Exalted

[tulip folio]

I'd assume it works against solar ones because solars are 'impossible skill' more than 'fucking magic bullshit' but also solars are best at everything so they might have 'my arrows are ghost arrows' as a charm.

snrk
There's an upgrade on the 'go into a healing stasis' charm that makes the difficulty to tell you're Not Actually Dead Essence + Stamina and makes the charm not show up to essence sight.

'Yep, you got me. Totally dead over here'

I do like the large number of 'oh and a random cool trick' submodules

They're not all just 'And make the base function better'

[bleak hazel]

there are many Fuck Your Hardness charms of different kinds, the vast majority of which just say "ignoring Hardness" with no clarification on method

I am also playing with Sidereal builds and I've realised that Prismatic Form (take three forms at once) also merges the weapon/armour proficiencies of those forms, and White Reaper allows you to wear heavy armour and use polearms

so it would be totally possible to go White Reaper/Sid Melee/Prismatic Arrangement and walk around as an elegant martial artist while wearing full articulated plate and carrying a spear in each hand for the dual wield bonus

[tulip folio]

...snrk

There's an upgrade for the Piston-Driven Megaton Hammer that gives bonus damage for each wall you slam the other guy through making the attack.

Gravitational Impact Hammer (6xp; Strength 5, Essence 3) (+4m, 1i): When the Alchemical attacks from close range, she may pay a four-mote, one-Initiative surcharge to launch her enemy upward with the knockback. He suffers falling damage as usual (Exalted, p. 232).

And a 'you're going into orbit' upgrade.

[bleak hazel]

assuming that doesn't have another thing that's like "when you knock them back deal X fall damage" I might actually steal that as a houserule for a few of the more janky knockback effects

[prisma sun]

The martial art where you just stack daiklaives appeals to me so hard

I forget the name

[bleak hazel]

because there's a running theme of stuff having "also they get punted into orbit" clauses that don't seem to have been balanced around the fact that a long range fall is basically a oneshot

[prisma sun]

The one where you just gate of Babylon people

[bleak hazel]

Thousand Blades Style?

that one rocks

[prisma sun]

Maybe

[tulip folio]

Nah, what it does it it makes the slam also an Act of Demolition and acts of demolition give some of their successes to the damage.

[prisma sun]

Fall damage being so strong is what makes my Lunars combo work

[bleak hazel]

it's the only martial art that doesn't need the martial arts merit to learn because it's assumed you have already spent infinity merit dots on the five daiklaives you've already bought to use the damn thing

[tulip folio]

Anti-Materiel Detonator Impact (6xp; Strength 5, Optimized Demolition Vibration): If the Alchemical slams an enemy into an object or surface, she treats her damage roll as a feat of demolition to destroy it, with the benefits of Optimized Demolition Vibration. If she succeeds, she rolls an additional die of damage for each success doubled by this Charm.

[prisma sun]

Aphellion to Earth

[tulip folio]

So '9s and 10s on demolition rolls for Going Through Wall turn into Bonus Damage'

[bleak hazel]

one of my favourite Siddy moves is Dance of the Hungry Spider, which makes you immune to that kind of thing because fate is strongly convinced you have eight legs and you can as such remain firmly balanced on the remaining six after having your two physical legs punted into orbit

[tulip folio]

Strength also has a funny defensive charm where you just Charge Yourself with Electricity and the next unarmed attack you're involved in does an automatic decisive taser hit as well.

[bleak hazel]

it's also a really good flurry breaker against... anyone but solars, who have a flurry that has a bunch of schmovement attached for free

....hate solars so much

[tulip folio]

I say 'involved in' as it applies both to your punch...and to getting punched.

[bleak hazel]

Charcoal March of Spiders is also the wire-fu martial art because it is specifically about doing decidedly non-metaphorical things with the Threads of Fate

you can just stand on one in midair

[tulip folio]

That's very fun

[bleak hazel]

and to everyone else this looks fucky enough that it makes a threaten roll

[tulip folio]

Silly question: What do init values normally look like in 3e? Is it generally more in the single digits or double digits?

Basicly trying to work out how much you need to be battering the other guy about for this charm to work.

The Alchemical uses her enhanced limb to make an unblockable decisive attack against an enemy whose Initiative is lower than her Strength. She adds up to (Strength) extra successes on the attack roll as dice of damage.

[prisma sun]

It fluctuates rapidly

If you have less than 10 and your opponent has more than 10 your opponent is winning

[bleak hazel]

varies wildly depending on who is in any given fight, because Solar Killman is going to start a fight, swing once, hit 40-50 initiative and then delete you, but in general you're looking at something like 0-25 in the normal range

[tulip folio]

nods

[bleak hazel]

(and then below zero is Crashed where the exact value stops really mattering)

[tulip folio]

So it's a finisher on a guy who's already on the back foot but not unlikely to be seen.

I'll also say: God I love how many of the 'help people' charms have a carveout for 'Look, you don't need to pay the big costs if you're helping a mortal'.

Like the Supersurgery Charm costs willpower but Not If You're Helping Mortals.

Or the diagnosis one being Free if you're helping mortals from a community you care about

[prisma sun]

Yeah usually mortals get discounts

I also do not like solars tbh

They lack sauce for me

The greatest sin of all

[upper stratus]

with every splat they release solars look more boring by comparison

[bleak hazel]

Sid prophecy has similar stuff going on, which I dig

sadly the XP cost means you rarely just throw down a prophecy to help out sone guy who was nice to you, but if you keep the duration really short you can

[upper stratus]

"yes i'd like to buy 29 charms that do nothing but dice tricks please" - statements dreamt up by the utterly deranged

[bleak hazel]

since you get a refund once it's over

[tulip folio]

It's nice and I think it really helps makes exalts want to interact with mortals as People more.

I'm in a weird state where I both don't care for Solars but also the exalted character I most remember playing was a Solar.

Mostly because 'most memorable' was not a compliment for her.

Soaring Dream was the Worst.

[prisma sun]

There's a lot of sid performance and socialize charms that let you bless people for free

[bleak hazel]

you can just be the mysterious old master handing out little benedictions, it's wonderful

while I know people like Lunars and Deebs I think the Sidereal charmset is the best one so far

[tulip folio]

Soaring Dream: "I am a humble teacher, who just wants people to make the right decisions. If you make decisions I don't like, clearly I've not taught you enough yet."

[bleak hazel]

so many "ah, that's neat" moments

I am still kind of tempted by Performance Siddy because there's good stuff in there

[tulip folio]

Is the 3e Sid charmset more...coherant? The 2e one was interesting but it drove me insane trying to work out how to make a character do basic things.

[prisma sun]

I'm enjoying it

[tulip folio]

'I want to heal people. I guess that means...I'm taking...Archery...not medicine...'

[upper stratus]

3e sids are great

[prisma sun]

It's impossible for me to read the entire charm set in one sitting or actually internalize anything I'm not using for a character

Because fuck that

[upper stratus]

they still get some Weird Shit in there but it's not the bordering on useless they had in 2e

[bleak hazel]

they're still weird, you get certain charms in odd places, but they're way more coherent and a lot of the stuff is just beautiful

(their resistance tree is about being swole, Graceful Crane is in Dodge, etc.)

they're also actually good and well balanced

[upper stratus]

also they don't have stupid drawbacks like paradox and pattern spider bites anymore. lore surrounding them isn't "literally everyone including pattern spiders hate your guts". bronze/gold faction isn't centered on solars anymore

[bleak hazel]

unlike 2e sids who were pathetic wastes of space until they got SMAs at which point they pushed the entire setting over with one hand

they also have what I think is the only Fight Stops charm that doesn't have a clause that lets fightgar the fighter just willpower through it and swing anyway

what happens if two different sids pop this one and End Debate at the same time is unknown

everyone goes to the edge of the room and sulks until the beautiful song is over

[prisma sun]

Also the big sid Anima effect

[tulip folio]

...I really should give a shot to a Sid I had ages ago for like 1 session. I really enjoyed her Thing. She had Salary 5 because she's found a way onto the Subcommittee for Primordial Death, a committee that had exactly one member since the primordial war ended.

She was shocked to find out Abyssals/Neverborn were a thing because it would mean she's have to actually do committee work.

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah my guy is the Ghost Cop Sidereal

he's been very busy lately, his predecessor died in an Abyssal-involved swording and left him a lot of work

[tulip folio]

She was a bit of a bloody stereotype for a chosen of endings with...what's the Scythe Martial Art? She had that and a soulsteel scythe she beat up an Abyssal and stole.

[bleak hazel]

yeah, that one's nearly as good but they can still bulldoze it with a defining intimacy of fuck you

White Reaper/

[upper stratus]

reaper?

[bleak hazel]

guess what, there's a Sidereal Martial Art for scythes in the Abyssal book

made by the Bishop

[tulip folio]

Yeah, white reaper. Sorry, been a while.

Oooh.

She was fun because I really played into the bureaucrats part of Sids. Bureaucracy 5 and a spec in 'Loopholes'.

She would do everything in her power to clock off on time.

...which also meant that basicly none of the other sids believed her when it came to Abyssal Stuff.

Because she's constantly pulling out excuses for why she really can't work extra hours today and 'I need to go fight undead solars that most people don't believe exist' wasn't helping her case.

I'm not sure if 3e has reduced the level of 'Yu Shan doesn't seem to actually know shit about Abyssals and Infernals' from 2e's 'Man, you guys just suck at your job'

[prisma sun]

Nah everyone knows

Because a Deathlord showed up and was like "Hey Thorns"

https://tenor.com/view/skeleton-divine-death-blast-cwitchy-skeleton-dark-lord-gif-12282344258112708312

[tulip folio]

Cool, 2e really didn't give a lot of respect to the Sidereals in fluff.

A lot of 'everyone hates you and you're bad at your One Job'

[prisma sun]

Sidereals didn't see Thorns coming but they are actively trying to save Creation

[bleak hazel]

Green Lady has also actually been doing her job and there's a well-staffed convention on the dead

[tulip folio]

...I'm very tempted to have my Alch insistently refer to her 'Make Skeletons' spell as 'Recycling'.

It's not Apostate Void Stuff, it's Making Use Of Limited Resources.

[prisma sun]

"Skeleton Divine Death Blast" is a charm name

[bleak hazel]

There's something very close to it in Abyssal Lore, hold on

[tulip folio]

Illustrative Overkill Technique is always fantastic.

...did Dark Messiah become just 'Abyssal Martial Arts' or is it still a martial art of its own?

[upper stratus]

is the brawl tree now

brawl and martial arts are their own things now

and it's not called dark messiah style or anytbing like that

[tulip folio]

Aww, I loved Illustrative Overkill Technique. XD

(I mean, it likely still exists but it's now just for Abyssals)

[prisma sun]

I want to play a Sidreal campaign with this vibe

https://youtube.com/shorts/DyQ8X9OPOP4?si=sgVzW5ovAyzKXK1b

"I have one free circle"

[bleak hazel]

Now you get Abyssal melee/brawl/thrown etc., then Hungry Ghost Style for the berserker stuff then Albicant Sepulchre of Extinction Style for SMA

[tulip folio]

Found that Sid's list of martial arts and I had forgot she had First Pulse. She was not a Graceful, Classy Sid.

[bleak hazel]

which Sids can learn, and still get Enlightenment on

ghost Sid real

[tulip folio]

I'm glad so. I'm a firm believer that Sids should always be kings of using SMA, it's in their name.

