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General Exalted Thread

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Attempt two. Changed it so that any charms used through the host body are capped at the host's essensce and mote pool, though additional motes can be gained at the cost of 1L or 1 permanent negative mutation. Also made it so that if the host dies, the Infernal takes 1L of unsoakable aggravated damage. Once again looking for feedback

Assuming Direct Control

Cost 10m 1wp; Mins: Essense 3; Type: Instant

Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Sorcerous

Indefinite

Fealty Acknowledging Audience

Malfeas is surrounded on all sides by idiots , and cannot always risk leaving tasks in their incapable hands. Sometimes a more personal touch is required. This charm allows the Infernal to take control of a person branded by Fealty Acknowledging Audience, controlling its actions as he does his own body. Th controlled body becomes obviously inhuman during this process, acquiring mutations totaling +0 while possessed, at least 3 and no more than 6 positive mutations must be selected. Charms may be used by the Infernal while piloting the host body, but they are capped by the target's essence and mote pool. Should the host body run out of motes, then the Infernal may convert health to motes at a ratio 1L to 1m or 1 permanent negative mutation to 1 m. The host body performs all actions using it's own attribute scores and the Infernal's ability scores, capped at 5. Should the host die, then the Infernal takes 1L of unsoakable aggravated damage as backlash. While controlling the target, the Infernal lies paralyzed in a bronze cocoon, aware of his surroundings but unable to move. Ending this charm and leaving the cacoon takes 1 hr, though it can be ended instantly by slaying the host.Motes spent when activating this charm are committed, and cannot be regained as long as this charm is in use. Charms spent using the targets body drain motes from the Infernal as if he used them himself.

As an aside, I'd like this to be part of a larger charm tree based around making people into warlocks, offering them power/knowledge/etc so in return for serving the Infernal. Classic deal with the devil type stuff. Anyone have ideas of what else to add?
 
EarthScorpion said:
Yes, but you cannot be permitted to act at an Exalt level without putting one's self at risk. There are therefore only two simple options - for you to take the damage inflicted in your host (which encourages you to find weak bodies because they have less health and you will therefore only be crippled, not slain), or that you are merely a mind in the body and thus you only get to use their native powers while possessing them (plus possibly Excellencies for your Mental and non-Appearance Social Attributes).

The former works because it removes the safety factor and means that you can't use it multiple times in quick succession or you will just die (and that you risk death if you don't have more health than your possessed); the latter works because you're only effectively a specimen of whatever you're possessing, using your mind.

Both of them are mechanically simple and easy to resolve, and so preferable to something that requires you to write a 1k word Charm.
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This is a really clever solution. I'm going to change it so that damage is transferred directly.
 
rogthnor said:
This is a really clever solution. I'm going to change it so that damage is transferred directly.
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Note that this alone is not enough for balance, as long as you can have more health levels (+1) than the sacrificial minion you send out as your proxy. Specifically, because if you can get into a situation where you can exert your power as an Exalt in a risky situation that threatens death, and upon actually dying you don't die, with the only control on how often you can do this your ability to heal up from whatever health damage your proxy took before it gets wrecked, you functionally have that retarded 3E Doombot Charm, which neatly breaks the game.

In order for this to work and not be broken, damage should not be transferred, the state of being dead should be transferred, plus the act of bailing out of your proxy needs to be something you can only do while having uninterrupted meditation time rather than on the fly in the middle of a combat. This means you can't risk your proxy's death without also risking your own death. If you want this to not be an issue, then you should not allow the exertion of Exalted powers through the proxy: you get to drive your meat puppet around, but you can only use its powers, not yours.

Otherwise, picture your PC's Solar kingdom being attacked by Infernal Exalted suicide bombers with Solar Circle Sorcery or similar-scope Infernal Sorcerous Charms every couple days, as an example of what sort of tactics this kind of charm enables. The risk-reward calculus of performing a kamikaze attack changes drastically if you can do it and not die but instead respawn back at base and take some damage.
 
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Mm. Under MJ's rewrite, that would require that whoever you're possessing also have enough motes to pay for that SCS spell, which makes them a nontrivial investment. I'm fine with players having ICBMs, as long as they're as expensive and as obvious/sabotageable as hell.
 
linkhyrule5 said:
Point. Suggestion withdrawn then.
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Essentially, there are two approaches to this:
a) Allow the Exalt to take control of minions and use only what powers/etc the minion themselves has, and do not kill the Exalt if the minion is lost.
b) Allow the Exalt to take control of minions and use their own powers through the minion, and kill the Exalt if the minion is lost.

Personally, I favour a), but either approach will work. The only thing that must not be allowed is the combination of "can use all my powers" and "does not die if I am killed". If you absolutely must do this, levy a very hefty penalty for doing it, like permanently losing dots of Permanent Essence.
 
