Carrnage
Human
- Location
- New Zealand
Qaf based charms are strongest on your home turf, that doesnt mean leaving your home turf makes you weaker than a generic infernal with at least a spare Excellency in another yozi.
General Exalted Thread
- Location
- NYC
There are definitely campaigns where these could work, but I think balancing Charms with these kinds of restrictions will be problematic.
If the Charms have some significant restriction, and they aren't more powerful* than non-Qafian equivalents, then they're kind of meh, probably not worth taking, and make Qafian Infernals kind of like Alchemicals without the benefits of swapping out Charms (read: worse Infernals).
If the Charms have some significant restriction, and they are more powerful than non-Qafian equivalents, then they're going to be overpowered in a campaign where they're usable all the time (games set in a single location).
I think that the tactical-level Charmset could be fun, engaging, and function as part of a larger party. I just think the strategic stuff is likely broken by design, because the underlying archetype of meditating ascetic who makes others come to them doesn't play well with every other PC wanting to go out and do things.
*Powerful being some kind of "more power, more control, more options, lower cost, etc."
- Location
- my house
You need to empower proxies to send out because you're weak away from your spire, or find powerful cultists to be your minibosses
Does however
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
It would need to be carefully designed, yes. I think devastating the region surrounding your tower with your minibosses and orc armies, taking all their resources for yourself should be the powerful bit. You're vulnerable in the bit before you get your tower properly set up, and after you've devastated the surrounding region you start running into issues with the scale you're working on.
The combat charms themselves should be overpowered inside your tower, and normally powered outside of it. The issue, of course, is that intelligent enemies won't want to fight you in your tower once it becomes clear that you're overpowered in it. Instead they'll build catapults and bash it down, or mess with the geomancy, or lure you out and shank you, or starve you of resources until you have to come out.
Carrnage
Human
- Location
- New Zealand
Several Ebon dragon charms literally weaken your ability to be a diurnal non-manipulative person, adorjan charms can make noise debuff you. Qaf charms needing you to be on home turf to work is nothing in terms of downsides.
- Location
- NYC
This still doesn't strike me as good design for a PC as part of a party though. It requires a specific set of assumptions about what the game will look like (how long to set up the PCs will have in a given session, how fast enemies can respond when you start setting your tower up, how fertile the surrounding region is), with the potential to break horribly if one of those is off. It also has the potential to make every session be about you and your tower, at the likely expense of other player's stories, because your basic charmset introduces such an obvious and important conflict to the setting.
And if the combat charms are essentially "other infernal charms, but can be even better" then why would you ever not pick them if given the option?
The issue with that is that it also doesn't really match the archetype. The sorcerer in the tower isn't more powerful because he's in the tower (outside of whatever golems or minions or whathaveyou that whittle the heroes down on their way in). The sorcerer can, and does, leave the tower to crush upstarts on occasion. They're powerful because they're powerful, and the tower is merely one way that their power manifests. They stay in their tower and do research or whathaveyou because they're uninterested in ruling/administration, and don't want to bother going out to crush some random rebellion. They're powerful enough that their less powerful subordinates are capable of enforcing their will against all but the mightiest heroes.
Luring them out of the tower won't help you kill them. Tearing down their tower won't help you kill them. The sorcerer doesn't want to leave their tower because they see no reason to, because the hero is not worthy of their attention, not because it gives them a tactical or strategic disadvantage.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
The issue is that Infernal Charms work to turn whoever takes them into the villain by making taking those options worthwhile. And again, this is already design space that's been trod by other Yozi charmsets, albeit in a different way. Cecelyne needs places of Desolation, Adorjan gets penalties from noises, TED gets penalties from sunlight or trying to be open and honest.
A pretty basic description of an Infernal charms is like a Solar charms, but more powerful(if using your definition) in some aspects, but with restrictions as well. I think it'd be possible to do that with a restriction involving claiming land: again, they key is how you implement the restriction in the charmset.
Also, I think you're hilariously off base regarding the strategic stuff. Players often want to do things, but not everything they do involves going out: training an army, crafting, conducting research, all of these things involve long periods where you're not going off doing things. And drawing others too you can all aid in these things. Moreover, even ES included options to extend your reach beyond your domain. It's not a good fit for every character, but I think that's a very common aspect of infernal charms.
