
17:37 Aleph That's it.
17:37 Rook Oh wow she *burned* it off her arm
17:37 Rook hardcore as fuck
17:37 Aleph Everything else is him.
17:37 Rook and hm, I see
17:37 Rook and so she meets Rat!
17:37 Rook also I have a soft spot for people whose ethnicity approximates "yes"
17:37 Rook it's not quite where my own is but I'm an enormous mutt myself ^_^;;
17:38 Aleph Bah, server glitch.
17:38 Aleph Last received:
17:38 Rook aaaaand then Rat vanish
17:38 Rook rip
17:38 Rook and ahhh
17:38 Aleph Rook and hm, I see
17:38 Aleph Rook and so she meets Rat!
17:38 Aleph Aleph She has almost certainly gone for someone's throat with her teeth at some point in her childhood.
17:39 Aleph Aleph Possibly multiple times.
17:39 Rook 17:37 Rook also I have a soft spot for people whose ethnicity approximates "yes" 17:37 Rook it's not quite where my own is but I'm an enormous mutt myself ^_^;;
17:39 Aleph poor keris
17:39 Aleph : (
17:39 Rook is what I said
17:39 Rook and :<
<snip derail about ethnic background>
17:41 Aleph Anywho
17:41 Rook yes!
17:41 Rook back to... Rat
17:41 Rook Rat is gone
17:41 Rook Keris goes ham
17:41 Aleph : (
17:41 Rook ;;
17:41 Aleph dammit keris
17:41 Rook poor Keris ;;;;;
17:41 Rook awww
17:41 Aleph "Keris had a plan. She'd hatched it alone, without Rat's guidance, so it wasn't an especially well-thought-out plan."
17:41 Rook Keris blames... Makoa
17:41 Aleph this is basically the story of her life
17:41 Rook Makoa Kasseni
17:41 Rook that's a cool sounding name actually
17:41 Rook I like it!
17:41 Aleph yyyyup
17:41 Rook I like Ma- names :3
17:41 Rook (I am not at all biased)
17:42 Rook (nope nope no ma'am)
17:42 Aleph Kasseni was basically the Guild member in charge of the Nexan slave trade.
17:42 Aleph Or rather "indentured servant" trade.
17:42 Rook Kerris goes to CINNABAR ISLAND to confront the CINNABAR GYM to get the REVENGE BADGE
17:42 Aleph
17:42 Rook she gets all Ocean's 11 up in this bitch
17:42 Rook aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand then *flops*
17:42 Rook wel
17:42 Rook welp
17:42 Rook rest in peace
17:42 Aleph a failure of conviction
17:42 Rook aaaand then EXALTION
17:42 Aleph or possibly valour
17:43 Rook oh wow
17:43 Aleph that first combat was great
17:43 Rook she just went full Godfather on this
17:43 Aleph Yeah, uh
17:43 Aleph *blushes*
17:43 Rook I like :3
17:43 Aleph ES was not actually expecting me to kill those slaves.
17:43 Rook lol
17:43 Aleph They had exposition.
17:43 Rook rip
17:43 Aleph But Keris was like "REVENGE"
17:44 Aleph and he was like "... fuck, wut do"
17:44 Rook under Dulmea's direction she--oh woww
17:44 Aleph and ever since he's refused to put NPCs with plot-critical information within her engagement range.
