I know of no ST who would rule it as you're currently presenting it!
Yes you do. Me.
Because seriously,
Rules as Written? 'I can totes have my base in that tiny, forgotten, untraceable corner of the (Terrestrial Direction of choice) and guide my amazing DoomBot (tm) with the ability to do all the same things I do except making DoomBots (tm) [this is not actually a limitation of the Charm] at no risk to myself whatsoever even as I make my DoomBot (tm) into the suicide operative from hell' is a plausible interpretation and by RAW I'd be forced to accept it.
Hell, get a little creative and get the Socialise multiple personalities with different qualifications Charmtree and it gets even worse.
Of course, I will then hit you in the face with my gold plated copy of the 3rd edition mainbook, but that's because it's a terrible Charm that should've
never been in the starting book of the edition.
It's designed with 'whatever the ST finds plausible based on their group' in mind.
This is a
terrible limitation. It's perhaps a little insulting, but in your first book of any Edition of any gameline you damn well
should try to keep things as conservative and closed to interpretation as possible, or do as Wild Talents did and put in a side bar explaining why some Charms need to be handled with great care. And call those Charms out.
This is a valid design choice.
And a terrible design practice.
Yes. A bad or newbie ST can misuse it.
I'm not worried about the bad or newbie ST abusing it. I'm worried about bad or newbie
players abusing it, including the ST, because they can defend themselves by investing in the rule zero fallacy and if necessary
bully the ST and the rest of the group into accepting it.
Are you referring to Eyes of the Sun stopping the game from going pure ninjas? Here's the thing. System doesn't work like that anymore. Stealth is strong, but not strong enough that it requires Awareness to be unchallengable. I'm not lying. The system literally doesn't have the same problem as the old one. But if you look at someone with Supernal Stealth with Eyes of the Sun, they still get noselled. That's what Eyes of the Sun does. When you put a ton of investment in, sometimes you get really cool powers without a clear counter. None of them will actually break the game, unless you read it as brokenly as possible.
Ehm? No. That's not what Eyes of the Unconquered Sun does.
Yes, EotUS is a very powerful Charm, but it's a 1 turn long, 10m 1 wp Simple Charm. It looks through all Stealth effects, magic and mundane, it looks through all Disguise effects, magic and mundane, it doesn't care about what's in the way as normally opaque substances are rendered transparent to the Solar (actually, the wording is a little unclear here and can be interpreted as 'to everyone' as well). It also removes (permanently) any current fog, smoke and cloud based environmental effects that obscure sight, force spirits to Materialise and break shape shifting effects, resplendent destinies, magical personas and other disguise magics of the Exalted (note that 'of the Exalted' is specifically called out. A materialised spirit, mortal or other non Exalt under a shape shifting effect, a magical persona or a resplendent destiny is as such explicitly not subject to the Charm's effect).
However, it has a few weaknesses. First, the Night Anima power
explicitly calls out that Eyes of the Unconquered Sun means all of shit against the Night Anima's 'you've no idea who I actually am' effect, so that outright no sells that. For another, and more critically, even though the Charm majorly boosts awareness it's an attack that's defended against with your Evasion stat. If you manage to evade the Solar using the Charm gets exactly nothing from you.
Finally, Eye of the Unconquered Sun is a Charm whose effect is
completely and utterly impossible to miss. Everyone that has to roll against it knows it was used and if they failed they know that especially well. It's part of the mechanics.
So yeah, does EotUS trump Stealth?
Sure. For 1 turn and everyone knows you did it.
Does it make it impossible to play a Stealth character?
Hardly. Especially since Dodge is also a Night Caste skill and it's normal to expect some back up on that side for a defense against this trick.
I feel like we've been here before, have we been here before?
We have.
I have to point out that "if it would make for an unfun game, don't use these Charms" (to slightly paraphrase) is an advice by Moran herself.
Oh really? And where is this written in the Exalted Third Edition core book, and what Charms are specifically called out as such?[/QUOTE]
I mean, a large chunk of DMP criticism is that it clashes with the implicit-but-not-stated-outright-as-applicable-to-setting* concept of there being no death-preventers and no time-tinkering.
Actually, the game has had for a considerable amount of time death prevention magic. I mean, it's part of the Abyssal core Charmset in 2e IIRC, but that one came with some critical drawbacks, there's a Solar Charm that lets the Solar
not stay dead when killed under limited circumstances, Chimerical Lunars with the right Mutations will regrow from a drop of blood and Dreams of the First Age has among other things an (expensive) Artifact that let you teleport to the manse of the Hearthstone you put into the Artifact.
However, that too had a rather big drawback. Mostly in the 'that Hearthstone can be identified and a second assassination squad can end up waiting for you in the centre of the place you thought you'd be safe' implication.
Likewise is messing with time actually possible. Stopping time for a single individual or object is a
First Circle Sorcery Spell. There is also nothing preventing you from speeding up or slowing time.
The only time related thing you absolutely can't do is go back.