- Location
- NYC
Sure, but the canon Yozi downsides are ones that the PC can navigate within the framework of an the same story—Cecelyne Infernals can find places of Desolation within existing environments or sow cults that desolate areas before the Infernal goes there. Adjorani Infernals can silence the environment during a session. TED Infernals need to find shadow, and be careful with their language.
These proposed Qafian Infernals have fundamentally strategic restrictions that require the entire party altering their behavior in potentially huge ways to overcome them. The issue is that the Qafian restriction eats other story space, because it incentivizes (based on the description) making every session about the tower, and its impact, and who's coming to destroy it. The other restrictions don't have this outsized influence.
What restriction do you think won't break under some subset of gametypes? The fundamental issue is that you've got games on one end where you're going to claim land in the first session and hold it until the last one, and then on the other end you've got travelogues across Creation where each session is a different location. How do you balance that?
My point with the strategic actions is that the fundamental archetype doesn't play well with others. Sure, other people are going to be crafting or training armies or what-have-you. But when the party wants to go and do stuff, as in every session, and some fraction of downtime activity that might lead into sessions, you're no longer going to be able to be the isolated monk, because you need to be going out and doing things. If your concept is "the dude who sits and meditates while stuff comes to him", you aren't going to play well with the rest of the party when they aren't content to stay in one place waiting for things to happen.
- Location
- United States
If the qaf charmset depends on having a fortress, one that you can magically summon, then it's only a downside if you're playing the kind of toon who refuses to have a home base. If you're playing that kind of toon, then you don't take Qaf's charms as favored, just like how if you don't want to play a toon who's got of toolbox full of asshole tricks, you don't take ebon dragon as favored.
Part of the concept as presented was "oh, I want to attack this city. Guess I need to go out and take some territory nearby so that I can start launching attacks." Qaf isn't going to go out doing things, because he is a pure embodiment of his charmset, just like how Adjoran hates all noise and has no attachments ever and Kimbery can only love those who are devoted to her 100% and will always seek to destroy anyone else. However, Infernals aren't pure embodiment of their patron's charmsets. They aren't as restricted as their patron Yozi, which is the source of their strength.
As for not breaking under some gametypes, that's 100% impossible, even in core Exalted: if the game is 100% about combat then a pure noncombat social build isn't going to work. Even with characters that aren't as mono-focused you still have issues: a game focused on a house of shogunate dragonblooded can't really make use of a lintha dragonblooded patriot. If your game is so fast paced that there's no downtime, never in a place for a few days or anything? Yeah, maybe it doesn't work. But a crafter doesn't work under those conditions either. Neither does someone who want's to build and army.
- Location
- NYC
But this doesn't address the core issue: this archetype is, at best, spotlight greedy in a way that's likely problematic for the rest of the table.
Take the example above: the party wants to attack a city. The story is now about taking over the countryside so that the Qafian Infernal can use their Charms to create an army so that the party can attack the city. The GM now needs to either handwave that scene, which makes the Qafian restriction irrelevant, or run it, in which case the entire party is now operating in the Qafian Infernal's framework rather than their own.
And some variant on this happens every time the party travels somewhere and the Qafian wants to use their charms.
Sure, they can pick other Charms up so they can do stuff when their Qafian Charms are inapplicable, but that doesn't fix the core issue of the design, or make it less potentially problematic.
The basic issue is that the archetype being emulated is very much a solo character, not someone who really fits into a larger team, so the result will likely run into friction if used in a non-solo session.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
How is this different than Cosar's other examples? Like, say, a crafter?
Ok, let's take it without the infernal, instead with a war focused Solar who wants to attack a city. Well, as a war focused Solar with an army, he wants to bring the army up to attack the city(that's why he paid time and resources to have it, right)? Oh, but this now has the party operating in the War focused Solar's framework. So, obviously, having war focused charms and content is terrible for the game, right?
Now, your reply would probably be about how the War focused Solar presumably has other area's of focus as well, things that he can do outside of that one thing. But the reply is that so can the Infernal: the proposed territory stuff is one part of Qaf's charmset. Nevermind that Infernals don't have to take from just one or even 2 charmsets, any more than that War focused Solar can only have War or combat focused charms.
- Location
- NYC
Crafter is a problematic archetype for similar reasons—it doesn't play well with others. This is arguably one of the reasons why it has kind of failed as an archetype in every edition of Exalted, although it doesn't help that Exalted has never had a particularly good crafting system. 2E and 3E both attempt, in different ways, to make crafting more interactive with the setting by giving you soft-progress on your projects through adventuring (2e through quests to find components, 3e through the weird craft xp system), but both kind of fail in their intended goal.
