Exalted

[tulip folio]

Yeah, I'm looking at the necromancy spell that Raises a Soulsteel Fortress.

And going 'that's a 3e working'

[next delta]

An antagonist who isn't very good, but has so many boss forms their opponents go home because they don't want to deal with it anymore

[bleak hazel]

BOKL is extremely overpowered but a lot of the moves are really funny

[tulip folio]

There isn't honestly any 2e Void-tier spells I think would do with translating to 3e

They're all either 'annoying'

'Already done'

Or 'This is just a working'

[tulip folio]

Christ

Infinite Footsteps is cute/likely worth a 3e version. It allows you to travel anywhere in creation in 1 day through the Labyrinth. It doesn't matter if that place is 1 hour away or 1 year, it takes you 1 day.

[fierce star]

man now i'm thinking about my favorite sma from 2e even though it was realllyb usted, I loved the themes of it andthe fact it was implied to be a memetic attack from the wyld to disrupt heaven's bureaucracy

quicksilver hand of dreams was a trip

[bleak hazel]

there are about five different ways to permanently destroy someone's mental state in this, it's really a bit excessive

there's also this one

Elden Ring is actually a sidereal martial arts capstone

[tulip folio]

Hah

Yeah, honestly there's remarkably few 2e necromancy spells left to transfer as so few of them are worth it. I should check out Sorceries.

Sorcery has more variety and more spice

[velvet raft]

And then there's the penultimate charm where you literally just become a primordial complete with the ability to tell gods what to do XD

[bleak hazel]

it's a good time

I would like to see what it would look like in 3e but it would feel very odd that Solars could just show up and learn how to use it, since it's very much the martial art that you give Designated Elder Sidereals so they can do important plot stuff

[velvet raft]

You could give it an essence requirement of 7, I guess? That would make it explicitly "no PC gets to have this" material

I will note this was a thing where 2e had an advantage, because while Solars could learn SMAs, they could not normally learn to do the scriptures that brought down the extremely prohibitive mote costs

[bleak hazel]

yeah, I do kind of miss the sutra setup

as is not many of the big flashy capstones even have Enlightenment effects

[velvet raft]

Hypothetically, an Eclipse could bypass that, but

That would cost so much fucking XP

[bleak hazel]

amazed that the old Eclipse anima was allowed to stand as long as it did

so much of the game ended up bent around trying to stop Eclipses from stealing everything

[velvet raft]

Yeah

Eclipse charms are a better way of doing it

of course now we need enough eclipse charms to realistically do stuff with

[bleak hazel]

there are some pretty fun ones, I think they just need to be piled into a big list somewhere

[tulip folio]

I also like that non eclipses can learn eclipse charms

[velvet raft]

There are! But there are also big thematic holes at any given Essence

[tulip folio]

Like alchs have a charm for 'Learn Eclipse Charms'

[velvet raft]

Yeah there are tons of way to get them

Hell there's a Sidereal Hearthstone that literally lets you take them off of a willing or an unconscious spirit

You have to learn the one you load into the Hearthstone before you can refill it

But

You can learn it

[bleak hazel]

Sids can also bind a demon or fae into themselves to gain access to a super mode

which comes with a set of Eclipse charms

[velvet raft]

I've been looking at them while playing around with Divine Heritage and there is, for instance, absolutely nothing fire-related at Essence 1

There are some great fire-related ones at later essences

[bleak hazel]

expensive though, since every time you do it you need to then go cut out the annoying intimacy the entity you bound gets to put on you

[velvet raft]

But there are just a lot of thematic holes

[tulip folio]

I feel like some generics would be good

Like 'pick an element, do X with it'

[velvet raft]

A proper bestiary would also cover a lot of ground here

HDNP is pretty good but

[tulip folio]

For a 'Can fit on most elementals' local elements manipulation one

[velvet raft]

There's a lot of stuff it doesn't cover

[bleak hazel]

I feel that you'd want very low essence ones of those tops, because allowing everyone to access Big Fireballs is starting to step on deeb territory

[velvet raft]

I think if they did like an ... elementals and typical spirits book, with bare minimum 2 elementals of each element at essence 1-3 and 1 of each element at essence 4-5, that would fill a lot of empty space in the game

And there's not a lack of concepts to pull from, 2e sucked but it was a book mill and it did do this kind of stuff

[tulip folio]

...you know with how much exalts interact with dematerialsed stuff, I'm surprised it's as hard as it is for a character to access Going Ghost.

[bleak hazel]

belt of shadow walking in the core book is the usual method if you're a deeb

[velvet raft]

I kind of prefer that, though?

That like, all Exalted have anti-spirit tools

Not a lot of them are "do the exact things a spirit can do"

[tulip folio]

As a ghost themed necromancer I'd like to be able to step into the spirit realm. XD

[velvet raft]

Gives you a reason why you call in the Twilight or Daybreak caste or whatever to do Spirit Stuff, rather than just punching everything in the face

[bleak hazel]

three-dot artifact, but extremely useful because a lot of people just straight up can't hit anything dematerialised

even some exalts don't have that charm

[wise ocean]

I knew it, there are ways for Anathemas to dematerialize

later gun evocation get

[bleak hazel]

I swear deebs just have the usual "shoot a dematerialized target" occult kit

[wise ocean]

presumably yes, but this would require me to invest into occult

[prisma sun]

I think the main reason it's easier to get to hit dematerialized vs being able to demmaterialize is because dematerializing means like

if you don't have the button to hit them

You're SoL

and that doesn't feel good

[bleak hazel]

yeah, or you stand there throwing out your "please materialize" charm for a couple of rounds if you don't have a normal spirit cutter

[wise ocean]

I will simply have my artifact do this for me, in the spirit of bureaucracy 5 delegation

[bleak hazel]

personally I quite like this hearthstone

there's a Sid charm that lets you summon hearthstones from a menu that you pick when you learn the charm

so you can just quickly slam this down to make everyone pop into existence

[bleak hazel]

I've always felt that this was arguably the best use for Essence's universal charms

just a quick page of "every exalt can hit spirits, kill spirits, reduce the attunement costs of multiple artifacts, etc."

[fierce star]

I wish the alchemical one worked for non-weapon artifacts

christ bracers of universal crafting are five motes

[bleak hazel]

they're pretty much all Weapons Only

or everyone would be grabbing that to reduce the cost of their armour

[fierce star]

that's fair

[next delta]

Weapon only to allow cool dual+ wielding

[fierce star]

right now I've got 5 into weapons, 4 into armor, and 1 into a misc artifact (a resplendent satchel of healing),, but I'm planning to make some other artifacts, too; the aforementioned bracers of universal crafting, probably a collar of dawn's cleansing light because it's always useful for a social character to never have to spend time cleaning up, some sorcery capturing cords would be useful becuase there's two sorcerers in the party already, and of course there's all those useful little two dots I could make in massive batches, it all adds up

[bleak hazel]

I have big craft powers too, but I was just going to make 4-dot Silken Armour and a 5-dot weapon that was two big needles (for dual wielding)

and then make stuff for everyone else

[fierce star]

legit

... hmm. Actually, that's a question

given the character in question is an alchemical, and given autochthonia's generally higher accessiblity for magical materials/magic crafts, would two dot artifacts be major projects there or would they still be superior? I suppose that's an 'ask the GM' question

[bleak hazel]

I don't think there's a low-end carve out in the alch book

all artifacts are Superior

[next delta]

The alchemical book goes into the exceptions

The higher tech level is probably relevant for the line though?

[bleak hazel]

(also if they're not you can literally churn out half a dozen a day, major projects are basically trivial for a decent craft spec)

[fierce star]

They do already have a charm to let them make two dot artifacts with a single roll, I suppose

and three dot with a submodule at essence 5

Epiphany-Inducing Neurostimulant
Cost: 5m, 1wp, 1lhl; Mins: Intelligence 7, Essence 3
Type: SupplementalKeywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Conceptual Atelier Matrix
Subcranial orichalcum reservoirs synthesize a dangerous mental stimulant, injecting it directly
into the Alchemical’s brain in a surge of painful genius.
In order to use this Charm, the Alchemical must have completed a superior project to create an artifact or
manse in the current story. When she makes the first roll for a project to create a two-dot artifact, she
automatically succeeds with enough successes to immediately complete the project.
Reset: Once per story.
Submodules
Infinite Design Cognition (6xp; Intelligence 5, Essence 5): The Alchemical can use this Charm on
projects to create three-dot artifacts.

Iti s only once per story though, so it's basically doubling up on artifact creation as I understand the rules?

'make an artifact, get an ultimately useful tube for free' sorta deal

[bleak hazel]

yeah, it's a slightly more limited version of the E3 Artifact Printer charm that a lot of splats have

the Solar/Abyssal one is "Vice-Miracle Technique" and it just lets you pull a two-dot out of nowhere without having to do a project at all

which is rather more useful because it lets you Inspector Gadget problems

the Sids don't get one at all and instead heave to wait until Implicit Construction Methodology at Essence 5, which is a powered-up version that lets you leave a bar of starmetal on your anvil, go out for drinks and come back to a finished three dot daiklaive

[fierce star]

sounds like the equivalent of incomparable efficiency upgrade for alchs

[bleak hazel]

no, they have that lower down

[fierce star]

ah, so sidereals have two 'we can craft faster' charms?

[bleak hazel]

ICM is "you literally don't have to work on this at all"

and then at E1-3 they have Excellent Implementation of Objectives, which is the usual "do basic or major projects in under a day, at E3 repurchase to use this on Superior projects" thing

[fierce star]

ah, I get it

[bleak hazel]

they get their superior acceleration slightly late, most splats get that at 2

Sids aren't the best artifact crafters, they get by on all the other great stuff in that tree

World-Shaping Artistic Vision is worth going craft 3 by itself

[fierce star]

random crafts query: do most splats get the ability to ladder their craft xp up/down levels?

[bleak hazel]

that is also standard issue, yes

[fierce star]

kk

[bleak hazel]

most of the Alch craft charms are either Alch-flavoured dice roll boosters, standard issue or both

the devs have mostly boiled down the craft system to the list of things you actually need

compare to the Solar tree, which I'm fairly sure joins melee in the bracket of "you can invest literally 100% of an E5 character's XP in this tree and not have it all"

[fierce star]

Solars were a mistake

but good to know the craft tree is just 'yeah, it's all useful stuff, nothing unique but nothing to trap you' for alchs.

