Exalted

[velvet raft]

More likely either 6 or 2+sword-creation magic or 4+sword-creation magic

[fierce star]

oh there's more people active around at this time would anyone like to look at this exigent I've been fiddling with (Iki's already commented on some stuff)

[tulip folio]

Or 0 dots and 'Hey, there's a crafter in the party and he's got to build up his white points somehow' 😛

[velvet raft]

XD

But yeah, very potent style, amazing action efficiency

[tulip folio]

'MAKE ME DAIKLAIVES, TWILIGHT! I HAVE A GOLF BAG TO FILL!"

[prisma sun]

I should read thousand blades

So I can consider more sword telekinesis shenanigans

[velvet raft]

Combine it with Obsidian Shards of Infinity if a sid

[prisma sun]

Well the idea is combining the sentient sword with shining point

[tulip folio]

Combine it with Black Claw and list your form weapon as 'Other people's swords'

[tulip folio]

Go for it!

[fierce star]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/150xLxZvB6cjjtRSh9Z1t29ORi-r_N496_ydS3yjraos/edit?usp=sharing because normal exalst with warstriders aren't Super Robot Protagonist Enough

[prisma sun]

Hey vsauce, Micheal here
How many Initiative tracks can a single exalt have?

Actually genuine question

Can anyone beat 5 initiative tracks

Has to be the exalted getting more tracks, not summoning minions

[tulip folio]

I will say - I feel like this needs a better title than 'Chosen'. Like Architects or Puppeteers.

[velvet raft]

Pilot

[prisma sun]

Drifter

https://tenor.com/view/gipsy-danger-walk-in-the-rain-jaeger-pacific-rim-gif-16632271

[fierce star]

It's a little placeholdery there, I have a few ideas, it just depends on which media I want to steal from

Pilot would be a good generic one

i'll probably end up going with Pilot, though maybe it lacks oomph? I guess it's similar to ARchitect, that name conjures nerds making engineer's live's hard more than 'badass exalt' but it works for htem

[velvet raft]

Hm. Taken in parallel with PAOC, the charm that makes OSI's form absolutely indispensable could probably be grabbed at about the same time as PAOC's pinnacle charm ...

Still couldn't use the PAOC charms themselves with the knives though

Unless PAOC form itself covers that

[tulip folio]

Something I would say ID: I'd be careful about making it too warstrider-y.

Like, I'd have a lot of 'When on foot, emulate cool warstrider stuff'

Not just 'pilot good'

[velvet raft]

... are there really no artifact knives?

[tulip folio]

There are not!

[velvet raft]

That

[tulip folio]

Wait, there is one set of them

[fierce star]

Yeah the plan is that their individual charms are going to be like

celestial tier on foot still, reaching solaroid when in a warstrider

the only charms I plan to only have effects in the warstrider are the Mode forms

[tulip folio]

The Shatterbond Knives are Artifact Knives

[velvet raft]

Where are those?

[tulip folio]

They're called 'Dire Talons' apparently.

[fierce star]

Abyssals, yeah?

[tulip folio]

Abyssals, yeah

[velvet raft]

Okay

Oh, looks like there's another set in Alchemicals

Tragically moonsilver

Still, that's adequate precedent for 2-dots I guess

[fierce star]

two dots?

[tulip folio]

...you know what would be really nice to turn up in a later book?

A good chunk of extra thaumatologist rituals

We've got more Solar Circle Spells than 'shit a mortal or terrestial rookie mage might know' XD

[fierce star]

Things that make thaumaturgy Worth Considering would be nice

but it is almost ofur times the XP cost of learning sorcery, so exalts will probably never take base thaumaturgist

you know what's fucked? Mortals taking sorcery is only one dot more than being a thaumaturgist.

[tulip folio]

Yeah, it's much cheaper to just get terrestial sorcery and get Free Thaumaturgy

...what were some fun 2e thaumaturgy rituals? They'd be fun to translate

[fierce star]

I'd have to go back and look through, honestly, it's been a long time since I've finangled with ex2 thaumaturgy

they're prrrobably in like... the black and white treatises?

[tulip folio]

I feel like a good one would be like a 'Bless a weapon to hit spirits'. Something not as 'I need it immediately' as the actual exalt charms, more a ritual for a temporary effect.

But something a Mortal Exorcist can use to go Beat A Ghost With A Gohei Stick

[upper stratus]

they'd need some way to see it too

[tulip folio]

Yeah. Maybe something to bless an area? So like, they can't Walk About With It like an exalt can.

But you can set up some wards and spirits in the area become semi-visible

Likely still with a visability penalty

As DBs don't get to see spirits without one

So it's not an easy process but they can go 'this house is haunted, I will bless my Ghost Beating Stick and set up wards to make ghosts visible so I can get to Evicting The Ghosts'

[bleak hazel]

The mortal exorcist statblock in core has stuff for this

[tulip folio]

It does but making them into Thaumatolgy tricks would be nice.

...snrk

Also funny thing: The main ghost in the corebook has a typo in it that makes trying to use exorcism very difficult

It's got a difficulty of <Resolve> but the war ghost...didn't get a listed resolve. XD

It's likely 3? As the honored anscestor is 4 and the hungry ghost is 2

So thaumaturgy rituals:

Exorcism (Base it off the Exorcist)
Blessed Weapon (Base it off the Exorcist. Make the ritual bless weapons with the effect of the silver staff they have)
Blessed Wards (Bless an area. Spirits find being in it uncomfortable and become semi-visible)

The thing I'm thinking I'll do is go - These are not for everything immaterial. You pick one type when you use it. So you can have Anti-Demon Wards or an Anti-God Blessed Weapon. If you pick the wrong sort? Well, sucks shit. This is thaumaturgy, it's got issues relatively to charms.

That seem like a decent trio for 'giving thaumaturgists some tricks'?

[fierce star]

I think so!

[tulip folio]

Maybe one that lets you basicly send a message to a god's pager at a shrine to them? not two way communication and not more than a quick mental image/couple of words.

But a priest could tell the local god 'Bandits Attacking!'

Though I *think * gods can detect prayers sent their way, I'm not sure how immediate/how easy it is for them to pick specific things out.

Pondering minor rituals that mortal shamans and priests would have

[fierce star]

The Pilot's Pride
Cost: 4m; Mins: Integrity 3, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Strider
Duration: One Tick
Prequisite Charms: None
The Pilot becomes immune to Onslaught penalties for the rest of the tick.
Strider: While piloting a warstrider, this charm's duration becomes scene-long.

God-Body Technique
Cost: NA; Mins: Integrity 1, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: Stackable, Strider
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Pilot's stubborn will manifests in an equally stubborn body, reinforced by their mind and soul. This charm grants extra health levels based on their Stamina
Stamina 1 and 2: One -2 and One -4 health Level
Stamina 3 and 4: One -1, One -2, and One -4 Health Level
Stamina 5: One -0, One -1, One -2, and One -4 Health Level.

Strider: This charm grants additional health levels to any piloted warstrider equal to twice the normal health levels it would grant to the Pilot.

This charm may be repurchased up to (Integrity) times.

starting to make charms for the Pilot

[tulip folio]

I'd clarify how the God-Body Technique works with like...repairing levels.

As if you get out, those levels vanish

Do they need repairing?

[bleak hazel]

scene-long onslaught immunity for 4m reflexive is considerably better than the Solar standard, albeit slightly narrower in scope

so is that ox-body equivalent, that one blows Lunars out of the water before you triple it

[fierce star]

... oh wait, iron battle focus doesn't make you immune to onslaught penalties you've already taken, that's fair

[tulip folio]

Vague Pondering on God-Body - Rather than tripling/having that repair question, maybe let the pilot take damage to the extra boxes granted by god-body while in the warstrider (With it healing like normal. So you can soak up some repair time as well as damage).

[fierce star]

My tought with the ox-body is that your physical stats are at a premium as a warstrider pilot, since you want dex to... well, do combat things, and you want strength to actually pilot the damn thing., so you're unlikely to have the stamina 5 unless you sacrifice elsewhere

[bleak hazel]

I admit a general reluctance towards "solar-level Exigents" in any way, because our only existing basis for what a "solar-level charm" looks like is "broken as fuck"

and then you take away Supernal so you have to crank up the power of the lower-level charms, compress the trees some, whoops everything's exploded

[fierce star]

The Pilot's Pride
Cost: 6m 1wp; Mins: Integrity 3, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Strider
Duration: One Tick
Prequisite Charms: None
The Pilot becomes immune to Onslaught penalties for the rest of the tick.
Strider: While piloting a warstrider, this charm's duration becomes scene-long.

God-Body Technique
Cost: NA; Mins: Integrity 1, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: Stackable, Strider
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Pilot's stubborn will manifests in an equally stubborn body, reinforced by their mind and soul. This charm grants extra health levels based on their Stamina
Stamina 1 and 2: One -2 and One -4 health Level
Stamina 3 and 4: One -1 and One -4 Health Level
Stamina 5: One -0, One -2, and One -4 Health Level.

Strider: While piloting a Warstrider, the Pilot may take damage to the extra health levels granted by this charm in lieu of their warstrider taking them.

This charm may be repurchased up to (Integrity) times.

boosted the cost for Pride, reduced the health levels for god-body and did the 'you take damage instead of your warstrider' option

[tulip folio]

(My eternal stance is that Celestial Tier should just be celestial tier. There shouldn't be Solar Tier above Celestial Tier. If you can't have a Solar + Lunar mate pair in the same game without balance concerns, that's a sad situation. It's just not a stance that the devs tend to agree with). XD

[fierce star]

The intent is solar-level inside a warstrider and general celestial outside them

[bleak hazel]

yeah, but the only thing that differs there, once you get out of "this is my onslaught negator, this is my basic damage adder", is that Solars are broken

and since all the solar stuff got moved over to Abyssals to make up that basic layer of stuff it's hard to know what Good Solars would look like

[fierce star]

I basically want this exigent to be able to go toe to toe with a solar in a warstrider while they're in a warstrider. Is that beyond the scope of the game's balance hard enough that I need to abandon this ideal?

[bleak hazel]

solar warstrider pilot uses Solar Brawl, you die

if you give this thing Solar Brawl in return, yes, it's going to break the game, because Solar Brawl and Solar Melee are the two strongest trees in the game bar none by an absurd margin

[fierce star]

well

fair enough

back to the drawing board, I guess

[tulip folio]

I think part of it is also 'Another PC solar or an NPC solar?' As like...even as Classic Dumb Murderhobo Dusk as Benignant Annihilator of Hope and Falsehood, I'm not sure she's really 'PC solaroid' mean

[fierce star]

well, NPCs generally, since this is meant for a celestial level game, not strictly a solaroid game, because I felt like, in general, 'in a warstrider' is a rare enough sitaution to warrant the power boost for the circle's primary combatant

which this would be, as the chosen of the god of giant fighting robots

but if tryign to reach there is a pipe dream i'll go and

figure something out

[bleak hazel]

she is an extremely unoptimised essence 4 dusk because she has to be vaguely usable as an opponent, and an optimised combat solaroid played sensibly results in the GM going eeny meenie miney mo around the table twice and killing those two player characters on round one

even if they are also solars at any level short of heavy dodge/resistance investment

[tulip folio]

Fuck You, I'm A Solar
Supplemental
This supplements a Join Battle roll. Roll (Essence) dice. For each success, kill one other character in the scene.

