Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[Nyarky]

I rather we be weaker than have the story be warped by our personal combat skills. Because ultimately all problems are solvable if you have enough force.

Click to shrink...

*Look at the entire premises of onepunchman and Superman being that this simply isn't true*

Yeah, no.

Personal combats skills don't save you when you're doing diplomacy, it won't save you when you need to create something, it won't make people like you, it won't protect all your allies while you are doing something else and your enemies decide to kill them, it won't help you when you are shopping, it won't help you uncover the corruption hidden in a city....

As you can't be killed, spirit 'killing' charms can't be activated. There's no 'unable to resist clause'.

Click to shrink...

You seem to be deliberately misreading BronzeTongue explanation at this point, he's telling that once you die, there is no *you can resist the activation of GET*, you telling that there are ways to make you don't die isn't contradicting that, it's just telling how to not die to have the charm not activate, this isn't defending against GET, this is defending against the attack that would've killed you.

 

[Acolyte]

onepunchman

Click to shrink...

One punch mans story is seldom about him. Its about his friends holding on long enough for him to arrive.

Superman

Click to shrink...

There are many many beings stronger than super and most of his stories are about fighting those people

Try with better examples.

Personal combats skills don't save you when you're doing diplomacy

Click to shrink...

Not if you are stronger than the entire faction you are diplomancing, then you can just threten them to comply.

it won't make people like you

Click to shrink...

It will if you use that power to kill bad people and improve the world.

it won't protect all your allies while you are doing something else and your enemies decide to kill them

Click to shrink...

It will if you just kill all your enemies in a single instance of violence.

it won't help you when you are shopping, it won't help you uncover the corruption hidden in a city....

Click to shrink...

It will if you just threaten people with violence.

 

[DragonParadox]

@Acolyte what it comes down to it for me in the end is that those dice adding up is rules as intended by the person who made the system. I recently had a complex argument about multiple attacks and how they work which I backed up in no small amount with Rules as Written. It would be very hypocritical of me to then turn around and say 'well actually this rule makes you too powerful' especially since it is central to the build. That is what Molly is designed to do in combat, soak, against some opponents she is designed to soak so well that she can afford to put more of her actions into attack as opposed to parrying for instance. So soaking is not just a defensive option, but it is a way to buff offense.

As for the kind of foes you could be fighting... I think it is fair to say there are enough dangerous things in this setting in terms of both quality and numbers that I am not concerned I have to up the power of your opponents. Your potential opponents include Fallen Angels, Denarians optional.

 

[Alratan]

You seem to be deliberately misreading BronzeTongue explanation at this point, he's telling that once you die, there is no *you can resist the activation of GET*, you telling that there are ways to make you don't die isn't contradicting that, it's just telling how to not die to have the charm not activate, this isn't defending against GET, this is defending against the attack that would've killed you.

Click to shrink...

My point is that GET (and MiM) can only be activated against limited and specific classes of being at the point the Exalt in question kills them.

Both activation criteria need to be met. You can't activate them, for example, against a spirit you haven't killed or anything that isn't a spirit. For example, if a solar tries to use GET against Molly if she used Splintered Gale Shintai to resurrect in a clone, it would fail as she's not a valid target. They'd need a custom Exalt Eating Technique charm.

 

[Acolyte]

@Acolyte what it comes down to it for me in the end is that those dice adding up is rules as intended by the person who made the system. I recently had a complex argument about multiple attacks and how they work which I backed up in no small amount with Rules as Written. It would be very hypocritical of me to then turn around and say 'well actually this rule makes you too powerful' especially since it is central to the build. That is what Molly is designed to do in combat, soak, against some opponents she is designed to soak so well that she can afford to put more of her actions into attack as opposed to parrying for instance. So soaking is not just a defensive option, but it is a way to buff offense.

As for the kind of foes you could be fighting... I think it is fair to say there are enough dangerous things in this setting in terms of both quality and numbers that I am not concerned I have to up the power of your opponents. Your potential opponents include Fallen Angels, Denarians optional.

Click to shrink...

Fair enough, if that is your wish.