[bleak hazel]

It's also one of like two things that Solars aren't automatically the best at, which is always nice

[prisma sun]

Also the Getimain are actively at war with Yu-Shan

which makes being a Sidreral Difficult

[upper stratus]

i still think giving others access to sma at all was a mistake. at least should've added a terrestrial tag equivalent. smh

[bleak hazel]

It's the kind of Cold War spy fight stuff that doesn't necessarily mean you're being hunted 100% of the time, but adds Complications

[bleak hazel]

Luckily there is one, Enlightenment, but sadly Getimians get to play with it and Abyssals get it on ASOE in particular

[upper stratus]

oh yea i meant like

enlightenment is the Mastery of SMA

i want a Terrestrial of SMA

[bleak hazel]

Oh yeah that would be nice

[upper stratus]

fucking solaroids get outta my arts

[bleak hazel]

then Gets and Abyssals in their one style could have not-baseline access without having the peak stuff

[tulip folio]

Makes sense.

You get 'A singular cool thing that's SMA tier, not full SMAs'

[prisma sun]

also

https://youtu.be/Wd_0knOrl94?si=nDHBJsslCeeksEMW

I just wanna link TW:TK music

since the vibes are immaculate

[bleak hazel]

After looking through the Sid book for a bit I think the only way for a Sid to not be souped by the Solar Melee flurry is to take the SMA that does wires fu and respond to the first attack by jumping one range band directly upwards and hanging there, which is really funny

If you move away reflexively on the ground they can follow with the five range bands of movement that move gives them but they can't just walk upwards, which is hilarious

"let me just moonwalk outta here and I'll come down when you're done"

You still can't really hurt them in any way but that's a fun counter that gives you time to leg it

[tulip folio]

Solars have weak anti-air, got it. XD

[bleak hazel]

They have enough athletics bullshit to essentially fly but they can't activate most of it in the middle of the flurry move

walk ten steps directly upwards in response to the first attack and then Avoidance Kata

[tulip folio]

I'm guessing they're likely better at flying than the Achs 'I have Actual Wings and a Jetpack' flight, knowing Solars.

[prisma sun]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo7dmyj6tOk

Man this trailer fucking ruled

[tulip folio]

...oh, that's interesting in the sorcery rules.

Alchs can't summon demons with summon demon.

Because of the seal

But they can summon Machine Spirits and Gods with it, invoking the authority of Autobot City.

[prisma sun]

Would Lu Bu and Dong Zhou be DBs to fit the vibe

[tulip folio]

Which has a pretty big limitation: Demons can be bound because of the 'we lost the war' agreement.

[prisma sun]

I feel like Lu Bu is hard to do his thing as a DB

[tulip folio]

You can't do that with Machine Spirits and Gods.

Because they won

[bleak hazel]

Oh that's really fun, I wondered how that was going to work

[tulip folio]

You have to Ask Them To Please Help

[bleak hazel]

Can you still pop Summon Ghost and bind them as normal?

I'm not sure how Big A's underworld mechanics work

[tulip folio]

Though they do note that Machine Spirits are willing to at least listen to Alchs/are generally okay with helping out as long as you're not abusing their capabilities.

[tulip folio]

Yep, still plenty of dead spirits about!

It seems like they don't go to the Underworld

They go to the Blight Zones.

The places where Primus is dying.

...oh shoot, Alchs can learn Shadow-tier necromancy

But they can't learn celestial sorcery if they get it

[prisma sun]

https://i.imgur.com/bO53Bkp.png

God this entire page is so funny to me

"Heaven successfully foisted oversight of Exigents onto the Sidreals because they're vaguely related"

[bleak hazel]

Oh yeah get yourself some Hundred Shade Breath

it rules

best necromancy spell

also make some golems

[tulip folio]

Will cost me Celestial Sorcery (As can't have both) but it does seem the cooler option for 'Make yourself instant army'. XD

[tulip folio]

I love the 'Look, in theory we're supposed to kill you but we're too busy so...want a job?'

It's pure 'So we chained the cop and the convict together for shenanigans plots'

[prisma sun]

Exigent Sidreal buddy cop

[bleak hazel]

I also just like it more in general

[upper stratus]

exigent getting recruited is funny. not immune to arcane fate. buddy cop movie where one occasionally forgets their buddy

[bleak hazel]

Celestial Circle probably has more stuff in it full stop, the long range teleport is especially handy, but Hundred Shade Breath + golems + spooky scary haunted house are all fun

[tulip folio]

And hey, got plenty of time to decide which to get. XD

Not got the essence for second circle yet

[upper stratus]

necromancy gets to copy sorcery spells here and there when appropriate so it's not like you'd be giving up -all- of celestial sorcery

[prisma sun]

Exalted are immune to Arcane Fate I think?

[upper stratus]

no

[bleak hazel]

Abyssals and Getimians are because they're Enemies of Fate, the others aren't

probably Infernals too but they don't have a book yet

[tulip folio]

iirc, exalted are resistant to arcane fate but not immune

[prisma sun]

https://i.imgur.com/fkWPeGd.png

ah

No, Exalted have no special protection

that's funny

[bleak hazel]

There's a dirt cheap Stealth charm for Sids that makes it absurdly strong, with the downside that it's a permanent they can't turn off

[upper stratus]

exalted don't get anytbing special, they'd need anti psyche charms of approprjate excellencies to get a boost

[tulip folio]

...snrk

Alchs could deal with it but only in a very comical way.

The can cure shaping effects easily enough.

But they'd still be affected

[bleak hazel]

Characters automatically fail rolls against the Sidereal’s
arcane fate unless they use magic or have a Major or
Defining Tie toward her. Even then, they suffer +1 target
number on the roll.

[tulip folio]

So they'd just keep Resetting Memories to go 'Oh shit, I know you!'

[upper stratus]

i need to take this on my sid tbh. married to the job. damn the consequences

[bleak hazel]

Diff 7 base means that even a max solar excellency might well not do it at +1TN

[tulip folio]

...I need to work out how to name alchemicals too. Exalted names are tricky. I can do Abyssal Names easily but others often elude me.

[bleak hazel]

I always struggle with Abyssals, my current one is Crimson Rain, Augur of Fell Tidings

which started as a joke but it kind of works actually

[tulip folio]

My last one was: Blighted Orichalcum and Ivory Mask

Who tended to sneak around the 'you can't have your real name' because people would just shorten it to 'Ivory', which is Basicly A Normal Name.

[prisma sun]

https://i.imgur.com/eDuckOr.png

This is so fucking cool

[bleak hazel]

The bit about trendy cases gets me because these are all E5 charms

it's a trend among the like 80 people max who need these

[upper stratus]

tbf within the setting having a weird name is kinda normal

[bleak hazel]

CRAFT tends to be referred to as Crimson

[tulip folio]

'or wadded up in a pocket'

[bleak hazel]

(oddly, he's not a Craft apocalyptic, he just does it on the side)

[upper stratus]

essence 1 sid carrying aroind trendy prayer strip cases cause you gotta dress for the essence you want, not the essence you are

[tulip folio]

Oh yeah, it just sorta mattered for her because she was a Disguise-Focused Abyssal. So she had to be the hardest thing for an Abyssal: Understated/Not a Drama Queen.

[bleak hazel]

If you open it up there's just a gun in there or something

[prisma sun]

I love just being able to make it in like 2 seconds

[bleak hazel]

considerably less dangerous

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/death-note-gif-25596232

[bleak hazel]

The prayer strips also mean that whenever you go full ultimate mode you are fully encouraged to decide the relevant sutra

Sid craft is actually pretty good, just not at actually making artifacts on a conveyor belt like Solars

you can put maybe 4-5 charms into it and make the odd 3-4 dot artifact + basically anything else

[upper stratus]

see the way i think about abyssal infiltrators is that since you're gonna want to wear (noticable) 'trappings of death' anyway it's better to integrate some sort of death cultural thing into your cover identities than try to hide them entirely

[bleak hazel]

There is a cheap Larceny charm that makes the trappings diff 7 to spot

Crimson has two in Larc just for that

[upper stratus]

child's play for me, jane awareness

[tulip folio]

Do 3e Abyssals still have that 'If you're not appearance 5, you're gunna be appearance 0 before long!'?

[bleak hazel]

Every sid I've seen has stacked awareness

It is a really good tree

[upper stratus]

no

[tulip folio]

As while I know what they were going for with it, it did kinda feel limiting in 2e

Oh, that's nice

[upper stratus]

they have an optional (presence i think?) charm that has a similar effect

but it's not obligatory

[tulip folio]

That's a good change

[bleak hazel]

There's also a cheap necromancy spell that gives you +1A and optional Hideous when you sit in your skeletal badass throne

[tulip folio]

Hahahah

[bleak hazel]

So you can go from Appearance -5 to Appearance +6 when you sit in your cool chair, or vice versa

[upper stratus]

i love my 'i can selectively activate hideous' shit

[prisma sun]

Abyssals don't even have a book yet

[upper stratus]

draft is out

[prisma sun]

oh what

[upper stratus]

it's been for months you can get access to it by backing it

[tulip folio]

But yeah, now to try and work out what to name a Necromancer Alchemical. She's a genuinely nice person who's an analyst and machine spirit medium as her 'Primary Role'...if one that some of her more senior Alchs are Pretty Sure is going to go Apostate before long/are waiting for a chance for her to prove she's fruit of a blighted tree.

She's not a happy sort/she's kinda bitter over the fact that even after earning exaltation with her prior lives, some people think she's likely already a lost cause because most of her previous lives were in service of the mortals of Erlik (Before that city went Apostate themselves). XD

[upper stratus]

my sid's only real social skill is presence 3 but combining this charm with my maxed out strength i can throw my weight around in social anyway

ez pick

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/kenshiro-finger-popping-gif-9761415

[tulip folio]

I am 100% picturing a batman goon going 'Ey, you makin' trouble for the boss?'

[upper stratus]

one of the funniest thing about sidereal charm trees to me is if you wanna make a very combat focused sid there's two really good charms to pick up in presence and craft so it can trick you into having a character with more identity to them than 'kill mcpunch sid' anyway

'hey champ you put those 3 dots into presence for heroic essence replenishment, so y'know why -not- make a lil use of it now and then huh'

[prisma sun]

https://i.imgur.com/73CCgE9.png

"Yes I am rolling my social stats"

"Strength + War"

[tulip folio]

Alchs have a very funny ranged combat option that is Appearance-based.

[upper stratus]

yes im rolling my thinky thoughts stats. by which i mean strength + bureaucracy

[tulip folio]

Blinding Strobe Projector

The Alchemical rolls (Appearance + [Presence or Stealth]) to unleash a blinding flash, adding (Anima) non-Charm dice. Characters within short range who can see her must succeed on an opposed (Wits +Awareness) roll or be blinded for the rest of the scene. They also lose (Alchemical’s Essence/2, rounded up) Initiative.

[upper stratus]

lmao

[tulip folio]

'DISCO ALCH GO!'

[upper stratus]

there's a lunar charm that lets you withering attack from medium range by hurling insults

[tulip folio]

Is this 'you beat up the lesser god until he signs your paper'?

[upper stratus]

also this sidereal melee withering attack that's just 'i imagined beating you up in my head so hard that it affects your ability to fight good'

[upper stratus]

no it's literally giving a Strong Handshake so good that it makes them stop wanting to be corrupt

[tulip folio]

...god dammit Alchs.

They've got a perception charm upgrade taht gives you 'inbuilt tinted lenses that cover your eyes' that make you immune to being blinded.

