Exalted

[merry arch]

https://tenor.com/view/ohh-oh-damn-oh-daymn-daym-damn-gif-2649905700736798302

[wise ocean]

she's going to get so many points for the fallen london gambit, I can feel it

[tulip folio]

Fallen London Gambit?

[wise ocean]

Benediction of Torchlight Law, a Horizon Infernal, is plotting to crash several districts of Nexus directly into Malfeas to make herself a bigger mini-kingdom.

[tulip folio]

Hahahahah

[velvet raft]

Hmmmmm Enlightening Abnegation Sabers + Harmonious Arsenal Methodology for Melee/Larceny hook swords

Either take versatile melee charms and Snake/Centipede/Crane/Thousand Blades (pretty amazing lineup), or go straight melee into an SMA, probably PAOC

[velvet raft]

Finally figured out a mechanical idea for a Battles that I actually like. Thousand Blades with grimscythes, going into White Reaper and Albicant Sepulcher of Extinction

Scythes being the only heavy weapon any SMA treats as compatible

[tulip folio]

Edgy 😛

[velvet raft]

Indeebitably

[fierce star]

but you said it was for a sidereal, not a deeb

[buoyant summit]

lol

There's a Sid I wanna eventually use as an npc

A Secrets Sid called 'The Spider' (yes very original)

And she uses a modified version of the Distaff to create spider's webs

Somehow picks up the Anuhle Eclipse charms

[velvet raft]

Albicant Sepulcher is funny because it has one of the more skippable form charms, despite said form defining its whole raid boss aesthetic

But skipping using the form does mean that Sids don’t get universal mastery

[marsh garden]

universal mastery?

i thought SMAs didn't have mastery

[chilly sluice]

Sids only get Mastery in MA when they are in the Style's form

[marsh garden]

right but, does that matter when you're in sepulchur, since it doesn't have mastery benefits?

and if you were in sepulchur form you wouldn't be getting your mastery from other styles anyway, right?

or am i missing something

[velvet raft]

They also get it:

• when they have completed the style
• universally when in an SMA form

@marsh garden

[marsh garden]

ahhhhh

i see i see

[chilly sluice]

right I forgot, it's also when you have all charms of it yes

[velvet raft]

SMAs open up easy mastery for Sids so long as you use an SMA form

[chilly sluice]

I was checking to see if that was the case, but took too long 😛

[velvet raft]

Which can be an interesting source of build tension when you want to use a style like VBOS or White Reaper that really likes its form charm

[bleak hazel]

if you know all of a martial art you have mastery

so by the time you can learn ASOI form you at least have mastery in one style

[velvet raft]

SMAs mainly enable dips

In this case it’s mostly that getting mastery benefits for White Reaper as a secondary style requires taking all of it, since we want to be in Thousand Blades form

[next delta]

Are there any Martial Arts that you can finish before Essence 3?

[bleak hazel]

I don't think so

[next delta]

Hmm, >=25 sessions (>17 with Crucible XP rules) to get mastery is awhile

[marsh garden]

hmm

do y'all have any homebrew 5* artifacts you're proud of? the brain fog is strong and i'm probably going to try to sleep more while i still can, but i've been trying to think about passive/anchor abilities for one

and i'd love to see some of what folks here have come up with, especially since i was kinda cold on some of the AotC ones

[fierce star]

I've got my adamant's Wierd Ass Gyroscopic Chakram Chainsaw Shield Thing?

https://pastebin.com/hxDxaiE5

[fierce star]

(any thoughts or feedback is, of course, appreciated(

[marsh garden]

hmmge, are there any charms with uhhh

i can't think of non-mtg terminology here, though i know it fucking exists

"X" mote/initiative costs?

[tulip folio]

There is not. There are some with more in line with kicker.

[marsh garden]

modal but as in ramping by expenditure, as opposed to "can spend 2 or 6 for yadda yadda"

ah, alas

[tulip folio]

But 'scaling to Xth degree' runs into issues with 'Well I'll just dump my entire mote pool and nuke this'

[marsh garden]

right

[lament owl]

Husk flayer has a X gore point cost

But like, that is a “weird internal artifact currency” that Caps out at 10

[marsh garden]

i was just hoping to crib some wording

right right

huskflayer's cool

trying to retool a 4-dot artifact's chassis into a 5-dot

[lament owl]

So you might be able to snag the wording from that

[marsh garden]

which i've kind of decided is just

making its passive a bit more flexible

or...a bit broader, i guess?

there were a couple evos the GM whipped up with "an ally marks an enemy, you follow up", and i think i'm just going to make that a core feature of the passive

but i was trying to get non-clunky wording and ideally price checking for "you and [the defined ally] can put motes in for a mark"

[next delta]

Technically excellencies?

