@MJ12 Commando - The thing is, even if the message you're sending is meaningless, it was sent with the intent of conveying information. It's no different from the Navajo example earlier - even in plaintext it's not like a message has any meaning
in itself, independent from the megabytes worth of cultural context people carry around when they learn a language.
Saying something in a language you made up yesterday shouldn't protect you from DSA. A one-time pad
is, basically, giving someone a text and then teaching them the language later.
Yes, you can use this argument. This results in DSE being able to allow you to instantly understand someone going "wurblegurble" as "hello. I am sending you a message." if that someone 1. Knows you have DSE, and 2. Is intending that to communicate. You don't need to be able to hear it or anything because DSE also lets you reconstruct degraded communication. What you're suggesting DSE is is something far more powerful and versatile than a perfect translator. Noticeably, the Solar translation charm is
Essence 3, requires continuous rolling at minimum difficulty 5, and that's after a Solar has more than a day of experience with the language. The power level you're ascribing to DSE is
wack.
... Okay, let's look at something else.
Heavenly Guardian Defense. You know what you can parry with that? A mountain landing on you. With a knife.
Please explain how that is mathematically possible.
Please explain how standing on a human hair (or dancing on it, like it's a 3-foot wide ledge) is mathematically possible.
Please explain how accessing the internet with a fucking GPS is mathematically possible.
(Also lol @ you taking "similarly impossible" to mean "the same kind of impossible")
You're the one making the claim that these are mathematically impossible. The funniest thing is that the last one
isn't even impossible. You'd need to modify the GPS system to install a program and a modem but magic takes care of it. Your claim is in essence stating that because something can't be done
by a human without any tools it is impossible. This is self-evidently absurd. Parrying a mountain is not the same as turning a GPS into an internet tablet. Oh and the best part? All of these charms
explicitly call out these impossible things you can do. They explicitly say they can be used even if they don't make sense. Discerning Savant's Eye does not.
In fact, let's look at what Graceful Crane Stance says.
Graceful Crane Stance said:
The Solar Exalted are as graceful as sunlight on water. This Charm lets the Exalt automatically succeed on any valid Athletics action to keep his balance. Moreover, this Charm allows the Exalt to keep his footing on any surface at least as strong and wide as a human hair. He treats it as a three-foot wide ledge capable of supporting a thousand pounds of weight when determining what movement and Athletics actions he can take and what penalties to them might apply.
Emphasis added.
The Charm is telling you here, by using "moreover," that automatically succeeding on Athletics actions to keep balance
does not allow you to balance on a human hair. Because that is impossible. The Charm lets you do it, because it
explicitly lets you do that impossible thing. What this lets us conclude, much like how HGD explicitly calls out that it works when Parry DV is inapplicable, is that
you are not allowed to do impossible things unless that impossible thing is explicitly allowed by a Charm. That's the basis of exception based design.
Discerning Savant's Eye doesn't do that. It doesn't say that it lets you read
totally destroyed manuscripts or decipher
unbreakable ciphers. In fact, let's look at its text.
Discerning Savant's Eye said:
The Solar heroes see through petty mysteries. This Charm lets the character understand encoded, obscured and hidden communication as if it were clear. For example, the Exalt can read weather-damaged stone tablets, recognize the signals in a coded exchange, browse ciphered manuscripts as if they were in their original language and make out the words of someone whose tongue has been cut in half. This Charm can oppose the concealing effects of Letter-Within-a-Letter Technique and similar Charms. The character is never surprised by social attacks while this Charm is in force.
Bolding the important part for emphasis. Notice that it has to explicitly state it can oppose a perfect effect. You know what the implication is, just like Graceful Crane Stance? This is a
separate element to the ability to understand encoded messages. Just like the inability to be surprised by social attacks is
separate from understanding encoded communication. That is to say, the Charm is explicitly
not a perfect effect, but may challenge perfect Charm effects and create charm rolloffs. Because a one-time pad is not created via a Charm, Discerning Savant's Eye cannot oppose its concealing effects (because you're not allowed to succeed,
and it's implicitly not perfect).
Also I'm going to point out that
all the examples given are stuff that
normal people can eventually comprehend given enough time. You are extrapolating a charm into infinity when it's a fucking Essence 2 effect and being able to understand languages you don't know is an Essence 3 effect and also prone to failure.