[upper stratus]

1287 years of 'body language expert' studies have gone into the power of my strength 5 + bureaucracy 5 + 1 Impose Authority specialty hand shake that skips straight to giving you a defining intimacy

[tulip folio]

...oh, that's dirty. Alchs can entirely ignore resolve when doing social attacks with the right charm. Replacing it with a Stamina + Resistance roll (Which benefits from bonuses against poison).

Pheromone Regulation Systems

[upper stratus]

lmao

wait

[tulip folio]

It's limited in that it can only do raw emotions, it can't do complex effects.

[upper stratus]

better be ready to take what you can dish out

[tulip folio]

Hahahahah

[upper stratus]

'behold the power of my pheromone regulation system!'
'no u'

[tulip folio]

They also have a charm that makes them just innately seem like someone with Good Advice.

[prisma sun]

Ohhhhhh

[tulip folio]

Though it notes it doesn't make you actually good at giving advice.

Just makes people more likely to listen to your stupid ideas

[prisma sun]

I think a Serpent-Sting staff fits my Sid

[upper stratus]

they've started doing a lot of 'same charm for different exalts and slight adjustments' since sids and im very glad for it

not every charm needs to be like a whole new thing. 'i look like a good smart advisor person' is a reoccuring charm across multiple exalts at this point

[prisma sun]

or Skycutter

[velvet raft]

This is 100% in-genre for Exalted

[prisma sun]

hmmmmm

wait

what the fuck

Infinitie Chakram are classified as a ligiht thrown weapon

but have tag "Thrown (Medium)"

[upper stratus]

that's the range

light weapon with medium range

[tulip folio]

it's a basic charm but one I really love is Radiant Iconography Display.

[prisma sun]

Ohhhhhhhh

Also what is a Staff Sling

[tulip folio]

While the Alchemical’s anima banner is glowing or higher, she can project sounds and holographic imagery as part of an influence roll or ordinary discussion. This expands the type and amount of information the influence can convey, and can circumvent language barriers, time pressure, or other impediments to communicating complex ideas. She can’t create realistic images, only simplified or abstracted figures, nor can she mimic a person’s voice or precisely repeat a specific sound.

The Alchemical can project holograms out to close range from her. Individual holograms can be up to the size of a person. They’re obviously illusory, and won’t block lines of sight or otherwise impede senses.

You turn your anima banner into a full on holographic display

[velvet raft]

... so it lets you do the stupid holographic computer gesture Tony Stark thing?

That's amazing

[tulip folio]

Yep!

[velvet raft]

That's incredible

[tulip folio]

And it's got an upgrade that goes all the way to 'Full On Illusionist'

[upper stratus]

it keeps happening

[prisma sun]

Sidreals are just so funny

[tulip folio]

Prismatic Illusion Emitter (6xp; Appearance 5, Essence 2, Hologlyphic Verisimilitude, Luminous Divinity Beacon) (+3m, 1wp): The Alchemical can pay a three-mote, one-Willpower surcharge to create convincing illusions. Nontrivial characters can roll (Perception + Awareness) opposing the influence roll to see through this. If the Alchemical didn’t use influence, she rolls (Appearance + [Performance or Presence]) to determine the illusions’ quality. Characters who fail their roll can’t try again unless they’re given some new reason to suspect the illusions.

If you buy all the upgrades for it, you become Mysterio

[prisma sun]

man

I feel like my typing has gotten noticably worse over thhe last few months

[upper stratus]

thing i really enjoy about 3e sids is that since arcane fate makes it so they really can't build long term relations outside of those immune good they get a lot of charms that allow them to do 'quick and dirty immediate intimacies'

they work fast and briefly and then duck out to their next mission. it suits their vibe very well

[velvet raft]

Bureaucracy Ninjas

[tulip folio]

Makes a lot of sense. The alchemical version of that is 'Making intimacies to specific people is difficult but you are Really Good at creating quick intimacies towards Groups', since they're the Community Exalt.

[upper stratus]

3e post-solars has been very good at 'these charms shape how you approach obstacles' really well

[bleak hazel]

the funny thing here is that it's an absolutely amazing soak buster and ignores all the usual soak adders, so you just imagine stabbing a dude while he's shirtless and all of a sudden he just falls over despite being in full armour

[tulip folio]

Patriotism-Provoking Display

The Alchemical doubles 9s on a persuade roll to convince others to act in support of a group or community that they belong to. She converts bonus dice from Transpuissant Appearance Upgrade to automatic successes. Her targets they can’t use Intimacies based on selfishness, laziness, apathy, or cynicism to bolster their Resolve against her influence or resist it in a Decision Point.

One-is-Many Node (3xp): The Alchemical can use this Charm to persuade someone to help a specific member of a valid community, rather than the group as a whole.

Like their Basic Persuade Booster by default does a lot to make people act in support of groups but needs an upgrade to actually work with Individual People.

Which I feel is a really good strength and limitation for Alchemicals

[bleak hazel]

The exception is Integrity, which is "no, fuck you, fuck everything, I'll do it the hard way" and then the hard way costs you everything

[tulip folio]

They care about People (Collective) but have trouble narrowing things down to People (Individual)

[bleak hazel]

Sid Integrity is my favourite charm tree in the entire game

[tulip folio]

...aww, that's cute. They have a follow up charm to they 'hey, I'm good at advice' to be 'I'm actually good at advice'.

[prisma sun]

https://i.imgur.com/lNHxwjM.png

what do you think this is for

[tulip folio]

The Alchemical makes an instill roll with any Attribute against a single character as she offers him advise, seeking to create or strengthen a Principle based on her advice. Her student can’t choose not to assert his Resolve against the roll. He gains a pool of bonus dice equal to the Alchemical’s extra successes, which he can add on social or mental rolls that he makes based on the Champion’s advice. They can’t be used in combat. These dice are lost if not used within (Alchemical’s Essence) days. While this Charm is often used to advise others facing specific obstacles, challenges, or problems, but it can also be used to provide more general advice. The breadth of such guidance should be relatively narrow, comparable to what might be covered by one or two specialties.

You can Play Matchmaker and your advice makes the mortal better

[upper stratus]

for example, if you strip this charm down to its barest function it's just a way to add up to 5 non-charm dice, but rather than just giving them to you, it shapes how your character conducts and presents themselves if they want to make use of it

[tulip folio]

Kicking Gods?

[upper stratus]

it's not just extra dice, it's like. how you play. it's the difference between an upgrade tree that's just boring '+3% melee damage' shit vs a upgrade tree that adds new moves in an action game

[tulip folio]

Full on 'Who the hell are you, what is going on?' panic.

[bleak hazel]

One of the reasons I don't gel with Lunars so much is that a lot of their stuff is just "gain buff X, but animal themed"

Solars are right out though, they have no flavour text that isn't "essence essence essence, essence, perfect, lamp"

[upper stratus]

i have an abyssal in my back pocket for if i ever get a game for it who has this charm + an occult charm that lets you whisper shit in people's heads from (essence * 10) miles away without revealing yourself

[prisma sun]

Lunars appeal to be greatly because like

You can be good at almost anything

You're so absurdly versatile

[bleak hazel]

Lunars just never really snag me, I've never really had a character concept idea and then gone "ah, this guy should be a lunar"

but I keep accidentally making sids and deebs and occasionally Abyssals

[prisma sun]

Also I love animals and shape shifting

Beast Boy was my favorite Teen Titan as a kid

[bleak hazel]

yeah that's probably the difference, they do a lot of the thing by invoking animal vibes and those don't really appeal to me

[prisma sun]

I love the idea of being attacked by 8 guys and so I turn into an octopus and then punch all of them at the same time

[bleak hazel]

I could be convinced by "terrifying mountain sorceror with his swarms of ravens" but Solars are the guys who get big sorcery, so meh

[velvet raft]

I like solars

But also Celestial Sorcery is pretty strong

[bleak hazel]

Actually I like two Lunars, I like Leviathan the emo whale and Sublime Danger the ultrakill cosplayer

[tulip folio]

This is purely my own thoughts but I think if I was to ever do stuff with Solars/if I ever had magic powers to change things I'd focus down harder on Solars as basicly Mortal+++, backed up by Narrative Convention. They can do some crazy shit and they are scary but they don't get like 'Shooting Divine Fire'. They get more 'Bard the Archer hitting the one gap in Smaug's armour because He's A Hero'.

But as part of that, I'd also make it more about enforcing that narrative position of themselves as heroes on stuff about them. Like giving them Shaping Curing by Imposing An Out on effects (Ala: 'Princess' kiss will cure the frog), even if they're normally uncurable. Or giving them scaling bonuses the more outnumbered they are.

Less 'Unstoppable Godking' and more 'You are fighting the guy who's got Narrative Convention on his side and is also inhumanly good'. More...Carrot Ironfoundersson nonsense.

Like I would unironically give Solars a 'If you would die, you wash up/get found half-dead but capable of recovering' charm (With costs, of course. Avoiding death shouldn't be cheap).

[upper stratus]

guess what integrity has

[bleak hazel]

Solars have one, it's wildly overpowered but mostly kept under control by being buried behind literally dozens of almost entirely useless craft charms

[tulip folio]

For Solars? Oh, nevermind then. XD

[bleak hazel]

Abyssals have a much cooler one as their Integrity capstone

too angry to die

[upper stratus]

you're cooking fr tbh

[tulip folio]

I think something I'd love to do with Solars, mechanicaly? Is give them the ability to unlock evocations from mundane weapons, if they've worked with it for some time.

This isn't just 'A Sword'

It's your sword

It's impressive not because of what it's made of but because of what it's done.

[bleak hazel]

The annoying thing for me is that most of the "big hero boy" stuff tends to manifest in their descriptions as "I'm the best, everyone else get out" which just angers me in principle, unlike every other exalt type who have a coherent power theming not fundamentally dependent on trumping everyone else's deals with raw stats

[tulip folio]

Ah, Voy. If it's cool could there be less drive-by meme posting?

Likley put it in craft, where rather than about 'Making Artifacts', there's a line of charms about 'This object becomes mythical because of association with me/what I've done with it'.

[prisma sun]

I'm in the convo so it feels less drive-by but sure I can wait until the convo's done

[bleak hazel]

I suppose "I am tweaking the intended purpose of the charmset to make Solaroids merely as powerful as Sids or Lunars unless doing big craft or big sorcery or king stuff" would be my preferred dev approach but at the moment Solars A Best feels pretty baked in

[upper stratus]

it's not about being in the convo, it's that they're unrelated to the subject at hand

[tulip folio]

My most heretical thought is one that I know I'd get skewered for. XD

[upper stratus]

if they were like this i wouldn't be so annoyed about them being resonant with everything

[bleak hazel]

There is actually a deeb charm for that, where they put on the mask (tm), become some kind of folk hero and then once their mask identity has built up enough prestige the mask becomes a 3 dot artifact

[prisma sun]

Solars a best is a legacy thing that's stayed unfortunately

[bleak hazel]

it also does other stuff to let you be deeb batman in the meantime

or deeb joker

[prisma sun]

I love that charmm

[upper stratus]

what tree is this in

[prisma sun]

Lore...? I think

[bleak hazel]

Larceny IIRC, but I could be wrong

[upper stratus]

awesome

[bleak hazel]

with the upgrade charm that lets you make the mask into an artifact in Heirs of the Shogunate

[tulip folio]

If I had ultimate power I'd attempt (Attempt being the key word) to put all exalts of equal essence on equal footing...with Solars notable because they don't start at essence 1 with default chargen. Make the terrifying thing about solars not that their peaks are so much higher than everyone else's but becasue Bob The Solar who awakened yesterday is already on par with some of the most veteran dragonblooded to live.