17:44 Rook LOOT
17:44 Rook LOOT LOOT LOOT
17:44 Aleph SO MUCH LOOT
17:44 Rook Keris would make a good Tenno
17:44 Rook that is the Loot chant
17:44 Rook it is holy
17:44 Rook say it with me now Keris
17:44 Rook LOOT LOOT LOOT
17:44 Aleph Yeah, that was, um
17:44 Aleph Basically right
17:44 Aleph I made a Past Life roll to determine what the Loot was
17:44 Rook aaaaaaaaaaaand Malfeas now
17:44 Aleph and channelled as many Excellency Dice as I could
17:44 Rook lol
17:45 Aleph while standing over the corpse of my Past Life for a 3-dot stunt
17:45 Aleph and, uh
17:45 Rook loooooool
17:45 Aleph SUCCEEDED TOO WELL
17:45 Rook NO SUCH THING
17:45 Aleph YAMAL TOOK OVER
17:45 Rook IT LED TO COOL BACKSTORY
17:45 Rook THEREFORE NO SUCH THING AS TOO WELL
17:45 Aleph I WOKE UP OUTSIDE IN THE MIDDLE OF CONVERSATION WITH ARIANNA
17:45 Rook lol
17:45 Aleph IN A LANGUAGE I DIDN'T SPEAK
17:45 Aleph (much bluffing ensued)
17:45 Aleph (so, so much bluffing)
17:45 Rook "Orange Blossom" now I'm just imagining
17:45 Aleph (also some accidental arson)
17:45 Rook an Infernal trio of Power Puff Girls
17:45 Aleph *wince*
17:46 Aleph yeah, uh
17:46 Rook that's a helluva mental image
17:46 Aleph I made a bit of an enemy in orange blossom
17:46 Rook "a bit"
17:46 Rook is this going to be like
17:46 Aleph probs gonna regret that
17:46 Rook actually a bit a-bit
17:46 Rook or is this
17:46 Rook "welp"
17:46 Aleph ...
17:46 Rook "brb getting the lube"
17:46 Rook "this is gonna suck one day"
17:46 Aleph I sort of showed her up in front of the entire Althing?
17:46 Rook ...
17:46 Rook wlep
17:46 Rook welp
17:46 Aleph After - to her mind - going behind her back and flouting her authority?
17:46 Aleph With, um
17:46 Aleph one of her biggest rivals?
17:47 Rook ssssch
17:47 Rook ssssssch let me miss implications and be tired sssch it's ok
17:47 Rook RAT
17:47 Rook HELLO, OLD CHUM
17:47 Aleph SO MUCH HATE
17:47 Aleph *fumes*
17:47 Rook "the silent wind herself" oh man
17:47 Aleph Yeah, that was fun.
17:47 Aleph Where by fun I mean terrifying.
17:47 Rook Mama Adorjan!
17:48 Rook new soul
17:48 Aleph ^_^
17:48 Aleph echo wheee~
17:48 Rook Keris come back with some support
17:48 Rook confrontation goes.... non-lethally!
17:48 Rook that's about as well as one could have hoped for
17:48 Aleph um
17:49 Aleph non-lethally for her, maybe
17:49 Rook oh, lol
17:49 Rook well "was as emotional as it was heated" but didn't say more
17:49 Rook so I'm like "oh hey he didn't get shanked"
17:49 Aleph Keep reading.
17:49 Aleph That was actually a shatterpoint. She could have abandoned the Reclamation right then and run away with him. But... well...
17:49 Aleph : (
17:50 Rook ...
17:50 Rook :<
17:50 Rook nuuuuuuuuu
17:50 Rook Rat D:
17:50 Aleph : (
17:50 Rook and Sasi is pregnant!
17:51 Aleph Yeah, she wasn't too pleased about Keris blindsiding her with that.
17:51 Rook oh wow
17:51 Aleph I do love how Keris keeps managing to surprise her.
17:51 Rook rip Ogi
17:51 Rook looks like Keris keeps surprising *Keris* too
17:51 Aleph Well yes.
17:51 Aleph Keris still regrets that.
17:51 Rook > It was then that she internalised one of the three unspoken truths of Malfeas - that there is no love without pain.
17:51 Aleph It's where her "Mortals Are Fragile" Principle comes from.
17:51 Rook what took you so long baby girl
17:51 Rook
17:52 Rook aaaaand then she asks Sasi for help in REVEEEEEEEEEENGE
17:52 Aleph Heh.
17:52 Rook "pitched battle with a First Age hungry ghost when she returned to her past life's tomb, an attack by a Lunar Exalt and Sidereal interference in Sasimana's plan to put a Yozi cultist indebted to her on the Council of Entities" good Lord
17:52 Rook that sounds like its own story
17:52 Aleph Honestly, someday I may convert that arc to logs.
17:52 Aleph because it was... yeah, it was eventful.
17:52 Rook and they got Kasseni!
17:52 Aleph They did.