[bleak hazel]

the "extra superior project slots" one is usually a bit of a waste unless you're really starved for craft XP, because you can just make new slots for a moderate amount of silver XP and some token gold xp

other than that you're good

worst case scenario if you don't have the Superior slot thing is that you go away, make some nice presents for next Calibration and get yourself the 25 silver XP you'd need to make a 5-dot artifact slot

(silver XP is extremely pointless, it should really just be Gold/White at the very least)

[fierce star]

I feel like the main purpose for the extra superior project slots one... I think I'd buy it once, that way I can have major and superior projects going parralel without needing to spend extra craft XP on it? it feels like a craft xp efficiency/time efficiency thing.

[bleak hazel]

it is, but in practice that's not too much of a concern if you're actually doing a lot of crafting

maybe pick it up once, tops

[fierce star]

yeah, more than once feels like a waste to me

... though actually re-reading mass assembly protocol maybe even one is

since you get craft Xp seperately for each item in the batch even though you're only rolling once for them, so that's (wits) instances of craft XP for a single major project slot

with one pay in

[bleak hazel]

you also get XP for just Doing Crafting, then more XP for beating basic/major project DCs by 3+, which you should be able to do quite easily

and yes, if there's one thing Alchs are good at it's mass producing majors

build many houses

that is their one big flashy craft tool that isn't mostly standard issue, I think

[fierce star]

Every populat a house, eveyr house a distillery, mushroom booze for everyone

also I feel like I really need to write ot a 'here is every way to get craft xp' cheat sheet becuase I didn't even like. My eyes just skipped over that paragraph while I was reading the craft rules to get a feel for what I needed.

[bleak hazel]

yeah it's a mess

I should write that Crafting Basics guide at some point

[next delta]

Though, given that any splat in the corebook would have been bad, is there one you would have rather gotten the short end of the stick?

[bleak hazel]

I would have to leave the "how much craft XP do you need?" section as WIP because I haven't actually got that much experience with my all-craft-power-no-craft-XP Abyssal build yet but I have apparently sunk more brain cells into understanding this setup than most

[fierce star]

No, but bitching about games I like is one of my greatest joys in this world

if I didn't like something I wouldn't complaina bout it's minor foibles nearly as much

[next delta]

Are there non-charm ways of getting craft XP other than the three objectives?

[velvet raft]

Somes Solar charm trees are extremely good

[next delta]

Haha, I totally get that

[velvet raft]

Some are extremely bad

There is no middle ground

[fierce star]

Yes, apparently. Repairing stuff, uh, doing craft stuff just gets you free xp per that posted paragraph

[velvet raft]

AIUI the best way to build craft XP is just to make ten million regular swords

Which is deeply boring

That's kinda the heart of the problem

[next delta]

Oh whoops. Yeah I totally forgot about that.

[bleak hazel]

if you're a good crafter you almost certainly have an intimacy that says "I love making things", if you make things and sell them then you hit two bonus objectives

[next delta]

Oh, yeah that intimacy work around is a bit silly lol

[velvet raft]

Obviously you just break the same sword, over and over

[fierce star]

alchs do have a charm that gives you extra basic objectives

[bleak hazel]

I am willing to engage in a little bit of system gaming to work around the annoying stuff

[next delta]

Yeah, that's fair

[fierce star]

including 'help a community solve a problem'

gestures at everything in autochthonia

[bleak hazel]

how they want you to play this is to go around with your party and just jump on the opportunity to craft whatever the hell

[next delta]

Solve every problem with a hammer (and anvil)

[bleak hazel]

fix the wagon, make a better tent, build a raft, build a bridge, suddenly I have enough XP for my daiklaive

[velvet raft]

It does feel kinda like Ex3 has a really good baseline system, but then it took a couple of years to actually figure out how to write consistent content for that system

[bleak hazel]

the issue there is that it costs so much to get new functional craft specialties that nobody bothers and they just sit down and print out a few swords

I would still beat the core craft system mercilessly with a wrench, even though I think the basic idea is salvageable

[fierce star]

The big problem is every sort of craft is a different skill, at least for like

getting started

[velvet raft]

clearly we need Exalted 3.5

[fierce star]

that guy who fixes thew agon, makes a tent, builds a raft, builds a bridge, that's four different craft skills already

[bleak hazel]

we need Miracles of the Miracles of the Solar Solar Exalted

which is just Solars again

[velvet raft]

Fixing the bad solar charm trees would be a start

But there's some more foundational issues

[bleak hazel]

honestly the core rules basically work, even if they're not formatted well

Solars just break them

[fierce star]

wainwright, tailoring, carpentry or boatmaking or something, architecture

[next delta]

Too bad they committed to never ever redoing core until the next edition

[bleak hazel]

I would also keyword rather more stuff, but that's most of it

[fierce star]

Keyword and de-natural language the core rules and honestly we're off the races I feel like

[next delta]

(I get why though)

[bleak hazel]

in practice you make a lean-to instead of a tent and use Carpentry Carpentry Carpentry and Carpentry

[velvet raft]

Offhand ISTR that the naval combat mechanics are very bad

[bleak hazel]

this is why everyone also has Craft (Metalworking) + Craft (Artifacts)

metal is quite common

[velvet raft]

There's just specific subsystems that need to be reformed

[fierce star]

then again we do have the simplified craft ruels in crucible fo legend

[next delta]

Craft really did not need to be separate skills lol. I also don't think it breaks much if you change that?

[bleak hazel]

it does not

easy house rule

[fierce star]

it really doesn't, to the poitn an official alternate ruleset changes that

[next delta]

A few charms become pointless but w/e

[bleak hazel]

personally I would keep Craft (Artifacts) and Craft (Geomancy) as their own skills because they are Quite Large

but every mundane craft could be a specialty

[velvet raft]

What makes it especially weird is that Lore does not have separate skills and instead just says "your lore applies to things lore would apply to for your character" and that's a really good way of handling that

[bleak hazel]

if there were not cheap charms to get Artifacts + Geomancy for less than base cost I would not like that either though

so maybe those can be specialties too

and then we can delete all those charms

[fierce star]

actually misc have you read the simplieied craft rules in crucible?

[next delta]

It's not really it's biggest problem, but it not interacting with regular fight time I consider to be a really big miss

[bleak hazel]

I have, they only get halfway

[fierce star]

legit

[bleak hazel]

they propose a series of decent principles that you could use to rewrite the craft rules and then.... don't rewrite the craft rules

classic Ex3 "draw the rest of the fucking owl" incident

[next delta]

lol

[bleak hazel]

every piece of GM advice in Exalted

[next delta]

It's probably hard to fully fix them while mostly being compatible with the existing charm trees?

[velvet raft]

write a proper bestiary god damn it OPP

[bleak hazel]

well, the exigent book is OK

I still think the balancing guidelines could have gotten a bit more in the way of page count but I am an outlier in the amount of homebrew and playtesting I'm used to

[next delta]

For gripes: I feel like warfare should have had the ability to have both forces strategic plans active at once. Feels weird that it's all or nothing for one side

[bleak hazel]

there's a funny Necromancy spell that heavily indicates that what you want to do instead is just be a really good fortnite player

[next delta]

lol

[bleak hazel]

"I know you got wrecked in the strat maneuver roll, but don't worry, I have build a giant bone trenchwork"

this actually rules if you have some good War charms + a battlegroup of elite archers, by the way

and treats the entire battlefield as difficult terrain, whereas 
the victorious force treats the battlefield as normal terrain```

strangely, produces no cover for your mans

presumably you just really fuck up the battlefield with bone spikes everywhere, rather than actually building a wall

[velvet raft]

I want to say "my hot take is that stuff like bestiaries and lego bricks are more important than alternate splats" but really the deeper issue is that Ex3e, an extremely maximalist system, put out its first book in 2016 and still has, what, 3 Exalt types to go?

And an extremely troubled early development in general

[bleak hazel]

assuming you count Alchs and Abyssals as basically-playable, then one major splat and then Gets and Liminals

which I really don't think needed to exist in the first place

[velvet raft]

Agreed

[fierce star]

yeah ex3's been out for almost ten years now, ex2 was actively published for six and we're, uh

[next delta]

I agree, but I think geitimians are neat. I wasn't very intrigued by liminals

[fierce star]

just now catchign up on playable main splats

[bleak hazel]

Gets really strike me as "we haven't stepped on Sidereal gimmicks enough, make Second Sids"

[velvet raft]

Ex2 was part of the White Wolf book mill, which was capable of both phenomenal output and phenomenally inconsistent quality of output

[bleak hazel]

now even more people can learn your super special martial arts, and these ones even get Enlightenment

[next delta]

The silver lining of the Ex3 core release being a total mess is that Onyx path greatly revamped how they do Kickstarters for the much better

[bleak hazel]

Sidereals: apparently it's really easy to be one

[velvet raft]

Even so, nine years is pretty rough

[next delta]

This is fair. I have no particular affinity with sids, but I can imagine it being irksome

[fierce star]

I like the idea of Gets but I feel like overall we didn't need the new exalt types (save exigents, I've really liked exigents) because like... it dilutes the pool of unique cool stuff

[next delta]

Yeah, they could have been covered by Exigents hypothetically

[fierce star]

though part of it was back in ex2 I was working on a terrestrial-exalted-of-death thing based around the rivers of the underworld and then they announced liminals and I was like 'but that was my cool idea'

[bleak hazel]

Sids have this innate tension between their deal as "the old sifu exalted" and... actually getting to have stuff for themselves, because the job of the Old Master is to teach the protagonist the super special hidden technique and then die

and while I absolutely love what they've gotten in 3rd I think that particular seesaw has been tilted a bit too far towards the "pool of cool wuxia movies for other Exalts" end

[next delta]

fwiw, charm wise I think Sids vs Geitmians were pretty different in Essence?

