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General Exalted Thread

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azoicennead said:
... Yeah, if you're not going to acknowledge establishing cults and magic sand pits that require your actual presence across Creation as a challenge, I'm not going to bother continuing this, because we're obviously not going to see eye to eye when you're ignoring the years of travel required.
And the years required in general just to get cults established so they can provide you information.
I really don't give a fuck about establishing a regional network, because mortals can easily build those.


You are looking at this as a worship-maintenance method, not a communication method.

Also, having people who can succeed on the prayer rolls is not trivial; a priest has to make a Difficulty 6 - Resources value sacrificed, so they're probably facing a Difficulty 4 roll in most places (because sacrificing things with comparable value to a war horse on a regular basis is not going to stay covert).
If they fail that roll, the message doesn't go through.
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The Worship-Maintenance Method is part of a necessary protocol for the communication method.

PENITENTS LIKE SCATTERED GRAINS
Cost: 5m; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Demonic Primacy of Essence
The individual mortals who pray to an Infernal are as
meaningless as individual grains of sand. Still, it is by the accretion
of many grains that deserts come to be. This Charm
allows the Exalt to hear individual prayers spoken from places
of desolation as though she were a spirit. Actually listening to
all prayers imposes a -3 internal penalty to all non-reflexive
actions; if the Infernal tunes them out, the Storyteller only
relays the most widely repeated or urgently spoken prayers.
Supplicants who pray from within a blight the Infernal
has created with the Charm Holy Land Infliction (see pp.
125-126) may be answered by causing a random object in the
supplicant's presence to glow and change into the Infernal's
incarnate image as an Obvious Shaping effect for three motes.
The enchanted object delivers whatever spoken response the
Infernal sends through it (which may encompass one Social attack
or informative response) and then returns to normal.

The Bolded bit implies that the Infernal may listen in whenever they so wish so long as they suffer the -3 internal penalty.


Just use Holy Land Infliction, tell your supplicants to build a shrine there, and make sure they keep to the strict prayer schedule that you set up. If they have an emergency, then they bring out the fancy things for the Prayer roll.
 
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Dynamesmouse said:
The Bolded bit implies that the Infernal may listen in whenever they so wish so long as they suffer the -3 internal penalty.

Just use Holy Land Infliction, tell your supplicants to build a shrine there, and make sure they keep to the strict prayer schedule that you set up. If they have an emergency, then they bring out the fancy things for the Prayer roll.
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Prayer is an action with mechanics.
Why are you assuming that taking an action doesn't require using the mechanics? Especially when looking at a mechanic that imitates the ability of gods to hear/respond to prayer, which also requires the roll?
 
Carrnage said:
completely irrelevent to your point:

I could see a charm which lets you designate others that can create and call in debts in your name (with them paying a small fee to use your authority of course), and another which let's others get their debt reduced for fulfilling the terms to indebt someone else without you having to intervene.

going from Loan shark to Ponzi scheme.
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Oh, man, that takes me back. Hell, I'm amazed this Charm is still floating around the internet.

And it's not a Ponzi scheme, with a desert Yozi. It's a pyramid scheme.

Revlid said:
DESOLATE MONUMENT SCHEME
Cost: —; Mins: Essence 5; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Verdant Emptiness Endowment
Like grains of sand trickling through an hourglass, an endless stream of the desperate and foolish fall through Cecelyne's fingers. She is not without mercy, however; at times she will allow one of her debtors to pull themselves free, provided they drag others down in their place, their broken hopes forming a desolate monument to her generosity. This Charm permanently enhances its prerequisite, giving the Infernal another option when requesting payment from a character with awakened Essence; she may ask that her debtor seek out further beneficiaries.

For the next (Infernal's Essence + Bureaucracy) days, the debtor becomes an advocate, gaining access to the Charm Verdant Emptiness Endowment, as well as any of the Infernal's Charms that enhance it, regardless of whether or not they meet the requisite minimum Essence. The advocate may use this Charm to grant other's wishes, as normal, but doing so results in their target becoming indebted to the Infernal, not them; the Infernal is instantly made aware of new debtors acquired by the advocate, though not what they wished for. The advocate must acquire at least (Infernal's Essence/2) new debtors in this way before they lose access to the Charm, or they are considered to have failed to uphold their end of the bargain.

At Essence 7+, the Infernal may increase the number of days the advocate retains access to Verdant Emptiness Endowment to (Infernal's Essence + Bureaucracy + Occult). Cecelyne is considered to have a rating of 10 in all relevant abilities for the purposes of this Charm, allowing her to loan out her power for a full month if she so desires.
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Okay, just to clarify for the Oramus stuff.

Oramus' prayer hearing charm is 3 charms deep. It's behind a permanent charm that gives you penalties to all awareness rolls when you can't hear music, and gives you an external penalty of Essence whenever you try to explain yourself or your motive. It can only hear prayers from the Mad (which is a system term). Cecelyne's stuff is fairly generic and can be used to support general societies. Oramus' one cannot be used to support functional societies - it's specifically there to enable the fact that my Oramus channels the Outer Gods bit of the Mythos. If you're not investing in Oramus' madness stuff, Cecelyne is just plain better.