So like go 'Most DBs don't go beyond essence 1 in their lifetime. Immaculate monks get to essence 2 and special named ones can get higher than that but by Starting At 2, a Solar is already a serious presence in the world, without his charms being so good that mixed circles are not functionally possible'.

[prisma sun]

Larceny

I found it

page 134

unfortunately Giant Art of someone about to behead a lady

makes it hard to copy-paste

[bleak hazel]

I like that, although I'd probably keep celestial and terrestrial as two power tiers because there are a lot of deebs and I feel they get satisfying narrative stuff out of "weak, but cohesive teamwork"

deebs and liminals as the terrestrials and everyone else on the one rough celestial power bracket

with Exigents in both because they're the grab bag exalt type

[tulip folio]

I'll admit, my thoughts on how I'd do deebs is...D&D 4e Warlord. 1v1 a deeb isn't a match for a celestial. 2v2, it gets a lot closer because deeb's mechanical role is Synergy. Soak boosters that are not quite as good for you but also give soak to nearby allies when used etc.

But this is all just Vague Thoughts

[bleak hazel]

Also I really like deeb games because it's way easier to make adversaries for them

deebs are just good

[prisma sun]

being really into Demon Slayer when I started reading Deebs helped a lot

to get me hooked

[upper stratus]

i don't think painting an entire exalt type with a stroke as specific as dnd 4e warlord would really work out for a game like this

it's too much like giving them a Class if that makes sense?

[dense verge]

dbs i like and im approaching thinking of the terrestrial power gap where that, in most instances its there but only insofar as it encourages teamwork strats

[tulip folio]

That's more than fair, as I said, just vague thoughts.

[bleak hazel]

There are so goddamn many deebs that they kind of have to be weaker or it doesn't make the setting make a ton of sense, but I really like the current power scale between deebs and lunars/sids

deebs also get the big leg up of starting at E2, where their juice pools are about the same as E1 Celestials

[upper stratus]

2e had a whlle thing about wyld hunt strats where they'd start out sending mortal mook waves (doomed) to tire out solars before swooping in themselves to fight a low-on-motes solar but im glad 3e decided to make every non-solar a moustache twirling villain.

i reckon deebs can still do stuff like get backup from mortal archer battlegroups that they shield with reflexive defend other charms though. "there's more of us and we have a bigger support infratructure" continues to be their best solar counter

[bleak hazel]

I like to think that anti-Exalt tactics are a lot like anti-AC tactics

bring lots of little dudes to attrit and support, pin with whatever heavies you have got and bring big guns (sorceror on the next hill)

[dense verge]

i got to say, looking at the endless solar trump card design of core makes me appreciate the realms attitude on them more

[prisma sun]

Ashley do you mean "decided against"

[tulip folio]

'Hey Mr Solar, 3 Ballista Shots'

[bleak hazel]

Deebs fight like the PCA, except nobody is Raven and there are a lot more LCs and HCs

[upper stratus]

byeag

[upper stratus]

there is one raven and it's the deeb that spend all of their starting dots on getting a warstrider with the necessary means to keep it running

[tulip folio]

I think there's a good distinction though between 'we'll likely lose a lot of support' and 'the mortals are Just Fodder'.

[prisma sun]

Oh my god

this is the best martial arts charm

https://i.imgur.com/3BL6P9X.png

[bleak hazel]

It's also a lot more justifiable if you have some deebs tying up the solar while the mortals do stuff

[prisma sun]

this is so fucking funny

Literally "Yeah fuck you, anime power explaination"

[upper stratus]

yea there's a difference between "legitimate tactics of war that will see soldiers die cause that's how war works" and "just throw mortals at them to die and make them a little tired"

[tulip folio]

What is that from? Is that homebrew or an actual book?

[prisma sun]

https://i.imgur.com/g9IHR02.png

This is an actual Sidreal NPC

[bleak hazel]

That's Anys Syn's elder power from the Sid book

[prisma sun]

Anys Syn is The Sidreal Martial Artist

[bleak hazel]

E7 Sidereal Martial artist who knows every published SMA style and lots of mundane ones

the nuclear strike thing is barely metaphor

[tulip folio]

I imagine some of it is also that well...4/5 Solars are not Dawns and even then, most are not Player Character Optimized. The Twilight who Makes Cool Swords and exalted by Making A Really Cool Sword could legitimately get his guts spilled by a dozen mortals with their own swords.

And even a lot of E1 dawns could end up very dead due to 'Hey, drink this Totally Not A Poison'

[prisma sun]

There's always ways to beat beatsticks

[bleak hazel]

(unless they're E5 solar melee, anyway)

Craft Solars are some of the most interesting Solars to me

[tulip folio]

I mean, I'm not sure even Supernal Solar Melee has anything to survive Food Poisoning (Though I could be wrong, maybe they can parry it).

[upper stratus]

she's so funny i love her

[prisma sun]

Lady in red's arm seems like she's Once Upon A Time In Mexico-ing

[bleak hazel]

The joke is that Solar Melee has so many charms that you can literally spend enough XP to go from chargen to E5 on it and still not have them all, it's probably in there somewhere

[upper stratus]

don't know what that means but holding yoru hand under the table is considered poor manners where im from. social blunder. -25 points

[upper stratus]

im pretty sure it doesn't

[bleak hazel]

(for food poisoning you need the fairly cheap resistance charm Immunity To Everything Technique)

[upper stratus]

sidereals do get to 'dodge' stuff like that though.

yeag and any given john melee supernal is gonna have points in resistance

[prisma sun]

https://youtu.be/9BWIOcuijTk?si=Sz9yIXJdo48BCwIh&t=356

[bleak hazel]

Solar trees have a tendency to obsolete the actual skill they're about pretty quickly, which in the case of ITET is really funny

It's a bit more of a problem with Investigation because it's hard to do a good mystery plot for your solar detective if they have a Solve Plot button

[upper stratus]

Cost: 7m; Mins: Dodge 4, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Uniform, Perilous
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Absent Self
Sensing an impending danger rippling toward her
through the skeins of fate, the Sidereal deftly steps out
of its path.
The Sidereal can use Evasion to defend against any hos-
tile effect: undodgeable attacks, environmental hazards, falling damage, social influence, Shaping effects, etc.
If the effect is one that could normally be defended
against with an opposed roll or static value, the Sidereal
substitutes her Evasion for successes on the roll or the
applicable static value. If it isn’t, the Storyteller should
assign a dice pool for the source’s effect to roll against
the Sidereal’s Evasion. Against ongoing or recurring
effects, once the Sidereal successfully defends with this
Charm, she’s immune for the rest of the scene.
Duck Fate can only defend against the actions and
magic of other characters and environmental effects
with defined mechanics. Appropriate stunts may bypass
this limitation, letting a Sidereal dodge performance
reviews, debts, her feelings, etc.```

[tulip folio]

Oh yeah but I meant more 'The average Solar isn't built like a player charcter, who automatically has All The Important Charms'. Like yeah, having Shaping Immunity is important but the Average E1 Solar likely doesn't have that because it's not a Thematically Tied Thing To His Origin.

If I am being remotely coherant?

[upper stratus]

yea i get it

player characters are Built Different

[tulip folio]

So I imagine NPC solars tend to have a lot more vulnerability to Wyld Hunts because they're being hunted by the guys great at working out what you're bad at and hammering it. XD

[bleak hazel]

The funniest one is Solar Survival, which solves all survival situations ever within the first two charms and spends the rest of the tree playing Pokémon

[dense verge]

capstone is throwing your sparrow who you have given skin of diamond to at someone

also i feel like ideally npc solars wouldnt need to be built different from pc ones

[prisma sun]

https://i.imgur.com/qUeWlCs.png

Is this the only time they're called "Gigantes"

[bleak hazel]

Shaping defence is actually the one thing I think they're almost guaranteed to have narratively because the requirement for the standard solar shaping defence is "any 10 charms" and narratively it's "you develop such a heroic will that you cannot be prevented from doing Your Thing"

[prisma sun]

I don't think I've ever heard this term in Exalted

[upper stratus]

one book (i think the storyteller advice book) directly acknowledges that PCs are 'built different' and as an example the rate at which they advance and gain power is extremely atypical of other exalts and shouldn't reflect upon what other exalts are like in terms of mechanics-worldbuilding integration

[bleak hazel]

Ruleswise, it's "whatever shaping bullshit is done to me, it must have a break condition and it can't impair my ability to use these ten charms" which is kind of fun

[tulip folio]

I like the Alchemical Version of those solar survival charms, which gives a lot less 'I autowin' and a lot more 'Cool extra things thematically tied to it'. Like an Alch that's immune to deserts is also resisant to Fireballs but he's got to buy enviromental threats individually because each also comes with some cool extras.

[bleak hazel]

you can duck punch Solar Crafter but the duck will still have the ability to make masterwork daiklaives

I think "this one PC splat is inherently stronger than your average example of their kind" as a solar only thing is a bit odd

All PCs level super fast because that's the PC thing, but I see no problem with them generally having the rough range of options of every other Chosen of X

[upper stratus]

no it's not solar specific

[tulip folio]

I mean, I think it applies to All Splats to some extent. As players will Pick Optimal Things because they've got out of game knowledge.

While an NPC Dragonblooded might learn suboptimal things because they Think It's Cool or Their Cousin Was Doing it, So They Went Along.

[upper stratus]

storyteller book also acknowledges that if you give an adversary high soak you should also give them lower parry/evasion and vice versa, even though that is not a convention PCs have to follow at all

stuff ike that

player can make John Soak 20 Parry 8 Mcgee but enemies should have some kinda gap to not make everything a slog

[bleak hazel]

Does make me wonder if deebs have a coherent wyld hunt guide that says ,"if you see the dawn caste mark, back off and call for the sneakydeebs" or similar

Most other solar types are going to be easier to gank, if only because you can guarantee they aren't melee supernal

[upper stratus]

probably

[tulip folio]

I'd hope so, as they do have their own names for each of the castes.

So they can tell them apart

[upper stratus]

they've been doing it for a while and with sidereal assistance who still remember planning anti-solar methods as far back as the first age

[bleak hazel]

Social Solars and so on are also terrifying but they don't pose quite so much an obstacle to the Wyld Hunt in particular

[tulip folio]

Yeah, MDV: Fist is no longer a thing but talking someone down does likely still take more time than gutting them.

[prisma sun]

Even a Dawn caught early can be killed

[tulip folio]

'I am supernal solar melee'
'Cool, we stole your sword. And your backup dagger. What's your brawl like?'

[bleak hazel]

There's got to be at least one bronze Sid that's overjoyed about Abyssals and Infernals because at least it's easier to convince the Solaroids to fight each other now

[tulip folio]

(There are charms that can get around that but still, nobody has everything)

[upper stratus]

imagining wyld hunt deebs going after an eclipse caste and being like 'make a request to the royal treasury for the 5 paris of the Jade Earplugs artifacts'

[tulip folio]

'We have requisitioned an Artifact Locker to push this Twilight into'

[bleak hazel]

2e lore actually had the wyld hunt getting their mortal auxiliaries to stuff wax in their ears when hunting Zeniths, which is a little OTT because Solars have rarely had outright mind control at combat speeds but makes some sense

Anti-Kilgrave tactics are warranted

[prisma sun]

The Wyld Hunt but it's got one of the Deebs specced into killing people with a lute

[tulip folio]

But yeah...do you think this for an Alchemical is unreasonable?

