Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

I'll come back to this argument later, when I can pay it proper justice and recheck the books.
I remember advocating that Molly and her other Circle members do qualify to donate reagents, with potency determined by Essence level, but I dont recall them being able to stack them.
Here's the section on improving splendors:

Improving a Splendor
Four and five-dot Splendors can't be crafted outright. These must be attained through infusion: a
process of funneling additional power into an existing Splendor.
One or two dot Splendors can be infused and raised by one dot by slaying a strong monster or
destroying a Dragon Nest, but to take a Splendor to four or five dots, there are only two options.
The first is to gather the power from slaying a legendarily powerful monster such as a godlike
spirit, Malfean spectre, or thousands-of-years-old vampire. The second is to kill and take the
power of an Exalt.
Power harnessed for an infusion lingers for the same amount of time as it would for Splendor-
crafting. Before it dissipates, the Exalt must use it to reforge an existing Splendor that she owns,
a process identical to the one described in "Focus the Power," above, save that abandoning the
project before completing it causes the power to disperse and the Splendor to resume its prior
form, while a botch damages the Splendor and makes it lose one dot rating and collapse into a
less powerful configuration.
When improving a Splendor, you collapse it back down to a raw mass of Element Points
appropriate to its new rating and remake it from scratch. It does not need to share any elements
in common with its former function or appearance prior to infusion
It wouldn't make sense if this didn't let you stack lesser reagents in the 1-3 dot band because it'd make upgrading cost the same as forging a new splendor of the higher level outright with no benefits to doing so. At that point why wouldn't you just make another splendor and find something useful to do with the old one 100% of the time?
 
I don't see how this is relevant? I don't see anything here about being able to buy swift stride multiple times.
The base ability of that shintai form is the same x2 that Swift Stride gives you.
That and 1x purchase of Swift Stride gives you the same x4 that someone else who bought x2 Swift Stride has does.

Ergo, its legal to have a x4 Speed multiplier from demon aspects.
Which is why I asked the QM about it to see if it was okay, and they said it made sense.
I strongly disagree. This should be an AP to design the changes (for supernatural boosts at least), implement them (those involve rolls that can be botched!), and get adjusted to them.
I disagree.
There's a reason why all these things usually happen at the end of the story arc.

Its magic.
Lash literally did this sort of mod midcombat for a temporary boost, and noone keeled over.
Remember Dresden learning to breathe water?
Ok, I checked. Is it this one?
Yes, thats the one.
 
I disagree.
There's a reason why all these things usually happen at the end of the story arc.

Its magic.
Lash literally did this sort of mod midcombat for a temporary boost, and noone keeled over.
Remember Dresden learning to breathe water?
No. This is an IC action, and for permanent upgrades this involves at least some work. There's a possibility of this failing, as it involves a roll. It has no place here.
The base ability of that shintai form is the same x2 that Swift Stride gives you.
That and 1x purchase of Swift Stride gives you the same x4 that someone else who bought x2 Swift Stride has does.

Ergo, its legal to have a x4 Speed multiplier from demon aspects.
Which is why I asked the QM about it to see if it was okay, and they said it made sense.
I would argue that this dilutes the uniqueness of each shintai type, but ok.
 
@uju32 based on this, E4 purchases should be removed from this turn.
None of Molly's charm purchases are E4; Rage Recast and Ox-Body are both the third purchases, so they only need E3.

The only charm in my plan that might be affected by that ruling is Lydia's 4th Ox-Body, and the ruling appears to apply to Molly anyway. Im guessing Lydia crossed the E4 threshold a little earlier IC?
Should I ask the QM is Lydia can just buy her extra health now?
 
Sure that makes sense



That is fair they could have just made it ineligible for BRR, but I think that Hardened Devil Body is extra ineligible because it is a second set of Ox Body and makes the already tanky infernals absurdly tanky. Judging from the fluff of By Rage Recast you are taking from the same pool as your shintai as seen by the fact that you get all the BRR boons in shintai which means that stacking does not work.

Looking back didn't stacking swift stride get killed here? Why would that change?
 
