Exalted

[limpid badge]

he destroys jesustown

[merry arch]

😌

[prisma sun]

Hmm

[limpid badge]

hi just realized what this means. beautiful alicia. hiiii bbbygirlll

[merry arch]

HAHAHAHA

[winged swallow]

Marie Sanson of Innocent Rouge fame was, in fact, the reason Harrow even came to be

[limpid badge]

Broken Hearted Lord of the Obelisk Manor?

[merry arch]

oh fuck yes that rules

[winged swallow]

peak

[dense verge]

hakaider good times

[limpid badge]

also why Jacque exists. we predator handshake on innocent rouge

wish i could read that authors dracula manga where renfield seems to be a tgirl

[winged swallow]

hold

the FUCK up

the WHAT

[limpid badge]

i will go get u the name

OH WAIT NO ITS NOT RENFIELD ITS LUCY HARKER WHOSE TRANS IN THAT ONE

[prisma sun]

Man I thought I had 6 boys available but all I have right now is Shikimaru

[limpid badge]

anyway

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRCL_midnight_children

[bleak hazel]

I could probably put Alucard Castlevania on Crimson's sheet actually, although he's not the most significant inspiration there

[limpid badge]

anyway i wanna read this shit for abyssal juice so bad

[dense verge]

ayesa has peridot and max payne on her board, but nothing else is coming to mind so far

[winged swallow]

staring jaw agape

[dense verge]

sherlock holmes, maybe

[limpid badge]

I’ll let u know if i find scans okay

[winged swallow]

blease

[prisma sun]

one of these things is not like the otherr

[velvet raft]

Where’s Alucard

[prisma sun]

He's not very Alucardy :c

[velvet raft]

Can't believe this

Hmmmmmmm Charisma 5/Manipulation 1/Appearance 1 or Charisma 1/Manipulation 5/Appearance 1

[winged swallow]

appearance 5, NOW

[velvet raft]

That's my usual!

Appearance 1 is people at the grocery store saying to Tony Hawk, "huh, I wonder whatever happened to that Tony Hawk guy"

The real question is, does Charisma 5 or Manipulation 5 better embody "I have infiltrated the polycule by doing dishes. I pay no rent and have no romantic entanglements"?

[fierce star]

Manipulation

[velvet raft]

Yeah I think so too

[prisma sun]

There's a very specific scene I'm thinking of

[velvet raft]

That's how I'll finally create a high Manipulation character

[prisma sun]

of a guy over-the-toply sitting into a chair

[velvet raft]

"Guy who nobody invited to the party"

"I dunno I guess one of my roommates invited him"

[winged swallow]

this is such a focused ability array, damn

[fierce star]

You have two dicepools

'yes' and 'no'

[velvet raft]

As it should be

[bleak hazel]

you are also illiterate, may want to fix that

[chilly sluice]

many such cases

[velvet raft]

Oh tru

[chilly sluice]

also how my current character works out lmao

[velvet raft]

Tbh maybe I drop brawl to 1 and move stuff into Ebon Shadow because it's fun

[fierce star]

tbh I wish literacy was assumed in exalted and illiterate was like

a flaw

[dense verge]

thats how i houserule it

[velvet raft]

I agree

[winged swallow]

legit

[dense verge]

1 dot linguistics tax is weird quite frankly

[velvet raft]

Illiteracy is actually the exact kind of thing that would make sense as a flaw

[winged swallow]

that’s how we’ve done it in the games i play in

[velvet raft]

It is something that might make your life more difficult in roleplay

That is essential flaw material

[chilly sluice]

taxing people the one dot in Linguistics does just seem silly

[errant knot]

Linguistics 0: read, yes. Write, no

[velvet raft]

I have thoughts on the way languages are handled that I think almost everyone here probably agrees with mainly because we've had this discussion before >_>

[fierce star]

Linguistics requirement makes sense in the like, very narrow context of 'most starting PCs will be bronze age farmboys doing something heroic and getting a solar exaltationf or it'

because in that specific sort of campaign initiation most PCs are likely to be illiterate except the Token Town Smartarse Apprentice

[winged swallow]

i’m yet to find a ttrpg that does languages in a satisfying way

[velvet raft]

My take would be: you get two languages by default, one should probably be Riverspeak. Every point of Linguistics grants you an additional language. Every point of the Language merit grants you 2-4 additional languages, and you can roll Language + Linguistics to quickly assemble a baseline of communication should it come to it.

[errant knot]

Reminds me of my friend's houserule in shadowrun: everyone gets bilingual for free, you start knowing 2 languages

[velvet raft]

I do think that "establish a baseline" thing should definitely exist because people do that

Language barriers are tough to overcome but polyglots in particular tend to be pretty good at establishing the essentials

[prisma sun]

I do think illiteracy is better for tone and versimilitude

[fierce star]

okay but is it more fun for the players though

like if someone wants to play someone who's illiterate, let them take it as a flaw, it's an easy one and perfectly fits in the game's definition of it

note in the fluff for linguistics that 'the vast majority of Creation is illiterate, especially outside of major metropolitan areas'

[prisma sun]

Yes

That's my point

[errant knot]

Now I kinda want to make my lunar's deal that she wanders creation teaching literacy so the masses can pass down knowledge and keep records of their own

[velvet raft]

I love that

Solar linguistics could actually stand to have stuff like that

[fierce star]

Lunar Schoolteacher 👀

[winged swallow]

i was thinkin abt stuff like this

[velvet raft]

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Subtree

[chilly sluice]

thinking about my own statline again rn
wondering how much Perception I actually need
it is important for Join Battle though I guess, especially since I didn't have the budget to get much Awareness

[errant knot]

... Teach the animals to read and write as well

[velvet raft]

I was pondering pinging you about whether Linguistics should be conceptually grounded in Compassion >_>

[winged swallow]

hm, it’s presently temperance

[velvet raft]

Aye, and Ride is Compassion

Which makes sense!

[winged swallow]

ride is comp- yeah

[velvet raft]

Just thinking about how like

[fierce star]

I could see Temperance Ride

[chilly sluice]

that also reminds me
can you voluntarily choose to make your Join Battle result worse?
wondering for purposes of Open Palm Caress

[fierce star]

alla bout knowing the limits of your mount

[velvet raft]

Linguistics could sorta be like Bureaucracy?

[winged swallow]

see the thing about limits and Solars

[fierce star]

you can't break limits you aren't aware of!

[winged swallow]

elaborate

[velvet raft]

In that it's a social stat used to coordinate, rather than to do things directly most of the time?

I'm not sure exactly how to explain

[winged swallow]

well linguistics also governs written social influence

[velvet raft]

The power of language is that it spreads

[winged swallow]

and i feel like that is the Standard Use Case for Linguistics most of the time

[velvet raft]

Language is a meme, as it were

But yeah, I dunno

[winged swallow]

no…

[velvet raft]

I mostly just like Enku's idea

[velvet raft]

In the original Dawkinsian sense (I hate Dawkins but his concept of the meme is really good)

(Namely, a meme is an idea that self-propagates)

[fierce star]

I heard memes (not the internet variety) described once as to culture as genes are to biology and that stuck with me

[velvet raft]

(And so we can start to look at memes as similar to biology in the way they behave)

[velvet raft]

I think that's Metal Gear

"Memes are the DNA of the soul" XD

[fierce star]

I mean there was that in metal gear but it was from somewhere else in this case

[wise ocean]

all deebs, alchs, and sids should get a dot of linguistics for free, everyone else may or may not be illiterate

[winged swallow]

alchs and sids fair

but deebs? what of the furtive outcaste hero

[dense verge]

show me the illiterate sid

[errant knot]

The outcaste can move that dot to something else

[fierce star]

Permanance! That's it! by Karl Shcroeder

*Schroeder

[dense verge]

but yeah i like illiteracy as an opt in flaw, as unlike say dark heresy where literacy is a skill, you play Some Guy in that usually, and it plays into the tone. here you're like, a hero of some manner. you dont got time to purchase literacy.

[velvet raft]

If you want to be illiterate that should be a Thing Of Note about your character

[winged swallow]

yeah flaws should say something abt your blorbus

[velvet raft]

Like, Mugen from Samurai Champloo can't read. This comes up on a couple of occasions and eventually he has a training arc!

[winged swallow]

like the loyalist abyssal who’s illiterate

[velvet raft]

It's a thing of narrative significance

[winged swallow]

yeah

[fierce star]

funnily enough not my current one, but the abyssal before her in the game i'm joining was goign to be illiterate

but she was a tool and a weapon who was desperately trying to prove she's worth being an actual person to anyone who had power over her, and had purposefully not been taught how to read by her mortal family as a way to control her, and then it just... never came up after her exaltation becuase she was ashamed ofi t and hid it from her peers and boss asb est she could.

[errant knot]

so, has anyone else made themselves a self-insert character?

[bleak hazel]

Join Battle is Wits, Perception is mostly good for Read Intentions and catching ambushers (and Sid Melee)

[fierce star]

Like literally just 'me but in exalted', or ona more philosophical level? because every character I make is a reflection of some part of myself.

[prisma sun]

All characters are self inserts

[fierce star]

One cannot shape clay without being shaped in turn

[errant knot]

"me but in exalted"

Truck-sama has paid you a visit

[fierce star]

Not ever

I spend enough time in my own head in real life, I don't play TTRPGs to be in here. It sucks in here. Put me somewhere else.

lol

[errant knot]

can't find anything on that but you can choose to delay your turn at the cost of 2i

ah I have now read Open Palm Caress and understand the distinction

[chilly sluice]

oh right
hmm...
maybe I should switch my Perception and Int then

though Read Intentions is also useful for social stuff

[winged swallow]

yes actually

funnily enough they were both lunars

[chilly sluice]

I just keep thinking I might want some Int to be better at Disguise and Conceal Evidence

[velvet raft]

... double-checking, there's not some special rule somewhere that allows martial arts-based dodge charms to be compatible with actual dodge charms, right?

