#Exalted

1 messages · Page 5 of 1

bleak hazel
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Brawl is less bad because it sacrifices almost all defence to just punch harder, so once you nerf a few of the instant encounter enders it becomes a reasonable tree

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Athletics has two outliers but is otherwise fine, same with Archery

tulip folio
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Oh hey, I was wrong. There is a perfect defence in alchs. It's just turbo limited.

upper stratus
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i sure hope so

tulip folio
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Only works against ranged attacks and Only if they can't ignore full cover.

upper stratus
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it still drives me up the wall heavenly guardian defense has no reset condition

prisma sun
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I will admit that I'm fine with Solars being badly designed because I just kinda don't engage with Solars

bleak hazel
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if you went through Solars and nerfed... maybe a dozen charms total, then buffed another half dozen they would be like 50% less annoying to play

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HGD is the thing that annoys me most in Solar Melee

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4 motes to never get decisived

upper stratus
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though if i remember the charm you are talking about correctly it specifies it still ignores full cover ignorers that seek out gaps

bleak hazel
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I keep saying "I don't feel that I've played enough Solars to write Misc's One Page Solar Patch" but maybe I should just do it anyway and duct tape it up in my campaign server

tulip folio
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This one's in dexterity, that one was in stamina

bleak hazel
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Golden Calibration is a great unjankifying rework but didn't dip its toes into nerfing anything, really

upper stratus
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yea which is a shame

prisma sun
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I still think the funniest thing is that they let Ankylosaurus do Heaven Thunder Hammer without any addendment that it can't teleport behind you and DBZ spike you into the ground

tulip folio
upper stratus
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was looking through deeb archery to see if they have cover ignorers and discovered this wonderful little artillertree charm. how quaint

image.png
bleak hazel
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I love the unusually flexible tree

upper stratus
prisma sun
bleak hazel
# tulip folio

the wording is a little odd here because Full Cover makes ranged attacks impossible but presumably only adds the usual +2 def to melee

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but full cover in the core book has no bonus listed so maybe you just get the [essence] Parry instead of heavy cover +2?

upper stratus
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i was about to point out cover works against against melee attacks too yea

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so it doesn't work just against archery and thrown

bleak hazel
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yeah, I'm just not sure what exactly it does do to melee because very few melee attacks have anti-cover modifiers

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and the wording of full cover doesn't really indicate

upper stratus
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literally the only melee charm i can think of that interacts with cover is sidereal brawl

prisma sun
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Sidreal melee also has one

tulip folio
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It does imply that melee is affected by cover with that 'crossing blades' bit

bleak hazel
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I'm going to assume that Repulsor Field gives you the +essence parry against melee attacks rather than making you immune, but I could be completely wrong

upper stratus
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Cost: 5m; Mins: Brawl 4, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Uniform, Versatile
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Tolerant Strife
The Sidereal writes her blow into forthcoming fate, as-
suring its inevitability.
The Sidereal makes an unblockable withering or deci-
sive attack that ignores cover. She can attack through
full cover even if there’s no opening for her to strike
through, though her target receives +3 Defense.``` @bleak hazel this one's also weird cause it implies full cover would stop a melee attack even though book says it only prevents ranged attacks
prisma sun
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I would assume "Full cover against melee attacks" means "The attack is imposssible unless you Demolition through it"

bleak hazel
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yet another thing I would put in the FAQ/Errata

tulip folio
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I do love how beamclaives are great at acts of demolition.

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2 autosuccesses and you can always do it in a single moment

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Instead of any of the 'you can do X slowly' things

prisma sun
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I love that Sidreals have a cartoon physics demolition Charm

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where if you touch something you can break it

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I want that so bad

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even if it doesn't fit my character

upper stratus
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i don't get the cartoon physics part

prisma sun
next delta
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Belated, but I find infernals are neat, but I was never really exposed to the old ones. I also think the yozi going " haha, we will exalt generically rebellious people and this will screw over creation" and then that having a good chance of backfiring on them is funny

upper stratus
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i mostly picked up hungry touch on my sid cause 1) endings caste, im there already 2) can destroy things without making a big ruckus

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gotta break in? no windows that open? you will not regret aging the glass to dust instantly

bleak hazel
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it's still funny how combat sids want to go 5 dots in brawl because their perfect defence is "oh your wife died, such a shame" and is in its own little subtree that you can pick up and use with any other ability

upper stratus
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smiling nefariously when the exalt im fighting has a loving mortal family

prisma sun
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Assassinating a Solar's wife by challenging them to a duel outside their castle, surrendering after the fight, then running away as fast as physically possible.

tulip folio
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'Can Solar melee bring back your kids? It can? Seriously, I'm calling bullshit.'

bleak hazel
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To finish the roundup on Solar Combat, I have no idea how Solar Thrown works because I have never seen a Solar Thrown character, I think it's big on alpha strikes

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and Solar Archery is a generally really scary DAMAGEDAMAGEDAMAGE tree in the vein of brawl, but less cracked at E1 so it doesn't come up as often as an actual game problem

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it does have the absurd combo that lets you fire an endless series of Withering shots until you either miss or crash the target, then reflexively decisive them

dense verge
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solar thrown iirc has two branches, one of which is dice trick gambling, the other is sneak attack

chilly sluice
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The idea seems to alpha strike multiple enemies with a decisive and get some wounds going

bleak hazel
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hey, I just realised that World-Shaping Artistic Vision + Ways of Exaltation lets an Essence 3 sid get literally free combat excellencies if they copy a Full Moon lunar or Moonsilver/Starmetal alchemical, power up to bonfire and fight under their specialty (which can be something like "at night" or "against enemies of fate" so it's not too hard to set up)

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something kind of nice about Sidereals weaving their juice-efficiency theme into their power-under-specific-conditions theme and jumping through enough hoops to fight at Full Power no matter what

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Solar throwing out 11 motes to full excellency+Excellent Strike their attacks clashes with a Sidereal, gleaming silver, who barely seems to be breathing hard

bleak hazel
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hot damn, autocthonia has the good sorcerous initiation rituals

image.png
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very easy to get 20 motes out of this, or way more if you're a Solar/Abyssal, and it has the best sorcery merit for crafters too

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absolutely hitting this with the Neverborn flavouring for Craftgar the Abyssal, or the Sun Boy flavouring for his solar analogue

bleak hazel
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OK, did the maths, a Craft solar that takes this is shoving 40 sorcerous motes into this thing, 45 if they take an extra charm for it

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given your average shaping ritual gives you around three, this may be a little cracked

upper stratus
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:/

bleak hazel
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craft-spec Alchemical is reliably throwing 21 motes, which is still enough to cast literally anything in the celestial circle in one round with a full Sorcery excellency

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23 motes if you break the focus, which you should because making more focuses gets you more craft XP

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one round Travel Without Distance, simply leave the encounter along with the entire party

tulip folio
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Cripes and I'd thought my nerd ritual looked pretty decent.

bleak hazel
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this one is hilariously overpowered by shaping ritual standards and I suspect will not make it to release in this slightly typo-ridden state

tulip folio
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...huh, Personality Override Spike is vastly different to the 2e version, to the degree I'm not sure the name works any more.

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Like to be fair: The old version would likely have not have worked at all with the changes to social stuff.

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As it was pretty much a definitive 'I am putting Attack in Social Attack'

upper stratus
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whazzit do

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2e version i mean

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i never gotinto 2e alchemicals cause somehing about their rules and vibe made me feel bored

tulip folio
velvet raft
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...

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snrrrrrk

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But yeah 2e social stuff was much more like mind control

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Both mechanically and diegetically

tulip folio
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And well, Personality Overide Spike in 2e was likely the Mind Controlliest of them as it was literally 'Yeah, I'm just gunna reprogram your mind to be more like how I'd like it to be'.

bleak hazel
upper stratus
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if im talking with an exalt in 2e and they start glowing i have viable reason to open fire

if im talking with an exalt in 3e and they start glowing our debate is just really really good

velvet raft
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I much prefer 3e's approach of "social stuff is absolutely not mind control"

tulip folio
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I think Personality Overide Spike's purpose was actually to handle the 'open fire' bit. As it let them do Social Charm Bullshit...during combat.

bleak hazel
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in 3e there's actually a Sid charm that lets you turn away, cough, swallow and go back to Dim because you just swallowed all your anima

tulip folio
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So MDV: Fist didn't work

bleak hazel
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now you can just... do social stuff during combat

tulip folio
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Weird 😛

bleak hazel
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to be fair to 2e, a 3e Zenith is still perfectly capable of putting on the Kilgrave act if they want to, albeit with nicer fluff text

tulip folio
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But yeah. I 100% think Personality Override Spike is a better charm now, I'm just not quite sure it's a charm that works with the name any more.

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If that remotely makes sense?

velvet raft
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I tend use Ex3e's social stuff as an example of a good approach to social mechanics, even if one can quibble with the mechanical particulars, because diplomacy in TTRPGs really does feel like mind control a lot of the time

bleak hazel
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I like that most of the Sidereal mental manipulation charms are explicitly in the "all love is one-sided and totally transactional" tree with associated constellation theming

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the nice Sids are using Integrity and hating their lives

tulip folio
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...oh hey, Alchemicals have some still 'this is very definitively mind control' social charms. XD

bleak hazel
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(the Solars don't get a Tree For Bastards so the nice happy sun theming on their actual mind control charms caused a few forum discussion bans)

tulip folio
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It's just, you know, spelled out as such

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Mind-Destroying Pattern Generator is full on sci-fi memetic attack

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It causes you do to Lethal Damage with Social Stuff.

velvet raft
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Yeah and I think that's fine

bleak hazel
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yeah, Sids have a martial arts move that shatters the opponents' memories, which is explicitly super effective on Getimians because they don't have Real Memories

velvet raft
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It's fine to have mind-control charms, it's just not how All Social Mechanics should work

tulip folio
# 
If the Alchemical succeeds, her victim is infected with a mind-destroying fractal image, precision-tuned to his neural pathways. It has the following effects:

• His perception and motor control occasionally flicker in and out, and his eyes twitch as they attempt to focus and refocus on invisible images. He suffers a −3 penalty on all rolls he makes. This penalty subtracts successes on vision-bases Awareness rolls.
• He must make a difficulty 3 (Wits + Integrity) or (Stamina + Resistance) roll on each of his turns, requiring him to flurry if he wants to take any other actions. If he fails this roll, the destructive image continues to cascade through his mind. He suffers (Alchemical’s Essence) dice of lethal damage, which ignore Hardness, and loses Willpower equal to the levels of damage he takes.
• If he falls to zero Willpower while infected with this Psyche effect or is incapacitated by the damage from it, he falls comatose. Characters with Exalted healing can awaken from this coma, freed from the deadly image, once they’ve healed all damage in their health track and reached 5+ temporary Willpower. Those without such supernatural resilience remain permanently comatose, barring potent supernatural intervention, like magically enhanced surgery capable of repairing his damaged brain or Charms that can purge the fractal from his mind.