[bleak hazel]

then they can have their own charms rather than stealing all the Sidereal Martial Arts

hands off

[fierce star]

mostly what attracts me to gets is 'people from fates that never existed isekai'd into a world that never knew them' is a kickass idea... but maybe not for a player-facing splat?

it feels more 'important NPC or understandable villian' tier, character insipration wise

[bleak hazel]

they make decent bad guys, but I'm not sure why they need to be Exalts

"super-strong paradox spirit type things that Rakan Thulio dug up from Primordial Heaven" kinda rules, as long as there's only a few of them and they're playing Fate spy games

making them knockoff sids in all but name doesn't do either the Sids or the Getimians any favours

[velvet raft]

I kinda feel like a rebel Sid who fights fate should ... just be a rebel Sid who fights fate

4-dot Merit, Getimian

Bam

Hell the Gets are even led by a rebel Sid who fights fate, aren't they?

[next delta]

In Essence Geitmians still have to learn SMA from Sidereals and get less modes than sids do. Not sure what the plan for 3e proper is of course

[bleak hazel]

they get Enlightenment based on what flowing/still mode they're in, at the very least

[next delta]

Ah, I guess they covered the rules in 3e already then

[bleak hazel]

...you know, I would be less annoyed that everyone and their dog could learn Sidereal Martial Arts if the clause of "you can learn these by having a Sidereal kick your teeth in with them" didn't exist

it's a cute gimmick but it also removes a lot of their What The Fuck nature

Solar John sees a Sidereal rend the fabric of reality and time in front of him once and goes "oh so that's how that works, easy"

[next delta]

Yeah, he like... found them or something? I think it's weird for the splat tbh. Especially since I think there is particularly few of them?

[bleak hazel]

"surely this took no work or grand cultivation novel plot arcs to come up with in the first place"

[fierce star]

(H+H's ideas for the new exalts were almost universally original character donut steele tier, except for the actual exalts meant to be original character donut steeles)

there's an irony there I think

[next delta]

Do you have to get beaten up each time you want to learn a new charm, or just once to start it?

[bleak hazel]

completely unspecified

[next delta]

Classic

[bleak hazel]

presumably the former because under normal circumstances you need a Sid mentor for each charm, I think

[next delta]

Do you have to like, intentionally want to pass on the technique? Because it would be funny if that was the case and a common sid limit break was to teach people in that way

[bleak hazel]

no

which is why it's annoying

there is a style, Obsidian Shards of Infinity, that is basically taught purely by ambushing your students over and over again

"oh yeah, the top secret heavenly FBI are just randomly dropping secret techniques all over the floor whenever they use their best moves"

[coral wraith]

I mean, it does say "repeatedly", Misc

Not "once is good enough"

[bleak hazel]

sure, but why does this work at all, this is silly

[coral wraith]

Because it's cool as hell

[bleak hazel]

kind of ruins the mystery of the Perfected Lotus if it's just Obvious

I would be less irked about this if there was a hard gate halfway through each style where the old Elder Sutra used to start and it just said "non-Sids can learn up to here, to use the big flashy capstones you need to actually be the exalt type listed on the label"

[next delta]

How good are these secret techniques if people keep surviving them anyways?

[bleak hazel]

in raw power they're broadly equivalent to most high essence celestial charms, they're just Very Weird and gain a certain amount of juice by doing stuff that nobody else can

like Breathing On The Black Mirror, which by nature of the way it works is a giant defence bypass

[next delta]

(I'm mostly making a dumb joke)

[bleak hazel]

E5 capstone of Obsidian Shards style

no Enlightenment effect, the classic Sidereal elder fight ender is just as good if you're a Solar

[fierce star]

Part of it feels like it's rooted in MA not really being a 'path to enlightenment' anymore in ex3

it's a Thing You Do, but it doesn't like, enhance and rarify your essence to achieve things beyond your level. it's Just A Thing Now.

and that bled, very unfortunately, into SMAs.

[bleak hazel]

they are at least actually playable this edition

interested to see if any of the ones in the Sid companion will allow armour, since right now none of them do and Enlightenment charms are no help there

[fierce star]

I'll give that, yeah. It's a monkey's paw, but... playable sidereals is nice.

[bleak hazel]

all their actual charms - extremely cool, by far my favourite splat

my only actual issues with them are the divide by zero error with Enlightenment SMAs + other martial arts and the fact other people keep stepping on their Deal, and only the former actually comes up on most games because honestly there really aren't that many solars in the games I'm seeing

[fierce star]

In all the exalted 3e games I've actually played in, there were zero solars, becuase my playgroups had moved off of exalted by the time core came out and only got back into it with dbs

and I personally would probably only play a solar in a solars-only game, though I have some ideas iin the back pocket for them

[coral wraith]

How so?

[bleak hazel]

strange to see more enthusiasm for Abyssals than Solars, but kind of neat, and they are a lot more polished even in their current draft state

[fierce star]

well, in previous editions sidereal charms were... Wacky? Like. the 'resist/tank/absorb damage' tree was thrown, medicine was one of their premiere killing trees, I 8vaguely* remember sail was mostly social charms iirc?

but the concept of sidereals is cool enough that they really should be actually playable to people who don't mainline jenna moran games for breakfast

[coral wraith]

Right, but like, how is it a Monkey's Paw specifically

[bleak hazel]

the levels of weird are about right this edition, at least for my tastes

[fierce star]

the monkey's paw bit is that out ofa ll the other exalts they're the ones getting their Cool Unique Thing stepped on the most in ex3

like no one else is stealing alchemical charm slot shenanigans or lunar shapeshifting, y'know?

or DB teamwork and elemental bullshitteyr

[bleak hazel]

Sids actually do have one charm to turn into a bird and there's an Eclipse charm for an animal form, but neither of them are anywhere near as good as proper lunar nonsense, partly due to the fact that all the proper lunar nonsense is actually in the lunar charms

[fierce star]

yeah

[bleak hazel]

still, very handy

[fierce star]

you can also use sorcery to do things like 'turn into a swarm of birds' and etc, but only a lunar can wear six faces and twelve forms in the same scene

(I exaggerate some but you get me)

[bleak hazel]

everyone else also isn't attribute based, so most of their charms do not work well when reduced to tiny bird

although it was really funny to put a resplendent destiny of "obvious Lunar" on my bird form, fly around in front of the deeb + guards, flap off into the mountains, take it off and then go home as regular Arcane Fate raiton nobody cares about

bird applying temporary tattoos

[fierce star]

lmao

i do like that resplendent destinies are easier to futz with in ex3 by all accounts

[bleak hazel]

Lunars and Sids are the most complementary exalts, I think, they work really well together

[fierce star]

sidereal astrology in general

[upper stratus]

elaborate on that

[bleak hazel]

they both have solid sneaky nonsense built in in various forms, so you never end up in the situation where the sneaky guy has to go off and sneak while everyone sits around playing Uno

Lunars have the raw power and extreme versatility, Sids have the oblique stuff that Lunars sometimes struggle with because a lot of their powers are "roll ability X really hard"

[fierce star]

the sidereal can just put on the maid outfit while the lunar eats a different maid turns into a mouse, etc.

like both splats very clearly have 'Everyone is capable of basic infiltration tactics' built into them

[bleak hazel]

one of our Lunars just killed an immaculate monk for his face and my Sid is going to ask her where she left the body because he wants to go collect a token from it for necromancy purposes

recycling

I imagine Sids and Alchs would go together similarly well, but Alchs are less sneaky

[fierce star]

they're less sneaky but it's also only like...

[bleak hazel]

Sids really appreciate being able to whistle up the Full Moon battering ram to take point on a job, the Full Moon really appreciates the Sidereal opening up Spider Google to ask "how many dragonbloods are currently in this throne room?"

[fierce star]

four or five charms at most to get a decent basic stealth suite on alchemicals?

which sounds like a lot for most splats but is 20 XP for alchs

[bleak hazel]

"how many miles away is Wyld Hunt X" sadly not applicable

assuming the Hunt is being at all sneaky

also there's the funny Ways of Exaltation combo move where Sids become more combat efficient while disguised as a Full Moon

but that's a tiny bit more niche

moonsilver alchemical also applicable

[fierce star]

nice

[bleak hazel]

WoE gives you (Anima) bonus dice on all moves using your disguise target's caste abilities/attributes

and Anima/2 on flat values

[limpid badge]

it is a cute idea and its also why the rule of training times that no one uses exists alas, alack, horror and woe

[bleak hazel]

yeah, training times smooth things out a lot

I've come to appreciate them a lot while playing a crafter, because it means everyone else has to slow down to my pace sometimes

[limpid badge]

getting your ass kicked so hard you start having to do months of cultivation to understand even the basics of how that guy kicked your ass? that rules.

[bleak hazel]

it's not "we have to wait two weeks for Misc to make sword", it's "oh, good, I can get my next Resistance charm and that one spell I liked the look of"

[limpid badge]

yeah~!!

training times and time skips are good in exalted

(its why my solar is 12, so i can make everyone feel Ways about exalts getting eternal youth when she starts actually aging)

[bleak hazel]

you know if it took months if you weren't a Sidereal I would be much happier, sadly it only takes a couple of weeks per charm

I suppose that's easy to adjust

the game I'm currently running is deebs and lunars anyway, so I have no need to look at Sidereal nonsense

[fierce star]

As a query, how're you balancing for mixed play, if at all? I know how I did it back in 2e but ex3 is obviously different

[bleak hazel]

well, the lunars are doing GM things, but I have to look at their book a lot

pure deeb PC game is fine

my Sids and Lunars game has proceeded fine with no houserule adjustments to inter-splat balance whatsoever, they're on a very similar tier

[bleak hazel]

this has made me imagine a Gold Faction sid who runs a martial arts sect in his primary Resplendent Destiny and has deliberately spread various rumours about his strange and esoteric styles since the Solars came back entirely to attract as many Solars with past-life information about what a Sid is as possible

probably not massively efficient as Gold Faction gambits go but I do like the idea of doing cultivation stuff in Exalted

every exalt student is sure the old wise sifu is secretly a Sidereal, actually the Sid is one of the assistants and just used Sword-Queen's Foretold Blade to resplendent destiny the boss as an Obviously Undercover Sid

[fierce star]

the Sid is the assistant who's always sweeping the courtyard

doesn't matter what time of day you check, he's always there, sweeping the dust away

[spring lynx]

the ra's al-ghul gambit

[bleak hazel]

local Sidereal has 2000 hours in Amazing Cultivation Simulator

has accomplished zero missions for the Bureau of Destiny in this time

[spring lynx]

https://tenor.com/view/rookie-numbers-gif-26135237

[prisma sun]

Hilarious if you have the same concept but it's a Bronze Faction who immediately kills someone if they prove to be a Solar

Venus flytrap dojo

[bleak hazel]

you can double this one up, actually

the venus flytrap dojo, one or two of the new students are Solars, one is a Gold Faction sidereal who has to infiltrate the place with good old regular spycraft because resplendent destinies won't cut it for other Sids without a little work

[tulip folio]

Gold Faction Sidereal dressing a guy up with Mundane Disguisecraft to make him look like a Sid, then putting him under a Resplendent Destiny with Sword-Queen's Foretold Blade to trick another Sid into thinking they're seeing through the Resplendent Destiny.