17:53 Rook even though she tried to nope out
17:53 Rook and then WAIFU MODE ENGAGE
17:53 Aleph <3
17:53 Rook and then VACATION
17:53 Rook and MIND-DEVLING
17:53 Rook ANOTHER SOUL
17:53 Aleph Rathan!
17:53 Rook SORCERY
17:53 Aleph And those bits, you will get to see.
17:53 Aleph Well, not Rathan.
17:54 Rook ... she turned Kasseni
17:54 Rook into a bracelet
17:54 Rook Fucking Exalted.
17:54 Rook That is all.
17:54 Aleph ...
17:54 Aleph that's, uh
17:54 Aleph ... /sort/ of true...
17:54 Rook "Sorcerously forging her tortured mind into a bracelet"
17:54 Rook How else should I read that?
17:54 Aleph yeah, it was more like she... well, read on and find out.
17:54 Rook oh dear
17:54 Rook in payment for aid Keris agrees to gtfo!
17:55 Aleph Orange Blossom really does not like Keris very much.
17:55 Rook and then description which I have already read
17:55 Rook alrighty!
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vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
"Use Accuracy Without Distance to snipe the enemy king across Creation" is commonly considered an exploit, and Double Kick doesn't seems to be all that different. In fact, exploit seems to be commonly defined as "make use of (a situation) in a way considered unfair or underhanded".
I would call this "Unexpected and undesired emergent property emerges from the ruleset; GM ensures that in the campaign said emergent property does not ruin the campaign; which is why one of the reasons we need GMs".
Of course, you can opt to, instead of designing a campaign in such a way that Chejop doesn't ruin it, decide to change the Charm as you offers. Which has unexpected effects, such as making it no longer a good counterplay against kiting rangers.
This is why when an edge case shows up, it can be safer to prevent the edge case instead of changing the base rule and getting hit with a large shift in the way it works.
This is why, for example, Chess added the En Passant rule that negates the exploit of dodging a capture on two-square pawn moves, or why WarCraft added an Evade mechanic that resets a monster's HP if the monster's AI considers itself incapable of calculating a path to a position from which the mob can attack the PC.
Yes, the first sentence in the quoted paragraph is a good, noble goal to strive for. It's also something that gets more and more difficult if players have relatively low-tolerance disbelief-suspenders.
But that's not quite the issue. A large issue is defining just what is considered a 'proper' risk. Let's say a rat's risk is evaluated at 0% (i.e. 0% chance of killing the PC over the course of a combat) and the Torrasque is defined as 100% (TPK guaranteed, no save). What percentage is too low, and what is too high? In the Exalted campaign I played, the risk seemed to come to maybe 20% over the riskiest combat in the campaign. This is a very rough estimate, describing the moment I was disadvantaged and facing the killstick brute (and parried one of his attacks exactly, with no successes to spare). (It's probably more accurate that there was such a risk of defeat; the GM declared that once per campaign, we could benefit from a survival mechanism similar to WH40K Rogue Trader/Dark Heresy's permanent burning of a fate point.)
At the end of combat, if I prefer a kill to a capture, sure. But in the middle of combat, I can't spare that kick, since I'd normally use it to soften up the next enemy who is there in my face swinging his sharp stick (for Onslaught even if not for damage). Standing opponents are just more dangerous than fallen ones.
- Because I prioritise having fun even if the mechanics are (predictably) imperfect, flawed etc. Yes, system does matter, but so does the GMing.
- Because I played in a campaign under a GM who isn't rules-savvy and rules-enthusiastic enough to design houserules, but one who is competent and enthusiastic enough regarding campaign design/writing/storytelling that he designed a campaign in such a way that risks were real (for the party in question) but not overwhelming.
- Because I think there's too much focus on 'this is bad' and too little on 'how to have a great time with it despite its flaws'. (This is a criticism that applies to myself too!).
- In my experience, too much is blamed on mechanics/setting/etc. (This may or may be the same as #3 in your vision).
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah, I'm going to have to say that if you don't want players to be able to snipe the enemy king from the other side of Creation, don't write a Charm that explicitly extends the Range limits of your players' ranged attacks. Which Accuracy Without Distance does not do, incidentally; it's There Is No Wind that increases the Range of your weapon to your maximum visibility range. And phrasing it like that means it's more a failure of the writers than an "exploit", because "I have vision so keen I can make out the detail on a commander's epaulet at 500 yards distance, at night" is explicitly stated Solar Charmtech and the first non-Excellency Awareness Charm in the book.
