Exalted

[fierce star]

that could work actually. I'll workshop it as I do charm design; probably going to start up on that tomorrow (I'm at work today, 24 hour shifts leave little room for getting into a flow state with homebrew, but it's good for jotting ideas down)

[fierce star]

A player of mine has presented me a questiona bout Architects: Yu-Shan is a city. It likely lacks a city father, but could Wun Ja in theory empower an architect of yu shan?

[bleak hazel]

I had actually considered doing that as a Celestial Exigent at some point, but that would mean upgrading lots of the already printed and shiny charms

I see no reason why not, lorewise

[fierce star]

yeah, that was my thought as well

I feel like you get Wits, Manipulation, and Intelligence as foundation attributes for yu-shan?

[bleak hazel]

sounds about right, although I'm tempted by Appearance because it is the city of gleaming gold flagstones

[tulip folio]

Pretty city

[bleak hazel]

presumably the reason there isn't one is because Yu-Shan is, by Creation standards, pretty safe and definitely has the highest Celestial Exalt population per capita of anywhere

plus quite a few deebs

[tulip folio]

How are architect charms?

[fierce star]

I could see appearance instead of... probably wits?

[bleak hazel]

yeah

[fierce star]

you want manipulation for office politics and intelligence for doing the bureaucracy

[bleak hazel]

Int-Manip-Appearance is, coincidentally, the best possible set of attributes if you want to be amazing at spirit binding and summoning

which seems fitting

[fierce star]

Architect charms are pretty neat, I've only given them a brief look over but they're a fairly decent match for dbs in power level,b ut more generally broad due to being attribute-based

[bleak hazel]

since an Exigent of Yu-Shan would presumably be a God Cop specialist even beyond your usual for Sidereals

[fierce star]

makes sense

[fierce star]

Blade-Beckoning Requisition
Cost: 3m; Mins: Dexterity 2, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Keystone (Strength), Metropolis
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Civic Armory Summons
The Architect draws swords from cobblestones and arrows from midden heaps, making the city her weapon.
Touching an artificial structure, the Architect draws a
mundane weapon from it. She can choose any weapon
that the Storyteller agrees is a good fit for that structure.
Should the Architect need to call the weapon to her
or scavenge ammunition for it with Civic Armory
Summons, she may do so for one mote.
Metropolis: In cities, the Architect can confer an additional tag on the weapon based on the form, function,
or composition of the structure she drew it from.
Keystone: An Architect with Strength as a Foundation
Attribute may learn this as a Strength Charm.

@tulip folio an example of (and one of my favorite) architect charms

[tulip folio]

Interesting

Only mundane but pretty cool

[bleak hazel]

terrestrial "summon weapon" is mundane by default, I believe

Dragon-Graced Weapon lets you pull your daiklaive from the earth and makes it Smashing for your trouble, but only if you stored an artifact there in the first place, if not it just produces a mundane weapon made of rocks

[fierce star]

yeah

[bleak hazel]

technically you can store your weapon in anything, but in practice earth is both reliably available and one of the better upgrades because Smashing rocks

(ha ha)

[fierce star]

lol rocks

[bleak hazel]

deeb melee is very fun in general

Crossfire Flash + Portentious Comet Deflection + Fire Incites Water To A Riot Of Clouds produce this heavily clash-based, very flashy combat style that both looks great and tackles superior celestial raw stats quite well

risky, though

[fierce star]

I still have a DB that I played in a one-shot that I'd really enjoy having in another campaign; I'm quite proud of the artifact suite I did for her even if I only had like, three evocations from them. She was a war/occult/melee battle sorcerer with an Agatae familiar who she had a mututal defining tie of 'true love' with. Agatae are so fun, easily one of my favorite first circle demons.

[bleak hazel]

big fan of the stupid sexy dragonflies

I've always been tempted to have a deeb with an artifact that's a "carved wooden agatae" that works like an Edge Chronicles skycraft

[fierce star]

Oooh

[bleak hazel]

or possibly a Sid, since they suit the Librarian Knights quite well

but they have more straightforward access to outright flight in the form of Stormwind Rider etc.

[fierce star]

back in ex2 I actually had one GM very gently ask me to stop playing sorcerers because hew as very tired of me having between one and twelve bound demons ready for nearly any occasiona thrown at us.

[bleak hazel]

lmao

[fierce star]

... so the next game I played a necromancer with craft (necrotech) instead.

[bleak hazel]

personally I like necromancy in 3e, it's a bit less flexible but it both fits my desired vibe and has some real standouts in the war department

[tulip folio]

Well now the rules for that don't stink as you can just make them a battlegroup.

[bleak hazel]

Necromancy is the Operational Warfare variant now - summon ghost gets you officers and intel, Skeletal Horde gets you fodder, Hundred Shade Breath gets you an elite personal guard

other necromancy spells provide battlefield fortifications, which is really quite strong in 3e if you have a bunch of archers to fight from them

and then once you get a bit higher up you do Big Necrotech instead of second circle/third circle demons

[tulip folio]

...so my war alch should pick up the Summon Bunker charm?

[bleak hazel]

compred to Second Circles they're not as useful as personal guards but Thousand-Corpse Goliaths are extremely powerful when fully prepped

[fierce star]

That's in Stamina iirc

[prisma sun]

The fucking uhhh

Ogre Princes

[bleak hazel]

my personal favourite is Forest of Ivory Razors, because it looks sick and is really strong

[prisma sun]

Or whatever they're called

Seem good

[tulip folio]

Yep! Don't have book on hand for specifics though.

[bleak hazel]

Shadow Circle, so your alch will be waiting until E3, but it's very mean

2WP for auto-fort can be battle winning

[fierce star]

oooh right yeah

I was planning to grab that for one of the submodules

Mass Habitation Assembly (3xp; Stamina 5, Essence 3, Prefabricated Structure Assembly): The
Alchemical can use Mass Habitation Assembly for major projects to create structure

[bleak hazel]

sorcery is still king for protecting your party, though

[tulip folio]

Oh then you can make bunkers for me then ID

[fierce star]

the alch charm is only light cover by default, requires specific setup/environmentals to do heavy cover

[bleak hazel]

the old joke that the most combat optimized Solar is a twilight with an entire Primordial's worth of demons bound to them remains largely true

[fierce star]

it takes it a bit to work strictly for battlegroups, you need two submodules, but

[bleak hazel]

even if the invincible sword princess can fight Berit, then a Full Moon, then Octavian, then Lilith, then the core book Abyssal and then Ahlat in a row with no breaks, which she can, because Solar Melee is cracked, she can't fight all of them

[tulip folio]

I can't get blood apes but I can get robot ants with buzzsaw mantiples.

Which are also cool

[bleak hazel]

that is objectively cooler

[fierce star]

Tactical Barricade Deployment (6xp; Stamina 4) (+3m per ally): The Alchemical can allow up to
(Stamina/2, rounded up) additional characters to reflexively roll (Dexterity + Dodge) to take cover along
with her, paying a three-mote surcharge for each character. This is Augmented. The protected characters
must be behind the barrier with the Alchemical or otherwise positioned to benefit from it. It can’t protect
battle groups.

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

wait, sorry, actuallyr eading it that's just for reflexively protecting them with it

I think?

[prisma sun]

Blood apes are so fucking funny

[tulip folio]

Yeah

It's for 'Wait, I have an interrupt'

As you just vomit a castle between you and the arrow

[bleak hazel]

I love combat engineering

[fierce star]

but yeah I was intending to grab it for the use in projects since I'm planning to have an All Craft All the Time loadout

the GM's houserule for the Craft skill makes it not a pain in the tophat to invest in

[bleak hazel]

my bureaucracy abyssal spends 90% of his time tinkering and writing memos and 10% of his time punching the ground and watching it erupt into a rampart of gleaming ivory blades for his Lunar allies' beastmen to fight from

[tulip folio]

What's EF craft houserule again?

[fierce star]

each dot gets you a new area of expertise, you get artifacts as an area of expertise at 4 dots for free (if you meet the lore and occult prereqs) and at 5 you're considered to have all areas of expertise becuase you're an exalt with craft 5 (though still need to meet the pre-reqs for artifacts/first age artifice, though since it's an alchs game we don't need tow orry about the latter)

[tulip folio]

Right yeah. So it's not 'Raise all the skills to 5 individually'

[fierce star]

yeah

[bleak hazel]

you know, that would be a godsend even thought it was only about three charms of XP and 5 chargen dots to get myself Metalworking, Artifacts, Architecture and Geomancy at 5

[fierce star]

Yeah .It's not quite full on simplified crafting from crucible of legend, but it still makes craft a lot more approachable than corebook.

since there's still the different levels of craft xp and such

[bleak hazel]

I generally don't mind the craft XP, but I do hate the pointless ability split, especially since basically all artifact crafting charms assume you have Int 5, Ability 5 and a speciality

[fierce star]

yeah

[bleak hazel]

there's very little reason why Being A Crafter needs to be literally an entire starting character

although to be fair for Sids it isn't, a solid craft tree investment is 5-6 charms over the first three essence levels, plus five ability dots (since one of those charms duplicates your craft dots, so you can get Craft (Artifacts) for 8xp)

[fierce star]

yeah but sids are also one of the more recent splats and dont' suffer from double H syndrome

[bleak hazel]

for some reason alchs suck at this

maybe I'm missing something but their fatal flaw for crafting as I understand it is not having a cheap +craft types charm like everyone else

instead it's one charm for 3 dots

the Solar one is actually the best designed there, you can buy one new craft type to 5 per essence level with gold craft XP

but I can see why the new devs didn't want to allow craft XP -> regular XP transfer any more than they had to

[fierce star]

what's the alchemical charm? I thought I'd gone through all their craft ones and don't remember that one

oh wait imprinted data cluster

I think it's likely because charms are cheap for alchemicals honestly

so like, a full 8 XP charm for someone else might give five dots, but it's only 4XP for an alchemical to get 3

that's acutally a better deal

two installations of it costs the same and gets you 5 dots plus a specialty

[bleak hazel]

I did not realise they were so absurdly cheap now

[fierce star]

(minus slot costs)

[bleak hazel]

never mind

[fierce star]

yeah a caste or favored charm is 4 XP

6 for non caste/favored

[bleak hazel]

8xp for charm + slot means needing charm slots is basically just a clean advantage over everyone else

[fierce star]

and slots are 4 XP flat

[bleak hazel]

or at least can be played that way

[fierce star]

well, the problem is there's a cap on how many slots you can have. 20 at essence 1, going up by 3 each essence point.

