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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
I can imagine Harrowmont's eyes getting successively bigger as first Lash, and then Molly assume full warforms.
He's a Red Court noble who has been bearing the Mantle of a major spirit for at least a century, and has run Vegas for the same period of time.
I can think of multiple options available to someone of his age and resources:
- Magic items like the spellbreaker bracers that Madrigal Raith was using in canon to block/parry mortal magic
- Disciplines and Combination Disciplines like Obeah
- Sorcery
- Straight up spirit/demonic Investments, whether from the Sin Eater or the Outsiders that Sandra has been playing footsie with (Fire Immunity is a canon Baali investment for practitioners of the Discipline Daimonion)
Certainly gonna be cheaper than whatever Lord Raith paid for his magic immunity.
1) Not much of an opportunity cost for someone who has elder Celerity.
2) No we havent.
Its explicitly stated in ExWoD that you cant run an Exalt out of defensive actions by mobbing them with minions;
Multiple Opponents
Exalted vs World of Darkness doesn't use the rule for multiple opponents found on page 276 of V20. Burying an Exalt in enemies may be effective due to sheer weight of numbers, but the Chosen have no particular difficulty dancing through swarms of foes and striking them down.
Exalted vs World of Darkness doesn't use the rule for multiple opponents found on page 276 of V20. Burying an Exalt in enemies may be effective due to sheer weight of numbers, but the Chosen have no particular difficulty dancing through swarms of foes and striking them down.
I mean, seriously, if all you needed to run out an elder vampire was to show up with a mob of mortals they wouldnt be the threat that they are explicitly characterized as in ExWoD.
Certainly not to a Circle of Exalts.
3)This is the heart of their operations, and there's at least one seriousface mage on the other side, as we can tell from the chaos hex that was cast on Vegas.
In addition to the full Red vampires, there's also going to be half-Reds and lesser Outsiders, neither of whom have any vulnerability to sunlight. There might even be mortal thralls with whats left of the arsenal they stole from the Mafia.
Sunlight aint gonna cut it.
The rainstorm has hopefully disrupted at least some of their magic defenses, but they still had weeks if not months of preptime here. Molly going full King and Kingdom is the only reason we arent going to be fighting under maluses.
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- Location
- Germany
That only means we take no escalating penalties for being surrounded.
The multi-action rules I quoted are from ExWoD and they do count even for Exalted.
Old Vampires are dangerous because they avoid getting in front of 20 guys with laser guns.
And if they are, they try to kill half of them in the first round, to send the rest running.
Not because they can't be harmed by them.
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Thats not my understanding of that quote.
It says you cant take more than one attack, and it caps number of actions you can perform in a turn.
It doesnt say that you cant defend, or that you run out of defensive actions as long as you have devoted one action to defense.
I like to assume that our opposition is competent, and that the century-plus old Red Court noble would not have invested in a One Winged Angel form that actively makes him a bigger target for gunners if it simply meant that a bunch of grunts toting M249 SAW light machineguns with HEI or AP ammo would have an easier time murdering him.
Especially in a city where mercs have been smuggling milspec weaponry.
Disagree.
If any of that worked that way, that whole stat block on ancient vampires around page 304 would be unnecessary, since a Circle of Exalts with extra actions would promptly one-shot any of those guys, even the antediluvians.
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- Location
- Germany
Defensive actions are still actions.
Unless you make a Full Defense, at which point the DC doesn't increase and you only loose dice for each parry, block or dodge.
But that would mean not striking back.
The game does not allow for endless active defense, and I'm glad because it really shouldn't.
Here. even DP copied that over to the Rules threadmark because we had this before.
Don't get me wrong.
Ancient Vampires are very dangerous, but not invulnerable.
To deal with a bunch of grunts an old vamp has plenty of options.
Activate Majesty or any Obfuscate power to prevent them from attacking him.
Kill a bunch in a single round to make the rest run away.
Become mist/shadow/earth and get out of sight.
Use Voice of Madness to make them rush into melee.
Edit: Just use superior speed to get the hell away.
There are many more. Standing around and taking the damage, is not a viable options though.
Standing and fighting a tough target like an Infernal Exalted limits those options considerably though, which is why the fire teams are supposed to be support, not the main-attack, which remains Molly.
Did you notice how many of those powers are based around summoning or empowering minions, or turning the damage the Vampire takes towards them?
A high-level circle could deal with a single high-end Vampire pretty easily, if it had no minions around, or the Exalted brought more support than the Vamp has.
Tactically, being on the defense and letting the enemy bring all his guys is the worst thing that can happen in WoD. To survive being severely outnumbered you need insanely high passive soak, or you have to get out and fight on better terms.
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fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Uh they almost always have minions. But also anti climatic boss fights is supposed to be part of the EvWod experience.