The combo of "my attack range is as far as I can see" and "I can enhance my vision with magic" is so obvious a child should make it; if the devs didn't want to encourage that sort of play then they should have included better limits in the Charm. Hell, they should have given some indication of what maximum visibility range is. They explicitly state that, when using Awareness Charms, 5 successes is enough to:
- "make out the motion of the mites that live on others' eyebrows"
- "read by touch (by sensing the differences between ink and paper through your fingertips)"
- " detect but not identify a fewdrops of tasteless poison in a wine—as its presence serves to dilute the wine"
Both Awareness Charms and both Archery Charms have a combined cost of 11 motes, 1 willpower [1]. That's not even enough to make a Solar flare, meaning they can guarantee a hit on someone when sniping someone from total stealth, ignoring all penalties, while perfectly obeying RAW in a completely honest and apparently encouraged-by-the-text style of play. And this character can come straight out of character generation. If you don't like what happens when people put Charms to their obvious uses? Write the Charms in a way that prevents it.
[1] There Is No Wind, (E3 effect, 5m), Accuracy Without Distance (1m, 1wp), Keen Sight Technique (3m), Unsurpassed Sight Discipline (2m).
Jon Chung
=][=
Unsurpassed Sight + There Is No Wind + Accuracy Without Distance is not an exploit. It is not an unexpected emergent property. That is a set of charms doing exactly what they appear to be intended to do: allow you to shoot someone with no range limitations, and see very well so you can pick out the target to shoot at. The player is not exploiting any unforeseen interaction or untested combination or obscure loophole. The player is using the powers just as they are written, in the most obvious manner they can be used.
The problem is that what this does on face value is a terrible idea. It is a failure of design - there is no way to counter it beyond "never go outdoors without my paranoia combo ready to fire, and never do anything which might possibly cause me to be unable to activate it", it does that when you use it in the most obvious straightforward intended way, therefore, the intent is wrong.
This is not why we need GMs. This is why we pay game developers*, so GMs don't have to go "yeah no, that's dumb, you can't do that because it would wreck the game" or "oops, didn't expect that, let's retcon that and pretend it never happened" every other time a player uses a power and causes something retarded to happen.
*Except these ones, because they are terrible at their job.
What the fucking fuck, Vicky. You think this charm is used as a counter for kiting? The charm that casually depopulates giant swathes of Creation with no possible warning or counter even under the most restrictive possible interpretation? Do you have any idea how completely ridiculous that argument is? Like, is a MIRV ICBM supposed to be a counter for bounding overwatch in a squad-level combat game, such that nerfing its yield in megatons hurts squad-level gameplay?
Again: What the fucking fuck?
Changing the way it works is the entire point. Do you think "I can casually kill everybody on the Blessed Isle, lawl" is an effect that should be present in the game? Is using the power as written to do just that an edge case use of something that explicitly lets you kill everything you can draw line of sight to?
Or, let's rephrase that. Is Ketchup Carjack ever going to kick everything in the continent to death in one action from a cold start? Is this a capability that will ever be used in a non-stupid way? Is your GM going to do it? If not, and the answer is "no, never", how is this different to "Houserule: This damn charm has a range limit of X yards per Essence" or "Houserule: Charcoal March of Spiders Style does not exist, like Zeal"?
/facepalm
Do you know what happens to powers which have disproportionately broken effects in WoW, like the Paladin Reckbomb that one-shot a world boss? They get removed!
You do realize that it's entirely possible to have, like I keep trying to point out, an encounter which is invariably fatal (100% loss) if the players do not use their powerful resources/abilities/etc, and ramps up slowly enough that the players invariably know they need to use their A-game and play correctly, and invariably not (0% loss) if they do use their resources and play correctly, right? And that this is entirely possible to achieve in a sanely constructed system, complete with the gameplay being interesting?
You cannot achieve this in Exalted 2 because there is an infinite gulf between not paranoia-OK and paranoia-OK, and because even if everyone is paranoia-OK, the gameplay is not interesting. Because Exalted 2 is a bad system.
