At high level it turns in to a time stop, so yeah it seems to interact with entropy in some kind of way.
Shards of a Broken Sun [Megaten/Shugo Chara/Exalted]
- Thread starter Baughn
- Start date
- Crossover
About 96%, though that depends on getting a 2-die stunt. Unstunted, it's about 92%. With a 1-die stunt, it's about 94%.
This sounds like a case where Amu and Utau could plausibly cooperate, though. We should be able to get a cooperation bonus, with the right vote.
What's ORT? None of the google hits look relevant.
So with 2+Su, Amu is already at "cure cancer" levels of psi skill, though she'd want to pick up some medical knowledge before trying it on anyone whose condition isn't already critical.
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Our Medicine nukes it back to 1 effective dot though?
Looks good enough for me, so count my vote in for that write-in for now once it exists.
(ORT as in Nasuverse ORT, or...)
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We've got enough psi skill to perform the effect, but we don't have enough medical skill to do it right. So, for example, if someone was dying of cancer and had days left to live, they'd probably want to take their chances with Amu. If someone was in stage 1 and traditional treatments had things under control, the risk would outweigh the benefits.
In contrast, if we had Biokinesis 1, Medicine 1, and no Su bonus, we'd have the same dice pool, but it wouldn't have the same implications. The risk of complications would be much lower, but we also just wouldn't have enough power to perform the treatment.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Those are very much deliberate.
ORT as in Nasuverse ORT, but don't take that too seriously. I was just indicating it would look somewhat lovecraftian if you could see it, which you can't; it's a problem only for whoever later has to do psionic engineering. If anyone.
True, though that can be made up for with willpower. ...somehow.
I did warn about using it on someone else without the relevant medical skill, but when it comes to cancer, if it ever became an issue... I imagine you'd take the risk. So-
This is accurate.
The chance of failure is the same, if the dice pool is the same, but failure with lacking biokinesis looks like "Amu didn't successfully cure the cancer", while failure with lacking medicine looks like "The cancer is dead, but Amu did so much damage, the patient is no better off".
Success with lacking biokinesis, of course, looks like "Amu cured cancer, but she didn't use biokinesis to do it. She may have used it in a supporting role."
It wouldn't be safe for the opponents, no.
Thanks for responding!
I have a lot more to poke about the new threadmarks, but for now, may I also have the Clairvoyance/Precog scaling (later, it's not relevant now)?
@Baughn More relevantly, what does Utau want to do, or it is a Intuition/YOLO thing? Can't stunt using that as a baseline unless we know what it is, and last I checked Nero's stunt still has the OOC info problem (and doesn't show up on the tally properly).
For reference:
[X] Utau: That is quite enough. Lunatic Charm, Concert Mode.
- Utau has had more than enough. This place resonates with a very dark memory she's kept hidden inside, and she's figured out what she did wrong before.
- And those same dark memories can provide the tools to save someone else from it. Lunatic Charm, without holding back this time. Rebellion is not constrained by embarrassment or propriety, and Utau has brought hundreds of children to their knees under her songs before.
- The collective unconscious is leaking it's various aspects in here, into this facsimile of a Midnight Channel. It's trying to boot the 'recovery.exe', spawning a dungeon and possible separating out the shadow self to give Yui a fair chance, but Yui isn't together enough to handle that.
- Fix this world into proper shape. Not just screaming at the fog to leave, that isn't the right method, bring it to heel-heal.
- Put the... shadows into proper order within Yui's psyche once more.
- Sing as the pied piper to entrance every shadow-piece-thread out of hiding as it should have been, if the world was a better place.
- If it will help, use the Key to draw on Su via Amu, and use Utau's own recovery and history as a person to provide a template.
- On a similar note, if needed tap Hikaru for power if he will allow. He seems to be.... something of a younger brother figure, in Utau's rather muddy understanding of family? But he is willing to help. His power to Utau's purpose would be a hell of a help if something in here decides to object to a 'fair' fight.
I have a lot more to poke about the new threadmarks, but for now, may I also have the Clairvoyance/Precog scaling (later, it's not relevant now)?
@Baughn More relevantly, what does Utau want to do, or it is a Intuition/YOLO thing? Can't stunt using that as a baseline unless we know what it is, and last I checked Nero's stunt still has the OOC info problem (and doesn't show up on the tally properly).
For reference:
[X] Utau: That is quite enough. Lunatic Charm, Concert Mode.
- Utau has had more than enough. This place resonates with a very dark memory she's kept hidden inside, and she's figured out what she did wrong before.
