#Exalted

1 messages · Page 2 of 1

bleak escarp
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I mean

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it already is sorcery

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i've been saying that

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rain of doom, cantata of empty voices, as in the beginning, etc

bleak hazel
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aforementioned sidebar in the Sid book basically says "if you try to use this to end-run having to deal with other exalts and just blow up your problems, Ketchup Carjack is entirely within his rights to teleport in and fuck you up"

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Supernal abilities do really bend things though because it goes from " one of maybe half a dozen experienced prophet solars can cast this thing, tops, and they're all to some degree known factors" to "any random essence 1 solar could just know The Nuke Spell before anyone in Creation even knew they were an exalt" mechanically

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(this is far from the largest issue with Supernals, I continue to think they're probably the worst design decision in 3e by some margin)

velvet raft
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I like Supernal abilities a lot and I think it plays into the whole "yes even a newbie solar is potentially terrifying" narrative

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I just don't think that charm should exist

limpid badge
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im glad supernal exists because it does help with a lot of character concepts

velvet raft
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Frankly it was kind of an issue, narratively, in prior editions that starting Solars could get their shit kicked in pretty trivially by Ketchup and Company

bleak escarp
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Eh

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That was really more a problem of elder exalts being too active and willing to throw down with you.

velvet raft
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I prefer that starting Solars are legitimate threats, in any case

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As delilah says, it facilitates the solar fantasy at times

bleak escarp
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There is a very large excluded middle between 'legitimate threat' and 'can throw down with the literal oldest of the wise old kung fu masters in the exalted host' lol

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Solars are not and have never been setting-shaking hyperpowers the moment they Exalt, their themes are much more about the danger of how quickly they grow.

bleak hazel
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I do not like Supernal as a game design thing, it takes a lot of the power curve out of trying to mix solars with anything else because they can start with level 5 instagib charms and basically everyone else can't

bleak escarp
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Shounen heroes going through training montages and so on.

velvet raft
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Alright, so if they're not setting-shaking hyperpowers the moment they exalt, doesn't that fall into the middle you're claiming is being excluded?

lunar magnet
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I mean, Essence 5 is max level equivalent, which is the Solars we've been talking about.

bleak escarp
bleak hazel
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doesn't help that a lot of the charms are Not Good, but the gap between, say, Supernal Brawl dawn solar who can throw essence 5 charms around to instantly delete basically anyone else and your average punchy Lunar or Sidereal at essence 1 is just nonsensical

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then all of a sudden your party is at, say, Essence 4, and the Ride Supernal solar doesn't even have a supernal anymore because that tree only goes to 3

lunar magnet
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Look, that part of the system is the fault of the Spite Release.

bleak hazel
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"you have one ability that you are super mega great at" is very fluffy for Solars, but why couldn't it be, say, +1 essence for qualification, or a higher dice cap with that ability, or anything but "fuck it, you're max level right now, party balance is now gone"

velvet raft
bleak escarp
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Like from my perspective, no it is not an issue that a starting Solar can get their shit trivially kicked in by Chejop. A starting Solar should get their shit kicked in by Chejop, to be blunt. But they've got room to grow scary fast off of local challenges and powers, and Chejop is busy with office politics and a thousand spinning plates of upholding the current world order.

lunar magnet
bleak escarp
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I just said

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He's busy with office politics and a thousand spinning plates.

bleak hazel
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he has rather bigger problems, and so do the max level Lunars, Shikari, Yozi and Deathlords

lunar magnet
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Like, sure, there's the siddie office politics. But he's the Bronze Cast member.

dense verge
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Supernal in concept is good, you have The Thing You Are Legendary For, but supernal in execution is bad as it just skips the progression curve and breaks game bounds over its knee, agree

lunar magnet
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The entire ordeal is his idea.

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In no uncertain terms, everything is his fault.

bleak escarp
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Yeah, and that means he has bigger concerns to deal with than personally roaming the world in an eternal circuit of trying to play whack-a-mole with a hundred and fifty freshly Exalted Solars.

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That's what the Wyld Hunt is for!

bleak hazel
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Chejop, Leviathan, your average Heavenly Censor or Deathlord, quite a lot of other things should be able to hand a starting Solar their behind, because otherwise why bother playing the game?

bleak escarp
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Yeah

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There have gotta be challenges you grow to tackle.

bleak hazel
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the enemy show up, you punch them into salami with your character creation essence 5 fist and go home

lunar magnet
bleak escarp
bleak hazel
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there's nobody and nothing out there to Be Consequences if one exalt type just starts out able to solo anything in Creation, and not everything can be purely a question of not punching out the support pillars of the world

bleak escarp
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Solars are mighty, they're not unstoppable, c'mon

lunar magnet
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Congratulations, you managed to kill Catskill Kabob. What happens to heaven now?

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All those spinning plates are about to come crashing down.

velvet raft
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In any case, Ketchup or whoever can still kick a starting solar's shit in, but the point is that (a) it is not trivial for any one of the 80-bajillion Wyld Hunts or high-essence DBs or bronze faction sidereals or any number of spirits to beat up a starting solar, and (b) it is now possible to have a character concept for a starting solar that can reasonably involve doing highly impressive stuff.

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Supernal abilities mean there's A Thing You Can Do Absurdly Well

sick kraken
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I do think something being missed here is uh, essence 1 solars are not as good as essence 5 anything?

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Like, supernal or not, they have less essence

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They can't do essence 5 combat shit for long

bleak hazel
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sure, and the way that's ended up is not "you can do something better than everyone but other solar specialists" but "if you have a Dawn Solar combat supernal in the party, anything that can remotely challenge them is going to turn any other Exalt type into soup"

lunar magnet
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And that's fine.

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Combat isn't everything.

velvet raft
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I also just don't find that to be the case

bleak hazel
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it feels kind of awful if I want to play, say, a Sidereal martial arts master in a mixed circle and all the threats get oneshot by Rampage Berserker Attack

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what am I there for, at Essence 1?

bleak escarp
# velvet raft In any case, Ketchup or whoever *can* still kick a starting solar's shit in, but...

I mean frankly if a starting Solar meets Chejop then no I think that Solar should pretty trivially mcfucking die. But like. That doesn't happen, because Chejop is a busy guy who has got things to do. Dealing with a Wyld Hunt is a more realistic prospect, which is why the game frames that as something you can lie low to postpone dealing with, and evade, and Wyld Hunts are now stretched thin and highly variable so that the Wyld Hunt at your table can be calibrated to 'you have grown enough to tackle this as a climactic challenge'.

velvet raft
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And it still can

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I feel like there's this implicit claim being made that supernal abilities mean there's only one way all games can flow and I just don't think that's accurate

bleak hazel
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I do not think Supernals as they are constituted do good things to the game in general despite not being an awful idea in the abstract

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they do not remove the game, but they do remove very large parts of the game if someone, say, shows up wanting to make Solar Punchman

lunar magnet
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As a proud Bureaucracy Supernal person.

bleak escarp
lunar magnet
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I am the better bureaucrat over time.

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But I kinda need those Ox-Bodies to not die.

velvet raft
bleak hazel
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CK doesn't have stats yet, but it's fairly easy to make a starting Solar that can handle anything in the core book in maybe two rounds tops

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and most of the things in the other books, for that matter

sick kraken
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It's also easy to go "hey, maybe don't do that"

bleak escarp
# velvet raft I didn't posit that

#1161699000836165714 message "Frankly it was kind of an issue, narratively, in prior editions that starting Solars could get their shit kicked in pretty trivially by Ketchup and Company" in a discussion about Supernals is implicitly asserting that having Supernals is a reason this is no longer the case. You did, in fact, posit that.

bleak hazel
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the game and the other Exalt types are not well calibrated to live in a universe where Solars (and kind of Abyssals, although less so because their charms are better written) just get to entirely skip the growth curve in their area of interest

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especially if you want to play anything besides a party of all Solars

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"you're super good at fight, maybe someone else shouldn't come fight you solo" - sure, did that have to be done by removing level requirements or could they have gotten a buff that still allows Solars to grow into their specialty over time?

velvet raft
sick kraken
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A lot of charms scale based on essence, or are capped by essence. Why are we ignoring that in this discussion of leveling curves?

bleak hazel
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because enough of them don't that the power gap between "solar that bought their way up to Essence 4/5" and "everyone else stuck at Essence 1" is too big for most parties to feel nicely balanced, in my experience

sick kraken
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At a certain point, it's better and more interesting for characters to branch out, while also being encouraged mechanically

sick kraken
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And the easy solution is to say "hey, can you not play a brawl supernal in this game that I'm playing a sidereal martial artist? It sort of makes things difficult"

bleak hazel
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the non-combat trees are also pretty skewed here, but it's rather more obvious when the comparison shows up things like "Athletics Supernal Solar that oneshot three encounters solo" next to "Lunar throwing essence 1 strength/dex charms around"

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(something I actually saw, in the last game I was in)

sick kraken
bleak hazel
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a Craft solar, using the admittedly extremely broken craft system, can bang out First Age wonders at a rate of about one per five months at character creation

bleak hazel
sick kraken
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And I know the lunar in this example isn't a non-combat character, but the solution is the same

bleak hazel
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nobody had gone off and taken ten social charms

sick kraken
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At the end of the day, that's not a supernal problem

bleak hazel
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if Supernal was not there, it would not really be a problem, because Essence 5 solar charms would come online roughly at the same time that Essence 5 anyone else charms would and people would be on a far more even playing field

sick kraken
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Yes, and if no one takes supernal combat abilities, that's not an issue

bleak hazel
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if Supernal was, say, "+5 dice cap to the supernal ability" Solars would still be really scary but they would not be able to leap straight to "nuclear punch the entire encounter into hell" at character creation and it would be way easier to make games for them and build parties without having to have a three hour conversations about how to houserule the Solars at campaign start

sick kraken
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I do think "the splat that is explicitly better than the others is better than them" is not an issue

dense verge
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the solution to supernal shouldn't be "hey don't engage with this system because it breaks this", the system should be fixed to allow people to engage with it without breaking the rest of the game

bleak hazel
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the Exigent book, among others, goes "there are two power tiers, Celestial and Terrestrial, balance against them in general" so "solars are SSS+ tier, everyone else starts at B and goes down" doesn't really seem like designer's intent

sick kraken
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I mean, I don't think anything in the solar book is the intent of the current designers

bleak hazel
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there's also no NPC printed in the core book and basically no NPC printed in any other book that can survive the Dawn Solar pressing all their E5 character creation buttons on them, so it's not like the GM has access to "break glass in case of supernal" options to balance around these people without homebrewing those too

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E5 fighty Solars being terrifying murder monsters is absolutely not a problem, but it can be a bit of an issue when the only thing stopping them doing it at character creation is gentleman's agreement

lunar magnet
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So there is a way to beat teh character creation Supernal.

