Exalted

[prisma sun]

Is it????

[upper stratus]

'look at what they need to mimic a fractin of our power' etc etc

[bleak hazel]

sadly no starmetal or soulsteel warstriders in here

[tulip folio]

You don't suffer the 'smaller targets' penalty and they get to use the Devastating Action against other huge targets, not just battelgroups.

So an Alch Colossus just kicks the shit out of warstriders/other huge targets by getting 2x their actions

Also they get to use all their statboosting charms that warstriders don't.

Honestly though I think the biggest buff Alchs get is 'Colossii heal like normal alchs'.

Vs 'Well, I got beaten up. That's 4-6 weeks to repair the warstrider'

The Colossii goes 'Well that sucks, I'm missing two arms and am full of ballista bolts. Gimme a day or two'

[bleak hazel]

"look at my mech, it makes me Strength 7!"
Robot McSwole is unimpressed

to be fair any half decent Twilight should be able to weld that thing up in a couple of days, I think

[prisma sun]

Ah okay

[bleak hazel]

wait, this might actually mote tap a craft solaroid

that never happens

"craftgar works super hard to get the mech operational before the next battle" is kinda fluffy though, I approve"

[upper stratus]

are there any hearthstones that increase soak. i know there's stone of resilient bamboo but i might reach for a greater hearthstone if there's something availalbe

[bleak hazel]

unfortunately not, I looked for ages

[upper stratus]

damn

might homebrew something

[bleak hazel]

because of the Hearthstone Toolkit prismatic charm

[tulip folio]

Yeah, there it is:

[fierce star]

I'm sorry but I read that as 'craftdor' and now Craftdor the Smithinator is living rent free in my head

[tulip folio]

Colossus Warfare Tactics (3xp): The Alchemical can use her devastating actions against Legendary Size enemies.

This I think is the thing that really sells an Alchemical Colossus over a Warstrider

[bleak hazel]

"craftgar" is a joke from the very funny Charm Gardening livestreams which started off joking about "fightgar the dawn" who has every melee charm and steadily extended this to Ridegar, Boatgar and Craftgar

[upper stratus]

it's kinda funny, i want manse 5 for the mote regen but then the hearthstone i want is below my grade

[fierce star]

Lol

[bleak hazel]

sadly charm gardening was swept from twitch by recent storage changes and has not yet been reuploaded, although I believe it will be at some point

[spring lynx]

in 2e at least you could totally have a lower-grade hearthstone than your manse rating

[upper stratus]

they should let a manse 5 have two standard hearthstones. this will be fair and balanced

[tulip folio]

Seems legit

[upper stratus]

[tulip folio]

More seriously: I could see a Manse 5 having 2 of the same standard hearthstone. So you can Share With A Friend, even if you can't double up.

[bleak hazel]

Unusual Hide is such a convenient way to get Decent Soak I end up considering whether to make all my sids various kinds of mutant

[tulip folio]

It's so good and it's like the only way I can find to really get a solid soak as a sid. Like I know they're the flippy martial arts splat but...man, splat really is the keyword. XD

[fierce star]

Skill issue tbh

Just be fated never to be hit

[tulip folio]

Abyssal: "Man, if only there was an enemy of fate here to put that to the test~"

[bleak hazel]

I do have a very stupid Sid build that has parry 15-16 ignoring all penalties for 1m per incoming attack at E3

which is pretty fateful

[tulip folio]

Those sid 'refund motes' charms seem really shiny.

Like that seems worth going presence just to pick up for beating the hell out of people. XD

[bleak hazel]

Heroic is honestly carrying the set because it works on punching

[tulip folio]

Impose Nature looks very handy for getting people to do what you want.

'What if: Instead of working with what you care about, I just made you care about the things I care about instead'

[bleak hazel]

Impose Nature, Presence-In-Absence and Force Decision are all great

presence-in-absence is also great because you don't have to use it on someone who, you know, matters

you can just get someone's secretary

with enough downtime you can throw a whole host of influence rolls at someone who doesn't know you exist because the only people you've interacted with are trivial characters who got blasted by Arcane Fate

also very few people know what a Sidereal is anyway so it's not like your average deeb is on the lookout for spies sapping their water dispensers

[tulip folio]

You're not fooling me exalted. That's not a warstrider, that's Eva-01

[spring lynx]

yes, actually. that's a behemoth with moonsilver plating.

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/evangelion-neon-genesis-evangelion-unit01-shinji-crawling-gif-27271994

me when I see an uneaten god

[spring lynx]

that's Karvara, the Walking Devil Tower

[prisma sun]

Iki is reading the book actively

so they know

[spring lynx]

i was explaining to the class

[tulip folio]

...I wonder what would happen if an Alch tried to pilot Karvara.

They literally don't interact with its mechanics. XD

'Wow, I gain limit from interacting with you? What's limit?'

[spring lynx]

i imagine it would be similar to a dummy plug

[bleak hazel]

you need a limit track or it won't attune

no boops allowed

also no deebs

[tulip folio]

Oh yeah, there it is.

[prisma sun]

You HAVE to be able to go insane

You HAVE to get stupid with it

[spring lynx]

i mean, anyone can go insane. what you have to be able to do is go magical insane, which is much less common a capacity

[tulip folio]

...it's gunna be interesting if they keep the old Limit from Infernals.

As Infernals had Limit but didn't have Limit Break

Instead, hitting max limit made them unable to control their toxic nature and it ate away at things they care about.

But notably: Didn't reset limit, so they had to do something to try and clear it.

[spring lynx]

i can't decide if that's better or worse than abyssals' "if you limit break, your wife fucking dies"

[bleak hazel]

Sids are clearly best off here because their limit trigger just makes them more Obviously Correct About Everything

and clearly this could never have a downside

[prisma sun]

There's no Sid limit break if you're already right about everything

[bleak hazel]

fuck now I'm imagining an Alch Colossus that forgot to scale the face properly

[spring lynx]

you think the maidens knew about the human capacity for hubris when they decided to give a hundred of them the gift of prophecy

[tulip folio]

To be fair, it had an element of that. It was just more 'Malfeas gets salty at you and demands you kill your wife or have a Cool Dance Off'

[fierce star]

What if I kill my wife with a cool dance off

[tulip folio]

Infernals could gain limit comically fast but they could also lose it rapidly, so for them it was a much more active give and take and less a 'slowly building towards meltdown'.

[spring lynx]

then you're playing the splat correctly

[tulip folio]

If Malfeas was your patron, you gained limit whenever you compromised with someone.

Because malfeas does not kneel

[spring lynx]

except for that one time

[tulip folio]

Malfeas: "Shut up, Doesn't Count!"

[spring lynx]

(under no circumstances should you remind malfeas of that one time)

[fierce star]

Ligier: "Babe come on you're only hurting ourselves with this..."

[bleak hazel]

well, he wouldn't have knelt if he had intact knees at the time

[tulip folio]

Ebon Dragon iirc gained limit whenever they told a hard truth instead of an easy lie.

[bleak hazel]

unlike swillin'

who was willing to surrender politely and reacted very badly to being told "we do not accept conditional surrenders, get in the Malfeas Sphere"

[velvet raft]

“High intelligence just means you’ll do the wrong thing really well.”

[velvet raft]

I love this guy to be tbh

It’s so funny

[fierce star]

I also liked that as more yozis joined the reclaimation you got more options

Kimbery was.... Fun.

[velvet raft]

I did like how the control mechanism for Infernals was “we put a demon in you to give you bad advice”

[spring lynx]

wasn't the bad advice an unintentional side-effect of them fucking up the process of soulbonding the demon to the exaltation

[bleak hazel]

I'll be honest the more Fiddly Bits are going on with Infernals the less I like them

[fierce star]

No it's just most demons don't get people

Like, human people

[bleak hazel]

the weird yozi charm trees are fun, but "you get a demon copilot, also you're becoming a primordial, also there's a super special Go Rogue charm tree but also homebrew everything" kind of loses me

I just want to play sick guitar riffs and summon a billion demon assistants to knock over a satrapy

[prisma sun]

I want to slay a lot of demons

like probably more than a hundred thousand

maybe even more than that

[fierce star]

Awh but they're just lil guys doing their best

[prisma sun]

I may go upwards of a million

[velvet raft]

I did love the “you are either merging with your yozi or becoming a primordial” concept but I understand that it’s not actually good for a game

[bleak hazel]

it's conceptually kind of neat but it also becomes just this complete nonsense concept slurry

[velvet raft]

One of the reasons I liked it is because of that one BoKL charm

There were a lot of allusions that exalts in general were more like the Primordials than anything else

[bleak hazel]

an Elder Solar is a guy who is really really good at stuff, an Elder Lunar is Baba Yaga, an elder Sidereal is a wise old master who has amazing kung fu, an Elder Infernal... stops being an exalt entirely and becomes a new cosmic principle of reality with a hundred sub-souls?

what?

I'm kind of down for the odd ???? moment in my Exalted but it made it hard to be Really Big Green Sun Prince

[velvet raft]

Yeah, it absolutely shouldn’t have been a charm tree

[next delta]

They definitely aren't doing the yozi escape plan part of Infernals. Pretty sure they decided they can't ever escape

[tulip folio]

I feel like it could work better as like...how 3e did 'become a colossus' for Alchs. Where you get a Cool 'First Step Towards Becoming A Promordial' Form. With the 'Actually A Primordia' becoming part of the same 'some time in the future' where Becoming A City is for Alchs.

[bleak hazel]

really it shouldn't have been anything except a fun fluff mention of "some of the more scholarly infernals think......"

[next delta]

And probably not the "become a primordial part" lol

[velvet raft]

I think it should be a set of vague allusions across various exalt types, which are more obvious with Infernals and possibly Alchemicals

[next delta]

But you do get a demon form

[velvet raft]

Yes, exactly!