A well implemented craft system would probably figure out a way to get the entire party involved in any non-downtime crafting activities, or make craft modular enough that a crafter could be creative and come up with interesting, new solutions to problems in realtime that didn't require stopping the session to tell a different story.
No, that isn't really problematic in the same way. The Solar already paid for and is assumed to have his army—he's spent the relevant points on them already, all the requisite stuff happened offscreen. Anything that does happen onscreen (army being ambushed on the way there, supply line's being attacked, the main clash) gives pretty easy levers for PCs to go off and do their own things, because everyone has the same tactical and strategic goals (roughly). The direct actions of the War-focused Solar (attacking the city) are the same as the rest of the party (attacking the city). The army is just an advantage the War-focused Solar brings to the table.
In the case of the Qafian Infernal, their direct actions (securing and defending territory) are not the same as what the rest of the party wants to be doing (attacking the city). The GM now needs to either split the party, handwave away the securing and defending territory bit, or make the session about defending the tower.
You could pick non-Qafian Charms, but that doesn't make the design less problematic? Like, my critique here is that picking these charms has the potential to lead to bad outcomes where they're unusable/less usable, or frustrate the rest of the table with how they incentivize you to act, or spotlight your character too much. The fewer you pick and the less you rely on them, the less these will be an issue. That isn't a real critique?
- Location
- Ottawa
Qaf's combat charms can apply the same theme of immobility in a more straightforward way; you're stronger if you don't take movement actions. Flaw of Invulnerability would probably be the inverse of Adorjan's.
In general, I think the game-warping stuff should be focused on the strategic scale. Everyone's strategic-scale stuff, be it crafting or warfare or politics or finance or whatever, bends the game. But the adventure-time stuff doesn't really.
With that in mind, I'd attach the "you must be on your mountain" restriction to effects like "you can draw people to you by the hundreds" and not to effects like "you can ignore anything that would knock you back or down".
Like I say every time Craft comes up, the key is Craft Charms that actually do things. If every Craft charm just makes you better at being an artifact assembly line, then the ability will always be a mess. But if Craft Charms can do stuff like make your cooking so delicious that people will eat it even when they know it's poisoned, then the ability can really work.
In general, I think the game-warping stuff should be focused on the strategic scale. Everyone's strategic-scale stuff, be it crafting or warfare or politics or finance or whatever, bends the game. But the adventure-time stuff doesn't really.
With that in mind, I'd attach the "you must be on your mountain" restriction to effects like "you can draw people to you by the hundreds" and not to effects like "you can ignore anything that would knock you back or down".
Like I say every time Craft comes up, the key is Craft Charms that actually do things. If every Craft charm just makes you better at being an artifact assembly line, then the ability will always be a mess. But if Craft Charms can do stuff like make your cooking so delicious that people will eat it even when they know it's poisoned, then the ability can really work.
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Hmm...your talk about Qaf always has me kind of thinking a weird version of Shinra from FF7. You know, gigantic, ever growing tower but literally sucking hte life form the surrounding ecosystem...but a kind of weird version of Shinra where Rufos is crossed with Sethiroth (even the ability to translocate via correspondence works with Sethiroth's ability to astrally project / possess JENOVA).
Might just be me though.
Might just be me though.
So did you intend for a blantant double standard? Because at the moment you are claiming that moving an army towards a city to attack it is fine because it has a bunch of means for the non-war focused players to engage and directly feeds into their goal, but claiming and then building a fort to attack a city is bad wrong because there is no mechanism for other players to engage and doesn't meaningfully advance the goal because I guess the people are all under 9 months old and don't understand cause and effect? Hell, you claim building an army is fine, but apparently making this fort isn't because...?
Hell, apparently this army is moving to the city but isn't securing any territory along the way. Because that clearly makes sense, right? I mean, when has any army actually claimed the territory it was moving through?
- Location
- Singapore
CREATING THE STONE LABRYINTH
Cost: 10m, 1wp
The sorcerer raises a hand, and shouts the Word of the Lost. At this, a labryinth is conjured around the sorcerer. The maze can be made of anything. In the jungle, hedges grow into shape. In the ocean, water rises up into walls. On land, earth reshapes itself into a maze. In the air, the space itself warps. The difficulty of navigating the maze, is (Sorcerer's essence + Intelligence + Occult), and anyone trapped inside must roll (intelligence + survival) to get through the maze. If the person wins, he is able to navigate the maze without getting lost, and is able to either find the sorcerer, find other people, or exit the maze.