[fierce star]

that is correct

[winged swallow]

yeag

[fierce star]

It's still worth picking up some dodge charms because MA dodge-based charms don't run the full basic gamut, IME

just your penalty negators usually

[velvet raft]

And conversely certain MA form charms do just give a free +1 to Evasion or to Defense

Abyssal Dodge is wild btw

[winged swallow]

ain’t it just

[velvet raft]

But yeah pondering the value of dipping Ebon Shadow on a primarily Thrown/Dodge character

I think it might even make sense

There's a lot of charms here which don't strictly relate to "make an attack"

Also, this is from Ebon Shadow. Would I be reading this correctly that this doesn't need to be an Ebon Shadow attack?

[bleak hazel]

it would need to be Martial Arts and using weaponry compatible with Ebon Shadow, but if you obeyed MA compatibility rules it would be fine to use this with a Snake Style attack, yes

[velvet raft]

(This is the form charm)

Okay

[errant knot]

I think it'd still have the restrictions

gotta be martial arts rolls, gotta be using compatible weaponry

[velvet raft]

Tragic but fair

[errant knot]

it's why I like the Lunars and Alchs

wild martial arts bullshit and wild charm bullshit

[bleak hazel]

the clear rule is "you can't enhance an attack or defence with incompatible charms" which does have edge cases for stuff like Crane Form (can you parry with Melee and still create Crane counterattacks? Probably not, word of dev, but book is completely unclear on this) but not here

you're still enhancing your attacks with a charm even if it's a scenelong buff to them

[velvet raft]

So if you didn't actually want to use MA attacks, you'd benefit from the Defense buff and the -1 Initiative from stealth, but nothing else

[errant knot]

it sounds like if you're in the form, you can only use martial arts attacks. But if you're just not attacking at all then it'd be fine?

[bleak hazel]

no, you can use whatever attack you like, but your ongoing martial arts charms do nothing to them

so you can throw a knife enhanced with Abyssal Thrown charms but you'll get no higher init from the reset

[velvet raft]

Prooooobably not worth the investment

[bleak hazel]

my personal experience with this is mostly Ways of Exaltation, which can incidentally give you +3 dice to Melee rolls but doesn't have a compatibility-fudger for that part, so it's only relevant if you somehow find a melee roll that isn't attacking people/involving Melee charms

I think Descending Battles Horoscope is one, but that might be it

[velvet raft]

When there's so much good dodge, thrown, and stealth stuff as is

[bleak hazel]

I skipped white veil on my social abyssal when I found out that Abyssal Thrown already has a degree of social stealth built in

they're good trees

[velvet raft]

Also Abyssal Thrown has a bunch of "you can throw beans" stuff

And Crypt Bolt exists

And is quite good, by the looks of it

[velvet raft]

Love that there's a specific "laser eyes" upgrade for crypt bolt

[limpid badge]

Hiii hello

Look at the bloody hand again thank you

[tulip folio]

The Alchemical Essense Cannon has a similar upgrade and it is very important thematically.

[winged swallow]

personally i’m always looking at her

[limpid badge]

thank u glorydoll

Underneath her princely mask is a wretched and spiteful shade!

[fierce star]

the best sort of shade!

I've made a cannibal pirate who's goal in unlife can basically be defined as 'become the undead god-queen of all creation everywhere, then drown the whole thing'

'what happens if you replace the pole of earth with the pole of water? i don't know, and I don't have enough occult to find out'

[limpid badge]

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

[winged swallow]

‘s pretty solid

[fierce star]

... actually you know what I should totally take inspiration from pirates of dark water for this

what if we just made water that wants to kill you

[merry arch]

holy shit more peak mentioned

anyways. with delilah's help Brokenhearted Lord is coming along quite well. she hauls around a coffin with the preserved corpse of her betrothed that the heron turned into Stormbringer That Blows People Up (ion know how to homebrew, stat or cost an artifact so we're just basing things on vibes.)

[fierce star]

most homebrew is vibes

[merry arch]

this is true

the sword does killer queen diamond is unbreakable shit

[fierce star]

... oh shit I just realized, unless the captain of the other ship is an exalt I can use dread captain's command during boarding actions

[merry arch]

yes abyssal sail is funny

[fierce star]

I think my two favorite abyssal charm trees are sail and survival

though I was gonna doa hilarious thing wtih medicine plus survival where I just claim an area as mine, and also, it is full of poison and illness and everything inside it dies constantly in the putrid cold

there is no warmth, safety, or respite

enjoy your time :D

[prisma sun]

Okay Miyazaki

[merry arch]

i love poison bogs

[fierce star]

the best part of any soulsborne game is the poison swamp don't @ me

the lake of rot is peak design

[limpid badge]

the major biome of the Underworld is Dark Souls this is true

[winged swallow]

“hey this afterlife sure looks like lothric”

[fierce star]

man my underworld is broken I got a knock-off instead this is just the cathedral of sacred blood from code vein

[tulip folio]

Enjoy falling off shit constantly, idiot.

[fierce star]

In fact I will!

... I wonder who'd win in a fight between the Legion Sanguinary and the Company of Martial Sinners. Probably the Legion just by volume of troops.

[velvet raft]

Jumps around, throws death at people

[winged swallow]

howmst do you have black feather blinding x2 if you do not have base black feather blinding

[velvet raft]

Error, meant to be Stolen Victory Reversal x2

Already noticed and corrected it >_>

[fierce star]

lol

[velvet raft]

I will say, Dodge is good in terms of "lots of fun stuff concentrated at E1 and E2"

A lot of these trees are

Not all, but a lot

[tulip folio]

Still debating most fun Apocalyptic for like Vampire Noble Classic. Presence has some good stuff.

[velvet raft]

Socialize seems potentially fun?

[wise ocean]

Apocalyptic Performance?

[winged swallow]

Socialize Apoc is what you’re looking for, tbh

quite possibly one of my favorite trees

absolutely juiced

[prisma sun]

Vampire noble has a lot of tropes it could be

[velvet raft]

Even Brawl

Abyssal does a good job of being the complete unstoppable vampire monster package

[prisma sun]

Do abyssals have heaven thunder hammer

[merry arch]

extremely true. thinking about fast tracking my abyssal to 7 appearance with apoc socialize and some performance investment.

hottest butch in stygia

[velvet raft]

Appearance 1 baaaabeeeey

[winged swallow]

bloody hand’s ally abyssal is a socialize apoc black claw stylist

[merry arch]

hell yes

[wise ocean]

I need to make an appearance -11 abyssal at some point

[merry arch]

HAHAHA

[wise ocean]

actual psychic damage to look at them for more than 0.3 seconds

[velvet raft]

Hungry Ghost?

It's kinda funny how if you're already Hideous, Hungry Ghost lets you be Extra Soopah Hideous

[winged swallow]

a tailor-assassin and seven times divorced/eight times “married” to the black heron who taught her the style. the whispers say she’s about to ask for the eighth divorce

[velvet raft]

(Essence) non-charm dice on threaten rolls is a hell of a drug

[winged swallow]

cribbing a lil’ magnus archives meme for this bit

[velvet raft]

Oh wow the Chain-Armor subtree for Resistance is extremely cool

[prisma sun]

Oh yeah I think Briar or Ash did that

[velvet raft]

Also two somewhat different anti-uncountable damage charms is fun

[tulip folio]

Oh? I've not looked into it. What sorta nonsense does it have?

[winged swallow]

oh buddy

one sec

these r some of my faves

[tulip folio]

Fantastic

[bleak hazel]

most of my socialize investment has been pretty basic Dice Harder stuff but Crimson gets his big social tricks from Bureaucracy

there are some bangers in there

5m, 1wp: "I am rich as fuck, so you should promote that minor intimacy of awe I instilled while bargaining with you earlier to Major"

[tulip folio]

It's interesting that Alchs get the 'You can't use the wrong intimacies against this' earlier than Abyssals. Though the Abyssal one is beefier.

[winged swallow]

also important to remember that some abyssal trees will retain that built-around-ignoring-essence-prereqs thing

[tulip folio]

Yeah

[tulip folio]

Silly Pondering: @fierce star Despite literally being a WoD vampire with a werewolf girlfriend, Aininur would make a pretty shitty Abyssal.

[fierce star]

I could see her as a renegade abyssal maybe, but she'd be bad at it

hear me out: ghostblooded zenith

[tulip folio]

Interesting! I could see it

[velvet raft]

Yeah seems like a good starting point

[prisma sun]

VtM characters don't often translate well to abyssals because most vampire characters don't actually have authority

[tulip folio]

Less about authority and more vibes. Aininur is very high humanity + True Faith. Well, Road of Heavens.

[winged swallow]

it is fun and cool to gain limit

deathsplode for your sins (being nice)

that was how harrow 1.0 went

well

didn't get to deathsplode

but we sure did Gain Limit

[bleak hazel]

the level of annoyance caused by the deathsplosion is highly dependent on the situation

loyalist abyssals doing standard dark lord stuff typically don't care that much if all the plants around them start dying

although a giant thunderstorm might suck

[fierce star]

Today I learned that capital-O Oblivion is apparently not referenced at all in abyssals as like, a thing/place/concept/etc

playign exalted across three editions is confusing

[bleak hazel]

I think I have actually managed to get Crane Style's setup time down to an acceptable level for normal fights, which is neat

[fierce star]

two turns?