[bleak hazel]

she doesn't even have Abyssal Hail-Shattering Practice, a fairly basic E2 charm with one prerequisite, because if she did she would have an effective parry of 10+excellency and everyone would go insane trying to hit her

[tulip folio]

Her mobility also seems to...not exist.

[bleak hazel]

my cracked E5 sidereal elders can maybe take an average E4 meleeist if they're lucky, but only with like 50% more XP and ruthless optimisation

[fierce star]

I guess I can just put in the fluff that they would be the equal and not worry about the stats, but that's lame

[tulip folio]

She's really relying on Blossoming Shadow Slash to deal with 'I have a Chakram, Air Dragon and a Dream' DB.

[bleak hazel]

brawl? I'm never willingly going into that fight even if I had a 60% chance to win because the other 40% of the time I just evaporate

[fierce star]

and like. A solar being able to just beat a Pilot by flicking their warstrider once is. I dunno. I hate solars.

I think i'll just shelf the idea, since I wouldn't be able to make it work within the system's power limits.

[bleak hazel]

"just a celestial" is pretty strong already

[tulip folio]

I think to be frank? I'd mostly just Ignore Solars. Like not even mention if they're in power-level. It's not like you'll really face one that's not an NPC

[bleak hazel]

celestials also move up to raid boss level pretty effectively at higher essence, even without being a bit cheesy and exploiting janky stuff in Core/earlier books (Lunar Threaten hippo builds, Black Claw mote reactor sids)

[tulip folio]

And an NPC is inherently something the GM expects you to be able to fight.

I'll admit, I do tend to keep going 'Can this help stuff a solar doing some bullshit' when I ponder defensive/reactive charms (The answer often being 'no, because they're a solar') but it's likely not healthy. XD

[bleak hazel]

you can exploit some equal bullshit to handle certain solars (Black Claw! CMOS!) but nobody will ever be able to facecheck Solar Brawl unless it all gets nerfed

[velvet raft]

Which sucks because Solar brawl is very cool

[tulip folio]

I think the most directly 'hey, stop that solars' I did was in First Pulse but even then it's a translation of what first pulse does in essence XD

The martial artist can act up to (Essence) ticks earlier, without changing her initiative. This can allow her to clash attacks, or act before foes.

Once per scene, for +1 wp, this can be used after another character has changed their acting tick (Such as with Delay or Thunderclap Rush). She may interrupt their action, taking her turn before proceeding with the previously appointed character.

[velvet raft]

The charms feel pretty good, conceptually, except for how TRA should not exist

Which it shouldn’t

[bleak hazel]

the real cheesy solar brawl strat is grab->throw->repeat

combine with Thunderbolt Attack Prana (nerfed significantly in Abyssals, still extremely strong) to instantly delete targets

[tulip folio]

I'm shocked that anyone designing these days was willing to write the words 'Double Damage' without understanding what that means for scaling. XD

[bleak hazel]

it is one of the most broken solar charms that still vaguely obeys the system, rather than just being outright nonfunctional or removing swathes of the game

column A: Sledgehammer Fist Punch, most of the shaping defences, that one psychonauts charm, that one charm that lets you create a spirit
column B: Hail-Shattering Practice, Fivefold Bulwark Stance, Knockout Blow, TRA

column C for "technically works as a mechanical instrument but should not exist for other reasons"

(Divine Mantle, God-King's Shrike, Dual Magnus Prana)

[tulip folio]

God-King's Shrike is just 'This isn't a Solar Charm'. XD

If you want to nuke a city from orbit at least have the decency to blow it up with the daystar instead of Stealing Sid Predictions to do it

[velvet raft]

Oh, TAP, not TRA. I get them mixed up because TRA is the charm that does the okay part of TAP

[bleak hazel]

TRA is also broken as hell and one of the reasons Solars are so unusable as opponents unless you deliberately nerf them

TAP is just more broken to the point it was removed from Abyssals

[velvet raft]

The athletics charm?

[bleak hazel]

yeah

[velvet raft]

Ah

[tulip folio]

It's amusing that abyssals got told 'Hey, I know your entire thing is being More Murder-y Solars but solars are Too Murder-y so you're losing some of it'

[bleak hazel]

"skip the initiative order, land an automatic withering attack for free, make an attack, this combines with all combat trees and is very hard to clash"

you weren't beating an Awakening Eye solar at Join Battle anyway but now you can't even try

[velvet raft]

Oh yeah that’s more than I remembered

I was just remembering the rush-and-make-an-attack quickly all at once

But yeah, TAP is especially egregious because the mechanics already contain a way to do the thing it does within the fiction

And that way to do that is

“Win join battle”

[tulip folio]

Something solars are really god damn good at

(Kinda too good, when winning join battle gives init, such a valuable resource)

[velvet raft]

They are also too good at that

Yeah

But like TAP is bad at the conceptual level

Is I guess my point

A lot of brawl charms are cool ideas executed with waaaaay too much juice

[tulip folio]

unironically, I think the essence first pulse has 'TAP if it was good and not stupid'. Much more limited in when it can be used and helps you when someone else is winning rather than making you win harder.

[velvet raft]

TAP is just a terrible idea

[bleak hazel]

there is also Secrets of Future Strife from VBOS

[velvet raft]

I could see a much more bounded, similar idea

But

[bleak hazel]

there are a few charms in the add-x-to-effective-init mould

[tulip folio]

Yeah, secrets of future strife inspired Blood-Spattered Streets for my doing of First Pulse for 3e. XD

[velvet raft]

Oh, here's a question: would PAOC form itself count as a form of that style for purposes of PAOC form's style weapon combining?

Like, if you have three non-PAOC form charms in there that all use knives, can you use PAOC's supplemental charms with knives?

[tulip folio]

Blood-spattered Streets
Cost: 4m (+1 wp); Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Mastery
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
Once in combat, any urchin knows that it’s better to give than to receive. Characters who master this Charm learn how to use an opponent’s preparation to strike against him.

The the stylist adds (higher of Essence or 3) to her effective Initiative to determine when she takes her turn.

Mastery: Once per scene, for +1 wp, this can be used after another character has changed their acting tick (Such as with Delay or Thunderclap Rush). She may interrupt their action, taking her turn before proceeding with the previously appointed character.

[bleak hazel]

I am pretty sure you cannot, no

that's not really a huge issue unless you specifically have two SMAs, though

since Soulfire is basically never going to be a bad pick

[velvet raft]

I was mainly thinking about Obsidian Shard of Infinity/VBOS/Thousand Blades

Because Thousand Blades and Obsidian Shards in particular seem like a great conceptual match

But by Essence 5 you really do want both form charms

And VBOS is another one that works with knives were you really want the form charm

[tulip folio]

PAOC is so good I keep going 'Maybe I can make it work on a non-unarmed sid' and then going 'no, the melee charm doesn't work like that'. XD

[velvet raft]

You can if you only take melee going into it

It just won't work with any other martial arts

[tulip folio]

Yeah but other martial arts are cool XD

[velvet raft]

So is sid melee, in fairness

But yes

[bleak hazel]

I do wish there was a general Enlightenment charm, maybe in Battles, that was basically "merge martial art + SMA, but you can only buy this once"

Ashley wrote one

[tulip folio]

Considering the others are part of charm trees I'd be tempted to make it a martial artst charm outside of any particular martial art.

So all sids can pick it up equally well

Since they are all favored martial arts

[velvet raft]

Battles would make sense for that, yes

Require the MA you're merging in be completed etc etc

[bleak hazel]

Battles should get nice things because man that caste ability spread is pain

If you go MA you have seven useful abilities to your friend's 9-10

[tulip folio]

It's why I think DB have some of the nicest divides there. Splitting combat abilities up instead of having a dedicated 'I fight' one.

[upper stratus]

wasn't quite my thought behind it but i guess it does technically do that

[velvet raft]

What would be rad is if somehow one of the anima powers let you mix different abilities a little more, although I'm not sure how exactly

[fierce star]

spend X, pick a single ability, all it's charms gain versatile for the scene

(this is stupid)

[velvet raft]

I was thinking more like the 5-mote ability could let you use 1-3 archery, melee, or brawl charms at the same time or something

I dunno

[prisma sun]

Had an idea of a SMA that let's you team up with your future self

The main concept being able to bank actions in the present to be able to use them later since you're either giving them to your future self or getting them from them

[bleak hazel]

Sid excellency has spoiled me, I'm terrified whenever I have to roll something at mere TN7

so much delicious bold text

[tulip folio]

Silly Pondering: Giving a Sid ally 'reroll 6s' because I'm trying to buff him and don't get how his mechanics work.

[bleak hazel]

actually makes them go completely insane because if you reroll something that's already a success it keeps the success and rolls more dice

so now you have exploding sixes

[spring lynx]

only if he's rolling 6-ups though

[tulip folio]

Huh, I thought that was only with double X. That's cool.

Gambling God with Jackpot charm that gives 'Reroll 7s'. XD

[fierce star]

I would 100% believe that's a plentimon charm

[tulip folio]

I'm sad those gambling beetles don't have a Familiar Rating.

[tulip folio]

...silly pondering: Plentimon charm that is Malifaux Gamble Your Life

...what skill do you think is most fitting for Gambling (In a non-cheating way) in Exalted?

[fierce star]

you'd probably use a mix of Awareness, Investigate, and Socialize (since that's the ability used for read intentions)

[tulip folio]

Gamble Your Life (10m, 1wp; Supplemental; Instant; Essence 3, Eclipse): This Charm supplements an opposed roll to Gamble (such as Survival to pick a winning horse or Socialize to play cards) against a character in medium range, Raising the stakes to their peak. The loser suffers one lethal damage per threshold success the other character received, which ignores hardness.

A character who attempts to cheat in this contest is treated as having automatically botched, though they gain a bad feeling before attempting to cheat that allows them to back down or change course. This does not apply to effects that merely tilt the odds, such as using an excellency to be more skilled than the opponent or the assistance of a Plentimon's Ladybug but does affect Sidereal Prophesy and similar effects that would try to force a result.

[bleak hazel]

so what happens if I use the Sid Excellency with all its target number reduction

[tulip folio]

I figure that would fall under the same thing as Plentimon's Ladybug, as that's also TN reduction.