New Alchemical who's not trusted by a number of senior ones/several divine minsiters, as while she was heroic in her various mortal lives, she's from a Metropolis that went Apostate and they assume she's fruit of a blighted tree, bound to prove herself an Apostate herself sooner or later.

Alchemicals are community minded but apostates are mentioned to be a major source of paranoia.

[upper stratus]

3e fluff also mentions using hunter-killer automatons during the solar purge which i imagine were mostly employed against the talky chatty solars cause like. you know. automaton. no social influence thank you. robot time

[bleak hazel]

I don't know the specifics of 3e alchems but it fits from what I know

[prisma sun]

Oh, I was gonna have one of these come up as a plot point

the mechanical dragons

[upper stratus]

my exalted group is fighting a hunter-killer automaton

[prisma sun]

https://i.imgur.com/xY2y6S1.jpeg

The Thousand-Forged Dragons

[tulip folio]

The game she's for is for the GM's homebrew city, which is notable for being poor/low resources enough that they don't have any home grown Alchemicals (So the PCs are both new alchemicals and also unfortunately the most senior ones in the city).

[upper stratus]

had to end the session mid fight but i based its statblock on the thousand-forged dragon but downsized

[prisma sun]

YEAAAAAA

[upper stratus]

and gave it some tools for tracking even though it likely won't come up

cause of the hunter part y'know

[bleak hazel]

I honestly just assumed first age Solars basically had Every Charm because they lived so long, but some of them liked certain methods more

[upper stratus]

they purposely avoid the idea that npc exalts advance that fast for this reason

if you live in a time of relative peace you're not developing charms ar a pc rate

[bleak hazel]

I wonder if there's a Sidereal Martial Art charm buried in a lost vault somewhere that's explicitly Hunting Solars Method

[tulip folio]

I also imagine that while first age solars could live so long, there were likely a lot of 'Why would I bother to learn swordplay? I'm an artificer'. A lot more time spent inventing new types of wine to get drunk on, a lot less 'playing pokemon with the charm tree'.

[bleak hazel]

Iridescent Clouds of Sunset Style

Not one the Bureau actually has right now, obviously, or they'd all be using it

[upper stratus]

Raven Steals the Sun Technique

[tulip folio]

Stop That
Reflexive, 5 motes, 1 WP
Scene-Long
This is a Perfect Defence against Bullshit Charms.

[bleak hazel]

I wouldn't put it past Sids to have some kind of mutual annihilation counter magic nonsense

[dense verge]

"Stop that. Get help."

[bleak hazel]

no charms, no excellencies, you and me

martial art of tautologies

[upper stratus]

endings sidereals when there will be self sacrifice at the function

[tulip folio]

...now I'm reminded of 2e PC Fay. I really liked them conceptually (And hated them mechanically). I wonder if we'll get them in 3e.

[prisma sun]

Is there a Sidreal charm that stops time

[upper stratus]

that shit was so ass

[bleak hazel]

"we turn off all the magic and fight with our Human Capabilities" is not really how exalts work but it wouldn't be the first Wierd Move side had

[bleak hazel]

Emerald Gyre of Aeons Style

[prisma sun]

https://i.imgur.com/nYzEc2P.png

I'm looking at starmetal artifacts s

[bleak hazel]

It has king crimson as well as Ki Rata

[prisma sun]

wait

I'm blind

[upper stratus]

i think it'd be kinda boring mechanically speaking cause charms are the basically where all the combat juice is

[prisma sun]

Step Between Seconds is not a solar thting

it's a charm before it

[upper stratus]

if you turn off all the magic all you got left is dice pool, stunting and willpower

[bleak hazel]

Oh yeah, but I could totally see a Sid deciding to make a martial art that turned it into dice pools, stunting and willpower

I suppose that's Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic style

[tulip folio]

I once played a Fay in a Terrestrial game but got frustrated with how little shit worked against 'people with willpower or essence'. Which is a pity, as I liked their idea.

Their role was 'The Knight Errant'. They were playing a role like every other Fey but that role demanded they be a noble and upstanding knight...and they found themselves stuck in that role because they knew if they left that role, they'd hurt people...which a True Knight couldn't allow.

[prisma sun]

I would still LOVE to play a mortal Exalted game

[bleak hazel]

which was "fuck this combat system, virtue fight"

This was horrendously broken but was probably a quality improvement on regular 2e combat once you got thrown into the uno dimension and got to actually play Uno instead

[dense verge]

mortals in exalted is a neat idea, but without charms it kind of runs into there not being much there unfortunately. there ARE mortal sorcerers and that can be an angle, but i dont think thats a circle worth of design space

[prisma sun]

What the fuck

this Artifact's capstone evocation is that it just

Grows a Peach of Immortality

[bleak hazel]

Gnomon is a tiny bit overpowered but really fun

[bleak hazel]

I think you'd have to do some kind of martial arts thing where everyone had a few charms from a style and a tiny mote pool for them, or some kind of Shape Sorcery roll to build a pool for fightan

Enlightened mortal martial artists who can do a little bit of essence stuff is usually the go-to

[upper stratus]

i still need to design my starmetal 3 section staff. thinking of a 'perpetual motion (spinning the staves around and shit) means that i never have time to reflect back upon all the horrible violence im doing' theme

[prisma sun]

Question

can any Exalt do a Domain Expansion

[bleak hazel]

Not in 3e but that is what Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic used to do as its capstone

It was also like a "go fight an incarna solo, only CK knows all of this" supreme bullshit art so it probably isn't coming back

[bleak hazel]

That's much deeper and more interesting than mine, mine is just Ghost Sword

the deeb who made it lived in Thorns, when it was halfway done the city fell and the death knights bound his ghost to finish it

[tulip folio]

Mental
Int 5
Per 2
Wits 4

Social
App 3
Cha 5
Manip 1

Physical
Dex 2
Stam 4
Str 1

Yay making my Alchemical.

[bleak hazel]

it exists in the spirit world and the real world simultaneously, so the evocation lets you do a move with it even if it's lying on the other side of the room by materialising the sword's soul in your hand for a split second

also cuts spirits when you do that, for obvious reasons

[prisma sun]

The Forgotten Sword is also like

peak Sidreal

[upper stratus]

what sword?

[bleak hazel]

Your robot has skipped leg day

[prisma sun]

what?

[tulip folio]

Yes but she's very durable! And also just the Worst Liar.

[upper stratus]

honeslty love it when a character's physicals are some spread of 5, 4, 1 in whatever order. your body is fucking WEIRD

i am the most dexterous and durable person you've ever met. if you ask me to lift something i will turn into a coughing baby

[bleak hazel]

I like it with social stats

[upper stratus]

my sid built like this

[bleak hazel]

My abyssal is Manip 5, App 3, Cha 1

[tulip folio]

My justification is basicly 'She's made of heavy magical materials. She's barely able to carry herself, let alone anything else. XD

[bleak hazel]

Grima Wormtongue Mode, except way hotter

[tulip folio]

She will also immediately dissapear beneath the waves if you ask her to swim

[upper stratus]

used to be intelligence 1 at char gen too

[bleak hazel]

I'm going for Supernal Bureaucracy sauron vibes so he's got craft, socialize and occult on top of the paperwork

Yeah, my Sid was originally int 1 but now he's Int 3 because it was getting in the way of doing necromancy

[bleak hazel]

the most combat sid

[upper stratus]

close to SMA now. spiders time

[prisma sun]

https://i.imgur.com/oYZTmXZ.png

[bleak hazel]

Honestly I want to go Sid Melee -> Prismatic but I might have to spend 23 XP and some charms on CMOS too just because it has really good early stuff

[prisma sun]

These are King Hus stats

Though we had the Experienced start

[bleak hazel]

Movement tech, medium range swording, the big web that imposes really mean penalties to attack you

[prisma sun]

so Hu's been fucking shit up for like 100 years

[tulip folio]

After Starting Charms her stats have improved!

Mental
Int 5 (6)
Per 2
Wits 4

Social
App 3
Cha 5 (6)
Manip 1

Physical
Dex 2
Stam 4 (5)
Str 1

Not the bad ones, mind you.

[upper stratus]

i wanna nab exalt ways from prismatic cause probably one of the best 'hello fellow deebs' tools around but otherwise it's all in on cmos for me. don't have the occult dots to make use of prismatic

[bleak hazel]

I'm going for that first too

also moonsilver blink strike + the Soulfire tree because I'm a good mage and I want counterspells

CMOS is really tempting though

Ways of Exaltation is also great because we have a full moon lunar, so I can get most of my excellency for free on all Dex rolls and become really mote efficient

Soulfire form lets me turn any init I gain into motes so hopefully careful play lets me outlast people

[upper stratus]

it's very disappointing to me that anti-magic punch relies so much on being good at magic rather than like y'know. being a good martial artist

[bleak hazel]

The counterspell clash one actually doesn't, you can just do that

[upper stratus]

remembering shining point just letting you cut through magic uncomplicated. god i hate shining point

[bleak hazel]

Solar book delenda est

[upper stratus]

are we talking about spell-shattering palm here, cause that one rolls your intelligence + lore or occult

[bleak hazel]

apart from white reaper

Essence disruption + essence redirection

[upper stratus]

it's kinda funny that core has the worst martial art (too overpowered) and the worst martial art (too underpowered)

a true duality

[bleak hazel]

both of which just go off, which is handy when they're the "I sword you until your martial arts form falls off" buttons

Still funny that my Sid who doesn't get on great with Lunars is actually making friends with big kill lizard girl and will eventually make a core part of his combat strategy Pretending To Be A Lunar

Flickering Moonsilver Approach + Exalt Ways + the one awareness charms that lets me turn into a crow

It's not cosplay I was literally just trying to do charop

[upper stratus]

oh right i specifically meant the one that counters sorcery/necromancy

[prisma sun]

Does Ketchup not have stats in 3e?

[bleak hazel]

Nope, he's kind of a Caine figure

Anys Syn has taken his spot as prime Sidereal killstick and does it better imo

[upper stratus]

possibly the single strongest exalt in all of everywhere but luckily he will die in like 3 months so just kinda avoid him

[bleak hazel]

she has reasons to do things other than teleport in and spin kick the party to death and is more fun to talk to

[dense verge]

CK has terminal "im old" disease

[prisma sun]

Unless the Rebel Dude gave him the ability to not die

[upper stratus]

he has explicitly refused anyone's efforts or offers of trying to find a way to live longer

[bleak hazel]

Rakan Thulio parrying Saturn is the one cool thing he has actually done, I'll be honest

[upper stratus]

i will continue to largely ignore rakan and the get squad

[dense verge]

ive squared rakan in my head of largely substituting my own idea of him

demeanor of a pleasant, mild manner english professor. genuinely would like to win you over. wants to obliterate deterministic forces in the universe and has broken into the unfinished heaven to dig out a suitcase nuke exalt to do it

[prisma sun]

But isn't Determinism how the world's able to exist

[upper stratus]

i just kinda can't bring myself to care about getimians. or well i care but like negatively. the text keeps trying to get me to empathize with them and it's like. no im not gonna feel bad about the alternate world you're from. what are we supposed to do, -not- make decisions?

