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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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So, my thoughts on the update:
1) This is a Red Court operation. Either the abyssal, or the rest are Red Court patsies, likely trying to dig in and awaken / use some Lovecraftian things in their fight with White Council
2) There's at least one talent, likely a wizard, on scene. The researcher was aware of that, hence the need to vacuum seal their toothbrush - less ways for a wizard to have something of his.

[X] Have code-breakers in Sanctuary work on the odd wheel

We rather need to know whose side the abyssal is on before we approach, I think.
TheGrape said:
Isn't this kind of overpowered? It means we can spend 2 Essence to turn our Excellencies from (currently) 5 turns to Scene-long. Granted, most battles we fight are gonna be over in the 10 turns that using 2 Essence for two Melee Excellencies would take, but this also does mean Molly can stay in Shintai for an entire day. Which, uh. Is a terrifying idea. Unless Shintai doesn't count as a Charm?

Also, it means Molly can 'switch on' a lot of her Scene-long Charms for the entire day, like VLE and MHM and Hellscry Chakra, at the start of the day and quickly recover all the Essence in a bottle of bleach.
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The excellency argument is exactly spot on. As far as I am aware, there have never been a fight more than 10 turns long in the whole quest, and outside of combat in many cases excellencies are treated as scene-long anyway. The only thing the charm adds is the theoretical ability to use excellencies for ancient sorcery. Shintai is... Ok, I genuinely haven't thought of that, actually. VLE is very obvious, so making it longer isn't useful outside of combat. MHM is an issue. Maybe add some category between scene and day as a balance patch? Or perhaps something like "cannot have more than Essence rating activations of the charm at the same time (excluding permanent effects)"?
 
TheGrape said:
Isn't this kind of overpowered? It means we can spend 2 Essence to turn our Excellencies from (currently) 5 turns to Scene-long. Granted, most battles we fight are gonna be over in the 10 turns that using 2 Essence for two Melee Excellencies would take, but this also does mean Molly can stay in Shintai for an entire day. Which, uh. Is a terrifying idea. Unless Shintai doesn't count as a Charm?

Also, it means Molly can 'switch on' a lot of her Scene-long Charms for the entire day, like VLE and MHM and Hellscry Chakra, at the start of the day and quickly recover all the Essence in a bottle of bleach.
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Oh yeah, i firmly oppose this.

This breaks the essence economy and thats literally the only weakness we have.
 
Acolyte said:
You stack day long charms at the beginning of every day and hust regen the spent essence, essentially free essence in 90% of the encounters.
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Yes, but which ones? I don't have time to do a major review of all available charms, but a simple solution would be to add "the charms extended to beyond one scene count as being activated in the following scenes for the purpose of anima activation". Ie yes, you could, in theory, stack things one on top another. But then no BMI for you - enjoy having an always-on anima.

I too worry about the balance. I worry about it a lot. So, maybe instead of a categorical increase, instead boost it to " times Essence rating"? Or just stop the scene - more than one scene transition? Maybe add "scene - hour" step? Not sure.
 
Yog said:
Yes, but which ones? I don't have time to do a major review of all available charms, but a simple solution would be to add "the charms extended to beyond one scene count as being activated in the following scenes for the purpose of anima activation". Ie yes, you could, in theory, stack things one on top another. But then no BMI for you - enjoy having an always-on anima.

I too worry about the balance. I worry about it a lot. So, maybe instead of a categorical increase, instead boost it to " times Essence rating"? Or just stop the scene - more than one scene transition? Maybe add "scene - hour" step? Not sure.
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Just increase the cost of adding time. ×2 for scene long, ×3 for day long and so on.
 
Acolyte said:
Just increase the cost of adding time. ×2 for scene long, ×3 for day long and so on.
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I considered scaling the cost with charm dot rating. Ie a 4 dot charm would cost 4 motes, which takes an hour to regenerate in the best case. That's not something that can be just waved away, I think.

The biggest issue, I think, is scene to day jump. That's the one that needs to be balanced carefully. In the evening, I'll make a list of all scene-long effects, and see what the biggest problems with this may be. I should have done this earlier, sorry about that.
the DragonBard said:
Maybe require a sacrifice of some sort to extend it beyond a certain point... At least until E6.
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Take one point of lethal damage? Essentially investing health into longevity of the charm. May work.
 