A character can spend five Willpower to resist this Psyche effect — but if this reduces him to zero Willpower, he still falls comatose. This cost is reduced by one Willpower each time the victim succeeds on a roll, to a minimum of (Alchemical’s Essence/2, rounded up)
bleak hazel
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that is a nasty one

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what prereqs does that have

tulip folio
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Manipulation 7, Essence 4. XD

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It's the capstone of manipulation

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Submodules
Fatal Signal Broadcast (3xp): The Alchemical can broadcast an auditory analogue to this Charm’s deadly fractal images, a high-pitched signal that destroys the nervous system. She can use this to affect characters who can hear her even if they can’t see her.

Psyche-Annihilating Basilisk Image (6xp, Manipulation 8, Essence 5) (+5m, 1wp): The Alchemical may pay a five-mote, one-Willpower surcharge to release the safety limiters that calibrate the killing fractals to a specific target’s nervous system. Instead, she displays a mind-destroying image that affects anyone who can see her, friend or foe. She doesn’t suffer multiple target penalties on her influence roll. If the Alchemical uses this submodule together with Fatal Signal Broadcast, it can’t affect characters beyond medium range.

With an essence 5 submodule that makes it apply to Everyone Who Can See You.

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Which seems terrifying when you're dealing with a Colossi or Metropolis.

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It seems like Appearance and Charisma got the message that social isn't supposed to be mind control.

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But Manipulation went 'that's stupid, I'm the mind control charms tree'

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But with like...intentionality.

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As well as some 'Oh, you're just a complete psycho' ones.

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Like one of the basic manipulation ones allows them to negate the penalty clarity has on social actions! But being really good at pretending to have empathy.

bleak hazel
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hang on I think we have the ultimate form of the Sid/Robo buddy cop combo here

tulip folio
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...snrk.

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Okay, that's a funny mechanical aspect of it.

bleak hazel
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let me find the right Sid move, might take me a minute

tulip folio
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While you're using Robo Simulation instead of Actual Empathy to ignore the penalties of clarity? You can't lose clarity.

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Because it doesn't matter how much you're interacting with people.

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You're not making genuine connections with them

bleak hazel
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(there's another page to this charm, but this is the relevant part)

tulip folio
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ooof

bleak hazel
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if he hits zero, this happens

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I am still not sure, RAW, whether Heavenly Guardian Defence can block this

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I am pretty sure the core devs had the classic 2e attitude of "does it do anything that might possibly be negative? perfect defence" because it's mentioned that a sorcerous curse can be blocked by it, but at no point does it actually do any damage

tepid flower
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(It works based on successes on the damage roll and HGD removes successes from the damage roll, so probably)

tulip folio
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Ah yep. Manipulation also has Compliance Assurance Drone. Where you stick a guy with a small drone under his skin that pokes the pain receptors of his brain whenever he'd disobey your instructions.

bleak hazel
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oh yeah, it removes successes not levels

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never mind then, new bullshit required

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luckily that bullshit is available in that same Sidereal tree

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The stylist rolls her Initiative at a difficulty equal to the highest number of undamaged health levels possessed by any enemy. If she succeeds, combat ends.....

velvet raft
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Sidereal/Alchemical does feel like an oddly appropriate pairing ...

bleak hazel
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"this is not an attack, I just selected the future where I won"

velvet raft
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Like kinda for the same reason Solar/Lunar does

tulip folio
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If he takes an action that’s counterproductive to completing the task that the Alchemical has assigned to him, the drone stimulates the pain center of his brain with an electric pulse, increasing his wound penalty by one for the rest of the scene. It also alerts the Alchemical to the subject’s noncompliance. This isn’t limited to direct disobedience, as this typically isn’t possible on a successful persuade roll. Instead, the most common triggers are prioritizing another task or goal over the Alchemical’s commands, or taking a course of action that’s detrimental to his overall goal without intending to disobey. 

Aggressive Correction Loadout (3xp; Manipulation 5, Essence 3): The Alchemical’s victim suffers one die of lethal damage each time he triggers the drone’s corrective shock. This ignores Hardness.

Manipulation Alchs might be The Worst Alchs.

bleak hazel
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yeah, they fit very well together

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both thematically and statistically

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Sids can always use a giant pile of raw magical/technological might to smash problems for them, and Attribute Exalts appreciate having the weirdos around to go the orthogonal ways

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the annoying thing about Heavenly Guardian Defence is that unlike every other Perfect you can't just slap 1/scene on it because the literal capstone of Solar Melee is a thing that makes it even more hyperperfect but only when you use it a bunch of times in a row

tulip folio
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Are beings Outside of Fate still immune to the Sid Forgetfulness?

bleak hazel
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only powerful ones

tulip folio
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nods
So the average fey is plenty mind-wipable.

bleak hazel
tulip folio
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...interesting. I know in 2e Alchs would have been considered 'outside of fate' (As they are primordial created beings who come from an entirely different dimension) but enemies of fate is a bit more specific.

bleak hazel
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so generally "outside of Fate" is a more relaxed category, Sids have a charm to go into it for a bit and in general the book basically says "look, fate is basically Magic Physical Law, the fact that essence users make it go a bit bendy does not mean you're immune to everything Sids do because you can fuck with the Loom a bit"

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there's a distinction made between "immune to fate" which basically nobody is unless someone is using one of a very few fate-breaking moves on you constantly, and "destiny planning/the loom cannot easily see this" which is far easier to do

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it's easier to remove yourself from the minutes of the meeting than remove yourself from the room

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ah here we are

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there's also a Sidereal charm that lets you write basically anything into Fate, including Abyssals or Raksha

tulip folio
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Damn your efficiency and futureproofing Primus! 😛

bleak hazel
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he was good at his job

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man the more of the Alch book I read the more I want to play the Sid/Alch campaign

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I didn't really like Alchs before but this charmset has really endeared them to me

tulip folio
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...It wouldn't make them immune but it does seem like Eidetic Processing Core would be important for an alch that wants to remember Sids exist/work with them. XD

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As it improves their odds to keep remembering.

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Gives them bonuses against Mind-Altering Shaping Effects that target memories XD

bleak hazel
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hang on there's a rock for this

upper stratus
bleak hazel
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also that, yeah

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but I like the idea of that being made in-universe by just embedding a Memory Stone inside the body of Alchemical Robocop

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you just tap him on the shoulder and he goes "oh yeah" and remembers

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Diff 7 on Arcane Fate is actually very hefty and basically isolates "people who could possibly remember you" to "Exalts and powerful spirits only", anything else you get is gratis

upper stratus
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funnily enough from my reading of this the circlemates are immune to all arcane fate rather than just the arcane fate of the sid in the circle

tulip folio
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...you know, without context, a medical alch is going to start freaking the fuck out in creation.

bleak hazel
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that is the RAW reading yeah, but I think that's less fun

tulip folio
# 
Psyche-Probing Scan (3xp; Infected Pattern Scan): The Alchemical can use Infected Pattern Scan to detect Derangements, Psyche effects, Shaping effects, and sorcerous curses. The difficulty is the Essence of the character who used the effect.

"WHY DOES EVERYONE HAVE MENTAL SHAPING EFFECTS?!"

upper stratus
tulip folio
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'Because a sid walked past 3 days ago'

upper stratus
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tbh there's only 100 sids i don't think it's gonna be that widespread

upper stratus
bleak hazel
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fun fact the first Sidereal stealth charm is "hey, you want more Arcane.... yeah that"

upper stratus
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i've strongly considered getting it cause it's very on-point for my character to do so but at the same time it's not something i wanna blow 8 xp on. there's more exciting toys around

bleak hazel
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diff 7 with +TN is sufficiently brutal that a Wits 5 Integrity 5 Solar sticking a full excellency into it isn't anywhere near guaranteed to get it

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deebs hate life when that one's around

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but yeah it's a little lackluster compared to the rest of Sidereal sneaky stuff which has The Juice

upper stratus
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'why yes, i'd love to be even more married to the job'

bleak hazel
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although I think their single best Stealth charm is in Bureaucracy

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Underling Invisibility Practice

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luckily for them Creation is very short on CCTV

upper stratus
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i'd much rather have the crimes orb, the orb in which i can commit big crimes in broad daylight and people say 'must've been the wind'

image.png
tulip folio
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It's still not good odds but a Nerd Alch might actually be able to pass it.

bleak hazel
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I do like the extreme reinforcement of the fact that a Sid can just walk up to you on the street, pop any of their fifteen different Domain Expansion: Crimes Area abilities and then kill you

tulip folio
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Ontological Anchor Assembly can give 3 Non-Charm Automatic Successes to resist a Shaping Effect.

upper stratus
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it's in the job description

tulip folio
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They've still got to climb the rest of the way up themselves

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But that's a Good Start

upper stratus
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4 more successes on tn 8

bleak hazel
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for your exit you have your choice of "nobody will perceive anything you ever do as a crime even if you're covered in blood, they will ignore the blood and treat the murder as slightly rude" or "turn yourself in to a handily placed Skyrim guard, loadwarp to prison 5 miles away and then walk out"

dense verge
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Inexplicable Arcane Fate Immunity is both very understandable mechanically and very funny to me from an in-setting view

upper stratus
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my circlemates just so happen to keep acing their wits + integrity checks every single time i leave

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even the one whose pool is only 4 dice is just rolling back to back tens

bleak hazel
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we had a wonderful scene in Sidgame with the one solar who used to be part of it, where Vigil and his Sid partner sat him down, carefully walked him through what a Sid was an what they were and then right at the end he panicked, ran off to his newly discovered Lunar mate and started blathering about the men in black right as his memory went

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a ten minute standoff between two warform lunars and two sids was resolved after Vigil finished going "oh for the love of all that's holy, we come in peace and we did give advance warning"

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then that Solar left the game and we had to retcon all of that, which I suppose is fitting for sids but was a bit of a shame

upper stratus
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sad

tulip folio
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Sids: "We have adjusted the canon. Pray we do not adjust it further."

bleak hazel
upper stratus
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tbf arcane fate doesn't erase general knowledge of sidereals, just specific ones

bleak hazel
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the best part is the player wasn't entirely sure how Arcane Fate worked and kept trying to do things that seemed plausible but didn't actually work

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like "write down their names under sketches of their caste marks"

upper stratus
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lmao

bleak hazel
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which got mysteriously smudged when he shoved it in his pocket

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method acting

tulip folio
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It's not lunar good but man, Alchs can heal fast if you let them have Naptime.

upper stratus
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self repair modules moment

bleak hazel
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I much appreciate all the Alch stuff for being (mostly) clearly worded

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with the one exception of that full cover charm

tulip folio
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Look, if it's not machine readable how would you expect the alchs to get it? 😛

upper stratus
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i get it

bleak escarp
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Hah!

bleak hazel
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for contrast, here's the solar shaping defence

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or one of two, both equally incoherent

upper stratus
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big block of text

bleak hazel
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what abilities does this turn off? presumably not all of them or it would delete literally any currently active charm, but it basically does not say because "twisting" is not a keyword

upper stratus
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they don't pay you enough kickstarter money over there for a couple of linebreaks? eyyy im readin heah

tulip folio
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...and now I'm imagining an Alch using their 'Analyse Charms' technique and bitching about how badly made this is.