 

[Artemis1992]

As for the kind of foes you could be fighting... I think it is fair to say there are enough dangerous things in this setting in terms of both quality and numbers that I am not concerned I have to up the power of your opponents. Your potential opponents include Fallen Angels, Denarians optional.

Click to shrink...

You said the same in ASWAH.
And to be fair you are not wrong, one can always find bigger fishes.

But it does still warp the world and our activities in it quite a bit.

I can see why it might be a bad idea to limit our potential and power, given the themes of Exalted in a different world and all that, but maybe slow down the growth?
We are getting a lot of XP per arc...

 

[Yzarc]

Yeah no. Hard no on limiting xp.

Keep in mind that most xp spending happens only at the snd of a chapter so we are very much going to be stuck with the tools we have during the chapter.

Besides which, xp throttling also has a massive knockoff effect on our companions.

So no, I will push back against ANY xp throttling, especially since we JUST introduced a new xp sharing system.

 

[DragonParadox]

You said the same in ASWAH.
And to be fair you are not wrong, one can always find bigger fishes.

But it does still warp the world and our activities in it quite a bit.

I can see why it might be a bad idea to limit our potential and power, given the themes of Exalted in a different world and all that, but maybe slow down the growth?
We are getting a lot of XP per arc...

Click to shrink...

That is true, but unlike with D&D the way combat works means that just large numbers of people or conventional military hardware will keep being a concern for a long time, as well as mote tapping. The last time I managed to do the equivalent of mote tapping in ASWAH the party was... level 5/6.

Given all the non-combat things you guys can do with XP I think that gaining combat powers will slow down a bit.

 

[Artemis1992]

Besides which, xp throttling also has a massive knockoff effect on our companions.

So no, I will push back against ANY xp throttling, especially since we JUST introduced a new xp sharing system.

Click to shrink...

I have no problem with good amounts of XP for our companions.
Lydia would need more XP than us anyway to keep up with us, since Terrestrials get less effect per Charm than a Celestial.

That is true, but unlike with D&D the way combat works means that just large numbers of people or conventional military hardware will keep being a concern for a long time, as well as mote tapping. The last time I managed to do the equivalent of mote tapping in ASWAH the party was... level 5/6.

Given all the non-combat things you guys can do with XP I think that gaining combat powers will slow down a bit.

Click to shrink...

Your Choice.
But if we can get 17 Soak-Dice rolled at difficulty 4 for a scene, then it has to be some exceptional military hardware to matter...

 

[BronzeTongue]

Solars only had one ghost killing charm at that point. It can only be referring to GET.

And it doesn't send undifferentiated scraps. It pretty explicitly sends complete souls which Lethe then erases the memories of and reincarnates, as that's what Lethe does.

Click to shrink...

Here's ExWoD:

ghost-eating teChnique (••)
The Solar rediscovers the ancient art of destroying souls and ephemera, scattering them into raw energy and becoming empowered by the destruction.
System: When the Solar slays a spirit, demon, or ghost, the player can opt to roll Wits + Occult (difficulty 6). Doing so prevents the being from ever returning or reforming, and grants the Solar 3 Essence on the spot. Furthermore, the Solar can reflexively spend 1 Essence to gain the ability to strike and damage intangible beings for the rest of the scene, so long as she can perceive them. Supernal Effect: The Solar is a godslayer. If she wishes it to be so, any spirit, ghost, demon, or other ephemeral being that looks upon her knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they behold a being capable of casually ending their existence. When her caste mark shines, she cannot hide this knowledge even if she wish- es to. When she ends a being's existence forever with Ghost-Eating Technique, a shockwave ripples out that causes all spirits that witness the destruction to lose 3 Essence, all ghosts to lose 3 Pathos and 3 Spite, and all demons to lose 3 Faith as the outer fragments of their power are drawn out and sucked into the momentary void the Solar's act has left in the substance of the uni- verse. The Solar, in turn, gains an additional point of
Essence if any bystanders are affected in this way.

Click to shrink...