No. This is an IC action, and for permanent upgrades this involves at least some work. There's a possibility of this failing, as it involves a roll. It has no place here.
You are mistaken. Quoting the Lore:
• • • • • SHAPE FLESH
The demon is capable of transforming human flesh into any shape desired. Mortals or fallen can become monstrous creatures straight out of legend.

System: Spend one Faith point and roll Dexterity + Medicine in a resisted roll against the target's Willpower (difficulty 7). The player decides the form she wishes to create, along with its relevant physical capabilities, and the Storyteller determines the number of successes necessary to make the form a reality.

These successes can be generated as part of an extended roll over a period of days (one roll per day) as the demon "tinkers" with her creation. As a rule of thumb, assume that each success confers or removes one Physical Attribute point or physical feature. The effects of this evocation last for a number of days equal to the character's Faith score, or they can be made permanent by expending one temporary Willpower point. Devourers can use this evocation on themselves or others, as long as they can touch a subject.
It CAN require work, but it doesnt necessarily have to.

If Lash is working on herself, maxes out her Dexterity to 10 with Flesh 3 which gives her a dicepool of 14 or 16, and is not resisting? Or is simply in an area thats providing buffs to the entire exercise, like say the new Arcane Forge, or a Sanctuary facility with Fortune magic and equipment providing DC buffs? Thats a single episode. 3 successes for three new features.

And this is end of the story arc downtime, which is not a hard numbers thing anyway.

Lash gave members of our party Water-Breathing in Vegas with a touch, and all we needed to do was spend 1 temp WP to make it permanent. We didnt choose to do so, because we didnt need it.
Looking back didn't stacking swift stride get killed here? Why would that change?
To quote myself:
1)x2 base speed is an integral feature of Devil-Beast Shintai, and stacks with further purchases of Swift Stride.
I pointed it out to the QM, and they agreed it made sense.
Its legal.
 
Going to post v3 and a new v4 that uses mechanics from some of the recent discussion for the clones:

The first of all acts was to name. Each titan tearing themselves from the roiling chaos and defining themselves against it. A fact that no debasement could ever wholly take from them.

Echoing that act their heirs turn their hands on their own souls; naming each part according to their own design, thereby becoming in small part like those spoke themselves into being.

System:
The infernal spends 5 essence and meditates for at least one scene, turning inwards to look at their own soul. Once there, she must make a willpower roll to search her own memories for something that defines her.

It can be nearly anything; important memories, strong beliefs, trauma, what matters is that it's true and personal to the exalt. This can be very unpleasant, and lower successes should result in facing less comfortable things.

Whatever she finds, the infernal then names and begins the process of shaping into a new facet of her soul. She may have no more than her essence rating of these. If one is destroyed its body dissolves into iron wind, and the element of her soul it embodies is numbed in whatever manner is appropriate until she repeats this ritual at +1 DC to find and reform it.

If the infernal dies instead her essence manifests as screaming wind and flees to the nearest clone, killing it in her place. This wounds the infernal's spirit, dropping her one essence level that may not be regained by any means before she reforms the facet she replaced.

Once named facets may be embodied or dispelled with a thought, supposing they aren't currently destroyed and are in the infernal's presence, but she must pay 1 mote to copy over any memories directly.

As they are subordinate faces of the infernal's soul she may not use her charms through them to directly affect the world. However, as they are still part of her they may still affect themselves.

In general this means abilities that solely impact the infernal and do not rely on active interaction. The infernal may not use excellency through a clone any more than she may fire a shotgun with her nose, but can defend any part of her 'face' with equal strength. When doing so they share the infernal's essence pool.

By default the clones form as an approximation of the infernal as a mortal, perfectly loyal to its creator, fully aware of what it is, and in possession of her memories. They each have Essence X 10 points to spend on merits and gifts at 1 point per dot.

The first of all acts was to name. Each titan tearing themselves from the roiling chaos and defining themselves against it. A fact that no debasement could ever wholly take from them.

Echoing that act their heirs turn their hands on their own souls; naming each part according to their own design, thereby becoming in small part like those spoke themselves into being.

System:
The infernal spends 5 essence and meditates for at least one scene, turning inwards to look at their own soul. Once there, she must make a willpower roll to search her own memories for something that defines her.

