- Location
- Germany
I admit that it's the most important stat in single combat.
But against groups it's more important to have a high soak, since you can't parry too many attacks at once.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
But against groups it's more important to have a high soak, since you can't parry too many attacks at once.
The rule is if there is a stunt for the winning vote it will get used unless people specifically vote 'no stunt', since I noticed that the general thrust of votes without a stunt is that the person is not interested in the details more than they just don't want the stunt for whatever reason. That way we do not have you guys missing bonus dice for important rolls either.
- Location
- Germany
It's a huge bonus to soak compared to the DT.
See the post on soak, with VLES we can soak damn near everything that's not specifically meant to kill invulnerable monsters or main battle tanks.
More is excessive.
Hard disagree.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
[X] The Glorious Apocalypse Princess
I'm a big fan of being able to shrug off more damage, but just cannot get past the size issue. It would be much more difficult for me to decide which plan to vote for if one of them didn't turn us into a 12 foot tall walking target.
- Location
- Germany
An average of 11 soak-Successes is simply put enough.
It allows us to very consistently ignore small arms and mortal-strenght melee and it gives us a very good chance of also resisting rifles, shotguns and superhumanly strong melee.
Even a Troll with Strenght 6 and a big weapon that does Str+3 Damage would only get something like 11 or 12 damage-dice on the average, which is highly unlikely to out-damage our soak, and if it does only by 1 or 2.
Anything stronger is more likely to come from a single powerful foe and in that case it's more important to parry and attack back than to rely on pure soak.
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The question we must ask is how much Soak is enough?
Difficulty 5, as far as I can tell, averages roughly 2 successes for every 3 dice so with 12 dice Devil Avatar Shintai should get 8 successes. Demon Avatar Shintai is better with Difficulty 4 giving ~12 successes on 16 dice.
From the tables in Exalted vs. WoD ranged weapons top out at 8L and melee at Strength+5L so 10L for peak human and potentially more for supernaturally strong enemies. So Devil Avatar Shintai is going to (on average) soak all the base damage (so not including the hit dice bonus damage) of all ranged weaponry and the majority of melee weaponry (IE: anything not a heavy [IE: two handed Str 3+] weapon like great swords and chainsaws) outside of supernaturally strong enemies.
Now obviously this is up for debate but I would say that actually covers us for the majority of use cases. Soak is most useful for countering mook spam since when facing actual threats we would be using our Dodge/Parry to well dodge or parry attacks so maximizing Dex is more important there. Mooks get around this by launching multiple attacks per turn, because there are multiple mooks, and we can only respond to so many attacks per turn before our multiple action penalty starts getting too high. Mooks however, by definition, aren't particularly spectacular so given the base damage limitations I find it rather unlikely we'll run into mooks capable of defeating either level of Soak.
@DragonParadox - How does By Agony Empowered interact with our Shintai? The description for Shintais says if its Health Levels are filled with Lethal or Aggravated damage the Shintai collapses. But the whole point of By Agony Empowered, as far as I read it, is to allow the Infernal to continue fighting even after they should be "dead" from Lethal damage. So does it let us roll that Lethal over into Aggravated and maintain our Shintai or does it still collapse?
I ask because while the difference between 13 Health Levels and 19 Health Levels is significant the difference between 26 Health Levels and 38 Health Levels (at least for Lethal damage; Aggravated is still 13 vs 19) is far more impactful.
Hmm... mechanically I think it makes sense for By Agony Empowered to allow you to keep going with Lethal until it rolls over into Agg, It is a five dot charm on top of your boss fight mode.
Well of course not, he knows what a habitual liar that guy is.Yeah that is 'The Gatekeeper would not believe his future self if he came back and told him that you were lying' level of success.
- Location
- Germany
Even Mooks will add 1 or two 2 extra damage dice from successes on the attack-roll, if he is not parried or dodged.
And mooks with guns can also use Burst Fire or Full Auto for more dice and more damage.
And unfortunatly dice will not always come up average and every below-average soak roll can be a point or two of damage.
So the difference between the builds is that the Devil Tyrant can be plinked down by mooks. They might only deal an average of slightly below 1 damage per round and mook, but with enough mooks that can still be quite a bit.
The Demon Emperor on the other hand is nearly completly immune against mooks and recieves this kind of plinking damage from elite-mooks, like Mab's Trolls or Wild Hunters or top-tier mercs with armor-piercing ammo.
