Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

I mean...it makes sense from that perspective too...
Not totally sure that it does. It basically disincentivizes interacting with almost anyone or going anywhere that isn't already sort of hostile.

Good luck with talking to minor practitioners while scanning as more threatening than half of the man eating demons in town, or making it through a school day when no one can stand to be in the same room. Things like that little folk spy ring going will be extra fun to set up when they flee the block on our arrival.

Hell, even people who can make the social rolls will still be biased against us. Hard to gain wizard allies and friends with an aura straight out of their bestiaries.

Only being able to talk to Harry, Molly's high will parents, and whatever demons we've summoned this week in an even remotely normal fashion would get old.

Even beyond that, it's suboptimal. Cooperating with others is a really effective way to get things done; the whole lone monster bit is a trap. A cliche trap at that.
 
Hello new people!

Not totally sure that it does. It basically disincentivizes interacting with almost anyone or going anywhere that isn't already sort of hostile.

Good luck with talking to minor practitioners while scanning as more threatening than half of the man eating demons in town, or making it through a school day when no one can stand to be in the same room. Things like that little folk spy ring going will be extra fun to set up when they flee the block on our arrival.

Hell, even people who can make the social rolls will still be biased against us. Hard to gain wizard allies and friends with an aura straight out of their bestiaries.

Only being able to talk to Harry, Molly's high will parents, and whatever demons we've summoned this week in an even remotely normal fashion would get old.

Even beyond that, it's suboptimal. Cooperating with others is a really effective way to get things done; the whole lone monster bit is a trap. A cliche trap at that.
Eh. If anybody would be understanding about weird magic stuff it would be the people in the Dresdenverse.
 
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I'm not of the belief that ruining lives is a prerequisite to an engaging story, but okay.
Conflict is what drives a story whether it's just drama or actual combat most engaging narratives have conflicts of one or more types that isn't to say that all stories must have conflict to be good stories.
It would be interesting if in an unexpected turn of events DP decided that we would never actually encounter much if any high end enemies and made the story about molly and her friends and family and people and how these changes affect her life and have a very emotionally evocative story and at most the biggest thing we encounter is a loup garou that gets banished to the hell of flaying and that moment of tension when she realises what she's done.
Honestly I'd read that.
 
Okay, I just woke up.

After finally having a good nice wink, I have decided that whilst the idea of monstrous combat-god is very amusing, it's probably going to suck on the long-term. That and I think I have managed to make a huge blunder—mainly in my disregard to Molly as a Wizard and social Character.

Will be reworking Flaws and some Charms later on, one that will be less Socially-debilitating.

You can still pick my previous Build, but I think I'm gonna make a new vote option, change it a little and add some stuff on top.
 
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Looking at some of the sorcery stuff, it seems like part of the reason it was bad was that counterspelling was so much easier than doing anything else with sorcery. DF doesn't have anything like that in normal use, so that's worth consideration.

Further, a lot of the effects offered in the rule book are really good and not readily available in charms and/or regular DF magic.

For example:

Cirrus sKiFF
The sorcerer calls down a small cloud from the heavens to ride upon.
System: Spend 3 Essence and make an extended Intelligence + Occult roll (difficulty 8). Once the player accumulates five successes, a cloud descends from the sky and waits patiently for her to climb upon it. The cloud can hold up to six people, and once the sorcerer signals it to depart, it flies up into the sky and car- ries her to a destination she decides upon while cast- ing the spell. The cloud travels at 200 miles per hour once it ascends high enough that obstacles like trees and office buildings are no longer a concern, and its enchantment prevents those riding upon it from being troubled by wind, cold, or thin air. Once the Cirrus Skiff departs, the sorcerer cannot prematurely cancel its journey, change its destination, or force a landing.
In the Dresden Files, it's effectively impossible to fly with magic. They also have a deleterious effect on any tech around them, the more advanced it is the faster they destroy it.

It's for this reason that wizards place so much value on securing safe passage through the nevernever. They can't take planes anywhere, so they have to travel by rail or ship to get anywhere. It's still dangerous as hell though, even with their maps and deals. So that offers some utility and possible trade opportunities with the White Council.