Here's GET from the white wolf wiki:

GHOST-EATING TECHNIQUE

Cost: 2m; Mins: Occult 4, Essence 3; Type: Reflexive (Step 10)

Click to shrink...

Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious

Click to shrink...

Duration: Instant

Click to shrink...

Prerequisite Charms: Spirit-Cutting Attack

Click to shrink...

The heroes of the First Age used Ghost-Eating Technique to slay the Neverborn and the demon hordes. Spirits normally dissipate rather than dying when they lose all of their health levels to damage. The Solar invokes this Charm after making a successful attack that damages or dissipates a spirit. In addition to the normal damage from this attack, this Charm transfers a number of motes from the spirit to the Solar equal to (the Solar's permanent Essence x 2). If the spirit loses its last health level to this attack and dissipates, this Charm consumes the spirit utterly. Its Essence dissolves, and it will never be remade.

Click to shrink...

Cite

Which describe exactly what I'm talking about. Specific overrules general; a statement about what charms usually do doesn't overrule the direct text of the charm.

The energy still exists but the soul it made up has been blended up and permanently dissolved.

There are perfect defences out there; they for example, trigger only to prevent a creature losing their last health level. You can be hurt to the point of almost dying but the perfect defence means you cannot be killed.

Click to shrink...

Which blocks the effect until you run out of resources or someone works around the edge conditions of your defense. Spirit killers don't come into play until you've successfully pierced all of that sort of thing and there are no entities with automatic, free, flawless, perfects.

SGS is the exact sort of effect that would be subject to spirit killers if exalts count for this sort of effect because it's squarely in the target mechanism for them.

By the principles people are using here spirit 'killers' should work on them. As they don't it's evidence that this isn't as simple a category as people are making out.

Click to shrink...

My point is that the exaltation specifically has a unique special rule that makes it immune to stuff it'd otherwise count for. This interaction is why the whole "can only be improved, never lessened or destroyed" thing matters so much.

 

[Klaus Wulfenback]

[X] A Shadow is part of the soul is it not? A hunger stirs within (Kill the wayang and try to use Murder is Meat on it)

 

[Nyarky]

One punch mans story is seldom about him. Its about his friends holding on long enough for him to arrive.

Click to shrink...

...
....
......

Which, you know, isn't helped by how strong he is, so, yes, a perfect example of what I was talking about.

Not if you are stronger than the entire faction you are diplomancing, then you can just threten them to comply.

Click to shrink...

It will if you use that power to kill bad people and improve the world.

Click to shrink...

It will if you just kill all your enemies in a single instance of violence.

Click to shrink...

It will if you just threaten people with violence.

Click to shrink...

Are you socially impaired? Every single one of your *solutions* aren't helping: diplomacy via violence is how you get backstabbed, people don't like those who solve everything with violence, killing all your enemies in a single instance of violence is wishful thinking at best, delusional at worst, threatening the vendor is not shopping, it's extortion and torture has been proven time and time again to not give good results in interrogations.

 

[bengalqueen]

We're playing as an Infernal Exalt. Being so powerful that you warp the setting around you is part of the entire point. If you don't want to play a story where you're so powerful that you force the entire setting to respond to you one way or another, than you should be playing a game that isn't Exalted. The entire setting conceit, even in ExvWoD where Exalted are noticeably a lot weaker, is "you save the world when nobody else can." There are specific sections for statting up things whose rules are simply "you lose" in other games for the specific purpose of killing them, because that's how the Exalted roll.

If you think you can't have an interesting story by being one of the most powerful things in the setting, go take your "power nerfs for game balance" and take them to literally any game that isn't Exalted, because that's not how we do things here.

 

[Acolyte]

We're playing as an Infernal Exalt. Being so powerful that you warp the setting around you is part of the entire point. If you don't want to play a story where you're so powerful that you force the entire setting to respond to you one way or another, than you should be playing a game that isn't Exalted. The entire setting conceit, even in ExvWoD where Exalted are noticeably a lot weaker, is "you save the world when nobody else can." There are specific sections for statting up things whose rules are simply "you lose" in other games for the specific purpose of killing them, because that's how the Exalted roll.

