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Infernal Conundrum: [Exalted/Worm] - Part 2: Hell is Other Exalts

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I just reread everything from the last update. Last XP update (prior to this one) was on Monday at about 2:00 pm, bringing us to 14XP. There was preview for 2.10, but no updates or other Omakes since Monday.
 
Thief of Words said:
The bit about unintended consequences was quoting me directly. That's the exact phrase I used in conjunction with Tomescu Flesh Extravagance.
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OTOH, "unintended consequences" does not mean that everything spontaneously catches fire :V

I just think that people are retreating much too quickly to standard SV risk-aversion. Disappointing, since we'd just gone through a fantastic bit of roleplay playing out the botched valor check.
 
the DragonBard said:
Okay.
We might want to pick it up then.
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Here's the text for reference.

SWALLOWING THE LOTUS ROOT
Cost: —; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 2;
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
The greatest among the Exalted find it no great feat to master the arts of their subordinates. The experience cost of Terrestrial Martial Arts Charms is reduced to 4xp, or 5xp if Martial Arts is not a Caste or Favored Ability (or if the character has no Favored Abilities, as in the case of Alchemicals), and their training time is halved. During character creation, Terrestrial Martial Arts Charms cost half as much as native Charms, meaning that each starting Charm (or Charm purchased with bonus points) allocated to such a style provides two Charms instead. As a final benefit, the character no longer needs to pay a surcharge when using elementally aspected Terrestrial Martial Arts styles. Should a character who already knows Terrestrial Martial Arts learn this Charm, the experience cost of those Charms is retroactively lowered and the character is refunded the difference.

This is a stand-alone Celestial Martial Arts Charm, which may only be learned by Celestial Exalted and akuma. Non-Solar Exalted know the Charm by different names; Abyssals call it Blood-Soaked Lotus Roots, while the Green Sun Princes know it as Roots of the Brass Lotus and Sidereals have dubbed it Perfected Lotus Mastery. Lunar Exalted know the Charm as Terrestrial Bloodline Integration.

Alchemical Exalted achieve an identical effect through the use of a Perfected Lotus Matrix submodule called Lotus Filament Conduction (Essence 2; 6xp).
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The specifics of the XP discount are of course different thanks to our house rules, but note that we're refunded the cumulative XP discount from all known TMA charms at the moment that we learn this charm. The only advantage to getting it early is the reduction in training time, which for obvious reasons isn't refunded.

landcollector said:
We need Martial Arts 5 before we can do so.
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That won't be a problem. MA is Favored.
 
Thief of Words said:
Can someone do a vote tally? Because I kind of want to threadmark the squeecrab so I can find it in the future. For...reasons.

EDIT: Um...after I threadmark and link the Omakes. And...y'know, generally fix up the index. >_<

Nevermind on that tally. Vote closes tomorrow. Have to wrap up my writing for the moment because the library closes in an hour and I have other stuff I have to work on. On the bright side, I should have internet at home for a week or so again coming up soon. :D
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@Thief of Words

Bringing this up because this is the third time it happened already:
Could you make it clearer when you are asking for a vote on XP spending/training?

Because so far you've repeatedly:
Mentioned that maybe we want to consider how to spend XP or other paraphrase in a non-alert triggering post, followed by musing about ending XP voting, and then call for an XP vote tally.
-Then found zero votes(because nobody realized there was a vote going on), did not train or spend as a result.
-Or take about an hour's worth of votes from 2-3 people because they happened to be around at the time you mentioned a vote lock, followed by wondering why nobody cared.
-Or a quick bandwagon formed from people who noticed and then pushed for ANY vote at all, followed by wondering what the hell we were thinking.

I'd suggest for XP votes, you open discussion on them first, so we brainstorm what charms we get. Then officially open XP voting, including specifying if it's by plan, individually, or by block. Generally a [] [XP] Plan please or the like is a good indicator.

[X]Plan Use The XP Dammit
-[X][XP]Every Last Detail - 4xp
-[X][XP]Martial Arts +1 - 4xp
-[X][XP]Bureucracy +1 - 4xp
-[X][Physical] Five Dragon Claw
-[X][Mental]War
-[X][Mental]Perception
-[X][Mental]Joy In Violence Approach

While I'm a big proponent of Death Dealing Journey, we are not exactly in a hurry to run out there and fight criminals, because we ARE grounded. Thus, training a charm to run out there and fight criminals is going to be difficult for the immediate moment IC wise.