There's also an existing spell to base our anti-scrying stuff on.
inCantation oF spiritual disCretion
The sorcerer chants a sutra which resonates with the Essence of the Weaver, of patterns, and of blindness and silence, and thereby seals a chamber against obser- vation from the spirit world.
System: Spend 4 Essence and make an extended Intelligence + Occult roll against difficulty 7. Upon accumulating five successes, the spell takes effect, sanc- tifying whatever room the sorcerer stands in. Within that chamber, the Gauntlet rises to 9, and no creature in the Penumbra or Shadowlands can discern even the slightest feature of the room; it appears to be a colorless, featureless void, devoid of figures or sound. This spell's effects persist for the sorcerer's Essence rating in days.
If we assume that the nevernever basically subs in for the various spirit planes of Creation, then this would let us bar the door so that things can't easily pop in on us and block cross plane scrying. Harry needed a minor fort in the nevernever maintained by a high Sidhe noble to get that effect, and it's canon that it stopped several attempts on his life that he didn't even notice were made since they died at the door.


There's also a whole host of spells that let you bless a mundane item of any material with direct magical properties. DF has magic items, but they tend to be more expensive to make than ritual focuses and definitely more involved than the rituals offered by ancient sorcery

The effects range from adding damage, to gaining extra soak from armor, to stuff like having whatever you enchant change shapes. Like having a full suit of armor fold into a cube so you can carry it around discreetly.


Finally if we ever went mad with power this horrific thing is a possibility:

rain oF spiders
The sorcerer raises her hands to the sky and bids clouds to gather. A clicking, rustling noise falls over the steadily dimming day as she gathers her Essence and transmits it into the heavens. Finally, the sky opens and thousands upon thousands of spiders of a multi- tude of different species drift to earth in living waves, carried upon the wind and tiny nets of silk.
System: Spend 5 Essence and make an extended Intelligence + Occult roll against difficulty 9. Once the player accumulates fifteen successes, the rain of spiders begins. It covers about a mile around the sorcerer's po- sition, and lasts for ten to fifteen minutes. Everyone
caught outdoors suffers one die of bashing damage per turn of exposure. Getting under cover immediately is strongly recommended. The spiders do not vanish af- ter the spell ends, and local exterminators are likely to have more business than they can handle for some time afterwards.

A mile diameter rain of spiders is a hell of a way to express displeasure with someone.

Sorry about all the weirdness in those quotes by the way, that copy-pasting from the rule book apparently borks some of the text.
Hello new people!


Eh. If anybody would be understanding about weird magic stuff it would be the people in the Dresdenverse.
No they wouldn't. Most people don't know enough to be understanding in the first place, and those who do know are painfully aware of the fact that things with hostile demonic auras tend to eat humans.
 
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I honestly I'm fine whether we're an unga bunga cavewoman who can bonk people and send them to the hell of horny jail or if we're basically a green social solar with access to high speed divine words because both would make for an interesting story and that's what Exalted is all about from what I've gathered an epic about heroes and demigods or an urban fantasy with vampires and werewolves in the case of WoD and I think there are players who've done less power more social and the opposite is true too and it's clear that both are fun both mechanically and narratively.
So I say choose whichever one you like because it's going to be fun either way.
 
That's not exactly what the difference here is though. It's not like one is building to be a social manipulator and the other isn't.

One is building to be good at a spread of things, and the other is burning down social and sinking it into a swamp for more combat power.

Since this isn't a dungeon crawl that'll probably be an annoying problem, even if we can manage it.

Specifically because Molly doesn't live in a hut on the edge of a forest where she can choose (as bad an idea as it would be) not to engage; she's basically got mandatory social encounters on a regular basis in the form of her existing life.
 
Yeah, not going to lie, it's not even that my build is weak in combat, it's just not absolutely optimized at the expense of everything else to absolutely dominate everything in the setting except the biggest players moving in concert right out of character generation.

So it's kind of weird that a simple lack of crippling disability has somehow been interpreted as "Green Social Solar"
 
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[X] Plan: When did my life become a YA Action-Horror story?

I'm partial to the Most Fluid Blessing of the Water Dragon myself.
 