[bleak hazel]

fair

it isn't just "instantly murder Sidereals at card games" then

[tulip folio]

Yeah, nah. It's for stuff like 'Solars have a larceny charm to Perfectly Cheat At Cards'

Lunar with gambling addiction hoping the regen is faster than the life cost

[bleak hazel]

sid prophecy is just target number reduction when affecting people actually rolling narratively significant dice

although it can and will rig every Trivial character's card game in the Imperial City

[tulip folio]

True but Sid Prophesy felt a bit 'I am dictating an outcome and things are crowbarring themselves to make sure it happens' to fit the thematics of 'no cheating'. XD

Since Prophesy is an in-universe thing, not just an expression of personal skill

[prisma sun]

Speaking of cheating, I also had an idea regarding the Sword Saint

The Sun, deciding to deliberate effectively, added in a clause that allows any Zenith caste to serve in his stead, forcing them to judicate the dispute as fairly as is possible.```

[bleak hazel]

while scrapping in Sidgame we've noticed that both Sid Melee and Sid Brawl have extremely easy access to aggravated damage, they're on both the straightforward damage adders

keeping that in the back pocket in case I need to fight a Lunar, I guess?

[tulip folio]

Sids make Lunars Sad, if they can make the damage actually stick

[bleak hazel]

(this is unlikely, three lunars are on side and there are no other known lunars around)

[bleak hazel]

they don't have a way around the assorted Lunar damage caps and extremely good tanking charms, at least not an easy one, but they can fuck with Halting the Scarlet Flow, which makes them really quite good at murdering baby Lunars

assuming said baby lunar isn't an incredibly optimised Threaten cheese build or Legendary Size/bear grappler, anyway

[tulip folio]

Threaten Cheese?

[bleak hazel]

there's a Lunar charm (or animal merit, can't remember) that augments a Threaten roll with a rider that steals 1 init from the target for each success over the enemy resolve

let me find it

ah, it's a latent merit, yeah

Predator's Menace - any animal with an init pool can cause enemies that you hit with a threaten roll to lose 1 init per extra success, even if they pay willpower

so you turn into an animal with a threaten pool, usually a hippo (very good for general combat) or a gorilla (can use its Intimidate pool to join battle)

make a massively buffed intimidate roll with a maxed Lunar dice pool and a bunch of charms that give you double 9s, ignore body language penalties, produce virtual intimacies of fear etc.

strip 12+ initiative off every enemy in the scene, get a bunch of crash bonuses, eat someone with a big decisive, continue with fight as normal except every enemy starts out crashed

this is probably not what that merit was intended to do but the init strip isn't capped, so much like many animal traits a Lunar can bend it out of shape pretty grievously

[tulip folio]

Clearly I turn into a black cat, because they're a source of superstition about bad luck and should totally have a threaten pool 😛

[bleak hazel]

this is not as cheesy as solar bullshit, you're not going 1v3 with deebs at chargen without some extra nonsense on top, but it is still pretty cheesy and becomes cracked as hell in larger parties

the Sid version of this is abusing Black Claw + Sidereal essence replenishment charms, which is a lot less dramatic but doesn't have a 1/scene limit and can be done with great efficiency by otherwise dedicated socialites

[prisma sun]

Can't you do this as a Tyrant Lizard that can make a Threaten Roll against everyone in the scene

with the roar

Ah nah nvm

https://i.imgur.com/vwN46Vj.png

[bleak hazel]

by default it's everyone in the scene so that doesn't help

you'll blast a lot harder but you also reset to base afterwards, which denies you all those juicy crash bonuses, so you probably want to learn normal Predator's Menace

dice added by animal abilities are considered charm dice so Dragon Roar just saves you 10 motes

[prisma sun]

It's the thing I got on King Hu cuz it seeemed cool :c

[bleak hazel]

it is cool

it's just not Optimal Roar Cheese

it's not like crashing the whole encounter isn't strong as all hell

Tyrant Lizards have about four different buttons that make them cracked for lunars and they can use all of them at once, so throwing on Predator's Menace and blowing up the entire opfor round 1 is just gravy

[tulip folio]

Cats are remarkably resistant to Heaven Thunder Hammer

With that 'ignores all rolled dice for falling and converts automatic damage into rolled dice'

[bleak hazel]

there is a pretty hard divide between "animals written before Lunar book" and "animals written alongside/after Lunar book"

the kraken and the orca are pretty stronk but they suffer fairly obvious limitations in most campaigns

(Leviathan cares not, he will fully annihilate you with mega-orca form)

[tulip folio]

Great Cats seem pretty cool. not as dodgy as housecats or as tanky as some other options but a pretty good stealth combatant.

[bleak hazel]

they're solid B+-tier, yeah

sneaky builds are generally in a class of their own because either you have anti-ambush tech or you don't

(Deebs have a really hard time getting anti-ambush tech, big cat goes om nom nom)

[tulip folio]

Clearly I should train a housecat in Battle Cat from the Great Cat and achieve Maximum Cat

[bleak hazel]

take cat^2 into autochthon and terrorise the rat nation-state

[prisma sun]

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

[bleak hazel]

does he know Tiger Style

I already know of one Tiger-Tiger Stylist, she's a giant shonen protag

[prisma sun]

Damn right he knows Tiger Style

[tulip folio]

I'm still looking foward to my Lunar Witch just unleashing Ambush Hunter Combat Spells.

SURPRISE FLESH SLOUGHING WAVE!

[prisma sun]

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

I wonder if his charm list is even good

he was the first exalt I made

[bleak hazel]

looks good to me, I can't remember what the Lunar onslaught negator is called but if he doesn't have that I'd throw that in there

[prisma sun]

Damn he had 16 dots of mutations

fuck did I spend it on

[bleak hazel]

and maybe grab Halting the Scarlet Flow and Bear Sleep Technique fairly quick after game start because it can kinda suck if you get slapped a few times for a few health levels and now you need to wait two weeks while all your -2 levels heal up

[prisma sun]

https://i.imgur.com/sURbf2X.png

Makes sense

[bleak hazel]

honk shoo mimimi is key Lunar tech

lunars are pretty damn forgiving in combat

having infinity soak from E1 covers a multitude of sins, regardless of whether you've actually committed them or not

[tulip folio]

hong shoo mimini?

[bleak hazel]

and that means you can spend more charms on murder

[prisma sun]

Yeah I think the goal was to get tankier and then finish Tiger Form

then add as much of Heaven and Earth Gauntlets to his regular-ass fists

[bleak hazel]

onomatopoeia for snoring

[tulip folio]

Ah, I see.

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/stray-game-stray-game-video-game-ps4-gif-26620365

[bleak hazel]

Solars do not have bear sleep technique but because their integrity tree is extremely jank, they can combine three meditation charms to get an entire nights' sleep and 20 motes back in a few seconds

[tulip folio]

Mind Palace Nap

Hmm...pondering the best way to get some solid init gaining on this Lunar Cat Witch. As she mostly wants to blow things up with spells but you want to have init to use those blasty spells. XD

[bleak hazel]

I'd link the funny helldivers video for "be advised, I'm eepy" [dive prone power nap] but it's a twitter link

[coral wraith]

You actually don't need Init for some of the blasting spells, it's only the pure single target ones that work like standard Decisives

Death of Obsidian Butterflies doesn't reset you to base initiative or factor it in at all

[tulip folio]

That's fair. I could just keep Flesh Sloughing Wave forever though single target spells are likely also good.

[prisma sun]

I forgot our Dawn in the proposed Exalted game had an Auroch familiar

it was very funny

Oh THIS is why Dolphins are 3-dot familiars

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

[coral wraith]

oh

[wise ocean]

how does it get along without water

[tulip folio]

...Oh

I man, the dolphin doesn't need to be in-scene

Just have it back home 😛

[bleak hazel]

I am going to assume the usual rules apply, i.e. "if you excellency this, it's not a mundane action"

still, very neat

[wise ocean]

important new GM houserule: if you have a dolphin familiar and want to benefit from it, Exalted Fish Tank Palanquin or equivalent

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/dumb-porpoise-i'm-stupid-dumb-idiot-moment-porpoise-gif-4033995796839847017

[bleak hazel]

since fae have huge dice pools and no excellencies, cataphract mounted on dolphin is a terror

[prisma sun]

Sky Titans have better intimidate rolls than Tyrant lizards

[wise ocean]

the feared raksha dolphin cavalry formation

[bleak hazel]

yeah it also works with those, but in practice you're throwing the lunar's 11 pool + full excellency at the problem anyway so the actual value of the creature's intimidate pool is irrelevant

all you care about is being able to learn Predator's Menace

is this jank? yes

[prisma sun]

Well it's more mote efficent

to have a better pool

[bleak hazel]

you save one mote on the Titan, yeah

[prisma sun]

Also

are Storm Serpents Lesser Elemental Dragons?

[bleak hazel]

I don't think so

LEDs have a statblock in the sid book and they're extremely large

[prisma sun]

They have a statblock right before Storm Serpents too

howeverr

https://i.imgur.com/WVRiiR4.jpeg

this is A Dragon

[tulip folio]

I think they're (Lesser) (Elemental) (Dragons) but not (Lesser Elemental Dragons)

[bleak hazel]

huh, the wood dragon in HDNP is much less scary

[prisma sun]

cuz he's gay and tired

[tulip folio]

The issue is the latter is a term for a Specific Thing despite being made up of 3 pretty generic terms. XD

[prisma sun]

the other guy is an actual Censure

[bleak hazel]

storm serpents are nanodragons, the wood dragon is a microdragon and normal lesser elementals are centidragons, clearly

[prisma sun]

They're E4, same as the wood dragon

[bleak hazel]

oh, it actually specifies

[prisma sun]

it does?

[bleak hazel]

too sad to fight properly

[prisma sun]

Ohhhhhh

[tulip folio]

Literally Too Gay To Function

[bleak hazel]

he does have an automatic disarm, which is extremely annoying of him

there are a lot of things in the various books that are pining for the return of Solar XYZ

I wonder if we'll ever hit 150

[prisma sun]

150 what

[bleak hazel]

powerful entities pining for the return of Their Solar

[prisma sun]

is there a list

[bleak hazel]

thus forcing every solar into a telenovela

I don't believe so but between Lilith, Feather Drenched, the dragon and the ghost of a first age solar stuck in a pirate ship we're doing pretty decent so far

although the ghost is just ghosting about, no pining required

[prisma sun]

I feel like A Lot of Lunars fit this

[bleak hazel]

yeah, although less than they used to

oh the Huraka are in HDNP

I love the huraka

I like that a normal part of creation is a villager observing "there's going to be a storm, I can see the wind bears towing the clouds in"

[next delta]

It's possible some of them are pining for different incarnations of the same Solar

New campaign idea: One of the circle's Solars is who all of the people pining for Solars are pining for

[bleak hazel]

That would be a fun spin on the gold faction game concept where your circle is attempting to look after a bunch of extremely chaotic solars without making it too obvious

Here's a fun game, what would your character's Elder Prowess charms be if they were E6? I really like the format of "elders are normal E5 Exalts but with slightly more motes, slightly better essence scaling and One Wierd Trick.