"Alright, lets gets you a Power Rangers protagonist outfit for colours..."

[bleak hazel]

SQFB is truly one of the charms of all time

I like the art it has

surprisingly usable to give yourself gear, actually - an imbued weapon is still an artifact sword, even if it's not quite as indestructible, and presumably imbuing robes would get you Silken Armour

[tulip folio]

I assume most Sids dress like power rangers civilian outfits. To avoid getting Venus' wrath for Clashing Colours when they show off.

[spring lynx]

dreamworks hong meiling over here

[spring lynx]

i don't think those are civvies

[tulip folio]

"Yes we know you're endings. All your outfits are purple."

[spring lynx]

i'm pretty sure that's like, their uniform

[bleak hazel]

the Sid in the sword art very much has an expression of "oh, come on, she'll figure out the Chosen One deal eventually"

[tulip folio]

It's not the Ranger Outfit so it's Civilian. Sorta like how the Ninja Storm rangers doing magic martial arts in non-ranger Ninja outfits were still Civilian Powers. XD

But fine XD

[spring lynx]

man, the 90s... sure were

[tulip folio]

This is 100% how I imagine Sids colour coordinate even when off the job.

[upper stratus]

sids immune to resplendent destinies. can't fool them

[spring lynx]

there's also only 100 sids, and most of them work for heaven, so it'd be pretty easy to cross-check

[bleak hazel]

I'm not actually sure they are

[bleak hazel]

they're immune to arcane fate, but I can't find anything in the resplendent destinies section that actually indicates they can automatically see through them

oh, it's not in the Blowing Your Cover section

never mind, fair enough

[tulip folio]

Yes, that's why you put your Fake Sid under a Resplendent Destiny, so the Real Sid thinks they've seen through to the sid underneath when it's a non-Sid under a Resplendent destiny.

[upper stratus]

it doesn't cause Cover checks which is what htat partis about

[tulip folio]

As a sid will know they can see through other sids resplendent destinies 😛

So if they saw through it, they must be seeing a sid underneath it!

[upper stratus]

🤯

[tulip folio]

That way you know that they think they know but in truth you knew they'd know and made it so knowing what they know means they don't actually know!

[bleak hazel]

SQFB is assisted significantly by the fact that A Sidereal is a valid resplendent destiny

you can make doubles, since Resplendent Destinies only need a vaguely plausible sketch of what the type of thing they're imitating is

summon one of the more human-looking demons, a neomah or something, and give them a fancy outfit

[tulip folio]

A Gold Faction sid + Solar would be a very funny disguise duo.

The solar can perfectly disguise as the sid so other sids see them as the sid and then the sid can put a resplendent destiny over them so humans see them as the sid's cover story.

[bleak hazel]

hang on, could you do this with Summon Ghost?

let me see if any of them can materialize

it would appear not

damn

another win for Sorcery there, I guess

you can give a skeleton the disguise but it won't be particularly convincing about it

[fierce star]

you know when you think about it every skeleton has a disguise already

[bleak hazel]

• the silver prince, probably

OK, Mortwrights can materialize, but they're void-touched and not particularly sensible

they do throw pretty large hands though, so if a mortal tries to jump your "double" they'll have a bad time

[upper stratus]

iif you're already into necromancy there should be occult charms to let you force materialize an oomfie

byea

[bleak hazel]

aha, wonderful

does only last one scene though

[upper stratus]

it is what it is

[bleak hazel]

good enough for short notice

I still think the bound neomah is probably the best play

they can materialize, they're roughly human-shaped, they will take orders well and they are not completely devoid of guile

[fierce star]

Neomah are also one of the demons that any decent sorcerer really should have one of on permanent retainer

a neomah, an agata, a perronelles, some stomach bottle beetles

a squad of blood apes

[bleak hazel]

are there 3e rules for perronelles yet?

I do like the sylph suit boys

[fierce star]

Iiii

know I had them on a character in a one-shot I wa sin once

checking hte sheet it was treated as light artifact armor

[tulip folio]

Oh right, that's a nice bonus I just realized with Machine Spirits over demons for Autobots.

[fierce star]

it imght have been a Gm ruling though, i'll look through the books

[tulip folio]

Machine Spirits don't have materialize.

They are materialized by default and have dematerialize

So they don't pay a tonne of motes to turn up

[bleak hazel]

actually with the new autobot shaping rituals I can do the build I have planned with sorcery instead of necromancy just fine

[fierce star]

They're not in core, and I don't have HDNP or the other book on access right now

[bleak hazel]

since there's now a "craft sorcerous focus" ritual for sorcery too

[bleak hazel]

not in HDNP or AOTR

[fierce star]

then yeah my GM must have made rulings on them at the time

[bleak hazel]

I did find a homebrew statblock, although it wasn't particularly clear on how "turn into armour" works

[tulip folio]

Though...I'll admit, I don't know if the machine spirits are actually good in a fight.

[bleak hazel]

meh, neither are most first circles, not on an Exalted level

a squad of blood apes are mean but they won't do much more than rough up a combat exalt

[fierce star]

They're a... roadblock.

Not there to win, just to give you enough tiem to make some shape sorcery actions

[bleak hazel]

and those have 11 dice to swing + Principle of Motion, which is absolutely spectacularly terrifying by mortal standards

11 dice to attack is "skilled mortal swordmaster" level, even assuming that's a base pool of 7 and Unarmed

[fierce star]

I should break out the roll of divinity: demons when I get home otmorrow and like, translate some of my favorite first circles to ex3

[tulip folio]

...yeah, it looks like machine spirits are a lot worse.

[bleak hazel]

Blood Apes are meat, and they're really happy to be meat, they love their jobs

[fierce star]

being fair blood apes are also the combat specialized first circles

[bleak hazel]

Tomescu aren't too shabby either, actually

[tulip folio]

Blood Apes are 11 dice with damage 15 and the best Machine Spirit is 10 dice with Damage 10.

[fierce star]

they're 12 dice to grapple, though

[tulip folio]

That's fair. They are better grapplers than Blood Apes

And do still have Principle of Motion

[fierce star]

like, madilom verses blood ape... I think that goes to if hte mandilom can get a grapple going early or not

especially with metal-rending maw

[bleak hazel]

Superheated Sealant Burst is actually quite mean if they can land it, in their role as tarpits

[tulip folio]

Yeah, I just read Metal-Rending Maw

So they're 8 dice but with an auto-success for nomming

[bleak hazel]

if someone's trying to fight through your machine spirit bodyguard and they land Sealant Burst then then's your time to jump on them

[fierce star]

yeah

[bleak hazel]

I like these guys, would summon

[fierce star]

I'd put them as equivalent to blood apes for the sorcerer's use, the only problem being that you have to like. Convince them to stay around.

since you can't bind machine spirits like you can demons.

[tulip folio]

Yeah, they have the advantage of 'Hahah, I won the fucking war, can't tell me to do shit' over most summoners

[bleak hazel]

the benefit of demons is that there's always more of them and they usually have some kind of move that really smarts

[fierce star]

on the gripping hand, you're probably an alchemical and at that point you can go like 'hey, i wouldn't summon you if I didn't need you, can you hep out for awhile, I'll feed you fun things to repair'

[bleak hazel]

a single anhule isn't going to do much to an Exalt but if it gets them in the thigh with Penalty 4 toxin while said Exalt is attempting to hold off an angry sorceror deeb it's another matter

[tulip folio]

...actulaly, getting jumped by a group of Madiloms could be real scary as Metal-Rending Maw doesn't require the target to be grappled by them.

So if one of them grabs you, the rest can pile on

[bleak hazel]

so the battlegroup rules technically forbid battlegroups from using charms

but I have never known a GM running squads of blood apes who cares about that one

[tulip folio]

...that does feel like the 'Might 4' of a Dragonblooded Battelgroup is so much worse than 'Has an Excellency and other charms' 😛

...actually, you know the thing that really makes machine spirits scary?

It's not really a combat trick.

But the fact if you piss off one of them they can get every other machine spirit in 1-2 miles to jump your ass

[fierce star]

summon a fix beetle, ask it to summon all it's buddies, there's THINGS TO REPAIR

[bleak hazel]

they're only might 3, which is even less impressive

there is effectively a rule that says "exalts do not go in battlegroups"

[next delta]

It's clearly a codification of the inverse power law of ninjas

[tulip folio]

Ah, like how one sid is a master planner but 200 of them are the dumbest fuckers you ever met 😛

[bleak hazel]

Tomescu can swing for 12 dice and are viable archers, although they don't hit anywhere near as hard as Blood Apes

they're good individual bodyguards, although I wouldn't try to train them as a squad because they don't actually like fighting very much

[coral wraith]

Tomescu do have the funny precognitive stuff

[bleak hazel]

they're great, love those guys

probably my favourite first circle

[coral wraith]

Have one around as your oracle by way of esoteric doomsayer

[tulip folio]

I do like Fix Beetles. They want to help.

But they're also very Autocthon in how they don't really get humans.

So if they see a Hurt Human, they'll try to Fix That Too

[coral wraith]

I'm actually conceptualising a Sidereal heavily non-combat sorcerer right now and I like the idea of them just having a menagerie of Dudes

[bleak hazel]

it is very possible to drill blood apes to be soldiers, and a squad of half a dozen blood apes with Average Drill and Might 2 swing for 14 dice to hit/18 dice of damage and have parry 6

they're not bad at all

[tulip folio]

'That human is dying already, might as well Strip Them For Parts to help the other humans' buzzsaw sounds, terrified human screaming
'Do not run humans, I brought you extra parts!'

