Also, this. Sidereals don't act on the front line unless they have to.
General Exalted Thread
Also, this. Sidereals don't act on the front line unless they have to.
He could set himself up as a rear-line Thinker. Probably a lot simpler than constantly having to worry about "is this at least vaguely plausible for a baseline human?"
azoicennead
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The most expedient (i.e. convenient and practical), not necessarily most effective, and it also has a much lower risk of running into the shadowy conspiracy that canonically speeds the apocalypse he's trying to prevent; the available bureaucracy with influence over capes would be most likely to notice his presence, as well, since they need to worry about exactly this kind of thing and have plenty of people who get lots of bonuses against things like magical disguises.
And when life gives you city-destroying monstrosities and mystical kung fu, you're probably going to use a lot of kung fu.
Plus, he's going to have to mostly learn the Sidereal mindset on his own.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
A Sidereal who isn't running Underling Invisibility Practice is running it wrong.
The wonderful thing about shadowy conspiracies? They think everyone is beneath them.
Nothing short of Pattern Spider Touch is going to kung fu an Endbringer sufficiently to contribute to their defeat.
Yeah, it sucks that maybe, possibly if you had been there you might have prevented a handful of deaths. Maybe even hundreds or thousands.
You're a Sidereal. Suck it up.
Besides, a rudimentary usage of Auspicious Prospects of Endings (you do have that, right?) will rule out the Endbringers as actual threats to Earth bet.
Um, they are an actual threat. They will take longer to destroy civilization, but unless stopped they will do so.
Also, I'm not sure you necessarily want to delay Scion's rampage, as doing so puts Earth Bet in a worse position than an earlier rampage.
azoicennead
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Shadowy conspiracies who are part of another bureaucracy can be prompted to spend the willpower to resist the illusion.
Throne Shadow Style.
Flechette and a bunch of other blasters.
They'll cause a collapse of civilization in a decade or two. It's not quite on the scale of the alternative end, but it still will happen.
notthepenguins
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Charcoal March of Spiders and Obsidian Shards of Infinity could both end its threat permanently. Possibly more, depending on whether you argue that Endbringer cores have infinite health levels or just infinite soak, and how you decide mental domination effects function.
Of course, if you're just talking about contributing to a given Endbringer battle, not actually perma-killing or otherwise negating it, most SMAs and CMAs will be helpful.
Whenever I cared to have a think about it, I think I was leaning towards infinite hardness?
So, uh, why does everyone have this rose-tinted view of 1e? I heard that the aspect books were good, and mostly good stuff about the caste books but I've heard that quite a lot of other stuff was pretty bad.
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notthepenguins
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In which case you don't need to kung fu them, you just need Shield of Destiny.
Edit: Or inflict Aggravated Damage, ignore soak/hardness from armor, or both.
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azoicennead
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Why infinite?
Just give them high soak and hardness, and a bunch of health levels.
notthepenguins
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All indicators I've seen are that Endbringer cores reach infinite density, or at least asymptotically approach it.
And? Infinite density can quite plausibly translate into high-but-finite hardness in Exalted. It's weird that way.
Hardness is a defense against mortals who don't matter. Exalts generally have ways around it, for Sidereals it's the charm "shield of destiny" as @notthepenguins mentions above. While Solars might not have something listed, this indicates they can make very cheap effects that do the same.
Actually, I think there are TMA charms that let one ignore Hardness. Your new plan should be to train a large enough group of non-cape martial artists to kill the Endbringer before any of the capes get a chance to act.
EDIT: As a Sidereal you are better at conspiracies than almost anyone, so meeting people involved in such an endeavor only gives you more tools to use.
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I tend to drift towards 3e rather than 2e rules for most of my cues nowadays.
notthepenguins
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Solars would have an easier time killing or otherwise neutralizing Endbringers than Sids, yeah.
I'm assuming infinite to make it harder to gib them, so I don't get accused of underselling them (not that it makes much difference).
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azoicennead
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Infinite soak is meaningless and removes many mechanical levers it could interact with. And extremely high but finite soak allows mechanical interaction. Hell, infinite soak is a pretty shoddy defense against a Sid who uses Violet Bier of Sorrow Form (and Life-Severing Blow makes it worse). It's even less effective if they also use Conclusion-Pursuing Approach; an Essence 5, Willpower 10 spirit can be killed by it in 21 hits (10 hit to get rid of wp, 10 hits to go through 100 motes, 1 hit to shape it dead). Essence 10 only adds another 5 attacks to that. This is by no means trivial, but
... This brings me to another question: Metal Storm gives you a flurry of 1 attack per 3m, up to (Martial Arts) attacks. Errata set its cost to 7m, 1wp, but didn't touch its effect. What does it do now?
Were I going for maximum troll with an experienced Sidereal, I totally would. Given that I'm not, the protagonist will have to work with significantly less amusing plans.
notthepenguins
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RAW says it gives you two extra attacks, RAI is probably "Make a standard magical flurry of (Martial Arts) attacks."
azoicennead
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That's about what I figured.
Also, majorly rewriting my plot outline because I might as well get as much out of this exercise as possible, with much less of a focus on packing action in. Should work better now, but will still have shenanigans.
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Regarding Endbringers and Infinite Soak or Hardness:
The right answer is that exponentially dense layers isn't soak but HLs, and those HLs exist should independently of a soak score so the character can simply go outlandish and chew-through them at-length as a "timer" until they hit a relevant combat-milestone that marks a change in the fight dynamic so it doesn't feel like a slog through a bag of mobile hit-points.
The right answer is that exponentially dense layers isn't soak but HLs, and those HLs exist should independently of a soak score so the character can simply go outlandish and chew-through them at-length as a "timer" until they hit a relevant combat-milestone that marks a change in the fight dynamic so it doesn't feel like a slog through a bag of mobile hit-points.
notthepenguins
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Infinite HLs also has the side benefit-maybe-depending-on-what-you're-going-for of cutting off a lot of the hax Exalts can pull. They're restricted to Shaping, mostly. Also the E9 variant of WSSG, and Sky Breaker Throw.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
In what universe is Obsidian Shards of Infinity something less than Pattern Spider Touch?
The trick about the Endbringers, from my understanding, is that they don't actually have much 'health', but almost nothing causes them any damage, which is why I went for infinite hardness.
Might be more interesting for a player but doesn't actually represent how they appear in Worm, which seems to be what others are aiming for.
Also, the idea of "give them a ton of HLs ... so it doesn't feel like a slog through a bag of mobile hit-points" is hilarious.