If you think you can't have an interesting story by being one of the most powerful things in the setting, go take your "power nerfs for game balance" and take them to literally any game that isn't Exalted, because that's not how we do things here.

Click to shrink...

kmao, exalted itself is filled with the corpses of exalted. their glorious dynasties sundered, their great victory robbed, creation diminished. Exalted is hardly the end all be all of power levels even in their own setting.

even in exwod, there are hundreds of beings that are peers to exalted. I was running a game of exwod once a dozen hitmarks, a minor resource expenditure for the technocracy, ambushed my essence two exalted and they barely survived. Imagine if they had actually mage support with difficulty reducing dice adding spells. Hell, they could literally just blow them up with a bunker buster through their underground lairs. The only reason any starting exalt will ever get to the world-shaking levels is if the DM takes it easy on them or they are beneficial to the dozen of factions that rule the world. We are lucky we aren't in a world of darkness but a much kinder world.

Which, you know, isn't helped by how strong he is, so, yes, a perfect example of what I was talking about.

Click to shrink...

I am literally arguing that we should be nerfed, did you not connect with my previous point?

Are you socially impaired? Every single one of your *solutions* aren't helping: diplomacy via violence is how you get backstabbed, people don't like those who solve everything with violence, killing all your enemies in a single instance of violence is wishful thinking at best, delusional at worst, threatening the vendor is not shopping, it's extortion and torture has been proven time and time again to not give good results in interrogations.

Click to shrink...

you are missing my point, all of those things are solutions with enough power, it will have consequences but it is possible.

 

[Yog]

As an aside from the angle of infernals being infant primordials, where does using MiM on random things map to developmentally?

Is it that stage where babies try to stick anything they can reach into their mouths just because they can, or where teething kids compulsively chew on things as their teeth grow in?

Click to shrink...

It's both that and the first peer-against-peer weapon we have as a Primordial. I would guess it's a weird maturation thing.

kmao, exalted itself is filled with the corpses of exalted. their glorious dynasties sundered, their great victory robbed, creation diminished. Exalted is hardly the end all be all of power levels even in their own setting.

Click to shrink...

While true, that doesn't make the statement "the explicit purpose of exalted is to flip the Games of Divinity gaming board, kick the playing capital G gods into their nuts equivalents and steal their lunch money for the betterment of humanity and a lot of revenge" false either in original Exalted or ExvsWoD. This is what they are here for. And in ExvsWoD without Great Curse they explicitly have a chance of bringing glorious utopia forward, liberally watered with ichor of slain deities.

 

[Acolyte]

It's both that and the first peer-against-peer weapon we have as a Primordial. I would guess it's a weird maturation thing.

While true, that doesn't make the statement "the explicit purpose of exalted is to flip the Games of Divinity gaming board, kick the playing capital G gods into their nuts equivalents and steal their lunch money for the betterment of humanity and a lot of revenge" false either in original Exalted or ExvsWoD. This is what they are here for. And in ExvsWoD without Great Curse they explicitly have a chance of bringing glorious utopia forward, liberally watered with ichor of slain deities.

Click to shrink...

by that logic humanity itself has a chance, so its not like the exalted are particularly unique in that aspect so its not much of a statement.

 

[Earth-Destroyer]

It's both that and the first peer-against-peer weapon we have as a Primordial. I would guess it's a weird maturation thing.

While true, that doesn't make the statement "the explicit purpose of exalted is to flip the Games of Divinity gaming board, kick the playing capital G gods into their nuts equivalents and steal their lunch money for the betterment of humanity and a lot of revenge" false either in original Exalted or ExvsWoD. This is what they are here for. And in ExvsWoD without Great Curse they explicitly have a chance of bringing glorious utopia forward, liberally watered with ichor of slain deities.

Click to shrink...

The purpose of the exalted is to kill no more and no less. Everything else is flavor.

 

[Alratan]

Which describe exactly what I'm talking about. Specific overrules general; a statement about what charms usually do doesn't overrule the direct text of the charm.

The energy still exists but the soul it made up has been blended up and permanently dissolved.