[bleak hazel]

you still want their charms, ideally, but if you are actually good at War you can throw huge command actions on them

[tulip folio]

Yeah, I think that's a weakness with machine spirits. You can't really Train Them For War. As they're not really there for war and will quickly go 'This isn't my job, I need to go Do My Job'

[fierce star]

I feel like you could absolutely have some that are warriors

autokun's white blood cells and etc

(Osmosis Jones but a Machien Spirit, perhaps?)

[bleak hazel]

hmm, I may have been wrong, I think you can justify giving battlegroups of demons their magic powers

Principle of Motion blood apes very mean

(if you want real battlegroup-in-a-can powers do necromancy, skeletons are much weaker but they take a lot less work than summoning and training a platoon of bloodthirsty magic gorillas)

[tulip folio]

Yay, Skeletons

[bleak hazel]

really, you want a wave of skeletons and like... two tomescu

Big Bug Energy provides some scary attacks

[fierce star]

where are tomescu at in ex3?

[bleak hazel]

HDNP

[coral wraith]

Hundred Devils Night Parade

[fierce star]

ah hah, one of the books I only have at home

(this laptop is new and I have not organized the file dump from the old one)

[coral wraith]

- Terrestrial Circle Sorcery 
- Demon of the First Circle  
- Silent Words of Dreams and Nightmares (Control)
- Superior-Entreating Memorial Style
- Research Assistant Invocation (Divine Functionary, Flourishing Knowledge, Expeditious Study)
- Unweaving Method 
- Ascending Destiny Mien
- Never Cease Moving 
- Slick Essence Replenishment 
- Defence of Shining Joy
- Systematic Understanding of Everything 
- Of Truths Best Unspoken 
- Marvellous Inclusion of Details 
- Unwritten Words Revelation 
- Broken Silence Happenstance```

utility jones is taking shape

[bleak hazel]

there's also Sigereth, the second circle demon who loves playing games, who is a self-contained army because she can turn her Gateway pieces into an army of walking statues and then order them around with Double 8s

if your sorceror has War 5 to go with his sorcerous Int 5 you make a terrifying team

[fierce star]

Second circle demons are always a gamble becuase you have to hope another sorcerer hasn't grabbed them and you only get one shot a month

[bleak hazel]

because she caps all actions on the battlefield at Int+War instead of their normal skills, and if anyone pays 1i to break that rule she gets to zap them

this is a very cute way to use the battlegroup system, too

[tulip folio]

That's cute.

[bleak hazel]

in the "walking statue" statblock

[next delta]

That's a cool ability. But I don't think I'd want even more characters in a 3e fight lmao

[bleak hazel]

walking statues have literally one ability and it's "what if you swung real big"

if anything's going to be extra statblocks it's those

[tulip folio]

That seems pretty good for disrupting enemy movement.

[bleak hazel]

also very handy in general if you live in Autocthonia

[tulip folio]

Oh, that's just a Perfect Social Defence in 3e.

[velvet raft]

Ehehe

Which book is that from?

[tulip folio]

Adversaries of the Righteous

[velvet raft]

Oh yeah, I see it

[tulip folio]

Where is that 'divine blood' merit from? The one where you get an eclipse charm and some other stuff?

[velvet raft]

It shows up in Sidereals and in the Prasad section of Heirs of the Shogunate

Also, rereading it, it’s just the eclipse charm and access to other eclipse charms in the future

[tulip folio]

...huh, I read it as also 'You can get mutations as part of this merit'

[fierce star]

it also opens up accccess to mutations but you like, had that anwyay

most GMs would just let players with a sutiable backstory take mutations, is the thing?

[tulip folio]

nods
Had been pondering some sort of X-Blooded for that Sid I'm tinkering with.

But finding good E1 Eclipse charms is tricky

[velvet raft]

Me too, I didn't realize it until I reread

Looking at it, Undefeated Granite Warrior has three solid essence 1 eclipse charms that one could take as a start

[tulip folio]

Yeah, he's got some of the better ones.

[velvet raft]

There's a weirdly strong one in Heirs of the Shogunate

[tulip folio]

I'd been pondering the child of an Ifrit but that runs into 'No real charms that super work for that/the existing ifrit character does her ifrit-ness with a merit that has no dot value, rather than a cool charm'

[fierce star]

Hmm. Seafolk would be, what. Gills 3, Fins 2, Bioluminesence 0?

[velvet raft]

Likewise, the character I'm toying with is a fae-blood from somewhere in the South/East, and I can't find anything that's a good fit

Plus she has 21 dots of merits so dropping Divine Heritage seems like maybe the right call >_>

[tulip folio]

I suppose could see if the GM would accept grabbing the no-dot-value-merit instead of an Eclipse Charm.

[velvet raft]

It helps if the character is for an actual game, yeah

:D

[tulip folio]

IT's very powerful but also very limited as a merit.

New Merit: Born of Flame
A character with this Merit is immune to fire- and heat-based environmental hazards. Automatically reduce withering attacks from such sources to minimum damage. Decisive attacks from such sources only deal bashing damage and can’t fill Za-Ishat’s Incapacitated health level.

'Are they attacking me with a Fire Piece? No? Okay.'

[velvet raft]

Yeah, if you're fighting A Fire Person that's huge

Otherwise not so much

[tulip folio]

'Hahahah, fear my Fire Dragon Martial Arts Anathema...stop being excited about it!'

[coral wraith]

How?

[bleak hazel]

adversaries has some very good ones

[velvet raft]

11 bonus points spent on merits

[coral wraith]

lmao

excellent

[velvet raft]

XD

[tulip folio]

That's just a cool passive. Like, I like that passive better than the passives on a lot of artifacts that get full stat-ups.

[velvet raft]

Fun fact: if you want to actually tie the written backstory of the Heaven and Earth Gauntlets in to a character rather than refluffing them, you have to start thinking about the Sidereal Violet Pearl, who has been around since before the Usurpation and so is probably a three dot mentor

[tulip folio]

Hey an Eclipse charm and a pretty cool one. Shame about the High Essence but I guess it does give you 'do whatever the fuck you want with enviromental fire'

[velvet raft]

There's some good fire stuff, it's just all like Essence 3-4 ;_;

[tulip folio]

I might see if I can get Born of Flame as the 'thing you get from Divine Blood'

Instead of a charm

and then like...pick up command the flames at e3

[velvet raft]

I think there's also a good fire eclipse charm from the garda bird?

[fierce star]

A man after my own heart

15 bp? nah, 15 merit dots

especially for merits you can't eaisly buy with xp

a habit from my oWoD days I find very hard to break--never spend BP on stuff you can spend XP on

[bleak hazel]

I have the opposite thing, all my BP invariably end up going on abilities, especially non-favoured stuff

I can get merits later, and a big stack of abilities is very efficient at chargen

(at least most of them)

[tulip folio]

The Eclipse one.

[velvet raft]

... ah, yeah

[tulip folio]

The 'you don't get the main effect of the charm' sorta makes it a very limited eclipse

[velvet raft]

Yeeeeeah

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E6_FjrM9JeQiVtmj2hSqN6JyJpCGbdZLNX12elvdRUk/edit?gid=0#gid=0 This has, afaict, all published eclipse charms listed btw

Not all of them have summaries

[fierce star]

hell yeah

the only reason my alchemical only has like... 8 BP spent on more merit dots is submodules cost BP

[velvet raft]

Clearly since I'm not finding good stuff for Divine Heritage I should take some other ridiculous thing tho

[fierce star]

buy a warstrider

(that's mostly a shitpost)

why not just a suite of mutations?

[velvet raft]

Not sure what would be fitting, really

[bleak hazel]

what 5-dot did your GM let you bring at chargen?

[velvet raft]

Again, this is wholly speculative, not for an actual game, but Unison was the idea

[bleak hazel]

ah, nice

one of the neater ones

most of the weapons are "YOU DIE (x5000)" but the armours are all interesting

[velvet raft]

The idea is that this young woman's mother was a Raksha who committed to the bit and lived out an entire mortal life as her mom

And then after the kid Exalted, the raksha self decided she was interested again

And showed her a path through the bordermarches to the manse where Unison is resting

[fierce star]

there's further mutations in lunars, don't forget: frightening voice/musical voice/pheromones would all be raksha-appropriate, I feel like

nothing much in core jumps out at me

[velvet raft]

Yeah

clearly I should just take Giant because it's funny

[tulip folio]

I wonder what mutations would fit someone Ifrit-Blooded

Most of them seem more 'animal' than 'elemental'

[fierce star]

thermal vision?

[velvet raft]

I'm sorry what

[tulip folio]

Giant on a Sideral 😛

'Look at this entirely normal massive fucking person'

[tulip folio]

Oh, mice of the sun. Where are they?

[velvet raft]

Hundred Devils Night Parade

[tulip folio]

Ah, not one of the books I have. I should get that.

[velvet raft]

I have a thing for spies who are not especially hiding that they're spies, so ... works for me

[lunar magnet]

One Piece coded.

[tulip folio]

'I'm an exalt from the west, I know Seatongue and am Giant'

'I do not know how to wear a jacket normally'

[velvet raft]

Oh, HDNP has a second circle demon with a whole bunch of Eclipse charms at every essence level

The Thirteen Efficacious Dances, which are all about fucking up earth and stone

(Not all of the dances are eclipse charms)

(But a bunch of them are)

[tulip folio]

That's cool

Could look into those and replace 'Ifrit blooded' with 'Mountain Folk Blooded'

[fierce star]

ah yes, The Elves, But Also Dwarves

[tulip folio]

I'm not sure we've ever heard of mountain folk blooded but they're Fae But Also Elementals

And both Fae and Elementals can have kids with humans

...how bad would it be for a Sid to have a lot of penalty to 'being disguised'?

As pondering Unusual Hide if I went with the Mountain Folk Blooded

For that 'Look, my skin is Literally Jade'

But well, that comes with:

Drawback: The character obviously looks like a Wyld mutant, with all the stigma that accompanies such status, and suffers a penalty equal to her rating in this Merit on all disguise rolls to pass for normal.