I think you're severely underestimating what STR trolls and giant adjacent beings have.
- Location
- Germany
Really?
7 Strenght is also pretty far into the superhuman.
A guy with 7 strenght can knock you out with bare hands even on a bad hit, barely successful.
And if we assume that, then a Troll with 7 Strenght and a big weapon has 10 base damage, which is somewhat below the average soak of the DE-build.
If he gets lucky on the attack-roll he deals more, but I don't expect trolls to have high DEX.
So I'm not entirely sure on this, feel free to correct me, which is why I left it out in my prior post but I know in Exalted 2e you roll damage dice and from what googling I've done it seems that is the same in World of Darkness. I don't see anything in Exalted vs. WoD that contradicts that either. So in actuality all those damage numbers should be halved; a shotgun deals 8 dice of Lethal damage not 8 Levels so would (on average) only deal 4 damage which our Soak then applies to.
So if we take that Berserker who unloaded into us previously had 5 successes (which is about average for his dice and difficulty 8) on a full auto roll (penalty is +2 not +1 so ignore that 7) and assume he had a fully automatic assault rifle (rather then an SMG) for +7 dice that gives a total of 12 damage dice (6 successes average) which isn't going to penetrate our soak the majority of the time. Give me a bit and I'll put together something on Soak vs. Damage probabilities.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/They
Soak-monster is better versus hordes for sure, but the dex heavy build is the better single combatant and frankly that's just cooler to me. More importantly, though, being able to fit in tight spaces and underground is irrelevant in many cities, but not Chicago. For us I think it's strictly mandatory given the existence of the Chicago Underground and the wide variety of awful things that crawl out of it to prey on the mortals, or into it to hide from them. We're going to end up chasing something into there eventually, or rooting out a nest of something, etc., and it'd be really nice not to bring the surface levels tumbling down on our heads when we do.
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- Location
- UK
[X] Plan Moth Swarm
A swarm of moths composed of black ice; swoop upon their prey and cut them to pieces with wings like jagged crystal. A buzzing of fluorescent lights spreading shadow across the Wicked City. Ice crystals forming on glass windows as the chill spreads and bids denizens to huddle up inside to escape the cold terrors without.
Incarnate Apotheosis Shintai
Strength +0, Dexterity +3, Stamina +0, Appearance 0
Demonic Aspect:
-Flexible: Lower difficulty by 2 when attempting to squeeze through tight spaces, escape bonds and exit grapples.
-Hardened Devil Body (x3): +9 Bruised Health levels
-Flight: Can fly at movement speed.
-Swift Stride: Movement speed and jumping distances are doubled.
A swarm of moths composed of black ice; swoop upon their prey and cut them to pieces with wings like jagged crystal. A buzzing of fluorescent lights spreading shadow across the Wicked City. Ice crystals forming on glass windows as the chill spreads and bids denizens to huddle up inside to escape the cold terrors without.
Incarnate Apotheosis Shintai
Strength +0, Dexterity +3, Stamina +0, Appearance 0
Demonic Aspect:
-Flexible: Lower difficulty by 2 when attempting to squeeze through tight spaces, escape bonds and exit grapples.
-Hardened Devil Body (x3): +9 Bruised Health levels
-Flight: Can fly at movement speed.
-Swift Stride: Movement speed and jumping distances are doubled.
Incarnate Apotheosis Shintai turns the Infernal into a Swarm. The swarm rules essentially allow the Infernal to attack everyone in proximity every round for free. Those who don't dodge have reduced movement and can even be knocked down if they take enough damage making it difficult to escape once the swarm descends. The added mobility of flight and swift stride let Molly quickly close in.
Certain weapons are ineffective against Swarms (for example: pistols, knives, claws) and can only inflict a single health level of damage if they inflict damage at all. So although this build isn't as health/soak focused as other builds, there are circumstances where it actually outperforms them.
Certain weapons are ineffective against Swarms (for example: pistols, knives, claws) and can only inflict a single health level of damage if they inflict damage at all. So although this build isn't as health/soak focused as other builds, there are circumstances where it actually outperforms them.
Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
Flight is something we want to take with "By Rage Recast" so locking it behind a Shintai is bad as we cannot fly in our regular form.
- Location
- UK
It would be a bit weird if the Moths weren't capable of flight though now wouldn't it? Nor does taking it in Shintai actually prevent taking it in By Rage Recast, it is just inefficient.