[bleak hazel]

ah, I misread that one, I thought it was how many you had base

[fierce star]

nah, 15 base

you gotta buy additional ones

[bleak hazel]

so your first 15 charms are half price

still pretty great

[fierce star]

yeah. And like, because buying the charms is so cheap, I'm going to eventually have like... just a full crafting suite for downtime

where I install all the craft charms and dont' have to worry about anything else, then start of the next story I have whatever speicalty or general purpose setup I need installed

[bleak hazel]

yeah, I am fairly envious, especially since most of their combat charms are straight up solar tier

they are very very scary now

looking at you, direct port of Invincible Fury Of The Dawn

[fierce star]

Now, my character will be down three slots due to permanent charms, which is actually a big deal when you can only have 32 (35 if you hit essence 6)

(martial arts, terrestrial circle sorceyr, celestial circle sorcery)

[bleak hazel]

no hail-shattering practice or heavenly guardian defence, so they're at least not going to become completely immortal as soon as they hit E2

[fierce star]

but, well, MA charms and spells don't take slots, so I consider it a good tradeoff lol

[bleak hazel]

but the E5 dex capstone is wild

[fierce star]

Transfinite Ultraviolence Drive?

[bleak hazel]

I'm going to assume you actually do need the submodule to Wither with it and the mention in the main body is a typo

[fierce star]

yeah and the third submodule misname sit

draft manuscripts

[bleak hazel]

nah, it's saying you need the second submodule to use that

[fierce star]

oh, right

[bleak hazel]

but it doesn't use the same formatting every other submodule-dependent-on-a-submodule does

so typo either way

[fierce star]

sorry I lost my dot of linguistics there

[bleak hazel]

also a really good if expensive clash charm

Tactical Reation Matrix is 7m 1wp for a Withering clash, totally worth it if you're about to die

since even though you don't gain init for it, you get to use your weapon accuracy so it's a fairly reliable deflect on an enemy Decisive

[fierce star]

That is nice

[bleak hazel]

and they have a solid fuck-your-flurry button that I can't remember seeing anywhere else

I am writing down Sustained Counteroffensive and stealing its idea for evocation purposes

"stop hitting me, I stab you every time"

[fierce star]

I quite like metamorphic reactive plating for that too

'better hope the first one finishes me because if it doesn't none of them will'

[bleak hazel]

yeah that's really good

big hole in the Sid defensive suite is that they don't really have anything like that to go "no, Mr Solar, you can't just hit flurry into peony blossom into flurry and instantly gib me"

other than "fuck you I'm intangible" which is rather easier to circumvent

Sids have always been kind of squishy like that but it does sting

[prisma sun]

someone posted a story here where they specifically gave an enemy a "fuck your flurry charm"

[bleak hazel]

yeah, there is precisely one mention of the phrase "one tick" in the Sid book and it's not a tick-long defence

[bleak hazel]

does sound like something you'd need to do, given the proclivities of Solar fighters

[prisma sun]

It was like

Someone hit the enemy with 7 attacks

and then the enemy had a charm that was "deal +(x) for every soaked attack this round"

or something

Fuck I gotta find it

I can't :c

it was someone in here

and I thought someone compared it to emerald splash but I was wrong

[tulip folio]

Do any martial arts have a good flurry breaker?

You'd think the time manipulation Sid martial art would do it

[bleak hazel]

not against Solars, because against them, moving away just lets them hit Thunderbolt Attack Prana to jump at you and do double damage

against anyone who doesn't get that and can't fly or punch at range you can use CMOS to move one range band directly upwards and stand there after the first attack

[fierce star]

"Get down here and fight me like a solar!" "Lolno"

[bleak hazel]

Solar melee annoys me because it achieves its deranged level of strength even by Solar standards by just having a selection of buttons that turn off parts of the combat system

[fierce star]

iI'm going to be honest if you have to make your best at any given system characters achieve that by turning off bad parts of the system, you should probalby look at the base system

[bleak hazel]

scenelong parry penalty negator, never roll a 1, jump on people trying to flurry break, Hail-Shattering Practice to never ever get hit

(HSP is probably the single most broken solar combat charm and that's saying something)

[fierce star]

eesh

[bleak hazel]

the thing is, the system works

for anyone other than a cracked out solaroid running Solar/Abyssal combat trees rather than martial arts, duels among vaguely but not ruthlessly optimised characters go long and have lots of decision-making

[fierce star]

legit

Mostly I just

[tulip folio]

...dare I ask?

[fierce star]

I really think solars are the weakest exalt design wise in ex3 so I complain about them a lot

[dense verge]

solars bones are very sick

[fierce star]

like, not in 'strength at doing things' but in 'how fun are they to play'

[dense verge]

you are correct

[bleak hazel]

and so Solars doing what they do is less "look at this cool martial brilliance" and more "this is infuriating and boring"

[dense verge]

their charm trees are 50% dice trick by volume

[bleak hazel]

I think the reason they are like that is because the designers attempted to future-proof them against anyone ever being better than them ever without knowing what the other books would be able to do

so they just had to be made Immune To Combat

[bleak hazel]

a Dawn can and usually will have this at chargen

[dense verge]

the future proofing failed/worked too well because the designers in charge of solars were uh, Not Good

[fierce star]

Immune To Combat Expression
Cost: 7m, 1wp. Mins: Dodge 5, Essence 5

I'm not going any further than that but it amused me

[bleak hazel]

it is insanely strong at E1, at E3+ it just makes you immune to almost any attack

[fierce star]

I think my ex3 white whale is a core book rewrite with the current devs

free us from the tyranny of H and H

[bleak hazel]

I honestly think Solars could be made kinda reasonable by nerfing about a dozen charms tops

[tulip folio]

...the fuck. That's cheaper than adding a die to remove a success.

[bleak hazel]

even HSP could be balanced if it cost enough, the only one that must truly be cast into the void without remorse because it's broken rather than because it's boring is Divine Executioner's Stance

[tulip folio]

Just 'I win'?

[bleak hazel]

commit 6 motes to your intimacy of "I am best at fite", gain the first 4 dice of your excellency and a varying amount of damage for 1m

[dense verge]

hey check out my cool thrown charm

[bleak hazel]

DES is a boring dice trick, not particularly on theme for solars (killing people with their own intimacies is like an Abyssal thing, or a Sid thing maybe) and also incredibly stupidly strong because it's usually 6-8 dice for 1m forever, completely solving the one mote efficiency problem solars have

(their defence is sure as hell not expensive, they have HSP)

[tulip folio]

...I was making Raksha all about buffs from intimacies and Solars are even better at that.

XD

[fierce star]

reroll 6s equal tot he number of 7s on the roll

that just

that's not even

that's just shitty busywork

[bleak hazel]

DES is from Miracles, the Solar companion book that is generally considered worse than the core book and frequently just stuck wholly on the banlist

[dense verge]

the ruse is that the charm exists

[bleak hazel]

also this one

[tulip folio]

Quickly, more apocryphal tag!

[bleak hazel]

hey, remember how you can pay single motes to basically autoparry?

what if you got all your motes back, plus 1

[fierce star]

is this what removing chungian combat cost us? was it truly worth it? (yes probably)

[tulip folio]

...snrk

[bleak hazel]

Chung has a strange dislike for 3e considering how much he hated paranoia combat, but I have to respect his extremely clear explanations of what the problems were

[wise ocean]

I read that as Jungian combat for a solid three seconds and now I'm thinking both (a) that would be pretty interesting, actually and (b) how would you do that

[bleak hazel]

raksha

[tulip folio]

Are the real charms more bullshit than the 'This is too bullshit to be real' Apocryphal charms?

[bleak hazel]

yes

[fierce star]

Raksha, yeah

No lie I did once include a Raksha in an ex2 game based on Sigmund Freud

[bleak hazel]

apocryphal charms are like "here's 8 soak and 5 hardness while unarmoured, you have to use a turn in the fight to turn it on"

[fierce star]

He diagnosed the entirety of the realm with mommy issues

[prisma sun]

Are there any 3e stats for Fae Princes?

The most powerful Fae thing I saw was the larval behemoth

[bleak hazel]

the other Apocryphral charms are either jokes (build a mast out of the ship's cat), hypothetical fusion dances that need a Lunar as an input material or Sail charms, which are unusuable anyway because nobody plays naval combat

so spending 8xp on one is arguably underpowered in the extreme

[fierce star]

that's it, gonna run a game where you're a bunch of drunken pirates who both exalted and stole one of lookshy's airships while blackout drunk and now you gotta deal with the hangover, the seventh legion, and the wyld hunt

[bleak hazel]

every single sail charm that is not a naval combat charm is actually really fun

just carefully bite around the bits of the tree that involve the boatfite

[fierce star]

is naval combat that bad in ex3?

[tulip folio]

Spinning Into Myth
Manipulation 6, Essence 5
Simple 
The raskha rolls manipulation + [Performance, Dodge or Lore] against the target's essence to reduce a feat to little more than a story. On a success, one non-excelency charm of the target gains the Apocryphal tag until the end of the scene.

😛

[fierce star]

I vaguely read over it at one point when I was going to join a lunars game in the west becuase the GM okayed me taking a five dot artifact ship and thought it seemed neat, but didn't dig deep because the game never happened

[bleak hazel]

it's just pointless and boring and a Solar captain will trivially win anything anyway, since their charms cut away parts of that combat system too, and there's a lot less of it

the only solution is to bring half a dozen or more enemy ships but it gets really clunky when it's more than a 1v1 anyway

sail is best used as a fun tree for Stuff To Do On Boats, which luckily every subsequent splat's sail section has been

[fierce star]

it's always solars isn't it

[tulip folio]

I like the Alch one where you get to remote control your airship.

[bleak hazel]

unlike regular combat, Sail combat isn't really fun with other splats either

so I can't blame this all on the solars

[tulip folio]

Being able to just Call An Uber with your airship is handy

[bleak hazel]

just sort naval combat with excellencies, freeform narrative Sail rolls and maybe the reroll-6s button that comes in the first charm of Solar Sail and you can't dodge

then board them and have a proper Exalted fight with maybe some siege weapons in support, that's actually a good time

the first charm is really a microcosm of the Solar sail tree

0 cost permanent - boring naval combat dice trick, fun miscellaneous button that is only vaguely boat related, two actually fun naval-themed bonuses

if you avoid the former it's a good tree

I actually really like this one

energiser boatty

bonus points for stealing enemy boats

[wise ocean]

we're legally mandated to play John Paul Jones is a Pirate while running someone's fade on the open ocean

[bleak hazel]

exalted naval combat is just kind of inherently juicy and entertaining on a narrative basis as soon as it's about boarding, so just use normal exalted combat to do Black Flag stuff

[wise ocean]

We could just use Xian to set everyone on fire

[bleak hazel]

Sonja is House Peleps, I may put you people on boats at some point

just... not with the sail rules

[lament owl]

Just had a random thought that might be what I make for fun when I read the exigent book, or maybe I will go back and try to make those fucked up corrupted dragonbloods mentioned in the corebook

It kinda suprises me there isn't an exalted type who is notably good at magic. Like there is Solars and Abyssals but they just "notably good" and you can say "and my guy uses the fact he is great at everything to be great at magic"

Like sidereals are "Notably Good At Martial Arts"

[wise ocean]

I think DBs are the notably good at magic ones?