[bleak hazel]

making it The Thing That Happens means that even one random infernal in a mixed party gets to be the Protagonist of Reality to a degree that even the other solaroids aren't

an elder solar is a monster but he's not the next Theion

[next delta]

I wonder why they decided to hard no yozi escaping but change autocthon's disease to be chronic instead of fatal

[tulip folio]

No, he's just the next 'Guy who beat Theion so hard he's still got trauma' 😛

[bleak hazel]

I think that took a few more guys than just the one solar

[velvet raft]

Alchs do a similar thing where you’re becoming more like Autobot over time, but they don’t actually arrive

[bleak hazel]

the higher reaches of autobothood are also well understood and still on the same kind of scale as every other Exalt

hell, a Sidereal with enough creativity can pick up a Metropolis and judo throw it off a mountain

I love you, Neighborhood Relocation Scheme

[velvet raft]

I think the idea that exalted in general have Some Weird Physically And Spiritually Transcendent Stuff Going On Under The Hood is a good one

[tulip folio]

...I think part of my concern with 3e Infernals is 'I liked 2e infernals' (Mostly, there were some bad parts).

I want my Favorite Splat to be in a Good Edition.

[wise ocean]

Rent-Lowering Kung-fu Technique

[next delta]

Yeah, unfortunately for you, it seems like they are going to be quite different

[bleak hazel]

letting off a few BOKL katas every weekend to keep the rent down

[tulip folio]

Yeah, it seems they're going with a...much less interesting Green Solar idea...

[next delta]

They are in the pre-kickstarter phase for it now, so we get to find it sooner rather than later I guess?

[velvet raft]

Get rid of Lilith and scale back the baby primordial stuff

[bleak hazel]

I do really love the "thematically accurate but mechanically awkward lists of charms from each of your patron deities" thing for their charmset, so I hope that stays

it was peak mechanics-as-fluff

[velvet raft]

And I think you have something pretty good

[tulip folio]

Like...it wasn't everyone's favourite splat but I really hope they're not making it a splat for people who didn't like Infernals. If that remotely makes sense?

[velvet raft]

Yes

[tulip folio]

Also: If they don't have Acts of Villainy still, I will throw things 😛

[bleak hazel]

I know I'm a Sid player and as such there's a banger splat out already, so this may be cold comfort, but I am really enjoying Abyssals, more than I thought I would

so at the very least there will be one good kind of solar

[prisma sun]

Average White Wolf Niche Splat Enjoyer Sentiment

[tulip folio]

Oh yeah, it's just sorta...part of what I liked about Infernals were they were not a Kind Of Solar, when you got down to the mechanics. XD

[tulip folio]

I will forever hate New Demon. I know it's a good game but I hate it because it's the reason I won't get an update of the game I liked. XD

[dense verge]

my hunch is that infernals are shaping up to be what the devs are doing rather than re-doing solars

[velvet raft]

They were really a type of Exalt with Spirit Stuff

[fierce star]

I wish ex3 lunars were good to me fluff wise, so I can only hope good things happen

[bleak hazel]

new demon is the only World of Darkness game I've ever gone "ooh, i want to play that" at

maybe mummies just because of the interesting backwards levelling

[fierce star]

Hey same, also Hunter

[prisma sun]

Well the reason given for why there's no new version of the game you liked is, according to Paradox "no one would buy it"

[velvet raft]

For most intents and purposes, Golden Calibration is what I need Solars to be

[bleak hazel]

then again, I am always the most paranoid one in every RPG party I'm in

I have literally never seen another person in a TTRPG suggest Doing Recon

so maybe I am just a good fit for DtD

[tulip folio]

Clearly Infernal Craft (As apparently they're becoming an ability-based splat, bleh) is About Making Death Traps.

Death Traps and Superweapons 😛

[fierce star]

Misc I play shadowrun, prep work is my favorite part of any job

[bleak hazel]

an improvement on old Infernal Craft, which did not exist

go hire Ligier to do everything I guess

[prisma sun]

I keep saying Ligier as just like

Liger

and I keep imagining him as the mule-cat

[fierce star]

It's like

[upper stratus]

recon gang

[fierce star]

Lij-ee-aye isn't it

[tulip folio]

Which is Eternally Frustrating.

[prisma sun]

It's sort of the catch 22 of Demon

[lunar magnet]

Ah, mood kindred! I am not alone!

[prisma sun]

If they change it to be less Like That, the old base will edition war and hate it and scare away new players

if they keep it Like That, no one will play it

Because it's Like That

[tulip folio]

That said: I'm not 100% sure it was Too Like That to be played. It was also one of their least supported, least advertised lines so...yeah, it sold poorly.

It's not like it was 2e Raksha 😛

[bleak hazel]

I admit I am not too up on what old Demon was like, but everything I hear about it makes me go "this seems extremely boring compared to the biomechanical spies, what's the sell here"

[dense verge]

only thing i know is objectively correct abrahamic religion, iirc

[tulip folio]

Nope, not remotely!

[fierce star]

Only on the surface level

[dense verge]

oh! i see

[prisma sun]

Yes but also the Bible is fake and also Islam and Judaism is fake

[lunar magnet]

Splats say their view on things is correct all the time

[tulip folio]

There was a War In Heaven but beyond that...even the Fallen don't know for sure. It's been too long and they've been condemed to torment for too long.

Most of them barely remember their own names

[prisma sun]

That's an avenue but also very clearly not the authorial intent

[lunar magnet]

The big sell for Demon from my perspective is that humanity is a beautiful thing that is worth fighting for, warts and all.

[tulip folio]

Yeah. The big thing with Fallen was that a fallen that's not become a being of pure torment loves humanity.

[bleak hazel]

that seems to be pretty much there in Robodemon

[fierce star]

Additionally one of the chapter fictions from a demon who does remember a bit explicitly notes that the Abrahamtic God is only one truth about creation, that there are many more across reality layers and all belief is fundamentally true in some way

[tulip folio]

A lot of Fallen is about your relationship with your own pain.

[prisma sun]

DtF is specifically about Christian religious trauma

[next delta]

they didn't realize they were living in consensus reality

[tulip folio]

With fallen being able to Embrace their Torment or to try to overcome it.

[fierce star]

Mage has always been the most correct splat yes

[lunar magnet]

Robodemon cares more about fighting the God Machine. You could have fallen for any thing that caused your Angelic Nature to fail

[prisma sun]

Mage isn't even the most correct splat in their OWN splat!!!!!!

Half of the wizards are deluded that they aren't wizards!

[lunar magnet]

In Old Demon? The line was humanity. Full stop, no arguments

You chose humanity over anything else.

[fierce star]

Also yeah as morgue and iki are saying

[dense verge]

mage, personally, that thinks he's correct. a being free of hubris

[tulip folio]

I loved their take on Angels of Death. Being the angels of death was the punishment. Being forced to cut the threads of the humanity you fought so hard for.

[bleak hazel]

OK, I can see why people would like this more than the robits but I personally Do Not, from this pitch

this sounds like far less likely to produce spectacularly shady Berlin spy games where there are fifteen parties and thirty-two sides

[tulip folio]

It had a very different tone, yes.

[next delta]

Hypothetically you could have done both

[velvet raft]

My favorite thing about Demon is going loud

[fierce star]

Pain, humanity, and your relationship with both. And like. Some demons did hate mankind. But most don't. They also tend to have unhealthy coping mechanisms

[prisma sun]

You did big wizard battles with other demons for the most part

[velvet raft]

Well, no

That's not true

[lunar magnet]

I am of the opinion that Robodemon is just not taking anything from Demon

[velvet raft]

My favorite thing about demon is that the game incentivizes you to be an awful person

[tulip folio]

that is actually something they kept from old demon. Apocolypse Forms were a Demon going loud and shedding their mortal form to be, briefly, what they were previously.

[velvet raft]

Like, by far the optimal play for a demon in the Hobbesian sense is to accumulate loads of covers and use them at the drop of a hat

[lunar magnet]

It reluctantly exists alongside the rest of chronicles, churlishly acting like it's meant to be there.

[velvet raft]

But using a cover kills someone

[dense verge]

did owod demon also have covers?

[lunar magnet]

Yes, but

[tulip folio]

Ish. But Not Quite.

[fierce star]

You were kind of sharing the body of a dead human.

Have to possess SOMETHING after all

[lunar magnet]

You basically had to find people who were empty for whatever reason, and take up the space left

[tulip folio]

Old Demon had you possessing the body of someone who had lost all faith, as Fallen were creatures of faith. Generally that was, yes, someone who died. XD

Old Demon worked a lot with faith. It was a resouce they could make use of!

In helpful or very abusive ways.

The abusive way was optimal! But also part of Being A Dick

[prisma sun]

(It's also why they said most "Pagan" religions were just Earthbound Demons)

[fierce star]

The pov character for a lot of the core book was a demon possessing the body of a preacher who died in a car wreck

[tulip folio]

The more someone trusted you and put their faith in you, the more powerful the resources you could draw from them.

[velvet raft]

If I were ever to run a Demon game, I would have a really sleazy NPC who does loads of deals and has accumulated literally hundreds of covers. And at some point, they would be forced to go loud, and the forces of heaven would be bearing down on them, and they wouldn't use any of their covers to escape. They would die. And it would become apparent that they actually just really liked people.

[tulip folio]

...but the game didn't require you to actually refrain from taking all of that resource.

And leaving them an empty husk of a person

Perfect for future possession

You could spend other people's faith to do Big Effects, to Help That Person...or just drink it down to empower yourself.

Demons for example could heal people by using the faith that person had in them and shaping it.

[lunar magnet]

But see that previous point about loving humanity

[prisma sun]

We should probably move to the wod thread

[bleak hazel]

Going Loud is also one of my favourite parts of Descent, because one of my favourite spy film tropes is the secondary character who downs one last glass of whiskey, grabs the (in this case metaphysical) pistol and walks out of the door to face the music

[lunar magnet]

Ye

[next delta]

Maybe I missed a rule. But I don't remember anything stopping you from being really generous with your deals (in fact I think it made it easier if it was lopsided to the mortals favour)? Which I found weird, but could be a nice hint to how sleazeball is maybe a bit less sleazy than expected

[bleak hazel]

...I should add some stuff like that to the Primordial Form of BOKL now I think about it

there's already one Sid charm that burns your identity completely if you fuck up

"you can stay in Primordial form without spending motes, but only by deleting your intimacies one by one instead" sounds appropriate

am planning to price the BOKL super mode somewhat similarly to the high essence Lunar "turn into tyrant lizard" mode, except Weirder and with less raw stats than it used to have because breaking attribute caps on exalts that aren't meant to do that is extremely broken

hmm, my Sid appears to have wandered off to grab a bunch of fun social charms and turned into a dedicated Charisma socialite who happens to have a sword

whoops

[fierce star]

See that happened with the last lunar I played

[bleak hazel]

It is at least fairly easy to solve that with Lunars because pestletail form lets you stand on top of a deeb and hug him to death while he futilely pings attacks off Soak 17 + -1 to overwhelming, although it will take forever unless you also have good attack pools

it's hard to make a Lunar who can't fight

[fierce star]

Legit

But yeah she was supposed to be a grappler but ended up mostly being a charisma leader of men/wits navigation specialist

[bleak hazel]

there is also one highly funny Lunar build that levers a series of nonsense combos to do one big threaten action on join battle and instantly crash everyone, although after you've done that you probably don't throw many hands

"three round time out guys, the deebs need to get up and the Lunar just blew 30 motes"

[next delta]

That's what your friends are for. Though do you also get the social benefits of the threaten action?

