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General Exalted Thread

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Well, it's a character development thing. The point of Patrick's character arc is that he has been scarred horribly by someone, and that he is trying to do good despite his lack of a moral compass while trying to learn how to have one (compass, that is). He's actually fairly manageable as a character, because he has come to realize that there was something wrong with him and so rather than acting on his cold-blooded killer training he watches, listens to others, and tries to understand what pushes them to act with compassion or empathy. And asks for advice and education.

He would be much more annoying if he didn't also have an utmost respect for people holding a position of authority over him, meaning when I say "do" he does and when I say "don't" he doesn't.
 
So I was just reading Arms of the Unconquered Sun Style, and I am confused by Crowned Sun Form. It says something about the Sun Burning upon the Mirror Technique, but it doesn't say what that charm is, or what it does.

Help?
 
Walker of the Yellow Path said:
So I was just reading Arms of the Unconquered Sun Style, and I am confused by Crowned Sun Form. It says something about the Sun Burning upon the Mirror Technique, but it doesn't say what that charm is, or what it does.

Help?
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It's not a Charm. Quoth Crowned Sun Fom:

More remarkably, the character's watchful
attitude and quick adaptation permit him to use
the Sun Burning upon the Mirror technique. After
observing an opponent...
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The SButM is everything that comes after that. It's a subdivision of the Crowned Sun Form, a special "thing" you can do when you have the Form active.
 
EarthScorpion said:
Well, that's perhaps not surprising.

Sociopathy is completely non-conducive to being a Sidereal. And the Sidereals are not going to put up with shit from some uppity little fuck with "a personality disorder characterized by enduring antisocial behavior, diminished empathy and remorse, and disinhibited or bold behavior".
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He did say "high-functioning sociopathy", which is a non-medical term that means basically "sociopathy without the stuff that lands me in jail", perfect for self-righteous murderhobos and noble-yet-cold, rebellious assassins. More seriously, Peter Watts has talked a little about it (and it's basically what Blindsight vampires are - sociopaths who are good at feigning empathy to get by in society), but he was mostly taking about it in the sense of serial killers and heartless CEOs more than cautious murderhobo assassins.

I'm still going to be amused at the concept of a sociopath with just as much empathy as everyone else though. Perhaps I'll one day play an Abyssal with poor impulse control and Temperance 2, or a cowardly Solar with Valor 2.
 
Low Virtues do not generally affect your behaviour, except insofar as you lack any real reason to act in favour of them.

High Virtues offer both a stick (Virtue rolls requiring suppression) and a carrot (Virtue channels more efficient than spending Willpower for a success) with regard to acting in favour of them.

A low Valor character does not need to be a simpering coward. It's just extremely likely that he will be more cautious than a character with Valor 3, because unlike that character he has no incentive to act bravely. And, of course, since that rating was a choice made by his player, they likely do not want to play a hotblooded hero, and so... won't.

This is why I find those very very few mechanics that key off low Virtues to determine behaviour to be rather irritating, because they break this general mold. Virtues are effectively something you opt into for certain bonuses in exchange for potential restrictions on (and expected roleplay of) your character's behaviour, and which doesn't penalize or restrict your character in different ways if you elect not to invest in them. Up until you come across, say, a pre-errata flaring Dawn, at which point "whoops you didn't opt in". Such effects are out of sync with the design of Virtues. It grates so.
 
Revlid said:
Low Virtues do not generally affect your behaviour, except insofar as you lack any real reason to act in favour of them.
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While correct, I find the difference between Rating 1 and Rating 2 to be uninspiring.

The stick is still just as nonexistent, since neither level requires suppression under any circumstance, and the carrot is trivially smaller.


Virtues are effectively something you opt into for certain bonuses in exchange for potential restrictions on (and expected roleplay of) your character's behaviour, and which doesn't penalize or restrict your character in different ways if you elect not to invest in them. Up until you come across, say, a pre-errata flaring Dawn, at which point "whoops you didn't opt in". Such effects are out of sync with the design of Virtues. It grates so.
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Then what's your opinion on needing to spend Willpower to raise Virtues? And the lack of any particular rules on how to lower Virtues?
 
Revlid said:
Low Virtues do not generally affect your behaviour, except insofar as you lack any real reason to act in favour of them.

High Virtues offer both a stick (Virtue rolls requiring suppression) and a carrot (Virtue channels more efficient than spending Willpower for a success) with regard to acting in favour of them.

A low Valor character does not need to be a simpering coward. It's just extremely likely that he will be more cautious than a character with Valor 3, because unlike that character he has no incentive to act bravely. And, of course, since that rating was a choice made by his player, they likely do not want to play a hotblooded hero, and so... won't.