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And that's if they want to be truly killy to that degree, they're probably not as hale and hearty as they could be.

sick kraken
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I mean, if someone wants to make a character that can do essence 5 bullshit, that's fine

lunar magnet
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So, you know. You can kill them.

sick kraken
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They can use, like, what, 2 attacks before they have to stop?

lunar magnet
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Correct.

bleak hazel
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that is usually two dead encounters, which is as much or more than a party who built well-rounded non-Solars and had to actually spend time doing things other than one-shotting people would get

empty creek
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Dammit now I want to play Exalted…

bleak hazel
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they are theoretically killable, but they are extremely game-warping and very difficult to balance around without a shedload of house rules

sick kraken
empty creek
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I just read the entire convo

sick kraken
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They need to get initiative and then hit with a decisive attack

bleak hazel
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most recently, it was Athletics Supernal pressing the E5 "turn into a battlegroup" charm" and the Brawl Supernal using Rampage Berserker Attack to smack someone for 40 initiative in one attack and then reflexively decisive them for an instant kill

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both of those easily took down two encounters solo

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those did not take up so many charms that they were deprived of ox-body and basic defenses, which is what everyone else had, being essence 1

sick kraken
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It sounds like have two supernal combat characters is the issue

bleak hazel
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those were in different games

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and both of them provoked a huge row ending in "please make a different Solar" from every other player and the GM

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I feel that if you can't press the "be really good at X" button as a Solar without breaking System X wide open to the point nobody else can profitably engage in it, the button might need a tiny bit of toning down

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combat is just the simplest thing to benchmark because there's a lot of it and the system puts a vast amount of effort into outlining interesting combat systems

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if a Sidereal could access E5 Sid charms from one ability they'd break the game too, this is very much a product of getting to instantly skip the level curve

sick kraken
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This sounds like a session 0 problem

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Also, narratively, this sounds like a "and then a wyld hunt kills you" problem

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Since spending the essence to do that will put you at bonfire

bleak hazel
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those are all problems that the Lunars that were also attempting to have interesting fights also have, they just didn't get to oneshot the fights

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sure, it's a session zero problem, but only insofar as the session zero didn't include "please don't put supernals on anything combat-related"

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the other ones also break their specialties but nobody is quite so concerned about Solar Sail master shutting out the rest of the party because it's a tiny bit more niche

sick kraken
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I mean, what did those characters do outside of combat?

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They do not sound like characters, they sound like they are combat tools

dense verge
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boat-body technique is truly the unsung hero of circles

sick kraken
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Let me ask this another way

bleak hazel
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one of them was a 1000mph max athletics messenger, the other one was just punching, but the combat specialties anything else has also don't get out-of-combat utility and do not break the combat system in half by pressing their normal buttons

sick kraken
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Supernal abilities say a lot about your character

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A brawl supernal character needs a reason to be that way

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Why are they good at fighting?

bleak hazel
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there was a brief attempt to balance an encounter against the killy solar that ended up incapacitating the swordmaster lunar and immaculate martial arts monk in about 0.2 seconds when they tried to fight the Abyssal instead of waiting for the solar to do it

sick kraken
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My solar was an awareness supernal spy. High awareness makes you very very good at combat, but being very good at combat is not what a spy is. So I didn't have good combat stats

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A solar Athlete that is athletics supernal better have a good fucking reason to be good at combat

bleak hazel
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they are good at fighting for similar reasons that the melee 5, dex 5, artifact daiklaive swordmaster Lunar was good at fighting, but completely trivialised about half the game's systems out of character creation and ended up making it very unsatisfying to Have Fights

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which I feel is an issue with the game design and balance rather than character self-justification

sick kraken
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That's why they fight good

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I don't mean mechanics, I mean narrative

next delta
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Exalted 3e is weird because going down a given skill tree (particularly as Solars) tends to trivialize those mechanics. (It also was never a design goal for 3e to have mixed exalted groups aiui)

bleak hazel
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the Brawl Supernal killbot was an arena gladiator, I think, but I don't think "quality of player-provided backstory" is what decides whether the mechanics of the game are good or not in this case

bleak hazel
next delta
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Ah, I guess after the original devs, uh, left

dense verge
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core 3e's lead devs being sacked after core would do it, yeah

bleak hazel
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and obviously the Exigent book provides explicit guidelines for balancing your new splats against the two power tiers of Celestial (solar, lunar, sid, abyssal) and Terrestrial (Deebs, Liminals and friends)

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which seem like the intended categories

sick kraken
bleak hazel
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most TTRPG games are about characters, it doesn't stop people needing to balance the potential kinds of characters against each other to some extent

next delta
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Solars is definitely the weakest splat, design wise, unfortunately

lunar magnet
sick kraken
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Yes. And if someone min-maxes some bullshit, that's a session zero issue, not a system issue

bleak hazel
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you don't even need to min-max them, you just pick supernal, pick brawl and buy your way down the tree to the big shiny capstone

sick kraken
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Yeah, but WHY are they that good at brawl?

bleak hazel
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that is all but advertised as the intended way to build an X-specialty Solar

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regardless of how well you fluff it

next delta
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Yeah, you don't need to optimize very hard. You just go downa combat tree

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Or any charm tree really

bleak hazel
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just going up the tree will make you so much stronger than everyone else that it becomes incredibly difficult to design challenges in your area of specialty that can provide a satisfying test to the Supernal solar without either wiping out the rest of the party or seriously straining the scope of the system

next delta
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Though I think this is partially an issue with how strong specialization is in 3e. It would be a bit less of an issue if combat was fast

bleak hazel
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the Essence limits on stuff in general are seemingly designed as a fairly straightforward scaling system and just outright removing it is a rather bad way to produce narratively satisfying power boosts

sick kraken
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You aren't removing it though

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Like, again, a lot of stuff cares about your essence

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Those two examples don't

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It's almost like the ex3 core book is a bit badly designed

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And balanced

next delta
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I feel like most stuff doesn't scale off of Essence that hard? Particularly combat charms?

sick kraken
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Supernals aren't the issue

bleak hazel
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I really think they are at least most of it

sick kraken
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I remember it being very present, but don't have anything on hand right now and should sleep anyways

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Also, that athletics charm you mentioned isn't in the core book\

bleak hazel
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there are a few incredibly cracked charms, but they tend to be at Essence 3+, and as such you can only deploy them against Essence 1 threats because Supernal lets you skip right there

sick kraken
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Which I mostly mention because miracles of the solar exalted is a bit fucked up

dense verge
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out of like 27 essence 2+ melee charms for instance, 8 of them have mechanics that scale with essence, and are still more or less functional at essence 1

next delta
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My vague recollection was that DB charms were much harsher on the essence scaling (when it did exist)

bleak hazel
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Deeb charms in general are heavier on "be X number better at rolls for thing" and lighter on "just do a thing, no roll required" as far as I can tell

next delta
bleak hazel
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they also make it far wider in scale because everyone else can't even get remotely close

next delta
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Oh, yeah this is before we even get to inter-splat balance

lunar magnet
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Inter-splat balance doesn't exist, and was never intended to exist until Essence.

bleak hazel
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if you build a Lunar or Sidereal combat character at E5, you can also become a spectacular system-breaking murder monster, it's just that Solars can do that almost accidentally at character creation, and the GM has a lot more trouble cranking up the difficulty to match because in every other regard the party is actually essence 1

bleak hazel
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on a more pleasant note, my Sid is two conversations into this campaign and their boss is already using their evasion stat to dodge questions

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best splatbook ever

next delta
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Sidereals are delightfully weird

prisma sun
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To be fair the game is explicit that if you're doing an inter splat Circle you should give the non solars more starting xp

limpid badge
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anyway i am rebuilding my solar again

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im giving a 12 year old the mandate of heaven for solving crime

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empty creek
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Surprising absolutely nobody, I love Lunars

limpid badge
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lunars are good but. i love when the hero rises up from nothing and forces the world to admit things can get better.

bleak hazel
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Solar investigation is a surprisingly good time, it's one of my favourite Solar trees

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I'm still No. 1 Sid enjoyer but it's close in that domain at least

dense verge
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ive got a db lying around thats my attempt at making a db do lunar things

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campaign of assassination and sabotage at the realm with infiltration and disguise

limpid badge
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real fake lunars

dense verge
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told to make lunar, instructions unclear, made dragonblood

prisma sun
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I love being a giant tiger

dense verge
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true!

limpid badge
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ur proper lunar is a... lynx right?

dense verge
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lynx, although im not too settled on the shape since thats not their main focus

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they're more into people shapes

limpid badge
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that's really fair

dense verge
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defining shape hard

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anyway that lunar is all about getting debts owed to them

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shadow-prince of the rivers (long term goal)

limpid badge
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tema is shaping up to be a lil fuckin weirdo i do love her

empty creek
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Getting into a good Exalted game is on the bucket list

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The last time I tried it was in 2e and it was a fucking disaster

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This was the game where the gym killed my character to ‘teach me a lesson’ because I didn’t spend all my bonus xp boosting essence

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…

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Gm not gym

prisma sun
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Yknow

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I had a flashback while thinking about king hu

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About this insanely sketchy zoo I went to in nowhere new jersey

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That let me pet a tiger

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As a child

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That was not a safe thing for me to do

spring lynx
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i pet a tiger as a kid too

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played with some wolves, too

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friend of the family runs a show animal retirement home

lament owl
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I am curious chat

Tell me about your fav exigent you have cooked up

light olive
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I'm thinking about exalted demons again. I should look up various D&D archfiends and see which ones are cool enough to fit in Exalted Hell

bleak hazel
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there is an opposing Sid in the Sidereal/Lunar game I'm playing