Also: Man, I'd forgotten just how much of a Dick Move the Solars did with the Mountain Folk

"Hey, how do you guys gain limit?"
"If we try to express autonomy or refuse to be the slaves of Exalts."

[prisma sun]

So actual Norse dwarves

[tulip folio]

I said it a couple of days ago but Mountain Folk are ironically more Fey than Exalted's Fey.

Who are much more 'Modern Urban Fantasy Stuff/Neil Gaiman Nature Of Story Rambling'

While the Mountain Folk are 'Forced Underground By Humans, Makers of Wonder'

If you had to enter their homes via a Barrow, they'd be Basicly Sidhe 😛

Exalted's Fey are...not really much Fey at all beyond 'I dunno, they don't like Iron?'

[bleak hazel]

murdering deebs: officially not as bad as murdering solars

[tulip folio]

I mean, it's not like you killed a real exalt.

(This was done for 2e, which tended to have a bit of a bad case of that at times)

[bleak hazel]

I remember something along the lines of "the gods of yu-shan prefer mortals to Terrestrials, bceause at least a mortal could theoretically exalt as a Solar"

no idea how much of that was actual lore and how much was fandom intertalk, though

[tulip folio]

That was an actual part of the book, yep!

This was back when every god hated the sids and hated the realm

Because they didn't have the Mandate of Heaven.

Well, Creation-Ruling Mandate

Same difference

But yeah, now I'm pondering how much it would mess up a Sid if they had a high level of Unusual Hide.

As that would give them a hefty penalty to Disguising

Or do sids have a charm to help get around 'hey, you look kinda odd'

[bleak hazel]

unsure

my sids are a lot of things but rarely big Stealth tree enjoyers

[bleak hazel]

the Sids got one hell of a glow up in their social status in 3e, including my favourite plot hook

running cop show intrigue in yu-shan while arguing about who was portrayed least accurately in the latest episode

[tulip folio]

Journeys Sid: "All the sids in these novels do is have passionate relationship drama, that's not fair!"
Serenity Sid: "...wait, you're not?"

[bleak hazel]

Vigil the detective sid is an avid reader

he insists he's less paranoid than the book insists and all his friends insist he's wrong

[velvet raft]

"Surely, there must be someone in Yu Shan who doesn't already assume this about us!"

[tulip folio]

One of the thing sids have issues with is 'getting good soak', right?

Staring at that +rating soak from unusual hide as I continue to ponder it. XD

[fierce star]

'literal jade skin' does soundf un

and I mean back in ex2 I had few issues disguising gills + fins + blue skin + shark teeth

[tulip folio]

I suppose worst come to worst I just apend 'Godblooded' before any disguise like I'm playing Exalted Scribblenaughts.

My Resplendent Destiny is a Soldier...Writes down Sorry, a Godblooded Soldier.

[velvet raft]

If you've got the merit points to throw around, there's also a sid hearthstone that reduces the weight class of any suit of armor by 1

Including light being treated as none

[tulip folio]

Oh, true. This was just me pondering if going with the high unusual hide would be useful and I think I'm coming to the conclusion of 'Mate, you're asking if getting 5 extra soak for no motes is good. Of course it fucking is'

[velvet raft]

But yeah hide is strong

[tulip folio]

Oh wow, Sid Ox Body doesn't give many ranks.

But I guess they are +0 levels

[velvet raft]

A solar needs stamina 5 to get those

[tulip folio]

Hmm...Sid Resistance doesn't give a lot of actual 'be tougher'

[bleak hazel]

Brawl has good tonk

Presence 2 has a soak charm

but it scales off Charisma so it's a bit odd

Sids are squishy bastards in general

[tulip folio]

Ah, so resistance isn't really the resistance one. It's more the 'Feats of Strength' one. XD

[bleak hazel]

it also has social moves, for when you want to be Sid Lenin

Hide is very strong, it takes your standard issue soak while doing martial arts up to 10 (Hide + Light Artifact) + stamina

which is Actually Worth A Damn

[tulip folio]

nods

My pondering is:

Mountain Folk Blooded Chosen of Endings

Feels really awkward about it because Mountain Folk are *not part of the cycle of reincarnation* and that's part of their job right now.

[velvet raft]

I will say that with Divine Heritage as a mountain folk blooded, you could justify those charms from that one stubborn guy

One of which is a soak/hardness charm

[tulip folio]

Fair!

Though would require getting Really Good Stamina, though that's Far From Impossible.

...actually...

How silly would it be for a High App sid to get 'Can punch with strength instead of dex' from battles and 'can dodge with appearance instead of dex' from performance?

And be a mediocre dex sid

[fierce star]

I am a firm believer that stat swaps are good actually

there's a reason my alch has like

eight of them

[tulip folio]

Adjusts Character

...I'm realizing I've gotten so many favored things from Serenity it's almost worth a swap of caste. XD

Serenity Abilities +

Brawl
Athletics
Awareness
Integrity
Bureaucracy

...yeah, that works pretty well. It's basicly a trade of 'Don't have medicine, do have linguistics'

Strength: 5
Dex: 1
Stamina: 5

Awareness: 4
Int: 1
Wits 2

Charisma: 3
Manipulation: 1
Appearance 5

A bit on the 'taking 1s and 5s is good for exp' front but I think this should work for her statline.

[bleak hazel]

Zero Brain Sidereal

All Work No Crosswords

[wise ocean]

appearance 5
int 1
wits 2

iki, did you just make valley girl sid

[tulip folio]

Possibly! Though I'm pondering moving back to Endings from Serenity as I checked out the craft tree.

And Saturn's element is Earth

So it would likely be Most Fitting for a Mountain Folk-Blooded Sid, as elemental vision is all about working the associated element

[fierce star]

also thanks to iki i'm now pondering making a sidereal for a lark

and I've landed ont he idea of a secrets sid who's an irreverant flirt and gossipmonger who's greatest joy in life in sitting in a bar and hearing all the juicy gossip, then seducing people who have juicier gossip by using the knowledge they gained in the first tier of gossipmongering, then laddering up until they get chased out of town.

[tulip folio]

Ah, the classic sid role of: Professional Shitstirrer

[fierce star]

It is a time honored profession

[tulip folio]

Also: Do you think it's too silly to have a geography/geology focused endings sid? Someone who writes less about 'and then bob fucking died' and more 'And then this tower collapsed/this this geographical feature was wiped off the map by Fucking Godzilla.'

They're still endings but they're not like death endings

[dense verge]

that is entirely on-theme

[bleak hazel]

get craft, do geomancy

nobody does geomancy, my squad in Abyssalgame were surprised I even took it

[tulip folio]

"Oh man, I don't like how that wall looks. It's likely to fall in on itself." Gives -2 TN to attempts to ruin it

[tulip folio]

I do have craft! I was looking at initially a craft to cover jewlery making but geomancy also works and the houserule the GM I play with uses means you only need to buy craft once and take speciality crafts as just like...Specs. So you''ll have Craft 3 (Weapons, Geomancy +1) or such.

I'd need Lore 3 and Occult 3 to get the ablity to make Geomantic stuff.

But tht's not unfeasible

Here is a very silly question: is there anything that says that the stat uses with craft is always intelligence? I can't find it in the corebook/wondering if I could craft with like...strength, by being a Strong Blacksmith or Wits for having an Intuitive Understanding of the stuff?

It just says 'Attribute + Craft' in the corebook

[bleak hazel]

it says in the Sid book that Craft can be rolled with many attributes

but an explicit list would be handy

[tulip folio]

Cool, so I can have the 'oh god, that's not a good int' crafter Sid 😛

[bleak hazel]

I'd hope so, it would make my life a lot easier with my current Sid

although really there I'd rather be able to dump charisma

unfortunately Sid Craft is big on talk good

[fierce star]

Defining Principle: Every secret I know is power I have over someone else. It odens't matter if the secret is true or not.
Defining Principle: Be polite, be efficient, have a plan to seduce everyone you meet.

Perhaps I shouldn't be allowed to play exalted 🤔

[tulip folio]

You should not 😛

[fierce star]

Entirely understandable I take my leave of the hobby, I shall take a vow of silence and retire to the mountains to meditate on my failures

[bleak hazel]

god, if my Sid could craft with Manipulation instead of Charisma all would be truly right in the world, I could get all those great Lore charms

I suppose an artifact based on tricking reality into giving me wonders that changes all the craft charms to Manipulation would be very funny

three dot craft equipment, Celestial Lockpicking Kit

[tulip folio]

Okay so this Sid has...15 soak (Unusual Hide 5 + Light Artifact Armour + 5 Stamina), with the ability to double her stamina bonus to soak for a turn for 4 motes. That is a Profoundly Tanky Sid, as I understand it.

[bleak hazel]

that is extremely good for a starter Sidereal, yes

mine has 3

(although I haven't got silken armour yet so it's really 8 with the same gear)

[tulip folio]

Oh good, operation 'You literally punched a person with Jade Skin, what did you expect to happen' is a go.

[bleak hazel]

(then there's Lunars, for whom soak 17 is entry level, but what did you expect, they turn into giant armadillos)

[tulip folio]

Could take Sorcery with Invulnerable Skin of Bronze as her control spell for 'More tonk'

[bleak hazel]

sadly that does turn off martial arts or I would be mainlining that delicious sorc

[tulip folio]

Right...I'd still get +essence to soak but that feels like a waste if there's no actual spell as part of it that can be used. XD

[bleak hazel]

where are you getting that from?

[bleak hazel]

I... did not realize it did that

hmm

unusually suntanned sidereal could use three more soak, yes

[tulip folio]

Hahah

[bleak hazel]

bonus points for going prismatic and eventually reaching this move

which makes that +6 soak

[tulip folio]

notes for this character
'How are you a sorcerer, you're int 1-2'
'You're assuming I actually cast spells'

[bleak hazel]

(it also does many other things)

you can still do rituals, so First Circle Demon is a go as long as you can manage the binding rolls

as well as regular spells that simply aren't time-sensitive

[tulip folio]

Yep

'I'm going to invite a demon around to tea'

[bleak hazel]

Agatae and Blood Apes are Resolve 3, with occult 5 and a full excellency you're still rolling 9 dice succeeding on 5s

so you've very probably still got that

[tulip folio]

Also: Am I mistaken about the social system or is this Very Potent?