It can be nearly anything; important memories, strong beliefs, trauma, what matters is that it's true and personal to the exalt. This can be very unpleasant, and lower successes should result in facing less comfortable things.

Whatever she finds, the infernal then names and begins the process of shaping into a new facet of her soul. She may have no more than her essence rating of these. If one is destroyed its body dissolves into iron wind, and the element of her soul it embodies is numbed in whatever manner is appropriate until she repeats this ritual at +1 DC to find and reform it.

If the infernal dies instead her essence manifests as screaming wind and flees to the nearest clone, killing it in her place. This wounds the infernal's spirit, dropping her one essence level that may not be regained by any means before she reforms the facet she replaced. This heals over the course of a year and a day after that point.

Once named facets may be embodied or dispelled with a thought, supposing they aren't currently destroyed and are in the infernal's presence, but she must pay 1 mote to copy over any memories directly.

As they are subordinate faces of the infernal's soul she may not use her charms through them to directly affect the world. However, as they are still part of her they may still affect themselves.

In general this means abilities that solely impact the infernal and do not rely on active interaction. The infernal may not use excellency through a clone any more than she may fire a shotgun with her nose, but can defend any part of her 'face' with equal strength. When doing so they share the infernal's essence pool.

By default the clones form as an approximation of the infernal as a mortal, perfectly loyal to its creator, fully aware of what it is, and in possession of her memories. However, for the same resource investment as making one outright she may invest them with the appropriate number of arcana features.

If the infernal has a hell they may spend one arcana feature point to provide an emanation style return function. By spending one willpower they may vanish in a burst of flaying wind to return to her hell. This counts as a clone death for the purposes of the charm, save for that it does not numb the associated elements of the infernal's soul as the facet slides smoothly back into place.

The only differences are that v4 uses the year and a day recovery rule now that we don't buy essence levels and it drops arcana for fomori features.
Seems like back tracking for no substantial reason. Getting double benefits as a special property of a particular shintai makes more sense than it all being interchangeable.
 
It CAN require work, but it doesnt necessarily have to.

If Lash is working on herself, maxes out her Dexterity to 10 with Flesh 3 which gives her a dicepool of 14 or 16, and is not resisting? Or is simply in an area thats providing buffs to the entire exercise, like say the new Arcane Forge, or a Sanctuary facility with Fortune magic and equipment providing DC buffs? Thats a single episode. 3 successes for three new features.

And this is end of the story arc downtime, which is not a hard numbers thing anyway.

Lash gave members of our party Water-Breathing in Vegas with a touch, and all we needed to do was spend 1 temp WP to make it permanent. We didnt choose to do so, because we didnt need it.
This is a downright bizarre reading of the text. I disagree with it strongly. It takes days to generate successes, meaning that it's definitely an AP expenditure.
 
Lash does not want to put her stats at 10, though she could it would make her seem inhuman and she rather likes being able to pass for mortal
Not permanently.
Just, say, when she's doing work on herself or others, and the buff to Attributes expands her dice pool.
Like an Excellency.

For example, Shape Flesh(Flesh 5) is when you roll Dexterity + Medicine.
So you use Manipulate Flesh(Flesh 3) to go from Dexterity 5 to Dexterity 10, raising your dicepool from 9 to 14(or 16, if stunts are allowed), and you then activate Shape Flesh to do your work.

Then at the end of the scene, it goes back to normal Dexterity 5.
This is a downright bizarre reading of the text. I disagree with it strongly. It takes days to generate successes, meaning that it's definitely an AP expenditure.
It doesnt take days to generate successes.
You are allowed to take days if you are making some complicated shit that costs a lot of successes, or simply keep botching, but you dont have to if you roll well.

By the guidelines as stated there, those three Investments cost 3 successes.
Total.
Yeah, my read was that the intent was some changes take less time than others. As in you could spend days, or roll really well for something simple and be done in one.
By the rules, each Physical Feature costs 1 success.
Physical Attribute points cost 1 success to add or remove.
So its faster to add on Fomor powers, physical Merits, than it is to raise Attributes.
 