Click to shrink...

It's not specific overcomes general. When that was published the solars didn't have any other spirit killing charms. It was stealth errata to the charm.

Which blocks the effect until you run out of resources or someone works around the edge conditions of your defense. Spirit killers don't come into play until you've successfully pierced all of that sort of thing and there are no entities with automatic, free, flawless, perfects.

SGS is the exact sort of effect that would be subject to spirit killers if exalts count for this sort of effect because it's squarely in the target mechanism for them.

Click to shrink...

SGS is a perfect defence. Back in standard Exalted it had a Flaw, but those no longer exist in ExWoD. Invoke the Eyeless Face, the solar tier spell that allowed pretty much the same thing, didn't though, and there was nothing you could do to block it apart from killing all the Minions of the Eyeless Face that the sorcerer had summoned.

Everything can be killed in Exalted apart from Exaltations. That doesn't mean everything can be trivially killed just by throwing a single charm at the problem. There are lots and lots of things that GET and friends can't do anything to. Dragon Kings are another example. You need to be an Abyssal with the right upgrade charms IIRC.

On the wider topic, note that GET doesn't work on Exalted Fair Folk. You can see this from the Abyssal Mirror charm, God-Slaying Torment, which also applies to spirits, needing an upgrade charm, Oblivion Triumphant, to apply to them or to destroy the Hun (but not Po) soul of humans targeted.

 

[Yog]

The purpose of the exalted is to kill no more and no less. Everything else is flavor.

Click to shrink...

If Autochton simply wanted to murder everyone, he'd have made abyssals. Exalted were made to take Creation from Primordials, not simply to destroy it. There needed to be scientists and blacksmiths to craft weapons on par or surpassing those held by Primordials. Diplomats to ferment rebellion and, at the end of the War, negotiate surrender, spies to learn of the Primordial plans. Killing that which can't be killed is a core function, but it's not the only function of exalted.

 

[Alratan]

If Autochton simply wanted to murder everyone, he'd have made abyssals. Exalted were made to take Creation from Primordials, not simply to destroy it. There needed to be scientists and blacksmiths to craft weapons on par or surpassing those held by Primordials. Diplomats to ferment rebellion and, at the end of the War, negotiate surrender, spies to learn of the Primordial plans. Killing that which can't be killed is a core function, but it's not the only function of exalted.

Click to shrink...

I think there's some mention that the rebels were shocked that the Exalted could kill Primordials. I think they were actually intended to beat them into submission, not death.

 

[uju32]

Sparks of the P'o aren't P'o souls either though.

Click to shrink...

They are explicitly part of a kueijin or akuma's Po soul.
Counts.

Wayang aren't immaterial though. They're semi-tangible, not immaterial. They have to squeeze through gaps, they can't walk through walls.

Click to shrink...

Fae count as spirits in the Dresdenverse. Thats despite being material enough to father parthuman kids.
The Nightmare assumed a material form for large chunks of Book 2. Still a ghost/spirit.
Naagloshii are explicitly semi-divine material spirits in the Dresdenverse. Still a spirit.
Potter is material enough to give us a ride. Still a spirit.
Uriel lent his Grace to Michael in Skin Game and was sitting around as a material entity in the Carpenter household. Still a spirit.

Materiality is not, and never has been a requirement for classification as a spirit.
In the Dresdenverse OR Exalted. And as far as I can tell, not in WoD either; Paradox spirits wouldnt be a physical threat otherwise.
And presumably not in this AU either.

First, i think you should definitely keep the thing about charms only using our base stamina. 17 soak is too much, like its exactly the kind of needless power escalation that i am afraid of. It will warp the world more as most things won't be able to harm us. So stick to the no boosted rolls for charms please.

Click to shrink...

This is working as intended.
If you are ever so unfortunate to have a Solaroid Exalt, or even a Celestial Exalt, get the jump on you with preptime, you are in for a very bad time.

Even with your stipulation about base stamina? We could have gotten better soak by using the Sorcery spell Invulnerable Skin of Bronze for +4 soak, and casting Blessing of the Earth Dragon on our armor to raise its soak by +1. Or we could just buy Soul-Sieve Transmutation right now for 12XP, and we'd be using Occult 5 to calculate soak instead of Stamina 3.