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Seems like the kind of thing that Molly would accidentally cause if she took over Harvard and somehow a few generations went by before the masquerade broke.
They'd learn real fast that you aren't the biggest fish in the sea unless they were stuck in someone's glorified goldfish bowl.
Yeah, but he doesn't have supernatural senses. I'm more interested in what the rest of the party sees, because this is the first time we'll have used Shintai around them since the upgrade.I can imagine Harrowmont's eyes getting successively bigger as first Lash, and then Molly assume full warforms.
Even if his fey contacts mentioned something to Harry the most any of them could know is that we reshaped the nevernever somehow. Impressive given that it was the heart of Summer, but a whole different kettle of fish from doing it in the mortal world.
That shit is rare, and the guns aren't a spell. There's magic in making them work, but you shouldn't be able counterspell them any more than bullets thrown using force magic.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
@uju32 : If I understand you correctly it doesn't actually matter what we do or what help we bring because this a Red Court noble who has been bearing the Mantle of a major spirit for at least a century, and has run Vegas for the same period of time. So therefore everything we can possibly do is countered and we might as well have just run. At least that is how your posts have been looking no wonder you kept voting against attack.
Harrowmont might lack (most) supernatural senses (he's still a practitioner), but Adkin certainly has them. His reaction should be interesting to say the least.
Speaking of shintai upgrades, I think we should start looking into eschaton shintai form designs - we are close to E4 (I think), and I am fairly sure that eschaton shintai will be a popular option.
I was basing it on DP's post about his reaction to the cyborgs. Apparently he could only see skin deep there.
Adkin's reaction should be fun yeah, especially if my stunt makes it and we summon a false dawn while underground so we can carry it into the darkness with us.
I modeled that stunt in part after the themes of SCE, but it should press buttons for a Ra cultist too.
We did talk about taking a horrifying monster form as a compromise for making the initial one humanoid.
I'm still fond of the option I originally posted for that; a twelve foot diameter green star-eye with a slit pupil and horrifying obsidian rings that break apart into millipede limbs.
- Location
- Brazil
I want to have the shape of a giant dragon (whatever the details are) both because of that joke at the beginning about Micahel marrying Dragon!Charity, and because I've always liked the Megidramon theory:
"According to one theory, Megidramon and Chaos Dukemon are the same being, and it is said that whether that wave of terror is projected as a dark knight or as a dark dragon depends on the observer."
What would match comes with our current magic knight appearance and the nature of our power of destruction and evil.
Arc 11 Post 93: Of Powers Unveiled
Of Powers Unveiled
13th of January 2007 A.D.
A few quick words are enough to establish the plan, such as it was and what there was of it. Throw everything you have into the fight and made an end of this abomination.
It is harder than it's ever been, reaching for yourself, a strain upon the soul to reach so far and spill so wide so soon after the last time, the last battle, and yet it is familiar. Memories not your own tell you that such is the way of war against immortal implacable foes. Brass and obsidian groan and shift, winds howl, the tunnels warp and shift from straight lines to curves and spirals, flickering green crystals glow in eerily organic alcoves like eyes peeking from beyond. A Labyrinth still, your labyrinth.
Distantly you hear the words that Tiffany MecNeil whisper to herself:
"You did request and so thou may not complain the molding nor am I now a hypocrite."
Thus she proves herself as skillful as her boasts, essence-infused flesh as clay under her fingers. It doesn't hurt, you almost wish it would, then you might be able to focus on the pain not on the feeling that your own body no longer answers to your will alone, nerves pulled taunt like a pianist's wires, almost to breaking point.
The flash of a sympathetic smile is the only sign on her too perfect face that Tiffany realizes what this feels like, she does not speak, moving on to getting Adkin moving like a man in his prime, Harry and the all but frozen in place Harromont moving with inhuman grace. Something moves at the end of the corridor, a shadow vast and ragged.
Green eyes like emeralds shinning, fair skin like marble gleaming, great wings like crystals chinning, you had seen this all before, but upon the face of the Once-Fallen is no look of wonder or joy, but wrath. In she breathes, a long slow breath and out comes mist, two thousand years of lies and illusions given form and fit to befuddle even the sharpest of minds. Do the eyes behind the veil shine still or do they glow like distant flames?