(I guess they will just spend the WP)

[bleak hazel]

damned if I know, I just remember laughing about it after seeing a recap of a fight where the hippo lunar immediately blew 15 or so init off three deebs, incapacitated one and then was steadily bonked to death by the remaining two

[next delta]

lol

[bleak hazel]

extremely powerful build, would not bring to casual game, very entertaining

[next delta]

"He's mostly bark" "What do you mean 'mostly'"

[bleak hazel]

(although presumably at that point the Wyld Hunt starts showing up with its most fearless hippo wrestlers)

honestly the fact you need to go up to "massively overoptimised combos of niche effects" to reliably take several standard issue combat deebs with a celestial exalt is quite nice

there are very few situations where even a low essence Invincible Sword Princess wants to go "everyone leave, I'll handle this" upon the Wyld Hunt showing up

she needs a very particular set of moves to not be steadily beaten down, because deebs aren't scrubs

sadly this doesn't scale great because no GM is going to run seven exalts at once to challenge their three murderhobo players, but you can get creative with battlegroups to put some serious pressure on

[next delta]

The perennial Exalted 3E problem

[bleak hazel]

most real characters are perfectly reasonable opponents for a single combat deeb

Dawns/Dusks are the only characters that will demolish the threat scale completely if played As Intended, E1 Full Moons are big and stompy but you have to go absolutely razors' edge optimized before going it alone against two deebs isn't an "oh, fuck" situation

[fierce star]

Fuck now I'm making a new lunar backstory

A shikari who fell in love with a dynast in the wyld hunt but the DB is marrying another DB and the wedding gets attacked. Exalts then but the question is how... Ninjas?

[bleak hazel]

other lunars

make it complicated

[fierce star]

That was my thought

Lunar assassins after the brides, shikari goes to defend them even though he hates one, gets terribly winded, exalts.. Now has two wyld hunt capable deebs and a couple lunar assassins on him. Yeah, I can work with this

[prisma sun]

Two different groups of assassins are going after the groom and bride for two entirely different reasons

They did not coordinate this

[bleak hazel]

this is making me imagine the most fucked up party by combining it with my "Sid on slightly-rogue sabbatical enjoying Sworn Brotherhood" character

the party is one Sid in disguse, one Lunar in disguise who is into one of the three deebs, said deeb's spouse and then one other guy who I will say is from House Iselsi in disguise just to rub it in

the poor spouse is just completely out of their depth here

[fierce star]

The deebs spouse is an outcaste with oddly strong breeding who's still getting used to the whole 'literacy' thing and is just here to help and Do Good

Most straightforward DB ever

[bleak hazel]

they are in a group with four spies for various reasons, all of whom are appreciated their groundedness while going "nobody would accept me if I revealed my true nature"

(the Lunar and the Sid are probably more right here, the Sid for arcane fate reasons and the Lunar for shikari reasons)

incredible slice of life series right here

[fierce star]

Fund it tbh

[bleak hazel]

I have three sids lined up that are all in the impromptu extension of of the Convention On The Dead lined up to help deal with the Abyssals, I can add this guy

one is Vigil Galyon, Exalted Detective, one is an arch-sorceror and one is my hypothetical Elder Sid who invented BOKL by wandering in the Sea of Mind and is not particularly coherent when on his creation vision quests

[fierce star]

You have my blessing to steal shikari lunar for this

[prisma sun]

I need to stat Drifts

[bleak hazel]

the deal of said extension was that they were busy being diplomats and trying to weld together an impromptu moon-and-stars alliance in the Scavenger Lands to contain Thorns

Vigil is working with one other Sid and three Lunars against two of FAFL's abyssals, dreamsid is talking to two Lunar elders he has previous with and presumably deebsid is pulled back in when he thought he was out by instructions to get Shikari Lunar on side

at some point Feather Drenched In The Blood Of The Fallen is presumably going to rock up and try to kill at least one of them

her quick character version might actually be a solid boss fight for an E3 combat sid and his deeb or lunar friend

[fierce star]

My image for shikari lunar is that he was career shikari as a mortal. Started as a farmboy who volunteered to be chaff against an anathema and managed to survive, and it just rolled on from there

[velvet raft]

Yeah, absolutely. I imagine them as sort of a "I'll solve any one problem for you, but the price is always the same" type who's basically just sitting in a smoky room handing out deals with the devil

Who comes across as a huge opportunist buuuuut

[coral wraith]

Thinking about making a Resistance Apoc Abyssal centred around Chain-And-Armour Mortification

They're really damn cool

[tulip folio]

'Oh no, my greatest threat: A nice social situation'

[coral wraith]

Lmfao

I was thinking they're either smart but socially incapable or just a bit daft but decent at speaking

[prisma sun]

What's the charm do?

[tulip folio]

If Faffles you, sealing you in your armour

[coral wraith]

Needs this as a prerequisite

The Faffle

Gets way better with this

[tulip folio]

It's a very cool ability.

I wonder if the chains from Chain-And-Armour Mortification could be used for chain weapon/whip martial arts

[coral wraith]

I'm thinking of buying Evocations for Wraith-Plate to ease the mote costs

And to use Strength in Parry calculations

[tulip folio]

Abyssals have a stat swap for that?

[coral wraith]

Nope

But I was thinking the armour evocation could do it

If only with the chains

[tulip folio]

Makes sense.

Stat swaps are fun.

I do kinda wish there was a bit more variety in them though.

Basicly every stat swap for 'attacks' is 'Strength for Unarmed or Heavy Melee', 'Perception for Ranged'.

[coral wraith]

True

Abyssals get Strength swap for Medium and Unarmed, at least

Er

Just medium lol

[tulip folio]

It would be fun to see Infernals get like:

Brass Bladed Dance - You can use Appearance for attacks with Light and Medium melee weapons.

[coral wraith]

They get Unarmed too but that's not unique

Ooh

I like that

[prisma sun]

What fuckin

Guy

Did the whole chain thing

I'm trying to think

Like a bunch of chain tentacles they commanded

It feels recent

[tulip folio]

Like I really, really hope even if they made Infernals now just an Ability-Based Exalt, they put 'Oh and do it with dance in multiple abilities.

As dance is such a big thing in Malfeas

It should be very easy for an Infernal to turn up to a battle like the Autoscorers.

Infernals also leave me a bit complicated in what I'd want their 'do cool ranged attacks' charm to be. As one hand: I want to nuke things with green fire. On the other hand: I kinda really want to see the cutting silence of malefeas' wind to get a showing.

I could see Malfeas in the 'Improve Archery' charm tree and the cutting wind as a stealth based attack. Like how a lot of exalts have a 'throw a blast with occult' option.

[coral wraith]

That'd be neat

[tulip folio]

(I still hope they won't be ability-based as that's my least favorite way for exalts to be set up/the most different from how they were before (Attribute would keep at least some of their High Versatility) but I doubt that's something I'm getting)

[tulip folio]

...do you think it's too silly for an artifact to have as it's passive thing: 'This is a form weapon for X martial art'? Where it's not a traditional weapon for that style but it was designed to work with it.

A pair of direlashes forged by Ligier, they move through the air as the strings of a phantom instrument. A skilful wielder can pluck the strings to produce music able to tempt a monk from his prayers or bring an entire room to song.

Heartstring Song: This artifact is an Exceptional Instrument and is treated as a Kiai for Silver-Voiced Nightingale Style.

[bleak hazel]

that is probably the least troublesome martial art they could be a weapon for because Mastery gives you artifact kiai anyway

[tulip folio]

Yeah, that was my thoughts.

It's mostly 'Hey, your Kiai is both Light Thrown and Light Melee now'.

[upper stratus]

there's precedent for parry stat swaps but it's always been stamina or perception

[coral wraith]

ah, gotcha

[tulip folio]

That said, I'm not sure there's a particular balance issue with a swap to basicly any stat. As parry is already on the strongest stat for it (Dexterity, which also does Dodge and Attacking).

It's just we don't much have them yet

Though I'd keep the usual 'Bonus dots above 5 don't count for this'

As some (Appearance and Strength) can get above 5 for most splats

[upper stratus]

well it'd put damage, accuracy and parry all on a singular attrivute which is what i assume they devs are avoiding

[coral wraith]

Howling Malice Hurricane
Cost: -(3m,2i); Mins: Essence 2
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Restless Mausoleum Repose

The deathknight's hate seeps into the chains shackling him, stirring the soulsteel to action that must be reigned in by pure grit.

When the Abyssal uses Chain-and-Armor Mortification, he can pay a three mote, two initiative surcharge to flurry it with another action. While Chain-and-Armour Mortification is active, the Abyssal can use (Stamina + Brawl, Melee or Martial Arts) to calculate his Parry. Bonus dots above 5 aren't included.

basically what i was thinkin

[tulip folio]

'While this charm is active' feels a bit iffy wording-wise on a Permanent Charm

I think you mean while chain-and-armour is active

But the wording isn't 100% clear

[coral wraith]

maybe, but it feels awkward to cite chain and armour twice

i can though

[tulip folio]

That's a hair more clear, if less pretty, yeah

[upper stratus]

if you don't want to repeat it twice you can say.

When the Abyssal uses Chain-and-Aemor Mortification they can pay a three mote, two initiative surcharge to gain the following benefits as long as it remains active:

[benefits]

[coral wraith]

ah, yeah, that could work

[tulip folio]

Vague Pondering: If they wanted to have an element of 2e Infernals in new infernals, I'd do a weird thing with them but not like 'full on 2e infernals weird'.

