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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Artemis1992 said:
How bad can that get?

We can resist anything mental and we are reasonably tough against physical effects, but far from impervious.
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They can be very bad indeed, as mentioned one blocked Lord Raith's ability to feed entirely.

Dresden is always fearful of the prospect of them, the biggest danger is that a Wizard/practitioner can be very creative.
Dresden very much believed for a while that the 'Die Alone' curse was serious business and could arrange circumstances to force that fate upon him as he understood it.

Probably the most effective would be some sort of general curse of misfortune or grief which I could see being abstracted out to being a floating malus to be applied by the ST at a suitably dramatic moment to either Molly herself or people she cares for.

They're serious enough to make 'Geek the Mage' not a good lethal policy unless absolutely necessary.

Especially when they can be inflicted at the speed of thought without any movement or speech, they're a free action unless caught completely and devastatingly by surprise, like taking a sniper rifle round directly to the brain from total ambush.
 
XenonPrime said:
Especially when they can be inflicted at the speed of thought without any movement or speech, they're a free action unless caught completely and devastatingly by surprise, like taking a sniper rifle round directly to the brain from total ambush.
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Are you sure that's the case? I can't say my memory is clear on the subject, but I didn't think it quite that easy.

IIRC, it takes an effort of will and power, your last bit of effort and power, and that's no small thing. Even casting a simple spell generally isn't something you can do as easily as blinking your eyes, so neither should your final and potentially most significant act of magic be something accomplished so trivially.

If anything, when fighting a magic user capable of using a death curse, unless we can safely render them unconscious, it seems to me like we should go for immediate, overwhelming violence, to kill them faster than they can react, and to do so in a way that doesn't allow their consciousness to linger for even an instant. Best way to do that would be putting our sword through their brain. Anything less risks leaving them aware long enough to realize they've been killed and that there is nothing left to do but exact what vengeance they can with their death curse.

[X] uju32
 
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Best approaches (apart from not killing them) are killing them real fast (it takes a second if theyre unprepared for it, so the important bit is the time from realizing they will die to unable to act mentally), rendering them unconscious first (as long as they dont think they will die), messing with their head otherwise, or keeping them unaware its us who are killing them (they can throw it, but would generally not mystically know where to aim, and something vague like "whoever did this" would dampen in down massively i think).

It should also be possible to prepare some defense beforehand with some work, but that likely has limits.

EDIT: To be clear, if i remember right, it takes a second or two to go from zero to death curse, but you can prepare and hold it if you think you will die, at which point it triggers instantly, but you likely cant do much while holding that.
 
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Xexilf said:
Cassius was a at that point weak-ish sorceror on his last legs, and he tried to curse dresden to "die alone"
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It's worth noting that knowledge is as or more important than power for a DF mage in a lot of respects. A couple of near muggles with the right information can make people's hearts explode from the other side of a major city.

Cassius wasn't just a sorcerer, he was a Denarian trained one with otherwise impossible levels of experience.

This guy doesn't have that, so it's not a fair comparison. Even as a wizard tier talent he wouldn't be able to attempt the same things, despite the power difference.

I'm skeptical of the idea that some random sorcerer could set up a persistent effect like that, as opposed to something like a temporary AoE rage effect.
 
It also seems important that dying people don't have much time to think about the perfect death-curse usually.

A sorcerer who works with rage-spells and rage-spirits most of the time is very likely to just wish madness on us with his last breath.
And we can perfectly resist that.
 
Artemis1992 said:
It also seems important that dying people don't have much time to think about the perfect death-curse usually.

A sorcerer who works with rage-spells and rage-spirits most of the time is very likely to just wish madness on us with his last breath.
And we can perfectly resist that.
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I mean even madness in their case seems unlikely for a death curse more likely suffering or death or nothing at all. Madness suggests a certain amount of cognizance to wish it upon someone.
 
Yes, if theres a serious danger here, its that the mortally wounded sorceror goes "die" and its enough to knock out our last health level or kills one of the NPCs.
 
firefrog600 said:
I mean even madness in their case seems unlikely for a death curse more likely suffering or death or nothing at all. Madness suggests a certain amount of cognizance to wish it upon someone.
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It really depends on their personal power and skillset. You can only use what you have to work with when you activate your death curse.