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Going to post v3 and a new v4 that uses mechanics from some of the recent discussion for the clones:

The first of all acts was to name. Each titan tearing themselves from the roiling chaos and defining themselves against it. A fact that no debasement could ever wholly take from them.

Echoing that act their heirs turn their hands on their own souls; naming each part according to their own design, thereby becoming in small part like those spoke themselves into being.

System:
The infernal spends 5 essence and meditates for at least one scene, turning inwards to look at their own soul. Once there, she must make a willpower roll to search her own memories for something that defines her.

It can be nearly anything; important memories, strong beliefs, trauma, what matters is that it's true and personal to the exalt. This can be very unpleasant, and lower successes should result in facing less comfortable things.

Whatever she finds, the infernal then names and begins the process of shaping into a new facet of her soul. She may have no more than her essence rating of these. If one is destroyed its body dissolves into iron wind, and the element of her soul it embodies is numbed in whatever manner is appropriate until she repeats this ritual at +1 DC to find and reform it.

If the infernal dies instead her essence manifests as screaming wind and flees to the nearest clone, killing it in her place. This wounds the infernal's spirit, dropping her one essence level that may not be regained by any means before she reforms the facet she replaced.

Once named facets may be embodied or dispelled with a thought, supposing they aren't currently destroyed and are in the infernal's presence, but she must pay 1 mote to copy over any memories directly.

As they are subordinate faces of the infernal's soul she may not use her charms through them to directly affect the world. However, as they are still part of her they may still affect themselves.

In general this means abilities that solely impact the infernal and do not rely on active interaction. The infernal may not use excellency through a clone any more than she may fire a shotgun with her nose, but can defend any part of her 'face' with equal strength. When doing so they share the infernal's essence pool.

By default the clones form as an approximation of the infernal as a mortal, perfectly loyal to its creator, fully aware of what it is, and in possession of her memories. They each have Essence X 10 points to spend on merits and gifts at 1 point per dot.
The first of all acts was to name. Each titan tearing themselves from the roiling chaos and defining themselves against it. A fact that no debasement could ever wholly take from them.

Echoing that act their heirs turn their hands on their own souls; naming each part according to their own design, thereby becoming in small part like those spoke themselves into being.

System:
The infernal spends 5 essence and meditates for at least one scene, turning inwards to look at their own soul. Once there, she must make a willpower roll to search her own memories for something that defines her.

It can be nearly anything; important memories, strong beliefs, trauma, what matters is that it's true and personal to the exalt. This can be very unpleasant, and lower successes should result in facing less comfortable things.

Whatever she finds, the infernal then names and begins the process of shaping into a new facet of her soul. She may have no more than her essence rating of these. If one is destroyed its body dissolves into iron wind, and the element of her soul it embodies is numbed in whatever manner is appropriate until she repeats this ritual at +1 DC to find and reform it.

If the infernal dies instead her essence manifests as screaming wind and flees to the nearest clone, killing it in her place. This wounds the infernal's spirit, dropping her one essence level that may not be regained by any means before she reforms the facet she replaced. This heals over the course of a year and a day after that point.

Once named facets may be embodied or dispelled with a thought, supposing they aren't currently destroyed and are in the infernal's presence, but she must pay 1 mote to copy over any memories directly.

As they are subordinate faces of the infernal's soul she may not use her charms through them to directly affect the world. However, as they are still part of her they may still affect themselves.

In general this means abilities that solely impact the infernal and do not rely on active interaction. The infernal may not use excellency through a clone any more than she may fire a shotgun with her nose, but can defend any part of her 'face' with equal strength. When doing so they share the infernal's essence pool.

By default the clones form as an approximation of the infernal as a mortal, perfectly loyal to its creator, fully aware of what it is, and in possession of her memories. However, for the same resource investment as making one outright she may invest them with the appropriate number of arcana features.