- And those same dark memories can provide the tools to save someone else from it. Lunatic Charm, without holding back this time. Rebellion is not constrained by embarrassment or propriety, and Utau has brought hundreds of children to their knees under her songs before.
- The collective unconscious is leaking it's various aspects in here, into this facsimile of a Midnight Channel. It's trying to boot the 'recovery.exe', spawning a dungeon and possible separating out the shadow self to give Yui a fair chance, but Yui isn't together enough to handle that.
- Fix this world into proper shape. Not just screaming at the fog to leave, that isn't the right method, bring it to heel-heal.
- Put the... shadows into proper order within Yui's psyche once more.
- Sing as the pied piper to entrance every shadow-piece-thread out of hiding as it should have been, if the world was a better place.
- If it will help, use the Key to draw on Su via Amu, and use Utau's own recovery and history as a person to provide a template.
- On a similar note, if needed tap Hikaru for power if he will allow. He seems to be.... something of a younger brother figure, in Utau's rather muddy understanding of family? But he is willing to help. His power to Utau's purpose would be a hell of a help if something in here decides to object to a 'fair' fight.
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As an attempt to get a cooperation bonus, and maybe a stunt bonus, for Utau's idea, how's this?
[X] Utau: That is quite enough
-[X] Amu takes monitoring duty. With higher Mind Control and Precognition, she's better equipped to detect or even predict any inadvertent mental damage Utau might do. Feeding this information to Utau should let her better control the process.
[X] Utau: That is quite enough
-[X] Amu takes monitoring duty. With higher Mind Control and Precognition, she's better equipped to detect or even predict any inadvertent mental damage Utau might do. Feeding this information to Utau should let her better control the process.
And to do that with lacking biokinesis, she'd probably need medicine and equipment that higher biokinesis would eliminate the need for.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
It's very much an emotion-driven intuition thing. If you vote for that option, then she's about to try to drive the Shadow into submission by overwhelming it with the raw power of those emotions-
Emotions that are partially driven by memories of Easter. On the one hand, that means she can relate. On the other, there's a medium chance she'll get entangled with the scenario. Utau is very much capable of forming a Shadow Self of her own, and I'm not convinced that would simplify the situation.
But if she succeeds, she'll shock them out of it. We'll have to see where that ends up.
Well, Integrity 2 or Hikaru comes for the rescue then? Good to know. Better think harder to stunt this then..
For one: Can we add Performance/Strings And Songs to the dice pool with a stunt?
Or if Ami wants to cooperate, can we ask her to amplify the sound via Loudspeakers?
@Quine I don't think the logic of your current stunt works in this case, a "dual harmonics" approach where Amu tells the story of how Utau recovered (and how Amu is willing to extend it) would fit better and/or calling back to the RC information IMO?
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Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Add..? Not... per se, Strings & Songs primarily interacts with sorcery / magic in the real world, and has very little effect, if any, in the cognitive world. If it did, you still wouldn't be adding two Skills. In edge cases they'd be averaged.
Okay, earlier I was responding to the default vote, not the stunt; you hadn't edited it in yet. So let's analyse this.
The stunt is attempting to "correct" the place you're in. The problem with this is, Utau doesn't know what counts as correct. She will—still—be operating entirely on instinct, but unlike what @Nero200 might have hoped for, that instinct doesn't include "turn it into a regular Shadow-Self fight". How could it? Utau has never even heard of them.
—
So she'll be trying simply to make the world 'right', without knowing what counts for that. She has a skill that seems related — Strings and Songs — and in this scenario... that's actually a little bit of a headscratcher. Like I said, it normally wouldn't have much effect in the cognitive world, but in this case-
...yeah. Utau could use it for that. Not because it lets her create 'harmony', but because fundamentally it acts to eliminate discrepancies between reality and what Kagutsuchi believes reality should be. Which- would have an interesting outcome. If she succeeds, then Yui will 100% be fine.
Her other option would be to use Empathy, and her own personal sense of what setup feels less disharmonious. Since she is in the CU, that sense isn't entirely useless. The outcome would be very different, though. Definitely less interesting.
—
Different dice pools, and I think if more than one person is going to vote for this one, then I need you to decide which branch. The Strings & Songs-based option does get two dice less, which is not normally how I want the more interesting option. Alas. There'll be more chances.
. . .
Yeeep.
Alright, time to make a little girl's head explode because people couldn't be bothered to check with the only character that can tell us if that's a bad idea or not.
Already feeling the dread set in for when I go to edit it.
Edit: That timing. But seriously, just vote for it if you feel its the best idea you have.
Already feeling the dread set in for when I go to edit it.
Edit: That timing. But seriously, just vote for it if you feel its the best idea you have.