Someone like Harry, who is both powerful and extremely well-versed in fire magic could probably call down something like a massive firestorm on someone if he was so inclined, but using the same amount of power with gravity magic would accomplish much less of an effect because he is barely proficient with it.

Canon Molly, on the other hand, was less powerful but also more subtle and skilled at working delicate effects like veils. She might not have been able to outright incinerate someone with her death curse, but she could have put a really fucked up and likely permanent illusion or mind-affecting effect on them, like turning all pleasure into excruciating pain or forcing them to see the world as if everyone, including themselves, were rotting corpses shuffling around and groaning miserably at one another.

Whoever this enemy caster is, it's highly unlikely that he's a White Council level practitioner, so his power is going to be limited, and his go-to magic, both for preparing to fight by priming his minions and for attacking our group, seems to revolve around either enraging the target or slipping a rage spirit into them. If he can even pull off a death curse, chances are he would reflexively fall back on what he knows best and try to drop an amped up version of it on us.

Again, this is assuming he even has that ability. DF doesn't put much focus on them, but the world is full of lesser practitoners who have too little power to get White Council attention. They can accomplish minor magic effects, like simple rituals and the like, but they also often have one or two tricks they've focused on really heavily, to the point of being a real threat in some circumstances. It's far more likely that our enemy falls into that category.
 
Pretty sure you don't have to be actually be almost dead to fire off a death curse. Just belief your going to die, and a willingness to spend your life force to get you opponent first. Might be a real problem for Molly, she so good at killing, quite a few people would just go "I have no chance death curse".
 
Goldfish said:
It really depends on their personal power and skillset. You can only use what you have to work with when you activate your death curse.

Someone like Harry, who is both powerful and extremely well-versed in fire magic could probably call down something like a massive firestorm on someone if he was so inclined, but using the same amount of power with gravity magic would accomplish much less of an effect because he is barely proficient with it.

Canon Molly, on the other hand, was less powerful but also more subtle and skilled at working delicate effects like veils. She might not have been able to outright incinerate someone with her death curse, but she could have put a really fucked up and likely permanent illusion or mind-affecting effect on them, like turning all pleasure into excruciating pain or forcing them to see the world as if everyone, including themselves, were rotting corpses shuffling around and groaning miserably at one another.

Whoever this enemy caster is, it's highly unlikely that he's a White Council level practitioner, so his power is going to be limited, and his go-to magic, both for preparing to fight by priming his minions and for attacking our group, seems to revolve around either enraging the target or slipping a rage spirit into them. If he can even pull off a death curse, chances are he would reflexively fall back on what he knows best and try to drop an amped up version of it on us.

Again, this is assuming he even has that ability. DF doesn't put much focus on them, but the world is full of lesser practitoners who have too little power to get White Council attention. They can accomplish minor magic effects, like simple rituals and the like, but they also often have one or two tricks they've focused on really heavily, to the point of being a real threat in some circumstances. It's far more likely that our enemy falls into that category.
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its kinda noted death curses can have a lot of affects since their stupidly powerful. Harry thought he had a decent chance to kill a queen (might of been a lady) in one of the earlier books at a certain point if he did it. Though its debatable it'd have actually worked death curses can be used for things out of a wizards normal wheel house though it'd probably stupidly boost ones wheel house as well. I doubt dresdens mom specialized in removing bloodline powers after all.

Edit: I'll note I'm not very worried about a dying curse here. Also I should say death curse is different though a dying death curse is probably one of the more common uses of dying curses.
 
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Goldfish said:
Are you sure that's the case? I can't say my memory is clear on the subject, but I didn't think it quite that easy.

IIRC, it takes an effort of will and power, your last bit of effort and power, and that's no small thing. Even casting a simple spell generally isn't something you can do as easily as blinking your eyes, so neither should your final and potentially most significant act of magic be something accomplished so trivially.

If anything, when fighting a magic user capable of using a death curse, unless we can safely render them unconscious, it seems to me like we should go for immediate, overwhelming violence, to kill them faster than they can react, and to do so in a way that doesn't allow their consciousness to linger for even an instant. Best way to do that would be putting our sword through their brain. Anything less risks leaving them aware long enough to realize they've been killed and that there is nothing left to do but exact what vengeance they can with their death curse.

[X] uju32
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It's a thing that can be done very quickly and easily, as I understand it because it's such a simple and primal thing to do.
It's pretty much 'for hates sake I spit my last breath at thee', a magical 'F You', just will and simple, vindictive intent.