[bleak hazel]

it's two turns normally, since you have to Crane Form turn 1 and then full defence turn 2

but with Sid Melee versatile you can flurry an attack and a full defence if you're holding a shield (don't have to do anything with the shield, so you can still attack with Crane) and between Prior Warning and Expected Pain you are likely to be warned of ambushes in time to get the form up before the wall caves in

[fierce star]

nice

[winged swallow]

yeah, oblivion is only really ever brought up with regards to Albicant Sepulcher of Extinction

and it's more of a synonym for nonexistence

to my understanding

[bleak hazel]

Expected Pain is "reflexively take an action to try and prevent [the general type of bad thing]" so I don't think it straight up lets you pop a form

they're Simple charms, and I'm not sure that would count for a reflexive action unless explicitly specified

but Prior Warning is my-jedi-senses-are-tingling, so you tend to get at least some rough indication of when you should pre-buff

and Expected Pain can still be "incoming ambush, I move away from the door so I start further away in the fight and have a second to pop something"

actually maybe you can use a Form, the Core definition of Simple very much does not cover this, but i'm not sure

[coral wraith]

Expected Pain -> Avoidance

[bleak hazel]

that has always been the classic, yes

well, usually it's Prior Warning -> Avoidance if you're really paranoid

old 2e Expected Pain was very literally "here's one turn's warning", which was very convenient

The character has a general idea of the bad things that will happen to him in the course of his life. When an unpleasant moment impends, this awareness crystallizes. This Charm activates automatically when something unexpectedly dangerous or awful is about to happen, and the character learns its general nature (“attack,” “poison,” “betrayal,” “loss of loved one,” “humiliation”). The character has one turn’s warning in which to turn his fate aside. Ambushes against the character automatically fail, but the character does not automatically detect his attacker.

[tulip folio]

Sids are immune to pranks

[bleak hazel]

Sid awareness is just all bangers this edition honestly

Prior Warning, Expected Pain, Wise Choice, Inevitable Pursuit, Feathered Cloak Trick

I would like all the information please and thank you

Sids are also really good at Crane Style even if the E2 form and E4 capstone are a bit annoying for a splat that gets Mastery in the form and needs either 10 MA charms or a full style to start E3 SMAs

Exalted discord is also not totally clear on this but seem to have settled generally on "yeah, you can use a Simple if it's appropriate to the threat that's coming, since it says reflexive action to prevent [bad thing]"

kind of fun mental image of "ah shit bad guys" -> Burn Life -> Reflexive Crane Form -> Join Battle, flurry full defence/attack, I was in bonfire before you even started this fight"

that's like 40% of an E2 sid's motes but hey, none of it's on bad stuff, you've got (strength +1) soak, more damage, your form and amazing parry

[velvet raft]

This has always been a point of contention with Abyssals, even going back to 1E — "wouldn't it make more sense to build dissonance on purpose to create shadowlands everywhere if that's just a thing that can happen" is I think even brought up in the 1e Abyssals book

To some degree the answer just has to be "don't worry about it"

[bleak hazel]

that's not super attractive these days since the shadowlands are temporary and the GM has the option to pick stuff that fucks with your intimacies or gives you neverborn sidequests instead, but a random spread of the available Expiations are probably going to trouble loyalist dark lord a lot less than deathknight errant jane trying hard to look like a decent human being

[velvet raft]

Yeah, by making it temporary they've reduced the question significantly

[prisma sun]

Btw

who had that story of the fuckin

[velvet raft]

As opposed to previously when Abyssals were just walking bombs

[prisma sun]

2 Sids that Charm-looped themselves into not knowing what they wanted to know

but each knew another sid knew they did the thing

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah, that was mine

[prisma sun]

Can you post it again

I want to tell my friends about it

[winged swallow]

?

this was actually how i sold a player of mine on joining my sidereals game

[coral wraith]

it's peak

[bleak hazel]

My detective Sidereal was infiltrating the local satrap's palace in his best Indentured Servant resplendent destiny to eavesdrop on a local deeb's meeting with a Lunar PC the Sid was trailing. A hostile Bronze Sidereal was hunting for infiltrators and moved to observe the blip on her Supernal Awareness radar in order to hit me with a Descending Secrets Horoscope, which would be a bad thing, so the good detective's Expected Pain pinged.

Because of this I turned on Supernal Awareness looking for people trailing me and started heading around the corner to find her, which would have been a bad thing for her because I'd blow her cover, so her Expected Pain pinged, at which point she Avoidanced out and wiped the incident from my Sid's memory (with Avoidance) and her memory (with Self-Annihilating Discretion).

As a result, the two sides of the Sidereal espionage ops in this city fought an entire spy duel entirely using precognition and fate manipulation several days before either became properly aware of each other and without using any human senses whatsoever.

[prisma sun]

God I wanna play a Sidereal

[bleak hazel]

you know i should put that in the highlights channel of the exalted discord, I think it's sufficiently peak Sid

[quiet garnet]

Waddaya mean I see Alucard in the top right?

[prisma sun]

That's Dragon Man idk what you mean

[errant knot]

this has now sold a friend of mine on playing a Sidereal

[errant knot]

sorry, meant to say, THIS has

[winged swallow]

hmmmmmm... temperance archery playing with principles and higher soul sorta stuff

[winged swallow]

oho okay

bonuses for principles of impatience and desire in your targets...

[tulip folio]

...vague Pondering

Things related to pinning and suppression.

Forcing others to slow down and take cover

[limpid badge]

oh, bonuses for if your opponent is suffering under time pressure?

so you can set up super nasty ambushes while someone is racing to be at their father's deathbed

or aught else suitably approporiate

[winged swallow]

yessssss

gain bonuses (yay) for being patient and having some restraint, inflict penalties on others for being the opposite

[limpid badge]

that gives you a kind of flexibility that is very solar, don't u think

bc its suitable for a Brain Genius Tactician as much as it is for a Paitent Assassin

[winged swallow]

precisely

[limpid badge]

might be nice to make a recurring theme honestly

[winged swallow]

oh yeah?

[limpid badge]

yeah!

Live Up To The Standards Of The Sun

[winged swallow]

or die, dipshit.

[limpid badge]

a challenge that solar charms offer everyone!

A solar is a question, to themselves and to creation itself- can you meet the exacting standards of Virtue?

the avatar in ultima is a solar is what im saying.

that mfer a zenith.

[coral wraith]

That's right

[tulip folio]

Unfortunately the First Age was Ultima: Pagan.

[coral wraith]

immensely cursed statement

[velvet raft]

Thematically, this synergizes well with how so many archery trees like to emphasize the Aim action, I think

[winged swallow]

seems we’ve found a core archery theme

[fierce star]

Thanks, I definitely needed to read that first thing in the morning

[tulip folio]

You're Welcome, Avatar

[fierce star]

so is Iolo the avatar's lunar mate?

[spring lynx]

no that's clearly Lord British

[bleak hazel]

apparently one backer's request for their Sid Companion secret technique was "please make Steel Devil Style good" and this required a major dev brainstorming session because SD has great defence and abysmal offense, which is funny

so maybe two sword man real

[dense verge]

ghsgshsgs

backer request of "hey can you fix this" leads to a conclave of devs

[errant knot]

my understanding was that Steel Devil style was insanely broken on release

like easily the best style?

[winged swallow]

that would be Single Point Shining In The Void Style

[bleak hazel]

Single Point is the spectacularly broken style, still by far the strongest martial art

Steel Devil is the martial art that you use to train people wrong as a joke

[errant knot]

wild. It's still sick as hell

[winged swallow]

Steel Devil is. Not.

[next delta]

Steel Devil was broken in the sense it was very bad and didn't make sense

[bleak hazel]

Steel Devil's unique point of shame is that against any opponent that you can't trivially beat anyway with the skill/stat requirements for its charms, the charms are worse than useless

[next delta]

(And I think one of the ones that Vance didn't work on?)

[bleak hazel]

Vance did do Single Point, not sure about the rest

most of the core book MAs were apparently written before the Solar combat charms, which explains why they're so all over the place, they're the first fight suites in this edition

[next delta]

I was referring to Steel Devil re: what he didn't work on. But definitely don't quote me on it

[errant knot]

well that would explain things, good god.

[bleak hazel]

Steel Devil's thing is that you bank init into a special pool for your second sword and then spend it on doing combo attacks, but the way the combo attacks work is "to land the second and third strikes, your attack successes need to be double or triple that of your opponent's defence"

and you don't get the usual extra successes to damage while doing it

[errant knot]

good lord that's stupid

[bleak hazel]

so in practice you have a bunch of effort spent moving initiative from your main, actually useful pool to a secondary pool that isn't protecting you from being crashed, which is bad, and then you spend it on attacks that are almost always worse than just swinging normally

it also has three form charms, one of which just increases the amount of initiative you can put in the special pool and gives minor discounts

[errant knot]

wh

why

[bleak hazel]

it also ignores offhand penalties, which functionally do not exist

[next delta]

It's kind of funny that single point is the multiple action style instead of the "make lots of attacks" style

[errant knot]

it sounds like it was ported from an entirely different game system with no thought as to how the new system works

[next delta]

It makes more sense given the order of creation mentioned above probably

[bleak hazel]

the second form is actually good, it gives you +2 resting parry and a counterattack option that doesn't reset your main init, then a charm after that gives you the option of spending initative to retroactively increase your parry against attacks that hit you

I'm sorry flavour text, you're objectively wrong

this is not the lesser of two forms, this is literally the only reason to ever even consider this style

[errant knot]

oh I see now

Naked Fang Draw: 5 motes on a join battle to get... a max of 5 bonus dice, at essence 5

that's not great

[bleak hazel]

it adds successes, which is pretty good value at higher essence

[errant knot]

oh successes

right, gotta engage the reading comprehension

[bleak hazel]

it's just the entire style is dragged down by the incredible terribleness of Double Attack, Triple Attack and the seven billion things that cue off them

offhand charge is a usable mechanic that is just extremely undertuned, because you're spending 6+ init to get it spooled up in the first place

Naked Fang Draw is pretty funny for high essence Sidereals, actually, because successes count as 1 die in their dice cap rather than 2

[chilly sluice]

Steel Devil is just really weird

Double and Triple Attack just don't work basically

[next delta]

Broken (the other way)

[velvet raft]

I know this isn't what Steel Devil is trying to be but I would love to see some proper main gauche stuff from either a style or regular charms

[errant knot]

if it was "beat the Defense by +1 or +2" then it'd be something

maybe

[bleak hazel]

possibly 2 and 4, which are less trivial to get by slamming excellencies into artifact weapons

[velvet raft]

Might there ever be a place for like, mini martial arts? Stuff that doesn't have a form, is only 3-4 charms long, and doesn't count towards completion of a style if and when that comes up?