You send them to magic school and put them in the magic house

[lament owl]

really! I guess I didn't consider it because they are stuck at first circle

[bleak hazel]

Solars are meant to be the master sorcerors, Abyssals are meant to be the master necromancers

exclusive access to Solar Circle/Void Circle respectively

but in the context of everything else that just comes off as "we're the best (x22)"

if Solars were merely as strong as the other celestials pound for pound and had specialties in their classic areas of "big artifact resonance, master craftsmen, master sorcerors" it would be far more distinctive

[lament owl]

Yeah exactly
also, Solars are the people who are best at martial arts, but that doesn't stop Sidereals from having "Notably Good At Martial Arts" as part of their thing

[fierce star]

DBs and Sidereals have the greatest institutional knowledge of sorcery in the setting

[bleak hazel]

Sids are actually better at martial arts, Solars only beat them with raw power

Sids get Mastery, Enlightenment and Versatile charms in their combat suites, Solars just get Mastery + can be taught SMAs

[lament owl]

You get the point I was trying to make though right

[bleak hazel]

(also Thunderclap Rush Attack + Thunderbolt Attack Prana, which are versatile due to bad design as well as some of the strongest charms in the game, but those are just generally broken)

[lunar magnet]

Heaven's Thunder Hammer my beloved.

[fierce star]

... actually, it was Infernals back in ex2, wasn't it. the ones legitimately Completely Best At Sorcery.

they could skip the usual initiation process and everything iirc

[lament owl]

Infernals being really good at magic actually makes a lot of sense!

I like that!

[bleak hazel]

I still think HTH is a little jank due to the whole "weaponising absurd amounts of fall damage" thing, but I love it dearly in all other aspects

best brawl charm

yeah, Infernals being the best at the vaguely demon-themed magic is entirely on brand

[fierce star]

Their 'weakness' was that you were limited in spells to what was thematically appropriate for the yozis you learned sorcery form iirc, and couldn't learn necromancy at all* (*unless you had a certain TED charm)

but then you ivnerted your relationship to sorcery and could ONLY do necromancy until you de-inverted it

reverted it?

[bleak hazel]

the only issue with Big Sorcery/Artifacts/Crafting solars is that that's basically the Twilight caste

sorry, the other four

[tulip folio]

That and I think they also got bonuses on thematic spells.

[lament owl]

maybe its just because 3e is the first time I ever touched exalted but I don't actually mind the solars being bonkers busted
since for me its jjust "yeah thts what the warlock does"

[fierce star]

aah, that wa sit

[bleak hazel]

and while Twilights are clearly the most important solars (look, the decay of the first age was clearly not because there weren't any Nights left), many people do not agree with me on that one

[fierce star]

bonuses to thematic ones, yeah

[tulip folio]

So demon summoning was actively cheaper and easier for them

[fierce star]

and like, you got further breaks based on the yozis you learned sorcery from, right?

[tulip folio]

Teddie initiation ones got sneaky spells iirc

[fierce star]

like boat summoning spells were easier if you knew kimbery charms

[tulip folio]

Yeah

[bleak hazel]

I found that as soon as I saw non-solar books I just lost all desire to ever play solars, run for solars or involve solars in my games, they're not just cracked

they're also just kind of not fun

[fierce star]

^

like solars were bonkers busted ine very edition

[bleak hazel]

them being cracked is a mild problem that is actually much easier to fix

[tulip folio]

...I wonder what cool spells hasn't transitioned to 3e yet

[fierce star]

but ex3 has it worst becuase they're also boring in it

[bleak hazel]

they are actually less cracked this edition than previous, because they can't basically treat anyone other than themselves as a Trivial Character

[fierce star]

hey iki remember everything you did with ex2 solar medicine, training, and crafting charms

that was fun

[lament owl]

I don't mind their niche being "raw fucking power"
that is admittedly weird for a splat based game, but exalted seems like its way more willing to have mixed parties than a lot of splat games

[bleak hazel]

you can still kill a totally mega optimised chargen dawn if you throw literally ten shikari at her, which in 2e was basically unthinkable IIRC

[lament owl]

like I am as much of a fan of Human Fighter type design as the next guy

[bleak hazel]

their raw power keeps spilling over into everyone elses' gimmicks, though

I have seen games with Generic Athletics Solar, a full moon swordmaster Lunar and a Sid, and the Solar deleted all the encounters with two clicks until the GM gave up and demanded they change the character

[next delta]

@bleak hazel Did you ever read the 'Golden Calibration' solar charm rewrite? And do you feel it fixed most of the problems?

[bleak hazel]

Golden Calibration is probably the best you can ever do with Solars without actually being willing to nerf the nonsense stuff, it's an excellent job on the playability side (which is by far the harder problem to fix)

I just wish they'd actually nerfed the worst offenders in the "putting your boot through the side of the game" trend while they were at it, but I think they were trying not to start any fights

[lament owl]

I did have the funny idea of reworking Supernal to be "Mastery/Enlightenment for base splat charms"

[bleak hazel]

a common idea for a fix, yeah

[lament owl]

even though that is so much higher effort

oh really ok

[bleak hazel]

personally I would just say "Supernal gets you Essence +1"

[lament owl]

...

[bleak hazel]

less hassle, less Heaven Sword Flash chargen dawns deleting wyld hunts

at least as long as you clip the wings of the worst Solar offenders

HSP, etc.

there are some Solar charms in core that are almost literally unusable

RAW, Order-Affirming Blow.... does basically nothing because it's impossible to tell what it's actually referring to, but if you stretch a bit it turns off literally all magic

punch to de-exalt someone

[fierce star]

but misc, natural language is so much better for rules design than keyword-based language~

[bleak hazel]

(it's clearly meant to be the Shaping effect remover, but they didn't have the keyword)

[next delta]

Yeah, they almost explicitly say as much

[fierce star]

(that's a /s btw)

[wise ocean]

natural-language rules with a crunchy combat system

[lament owl]

I actually read that particular "surprisingly fucking strong from the jump" as being diagetic

Like there was that short fiction of a DB fighting a solar who spawned in like 3 weeks ago and it being a pain in the fucking ass that forces her to almost concede

I love "Killing a forsaken anathema in the crib before he becomes even more of an issue for the realm"

[bleak hazel]

95% of Solars, even with supernal, are going to get trivially bopped by a couple of decent deebs

[fierce star]

god I just went to re-read order affirming blow and it literally

I hate it so much

[bleak hazel]

Player Character Jim, who is Every PC Dawn, puts his glorious solar boot through the side of the game by accident trying to use the mechanics he was given

and can suddenly destroy every single opponent in the core book including the directional war god at chargen

[tulip folio]

What did I do? Dream? Or was it homebrew?

[bleak hazel]

it's not that they Are Strong, it's that a dozen or so absurd outliers take them from interestingly strong to "whoops, no more game for you"

and it's not like fight dawn is having any fun there either

he's not being challenged, and the GMs tend to very rapidly stop running combat

[fierce star]

Dream, yeah

talking about how solars in ex2 were sitll busted, but were at least fun to play (and GM for!)

[bleak hazel]

I have a Bureaucracy Abyssal who, by the time he reached E3, was getting maybe 1-2 charms ahead of normal progression with supernal and not feeling any worse off for it

[tulip folio]

Dream just wanted what was best for her students.

[fierce star]

"The solar just wants to do what's best for everyone" is literally the third most worrying phrase to hear in exalted

[tulip folio]

Look, do YOU have compassion 5 and Abyssal Mirror Charms?

[wise ocean]

I just think it would be better if is the kind of phrase that gets heads to snap around immediately in Exaltedland

[tulip folio]

She was, entirely unironically, the worst person I've ever played

[fierce star]

I could have dropped her in as a villian in any other campaign, but for some reason the other PCs never seemed to have an issue with anything she did.

[bleak hazel]

every time I hear the phrase "the worst person I've ever played" I am reminded I am still delinquent on VP Emil Caravetta, SSC

[tulip folio]

See, Solars have this Charm that turns an extra into a heroic mortal with a primary motivation you pick.

[bleak hazel]

Vice President here is not a title, really, it's in the place of "Mr." because at this point he has hacked at his own psyche so much that his gender is "corpo"

[tulip folio]

And there's an Abyssal charm where you grind down a heroic mortal back into an extra.

They're mirrors so she could have both!

[wise ocean]

Go post

You could do it

Right now

Tonight

[tulip folio]

She was a Good Teacher

[bleak hazel]

post tomorrow, I will write a good long one

it's my day off

[wise ocean]

You could do it, right now, this morning*

[bleak hazel]

well, "tomorrow"

[wise ocean]

(I kid, see you after you sleep)

[fierce star]

Soaring Dream was a delight to run for because I was very confident that no matter what the villian was, she'd be worse. I think she legitimately out-horrible-personed the deathlords the circle met in that game.

well, okay, maybe not 2e Dowager

but it was close

[tulip folio]

It's not immoral to shatter a mortals soul if you build it back into a better soul, right?

[bleak hazel]

Winters is surprisingly nice this edition

I think you could quite easily make a Solar in 3e who was accidentally more evil than Winters

or Silver Prince

[tulip folio]

Silver Prince just wants to play with his boats

[dense verge]

i. with some effort. think i could make an interesting solar concept, given the right game. but i'd be hard-pressed to actually make one with working bones in 3e. essence, probably workable

[bleak hazel]

my current Abysssal is a bureaucracy specialist under the Silver Prince

it took actual effort to not take Sobriquet: The Little Prince

[dense verge]

redesign your soul

[wise ocean]

if I had to make a Solar, gun to my head, it'd probably be someone with the exact personality of Koinonia, honestly

[tulip folio]

@fierce star Would you say Dream was a worse person than my Ebon Dragon Infernal?

[bleak hazel]

I would make a craft specialist

[fierce star]

Yes

Like, no thoughts, immediate response, yes

[bleak hazel]

solar craft is just abyssal craft but better, if and only if you have dedicated four hours to understanding the craft system enough to never take 80% of the tree

[tulip folio]

Loviatar would be offended by that.