I think there are also some charms that let you spend motes to reduce damage?

And if you want a pooling effect, I think that DB super Sentai team attack one does it?

[south horizon]

Yeah aside from.excellencies, you usually find stuff like.that on added point systems with artifacts and at least one martial art

That martial art being White reaper

Main thing to keep.in mind is input vs output

@marsh garden I think Voltspindle in alchemicals would be a good example to pull from

[lament owl]

Kas Forgotten Realms was basically an abyssal if you think about it

[mighty rover]

Solar thread
https://bsky.app/profile/tsukiru.bsky.social/post/3mbifvp4n222f

Tsukiru (@tsukiru.bsky.social)

the long delayed grandma quotes thread because i ran out of things to do.

Likes

123

▶ Play video

Bluesky · Jan 3, 2026, 2:56 AM

[tulip folio]

Lord Soth is basically Faffles, send tweet

[velvet raft]

Lord Soth is way more miserable than Falafel, somehow

Incidentally, concept: rogue sid who got picked up by the Silver Prince before Heaven could get to them, now serves faithfully as part of the Deathlord's retinue and has adopted an Abyssal-style name

"Don't Fear The Reaper"

Uses White Reaper and Thousand Blades, eventually into Albicant Sepulcher and a bit of PAOC

[velvet raft]

Crossing Plutonian Shores to be a fake Abyssal

[balmy rampart]

oh this is a thing occuring

neat

[velvet raft]

They're around, scattered across the books. Sid Melee has Meditation On Violence, for instance.

[marsh garden]

perception melee...

[velvet raft]

Ye, Sid melee uses perception a bunch

Which feels fitting

It's also heavily built around Aim

[velvet raft]

Alright, thought for one of my adamant's past lives:

• Essentially the autochthonian equivalent of a mendicant friar, who traveled to the Crystalline Sanctum and kneeled in prayer for three days and two nights to petition the Godhead to answer a question. Afterwards, the Godhead considered granting him an answer for 19 whole seconds — 4 longer than it had previously thought about any prior visitor.

[buoyant summit]

I am that one spongebob meme rn

[velvet raft]

No one has ever been allowed into the Godhead and why would they, it's autochthon's brain

But like, I imagine this was seen as extraordinarily holy

And the guy was kind of a prick before, and even more of a prick after

Not corrupt or anything just like

A very superior (but genuinely devout) asshole

[wise ocean]

What does the green jade caste of Alchemicals do again?

[dense verge]

there's one Jade Caste, but green jade is associated with the essence of life, growth, healings, poisons, plants

[wise ocean]

📝 excellent, this will be of great use to me.

[velvet raft]

A lot of the alchemicals have a significant portion of their identities expressed by their caste abilities

For jade it's stamina, charisma, and wits

[tulip folio]

Dimensionally Transcendental Capabilities System
Cost: —; Mins: Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Alchemical's body is held in a state of quantum superposition, with all their charms both installed and uninstalled until required.

When the Alchemical performs the Rite of Reconfiguration, they can designate up to (Higher of Essence or 3) empty charm slots as Wildcard Slots. As a Simple Action, the Alchemical can fill any number of Wildcard slots with valid charms.

This Charm must be installed permanently. It can’t be removed.

Submodules:

Dimensional Engineering Expansion(3xp; Essence 3): The Alchemical can designate an additional 3 wildcard slots. This submodule can be repurchased at Essence 5.

Emergency Materialization Module(3xp): The Alchemical can fill Wildcard slots reflexively for 3 motes per charm.

Transdimensional Chameleon Circuit(3xp): Increase the difficulty to identify the Alchemical's charms by 3. A character that fails to identify her charms believes he has succeeded, seeing charms of her choice (Including charms they Alchemical may not know or that may not exist)

Essence Siege Barrier (3xp): The Alchemical's charms are immune to effects that directly target, alter or end the effects of charms against her will, such as Contraband Miracle Confiscation. Any attempt to affect them simply results in a vision of Old Realm text denying access. Exalted characters also receive a painful sensation of feedback through their exaltation and an understanding that the Great Maker will not allow tools he created to undo his work.