[bleak hazel]

I think that's basically what Secret Techniques are going to be, except they tack onto existing styles

[velvet raft]

Aha

[bleak hazel]

Essence MAs are that too, except they have Forms

[velvet raft]

Just thinking about how some concepts for MA stuff are really too specific for a full style

[bleak hazel]

but in 3e, a MA is your whole deal, and each one is a decent amount of work to test, so I don't think the devs really want to leave lots of penny-packets of easily accessible cross-compatible charms around

[next delta]

Essence is only 3-4 charms because it's generally shorter charm trees in general. I do like it though

[bleak hazel]

yeah, in Essence you start with what, four or five charms total?

[next delta]

I forgot, but something like that

[bleak hazel]

and excellencies are full charm buys

honestly not enough delicious Stuff for my liking

[winged swallow]

5 and one is.. ox-body i think?

[next delta]

I like how each one is chunkier personally, but ymmv

The other thing essence does is have a bit less ground repeated between MAs. Because the combo rules means the generic skill charms can fill some of that stuff

[velvet raft]

I do not like Essence, Sam-I-Am

[bleak hazel]

I think the Essence charm design philosophy seems to have kind of broken in the new previews - a lot of the new stuff is high essence, and it turns out a high-essence charm designed to be 3-ish times as impactful as a 3e charm reads Just Win

[velvet raft]

I do not have a way to continue this jape I just wanted to do the first line of it

[bleak hazel]

there's a lot more Charms that function as setting-shaking major effects in a can, so Essence charms are super-duper-ultra-not-diegetic and just intended to be a list of things that PCs can eventually style on the setting with

like the Get one which picks up a mountain, instagibs anything below mid-level exalt on it and then throws it at someone

or the other Get one that destroys a Direction

[next delta]

I do think 3e missed a trick with the combo rule being "core abilities or any MAs" instead of "core ability plus one MA". I think it would have been maybe more sense to have core stuff to cover basics and then a style to represent, well, the style of fighting you learnt (and then also have styles for like, how legionaries fight etc)

[bleak hazel]

or the Liminal one that is True Resurrection

[next delta]

It's weird they went that direction in the supplements. I don't think it was really a thing in the core book

The original idea was just to not have many small dice-trick charms

[bleak hazel]

yeah, the core book trades juice and individual exalt flavour for readability and getting all the different types in there

dehydrated exalted

[velvet raft]

And horrible infernals

[bleak hazel]

personally I just don't like hard player/NPC asymmetry when applied to Exalted

[velvet raft]

Yeah

I think it's the wrong place for it

[bleak hazel]

it works well for Lancer or Fabula Ultima or what have you due to the genre conventions, but a lot of the appeal of Exalted is that it's not narrative-focused in quite that way

[velvet raft]

Some amount of asymmetry is useful since enemies don't need full stat blocks but

Not too much

It should feel cohesive

[bleak hazel]

you don't get stronger just by standing in a boss arena, getting jumped by five guys is extremely dangerous, your powers are known factors that the setting is actually built around

[bleak hazel]

I can also really see why they didn't do that, because it's a huge combinatorial hell problem

[next delta]

I think it's less than the current method?

[bleak hazel]

there's already a decent amount of that with Lunars/Alchs, admittedly, but if you did that then every single martial art ever needs to be checked over for things that instantly break Invincible Fury of the Dawn

or Rampage Berserker Attack

or similar huge tree-defining buttons that can't be allowed to endlessly stack damage enhancers because they multiply them

[next delta]

The current method is you need to make sure it doesn't break one of the ever-increasing number of MAs?

I don't see how it is less of a problem with the current method

[bleak hazel]

if you swap the current system to that then everything instantly explodes, if you rewrite the game to make it the base then sure, I could see that roughly working

[next delta]

Yeah, I mean as an initial design decision

[bleak hazel]

it does mean you now need a new way to make Sid/Solar/Lunar/Deeb martial artists distinct from one another

since right now a Solar Crane Stylist, a Sid Crane Stylist and a Lunar Crane Stylist are very different creatures because of their differing compatibilities

could you or could you not mix styles, in this situation?

[next delta]

Wouldn't that be easier under my suggested system?

Because you have the base core charms to differentiate each type of exalt

My initial idea is not allowing mixing styles, though you could probably also design it so it doesn't matter. Or maybe make that a Sid thing

[bleak hazel]

at least one of the old mostly-homebrew hacks of Ex2 deleted all martial arts, replaced them with a system where your specialties provided incidental bonuses to minor things on top of +dice on your attacks and then said "yeah, this annihilates Sidereals and Deebs but we're not playing those so it's fine" - that's fair enough, it was an Infernal game that involved no Sids

admittedly Ex2 had a far worse MA combinatorial hell problem

[bleak hazel]

if you can mix styles, this is now way harder to test than Ex3, because you have to find the broken interactions between your MA and every other MA or core charm in the game

[next delta]

Sure, don't allow mixing styles then

[prisma sun]

Also sids break everything

[bleak hazel]

(what else is new?)

[chilly sluice]

styles mixing with each other but not base charms is an interesting dynamic to me

especially since you generally can only mix specific styles, unless you go unarmed

[next delta]

If you want more background for why I think it's a good idea: one of the devs talked about how putting certain styles in the "Martial Arts" tent does this kind of weird orientalism-style of exoticism. One of the ways to avoid this is to, well, have MA styles for combat styles that are considered "normal" under the other regime. Which made me think "core charms + combat style" as the most sensible way to organize things

[next delta]

I mean sure. That's why my initial impulse is core charms plus one style

[bleak hazel]

Everything Is Martial Arts is definitely neater, but I do kind of like the current position of martial arts as full combat suites, especially since it means that certain MAs can actually be constructed with deliberate weaknesses

[next delta]

Clearly the conclusion is to delete core combat charms and only have martial arts

[dense verge]

sids can break little of the game, as a treat

[bleak hazel]

Essence did something similar with generic exalt charms, and that ended up meaning that it's hard to do something like the Sid charmset where there are deliberate odd gaps in it

Essence Sids are reasonably strong but have been a bit dessicated juice-wise

[next delta]

Oh, to be clear when I say "core charms", I mean "core combat charms for the given exalt type", not like, common charms for all exalt types

[next delta]

Does the combo-ing between MAs not undermine this? Or is it some combination of not really being compatible or way too expensive for it to be a real issue?

[bleak hazel]

both, normally

[chilly sluice]

it does get pretty expensive to mix

[bleak hazel]

very few things mix with Single Point, for instance, and that's deliberate

[chilly sluice]

since you need to buy dots in each style separately

[bleak hazel]

Violet Bier does but VB has a lot of power in the Form, which is exclusive with SP

same goes for Righteous Devil - there are no other firewand styles

[dense verge]

if you could mix it, it wouldnt be a single point, right?

[bleak hazel]

I absolutely think "everyone gets core charms and then styles sit on top", would be a viable way to do this, it's how Essence works, but I think it would reduce juice levels significantly

especially since core charm suites invariably contain similar-looking lists of basic effects

everyone's got a damage booster, an accuracy booster, an onslaught negator, etc.

[next delta]

Eh, I think the juice reduction from essence is more fundamental (and intentional) than that

[bleak hazel]

it's also a stratospheric buff to Solars and Abyssals, but presumably you'd rewrite all their suites for that

[next delta]

But I think "no core combat charms" would be a funny way to handle this

[bleak hazel]

currently having the MA-OK list for their core combat charms plus the ability to tack SMAs on top of their combat trees is the unique thing for Sids, and it's fun as hell so yeah, I could see that working, but you would then need to produce a whole new thing for them

[next delta]

Though you can semi-combo core charms with martial arts right? Like if your MA has no defensive charms, you can basically use the core ones without issue?

[bleak hazel]

Dodge and Resistance always work with MAs, yeah

but you don't want to allow people to put Five Jade Fury on Invincible Fury of the Dawn, or back up Crane's resting parry with Heavenly Guardian Defence

[next delta]

Even if it's stabby ones (I can't remember if Single Point has defensive charms)

[bleak hazel]

it has a decent onslaught negator

[chilly sluice]

it has a few

[bleak hazel]

that's about it

[chilly sluice]

you can dump your onslaught on your attacker primarily, yeah

[next delta]

I'm imagining sids thing being able to combo styles under this regime as a conceptually cool idea. But it's probably a bad one lmao

[chilly sluice]

it doesn't have like, a big ticket defense trick beyond that though
(your defense in Single Point tends to be murdering people before they can seriously hit you)

[next delta]

(Granted, this is very wistful thinking on my part because it will never be a thing this edition)

[bleak hazel]

it's a lot harder to come up with a safe way to do that, yeah

you can't do what they did with Eclipse and Versatile and just keyword individual charms as OK to mix

[prisma sun]

One of the reasons I will say I like MAs being like

their own thing

is that they can basically be charmsets for exceptional mortals

You don't need to be an Exalt to be a Crane master and so on

[next delta]

Tbh, I'm getting pretty pilled on "no combat charms, choose a style" lmao. Sids thing could be they actually get core combat charms that they can mix with any style

[bleak hazel]

heaven thunder hammer stocks in shambles

I suppose that was what the old 2e Hero Styles were about

[next delta]

Yeah

[prisma sun]

I feel like that just makes all Exalts the same

[dense verge]

without exalt specific combat charm trees that does flatten things a little

solars though solars can keep their brawl and melee trees in shambles

[prisma sun]

Lunars just kinda become The Best Combat Exalts then don't they?

at least for most of the game

[winged swallow]

ey im fucken workin on it

[dense verge]

abyssals keep their brawl and melee because theyre polite

i am only mostly joking about this

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah, I suppose you do also delete DBT/HBT if you remove native combat charms, so you can't quite do that

[winged swallow]

if you take my D/HBT from me i will come and fuckin get you

[dense verge]

honestly at the point where if someone wanted to be an exigent of the sun i'd like that more than solars, just transfer the charm trees you're interested in and work them around a little to post core standards

[prisma sun]

LMAO

"Hi I'm one of the Sun's daughter's exalts"

[dense verge]

Solars, 2

[prisma sun]

"No relation to the Solars."