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Jon Chung said:
Essentially, there are two approaches to this:
a) Allow the Exalt to take control of minions and use only what powers/etc the minion themselves has, and do not kill the Exalt if the minion is lost.
b) Allow the Exalt to take control of minions and use their own powers through the minion, and kill the Exalt if the minion is lost.

Personally, I favour a), but either approach will work. The only thing that must not be allowed is the combination of "can use all my powers" and "does not die if I am killed". If you absolutely must do this, levy a very hefty penalty for doing it, like permanently losing dots of Permanent Essence.
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What if you limit Exalt powers to the minion's Enlightenment (using the Kerisgame Enlightenment hack)? Then you'd need to summon and bind a third circle and sacrifice a major part of a Yozi for most kamikaze plans, which may not kill you directly and mechanically but will probably kill you very shortly even if you pick somebody literally nobody likes, since the Unquestionable will want to maintain that title. And even lesser plans requires a second-circle demon that's not entirely politically "safe" either; you'd be well-advised to keep your minions alive, and you still can't use your best powers through them.

(Naturally if you have an Exalt spare matters change, but nobody has "spare Exalts" lying around in the Age of Sorrows.)
 
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linkhyrule5 said:
What if you limit Exalt powers to the minion's Enlightenment (using the Kerisgame Enlightenment hack)? Then you'd need to summon and bind a third circle and sacrifice a major part of a Yozi for most kamikaze plans, which may not kill you immediately but will probably kill you very shortly even if you pick somebody literally nobody likes in order to preserve their own safety. And even lesser plans requires a second-circle demon that's not entirely politically "safe" either; you'd be well-advised to keep your minions alive, and you still can't use your best powers through them.

(Naturally if you have an Exalt spare matters change, but nobody has "spare Exalts" lying around in the Age of Sorrows.)
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Doesn't work, because you're assuming the Infernal in question gives a fuck about staying in Hell's good graces. If they stay in Creation all the time and generally act like a Solar, this has absolutely no impact on them whatsoever, because they don't keep all their stuff in Malfeas.
 
Jon Chung said:
Doesn't work, because you're assuming the Infernal in question gives a fuck about staying in Hell's good graces. If they stay in Creation all the time and generally act like a Solar, this has absolutely no impact on them whatsoever, because they don't keep all their stuff in Malfeas.
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Yes, but Malfeas has nontrivial power in Creation, especially with the Reclamation. Ligier, say, has lots to offer an Infernal who's willing to hunt down and murder someone who'd kill an Unquestionable like that - and there'd be very broad and very rapid agreement that someone willing to use their Sorcery like that has to die.

Admittedly, you're counting on the ST being politically savvy at least a bit, but then again that's kind of a baseline requirement to run Exalted games anyway, so.
 
linkhyrule5 said:
Yes, but Malfeas has nontrivial power in Creation, especially with the Reclamation. Ligier, say, has lots to offer an Infernal who's willing to hunt down and murder someone who'd kill an Unquestionable like that - and there'd be very broad and very rapid agreement that someone willing to use their Sorcery like that has to die.

Admittedly, you're counting on the ST being politically savvy at least a bit, but then again that's kind of a baseline requirement to run Exalted games anyway, so.
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When you're reaching the point where you're trying to get the GM to use their infinite GM fiat power to try to get a PC not to use a power because the power is broken, you should probably rewrite the power.
 
Summoning a 3CD and ADCing it to make a kamikaze attack on a city doesn't seem that different from just summoning a 3CD and telling it to attack that city on its own. (Although for that reason I don't think there's a good justification for introducing this mechanic.)
 
Kuciwalker said:
Summoning a 3CD and ADCing it to make a kamikaze attack on a city doesn't seem that different from just summoning a 3CD and telling it to attack that city on its own. (Although for that reason I don't think there's a good justification for introducing this mechanic.)
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By default, the lethality of this action caps out at whatever a 3CD or 2CD can do by themselves, which save for things like the Mad Green Sun tend to be considerably below the mass destructive power of, let's say, Rain of Doom, or the combative power of an optimized Exalt. Why also give this action the power to also do whatever a PC could do with a demon-sized mote pool when used as kamikaze suicide bombers?
 
Kuciwalker said:
Summoning a 3CD and ADCing it to make a kamikaze attack on a city doesn't seem that different from just summoning a 3CD and telling it to attack that city on its own. (Although for that reason I don't think there's a good justification for introducing this mechanic.)
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Nobody needs Liger boosted by excellencies
 
Jon Chung said:
By default, the lethality of this action caps out at whatever a 3CD or 2CD can do by themselves, which save for things like the Mad Green Sun tend to be considerably below the mass destructive power of, let's say, Rain of Doom, or the combative power of an optimized Exalt.
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Really?

EarthScorpion said:
Uh... Third Circle Demons are city-killers. Literally every single Third Circle Demon in Games of Divinity is one. Ligier flash-boils armies. Orabilis makes it rain molten glass. Munaxes is a giant chasm that displaces terrain over which she moves. Erembour turns everyone who listens to her enchanting music into monsters. Even Jacinct can flatten a city by having his roads crush it.
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Broken25 said:
I don't.
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Oh, I see what you're pointing out. Fair enough. Yes, Demon of the Third is not less destructive than Rain of Doom on its own.