Make Sorcery not an Occult Charm but a Neutral Charm that's considered favoured for everyone.

Like how Martial Arts is for Sids

As Infernals in 2e were the kings of sorcery, even outclassing Solars at it because they had solar-level potential but they had much easier stepping stones into it.

Likely give them the ability to get extra control spells too. So they're not throwing Always The Biggest Magic Dice Pools but every single Infernal can be a Solid Sorcerer with minimal investment.

[upper stratus]

never read infernals too closely, was them being better sorcerers like a thematic/narrative intent with a lore explanation or a game design quirk

[tulip folio]

It was their connection to the Primordials. They didn't need to go through all the Magical Trials that other sorcerers did to access sorcery because they were empowered by the creators of sorcery.

[upper stratus]

i thought a nice polite solar oomfie invented sorcery

[tulip folio]

So rather than having 'Terrestial Sorcery', you'd pick an Yozi and he'd unlock it without any trials needed and you'd get a bonus when doing sorcery spells that fit their thematics.

Like Ebon Dragon Sorcery made you better at Sneaky Sorcery

Or Malfeas at blowing shit up.

[upper stratus]

ohh

[tulip folio]

So Infernals defaulted to 'Can get the same tricks as solars but a Lot Easier' and also had 'Oh and if I do it in a particular way, I'm even better'

[tulip folio]

A solar invented sorcery as well...exalts and mortals know it but the primordials were working raw essence long before there were exalts. XD

[upper stratus]

what if Creation Just Did That and the primordials are taking credit

[tulip folio]

Hence why Infernals got to avoid the Various Fancy Trials that a sorcerer needed to pass to access sorcery.

No Test of Fear etc

[bleak hazel]

it also honestly makes sense that the literal princes of hell are good at demons

[upper stratus]

yea i get it

i just find the reasoning a little faulty cause the primordials invented more or less everything so then it should apply to everything

[tulip folio]

...I mean, on a more mechanical front: If they're making Infernals into Green Solars, they're gunna need something they do better than solars to be distinct. XD

[upper stratus]

real

[tulip folio]

And that's the big one they had before.

[upper stratus]

the real answer is to pair the infernals release with a list of solar nerfs at the end of the book

[tulip folio]

Yeah but I mean, even if solars got reined in...you'd want things that Infernals have as a 'why, mechanically, would you want to play this'

And it was Their Thing in 2e and not connected to 'Charm Tree Was Weird', which they seem to be looking to avoid with the move back to a more mundane ability-based exalt.

[upper stratus]

phew

[tulip folio]

...am I being remotely coherent?

[upper stratus]

yes

[tulip folio]

Entertainingly, Infernals in 2e were also notably bad at Necromancy.

[upper stratus]

no death metal allowed

[tulip folio]

Only getting Iron tier, unlike the Lab tier that Solars could get

[fierce star]

Also said solar didn't invent sorcery, at least in ex2. She either stole it or made a demonic pact to learn it, depending on the tale.

[tulip folio]

Because well...they're tied to the Primordials who are not currently rotting corpses. XD

So they don't have much of a 'death' link

[bleak hazel]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but Solars in Ex3 are at least the least broken they've ever been

[upper stratus]

trueee

[fierce star]

Ebby infernals could learn higher tiers of necromancy by inverting themselves, but they lost their sorcery while doing so

[tulip folio]

Oh right, yeah. Because Ebby cheats/is a powergaming fuckmuppet. 😛

(And was clearly the developer favorite)

I think 'developer favorite' in the Yozi was like 'Ebby -> Malfeas -> Cece -> Everyone Else -> Isodoros and his boyfriend.'

[bleak hazel]

honestly it would be nice if that continued, having at least one kind of Solaroid in the "only tier 1 necromancy" spot with the Sids would make it feels less bad

I want company in my hundred-shade-breathless existence

[tulip folio]

It would also make the 'King Shit Of Sorcery' feel more 'fair'.

As they're actively paying in the other magic style

[fierce star]

'Infernals with King of Demons Initiation may repave any (stat+skill) required to cast a spell or to use a Shape Sorcery action with (appearance or strength + perform or presence)'

(a charm for infernal sorcery)

[tulip folio]

See, I'd go a hair further and let them use the stat for anything spell-related that calls on Int.

So they can cast them + they're not shit when cast

But yeah, 'stat swap but for sorcery' would be very in-theme.

[fierce star]

Ye

[tulip folio]

King of Demons Dominion
Mins: Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
The warlock does not understand the powers of the primordial, she embodies them and demands their allegiance.

When the warlock would cast Sorcery (Including Sorcerous Workings), she may use Charisma or Strength for all purposes that Intelligence would be used for. She may not benefit from additional dots above 5 when doing so.

[prisma sun]

Oh

I almost forgot to write this down

I had an Exalted dream where I was Drifts

apparent character trait of his is that he likes to sleep buried in stuff, including dirt.

I don't get to decide that, the Tulpa demands

[prisma sun]

Incredibly funny concept I want to apply to King Hu

he is somehow immune to Arcane Fate but he just regularly forgets Sidreals exist constantly

[bleak hazel]

luckily for him, Arcane Fate does not apply to Lunar Tell: Goldfish Memory

unfortunately for him, he has Lunar Tell: Goldfish Memory

[tulip folio]

The automatic success from the Memory Merit in the core book applies to Arcane Fate, right? Obviously that's only 1/7 needed successes but it would help, yeah?

[bleak hazel]

yeah

for an individual Exalt, beating Arcane Fate isn't too difficult

it's beating it ten times in a row when the Sid goes out to the gas manse for cigarettes that is traditionally the problem

(RAW this is not necessary if the sid just vanishes from your life, you make one check and that's it, but that's obviously not how it works in universe)

[tulip folio]

Also freaking out the Alchs who have a 'This person had mind control' scanner but it's not precise enough to know what the exact effect is.

So they'll know Something just mind controlled them but have no clue who or what it did.

[prisma sun]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zoQfqPnMA8

[tulip folio]

Which has Got to be bad for the mental state

[prisma sun]

Two Alchs on the Locust Crusade trying to figure out what a Sidreal is

[bleak hazel]

I'm so used to Sids at this point that I forget what an outside context problem they must be for 99% of everyone everywhere

not even every Pact Lunar is entirely familiar with what their deal is

[prisma sun]

What if God sent 100 of his best Kung Fu Tax Collectors

[tulip folio]

Alchemicals: "Oh god, what is going on...wait, I know. I'll ask the other Autothonian Creation around here. Hey, pattern spiders...have you seen any weird memory altering things around here messing with people?"
Pattern Spiders: "...he's fucking with us, right?"

Pattern Spiders Dying Of Laughter

[bleak hazel]

pattern spiders aren't by default immune, either, they have to be part of the Bureau of Destiny

and the autocthonian ones aren't

"I have a sneaking feeling I should know what's going on right now"

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/animation-disney-movies-the-emperors-new-groove-kronk-gif-14836333

literally them

So like

the thing I don't get about the Loom

is it

like a physical room

you can go walk into

[next delta]

Yes. It is Very Big

[bleak hazel]

it's a thing, yeah, it occupies some ludicrously massive section of Yu-Shan

autobot made it, I think

[fierce star]

It's also implied, or at least was in previous editions, that the physical loom is just like. A control and reference method.

The actual Loom being much weirder

[next delta]

Hmm, the fluff in the Alchemicals made me think a different primordial made it and he went "oh, that's a cool idea"

Autochthon took inspiration from the Loom of Fate, seeing how the threads of destiny fulfilled strengthened the weave o Creation’s reality. Seeing how he might be better ordered, he etched the Grand Design into the crystal of his Core, reconfiguring the seat of his own cognition, and created the design weavers to spin and maintain it.

But I might be misinterpreting this line

[bleak hazel]

oh, huh

guess that changed

Sid book just says "a wonder from the dawn of time"

[tulip folio]

Design Weavers are a summonable first circle machine spirit, according to the GM for that game. Being basicly 'Pattern Spiders + Machine Spirit Template'

[fierce star]

The loom showed up with the maidens iirc

[next delta]

It's possible he both made it and thought it would be great for himself. Though I also get the impression he focused on making Creation and (most of) the other Primordials focused on Yu-shan from a different excerpt

[fierce star]

Though pattern spiders were made by the primordials to tend it

[tulip folio]

I think it might 'Hey, my kin made this but I can make it better'

[fierce star]

Because like. No one made the maidens.

[prisma sun]

The Loom would have to be made by all the Primordials since it is just like

Causality

[tulip folio]

I know he made the Pattern Spiders themselves

[fierce star]

They just showed up one day

[prisma sun]

Well they Primordials DID make the Maidens

[next delta]

Oh, that's kind of funny

[prisma sun]

at some point

somehow

They don't know how

but the Maidens definitely are made by the Primordials

[fierce star]

Are they? Because that was an open question previously

They MIGHT have been and it was more comfortable for the primordials to assume so

[prisma sun]

The main thing I remember is "They were unmistakanably their craftsmanship"

[tulip folio]

Does some quick tinkering

Okay, so Design Weavers going by this template would be 'Pattern Spiders but their default form is materialized, so they have dematerialize instead of materialize, they have a Very Basic Excellency and the Labor Unceasing and Unit Alert Signal charms'

[bleak hazel]

I would snip out Pattern Venom if they get an excellency, just so they're not What If Better Pattern Spiders

(also to stop everyone going "I want the better robot familiar")

[next delta]

huh, there is less details about where the loom of fate came from in the sids book than I expected (using basic find though)

[tulip folio]

Luckily, it's a very basic one. Among other things - Can't ever apply to attacks.

Primary Function Protocol (4m; Supplemental; Instant): The machine spirit adds two dice on a Primary Action roll or one die on a Secondary Action roll. 

Unless the Machine Spirit's Actual Job is kicking the shit of people, Primary and Secondary Actions are never combat things.

[fierce star]

They'll get to add to debates iirc?

[bleak hazel]

yeah they're really good at debating metaphysics

[tulip folio]

Yeah for them it would be their Top Dicepools so:

[bleak hazel]

feels odd that this does just make them a straight upgrade on a pattern spider, though

[tulip folio]

So in this case they could add 2 dice to Climbing, Weaving or Debating Metaphysics.

[next delta]

Autocthon just builds different

[tulip folio]

Or 1 die to Feats of Strength, Stealth or Senses.