[dense verge]

sunboss felt bad about last time

he's trying to be better

[winged swallow]

fuck tbat reminds me

<-hasn’t been using exigents to help write charms

[errant knot]

Going back to steel devil, I've seen someone claim that Double Strike applies weapon damage twice

Idk if that would change the math at all

[coral wraith]

Based on what?

[errant knot]

That it applies a second attack

https://share.google/00GLPOrpQkQnmNI4S

[coral wraith]

yeah that's just not true, that person is trying to extrapolate meaning from the wording when the mechanics are very clear

[errant knot]

that's fair. what about the rework this person wrote?

[bleak hazel]

I am immediately against the idea of "yeah, we're balancing this against Single Point and Solar Melee" because Point is the only outright broken martial art and Solar Melee is still a dash overtuned, albeit not quite as badly as Brawl

[errant knot]

fair

[tulip folio]

Also like...I don't think any martial art is designed to be a match for a full Celestial Charmset.

[bleak hazel]

this version of Steel Devil Strike is an unconditional Hungry Tiger Technique at Essence 1 - similar cost, and Simple, but still, damn

HTT only works on Crashed targets, the Siddy equivalent costs willpower and requires an initiative lead.

yeah fuck that, you don't get to make no-reset full damage reflexive decisives for 4m over the cost of Harmony of Blows, even at Essence 3

permanent +Anima to parry, no terrestrial or mastery keywords, eat your heart out Sidereal Martial Arts

[fierce star]

that reset condition on mastery seems really easy too, tbh

[bleak hazel]

init shift is quite tricky

but about half the charms in this are about as off-the-charts as you'd expect for someone actively balancing against SPSITV

[tulip folio]

Christ, Crystal Chameleon is -Anima to attacks and it's already a very good form

[bleak hazel]

this does something fun, it allows a max essence Sid to go PAOC Form, make everything compatible and have infinite free parry excellencies at bonfire

so you have two parry values from Steel Devil Form, both of which are probably 12 + stunt + redsid anima + full defence + whatever the fuck else you have

[tulip folio]

Oh, it's got 'hey, what if you had Two Forms' with a pretty easy jump in.

[bleak hazel]

normal steel devil has the same thing, they're just worse and harder to reflexively trigger

it's a very odd duck

[tulip folio]

Okay but I also think normal steel devil shouldn't have that 😛

As it's a weird thing design-wise.

[bleak hazel]

When used against a Battlegroup, multiply the raw damage of the attack by Essence or 2, whichever is higher.
ha ha ha ha ha no

even at E5

funny as it would be to see Anys Syn get a 9x damage multiplier with this

[tulip folio]

Destroy Target Battlegroup

More seriously: That hits a bugbear of mine in game design.

Multiplicative Scaling.

[bleak hazel]

AOE withering at E5 for that cost seems not-unreasonable just... yeah, exactly that

stop writing in multipliers, it's a terrible idea

the one Double Damage charm in core was one of the only solar charms that explicitly got the nerf bat for Abyssals rather than quietly being cut and replaced

OK, this is a very wonky style, I don't know why it goes to 5 all of a sudden and about a third of the effects are hilariously underpriced

[tulip folio]

...god I hope my design work isn't this wonky. XD

[bleak hazel]

also I don't think you want a style that's compatible with Single Point that includes flurrying attack/attack because now you can swing three times a round, with rerolls from Double Attack and +5 withering damage on everything from Liquid Steel Flow, then cash in that one reflexive decisive option when you crash them and land Fatal Stroke Flash without resetting init

which adds the difference between your init (huge, mighty, with crash bonus) and their init (negative) to the damage roll

[tulip folio]

So just 'red mist a guy'.

[bleak hazel]

well, I'm not sure that's much worse than just Single Point on its own but it is worse

and also comes out of that blitz with free resting parry 11 and probably a ton of init since it didn't reset

on a less mean note than "ripping into some poor bastard's well-intended homebrew": infernals

[winged swallow]

mara-pilled in that first post

[raw owl]

the true power is in the demon blade 😌

[tulip folio]

On the topic of 'homebrew stuff'. Tinkering with that Isiodoros-themed martial art I made getting it cleaned up.

Black Hole Body
Cost: 4m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Rex Frame Form
Those who strike the boar find that there is no flesh to cut, merely relentless power.

The Martial Artist may ignore one Crippling or Shaping effect that would affect her body. This will not cure it but will allow one to ignore even the most grievous effects, forming limbs of dark essence to replace those reduced to pulp by deadly blows or unmade from existence by powerful sorcery.

How do you think this compares with other 'handle crippling effects' charms? Most of them outright cure the effects, given time. This one doesn't but it's able to handle them no matter how big a penalty/effect it would be.

[winged swallow]

hmmm..

crippling effects are usually dice penalties as well as narrative ones, right?

[tulip folio]

Yeah.

[winged swallow]

what are the lowest/highest penalties

[tulip folio]

The highest would be a Voluntarily Accepted missing limb I think. Which is like -6 for the scene, -3 for future scenes.

[winged swallow]

hm

[bleak hazel]

the mechanics for crippling injuries are "once you take a big crippling injury, double your wound penalty for the scene" with the actual penalties of the missing bits added on top

so can depend on what your health boxes look like

[winged swallow]

ah, hm.

[bleak hazel]

but fighting blind or using a two-handed weapon with one arm is -3, so "double wound penalty + 3" is about as harsh as it gets on attacks

[tulip folio]

My thoughts is that it's good as an immediate effect but other such charms become better past 'a couple of turns' as they actively heal it, like Maimed But Unbroken instantly ending a crippling effect of (Essence/2, Rounded Up) for 4 motes and eating away at bigger ones pretty rapidly, while Black Hole Body won't fix anything so it's a constant commitment but it soaks the entire penalty/can soak up a missing limb.

[winged swallow]

that's an e1 charm too..

hmmmm

[bleak hazel]

the shaping defence is a bit unspecified

if I duck punch you are you now a duck floating inside a human-shaped black hole body?

[winged swallow]

alright but like

That's Funny As Fuck

Funny As Duck

[bleak hazel]

also does it also negate the "your memories now all say quack quack" part or is it just the polymorph

[tulip folio]

The mind part wouldn't be fixed.

[bleak hazel]

it's very funny that that charm is the default example of a shaping effect in Exalted considering it's Essence Stupid and has historically been almost useless in exalt fights

it's pretty good now but in 2e it was just burning 20 motes for fun

[tulip folio]

Yeah, it's very...any time you can duck punch a guy you already won and are just rubbing it in.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/6CXan5sLACQ/maxresdefault.jpg

[bleak hazel]

these days it's a bit like a single-target Breathing on the Black Mirror, it's an alternate win condition that goes through slightly different defences

and since shaping defences are no longer so mandatory and absolute that most games hand them out for free, you might actually be able to duck punch someone vaguely important

[tulip folio]

Yeah. About the only guys who have shaping resistance built in are what...Lunars?

[winged swallow]

this charm does also essentially replicate a part of Moonsilver Tattoos'

[tulip folio]

I've not checked how tattoos work these days

[winged swallow]

yes

Moonsilver tattoos prevent your body being shaped due to any external fuckery, but only your body. Your mind and your soul and your fate are still Free Game.

[tulip folio]

'I punch your lunar into a duck'
'He's already a duck'
'Shit'

[bleak hazel]

yeah, you just enforce Duck Brain rather than Duck Body

which does nothing to... Lilith, in particular

who has No Thoughts Head Empty Only Owl as her elder prowess

[tulip folio]

I do love how that's one of the Lunar Social Defences.

[winged swallow]

Lilith' Beast-Mind Metanoia Elder Prowess rules lmfao

"i can revert to the mind of an owl in ANY FORM"

[bleak hazel]

it's so useless for anyone other than Lilith, it's perfect

owl pops DBT, annihilates you with perfect White Reaper Form, turns back into owl and leaves

no thoughts having passed through its tiny mind

[tulip folio]

I'll admit, a chunk of what inspired this martial art is Anima's weird alternate Ki system called Nemesis. Which is all about being disgustingly durable because you don't need organs, you just need weird anti-ki energy.

[bleak hazel]

really against Lunars, if you must insist on using the shapeshifting charm against the shapeshifters rather than the deadly souleating poison or the Extreme Range jump kick that pink mists people, you use Another Life Venom and wipe their memories temporarily so you can finish them off

[tulip folio]

@fierce star introduced me to it a few years back and it really stuck with me. XD

[bleak hazel]

but realistically just don't, save pattern spider touch for the Solaroids or the behemoths

it's really funny watching the Solar duck with Destiny-Manifesting Method wander around with a tiny wooden sword and board obliterating people

[tulip folio]

https://img.pokemondb.net/artwork/large/sirfetchd.jpg

[wise ocean]

That is the smuggest Solar duck I've ever seen in my life

[bleak hazel]

he still has all of Solar Melee, I'd be smug too

[fierce star]

Nemesis is really cool

[winged swallow]

alright, i'm enlisting the aid of folks in here now since i can't fucken snuff it on my lonesome

we have gotta come up with a name for a Solar equivalent to Barrow-Knight Panoply that does not suck ass.

this is the charm that discounts attunements to multiple artifact weapons

my first idea is kinda mid (Legend-Forging Warrior's Armory), so

i'm sure with our heads together, we can do better

[wise ocean]

Many-Rayed Sunburst Panoply

[tulip folio]

God-King's Unending Treasury?