[bleak hazel]

abyssal craft is slightly less strong but also actually playable

[fierce star]

Loviatar's offended by a lot of things, including the suggestion she should have to work to achieve things in life

she's still a better person than soaring dream

[dense verge]

the closest ive grabbed at solar is Supernal Dodge Solar, horribly in debt to the local crime organizations, kind of dogshit at breaking and entering, really good at running away from guards, lives in Gem, The City That Is Going To Explode

[wise ocean]

would they be a better alch as a literal translation? yes

would the concept of Person who is completely convinced that their monopoly on the reins of power makes them a better person than you, who is actualized through the exercise of state violence and who has decided that everyone who thinks differently than them is objectively wrong and only worth engaging with in the manner one does an ill-disciplined subordinate or unaware student make an excellent solar? Also yes

This Person Is In Fact Exactly Who They Killed The Solars About

[bleak hazel]

Integrity Supernal zenith

you literally have charms for that

[fierce star]

The Reason The First Age Was Like That

[tulip folio]

Look she worked to achieve things once and all she got out of it was an infernal exaltation.

[fierce star]

lmao

[dense verge]

this is why i thought koi would be a good orichalcum caste if they were an alch

[fierce star]

"I tried exactly once in my life and all I got was a demonic coadjudicator"

[bleak hazel]

in a better-written book, the fact all the integrity charms that stick your intimacies on people while teaching them are wrapped in florid paeans to the goodness and wonder of the Solars would be deliberately unsettling

a max integrity solar is utterly impossible to convince of anything, even if it's a good idea

[fierce star]

I think the worst character I've ever played in an exalted game... hmm....

[wise ocean]

the contemplation continues, albeit idly because making a Solar is still a gun to my head thing and as soon as the character sheet updates for alchs my alch is going to be Anacharis Scoria

[bleak hazel]

you know I wrote the original wiki article for Anacharis Scoria, although it's been long since buried under edits

[tulip folio]

I like how limited the alch stuff is there. They are insanely resistant...if it's In Their Wheelhouse but not universally so.

[bleak hazel]

love that guy

Sid Integrity is my favourite tree in any book end of

[tulip folio]

You can't make them betray their community.

[bleak hazel]

it's very strong, when used properly

[dense verge]

orichalcum alch is just autochthon kindly providing a solar with working bones

[bleak hazel]

Sid integrity is "you will always be on mission, but it will fucking hurt"

[fierce star]

Probably my loyalist abyssal in the ex3 game I'm in. Dedicated to the Heron and knows black claw style, is an outright cannibal of both people and ghosts, and would if requested tear out her own heart and offer it to her deathlord but she'd rather offer up a few dozen other people's first.

[bleak hazel]

it basically enshrines you, the dispassionate player slicing away the unwanted attachments entangling your character, as the actual in-universe purpose of this stuff and makes it as brutal as you'd expect it to be to actually do this to yourself

[tulip folio]

I also like the hope charms there

[prisma sun]

I wonder how balanced Solars would feel if their signature ability shtick was just

"You can pick one Essence 5 charm"

[fierce star]

though 'worst' in the sense of 'most likely to be a fuckup' is probably my lunar-favoring bananasid from ex2 who, uh. Didn't know how to do paperwork because she grew up in a society that did not have the written word--she was a seafolk.

[bleak hazel]

a large percentage of solars would suddenly be extremely balanced because a lot of trees don't actually have an Essence 5 charm

[tulip folio]

Silly Pondering: Dream acts like a black claw martial artist but could never learn it because she's too busy doing self-deception to lie to someone else.

[bleak hazel]

Solar Melee would not have a supernal until you hit E2, because one of your E5 capstones is a dice trick upgrade for E2 Heavenly Guardian Defence and one requires you to use the E4 charm first

[dense verge]

i think my moral "worst" one ive concepted out so far is the one on a vengeance-fueled one person war against the realm, which, usually shakes out in the right direction

[fierce star]

This is entirely correct

[bleak hazel]

my worst exalt is probably Crimson Rain, the bureaucracy abyssal

[fierce star]

also vengeance fueled one person war against the realm is like... 50% of all solar concepts and Literally Every Silver Pact Lunar by now lol

[dense verge]

there's a lot of blood involved

[bleak hazel]

bureaucracy abyssal just wants to trade

[dense verge]

most of the people she targets are mostly related to realm crimes

[bleak hazel]

he is very even-handed in his trade activities

his craft products aren't even cursed items (because I couldn't afford those charms)

[fierce star]

Trade or 'trade'

how much mafia is involved

[bleak hazel]

real trade

he is out to dismantle the guild by building the Underworld east india company

if you are in his sphere he will be nothing but lovely to you

everything else, though

[tulip folio]

How much colonialism is he doing?

[dense verge]

actually the runner up to the worst may be my secrets sidereal, ayesa, who has it mostly on the grounds of being a believer in the "benevolent industrialist" archetype, but thats because she was raised as an heiress of a minor guild merchant family before she was erased from everyones memory

[bleak hazel]

took the silver prince skullstone recipe and decided that anyone who wouldn't deal with him or didn't have anything to sell would do better as raw materials

little bit of colonialism

strangely, less than the lunar next door because the lunar next door and his good ally is Lunar Ghengis Khan

[wise ocean]

ayesa is a small gremlin woman who would have 2" thick glasses if glasses existed in the bronze age, she's fine

[bleak hazel]

but he's still sticking "trade posts" in every shadowland he can find and exerting all the soft and hard power that entails

[dense verge]

ayesa has perfectly fine vision and can get glasses however she wants

[bleak hazel]

Crimson has a very specific criteria for who he sees as a person

it's extremely explicit and not very nice

[tulip folio]

I think my current Alch is my most unironically nice Exalt so far. She's a true believer who thinks everyone deserves respect. She's just also a necromancer too.

[bleak hazel]

(he also has a persistent theory that if you torture a Solar over enough different reincarnations you can turn their exaltation into a wandering curse of insanity from all the past life memories, but he hasn't got to try that yet)

he is a totally horrible person but he is also total Circle glue because the wandering deathknight errant + random lunar warlords are not really much better and don't cooperate well

[wise ocean]

These things are spiritual, not physical

[bleak hazel]

apart from the errant who is a very nice person who happens to be an Abyssal

Crimson is friends with her because he thinks it's funny

[tulip folio]

RiRi would be a cinnamon roll if Autobot city had enough plants for cinnamon.

[dense verge]

cinnabar roll

[wise ocean]

Damn, they're rationing the cinnamon rolls now too.

[prisma sun]

I am like 90% sure Creation has glasses

[fierce star]

We always ration the cinnamon rolls from estasia

(she's not estasian but the point stands)

[wise ocean]

sugar substitute (10g)
spice substitute (3g)

everything nice

[bleak hazel]

the second funny thing about Crimson is that several Guild slave barracks worship him as a saviour deity because he exalted after the Guilt slit his throat for trying to drive out their slaving operation

[dense verge]

yeah thats also a point in that im pretty sure the glasses exist

[bleak hazel]

at which point he got back up and went all Abyssal on them

[tulip folio]

Communism is when the Exalt is in the bread line.

Capitalism is when the slaver joins the ghost slaver Mafia.

😛

[wise ocean]

Do glasses actually exist? I was just making a joke at first, but now I'm legitimately curious.

[fierce star]

Has he done anything to disabuse them of the notion?

[bleak hazel]

what, the slaves?

[fierce star]

yes

[bleak hazel]

no, he has Cult 2 from it, and is on the wrong side of creation from them anyway

[fierce star]

lol

[bleak hazel]

his attempted anti-slavery stand was partly motivated by his desire to not see chattel in his lovely patrician town, but it was at least partly the only genuinely self-sacrifical thing he ever did

his Abyssal version has been disabused of such silly notions

[dense verge]

ayesa is simply short. and also a gremlin of a woman who upholds a mask of professionalism and will be cackling and driven by curiosity the moment she no longer has anyone to present straight-laced for

[bleak hazel]

(at least unless Pyre the deathknight errant starts trying to redeem him, which I don't think she will)

he does Craft, Socialize, Bureaucracy, a little bit of necromancy and is making a good start on White Veil

three more charms before I can land the three point exploding deeb technique over drinks

[tulip folio]

RiRi is a tiny Ori alch in who wears white and black hanfu that makes her look like a stereotypical jiangshi (As that outfit is a historical court outfit).

[bleak hazel]

does she practice Hungry Ghost

[tulip folio]

No because that style is comically bad if you're an alch. XD

'This is empowered by primal emotion intimacies'
'Clarity degrades emotional intimacies'

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah, Crimson's little company has banned slavery, their policy is instead "if you want to move in, make something useful, if you can't make something useful we'll make something useful out of you"

[dense verge]

this actually got me reading about the history of glasses and they were invented later than i thought. for Creation purposes it would be easy enough to say they're around with what local quality of glassmaking there is for local Quite Capable artisans there are

[bleak hazel]

anarcho-guildism, with an undercurrent of zombie command economy

[tulip folio]

But more seriously: She uses Golden Janissary and Thousand Blades

[bleak hazel]

this has attracted a surprising number of ghost artisans because he is still a Bureaucracy 5 solaroid and as such is very good at running this stupid system

[tulip folio]

She has Funnels, like a proper gundam

[prisma sun]

So like

how come only the Deathlords became Big Giant Ghosts

[bleak hazel]

Crimson insists that "no slavery, only zombies" is a sensible way to make use of unskilled labour and not a relic from his first life

[prisma sun]

shouldn't every Solar

[bleak hazel]

he is wrong

I believe Solars do leave really big hungry ghosts

if they were suitably big in life

it's why they have the giga tombs

[dense verge]

i think the deathlords are like that because the neverborn put more juice in them

[tulip folio]

I mean the Twin Rulers were such big ghosts they could piledriver a deathlord off the top rope and are plotting how to do it a second time.

[bleak hazel]

we do now have rules for Falafel and he's pretty big

probably not high essence dawn large, though

[prisma sun]

Oh First Boy has stats?

Can I see?

[bleak hazel]

yeah he's in the Abyssal draft, he's a really fun raid boss setup

or they

or whatever the walking fridge uses for pronouns

[prisma sun]

I thought FaFL was he/him exclusively

[bleak hazel]

half the book says he, half the book says they, no idea

[tulip folio]

If you encase someone in Soulsteel there's likely enough people for they

[prisma sun]

He would definitely kick King Hu's ass at least

[bleak hazel]

(going to skip the huge wall of war charms because it's a lot)

once he hits his second phase he can't use it again until he gets a new doomsword

so you probably have to fight him twice because I'm not standing in that

[prisma sun]

did they really give him the fucking set up of

[bleak hazel]

yep

I hope they all get Demiurgic Arts, because that rocks

[prisma sun]

I do wish Solars were better designed so the rest of the setting didn't just feel like you had to heave a heavy sigh and scrap any conflict because one shows up

[bleak hazel]

I imagine a circle of normal solars at medium essence will be a good fight for this guy + his extremely buffed guards

dawns just break everything

[tulip folio]

Princess Magnificent going from 'Classily parrying with her parasol' to 'Hey, remember that I'm a serial killer assassin which can crack steel bare handed' would be a fun mode shift

[prisma sun]

Oh, Falafel would have Princess Magnificent there wouldn't he

So there'd be at least two of these

[tulip folio]

She's not his minion in 3e

[dense verge]

i do enjoy the shift Heron/Magnificent has gotten in 3e from prior writing, from the sounds of prior writing compared to what ive read

[prisma sun]

She's still tied to him isn't she?