[tulip folio]

Autocthun: "Version 2.0"

[next delta]

It's not a big deal if one is better than the other because they generally won't be accessible in the same part of reality

[fierce star]

They're not as safe admittedly

You can just

[next delta]

(unless you are running a locust crusade campaign or w/e)

[coral wraith]

It's not an upgrade, the base Pattern Spider template pretty much basically tells the GM "upgrade this with additional constellation based stuff"

[fierce star]

Stab these. Normal pattern spiders gotta materialize for you to do so without charms

[coral wraith]

It's on par with that

[tulip folio]

Yeah, they'd lack the various constellation upgrades

[bleak hazel]

pattern spiders are not actually demons, so you can't summon and bind those either

[wise ocean]

campaign where every single party member is a clone of Her Imperial Redness

[tulip folio]

As constellations don't exist in autobot city

[bleak hazel]

I like how when you get a pattern spider you get to pick their size

[tulip folio]

The Design Weavers tend to focus more on 'Gravity is still going down' than 'This guy is fated to get kicked by a horse'

[fierce star]

Id play it. Every single ones a different type of exalt too of course?

[wise ocean]

Exactly

[next delta]

Would these be machine spirits or gods 🤔

[fierce star]

Machine spirits explicitly

[next delta]

Pattern Spiders are minor gods (in Exalted parlance) right?

[fierce star]

Theres no gods in autochthon

[tulip folio]

Pattern Spiders are minor Gods.

[fierce star]

Yeah pattern spiders are gods

[tulip folio]

Design Weavers are First Circle Souls.

Like Blood Apes

[bleak hazel]

usually referred to as "spirits" but the difference is very vague when it's non-human

[next delta]

Ah, I was thinking these could be an exception since he made it for himself. Though making it part of his soul-structure makes a lot of sense

[fierce star]

Dibs on Blood-Moon Lunar Queen

[tulip folio]

Blood Moon: Only her redness can tap for mana

[next delta]

Spirits is the super-set of gods/demons/elementals aiui

[fierce star]

Lmao

[next delta]

Pattern Spiders get hurry-home which I associate with gods in Exalted lol

[fierce star]

Also like, autokun has a weird relationship with his constituent souls

Given what he did to his fetich

[tulip folio]

Demons generally lack it, though Machine Spirits do get it becuase they don't have that Five Day Waiting Period to get places.

[prisma sun]

Pattern Spiders are gods

Spirit and God are interchangable

[next delta]

Oh, I think ghost falls under this too?

[fierce star]

God is the only type of spirit you can summon, admittedly

*can't

[tulip folio]

Oh and I imagine Design Weavers lack Cult 1 like Pattern Weavers.

As they're not part of the Beuro.

[next delta]

Less required for them as machine spirits though. I think?

I don't know how demons work on this front but I get the impression they don't need it like gods do

[fierce star]

So the distinction does matter

[tulip folio]

Yeah, being material by default means they don't have the 'paying a fucktonne of motes to turn up to work today' issue

[next delta]

There are also some nonmechanical reasons gods need/want prayer too right?

[tulip folio]

To avoid being homeless broke bitches.

😛

[next delta]

lol

[tulip folio]

...if it wouldn't stretch my character even further, I'd be really tempted to have a Design Weaver Familiar. XD

[fierce star]

Just wait until we have 4 spare xp

[next delta]

Are gods dematerlized by default in Yu-Shan?

[spring lynx]

gods can't dematerialize in yu-shan

[fierce star]

But pattern spiders have to do work in creation sometimes iirc?

[next delta]

I'm surprised machine spirits get hurry home. Seems like it would make it hard to hunt them for parts (unless there are a bunch of "mundane" ways to stop that ability)

And huh, interesting that Malfeas is spiritual only but Autocthon is both

[spring lynx]

either it's a condition of the binding or autocthon had to make a conscious effort to have a physical plane in addition to the spiritual

[fierce star]

Given his love of tinkering with his own insides....

[next delta]

Could also be he was purely spiritual until he installed a loom of fate via the Grand Design

[spring lynx]

that would qualify as "a conscious effort" imo

[tulip folio]

I wonder if we'll get the Autocthun Equivalent to Blood Apes at any point (Being a Machine Spirit who's Primary Job is combat).

'And here is my shoulder Viator of Nullspace'

[dense verge]

gear ape

wait no, oil ape

[next delta]

warrior ants

[coral wraith]

Question: do people really care overmuch about Getimians?

[next delta]

I think some of the concept is neat

They (and Liminals) probably didn't need to be added

[bleak hazel]

I think they are very much stepping on Sidereals' deal

[next delta]

(I do like them a lot more than Liminals though)

[bleak hazel]

it would be all right if there were like ten of them tops but they're a whole player splat, so whoops, now Sids are busy doing everything and fighting presumably dozens of knockoff sids

(I still think Sid count should have been upped to 200 when Lunars got their extra exalts in 3e)

[dense verge]

i mean, i think gets can work as like, an antagonist, but for the most part on how theyve been presented i dont really like them as being knockoff sids with a dash of 'justified' solipsism

liminals i dont mind as much, but im much more just plain neutral on as they dont really hook me

and what i remember kind of steps on abyssal territory of doing undead things

meat dracula is a abyssal space

[bleak hazel]

both Getimians and Liminals would be neat as NPC types, but I see no reason why they need to be exalts

[next delta]

iirc, they don't do very similar undead stuff. They are more concerned about dead staying dead than waking them up lol

[bleak hazel]

paradox spirits are an established thing that happens when Sids fuck up weaving fate

Gets could just be Big Paradox Spirits

[dense verge]

pretty much

[fierce star]

I want to read their books but mostly to steal ideas

[bleak hazel]

if there were 150-200 Sidereals, then having a dozen or so getimians running around causing havoc would be fun, but as is it's just another case of "how do Sidereals ever have time to do anything remotely like a PC campaign?"

every other Exalt has a lot more time to Fuck Around and do cultivator stuff like holing up in a cave for two years to learn a single martial arts move

[fierce star]

I'm just glad dream souled, heart eaters, and umbrals are apocryphal, and frankly I think the current dev crop would've made gets and liminals that too if they had the option, but they were promised in the core Kickstarter

[coral wraith]

Yeah it's why I asked the question, Getimians just feel very ancillary

Liminals have the whole psychopomp thing going on at least

Which is something interesting

Getimians...big whatever

[bleak hazel]

I feel the psychopomp thing is the job of Every Exalt, though

[coral wraith]

Feels like they got shoved in there for the sake of having the "anti-Sid" archetype

[bleak hazel]

dealing with gods, fae and undead is standard issue exalted duty

[coral wraith]

Eh, I think they at least have a better chance of turning out interesting by the end of it

That's all

Ultimately they are ancillary too

And unnecessary

[bleak hazel]

I'm not against having something other than a Sidereal to have a badass kung fu duel with, but they should be NPCs and also very few in number, or there should be more sids, because "there are dozens of Celestial Exalts dedicated to attacking you on your home turf" is a huge plot tumour for Sidereal games in a way that Abyssals and Infernals wandering around really isn't for Solars

[spring lynx]

wait, dozens?

[bleak hazel]

Presumably, or there's not much point making them a pc splat

Unless the goal is "you play The Getimians, all four of them" which admittedly would be neat

[spring lynx]

that was the assumption, to my knowledge

[tulip folio]

3e devs being briefly possessed by the spirit of 2e devs: "Must...Fuck...Over...Sidereals..."

[dense verge]

iirc the default estimated number of gets listed in crucible is about 64?

[spring lynx]

that... feels incorrect

[bleak hazel]

That sounds like completely implausible nonsense because with that many you could very nearly just storm Heaven

[dense verge]

yeah im probably misremembering, but definitely under 100, over like, 20

[next delta]

You are correct

[bleak hazel]

At that point all sids need to be dedicated to playing heavenly spy games or teleporting around beating up crucial threats and the idea of meeting one on a random wyld hunt or as a teacher in the Heptagram just becomes insane

which removes the fun part of them entirely so I will be ignoring this, as the sidebar suggests

[coral wraith]

64 is nonsense numbers

Unless they're just standing around on smoko for 500 years running

[dense verge]

super getimian 64

[spring lynx]

or else so fragmented they make the great houses look like a well-oiled machine

[coral wraith]

lmao

[dense verge]

i think gets have only been a thing for 10, 5 years in setting?

[spring lynx]

which, it must be said, isn't entirely unlikely, given apparently thulio's entire pitch is "hey, you know that thing you wanted but didn't happen? i can give you the power to make that thing happen"

[bleak hazel]

Nearly 100, I think

There's a sidebar that says "first Get attack on heaven" you can probably look up

[coral wraith]

Thulio is also a dumb character and I disregard him

[bleak hazel]

It's mentioned Gets operate in Circles, which is yet another case of "every Exalt naturally gloms onto exactly four friends because of the limitations of the genre"

[next delta]

The fact that all of them have different ideas of what Creation should look like probably does not help with cooperation

Circles is just a thing you have to accept because it is a TTRPG

[bleak hazel]

I have come to the conclusion that Solaroids especially work best in games with 1-3 PCs, and I'm not sure why godkings would like teaming up

[spring lynx]

a circle doesn't have to be five people

[wise ocean]

What is a Get

[next delta]

(I guess there are 10-12 Infernal groups lol)

[bleak hazel]

Getimians are apparently Exalts who were rounded out of existence by heavenly fate alteration

they're basically nega-Sidereals

[next delta]

A person from a world that-could-have-been if they didn't get snipped out of existence by the weavers of fate

[dense verge]

getimians are exalted from people that never were

[tulip folio]

Considering Alchemicals are full Celestial-Tier, there's a lot of Alchemicals.

[bleak hazel]

This is a fun plot hook for one adventure and a terrible thing to add as a standard setting element

[tulip folio]

Prepares for Locust Invasion

[spring lynx]

do you play fate grand order

[wise ocean]

No

but I have a feeling you're about to say Alters

[spring lynx]

then the analogy i have prepared does not work

surprisingly no, i was going to say lostbelts

[next delta]

Too bad for the locust crusade that there are a lot of problems inside of Autocthon to keep most of the Alchemicals busy

[dense verge]

Getimians were created by the Primordials of What Could Be and What Is Not, then their sparks locked away and forgotten in the abandoned proto-heaven, until rogue Sidereal Rakan Thulio broke into it and unsealed them to wage his war on Destiny

[next delta]

Though I guess a Locust Crusade could unify the eight nations enough to help on that front?