I maek alchemical charm.

[fierce star]

essence siege barrier is cute

obviously it's charms you know, so like charms that already have to be permanently installed can't just pop in

My only concern is interacting with the 'install evocations as charms', uh, charm, but that charm's a bag of worms anyway

[tulip folio]

Yeah, 100%. Those slots have to be filled.

[tulip folio]

It's so hyperspecific that it's rarely going to ever matter but it felt really alchemical to have Autocthon having set up Extra Protection on their charms to fuck with people trying to affect them.

[bleak hazel]

so how does this work with submodules

[marsh garden]

oh, do alchs not have many debuffs that you need to break to get out of?

[bleak hazel]

I admit I kind of dislike how much this skips the core gimmick of Alchs but the submodules are fun

Essence Siege should probably pattern off of Invincible Essence Mantle for end-my-charm effects for celestial precedent reasons

[marsh garden]

i mean, it's getting no access to the charms until you use em, right?

that's only skipping it in the same way that (ignoring 5e, which sucks about it) dnd wizards often had ways to fudge prep for a cost

[bleak hazel]

the reason Alchs get to, say, buy an entire craft suite for half price and leave it on the shelf is because they can be caught lacking particular things in durable ways, which this basically skips because of how much one alchemical charm is "worth" once you tape a bunch of submodules to it

you go out with your combat suite loaded and then whenever you need your social suite you take five seconds to take a really deep breath

which is way less of a problem in dialogue than in combat

[marsh garden]

ah, i see

[tulip folio]

That's fair. It was intended to be a bit of a sidegrade to Vat Surrogate Reweaving System. Vat Surrogate lets you swap out charms so you can go from one charmset to a different charmset, this lets you fill empty slots but you've got 'no charm there' until you commit.

[bleak hazel]

the way I see it, I have no charms on any of my exalts until I commit to using one of the ones I bought

[marsh garden]

that one costs like 2wp right?

[bleak hazel]

"this slot is empty right up until it matters" is not really a drawback

[fierce star]

maybe make it Essence charms per simple action if that's a worry? so filling your suite up can take a little bit especially early on?

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah here's IEM

it's a lot broader but that's why it's a charm rather than a submodule

I think the "free full excellency, roll if unrolled" is good to steal for the no-ending-my-charms thing

[marsh garden]

oh, sorry, 10m1w

[bleak hazel]

simple actions aren't really a relevant currency outside of fights, is the thing

[fierce star]

this charm also, once you fill those wildcard slots, does nothing

[marsh garden]

uh, actually, question

[fierce star]

since I think you have to rite of reconfigure to re-open them still?

[marsh garden]

why is this a simple action if it's "in a matter of minutes"?

[fierce star]

yeah you do

[bleak hazel]

Simple as a type designation also means "this starts an action on its own and cannot be combined with other Simples" and as such shows up on many things that take more than one combat-turn simple action's duration

like craft charms that last for one project but are incompatible with other simple craft charms in the same tree

[marsh garden]

ah, i see

thanks

[tulip folio]

Unless you're a sid and it's martial arts. Because they can cheat 😛

[bleak hazel]

I'm pretty sure there's now other flurry-simples tech

in infernals somewhere

[tulip folio]

It's a solaroid, I wouldn't be surprised

[bleak hazel]

but my knowledge of their charmset is very foggy and keeps getting blurred with random 2e things

haven't scoured the new one properly yet

[tulip folio]

Oh, it's Sids

Sorry, with a name like Invincible Essence Mantle I was looking through solars

It's a very solar name

[bleak hazel]

it's a surprisingly vincible essence mantle by the standards of shaping defences

I kind of wish they had a more specific standard issue shaping defence charm somewhere else

sometimes I want to just say No

[marsh garden]

i also looked through both solar books first lmao

but then i realized it was misc so it was probably in sids

[bleak hazel]

it's the only protection against having your charm effects ended that i know of

[tulip folio]

I know I put a shaping defence on my sid's sword but it's also again not really one of the insane ones.