upper stratus
tulip folio
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"LEARN TO SEPERATE YOUR COMMENTS FROM YOUR CODE PEOPLE!"

bleak escarp
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Yeah the corebook was a mess like that

bleak hazel
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yeah, this should be a "no wyld, no shaping, no psyche" button

bleak escarp
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Among their many, many, many flaws (don't get me fucking started), Holden and Hatewheel had a hardon for natural language mechanics.

upper stratus
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which is funny cause like. 2e had keywords for that. 2e had too many keywords but you could've kept a couple

tulip folio
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It also does...something to Fair Folk?

upper stratus
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i miss the straightforward clarity of Obvious keyword

tulip folio
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Like it force transforms them too?

bleak escarp
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They were responsible for the... three? Earliest books.

bleak hazel
bleak escarp
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Since then it's been the new devs, who are much bloody better.

bleak hazel
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many such cases in core

upper stratus
bleak escarp
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Like there's a sidebar about it and everything.

tulip folio
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I have a few bitches about arms of the chosen.

bleak hazel
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Arms of the Solars, more like

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(also why oh why do they keep giving artifacts passives that completely break the combat system, they clearly know how to write minor ribbons)

tulip folio
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...dare I ask? My primary bitch is how like all of them are 'upgrade this solar charm'.

bleak escarp
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THAT BURNING QUESTION
Q: What happens if you combine Essence-Laden Missive
and Voice-Caging Calligraphy?
A: You tell me.
fuck you, holden

bleak escarp
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Holden was mostly decent on a technical writing skill, although an asshole in person. Hatewheel was hopeless.

bleak hazel
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there's one pair of gloves that upgrades the clash bonus for dual wielding from 2 non-charm dice (strong, worth building around) to Essence non-charm dice (so insane that if you put it on an artifact N/A I would go "yeah fair enough)

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those gloves are a 3-dot artifact

wise ocean
bleak hazel
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that bonus is the passive you get for putting them on without investing a single point of XP

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the way the game's dice system is basically balanced is that every exalt type has their dice limit, which defines how strong they are at peak and how broadly applicable that peak power is, and then there are two kinds of bonuses

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non-charm dice add to your peak power and have to be incredibly carefully handled, especially on stuff that can go to any kind of exalt, whereas charm dice fit neatly within the limit and are generally really cheap, because handing them out basically improves the efficiency of the excellencies Exalts already have

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the normal dice limit of a Solar is 21 (attribute 5, ability 5, attribute+ability excellency 10, specialty 1) with weapons adding anywhere from 1 to 5 to that

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those gloves singlehandedly increase your raw power level by 25% as long as you Keep On Clashing

tulip folio
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Rules: This weapon lacks Concealable, unlike most Beam weapons. However, it is a Wrackstaff even when Essence Core Ignition has not been activated. When Essence Core Ignition is used, the user can choose to immediately transform it into a Beam Grimscythe for the duration of the charm.

...is this one okay? It's the bonus that my GM and I worked out for an artifact but we're both new to 3e.

bleak hazel
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yeah totally fine, especially for a 5-dot

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doesn't even give you any dice, just lets you pick your poison

#

I would even say something like "you can transform this from scythe to staff reflexively at the start of your turn" would probably be fine if you wanted to mix it up

upper stratus
#

im working on a "reflexive weapon profile swap" artifact right now

bleak hazel
#

anyway, you can give the Heaven and Earth Gauntlets to a Sidereal, who are defined by having a very low dice cap and the ability to make all their dice way better by reducing the number you need to roll

#

they even have magic to make their Essence go higher

tulip folio
#

Gee, I wonder what happens if you combine 'extra dice' and 'each die is better'

bleak hazel
#

at that point the three-dot artifact adds 7 non-charm dice and all of a sudden your Siddy is rolling 24 dice on clashes and succeeding on 5s

upper stratus
#

4s if you're feeling spicy

bleak hazel
#

Brawlsid can now take the Bull of the North outside for a nice talk and beat him into the goddamn pavement after taking one little sippy of essence juice

#

also they have a a Withering reflexive clash so you can clash more, no big deal

bleak escarp
# upper stratus i assume htat's core, solar expansion and arms of the chosen

You can basically divide the publication history of 3e up into,
Core, Tomb of Dreams, Miracles: Holden & Hatewheel show, sometimes okay, sometimes garbage we all have to live with, sometimes deeply uncomfortable.
Arms of the Chosen, What Fire Has Wrought, The Realm, Fangs at the Gate: Transitional period where the new devs had to hit the ground running, which meant taking hacksaws to the existing plans to try and salvage them. Mostly good, but there are some issues if you dig into them that people like Mara will talk about if you chat with her.
Heirs to the Shogunate onwards: New team doing their own thing, not perfect work but nothing is, and assuredly their work.

bleak hazel
#

I have been very impressed with WFHW as someone just spooling up a Deeb campaign

#

this is a very clean book considering

bleak escarp
#

Yeah they did a very good salvage job

#

But from what I've heard, it was pretty blood-and-guts surgery.

bleak hazel
#

there is actually one artifact weapon in the other books that does the +non-charm passives thing but luckily it is pretty strictly NPC equipment

#

you also need six arms to use it, which rules out (most) Sidereals

bleak escarp
#

(the original draft for nellens, for instance, was apparently dripping with mandatory incest material for reasons of H&H being Like That.)

tulip folio
bleak hazel
#

it's Lunar gear

bleak escarp
#

bah

#

simply be beastfolk

bleak hazel
bleak escarp
#

nothing is stopping your sidereal from having six arms but your own cowardice

tulip folio
#

Just go for a swim in the wyld but remember to use fate bullshit to savescum bad mutations

bleak escarp
#

No seriously

#

Just be a spider beastfolk or whatever

#

'Human' is a very broad descriptor in Exalted!

tulip folio
#

I do like that the justification for why alchs can buy mutations is 'Look, sometimes they're just Built Like That.'

bleak hazel
#

I can think of at least three ways to use these things properly as a Sid, but if you deliberately build a Sid with a Bound In Ivy Fetters transformation that lets you go full Jagganoth, hunt down Eska the largely blameless Lunar and kill her for the knives that were her gift from her mentor just to use them you're a horrible person and also you deserve it

#

Sublime Danger will now show up and attempt to kick your arse, and the battle will be Good

prisma sun
#

I think there's literally no mechanical reason you can't take mutations as merits

#

Starting out

bleak hazel
#

oh no you totally can

#

there are just many other buttons that Sids can press to get more arms

bleak escarp
#

fairly sure that if sublime danger shows up to kick your arse, the battle will often be good in the, 'smoking a cigarette, asking if it was good for you' sense.

prisma sun
#

It's why I made King Hu 8-9 feet tall

#

Before his exaltation

#

He was just built different

tulip folio
#

Spider Beastfolk Sid likely comes across to a lot of people in Yu Shan as 'A little on the nose'

bleak hazel
#

being one of Aum's spider people, wyld exposure, sticking a demon inside yourself to get a warform, learning Thousand Blades Style (bonus points for learning it from Sublime Danger)

#

that one eclipse charm that gives you a lunar transformation, stored in the hearthstone that learns eclipse charms that you can socket in the daggers

#

friendly pattern spider

prisma sun
#

Cyborg

bleak hazel
#

friendly Sidereal pretending to be a pattern spider and hitting you with the duck punch

tulip folio
#

You need the important spec of 'Debate Metaphysics' to be a proper pattern spider.

bleak hazel
#

I have this Abyssal craft character with White Veil Style lined up and I really want to designate him as Sublime Danger's solar mate just so he can keep giving her mildly sarcastic gifts of more swords

bleak escarp
bleak hazel
#

totally doesn't try whenever she challenges him to a fight but humours her with the evil lich version of "oh, if you insist, dear"

#

(summon hungry ghost soulhorde)

#

necromancy in general is such a great pile of Cultivation Novel Bullshit, I really like it

prisma sun
#

for reference of a printed artifact btw

#

this is an entirely valid ruling

prisma sun
#

God Stormcaller is so fucking cool

tulip folio
#

hmm?

prisma sun
#

5 dot artifact that has a Third Circle demon called Akavandra sealed inside it

#

It's got a white jade sheathe so heavy with the demon's malice that you can use it as a bludgeon and no one but whoever's attuned can even LIFT IT

#

It's heavier than a Yeddim

#

If you unsheathe the blade it instantly begins storming

#

this instantly begins playing

tulip folio
#

Hahahahah, fun

prisma sun
#

It comes built with a nuke and a judgement cut end

#

I made it a staple of my dragon blooded, a Fire Blooded son of Berit

#

Lord of the Raincoat Dragons, Korit lost his Hearth in a disastrous expedition to gain Stormcaller, where he also lost his eye and arm. He serves in the Legions still and the fact no Sidreal has been able to steal the sword back is a major cause of concern.

velvet raft
#

I had a Stormcaller Solar in a short-lived game I was in

#

Love that sword

#

tbh I find it hard not to grab some sort of fancy artifact

#

Having a panoply is cool

#

But yeah her deal was that that she was part of a shrine-keeper family that had been watching over Stormcaller for generations

#

Didn't really fit in with the family but eventually ended up trying to wield the sword out of desperation and exalted at that exact moment

#

It occurs to me that this would be a really good excuse to have an active cult on a character who wasn't a schmuck

clever steeple
#

Oooh

#

True

tulip folio
#

Alchemical names are difficult

bleak hazel
#

fun Siddy fact of the day: Implicit Construction Methodology does not require you to actually have any dots in Craft (Artifacts) or Craft (Geomancy)

#

admittedly getting the white XP to use it is a bit difficult without at least one of those two but it's very possible for a man who only makes swords to use this charm, go on sabbatical for a year and a bit and come back to find a beautiful Greater Manse has finished itself for him

#

the more I look at Sid Craft the more I like it

velvet raft
#

I've generally heard it said that the thing to do with white XP is set the entire concept on fire

next delta
#

3E crafting is generally disliked but also hard to fix because charms are hooked into it

bleak hazel
#

you can just about make 3e crafting work, but it takes a bit of bodging

#

Solar crafting is the real outlier, the others are just about serviceable

#

Sid and Alchemical Craft are both downright good trees

#

I sat down to make the highest power frontline combat Sidereal possible and I've realised that in order to make this work, you need to spend at least three rounds, 40 motes and six willpower on a dragonball Z transformation sequence that turns you into a 40k Obliterator

#

a hulking black iron monstrosity with a vicious hooked blade on each arm, surrounded by an anima banner of endlessly nested burning reflections

#

if you're willing to spend literally every mote you've got and go down to 3/10 willpower you can upgrade that to a size 4 battlegroup of those things and fight an entire essence 5 battle with raw stats

#

which is extremely out of theme for a Sidereal but kind of cool

#

32 soak, 10 hardness, free attack excellencies

prisma sun
#

Does it beat Ays Ryn

bleak hazel
#

probably not, because she can go through her menu of literally every sidereal martial arts move in the game and pick something that perfectly counters you

#

but anything that doesn't have the ability to put you down hard is going to be there fighting for an age, and once you've hit that point you basically don't get tired

#

Anys Syn, actually, has 86 motes instead of 74, because she's an Essence 7 sidereal

#

she could do this whole combo and not even be reliant on regular juice regeneration, she'd still be at 12 motes out of 27 max

prisma sun
#

Lmao

bleak hazel
#

CK is Essence 10, he wouldn't even be winded

#

"I beg your pardon, you seem to have expected Exalted today, but I brought several hundred black iron monstrosities with giant metal claws, this is actually Warhammer 40k"

#

Corvus Korax

prisma sun
#

Every single.member of the battlegroup using jumping spider strike on you

bleak hazel
#

CK would still have 30 motes out of 45, which is plenty to fight an entire battle with when you have the kind of regen this setup gives you

tulip folio
#

How dangerous are battlegroups in 3e?

bleak hazel
#

this battlegroup, the battlegroup composed entirely of reflection-clones of a high essence Sidereal?