You can always spare that kick (one extra die of penalty is not that important on your killstick attacks, and an attack that is not dealt with your killstick at a -7 penalty is not very critical to a meaningful opponent), unless you are running a terrible build in a situation that you only survived due to luck or your GM feeling pity for you.
For example. Why are you not immune to onslaught? Why do you not have another active defense waiting behind your DV to catch potentially-lethal blows? Why did your opponent not have these things either, if they were a peer opponent? If you had those things, a -1 penalty on your three actually-threatening attacks in exchange for a dead opponent is a gimme.
Vicky, you're literally trying to defend a power that is written to allow you to be a one-man extinction event by arguing that preventing it from doing so will nerf your ability to fight kiting archers, and therefore this should not be done, with a preferable solution being simply leaving it there and assuming the GM will never use it.
Are you sure you don't want to rephrase that?
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- Location
- Virginia
Vicky: or they could just delete the goddamn power and it would be better. As far as I can tell you are trying to debate - in excruciating detail - the precise degree to which this power offends your sensibilities, rather than whether the power is a good and desirable thing to have.
But no one actually cares, really, whether this specific power is in the game; if it were literally the only broken thing then, well, whatever, that's easy enough to deal with. The problem is that there's lots of other broken stuff too, and "you can kick everything in the world to death in one round" is just a good and memorable example.
But no one actually cares, really, whether this specific power is in the game; if it were literally the only broken thing then, well, whatever, that's easy enough to deal with. The problem is that there's lots of other broken stuff too, and "you can kick everything in the world to death in one round" is just a good and memorable example.
vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
I'm not telepath, so I can't say this 100% reliably, but I do think that Charms and combinations like this were designed with stuff like the myriad crossbowmen in Hero scene in mind (i.e. neutralizing all those enemy combatants), not with just one double kick genocide of Creation in mind. Or do you think that the spirit of the rule was a genuine desire to enable Kejak or Mask of Winter or the like to bring oblivion to everyone?
In a word, yes: I do think that the intent was for the PCs to employ non-stupid uses of the ability. Whether or not the PCs will try to go for other uses depends on the sort of players and GM involved.
I'm assuming that players are using resources/abilities, and do so at least somewhat correctly. Do you think that for a mostly-correct uses the chance of a loss should be literally 0%? Or should it be, in your opinion, slightly above zero, e.g. 5-20%? Because "Through your build and tactics you made failure impossible" is usually considered a boring state of affairs in RPGs, but like many things, there probably isn't a perfect consensus on the matter.
You seem to be holding the opinion that 'non-perfect == terrible'. There may be reasons why a character isn't wearing a build that you advocate. For instance, because the character's concept involves a focus on martial arts (Snake Style, to be specific) and not on the more generic mêlée. You advocate Paranoia Tactics as the 'solution' to Exalted and as the one true way, and paranoia-compatibility as the only merit on which characters are to be evaluated. While I'm occasionally accused of being a powergamer, I must say that gaming in a campaign where everything is 'go optimal or go home' would remove the R from RPGs for me, and would remove the fun too.
I'm saying that one should be careful about how one restricts it. There are cases when adding a storytelling restriction is better than adding a rules restriction for the wellbeing of a game. There are cases where the quick fix turns out to have other undesired effects, skewing the system elsewhere. Because Chejop kicking the score of crossbowmen who tried to assassinate him isn't a problem, nor is Chejop kicking that Solar Sniper who tried to snipe him - those are surely legit, non-stupid applications of such an ability; but Chejop genociding the Realm is certainly the problem.
Jon Chung
=][=
If you write "I can kill everyone I can see" on the paper in the book, I assume you mean "I can kill everyone I can see". I can then proceed to call this stupid, because it is. I can also then point out that the capability should be removed because including that capability in the game is insane, and I will be equally correct.
If you actually meant "I can kill everyone I can see in an area roughly the size of a football field, and center my AoE no more than a longbow shot away from where I am", then you should have written that down instead. If you write "I can kill everyone I can see" and expect people to get "I can kill everyone I can see in an area roughly the size of a football field, and center my AoE no more than a longbow shot away from where I am" out of it, you have failed as a writer and as a game developer. I, the reader, am not telepathic, nor am I supposed to be a game developer*.