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we learned about this because they moved to Read Intentions my Chosen of Endings, triggering Expected Pain, a charm that gives me precognition of a bad thing happening to me

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the fact I passed the roll there and would have detected them triggered their Expected Pain, stopping them from Reading my Intentions to begin with, at which point they used their precog reflexive action to pop Avoidance Kata, retconning the entire incident

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this happened before either participant could actually perceive the other with their human eyes

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we figured all this out later after a ten minute deduction session

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Sidereals are great

prisma sun
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You guys after that exchange

bleak hazel
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yeah, that's dead on

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having a high essence sid running around fucking with us in ways we can't really hit back at is a problem but it was funny that they grounded out on all the awareness charms that my Detective Sid was packing

velvet raft
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JK Simmons good

next delta
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Having listened to an exalted related podcast on martial arts (and how they are kind of orientalized), I wish the martial arts structure was Brawl/Melee/etc. abilities as a base you layer a martial arts specialization on. Instead of the core skill being it's own style and then the martial arts be some special other special style. So e.g. you'd also have martial arts for what the realm legionnaires combat style is. (And then I'd let martial arts combo with the core charms instead of with each other)

prisma sun
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Yeah that'd be better

dense verge
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would be better than merit tax and associated

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also hi voy ive been on an exalted kick recently

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got the chargen bug now that i got my head around how to do it

velvet raft
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And the thing is, once you open up that mechanical architecture to attacking abilities

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There's no reason you can't open it up to all kinds of other stuff

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Just as sort of a default structure for cross-splat charms

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Possibly even using the tags martial arts already uses to tone down or tone up some charms for some exalt types

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The existing formulation where that's exclusive to kung fu is fine, but also kind of odd!

next delta
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Yes. Though the books are already ginormous lol

velvet raft
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Yeah

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And take long enough to develop

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Exalted has this problem of its scope being far greater than OPP’s capacity to represent in its current mechanically intensive form

next delta
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Though you can hypothetically cut down on the splat specific charms this way. It kind of depends on where you want to draw splat line differentiation?

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Would have been neat to add to exalted essence

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Though I guess they already have generic charms for that lol

lunar magnet
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On the other hand for Martial arts, we also run into the problem of things like Centipede Style comboing with basically everything.

velvet raft
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In 2.5 it kind of seemed like they were moving in that direction, with some truly weird martial arts that didn’t actually have much martial arts to them

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Like Throne Shadow

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Which was “evil vizier yelling, ‘guards, seize them!’” as a martial art

next delta
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Haha, amazing

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Having the martial art merit tied to brawl is weird for a bunch of the martial arts already (the gun one in particular)

velvet raft
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I feel like (again, in a perfect world with limitless time and resources) what you’d do is name them “secret arts” or something and have them specifically be things which are slightly off-theme for Exalt types but which are not specific to fighting

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So you could have social arts, for instance

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And in some cases I suppose you could use this to make unusual abilities effective in combat, as Throne Shadow kinda suggests

next delta
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That could be neat, yeah

velvet raft
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So now your Bureaucracy Solar can contribute more in combat? I dunno

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But. Time and resources.

bleak hazel
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there's a keyword called "Versatile" that allows a charm to be used with martial arts

next delta
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I think it's much more feasible in Essence where they are like, a 3 or so charm tree (and noncombat skills are already somewhat useful in combat and vice versa)

bleak hazel
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which is scattered all over their main combat ability trees

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so my current Sid is Sid Melee + a dash of Violet Bier of Sorrows + Prismatic Arrangement of Creation

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it's great

velvet raft
next delta
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Yeah, that's a bit of a backwards way to do it from what I prefer but it's understandable given the framework they are working with

bleak hazel
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it's also how Lunars work by default

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their charms are attribute-based not ability-based, so they all work with Martial Arts

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or at least the vast majority

velvet raft
bleak hazel
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if I was going for a full kill character he would also have Snake Style

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but I also wanted to do a lot of awareness and a bit of investigation/occult so I had to leave that one out

next delta
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(too bad the current devs weren't in charge of the core book)

bleak hazel
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I think it was extremely important for the core book in particular because the Solar core combat abilities are these huge bloated trees with fifty bazillion charms to do everything twice

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many of which are broken as hell

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so I could see not wanting to risk every single martial art touching off some kind of combinatoric explosion on contact with Solar Brawl

#

the other splats are more reasonable

#

the book on making your own custom Exalt types that the new devs put out explicitly labels the attribute-based exalt ability to combo everything with MA as a very strong perk that had to be balanced out

#

you can't just give it to Solaroids on top of all their other nonsense

next delta
bleak hazel
#

I am in the odd spot of preferring 3e to Essence for everything besides Solars

#

3e just hits the bit of my brain that adores crunch

velvet raft
#

I really like 3e

next delta
#

That's fair! It's definitely way, way less crunchy

velvet raft
#

Mostly

next delta
#

And if you love dice tricks, there are way less lol

bleak hazel
#

I could definitely see a 3.5e pulling a few ideas from Essence without changing the core structure very much

velvet raft
#

But unless you’re willing to put in a shit-ton of work (see: Golden Calibration), it seems much less hackable

bleak hazel
#

the idea of basic charms for all exalt types is great

#

nobody cares to hash out the exact differences between the solar, abyssal, lunar and sidereal versions of "detect dematerialized"

#

also "win ties' is a better Solar perk than most of the ones in the 3e core book, by my reckoning

#

the Solar tree has the worst of 3e, because it's just bloated with a billion annoyingly inconsistent dice tricks

next delta
bleak hazel
#

I originally thought that the Solar bloat was to add a bunch of prereqs to limit the nonsense that could be done with Supernal, but Abyssals manage fine with a lot less, so it may just have been a bad call

velvet raft
#

Have you looked at Golden Calibration, Misc?

bleak hazel
next delta
#

The current devs are better than the original devs is an uncontroversial take I think

#

Though at least the fiasco changed how Onyx Path did things quite a lot

bleak hazel
velvet raft
bleak hazel
#

Golden Calibration is about the most you could do to Solars without starting A Fight, it's very uncontroversially good

next delta
#

I like how golden calibration was like "no other book cares about project limits, so the solar charms about that have been removed" lol

next delta
#

Legacy rules are a heavy burden

bleak hazel
#

I like the idea of Supernal, "pick one thing and one thing only to be the bestest at" is very Solar, but I think how it was done is just about the worst possible implementation that could exist

lunar magnet
#

Oh good I get to hear this conversation again.

bleak hazel
#

although admittedly if you went through and nerfed maybe a dozen charms it would become a lot more reasonable

velvet raft
#

Let's not get into the weeds on this again, although I do have one query

bleak hazel
velvet raft
#

If there were more ways for non-combat Supernals to interact with combat substantively using their Supernal ability, would that solve some of your concerns?

bleak hazel
#

no

velvet raft
#

Okay

#

Did not quite think so

#

But was curious

bleak hazel
#

the craft system is actually the one place I think Supernal does great things because it turns out if you do a totally optimised mega crafter build and use Supernal to grab an exact pattern of maybe 10-11 charms, you can collide all the jank systems into each other and functionally remove the annoying parts of the craft system

#

which is very funny to me

#

by our powers combined, we have removed five pages of rules text and can now actually make daiklaives without going insane

#

(thank you very much to the one forum poster that figured this out, the Solar crafter in one of my campaigns was incredibly happy about it)

next delta
#

I think an overhaul to Craft and an actual system for Bureaucracy are one of the two biggest asks people have for 3e

bleak hazel
#

Bureaucracy is actually one of my favourite trees, I think that a) it could really use a small system to hook into to make it smoother and b) it benefitted significantly from not having one in core book design, because it means all the charms actually have to do things other than provide system tax rebates like in Craft

#

there's nothing to dice trick at so they couldn't write too many dice tricks

#

on a non-Solar note, I am absolutely loving all the Necromancy stuff in the Abyssal draft

#

it feels like a really crisp redo of sorcery without just being samey

#

a lot of it is generally doom-themed but in some really fun ways, there's a "summon ghost jazz band" spell as well as all your usual skeleton hordes and flesh golems

velvet raft
#

I hear naval combat is pretty bad

#

Though I've not experienced it

#

I know nobody cares about Sail other than me

#

But I care about Sail

bleak hazel
#

I've heard it shares the issue the strategic combat rules have, which is that the underlying system is not bulky enough to absorb an entire charm tree of different things based solely around boat-related combat

#

we had a Sail Solar lined up for my most recent campaign but sadly they had to drop out

lunar magnet
#

Oh, it's worse than naval combat is bad.

#

The Sail rules are unfinished.

bleak hazel
#

they had a fun build basically based around taking everything in Sail that wasn't about naval combat

#

which surprisingly enough had a lot of juice attached

next delta
#

Naval combat also doesn't interact well with the rest of the combat system

#

(which is another thing Essence did decently)

bleak hazel
#

not to keep going "I love abyssals I love abyssals" but their Sail tree is also mostly non-naval-combat things

#

lots of dread pirate theming

next delta
#

Nice

bleak hazel
#

you get to turn an island or a port into your evil doom lair

next delta
#

I assume you get a ghost or otherwise dead people ship skill?

bleak hazel
#

there's like five of those, yeah

lunar magnet
#

I like the ghost sharks in Abyssal Sail.

bleak hazel
#

but the big one is the ghost ship charm that can later be "ghost island" or "ghost armada"

next delta
#

What does Whispers mean (if there is a short description, otherwise I can just read the manuscript lol)

bleak hazel
#

merit you can take that lets the Neverborn whisper in your ear 1/whenever

#

spend for various doomoid-themed buffs, but then the GM gets to invoke it to debuff you occasionally in return

#

there's also this one that is great

image.png
#

"everybody says I'm super cool and evil"

next delta
#

The special activation rule is great

chilly sluice
#

Whispers is pretty funny

#

you might think having the Neverborn constantly whisper in your ear for some benefits is perhaps not a great time
and you would be correct

#

but think of the upsides

bleak hazel
#

You can use it to get tons of necromancy juice, which I love

#

any character can be a solid combat caster if they go on down to Old Primordial Bill's Used Tomes store

#

only mild side effects

chilly sluice
bleak hazel
#

whispers' upgrade is wierd because I could totally see campaigns where 1/session is more common than 1/day