#

quite dangerous, I'd say

#

under normal circumstances, cheap battlegroups soak up hits for more important units without allowing their enemies to gain tempo, because you can't get more than 1 initiatve/swing when Withering them

#

good battlegroups with a decent to great officer throwing command actions at them to really boost their dice are lethal, because they can put huge AOE hits out and just burn through initiative and then health

tulip folio
#

nods
Trying to work out how much is a 'good battlegroup' in this context/how well Alchs can do that (As I kinda set my character up for it but I've no clue how good it actually is). XD

bleak hazel
#

if an Exalt or multiple Exalts just get to lay into unsupported battlegroups, the battlegroups will melt fairly quickly

#

if literally anything is in the way or posing a more pressing problem, like an enemy exalt, a solid BG can be a real issue

#

the basic zombies you can summon with first circle necromancy are decidedly in the "fodder" category

#

they're pretty good at being fodder, though

#

the soulghosts you can get at second circle are an elite guard that should respond really well to command actions because they have pretty good dice already, although I haven't got to test it much yet

#

if you want to use war more conventionally, getting a small to medium sized squad of the best archers/crossbowmen/general ranged troopers you can get hold of can be invaluable, because you can keep them safe behind the herobots and stack war buffs on their already solid dice pools

tulip folio
#

By the time I can cast that they'll be...Size 1-4 (Depending on how hurt I am), Might 3 (2 base +1 from my charms) with +2 Dice on Rout tests. Which is likely Pretty Decent.

bleak hazel
#

wait, you have +might in the alch tree?

tulip folio
#

Yep!

# 
Homeguard Reinforcement Clarion
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Charisma 7, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Stackable
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Unyielding Militia Protocol
An orichalcum circlet runs across the Champion’s brow, glowing with Essence as it stirs feelings of loyalty and uplifted morale in troops fighting for their home.

The Alchemical grants the following benefits to an allied battle group fighting in defense of a community that its members belong to:
• It gains +1 Might.
• Its Drill counts as one step higher. If it already has elite Drill, it increases two bonus dice on rout checks.
• It adds (Alchemical’s Essence/2, rounded up) levels to its Magnitude track.
• It gains +1 Resolve against fear-based influence and influence opposed by positive Ties to the battle group’s community.
The Alchemical can stack multiple uses of this Charm to benefit multiple battle groups. She waives this Charm’s Willpower cost for each battle group past the first.

Submodules
Legion-Forging Champion (3xp): The Alchemical can use this Charm while leading battle groups that are primarily made up of members of a community that she has a positive Major or Defining Tie toward.
Tireless Army of Order (Charisma 6, Essence 3): The Alchemical can use this Charm while fighting against gremlins, fae, or the undead.
bleak hazel
#

hot damn, that genuinely is an unconditional +1 might, that's wild

#

every other might buff I can think of caps at 2

#

or is conditional

#

you can make these ghosts fight like they were a squad of deebs

tulip folio
#

And she's got a positive major tie to Ghosts, which means she can use Legion-Forging Champion to use it outside of home defence.

bleak hazel
#

yeah, that's really scary

#

not Dawn Caste scary but certainly scary for a character that presumably does quite a lot of stuff that isn't fighting

tulip folio
#

'Oh no, the Cultivation mook ghosts have been given names'

#

Alchs also have this for 'I have planned this battle out a million times already'

# 
Strategos-Commander Synergy Circuits
Cost: 5m; Mins: Intelligence 3, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Augmented
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Tactical Omnibus Implant, Wargame Simulation Matrix
Metallic circuitry interlaced with crystalline nodules along the back of the Alchemical’s neck accelerate her tactical planning, giving her time to refine her strategy to perfection.

To use this Charm, the Alchemical must be fighting under a stratagem that she’s successfully enacted. She adds (Intelligence/2, rounded up) dice on order actions with any Attribute. Allied battle groups acting under an order action add an additional three dice on the roll.

Submodules
Ally-Integrating Alchemy (3xp): The Alchemical can use this Charm while fighting under another allied commander’s stratagem.
bleak hazel
#

so these ghost boys are swinging with 13 dice and have evasion 8

#

then you stick an issue order action into that and all of a sudden they're clawing everyone they can get in contact with an exalted-full-excellency withering attack

#

they'll do fine

#

you may want some troops who aren't ghosts summoned with your own blood, just on general principle

#

but the might 3 ghost honour guard is pretty solid

tulip folio
#

Oh, 100%. I've got backing, which should let me go 'Hey, humans, follow me!' if we're near our city.

bleak hazel
#

hilariously the Home Guard Ghosts are stronger than the ones my Abyssal can put out

#

I choose to believe they're ghostly versions of the cast of Dad's Army

tulip folio
#

I also made my GM's brain fail by saying the words 'My Alch is stutterstepping their ghosts'.

#

Alchs also have a Specificially For Ambushing War Charm. Which looks interesting.

# 
Maximized Ambush Processor
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Appearance 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Internal, Uniform
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Blazing Vanguard Beacon
Tactical processors linked to the Alchemical’s hindbrain formulate covert strategies and deceptive maneuvers.

The Alchemical rolls a Strategic Maneuver with (Appearance + [Stealth or War]) and double 9s to enact an ambush stratagem, leading her troops in covert operations. If successful, the stratagem also adds (higher of Essence or 3) dice on Join Battle and Stealth rolls for her and allied battle groups, and an automatic success on their unexpected attack rolls.
# 
Ambush (threshold: 3): The victorious general tricks his enemy into a trap, joining battle when it is least expected! All attacks launched by his forces during the first round of combat are considered ambush attacks. All attacks launched by his forces in the following 3 rounds are considered surprise attacks.

This seems like it's really mean.

bleak hazel
#

I haven't done any strategic combat myself, so this is strictly second-hand, but people with a bit more expertise tell me that it's the strat to go for

#

which makes sense, all things considered

#

there are a few war charms that can pick a strat and say "enemy can't do that", and those are apparently almost exclusively used as "oh thank fuck they can't ambush us"

#

luckily you are unlikely to meet many Solar generals

tulip folio
#

Yeah, it's exclusively other Alchs, Spirits, Ghosts and the rare Dragonblooded unless something goes real weird.

wise ocean
#

You know, I bet you could make a very good Anacharis Scoria with this.

tulip folio
#

...do you think it would be reasonable to awaken evocations for a Resplendent Satchel of Healing artifact?

#

It is a 3 dot artifact

#

(One of the other players in the Alch game is worrying about their idea of an Alch doctor because there's only 4 Alch medical charms, even if I'm telling them that there's like 3 charms worth of submodule effects for one of those charms)

prisma sun
#

Can Battlegroups Stunt?

wise ocean
#

unfortunately the character sheet is not allowing me to auto-build alchs, but

04.png
velvet raft
prisma sun
#

@bleak hazel I have a challenge for you

#

Lunars also have a charm where they can count as a battle group

#

who wins the 1v1 War

tulip folio
#

How are the Dragonblooded Martial arts? (Fire Dragon etc). Obviously, not great for non-dragonblooded due to the 'when in X aura' conditions but they seem cool.

bleak hazel
# prisma sun who wins the 1v1 War

I do not know the Lunar charmset well enough to answer that, unfortunately, but I know the Lunar battlegroup charm is infinitesimally worse but also a little cheaper

#

I would imagine the Lunars win because they are very good at raw stats fights and shouldn't have to commit as many motes to scenelong buffs to get up to stupid soak/hardness values

#

Sids have the fancy footwork and the stamina with Soulfire Form but man can Lunars throw a lot of dice on a lot of attacks

prisma sun
#

Also to be fair I think the Lunars can also turn into an army of T.Rexes

prisma sun
#

I also don't think non-DB CAN learn them

bleak hazel
velvet raft
#

They're pretty much the inverse of regular martial arts, where some of those are weaker for DBs

bleak hazel
#

big lizard boy vs Sidereal black iron robot

tulip folio
#

Nah, non-DB can learn them looking at this.

bleak hazel
#

yeah they can

tulip folio
# 
The Immaculate styles are intensely demanding. While anyone can learn the fundamentals of the styles, their Charms can only be learned by the Dragon-Blooded and by other martial artists that aren’t restricted by the Terrestrial keyword, such as Solars and Sidereals.
velvet raft
#

They are weaker for everyone else and specifically very strong for DBs

tulip folio
#

It's illegal for solars not to be able to do a thing

bleak hazel
#

they're usually not quite up to snuff for non-Deebs, because they lack all the Mastery stuff and rely on Deeb kit

#

there is one exception

#

which is that a Sidereal cosplaying a Deeb can use Elemental Aura

tulip folio
#

Fair, looking over them as the other alch in the game is looking for martial arts that allow armour and they're in that list.

velvet raft
#

I think also there's some stuff about DBs being able to cut costs for them in ways that make them much better?

bleak hazel
tulip folio
#

And well...Alchs can't get Mastery as it is.

velvet raft
#

But yeah Lunars can be absolutely dominant doing certain things (like grappling) and tend to be pretty damn good at everything else

bleak hazel
#

Earth Dragon is solid if you want to wear a solid slab of jade but the two Autocthonian styles that also allow full armour are probably stronger for autobots

#

grapple lunar is very mean, there is a Sid button to really make that tricky but they have to have that button

tulip folio
#

...Wood Dragon's Form seems...bad, unless I'm very much mistaken (Which I could be!)

velvet raft
#

The other thing is it's hard to truly catch a lunar out with something they are totally unprepared for

bleak hazel
#

(the correct play here is to repeatedly bash the Sidereal over the head with Smashing attacks to force relatively nonthreatening prones and then grapple once you break the guard)

velvet raft
#

Solars tend to be absolutely unrivaled in one area of expertise and very strong in some other areas of lesser expertise

tulip folio
# bleak hazel

Man, that just absolutely bodies a chunk of Alch Strength. XD

velvet raft
#

Lunars tend to be very strong in some broad things and pretty strong in most other things

tulip folio
#

As it loves slamming people about

bleak hazel
#

the big advantage that Sids have is that they have a lot of highly esoteric bullshit that enable you to do some kind of tenth dimensional sucker punch in a way that neither Solars or Lunars are really equipped to counter

velvet raft
velvet raft
bleak hazel
#

Solar shaping defences are well established for "don't duckify me" but less clear for "I adopt three martial arts at once, counterspell your moves several times and then grab hold of the future where I win and refuse to let go"