[wise ocean]

https://tenor.com/view/fate-gilgamesh-gif-27331521

[winged swallow]

i knew we were gonna end up in fate!gilgamesh territory at some point lol

[tulip folio]

Look, you asked us to name a charm about having Too Many Artifacts ;P

[fierce star]

Gate of the Sun's Arsen--damn you phone keyboard

[winged swallow]

oh i'm not disappointed

fate gilgamesh is pretty damn solar

hell, gilgamesh is pretty much a solar

[mighty rover]

first age solar who Somehow Survived

[tulip folio]

I'm 90% sure the Solar/Lunar thing was actively designed to be Gilgamesh/Enkidu. XD

[winged swallow]

damn why the fuck did i never think about that

[prisma sun]

Enkidu isn't a divinely appointed wife to be fair

[winged swallow]

lunar mates are no longer restricted to "wife/husband" in 3e tbf

[prisma sun]

Winged has poisoned my mind with "Solars and Lunars are choosing if your gender is Husband or Wife, not male or female"

[tulip folio]

It never was but...man if you could tell the writers didn't have much in the way of ideas outside of that so it often functionally was. XD

[prisma sun]

Because it still very much is "You are a Husband or you are a Wife"

Doesn't have to be romantic

[coral wraith]

nnnot really

[winged swallow]

i don't know that that's true?

there's a charm in Heirs To The Shogunate that lets a Dragon-Blood form a bond with a Lunar

which i think is fucken neat

and given the existence of such a charm, i took it upon myself to write a sidereal variant

which also allows me to make Morrowind jokes

hm

how about God-King's Shining Panoply?

[prisma sun]

Hmmm

[winged swallow]

yeah i thought so too

[prisma sun]

I think it should be more

casual

I think that's the vibe

[winged swallow]

casual, huh

[prisma sun]

Opening The Ancient Coffers

Like the vibe should be "Oh, this old thing?"

Also actually

Fun aside charm

"Heavenly Dowry Bestowment"
Give your Lunar mate an artifact

[winged swallow]

just

like outta nowhere?

although, now that i think on it

hm

would it hurt to have some bond charms in the reforged trees...?

like, i'd probably end up having to make some abyssal variants too

but

[limpid badge]

I don’t think so

Just make them reciprocal in juicy ways

[prisma sun]

Isn't Barrow the "pull an artifact outta your butt" charm?

[tulip folio]

brb, going to work out what a Lunar/Alchemical bond charm would look like. 😛

[prisma sun]

Is that not what we were doing

[winged swallow]

no

it discounts attunements on multiple artifact weapons

[prisma sun]

Oh

[bleak hazel]

the instant artifact one is Vice-Miracle Technique

[winged swallow]

Argent Mechanism Marriage?

Moon-And-Gear?

[bleak hazel]

which is mostly balanced by being seven deep in trash so I'm going to have to figure out where to put that if I redo craft

presumably about five or six deep in actually good stuff

[tulip folio]

Submodules: 

Redlined Polycule Reactors(6xp, Terrible Decision Making): You may change the Lunar bonded with whenever you undergo the Rite of Reconfiguration.

[winged swallow]

that's not a polycule, that's a break-up

[prisma sun]

"Regalia of Heaven's First"

[tulip folio]

Fair

[bleak hazel]

they're not heaven's first though, that's very particularly the one place they're not first because the gods are in charge there

[tulip folio]

Submodules: 

Redlined Polycule Reactors(6xp): You may bond with a second Lunar.

Essence-Locomotion Pileup Relationships (6xp, Terrible Decision Making): You may change the Lunar bonded with whenever you undergo the Rite of Reconfiguration.

Fixed 😛

[bleak hazel]

the deeb bond charm makes a certain sense because you can just plug the two splats' respective Group Dynamic feature into each other

much as I'd like a Moon and Stars Marriage so I can annoy Sublime Danger in new ways, it's a little harder to do there

[winged swallow]

i disagree.

[tulip folio]

I think if I was to take this from 'joke' to 'actual charm' I think I'd likely play into how Alchs are heavily focused on communities.

[winged swallow]

if you can bond a lunar to a solar, then well

[tulip folio]

And go like 'the lunar bonded with is treated as a community for charms that care about that'

[prisma sun]

They WERE though

[winged swallow]

also misc, buddy.

morrowind joke

[tulip folio]

So you can go 'I have Can't Betray My Community Charm, this also applies to the Lunar mate despite being a singular person'

[prisma sun]

Like as in "They're the first among the heavenly host"

[winged swallow]

Moon-And-Star Marriage

[bleak hazel]

no, they weren't, the Creation-Ruling Mandate is specifically not heaven even in the First Age

first among the chosen, yeah, but that's a different thing

[tulip folio]

Which book is the Lunar/DB bond charm in again?

[winged swallow]

Heirs To The Shogunate

Integrity Charm

[mighty rover]

backer charm

[tulip folio]

Ah, there we go. Thanks

...dammit, I know exactly what to do with the flavour for the alchamical charm due to how all alchemical charms are flavoured.

[winged swallow]

lace your essence-circulating core in moonsilver

tie it together

bam

[tulip folio]

A moonsilver circuit-sigil ring encircles one of the alchemical's fingers, connected to essence-lines that run straight to her core.

[winged swallow]

that works too

[tulip folio]

As Alchemical Charms are all Physical Things. XD

[winged swallow]

i merely figured that if we're playing with alchs here, we can just put the moonsilver right where it counts in the Good Ol' Vats

you can really just cram anyhting in there

so long as you're in the vats

[bleak hazel]

Actually wait Sids have a getting married charm, it's the Linguistics capstone and strong as hell

just doesn't tie in to other splat bond stuff

[winged swallow]

almost like

Cost: —; Mins: Linguistics 2, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
Most of the Lunar Host know the Sidereal Exalted only as hazy dreams of an enemy who massacred them in the time of the Usurpation. This was not always so, and this technique is a testament to the days when the Chosen of Luna and the Five Maidens once stood side-by-side, hand-in hand.

The Sidereal must spend this Charm’s training time interacting with a willing Lunar who she has a positive Defining Tie toward, and who has a positive Defining Tie toward her. Their interactions culminate as the Charm is learned, creating a Celestial Bond between the Sidereal and the Lunar.

The Lunar becomes immune to the Sidereal's Arcane Fate, and treats her as a Solar mate for all purposes. If her Tie toward him is ever fully eroded, she immediately forms a new Minor Tie toward him after the scene’s end. A Lunar can only have one Celestial mate at a time, and vice versa. Similar to the Solar bond, the bond between a Sidereal and a Lunar will persist after the death of one or the other.```

I THOUGHTA THAT >:D

[coral wraith]

Glorious Sunrise Panoply okay maybe this, glory? idek

[mighty rover]

Rising Sun Panoply?

[tulip folio]

Orrery-Charting-Heavens Marriage
Cost: —; Mins: Wits 3, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Unwavering Champion Protocol
A moonsilver circuit-sigil ring encircles one of the Alchemical's fingers, connected to internal dragon lines that run straight to her core.

The Alchemical must spend this Charm’s training time interacting with a willing Lunar who she has a positive Defining Tie toward, and who has a positive Defining Tie toward her. Their interactions culminate as the Charm is learned, creating a Alloy Bond between the Alchemical and the Lunar. The Alchemical treats the Lunar as a Group she is a part of for all purposes. Her Tie for the Lunar is permanently protected as per this Charm’s prerequisite and cannot be suppressed by Clarity.

The Lunar can invoke Intimacies of the Alchemicals that would normally be suppressed by Clarity, and treats her as a Solar mate for all purposes. If her Tie toward him is ever fully eroded, she immediately forms a new Minor Tie toward him after the scene’s end. A Lunar can only have one Alloy mate at a time, and vice versa, and this bond can be broken only by death. This charm cannot be uninstalled as long as the bond remains.

Submodules: 

Redlined Polycule Reactors(3xp): You may bond with a second Lunar.

Essence-Locomotion Derailing Relationships (3xp): You may change the Lunar bonded with whenever you undergo the Rite of Reconfiguration.

The Lunar gets to cut through your Clarity like a knife. XD

[winged swallow]

"they're making me Unwise."

[bleak hazel]

I would maybe add a thing that allows the Sid to use astrology or prophecy on the Lunar for cheap or something, because Arcane Fate immunity isn't a massive upgrade on a Defining Tie + inevitable Wits Excellency, but I like it otherwise

[winged swallow]

peak

honestly i made this with a quick copy-paste and like

5 minutes of editing

so i didn't really put much other thought into it lol

[bleak hazel]

I think the Lunars probably know slightly more about the Sids on average but hey, poetic license and arcane fate fucking their deal up still

[tulip folio]

I mostly just wanted to make a joke about Alchemicals and Trainwreck Relationships.

[fierce star]

I love it

all of it

more fucked up polycules among exalted pcs

a lunar bonded to literally every other splat

[winged swallow]

the exalted polycule-host

[fierce star]

hmm but I think realistically you only get one of solar/abyssal/infernal... unless...?

[tulip folio]

...okay but here's the thing.

An Infernal Marriage Charm would be an Ebon Dragon charm. 😛

As it's his Act of Villainy.

[fierce star]

lmao

[tulip folio]

...snrk

Ebon Dragon Lunar Bond Charm - Makes it really difficult for your Lunar Mate to kill you. Not emotionally, you just keep turning up like a bad penny when you should be dead. As you become the Joker to their Man-Bat 😛

Infernals should totally get a Celestial-Tier upgrade for Mist's 'Never Found The Body'.

Never Found the Body: If Mist would die under circumstances where his death can’t be verified—he falls off a cliff, is trapped in a burning building, or is impaled and left to bleed out—he survives through some inexplicable stroke of luck.

If the Infernal would would die under circumstances where her death can’t be verified or be Incapacitated by Environmental Damage (Including Falling Damage) or any source of Uncountable Damage, she can remove herself from the scene, surviving through an inexplicable stroke of luck as her body is lost in the chaos.