It looks like an old Perfect Social Defence

[bleak hazel]

it's pretty good, yeah

[tulip folio]

But you know, in 3e

[bleak hazel]

doesn't work on Instills, which put intimacies on you rather than persuade you to do things, but it's rock solid, yeah

good to combo with Dream-Sacrificing Maneuver, because whenever they try to persuade you by leveraging one of your intimacies you can hit the NO button and then blow said intimacy up to stop them ever using it again

[tulip folio]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmLAj9iIfQk&ab_channel=zimperliese 100% my mental image of Undefeated Granite Warrior as a character

...I think this makes Undefeated Granite Warrior (And anyone borrowing his Eclipse Charms) the only one who can be so surly that even Alch precence charms don't work on him.

'You can't invoke grumpy intimacies to resist this'

'Yes but I have levels of grumpiness which go beyond mere intimacies'

[bleak hazel]

bear in mind you can already spend willpower to resist instill or inspire actions

but you have to cite relevant intimacies to spend willpower to resist Persuade

so really this is "spend 6 motes to skip the intimacy section, I always have a defining intimacy of Shut Up available 1/scene"

[tulip folio]

Makes sense

Which seems pretty handy for dealing with silver tongued people who try to play around your intimacies

[tulip folio]

Iki: "Well, in this Alch game we shouldn't have to worry about other exalt types."
The GM introducing an NPC:

[fierce star]

I'm sure he's just a particularly long-lived godblooded

[prisma sun]

 The second was a more experienced warrior-nomad of the South-East, who Drifts challenged to a duel near the Yawning Chasm of Zhurok. Which he shoved her into. 

The third was perhaps his greatest accomplishment, having orchestrated Yao Yeng the Sword-Saint's demise by tricking him into a cataclysmic duel with the Pale Wind of Demise, an Abyssal Exalt of great renown. 

Of course the sight of the greatest clash of swords in generations would have to be the Sky-Piercing Tower of Toth. Marble can be quite slippery in the rain, after all.```

This isn't hard canon but the idea of this is exceptionally funny to me

[fierce star]

lmao

at both

[tulip folio]

Hahaha

This sid is too genre savvy. He knows Falling Damage is the greatest threat in the world

[prisma sun]

Drifts at the smallest inconvenience:

https://tenor.com/view/shishiro-botan-throws-omaru-polka-push-off-cliff-yeets-gif-25058803

[fierce star]

"Drifts I have a problem" "Have you thrown it off a cliff yet?"

[dense verge]

needs to rotate cliffs otherwise the pile starts breaking falls

[bleak hazel]

His Wyld Hunt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMdzfg7EAvA

[tulip folio]

'By Gravity'

[prisma sun]

He is, surprisingly, a Journeys Sid

[fierce star]

no, no, that makes sense

cliffs are a very journies thing

and he's sendign people on a trip!

[prisma sun]

"The final journey we often make is straight down!"

Okay fuck hold on

fuck

Use the martial arts that lets you pose as an Exalt

pose as a solar

use Charcoal to step on strings

convince young exalt hero that this is something all Solars can do if they just try

[tulip folio]

Hahahahah

[bleak hazel]

this Invulnerable Skin of Bronze control effect might actually enable me to make Energizer Bunny Sidereal a real build

at E3 he can have a respectable 15 soak

[fierce star]

15 soak ain't bad

[bleak hazel]

also free combat excellencies forever

(well, 2 motes to truly max parry from its resting position of 1 below max, but who's counting)

so he's quite hard to tag

[prisma sun]

But yeah I think Drifts holds no strong restraints about killing someone if Fate decrees it

He's humble to a fault to the point where he is happy to let Destiny essentially dictate his morality

[tulip folio]

Are there any martial arts that are Notably About Durability?

I'm sure there's some that go full on 'Reinforcing my skin with Qi, making it tough'

[prisma sun]

https://i.imgur.com/mzZ2C4H.png

building an inspiration board for Drifts

[bleak hazel]

Toad Style (is immensely strong, etc. etc.)

also Earth Dragon but Earth Dragon is more "I am wearing approximately five mountains' worth of jade, just try it"

[prisma sun]

I think I may get Black Claw style for Drifts if only for the first Charm

because there is nothing funnier than "HEY MAN WHOA I'M JUST A LITTLE GUY, WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING A LITTLE GUY"

[tulip folio]

'Why are you attacking this innocent man because you fell of a cliff?'

[tulip folio]

Is toad style 'a problem' level of strong? Or just good at what it does?

[prisma sun]

There's a Toad Style?

[bleak hazel]

no, no, I'm quoting the film that inspired half the Exalted animal styles

Five Deadly Venoms

and also a wu-tang track which heavily sampled said film

I have no idea how powerful exalted's Toad Style is but I would assume pretty normal

[dense verge]

yep! lives in Fangs at the Gate, and is just Toad Style from Five Deadly Venoms with actual venoms

er, Many Faced Strangers

[bleak hazel]

Snake Style also gives you very solid soak but only if you have Big Dex, which you very definitely don't

[dense verge]

not the core lunar

got those titles mixed up

[tulip folio]

...now I'm pondering how you'd do up the Iconic Artifact of the Mountain Folk in 3e.

Skirmish Pikes.

Which were basicly 'Taser Pikes'.

They could shoot bolts of electricty and you could charge the tip to stun people they hurt.

They've got the issue that they were like...a Definitionally Mass Production Artifact. Their Thing was basicly 'this is the single least investiment artifact weapon we have invented, so we can make a lot of them'.

Which doesn't really work for 3e, where each artifact weapon is unique.

[dense verge]

oh yeah the capstone Toad Style move gives sids a fun button

[tulip folio]

Oh wow, a Perfect Soak. That's rare in 3e

[dense verge]

Toad style is immensely strong
and immune to nearly any weapon
When it's properly used, it's almost invincible

unfortunately cant get a clean shot of the whole charm bc formatting

[tulip folio]

It also involves a lot of poison, reading over it.

[dense verge]

soak and poison live in toad style

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/toad-man-kung-fu-hustle-ashton-gif-19988086

but can you do this

[bleak hazel]

yes, that is in fact a second move in toad style

[prisma sun]

FUCK YESS

[bleak hazel]

toad style is very syncretic

many toads were involved in the making of this style

[tulip folio]

I'm not sure if it's good but Trouble the Still Pond looks hillarious.

[prisma sun]

It's good if you're stackin Soak

[bleak hazel]

it's a reasonably large bonk

[prisma sun]

The Earth Deeb hitting you with

https://tenor.com/view/potemkin-potemkin-noel-potemkin-heavenly-buster-hololive-heavenly-buster-gif-22463954

[tulip folio]

My Sid is looking to be passive soak...17 by the time she gets there

So if she has any bonuses from charms, she could hit that cap of 20

[dense verge]

my secrets sid, who is made of paper, has a dragonblood retainer who knows toad style

her job is to get smacked so she doesn't have to

[bleak hazel]

20 withering damage is above average but not massive massive considering how hard most people can slam at that point with artifact weapons

Toad Style is incompatible with weapons, so it helps make up for that

if you're an Endings sidereal, you add Essence to your overwhelming when at bonfire anima, so this can get really quite large

[prisma sun]

Hey Misc how quickly does a Melee Dawn kill a Lesser Elemental Dragon?

[tulip folio]

Fair! Still seems very fun to do, as it comes with some bonus movement along the way and well...yeah, as you said, no weapons.

[bleak hazel]

depends on the Dawn, if it's Volfer I'm pretty sure that the derg picks him up and eats him for breakfast

if it's a hyper-optimized Invincible Sword Princess.... not sure, probably longer than one round but I think she's still got it

optimized dawn action economy is basically limited by the size of their mote pool and nothing else, they skip the initiative order with Thunderbolt Attack Prana and swing until they run out

for an E1 solar this probably takes ages, but the dragon can't get more than 14 dice on any of its attacks so it's very unlikely to actually hurt the Dawn while they sit there and slowly chip it to death

a high Essence solar can just ora ora ora until the dragon dies on round 1 tick 1, no problem

[prisma sun]

The Dragon can get 22-24

https://i.imgur.com/C0ZD4kU.png

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah, I missed that one

never mind it will definitely eat Volfer

or most lower essence dawns

optimized Dawns just have a strong ability to not care about any combat ability still measured with actual numbers

[prisma sun]

Fair enough

[bleak hazel]

running enough whiteroom fights to actually see what it takes to kill an Elder Solar is very boring so I've only seen it done once, but said Solar (who was simplified slightly to Every Stat At 5, Every Charm) killed two hearths of 3 deebs in a row and then got bopped on the head by the third

you have to spread the fights out because part of Invincible Sword Princess standard doctrine is buffing up Heaven Sword Flash or Invincible Fury of the Dawn to the point they basically kill anything within several range bands, so you need to threaten the solar enough to make her use the mega combo and then deprive her of targets so she has to stop doing the spin attack before you send in the next wave

basically if you see a solar begin to rotate at increasing speed, run away

[tulip folio]

So the best way to handle Invincible Sword Princess is to have people repeatedly just Leave The Fight and go elsewhere to ambush her again?

[bleak hazel]

oh no those people are going to die

aforementioned "infinite attack string launched at round 1 tick 1 regardless of join battle result"

[tulip folio]

Right, so you can't even 'I wasn't here' sid charm away

brb, getting a lot of people to all learn that 'when I die, I explode into a necromantic black hole' so they can all jump the solar and have a chance to murder her when they die 😛

[bleak hazel]

and the reason for launching the ambush is to force her to go nova and do a bunch of expensive attacks to kill your deebs before they can attempt to wear her down with numbers, taking a large chunk of her mote pool

so you can't just ambush and then leave

there are ways to do this smartly, but a lot of them amount to "equip your deebs so that they will be more expensive to kill/get teleported out when incapacitated so you can maybe save them"

[wise ocean]

what if you just shoot invincible sword princess with siege weapons

[bleak hazel]

if they're small enough to register as normal attacks, Hail-Shattering Practice

if they're ambushes, or large enough to be uncountable damage, Heavenly Guardian Defence

neither burn more than 3-5 motes

Solars are very big

[tulip folio]

What if we put the Dragonblooded in Mechs?