[spring lynx]

don't 🤔 me i'm absolutely correct

[dense verge]

now the writers want the people that getimians are to be from alternate timelines, but because of how creation works, those arent alternate timelines, they have no home they came from or could go back to. they are the substancia of people that simply could have been but never were because thats not how history played out

[tulip folio]

Iconic Get: Jeanne Alter.

[next delta]

They also get pattern-spiders put into their spines

[coral wraith]

Rakan Thulio, cranky at Destiny because it didn't let him shack up with the girl he wanted

sad!

[dense verge]

Much of the Getimians as-presented as player option revolves around changing Creation to suit the timeline/history the Getimian was drawn from. Now this of course involves the alteration of causality on a fundamental level and disregards agency of other people existing.

[next delta]

It's been thousands of years. Get over her!

[tulip folio]

Entire Get team that are all just Her Redness.

[dense verge]

Oh yeah rakan thulio's initial writeup was trash

the modern team has attempted salvage work

[tulip folio]

I never actually read his original writeup. How trash?

[bleak hazel]

I think it was the boy he wanted, actually

[dense verge]

mad at destiny because tfw no gf

[bleak hazel]

but yes, he became Exalted Blofeld over a romance and has not gotten over this for literally thousands of years

He parried Saturn so he could continue being mad, which would be cool if he was an actually interesting character beyond that

[tulip folio]

Ebon Dragon: "I must resign in shame, as only the second most pathetic relationship guy in creation."

[dense verge]

now the explanation is that he's more angry over the influence Destiny and by extension Heaven has to dictate people's lives, and his partner leaving him was something he took in stride as being their choice at the time, but later when it was found out to be a Sidereal plot that was the final straw for him

iirc thats how it is now

[next delta]

Ebon Dragon isn't in Creation

[tulip folio]

Important Question: How does this sad sack decide which gets exist? Does he just pull them from a gacha or scour alternate timelines for other salty fuckers?

[spring lynx]

presumably, that information will be elucidated when the gets book happens

[dense verge]

iiii forget, but gets are drawn from would-have-been heroes

not sure how deliberate on his part or if thats just the exaltation going fishing

[tulip folio]

Ah, so he draws from spirits of a heroic sort. Heroic spirits, if you will.

😛

[spring lynx]

is this my fault? did i cause this?

[tulip folio]

Yes

[dense verge]

yeah some kind of remarkable ghost

anyway heres my getimian thoughts

[spring lynx]

i wasn't even talking about servants! i was talking about the concept of the lostbelts as worlds that never exist because the world decides they can't!

[tulip folio]

Thanks to your influence, if I ever play a Get it will be a famous historical person of creation but genderswapped and with a weird added gimmick. 😛

[next delta]

Crucibles implies he has a special ability to find them, but doesn't actually get to choose the exaltations (but maybe he released the Exaltations from their prison in Zen Mu)

[wise ocean]

Whoops! All Scarlett Johanssen Party becomes more real by the hour

[tulip folio]

The GM for the Alch game had a funny get thought.

[spring lynx]

i like that book

[next delta]

The space one was neat. I feel like they missed a trick with not making the Lunars cylon-equivalents though

[spring lynx]

you mean gunstar or heaven's reach

[next delta]

I think gunstar

That one was more BSG-esque iirc

[spring lynx]

gunstar is the battlestar galactica one, so probably, yeah

heaven's reach is much more space opera

gunstar also has a bit of macross going what with the warstriders-that-turn-into-space-fighters thing too

macross is the one with those, right

[next delta]

Yeah

[tulip folio]

It would be very funny to have a Gem turn up from Gunstar with the warstrider

[coral wraith]

what is a "zen-mu" anyway

[dense verge]

prototype heaven made by the primordials before they settled on Actual Heaven

currently sealed, not much is known about it other than It's Fucked In There

[tulip folio]

Clearly the Sidereals need to investigate that too

[coral wraith]

okay time to go there

[dense verge]

only good things can be inside the heaven forgotten by the gods before gods

[coral wraith]

you wanna find an N/A artifact? you gotta go into the fucked up places

[prisma sun]

To be fair

The Sidreals are only part of the Beuru of Destiny

So part of it is that it's the other gods around them actually doing work

I was scrolled up

To the earlier convo

Apologies

[coral wraith]

When they're not quibbling or trying to fuck over the Bureau of Seasons, that is

Common Heaven L: constantly mad about the Bureau of Seasons

[tulip folio]

Gang wars between the Bureaus in heaven.

[coral wraith]

definitely a real thing

[tulip folio]

I wonder if 'a Sidereal who's assigned to another Bureau as part of a deal' would be unreasonable for a character.

'Look, the Bureau of Seasons did a Real Solid for one of the bosses back during the Great Contagion and now I'm stuck working with them for a couple of centuries'

As it feels like you could do a really fun War-Focused Sid who's asssigned to Seasons.

And who's first solution to problems is 'AND HOW ABOUT WE GET THE AERIAL LEGIONS TO SLAP THEIR SHIT?' but never gets approval for it.

"Come on guys, you denied my request for intervention in Thorns and it toally would have worked..."

[coral wraith]

Sids are so few and so important to the Bureau of Destinies I don't think they'd be assigned to other Bureaus directly

Now, as a liaison

Yes, definitely

And that functionally serves a lot of the same purpose while allowing for cross-bureau pollination of sorts

[tulip folio]

Fair. Vaguely pondering them having no dots in backing for Destinies because 'Come on, you spend more time there than you do here. Go to the back of the line'. XD

[coral wraith]

Lmao

I can see that, yeah

Or just 1 dot

[velvet raft]

Cover each other's weaknesses, mostly.

Which IMO tend to be much more glaring because of supernal abilities

[bleak hazel]

Sure, but of all the Exalts you'd think they'd have some friction working in groups with their incredibly strongly held essence fever-backed convictions

and general "everything has to go directly through me" power set theming

[velvet raft]

It's also Somebody Else Who Gets It

Shared experience is a powerful thing

Solars probably end up with very strong feelings about each other a lot of the time

Good or bad

But what kind of weirdo demigods don't have incredibly tempestuous relationships

[fierce star]

If your life isn't full of drama are you really an exalt?

[bleak hazel]

going through Heirs of the Shogunate and there are some moves in here

it has an upgrade that allows you to to combine your two elemental auras and get a free full Excellency, which pays for the entire cost of the charm if you use the traditional exchange rate of 1wp->5m

a lot of the big capstone moves that deebs get are slightly undercut by the fact they tend to be "when you're winning, do XYZ" which makes them very hard to use consistently, but this is an excellent finisher

[tulip folio]

I also note that it doesn't require the ally to be a deeb.

So you can just Feed Them To The Lunar

Or whatever splat is best at turning dice into decisive damage

[bleak hazel]

solars, what do you expect

but yes

the upgrade requires your ally to be a deeb or a particular kind of Sid, since they need elemental aura

there's also Victory-Seeking Insight, which if everyone knows it (awareness 2 no prereqs) allows a group of deebs to each gain (group size) init at Join Battle for 4 motes each, which can be well worth it to jump straight into big beatdowns

[upper stratus]

thank you for making me aware of this. wyld hunt soon. teehee

[bleak hazel]

give this to Moku there will be no downsides to this

deebs are great

[tulip folio]

...I know it would be balance-messing if it had Actually Bigger Stats but I must admit, I'm kinda...iffy...on Gunzosha Armor.

Going 'Your artifacts first 5 evocations are already pre-chosen' is very limiting, as shown by Seralawi being a 4 star first age artifact that has all of 3 unique evocations.

I feel like it could have been cute to fold a few Exceptional Tools into Gunzosha armour instead of a tonne of pre-set evocations. So it's got some passive bonuses but passive bonuses that can be replicated by anyone with Specialist Gear.

Sensory Augmentation visor as an Exceptional Awareness tools etc.

[upper stratus]

i don't think i could convince moku tot take war dots

[bleak hazel]

it's only three tiny little dots

[bleak hazel]

I had considered having Crimson Rain make some, but most of the moves aren't actually that good

well, Sensory Augmentation Visor, Mobility Augmentation System and Kinetic Armour Reinforcement are all well worth using, but SAV for an Exalt is basically "you can pay for your excellency with initiative"

KAR is much better because that's a solid damage reduction option

[tulip folio]

They're cool if you're a mortal. XD

...what's the dice cap for a mortal? 😛

[upper stratus]

yea i don't think it's supposed to appeal to exalts much

[bleak hazel]

they don't have one, although one is vaguely suggested in the Exigent book

go wild little mortal

[upper stratus]

what is it

[bleak hazel]

get all the buffs, become Double Solar

let me check

[tulip folio]

mortal who has somehow scrabbled together +15 to his dice pool from various gods and exalts buffing him

[tulip folio]

Which is a pity, as it's Cool Power Armour. XD

[bleak hazel]

the "weak supernatural" column is for God-Blooded, among other things, which is quite handy

they're not too shabby

[upper stratus]

exalts can only be extra about everything they do so they get in the warstrifer instead

[bleak hazel]

one interesting thing

autosuccesses for Sids only replace one regular die in the dice limit, rather than two

the few Sids that can wear heavy artifact armour love Gunzosha suits

[tulip folio]

Sidereal: "The mortal has a better dice cap than me until I'm essence 5."

[bleak hazel]

meh, the mortal doesn't get literally free excellencies while LARPing as a full moon

(this is still hilarious no matter how many times I mention it)

[tulip folio]

That low cap for sids is concerning but I guess they can stretch it so much further.

[upper stratus]

tbf that's only if they have 5 attribute, 5 abiilty and an applicable specialty

not too bothered by john mortalswords getting to draw +4 dice from gunzosha armor. go off lil man

[bleak hazel]

the Sid excellency is actually incredibly good

I genuinely believe it's on-average better than the Solar one because they're so much more mote efficient

the only downside is that they really want Ability 5 to get max TN reduction

like, you are John Exalt, you have dex 5 melee 5, a speciality and a normal sword for 14 dice to swing

[tulip folio]

Due to Sensory Augmentation Visor's +2 successes only counting as 2 dice to the cap?