[tulip folio]

She's a merc for other deathlords

Including him

[prisma sun]

also i'm now thinking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErXfj3sbIfU

what WOULD Boros be in Exalted

[dense verge]

thats the half of malfeas that got killed

[prisma sun]

I know the whole "it's not 1-to-1 you can't compare" but it's a fun thought experiment

of translating that archetype

[clever steeple]

Collecting vibes, favourite Exalted artwork?

[prisma sun]

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

no contest

[dense verge]

technically its art of art but i like this depiction of how different peoples depict the five maidens

[bleak hazel]

double feature, Citrine Poxes of Contagion Style and Big Red

[bleak hazel]

"I might not kill this Deeb in one shot, I'll need some Yozi venom" - thoughts of the utterly deranged, and also White Veil

Unfortunately I don't have Craft (Alchemy) and I'm not a sorceror

[tulip folio]

Here's a pondering: What are some cool 2e spells that haven't arrived in 3e yet?

[tulip folio]

Shattering Void Mirror could be fun.

A spell that scales with how many health levels the target has but won't do much to already hurt people.

[tulip folio]

Shattering Void Mirror
Cost: 15nm, 1wp
Keywords: Decisive-only, Perilous
Duration: Instant
Throwing his arm out toward her victim in an imperious gesture, the caster speaks words of dark power  The target’s colors appear to invert for a moment as her Essence is juxtaposed with an exact opposite drawn from the Void.

The caster rolls (Wits + Occult) as a decisive attack against an enemy at up to long range, then shakes her target with Oblivion's Grim Cold. The void's strength is at its greatest when opposing strong life, with a base lethal damage equal to (her Initiative + half of her target's current health levels, rounded up), and resets her to base Initiative on a successful attack. As long as the spell deals 3+ levels of damage to its target, the target loses Motes equal to 1+ the caster's Essence, the Caster gaining them as Necromantic Motes.

Control: A necromancer with Shattering Void Mirror as their control spell casts no reflection in mundane or mystical mirrors. She cannot be scried on with a magic mirror or pool of water (Though she could with such magic that do not make use of reflections), she cannot have her reflection manipulated and she often requires assistance with her makeup.

First Draft.

Hits less hard than Flight of the Raptor (You need to be targeting an unharmed 20+ health levels lunar to hit as well as high WP swing with raptor, which is a lot less common than 'The sorcerer built with high willpower and hasn't been taunted by Mean Girl Social Exalts today') but it Drains Motes if it hurts them badly. Went kinda conservative with 'how much it drains' as the only comparison I could find was a High Essence Solar Charm that steals 'Net Successes on attack' and adds them to your personal/peripheral instead of the less lasting necromantic motes.

[tulip folio]

Soul-Binding Mark
Cost: Ritual, 1wp
Keywords: None
Duration: Indefinite
The necromancer speaks words of passage and paints the the forehead of a willing or incapacitated person in a ritual that takes the course of an hour and imbues the target with one of the following effects, which will trigger when they die:

Rune of Sweet Passing: The target is bound to become a ghost, no matter how gentle the death or how fulfilled with their life they feel. This does not bind the ghost to the caster, nor compel them to act in any way when they become a ghost save from preventing them from accepting the call of Lethe unaided.

Gentle Call of Lethe: The target is bound to pass immediately and safely into Lethe, unless killed by such an effect that would permanently destroy a spirit. The target cannot become a ghost, nor can his corpse be raised as a zombie or other animated corpse.

Control: A Necromancer with Soul-Binding Mark as their control spell can perform this ritual for entire groups, allowing them to perform it on an additional number of characters equal to (2x Essence).

In addition, they may always choose to rise as a ghost or pass peacefully into Lethe when they die, as the effects of the spell.

Distortion (Goal Number: 5): The necromancer corrupts the mark, inverting its effects. Runes of Sweet Passage become Gentle Calls of Lethe and vice-versa. This lasts until the end of the scene.

And an old classic. It was two spells in 2e but they're basicly the same spell but inverted so it felt like a good place to use Distortion to play with that.

[tulip folio]

That said: God I forgot how like 50% of 2e iron circle necromancy spells are just 'Only works on ghosts'

[upper stratus]

do people still turn into ghosts sometimes in autochton

[raw edge]

The Alchemicals manuscript has a few mentions of where to find ghosts in Autochthonia

Sova has a dead walled up Metropoli with ghosts inside, you'll find them in The Endless Smoke, and also one of the Tunnel Folk clans has a lot of ghosts

[tulip folio]

And one of the cities has capitalism hungry ghost in leadership roles.

[upper stratus]

i know writers who use subtext etc etc

[raw edge]

As they have actively chosen to ensure they possess their own corpses, I wasn't sure if they fell within the scope of the question

[tulip folio]

I think they're still ghosts, just odd ones.

Probably

[raw edge]

Also, 20% of the time the word ghost appears in the text it is to tell you to watch Ghost in the Shell

[tulip folio]

Hope the spell updates look okay. First shot at updating spells. Pondering what other iconic spells have yet to see 3e

[raw edge]

Alas I'm a 3e immigrant, so the only one that jumps to mind is Unity of the Closed Fist

[fierce star]

Random thought: Would you add any powers to the Ultimately Useful Tube to make it a three dot artifact so it qualifies for evocations, or does 'you can make evocations for the most useful tube in creation' be worth a dot on its own?

[tulip folio]

Honestly, the Utimately Useful Tube in 3e doesn't feel worth the artifact dots as-is, I could see it getting a bit more if you're gunna 3 dot + evocations it

[fierce star]

fair, it was one of the one-dot artifacts that got bumped up when they removed one-dot artifacts to make them more of a buy-in

[tulip folio]

(I could see an Ultimately Useful Tube that just Is A Wrackstaff instead of a Mundane staff as a 3 dot, where other tube things are your Artifact Passive Bonus)

[quiet garnet]

https://tenor.com/view/big-bird-big-bird-kick-door-kick-in-the-door-big-bird-rampage-big-bird-door-gif-4872603856170519618

Do I spy Edge Chronicle art?

[velvet raft]

Browsing Arms of the Chosen again

Unison is cool

I'm confused by Heaven and Earth Gauntlets letting you trigger Adamantine Fists of Battle reflexively - AFoB only effects stuff you do with your bare hands, so isn't that specifically anti-synergy with the Heaven and Earth Gauntlets?

Unless the Worn tag covers that?

Worn: Wearable weapons can be removed, but while worn
they count as natural weapons. Equipping or removing a
weapon with the worn tag takes an action

Natural: This weapon is part of the user’s body. It cannot
be disarmed, and never requires a draw/ready weapon
action to prepare for use.
Natural language aaaaaauuugh

[upper stratus]

afob specifies 'bare hands' rather than natural weapon so like yea

weird

[velvet raft]

For reference, this is the charm that has me confused

Meteor Fist Meditation
Cost: —; Mins: Essence 3
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Adamantine Fists of Battle (x2),
Nova Breaker
This Evocation upgrades Adamantine Fists of Battle
(Exalted, p. 279). When the Solar wins Join Battle, she
may reflexively invoke that Charm’s scene-long version.
This for an evocation on a pair of smashfists

Uuuuuuugh Ex3 really needed a terminology editor

I can't really find an indication that this is anything beyond "Meteor Fist Meditation is written very badly" though

[upper stratus]

don't wanna be too much of a negative nancy but there's some poor balancing and wording all over arms of the chosen. most artifacts there are actually poor examples to use as a reference for homebrew evocations

that said i tihnk you're on an older version of the book

[upper stratus]

mine says this

[velvet raft]

Huuuuuh

Okay

That

Is awesome

Thank you

Problem solved

[tulip folio]

I really wish that Arms of the Chosen wasn't 'Solars: The Solaring'. The further the game gets from the corebook, the more it feels like Arms isn't a 'real' Artifact Expansion and more just a Solar Expansion.

If that remotely makes sense?

[upper stratus]

it doesn't just make sense you're straight up just right

[velvet raft]

It's really very specifically Artifacts For Solars

[upper stratus]

'this evocation make solar charm more gooder' is just kinda lazy

[velvet raft]

Which I mean I'm fine with in principle, because I enjoy solars a lot

[upper stratus]

'oh if a non-solar attunes to it just change the evocation to something else' people are paying for this book come on

[velvet raft]

Wasn't the book put out when only solars were playable?

[tulip folio]

I think my ideal Artifact Expansion would be like '60% some cool artifacts that are independent of any particular splat' and 40% 'Here are some generic evocation effects that you can Lego an artifact with, laid out in a way that makes looking through them easily'

[upper stratus]

that's really not a good reason when you're making a book with artifacts that can ostensibly be used by an exalt

future proofing is a pretty normal thing to do

[tulip folio]

Yeah, my thoughts there is 'Yes, it was when only solars were playable but designing evocations that do not reference specific existing charms would be entirely possible and reasonable'.

[velvet raft]

But yes I mean especially in the early stuff "just homebrew it" appears a distressing amount in 3e

[upper stratus]

besides solars already got a whole actual solar expansion book

[velvet raft]

grumbles about the Essence 5 occult charm that lets you create a spirit buddy

[upper stratus]

politically? im gold faction. mechanically? im bronze faction

[bleak hazel]

"draw the rest of the owl" as relevant as ever

I'd appreciate that kind of Lego brick GM support in more places actually - the Exigent book does a decent job of revealing the basic balancing wheels and spokes but Crucible of Legends could have used a few pages on encounter design

[upper stratus]

my ideal expansion book would be a book with lego blocks for quick characters rather than premade quick characters

'you can use simplified charms for quick characters' yes true. give me a list of those

[tulip folio]

I'm a major D&D 4e fan but like...that game had such good GM guidelines for stuff. Like it had a table for 'Hey, your player wants to do a thing the rules don't cover? Here is what a Roughly Encounter Level Ability would do, to make sure that the cool thing is rewarded to a level that makes players feel like it was worth doing the cool risky thing' in its GM section.

Which is something I feel exalted would really benefit from. A sorta 'hey, lets pull back the curtain and lets you see what sorta math we work with and talk to you as designers'.