At an interval defined the sorcerer, whether via ticks, actions, hours, or days, a new part of the maze is added. The maze starts off enclosing a 100 yard by 100 yard square, and each interval increases by the size by a hundred yards. This continues on, until each side of the maze is 1000 yards in size. As each interval passes, the maze is reshaped, forcing whoever is trapped inside to reroll. If they fail, they are once again, lost.
This maze is useless against anyone who can fly. Or jump good.
Please review
Cost: 10m, 1wp
The sorcerer raises a hand, and shouts the Word of the Lost. At this, a labryinth is conjured around the sorcerer. The maze can be made of anything. In the jungle, hedges grow into shape. In the ocean, water rises up into walls. On land, earth reshapes itself into a maze. In the air, the space itself warps. The difficulty of navigating the maze, is (Sorcerer's essence + Intelligence + Occult), and anyone trapped inside must roll (intelligence + survival) to get through the maze. If the person wins, he is able to navigate the maze without getting lost, and is able to either find the sorcerer, find other people, or exit the maze.
At an interval defined the sorcerer, whether via ticks, actions, hours, or days, a new part of the maze is added. The maze starts off enclosing a 100 yard by 100 yard square, and each interval increases by the size by a hundred yards. This continues on, until each side of the maze is 1000 yards in size. As each interval passes, the maze is reshaped, forcing whoever is trapped inside to reroll. If they fail, they are once again, lost.
This maze is useless against anyone who can fly. Or jump good.
Please review
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
Except if you want to do anything other than sit in one place, you have to chuck all your Qafian Charms in a bin. You literally cannot mix other Yozis' Charms in with his unless you're giving Qaf pride of place.
Except that the idea of him being self-reflective is 100% fanon, and doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense when you ask why an utterly self-absorbed navel gazer would give the faintest fraction of a shit about the Shining Answer?
If Qaf was the kind of solipsist you're imagining him as, then he'd still be sitting in the Outer Chaos somewhere, quietly doing fuckall. The Shining Answer is an inherently active, dynamic quest for higher purpose - not within, but without. Theion and his siblings were so fed up with how meaningless the Wyld around them was that they built a new without in the hopes it would let them find the Answer. Why would Qaf have been anywhere near that if he could achieve total cosmic enlightenment by just sitting around doing nothing? About the only answer I can think of within your paradigm is that he radiated Buddha Waves that made the other Primordials drag him along on the assumption he was important, and they would "talk" to his comatose form and then imagine up his side of the conversation. In which case he's literally a Monty Python sketch.
The issue is that "build a giant obelisk that brainwashes people and be dependent on proxies" isn't an Infernal Charmset. It's an idea for an Infernal PC that should be accomplished by cobbling together multiple separate Charms. It's like Chirality Prohibition Index in that it has a single precise story/purpose to fulfill and is utterly useless for anything else. It's not "a set of tools", it's some sort of weird bullshit infomercial multitool that's great for installing a bidet but has no other use.
How often do players do those things while also throwing up a giant Loom-shredding flare to let literally all of Creation and Heaven know that there's infernalist shit going down, though? I'm pretty sure that Tower Qaf is the kind of thing that triggers Direction-wide panic and massed armies converging on your location. Which again, is very nice for roleplaying Sauron, but even Malfeas isn't that shackled to being literally actually Sauron.
- Location
- my house
It's not about being weak, its about being boring.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Man, the idea of having your domain is all up in my alley; this is some The King's Two Bodies shit, it sure doesn't sound boring to me.
Queshire
Wants a pink flamingo for their lawn.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
There's certainly enough Dungeon stories on this site lately that it's clear at least some people find base building interesting. If Qaf charms help you build your evil overlord lair of evilness then I'm sure some players will be interested in them.
If you're not then simply don't take them, and if one player taking them upsets the dynamic of a player group... well, that's something which would need to be ironed out between the player group.
It's not an inherent flaw of the charms.
If you're not then simply don't take them, and if one player taking them upsets the dynamic of a player group... well, that's something which would need to be ironed out between the player group.
It's not an inherent flaw of the charms.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
More importantly, people should read The King's Two Bodies.Man, the idea of having your domain is all up in my alley; this is some The King's Two Bodies shit, it sure doesn't sound boring to me.
- Location
- Singapore
Never heard of it.More importantly, people should read The King's Two Bodies.