[bleak hazel]

-4 penalty to hit small things, she barely has to try to parry them

but they will take longer to kill, and probably have some big boy evocations

[tulip folio]

Solars are evidently very big and very small 😛

shakes fist at them

[bleak hazel]

they have all the benefits and none of the drawbacks of being One Guy

[wise ocean]

hm

• pin solar down with mechs
• shoot her with siege weapons
• eventually she runs out of motes
• takes ballista bolt to the chest, Fucking Dies

does this work

[bleak hazel]

the Usurpation is actually very rules-as-written here because one of the few things they can't counter without doing some fairly complicated stuff is Sid Prophecy

[wise ocean]

presumably the mechs are hard to kill and she can't reach the siege weapons while being pinned down with mechs, allowing Mote Drain to occur

[tulip folio]

I think the question is sorta 'how do you pin down'.

[bleak hazel]

so "layer so many goddamn Endings prophecies on top of them that they can probably feel the universe trying to make them roll over dead even with Occult 0, then send in the deebs" is actually a very reasonable strat

save the Sidereal assassins for non-Dawns, which they compare very reasonably against

very very few solars, in-universe, are the Invincible Sword Princess

[tulip folio]

Hey, I found a solution to her.

[bleak hazel]

the comic Uber is very straightforward about this solution to fascist demigods

[tulip folio]

The GM delivers an undodgble 'hey, stop that' to the player 😛

[wise ocean]

uber reference 🤝

[tulip folio]

Even she can't dodge the GM 😛

[bleak hazel]

you can also probably talk her out of most things

only Sids get to use their old 2e perfect defence on social influence

[tulip folio]

I guess it depends how much of an MDV: Fist murderhobo she is.

As it's hard to talk faster than tick 1 stabbing

[bleak hazel]

the OG, not-perfectly-optimized-but-definitely-close-enough Invincible Sword Princess is actually very sociable

[wise ocean]

isp, have you considered not killing all of us?

[long pause] you know that's actually a very fair point

[bleak hazel]

I genuinely quite like the character of Shining Topaz, lady who has hyperfixated on swords for her entire life

she also has Resolve 4 Guile 2, she is not hard to read

[next delta]

Oh, so the problem with First Age Solars is that had all lived long enough to invest a lot into integrity

[bleak hazel]

whoops that's way too much of a textwall

[wise ocean]

I was halfway through reading it 😔

[bleak hazel]

the OG topaz, taken from the forum thread

I like her, she has an actual motivation

and it's "learn all the sword styles in existence, even the ones that are objectively way worse than Solar Melee"

she's not the Invincible Daiklaive Princess, after all

[next delta]

Awkward timing to exalt

[bleak hazel]

it usually is, you don't become an Exalt while engaging in low pressure, easily dropped activities

[tulip folio]

Father: 'No, no. That's still my daughter. I don't believe a demon could have sword autism of that degree'

[bleak hazel]

she's adorable, she can also solo every NPC in the core book one after the other with no breaks

I return to Topaz whenever a solar annoys me enough that I have to go remember that a disgustingly overoptimized character can still be a really good character

she also worships Five-Metal Tang, God of Swords, a character who exists and has stats in the Sid book and that you could convince to go down and have a chat with her without too much difficulty

[tulip folio]

I still would like an errata that made Dawns less...that, no matter how cute she is. XD

[bleak hazel]

you wouldn't nerf that surly face, would you?

(yeah, probably a good idea)

there are maybe three or four charms that are truly bullshit and then another three that need to have some of their combo potential toned down so they don't let you chain infinite attacks quite so easily

there's an intended psuedo-infinite spin attack at E5 in Solar Melee and nobody uses it because chaining a long series of E1-3 moves together with Peony Blossom Technique is way more efficient

(Topaz, by the way, not mine, just a character who caught on enough that she was used for a couple of years straight as the Optimized Dawn Benchmark)

[bleak hazel]

and yes, this is pretty much the core issue, Solar Athletics is sufficiently stronk that you can zoom into melee from extreme range quite plausibly

Topaz is mean, Topaz is a far cry from the kind of heavily geared up Elder Solars that the Usurpers had to deal with

[fierce star]

Assuming they're not a brawl solar how's grappling do?

[bleak hazel]

very strong

of the sane combat exalts, Lunars are especially good at it, since they can brawl just fine in hippo form and being suplexed by a hippo really hurts

Sids, despite their abundance of martial arts, tend to avoid clinches

not sure if this is an actual statistical inclination or just how it's worked out

[fierce star]

I had a water db back in ex2 that used terrestrial hero+ five dragon + first pulse and she managed to grapple a couple anathema to death, so it was my go to West to deal with them for a bit lol

[bleak hazel]

oh, grappling ISP doesn't do a huge amount, because she can Heavenly Guardian Defence away attempts at a grapple

once you've mote tapped her, everyone charging in, knocking her over and stomping her into the floor works great, though

Deebs make heavy use of grapples and smashing attacks against scarier opponents because Savaging auto-hits from grapples and accuracy penalties from being Prone or standing up evens out the dice pool gap a great deal

and most Solars can't actually spam HGD all day

[fierce star]

Isp now means introduction to the stone prince

[bleak hazel]

deeb teamwork is super interesting this edition, they really want to get into the cracks of that combat system and use all of it

Solars fight by shoving all their incredibly powerful charms into things and watching them explode, Lunars fight by layering a strong but comparatively basic moveset on top of terrifying warforms and massive raw stats, Sids fight by putting together this intricate machine of interlocking combos designed to steadily lead the fight to a particular situation where they utterly dominate and Deebs fight by scrabbling for every possible advantage, planning it out and then going in with two to four friends so that someone is going to get that bastard in the back of the knee

honestly, very evocative

[tulip folio]

Shining Nephrite was born under odd stars. Among other things, one of her mothers cannot give birth to anything save stonework. The child of a Dragonblooded sorcerer and an Artisan of the Mountain Folk that dwell deep beneath the imperial manse, she was formed for her mothers by Neomah hands under the sign of the Peacock.

Nephreite's early life was difficult, to say the least. Her nature as not-entirely-human made her insulting to the Immaculate Philosophy and one cannot escape it when born on the Blessed Isle. Her dragonblooded mother, Mnemon Meng, helped salve concerns with a mixture of political pressure and quiet implication that the jade-skinned girl had impeccable earth breeding and would one day prove to be a powerful asset for her family.

However, as she grew, her mothers became more and more worried about her. She saw spiders in the corner of her room and strange connections formed before her eyes. Her Mountain Folk mother worried, becoming depressed that her nature might have made her daughter vulnerable to the madness of the Void Seers. Nephrite was often reduced to tears, flinching in fear from spiders that only she could see or running screaming about a death that she thought was coming.

And then, one day, she went weeping for her Dragonblooded mother and found she was a stranger to the woman. Everything broke around her and she lashed out, smashing one of the spiders around her to the ground and into visibility. Her mountain folk mother's eyes widened...these were spiders she knew. Creations of the Great Maker.

By the time the Bureau of Destiny came for her, they found a furious artisan shouting that the Great Geas can allow them to extort *some* creations from her people but her daughter is beyond even that. She would give them a host of artifacts if they would simply renounce their claim on her daughter.

The remorseful monk told her that no matter how much they would like to accept that, they could not. This was her destiny.

How's this seem for a Moutain Folk Blooded Sid backstory?

[wise ocean]

[tulip folio]

Somewhere there is a sid that has an entirely happy, non-traumatic first encounter with Arcane Fate but it isn't this one!

[fierce star]

Exalted character not having a traumatic backstory challenge level impossible

[upper stratus]

mine :)

[tulip folio]

Weirdo 😛

[upper stratus]

(in actually it was rather traumatic but it just gaslit itself into believing it was awesome)

[tulip folio]

Hahah. I hope the backstory reads okay, drew on a couple of books but some of them are 2e books.

[upper stratus]

my one note on it is that the ending seems to imply that the bureau forced the sid to come along but they like don't really do that anymore. they give you an invite and if you refuse they just go like 'oh okay well gimme a shout if you change your mind'

[tulip folio]

Fair, the intent was more about 'They can't undo the exaltation, like it or not, she's a sid now'.

But that's fair! Man, they really un-bastarded the sids a lot in 3e 😛

[upper stratus]

it's not even about being bastards they just realized that press ganging demigods into service means the demigod is, at the very best, gonna go along until they get sick nasty enough to stab you in the back

it's not conducive to a healthy working environment

[coral wraith]

Okay, first Exalted blorbo done mechanically, just need to do Intimacies later ("playing" with a houserule that means you don't need linguistics to be literate)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WU3rc2v-TXGoONMYthvGquX-6moJCZXwa3ntMrFHnXk/edit?usp=sharing

[tulip folio]

Oh yeah, just 2e had a tendency of going 'The sids are going to make the Most Dickhead decision possible, when presented with options'. Part of the general '2e really hates non-solars/thinks they're Illegitimate'

[upper stratus]

turns out the crushing loneliness of arcane fate is enough to encourage people to join a group of people who go through the same suffering as you

[coral wraith]

2e is just written like shit yeah

[upper stratus]

it's also really funny that they called em ronin. weeb more weebbook

now? "prodigal stars". beautiful

[tulip folio]

A minor thing of note: You won't be able to Sid Martial Arts in Medium Armour.

[coral wraith]

no martial arts for me. all sorcery

[tulip folio]

Fair, just worth mentioning due to 'Sid'

[coral wraith]

that spec is for use with ISOB basically

[coral wraith]

that's fair

[upper stratus]

actually

once you hit essence 3 and wanna get into any sid martial arts afterall

you still benefit from it being your control spell

just stop casting it and drink in that unarmored soak

[coral wraith]

oh true

[upper stratus]

yummers

[coral wraith]

https://tenor.com/view/man-running-out-of-restaurant-man-eating-man-eating-and-running-cartoon-eating-cartoon-man-running-gif-24721662

[upper stratus]

especially if you go prismatic shards of creation style which makes increases your essence for the purpuose of essence calculations

[tulip folio]

It's what the sid I'm working on is plotting. She is a martial artist and honestly a Kinda Ratshit Caster but +essence to soak is nice.

Toad Style, Use Body Press!