As for 'turning people into demons', that's six charms deep for Oramus, and the would be demon has to sacrifice 7 lethal health levels or dots of resources, split as they wish. So, yes, Oramus' Mad cultists can pray to become demons, and then after sacrificing an extra and then some valuables, they can become a 1CD.

This is harder than just summoning a 1CD via thaumaturgy. I made sure of that. It's a powerful effect because it's a way for your mortal cultists to become immortal spirits, not because you can make 1CDs.
 
Sanctaphrax said:
Man, that was frustrating. Not sure if John was being deliberately evasive or just a really bad communicator; there seems to be no reason for evasion, but he was weirdly unwilling to give straight answers.
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The former, I think? He seems to like his Designer Mystique, which lends itself to trying to talk more like a koan and less like a rules explanation. Right there with you on the frustration, though.

How? It's hardly more efficient than just using an Excellency, and as far as I can tell Brawl doesn't offer any synergies better than Iron Whirlwind Attack.
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I'm resistant to giving anything that cap-breaks on grapple accuracy, personally; that attack is still so very lethal even before Charms get involved.
 
bigblack said:
Really, you should just focus on the 'Bottomless curse, bottomless sea' schtick. Though I don't know how Kimbery creates an Ironic Hell. the 'fuck anyone who is tangentially related to you' is perfect though.
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So, hmm.

When interpreted into Kimmyish charms and themes, the core idea is you have a way to lay down some kind of 'hell' of suffering for those who hurt your beloved characters.

The base charm should be to put a sorcerous mark on a character. If they die when they're under its effect, they are killed as if killed by a spirit killing charm. Their souls/mind is pulled into the oceans of the Infernal's veins (requiring Sea Within Veins Prana) to suffer eternally, drowning forever. The Infernal sees them in their dreams.

(This means that if you do that to someone's loved one, the only way for them to free them is for them to murder you. The fact that this gives people a reason to murder you is a feature, not a bug)

Then, as an upgrade, you can curse an organisation (like, say, the Hunters' Workshop) by cursing their leader (oh hi there Gehrmann), so any of them who die are dragged into your veins to suffer forever. People in that organisation see nightmare visions of the drowning hell you are condemning them to.

Then as an upgrade that also requires Trust Is Naive you can lay on someone when one of your beloved characters prays for it, if the offender has wronged one of your beloved characters.
 
Aleph said:
I don't complain about Tiger Warrior Training or Harmonious Academy Methodology! But even both of those hyper-efficient Solar training Charms are Obvious and require that you teach the students for five hours a week! You don't get to just hit literally a single button for a mote cost you can regenerate in half a minute by stunting and have an army pop out of wherever the Storyteller can hamhandedly justify it!

It's not that it trains. It's that you can pop off two dots a minute with the fucking thing on your way from the couch to your goddamn bathroom
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Two dots per minute per person is pretty bad. It'll take forever to raise an army of Demon-Tiger Warriors at that rate. Even a Solar who's half-assing it should be able to get an amortized rate of 3 to 4 dots per minute. :V
 
Man, the discussion about VEE degenerated a lot. Can't we just say that the supplementary Charms that allowed Background points to be granted wasn't very well thought?
 
I solved the wishing problem in my own game by saying that since the fluff text implied that you were messing with fate to receive those background dots, then if you used the charm too many times eventually some Sidereal would notice the disruption to the loom of fate and do something. So you could still hit a button and get an army, but you'd immediately NEED that army.

Of course, a truly determined player could just keep wishing for more and larger armies. If that happened, then they'd break the loom of fate in that region, which would have all sorts of fun and interesting consequences.
 
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vali said:
I solved the wishing problem in my own game by saying that since the fluff text implied that you were messing with fate to receive those background dots, then if you used the charm too many times eventually some Sidereal would notice the disruption to the loom of fate and do something. So you could still hit a button and get an army, but you'd immediately NEED that army.

Of course, a truly determined player could just keep wishing for more and larger armies. If that happened, then they'd break the loom of fate in that region, which would have all sorts of fun and interesting consequences.
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Or you could just remove or modify the upgrade which lets you bestow background dots - again, this is trying to solve a mechanical problem (overpowered charm effect that conjures things out of nowhere with no limits) with social pressure (if you abuse it, I-the-GM will fuck you over). This is definitionally imprecise.

If the background dot conjuration effect is too effective, then it should be nerfed or removed.
 
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Jon Chung said:
Or you could just remove or modify the upgrade which lets you bestow background dots - again, this is trying to solve a mechanical problem (overpowered charm effect that conjures things out of nowhere with no limits) with social pressure (if you abuse it, I-the-GM will fuck you over). This is definitionally imprecise.