Couple scenarios with the same Steel Skin roll, and VLE keying off base stats:

Scenario 1: Sorcery
Ebon Scales 1 + Earth Dragon 1 + Stamina 3 + Viridian Legend Exoskeleton 4 + Invulnerable Skin of Bronze 4 + Steel Skin 5
= 18 soak

Scenario 2: Sorcery + Charms
Ebon Scales 1 + Earth Dragon 1 + Occult 5(Soul Sieve Transformation) + Viridian Legend Exoskeleton 4 + Invulnerable Skin of Bronze 4 + Steel Skin 5
= 20 soak

Scenario 3: Sorcery + Charm + Upgraded Gear
V2 Ebon Scales 4 (Base kevlar vest stats 3, Air Dragon for reducing weight/dex penalty, Water Dragon for shapechange, Earth Dragon for +1 soak) + Occult 5(Soul Sieve Transformation) + Viridian Legend Exoskeleton 4 + Invulnerable Skin of Bronze 4 + Steel Skin 5
= 22 soak


Note that none of this has involved making and using fetishes. Or activating shintai.
Infernals and Lunars are soak monsters.
Thats by design.

 

[firefrog600]

Catching up...

This. Optimized war formori can be pretty bloody terrifying in numbers.
Give them a couple sunstones as well and even your elder kueijin will step lightly in face to face confrontations.


You have to remember that the White Council is working as intended. They were never meant to be a nationstate prosecuting military campaigns. Word of Jim is that the first Merlin established the WC to police wizards and keep them out of politics; thats why there are so few hard rules besides the Seven Laws, and the presence of an assassin but deliberate lack of a standing army.

A standing army subverts the purpose.


I dont have the book at hand, so I'll take your word for it.


1)I misunderstood. My apologies.

2)Its more along the lines of that necromancers either enslave or consume ghosts.
Hence free ghosts react to the presence of necromancers the same way that great white sharks respond to the presence of orcas.
Which I presume is part of the point of the desecration here as well.

3)Lydia isnt a minion though; she's an ally and party member.
Gear suggestions for her are a lot broader, and the Named Rings of Power would make reasonable inspiration for powerups, balanced appropriately for the setting.

If I was making stuff for minions and still drawing inspiration from Tolkien, I would be looking at the lesser, unnamed rings for inspiration, the ones that were made for practice.

Or more likely, super ferectoi modelled on the ka'kari users of Brent Weeks' Night Angel series, and the chaomorphic symbionts of Exalted 2. Essentially Enchantment ~4-6/Exalted Crafting artifacts that would give the equivalent of 5-8 fomori Merits/Gifts to the wielder when implanted.

Make it human or abhuman exclusive, and something that doesnt work for stronger supernaturals(vampires, wizards, fae, Coin users etc), which limits the potential for stacking.

Point of order:
Only Mai can make wardhounds yes. But she's not the only wizard who makes constructs.
Klaus the Toymaker has been explicitly namedropped by the author before, even though we barely see him onscreen.

Its just that the story is Dresden-centric, so you dont see the other 99% of wizards out there.

Click to shrink...

Oh yeah that's right doesn't change much for the army stuff. I do remember Klaus though.

 

[BronzeTongue]

It's not specific overcomes general. When that was published the solars didn't have any other spirit killing charms. It was stealth errata to the charm.

Click to shrink...

If it was meant as error correction or charm modification then the thrust of the charm would have changed in later releases. This is especially important because the exact mechanics of this particular charm/type of charm and it's use have serious implications on how the primordial war went down.

When dealing with stuff like this "stealth errata" that contradicts core lore and makes multiple things stop making sense is probably the element that should be ignored.

SGS is a perfect defence. Back in standard Exalted it had a Flaw, but those no longer exist in ExWoD. Invoke the Eyeless Face, the solar tier spell that allowed pretty much the same thing, didn't though, and there was nothing you could do to block it apart from killing all the Minions of the Eyeless Face that the sorcerer had summoned.