[bleak hazel]

so far I think the unquestioned masters of Fake Death charms are Lunars, although Abyssals have some good ones

can't think of one in Sids, they're pretty bad at that

[tulip folio]

They tend to retgone themselves rather than fake death

[bleak hazel]

yeah, but they lack the specific charmtech of "you thought I was incapacitated but nope", presumably because Avoidance is in that slot and is countered by the opposite approach

you can conceivably Avoidance quite late into a fight, if there's just one scary guy and you dump something like 3 willpower into it you can get out at round 7 on average

but realistically you want to go "oh that's a lot of large scary abyssals, bye fuckers" on round 1

[tulip folio]

The Anti-Sid Technique: Get them monologuing so that it's harder to avoidance later

[bleak hazel]

conveniently, there's an option on Avoidance to bring the whole squad

I wonder if you can exact words that one, extend a hand to the villain and go "come with me for a talk"

I imagine so, that seems highly Sidereal

[tulip folio]

I wonder if there is room in the Sid charmset for Opposite Avoidance Kata. Where you go 'Oh, I'm In This Scene Too!'. For when the group are split up or such.

[bleak hazel]

I believe Gets have that in Essence

as a very direct fuck you Sidereals

[tulip folio]

nods

[coral wraith]

can bring willing characters within close range with
her when she uses this Charm, paying an additional five
motes per character.```

willing only, so in theory

[bleak hazel]

yeah, that was what I was looking at

[fierce star]

the question is do they have to be willing to come with you in general, or willing to be Avoidance'd?

[tulip folio]

'I didn't say how we'd leave but the offer was genuine and he accepted it!'

[coral wraith]

lmao

[fierce star]

sounds sidereal to me

[bleak hazel]

Tulat's Tread allows you to forcibly avoidance people by incapacitating them and then follow along, I think "persuading people to take your hand so you can warp away and kung fu fight them elsewhere" should be a viable Sid tactic if you can charm them into it

Tulat's Tread is also just a really nice artifact - free forced movement negation charm on attunement, smashing tag, can't be disarmed

[coral wraith]

also disfooted

[bleak hazel]

forcible avoidance also has no prereqs other than the auto-attune one and combes with a Resonant benefit that lets you turn it into a withering/decisive reflexive combo

[tulip folio]

What book is that one in?

[bleak hazel]

Sids

god-kicking boots

definitely my benchmark for juicy 3-dot at present, both in lore and mechanics

it also has an excellent stealth technique, which is "when they try to look at you, kick them really hard in the face"

[fierce star]

"if eveyrone's blind no one can see me" ass steal tech

love it

[bleak hazel]

probably my favourite 3-dot artifact

I need to make Rival's saber that cool

actually Oedanol's Wheel is also pretty slick

there are some starmetal hook-swords in there but they're all about stealing things, which is not particularly useful for me here

[prisma sun]

Artifact idea

Wheel Lock Of the Ocelot

[bleak hazel]

actually if you are a Larceny sid, these are pretty sick

Reality-Disarming Meditation in particular, because Sidereal Shell Games can be +3d on all your attacks for the rest of the round and -3d on theirs

admittedly that requires 5 extra successes, but it's not impossible with Sid excellency

so being able to mix that with a Disarm gambit and absolutely annihilate someone's day is very strong indeed

bonus points if you manage to relieve someone of their sword, their swordsmanship and their heroic sobriquet with one attack

that's some real mythic blademaster stuff

[tulip folio]

...I wonder what Reality-Disarming could do with someone who is actually already good at blades. Like can you still use your melee and martial arts charms with it?

[fierce star]

it looks like a may effect?

well, 'can' is basically 'may'

[bleak hazel]

yeah, it's optional

evocations are MA-yes and Larceny isn't a combat ability, so this is Crane Style-OK

Crane even has disarm gambit counterattacks, although combining all of those moves is starting to get very expensive

[fierce star]

also, random thought: sidereal who purposefully dyes his hair gray and wears it/his mustache very long and wears Old Master robes in a definite tryhard effort to exude Old Master Energy at all times, even among other sidereals. It annoys his coworkers to no end, especially with his insistance on communicating with koans that don't actually mean anything whenever someone asks him a direct question.

The secret is he's purposefully doing this to get assigned shit jobs in creation because he hate sdealing with heavenly politics.

'if no one likes me, they'll PAY ME to leave somewhere I hate!'

[tulip folio]

Mostly pondering since Jade is a Swordmaster Sid with Larceny favoured...

[bleak hazel]

now that I think about it, is the tendency to phrase compatibility as "category-OK" or "category-yes" as solid a way to spot people who Talked About 2e as I think it is

because I don't think I've seen that in any other game but I do it, and I barely played 2nd

[fierce star]

I've only ever seen 'Combo-OK' and other forms of 'X-OK' in ex2 yeah

-yes is more common but I think that boils down to nerd lingo exaggeration tendencies?

[bleak hazel]

it's convenient because so much of Exalted mechanics talk involves figuring out exactly how X works with Y

comes with being a game made of 2000 TCG cards turned into paragraphs

[prisma sun]

Sid that dual wields this and the ??? Sword dubbed the most annoying fucker in Creation

[bleak hazel]

the guy who wrote Anys Syn also scribbled this down when asked for an example of a 2e infernal charm and I think this is actually less keywords than many Ex2 charms had

[tulip folio]

Sidereal Shell Games is a charm I keep thinking is cool but then not buying.

[bleak hazel]

if you're doing Sid Larceny I highly recommend it, it's an ungodly massive dice swing if you can land it in a fight

but that may be less important if you're already a blender

[tulip folio]

Jade is Pretty Blender, though she does tend to draw fights out more than she should because she's Gokubrained.

[bleak hazel]

conveniently, the sabers also let you clash the dubbing in order to depict whoever tried to dub you as the virgin and yourself as the chad

[coral wraith]

lmao

[prisma sun]

So

You can cut someone and take their name and then cut them again to make everyone forget they existed

Then you can go fuck their spouse, making that person the most cucked anyone has ever been

[bleak hazel]

I can in fact see why half the Exalted fanbase wants to punch sids in the face and the others want to be sids

[tulip folio]

Jade gets a lot of use out of Maiden In The Pot Escape.

[bleak hazel]

where is the ??? sword anyway

[tulip folio]

As it's always good to go 'I replace my problem with a different problem'

[prisma sun]

Arms of the Chosen

[bleak hazel]

ah

[prisma sun]

I really like the sid thrown charm that let's you swap places with a person

[tulip folio]

She's also used Name Pilphering Practice purely to know what a guy's name is without him introducing himself. Stealing it and then immediately giving it back.

[bleak hazel]

damn the Forgotten Blade is cool

maybe I will let Rival make 5-dots at some point

I feel that "forging the blade my master left me into a new sword all my own" is a suitably cool project for a newly E5 Sid, if he ever gets there

[prisma sun]

I read that as forging my master into a new blade

[winged swallow]

if you think about it, a deathlord is just Ghost+

think about the soulsteel you could make from one

[tulip folio]

'They're not destroyed, so good luck reincarnating. If you do, I'll make a second sword out of you'

[winged swallow]

gonna go for the double-lion binding

trapped in armor, and THEN trapped in.. holy shit more armor

[bleak hazel]

the deal with Rival is that his master, Gleam of [variable] Embers, is his previous incarnation who was not mega elder but at least a good way into E5

he left an obscene amount of stuff for his successor in an attempt to do a kind of Hari Seldon Foundation thing

tons of cover idenities, contacts, jobs to keep maintained, a bunch of choose-your-own-mission-file books of contingency plans and then a whole bunch of messages stashed everywhere with all the prophetic juice that a fully mature Sidereal could manage

some of which are hidden with that one Sid charm that sends mail to your successor but some of which are just woven directly into the weave in various places like code comments

the big one was his sword, which has the evocation theme, basically, of "Paranoid Old Man", and a giant book of sorcerous techniques that Rival has had zero time to study even if he was much good at sorcery, which he's not, really

Elder Sids are completely out of touch with normal humans and all a bit nuts, so Rival's relationship with his master/former self/adoptive father figure/remote-working manager is a little choppy, especially since Gleam isn't around to get to know him anymore

running down the old man's ghost for a long and deep conversation sounds like the kind of thing Rival might do if he were in his own campaign rather than someone else's Ally 5 vizier

[winged swallow]

someday we’ll get to bring our ally characters into games of their own

hell maybe it’ll be the same game

[bleak hazel]

I really like Rival honestly, I've gotten attached to this character concept

need to give him a proper writeup

Rival and Crimson Rain are my two favourite Exalts out of the ones I've made, Vigil the sid detective is merely all right

[coral wraith]

you could say he's.........keeping vigil

[bleak hazel]

he's all right at swords and all right at detective stuff but not quite as fully realised a character

too sneaky to charge right in and go STOP YOU'VE VIOLATED THE LAW and too fighty to do the Columbo thing, and his build has a few rough edges since he was my first Ex3 lad

mostly in the choice of what to favour and what to just get starter charms in

[limpid badge]

Swap bh and scarlet id be honored

[dense verge]

perhaps one day

[winged swallow]

thinking about archery tree again

maybe i play around with Delay stuff

since that feels like it can lend itself well to the Temperance/Discipline kinda vibe we're going for

i bring this up because i just wrote something down and was like "is this just.. Delay by another name???"

[bleak hazel]

skullstone

actually does kind of play out under Exalted rules because zombies suck

my undead army plan mostly uses the zombies as pack mules and labourers for the real infantry, because carrying capacity that doesn't eat food is invaluable

[fierce star]

necromancers win wars because logistics, not moaning hordes of unfeeling followers

if you want the latter be a performance supernal

[spring lynx]

yeah having a logi corps(e) that doesn't need to eat, rest, or be disciplined is a massive force multiplier

[prisma sun]

The zombies are just kind of a bonus for my undead army plan

Which is "giant monsters and also ghosts"

[bleak hazel]

I imagine that if your enemy has had to physically hack apart a few thousand fearless bodies swarming them before your real infantry even have to get off their arses and do anything, they tend to be very tired and a bit scared even if the zombies suck and don't do much damage by themselves

[prisma sun]

Plus like

just raise the zombies back

who cares

[bleak hazel]

which means your normal soldiers who are totally fresh because zombies carried most of their gear on the march will now annihilate their entire deal

[prisma sun]

Raise the zombies back + extra zombies because the zombies probably killed some people

[bleak hazel]

not sure you can raise downed zombies, that feels like cheating

zombie repair depot probably real, though

[prisma sun]

They're corpses!