As with all things magical knowledge and preparation matters more than personal power but the latter is always useful.

I'd be amazed if they don't already have it chambered to go, given the immediate circumstances.
Hopefully it's 'just' a targeted curse of rage but it could easily be an AoE sort of thing to turn civvies who may still be in range into a violent mosh pit.

To outright kill a practitioner without running the risk you need to do it such that they have no idea of the threat and it needs to be immediate, devastating and precise.

How certain are we that Molly will be able to completely obliterate the seat of consciousness such that no thought is possible? A single sword stroke or stab can certainly be fatal but is it fatal enough?
You don't need all of your brain to think and even fatal damage offers seconds of activity, sometimes consciousness shuts down and sometimes it doesn't.

It's like messing with the Demon Core, any error has disastrous consequences.
 
XenonPrime said:
It's a thing that can be done very quickly and easily, as I understand it because it's such a simple and primal thing to do.
It's pretty much 'for hates sake I spit my last breath at thee', a magical 'F You', just will and simple, vindictive intent.

As with all things magical knowledge and preparation matters more than personal power but the latter is always useful.

I'd be amazed if they don't already have it chambered to go, given the immediate circumstances.
Hopefully it's 'just' a targeted curse of rage but it could easily be an AoE sort of thing to turn civvies who may still be in range into a violent mosh pit.

To outright kill a practitioner without running the risk you need to do it such that they have no idea of the threat and it needs to be immediate, devastating and precise.

How certain are we that Molly will be able to completely obliterate the seat of consciousness such that no thought is possible? A single sword stroke or stab can certainly be fatal but is it fatal enough?
You don't need all of your brain to think and even fatal damage offers seconds of activity, sometimes consciousness shuts down and sometimes it doesn't.

It's like messing with the Demon Core, any error has disastrous consequences.
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note technically a dying well spell or whatcha call it doesn't need to be a curse thats just why 99% of dying spells or whatever are made for very obvious reasons.
 
So by this point we've been in a grand total of three fights and received notably wounds in all three. 1 Lethal Wound against the spiders, 2 Lethal Wounds against the Vampire/Outsiders, and (so far) 3 Lethal Wounds against the Berserkers.

I think it is clear we need to do something about this.

Viridian Legend Exoskeleton (6XP) would give Molly +4 Soak which would (on average) have reduced these to 0, 0, and 1 Lethal Wounds respectively. Unfortunately it also wouldn't have really helped since our action economy is so limited (Essence 1 == 1 Charm per Turn) so we probably wouldn't have had it active for any of these fights. So while very useful I'd honestly say it should wait until after Essence 2; that way we can open a fight with our Excellency and VLE.

Scar-Writ Saga Shield (3XP) is even cheaper and permanent so needing to active it isn't a problem. It also is significantly less useful since it reduces Molly's Target Number for Soak rolls by 1. While not nothing our limited Soak pool (Stamina 3 + Armor 1 = 4d10) means we only go from an average of 2.22 to 2.67 so not even a full die worth (5d10 = 2.78) of extra Soak. Great when we have VLE since with 8d10 we go from 4.44 to 5.33 which is almost as good as an extra two dice (9d10 = 5.00 & 10d10 = 5.54).

Digesting The Great Beast (16XP) is massively expensive but grants combat levels of regeneration healing 2B or 1L per Turn and lasting Stamina + Occult vs TN7 Turns. Roughly 3.5 Turns on average with a 98% chance of lasting at least 1 Turn. It however is also a Charm activation so time consuming as well as the massive expense. Not really practical in the near future; maybe later.

Charred Sinner Renewal (4XP) is honestly one of my top picks for a Charm mechanically speaking. Fully healing all Bashing damage or 1 Lethal Wound per 15 minutes and recovering Essence like in a Dragon Nest () is amazing. It lets us easily heal up between fights and help with the Essence recovery problem we are already noticing, which will likely get worse after hitting E2 and being able to spend more Essence per Turn. It however is kinda problematic from a character perspective since it means resting in toxic or otherwise dangerous/unpleasant liquids. That would be both kinda difficult to sell to Charity and dehumanizing since healing bleach baths are pretty clearly inhuman.