So it's kind of weird that a simple lack of crippling disability has somehow been interpreted as "Green Social Solar"
Person: is able to have normal social interactions
me: are you a god dies of being an introvert

@DragonParadox
narratively is the build we have because of usum or because of molly?
Because I think the unga bunga build would be more likely if based off of the demon and the magic if based off of molly because logically the demon would make use of fear and isolation to encourage her to embrace the title of Dread Emperor of [insert hell here].
While molly likes magic as several people have pointed out, she's also not a terrible person and would probably reject using some of the more bullshit charms on principle.
 
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I would probably switch if the build didnt vote to effectively kill off Usum.

Very not cool. :(

Person: is able to have normal social interactions
me: are you a god dies of being an introvert

@DragonParadox
narratively is the build we have because of usum or because of molly?
Because I think the unga bunga build would be more likely if based off of the demon and the magic if based off of molly because logically the demon would make use of fear and isolation to encourage her to embrace the title of Dread Emperor of [insert hell here].
While molly likes magic as several people have pointed out, she's also not a terrible person and would probably reject using some of the more bullshit charms on principle.
As has been pointed out a couple of times. The unga bunga build is basically the infernal version of her father. One of the Knights of the cross and her mentor in that build as well.

That has incredibly rad storytelling implications.
 
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[X] So Speaks Demon Empress
Key Charms: Lanka: Demon City of the Rakshas and Kakuri: the Night Realm
Standard Charms
No Category: Key to the Kingdom: (Favored Abilities) (•) Excellency use your skills to supernatural levels
Lanka: By Pain Reforged (•) Weather pain like a storm upon a mountain's peak
Kakuri: Cracked Cell Circumvention (•) Escape more easily from bindings of all sorts
Kakuri: Without Honor, Without Hope (•) Immunity to Cold; power from Cold
Lanka: Green Sun Nimbus Flare (•••) Burn your enemies in the fire of your hate

Background
Mentor ••••• (Michael) -5 Points
Demonic Guide ••••• (Demonic Aspect: Demon Weapons)

Freebie Points 15 to start with:
Flaw:
-Enemy (+1 Points) [Winter Court]
-Nightmares (+1 Points)
-Vengeful (+2 Points) [Fetch]
-Enemy (+2 points) [Denarians]
-Touch of Frost (+1 Points)
Willpower ••••••••• -4 points
Impervious Primacy Mantle (•••) You are a stalwart bastion of integrity against corruption -9 points
Brigids' Heir -3 points You are the herald of an arcane system archaic yet absolute
Anima Control -1 points The Exalt's anima is restrained until they have spent 4 Essence in a scene

Right, I maximize the amount of Flaws we can take to a maximum of 7 but with much less socially-crippling Flaws whilst retaining its combat abilities and having the capacity to cast ancient sorcery. I also swapped Cold Breeze to Touch of Frost. They both synergizes well with Without Honor, Without Hope. Also, we would still have Demonic Guide, so Demon Weapon is assured.

Okay, let me explain. First of all is that Crafting in this case is going to be put on the wayside a little bit since what we need now is some Social defence and defence against mind-altering magic, which Impervious Primacy Mantle provides. Not only that, the Infernal can just no-sell any social attempt to betray her Intimacies, so if some ungodly charismatic demoness were to give us whatever we want in the world at the cost of Molly betraying her family, it would just stop affecting her. No Willpower roll, no Essence expenditure, nothing. Just a fist to the face of said demoness for such presumption.

Next is the lack of By Rage Recast. Look, By Rage Recast is a very cheap Charm, being a 2-dot and all. I am very certain that we could achieve it somewhere in the future without having to sink 3 FP in order to get it now. Besides, our Demon Weapon alongside Green Sun Nimbus Flare will already do the job of killing off most of our opposition. The good news is that we still have our Health level penalty decreasing Charm, By Pain Reforged. So no need to worry about us being too squishy.