Yog said:
Yes, but which ones? I don't have time to do a major review of all available charms, but a simple solution would be to add "the charms extended to beyond one scene count as being activated in the following scenes for the purpose of anima activation". Ie yes, you could, in theory, stack things one on top another. But then no BMI for you - enjoy having an always-on anima.

I too worry about the balance. I worry about it a lot. So, maybe instead of a categorical increase, instead boost it to " times Essence rating"? Or just stop the scene - more than one scene transition? Maybe add "scene - hour" step? Not sure.
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Maybe instead of increasing price add a breaking condition, like how BMI and ATP both have rules about when they fail. That way they're still usable but also aren't infallible.

My preference would be to tie this to that active charm cap idea. As in; you get one excellency, one soak boost, one dice adder, and so on in your current active set. If you ever use a different one from the same category it immediately ends the extended charm that shares it (or drops it to one turn of remaining time if we want it to be more forgiving).

This makes the extended charms useful in proportion to our ability to plan and gives us some basic capabilities to carry around, but forces us to balance our active kit and adds another dimension to the opportunity cost of our combat choices.

If we prep for socials then we have to balance the costs of losing those effects for later against enhancing our combat abilities right now. Good decisions are rewarded with high essence efficiency, but bad ones are punished with high surcharges as we waste invested power.
 
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Arc 15 Post 86: Accounting for the End
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    • Accounting for the End​

    13th of March 2007 A.D.

    Another mote of essence spent, another spirit racing though the maze of circuitry, to read what has been sent and wiped clean, at least to eyes that need to look through a screen.

    Lost 1 Essence (HMP)

    Yet as minutes tick by the soft harmonies that mark a Sutra's attention but not their voice stretch out longer and longer and when at last impatience gets the best of you the best they can answer is 'no further anomalous data found'. So you ask them for the non anomalous one for a look. The last message your quarry had send back was seemingly to an old colleague and 'potential romantic entanglement', Ida, he doesn't mention her last name and you don't have the time to scour the internet for a match for the face of the tall, somewhat stern blonde woman in the pictures. Their conversation is of the sort people stuck here at the bottom of the world do as often enough, mundane, without being so ordinary as to trip the filters that would have marked some hidden meaning. The pair do seem to be planning an event on Valentin's return, itself ordinary enough, a wedding as soon as they are together again. It makes you squirm a little to be reading their emails back and forth only....

    The picture of a black dress, not that uncommon if you want to stand out.

    The mention of inviting his parents but not hers.

    The mention of what she would be saying to their shared friends but never him.

    Maybe if you didn't know how all this started you would have missed it, but knowing what you do it's clear, they aren't planning a wedding, they are planning a funeral, one without a body in the casket.

    Alright, recontextualize, he's getting ready to die and she knows it and supports it, or at least doesn't oppose it. Does he want to die, is she pushing him? The thought makes you feels queasy in a altogether different way, their interactions had seemed filled with a quiet warmth before.

    Talk of settling affairs, of helping his brother stay way from drink, of making sure his sister passes her exams in good form. The warmth is still there and it doesn't have the poison sweetness of compulsion wrapped in lies, nor the fanaticism of those who had lost themseves to some cause as to utterly discard their own lives. It was simply necessary, the both of them saw it that way and under the iron-clad veil of secrecy Ida and Valentin regretted the need. So what were they afraid of them?

    You turn then to the information on what he was working on here and the station only to be stymied by an incredibly dense mass of technical jargon, charts and graphs that serves to obfuscate as well as any code, but there in the mass of technical data you find mention of discontinuities under the ice, studies into the anomalous magnetic and thermal properties properties and finally... finally coordinates. As far as a quick search has been able to ascertain there's nothing there, not on any survey, just another mountain jutting out from the kilometer thick ice, one of the Fimbulheimen.

    "Named for the all-encompassing winter that comes before Ragnarok, auspicious," you mutter to your cybernetic allies.

    Before now you didn't know that static could sound commiserating.