[bleak hazel]

There are a couple of "upgrade Sidereal/Lunar charm" evocations in future hooks but it's a lot less, and this annoys me less than a moonsilver artifact made by a Lunar that is in effect only usable for a Solar

[upper stratus]

which one

[bleak hazel]

Either unison or one of the swords, IIRC

Some of the stuff works but mandatory Upgrade Solar Charm is half the tree

[upper stratus]

oh my god yea it's unison

[bleak hazel]

Solars already have their own magical material, hands off

[velvet raft]

The 4e DMG is a thing of legend (and the 3.5 DMG is probably right behind it)

[tulip folio]

It's not as bad as 2e exalted but I do feel like the 'hey, do cool stuff' books need more 'We're going to sit you down and explain how mechanisms work as designers so that when you homebrew, you can do so with the understanding of a designer'

[upper stratus]

whyyy

[velvet raft]

I like Unison either way, but mostly for the "this artifact merges with your body" thing

The mien effects are cool

[bleak hazel]

I would appreciate it for putting a good price on a +soak passive, but I can't trust any of the effect pricing in AOTC anyway because it's full of stuff like the Heaven and Earth Gauntlets

[tulip folio]

My Ori Alch: "Can they get even more hands off, it's not just their magical material, it's on a loan from my boss and I need it too."

[velvet raft]

The early 3e books could definitely benefit from a rewrite

[bleak hazel]

which are so strong out of the box that they're the meta brawl weapon even if your exalt type can't stand orichalcum

[velvet raft]

I like the charms for them

You could remove or greatly reduce the clash bonus and I think they would still be interesting

[upper stratus]

i kinda get that solars are resonant with all materials because 'creators of wonders' is actually one of their few strong themes but they could've made it a litlte more interesting. like maybe 'resonsant with orichalcum, plus anything made by them or by other solars'

[velvet raft]

I think part of it was simply that they wanted the stuff in the early books to be usable by the ostensible core of the product line

[tulip folio]

I feel like they could have gotten a version of what the Alchs got later on.

[velvet raft]

I think it bothers me less because I actually really like solars

[bleak hazel]

you can still use artifacts that you aren't resonant with

[tulip folio]

Where they're resonant with 1 metal, neutral with the others and have an upgrade that is 'pick another metal, you're also resonant with that'.

[bleak hazel]

everyone else besides Alchs and Deebs does it all the time

[upper stratus]

very shortsighted reasoning at best if that's the case tbh

[tulip folio]

That way you get 'can use anything' but not 'can use everything instantly'

[bleak hazel]

(mostly to use the HaE gauntlets, at least when doing charop)

[upper stratus]

'we're gonna make a ttrpg with a lot of planned supplements and longevity, lets make short term decisions only'

[bleak hazel]

Also there's such an easy fix, which is to just not write evocations that are strictly splat dependent

[tulip folio]

...I've not actually read Heaven and Earth Gauntlets. I need to check out why they're So Nonsense

[velvet raft]

They get higher of +3 or +Essence to clashes

[bleak hazel]

the dual wield bonus to clashes is non-charm

[upper stratus]

when the non-charm dice are easily accesible

[bleak hazel]

so it's just free dice for existing

[tulip folio]

The Heaven and Earth Gauntlets’ clash attack bonus when
wielded paired rises to (the higher of Essence or 3).

THERE WE FUCKING GO

That was quick to find 😛

[upper stratus]

it's not even an evocation it's just for free

[bleak hazel]

also IIRC the reflexive clash charm in there is deranged but that's a secondary issue

[upper stratus]

this one?

i don't think it's particularly impressive

[bleak hazel]

Yeah, 0wp cost reflexive withering clashes on demand

[upper stratus]

oh right no wp cost

[tulip folio]

I mean, it seems like it really good thing while the passive is there.

[bleak hazel]

Basically a parry button

[velvet raft]

Tons of internal synergy

[bleak hazel]

Having that with a WP cost attached is basically half the selling point of Snake Style

Fun fact: Sids, the most dice starved exalt for good reason, have a martial arts form that increases your effective Essence by 2 for calculations

A Soulfire Form Sid picks up these, uses as many clashes as possible and suddenly has a Solar dice pool because they're adding 6-7 dice

except their dice are 40% better due to TN manipulation and they get the clash bonus on Decisives

[tulip folio]

Legend Forging Blow is a hell of a capstone. Not so much for power but that is just 'Congrats, you have Mastered Strength, do whatever the fuck you want to the story with your strenthiness, as long as you're a solar'.

[upper stratus]

hey! mastering attributes is a lunar's thing! gback off! shoo!!!

[velvet raft]

I feel like maybe if you redid them as a 4 or 5-dot artifact, removed the "minimum 3" from the clash bonus and maybe cut it down to Essence -1 or something, and moved that charm up to essence 4-5 it would probably be fine

It's also 1/story

[upper stratus]

don't you always get clash bonus on decisives

[velvet raft]

And it has to be something you can reasonably describe with punching

[bleak hazel]

Those have strong 5 dot artifact energy, 4 dots would barely change anything because you can still grab them at chargen

[tulip folio]

It's 1/story but it's the thing in the artifact that is honestly coolest. The rest of it is powerful but legend forming blow is the thing there that's most interesting. If that makes sense?

[velvet raft]

Oh, yeah, I love it

I'm arguing in favor of it

1/story you can punch arbitrarily hard

That's cool

[bleak hazel]

They're not really 5 dot material in terms of complexity, the artifact is kind of a huge number statstick, but balance wise I'd probably say it's as strong as most 5s

[velvet raft]

Also if we're making a 5-dot version we get to add more interesting evocations

[tulip folio]

Also: I think more artifacts should have effects that are More About The Story Implications Than The Numbers. XD

Like I think a 5 star version should do more like legend forming and less like the passive's 'stat bonuses are cool!'

[velvet raft]

That's definitely the whole point of 5-dot artifacts

Stormcaller is a really good example

[bleak hazel]

You do, but you don't get weapon accuracy, so suddenly being able to add 6 non-charm 6 dice to a decisive clash is deranged

[upper stratus]

oh like that okay

i thought you phrased it as somehow being an exception for sidereals

[velvet raft]

In that Stormcaller has an embedded narrative, and its charms play into that narrative extensively

[bleak hazel]

Oh no, everyone gets to play with the funny gloves

Sids just want them most, which is odd because they're not starmetal

[tulip folio]

...it would be a massive downgrade but ironically my thoughts on what I'd do with the passive?

Add charm dice equal to your essence for feats of strength/demolition. You also add your essence for determining if you meet the minimum strength to take that action.

XD

[upper stratus]

orichalcum is gonna clash horribly with my outfit :c

[tulip folio]

Make them the 'I pick up a house and throw it at someone' thing.

More than 'I clash best and forever' thing

[bleak hazel]

Bananasids stay winning apparently

Colour coordinated

[upper stratus]

forced into purple color coordination by saturn

[velvet raft]

That is a massive downgrade, but feels largely appropriate. I might still give it something for clashes

But not like a gigantic bonus that starts at 3 and scales

[upper stratus]

it already has something for clashes by virtue of being dual wielded

and having a clash evocation

[tulip folio]

Getting smote by the Maiden of Serenity for turning up looking like an endgame MMO character in their rainbow clownsuit.

[upper stratus]

VENUS: i made a mistake. give me the exaltation back

[velvet raft]

I must be forgetting, what does dual wielding do for clashing again?

[tulip folio]

+2 non-charm dice.

[upper stratus]

+2 non-charm dice on the attack

[tulip folio]

Which is a pretty solid bonus

[velvet raft]

Oh okay

Yeah

No that's real good, that's plenty

[upper stratus]

like any dual wielder gets good clash juice by default. which makes steel devil style not synergizing with clashes at all very funny

[velvet raft]

Is that meant to stack with the HaEG bonus? Because the way HaEG's bonus is written seems almost like it's meant to increase the bonus to what HaEG lists

Which would still be very, very strong but maybe less deeply unreasonable

[tulip folio]

...also, now I'm imagining picking 'Smashfists' as your Thousand Blades weapon of choice and just turning up like this with robot arms:

[upper stratus]

yea it says 'rises' not 'adds'

but you have to be very careful about any amount of non-charm dice, especialy non-charm dice you're not even paying motes for

[velvet raft]

At the very least, I would drop the "higher of essence or 3" clause

[tulip folio]

I got told that Alchs getting an automatic +1 non-charm success on spellcasting is very damn good.

[bleak hazel]

You have to go very softly with clash bonuses anyway - clashing is an extremely strong tactic to begin with, since it boosts your damage, is more reliable at deflecting attacks than most parry values and lets you cover attack and defence with the same mote expenditure

[velvet raft]

But yeah I like Iki's proposal

Re: make you do strong good

[bleak hazel]

The basic strat of "wear dual smashfists, clash everything with +7 dice (dual wield, light weapon accuracy if you can get withering clash charms)" is already great

[bleak hazel]

There's a Lunar in Adversaries of the Righteous who has six knives and six arms, her relic is +2 dual wield dice on top of the normal number

[tulip folio]

I feel like you could do some fun 'hercules just reshaping the world' stuff.

Heck, give them an aoe clash. You clash with an Obsidion Butterflies or other AOE attack, protecting not just yourself but every other person it was going to hit.

Something to play up scale, not just numbers

[bleak hazel]

Sid move, actually

although that's more "clash sorcery with your giant Sidereal brain"

[tulip folio]

I know Alchs have a charm for doing that, as they go "FUCK, EXTENDING FORCEFIELD TO EVERYONE"

[velvet raft]

I admit I'm partially just charmed by the idea of finally being able to use this art for a character (source: https://feelmong.artstation.com/projects/yRrYQ)

[upper stratus]

im still rather fond of the 'dodge on someone else's behalf' charm. like are you just doing the dodge movement at nothing. what's going on

[tulip folio]

I can see the ears, that's a Raksha 😛

[velvet raft]

Because it would be perfect for a brawl solar with Unison and the Heaven and Earth Gloves XD

[tulip folio]

I'll admit, my mental image for that was 100% some Jeeves and Wooster shit, where you're manipulating your charge to get him out of the way of problems while being a harried manservant.

'Now excuse me sir, if you'll just duck down now...there's a good fellow'

[upper stratus]

that's just yanking them around though! too normal! not sidereal enough

[velvet raft]

(I have this problem where when I play godgames I end up wanting a crazy panoply, my Nobilis characters inevitably invest heavily in Treasure even if I start out thinking they won't)

(Truly the pinnacle of godgames is Having Stuff)

[upper stratus]

vinces fate she’s dodged it on his behalf.``` see im imagining the sidereal shadow dodging (like shadowboxing but for dodging) and then looking up at the pattern spiders going 'is that good enough? okay put it on the record'

[velvet raft]

XD

This is good, yes

[bleak hazel]

I'm currently working on a Craft Abyssal and I know I'm going to have to come up with so many artifacts

I'm currently working on the silken armour that runs on spite and a couple of big scary soulsteel/jade stabby needles

which are a 5-dot, so I need to apply some juice there

[upper stratus]

im finalizing a section staff artifact rn

[velvet raft]

But yes Stormcaller is the best thing in Arms of the Chosen

[bleak hazel]

the funniest combo I've seen with Stormcaller actually doesn't use any of the evocations at all

[velvet raft]

Does it involve the iaijutsu style?