If the background dot conjuration effect is too effective, then it should be nerfed or removed.
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I don't know I like the idea of "sure you can do that, its just going to cause consequences" though I am loathe it being the Sidereals (aka the super agents in Space Station Heaven with access to the phasers and so on)

is the charm that much harder to get and powerful than, say, sorcery? Or buying those dots? Or mindwhammying and acquiring royalty as a pet in a slight afternoon. Or using Solar Bureaucracy charms?

Seriously asking. There are a lot of relatively minor charm collections that can make you rich and powerful real quick in according to the rules but are negated because the setting will react hostily to such (here comes the Wyld hunt, or suddenly invisible wizard fucks with everything you do)
 
Darmani said:
Seriously asking. There are a lot of relatively minor charm collections that can make you rich and powerful real quick in according to the rules but are negated because the setting will react hostily to such (here comes the Wyld hunt, or suddenly invisible wizard fucks with everything you do)
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Its not just because you can use it to grant yourself background dots that the GM is forced to justify you getting over the period of 1-5 weeks (though it is that). Its because you've got the ablitiy to basically do it for everyone you meet, in the least setting ok method possible.

Getting one artifact occasionally from a charm is ok (theoretically).

You, the entire army and all 10k members of your army suddenly tripping over and getting 10k artifacts on the other hand... (or everyone getting so many armies that you've tippled the population of creation) etc etc.

The charm is definitely not Shennigans-Ok
 
Powers should never be buttons that you push to make things happen. They should be tools you use to make things happen.

It's the same problem than God-King shrike. Like, nobody argues than a Solar shouldn't be capable of causing large scale disasters. I can think of half a dozen ways to do so.* But that doesn't mean they get a disaster-making charm.


*(Plot with the local gods. Summon a 2CD circle and task bound him to devastate the region. Murder the local king and all his near relatives. Etc, etc.)
 
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Darmani said:
I don't know I like the idea of "sure you can do that, its just going to cause consequences" though I am loathe it being the Sidereals (aka the super agents in Space Station Heaven with access to the phasers and so on)
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This only works if the thing you can do doesn't cause setting problems on the scale of being able to repeatedly spam the charm to give yourself control over the Scarlet Realm, or spawn First Age magitech fabricator-manses out of thin air, or whatever other crazy shit "give yourself any background out of nowhere" lets you do.

Darmani said:
is the charm that much harder to get and powerful than, say, sorcery? Or buying those dots? Or mindwhammying and acquiring royalty as a pet in a slight afternoon. Or using Solar Bureaucracy charms?
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Yes.

Darmani said:
Seriously asking. There are a lot of relatively minor charm collections that can make you rich and powerful real quick in according to the rules but are negated because the setting will react hostily to such (here comes the Wyld hunt, or suddenly invisible wizard fucks with everything you do)
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This is not like those.
 
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Alas, there will be no Kerisgame today. Or tomorrow. Or for a while, in fact, because ES is on holiday this weekend and I'm off to the US for three weeks come Friday; a place where six-hour collaborative writing jams are going to be decidedly tricky to fit around my schedule. Therefore, Ascensions and Transgressions is officially on hold until the 8th of October (bar the potential for extras to happen unexpectedly).
 
Nihnoz said:
This is a button you push to make something happen.
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This is somewhat true, yes. (And actually, i have changed the mechanics of summoning heavily myself).

But still. It doesn't do things just because. It introduces new characters, with their own agendas. It can backfire in quite a few different ways.

And ultimately, fluff matters. Summoning a 2CD circle to do things for you makes sense in a way that just making a wish and the wish being granted does not.
 
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Nihnoz said:
This is a button you push to make something happen.
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No, it's not.

It's a button you press to make something start happening, assuming your finger doesn't slip and the demon get free.

Then the bound demon proceeds as a standard actor within the setting. And may well run into a Sidereal with sapphire circle banishment after a week or so when the damage caused by an out of Fate actor gets noticed.

This is, in fact, the old RBD vs PBD of oMage, back in a new form. VEE is a RBD because when you use the charm, it has a given effect regardless of route. A bound demon is a RBD, because it's process based, not results based. Just because you bound the demon doesn't mean you get the results you want, unless your sole goal was to bind Ligier to prove that you could.
 
EarthScorpion said:
No, it's not.

It's a button you press to make something start happening, assuming your finger doesn't slip and the demon get free.

Then the bound demon proceeds as a standard actor within the setting. And may well run into a Sidereal with sapphire circle banishment after a week or so when the damage caused by an out of Fate actor gets noticed.

This is, in fact, the old RBD vs PBD of oMage, back in a new form. VEE is a RBD because when you use the charm, it has a given effect regardless of route. A bound demon is a RBD, because it's process based, not results based. Just because you bound the demon doesn't mean you get the results you want, unless your sole goal was to bind Ligier to prove that you could.
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RBD vs PBD?
 
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