Afterwards are the merits, Brigid's Heir so that Molly can obtain a whole new repertoire of Spells not seen in this world for hundreds of millennia. It also merges well with her being a high Occult character that wants to unearth the secrets of the world. The next merit is Anima Control, this is mainly as a deterrent whenever we spent more motes than it is acceptable. If we want to manipulate and use Charms to discreetly direct others, it would be best if they didn't find out what the hell have we been tampering with their mind. And 9 Willpower is already obscenely big for even most Supernatural elements. We are a bastion of conviction, and besides the rules that say that whenever it says that we need to pass Difficulty 10 is actually turned down into Difficulty 9. So even if we do get Willpower 10, most of the things that use Willpower as Difficulty will just revert it to Difficulty 9. There's no need to have such high Willpower.

My build was made to complement the social, mental and physical aspects of the Exalt. This Charm allocation's theme is accessibility since it incorporated said three aspects.
 
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I dont know why. Just doesnt appeal to me. Still, approval voting. Everything else that's broken can be fixed. Except our demon advisor. Who @Alectai so callously murders.
 
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I dont know why. Just doesnt appeal to me.
We may not be able to just squash everything under the sun (no build beside the determined combat specc'd ones does so), but we would have the nearly exact same level of combat killingness + Occult usage through magic spells + broad Social defence.

Anything else we can buy through EXP.
 
We may not be able to just squash everything under the sun (no build beside the determined combat specc'd ones does so), but we would have the nearly exact same level of combat killingness + Occult usage through magic spells + broad Social defence.

Anything else we can buy through EXP.
Maybe it will grow on me later.

I would appreciate if you approval vote your old plan @Jack vile Ripper.

If your intentionally not approval voting for it please let me know so I dont bother you about it more.
 
You can vote for both plans, that is the nature of approval voting?

Indeed, I can. I just think that this new plan as it is more optimized without inflicting a +3 Difficulty to all Social Action with mortals. That, and I kinda made Emerald Angel when I was sleep deprived, so I think I will vote this new vote wholesale.
 
As has been pointed out a couple of times. The unga bunga build is basically the infernal version of her father. One of the Knights of the cross and her mentor in that build as well.
The comparison has been raised, but that doesn't make it accurate.

Micheal, for all the power of a knight of the cross, isn't primarily a murder blender.

The point of the knights is to redeem the denarian's hosts and stop the harm they cause first and foremost. That's straight canon too, not supposition.

The sword always gives him an even playing field, but the balancing it towards being in the right place at the right time not cutting down demons in a holy crusade.

Compassion, mercy, understanding, and willpower are the most important traits he has for his job. His ability to reach out to people who need it when he can without letting them get away with abusing others.

Murder blender build makes Molly superficially like him, but misses the key point. Which is arguably an interesting story itself, but why would you build for combat and then create a social tragedy you have no means to really engage with?

Even if that still sounds like a good idea to you, one relationship isn't exactly enough to fill out a story. Molly only has like three connections that could survive this, and would have a very hard time getting more.

We can get the cool story with the parallel without becoming a pariah to do it.
You can vote for both plans, that is the nature of approval voting?
Why? No one has name voted for this one, so it's not like dropping the old plan redirects anyone.
 
Indeed, I can. I just think that this new plan as it is more optimized without inflicting a +3 Difficulty to all Social Action with mortals. That, and I kinda made Emerald Angel when I was sleep deprived, so I think I will vote this new vote wholesale.
Forsooth. Betrayed by its own creator. :V

I suppose I should not point out things I find cool or flavorful about plans in the future.

Why? No one has name voted for this one, so it's not like dropping the old plan redirects anyone.
Because it makes a plan I actually like more likely to win? As opposed to a plan I am willing to put up with until we fix it. Or a plan that presumptively murders a character I am very interested in?

Compassion, mercy, understanding, and willpower are the most important traits he has for his job. His ability to reach out to people who need it when he can without letting them get away with abusing others.

Murder blender build makes Molly superficially like him, but misses the key point. Which is arguably an interesting story itself, but why would you build for combat and then create a social tragedy you have no means to really engage with?

Even if that still sounds like a good idea to you, one relationship isn't exactly enough to fill out a story. Molly only has like three connections that could survive this, and would have a very hard time getting more.

We can get the cool story with the parallel without becoming a pariah to do it.
I disagree, so thank you for sharing. But I think your still wrong.
 
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*Is* there approval voting? If so, I'll add that new plan, I like it.

[X] So Speaks Demon Empress
[X] Emerald Angel Unfurling V 1.3
 
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