You are nissing the point of Paranoia combos. They point isn't just that they run lean. It's that they defend against everything while running lean. I can stack as many damage adders and status effects I want on my attack, but if they use a perfect defense and/or keyword defenses that means nothing. And if you have a p combo then you have those charms.
EarthScorpion's hack does.
I thought it provides more than 4 motes/DV_refresh under some conditions? Or was that a discarded idea / misremembering on my part?
Well, in 2½e it's a bit harder to defend against everything while running lean: perfects are now 8/use, and it takes 7 post-soak dice to make non-perfect defences non-competitive (soak up 6 dice for 6 motes + reduce minDamage for another 2 motes).
I feel like it would be better with a mixed circle. You could have the setup as something like this:
Seriously! Think of the possibilities! You could have internal drama based on who died saving who during the escape or the characters disagreeing on what about the First Age is worth bringing back! But at the same time, they are all so goddamn confused about what the actual fuck happened to Creation that made something like half of it just disappear into the Wyld, and why the Yozis suddenly have Exalts serving them, and why there are superghosts attacking Creation and why no one seems to be doing anything about this stuff! Where the fuck is the Celestial Bureaucracy and why hasn't the Realm Defense Grid been used to wipe Thorns off the goddamn map?
What would you think of having the base for all rolls be Essence? Then you could add an appropriate Skill or Attribute rating, with stunts letting you add both. I'm kinda cribbing off of the Lunars from the leak with this, but it seems like it might work.
It creates an undesirable metagame situation in that it encourages PCs to be built largely similar (particularly in the more cerebral campaigns like those I lately run and recently played in), and usually means that you need to optimize hard if you want to have an area in which you are significantly better than the party average with more-or-less the same IQ level while not wasting points. IQ being underpriced for generalists is not news, it's mostly the recognized consensus of SJGF. The problem is aggravated by the fact that as a Man-to-Man descendant, GURPS has a certain lack in the number of independent mental attributes.
I didn't really think that bit out. What would you suggest as a way to let players play Sidereals or DBs while avoiding this stuff? Also, I was kind of assuming that there would be roleplayed tension between the Solar/Lunar group and the Sidereal/DB group during the majority of the campaign. Kind of a "I don't exactly trust you, but is sure as hell trust this fucked up world less" thing. But also, if they hadn't worked together, they all would have been killed by The First and Forsaken Lion or inhaled by Kamila. Not to mention the fact that they think that the PCs are the only people left who actually have shared history with them. Everything else that they would think of as familiar is gone.
Again, I'm assuming that the players are good at roleplaying and keeping IC and OOC knowledge separated as best they can. I feel like moving the main continuity forward a bit (so that it's been 7 or 8 years since the Empress disappeared) and switching some things like you suggested might be enough though. That way you get changes like having Mnemon or the Roseblack on the Scarlet Throne or the Mask of Winters having conquered half of the Scavenger Lands.
Toss em at an Infernal; one that isn't a complete monster. For effect, make their past lives someone dear to them. So that the Infernal, who should a brutal and monstrous in terms of power, to emphasis that shit has happened and he isn't in Meru any more and that they have reason not to shank the Eclipse caste at the first sign of trouble, who doesn't favor Crafting, but spent a long time honing his technique so that he could become a master artiest.
Hmm, there are some decent ideas there, I like some of the Cytherea charms, I especially like the idea of her Mythos charm, The Infernals as a whole lack healing charms outside of SWLIHN and Kimbery.
It could just be from their Urge Yozi, if you don't like any of the fanmade ones.
Yes, probably. The fact that I know Creation in general terms only might help, even.
The focus on plant-life and growth sounds more like Gaia. Cytherea is a spoof of the big bang; she ought to be explosive and dynamic, not patient and calming.