[fierce star]

Misc 'Its Gonna Be Sids' McMisc

[tulip folio]

Unshackled Spirit Oath
Cost: 5m; Mins: Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Resonant
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: The Yun Do Not Kneel
Even with the Yun Clan slain and their patron god shattered, these oaths of freedom remain, resisting Oblivion itself.

The wielder can use her Parry to defend against Spell, Psyche and Shaping effects. If the effect could normally be opposed with a roll or static value, the wielder uses her Parry instead. Against unrolled effects, the opposing character rolls a dice pool of the Storyteller’s choice.

The wielder gains an additional +1 non-Charm Parry against Spell, Psyche and Shaping effects that would restrict the wielder, or that would attack her mind or soul.

Resonant: With an Essence 3 repurchase, the wielder can pay a one-Willpower surcharge to extend this Evocation’s duration to one scene.

[bleak hazel]

IEM is totally worth your 8xp because unlike shaping defences it's broad enough that it probably comes up

it's the general Don't Fuck With Me button

but sid charmset oddness means they don't have more specific ones for shaping where everyone else does

[fierce star]

do lunars have psyche/fate/etc shaping effect protection in their charmset? I always forget

hmm sssort of but it's not a straight No Effect

[tulip folio]

Laughing Into the Teeth of Madness is kind a weaksauce one.

They've got the tattoos for physical shaping but they don't seem to have much that stops a sid punching all your friends away.

[fierce star]

yeah

[tulip folio]

The Alch one is basic but it's a very functional basic.

Ontological Anchor Assembly
Cost: 1wp; Mins: Intelligence 3, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Augmented, Internal
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Thermionic Orthodoxy Array
Microscopic design weavers cluster around the Alchemical’s Essence reservoir as if it were the Godhead in miniature, making the Champion a Design unto herself.

The Alchemical adds (Intelligence/2, rounded up) to her Resolve as a non-Charm bonus against a Shaping effect used by a gremlin, fae, or undead. Alternatively, she can add that many automatic successes on a roll with any Attribute opposing such a Shaping effect. If she succeeds, she gains one mote for each 10 she rolls, or each 1 on a roll against her resolve.

With Essence 2, this Charm can defend against unrolled Shaping effects, forcing an opposed (Willpower)roll. Each installation of Transpuissant Intelligence Upgrade the Alchemical has adds an automatic success on the roll.

Submodules
Reality Stabilization Matrix (3xp; Essence 2): This Charm can defend against all Shaping effects.

Essence Siege Barrier (3xp): The Alchemical adds (Essence) dice to a roll or (Essence/2) to static value to resist any effect that interferes with her Essence or magic — ending an ongoing Charm, stealing motes, breaking attunement to an artifact, etc. These bonuses are non-charm. Against unrolled effects, this forces an opposed (Willpower) roll, with the Alchemical gaining Double 9s on the roll. Any failed attempt to affect her charms simply results in a vision of Old Realm text denying access. Exalted characters also receive a painful sensation of feedback through their exaltation and an understanding that the Great Maker will not allow tools he created to undo his work.

Okay. The bonus is smaller than the sid one and only works vs 'fucking with magic' (Instead of also being shaping/psyche) but is non-charm, as 'full excellency' would run into 'I'm an alch, I already get a notable percentage of my excellency for free'.

[marsh garden]

from their stat up charms?

or something else

[tulip folio]

From stat-up, yeah.

Alchs have free excellency from stat ups and a smaller excellency cap.

[tulip folio]

Autocantor
Made from precious materials and gleaming porcelain, Autocantors are toys for the richest and most paranoid of dynasts who dare not trust any being with a mind capable of betrayal. Beautiful but clearly inhuman, these dolls use skilful fingers and inbuilt tools to produce music on par with some of the greatest mortal musicians.

Those who spend time around these creations soon discover they are incapable of true learning or creativity, though a skilful engineer can adjust them to play a near limitless number of songs for their owner. Rumours fly about Dynastic parties of more expensive Autocantors, enspelled or possessed by spirits so that they can act independently, invent music of their own or even defend their master from assassins. Such beings have never been proven to exist but would be worth a king's ransom if found.

Making a new automaton.