Everything can be killed in Exalted apart from Exaltations. That doesn't mean everything can be trivially killed just by throwing a single charm at the problem. There are lots and lots of things that GET and friends can't do anything to. Dragon Kings are another example. You need to be an Abyssal with the right upgrade charms IIRC.

Click to shrink...

Trivially? To kill something you actually have to kill it in combat first. Spirit killers are finishers you use after you've beaten them, or at least in the last blow that matters.

Perfect defenses don't matter here any more than they matter for a mote tapped exalt who's track just got filled with Agg.

It only comes into play once you've beaten the defenses out of the target with a multitude of other abilities.

I'm not sure why this is the point you're getting stuck on. To use a spirit killer the target must first be rendered helpless as they would before reforming. Once helpless they can't resist being destroyed.

Edit: typos.

 

[firefrog600]

You said the same in ASWAH.
And to be fair you are not wrong, one can always find bigger fishes.

But it does still warp the world and our activities in it quite a bit.

I can see why it might be a bad idea to limit our potential and power, given the themes of Exalted in a different world and all that, but maybe slow down the growth?
We are getting a lot of XP per arc...

Click to shrink...

Ehhh being honest the exp requirements are going to just keep going up and the exp cost. Not sure it needs to be lowered when we are eventually gonna need like 50 or 60 points to get things we really want.

 

[uju32]

You said the same in ASWAH.
And to be fair you are not wrong, one can always find bigger fishes.

But it does still warp the world and our activities in it quite a bit.

I can see why it might be a bad idea to limit our potential and power, given the themes of Exalted in a different world and all that, but maybe slow down the growth?
We are getting a lot of XP per arc...

Click to shrink...

Why? We arent short on stuff to spend XP on; we've just deliberately been focusing on cheap stuff.

Molly for all her combat expertise has Appearance 2, Perception 2, Awareness 0, Alertness 0, Investigation 0, Athletics 1, Academics 1, Streetwise 0, Performance 0, Expression 0. Politics 0. Law 0. Finance 0. Medicine 0. Science 0.
She's an Infernal who's not great at dancing, an Exalted Crafter without Craft 5 or Tech 5.

A Demon Empress-in-waiting whose App score is mediocre.

I havent even gotten into her Charms. Or Merits.
And there's a ton of linear Sorcery Paths out there that cost around 34xp apiece to master, in addition to 10xp Ancient Sorcery spells. And Shih arts.

Then there's Lydia, who is a hilariously unoptimized Exigent, with major deficiencies in literally every aspect of her build, both mechanical and thematic. I mean, our primary backup is a 15 year old Exigent with Stamina 2 and Willpower 5. Dexterity 3 and Brawl 3. No 5s anywhere, with her highest trait being Resources 4.

She cant drive.

Even beginning to backfill any of these is going to get expensive quick. Being a great combat wombat isnt enough.
And we're not even a great combat wombat yet.
Not when we're walking around with no surprise negator, poison or shaping defenses. Or any Perfects whatsoever.

As long as we balance narrative and thematic considerations with mechanical ones, we're not looking at a surplus of XP anytime soon, especially since I suspect that Lydia is not going to be our only party member.
Or you could acquire an incomplete Hell and buy upgrades for it on a point basis. Ze choice is yours.


And yes, I still do think that there are both narrative and mechanicql reasons to put off buying a Hell in the short term.
===

Does it? The world is a lot bigger than it seems.

Just from the Dresdenverse side of things that have showed up onscreen so far in the books, this world has had Outsiders, Faerie Queens and elder Wyldfae, retired gods and demigods, naagloshii, loup-garou, Fallen Angels, elder Blampires and Rampires, Hounds of Tindalos, shoggoths, Dragons, maenads, hecatean hags, Naga, out and out demons, and seriousface archwizards showing up from the beginning.

Thats just the Dresdenverse side of things.
By the time you go rooting around in Exalted or World of Darkness....the world isnt warped, its always been that size.
Dresden just hasnt had the eyes to see it before.