[prisma sun]

and not just get eaten by the Wyld

[upper stratus]

not really. destiny isn't deterministic at all

that's why you got a whole bureau whose job it is to try and make destinies actually happen

[bleak hazel]

I would like Getimians more if there were like 20 of them tops engaged in KGB infiltrator shadow war stuff but the existing writeups are kinda dripless despite kinda reaching for those vibes

[dense verge]

"Think about it. Do you mourn the uncreated? Do you grieve for those who were never born in a nation that never developed around an ideology no one ever imagined on a continent that never formed? No!"
 ive half come around to gets, but in the sense they make far better antagonists than PCs since ultimately they have the temerity to go- "No. This world is wrong. It is wrong not for any reason of ethics or ideals, but for the fact that it is not my world. And to that end I will blot my ink on the page to turn you right, to correct that person that you are, that life that you've lived." 

and i find that clinging to a world that wasnt to be both tragic and and incredibly selfish in a strangely compelling way``` heres my Getimian thoughts i have lying around elsewhere. they feel like bond henchmen to me

[upper stratus]

that's kinda how i feel too, which is why the key clashing point for me is that the book wants to make them appear sympathtic when they're like. honestly insanely egotistical

[dense verge]

Yes, the book so desperately wants them to be heroic at their core

[prisma sun]

I mean more like if you break Destiny you break "things happen linereally" and then you just get the Wyld

[dense verge]

Or at least treat "rectifying" the world as heroic

[upper stratus]

that's also note destiny, that's fate

[bleak hazel]

Also sids don't really need a dark mirror, their mirror is the guy in the next office

[upper stratus]

real shit

not everyone needs a foil

[dense verge]

yep, rogue sids fill the role they want the gets in

[upper stratus]

dedicated foil exalt

[bleak hazel]

Fate is physics, destiny is the plan of heaven

[dense verge]

which is why theyre relegated to henchman status in my head

[upper stratus]

not even rogue sids, we already got like. y'know. bronze faction gold faction. the foil's right there

[dense verge]

Also true!

Sids love fighting each other!

[bleak hazel]

Rogue sids handle the "spy working on hostile territory with limited resources" bit

[upper stratus]

i love how sids are set up and how they just don't really kill each other over these differences (for now) cause it makes the way they 'fight' each other more interesting

[prisma sun]

Solars don't have an evil counterpart

[upper stratus]

abyssals

[prisma sun]

oh

[upper stratus]

infernals

[prisma sun]

Wait then what are evil lunars

[dense verge]

lunars

[upper stratus]

don't have one (thank god)

[dense verge]

or the realm, arguably

[upper stratus]

fair folk too

[bleak hazel]

I think the attempt to make one was Hearteaters but that fizzled

[dense verge]

hearteaters live in the back of the exigent book as a noncanon option now

[bleak hazel]

I actually think they're a very cool villain but it's a bit odd that there a full exalt type

[prisma sun]

https://i.imgur.com/hf4ZE4v.png

[upper stratus]

it's kinda funny they wrote the whole ST book on several of the splats before they even came out. sids really don't feel like that anymore to me. like they still have weirdo freak charms but they all have a pretty clear usecase

[bleak hazel]

It took me two weeks of reading the Sidereal charmset to find a flurry breaker that worked but they don't really have many glaring holes

[upper stratus]

what's the flurry breaker

[bleak hazel]

Dance of the Hungry Spider

[upper stratus]

oh yea that'll do it

when you said sidereal charmset i didn't think of sma

[bleak hazel]

Boing

[upper stratus]

love charcoal march of spiders

[sees a primordial spider eats its children] i could make a martial art outta this

[dense verge]

the world is beautiful

[prisma sun]

I'll be real

none of the SMA really inspired anything in me?

maybe I just didn't reaad them enough

[dense verge]

I havent read them too closely, but they seem neat

[prisma sun]

I do love that you can learn Sidreal martial arts by repeatedly fighting Sidreals

because they're so inherently advisory that their essence just

Teaches You

Oh wait the first Charm in the spider style is being spiderman?

[bleak hazel]

It gets more esoteric from there, yeah

They haven't really done the proper wierdos yet

like Scarlet Patterned Battlefield or Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic

[dense verge]

citrine poxes and rat style for plaguemaxing is one thats been on my mind

[bleak hazel]

Obsidian Shards is great, and my Sid has a sword literally named after an obsidian divination mirror, but he will not be learning it

My white veil style Abyssal would love Citrine Pox

[prisma sun]

I was considering speccing into Thrown

So the spider webs being Thrown is cool

[bleak hazel]

Every Sid combat ability has a button that makes it compatible with a Sid martial art of your choice, which is fun

[prisma sun]

wait whatt

[bleak hazel]

Check for "enlightenment" in the thrown list, they've all got one

Sidereal Martial Art. She can learn it without need-
ing the requisite Martial Arts Charms. She can use it 
with all Melee weapons, though this doesn’t make it 
compatible with other styles that use them (unless the 
Sidereal also purchases this Charm for them). All her 
Melee Charms count as Versatile for that style and as 
Martial Arts for any of its Charms that interact with 
other styles, like Prismatic Arrangement of Creation 
Form (p. XX).
This Charm can be purchased any number of times.```

This is why I consider SMAs basically core Sid charms, you can organically jump into them from your combat trees

[prisma sun]

HUH

Neat!

https://i.imgur.com/hS3F2Lf.png

Also this seems insane

[bleak hazel]

Citrine Pox has a special clause that allows you to take it if you have 10 Medicine charms, which is really cool

Oh yeah that one's great

[prisma sun]

Especially because the literal first Thrown charm

is "attack at extreme range"

[bleak hazel]

bonus points for starting a fight by leaping across the entire battlefield with the jump kick and then using that to come back, hitting everyone on the way

[prisma sun]

Actually do the for real 30m Emerald Splash

The Plague one doesn't really inspire

I think I somehow read that first

[bleak hazel]

I'm personally a fan of Prismatic but it's less stylishly laid out

Obsidian Shards is probably the most "holy shit" one

a whole tree of capstones

[prisma sun]

Wait

doesn't Emerald Gyre of Aeons form let you basically take

infinite actions at no penalty?

[bleak hazel]

3e flurries are strictly a two action deal

It is really good though

Worst case scenario you can slap a withering attack in front of whatever you wanted to do anyway

[prisma sun]

Oh I thought you could do infinte actions just with a culinative -2 '

[next delta]

Just two. Though I think my favorite dice pool multiple action implementation is Storypath's (roll the worst die pool and apply successes as desired to all the attempted actions. Though that's probably tricky to do with how charms work in 3e exalted)

[prisma sun]

That'd definitely not be balanced I think

[wise ocean]

I need to actually build a White Reaper celestial at some point purely so I can do poleaxe combat (non-realistic)

[prisma sun]

Okay I'm sorta selling myself on a Spider-style Sid

Wait

https://i.imgur.com/umN1H9P.png

Why does THROWN have the Domain Expansion

[dense verge]

thats the throw-cave

[prisma sun]

"That's it motherfucker"
"You're going to the goon cave for our duel"

[next delta]

Sidereals are unsatisfied with being able to reach virtually anyone in Creation with their thrown weapons, they had to create a whole new dimension to throw things at people

[dense verge]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6do1-cmcQHE this is sidereal thrown tree in a nutshell

[prisma sun]

EXACTLY

That AND this

https://youtu.be/sJUxiUxDyWk?si=szAWdZXz6Y3qnQe-

[wise ocean]

it should also be a beautifully etched and inlaid jade briefcase which contains the secret orders of creation

[prisma sun]

It contains falsified papers that as soon as they hit you reveal that you divorced your wife 10 years ago and she took the kids

[dense verge]

also hi ash ive been on an exalted kick lately

[wise ocean]

🤝

I have been whiplashing myself between my usual character mode and Exalted, which means I need to be about 3x as OTT as normal

[bleak hazel]

Ash is in deebgame, I have installed exalted brainworms in my normal Lancer group

[prisma sun]

Liar, no one actually runs Exalted....

I do love that Duck Fate lets you dodge your feelings

The ultimate Tsundere charm

[next delta]

Poor ducks. Forever alone

[prisma sun]

I will say

Journeys do suffer a bit from having Sail in their charm tree spread

[prisma sun]

https://i.imgur.com/Y6KilGb.png

Get Marioed

[bleak hazel]

I'm still not entirely certain what that allows you to do other than steal people's rep

[wise ocean]

seems mostly narrative but very cool

[next delta]

If the other person is, uh, busy, wouldn't it let you take over an organisation for some amount of time?

[upper stratus]

allows you to completely void any sorta lie detecting when disguising yourself as them because you are not actually lying

[prisma sun]

Also prevents them from accessing any resources they have

"sorry sir this account is for Pelep Jorak."

"I don't know who the fuck you are"

[prisma sun]

Man

I have daydreamer so much shit for this Sid now

[velvet raft]

That's why we punch people into them

[tulip folio]

...ah, the eternal 'Not enough points for everything I want'. Playing about with this Social/War/Sorcery character's abilities and wondering if I've messed up too badly with this ability setup in 3e. XD

Awareness **
Integrity ***
Linguistics *
Lore ***
Melee ***
Occult ***
Performance ***
Presence ***
Resistance **
Socialize **
War ***

(Everything not listed there is 0 dots).

Lacking Athletics and dodge makes me a bit worried but I've got melee for a decent parry and I was being pulled a lot of different directions.

[bleak hazel]

I'm assuming that Alchems have the lunar thing where bonus pointing abilities up to 5 costs an absurd amount?

[tulip folio]

Oh, this is before bonus points (But it's 4 bonus points to go from 3 to 5, I'm not sure how much it is for Lunars)

[prisma sun]

Is is Mary Suey to make my Sid his exaltation's second host ever, like is that possible

[next delta]

It doesn't seem like a big deal to me. I think it's almost standard for Solars? Maybe a bit weird for Sids but w/e

Any particular reason it will matter?

I feel like most of the time, timelines are long enough that pre-previous exaltations aren't super relevant

[dense verge]

sids have lifetimes of 5,000 max, its perfectly possible to have just One Previous Guy, could work in extended periods of being frozen in amber due to enemy sorcery or such

[bleak hazel]

CK has managed it but it does mean your previous guy was like Essence 10 first age elder Sid tier

[tulip folio]

Or was a Rich Fucker with a Hearthstone of Immortality.

Which is a Bad Look.

As Sids are not supposed to use those

But 'not supposed to do that' is a pretty common exalted thing

[dense verge]

i think sids have a hard cap of 5000 in 3e

except if you're rakan thulio and parry saturn

[bleak hazel]

Yeah, other immortality stuff just doesn't work on them

[prisma sun]

Ye

[prisma sun]

I like the idea that his previous incarnation was a traumatized curmudgeon that was such a mainstay of Yu Shan that everyone has to adjust to the fact that this new version of him is a seemingly dopey asshole with seemingly little sense of responsibility

Like people forgot he could die and then when he did and everyone tried to act like he was back he's just

https://tenor.com/view/kyo-kaneko-kyo-kaneko-hanya-kyo-kaneko-cute-kyo-kaneko-tilt-head-kyo-tilt-head-gif-13560185064659011828

Also wondering if I can design artifact gloves that synergies with Charcoal Spider style

Let you do some real Hellsing and Demon Slayer Shit

[tulip folio]

Alright, got this character made...they have Several Spells but in terms of non-spell stuff they're 'Okay'.

Is there any particularly fun/notable spells (Or necromancies) in the first circle that people think are fun to pick up?