[tulip folio]

Set The Scene(8m, 1wp; Simple; One performance; Essence 2): The Autocantor's music flows through the world around it, setting the scene for all who hear. It chooses one of the following, rolling Music and affecting characters with resolve lower than its successes:
  -Passion: Affected character respond to their emotions in an overt, dramatic, and potentially excessive way.
  -Headliner: Affected characters suffer a -3 penalty to awareness-based rolls to notice anything but the performer.
  -Accompaniment: Affected characters cannot notice the performer unless it rolls Join Battle or takes an overt, disruptive action.
  -Serenity: Affected characters treat time listening to this performance as restful sleep for all purposes, unless they are engaged in hard physical actions (Such as Fighting or Laboring).

A character may choose to be affected, even if their resolve is higher than the number of successes rolled or may resist the effects by spending a willpower. Trivial characters can't resist. The Autocantor can take other actions while continuing the performance by flurrying them with a miscellaneous action to continue performing.

It's got some good support social stuff but nothing that directly creates or uses intimacies.

[velvet raft]

And also ten-quintillion ways to get automatic successes in place of dice and lots of non-charm successes, too.

[tulip folio]

...what was that for, sorry?

[velvet raft]

Oh shit, I thought I was scrolled down

[velvet raft]

This

[tulip folio]

Ah, yeah

I've not run the numbers but I get the feeling alchs scale harder from E1 to E5 than other exalts. Not though to make them better than them but their excellency nearly doubles in cap while for most exalts it doesn't much change and then they've got those good dice things and a good cap.

[velvet raft]

I suspect they are a little more specialized than lunars due to charm slots and so much of their dice trick budget resolving through Transpuissant, though

[tulip folio]

That's fair

[velvet raft]

They really fascinating

Lunars are mechanically fine but I love these stupid clay people

[tulip folio]

I'm doing a similar thing with Wanderers where they have a relatively medicore starting cap buoyed up by other effects. Though they don't get transpussiant equivalent they get some tricks.

[velvet raft]

I was thinking about it, and I think Moonsilver Caste might be king for Exalt Ways

Wits and Dex

[tulip folio]

Makes sense

Don't forget the 'turn into a bird' charm if a lunar questions your credentials

Oh wait, moonsilver alch

I am a derp

[velvet raft]

Might still work?

In terms of anima bs

[tulip folio]

Editorializing Reality
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Appearance 3, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Mute
Duration: One Scene
Prerequisite Charms: None
Look, which person here *looks* like a winner? We know how this is going to go but we should at least let the extras make their plays.

The Wanderer suffers no penalties to her rolls with any attribute for lack of preparation, or being out of place such as turning up to a ball in her pyjamas, wandering about a monastery with a blood-soaked goremaul or delivering a blank canvas for display in a gallery. Her actions are seen as avant garde or eccentric rather than insulting or mad.

In addition, when the Wanderer makes an opposed roll that is purely part of a contest (Such as a footrace, game of gateway or a dance-off) against one or more characters, the Wanderer automatically wins, regardless of rolls.

Nontrivial characters can pay one Willpower to resist this effect for the scene, or two willpower if her appearance exceeds his resolve. This allows him to recognise her inanity and to genuinely compete against her. This Charm ends if the Wanderer attacks or takes other overtly hostile action.

Keys
Red Top Sensationalism (Essence 2): If a competitor pays a willpower to resist this effect and is beaten in the contest despite that, all characters that did not pay willpower to resist gain a minor intimacy of disgust or scorn to that competitor or strengthen an intimacy of that sort to major, seeing as a sore loser and cheat regardless of their actual conduct. This is a Psyche effect and cannot affect characters that already have major or defining positive intimacies towards that competitor.

Blood Boiling Charlatan (Red Top Sensationalism): Instead of creating a negative intimacy towards a competitor with Red Top Sensationalism, the Wanderer can instead cause affected characters to gain a negative intimacy towards any group the compeditor belongs to. Defeating an immaculate monk in a poetry competition could cause watchers to see the entire immaculate order as talentless bores or cruel brutes. This is a Psyche effect and cannot affect characters that already have major or defining positive intimacies towards that group.

Fae Bullshit for the Wanderer.

It's basicly their version of Wearing Red To A Wedding. More expensive (Costs +2m and +1wp) but is a bit wider and lets you Stunt On Extras.

[velvet raft]

God Infernals are cool

Bureaucracy-based shaping/social defense that relies on saying, "no, that's illegal. Source: I am every judge."