Anys Syn already has "reflexive form charm" in the best way possible, so Rival the swordsman sifu is going to need something else

[fierce star]

I think the lunar I've been working on gets something like 'summon up a legion of ghost people and animals' or something like that

[bleak hazel]

Upgrade/cost decrease on the various Lunar clone/swarm charms, with suitable flavour? Leviathan has a similar "upgrade a handful of charms relevant to my deal" thing.

[tulip folio]

I think my lunar witch gets upgrades to the 'hostile shape change' lunar curses

She's very circeish

[prisma sun]

King Hu gets an Elder Power that lets him get several non-charm bonuses to any roll as long as he boasts about having an appropriate title for the roll

[wise ocean]

I think Graves gets For every weapon you've taken from an opponent in a duel, you can reflexively summon it to your hand and de-summon what weapon (if any) you were holding at the time; this weapon is compatible with every martial arts style you have completed

[prisma sun]

Drifts in Gossamer can teleport him and one other person to any part of Creation for the duration of a single tick.

[wise ocean]

Hot-swapping from sword to scythe to great mace between blows without ever changing the way the strikes flow feels like a very Graves Thing

[prisma sun]

Drifts upon seeing a single Abyssal in his older age:

https://tenor.com/view/shimazaki-teruki-warp-psychic-mob-psycho-gif-16794706

[fierce star]

Yeah

Her big focus is the swarm charms and the various 'steal stuff from/make familiars out of supernatural creatures' charms with the 'do it to ghosts' upgrade

The ohter thing would be possibly somethign with necromancy; fluffwise she's a reincarnation of one of the Black Nadir Concordant.

[bleak hazel]

Rival probably gets something to do with counterattacks but it's hard to come up with something that wouldn't be extremely annoying to fight, and elder prowess is usually to provide an interesting boss experience

[prisma sun]

"Can counterattack counterattacks"

"This charm activates infinitely to always allow the final hit no matter what"

[bleak hazel]

Crane Form goes brrr

[next delta]

The only way a GM could match up to chaotic-by-player-standards is to have the game ran after a Solar campaign where you are now playing as the Sidereals who were barely keeping everything together

[prisma sun]

Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Have Exalted

[coral wraith]

one celestial spell

For GM

Cracking open the possibility index

[tulip folio]

Here's an odd one - What is the most barebones, basic 'Make an attack unblockable' or 'make an attack undodgable' charm in 3e?

(Tinkering with that SMA again but most unblockable/undodgable stuff is rather complicated)

[prisma sun]

Presumably some solar charm in brawl or melee

[tulip folio]

Surprisingly no. The solar options there are 'Unblockable if you joined battle this turn' and 'unblockable and undodgable and double 7s on the damage roll' XD

[wise ocean]

Is there one in Abyssal melee?

[upper stratus]

essence 1 sid brawl for some reason

[tulip folio]

That'll do it.

So 5 motes for that part.

[tulip folio]

Cutting The Strings
Cost: 6m; Mins: Martial Arts 1, Essence 3
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Uniform
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
Virescent Eyes of Division knows that everything is fated to end. By perfectly aligning one's blade with the lines of fate, one can act as that ending, cutting down the most brilliant of swordsmen or durable castle walls with a stroke of their sword.

This charm supplements an an Attack or Feat of Demolition. 

For attacks, it subtracts (the Martial Artist’s Awareness) from her enemy’s Soak and Hardness. If the attack benefits from Aiming, it is also Unblockable.

For Feat of Demolition, she rerolls 1 on the dice roll until they no longer appear. In addition, she adds (Awareness) to her strength to determine if she can perform the Feat of Demolition. Such feats can be performed in a single slash, even if they would normally require professional tools or an extended period of time.

SMA charm for 'Yeah, I can Cut That'

Cutting the Strings + Burn Life lets an E5 Sid perform a Strength 15 Feat of Demolition, like she's a max strength warstrider. XD

Or Cutting the Strings + Burn Life + Pull Down The Sky to meditate for an hour on the Perfect Slash to perform a Feat of Demolition that requires 25 Strength. I'm not sure what such a feat is as the book doesn't list any that high but it's going to likely let you Cut So Good that a Fortified City Ceases to Exist.

[bleak hazel]

I assume you mean Solar spell?

Elder Prowess: really cool artifact is doable, it's basically what mnemon and ragara have

[coral wraith]

Oop

Yeah that's the one

[upper stratus]

elder prowess for capping off incoming health level damage at each level of penalty, followed by a counterattack that gets more juiced the more damage overflow there would've been

[velvet raft]

Red Evening Sky gets the ability to directly attack the perceptual abilities of others

Not just the senses but cognitive stuff too

After all, how else is she supposed to get people to stop staring

[velvet raft]

It’s kinda interesting how the way dropping a DB’s aura to remove terrestrial from MA charms kinda generates an either/or dynamic where either their regular martial arts are weaker, or their dragon style is weaker

[bleak hazel]

I find a lot of Deeb martial artists just dip the dragon style up to the form and basically use it as a way to knock terrestrial off something important for the one tick that you need to make an extra attack or extend a buff or what have you

Liquid Steel Flow from Single Point is a typical candidate

[velvet raft]

Seems like the optimal play is to do that and use dragon style charms for defense

Aim to have the aura up at start of turn

[bleak hazel]

I am Water Dragon's strongest soldier in this matter because it provides an excellent utility kit

Rippling Water Strike and the form are kind of meh, but Drowning-in-Blood is a great little damage adder on huge decisives, Theft-of-Essence is good tempo and Bottomless Depths Defence is a classic if you want to go a bit further on

Essence-Dousing Wave is also very handy for supporting the team against big scary threats but is well past the point of being any kind of "dip"

interestingly, you don't actually need to buy Rippling Water Strike to get the rest, which is very rare for early charms in martial arts

[wise ocean]

YZ is going to go Water Dragon up to the form to combine it with Righteous Devil, aye

Looking forward to that

[bleak hazel]

also, martial arts compatibility is measured on each attack/defence, so if you have an artifact weapon for your withering attacks from another martial art and skip RWS you can beat people up with it and then use water dragon unarmed decisive-boosters

although that's not a huge concern for YZ because Righteous Devil is ranged and Water Dragon is notably not

[fierce star]

Okay. The sidereal onslaught negator is for one defense, is avaliable at brawl 1/essence 1, and is parry-only and doesn't increase onslaught from attacks that miss. Lunars have two onslaught negators; one is 3m 2i, at dex 3/essence 1, is until next turn, gives +1 defense and doesn't incur onslaught from attacks that miss (and has a benefit from a previous charm). The other one is 3m and 1 wp at dex 4 essence 2, simple, and lasts for a full scene, but also ingores wound penalties and grapples (and benefits two previous charms). Janest's is at athletics 4 essence 2, 2m, reflexive, lasts a scene and prevents one target from causing onslaught penalties on her as well as boosting evasion by 1, but she has to hit them first, and can stack it up to (strength) different targets.

(paragraph break for readability) Pakpao does not have an onslaught negator. Architects also do not have one. Sovereign's is a permanent upgrade to a 2m charm that makes oen person's attacks against her subract 1s from successes and if it misses doesnt' increase onslaught. None of the apocryphals have example onslaught negators.

dragonblooded have a melee 3 essence 3 wood signature that ignores up to essence onslaught ot parry for one round (total, not against each attack), in wood aura doesn't tkae onslaught from successful parries, for 5m 3i 1wp scene long.

solars have a lot of options, but most of htem seem to be 3 to 5 motes and last for anywhere from a round to a scene, I'm not reading that much natural language. Abyssals spend 5m 1wp for a scene long at essence 2. Alchemicals get a dex 2, essence 1, 2m single action 'ignore onsalught, environment, and other external conditioons' with a bunch of potential upgrades.

I think that covers everything excepting martial arts

[bleak hazel]

Deeb melee has 2m 1i parry penalty reduction at E1, Graceful Flowing Defense

Sidereals also have defence penalty negation in Absent Self (first dodge charm, effectively 2m for [essence] dodge penalty negation and +1 non-charm evasion) and melee's Impeding The Flow (1m for halving all parry penalties, negate all in full defence or defend other, add +1 defence in melee's Form)

Solar and Abyssal melee have the same set so I'll just lay them out:

Dipping Swallow (+ mirror): 2m, ignore all penalties to one parry other than Surprise Attack/Ambush. Successful parry grants +1 init

Bulwark Stance (+ mirror): 5m, ignore all parry penalties for a round, slight decisive damage reduction

Fivefold Bulwark Stance (+ mirror): 5m 1wp, Simple, ignore all parry penalties for the scene. While active, dipping swallow costs 1m and grants +1 defence.

[fierce star]

So, all that said; 6m 1wp for a tick-long onslaught negator that conditionally becomes scene-long is too much at ability 3/essence 1? also I think dragonblooded have another one in perception now that i'm doing more ctrl+f but i'm not actually sure why I'm comparing terrestrials since this is supposed to be celestial tier.

I guess I put in a few pre-reqs and move this up to essence 2?

[bleak hazel]

6m 1wp is a fine scene-long cost, way too much for tick-long

you could do tick-long at 6 and scene-long if you pay a willpower

in practice you probably do want a smaller one than that somewhere, though

"one tick" and "one scene" are such incredibly different timeframes - fivefold bulwark is notorious for making solars a real pain to hit, all the smaller ones are just neat because if you're being forced into 5m Bulwark Stance every round that's all your mote income

[fierce star]

ndos

[bleak hazel]

fun fact: Fivefold Bulwark has a whole sidebar in core about how only poisons, blindness and illusions can penalise a FFBS solar's parry

neither poisons nor blindness affect defence in the first place

average core book mechanical consistency

[upper stratus]

me when i write my charms before my mechanics

[bleak hazel]

I think the only reason only three of the corebook MAs are varying levels of broken is that they wrote the MAs before the solar charms and as such couldn't balance every mastery effect around Heaven Thunder Hammer

their errors are far more scattershot

[upper stratus]

'steel devil style was written very early and never adjusted later on' is something i believe with my whole heart

[velvet raft]

Seems plausible

It seems sorta like 3e largely got mechanically better after core, while Essence largely got worse

[bleak hazel]

essence feels like they slammed Exalted into Fabula Ultima to me, it's this strange mix of "giant pile of gonzo abilities" and "this is strapped into a very narrative game structure that is basically built to go in a nice smooth line"

[next delta]

Are we seeing Essence getting worse from the one book not yet out of Kickstarter Solar charms? Or a few more data points than that?

[fierce star]

It's out to like abyssals now I htink?

or it was when my source was last avaliable to talk about it

[next delta]

Core game has abyssals out to manuscript

Essence has Core + KS companion and player's guide as a manuscript (plus some non-mechanically focused sourcebooks)

[tulip folio]

How does this seem BTW?

[fierce star]

I think it looks good!

[tulip folio]

Trying to keep the intro 'cut impossibly good' a little more mundane in that you're at least cutting Physical Objects.

[bleak hazel]

is it meant to be a deliberate counterpart to Sid Melee with all the awareness + aim stuff?