This is why I find those very very few mechanics that key off low Virtues to determine behaviour to be rather irritating, because they break this general mold. Virtues are effectively something you opt into for certain bonuses in exchange for potential restrictions on (and expected roleplay of) your character's behaviour, and which doesn't penalize or restrict your character in different ways if you elect not to invest in them. Up until you come across, say, a pre-errata flaring Dawn, at which point "whoops you didn't opt in". Such effects are out of sync with the design of Virtues. It grates so.
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This is sort of the thought process I was running off of. Patrick's average compassion represents a sort of Noblise Oblige towards his followers and that he genuinely does care about those around him. It doesn't *compel* his behavior. But that caring about his friends and his lover is there. It's that he has Conviction at 5 and was horribly abused by someone deliberately trying to make him into an amoral assassin that makes him sociopathic. Remove the abuse and the lasting scars of years of magical brainwashing, and he's...still sort of crazy, because his Conviction is freaking five. But he wouldn't be a sociopath anymore. Admittedly, I might just misunderstand the virtues and what they mean. Virtues are a confusing system. The only one that I think I actually really understand is his Conviction and his Valor (he's a prideful bastard).
 
Is it worth looking into any Terrestrial Martial Arts as an Essence 5 Sidereal? Are any really strong enough to be worth it?
 
In the current edition, pretty much any canon TMA that has something worth it is going to also be horrendously over powered. Even Blade is likely worth it, but Even Blade has charms that were better than Solar equivalents, so that's not saying much.

Other than that, the only one I can think of is the White Veil, which has some useful effects that generally aren't available elsewhere(to my knowledge).
 
First Pulse opens with a chamr that gives +4 dice to join battle, which isn't too bad if you don't already have an initiative dice booster. I think you can stack it with Flight of Mercury.
 
Are Portentous Comet-Deflecting Mode and Unassailable Body of (Element) Defense actual perfect defenses, just with some sort of limitation, or are they just good defenses?
 
Righteousness said:
Are Portentous Comet-Deflecting Mode and Unassailable Body of (Element) Defense actual perfect defenses, just with some sort of limitation, or are they just good defenses?
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:jackiechan: Who knows what the devs were thinking? PCDM is so badly written, that even Post-eratta, it's ****ing unusable. :jackiechan:

That said, for effects of other charms that disallow or interact with perfect defenses, I think any defense which is "The attacker's roll doesn't matter, the defense succeeds as long as conditions XYZ are met" counts as a perfect defense.
 
As a notice, at least in the first edition it was perfect in effect but with quite serious flaws in its aplications, take from that what you will.
 
Righteousness said:
Are Portentous Comet-Deflecting Mode and Unassailable Body of (Element) Defense actual perfect defenses, just with some sort of limitation, or are they just good defenses?
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Perfect defenses are not actually a system term. That said, the best definition is probably something that can block the unblockable or dodge the undodgeable, which is not the case for those charms. Most people seem to refer to them as pseudo-perfects.

Chloe Sullivan said:
:jackiechan: Who knows what the devs were thinking? PCDM is so badly written, that even Post-eratta, it's ****ing unusable. :jackiechan:

That said, for effects of other charms that disallow or interact with perfect defenses, I think any defense which is "The attacker's roll doesn't matter, the defense succeeds as long as conditions XYZ are met" counts as a perfect defense.
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The same thing they were thinking of when they made DB soak charms not work at all against magic.
 
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I made a DB vs magic thread a few months ago on the Onyx Path forum, seem like most people don't like "fail again Celestial/Magic" DB charm to appear in 3rd Edition aside from some weird group who like the DB as the "underdog" Exalted or think "fail again Celestial/Magic" is deep/essential/thematic to the Terrestrial play experience.
 
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Jen said:
I made a DB vs magic thread a few months ago on the Onyx Path forum, seem like most people don't like "fail again Celestial/Magic" DB charm to appear in 3rd Edition aside from some weird group who like the DB as the "underdog" Exalted or think "fail again Celestial/Magic" is deep/essential/thematic to the Terrestrial play experience.
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...as opposed to just freaking stupid? Weird.
 
Well, I can understand their reasoning to an extent, but 'fail against Celestial/magic' runs counter to their very purpose. The Exalted were designed to fight the Primordials, this means they're gonna go up against some bullshit hax, a lot of it probably Celestial tier, not to mention some magic and such. The DB need to be able to defend against it, to an extent at least, or they are useless.
 
A lot of DB charms are "this fails against magical opposition". In other words, DBs are fantastic at handling mortals/extras, but had a much harder time with serious opposition. Which is actually in some ways a neat thematic niche. They are, in many ways, actually better at dealing with mortals and mortal societies than Sidereals or even Lunars. But they can't beat off BBEG's very well except by weight of numbers.

The problem lies with the absurdity that occurs when they don't think about the actual utility of the "this fails vs magic" charms. Such as PCDM, or the supernatural stealth/tracking charms that divide by zero when used against each other.
 
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