[bleak hazel]

deebs can enter aura if they only do elemental-themed moves of one element in their turn

the water aura is useful for Bottomless Depths Defence, the only deeb perfect

the 1 mote mostly-cosmetic anima power for Water Deebs is "stay dry in the rain"

[velvet raft]

Constantly sheathing and unsheathing it seems kind of hilarious

Not necessarily optimal, but really funny

[bleak hazel]

draw stormcaller, start thunderstorm, spend 1 mote to keep your hair neat and enter water aura to start the aura loop

[velvet raft]

HAH

That is pretty cute

[bleak hazel]

honestly fitting for a wet deeb

first step in the fight, increase wet level

the funniest artifact in AOTC has to be Rainwalker though

since it's just an umbrella

yes, I would imagine it does reduce rain penalties

not sure it needed to be made of jadesteel and raksha shell to do that

(and as you might expect, the deeb/lunar artifact upgrades Solar charms)

[upper stratus]

[velvet raft]

... christ, I can't remember, are half-raksha a thing?

[bleak hazel]

I'm pretty sure you can get fae-blooded

[tulip folio]

Yep! Though iirc a lot of them are not literally half-raksha

And more just 'people who have too much wyld in the blood'

That said: nothing stops raksha from staying in-character long enough to have kids

[velvet raft]

Right

Just thinking since you said those were raksha ears >_>

[bleak hazel]

something vaguely Spycops about that

[velvet raft]

Raksha decides to live out an entire human life, from birth to death, 100% in character

Would be amusing

"It's called commitment to the bit okay"

[bleak hazel]

"why is there a glowy sun man in my Demon: The Descent campaign?"

OK, the orichalcum brush in AOTC is pretty great

diff 3 gambit to apply a dunce cap

[velvet raft]

Hah!

[bleak hazel]

unfortunately the next charm is "upgrade a charm from Miracles of the Solar Exalted" so back on the shame pile it goes

luckily you don't need the upgrade evocation to get the rest of the tree

you're on thin goddamn ice, Sun's Brush

[fierce star]

I forget, I remember at one point ex3 had 'beastmen and xblooded cannot exalt because they aren't human enough', did that get removed or retconned or was that H+H word of god and can therefore be safely ignored as it isnt' in any source that matters?

[bleak hazel]

next up is a moonsilver spear made by a lunar and designed to hunt various "unnatural beasts" - that's right, 4/7 evocations are all just upgrades for your Solar charms

[tulip folio]

I'm 90% sure that's just H+H stuff, not canonical in 3e.

[velvet raft]

H+H?

Oh Holden

[tulip folio]

Holden and Hatewheel

[velvet raft]

And the other one

[upper stratus]

he_cant_keep_getting_away_with_this.gif

[prisma sun]

I think the catch 22 of Arms of the Chosen is that the base book needed an artifact expansion and they couldn't wait until they made all the other splats to do so

[bleak hazel]

given the Sidereal book has an Exalt merit for being X-blooded, I'm going to assume that's nonsense

[fierce star]

Excellent

[prisma sun]

Oh dope

[velvet raft]

Oh excellent!

[bleak hazel]

there is a sidereal charm that lets you forge this merit by having a god adopt someone

[fierce star]

One of my favorite ex2 charcters was a sidereal who wasn't 'pure' human (in the sense she was a seafolk, so I don't think she'd need that charm, just like. Gills, probably?)

[fierce star]

... that's so fun

divine adoption papers, I love it

[velvet raft]

I don't suppose they provide any further specifics with said merit?

[upper stratus]

god it's not even 'adopt' they retroactively become an actual descendant

[bleak hazel]

which you can enable by stealing the god's name, then the poor deeb's name, then signing for both of them

peak Sidereal

[velvet raft]

HAH

"I made him your dad"

[prisma sun]

I CAST
CHILD SUPPORT

[upper stratus]

i love stealing names!!!!!!!!!!

[bleak hazel]

some incredible potential for shenanigans here given you have the ability to make quite a few different things into gods

welcome to the Celestial Bureaucracy, this is your new son

"but I've only been a god ten minutes!"

[upper stratus]

i use terminal sanction to seal a god in a rock
i steal their name from the rock
i use it to sign adoption papers all over creation

[tulip folio]

Oh, that's cool.

Though iirc, eclipse charms are a bit on the lean end for 'doing cool things'? Honestly, I've not spotted many of them. XD

[bleak hazel]

this actually is a straight up Enlighten Target Mortal charm, or at least it would have been in 2e

I may use it as a template for some enlightened martial artists

[bleak hazel]

they're hit and miss but there are some pretty decent ones

[prisma sun]

I fill a labor shortage in Heaven by having a God who owes me adopt 50 of the best beurucrats I can find

[lunar magnet]

This is still not enough, and I had to do so much extra paperwork to do it.

[upper stratus]

forest witch deeb (can access eclipse charms) in my game is obsessed with their mind dissolving spores charm

'just let me alone in a room with them' they keep saying

'let me get in an enclosed room with them'

[bleak hazel]

Pattern Spider Venom is actually quite mean

[fierce star]

god forest witches are weird

[tulip folio]

Real petty Sid going through the single most elaborate 'I fucked your mum' joke when they find out the guy's mum is deceased so they get them a new mum.

[bleak hazel]

40% chance of a disarm gambit or equivalent every round is not bad given it's got a -3 penalty as well

and it's not too expensive

[prisma sun]

Retroactively making your mom someone I've fucked

Retroactively making ME your dad

[bleak hazel]

wait hang on

I know there's a very funny charm here but I can't remember what it's called

[tulip folio]

My final words as the solar kills me: 'Are you winning, son?'

[bleak hazel]

AHA

[bleak hazel]

family tree-forging combo

[prisma sun]

LMAO

[bleak hazel]

(I'm pretty sure this doesn't work but it sounds like the kind of thing I would allow to work if the players put some elbow grease into it)

[tulip folio]

Asshole Sid: "I made your family tree an ouroboros, rules don't say I can't make this shit circular. Good luck getting any respect with that."

[prisma sun]

"My family tree is a cordycep"

[tulip folio]

This feels like a really fun combo with the one where you hide from superiors.

[bleak hazel]

Underling Invisibility Practice is nuts, by the way

[tulip folio]

It looks really good.

[bleak hazel]

even if you don't work at it very hard it's probably one of the best stealth charms in the entire game

and if someone can see you, you can still use normal stealth or disguise or whatever

or use the fact that you know they're a softie because they can see you to talk them out of causing whatever problems they might cause

[tulip folio]

I'm looking at it for the Corruption (Legal sort) Sid I've put together. That + the one where you just weasel yourself into any group.

[upper stratus]

the trick with UIP is making a resplendent destiny that's intentionally as suitable for it as possible

welcome to my favorite resplendent destiny, "worthless wretch"

[bleak hazel]

UIP is my number 1 example of what Sids do that other Exalt types can't match despite their superior raw power, because I walked directly past a high essence deeb with maxxed awareness and he couldn't do a damn thing about it

yeah, Vigil has "the indentured servant"

[lunar magnet]

At last, a reason to be a Siddie Maid. 😛

[bleak hazel]

it's a psyche effect, but not many people are just slamming the Remove Psyche Effect buttons randomly

[fierce star]

Do ex3 sids still have the whole 'everyone from your mortal life forgets you exist slowly over the course of weeks and months' thing

[bleak hazel]

no, there's an actual charm that makes you a maid, you can just use that

[tulip folio]

I'm looking at UIP + Gilded Cage Entrapment for 'Hey, I'm Just The Secretary' or such.

[upper stratus]

no that happens immediately

that's just arcane fate

[fierce star]

I--actually I'm not sure if that would be more or less traumatic

[bleak hazel]

Sid Socialize is very Secretly All-Powerful Maid coded

plus all the usual seduction charms

[tulip folio]

Yeah, the sid I put together is Beuro + Socialize for 'Of course I'm supposed to be here' mastery.

[lunar magnet]

You wake up one day. Nobody in your house knows you anymore, and gets increasingly weirded out as you try to justify why you're there.

[upper stratus]

it's pretty bad! there's an example where a sid exalts in the middle of her wedding and everyone, including her would-be wife, immediately forgets her

[tulip folio]

Good news: As long as you're willing to do kinda degrading things, you can make mortals remember you!

Breaking the Wild Mortal

You put a bridle on them and they don't forget you as much

[upper stratus]

oh i thought you meant degrading for the sid

[bleak hazel]

you can also recruit the mortals into your elite squad of fate-enforcing ninja operators, if you want to be maybe 10% nicer

[fierce star]

lol

[tulip folio]

I mean, to be fair: I'ts kinda embarssing to go around putting bridles on people for the sid too.

[bleak hazel]

this is kind of a bad training charm, but that's what you have your Solar "boss" for

[upper stratus]

not for a lot of people

[fierce star]

I distinctly remember in the ex2 game where I had the seafolk sid asking my GM if I could have a resplendent destiny that was just herself, because she was unwilling to let go of her mortal life because she would have had in ex3 a defining intimacy of 'My home is my castle and my people are my soul' or similar, and she was one fo those sidereals that was caught after exalting so hadn't been properly socialized yet

[upper stratus]

resplendent destinies can't be specific people

[fierce star]

Oh, that's a change then.

[bleak hazel]

these days Resplendent Destinies are stock characters, basically

they're vague outlines that people fill in themselves

[fierce star]

In ex2 they had archetypes but stronger ones could be specific people with specific backstories if you needed it and put enough juice into making it

[upper stratus]

it's more like being a background character credited as "guard #4" in the movie credits

[bleak hazel]

my favourite resplendent destiny is "A Sidereal"

[upper stratus]

my favorite is "an exalt". keep em guessing

[fierce star]

that makes it a lot harder to use them to cheat arcane fate lol

[upper stratus]

yes arcane fate is way less cheatable

[bleak hazel]

this is explicitly allowed and lets you do all your in-the-open operations before removing your clown mask to reveal the joker makeup underneath and walking out

[tulip folio]

I remember the players in a game I ran having the goal of 'Fix arcane fate so people remember sids again', as a very heretical goal.