I do like getting the Maybe Sword out of the way with the first charm so you can move on to more interesting cutting

[tulip folio]

A bit, yeah but it's also...well, iki being a god damn weeb and going 'Congrats, the sids invented Eyes of Mystic Death Perception'. XD

https://static1.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Shiki-Tohno-Tsukihime-and-Ryougi-Shiki-Garden-of-Sinners-Mystic-Eyes-of-Death-Perception.jpg

[bleak hazel]

I am personally reaching for Abstract Weapon as inspiration for Prismatic Arrangement

which I guess is not weeb but does feature a mecha

[tulip folio]

Hah

I am doing up one of the charms in part due to 'this is an area where sids lack a charm'. XD

[bleak hazel]

if you're not familiar with that one I highly recommend it, it's about 50% world's sickest technomagical fight scene

[tulip folio]

I really like Terminal Sanction but it's also a bit Hoop Jump-y for 'That guy stays dead' relative to some other exalt options.

So I'm looking at giving the SMA a 'stay the fuck down' charm with its own twist.

If this incapacitates the target, their upper soul immediately passes into Lethe. In addition, their lower soul will not rise as a Hungry Ghost. Beings who's souls would not pass into Lethe when killed (Such as Gods, Dragon Kings or Jadeborn) are still affected this way, being spun into a human life for their next reincarnation to better understand life through human eyes before their native form of reincarnation reasserts itself.

[bleak hazel]

huh

neat

[tulip folio]

Currently the things on the table for 'I want to be able to cut this' is:

-Intimacies
-Distance
-Charms

As a SMA based on cutting should cut Weird Things. XD

[fierce star]

but it cut away the layers of deceit against the reason why kids love cinnamon toast crunch?

[tulip folio]

It can now.

Reflexive
If something would target your guile, you can apply parry against it. If you successfully parry, counterattack.

Welcome back MDV Fist

[prisma sun]

Other things it can cut
-The initiative order
-Time
-Fate
-Motes

[tulip folio]

Time would be fun but I'm trying to be careful with time cutting as there is an entire martial art based on time and I'd like to avoid stepping on its toes too much. XD

[bleak hazel]

Prismatic is also well on top of countermagic at present

[prisma sun]

Don't have it be an action economy thing

Just straight up cut a day in half

[wise ocean]

you feel a palpable change in the time of day; nothing else happens

it's just also now nighttime during your swordfight

[bleak hazel]

you know the end of House of Flying Daggers?

[prisma sun]

Jumpscared by the sun

[tulip folio]

...actually, I could have it do something fun with cutting time.

[bleak hazel]

actually maybe you don't

[tulip folio]

Go 'I cut myself out of the next few hours' and just Cease To Exist for a bit. XD

[tulip folio]

I've watched it, though it was a few years ago

[wise ocean]

VEoD practitioner:

https://tenor.com/view/nileseyy-niles-peace-out-disappear-meme-disappearing-guy-checking-out-gif-25558985

[prisma sun]

I also do feel like you need to at least

suggest that the Pankratosword exists

[tulip folio]

Ah yes, cutting the atom with your sword 😛

[graceful geode]

Cutting an atom wouldn't do that much

[prisma sun]

"One practioner, Spring Blooms Eternally Among The Fields, believes they had discovered the secret to cutting 'the very bones of creation themselves'. Whether they were able to or not is unsure, as they mysteriously died in battle against the Behemoth Merapi of Insatiable Hunger, engulfed in a titanic explosion."

[tulip folio]

Oh yes but that's what the Pankratosword is. Elder Scrolls being weird when it's not actually on screen. XD

[prisma sun]

Elder Scrolls lore being better than it's actual games 9/10

[tulip folio]

Yeah, ti's why I wasn't thinking so much countermagic and more 'Hey, I found a new way to do crippling effects. To stab you so hard your charm falls out'. XD

[bleak hazel]

three precedents for that in Prismatic, Water Dragon and Solar Brawl, but I imagine you mean something a little harsher than turning off a scenelong

[prisma sun]

Also

really funny thing

"Cut the tie of a summon and summoner"

[wise ocean]

if you're missing a health box from my sword, I get to pick a charm you Lose

would be funny

[tulip folio]

I also know what I want on the form (Among more mechanically useful things)

-When characters voluntarily accept crippling effects to reduce damage from your attacks, they can only pick the highest level crippling effect.

So they don't get the option for 'oww, lost a finger' or 'oww, an eye', they are limited to 'Hey, pick your least favorite limb. It's gone'

[wise ocean]

The Limb Crushing Machine

[graceful geode]

Not crushing

Slicing

[wise ocean]

true, have to pay attention to the single cutting action

[tulip folio]

It's got the power to cut jade, while also cutting a tomato!

[bleak hazel]

I do really want to manage to fit Ancilliary Battle Consciousness into a sid move somewhere

something something spin up a hypothetical double of your mental state to run fate-weaving in the background

[wise ocean]

Generate a top guy to run prophecies for you like single-point conjures a sword?

[bleak hazel]

yeah, except folded away inside your head

[prisma sun]

Generate a top

[bleak hazel]

I know Alchemicals have a secondary CPU that does something similar but that's just to punch more

localised/personal combat prophecy suite

[wise ocean]

it's an indiana jones reference

[prisma sun]

No I know

I did The Funny regardless

[wise ocean]

I'm defending my honor, as is appropriate for the Exalted channel

[bleak hazel]

ah, I got the name the same

it's half of CMOS Form at higher essence and the same cost except it can pick you up if you get knocked out by one of the most notoriously broken Solar charms around

(and gives you a bunch of free turn-order boosts, which are neat)

[coral wraith]

wits 8...

[bleak hazel]

alchs

kind of a shoddy excellency below essence 5, they make up for it with capbreaker stat boosts and a fuckton of raw power

at Essence 5 you're fighting the bastard child of an Abyssal and a Sidereal, they don't stop and they get some really decent mote efficiency

[tulip folio]

I think a lot of the power of alchs early on is the fact they can keep a little bit of their excellency going at all times.

With the stat breaking

[bleak hazel]

yeah that's the mote efficiency

downside is that they have a very circumscribed list of tricks at any one time - 30-odd charm slots minus 1 per capbreaker stat point means they get tight really fast

[wise ocean]

What's the max excellency again?

+5?

[bleak hazel]

Solars, Lunars - Attribute + Ability or Attribute + Attribute for 10

Alchs are Attribute (max 5) + Essence

[wise ocean]

ah, gotcha.

[bleak hazel]

Sids are (Essence, min 3) + target number reduction

Deebs are Ability + Specialty for max 6

the most powerful one on that list is either high-essence Alchs or Sids depending on how well the Sidereal is covering his defensive gaps

[tulip folio]

To be fair to DBs: They do get those rerolls too.

So it's better than Puppeteers, who are same cap of 6 without the rerolls

[bleak hazel]

both of them ramp really hard, but Sids can get more of their cap for free with a little work

Essence 3 Sids have a sweet spot where they can get free full excellencies on every swing forever

perpetual destiny machine

[tulip folio]

I think at chargen Lunars have the strongest excellency because they can very easily have a 10 cap on basicly anything they want to do with how broad attribute excellencies are/how they always get best stat as part of it but it doesn't really improve from there at all.

[bleak hazel]

yeah, Lunars or Sids

Sids are more specialised but the efficiency is disgusting

the words "I spend 3 motes on a full excellency" should not form a valid rules-text sentence

[tulip folio]

Solars have a surprisingly...it's not weak but it's kinda not that interesting excellency. XD

And instead they just have Bullshit Charms to use that excellency on

[bleak hazel]

yeah, their excellency is white bread

....ah,I checked and they did remember to cap the Alchemical excellency at 10 dice max

I wondered if they missed the max 5 on Essence that the Sid one has and as such the cities could throw 12 or something

not quite

[tulip folio]

...vague pondering: A smart Sid is going to have an entire damn bag of exceptional tools, won't they?

As that non-charm die for them is a lot more valuable than for most

[bleak hazel]

yeah, it's a good idea

sid craft is good anyway, so sing yourself a really good compass before doing any tracking

[tulip folio]

...vague pondering on that cutting SMA.

...wait...hmm...dammit. I kinda want to do a thing but the game says you can't modify those intimacies.

Basicly: Cutting the link between a summoner and a summon. So you can have a summoned demon turn on it's master by cutting the link.

Zombies persist indefinitely and possess a Defining Tie of obedience to the necromancer that cannot be weakened.

I feel bad kinda overruling a 'can't fuck with this' but...hmm...

[bleak hazel]

I think you might be better off writing some kind of Banish

[wise ocean]

"I cut the tie keeping the summon in the world"

[bleak hazel]

"I cut the link, back to malfeas" doesn't require fucking with the unfuckwithable tie in an unsatisfactory way

[wise ocean]

fits the overall rules env- yep

[tulip folio]

Yeah, that's fair. I don't like forcing 'I win' against each other. We saw plenty of that in 2e. XD

On hit: If they're summoned, banish them. If they're not summoned but their native form is intangible, off to intangible you go. Have fun paying for Materialize again!

Doesn't do much to other exalts but can really annoy gods and demons

[bleak hazel]

I would have an escalating willpower cost to use this on higher circles of demon or necromantic entity

in the same way that palm slamming solar circle sorcery is going to get expensive

mostly because third circles being trivialised as problems for heaven in-universe by having Ghostbuster Elder zap in and suplex it in one hit is a shame

[tulip folio]

My thoughts was to give it a bigger cost if they've got essence higher than you.

[bleak hazel]

yeah, that works

[tulip folio]

As gods don't really have 'circles'

[fierce star]

32, not counting evocations, martial arts charms, spells, and there's one or two univresal charms that don't take a slot to install

[bleak hazel]

considering you've probably spent six of those at least to get some of the E5 capstones it's getting a little cramped in that colossus body

[fierce star]

yeah, their 'reduce cost of artifact weapon attunement' is slot-free

funny thing: colossus also takes a slot

[bleak hazel]

a conventional exalt is rocking about 50 core-XP charms by that level and anywhere between zero (highly unlikely) and 40 (equally so) splat-XP options in the form of martial arts, sidereal martial arts, sorcery and evocations

[tulip folio]

X motes, 1 WP. Increases by X motes, 1 WP if the target *Or their master* has essence higher than you.

How about this? So banishing a battlegroup of zombies controlled by Chucklefuck the Mortal Necromancer? Easy! Banishing a battlegroup of zombies controlled by Annihilator, Himbo Dusk? Hard!

[bleak hazel]

my redsid elder has three basic sorceries, a whole martial art and a whole sidereal martial art, another 20 core combat charms, 10 in Craft and then 20 pickups split between social and utility

(awareness and Presence soaked lots of those)

[fierce star]

I do feel like 32 is probably a little low; full release may see that adjusted up

[bleak hazel]

submodules help a lot

[fierce star]

true

every individual charm for an alchemical tneds to do more than an equivalent from another exalt as longa s you push enough xp into it

[tulip folio]

My personal thought - Repurchases shouldn't take extra slots.