#

but it does let you get 4-dot necromancy juice, which is great

next delta
#

The mixing of narrative and in universe time is a bit unfortunate

bleak hazel
#

the Abyssal I've been making for a few days is Daybreak Caste, which lets you slam 9 free necromantic motes into a thing 1/day with Whispers and basically autocast a low level necromancy spell

#

that can be very fun

#

especally with the one that makes someone's skeleton defect and join the skeleton war

empty creek
#

Is the Abyssal stuff out yet, or is this all Essence stuff?

bleak hazel
#

the draft manuscript is out

#

honestly I love it

empty creek
#

Nice

bleak hazel
#

best book yet besides Sids

empty creek
#

I want

#

I am making grabby hands at my screen

bleak hazel
#

I am very much looking forward to the day I can join an Abyssal campaign

#

I have this craft supernal Abyssal with White Veil Style and too much necromancy lined up and ready to go

#

....honestly he's basically Sauron but what can you do, there are only so many fictional evil blacksmiths

empty creek
#

There was an abortive campaign i was in

#

A long time ago

#

With 2e

#

Lasted one session

#

But one of the characters was a guy who was chosen by the Mask of Winters specifically because he wanted an expert poisoner

#

...But all he wanted to do was cook

#

His motivation was to open a restaurant overlooking the Mouth of the Void

bleak hazel
#

oh that's fun

#

I do like imagining Supernal Craft Solar/Abyssal

#

who is just a cook

#

I believe the charm gardening people had a running bit about this

#

"I have spent ten years breeding the Glorious Solar Chicken! Now I can include the perfect egg in my legendary cake"

#

my chosen Deathlord is also Winters, he has good evil overlord vibes

#

gets things done

velvet raft
#

I'm not gonna lie, I enjoy First and Forsaken Lion

#

Plus he comes packaged with Princess Magnificent so--

bleak hazel
#

FAFL is also fun

#

honestly I'm not sure what the Green Lady is up to these days because the Sid book does not clarify, but I think she's still infiltrating the courts of half a dozen deathlords at once

empty creek
#

Also Walker in Darkness

#

Who was murdered by the Solar that would become the Mask of Winters

#

The Mask remembers this. The Walker does not.

#

This, naturally, makes relations between them Interesting ™️

#

I forget

#

Who was the one that everybody hates

chilly sluice
empty creek
#

Because he does nothing but keep reincarnating and exalting his former solar circle as Abyssals and getting them killed over and over again.

#

Eye and Seven Despairs, that was it

bleak hazel
#

Eye is less obnoxious this edition

#

has some mad science going on, which Winters buys all the time

chilly sluice
#

He is less just a stalker and kind of a loser

#

And actually competent

bleak hazel
#

he's still kind of the friend nobody likes

#

but he has some actually useful evil overlord things happening

dense verge
#

the deathlord courts all have various bonelords, flesh-revenants, risen wraiths, and that one lady who is color coded green for some reason

next delta
chilly sluice
#

Some of the deathlords tolerate each other

empty creek
#

Gruding respect for a rival that's good at his job

#

Vs. "Dude, you are LITERALLY the most intelligent mind in the underworld, what the FUCK are you doing wasting all your time and resources continually torturing your assets instead of actually using them?"

velvet raft
#

Falafel has authority over Princess Magnificent so they're kind of a set (she hates him a lot tho)

dense verge
#

@bleak hazel youd maybe get a kick out of this, to one of my wallflower players whos also into exalted, i described ||Beggar One|| as being a Deathlord if the game was translated to Creation

velvet raft
bleak hazel
#

also all the smart guys are on different sides and vigorously trying to fix the setting in ten different directions

empty creek
#

Pretty much

velvet raft
#

Or, to put it differently

IMG_3015.webp
empty creek
#

Yes

bleak hazel
#

Exalted is very good at establishing that all these ancient master exalts who greatly respect and know each other have not settled on an extremely uneasy and somewhat violent stalemate because it's the thing they'd most like to do

velvet raft
bleak hazel
#

looking at you, ketchup carjack

#

one of my favourite characters in any TTRPG because of how much he knows he's fucked up

#

and how little he's set up as "final evil overlord" for the PCs

#

he's going to die in like five years, why bother

empty creek
#

He's also emblematic of how the Great Curse effects Sidereals

#

It's not overt insanity

velvet raft
#

Which is basically "they will commit to bad ideas"

empty creek
#

It's overweening hubris and the inability to admit that your actions were incorrect or unjustified

#

Yes

bleak hazel
#

all the elder sids are great honestly

#

I like Anys Syn too because she shows up and deliberately conducts herself like an anime character

#

calls all her attacks and explains every move for several paragraphs because she likes training people

dense verge
#

i love chejop because he's the embodiment of the old order, the entrenched institutions that continue for continuations sake rather than any principle, that's him, that's Status Quo. he sucks so much i love him its like you gave a 80 year old centrist senator martial arts enlightenment

bleak hazel
#

he also knows everyone, he's not sitting there cackling, he's going to tea with all his factional enemies and wondering whether he truly accomplished anything with his life

velvet raft
#

The Great Curse is interesting to me because for all that it's a justification for exalts to be total assholes sometimes, it's got this sort of interesting meta component where it doesn't need to be there in the narrative, and its real function is to mechanically enforce "you are a big hero with big passions and you will make bad decisions"

bleak hazel
#

such a good counterpoint to the usual version of Most Powerful Man In The Universe

#

or at least a strong contender to the title

velvet raft
#

BoKL in 2e meant he could, if he wanted, literally walk into the Jade Pleasure Palace and tell the Incarnae what to do using its penultimate charm

#

He doesn't do that but like

bleak hazel
#

3e has done a really good job of presenting a good spread of factional elders that make it clear that nobody is running around with the Correct Interpretation Of Everything

velvet raft
#

Dude's on top of the world and it turns out almost everything he did was just making things worse

#

And he kinda knows that

bleak hazel
#

CK, that one Lunar sorceress whose name I can't remember, deathlords being deathlords, Leviathan, Big Red's chapter fiction

velvet raft
#

But he's also unwilling to admit the ways he might make it better

dense verge
bleak hazel
#

that's the ticket

velvet raft
#

Because that would validate the conclusion that he has wasted the last 5,000 years

bleak hazel
#

also a big fan of Leviathan because he's basically a map hazard

#

DANGER: Emo Orca

velvet raft
#

Leviathan is good

dense verge
#

look at what you did you gave aquaman depression.

bleak hazel
#

my favourite Lunar has to be Sublime Danger

#

zero political leanings

#

100% of her brain is occupied by hyperfixating on swords

#

gets stronger if you try to sword at her because she designates you as her shonen rival

dense verge
#

no sowrds was correct

upper stratus
#

there's big red chapter fiction? i must've missed her

bleak hazel
#

There is, I'm not sure if it's core book or deeb book

bleak hazel
# dense verge no sowrds was correct

she has a clause that says that if you're her Solar Mate she automatically designates you as her rival regardless of how good at swords you are

#

I would really like to run Abyssal Craftgar as her opposite number because it sounds really fun to just keep popping up and giving her new evil swords as a gift while refusing to ever duel her

#

only mildly cursed objects, go on, you know you want them

bleak hazel
upper stratus
#

yippeee

#

it's interesting cause they always avoided direct depiction of big red until Return of the Scarlet Empress, which gave them a lot of reason to return to not doing that

bleak hazel
#

this is a suitably restrained depiction of Her Redness, I think

dense verge
#

very true

empty creek
#

wait someobdy already answered

#

Derp

bleak hazel
#

I really like the deeb book

prisma sun
#

Chejop showing up like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYAPgPH9hsI

YouTube
Crimson
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance OST It Has To Be This Way Extended

Official Lyrics:
Standing here
I realize
You are just like me
Trying to make history

But who's to judge
The right from wrong
When our guard is down
I think we'll both agree

That

Violence breeds violence
But in the end it has to be this way

I've carved my own path
You followed your wrath
But maybe we're both the same

The world has turned
And...

▶ Play video
bleak hazel
#

I should run a deeb campaign one of these days

#

seeing Hero has put me in the mindset

empty creek
#

I do like a lot of the signature Lunar NPCs from a narrative standpoint

bleak hazel
#

I like a lot of the actual Lunars but for some reason the Lunar deal as a whole has never grabbed me super hard

prisma sun
#

Lunars are my favorite

bleak hazel
#

maybe I am just unusally attached to characters who are part of these big and varyingly evil social machines, I get on really well with Sids, Deebs and Abyssals

empty creek
#

I like the idea of them being the archetypal "Barbarians" at the gates.

#

The remnant of the First Age the Dragon Blooded were unable to destroy, and now it's gone from 'annoying, but tolerable' to 'imminent threat'

bleak hazel
#

one of the games I was in once had the smuggest Solar ever and I swear I got 5% more Bronze Faction whenever she spoke, but Lunars I'm just kind of neutral on

#

they're neat

dense verge
#

lunars ive tried getting my mind around but after i realized that my one-man mercenary company lunar that shapeshifts into a battlegroup of dudes was impractical at e1 i ended up making a db by accident somehow in my second go of things

empty creek
#

While also having multiple Lunars who actually remember the First Age, remember how fucked up the Solars got, and do not want anything to do with them now that they're returning.

bleak hazel
#

yeah I do the same thing whenever I try to make a Lunar

#

I always end up with "what if I played an X that was just kind of lunar-adjacent"

#

most recently Thousand Wandering Stars, my Battles sid who hangs out with the Silver Pact and plans various Fated insurgencies

#

he loves being in the hills

prisma sun
#

I wanna play King Hu so bad

bleak hazel
#

number one convoy ambush enjoyer

#

I want to describe your deeb as "Temu Lunar" but really that does them a disservice, they're great

empty creek
#

I have a few Lunar concepts I want to try

prisma sun
#

I'm glad Lunars aren't the Wife Caste anymore.