[bleak hazel]

yeah

Solar dumps 10 motes into that, rolls 24 dice for average 12 successes

Sid dumps 5 motes, rolls 17 dice @TN6 for... 11.9 successes, for half the cost

[tulip folio]

And then goes 'hey, the 10s come back to me as motes' because they're a presence sid 😛

[upper stratus]

my body is a machine that turns non-charm dice into holy shit what the fuck tn 4

[tulip folio]

I guess with the low TNs also means that any source of 'reroll 1s' is amazing for them?

[bleak hazel]

if both parties are using light weapons, or you're clashing with two medium swords (a very sensible option, because your excellency is worse on defence and you want that non-charm parry) the Sid is averaging 13.3 to the Solar's 13

[upper stratus]

yes

also do not get sids access to reroll 6s or some such nonsense or it gets real weird

[bleak hazel]

this isn't even an E4/5 sid that gets a higher dice cap

you are weaker on things that don't have such big gear bonuses because the break-even point in success terms is 15 base dice each, but that tends to be less of a problem

"brutally slamming full excellencies into each other" is mostly a combat thing, even in social scenes you generally don't want to bonfire straight up

[coral wraith]

well yes, even sids are obviously Magical Guys at Bonfire

[bleak hazel]

Sids also have the really-pushing-it option of spending an extra mote and willpower for TN4, but I don't find myself doing that much

need to get more WP on my Siddy

[tulip folio]

Alchemical: "Wait, you guys don't just bonfire at-will to show off your Cool Banner?"

[coral wraith]

They at least don't fire a Wyld Hunt attracting flare into the sky when they do hit that stage

[tulip folio]

Alch appearance has a good number of charms that require your banner to be showing. XD

Becuase they turn your banner into a hologram projector

[coral wraith]

[bleak hazel]

then you throw on Ways of Exaltation before bed and commit 5 motes for 3 free charm dice on every attack and +2 free charm def on every parry

and World-Shaping Artistic Vision for free TN reduction in your specialty (preferably something combat applicable)

fuck you, I don't pay for my dice cap

what are you, a blood ape?

then you throw on Inner Eye Strike from Sid Melee and spend 3m 1i to aim reflexively, which is non-charm so that's basically a second excellency and Heroic Essence Replenishment keeps the cost down

[tulip folio]

Alchs: "...please, refer to the powerpoint presentation."

[bleak hazel]

you are now rolling 22 dice @TN5 for maybe 1-2 motes a pop

fear the energizer bunny

[coral wraith]

chugging my big sippy cup of dice

[upper stratus]

gets your motes back. yummers.

[bleak hazel]

Ways of Exaltation is deranged, I love it

[tulip folio]

...I need to learn these tricks at some point Misc, as these seem like tricks my Sids would like to learn. XD

[bleak hazel]

this is why all my Sids spend their lives scrounging for more soak and more non-charm parry, they have offense kind of covered

if you can avoid folding to the enemy bashing on your resting def 10 you can rope-a-dope them, mote regen is a real killer

[tulip folio]

Well, luckily my main sid has Unusual Hide 5, Stamina 5 and is Toad Style.

[bleak hazel]

I find lunars actually have the worst time of this, because Solars have the raw power to just run you over

[tulip folio]

So she's Pretty Tonky

You know, for a sid

[bleak hazel]

Lunars have less ways to get bullshit numbers of charm dice for free (hello, Divine Executioners' Stance, everyone has you on the banlist)

I don't know their charmset super well but I'd be surprised if they could top DES + Essence Gathering Temper (get 10m for 1i a couple of times a fight, basically)

[upper stratus]

that's what the essence eating venom is for

[bleak hazel]

Lunars do have the ability to get something very similar to Ways of Exaltation actually

[upper stratus]

what's divine executioner stance from

[bleak hazel]

they can do it at E1, by turning into a cat

miracles

most broken charm in there

[upper stratus]

of course

[tulip folio]

I also love how this gets stronger the bigger your anima is.

Though the big issue Blinding Strobe Projector has is that it's not ally friendly

Still is a massive AOE init drain

[upper stratus]

What Do You Mean It's Not Apocryphal

[bleak hazel]

cats: charop menaces

these abilities were not meant to be used with Lunar dice pools

[tulip folio]

Quickly, find the Smallest Sidereal!

[bleak hazel]

baby sid (do do, do do dodo)

[tulip folio]

"This sid is 6 months old. He is also a master of two different martial arts."

[bleak hazel]

the main downside of going cat mode is that you lose the lunar shapeshifting benefits of being a one man soak machine

[upper stratus]

brawl sid with crow form. only you can save us

[bleak hazel]

but it's a very solid setup

Death Kitty is an amazing lunar all-rounder build

you can also cheese it a bit by making your spirit shape "solid obsidian wyld cat" or something, sticking Unusual Hide 5 on as your Tell mutation and doing some other Lunar bullshit to get up to 15-17, same as the siddies when they try

[coral wraith]

reject charop embrace giant lizard mode

[bleak hazel]

it's not quite as good a resting excellency as the Sid version because you don't get TN manipulation, but it's available at chargen

[bleak hazel]

tyrant lizard grappler is also very powerful, Lunars are just good

although my favourite is Siege Lizard because due to bad core book templating it can flurry five heaven thunder hammers for 2i 0m each

[tulip folio]

As you do

[bleak hazel]

solaroids and Lunar can all do incredibly nuts stuff at chargen, everyone else generally has to wait to get a few essence levels

since Supernal lets you do whatever the fuck you want with cracked solar charms and shapeshifting gives you a massive boost in direct combat power at E1 and then doesn't get much better for the next four essence levels

it gets upgraded a bit but you don't get Double Tyrant Lizard

[fierce star]

The best anima freaks aren't alchemicals, being fair

I love Sovereigns so much

They get like, five personal motes at essence one and they have a dice cap of essence plus anima

Their dice pools don't care how good you are just how magical you can be

[tulip folio]

That's fun. Lets them do Anything Decently, as long as they're willing to be Very Unsubtle About It

They're also disgustingly good Crystal Chameleon users.

As that martial art scales on anima

[fierce star]

Yeah

And given they get transcendant anima...

[bleak hazel]

I was tempted to try Crystal Chameleon with Sids actually but a lot of their stuff spends anima which removes my amazing free dice machine

[tulip folio]

Engage Battle Rave!

[fierce star]

Lol

Their war capstone gives you a giant mech made out of fire glass and anima

[bleak hazel]

OK, this is good art, more like this please

Exalted finally randoms a decent depiction of Big Anima

[tulip folio]

(I would not be remotely unhappy if they ever expanded Sovereigns into a Full Celestial Exalt, as they are heirs to one of the Incarnae, they've likely got more call to have their Own Splat than Gems)

[bleak hazel]

I am going to keep stamping on all the hands of the other exalt types that want to be celestials now we have the standard three, the other Solaroids and the Alchemicals

there should be more than one thing you can play in a Terrestrial game

Gets being Terrestrial Sids would actually make their numbers make more sense, but then they would need to have their Enlightenment taken away at least

[fierce star]

I believe strawmaiden is the only example exigent that's celestial?

[bleak hazel]

At transcendent, her anima banner rises up to the sky and fills the heavens like an aurora, visible out to (Essence x10) miles. also damn, Sovereigns finally get to do the xianxia thing

[tulip folio]

I mean, I feel like 'Comes from one of the Incarnae' likely has more call to it than most, considering that's what Lunars and Solars come from. XD

[fierce star]

Still away from books

[tulip folio]

New Proposal: Nerf Solars until they're terrestial.

[bleak hazel]

they're only half-Incarnae

but also bonk, no, stop adding random new exalts, we have enough exalts in the available theme-space

[bleak hazel]

Exigent of a more mundane sun god

really annoyed people keep mistaking him for big lamp despite the fact he lacks unlimited cosmic power

[fierce star]

Lol

[tulip folio]

But yeah, I was thinking more like 'If we ever get a Shards of the Exalted Dream for 3e', as 'What if the Incarnae who died didn't and had their own exalt type' feels like an excellent 'What if' option. You could do a few settings that don't require much in the way of rules adjustment (Exalted Modern wouldn't really require more than statting up a couple of guns as archery and providing an example vehicle statline) and a single big mechanical thing along with it.

[fierce star]

A nibiru that joined the revolution could be cool. See the exalts designed to resonate with soulsteel.

[tulip folio]

I could see that done up as like 'Take an Abyssal and make the following changes to show they're not A Problem to the setting'

[bleak hazel]

I would like to see the old Sidereal Constellation of the Lightning Bolt

[tulip folio]

More a template than a full exalt

[bleak hazel]

Sidereals strike me as the kind of people who would love sniper rifles

new sidereal martial art: Bond Movie Openings

[fierce star]

That was legitimately some of their stuff from modern shards iirc

[bleak hazel]

yeah, that was what the Lightning Bolt was

[fierce star]

Being both James Bond and James Bond antagonists

[bleak hazel]

they had some of the most stylish firearms charms

[tulip folio]

I'll admit, I was very iffy on 'guns' being a whole different thing when we have perfectly good archery charms there. XD

[fierce star]

It's about the thematics of it more or less

A gunslinger is fictionally different than an archer and the 2e writers wanted to mess with that

[tulip folio]

Sure but a slinger is different from a knife juggler and they're both thrown.

I dunno, if an Essence Cannon can be Archery, I think a Non-Essence Cannon can be too?

[fierce star]

I don't disagree! I just also see why devs might want to do otherwise. Also I think they were being paid by the word.

[tulip folio]

That would explain the desire to add a new charm tree for everyone (Except Infernals)

😛

Come on 2e devs, invent the Yozi of Guns.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/enterthegungeon_gamepedia/images/3/3d/Beholster.png/revision/latest?cb=20160305024146

Here, there's already art for his demons

[bleak hazel]

I was about to post the Lich from Gungeon

[fierce star]

The Yozi With No Name

Wait no

[tulip folio]

That's clearly the neverborn of guns 😛

[fierce star]

Fuck the gun Yozi is just the military industrial complex

[tulip folio]

Really? I find it quite simple

[bleak hazel]

I have so nearly got everything unlocked in Gungeon, I keep having godlike paradox runs and somehow flopping with Gunslinger despite gunslinger being gunslinger

[fierce star]

Boelok, The Creation of War

Yuri Orlov as an Infernal Exalt

[tulip folio]

Second Testament of Boelock
Cost: 3m; Mins: Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Mute
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms:
AM I BEING DETAINED?