[bleak hazel]

Prismatic Arrangement is kind of a fucked SMA in that scope, it costs as much as 20 normal MA charms and then two core xp charms for compatibility

hence why Crane Style 5, Prismatic 5 and their full suites left precious little splat XP for dot increases

[wise ocean]

What happens at chargen, then?

[tulip folio]

hmm?

[wise ocean]

If I've got 20 charms to buy for free and 0 XP, they kind of have to take a slot

[fierce star]

we should note the excellency is also slotless

also you can just... have slots that aren't filled

[tulip folio]

...I'm not parsing that Ash. Alchs have both charms and slots as seperate things.

[bleak hazel]

free repurchases also means you now have 8 in every stat for 9 slots

[fierce star]

a lot of sorcerers or martial artists are gonna have unfilled slots

[wise ocean]

Ah. Ah, I get what you mean now.

Alright, my bad.

[fierce star]

Well, the stat booster has a cap of essence/2 purchases

so it wouldn't be 8 in every stat, unless you have a native 5 in every stat

[bleak hazel]

yeah, but the big alchs are going to buy all of them if they don't slot constrain them past the first one

why wouldn't you

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about sorcery and MA not taking any slots honestly, I'd rather give them more max slots and say they physicalise those too

but it does get strange with favoured/caste

[fierce star]

I mean, having a 5 in all caste and your favorted attribute, sure, you're an attribute based exalt

I figure you could probalby get away with 3s in other things, 2s if it's not an important stat

(why does the soulsteel murdergrinder care about appearance, etc)

[bleak hazel]

(because it's the best stat for intimidation and one of the best for general social due to the non-charm dice mechanics, especially if you can easily capbreak it)

[tulip folio]

Because you are the iconic soulsteel who is actively noted to be a cute twink 😛

[bleak hazel]

there's a reason ISP has 5 in app, and it's because it's the easiest way to get low-dot high-impact social out of a tertiary attribute and raw dice

[wise ocean]

wait, why did they make the fascist a twink

[fierce star]

you get what I mean though, some character concepts don't care about this stat or another. Maybe I should have gone 'why does the jade living bulldozer care about manipulation'

[bleak hazel]

this is true, but since, at E5, I can pay 1 charm slot and a trivial amount of XP for +3 to any stat, I'm just going to install all of those and max out the lot

[fierce star]

Part of his character developement is realizing he'd rather bottom for a rebel leader than wear jackboots for fascism

[wise ocean]

https://tenor.com/view/mark-cuban-shark-tank-notes-taking-notes-remember-gif-15073512

[bleak hazel]

maybe not 8, but at least 5 across the board for maximum non-Aug charm value

[tulip folio]

Also: The iconic fascist isn't the soulsteel. That's Lux, the Ori City.

[fierce star]

Okay, I can give you that one, the specific call of 'all stats at 5 for 8s across the board' was what was getting me

[bleak hazel]

I might well do that, honestly

[fierce star]

I think maybe some repeat purchases shouldn't take an extra slot (the mutation charm, maybe?), but others takign it wouldn't hurt

[bleak hazel]

one maxed martial art + E5 amount of splat XP does let you get that far

[fierce star]

alt, just give like

three extra slots

35's a much more cromulant number than 32 anyway

[tulip folio]

Honestly, of the castes I think Oris get the most 'Oh, this guy is An Asshole' in the book. More than the soulsteels. XD

[bleak hazel]

Dreadful Adjudicator of Law is really bad at being judge dredd

[spring lynx]

it is always one or the other

[fierce star]

last edition's iconic moonsilver was also a gigantic tool

not a fascist, admittedly, just a tool

[spring lynx]

and they were kind of an asshole, too

[wise ocean]

the illusion of free choice cow tunnel but it's soulsteel or orichalcum, etc

[spring lynx]

...wait is that racist

[bleak hazel]

if it is I need to reassess the character of my materials science professor

[tulip folio]

Jade Caste Alchs: "We're always wholesome."

[bleak hazel]

I kind of want to try moonsilver alch out

they have some fun tech

I think it is also important to point out that the upside of the slot system is that you get 4xp charms

that's silly

my entire craft suite folds up and fits in a cupboard for two-thirds the XP it costs anyone else and I can just shove it back in for downtime

the entire circle can retool to at least 7/10 on the murder scale when it is time to go loud even if their default forms are harmless little ferrous kittens

[tulip folio]

Yeah, being able to just go 'What charmset will I wear today?' is nice

[bleak hazel]

due to the way Autocthonia works, I think being an alch would be the only kind of Exalt I would genuinely have a blast being

sid powers would be cool but they're not "what powerset shall I use today" cool and the job comes with Certain Downsides

[fierce star]

A full reconfiguration takes a day, but

that's GENERALLY not going to be enough time for everyone you know and love to die becuase you weren't prepared

[spring lynx]

if it is, you're probably not that concerned about swapping your charm set anyway

[tulip folio]

They also made it a lot easier to swap 1-2 out than in 2e as you can do a few in a Couple of Hours, even without a vat.

It's a minor thing but I also thing it's worth listing as a big alch advantage.

[bleak hazel]

there is also a drastic lack of teleporting antimimetic heavenly kill teams, randomly occurring solaroid people of mass destruction and dragonblooded ODST squads in autocthonia

[tulip folio]

They've got some of the best anti-crippling tech in the game.

[bleak hazel]

you are less likely to have to go Immediately when the problem shows up

[tulip folio]

As you can just fix any crippling effect when you go to the vats.

Just Put A New Arm On, Silly

[bleak hazel]

you genuinely are the top dogs around, unless there is the rare Sneaky Apostate

[fierce star]

well

there are also other non apostate alchemicals

the eight nations are very political, and war is an extension of politics

"What do you MEAN claslat launched a surprise attack against us by hiring the estasia mercenaries we'd already hired?!'

[tulip folio]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu6gmQCljfo&ab_channel=NotTimWakefield I also love that this is legitimately one of Estasia plotlines in the book.

[bleak hazel]

this is true, but they probably aren't about to stick not!C4 on your vat

[fierce star]

the entirety of desperado are non-apostate alchemicals

[bleak hazel]

not that this is unheard of

[fierce star]

well, okay, armstrong's a drone

[spring lynx]

sam's just A Dude Who's Really Fuckin' Good

[bleak hazel]

local deeb

[fierce star]

this is also true

air aspect deeb with a fancy suit

[spring lynx]

does autocthonia have deebs?

[fierce star]

rarely, but yes! there's a sidebar

[bleak hazel]

it does now, yeah

makes things a little bit more interesting

[spring lynx]

huh. (i don't have the book)

[fierce star]

some deebs/people of deeb ancestry were among his people when they left creation

[tulip folio]

Alchs are not super sure where to slot them in to society. As like, Alchs are not to rule, that's for humans.

But deebs are not alchs.

But they're also clearly working with an unfair advantage if you just treat them as normal humans

[bleak hazel]

back in creation, I really like about the Wyld Hunt is that it is strongly suggested that the dedicated shikari are basically as close as a pre-modern society can get to special forces, and that also indicates that the standard issue "two battlegroups and whatever deebs we can scrape up" wyld hunt that is the standard form of that particular sociocultural institution as of Right Now is actually a pale imitation of the goddamn Delta Green anti-anathema squad that still exists in various places

they can't teleport in from heaven like the sids can but they do their best possible impression

[fierce star]

If you've ever been on the recieving end of awell coordinated attacker team in rainbow six siege, that's a proper wyld hunt

[bleak hazel]

Heirs does elaborate that the Wyld Hunt is a name generally tacked on to a variety of "get the daiklaives and pitchforks" initiatives launched by various local magnates too, but the Immaculates are still really good at this

[tulip folio]

I do have some ponderings, based on talking with the GM of that alch game, of a much more interesting way to handle the Locust Crusade if they wanted to do it in a more interesting way in 3e.

Basicly: Don't treat it like an invasion but you still get some 'there is potential problems out there/this could go hot' by drawing on more...Alien Abduction Mythology.

Some time during the night, people saw lights in the sky and all the cattle are gone. (Stolen by Autothonian Airships as part of scouting and resouce gathering)

[bleak hazel]

yeah, they chose possibly the one least sensible way for it to work

[tulip folio]

Autothonia isn't going to march in and try to take over things. They're going to analyse.

[fierce star]

DRAGON BLOODED X COM, DRAGON BLOODED X COM

[bleak hazel]

insofar as Autobot is a cohesive political entity, anyway

[tulip folio]

Stealthy airships, gathering data and occasionally grabbing people and useful resources to help them work out what this new creation is like.

So they can come to a conclusion on how to engage with it

[bleak hazel]

Bradford would make a plausible Sidereal

"Commander, let me provide you with this information I totally didn't get from a letter that appeared in my pocket ten minutes ago"

there actually is a Shen too

Iselsi Shen, iconic Twilight

and total Doc Strange knockoff

[tulip folio]

I feel like it would also work well for the 'You're playing Alchs' end too. You're not the head of an invading army. You're several people with an airship and a mission to Go Do Interesting Things and Report About Interesting Things.

Lets you Player Character About

[bleak hazel]

due to the political situation in the realm they have stable diplomatic relations with Heaven before the civil war's over and show up at the peace negotiations to go "hello, we're here too, we brought 800 celestial exalts"

"do you have snacks"

[fierce star]

"We wish to learn mroe about this thing you call"
"beef jerky"

"Wait not love?" "no, only like, half of us have that high a level of clarity right now"

[tulip folio]

Liar's Tongue Removal
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 2, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Clash, Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Cutting the Strings
There is no secret that will remain such forever. The most careful of lies and the most brilliant of schemes will one day be found out and their price paid in blood.

The stylist can use this charm when affected by Distract Gambit or an action that is resisted by Resolve or Guile (Such as an Influence action or a God-Scourging Wail). She may clash it with a Decisive attack, regardless of distance. If the action occurred outside of combat, the stylist may immediately roll Join Battle to generate an initiative for this attack, drawing a weapon reflexively. 

If she wins, she may choose to either deal damage as normal, or to cut an offending language of the stylist's choice from the target's mouth. If she chooses to cut a language, the target instead becomes unable to comprehend or speak that language as a Crippling effect. The Exalted and other characters with Exalted healing may make a (Charisma + Linguistics) roll at difficulty (Essence +3) each day to recover from this effect. The difficulty drops by 1 each day.

Did up that 'Fuck you, MDV: Fist' idea @fierce star

[tulip folio]

I think for the first 4 charms in this, I'm going to go with a theme of 'Ending - Through the lens of another aspect'

So Liar's Tongue is Ending of Secrets. Cutting the Strings is Ending of Battles.