dense verge
#

Redesign Your Lunar is a db that exalted in a far flung satrapy and the Realm burnt down her village when her parents didnt want to hand her over. she spent eight years training in the mountains, and due to her campaign of assassination and sabotage in the province, the Realm has mistaken this threat for the Lunar they killed a few years back like Huh, I thought we killed him

and the silver pact has gone wait we thought they killed him and has sent someone to investigate if that fucker faked his death without telling them

prisma sun
#

REDESIGN YOUR LUNAR

#

WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE DOING

upper stratus
bleak hazel
#

the Pact and the Vanguard give the Lunars a bit more cronch than the Solars, yeah

dense verge
prisma sun
#

So like

bleak hazel
#

whenever I think about making a Solar I just go "this could be an Abyssal and be about 15% cooler"

prisma sun
#

the thing I like about Lunars

upper stratus
#

yea solars are organized along the lines of nearly jack shit but to be fair they haven't been around in a hot minute

dense verge
#

she wishes she was a lunar so bad

#

moon worshipper

upper stratus
#

best bet is you can join the bull's doomed empire

prisma sun
#

is that you ARE ESTABLISHED as having "built your own weird kingdom in Creation that fights agains the Realm"

#

also posting King Hu's titles again

#

King Hu: Chieftain of the Roaring Bandit Clan, Shah of Beasts, Tiger-Father, Siegebreaker, He Who Topples Mountains, Prodigal Pupil of the Monkey King, Prince of The Jungle, Scourge of Mnemnon, The Beast Who Reigns, Teeth of The Moon, The Rout, Predator of Wayward Gods, The Dread That Comes With Night, The Raider of the Canopy, The Fury That Descends From the Clouds, The River Monster, Patriarch of the Bestial-Brood, The Bane of Civilization, The Wild Inevitable, The Rampage, The Purifying Rage Against the Dead, He Who Bites The Sun From the Sky, The Menace From the Forest’s Edge, Lover of Many, The Barbarous Beast, The Yeddimbacked, The Wildking, The Roar, and many more...

dense verge
#

local hillfolk have mistaken her for the dead lunar as well and she has inherited the cult of The Hungry Wolf of Fate

prisma sun
#

because I can and I'm leavving for work now

bleak hazel
#

I love that the iconic solar character in the core book besides the not!Player Characters is the Bull, who is busy eating shit despite accomplishing about half his goals

#

it's a nice reminder that you are not in fact king of everywhere just yet

#

got to go earn it

upper stratus
#

bro got stabbed with Plot Poison that is beyond the humble "cure everything ever" medicine charms

dense verge
#

love king hu

bleak hazel
#

they have many such buttons

upper stratus
#

sidereal plot all the way down

bleak hazel
#

including a supernatural disease specially calibrated for blowing up annoying high essence exalts

#

anti-lamp flu

bleak hazel
#

Sha'a Oka Lives etc.

#

they're usually too justified in their various wars for my liking, I like being part of Evil or at least Neutrally Administered Status Quo Inc., but it gets better when they get really extra with it

next delta
#

Eh, though they are often justified in the wars, they are also often not good people either

bleak hazel
#

yeah, there are plenty of Bastard Lunars

#

I don't know, they don't do it for me

prisma sun
#

King Hu is technically justified since he's fighting against Mnemnon and the Realm genocided his people but he doesn't actually know or care

#

He just doesn't like being told what to do

empty creek
prisma sun
#

And also he likes fighting

dense verge
#

right, i gave Redesign Your Lunar an actual name. Reska, Blood-Drinking Shade of the Broken Fang

#

major tie of "god i wish that were me" to lunars

bleak hazel
#

glad to see it's not just me who doesn't name my characters properly for ages

next delta
#

I wish I was better at hitting the vibe of exalted names

dense verge
#

ill admit The Hungry Wolf of Fate is just a king gizzard song

bleak hazel
#

I'm totally stuck on Abyssal names, which is funny because I can do everyone else

#

I just cannot do Evil Name That Unfolds Like Lotus Blossom

dense verge
#

Deathly Night Serves Those Never Born

#

abyssal that just wasnt trying when they were asked to name themself

bleak hazel
#

the name on Abyssal Craftgar's character sheet is currently "Crimson Rain Augurs Fell Tidings"

#

this is a placeholder because I couldn't figure out how to finish it

prisma sun
#

The Resplendent Pallid Lotus

next delta
#

Profane Utterance Blooms as the Midnight Lotus?

bleak escarp
empty creek
#

Okay, yeah

#

3e Eye and Seven Despairs is exponentially more interesting than 2e Eye and Seven Despairs

prisma sun
#

I really gotta get the Sidreal book

#

I wanna make one

prisma sun
#

God the Sidreals are so fucking funny

#

Cultivation "The Office"

prisma sun
#

Oh hey Crucible actually addresses Orientalism

bleak hazel
#

tonight on Misc Introduces New Players To Exalted - I say "that's actually a Sidereal charm" seven times in a row as the newbies crack jokes about what goes in the wuxia Bureaucracy tree

limpid badge
#

Correct!!!

next delta
#

Does bureaucracy get a charm that less you literally punch and/or cut people?

bleak hazel
#

the second charm in Sidereal Bureaucracy is "kill gods"

next delta
#

Spicy

spring lynx
prisma sun
#

The Sidreal charm where you put a bridle on a person is

#

loaded

next delta
#

and I thought the new devs moved away from putting their kinks into the game

warped ore
#

Solar Charisma has a Progression Mandatory Sex Charm, where did you get that idea from?

next delta
#

Those are from the fired devs!

#

I think

ruby geyser
#

they are

#

if its in the core book, miracles, or arms, it's from the old devs

next delta
#

Well, I think Vance did a bunch of the martial arts charms

#

I didn't realize they were involved with Arms of the Chosen

bleak hazel
#

"I sleep with whoever I damn well please, I am On The Job"

#

the Solar trying to lever their super-defining tie of love allows you to blow it up and resist for basically-free

warped ore
#

Celestial-grade BEGONE THOT power

#

Welcome to Sidereals.

next delta
#

The bonus on sacrificing hopeful intimacies is so bleak

warped ore
#

Welcome to sidereals 🙂

next delta
#

Yeah lol

bleak hazel
#

the entire Sidereal integrity tree is classic spy movie "sacrifice your soul for The Job" stuff

#

it rules

#

the Division of Endings is explicitly on that Heat grindset

#

Now, if you're on me and you gotta move when I move, how do you expect to keep a marriage?

ruby geyser
bleak hazel
#

this is the capstone for Sid Integrity

image.png
#

there is also one that lets you pay in literal blood instead of willpower to resist social influence

next delta
bleak hazel
#

also some great layout work here

#

putting this sidebar right below that ability title

image.png
#

I adore the Sidereal book, it's just perfect

next delta
#

This charm tree is kind of funny because you are in a sense rewarded for seesawing between gaining and losing hopeful intimacies?

bleak hazel
#

the first charm in the Integrity tree gives you lots of passive benefits for having them, so it encourages you strongly to be this James Bond figure

#

new girl every week, each of which you love truly, madly and deeply but will sacrifice the moment the job calls for it

#

honestly it's amazing characterisation

next delta
#

That's kind of cool

bleak hazel
#

Sid Integrity is one of the most Sid trees

#

Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.” I agree with the second part.

#

honestly the bit that really gets me is the clause in the capstone that says "if you sacrifice your defining love for someone, they instinctively realise that you've done this"

#

this is the mission statement for the Division of Endings

image.png
velvet raft
#

Was reminded of an old comment by a 1E exalted dev today

#

"High intelligence doesn't mean you'll do the right thing, it means you'll do the wrong thing incredibly well."

#

Just being very good at putting bad ideas into practice

spring lynx
velvet raft
#

Yep

#

It was specifically intended as a response to "why is the setting doing so badly when it's full of all these super-geniuses with inhumanly perfect foresight and planning abilities?"

#

And the point was, "yes and they use those powers to make terrible decisions"

prisma sun
#

If I make a Sidreal I think I'm gonna have him ride a songbird

#

I want same energy as Mercenary Tao

velvet raft
#

"Terrible decisions that no one can stop, because of the foresight and planning abilities"

prisma sun
#

god

#

I need someone to run Exalted...

velvet raft
#

The eternal problem is that running Exalted is A Lot

#

And there are so many cool player toys

#

And not as many cool GM toys

prisma sun
#

I mean every player toy is also a GM toy

velvet raft
#

In theory, but if you have to build an entire PC to do stuff that plays into it being A Lot

#

And like, if you look at NPC statblocks, they often have simplified versions of charms

#

The validity of "you can just use the player rules to create monsters/NPCs" is inversely correlated with the complexity of a game

prisma sun
#

Yeah I'm the only person in my of my friend groups who would ever run it

#

but I wanna PLAY it

velvet raft
#

That's the other part of it, the player toys make you want to build a cool cat who wins

#

Sometimes literally

#

In the case of a Lunar

prisma sun
#

My Lunar literally is a cool cat who wins pensivecowboy

velvet raft
#

I know :P

dense verge
#

the game hunger is real

#

also as far as sidereals using riding charms go, i had the idea of a bronze faction guy that has a flea circus he's trained to be ridden so it seems like he's flying around a room

prisma sun
#

That's hilariouss

spring lynx
prisma sun
#

I do have a game idea I want to run now though

#

As like a mini-campaign

spring lynx
#

if anything they have inhumanly flawed foresight!

prisma sun
#

A city-state on the Edge of creation that has a few dynasties of Dragonblooded that fight against encroaching Fair Folk

#

using the city's set of Warstriders

velvet raft
#

I'm not saying literal ability to see the future

#

I mean they're smart enough to accomplish what they set out to do

#

The only problem is that the Int 8 Lunar Elder is Raksi and what she wants to do is turn people into dinosaurs chimpanzees

#

The problem isn't that the smart guys of the setting can't do things, it's that the things they want to do are frequently terrible or at cross-purposes with other smart guys

#

So by default, without your campaign, yeah, Creation is probably doomed

#

Everyone's gonna keep squabbling as the world quietly spirals to the bottom of the bin

#

That was that author's view, anyway

#

But the essential premise - that just knowing how to achieve something does not mean what you want to achieve is a good idea - stuck with me

next delta
#

It's a really good point!

dense verge
bleak hazel
#

I have this recurring desire to play a Solar or Abyssal craft character despite the general shoddiness of the crafting rules because I want to make a warstrider and/or a giant manse

#

Sidereal Crafting is also pretty decent but they can't do that, they cap out at making a few normal artifacts in an efficient fashion

dense verge
#

gimme the gunbuster/eva dbs shoved in the warstrider to go fight the Unshaped Princes at the edge of the All-There-Is

#

wrestling Behemoth to burning sands that shine up and into roiling suggestions of matter and firm dunes beneath forged feet

bleak hazel
#

Solars are just unreasonably good at this, an optimised craft solar can hit first age crafting with six to eight charms at character creation and start deploying warstriders every six months or so, but "the party plays Pacific Rim" seems pretty doable with any splat

#

just check the spare parts you buy in extremis from Abyssal Craftboy very carefully

dense verge
#

i need infernal craft to be Big Bill's Hell's Warstriders

bleak hazel
#

Start the EVA research program in Malfeas

#

Abyssal craft is not quite as cracked, I'm trying instead to optimise it to the point I don't need to put Supernal on it to start cooking artifacts and can just do my Daybreak Caste stuff in the background while being a socialite

#

Craft coming with a fairly hefty dot and charm tax does make it hard to be a crafter + other stuff, though

smoky needle
#

I've always wanted to the Eva campaign as a circle of Celestials who are being tricked into believing they're Dragons so they can resonantly operate the old weird Warstriders, probably set it during the Great Contagion/Balorian Crusade

Probably still do the young people thing, so you can still set it at the school, but they'll inherently be outsiders. Teachers don't trust them, which other students pick up on, but the themes are still trying to find friendship and a place.