    Regardless that is the project he had been working at and likely the thing that scared him so much that his death was something to plan around, including offering consolation to his family. If nothing else he should be particularly in dune with the dark shard that now nestles in his soul.

    A man on foot, even one who doesn't mind the cold or require sustenance would take weeks to reach the location marked but you remember Lydia's car and your own means of arcane travel, no guarantee he would be heading there on foot. Do I try to get there before him, do I search an arc south-east and hope I find one living being in all this ice?

    Molly Essence 6/18
    Molly Willpower 6/9

    What do you do?

    [] Try to get to the mountains and figure out what's there
    -[] Write in means of transportation

    [] Try to find your quarry from the air now that you have a direction at least

    [] Write in

    OOC: Not the best rolls this time around, but enough to give you a direction at least .
     
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    • BronzeTongue said:
    Maybe instead of increasing price add a breaking condition, like how BMI and ATP both have rules about when they fail. That way they're still usable but also aren't infallible.

    My preference would be to tie this to that active charm cap idea. As in; you get one excellency, one soak boost, one dice adder, and so on in your current active set. If you ever use a different one from the same category it immediately ends the extended charm that shares it (or drops it to one turn of remaining time if we want it to be more forgiving).

    This makes the extended charms useful in proportion to our ability to plan and gives us some basic capabilities to carry around, but forces us to balance our active kit and adds another dimension to the opportunity cost of our combat choices.

    If we prep for socials then we have to balance the costs of losing those effects for later against enhancing our combat abilities right now. Good decisions are rewarded with high essence efficiency, but bad ones are punished with high surcharges as we waste invested power.
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    It's an interesting and good idea, but I would try and simplify the bookkeeping as much as possible. Maybe simply "no more than Essence Rating charms under the effect"? The issue are permanent charms. Night Swallows Secrets, Crowned With Fury, Heart-Carving Wind all have a duration of a year. If affected by this, the year-to-permanent would quickly render the charm unusable.
     
    [X] Call Maeve

    I think this is about time we call Maeve or even Mab herself. The best case scenario is that we are about to trespass in some Winter affairs. The worst case scenario is that the abyssal is about to breach some of Winter's holding to cause an Apocalypse. We don't want to trespass. So, we want permission.
     
    [X] Plan: Superman with X-Ray Vision
    -[X] Try to find your quarry from the air now that you have a direction at least
    -[X] Wind-Born Stride Passive speed boosting
    -[X] Hellscry Chakra 1 Essence
    -[X] Rage Recast Flight Willpower roll
    --[X] Stunt: With a direction in your mind you move out onto the ice field. Opening your third eye you look across the horizon no visible signs yet but that doesn't mean they're not out there. You start to sprint at first a couple meters of ice pass under your feet per step then 10 then dozens than hundreds but still no sign. You take to the air the ice shelf cracking under your foot as your leg bends pushing off as you take to the sky at just shy of the speed of sound. Well even if you can't find them like this you know where they are going.

    Okay so the coordinates say the destination would be weeks away on foot and the person is only an hour and a half to 2 hours ahead of us. This is important because humans are capable of going anywhere from 20 to 30 miles per day on foot even with a charm multiplication of speed that still means they're like moving across the land at with a maximum distance of 60 to 120 miles per day weeks of travel means that it's deep inland. With an aerial advantage and the fact that we have the ability to multiply our speed by 10 if we stay in motion means that even if they're taking a rather circuitous route we should be able to spot their aura of Death while moving towards it (Fimbleheimen).

    Though if anyone has any thoughts I would love to hear them.
     
    Yog said:
    It's an interesting and good idea, but I would try and simplify the bookkeeping as much as possible. Maybe simply "no more than Essence Rating charms under the effect"? The issue are permanent charms. Night Swallows Secrets, Crowned With Fury, Heart-Carving Wind all have a duration of a year. If affected by this, the year-to-permanent would quickly render the charm unusable.
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    That still leaves the problem of adding three excellencies and two broad impact charms, breaking the essence economy.

    Better to turn permanent into sustained or something where it sticks around as long as we dedicate a slot to it.
     