[prisma sun]

Nimbus

I forget the name

but it's just the flying nimbus

[tulip folio]

Also on that topic: What sort of charm effects are mechanically important for being a Social Character in the social system? I'll admit, the numberfiddling has me going 'is this a good effect?' a lot. XD

LIke I stare at this and go '...I guess this gives a bonus of some sort?'

Likewise I go 'Umm...this seems like it's bonuses but I don't know how useful it is'

[tepid flower]

So! The entire social influence system in Exalted (3e, at least) is built on Intimacies. You can't do much of anything to anyone, socially, if you can't point to an Intimacy that says they might agree.

This means you almost certainly want a very solid Read Intentions pool so you can figure out what their Intimacies are, first of all.

[tulip folio]

'We're powerless against this abyssal, he's a Nihilist, he doesn't care about anything!'

[tepid flower]

(This is technically a flaw in the system, yeah, but the ST is really not supposed to make an NPC care about nothing because it is functionally making them immune to social influence, yes. And Solars have a charm to auto-kill anyone without Intimacies so, uh, not exactly safe either, at least if Solars are around!)

[tulip folio]

And you also use intimacies to resist social stuff, as I understand it.

So 'I hate your face' is a valid counterargument to logic.

[tepid flower]

Yeah, if you hate members of the Guild then that Intimacy is a valid defense against social influence attempts from any member of the Guild.

Even if they are objectively offering you something you really want at a reasonable price.

Read Intentions is how you figure out other peoples' Intimacies, so it's critical.

Equally critical is Instill, which is how you give people new Intimacies or strengthen/weaken Intimacies they already have.

[tulip folio]

So that's where Unimpeachable Emissary is good. Where it reduces negative ties towards groups you're parts of by a level.

[tepid flower]

Yup! Unimpeachable Emissary is for "OK so I know you don't like Alchemicals but you like me, right?"

It's partially negating Intimacies that might cause people to ignore you out of hand because they don't like Those Outsiders or Alchemicals Specifically or Exalts In General or just People From Where You're From

[tulip folio]

...ah, and that's where the merit I have helps.

Deathly Siren Allure (•••): The necromancer treats her Appearance as one higher for determining bonus dice on persuade rolls to draw someone towards her. Once per session, she may declare that an unExalted undead with Essence lower than (her Appearance/2, rounded up) is automatically enchanted by her, gaining a Minor Tie of fascination, attraction, or awe of their player’s choice. 

Where you can just Declare an Undead Has An Autotie to you.

[prisma sun]

https://i.imgur.com/GWLO4UM.png

it's the first spell for a reason

[tulip folio]

So between Deathly Siren and Unimpeachable Emissary, undead have their ties against me reduced by a level (Unless it's against me *personally) and I can give them a tie automatically.

But since it's only a minor tie it can't oppose important things

But it's enough to get 'Hey, could you do me a small solid?' out of people.

[tepid flower]

And if you have Clockwork Envoy Eminence, they will have a second Tie towards you because they know you are Just That Good A Diplomat.

This is important because if you want to change someone's Intimacies

You have to support the Instill attempt with their existing Intimacies

Example: you want an undead ghost-king to consider you trustworthy. This is, mechanically, Instilling a Minor Tie of Me (Trust).

Minor Intimacies don't need to be supported; you can just do that and it works if you roll well enough.

But if you want to upgrade that Tie to Major, you need to support it with an existing Intimacy.

[tulip folio]

So I could leverage the Awe from Deathly Siren.

[tepid flower]

Or the one from Clockwork Envoy Eminence

[tulip folio]

While avoiding 'the living are assholes' negative ties stopping it

[tepid flower]

Yup!

And that is sufficient to support upgrading it to Major. If you then wanted to upgrade it to Defining, you'd need a Major Tie to support it.

[tulip folio]

...but I could use 'good diplomat' to upgrade awe to major as it's another minor

And then use the now major awe to support the trust

If I understand this right?

[prisma sun]

Who chanced upon a spider, gliding on a string.
She watched the spider land and construct it's web.
"Why relinquish your freedom?" she asked
As the spider walked to the wriggling fly it said
"For all journeys must end" ```

[tepid flower]

Clockwork Envoy Eminence always gives you a Minor Tie, so you'd have to upgrade that Tie to Major normally.

But then you could, yes.

[tulip folio]

...oh and that's why Patriotism Provoking Display is powerful (When it applies).

As it doesn't care how big the tie is.

It goes 'if it's one of these sorts, it can't ever be used'

[tepid flower]

Yup! If your target has a Defining Principle of selfishness (say, "Never do anything for anyone else without payment") you can just bypass it with Patriotism Provoking Display.

They're not allowed to invoke it as a defense.

[tulip folio]

'Oh no, they're just Too Earnest'

[next delta]

I really like the intimacies that can't apply rider here

[tulip folio]

...and that's why Unwavering Champion Protocol works.

Pupulat Hero + Harded Coded Loyalty = I'ts really damn hard to degrade my ability to leverage my I Like Mortals

[tepid flower]

Yeah, 3e Alchemicals have a very very strong mechanical and narrative incentive to be defenders of a community or communities

Notably, the second bit of Patriotism Provoking Display means you can go "I know you don't care about this community but I do" and that will bypass their cynicism or selfishness

[tulip folio]

'Please stop the musical number about friendship'

Okay. I think I'm going to tinker with my charms. As I grabbed a few social ones that did Dice Bonus Stuff but I think I want Unimpeachable and Patriotism, even if they don't give Big Dice, they let me use my solid dice more.

[tepid flower]

You can always add more dice with Excellencies, so expanding when you can make rolls is very valuable.

But the TLDR version of each social roll is:

[next delta]

Most dice adders are mostly an efficiency upgrades over Excellencies because of charm dice limits

[tulip folio]

This character is both A) Very wholesome B) Likely going to get beaten up by other Alchemicals because she's dangerously close to an apostate (Though no intent of her own). XD

To quote the GM when going 'Hey, want to have Necromancy, not just Sorcery?'

Your character has a prototype created by Noi, Domadmod and Ku as a secret project, an attempt at Necromancy 2.0. Autocthon helped create the rules and structures that defined sorcery, and this is their attempt to take the blighted necromancy charm Apostates use, purify it and bring it into alignment with Autocthon's own essence. It is very uncertain if this will work, or what weird side effects it will have.

You have access to the experimental github branch of an unlicensed fanpatch :P

[tepid flower]

Read Intentions: find out what Intimacies someone has and at what strength
Instill: give new Intimacies, strengthen/weaken existing Intimacies
Persuade: get someone to do something based on their Intimacies
Bargain: avoid Intimacies, get someone to do something because you're offering them something they want
Threaten: avoid Intimacies, get someone to do something because you'll do Bad Things to them if they don't
Inspire: give someone a mood or vibe, which is unreliable (they choose how they respond not you) but can be invoked as a temporary Major Intimacy

[tulip folio]

nods

So inspire is unreliable but powerful.

While instill/persuade is slow, careful steps

[tepid flower]

Yeah, you can say "I want to Inspire someone to Hot-Blooded Action" but their player (or the ST for NPCs) get to decide what form that actually takes and what they do about it.

[tulip folio]

'Wow, thanks. I am now going to confess to my love' leaves the fight you wanted help in

[tepid flower]

Whereas Persuading someone to Maybe Go Burn The Slave Market Down is a lot more reliable if that is specifically what you want them to do

[tulip folio]

And it sounds like Instill and Persuade is better for Long-Term Effects.

[next delta]

I think the typical long-term arc is to read intentions to figure out what their intimacies are, then use those intimacies to ladder in your desired intimacies with instill, and then use those new intimacies using persuade

Inspire is a more short term thing I feel like?

[tepid flower]

Yeah, if you want to break it down to raw mechanics the simplest thing is to give someone a Minor Intimacy, give them a second Minor Intimacy, and then strengthen one of those using the other

And keep doing that until they're both at the level where you can Persuade someone to do what you want

[tulip folio]

Alright, I have gained patriotism proking display.

It should really help make use of the social skills

[tepid flower]

Inspire is generally from Performance rolls, like stirring-up a mob or dancing so majestically it makes everyone sad

[tulip folio]

Entertainingly: Both PCs for this game finished so far have pretty damn similar stats but we have vastly dramatically different charms.

Both are Int/Cha/App heavy.

But I'm going Sorcery and Patriotism + Central Command Beacon.

While they've gone down a lot of the medical and pheramone regulation charms

One is a sorcerer who's designed to be 'Flag Waving Patriotism Bot'

And the other a doctor/advisor/sneaky socialite

[tepid flower]

Do you have both sorcery and necromancy, then?

[tulip folio]

Yeah, the GM offered it because that guy is addicted to 'Setting up Swords of Damocles over player's heads'

[tepid flower]

Fun! Then yeah, you have access to a wide variety of spells...

Demon of the First Circle is super versatile. Summon weird blorbos to do stuff for you!

[tulip folio]

I have Raise the Skeletal Horde as my control beucase it seemed like an easy way to reliably be able to use my Battlegroup charms.

[tepid flower]

Corrupted Words and Silent Words of Dreams and Nightmares are both really useful for social characters.

Infallible Messenger is great for long distance communication

Stormwind Rider is a travel spell, and so fast it kind of obviates all other options.

[tulip folio]

I got Impervious Sphere of Water as it seemed like a great 'GET BEHIND ME MORTALS!' spell.

Also the TN to try and get through it being 'Your Int' felt kinda mean with 'Hey look, permanent boosts over 5 in a stat'.

[tepid flower]

It's a good protection, yeah, but with it not being your control spell you won't be able to move with it up.

[tulip folio]

Yeah, it seems more an 'I'm having a Timeout' or 'I'm protecting the mortals while others fight the threat' effect.

Or just 'We're in autobot city, water is at a premium and I can make it' XD

What's your thoughts on Peacock Shadow Eyes?

It seems like another fun social one

[tepid flower]

It's very good! But it's expensive

2wp cost means you're losing 1 each time you cast it.

[prisma sun]

Question

if you were gonna run the bad guys from the first season of Thunderbolt Fantasy as antagonists in Exalted

how would you

Making the Bones of Creation an Abyssal seems the most sensible?

[tepid flower]

100%

[tulip folio]

...I am also dangerously tempted by Cool Undead Chair

[tepid flower]

Even has the name down

The Bone Throne ™️ is very cool

Especially if you cast it before combat and just sit there being menacing

[tulip folio]

'Alchemicals are not supposed to rule'
'Alchemical necromancer with the bone throne:'

...actually, bone throne would likely work really well with that 'play patriotic music' charm that Alchemicals get

Where you can't do anything but play the music but it gives big bonuses to people around you.

[tepid flower]

It would make it harder for people to approach you to politely ask you to stop playing sick tunes (with their swords)

[tulip folio]

With the limited charm slots it feels like Alchemicals get a LOT from martial arts and sorcery

Despite not getting the highest tier of either

[tepid flower]

Very true! Evocations as well. But the thing to consider there is all of those things compete for your Alchemical Experience.

So if you want spells and martial arts charms and evocations, each of one you buy is one of the other two you don't buy.

[tulip folio]

Makes sense.

Right now I kinda frontloaded my chargen spells

So I don't think I'll want many of them any time soon

So it's just evocations for me.

[tulip folio]

...are there any fun martial arts that work well with Staffs or Spears in 3e (Doubly so defensive ones, as I like blocking things with staffs)? Pondering things to play into the 'mage' theming while not being useless in a fight. XD

[spring lynx]

Golden Janissary

comes with bonus "fuck you, creatures of darkness" effects too

[tulip folio]

That could be cool. I bet Gremlins are a type of creature of darkness.

