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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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[X] Yes, 8 XP refunded, use the new rules for Essene raised by total XP spent

Although I would like the ability to put XP into Essence at an increased rate if we want to consciously raise it.
 
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DragonParadox said:
"Ghouls are violent Molly..." he starts, but does not get to finish.

"Of course they are violent, they are demon scions cursed with an unending hunger. You'd have to be a saint not to want to lash out at the world for being born into that. I don't know about all of them but Sarah didn't know what she was, didn't know anything until she found Adam Bones and Lockjaw. Yeah they may not be perfect, but then neither are any of us, they deserve the chance to change and part of that is not being suspected for what they are rather than what they do."

Harry seems to come up short for answers for a moment.

"That'll teach me for forgetting whose daughter you are," he says at last.
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This is a most interesting argument between Harry and Molly, and one that I hope to see expanded upon. Really shows the mosters are both monsters AND people.
 
[X] Yes, 8 XP refunded, use the new rules for Essene raised by total XP spent

I think this system is better, measuring your growth in total and fitting Essence to it is much nicer than having to pick between tall and wide builds.

But at the same time I think we are growing a bit too fast. It's been barely a few months and we will be Essence 3 in a moment. Growing too fast and particularly filling out our combat-suite will make it harder to keep things focussed, to keep things around Chicago where all the people we care about are and to challenge Molly without a concentration of monsters in the area that makes Dresden's adventures look slow in comparison.

Of course, some escalation can be justified IC, power like ours draws challengers, especially in the hands of one with no interest in keeping up the status quo, but that can be overused.
 
Artemis1992 said:
[X] Yes, 8 XP refunded, use the new rules for Essene raised by total XP spent

I think this system is better, measuring your growth in total and fitting Essence to it is much nicer than having to pick between tall and wide builds.

But at the same time I think we are growing a bit too fast. It's been barely a few months and we will be Essence 3 in a moment. Growing too fast and particularly filling out our combat-suite will make it harder to keep things focussed, to keep things around Chicago where all the people we care about are and to challenge Molly without a concentration of monsters in the area that makes Dresden's adventures look slow in comparison.

Of course, some escalation can be justified IC, power like ours draws challengers, especially in the hands of one with no interest in keeping up the status quo, but that can be overused.
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Easiest solution to that is DP adjusting the XP thresholds for reaching E4 and E5.
 
VOTE
[X] No, leave things as they are

The temptation of free XP is there. And I would not object if the change was being made for other party members.
But I dont like the change for Molly on both a meta or a mechanical level.
I would rather not give up control on when Molly gets to go up in Enlightenment.

Not to mention that it involves additional work for the QM or players to track and keep tracking the XP earned to date, and to adjust the mechanics to match.
I'll pass.
 
Artemis1992 said:
[X] Yes, 8 XP refunded, use the new rules for Essene raised by total XP spent

I think this system is better, measuring your growth in total and fitting Essence to it is much nicer than having to pick between tall and wide builds.

But at the same time I think we are growing a bit too fast. It's been barely a few months and we will be Essence 3 in a moment. Growing too fast and particularly filling out our combat-suite will make it harder to keep things focussed, to keep things around Chicago where all the people we care about are and to challenge Molly without a concentration of monsters in the area that makes Dresden's adventures look slow in comparison.

Of course, some escalation can be justified IC, power like ours draws challengers, especially in the hands of one with no interest in keeping up the status quo, but that can be overused.
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We are only a single Exalted trying to tackle problems that would normally be done by a full circle. Normally an Exalted can afford to specialize. But we basically have to be good at everything. Because despite trying to delegate where we can non-exalted just don't have our advantages. Ideally we would have a different person specialized for each of our problems. But that isn't really an option so despite having the favored hells of the sneaker and fighter we find ourself in the roles of the leader and innovator as well.
 
[x] Yes, 8 XP refunded, use the new rules for Essene raised by total XP spent

I trust the QM to balance it, and 'charms VS essence upgrade' is a tradeoff that just *feels bad*
 
fictionfan said:
We are only a single Exalted trying to tackle problems that would normally be done by a full circle. Normally an Exalted can afford to specialize.
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Yeah, as indicated by the chart, normally after 150-ish XP you could be considered a veteran Exalt. If you specialize at one thing, by this point, you are pretty godlike at it.