#

personally I like the Sid/Lunar teamup a great deal

#

they cover each other well

#

Solars don't really do teamwork

velvet raft
#

"Punch you into a duck" is in fact one of the least of the sid tricks, which is a deeply scary sequence of words

bleak hazel
#

the old 2e concept that people generally grouped the Duck Punch into is "bad touch" - effects that if they land basically end the fight, but are very hard to land

velvet raft
#

But there were lots of those

bleak hazel
#

Duck Punch is actually one of the least effective 3e Sid bad touches

#

and yeah, in 2e "grapple" was also one of those

velvet raft
#

2e lethality meant the issue was never "can I kill in one hit"

bleak hazel
#

whereas now it's very possible to fight from grapple

#

or take a hit or two and come back

velvet raft
#

It was "I need to get rid of their motes to get one hit"

prisma sun
#

does anyone know what the Sid combo was that let them kill every being in creation with a kick

#

or something

bleak hazel
#

Grandmother Spider Mastery + jumping spider kick + pattern spider touch + whatever charm or artifact you could get to give you as much vision as humanly possible, IIRC

#

basically "I hit everything I see, I kill everything I hit, I see everything" in that order, with Mastery to enable you to put all those in a combo

velvet raft
#

2e was a funny game but in many respects an extremely bad one

tulip folio
#

Creation-Slaying Oblivion Kick

bleak hazel
#

yeah, 3e combat is so much better

velvet raft
#

3e mostly actually feels like Exalted

bleak hazel
#

great system for duels by the way

#

half the reason I'm making so many stupid sidereals is because it's really fun to get hold of a certain 1v1 optimisation goal and worry at it for a while even if it doesn't translate well to actual games

#

the bigger the fights get the less it works, because it really is a lot of stuff to keep in your head

tulip folio
#

That said: Creation-Slaying Oblivion Kick was kinda in that Pun-Pun area of 'hey, the rules don't say I can't do this'

#

It makes some Pretty Big Assumptions to get it working.

bleak hazel
#

this was in the same edition as Zeal, which is "I perfect attack twice as good to get around your perfect defence which beats my perfect attack which ignores any actual number in the system"

tepid flower
#

It required your ST to let you use Scroll of the Monk at all when it was kind of...

#

Clearly not functional on a basic level?

prisma sun
#

Oh yeah I think part of it waas that like

bleak hazel
#

there were like four or five totally unusable supplements

prisma sun
#

an assumption that because Creation is flat there's no actual horizon

tulip folio
prisma sun
#

So if you go to the top of the Imperial Mountain you should logically be able to see everything

tulip folio
#

It also assumes that nobody is ever Inside A Building.

bleak hazel
#

I think the in-universe patch for CSOK in the dying days of 2e was "pattern spider draw distance" which is very funny

tulip folio
#

As sids don't actually have a way in 2e to see through walls

#

you can tell because it's a basic extrapolation of a skill rather than esoteric bullshit 😛

bleak hazel
#

I was actually sitting outside a meeting with my disguised Sid the other day thinking "man, I wish I had a basic essence 1 Awareness charm to skip rolling to eavesdrop on this"

#

this was five minutes after a Sid Awareness/Sid Awareness mutual collision resulted in recursive precognitive warnings, an Avoidance Kata and two memory wipes before literally anyone could roll any dice to actually listen to anything

#

(I made my eavesdrop roll, no issue)

prisma sun
#

That recursive countermagic bit is still

#

hilarious

dense verge
prisma sun
#

Lunars I think

dense verge
#

lunars aren't bound by Terrestrial keyword

tulip folio
#

...kinda funny that lunars invented white reaper but can't use all of it

#

As it's got Mastery

bleak hazel
#

one of the interesting things about building Sids is that eventually they become compatible with so many goddamn martial arts that they can just start taking like two or three dots in a single style for one move

#

especially if they go Prismatic because then you can get artifact punches and go wild with every single martial art that works with unarmed strikes

#

this is typically wildly inefficient, but something like Revolving Crescent Defence from White Reaper might well be worth it

prisma sun
#

So actually Misc

#

question

#

by your read, can you use the threads from Charcol Spider Style as melee attacks?

bleak hazel
#

they are Martial Arts weapons, so yes, you can use them as melee weapons out to medium range as far as I can tell

#

I was tempted to use this clause to wrap a thread of fate around my artifact sword and fly it around like a wire-fu movie

#

I'm not an expert on Sidereal martial arts bullshit but CMOS looks like a great one to dip to me - there's great stuff everywhere from 1 to 4-dot investment

#

taking Rain of Unseen Threads/Nest of Living Strands/Many-Step Stride/Hungry Spider is just this huge grab-bag, even if it is really intensive on the willpower to use them all

dense verge
#

reading alch draft now

#

picturing auto as a large flying saucer from the outside

prisma sun
#

"You can telekinetically attack with your weapons"

bleak hazel
#

pretty much, yeah

#

it's really cute that Sidereal wire-fu is actual wire-fu

#

just stand on the web of fate

prisma sun
bleak hazel
#

Nest of Living Strands is also really solid, because cover applies in melee, so if the fight goes at all long you just start building up big non-charm bonuses to parry

#

big consistency booster

prisma sun
#

I need to flavor my Sid a bit more

#

I did not realize Journeys had gold Anima Banners

#

which I think is really funny because it's like "No Immaculates I'm not a Solar, I have a liscense."

bleak hazel
#

base parry 7 + Nest of Living Strands heavy cover + Mark of Exaltation means that you're just rolling around with 11 parry before mote investment, which is huge

#

2 motes to nudge it gently up to 12, which is your E3 max

#

and also conveniently high enough for full excellency Solars/Lunars to start missing you a non-trivial percentage of the time without buffing their stuff up

prisma sun
#

It's ALSO the closest thing I can find to a Domain Expansion

dense verge
#

i should think more about my sid's banner as well

#

i kind of know what her previous incarnation's banner was like

bleak hazel
#

my Sidereal currently has illusory John Woo birds, but I'm not sure about the core of it

#

I know that if he reaches Essence 5 and starts popping Snake Form as well as his other Forms they'll shift to winged serpents

wise ocean
#

Yongzheng's banner is rain falling against the direction of gravity, the weight and pull of an undersea vent-plume

those kinds of vibes

prisma sun
#

I'm considering taking some inspiration from Dongbaek in Limbus

bleak hazel
#

I'm almost thinking that dipping and dodging through the Sid Martial Arts might be the best play for Vigil

#

15 1 WP motes Soulfire Form + 5 1 WP motes Ways of Exaltation + 5 motes for threads is plenty to commit for E4 without going all the way to triple form shenanigans

tulip folio
#

...you know, considering the various vibes of martial arts, I'm kinda surprised there isn't actually martial arts that go 'This martial art treats unarmed attacks as Heavy Weapons' or such. It would be rather fitting for some of the Brawls or martial arts like First Pulse, where it's just unrelenting brutality rather than finesse.

dense verge
#

continuing my read of the alch book

image.png
#

hey when my capital city starts talking like the primordial force of change through conflict is that good

image.png
tulip folio
#

Estasians, for when you want some Autobots with Jackboots

#

Like, they are just Outright Fascists.

# 
The Estasian government is authoritarian and oppressive to an extent unique in the Octet. Domestically deployed Militat squadrons serve alongside regulators, policing behavior to perpetuate conformism, seed fear, and weed out dissidents. They habitually abuse their power, jackboots on the throat of the people, seldom punished for abuses of power. Even other Tripartite watch themselves, aware their status offers little true protection. The greatest check on them is the intervention of Champions — something best done carefully to not cause more problems. But many Estasian Alchemicals are wholehearted supporters of the Militat, some even seeking membership in its ranks.

The changes of the approaching convergence and suspicion of other nations have turned Estasia into a powder keg primed to explode into violence. Suspected dissidents and troublemakers vanish with increasing frequency. Populat workgroups quietly build mutual aid networks to share rations and defend themselves against Militate, dreaming of fighting back. Patriotic societies dream of establishing a true military dictatorship headed by the Exceptor Prime, while idealistic Tripartite and Militate push for moderation.
#

The Half-Souled are also horrifying.

dense verge
#

just got to that part

#

so thats part of why they put FFVII in the inspiration section

tulip folio
# 
“The fist is stronger than the fingers, and what would break one cannot break five. And through training, the fist breaks all.”

Lux, planning on naming his philosophy something about how a bundle of something together is strong.

#

I do love how Utterly Unsubtle they are in 'Lux is a fascist'

dense verge
#

i think we gotta kill this guy

#

Lux is inefficient in his splendor, but the patropolis is a hypocritical display tolerated in a nation that prides itself on austerity.

tulip folio
#

yearp

#

...god fucking dammit.

# 
People and cargo are gently propelled through the air at specifically marked transport ports.

He made the trains run on time

#

They are really not being suble and I appreciate it

prisma sun
#

Also question

#

what the hell are Maiden Charms

dense verge
#

i think they're like the House of Journeys/Serenity/etc charms

dense verge
# tulip folio They are really not being suble and I appreciate it

The evocat are the best of the best, the legendary shock troops of Estasia. Recognizable by their stark white uniforms and fine armaments, each labors full time to maintain their skills and is expected to fully embody and uphold the Unity. literally has stormtroopers

tulip folio
#

I think we found the guys the average 'We like mortals' Alchs are supposed to punch.

#

That said; God damn their armies are scary for mortals.

#

Mortals being able to get Might +1 is...not really a normal thing.

#

That's First Circle Demon Forces.

#

The Half-Souled are horrifying but they're beefy

bleak hazel
#

most exalts can just throw some level of might on their dudes

tulip folio
#

Oh yeah but +1 might before the exalt helps is still pretty damn good

bleak hazel
#

Tiger Warriors, Sid fate buffs, whatever logic the horrifying Abyssal grey goo war charms work on

#

Abyssal war is wild, so much power for your basic chump zombies in there

#

and you can rez 99% of your slain enemies as more zombies, with the remainder as War Ghost officers

tulip folio
#

I should look at Abyssal War. It sounds fun (And likely good inspiration for that Necromantic Scythe I have. Obviously can't just Flat Steal Celestial Charms but it might inspire some charm ideas as it draws from the same thematic wellspring)

bleak hazel
#

they won't really injure an Exalt at all, but you can still get them to sit on top of you and Defend Other to slow them down, and they'll munch on mortal armies extremely effectively because they have perfect morale

tulip folio
#

the first two countries really are 'Capitalism Country' and 'Fascism country'

#

One that's Invented Money and it immediately became corrupt.

#

And one that's stomping about in jackboots disappearing undesirables

bleak escarp
#

See, Zeal's mechanical effect was, "Whenever she channels WIllpower through a Virtue to perform any action, that action succeeds perfectly, completely negating the possibility of effective opposition - including perfect defenses. She achieves a threshold success equal to her Integrity, regardless of circumstance."

#

But 'perfect defense' wasn't a system term. It was a piece of informal community lingo.

#

So, "that action succeeds perfectly, completely negating the possibility of effective opposition" ran into the actual mechanical effect of perfect defenses, which was just, "This Charm perfectly defends against any attack, even if it is unblockable."