My point is that it's less destructive than an Exalt running around with Demon of the Third raw stats packing Rain of Doom, all the Adorjan speed charms and a paranoia combo with no fear of death whatsoever. And that without the "if your proxy dies, you die too, or at least suffer horrible permanent consequences" prohibition, this shouldn't be present.
 
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Jon Chung said:
Oh, I see what you're pointing out. Fair enough. Yes, Demon of the Third is not less destructive than Rain of Doom on its own.

My point is that it's less destructive than an Exalt running around with Demon of the Third raw stats packing Rain of Doom, all the Adorjan speed charms and a paranoia combo with no fear of death whatsoever. And that without the "if your proxy dies, you die too, or at least suffer horrible permanent consequences" prohibition, this shouldn't be present.
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What about committing the stats to the proxy such that if it dies you lose those stats for an extended period.

That means if it was better or stronger than you you die, but it it was half as strong or skilled as you, you lose half your strength or skill for the foreseeable future until they regenerate.

Lets say a year and a day so that it has similar reload time to a non spirit killed 3rd circle demon.

An in a similar vein remove the natural regeneration if the proxy is killed by a spirit killer, but reduce the costs to buy back what you lost to make it less punishing.
 
The closest charm to this mechanically is splintered gale shintai. It is weaker in that you can't function while using the host so it can afford to be a little bit better than a normal mortal to balance for that. Maybe allow it to use your infernal excellencies but for every 2 motes spent you need to roll a damage dice for the host (minimum 1 dice, round down), and doing so makes it blatantly obvious something demony is going on.
 
For those of you who actually participate in games, have any players actually tried to grow their own, say, materials for artifact crafting?

There were several exotic materials in the codex that came from living creatures. And I was wondering if, say, anyone had tried to use craft (genesis) to make their own exotic materials.

E.g.

• Heaven Leaf Fallen: In the densest jungles of the East, Wood-aspected arborists grew massive, broad-leafed trees with canopies large enough to support palaces. Instead, the master gardeners planted over them, growing more than a dozen layers of trees on top of each other. When the topmost tree brushed the firmament with a single leaf, the god responsible for keeping the sky clear smote the entire series from the very top to the bottom most root. Only the highest leaf survives, charged with the pure quality of towering height and fecundity with a flavor of hubris.

• Infinite Seeds: Through miraculous alterations of vegetable life, Exalted gardeners designed a low but sturdy bush that grew a hard-shelled nut. Earth Essence made the hut's husk as strong as steel while Wood Essence ensured that the plant-to-be inside that nut continued to grow. The strength of the shell forced the plant grow to maturity confined within that small space. It would grow and die, leaving behind a nut of the same nature just small enough to fit inside. Another plant would grow inside that, and so on. Even the plant's designers were unsure when, if ever, the cycle ended. Artificers incorporated these seeds into their artifacts in order to lengthen its nature or incorporate infinity.
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Sanctaphrax said:
I dunno about this. Having a mechanic for making interesting problems vanish offscreen seems like a bad idea.
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There're a few different reasons why I was thinking about doing something like this.

The first is that just because a problem could be interesting, doesn't mean it's interesting right now. This would allow the players to say that while they could spend their time on having a character doing something that would accomplish the task, they'd rather not handle it right now and instead spend one of their twists. Maybe they don't feel up to a stealth scene where only one or two characters are likely to participate.

Some tasks may also not be interesting, but are still necessary because of verisimilitude.

The second is that it easily bolts on a strategic sub system that allows the characters to interact with the world and background in impactful ways without needing a complex sub system. With the right backgrounds, a character could take over or manipulate another section of the world without their own direct involvement. Assuming the PCs are Exalts, doing it themselves would be trivial if they're using their followers, but this allows them to focus their efforts on more difficult challenges.

It would also provide a degree of relief for unexpected issues,poor luck, or bad planning. Rather than the GM needing to contrive some way for the characters to escape with their lives, a PC with a high rank Ally can spend a twist to have them saved in the nick of time. Similarly, when an investigation needs a piece of important information, one of their scholars can chime in with enough to keep things going.

Sanctaphrax said:
Artifice overlaps pretty heavily with Artistry and Infrastructure. I'd merge Artistry, Artifice, and the actual-construction part of Infrastructure.

Logistics overlaps heavily with Infrastructure and Strategic. I'd merge Logistics and Strategic, and say that Infrastructure often requires two twists; one to organize stuff, one to build it.

Intrigue, Infiltration, and Intelligence all seem pretty similar. I'd merge them. Let Diplomacy pick up the bits that don't fit.
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Combining bits of Intrigue, Intelligence, and Diplomacy seems like a good one. I'm still thinking about Infrastructure and Artifice.
 
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