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Honey, you ain't seen drama yet.
I mean, the only reason I am considering Utau's option is the clarification that success does indeed correspond to what we want?
E: Utau's option is "emotionally bludgeon the Shadow back to normal"
Amu's option is "???"
Hikaru's option is some variant of Psionic brute force
Ami's option is currently unknown
Nero's Stunt (version 1) is "no way this is right, lemme use what I think is right (Empathy) and bludgeon things into that shape"
Nero's Stunt (version 2) is "no way this is right, lemme unknowingly get Kagutsuchi to bludgeon things back for me (Strings & Songs)"
Midori's option is "punch bad thing and hope for good outcome"
My proposed stunt (no actual vote written) was "hold Shadow down with Psionics and steal it's lunch money (Yui shards)"
This rendering accurate, Baughn?
E: Utau's option is "emotionally bludgeon the Shadow back to normal"
Amu's option is "???"
Hikaru's option is some variant of Psionic brute force
Ami's option is currently unknown
Nero's Stunt (version 1) is "no way this is right, lemme use what I think is right (Empathy) and bludgeon things into that shape"
Nero's Stunt (version 2) is "no way this is right, lemme unknowingly get Kagutsuchi to bludgeon things back for me (Strings & Songs)"
Midori's option is "punch bad thing and hope for good outcome"
My proposed stunt (no actual vote written) was "hold Shadow down with Psionics and steal it's lunch money (Yui shards)"
This rendering accurate, Baughn?
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...now that I put the options we have this way, we are REALLY suffering from the "when all you have is a hammer" problem here unless we bring Ami in :/
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Yep, those all seem accurate. It's quite funny to me that Midori's the only doing it "right".
Even then, she doesn't know step two. But it's obvious enough. Persona protagonists usually don't know that in advance either.
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Ok... If we want to go for the "steal the Shadow's lunch money" approach, for those more familiar with Persona, what kind of attacks can we expect?
It's basically
1) Physically restrain the Shadow (TK, Illusion 2)
2) Mentally restrain the Shadow (Mind Control, Empathy)
3) Blind the Shadow (Lightsmithing)
I want to offload the Amu TK component to Hikaru so Amu doesn't get so wiped out, but not sure what we need to plan against lol
It's basically
1) Physically restrain the Shadow (TK, Illusion 2)
2) Mentally restrain the Shadow (Mind Control, Empathy)
3) Blind the Shadow (Lightsmithing)
I want to offload the Amu TK component to Hikaru so Amu doesn't get so wiped out, but not sure what we need to plan against lol
Finding that out is part of the game.
Basically you need to encounter an enemy and run through the attack options or have a scouter skill to read the enemy.
So until/unless Baughn designs Shadow-Yui. *Shrug*
As for the attack "elements" available:
Slash
Pierce
Blunt
Fire
Ice
Wind
Lightning
Psychic
Nuclear
Light
Dark
Almighty
And probably a few more I'm forgetting.
SMT will see you dying against random enemies if you don't exploit weaknesses ruthlessly. Persona is a bit more forgiving, but that just means it won't kill you immediately.
So, the only thing we can know is Slash or physics based damage right now then?
...can't think of anything to buff success rate of emotion blast aside from going inside the room and Mind Crush (partial), and that's the stunt I like the most here amongst the others..
Unless we could use Hikaru to make a big enough mess that Kagutsuchi starts paying attention?
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Slash, Pierce, and Blunt (of which one may just not exist) are the general "Physical Attack" options. For example P5 all melee was Slash and the guns were Pierce.
Not to say Persona attacks can't be physical either.
But I mean that in generally everyone has one or two of the above options.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
On the other hand, your party is so over-levelled for this encounter it's a little silly. Especially if Hikaru gets involved. It, um, isn't normal for "Plan B might over-penetrate the Shadow so badly their main self gets hurt" to be a serious concern.
Let me take a stab at this one.
Persona enemies, especially for Shadow Self fights, generally take bizarre symbolic forms representative of the trauma that created them. So let's take Yukiko as an example...
Yukiko is a teenage girl who happens to be the heiress of a traditional, countryside inn, and who feels trapped in that role. She might or might not want to stay in that position for the rest of her life; it's unclear to me what the eventual outcome of that would naturally be, though of course she got involved with the investigation crew, and that probably derailed her life. Her Persona doesn't disappear at the end of the story, after all.
Predictably, the conflict between Yukiko's persona—"teenage traditional inn hostess"—and her inner self and personal desires, are where her Shadow Self comes from. She has other hidden personality elements, being weirdly amused by puns for example, but those aren't suppressed in the same way. It's really about being trapped. And so-
Yukiko's Shadow Self, once fully rejected, is a phoenix trapped in a cage. A wish for renewal, for forcefulness, along with the trap that stops her from displaying any of that.