#

The two conflict.

#

And Exalted 2e had a corebook rule about resolving charm conflicts.

bleak hazel
#

this was also in the era of "I have two or three layers of perfect defence that I carefully filter attacks through to achieve the highest mote efficiency possible, because 90% of combat charms are literally irrelevant and I care only about bad touch (grapple, duckification, poison) vs normal attacks that will still instakill me but I can take on the slightly cheaper Perfect Soak"

#

got to love paranoia combat

bleak escarp
#

you do not in fact got to love paranoia combat. even the guy who coined the term hated it.

#

But I had some fun with that on SpaceBattles, pointing out that if we were going to run with all their dumb power tiering and supremacy of feats then Exalted's perfect defenses beat everything because they'd beaten the real-world authors.

bleak hazel
#

that was decidedly sarcastic, yes

bleak escarp
#

Sorry, I was trying to play into it.

bleak hazel
#

I do find Paranoia Combat kind of... technically interesting, as a game object

#

it's utterly miserable to actually play, but it's fun to take a ten minute skim through all the strats and see how people boiled this thing down to bare deterministic essentials

#

luckily 3e is much better and I can make a Sid build designed to wear out and rope-a-dope my opponents without literally comparing the length of our respective mote bars and then the loser instantly detonating

bleak escarp
#

Yeah 3e's combat system has problems, but they're problems about how it's very focused on cinematic duels and works progressively less well the more you step outside of that (it gets a bit weird with FFA fights, getting ganged up on is a big deal, it's cumbersome with more than a limited number of actors, etc), these are basically problems that any decent system faces, and it is actually good at what it wants to do.

bleak hazel
#

honestly I love a good duel engine, not many games do what EX3 does in the sheer variety of ways to approach a 1v1 or 2v2 fight

#

I need to make some Full Moon lunars to see if I'm right in my estimate that Sids want to put rather more of their mote pool into scenelong Stuff in general, so as to spend a bit of their mote efficiency patching their general lack of raw power

#

my E4 Sid is committing about half his juice, one way or another, whereas my Solar basically doesn't know what a scenelong is but also spends two or even three times as much on a full excellency for similar levels of stabby

dense verge
#

oh hey they got Numidium out in the far reaches

tulip folio
#

How's Righteous Restoration of Industry seem for an Alch name?

#

I wanted something that isn't overtly 'You're a necromancer' but you can see how it's there if you already know she's one. XD

dense verge
#

sounds good

bleak hazel
#

sounds good to me also

#

steadily coming up with more adds to this Sidereal battle strategy and it seems to be morphing into incredibly overcomplicated boxing quite quickly

#

"so you need three or four charms from Sid Brawl, four charms from Snake Style, a third form of your choice, half a dozen picks from Sid Melee, one random Craft charm and then the full Prismatic Arrangement of Creation Style"

"what do you do with all this"

"well, keep your chin tucked in and wait for them to get tired"

#

need to go through the list of all extant martial arts forms and find one that reduces damage you take through soak somehow

dense verge
#

Toad Style

#

when used properly, its almost invincible, or so they say

#

toad style is in many faced strangers iirc

bleak hazel
#

I really like the mental image of this Elder Sidereal who conducts themselves as this graceful white-bearded Old Master in full wuxia fashion going through many beautiful forms and anima banners and general light shows in exhibition matches

#

and then someone tries to jump him for real and it turns out that when he's trying it's just bare-knuckle boxing

#

this martial arts duel is now a Rocky movie

bleak hazel
dense verge
#

this is what got me to suggest you should watch five deadly venoms

bleak hazel
#

this build is already getting heavy use from Snake Style

#

which has a form that gives you 12 soak in this config

dense verge
#

ahaha

bleak hazel
#

might be hard to get the Stamina and Resistance this build needs to use Toad Style properly but I think this actually works

#

5+12+5+5 = 27 soak, 4 hardness, without actually spending the juice on Secrets of the Immortal Toad because it's just a tiny bit expensive after already investing 44 motes in three martial arts forms + artifact gear + Full Moon Lunar cosplay

next delta
#

Do you think the Elder Sidereal knows enough about game mechanics to make sure they are alone so no one else can be used to build initiative >.>

#

(I think that is the weirdest part of 3E's combat system for group combat)

bleak hazel
#

the benefit of Sid Melee in this situation is that you can use it to clash attacks made against your comrades

#

bit expensive though

next delta
#

Clashes ignore... soak? Or is it just defence

#

Do they also have some way to take hits for others?

bleak hazel
#

clashes ignore defence, you oppose the attack rolls, but the winner of the clash makes their attack into soak/hardness as normal

#

taking hits for others is not in their arsenal, it's the Obi-Wan Kenobi melee style

prisma sun
#

Taking knockback is in their arsenal

bleak hazel
#

oh yeah, that is available

next delta
bleak hazel
#

that's the Abyssal Integrity Capstone, unfortunately

#

but they can simply tell reality that they're dead and skip the actual dying process

next delta
#

It is otherwise not very thematic for sidereals

bleak hazel
next delta
#

Hopefully you have a relatively fast funeral ritual if you have to do it every day

bleak hazel
#

it's a Simple charm, so it takes... about fifteen seconds-ish, although combat rounds are deliberately not timed in this system

next delta
#

Is an "endings charm" just any charm that is for an endings caste ability?

prisma sun
#

Actually wait yeah so like

#

which charms are the Maiden charms

#

I cannot actually tell

bleak hazel
#

yes, any caste ability

next delta
#

The flavor text makes me imagine that the people in charge of updating and auditing the records of is who died get really annoyed at Sidereals who frequently use this charm

prisma sun
#

oh wait

#

that was to Meat

#

pardon

bleak hazel
#

the Maiden charms are in little sections at the start of each House

#

discrete from any actual ability

#

and when their prereqs say "Any [Caste] Charm/Ability" it refers to the five ability trees that are in that House

dense verge
#

ok thats what i thought too

bleak hazel
#

hmm

#

Hungry Ghost Form adds slightly more soak

#

but doesn't let me poison people

#

or make Five Deadly Venoms the actual theme of my build

dense verge
#

that is an important design benefit of toad style

#

we've got snake, toad, centipede printed so far i think right

#

monkey kind of does lizard's job and there isnt really a throwing style for scorpion

bleak hazel
#

reducing penalties on poison by 6 is also pretty handy because it basically makes you immune to all the bad touch instant-disable poisons

#

thanks toad form

dense verge
#

nearly invincible...

bleak hazel
#

that literally lets you drink yozi venom, which is hysterical

#

it will still hurt but it won't actually degrade your performance any

#

actually it only does one level of lethal damage per minute, it's mostly a penalty adder

prisma sun
#

God the Journeys ones are so good

bleak hazel
#

delicious demon poison

#

I'm pretty sure Centipede Style is a grappling style but I will check

prisma sun
#

Falcon styyle is a grappling style I know that

next delta
#

I love that sidereals and alchemicals are the two most discussed exalted types right now. Because it is really funny how completely opposite they are on the "being earnest" scale

dense verge
#

iconic anima having the sky unfurl like a scroll amid fluttering deep green moths so dense they look like billowing smoke I think is what I want my secrets sidereal's anima effect to look like

#

unrelatedly

bleak hazel
#

Solars and Infernals are the ones that used to get all the discussion on the forums, from what I remember, but I think at least some of that was 2e Sids and Lunars being basically unplayable and Deebs being total fodder

#

now all the actually cool exalts get to take their turn under discussion

prisma sun
#

Sidreals suffer that they have so fucking many funny little tricks you want to dip away from making any remotely viable combat skill to instead make Cultivation Bugs Bunny

dense verge
#

sids have so much bullshit in their pockets i love them

bleak hazel
#

oh hey, Centipede Style is compatible with Snake Style without any Sidereal bullshit at all

#

they both use hook-swords

wise ocean
#

balances out at 50 legs

bleak hazel
#

Five Deadly Venoms master is a viable archetype for any exalt, then

#

well, they all use unarmed, but sometimes you want a weapon

next delta
#

How many non-solars exalts get charms to turn their hands into artifact equivalent weapons?

bleak hazel
#

Sidereals, Getimians (if they learn Prismatic Arrangement), Abyssals (Brawl Only)

#

Lunars also, with Claws of the Silver Moon

#

but obviously the Lunar definition of an "unarmed attack" is often a little bit looser than that of the rest of them

next delta
#

🤔 I'd be surprised if Alchemicals can't. But maybe that's because they stuff actual artifact weapons in their bodies

bleak hazel
#

ah, Abyssals also get artifact punches with their Essence 5 brawl capstone

#

but they can't combo that with martial arts

#

Alchemicals have no access to artifact unarmed as far as I can tell

#

they just summon artifact weapons in a number of different ways, rather than using their actual hands

next delta
#

Their hands are technically not artifacts because mortals make them

bleak hazel
#

makes me wonder what the Alchemical reaction to Four Magical Materials Form would be

#

or Demense-And-Manse Form

#

which turn the Sid into an actual living artifact

tulip folio
bleak hazel
#

yes, but to clash you need to swing at each other on the same tick, your opponent can't force you into a clash if you don't actually take a swing at them

tulip folio
#

Got it, I just need to play the 'I'm not touching you' game.

bleak hazel
#

(or at one of their friends, with Sid Melee in particular)

#

Clash also requires one of three things:

  • your initiative is naturally the same, so you act at the same time
  • one side went first and paid 2 initiative to delay their turn, allowing them to go on your turn and clash an attempt to swing at them
  • the defender has a Clash charm to reflexively clash something regardless of their place in the turn order
#

most reflexive Clash charms are Decisive-Only, which makes it a bit of a commitment

#

I like clash builds, they're very efficient if properly constructed, but it's not a game plan you can usually hide

next delta
#

You also don't get accuracy on decisive attacks, so decisive only is extra dangerous

bleak hazel
#

Sidereals have a fun trick there because they have a charm to reflexively aim, so if they line up the turns they can watch you coming at them, pop Inner Eye Strike and then go into the clash with +3 Non-Charm dice

#

you also still get the +2 non-charm dice from dual wielding two identical weapons or using a two-handed weapon, if I understand the rules correctly

#

(basically, single one handed sword gets to be sad, screw you Green Destiny)

next delta
#

I didn't realize two handed weapons get the bonus

bleak hazel
#

technically they don't, but the Two-Handed keyword provides an identical one

#

the primary downside to doing it that way is that if you get grappled you're in a tight spot

next delta
#

I wish shields were a bit better (though I do find it funny given how good they would have been historically)

bleak hazel
#

dual-wielding light or medium one-handed weapons is very effective for clash setups, especially the former if you're doing Withering clashes

next delta
#

Yeah

bleak hazel
#

this is why Fire Dragon Style users seem to spend half of any given fight pacing in dramatic circles monologuing, they're trying to bait clashes with their dual shortswords

next delta
#

Social influence actions to bait opponents into clashing you

tulip folio
#

I know it's been like that since earlier editions but Wood Dragon being compatible with Bows but only if you're beating a guy in the head with it is eternally amusing.