[spring lynx]

that's in DBs btw

[tulip folio]

Golden Jannisary Form does look pretty solid for 'stay alive' purposes.

[spring lynx]

Laughing Monster can use staves too apparently but that might not be the vibe

[tulip folio]

...am I mistaken or are war fans, despite expressly being a parrying weapon, not actually great at parrying?

Because they're Light and Medium is the one with the def bonus?

Mostly the worrying about 'Am I going to be a dead weight to my group when a fight happens'. XD

[bleak hazel]

if you want celestial-level spear murder, White Reaper is the big one

Golden Jannisary is very specifically anti-doomoid

against anything that is not generally doom-affiliated it doesn't do much

[tulip folio]

In this case, my character is a sorcerer/unit leader but I'm wondering if 'not being much of a personal stabber' will really make her not able to do much.

[bleak hazel]

as long as you have both Shape Necromancy/Sorcery and Command Unit actions to take I think you should be pretty fine

if you're a solid enough sorceror you can one-turn-cast a reasonably wide spread of basic circle spells

a huge spread of martial arts work with staves in particular

[tulip folio]

I've got...10 dice on casting (6 stat, 3 skill, 1 spec) with +1 Automatic Success, before I spend motes on anything.

[bleak hazel]

you'll probably want to get the skill up to 5 fairly quickly, because sorcery is one of the departments where more dice = more good

but yeah, that's very solid

also if you want a martial art based around being a backliner there's Throne Shadow, which works with staffs, but is also kinda big on being sneaky

[tulip folio]

nods
Sneaky isn't a huge thing for me but I'll ponder things.

Also: Man, I don't want to be mean to 3e but Arms of the Chosen feels very...so many of its things are 'Oh yeah, this improves X solar charm. I guess if you're not a solar, homebrew your own version of this artifact'. XD

I was looking at the Quincunx, being a Math Nerd, Caster-Focused Armour since I have Alchemical Math Magic as my initiation.

[bleak hazel]

AOTC was the last book that really had a lot of the original devs in it, who were explicitly of the opinion that if you were playing a game with no Solars in it then one of the questions you should be asking constantly is "what are the returned Solars doing"

[tulip folio]

As stuff like this seems cool:

Harmonic Crystal Vessel
Cost: 3m, 1i; Mins: Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Perilous, Resonant
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Aegis of Geometric Perfection,
Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
In tomes depicting treasures of the lost Age, the Quincunx is sometimes called the Harmonic Crystal Vessel for its ability to utilize crystal’s natural resonance to trap sorcerous energy. This Evocation supplements a countermagic action (Exalted, p. 446), banking dispersed sorcerous motes in the Quincunx. The wearer may use these sorcerous motes to cast her own spells or to power the Quincunx’s Evocations. 

Unspent motes are lost at end of scene. 

'That's nice magic you're doing nerd. My magic now'

But then you get stuff like:

A Twilight Caste Solar at bonfire anima may pay six motes and one Willpower to harmonize her anima banner with the Quincunx, stacking its Hardness bonus with the armor’s for the rest of the scene.

[bleak hazel]

the power level of a lot of the AOTC artifacts varies wildly, on one hand you have a lot of unobjectionable stuff and on the other hand you have the Heaven and Earth Gauntlets or Shining Ice Mirror which are both just I Win Melee Forever at 3-dots, or Gnomon for time stop nonsense

I admit I generally cook my own artifacts

[dense verge]

arms of the chosen has the boat with the health boxes for boat body technique right. i mean, it does other things but thats what i remember it for

[bleak hazel]

also these things, which are just nuts

what if +10 non-charm dice in clashes for no mote expenditure, in a system that normally runs to a max of 21 dice

[tulip folio]

I'm not 100% sure how that works but anything that isn't a charm and scales with essence is likely a big deal.

[bleak hazel]

yeah, this is just way out of scale for an artifact passive

[tulip folio]

Honestly, I'm not super sure I even want evocations from them but it seems like 'artifact armour' is a big deal if you're not going with a 'no armour allowed' martial art so I'm looking over stuff as-is. XD

[dense verge]

theres artifact silk armor right, that sounds right

should be some nice shirts lying around in the sid book for that purpose

elsewhere too

[tulip folio]

The Serene Misfortune Sashes, yeah

[bleak hazel]

you can also just grab some generic silken armour for 4-dots if you don't want to use one of the existing trees

Silken Armour is specifically "for the purpose of martial arts" so some stuff that gets better in armour does still prefer you to take it off

[tulip folio]

Sorry for all the various silly questions. Just trying to make sure 'baseline not dying' is good enough for this character, as it's my first time playing 3e exalted

[bleak hazel]

in my experience it is pretty easy to get to baseline not dying, it balances pretty well unless your GM is really throwing the nuts PC stuff at you

(Solar/Abyssal combat specialists, single point style, etc.)

if you have at least one ox-body + solid resting parry or dodge you should be all right, and I believe you do

[tulip folio]

I mean, we're in Autobot city so I think solar/abyssals are just flat non-options. XD

[bleak hazel]

yeah, setting is automatically made easier to survive in as an Exalt by the removal of Solaroid Nonsense

[tulip folio]

With some hypothetical artifact light armour:

Parry: 6
Soak: 10
Hardness: 4
Dodge: ...1

Wound levels: 1x −0, 3x −1, 4x −2, 1x−4

[bleak hazel]

if you are going for Celestial necromancy you also get the benefit of going hard on the war casting

slap down Hundred Shade Breath and reflexively order them forward to get highly durable and dangerous meat shields

and yeah you'll be totally fine, my Essence 1 murder sidereal doesn't even have armour for martial arts reasons and he still does fine

[tulip folio]

That's good to hear.

Right now the two PCs finished right now are 'Moonsilver with Throwing Weapons and Shield' and 'My Spellcaster/Army Leader, who has a weapon artifact way beyond her ability to actually use as a weapon'. XD

[bleak hazel]

(well, I spent the artifact budget on artifact sword, but still)

do you actually need the artifact sword if you don't intend to swing it?

that's a lot of your mote pool tied up in a statstick

[tulip folio]

That's fair. Radiance is really cool and thematic but also 'a lot of artifact and mote points'

[bleak hazel]

artifact armour and a normal weapon is fine if you're just rocking the necromancy and ordering squads around

[tulip folio]

As I keep staring at this and going 'this is cool' XD

[wise ocean]

beamklave

of course exalted has lightsabers

[tulip folio]

How can I be a Gundam without one? 😛

[bleak hazel]

alchemicals specifically get beamklaves and klavesaws

because they're the beep boop scifi exalts

[tulip folio]

They get to ignore all the 'you must jump through X hoop to do first age artifice'

Because they sit there going 'Mate, we are the artifice. Solars were just copying our boss'

[bleak hazel]

do they actually have a rules clause for that?

neat

[tulip folio]

Yep!

[bleak hazel]

neat

ah, so it's a "you have the good stuff" rule rather than "an alchem in creation can just do first age"

[tulip folio]

Well, you still need a metropolis even if you're there.

And a metropolis is an Alchemical.

[bleak hazel]

sure, but there aren't many around

compared to autobotland anyway

[tulip folio]

Yeah, it's still very much 'look, Do An Adventure'

[bleak hazel]

I'm currently planning an Abyssal craft character and I kind of want to do some necromantic first age nonsense

[tulip folio]

That said: I don't know the crafting system worth a damn, I saw it had multiple resources of different tiers and went 'I will not read this'

[bleak hazel]

the only issue is that it needs like 11 craft charms and 4 different craft skills at 5

whereas Solars can just do it with 6-8 because they're bullshit and have a craft charm that is literally "we made this tree too long, get three more craft charms for free"

[tulip folio]

Right so 'Go find a Real Big City and use a single craft skill' is a big innate discount for autobots.

[bleak hazel]

you do need craft (a normal thing) 5 to get craft (artifacts), so two craft skills, but yeah, big upgrade

anyone else needs Lore 5, Occult 5, Craft (normal) 5, Craft (artifacts) 5 and Craft (First Age) 5, plus Terrestrial Sorcery

you do need to do sorcery and invest XP in sorcerous workings to make first age gear though so you still probably do need some of those

[tulip folio]

Still, that sounds like Not My Problem as I'm a sorcerer but not a crafter because I tried to read craft charms and my eyes glazed over

Look, I like exalted but those charms are...confusing. Multiple tiers of resource and you convert them and can then turn them into objects...or something.

[bleak hazel]

the craft system is a deliberately terrible copy of cookie clicker that the original devs implemented in an attempt to make Solars look cool when they bludgeon it into submission with a billion craft charms

this did not work

luckily colliding the terribly balanced solar craft tree into the terrible craft system lets you do destructive interference on the rules and actually Make A Sword without going completely insane

which is why I kind of want to play Abyssal Craft Boy

[coral wraith]

terribly balanced solar craft tree

[bleak hazel]

Craft is a real outlier because the tree is gargantuan and unlike Melee or something you don't actually want 90% of it

You can just skip 3/4 subtrees and half of the last one, take eight particular charms that snowball you up to 400 successes per craft project and start printing first age wonders at chargen

because this is boring I'm playing a Bureaucracy Supernal abyssal instead, who gets to slowly work up to master craft skills in the course of reaching E3

[tulip folio]

...are Eclipse Charms from NPCs any good? I know Alchemicals can learn them but I don't know much about them.

[bleak hazel]

Incredibly wild spread, mostly pretty niche, I wouldn't worry about it too much

although the really petty one that mildly increases the fertility of a field actually goes from a fluff pick to pretty decent in Autoland

[tulip folio]

What makes Gnomon such a nonsense artifact?

[spring lynx]

well for one it's called gnomon

[tepid flower]

It does time manipulation stuff

Which is quite good and fun

[bleak hazel]

time stop, for massive action economy stacking

[tulip folio]

It also apparently just Spawns Peaches of Immortality.

That's odd

Okay, I'll likely go with artifact armour (Maybe light, maybe medium. I am block focused and don't chase people down so medium wouldn't hurt much and a reinforced buff coat seems relatively wearable about the place) and a mundane weapon.

[tulip folio]

...is it important to buy some more willpower at chargen?

[upper stratus]

if you're a spellcaster? yea. it's also the cheapest at char gen

[tulip folio]

Okay, I'll buy it up to...7? I guess.

Sorcery: Summon First Circle Demon, Impervious Sphere of Water, Stormwind Rider, Death of Obsidian Butterflies
Necromancy: Bone Puppet Dance, Raise the Skeletal Horde(Control)

Also: I have many spells. Not sure how useful all of them will be but they all looked like Good Spells. XD

[upper stratus]

looks good

[tulip folio]

Summon First Circle only Sorta Works in Autobot City.

You can't summon demons with it, but you can summon Machine Spirits.

Summoning in Autochthonia
The Seal of Eight Divinities prevents Autochthonian sorcerers from summoning demons, but demon summoning spells can conjure machine spirits — even (theoretically) the Eight Ministers themselves. They cannot be bound as demons can — such servitude is a consequence of the Yozis’ oaths of surrender that ended the Divine Revolution. But Champions need not always resort to such compulsion. 

Summoned machine spirits show considerable deference or lenience to the Maker’s Chosen, so long as they’re treated respectfully.

But Machine Spirits are Basicly First Circle Demons, except they don't think you're an asshole and they go beep boop.