The 'stab you so hard it kills an intimacy' will be Ending of Serenity

And the 'Slash distance to teleport' will be Ending of Journeys

[tulip folio]

Once, there was a maiden, bleeding...
Watching her life flow away.
She had given her all for others
and had nothing left to give.
As she lay there she heard birdsong
And the cry of new birth.
Day became night, heedless to her death.
Yet, she smiled as she ebbed...
"From each ending grows a new beginning."

First shot at a Sidereal Sutra. Not sure if it's any good.

[velvet raft]

It could probably use some minor touching up, but the first and last lines are perfect

[tulip folio]

In-universe the martial art is supposed to be the biggest Sidereal subtweet ever at the Bishop and his 'Man, wouldn't be be better if we all laid down and rotted?' martial art. XD

[obtuse heron]

ok SO

delilah

recently roped me into exalted

[tulip folio]

"You can't drag my soul into oblivion because I've already depicted you as the Soyjak and me as the Chad in my Martial Art."

[obtuse heron]

and im first to admit im WAY over my head

so

[prisma sun]

It's a big game

[obtuse heron]

for my first character, on a scale of "very bad" to "you almost got it" how did i do with my first character https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PGplL_wjRg-LIsvMHaGqN6klOjc7LpkQm2RQY0JRldc/edit?tab=t.0

[tulip folio]

Okay, so I'm not the biggest expert on Lunars but I'll take a squiz

My first thought: Do you have a way to make attacks with Strength instead of Dex?

[obtuse heron]

are natural claws and horns not strength?

[tulip folio]

All weapons use dex to hit unless otherwise stated.

[obtuse heron]

oh interesting

[tulip folio]

And geneally the things that change that are charms

[obtuse heron]

huh

lemme check

i do not, no

so i swapped dex to 5 and strength to 2

none of my charms need higher than 2 strength thankfully

[tulip folio]

Honestly, I think it's going to be hard for this character to be bad because lunars have such a high baseline level of function. XD

[obtuse heron]

ah wait no

[merry arch]

lunars extremely good yes

[tulip folio]

Dex 5, Brawl 5 is basicly 'Yep, gunna do a lunar here' XD

[obtuse heron]

i have strength charms

crap

hmmmmm

i pulled in the preconception of "attack with str or dex your choice" from other ttrpgs and its bitten me

lmao

ough now i have to retrace

[tulip folio]

Honestly, you can do with less than 5 starting dex and just go 'Yep, gunna need to buy that up at some other point'

I'ts not like 'Maximum Powergamer' optimal but you've got plenty going on that will do work there. XD

[obtuse heron]

lmao yeah

[tulip folio]

Also - You have Tyrant Lizard form. You basicly already win a lot of fights 😛

[obtuse heron]

i found out that Chimera Soul plus Hybrid Body

means i get 12 free dots of mutation

on Hybrid Body

so i just chose "how do i take the absolute least amount of damage here"

or what sounded like it

[merry arch]

lunar soakbeast obie real

[obtuse heron]

ye ye

Soak, harden, 4 gorbillion health (ox-body my beloved)

[velvet raft]

Not by default, but there's a lunar strength charm which makes unarmed fighting, natural weapons, and heavy weapons use strength instead of dex

[obtuse heron]

ooo which ones that

im scanning rn

[velvet raft]

uh ... give me a second, but you'll probably also want to look at Steel Paw Style

Which does the same with Stamina for your Parry

With those two a lunar can plausibly dump dex entirely

[tulip folio]

Yeah, if you pick up both of those you basicly don't need dex for 'basic combat stuff'

[obtuse heron]

found it

deadly claw blow

[tulip folio]

Is Yeddim or Tyrant Lizard your Spirit Form?

[velvet raft]

You can just be the big strong guy and start with 5 in both strength and stamina

[obtuse heron]

i have chimera, so its yeddim base with a tyrant lizard chimera

or should i go tyrant lizard

with yeddim chimera

[velvet raft]

If you have 3 bonus points to spare, you can even do that with physical as secondary, so that you can get more in other stuff

[tulip folio]

Tyrant Lizard is pretty much the 'So you want to win combat as a lunar' spirit form, with like...Hippo after it. XD

[obtuse heron]

this is her kaiju mode

[obtuse heron]

LOL

[velvet raft]

Ooh, I love it

[tulip folio]

turns out turning into a T-Rex with an entire page worth of special abilities - Very good

[velvet raft]

Where/who is that from?

[obtuse heron]

drew it myself :3

teehee

[velvet raft]

Nice!

[tulip folio]

Nice!

[obtuse heron]

thank you!

[tulip folio]

I love the little person on the top for scale

[obtuse heron]

yaaaa

[merry arch]

im makin an abyssal with apocalyptic bureaucracy and god it's so fucking funny. what a silly charm.

[tulip folio]

I got art recently for my exalted character I'm going to be playing and I'm still just so excited over it. XD

[obtuse heron]

LMAO

[tulip folio]

Abyssal charms are great when they really get to play into their nonsense.

[obtuse heron]

hell yeah

[velvet raft]

The other big option worth considering re: combat spirit shapes is bear/hellboar for the berserker merit if you want to use Relentless Lunar Fury, although that delays using Towering until Essence 2

[merry arch]

she's so fucking spoiled. the silver prince loves her.

[velvet raft]

(I love Relentless Lunar Fury

hehe

[obtuse heron]

im turning this woman into a fucking tarrasque

[merry arch]

tracks

lmao

[obtuse heron]

its so funny to me how different exalt merit layouts are

lunars: physical mods, absolute creechurs

abyssals: plotting, scheming, connections

[velvet raft]

Tbf you can do either with either

[obtuse heron]

true

yeah, true

i just saw Unga and went Bunga i guess lol

i do love me a proper Beastie

[merry arch]

she's completely fucking useless in combat, but that doesn't matter because she has a Sainted war ghost and lictor of her master's court to kill things for her.

(dude's the equivalent of a celestial exalt)

[velvet raft]

I built a lunar recently and these are her merits
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1357914108623589609/1363120230838042644/image.png?ex=68082be4&is=6806da64&hm=87e9b765e33f4b61570635a006886f263c0c97fc987e5b2c9efaa276d03a1862&

[obtuse heron]

shes so real for that ❤️

[velvet raft]

21 dots of Stuff

[obtuse heron]

its like those webtoons where the main character collects a bunch of miscellaneous op items

[velvet raft]

The idea is that these were all together as a panoply (they're also all cursed)

[obtuse heron]

oooooo

[velvet raft]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aa8o9xdXPY&list=RDMMt0jvbvnirOg&index=4 @merry arch you too

[merry arch]

true! she was a gift from the Heron to the Prince. one of their many schemes and games of high-stygian intrigue. is she fully loyal to the Prince? yes, he's plied her with enough gifts and rank to make a Dynast blush, but the fun of it all is that the possibility remains in the Bodhisattva's thoughts. how delightful

[obtuse heron]

see now i wanna make a Solar with a 5 dot manse with the hearthstone embedded into their artifact weapon

[merry arch]

Solars got some sick bones and despite their issues in the game's design space they're still tight as fuck idc

[tulip folio]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/729896234877452371/1363157424474685661/riri_ikiryo_comm.jpg?ex=68084e88&is=6806fd08&hm=ea8bd8877729be079a6b146a982462eae576c0300e339de297285e9da672c310&

Righteous Restoration of Industry is none of these things but she's got dreams and hopes and is determined to make the world a better place.

Oh and Zombies. She's got a lot of zombies.

[obtuse heron]

_> issues?

im still making em

[velvet raft]

Oh god I love this

[obtuse heron]

but im totally unfamiliar with the playability and balance and design and whatnot of like

all the things

im already absurdly hooked tho

[velvet raft]

The hair really pushes it above and beyond

[tulip folio]

Solars were the First Book, so there's a chunk of 'This wasn't repeated later becuase it's not great design-wise'

[obtuse heron]

robor..... ❤️

[obtuse heron]

ah

gotcha

[velvet raft]

Solars also just ... don't feel good to build?

Largely because Supernal makes the right play so clearly "dive deep into one ability's charms immediately" so you wind up less spread out and less interesting

You're not trawling through looking for weird shit and combos

[obtuse heron]

do they ever plan on revamping older classes

[velvet raft]

It's more an exercise in "how can I punch good"

[tulip folio]

I love playing Alchs and RiRi is just entirely unironically trying her best. She's just a Necromancer who's solution to a lot of problems is 'Zombie Horde' or 'Shatter their soul in a mirror'.

[velvet raft]

I think they have ruled out a 3.5 for the moment

[obtuse heron]

thats totally fair

[velvet raft]

The release schedule is slow enough as it is

🤷‍♂️

[obtuse heron]

yeah theres an abyssals book in the works right

[velvet raft]

And alchemicals

[obtuse heron]

:o

[velvet raft]

Drafts are out for both

[obtuse heron]

thats right

[tulip folio]

Yep, both of them are pretty cool

[obtuse heron]

funky homunculi

[tulip folio]

Yep, RiRi is one of them!

[obtuse heron]

we love to see it

[tulip folio]

Orialcum Caste

[merry arch]

The Beloved Siaka of Onyx Devours the Lands of Blasphemers is a normal woman. you can trust her to coalesce a shadowland in your homeland I promise.

[tulip folio]

...I am also going to need to resist having her talk like this at some point when doing a big necromancy attack at someone.

[velvet raft]

I love "Her Selachian Entourage"

[merry arch]

they all smile with teeth like apex predators ready to bite down on their quarry :)

[tulip folio]

I've got RiRi and a couple of Sidereals sitting about to play some time.

[obtuse heron]

i think i loved lunars so immediately because its the easiest way to make Kaiju Woman though now that my beast hunger is sated i may slide towards a possible Dragonblood or Sidereal

flipping a coin for it

[obtuse heron]

trueeeeeeee

https://tenor.com/view/smile-horror-surprise-creepy-gif-16900698

i need to wuxia this hispanic woman

art will be soon

im simply too lazy rn

[merry arch]

her entourage is organized of about fifty-odd ghosts and people, mostly middling thanatocrats, bodyguards, navigators, black judges, etc.

[obtuse heron]

does she expend them like fodder or is she more careful w it

on a scale of chaff to precious

[merry arch]

she treats them tremendously well! because if they betray her - and some have, they always do - she can have them damned and stripped of their ranks and titles. she is The Silver Prince's favorite Deathknight

The Silver Prince sets an example she is keen to emulate.