[tulip folio]

Infernal Bureau

[marsh garden]

they cooked real hard with infernals

[velvet raft]

They did

There are particular things I'm disappointed with but I cannot deny that I ended up with no objections to them being Ability-based, because every ability has an amazing and extremely robust charm tree.

[marsh garden]

oh, you wanted them to be attribute?

[velvet raft]

Originally they had spirit charms. I thought attribute would have been an acceptable middle-ground.

[marsh garden]

what're spirit charms?

[velvet raft]

Essence requirement only

The big thing was that infernal excellencies were, therefore, very weird

[marsh garden]

ah

infernal book has made me v excited for abyssal companion, hopefully they don't just port over more solar charms from miracles for it

[velvet raft]

Definitely won't happen

Partly considering how good Many-Faced Strangers is

[marsh garden]

actually, when is the deeb supplement supposed to hit?

[velvet raft]

It did

Heirs to the Shogunate

[marsh garden]

oh, right, i need to go read that one

[velvet raft]

It has a flaming hoverboard you can make Thrown attacks with

[marsh garden]

SICK

[velvet raft]

And partly considering it's a backer-funded book and the charms are created working with said backers

[marsh garden]

ah, that also makes sense

[velvet raft]

So like we know that the Sid companion is going to include a bunch of secret techniques people wanted for their favorite martial arts

[marsh garden]

ooh

[tulip folio]

How do secret techniques work?

[velvet raft]

They're normal MA charms that don't count towards completion

So you don't need them for completion

And they also don't help you get there

Some we've seen referred to include:

• A technique that lets one get extra benefit for knowing multiple immaculate form charms
• one that lets a PAOC stylist pick a form from any style and buff it
• using thousand blades with mundane weapons

We've heard there will be 22 of these things

[marsh garden]

these are cool

[velvet raft]

Yeah! I think they're nice for sorta ... plugging thematic holes?

[marsh garden]

vague roadmap is alchs 1.0 -> infernals 1.0 -> sids 2 -> exigents 2 -> abyssals 2 -> alchs 2, yeah?

[velvet raft]

Like, in 2e, learning a full Immaculate style permanently attuned a DB to that element so they could better utilize its charms. In the Sid companion we get:

[marsh garden]

oh!

that's not permanent bonuses, but that looks real helpful

[velvet raft]

Whenever you're in an immaculate form

[marsh garden]

yeah it's just wp to activate

[velvet raft]

Which, if you're picking up multiple immaculate styles? Probably always

Here's the PAOC one

[marsh garden]

which is, as i have rapidly learned, not cheap lmfao

[velvet raft]

the funniest thing is that a Sid using Ways of Exaltation can combine these

[tulip folio]

Get Real Training
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3
Type: Simple
Keyword: None
Duration: Instant
Prereqs: Steel Devil Form
Replace your dots in Steel Devil Style and all Steel Devil Charms with those from another martial art.

[marsh garden]

LMAO

i don't know what steel devil style has done to deserve this kind of fucking roast

but wow that is funny

[velvet raft]

The really funny thing about Steel Devil is that imo it should have Single Point's schtick

Like, I'm sorry, you gave the ability to have separate initiative tracks for you and your sword to the single sword style, rather than the two sword style? Get outta here.

Clearly we need to balance them out by merging them mechanically

[velvet raft]

It's extremely winmore

[tulip folio]

if the tricks work, they're great. You'll just never get them to work in a situation it will change how the battle turns out.

[velvet raft]

If you are in a position to use it effectively, the things it does are kinda useless to you

[marsh garden]

rip

[velvet raft]

... I do feel like this idea has merit

[tulip folio]

Steel Devil imo screams to me 'this should be the Defensive Sword Style'

As we've got a lot of Offensive Sword Styles

But not many that prioritize defence.

[velvet raft]

Yeah, a sword-and-dagger style would be welcome

[marsh garden]

i cannot imagine a world in which two swords makes you safer than not using two swords

but sword and dagger parry style sounds cool

[velvet raft]

So historically, with rapier, it does make you much safer, but if you're fencing with two rapiers so is the other guy and that's four rapiers worth of death for two people

[marsh garden]

lmao

[velvet raft]

And one rapier contains approximately 1.5 people's worth of death

[marsh garden]

okay fair, in the situation of two lunatics waving two rapiers each at each other

[velvet raft]

What we know from records is that so-called Florentine duels tended to end with everyone dead

[marsh garden]

you are better off than if you were -1 rapier vs your opposing lunatic

[tulip folio]

Like it actively frustrates me that:

A) Paired weapons gain a bonus to clashes
B) We have a paired sword style.
C) We have a sword style with clash charms
D) The clash charms are not in the paired sword style but in single point.