People won’t comment on or otherwise react to the Warlock openly brandishing arms or armor, dripping with blood, or showing other signs of battle, nor will they assume the Warlock poses a threat to them. These never penalize her social rolls. Nontrivial characters can spend one Willpower to react normally to the Warlock for a scene. 

This Charm ends if the Warlock attacks or takes other overtly hostile action.

[bleak hazel]

oi, give that back to Mars

get your own bullet social moves

[fierce star]

Lmao

[bleak hazel]

evidently this is what the Maidens actually do all day

patrol around yu-shan slapping away infinite other exalts trying to steal Sidereal moves

[fierce star]

Shit I am gonna be stuck on infernal Yuri Orlov for awhile, Lord of war is my second favorite cage movie

[tulip folio]

Leaden Confidence
Cost: —; Mins: Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Any Boelock Charm
"The only thing they fear... is you."

As long as the warlock is openly carrying a weapon, she gains the following benefits:

-The Warlock can use [Melee, War or Archery] instead of social Abilities for threaten rolls and rolls to instill Ties of fear toward her. She is treated as Hideous when doing so.
-The Warlock may use [Melee, War or Archery] instead of Integrity to calculate her Resolve.

There, one that isn't just a stolen mars charm 😛

[fierce star]

Hell yeah

[next delta]

Liminals will be terrestrial tier. But otherwise yeah, it's kind of weird. Though I guess DBs outnumber all other exalt types combined (by like an order of magnitude lol)

[tulip folio]

Yeah, the second closest is Alchemicals and they're A) In a different dimension B) Still outnumbered by a comical amount.

800 vs 25k

[velvet raft]

Gets as terrestrial sids would seem more reasonable to me

[bleak hazel]

yeah, it would also explain why having nearly as many gets as sids running around hasn't completely ruined the ability of Sids to do stuff

although I'd still probably bump the Sid count up to 150 or 200 because I want to

[tulip folio]

There's really not enough sids for a decent football league, let alone factional infighting

[velvet raft]

I like them as a very small club because I think it lends to the atmosphere of being Bureaucracy Ninjas, personally

[fierce star]

You can still get that with 200 tbh, I feel like

[velvet raft]

I dunno there's less of a sense of Everyone Knows Everyone, then

[dense verge]

200 is still a reasonable number for that i feel

[prisma sun]

I think 100 is good because Fivescore Fellowship sounds rad

[dense verge]

that is the only downside of changing it from 100, the name is rad

but i worry about running out of sids to introduce with just 100

[bleak hazel]

there is also Fivefold Fellowship, which I think is fine

and 200 is still a small enough club to know every other sid considering the average sid career is measured in centuries

[fierce star]

Yeah

[fierce star]

you know 100 sids didn't even really make sense back in ex2, when first age exalted were designed to work in 'full circles' of 5 solars (one of each caste) and their lunar mates (one of each caste) each with a personal gentes of DBs, for a total fo 60 of those, and then... 100 sidereals to be advisors and viziers to them, except that number doesn't like. Evenly match up at all.

[bleak hazel]

40 sids are actually doing their god damn job trying to duct tape all holes in reality from all the others fucking around

[fierce star]

of cours,e the first age perfect circle numbers don't really matter in ex3 given there's ~400 lunars now, but it was just something that occured to me as I was driving

[bleak hazel]

yeah, there being 400 lunars now is why I started thinking "what if More Sids"

[prisma sun]

I think the thing about EX3 is that it kinda assumes Circles aren't the default

They're a bit more rare and special

like most DBs don't end up in Hearths

[bleak hazel]

a hearth of deebs is a reasonable unit for deebs to come in, at least

it is plausible that deebs have a tradition of small bands of adventuring schoolfriends or similar, and it's also enough deebs to deal with all but the most freakishly accidentally-optimized anathema

[spring lynx]

i'm pretty sure the Perfect Circle was always a theoretical thing anyway

like, they (in universe) mapped out how the theoretical Perfect Circle would be arranged, but no one ever actually put one together, for a lot of reasons

[mighty rover]

i have a habit of looking at Onyx Path updates without really knowing what they mean, so I just now figured out that Pillars of Creation and the Essence Player's Guide aren't the same thing

So what is Pillars of Creation

[upper stratus]

isn't it an upcoming (pending a very long time) supplement for exalted essence

[bleak hazel]

new fun Misc charop objective: make an E1 sid that can solo both Ragara and Cathak Cainan

with a Lunar or a Solaroid this would be pretty trivial because they lack any form of anti-TRex technology, but Sids are the weakest Celestial in a direct E1 brawl except maybe Alchemicals

both of those two get quite mean later on but at E1 they don't get either Supernal or shapeshifting to make their lives easier by piling on endgame power early

[prisma sun]

Soloing a banker and a strategist doesn't seem the hardest thing to do

[bleak hazel]

they are the two 'ardest published DBs, and Ragara has extra dice from nowhere in his quick character pools to compensate for not having a bazillion charms like a regular E5 deeb would

he's actually fairly tough

[velvet raft]

Isn’t Cainan a legendary fighter among the dbs?

Or at least a very successful soldier?

[tulip folio]

Yeah but he's still a simple character/lacks the options of a full PC.

[bleak hazel]

he's a House Matriarch and an E5 dedicated warrior, he's as dangerous as they come in terms of solo deeb combatants

although in practice I'd be more worried about arch-sorcerors like Mnemon and Big Red in practice

[tulip folio]

Mnemon: "So I have 3-6 second circle demons materialize in front of me."

[velvet raft]

Oh, I just meant in the sense that he's hardly "just a strategist"

Dude's a living legend

[tulip folio]

Greenflame Orchestral Annihilation
Cost: 2m; Mins: Perform 4, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: One turn
Prerequisite Charms: Terrestial Circle Sorcery
Malfeas is driven by Spite and Song, spells woven with raw emotion over the runecraft of mortal mages.

The Warlock flurries a Shape Sorcery with a non-attack action, reducing the penalty on both rolls by one. If her Anima is at Glowing or higher, she ignores all penalties for flurrying this way, including the defence penalty.

An Occult 5, Essence 3 repurchase lets the Warlock pay a four-mote, one-Willpower surcharge to extend this Charm’s duration to one scene.

Transmutation of Obliteration
Mins: Perform 5, Essence 3
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Greenflame Orchestral Annihilation, Celestial Circle Sorcery
The Warlock raises her voice in impossible song, singing multiple octaves at the same time.

When the Warlock uses Greenflame Orchestral Annihilation, she can flurry two Shape Sorcery actions, as long as each Shape Sorcery is for a different spell (Such as Death of Obsidian Butterflies and Magma Kraken) and both spells are not the highest circle of spell the Warlock can cast (So if she knows Celestial Circle Sorcery, she can flurry two Terrestial Circle Spells).

Silly ponderings around Infernals and their role of 'king shit of sorcery'.

[tulip folio]

...dammit, I've got an idea for an evocation bouncing about my head but I'm not 100% sure on balance as it's trying to recreate the vibe of a talent from another game.

[coral wraith]

Tyrant Gauntlets
Medium Melee Weapon
Also known as bonebreaker fists from their use in brutal underground fight pits, these outsized gloves are designed to stand up to traditional melee weapons and come out on top. This is achieved through a blunt melding of offense and defense; Tyrant Gauntlets can snatch a swinging blade from midair without harming the wielder, and follow up with blows that snap bones like twigs. This doesn't come without downsides - the gauntlets are exhausting to use, and they're near useless for any form of manipulation, including most grappling techniques.

Requires Stamina 3 or higher to wield. Can't perform grapple gambits while worn.

Tags: Bashing, Brawl, Disarming, Smashing, Worn```

Doing  a little bit of weapon homebrewing, do these make sense?

[bleak hazel]

seems reasonable

basically Smashfists but you swap grapple for disarm

[coral wraith]

bonk

[velvet raft]

Question: what if somebody else grapples you?

[coral wraith]

You can still attack just fine and such

[velvet raft]

Aye, but you can't attempt a control check at all?

[coral wraith]

There's no such thing except on initiation of the grapple, which isn't affected

[velvet raft]

Saw the adjustment/clarification, works better I think

[coral wraith]

Eh

It's the same thing

[bleak hazel]

the grapple sequence goes:
decisive attack
grappler init roll
opposed grapple control roll
(if the grappler's turn) grappling action like throw/savage/restrain

and yeah, that clarification helps a lot

[coral wraith]

I'd rather not have people hung up on edge cases

[velvet raft]

They kinda strike me as the boxing gloves to the mma gloves of smashfists

[bleak hazel]

there's no "aha, I turn your grapple around on you" like there is in Lancer or similar without charmtech, so this works fine

I honestly like it

[coral wraith]

That's basically the idea, yeah

[bleak hazel]

you can be small-g grappling without using the rules at all, but the Grapple rules are for situations where someone is being Got

[coral wraith]

I'm thinking like...mini-Vi gauntlets, from League

Big old meatfists

[velvet raft]

(Incidentally there is a mixed-grappling/striking sport that uses boxing gloves, sanda, y'all should look it up because it is cool, but that's also neither here nor there)

(But they also just do takedowns and throws, not ground-fighting)

[coral wraith]

In my head they're festooned with like, parry hooks and things for blades to catch on when they try to break your guard

And then you flatten them while they're off balance or open

[coral wraith]

Oh that sounds neat actually

[velvet raft]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBiZs9jwuyc A sample

They break clinches after a few seconds if nothing happens, so people go for big takedowns a lot

[fierce star]

I just had a random thought about Celestial exalts, apocryphal exaltations, dead incarnae and Sidereals. Going on what we know about Nibiru and Aurora, their Exalted were likely to be, respectively, focused around being dedicated spies, assassins, murderers and misinformation spreaders; and muses, inspirational figures, and spiritual leaders and advisors. Both of which, it feels like, kind of got folded into Sidereals when Nibiru refused to join the Revolution/Aurora got killed and the Aurorals became the Heart-Eaters. Does that make sense, or am I reading too much into things?

[prisma sun]

Could be the reason Castes exist