[upper stratus]

there's also no real "putting juice" into it, you just spend a scene and 1 wp to make one and that's it

[bleak hazel]

Sids are really big on commedia dell'arte

[fierce star]

Ah, so also a lot less complicated to make

[bleak hazel]

"a scene" can be quite a short period of time, too

[upper stratus]

ye

[bleak hazel]

"wait one minute, I need to do something" covers it most of the time

[velvet raft]

Their favorite musical is A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum

[fierce star]

I don't exactly remember the way you did it in ex2 but it involved sidereal astrology, which in ex2 was

um

[velvet raft]

It was a lot

[upper stratus]

paradox bite. don't play your character for 10 days

[velvet raft]

I remember it being a lot

[fierce star]

it was a lot

I have MOEPSiddies on here somewhere so I could look it up, however

[bleak hazel]

SId prophecy is still a tiny bit odd but mostly in that it scales very strangely rather than just not working out of the box

[velvet raft]

3e is a pretty maximalist game, 2e was the most maximalist game imaginable (and was also, independently, kind of bad)

[upper stratus]

tbf 2e arcane fate was done on purpose as a "you can't arrest us cause we don't exist" move wheras in 3e it was on accident and is largely viewed as undesirable by all sidereals

[bleak hazel]

an E3 sid can exert fairly limited mechanical effects with prophecies because the highest Frequency they can hit is "1/scene", an E4 sid suddenly jumps to Frequency 5, "whenever it applies"

[fierce star]

Oh, I didn't know that fluff had changed

(I should read the sidbook fluff at some point)

[bleak hazel]

so a Sidereal elder can put a disgusting amount of pressure on fights or social scenes if they have enough batman prep time

[tulip folio]

Yes but to be fair, this was before 3e came out 😛

[fierce star]

We're OLLLLLLD

[bleak hazel]

two nice things in 3e sids are "yeah, conky really didn't mind the Sids and Deebs usurping the Solars, he was pretty done with them by that point" and "the Jade Prison's key ingredient was the tear shed by the Unconquered Sun when he turned his face from creation" both of which are great scope for dramatic ranting

[upper stratus]

2e lore was goofy aaa cause even though solars were exploding cities for fun every celestial god was upset with sids for stopping them and wanted them put on trial and arcane fate was there to prevent that. in 3e most gods think the solar purge was "a fair move tbh" and they don't need arcane fate to to prevent being put on trial

[fierce star]

Man, that just

makes the silver pact ever worse, given a large portion of it's start was 'WE'RE MAD THE SOLARS ARE DEAD'

[bleak hazel]

yeah I was going to say that

why are you still mad, dude

[upper stratus]

the plan was actually to take stewardship over creation themselves post-purge and the breaking of the mask was an unexpected factor and they had to scramble together the whole "DB shogunate" plan

[fierce star]

like it's one thing when everyone below conky was slurping hte solar slurp juice due to socialize charms, but when basically everyone went 'no yeah this is fine actually'

except the lunars?

the lunars were like the only people going 'NO FUCK YOU WE WANT THE SOLARS TO KEEP BEING COCKBAGS'?????

[bleak hazel]

there is that really fun Lunar elder who used to be friends with the Sidereals before the Usurpation and since then has produced a spectacularly powerful grudge against the Sids in particular for betraying her and killing her husband

I like her

[upper stratus]

pact beef is more about the shogunate than the solars

[bleak hazel]

but she has an actual reason

also a sword with a cool move attached

[upper stratus]

lmao

[bleak hazel]

(the play here is to Clash her to death, she can't counterattack clash attacks if you use a Clash charm on them each time)

[tulip folio]

'If her enemy's attack roll had its target number reduced by magic'

Man, I wonder who this is about...

[bleak hazel]

she actually isn't that lethal, she's mostly a walking ECCM device

lots of anti-prophecy moves

[upper stratus]

3e largely did away with the "modern politics is still entirely centered on solars eve though they have been irrelevant for thousands of years" shtick

[dense verge]

yeah 3e pact has multiple end goals competing for dominance, but "put lamp back in charge" is like 0ish of them. though there are some that are like "ok but what if first age but lunars in charge"

[bleak hazel]

Feather Drenched is kind of fun, and I like that she's not actually that 'ard for an Essence 6 elder lunar

[upper stratus]

bronze/gold faction started with the solar purge but now is largely about taking a "low risk status quo" or "high risk make a better world" approach to destiny planning

[bleak hazel]

shows you that not all Elders are inherently gods of supreme death

she's just very sneaky and has great spycraft

[upper stratus]

it's nice that she's reasonable enough to note like. hate -all- sids completely and utterly. honestly fair play.

[bleak hazel]

yeah she's cool

I want to assassinate her and take her sword, but that sounds like it would be fun, rather than work

[upper stratus]

GOLD FACTION SID: "yea fair play i wouldn't trust me either"

[fierce star]

The problem is that the origin of the pact, by the text, is a good amount of 'revenge for the dead solars'. The fact that that's there at all rankles at me. I honestly really dislike ex3's silver pact's whole thing of just being eternal race war against dragonblooded forever with a big 'what do we do when we win?' 'leftist infighting?' period.

[bleak hazel]

Feather's elder move is also "screw your prophecy" but only after she wins the fight

which is good design I think

you have to go stop her fucking with your Sid stuff

[velvet raft]

Oh, btw, is there a standard Ex3 character sheet these days, or is it still that extremely fancy google sheets one?

[bleak hazel]

google sheet

[fierce star]

most people use lot-casting atemi in my experience?

[bleak hazel]

or Lot-Casting Atemi, which is a slightly less impressive comp-con

but I like the google sheet more for tracking your actual stuff

[fierce star]

Honestly I use a .txt sheet most of the time but GMs don't like those anymore

[velvet raft]

I'll look into Lot-Casting Atemi

I was always very impressed with the google sheet

[fierce star]

I didn't spend decades working on how to make decent looking ASCII-art headed tables just to let that skill die to spreadsheets

(again: I am old)

[velvet raft]

Me too

Well, old by some standards

33

Hardly the most senior pnetter tho

[fierce star]

... shit i've been playing ttrpgs for two decades

[upper stratus]

the origin of the pact precedes the solar purge (albeit by a different name) and mainly formed into its current shape cause the new hegemony of the shogunate and the immaculate faith was innately hostile to lunars and they banded together for survival

[dense verge]

i honestly like the competing ideas for what lunars do after they win, since theres generational shifts in ideology that happen, and it shows lunars are only a semi united front

[fierce star]

I suppose that's fair but also I liked thousand river streams and ex3 deleted my favorite lunar eldar, lol

I'm just kind of not a fan of 'so what is a lunar campaign about?' 'fighting the realm/lookshy/prasad/the local DB hillbilly dynasty' being the primary answer to that

[tulip folio]

There there ID.

[prisma sun]

This isn't really the Lunar view anymore

[velvet raft]

I sort of assume that the Silver Pact was and is a big tent

[prisma sun]

The Lunars were also the victims of the usurpation by virtue of the bond

[velvet raft]

Some of the Lunars were mad about the Solar deaths, some of the Lunars were not about being personally hunted, some of the Lunars wanted their own day in the sun moon now that the Solars were gone, some of the Lunars had other more personal ambitions

It's easy to unify those disparate threads when Mr. Carjack has coordinated the deebs to go on hunts for Lunars

[fierce star]

I guess the fact it still all comes down to 'we're mad about the usurpation, which was about the solars in the first place' is like...

[lunar magnet]

And for better or for worse, the Usurptation was killing off an entire type of Exalted and then taking the fight to the Lunars

That's gonna piss people off even if they didn't like the Solars.

[fierce star]

Look, I'm sorry, the 3e silver pact just rubs me the wrong way. I liked lunars in ex2 because despite being the Big Beefy Werecreature Archetype, their thing was 'what if we made a better world from the ground up'

[upper stratus]

i think it's normal to be mad that they created a state religion that says you are demonic and should be put down like a rabid dog

[fierce star]

not 'what if we killed the ruling class in vengeance and then ????'

[velvet raft]

Thousand Streams River was very cool

[velvet raft]

But yeah, as a Lunar you don't really get to opt out of being hunted, and it helps a lot to have powerful allies

[bleak hazel]

3e lunars admittedly don't really grab me because they lend themselves very heavily towards "rip, tear, murder, what's an institution" unless you're Ma-Ha-Suchi, who is still mostly doing Big War rather than Small War

[upper stratus]

many small wars make a big war

[velvet raft]

I would backport a lot of Thousand Streams River stuff

[bleak hazel]

but I like all my dudes to have day jobs, it's why I make so many Sids, Deebs and Abyssals

all of whom have fairly defined structures they sit in

[velvet raft]

It made sense as a quasi-cohesive ideology that allowed the Lunars to cooperate in very approximate terms

[upper stratus]

they're still doing thousand streams type projects tbf, they just don't use the name

[velvet raft]

"Yes we are all working towards the Thousand Streams River" "what does that even mean" "it means what it means"

[dense verge]

i think a lot of lunars, like ma-ha-suchi, do have a very clear vision of a post-realm creation, its just that those visions are competing as they dont align with what "the best world" would be in everyones view

[velvet raft]

Yeah, no, the Thousand Streams River was always vague and included a lot of deeply shitty and awful people

[upper stratus]

we sat 50 lunars with an idea of what the best world would look like down to discuss the matter. they emerged from the meeting with 100 different ideas on what hte best world would look like

[velvet raft]

Ma-Ha-Suchi should be pushed in a pond

[lunar magnet]

The unifying factor is that the oppression aspect has to stop ASAP

[bleak hazel]

oppression of them, anyway

anyone else, eh, flip a coin

[fierce star]

... oh

hmm.

[velvet raft]

The point was that infighting wasn't helping any of them

[fierce star]

you ever take a look inside yourself and go 'oh, that's why I hate this'

[bleak hazel]

Sids are also like that, but they also have a very consistent Thing They Need To Do that keeps them on track

[fierce star]

lunars are the Leftist Infighting Faction now and I am so tired of that IRL (not to get political in here)

[velvet raft]

No that's fair

[dense verge]

oh yeah thatd do it

[bleak hazel]

you can very clearly point to why you need Sidereals around and what useful things they do that they want to be free to keep doing, which they then layer all of the fun politics and scheming and infighting on top of

[upper stratus]

you do not have to excuse yourself for getting political in the politicals ttrpg thread

[tulip folio]

Well, good news: You're going to be in an alch game soon and there's no leftist infighting in Autobot city, right? 😛

[prisma sun]

I haven't liked any other edition of Lunars because they are just the designated wives (gender neutral) of Solars until 3rd

[dense verge]

when the lunars have a literal Vanguardist party splinter faction it gets on the nose

[velvet raft]

Lunars who want to change the world are very "I have great ideals and the only barrier to implementing them is that everyone I could cooperate with feels the same way"

[bleak hazel]

my current Sid has a big rant saved up about what the Actual Job Is that he plans to deploy if the Bronze Faction siddy and the Lunars get in yet another fight over what to do about the random deebs in this town

[fierce star]

The thing is there's more than leftist infighting in autochthon