#

'We have taught the dragonblooded graceful, advanced martial arts with a bow' beating things with a stick noises

#

(That said: I don't think I entirely get Wood Dragon in 3e. It seems a bit all over the place/that heal looks super slow/that form looks really minor)

next delta
#

Wait, none of the charms work with ranged attacks? lol

tulip folio
# 
Wood Dragon stylists train in wielding the long bow as a close-range weapon, using the traits of a staff. Wood Dragon style can’t be used through ranged attacks made with a bow, but the Immaculate doesn’t need a ready weapon action to change between using a bow as a ranged weapon and wielding it as a staff.
bleak hazel
#

Wood Dragon is kind of the odd duck, yeah

next delta
#

I feel like that sort of thing is less useful in 3E versus a game where you don't specialize so hard into a particular combat style

bleak hazel
#

Air Dragon has excellent keepaway and air game (unsurprisingly), Earth Dragon is a superb beatstick style, Fire Dragon makes for a solid duelist and Water Dragon has the one true Deeb perfect defence, among a grab bag of other mean moves

#

Drowning-In-Blood Technique is a deeb classic

wise ocean
#

assuming the campaign ever gets to that much essence, I am planning to be very devious and combine perfect defense with a gun

tulip folio
#

Wood Dragon has...a simple action, unreliable heal, unless I'm missing something that makes Mind-Over-Body Meditation great.

# 
Mind-Over-Body Meditation
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Perilous, Wood
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Wood Dragon Vitality
The Immaculate is keenly aware of the rhythm and circulation of her body’s vital forces, sensing bruises and cuts as disturbances in its course. Closing her eyes in a moment of intense focus, she rights the flow of her living Essence and seals her wounds. She rolls (higher of Essence or 3) dice, unmodified by other effects, and heals a level of non-aggravated damage for each success, minimum one. This Charm can only be used once per scene, and only while in combat.
bleak hazel
#

Bottomless Depths Defence is only E3 and you start at E2, definitely not impossible

#

Mind Over Body only working in combat is mean, yeah

tulip folio
#

...soul marking style feels like it's perfectly designed for bows.

#

Which is a pity because you can't shoot with the style

bleak hazel
#

Soul-Marking Style is really rather good

#

absolutely nothing wrong with that one

tulip folio
#

I suppose aiming helps melee too but 'you can just perma-aim against a guy' feels a bit mean in a style that says 'you can use bows but you can't shoot with them'. XD

bleak hazel
#

yeah

#

really you take a couple of archery charms with this, fight in melee and shoot them in the back if they try to run

#

or if you need a ranged option

next delta
#

How is soul-marking style worded? I wonder if it technically lets you use it while shooting lol

bleak hazel
#

Wood Dragon Form isn't terrible, but it does have the rather glaring downside of not actually preventing you from dying if the scene ends and you're too low

tulip folio
#

Nah, it says 'wood dragon attacks'

#

So it wouldn't work with shooting

bleak hazel
#

there's a bunch of stuff in here that would be really good if it lasted longer

tulip folio
#

Spirit Rending Technique seems kinda cool-ish but really limited in Who You Can Use It On and the fact that the refund isn't actually going to cover the cost unless you knock the UCS himself the hell out.

bleak hazel
#

wait what the fuck, Soul Mastery

#

hot damn

#

immaculate grandmasters got the instagib attack

#

fuck your 34 soak 10+ hardness Lunar bullshit

#

OK, I'm sorry I misjudged you Wood Dragon, please don't hit me with that

tulip folio
#

Hahahah

#

So it's got a great capstone and a mix of 'solid' and 'kinda weird/not that great' things getting there. XD

bleak hazel
#

I can see why you want one of each dragon form in your super sentai wyld hunt team, put it that way

#

this is a good style to have in the squad and a less good style for getting stuff done yourself

#

being a decent archer allows Wood Deeb to stand in the back with Wind and fill the target full of arrows while Earth, Water and Fire take the frontline

tulip folio
#

And then occasionally RIP YOUR SOUL OUT

bleak hazel
#

yeah

#

secondary role of combat medic because if you're in the back spamming Withering arrows you can probably get a good chunk of initiative without taking too much damage, then slam whatever frontliner goes down with Wood Dragon Succor

#

(try not to die in the process)

tulip folio
#

I got pondering the elemental styles due to one of the players in the Alchemical game going 'I like my gyroscopic chakram, I wonder if I can learn air dragon anywhere here?' and the GM going 'Sure but it won't be called that. The Autocthunian Element is Steam, not Air'.

bleak hazel
#

this might actually be a great value-add for the boxer sid

#

give me the juice

tulip folio
#

...how is Golden Jannisary, with the assumption 'You're beating the shit out of a Creature of Darkness'?

#

As it seems monofocused on them but it also used to be a Terrestial Martial Art, so I've no clue if they gave it Cool Juice.

#

Also: I found a way for Alchs to become immune to Sid Forgetfulness. With the provision 'The GM won't likely let you stay a player character'. 😛

#

Apostates are both Creatures of Darkness and Enemies of Fate

upper stratus
tulip folio
upper stratus
#

nihilism (positive) is the domain of the endings caste. cease and desist

bleak escarp
#

Contemplating the wisdom of giving people introduction to a couple folks I know who are really up on their 3e optimisation questions. On the one hand, they could almost certainly field any questions you have, on the other hand, they're the sort of people who evoke comments from the devs like "I'm afraid of what you're going to do with this book"

tulip folio
#

Sad Alch: "Yes but I just don't care about anything." immediately gets set on fire by holy light.

#

If you want Dragon! Sorry for my Endless Barrage of Questions here. XD

bleak escarp
#

It's fun getting to see peeks like this

churn_pic.jpg churn_pic.jpg
tulip folio
#

snrk

bleak escarp
#

Tbh I haven't had a chance to play Exalted in too long a time, and my mechanical knowledge is rusty as hell.

#

unfortunately I'm something of a Lunar purist.

bleak hazel
#

my 3e charop knowledge is fairly rudimentary beyond having read a lot of the stuff and built a lot of Sidereals, I am interested to see what the 3e Invincible Sword Princesses are out and about doing

tulip folio
bleak escarp
#

hehe

#

Although a lot of that is I remain a bit of a 2e grognard who's still a bit in love with TAW.

tulip folio
#

I'm looking forward for essence 2 for my 'Army Command + Sorcery' alch to be able to do Both At Once.

image.png
bleak escarp
#

Sorceror on the hill isn't quite strategist on the hill, but it has a lot in common!

bleak hazel
#

the current guy I'm rotating is an E1 Sid Ghost Detective, although he hasn't got as much Investigation as I'd like because I put a decent whack into combat, awarenes and Occult

#

I'm interested to see what the charop for release Sids is, because I've seen barely any talk for non-Solar splats and Solars are honestly sufficiently boring to me that I don't really mind what the best Solar murder builds are

tulip folio
#

This is also a very funny sidebar:

# 
Doing Science
While players are encouraged to use Distillation of Artificial Forms in interesting and evocative ways, science in the world of Exalted is subject to the logic of myths, not reality. The Storyteller can veto overly technical uses of this spell based on modern chemistry and physics if they’re disruptive to the story’s genre, mood, or tone.
#

"Stop it, you're being a pain."

bleak hazel
#

is that the one that breaks things down to their base ingredients?

#

the "no trying to make antimatter explosions" sidebar

tulip folio
#

Yep

#

'I break this wall down, splitting the atom and nuking the area'

#

'Piss off, why are you like this?'

lunar magnet
tulip folio
#

...I am shocked there is no charm for an Alchemical to turn into a vehicle.

#

Even outside 'Hahahah, Autobots' jokes, it seems like it would be a natural extrapolation for 'Long distance travel' charms.

prisma sun
#

Ezpz lemon squeezy

tulip folio
#

...also kinda surprised that there's no rules for Essence Cannons for Alchs. There is a Special Charm-Created Version but not for like just 'You have an artifact one'. Though I suppose it's easy enough to make with the rules for making weapons.

prisma sun
#

Sidreal's iconic anima is turning the world around him into a sea of yellow flowers below a starry, ever-shifting sky

next delta
#

Starmetal-based metropoli seem surprisingly common in Autocthonia

prisma sun
#

They do be in space

tulip folio
#

Autocthonn is full of all magical metals. Entertainingly I think this means they have Ethical Soulsteel

prisma sun
#

What do you guys reckon the games of divinity are

next delta
tulip folio
#

The maidens are pulling strings to get good 10 pulls

spring lynx
tulip folio
#

And in 3e they also have new, Fascist Soulsteel

#

It's creepy!

spring lynx
#

i don't think that's new

#

2e had a whole thing about how soulsteels are the secret police, and their cities are panopticons orwell could only dream of

tulip folio
#

Oh no, I mean the Soulsteel is made FROM fascists

spring lynx
#

ohhhhhhhhh

#

i mean, on the one hand, hey, dead fascists

tulip folio
#

Surprisingly: Not dead

#

Living Soulsteel fascists

#

Estacia developed a process to turn the lower soul of a person into Soulsteel without touching the upper soul

#

So their super elite guys got their emotions and empathy forged into Soulsteel

#

While still being alive

#

Makes them blood ape tier combatants

#

Because they're partially magical metal

spring lynx
#

wait, the soulsteel is still inside them?

tulip folio
#

Yep!

#

Estacia is super fucking fascist

#

And I suppose it's not fair to call all Half-Forged fascists.

#

A lot of them are political dissidents snatched up off the street or taken from the Ghoulag.

spring lynx
#

...

#

ghoulag

#

i fucking hate these writers sometimes

tulip folio
#

Nah that's not from them. But I couldn't resist.

#

They ARE grabbing people off the street, from prisons or outright lying to them to get more of them

#

One of the things the book tells you they ply people with?

#

Promises of favourable reincarnation.

#

For getting forged into Soulsteel

#

Can you find the flaw?

valid summit
#

does the upper soul still reincarnate though?

next delta
#

I don't know how the upper/lower soul split is supposed to work there. Exalted can generally reincarnate fine in Creation while their hungry ghosts still are around (though that cycle isn't the same)

#

But there is a "crisis of souls" thing going on where a bunch of soulgems result in unreadable engrams. And both that and "soul flaying" are considered potential problems

spring lynx
#

i'm pretty sure the upper soul is the part that reincarnates and the lower soul is the part that makes hungry ghosts

#

then again, the whole cycle is weird in autocthonia because of the whole "no access to lethe" thing

next delta
#

🤔 they can read the history of souls by some method, so you'd think they'd be able to empirically test the "do the half-souled reincarnate" part

tulip folio
#

Capitalism City is having problems there because their leadership are undead hanging on beyond the time it should have been handed off to younger people.