[obtuse heron]

ahhhh, the protective veil of perceived innocence

all evidence points to victim, padded by favouritism

shes wonderful

[merry arch]

thank u, lemme dig up the face claim I'm using for her

art by mgkii on bsky

half her face is completely ruined from her moment of exaltation, but she wears a fine soulsteel halfmask to cover the horribly rotten wounds when in mixed (read: non-Skullstone) company. tremendously beautiful woman (appearance 4) whose words are sweet like pomegranate wine

let her do imperialism it's okay I promise

[obtuse heron]

yooooo

like this vibes

[merry arch]

yes exactly

[obtuse heron]

i don’t know if you’ve seen bargo’s oc Oslow but the brassy flesh-metal is also vibes

[merry arch]

oh true, yeah

[obtuse heron]

let her do a little conquering as a treat

deaths chivalry or whatevs

[merry arch]

exactlyyyy

[obtuse heron]

question for the mechanical chatters can one stack multiple manse merits into one mega manse

on top of one mega demesne

or is it just two separate things

[upper stratus]

if you got two 3 dot manse merits that's two separate manses

a mega manse is represented with a 5 dot manse

[velvet raft]

There's nothing stopping you from saying a bunch of manses are all in one approximate location

But each manse is its own thing

Like there's no rule that says you can't have one big palace that contains multiple manses, but mechanically each is discrete and in terms of synthesizing those two things the manse location probably has to be its own part of said palace.

[velvet raft]

Given sharks are kinda big derpy marine dogs who investigate things by biting them, I propose that they look extremely intimidating but if you can communicate with them they're good-natured morons

[bleak hazel]

You have a Tyrant Lizard shape, which is easily the strongest one for general stomping purposes, so you don't really need to care much about combat because you're just going to eat everyone for at least one or two essence levels
Even still, list of Exalted combat basics that every fighty character wants:

• a way to negate penalties to Parry or Dodge, whichever you're using.
• a way to add damage to your attacks
• at least one ox-body
• a basic accuracy booster charm to stick on top of your Excellency, if possible, although many trees don't have one of these and Sids are odd and only get it at Essence 2.

[tulip folio]

Also: Unnatural Hide + Tyrant Lizard is going to result in most things shy of a siege weapon going to min damage.

[upper stratus]

wdym only get it at essence 2

[bleak hazel]

Inner Eye Strike is Sid melee's no-frills accuracy booster, or at least as close as it gets

otherwise it's just your Excellency

[upper stratus]

oh like that

sids don't get much of it in general

[bleak hazel]

Excellency too good

excelled too hard

[upper stratus]

i am very glad sids just get juiced excellency so i am not spending too much exp on 'charm that just makes the dice more good'

[tulip folio]

That and with how the Sid excellency works with 'extra dice', they valued 'reflexive aim' very highly there

[bleak hazel]

On average it's +2.1 non-charm successes, so about +4 non-charm dice, which is similar to one Excellent Strike or (lunar one I can't remember the name of)

it also triggers all your Aim stuff and that's extremely efficient

[velvet raft]

Hm, question

If a scene-long charm says it increases a weapon's accuracy by 1, would that count for charm dice?

[tulip folio]

What's the charm? I'd say no as accuracy is inherantly non-charm.

[bleak hazel]

I believe it would not, on the grounds that things charms that create conditions that are normally non-charm don't appear to count in other places

[tulip folio]

There are a few charms that have a Specific Accuracy Value (Generally when they create an attack)

[velvet raft]

There's an evocation for a sword in Many-Faced Strangers that increases said sword's accuracy by 1

[bleak hazel]

(cf. Thousand Blades Style, which has a charm that explicitly upgrades from +Parry to +Cover in order to make the bonus non-charm)

[bleak hazel]

What, just in general?

[tulip folio]

Ah, there it is!

Accursed Blade Embodiment

That is...beefy

As like, lets be frank: Your emnity is always going to be a defining if this is your weapon. XD

So it ends up a Better Essence Core Ignition most of the time.

Oh right. There is an 'extra accuracy' sword in Alchemicals too. Radiance!

[bleak hazel]

I was about to go "oh, it's Simple, you're fine" but then it's not any longer

[tulip folio]

Radiance gives one too, though I think Radiance's Axiom is a little harder to always leverage unless you're a dork who makes their defining philosophy 'I will never lose a fight' and gets brained with a rulebook. XD

[bleak hazel]

Capbreaking accuracy boosters yaay

(they're not always broken and are in fact necessary in various places, they're just kind of worrying)

[upper stratus]

oh interesting, the accuracy bonus here is a charm die unless noted otherwise

so i assume the one from accursed blade embodiment is a charm die

[tulip folio]

Nah, resonant turns it from a non-charm die to a non-charm success

[bleak hazel]

It's non-charm, the upgrade sets it to a success

[upper stratus]

oh

[tulip folio]

Sids breaking into Autothonia to steal Radiance.

[upper stratus]

right yes

[tulip folio]

I really like Brilliant Shining Heart but I do think it requires a GM to police the Axiom pretty hard.

[bleak hazel]

I am wondering if I want to give Elder Swordsid a beamklaive for Optimal Nonsense but I think he's got enough motes committed as is

[tulip folio]

Oh? What makes it more optimal nonsense?

[bleak hazel]

better sword

extremely uncomplicated reasoning here

[upper stratus]

i hate commiting motes. i love having motes. never enough motes

[bleak hazel]

Swordsid in form is committing a casual (30+5+5+3) = 43 motes, leaving him with 30-31 to play with at E5

add soakrock if necessary

[tulip folio]

I know why they want players to be able to pick the intimacy to support but I do kinda wish things like Brilliant Shining Heart and Accursed Blade Embodiment gave more guidelines on what is/isn't an acceptable intimacy.

[bleak hazel]

Thank you ISOB for making it so I don't desperately need silken armour

[upper stratus]

i think average fight rn im gonna have like 27 motes committed? with prep time

[bleak hazel]

I would like to add the CMOS movement tech but I do not think I have the motes

even though learning Hungry Spider in hypothetical infinite XP E6 status is good for "whoops, grapple"

and for being really annoying with crane style because you can unarmed counterattack someone to medium range and then reflexively move to long

nest also good for going 1vX due to cover and attack penalty

god, CMOS E3 stuff is just nuts, other than the threads nothing even cares about charm compatibility because you're not punching

although you can't use the stuff in armour and I can't put the form in triple form

[tulip folio]

Once, there was a maiden, bleeding...
Watching her life flow away.
She had given her all for others
and had nothing left to give.
As she lay there she heard birdsong
And the cry of new birth.
Day became night, heedless to her death.
Yet, she smiled as she ebbed...
"From each ending grows a new beginning."

Is there any particular rules for the Sid Sutras beyond 'they always start with talking about a maiden'? Looking over them, there's not all consistent in length and I can't find a pattern in construction.

[obtuse heron]

yeah i saw it and went “oh i like this”

i love playing Massive Wall of Hit Points in every game i play

I Unga, therefore i Bunga

[prisma sun]

btw mycover, do you want an invite to the exalted forum rp

[obtuse heron]

:o sure why not, might not participate until i get a good grasp on the system tho lol

[prisma sun]

It's Vibes-based not mechanics

[obtuse heron]

oh no, i meant vibes based too lmao

i’m coming in from playing fabula ultima for a year

gotta readjust my brain space

for the Wuxia

[bleak hazel]

They're usually in two halves, although SMAs are no longer formatted like that

I would personally lead with "Once there was a bleeding maiden" to fit the usual format but it does vary

[bleak hazel]

can I interest you in the Siege Lizard

more indestructible, less grapple-based version of the tyrant

[obtuse heron]

👀

yeah basically i want to be

“disturbingly large thing”

[bleak hazel]

also is an Ankylosaurus

You have your choice of T-rex, giant ankylosaurus, diplodocus and kraken

[prisma sun]

And Elephant

[bleak hazel]

and giant pterosaur

generally lots of dinos

[prisma sun]

And Giant Snake

Did they stat Yeddim?

[obtuse heron]

Yeddim is like

i feel like it’s an elephant

just a big elephant

[bleak hazel]

A yeddim is specifically a woolly mammoth

and yes, they have stats

[prisma sun]

Well no, Mammoths are different

Yeddim are like Giant Banthas

[obtuse heron]

https://tenor.com/view/bantha-star-wars-sand-people-gif-17521502

giant goober

[prisma sun]

https://i.imgur.com/BA6V2q8.png

[obtuse heron]

a goober,,,

[bleak hazel]

Tyrant lizards are considered a little cheesy because they have a bunch of stuff that was not designed for players to be able to get

the forms in books other than core were generally better checked for Lunar compatibility

because lunar rules existed at the time they were written

[obtuse heron]

i might go ankylo tbh

better fitting

[bleak hazel]

It has one button that is cracked as hell and everything else is mostly fine

(infinite zero mote cost heaven thunder hammers!)

[obtuse heron]

[prisma sun]

keep in mind

[bleak hazel]

The people who wrote core basically did not consider Lunars in any way and as such all the core book animal rules are designed for beasties that have like 8 dice to hit with no way to boost it rather than 21 dice to hit + rerolls + other stuff

[prisma sun]

this means Akylosaurus can DBZ teleport behind you

in mid-air

https://tenor.com/view/lf-ssj-goku-pur-ssj-goku-goku-ssj-goku-ssj-gif-9959271596033279290

[tulip folio]

Oh, I also redesigned that 'teleport slash' to be less 'Hey, this is moonsilver' and more 'Oh fuck, the Sid can Blade Dash now'

Heartbeat Destination Slash
Cost: 10m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 3
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Dual, Enlightenment
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Cutting the Strings
The fundamental precept of Amethyst Eyes of Division is that everything must end. There is no journey without a destination and no traveler who's path does not cease. Drawing on this death of distance, she slashes down the path before her to hasten its end.

This supplements an attack against a character within medium range. The martial artist is immediately placed in Close Range with the target before the attack. This is not movement and ignores any obstacles between the martial artist and the target, as the very concept of distance is chopped down by her blade. All hostile characters out to Short Range from a line between the starting an ending points of this movement are caught within this slash and must make a (Perception + Dodge) opposed to the attack roll or suffer (Awareness) lethal damage, which ignores hardness.

Alternatively, this can be used to supplement a movement action. If she does so, gains (Awareness) automatic successes on the movement action and is immediately placed in the final location of that movement action, ignoring all obstacles in the way and allowing her to travel to places that would be impossible, such as straight through a wall.

Enlightenment: This can supplement an attack against a character within Long Range.

Reset: Once per scene, unless reset by incapacitating a non-trivial foe.

[obtuse heron]

that mental image is fucking image

“then suddenly, ankylosaurus”

[prisma sun]

I couldn't find a gif but you know that thing in DBZ

where they hit a guy and they fly up and then they put their hands together and spike them into the ground

that's Heaven Thunder Hammer

and they just Gave that to Ankylosaurus

[bleak hazel]

(normal dice to hit: 7)

A Lunar can flurry five of these in a row for no extra cost, and HTH was already pretty cracked when it cost 7 motes on a Solar

[obtuse heron]

you’re just playing ping pong with yourself using the enemy as a ball

[prisma sun]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMPf9jvLSdM

[bleak hazel]

ah, if you want to be a dinosaur that does not have completely broken rules, the Shieldback Lizard in the Lunars book is a stegosaurus and the Thunder Lizard is a diplodocus

corebook beasties are basically the reason that the Lunar book has a sidebar saying "if your shapeshifting completely breaks the game the GM is allowed to nerf it"