Lose 4 Essence -> Now at 3/15 (Shintai VLE; Steel Skin)
Lost 3 Willpower -> Now at 2/9 (Shintai ATB)
Molly Gains
Tiffany Gains
Harry Gains 5 DEX
Lydia Gains 5 DEX
Adkin Gains 4 DEX
Harrowmont Gains 4 DEX
Lost 3 Willpower -> Now at 2/9 (Shintai ATB)
Molly Gains
- 6 DEX (+2 Manipulate Nerves +4 Shintai) -
- 4 STAMINA ( +1 Shintai +3 Steel Skin)
- 1 STRENGTH (+1 Shintai)
- +8 Soak (VLE)
- -3 to all Perception Rolls (ATB)
Tiffany Gains
- +2 Torment -> Now at 2/10
- 7 DEX (+5 Manipulate Flesh +2 Apocalyptic Flesh)
- 2 Charisma, 1 Manipulation, 2 Appearance
- Flight (x3 Speed)
- 2 Perception
- +2 Difficulty on ranged attacks, +1 on melee attacks
Harry Gains 5 DEX
Lydia Gains 5 DEX
Adkin Gains 4 DEX
Harrowmont Gains 4 DEX
The agents of the Hand are steady, no less than is expected, but you look over the three most likely to be shaken at the sight only to find to your relief that they are not, wizard sorcerer and priest are all clear eyed for all the light's rising and the world changing. A roar sounds down the tunnel ahead, a beast asnwering a challange and more and worse. the echoes degenerate to sharp painful screetches, sounds broken into pieces. No time for more boons from Lash, no time for anything but blood.
The room ahead is enormous, Orpheus' reservoir a hundred feet high and twice that across, lit under the sharp glare of industrial lights that that twist and warp into hover-lights as they come under your power, but the thing in the middle of the room, that you know you will not change.
At first glance it looks like a an hourglass, all of a piece and black as night, but looking closely one can see the lower 'lobe' is a cast iron cauldron large enough for six people to sit in and the rest of it is... just blackness. It does not really have a shape in the conventional sense, be it the sharp edge of a solid or the glimmer of surface tension and certainly it does not mingle at the edges like a cloud of gas might. It just has a place where it ends and reality starts existing again. A glimpse only you catch of a woman on the other side of the whirling darkness when another roar rings out and the False Dragon descends.
Whatever his other failings well had he wrought, the art of flesh-craft, almost a dragon, winged and dreadful, eyes of forgefire, claws like swords its shadow falls upon your like landslide in the mountains. Only the mouth full of blood gives the lie away.
In some other place, some other time, an army might have broken beneath that shadow, but this is not that place, that time for lights pallid and nacreous green rise to meet it and the voices of men and women not of this earth born rise in battle prayer a hundred times a hundred spoken beneath alien skies as they scatter.
All Characters regain 1 Point of Willpower
How do you fight?
[] Have Lash fly around to try to tackle Sandra behind the pillar
[] The Agents do not fire this turn as they round the eldritch hourglass to shoot the person hiding behind it
[] Write in
OOC: There are two reasons I paused this now, one that Sandra is presently hiding behind something that makes shooting her from the entrance impossible and two, out of all the ones I made this update there is one roll in particular you guys have to see.
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Full Defense means that you dont suffer any dice pool penalties or DC maluses for defense.
Not that you must use them if you intend to defend against a mass attack at all.
Noone said they are invulnerable.
But this is a merged setting where even lesser sorcerers have access to Counterspell(Vampire Magic). And where Join Battle is a defense against social bullshit.
At the point where an elder vampire is pulling out Discipline 9 effects and one winged angel final warforms, I dont really find it plausible that a short platoon of mortal grunts with light infantry gear and maybe a sorcerer on counterspell support should be able to take them in open combat.
Remember, The Last Dragon warform explicitly makes the user easier to hit.
And they know that Molly is coming here with supporting grunts, just like she did against the Will of Kakuri. She is almost certainly aware of the weapons we are bringing.
If he's popping that anyway, then he expects it to help, not hurt him.
Not a given.
Said minions are almost always dead by the time you get to the final boss. Thats how you get to the final boss.
Anticlimactic boss fights are not supposed to be part of the ExWoD experience
In a game thats as combat intensive as ExWoD has been designed to be, the idea that boss fights are supposed to be a joke is not at all plausible.
Harry and Lash were there when Molly learned King and Kingdom.
This might be the first time he's seen it in combat, but I dont think he'd be surprised at seeing it warp the environment around it.
Everyone else? Thats probably a surprise.
Effective overlord of Las Vegas. For a century.
If Madrigal Raith has access to enchanted shit, someone like this has privileged access to loot drops.
Its not being magic likely makes effects that defend against mundane effect like that even cheaper to acquire.
You dont understand me correctly.
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Well that is among the worst rolls I have ever seen.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
No we have never actually used them openly. Like maybe spies in the council told her. But even then isn't much time to prepare for volley rounds of plasma.
They do but Sandra is about 100 feet from you behind the cover of the WTF!hourglass and the Dragon is in the air diving, they cannot really throw at either. No sign of those lesser outsiders yet.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Let's hope he rolls just as bad on his soaks. He is about to roll a lot of them.
[X] Have Lash fly around to try to tackle Sandra behind the pillar
-[X] Molly joins flying from the other side.
- Location
- At Home
I'm honestly not sure if that can even be called a botch anymore. A Super-Botch would be more accurate.