*I seem to have turned into one as a side effect, but I do not want to have to do this.
Name a non-stupid use of "I can kill everyone I can see" which requires "I can kill everyone I can see" to actually be capable of killing everyone you can see, where "I can attempt to kill people I can see within a fair range limit" will not satisfy.
Nice attempt at evasion. Remember that we are talking about enemies being actively and genuinely threatening so as to force players to react appropriately (jump through 'correct solution' hoops on pain of death) to that threat, so as to satisfy suspension of disbelief and player gameplay engagement. Definitionally, we want the threat rating in case of incorrect play to be high, in case of blatantly throwing the fight to be invariably fatal, and in case of correct play to be low to invariably victorious.
For fuck's sake, vicky. The problem is that your fluffy roleplaying build is a red stain beneath the golden boots of the paranoia build. Yes, non-perfect defense strategies are terrible and all builds are judged against the p-combo. This is caused by the system being an unbalanced piece of shit. "Go optimal or go home" is bad. This is a state imposed by the system being bad and defining the gap between optimal and non-optimal to be that large. If you don't like this, you should be advocating for a system with less of a One True Build problem, not defending the broken system behind the shield of "oh, my GM can compensate, so it's fine".
Do you think your GM would have enjoyed having your crap build and the traditional invincible sword princess in the same game, having to balance encounters around that wild disparity in actual effectiveness?
Name a non-stupid use of "I can kill everyone I can see" which requires "I can kill everyone I can see" to in fact do that, where "I can attempt to kill a group of people I can see within a range limit" will not satisfy.
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- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I have no horse in this race, but I'll bite.
Chung doesn't advocate paranoia combat as the solution to Exalted.
He advocates paranoia combat as the only logical result of the meta in Exalted Second Edition.
You can have a game with no paranoia combat easily, but if you enter the realm of Exalts fite Exalts, then paranoia combat will enter the equation at some point.
Jon Chung doesn't want a game with paranoia combat, this is the reason he constantly mentions that the best solution to fixing Second Edition is to not play Second Edition.
Dark Ness
Rises Where Silence Dies
- Location
- The Primordial Soup
I am wondering, in the case of the Infernal Past Life background, how should it be handled, capability-wise, when it is at 5-dots and the Solar does a full possession? (By this, I mean that the old personality has taken over and does whatever it wants).
Should you just assume capabilities of "yes?" Or would you still run off normal attribute/ability ratings, just with everything plus 5 dice? Or would you assume that Abilities and Attributes jump to 5 (or whatever is appropriate), with the physical Attributes staying the same (because the Solar is in the Infernal's body)? I assume that the Solar would be able to use Solar charms, and is unable to use the ones that it is impossible for an Infernal to use (such as holy), but what about mins, particularly Essence mins?
Since Essance seems to come more from experience and supernatural bullshit, could you say that the Solar has access to Essence 5 (while the Solar was probably higher then that in life, i would assume that the Essence 5 cap still applies, since that requires more then just experience) charms? And how would that work with the Mote Pool? Would you assume the same amount of motes, or would you expend the pool to account for the Solar's greater everything? And while the Solar would still obviously be running off Infernal Essence, should the anima banner be the same? Finally, should the Solar get access to the charms the Infernal knows?
(If it makes a difference, assume that the essence reactor hack is in play)
Should you just assume capabilities of "yes?" Or would you still run off normal attribute/ability ratings, just with everything plus 5 dice? Or would you assume that Abilities and Attributes jump to 5 (or whatever is appropriate), with the physical Attributes staying the same (because the Solar is in the Infernal's body)? I assume that the Solar would be able to use Solar charms, and is unable to use the ones that it is impossible for an Infernal to use (such as holy), but what about mins, particularly Essence mins?
Since Essance seems to come more from experience and supernatural bullshit, could you say that the Solar has access to Essence 5 (while the Solar was probably higher then that in life, i would assume that the Essence 5 cap still applies, since that requires more then just experience) charms? And how would that work with the Mote Pool? Would you assume the same amount of motes, or would you expend the pool to account for the Solar's greater everything? And while the Solar would still obviously be running off Infernal Essence, should the anima banner be the same? Finally, should the Solar get access to the charms the Infernal knows?