If the infernal has a hell they may spend one arcana feature point to provide an emanation style return function. By spending one willpower they may vanish in a burst of flaying wind to return to her hell. This counts as a clone death for the purposes of the charm, save for that it does not numb the associated elements of the infernal's soul as the facet slides smoothly back into place.
The only differences are that v4 uses the year and a day recovery rule now that we don't buy essence levels and it drops arcana for fomori features.
I don't want to belittle the enormous effort in creating new versions of the clone charm, but I'm a little discouraged by it, all the ones shown seem so complicated that I prefer the normal version with akuma modification of @Yzarc and the possibility of use our orther charms to give them formari increases, they are much simpler and more readable for me .
 
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Not permanently.
Just, say, when she's doing work on herself or others, and the buff to Attributes expands her dice pool.
Like an Excellency.

For example, Shape Flesh is when you roll Dexterity + Medicine.
So you use Manipulate Flesh(Flesh 3) to go from Dexterity 5 to Dexterity 10, raising your dicepool from 9 to 14(or 16, if stunts are allowed), and you then activate Shape Flesh to do your work.

Then at the end of the scene, it goes back to normal Dexterity 5.

Oh yeah she is fine with that, though it does take her time and if she botches during the process she has to stop for the day.

She can't stunt, her narrative is not from the Age of Legends. Yhings that belong in this turn of the Wheel even odd never before seen things like her cannot make themselves better by looking awesome,
 
Oh yeah she is fine with that, though it does take her time and if she botches during the process she has to stop for the day.

She can't stunt, her narrative is not from the Age of Legends. Yhings that belong in this turn of the Wheel even odd never before seen things like her cannot make themselves better by looking awesome,
I assume she burns a WP when she's doing that sort of permanent change, at least for herself, so no botches allowed.
And she does have Paragon for Lore of Flesh.

Fair enough.
She'll have to figure out how to cheat in some other fashion :V
 
@uju32, any chance you can swap in one of the custom clone charms instead of SGI?

[X] uju32
 
[X] Plan Untouchable
-[X] Molly, 39 XP
--[X] Shadow Spite Curse (••), 6 XP
--[X] Ox-Body Technique (•) 3: 3xp
--[X] Counterspell: Vampire, 3 XP
--[X] Counterspell: Human, 3 XP
--[X] Sinner Boiling stare (•••), 12 XP
--[X] Alchemy 5, 12 XP
-[X] Lydia, 13 XP
--[X] Counterspell: Spirit, 3 XP
--[X] Counterspell: Human, 3 XP
--[X] Ghost-Warding Glyph (•), 3 XP
--[X] Familiar 2 (raven), 4 XP
-[X] Lash, 11 XP
--[X] Counterspell: Spirit, 3 XP
--[X] Counterspell: Human, 3 XP
--[X] Lore of Light 2. 5 XP
-[X] Olivia, 12 XP
--[X] Counterspell: Human, 3 XP
--[X] Counterspell: Fae, 3 XP
--[X] Psychoportation 3, 6 XP

Ok, here's my reasoning:
1) I agree that countermagic should be bought. Everyone should have countermagic against human magic, because that's the msot common foe (and I think denarians would also be mostly human magic). Eventually everyone gets all the types, but for now - human + 1 other. Molly takes vampire countermagic against Reds. Lydia gets spirit countermagic because she deals with the ghosts. Tiffany also gets spirit because denarians might count as such, and because she might be helping Dresden. Might switch that to fae. Olivia gets fae because dealing with minor fae is likely what she's going to be doing offscreen to help the community.
2) Molly gets Sinner Boiling Stare. That's because Sandstrike Blast is obsoleted by Principle-Invoking Onslaught, and that charm is too damn useful not to buy later.
3) Molly also gets Alchemy 5. This is in line with my logic that we should balance new capabilities and increased survivability. Alchemy 5 is the capabilities part. It also synergies with getting everyone upgrades. Because at 5 dots you can grant permanent supernatural boosts.
4) Molly also gets Shadow Spite Curse. This is an extension of counterspelling (a solaroid boost to it), a strong defensive charm, and a way to negate Nemesis (because it was ruled that this will highlight all of Nemesis everywhere at the time). It's also the charm I want for the signature. I consider it better than the clone charm effect, even with additional rulings.
5) Lyida gets Ghost-Warding Glyph, which allows her to protect properties from restless dead (they need to pass a willpower roll against difficulty 7 and roll 5 or more successes (at Lydia's E4) to enter). She also boosts her familiar to 2 points, which doesn't actually have much of an effect due to Speaker to Crow and Hound, but is necessary to later boost it further. I may easily be persuaded to get something else instead.
6) Last gets Lore of Light 2, here I agree with Uju
7) Olivia gets a psychoportation boost, which improves her mobility, especially in an urban environment
 
So I've been considering something especially seeing things like Lash Enhancements, things that many of the enemies you are going to be facing going forward can also pull, one way or another.