And if it doesn't work just melt the flesh down and bam skeletons

[bleak hazel]

also if your real army does break and run, throw more zombies at them!

boom, enemy now has to stay in formation and cannot chase you

(cavalry notwithstanding, need some better lads than zombie hordes for that)

[spring lynx]

the bigger issue would be that taking down a zombie usually means making it less of a corpse and more of a pile of corpse bits

[bleak hazel]

OK, EX3 zombies do need to be hacked at more than normal humans, they have nine health levels

but you also need handlers for them, so presumably they're like Rome Total War dog squads

that or you assign one zombie to every soldier who just carries his stuff

[prisma sun]

"and this is your squire zombie"

[bleak hazel]

hey, humans carry what, 30lbs of extra stuff on the march?

if each guy in your squad of ten has one extra zambie that's a pack mule between them

[prisma sun]

This definitely feels like a Lunar thing more than an Abyssal thing

I will say

[bleak hazel]

what, zombie hordes?

abyssal war has that sewn right up

[prisma sun]

Zombies being pack mules for the main human infantry

Abyssals seem like they'd just cut out the middle of the man

[bleak hazel]

Abyssals also get their bands of martial sinners, they have War tech for human infantry

so I could see them going for this

[next delta]

You could probably load a zombie up with much more than 30lbs given how that's more of a fatigue based limit. Though you might be limited by backpack and similar technology lol

[spring lynx]

just have 'em pull carts

[next delta]

🤔 and you probably don't want to pack food onto something made up of rotting flesh

[bleak hazel]

zombie cargo harness

skullstone zombies are either skeletonized or embalmed, so presumably your cargo zombies will be similar

it's work but a lot less work than raising pack animals

[spring lynx]

and again, they don't need feed or rest

[next delta]

Is a skeletonized zombie still a zombie

[bleak hazel]

you might need to repair your zombie occasionally

[bleak hazel]

ruleswise yes, the first circle spell Raise the Skeletal Horde makes zombie battlegroups

they still suck though, even if they have Average Drill

no pro swordsman zombies like the ones in Jason and the Argonauts for you

[prisma sun]

The good news is that War produces all the meat you need

[tulip folio]

RiRi's general intent with zambies in war is 'the humans have crossbows. The zombies are melee troops and entirely expendable'.

Less 'they're some badass unit' and more 'They just need to hold the other guys until they tire out and get filled full of quarrels'.

[prisma sun]

Every Necromancer eventually circles back to being a Von Carstein

[bleak hazel]

abyssal war would be really cool if it was about zombie logistics and training elite infantry to work with the dead

and those bits are really cool

[prisma sun]

That feels pigeonholing though

[bleak hazel]

unfortunately as a Solar War derivative it's so incredibly overpowered at strat maneuver that it doesn't actually matter

you just win anyway

they do have stuff for this, they can raise slain enemies as zombies and war ghosts and give them telepathic orders

[prisma sun]

So what happens when Solars and Abyssals War with each other

do they both just auto-win

[bleak hazel]

solars win due to even more nuts stuff in core, probably

there's no Battle-Visionary's Foresight in Abyssals

but it's basically even, and Abyssals, due to the telepathy charm, are immune to the only charm in the game that can actually fuck up a Solar's double 7 reroll 6 enact-every-strat strat maneuver roll

so Abyssals murder everyone else better

[prisma sun]

Is there a range limit on War charms?

[bleak hazel]

Hive-Mind Horror Tactics is limited to Long Range, as are command actions not supplemented by other stuff, the E5 upgrade Omnipresent Overlord Technique lets you link to a BG and use your war charms/command actions on them regardless of range

[prisma sun]

Okay so my Sid's plan of how to deal with horrific SEQ generals remains valid

[bleak hazel]

so unless you are an E5 or War Apoc abyssal you have to actually be in the scene

and the War Apoc can only be in two places at once

[prisma sun]

The Sid Plan being "yoink"

[bleak hazel]

really "sneak up to them and stab them" is often the best call

although there's an annoying abyssal war charm that lets zombies reflexively defend other the abyssal so you may have to pick your moment

[tulip folio]

...wouldn't zombies be kinda shit at defend other? I guess it would blunt the attack but zombie parry isn't great.

[bleak hazel]

oh they're awful at it, but it's still double-layered parry

if they're high-grade zombies, anyway

[tulip folio]

Alchs don't seem to have anything super weird/fancy in their war-related charms, though they also don't seem bad at it. Just kinda 'does baseline stuff solidly'. Though I could be wrong.

[bleak hazel]

ah, it's now any allied battlegroup

so you need to split them from their lads or they'll slap on something like 10 noncharm parry (battlegroup's parry + abyssal's essence) plus whatever this presumably-Dusk has to start with

[tulip folio]

I do like the Alch charm that is just 'for 1 round, your battlegroup's last level of its magnitude can't be filled'.

[bleak hazel]

I am looking forward to playing Crimson Rain because by giving him zero war skills but a lot of necromancy, craft and socialize, I actually need to play the strategic map

my army gets various necromantic horrors from me but I need an actual officer corps

[tulip folio]

Supreme Icon of Battlefield Glory is also pretty fun. Battlefield-wide loss of (Essence) dice of magnitude for all enemy battlegroups.

[bleak hazel]

Alch War is pretty standard from what I can see, yeah

[tulip folio]

I think the one thing I know it has that's odd/interesting is that Homeguard Reinforcement Clarion doesn't cap the might bonus, like a lot of them do.

So in theory if you're commanding Notably Supernatural Troops you could get a higher than normal might

But that's an edge case

[bleak hazel]

nothing bad here, but the theme is Glorious Champion Robit, which basically hits direct centre of everyone's war trees

[tulip folio]

...I wonder if we're going to get an alchemical expansion book like the various 'Hey backers, include your OP OC do no steal charm here' for Solars, Lunars and Dragonblooded.

[vestal dew]

I mean that kinda makes sense, actual warfare in Autochthonia is limited in scope due to mostly conscripted militias and confined to tight quarters by nature of the landscape and the drift.

I can see them working out some BALLER urban combat charms but that's the only area I could see their tactics excel, you know?

[tulip folio]

I could see them having some anti-legendary size warfare charm.

As warstrider-size guys are a bit more common in Autocthonia than creation. Not to say they're common but they're a factor of battle between nations

Stuff for a battlegroup going Battletech Elementals on a legendary foe

[bleak hazel]

sid companion is mostly non-sid player tech because they've used it as a chance to do Scroll of the Monk 3e

[tulip folio]

And 'anti-legendary size' is already an upgrade for their own colossus size charm, so it's in-theme.

[bleak hazel]

but I think everyone's getting a companion

besides maybe gets and liminals

unsure

the main thing that differentiates Alchs that I can see is that their stuff is broadly along Solar "I general real good" lines but tactical rather than strategic

which is cooler to me

infinite strat maneuver works like Solars/half of Abyssals bores me

[vestal dew]

Maybe? Especially as an Estasian project I'd think, but most of my perceptions of Alchie warfare is them acting as inspirational linchpin units to anchor the morale of an army that doesn't really want to be an army.

Again, with Estasia as a noteworthy exception.

[tulip folio]

Mind you 'army that doesn't want to be an army' is kinda the default in Creation and autocthonia alike. Even the Imperial Legions are conscripts doing their time before they can go home primarily.

Few outside the Jadeborn have a professional army as we'd consider it.

...you know despite being used with War, I don't think anyone has any Siege Weapon focused CHARMS.

That would be pretty fun

[vestal dew]

That's fair. Still, Excessively Righteous Blossom is regarded as a military leader because he tries to inspire people and is an exceptional personal combatant, even as much of a dunce as he is elsewhere. I get the vibe that most contingencies for "They have a Colossus" are "Well, send our champions and have the megazords fight"

Also I am totally down for a charm tree focusing on singlehandedly wielding weaponry orders of magnitude bigger than a person should be able to wield. Balgus from Escaflowne was an absolute unit.

[tulip folio]

I was thinking less one person siege weapon and more leading siege weapon teams/making use of it in the context of war.

[vestal dew]

That works too.

[bleak hazel]

the Alchemical companion will apparently include the Collapsing Point of Judgement martial art

designed for use by Colossi or other Legendary Size exalts, with the form weapon being the Implosion Bow

unsure how they'll do that considering Colossi are Essence 5 upgrades - either it's going to be a really short MA, it's going to have Elder Charms or it's going to start rather lower

[bleak hazel]

Solars have exactly one charm for this, which I don't think anyone has ever used ever

I do not know why this qualified to be the second war charm

[fierce star]

wow that's

a charm.

that exists

[bleak hazel]

not sure if anyone has ever been in a situation where this is relevant

Sail combat does not use the War rolls, any singular implosion bow or lightning ballista in a combat scenario is going to be manned by an Exalt or other singular figure with an Excellency and I've never seen a siege weaponry battlegroup just hanging out on a tactical map

although maybe I'd add one if my Solar had this for some reason

hell, the rules for siege weapons in AOTC specify that the artillerist makes the firing roll, not the crew

[fierce star]

this was written before AOTC obviously, so we have a case of 'hey guess what' 'what' 'we made a charm that doesn't work :D'

many such cases

[bleak hazel]

lightning ballistae and implosion bows both cost motes to fire and don't specify they auto-unlock their firing evocation, so RAW both of these need you to sink 8xp into them just to shoot