Some sort of artifact wristband that alters your anima's visual display so the characters don't discover the truth about themselves for a while

ruby geyser
#

back during the ink monkeys era of 2e i had vague plans to do an Eva campaign based out of Lookshy, with the players fighting off 2nd and 3rd circle demons, probably as a result of the reclamation or something

bleak hazel
#

I've always wanted to do a Siddy character at some point who has gone on sabbatical by using Ways of Exaltation to turn his anima into that of a deeb, complete with aura and essence flux, and spent so many years being a wandering outcaste swordsman that he eventually fell in with a Sworn Kinship and started doing regular deeb stuff rather than Sidereal disguise stuff

#

"so, are you on a Wyld Hunt or what?"
"nah, we're just co-workers"

#

at some point the kinship gets jumped by a Lunar or something and he has to break out the Sidereal Martial Arts

prisma sun
#

I have found

#

inspiration

#

for how I'd make my Sidreal

velvet raft
#

This is all Sidereals actually >_<

bleak hazel
#

I suppose you could use Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic to turn a fight into a talent show

prisma sun
#

I think Journeys fits this concept best

#

Efflorescent Reeds Swept Outward (Reeds for short)

prisma sun
#

"Taking the guise of travelling merchants, talent scouts, wandering musicians, and Dynast wastrels, Reeds deigns to represent the 'flow' of desire and hope. Equating themselves to the stream or the wind, Reeds believes it is their duty to dislodge people from stagnancy in order to fulfill their destinies. He inspires them with tales of his travels, and trains them in the skills that they may need to succeed in their futures."

#

doodling this person now

#

like verbally doodling in my brain

#

i can't draw

bleak hazel
#

I had not read the Sidereal thrown tree

#

that's a great one

chilly sluice
#

that's hilarious

bleak hazel
#

my current Siddy is a fairly mundane Ghost Detective/anti-Abyssal operative doing normal sword stuff, but I have always been tempted to optimise a build entirely around Games of Divinity Form so I can be the Dance Sid

#

moves so sweet and beautiful that onlookers would rather join you on the battlefield than risk never seeing schmoovement like that again

wise ocean
dense verge
#

there are excellent charm names in sids

light olive
#

Exalted Demons are best demons

valid summit
#

they're great

tulip folio
#

A friend is looking at running 3e with the new Autobot draft. Anyone have much experience with 3e? I was looking at making an Orichalcum Caste Commander + Sorcerer (Being hard on Intelligence, Charisma and Appearance) but while I'd played 2e a chunk, 3e is uncharted territory for me so I might be being silly.

bleak hazel
#

I am not sure how the autobots work this edition but I've been doing a fair amount of 3e with all the other splats lately

tulip folio
#

I think the big part I'm trying to work out is how to spread my stat points for what I want.

#

I'll want Charisma and Appearance for 'Army Leading' and Intelligence for 'Casting' but...is Dexterity still the God Stat for staying alive? As while I'm more focusing on 'DO THINGS, FORCES' than personally hitting things, I likely want to 'not die'.

#

The general vibe of the character is a Firebrand Techno-Shaman.

bleak hazel
#

dex remains the combat core stat, yeah

#

you can give orders to your troops with Int, if you want to centralize there, and Strategic Manoeuvre is always int

#

a good chunk of charisma or appearance for rally actions is also good, but two big stats (dex + int) and then a 4 or so in one of those is totally doable with a well-rounded chargen dot spread

#

if I remember correctly, autobot can supply you with cap-breaking extra dots in most things, so you can get really big brain

tulip folio
#

Interestingly, autobot lets me subsitute Perception instead of Dex for dodging.

bleak hazel
#

oh yeah, Sids also have that one

#

except they use Appearance

tulip folio
#

'Come on, look at this. Would you really hurt this?'

bleak hazel
#

just a little spectacularly beautiful guy

tulip folio
#

...yeah, they can also use Strength instead of Dex for Blocking.

#

That's pretty cool

bleak hazel
#

what circles of sorcery/necromancy do Alchems get this edition?

#

there's some pretty slick war stuff in necromancy but you can always stick with the old reliable Death of Obsidian Butterflies

tulip folio
#

They can get the Terrestrial Equivalent (Shadow?)

bleak hazel
#

Ivory

#

same as Sids then

#

my Sid is a baby necromancer and wishes he could get second circle

tulip folio
#

But doing so makes you kinda...an Apostate. XD

#

Which isn't a 'can't do' but also a 'Hey, other Autobots might smash your head in'

bleak hazel
#

sorcery it is then

#

there's good stuff in there, I just really like Summon Ghost and Pocket Battlegroup

tulip folio
#

Honestly, I'm tempted by Necromancy too and I do have a justification the GM has allowed that isn't 'Hey, I've become a decepticon'

bleak hazel
#

my Sid has gotten out of at least one tight spot by animating the stop-motion skellingtons from that old Argonauts film and running away

tulip folio
#

One of her previous lives had the Metropolis she lived in go Apostate and she died getting people out of the rampaging unholy death city.

#

So she's got a better understanding of that stuff than most.

#

But Sorcery is likely the priority.

#

I also really like some of the charms on that front they have for supporting being about the supernatural.

#

Theurgic Override Matrix + Celestial Overseer Concordat forces supernatural beings (Gods, Fae, Machine Spirits, Undead, Demons, Elementals) to pay willpower to roll Join Battle against her unless she throws the first punch. 1 if she's involved but they're ignoring her, 2 if they plan to attack her.

bleak hazel
#

oh, that's actually a standard issue Celestial charm

#

not sure if Solars have it becuase their Occult tree is a mess, but both Sids and Lunars can get the "do not fuck with me" kit

tulip folio
#

nods
The one for Autobots is a little different but pretty similar, yeah.

#

Gives her a different social bonus outside of the 'don't attack me' aura.

# 
Using this Charm adds (Intelligence/2, rounded up) non-Charm dice on influence rolls against compatible beings, as long as the influence expresses the Alchemical’s authority or power as Autochthon’s Chosen. She also gains +1 Resolve and Guile against them.
bleak hazel
#

oh that's really nice

#

I'm so used to the Sid charmset that I react to the phrase "non-charm dice" with "want" in basically any situation because they have a teeny tiny dice cap

#

what is the Autobot excellency anyway

tulip folio
#

Attribute-based, can spend up to Attribute + Essence (Max 10).

bleak hazel
#

damn, that's good

#

teaching the robit Sidereal martial arts so it can add 2 to Essence there

tulip folio
#

They've also got a generic charm that is '+1 to a stat' (Can't take more than essence/2 rounded up times per stat).

#

It's also the basis for all the stat-swaps

bleak hazel
#

what's the charm limit these days

#

X slots per essence level?

tulip folio
#

17 + 3 per essence.

bleak hazel
#

ouch

tulip folio
#

but submodules don't count as charms for that limit.

#

And a lot of 'upgrade X charm' are submodules, not extra charms

bleak hazel
#

interesting that they seem to be exactly as strong as every other Celestial at lower essence but the Elders can't just keep stacking more charms forever

#

got to keep all your spare bullshit back at the Essence 5 Alchemical Doom Cave

tulip folio
#

Swapping out charms became a lot easier than in 2e I did notice.

#

Like not 'can do in battle' fast.

#

But it's a little better than the old 'You better have Notable Downtime'

bleak hazel
#

sorcery has a bunch of bangers in it but also a few more spells in most published splats

tulip folio
# 
The Storyteller can reduce the time needed to only a handful of hours if the Alchemical only changes out one or two Charms, or if she only removes Charms without replacing them.
bleak hazel
#

Deeb book has some fun shaping rituals and attached merits, as well as a spell that summons drinking water

tulip folio
#

This I think was a big upgrade to 'swapping out charms is a Real Plan'

bleak hazel
#

the fun thing about Autocthonia sorcery is that a bunch of the fairly mundane "make fertile field/summon huge amounts of water" terrestrial circle stuff that in creation is mostly just set dressing becomes really quite a bit deal

tulip folio
#

Oh, the Autobots got a summon drinking water one. Just...a bit awkward of one. As it's more 'summon firehose'. XD

#

It opens up a Steam Vent nearby.

bleak hazel
#

I assume they still get the core list?

tulip folio
#

Yeah, seems that way.

#

I'll admit I don't know what spells are great and was looking at grabbing the classic Obsidion Butterflies.

#

As it's well...a classic.

#

And it looks like it just Shreds mooks

bleak hazel
#

Infallible Messenger sounds handy with the difficulty of travel in Autobot

#

Invulnerable Skin of Bronze is funny because you'd think bronze would be a significant downgrade but it's a great spell if you're not a martial artist

tulip folio
#

nods

#

Sleepytime Mist also looks mean.

bleak hazel
#

I hear it's a terrifying combat spell, haven't used it myself

#

also very easy to cast in one round

tulip folio
#

I'm looking at going with one of the autobot rituals just for thematics, no clue if it's good or not.