Mechanically the system is creaking at the joints trying to model things that are Methuselah and up, beings that would in a WoD game be 'run away screaming' territory. The thing is we do have a system for things like this and that is Exalted itself. In some ways I've been using pieces of it already, for instance needing a set number of successes to get past a DC. What do you guys think of moving more in that direction as we hit Essence 4? It would mean that the Karin Murphys and the Waldo Butters of the world would no longer have a place in combat, when mortals do show up they would either be in large numbers or with heavy weapons

On the other hand that also allow me a lot more freedom in building characters that are your peers without just massively inflating numbers and needing an excuse to do so. In WoD to make something with 10+ HL for instance you pretty much have to make it massive, but the more more flowing system of Exalted 3rd edition means that HL is replaced with initiative, you have to were down someone's luck, their stamina and their speed to get a killing blow in. It still looks and feels cinematic, but I do not have to make it so the enemies can eat the damage or give them a lot of perfect defenses which carries its own narrative costs. Perfect defenses are meant to be rare and costly

What do you guys think?

I am not planning to change anything starting next update or anything, this would be large conversion, but just in general I wanted to have that out there so you guys can share your thoughts on the idea and if it should be implemented.
 
I think we should go ahead and bite the bullet for a clone Charm. We just barely avoided getting one on the last XP vote, and there isn't any good reason to put it off further, IMO, even if I'm not a huge fan of the mechanic in general.

We also need a good ranged attack option. Sandstrike Blast is a solid choice for that. It's cheap to activate, lasts for an entire scene, and has single target and AoE modes allowing it to be used in different situations.

The weapon Charm would be great, too, but we would need the Firearms skill to make that worthwhile.
Voting moratorium. Only plans and discussion for now.
Oops. :oops:
 
I don't want to belittle the enormous effort in creating new versions of the clone charm, but I'm a little discouraged by it, all the ones shown seem so complicated that I prefer the normal version with akuma modification of @Yzarc and the possibility of use our orther charms to give them formari increases, they are much simpler and more readable for me .
Fair enough if you don't like it, but we're talking about a particularly complicated sort of effect anyway.

What about it is unreadable though? The process is very similar in each version even if the fluff is very different.

1) Spend 5 motes, and in the case of TNOT roll willpower
2) Get clone, which in the case of TNOT involves a trippy vision
3) Do investments, the same in TNOT v4 and the Akuma mod
4) Do things
5) If you die suffer some temporary consequences instead.

Sure TNOT has some extra clauses, but those cover the issues we spent pages of debate on precisely because they weren't handled explicitly. When you count how I removed that weird ass self impregnation feature I think the number of distinct conditions is only one or two net elements longer.
 
On the other hand that also allow me a lot more freedom in building characters that are your peers without just massively inflating numbers and needing an excuse to do so. In WoD to make something with 10+ HL for instance you pretty much have to make it massive, but the more more flowing system of Exalted 3rd edition means that HL is replaced with initiative, you have to were down someone's luck, their stamina and their speed to get a killing blow in. It still looks and feels cinematic, but I do not have to make it so the enemies can eat the damage or give them a lot of perfect defenses which carries its own narrative costs. Perfect defenses are meant to be rare and costly
Well let's take an example like modeling Winter Lady or Queen. Seems a little weird to give them extra health levels, but giving them inhuman dex seems fitting. Maybe an ice armor spell.

As for vampires. They generally tend to ignore wound penalties and keep healing as long as they still have blood points.

But I might be the wrong person to ask. I don't personally care that much about the fights more the consequences of victory. In many cases the enemy running away is likely to be a fail state for us.
 
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