#

But they have no damn clue about how necromancy works

next delta
#

Only some of them are undead. Though I have no idea how you keep that a secret lol

tulip folio
#

So they just shoved the entire soul back into the corpse

#

And are wondering why some of their leaders occasionally eat someone's face

#

Going Hungry Ghost for a while

prisma sun
#

I think my Sids exaltation has the in built desire to fix Lethe

tulip folio
#

In retrospect there's a lot of Autobot City things a necromancer can interact with.

spring lynx
prisma sun
#

Gotta unclog those primordial corpses

#

Gotta build an orichalcum plunger

tulip folio
#

God-Clearing Plunger to be forged

#

Dammit

lament owl
#

I remember when I was reading the core book and there was a plot hook about a woman who’s lower soul/hungry ghost wandered off despite her still being alive

This just reminded me of that

next delta
#

sounds unpleasent

tulip folio
#

...is it weird to have an Exalt who's terrified of something that's just absolutely not on her level?

#

I'm thinking of having one of my Necromancer Alch's negative intimacies be that she's terrified if the Half Forged.

spring lynx
#

phobias aren't rational

#

like, by definition

tulip folio
#

And her ability to feel out souls likely gave her an inexplicable 'This isn't right' encountering them

#

And that's fair

#

Things she could absolutely beat: A half forged.
Thing she absolutely would be terrified to be threatened by: A half forged

next delta
#

It's kind of weird that conurbation (the Sovan tech that lets settlements to be protected and powered by nearby metropoli) is stated to have been ruinously expensive

prisma sun
#

Sidreal with the phobia of

image0.jpg
next delta
#

Said Sidereal is a master of the Charcoal March of Spiders, because they decided to learn from the thing that terrified them the most

prisma sun
#

"Their katas, their fighting spirit, none can match it..."

#

Non-stop screaming as they are covered in spiders

tulip folio
#

...I do really appreciate that 3e doesn't make the Fascist City Cool.

#

There's a tendency in fiction to write 'they're fascists but they get the coolest dudes and the best toys and their Horrible But Efficient'

next delta
#

Estasia seems to suck more and have less redeeming qualities than the other nations I've read through

tulip folio
#

But the Estasian Government? It's a shitshow. In order to keep up in Fancy Uniforms and New Weapons, they're neck deep in Austerity so bad it's Considered Impressive in Autochonia, a land where 'A room to yourself' is considered unimaginable luxury.

next delta
#

Though they are all kind of authoritarian, dystopic nightmares

tulip folio
#

They've got very little cultural spread and basicly everyone who's not part of their military caste is stuck between 'too terrified to resist' and 'too desperate to not fight back' at all times.

tulip folio
next delta
#

Oh, yeah

#

But I mean the government and caste system is pretty bad

tulip folio
#

100%

#

Luckily there is the most important of things to deal with in Autobot City: Leftist Infighting, as the One Tier Movement is gaining support, even among some Autobots. XD

chilly sluice
tulip folio
#

In Estasia rather than 'A historical truama' or 'resource issues' or 'political infighting' the cause of the bullshit has a name and it's Lux, the Capital City.

#

'Sorry mate but your city is a wanker'

next delta
#

Why couldn't Lux be one of the founding cities that got hit by an unfortunate accident

wise ocean
#

someone told me recently that my seccomm commissar nhp would be an easy port to an estasian soulsteel, and I was like impressively, that makes them even more fascist

prisma sun
#

"we're reaching levels of fash not even before possible"

tulip folio
#

Lux Teaches Diplomacy

image.png
prisma sun
#

I'm now wondering if Charcol Spider style lets one "Pull a Jolyne"

tulip folio
#

oh?

prisma sun
#

Wrap someone in string
continously pull them towards you as you simultaniously punch them away

#

You CAN do it at LEAST once

#

Oh fuck I forgot

#

About Silver-Voiced Nighting Gale

#

and how they make your voicee count as thrown weapons

tulip folio
#

Quickly, where is a charm where I can snatch thrown weapons from the air so I can steal someone's voice? 😛

prisma sun
#

Hilariously this means you can knock someone out with a rhyme that you said an hour ago as they try to ambush youu

#

HILARIOUSLY this also allows Extreme Range attacks via yelling

tulip folio
#

...man, Golden Jannisary Form gives a lot of defence vs creatures of darkness.

#

Which I suppose it is the 'Anti-Creature of Darkness' martial art

prisma sun
#

OH

#

I had FORGOTTEN about Golden Jannissary style!

#

ehehehehehehehehehe

#

HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE

tulip folio
chilly sluice
prisma sun
#

that doesn't split your initative, just halves it

tulip folio
#

...oh boy.

prisma sun
#

Kiai also count as Thrown weapons

chilly sluice
#

ahh, okay

#

didn't know Sids had that

prisma sun
#

Every battle style does

#

some version of it at least

tulip folio
#

...you know, I've got a bit of a minor grumble about Alch charms.

#

I feel like Archery gets more support in them than Thrown.

#

As Archery gets a Really Cool Special Weapon Generation Charm

#

And the 'make your own weapons' charm doesn't work on thrown weapons.

#

And I'm not sure why. They're attribute exalts, they don't have charm trees that are super distinct for types of ranged attack in most places

chilly sluice
#

oh they are attribute based?

#

interesting

#

I've not read anything about new Alchemicals yet

tulip folio
#

Yeah. So they've got a charm in Dexterity that makes their Cool Special Gun.

prisma sun
#

I think my favorite thrown charm of all time is "Boulders-as-pebbles-attitude" for Lunars

chilly sluice
#

that one is very good yeah

prisma sun
#

Which turns "anything you pick up" into a thrown weapon

tulip folio
#

But I can't really see why it's 'Use Archery and Only Archery for this' when 'Using this really cool big gun' is two entire pages (Including submodules).

image.png
#

It's a big cornerstone of Range Alch Charms

prisma sun
#

King Hu had that specifically for the "Nonconsenting Fastball Special" I was going to use on our Dawn Caste

tulip folio
#

In other news: God Essence Pulse Cannon is so cool. Pity it can't be used with any martial arts.

chilly sluice
#

oh because it's not actually an archery weapon?

#

they should have at least let you use it with Righteous Devil Style

tulip folio
#

Rightous Devil sadly only works with 'Flame-Discharge Weapons'.

chilly sluice
#

yeah I know

#

but come on, it would be sick to do it with your arm cannon
even if you had to reload it

next delta
#

I think it's both not a specific weapon a MA refers to, and maybe because it is also a charm (I forget if attribute charms ignore the MA combo rule or not)

tulip folio
#

But the lack of Mastery means that Alchs are not that great martial artists.

prisma sun
#

I mean that is "Sidreals and Solars"

tulip folio
#

I mean, 'Solaroids and Sids' is like 'Half the splats', so I think it's fair to call them 'not great' XD

#

Solar, Solar(Goth), Solar(Green) etc

#

Important Question: Can I use Righteous Devil if I throw a red barrel at people, it's full of firedust and will discharge much flame 😛

wise ocean
#

no, but if you use a slingshot to launch the red barrel,

tulip folio
#

Loony Tunes-ass Alch trying to work out how to count 'Eternal Flame Barrel' as a form weapon.

prisma sun
#

Who's the best general out of the exalts, I wonder

tulip folio
#

I sadly don't really know the other splats well enough to comment on it but people did seem shocked that Alchs have an uncapped +1 might bonus (Instead of being limited to +2) charm.

bleak hazel
#

Solar generals are terrifying because they have so many war charms that the system kind of rolls over and dies if you use them all, apparently

#

Personally I've got to give it to the Abyssals because of the "everything your army kills becomes zombie" charm

#

probably very easy to stay zombie neutral against most opposition

tulip folio
#

Does it have to be your army or just armies in the same battle as you?

#

Mostly pondering how scary some exalts could get working together.

#

As a lot of the Alch War Charms don't need you to be leading the troops.

#

Just be there and buffing them

#

Alch + Abyssal for 'Hey, so those Infinite Zombies are Elite Drill and +1 Might over what the Abyssal can make them'

bleak hazel
#

"battle groups led by the Abyssal" so everyone if they're in your strat maneuver roll I think

#

Sids also have a war tree designed to let you be the consigliere to a different Exalt so they combo well

tulip folio
#

Seems like Alch is likely a fantastic secondary leader for other exalts. As so many of their buffs are 'Pick a Battle Group, Give Them A Power Up' or 'You can't do anything action-wise but all battlegroups on your side have a +1 Non-Charm Automatic Success' bullshit going on. XD

bleak hazel
#

Unfortunately the Might thing doesn't combo particularly well on the zambies but it's not bad if you happen to be fighting other undead

#

Legion of Life’s End: For three experience points, the Abyssal grants a battle group +1 Might when facing opposition from mortals or battle groups made up of the living. If it has Might 0,the bonus increases to +2.

tulip folio
#

Oooh, fun.

bleak hazel
#

I know why this clause on the Sidereal self-battlegroup charm exists but I do kind of want to see what happens if you take it off

prisma sun
#

Misc did you see my combo that let's a sid kill an entire army of undead in one attack

bleak hazel
#

She can’t benefit from command actions or Charms that specifically enhance battle groups.

tulip folio
#

Hahahah

bleak hazel
#

I feel I should specialise my Sid detective in "only enemies of fate" or "only other Exalts"

#

the latter makes sense because he's bros with Lytek

tulip folio
#

How's this seem for an Alch's Intimacies?

Defining: The Dead Are Part Of Our Community (Principle), Autochthon (Faithful Hope)
Major: Vos-Ulos (Positive Tie, Protective Love), Divine Ministers (Positive Tie, Awed Respect), Divine Minister Ku (Negative Tie, Exasperation), I Am Not A Monster (Principle), Spellcraft (Positive Tie, Joy)
Minor: Half-Forged (Negative Tie, Horror), Food (Positive Tie, Comfort), Tunnel People (Positive Tie, Sympathy)
prisma sun
#

I am making my Sid an anti undead killer I think

tulip folio
#

Vos-Ulos is the city we're going to be in, it's the GM's creation.

prisma sun
#

Mostly because Journeys are weirdly specialized in that already but also because being undead is sorta anti thetical to "going with the flow"

#

Do abyssals count as undead?

tulip folio
bleak hazel
#

Only when it benefits them, which is a really funny perk

tulip folio
#

Ah, cool!

prisma sun
#

Bastards...

bleak hazel
#

Luckily Enemies of Fate/Creatures of Darkness both do include Abyssals because they're more general anti-doomoid

tulip folio
#

Oh well, they're still...yes, that.

#

So Golden Jannisary is still 'STACKS ON THE ABYSSAL'

prisma sun
#

Ik have you seen thunderbolt fantasy

tulip folio
#

A chunk of the first season, not all of it.

prisma sun
#

It and Fog Hill of Five Elements are the quintessential exalted not exalted media to me

#

This has also reminded me that 100% if it looks like two dragonblooded are about to get into a rock off you better fucking run

tulip folio
#

...and now I'm imagining an Alch entering Nightingale Form by unveiling an Amp in their body.

prisma sun
#

Fuck yes

tulip folio
prisma sun
#

Divine Minister and that one guy in particular being back to back is very funny

#

Looks good!

#

Idk how many you're supposed to have

bleak hazel
#

number varies wildly

chilly sluice
bleak hazel
#

I like how Sids are some of the best combat medics in the game if not the best, but only if the guy they're healing was stabbed by someone doom-affiliated

prisma sun
#

Use of the word snapping sounds painful

#

What do you mean craft 3 essence 1

tulip folio