(If it makes a difference, assume that the essence reactor hack is in play)
- Location
- Spain
They stay mostly the same? With a few changes to abilities/styles.
LOL no.
You don't get to use Solar charms without a Solar Exaltation. That should be kinda obvious.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Once upon a time there was a martial arts sifu who, in a fit of pomposity, decided to name his fighting style 'Death With Every Bone'.
One day a supplicant asked him, "but how can you kill with your ribs?"
In a fit of frustration over having his breakfast interrupted, the old master dashed the supplicant's head against his chest, for he had hardened his body until it was a steel edifice.
Gazing down at the splatter of brain-matter, the master answered, "like so."
Subsequently he was accosted by a succession of such fools, each a student of anatomy, certain they had discovered a bone with which it was entirely impractical to mete out death; the humerus, the clavicle, and in one case, the patella. The master spared that last, dumbfounded by such idiocy.
In each case the master retreated for a short time, before returning to strike down the last heckler with their own challenge.
At last, having slain them all, the master exulted in the supremacy of his art and the silence of his detractors.
He was thence poisoned at supper, for all were in agreement that he was a disgruntled lunatic.
One day a supplicant asked him, "but how can you kill with your ribs?"
In a fit of frustration over having his breakfast interrupted, the old master dashed the supplicant's head against his chest, for he had hardened his body until it was a steel edifice.
Gazing down at the splatter of brain-matter, the master answered, "like so."
Subsequently he was accosted by a succession of such fools, each a student of anatomy, certain they had discovered a bone with which it was entirely impractical to mete out death; the humerus, the clavicle, and in one case, the patella. The master spared that last, dumbfounded by such idiocy.
In each case the master retreated for a short time, before returning to strike down the last heckler with their own challenge.
At last, having slain them all, the master exulted in the supremacy of his art and the silence of his detractors.
He was thence poisoned at supper, for all were in agreement that he was a disgruntled lunatic.
Dark Ness
Rises Where Silence Dies
- Location
- The Primordial Soup
Solar Hero Style? (Which any Celestial Exalt can learn)
Fiends can learn Solar Charms. Also any Abyssal with the appropriate Integrity charm or one that is of the Moonshadow caste can also learn Solar Charms.
I get a feeling this sounds like a Pai Mei expy.
The key to remember is that this is basically the imprint of an Exalted on their Exaltation. So, yes, the Solar would use their styles, and probably their abilities as well. They wouldn't have their attributes (using the current's Exalted's instead). As for ratings, while it's pushed in some cases that elder Solars have 5's in everything, that's kinda silly, and leads to some unfortunate areas. It's probably better to assume they have 5's in their core areas, but not in all abilities. Also, just because they're from the first age doesn't mean they're an elder. Many first Age solars would be young during the usurpation, and even the better training available at that time would mean that they're less experienced than a true elder solar (i.e. over 100 years old or so).
As for charms, those are born out of the union of the Exaltation and the mortal's own souls. The Memory Imprint does not have their soul anymore, and so does not have access to their charms: they would have the infernal charms of their host body instead. Their essence rating isn't on any strict ground: I'd favor having them having the host's essence. They're not another exalt, just a different personality that's surprising the current Exalted's.
Yeah...that's probably one of the single most hated rules on this forum. It causes a whole host of issues, including certain splats being the complete messes that they currently are because getting around it is extremely kludgy. Though, even if it is possible for an Exalted to learn a charm, the fact that they haven't would imply that even if you mentally rewrite them to think that they had learned it, they still wouldn't have actually learned the charm.
- Location
- Spain
Such a lack of imagination.
They should have asked for the etmoides.
So, did they used a chicken bone to ashphixiate him?
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This is literally answered by the background in question.
In addition, it is a common houserule - though not explicit in the text - to allow the Past Life to get the benefit of the Past Life dice while the possession lasts. Because, you know, it's their memories granting the benefits. In such a case, the dice from Past Life should count as dice granted by Charms.
No free Martial Arts Charms. No Solar Charms. By RAW, not even any extra Ability or Attribute dots or specialities. The mechanics are clear - it is the Infernal who is delusional and thinks they're someone long dead, not a "true" possession.