Ego-Infused Pattern Primacy (20XP) is the most expensive of all the Charms here but it is also incredibly versatile. Effectively no selling any supernatural influences on Molly's body or spirit (98.99% success rate) for an entire scene alone is powerful enough. That this Charm also lets us spend 1 Essence to heal all Bashing or 1 Lethal Wound per 15 minutes or 1 Aggravated Wound per hour is crazy. Hence the massive cost that probably puts it out of range for now although it is definitely on my list.

And that is about it really for dealing with damage. Ox-Body Technique (3XP) adds +4HL per purchase but that just makes it harder to die rather then prevent the damage and even then really needs a healing effect given how far down the wound track those Health Levels are. Same basic deal with By Agony Empowered (15XP); makes Molly far harder to kill (only Aggravated damage can kill her) but doesn't really mitigate the damage otherwise. Offering of Blood and Meat is a decent healing Charm (1 Essence to heal all Bashing and Lethal Wounds) but the whole killing grapple and devouring enemies thing isn't something Molly will be up for for a very long time.
 
As far as I know you only avoid a death curse by:
-Surprise, can't curse if you don't know you are dead.
-Countermagic, a death curse is a spell, albeit a hella chonky one. Lesser talents trying to death curse a wizard who's prepared to handle one will do nothing(if Harry wasn't so beat up he could probably have counterspelled Die Alone like he did the entropy turkey curse). And circles and thresholds, while not actually absolute for something with so much oomph, go a long way to mitigation, so it helps if you're killing them from your warded sanctum.
-Debilitate. Drug them, fear aura them, or otherwise render them unable to think clearly. The magic still needs intent.

Generally I think we can handle most such short of a full wizard.
 
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Thanks for the analysis.

I think the best option right now would be Essence 2 and Viridian Legend Exoskeleton.
That's 14 XP together, pretty hefty, but when we got it we can use our new an improved soak at the start of every fight.

And we have the extra-security that is a Shintai form.
Because that unlocks a whole new healthtrack we can use in an emergency to beat down our foes, though it does not help us heal damage we took in our human form.

Edit: Healing would be great, but for now our regular heal-speed is still pretty good. It only goes from nice to have towards necessary if we buy a lot more health with Ox Body.
 
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Has dp said anything about transitioning into longer periods of time like a month taking place throughout 3 updates? Cause uh I like the pace and think its fine for now long term we probably won't get to major plot points unless a few updates is a month minimum. Given I doubt much if any major plots will be exactly the same though major goals of antagonists likely will be also dealing with new plots. But, there should also be downtime where nothing much happens for a month or few like in the books even dresden could go half a year without anything major.
 
firefrog600 said:
Has dp said anything about transitioning into longer periods of time like a month taking place throughout 3 updates? Cause uh I like the pace and think its fine for now long term we probably won't get to major plot points unless a few updates is a month minimum. Given I doubt much if any major plots will be exactly the same though major goals of antagonists likely will be also dealing with new plots. But, there should also be downtime where nothing much happens for a month or few like in the books even dresden could go half a year without anything major.
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I believe he said that regular time intervals will be will be weekly when things aren't happening that need greater detail.
 
XenonPrime said:
It's a thing that can be done very quickly and easily, as I understand it because it's such a simple and primal thing to do.
It's pretty much 'for hates sake I spit my last breath at thee', a magical 'F You', just will and simple, vindictive intent.
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Quoting the actual dresden files books, specifically Turn Coat.
"One of the things that make folks leery of pulling the trigger on a wizard is his death curse, right?"

"Uh-huh," I said. "If you're willing to kill yourself to do it, you can lay out some serious harm on your killer."

She nodded. "Is it an instantaneous kind of thing?"

I pursed my lips. "Not really."

"Then how long does it take? Minutes? Seconds?"

"About as long as it takes to pull a gun and plug somebody," I said. "Some would be quicker than others."

"A second or three, then."

"Yeah."
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Its not instantenous, though it can be fast.

Assuming they havent prepared it, a hit that destroys the brain should be more than fast enough, a cut throat would not be. Not sure about decapitation, but its hard to be sure how fast consciousness fades there.
 
Xexilf said:
Quoting the actual dresden files books, specifically Turn Coat.

Its not instantenous, though it can be fast.

Assuming they havent prepared it, a hit that destroys the brain should be more than fast enough, a cut throat would not be. Not sure about decapitation, but its hard to be sure how fast consciousness fades there.
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I read that book like 10 years ago thanks for the reminder.
 
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