But we had to nail like thirty thousand things through entirety of this game, starting with chargen, so it doesn't really feel like it.
 
uju32 said:
VOTE
[X] No, leave things as they are

The temptation of free XP is there. And I would not object if the change was being made for other party members.
But I dont like the change for Molly on both a meta or a mechanical level.
I would rather not give up control on when Molly gets to go up in Enlightenment.

Not to mention that it involves additional work for the QM or players to track and keep tracking the XP earned to date, and to adjust the mechanics to match.
I'll pass.
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I kind of see it the opposite way in terms of a mechanical representation of narrative.

If charms are supposed to be expressions of growing nearly-divine authority and steps on a journey to something more primordial then it's very weird that we can control it.

Technically you could buy almost all of the charms available in the book without improving your essence past one. It'd be stupid, but you could do it.

Measuring an infernal's magnitude by how many steps they've taken rather than as a separate value makes sense. It stops the growth from being nonsensical in the narrative represented by the mechanics.

[X] Yes, 8 XP refunded, use the new rules for Essene raised by total XP spent
 
Prospalz said:
Yeah, as indicated by the chart, normally after 150-ish XP you could be considered a veteran Exalt. If you specialize at one thing, by this point, you are pretty godlike at it.

But we had to nail like thirty thousand things through entirety of this game, starting with chargen, so it doesn't really feel like it.
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I mean one of our favored hells is Kakkuri: the Night Realm and yet we suck at sneaking and are generally as subtle as a brick in the face.

Normally Kakkuri/ Lanka combo means that you have giant orgies of violence that no one notices or talks about. That would generally be our job in a circle as a sort of heavy handed enforcer, but we also are leader, dipo and crafter.
 
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Earth-Destroyer said:
I don't see how it would really change things overall. We are getting massive amounts of XP, and ignoring training times. We could have hit E5 if we really wanted to by now.
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It doesn't really change things. It just makes it so our essence level reflects our overall power rather then being a separate stat that we buy.
 
fictionfan said:
I mean one of our favored hells is Kakkuri: the Night Realm and yet we suck at sneaking and are generally as subtle as a brick in the face.

Normally Kakkuri/ Lanka combo means that you have giant orgies of violence that no one notices or talks about. That would generally be our job in a circle as a sort of heavy handed enforcer, but we also are leader, dipo and crafter.
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Also investigator, even if it's a tetriary thing for us. Which brings the question of "what should Lydia be specializing in?". Given her background and charms, she's probably also a diplomat, and, as mentioned previously, a summoner, I think. We really need a dedicated investigator (high streetwise, investigation, perception, etc), and a stealth specialist (who might also be the investigator).
 
Yog said:
Also investigator, even if it's a tetriary thing for us. Which brings the question of "what should Lydia be specializing in?". Given her background and charms, she's probably also a diplomat, and, as mentioned previously, a summoner, I think. We really need a dedicated investigator (high streetwise, investigation, perception, etc), and a stealth specialist (who might also be the investigator).
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Dresden is a dedicated investigator the problem is that he is always plenty busy without also having to investigate our stuff. That is a big part of the reason that we want to pump money into him so he has more opportunities to save time by spending money.

Of course he is also heavily hampered by the inability to look stuff up on the internet and generally has trouble using a phone.
 
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System aside, any idea on our short list for the next buy point?

I'm still interested in the speed stuff, but we're playing at a tier were having our perfect attack and/or defense should start being more important.

I won't post the whole thing again, but due to Holden's shenanigans with the primacy of defense we probably need two perfect defenses long term that each effect a different part of the defense equation to beat things with specific perfect defense piercing properties.

we don't need both now though, so we could just take one of the cheaper options now without blowing the budget.

mastigos said:
There's actually a subrule that addresses that, albeit in a handwavey way: essence doesn't go up immediately after hitting the target number, instead it goes up at a climactic moment
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That's fine at a table, but forum games have a lot more overhead in terms of planning and organization. It'd be a pain to deal with juggling that.
 
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