#

As you just apply Raw Nerd Math to magic.

# 
Infinite Theorem Recitation: The sorcerer retreats into meticulous calculations, repeating a litany of esoteric formulae and ineffable proofs. After spending eight hours performing these calculations, she rolls (Intelligence + Lore), banking sorcerous motes equal to her successes. She need not perform all eight hours of study consecutively. These sorcerous motes last until the end of the story or her next use of this ritual. The sorcerous mote can add a non-Charm die on the roll by doubling the amount of time required. She can additional non-Charm die by doubling that time, and so on, up to a maximum of five dice after 256 hours.

The timeframe beyond the basic level is kinda unfeasible a lot of the time but it looks like it banks up a lot of sorcerous motes for a fast spell early in a fight.

bleak hazel
#

that does the basic job of a shaping ritual, yeah

#

no issues with that one

#

the jank ones tend to be the ones that require you to have setup available in the fight

tulip folio
#

I'll admit, I liked the look of it because it was the most 'Hello, I am here to do Programming Language Magic'

bleak hazel
#

the one that lets you drain power from fires is an issue when your primary way of starting fires en masse is to do sorcery

#

for instance

tulip folio
#

Yeah, there's an odd one for autobots that gives you 3 sorcerous motes every time you take a hit from Fire or Energy attacks.

bleak hazel
#

my Abyssal has the one that lets him make Dishonoured bone charms, because it lets him give his enemies mocking little gifts and then absorb them for power mid-fight

tulip folio
#

Which seems to be 'Okay so for my first action I inhale firedust'

bleak hazel
#

the Siddy book has some great Celestial Circle spells that you may like if and when you reach that level

tulip folio
#

Nice

bleak hazel
tulip folio
#

What necromancy spells are worth looking at? As I'm very tempted for that.

bleak hazel
#

this one is especially funny because, well, you're an alchemical

#

you just melt yourself

tulip folio
#

Oh, that's very cool.

'The alchemical is looking a bit...overcooked'

bleak hazel
#

Bone Puppet Dance is an extremely powerful combat spell for casters

tulip folio
#

Between the various Appearance and Charisma charms + Ori caste bonuses, it looks like alchemicals can make kinda disgusting squad leaders.

bleak hazel
#

Flesh-Sloughing Wave is the offbrand Obsidian Butterflies if you just want a giant doom shotgun

#

and Raise the Skeletal Horde is my personal favourite control spell, because it's a pocket battlegroup

tulip folio
#

Pocket battlegroup is pretty great for a leader-focused mage

bleak hazel
#

bear in mind, they suck

#

they may be Might 1 average drill zombies with perfect morale but they're still zombies

#

good for absorbing heat, not great for actually killing things

#

generally I let them get on with things unless someone's crashed nearby and I can put a huge command roll into them for big damge

tulip folio
#

The funny thing with the passive Ori effect?

#

They can take over leaderless battlegroups.

#

This is not limited to allied ones

bleak hazel
#

such a shame you can't hit Shadow Circle

#

because it has the absolute best war spell

tulip folio
#

The big undead giant?

bleak hazel
#

not entirely sure how the "your blood is blue" thing works with alchemicals

#

do they bleed?

tulip folio
#

They do bleed! Though they bleed odd chemicals.

bleak hazel
#

whatever, it lets you do the xianxia "spit blood to summon" thing and a Might 2 Elite Drill hungry ghost you can reflexively issue commands to is actually very mean

tulip folio
#

'Their blood is blue'
'We're genuinely not sure if that's unusual'

bleak hazel
#

they have very solid base parry and attack dice at that level of power, and they take very little other investment

#

also stupidly easy to summon

#

the only reason I sorely wish Sids were better necromancers is because I want to use that one

#

as a general purpose necromancy suite I recommend Skeletal Horde, Summon Ghost and Bone Puppet Dance

#

with Flesh Wave if you want to do blaster-casting or Blessed Dead Fools for diplomacy

tulip folio
#

Summon Ghost seems like a great General Purpose spell.

#

'Need info? Ghost!'

bleak hazel
#

my Sidereal is an anti-abyssal ghost detective

#

every time the lunars in the party sacred hunt someone he asks them to bring him back leftovers, it's hilarious

#

he has a pocket full of dead guys' trinkets that he can use as info sources/attendants

tulip folio
#

It's sadly very far up the list but appearance has some very fun 'Make your soliders really good' charms.

bleak hazel
#

I recommend making Skeletal Horde your control spell because the rest of them don't have huge buffs there and letting you use the battlegroup charm literally anywhere rather than only on battlefields is good

#

bone puppet dance is so good, though

tulip folio
# 
Allied battle groups that can perceive the Alchemical gain the following benefits:
• They add (Alchemical’s Essence/2, rounded up) dice of post-soak damage on all attacks. This increases to (Essence) if the Alchemical has Initiative 12+.
• They gain +1 Defense, or +2 Defense against enemy battle groups. They gain +2 Defense against all enemies instead of the Alchemical has Initiative 12+.
• They can benefit from the Alchemical’s specialties: they add an automatic success on rolls that a specialty applies to, and +1 to relevant static values. This doesn’t apply to specialties in combat Abilities.
• They can use the Alchemical’s Intimacies to bolster their Resolve against influence and cite them in Decision Points.

This Charm ends if the Alchemical is crashed.
bleak hazel
#

"every round they must take a miscellaneous action" is just the most brutal hard CC effect because it means they can't flurry and they take flurry penalties to doing anything else, even if they hold you off

#

and taking a misc action reduces your def by 1, which is neat

tulip folio
#

Oh, that's mean.

bleak hazel
#

I genuinely think it may be a bit cracked because most of the control effect happens before they even get to roll against it

tulip folio
#

I'll admit, I was looking at a lot of my plan being basicly 'Hey, minions, grab that guy' as Engage looks like good crowd control to assist the Person With The Megaton Hammer.

bleak hazel
#

that is in fact a great use for expendable skellingtons

#

although you'll need a pretty big order roll to reliably hit people

tulip folio
#

I'm sure most celestials get it but there's also a charm for 'Reduce flurry penalties for commanding minions by 2', with its upgrade being 'Stuff it, you can command as many minions as you want as long as you don't do anything else'

bleak hazel
#

I genuinely couldn't tell you because none of my characters are warboyz

#

my Sid just wants meat and my Abyssal only uses the necromancy spells that let him give orders with Occult

tulip folio
#

Hahahah, fair. This character isn't going to be just a commander but I wanted to make sure I had a solid plan if battle does happen.

bleak hazel
#

does definitely look like Alchems are better leaders than most, though

#

I can't remember AOE buffs like that in most charmsets

tulip folio
#

Oh right, Jade has a really fun 'blazing anima effect'

#

Friendly trivial characters can't be hurt while you're at blazing, as long as you're not crashed.

bleak hazel
#

autobots continue their role as Most Prosocial Exalted

#

Bone Puppet Dance also has an interesting side benefit for non-combat characters, which is that if your enemy fucks up their resist roll you just get to decisive them straight up, without bothering about hit rolls

#

which is good if you're bad at punching

tulip folio
#

...Ouch.

#

...that actually sounds really good for my character.

bleak hazel
tulip folio
#

As I've got a good strength and a big weapon but am not really much of a fighter 😛

bleak hazel
#

I honestly think that this is Celestial-grade CC at least, but while it's here I'm not complaining

tulip folio
#

...if you're a necromancer and a sorcerer, do you have a ritual for both sorcery and necromancy or just one for both?

bleak hazel
#

so you can only have one control spell at each circle

#

(first/second/third, so if you're a necromancer who learns Terrestrial Circle you have to decide whether you want your control to be in sorcery or necromancy)

tulip folio
#

Ah, I see!

bleak hazel
#

but you do get to keep all yoru shaping rituals

tulip folio
#

Which book is the necromancy stuff in, by the way? Sorry for silly questions.

bleak hazel
#

as far as I can tell

#

abyssal draft

#

strangely this suggests that Meta Sorcerors/Necromancers want to learn the other thing as well because then you can get a whole bunch of shaping rituals

#

because the motes are interchangeable

#

but I'm not sure that's the intended takeaway from that

#

we'll see if full release clears it up any

tulip folio
#

I think a big weakness of alchemical social seesm to be that it doesn't work great when dealing with Individuals.

#

You can do a lot to cause effects related to Communities and Groups.

#

But it's harder to cause them towards Specific People.

#

...huh...

#

Takes essence 3 to pick up but Alchemicals have access to 'You can learn eclipse charms' in Intelligence.

#

...they can also Steal Your Warstrider.

#

As one of their Big Intelligence Charms is 'No, the automaton listens to me now'

#

Which...well...it's in theme to be able to go ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL

#

Though it can only affect a given automaton once per story

#

Presumably to stop you repeatedly stealing Karvara, the Walking Devil Tower.

#

Are Shields much good in 3e? Kinda tempted to go a bit low on dexterity and make use of 'can parry with strength instead of dex'

# 
Trajectory Enhancement Assembly (6xp; Strength 4, Essence 2) (+2m): The Alchemical can pay a three mote surcharge to end a horizontal leap in mid-air. On her next turn, she must use this Charm again to make another leap or fall to the ground. She can choose to descend one range band in addition to her forward movement.

...god dammit, they gave them a Double Jump option. XD

bleak hazel
#

shields do less damage than other weapons, but at least some splats have a way around that

#

big parry is actually doable with a medium weapon + specialty in parry, that can get you up to 7 at chargen

tulip folio
#

Oh, I was wrong. It's not strength, it's stamina for the parry one.

# 
Hardened Body Fortification (3xp; Transpuissant Stamina Upgrade): The Alchemical can use Stamina instead of Dexterity to calculate Parry when she blocks with a medium or heavy weapon or a natural weapon.

Still, that + good stamina seems like it'a an all-around good 'Look, even if you're not swinging the weapon, you're hard to hurt' setup.

next delta
tulip folio
#

...snrk

Okay, Strength gives you a short ranged attack option for Alchs...in that you can A Certain Scientific Railgun objects.