Instead we learn the joy of punching through steel.
And actually spend some of our XP buying Favored stuff. Training Martial Arts fits with the charm training. Training Bureaucracy improves planning and lawsuit. We should have the XP back up by the time the training time completes.

Left the Compassion purchase for later since there wasn't much enthusiasm for it.
Hopefully it's still in time to get votes
 
My idea is that after getting a taste of bullshit magic kung-fu Taylor is going to want to learn more. BAM, there's your incentive to grab MA 5 and Roots of the Brass Lotus. From there we grab Five Dragon style up to the form charm. That'll save us a bit of time and XP, and it's no longer a total waste to pick up TMA :V
 
Using all the XP is kind of a bad idea since that's going to put us about -20 XP in the hole. Speaking as someone who got about a quarter of the way through an omake before hitting the wall, I'm not inclined to force others to work to make up the backlog to fuel my own reckless spending habits.
 
FunkyEntropy said:
Using all the XP is kind of a bad idea since that's going to put us about -20 XP in the hole. Speaking as someone who got about a quarter of the way through an omake before hitting the wall, I'm not inclined to force others to work to make up the backlog to fuel my own reckless spending habits.
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I'll highlight that most of the training would take multiple updates to complete. We get 2xp per update, and take approximately 2-3 updates per IC day.

We'd have met and exceeded the budget by then.
 
FunkyEntropy said:
I just think that people are retreating much too quickly to standard SV risk-aversion.
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Risk-aversion is for people that aren't Exalted. Risk is the business of all Exalted. Cowering in fear of risk is for mortals and extras.
SwiftRosenthal said:
The only advantage to getting it early is the reduction in training time, which for obvious reasons isn't refunded.
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Wouldn't it be weird if the training time was somehow refunded?:p

Just try to picture that. How would it work?

wingstrike96 said:
[X]Plan Use The XP Dammit
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What are the details on this plan?
 
MadGreenSon said:
What are the details on this plan?
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Here
veekie said:
[X]Plan Use The XP Dammit
-[X][XP]Every Last Detail - 4xp
-[X][XP]Martial Arts +1 - 4xp
-[X][XP]Bureucracy +1 - 4xp
-[X][Physical] Five Dragon Claw
-[X][Mental]War
-[X][Mental]Perception
-[X][Mental]Joy In Violence Approach
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MadGreenSon said:
Risk-aversion is for people that aren't Exalted. Risk is the business of all Exalted. Cowering in fear of risk is for mortals and extras.
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Though keep in mind exalted have to keep pacing in mind. Going to challenge Ligier out of chargen tends to end in your death
 
Schielman said:
If any of those paranoia comments were directed at me, I apologize.

This was my mindset and why I wrote the stunt from a couple chapters back the way that I did. I read Taylor as someone who has been been a target of various attacks for the last 18 months, for whom fear has been a rather constant companion. Had we not fled from Oni Lee in terror, I would probably be all for training the MA charm.

@thamuzz , why War? It doesn't do anything with Every Last Detail, and unless I'm missing something big, it doesn't seem to help with anything we know about IC.
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The synergy between Every Last Detail and training War isn't a direct one so much as a matter of mindset. She's promised her dad that she'll join a team. The plan oriented mindset of Every Last Detail leads her to want to study tactics as part of that.
 
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veekie said:
@Thief of Words
While I'm a big proponent of Death Dealing Journey, we are not exactly in a hurry to run out there and fight criminals, because we ARE grounded. Thus, training a charm to run out there and fight criminals is going to be difficult for the immediate moment IC wise.

Instead we learn the joy of punching through steel.
And actually spend some of our XP buying Favored stuff. Training Martial Arts fits with the charm training. Training Bureaucracy improves planning and lawsuit. We should have the XP back up by the time the training time completes.

Left the Compassion purchase for later since there wasn't much enthusiasm for it.
Hopefully it's still in time to get votes
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The point about us being grounded is an interesting one. It certainly reduces our ability to train a power that involves zoom zoom zoom. I might revise my vote.
A roleplaying note of Five Dragon Claw: it doesn't let you punch through steel. It does nothing to Soak, only Hardness.
FDC allows you to alter your attack in a metaphysical way to ensure that no matter how powerful your foe's armor, you always have the chance to at least do ping damage if you hit. There is no bastion that can truly shield a foe from the fundamental violence of Five Dragon Claw.
 
Voting closes at 3pm CST, in just over 3.5 hours from now.


Re: clarity of communication: will be more explicit. Had thoughtvI was being clearer than I apparently was.
 
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