Her shadow self seems very much sane until she's rejected, incidentally. Always interesting when that happens.
Predictably, her move-set focuses on fire and healing; though Yukiko as a shadow displays mostly the fire, of which she uses a lot! Shadows are almost always more powerful than the resulting persona, at least for the next few hours of gameplay time.
—
ShadowAngelBeta provided a long list of elements, but the thing is that no-one here has elemental powers or weaknesses, so it doesn't really matter. Instead you're rolling a party that's 100% focused on physical force and debuffs, if you can call 'mind crush' a debuff. Resistance to physical force isn't unknown, especially later in the games-
It's usually pretty rare, and you won't see it here; it would make no sense for any of the Scavengers to have it.
On the other hand, what I can promise is you'll see symbolic forms based on their personal traumas. For any of them that might be here, of course; I'm not promising that some haven't been captured. Or that they won't go nuclear while in captivity, but that's really Manticore's problem.
I wonder what that would mean for Kana and Yui, in particular? Either way it's something Amu and Utau should be able to deal with, because-
—
Yeah. You're kinda over-levelled.
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Good to know, I think I've made up my mind then:
[X] Utau: Ask for help
-[X] Unless Ami/Hikaru gives an option significantly different from what's been presented, move on to non-lethally disabling the Shadow and then slowly taking it apart for parts (again, unless Ami objects)
or
[X] Utau: Ask for help
-[X] Go with Midori's idea, but go non-lethal in case Yui shards are in there
This work? On one hand, a collection of mind-shards do not a person make, and on the other perhaps Yui would do better without a Shadow if we keep the shards that would be otherwise lost?
[X] Utau: That is quite enough. Lunatic Charm, Concert Mode.
-[X] Use Nero200's stunt
-[X] Use Strings & Songs
-[X] Use 2 WP
This write-in sounds interesting, but given the 2-die penalty compared to using Empathy, I think we need the WP to even the odds. That said, though-
So I feel like it'd be very fitting with the spirit of the tabletop game to ensure that the more narratively-interesting option - here using Strings & Songs - is as likely to succeed as the more optimized choice. Like, say, letting Utau do her own once-an-arc psionic skill upgrade on Strings & Songs (potentially without the XP cost since I don't think the mechanics for that are fully set up yet), while also giving us a 1-die stunt bonus to fully close the gap.
That's just my opinion, of course. You're the QM, do what you want.
Add: Realized I should note, I feel like Nero200's stunt still fits thematically with using Strings & Songs rather than Empathy for this. If it's ruled that another stunt needs to be used for Strings & Songs, though, I'll try to come up with something else; I just doubt it'll be as good, since I'm not very familiar with these characters and I've never stunted before.
-[X] Use Nero200's stunt
-[X] Use Strings & Songs
-[X] Use 2 WP
This write-in sounds interesting, but given the 2-die penalty compared to using Empathy, I think we need the WP to even the odds. That said, though-
I will note, Exalted is a game very much designed around the idea of taking more narratively-interesting options than the bare minimum. That's the entire purpose of the stunting system, to give a mechanical incentive for the players to do more than just say "I do X."
So I feel like it'd be very fitting with the spirit of the tabletop game to ensure that the more narratively-interesting option - here using Strings & Songs - is as likely to succeed as the more optimized choice. Like, say, letting Utau do her own once-an-arc psionic skill upgrade on Strings & Songs (potentially without the XP cost since I don't think the mechanics for that are fully set up yet), while also giving us a 1-die stunt bonus to fully close the gap.
That's just my opinion, of course. You're the QM, do what you want.
Add: Realized I should note, I feel like Nero200's stunt still fits thematically with using Strings & Songs rather than Empathy for this. If it's ruled that another stunt needs to be used for Strings & Songs, though, I'll try to come up with something else; I just doubt it'll be as good, since I'm not very familiar with these characters and I've never stunted before.
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I mean, given that you can apply the 2WP to the other option as well, it is also narratively appropriate for the better option to be harder to pull off?
(Also, a stunt would be greatly preferred to make this more likely to work - we really don't want to fail this branch..)
I'm not good at stunting, and I was kinda intending for my vote to use Nero200's stunt. I'll edit my vote to make that clear.
Add: And that's a fair point (about better options being harder to pull off), but when the QM's commenting about how it's a shame that the more narratively-interesting option is disadvantaged compared to another one, I feel somewhat compelled to note that it doesn't have to be that way, especially when it comes to Exalted.
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