# 
Gravitational Slingshot Projector (3xp; Essence 3, Force Displacement Emitter, Orbital Trajectory Matrix): While using Orbital Trajectory Matrix, the Alchemical can use her turn to launch all suspended objects at a single character within close range, making an undodgeable decisive or withering attack with (Strength + Athletics). Withering attacks have Accuracy (Strength/2, rounded up) and a base damage of (7 + Strength). This is Augmented. The Alchemical adds dice of decisive damage or post-soak withering damage equal to the Strength minimum of the feat used to lift those objects. Using Gravitational Slingshot Projector ends this Charm.

I've got no clue if this is a Big Hit or not but it sounds like it's big.

#

As feats of strength can get pretty high.

prisma sun
#

What are Autobots?

tulip folio
#

Alchemicals

prisma sun
#

Ahhh

#

I can only speak to core mechanics then and not alchemical stuff

#

I haven't read the draft

#

But I will say Dex is only the God stat if you let it be

bleak hazel
prisma sun
#

It seems like every splat has ways to substitute other abilities

#

Unless I have a specific thing in mind i usually default in my mind to just using unnarmed

bleak hazel
#

I'm not sure Solars have the traditional "I roll attacks with Strength" but everyone else sure does

#

I like my artifacts too much to go unarmed most of the time

#

unless I'm a Lunar or Dreaming Pearl stylist who can just whip out the artifact punches

#

or a Sid who can turn a pair of chopsticks into a buffed artifact weapon, love that one

prisma sun
#

I'm still considering what to do with my Sid

#

I have to look up all the artifact weapons again

#

I'm considering a Guan Dao but that's only because my brain has associated my Sid with

tulip folio
#

As like, I don't plan for her to really be an attacker that often.

#

But Not Dying is good. I like Not Dying.

prisma sun
#

I wonder how fun a mortal exalted game would be

tulip folio
#

I do love how some of the Alchemical Charms are just 'Be A Good Friend' 😛

image.png
# 
Populat Hero Directive (3xp; Wits 3): This Charm’s benefit extends to positive Ties toward individual mortals.
bleak hazel
#

unless the enemy is a combat specced Solar, anyway, but that goes for everyone other than other combat specced solars

prisma sun
#

A surprising amount of Sidreal charms are about being nice to people

tulip folio
#

If I encounter a solar in Autobot city, I'm going to be shocked. XD

#

We put an entire 'Other Celestials: Keep Out' seal up

bleak hazel
#

how many autobots does the book say there are, these days?

#

also please tell me the Colossus martial art made it in

warped ore
warped ore
tulip folio
bleak hazel
#

they're full celestials nowadays so I could see a two-party campaign where a bunch of Siddies or something go "we need more dudes, we need to find this Autocthonia place I heard about in the ancient plot device scroll" and in the meantime a bunch of Alchems go "we need to get out of here, it sucks here"

#

passing messages back and forth through the comically large door that may or may not exist

#

welcome to creation it sucks

tulip folio
#

I am 100% thinking of fluffing up the defensive charms of this exalt less as 'armour on the body' and more 'reactive defences'. Fits the 'math/mage' aesthetic more. That and I've got Red Star on the brain.

bleak hazel
#

reactive armour ox-body

#

bot-body?

tulip folio
#

Yeah, stuff like 'Layers of Shields shattering, person straining but coming out of it alive'

bleak hazel
#

what did they name Ox-Body for the robots anyway

#

for Abyssals it's "Corpse-Body"

tulip folio
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Strain-Resistant Chassis Modification

bleak hazel
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boo, it should always be X-Body Technique

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this is why that one Solar Sail charm should be renamed to boat-body

tulip folio
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The inspiration was in part that the upgrade to it is Ablative Defense Array

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Which is just 'Pay motes, get <Stamina> extra -4 (Or -2/-1 with upgrades) health levels. If these get used up, they vanish, no need to heal them'

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...oddly enough, I can't seem to find a Perfect Block, Dodge or Soak anywhere in these charms.

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Are pefects not so much a thing any more?

bleak hazel
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they were basically removed from the game

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most of the moves that used to be perfects are now "gain bonus X, can block unblockable/dodge undodgeable attacks but you still have to actually use your stats"

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the exception is Seven Shadow Evasion, because the solar charmset refuses to remove its hand from the hot stove

tulip folio
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Ah, there it is in dex. Impenetrable Repulsor Field lets you parry unblockable attacks.

bleak hazel
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and Heavenly Guardian Defence, which is now "when you get hit, lose 1 init per level of decisive damage negated, can't be used when crashed"

tulip folio
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...and it is technically a perfect defence but only a very specific one.

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It's a perfect against attacks not enhanced by magic that can't ignore cover.

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So like, it's a pefect but not a perfect against People Who Matter

bleak hazel
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yeah, "ignore X unless magic" is a common way those went

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Abyssals also have a SSE equivalent, but at least both of them are now functionally 1/scene

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honestly Heavenly Guardian Defence is the nuts one, because it's not limited, you basically can't hurt a Solaroid unless they're crashed

tulip folio
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...and there's also an upgarde that refunds the cost if you use it to parry a Purely Essence-based attack as you Recharge Your Capacitors with the attack

bleak hazel
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oh that one's fun

tulip folio
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'Please, keep shooting me with the essence cannons, they taste great'

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Honestly, Alchemicals have a lot of 'Look, we don't care about your energy-based attacks'

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Attack Assimilation Mode (3xp; Stamina 3, any two submodules): The Alchemical gains +1 soak and Hardness (Stamina) against attacks based on applicable damage types. Note that Pneumatic Resilience Upgrade and Reinforced Diamond Coating don't apply to weapon attacks — they primarily defend against magical attacks that manipulate or create environmental forces.
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So you can't get it vs Bashing, Slashing and Piercing but you can get Hardness (Stamina) vs Fire, Pure Energy, Cold and Acid

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And can upgrade it with Hostile Environment Neutralization Field to extend the protection to all allies in the area.

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They're not immune to energy but man, it looks like trying to take down Alchemicals with Firewands or Elemental Magic is not an easy task.

tulip folio
prisma sun
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Well elemental magic also includes

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Rock

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Soak this ya bastard

tulip folio
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Oh no!

bleak hazel
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I have Problems with solar combat but I will not enumerate them here because that would be no fun

tulip folio
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Sounds like there's a fair bit of 'First splatbook has to learn the hard lessons the others can benefit from'.

bleak hazel
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they replaced all the core dev team between the first book and all the other books, partly the writers are just much better now

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you can see the visible quality difference between the bits of the Abyssal charmset that are straight ports from solars to keep the rough power level the same and the bits that are new

tulip folio
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...oh, that's cute. One of the Stamina Charms is 'Make an instant Starcraft Bunker' with the upgrade being 'Yes, you can also make basicly any other basic building too. Make houses instantly all you want'

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It's not combat power but it feels like a very 'Yeah, that feels like a natural extrapolation for people who do things other than be petulant godkings' upgrade

prisma sun
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I love non combat charms

tulip folio
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It also upgrades in the combat version into 'I guess we're playing an RTS now'

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Strategic Firebase Deployment (6xp; Stamina 5, Essence 3, Mass Habitation Assembly) (+3m): The Alchemical can pay a three-mote surcharge to create a barrier that extends up to (Essence) range bands. If she has Tactical Barricade Deployment, she can use it to shelter battle groups for two motes each. Each counts as (Size/2, rounded up) characters toward the maximum number she can protect.
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'We are playing Defend the Castle. I brought the Castle'

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...as someone new to 3e, does someone mind explaining the difference between these two modes?

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Exoskeletal Installation (6xp): A metallic carapace riveted to the Alchemical’s flesh adds +(Stamina/2, rounded up) armored soak. This is Augmented. This soak stacks with any armor the Alchemical wears.

Subcutaneous Installation (6xp): A fully articulated mesh of dense subdermal plates adds +2 natural soak. The installed Charm is Internal.
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You get one of these automatically when you buy inbuilt armour (And can pay the 6 xp to also get the other one as an option, if you want to be able to swap back and foward when doing refits)

prisma sun
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Natural soak isn't affected by armor Piercing I'm fairly certain

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So the first one gets bypassed if someone bypasses armor

tulip folio
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Right. So one is Bigger (If you've got good stamina. Which being a stamina charm, you totally do) but is piercable.

prisma sun
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Yaya

tulip folio
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I think I also found their replacement for the old 'perfect soak'

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Transitory Invulnerability Engine
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Stamina 5, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Barrier Aura Array
The Alchemical gains Hardness equal to her Initiative against a decisive attack. If she already has Hardness, she adds (Initiative/2, rounded up) to it. She can’t be affected by any poison, disease, crippling effect, or similar physical ailment conveyed by that attack. After using this defense she resets to base Initiative. If she uses it together with a Counterattack Charm, her Initiative doesn’t reset until the counterattack is complete.

Alternatively, the Alchemical can use this Charm to perfectly defend against uncountable damage. This renders her immune to recurring hazards for the rest of the scene, her body hardened against them. 

Reset: This Charm’s Hardness bonus can only be used once per scene, unless reset once the Alchemical has successfully faced three decisive attacks from nontrivial enemies without taking damage.
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As it does stop Uncountable Damage

prisma sun
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Kinda

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Uncountable damage is literally just "I'm going to assume you die"

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Like getting hit by a meteor

tulip folio
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...huh, the capstone 'no, I'm still alive' charm for Alchs has a painful reset.

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The Alchemical can’t use it again until she spends an hour manually recalibrating his Charm or undergoes the Rite of Reconfiguration
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'No, you don't get to reset this shit inside combat, stop that'

prisma sun
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That's genuinely ridiculously generous for a reset tbh

tulip folio
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nods
Its on 'Hey, Guess What. I'm the Napoleon!' charm. Where you turn on Superarmour and get 10+Stamina (So minimum 17) hardness + heavy cover that can't be ignored by charms.

prisma sun
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Does it say it bypasses charms that bypass magical armor

tulip folio
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It's beaten by charms that can Pass Through Physical Objects but not those which go around or target weak points (As there's no gaps).

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So it won't help you vs a Ghost.

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No physical opening exists within it, requiring magic capable of passing through solid barriers to circumvent it.
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I'll freely admit, I have zero clue which 'fuck your hardness' charms that would/would not affect. XD

prisma sun
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I don't know them all

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So I can't say either