    Yog said:
    I think this is about time we call Maeve or even Mab herself. The best case scenario is that we are about to trespass in some Winter affairs. The worst case scenario is that the abyssal is about to breach some of Winter's holding to cause an Apocalypse. We don't want to trespass. So, we want permission.
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    Okay I have to ask is there something in Dresden files that says that winter actually maintains any level of ownership of the ice caps or the poles? As you put this forward a couple times now but now I'm actually kind of confused because as far as I'm aware any place on Earth does not and cannot belong to anyone that is from the never never they may have forward bases or Assets in the real world but they're not capable of having real metaphysical (Avalon, Arctis Tor) territory so you are incapable of trespassing even if they've set up shop in a place.
     
    Degorium said:
    Okay I have to ask is there something in Dresden files that says that winter actually maintains any level of ownership of the ice caps or the poles? As you put this forward a couple times now but now I'm actually kind of confused because as far as I'm aware any place on Earth does not and cannot belong to anyone that is from the never never they may have forward bases or Assets in the real world but they're not capable of having real metaphysical (Avalon, Arctis Tor) territory so you are incapable of trespassing even if they've set up shop in a place.
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    Fey get to cheat a lot, that's why they're so active and powerful. Though I'd point out that plenty of factions hold territory on both sides, it's pretty routine even if they can't permanently stick around themselves. Typically it means mortal servants are involved.

    Fey just get to skip a lot of that because they've got dual citizenship.
     
    BronzeTongue said:
    That still leaves the problem of adding three excellencies and two broad impact charms, breaking the essence economy.

    Better to turn permanent into sustained or something where it sticks around as long as we dedicate a slot to it.
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    Would scene-long excellencies really be game-breaking? Combat-wise, very few fights lasted more than 10 turns, where the charm would start become economic. Craft excellency is pretty much treated as scene-long anyway. Outside of combat we do count minutes, but that's just bookkeeping.
    Degorium said:
    Okay I have to ask is there something in Dresden files that says that winter actually maintains any level of ownership of the ice caps or the poles? As you put this forward a couple times now but now I'm actually kind of confused because as far as I'm aware any place on Earth does not and cannot belong to anyone that is from the never never they may have forward bases or Assets in the real world but they're not capable of having real metaphysical (Avalon, Arctis Tor) territory so you are incapable of trespassing even if they've set up shop in a place.
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    Ok. I may be hallucinating. I think I based my assertions on this:
    In Skin Game, Molly is visited in a dream by Harry Dresden where they talk about her new life, and she mentions that she has "about one hundred and fifty years of backlog" to catch up on because Maeve neglected her duties for so long. She states that his visiting her is unusual as she has been improving her mental defenses thanks to attacks by some of the Sidhe. Apparently, she is somewhere under two miles of ice, having spent a day to get there, but when Dresden tells her of his mission, she promises to join him as soon as she can.[117]​
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    And I could have sworn I read somewhere, either this quest, or somewhere else, that Winter is maintaining some manner of watch over the poles.

    But it seems I may be hallucinating.
     
    BronzeTongue said:
    Fey get to cheat a lot, that's why they're so active and powerful. Though I'd point out that plenty of factions hold territory on both sides, it's pretty routine even if they can't permanently stick around themselves. Typically it means mortal servants are involved.

    Fey just get to skip a lot of that because they've got dual citizenship.
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    Oh I don't doubt that they have both Patsies, fronts and what is essentially minor Assets in the real world but you wouldn't count any of those things as belonging to Winter the people that staff them might belong to Winter but the assets themselves are just real world things Disneyland even if the Disney Corporation is partially enthralled winter is still real world stuff so you aren't capable of trespassing against Winter by conducting corporate Espionage against Disney.

    I was very specifically asking about does winter the country have actual territorial claims or holds in the ice caps / poles because the difference between a disposable or Mortal asset and actual real claims is the difference between well essentially an embassy and a state or province in a country.
    Yog said:
    And I could have sworn I read somewhere, either this quest, or somewhere else, that Winter is maintaining some manner of watch over the poles.

    But it seems I may be hallucinating.
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    That is fair enough, thank you for taking the time to look that up.
     
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