I would steal single point's clash charms and give them to Steel Devil

[marsh garden]

i assume single point's aesthetic is about katanas?

[velvet raft]

Iaijutsu

[marsh garden]

or alternatively the chinese Flying Sword stuff

[tulip folio]

Single Point is Iajutsu

[marsh garden]

yeah that sounds about right

makes sense that it's the strongest style in the game lol

[velvet raft]

More evidence that Single Point's mechanics really should belong to Steel Devil

[marsh garden]

i don't understand what makes iaijutsi give you a second initiative track

other than "we have to make it busted"

[velvet raft]

Nobody does!

[marsh garden]

but

well, i do know

because it's "we have to make it busted"

[tulip folio]

God, I forgot how nothing steel devil style's form is.

[marsh garden]

what the fuck is offhand charge capacity

[tulip folio]

'Wow , I get to ignore the penalty for off hand attacks? That's definetly a thing people remember is in the game'

[velvet raft]

(In general, the thing about two swords is that manipulating even one sword effectively is pretty hard, so it's typically more useful to have something small and easy to react with on the opposing arm than it is to have a second sword you don't know what to do with. In theory the control offered by a second sword would be amazing, in practice humans have this problem with cognitive load.)

(Also a two-sword style would still not be about simultaneous attacks with the two swords)

[tulip folio]

So what if you had initiative except you can't use it for anything you'd want to use initiative for so making use of it for charge actively makes you more vulnerable to people beating your ass.

[tulip folio]

Yeah, it's sorta why I lean towards stealing the clash charms. Make it much more of a 'block your blade with my off hand...oh look, you're out of position and can't guard my stab'

[velvet raft]

(It would be about using the length of one weapon to trap and bind while using the other one to stab a motherfucker)

[marsh garden]

i do, at least, empathize with the desire to make your dude zuko but a demigod

[velvet raft]

I mean also, Exalted superpeople are allowed to bypass cognitive load limits on martial arts

It's the law

[velvet raft]

Something fun: when the fencing masters I've studied with do classes on using the offhand, they consider a towel wrapped around the arm a perfectly adequate training tool

Since that's almost exactly what fighting with a cloak was

[marsh garden]

nice

[tulip folio]

They are, though I do think it would be cool to have more representation for 'my off hand is parrying your blade while I stab you'

If that makes sense?

[velvet raft]

You just need something that lets you block with the offhand with minimal risk

[tulip folio]

...that was supposed to be a reply to .

[velvet raft]

Oh, yeah, I agree

I think there should be a shit-ton of weird gambits and clashes

And double-layered defenses

The mechanics of the human body are such that attacks with two arms simultaneously almost never make sense

But the length of a sword is an excellent defensive tool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMV2Rr_YAKI These are, incidentally, students of the people I've done a bit of study with (they are way better than I am)

But you see how the position of the second weapon is covering the body while not interrupting the movement of the first

When they switch right-to-left, they keep doing that with the sword in back and the dagger in front

Two swords could work the same way, it'd just be mentally and physically exhausting

[tulip folio]

I'd love a lot more 'Oh and FUCK YOU FOR TRYING' defensive charms. Stuff like 'Parry and PRONE YOU GO'. We've got a lot of 'big defensive number' charms but most counterattacks/retaliation effects are just damage.

[velvet raft]

Yeah, a basic, "I turn your forward momentum into slamming you on the ground" charm would be rad

Something like clashing with a grapple and immediately doing a throw savaging attack

[tulip folio]

I could see a redo bringing back 'unbalancing' from later martial arts.

So you've got a couple of things that play with that effect

[velvet raft]

Maybe give it a repurchase that lets you absolutely fuck over legendary size creatures

[tulip folio]

Just destroy the guy by controlling the pace and movement so he's off balance and you're doing well.

[velvet raft]

I'd love that

[tulip folio]

But I might be overthinking this

[velvet raft]

That would feel like a real fencing style

Unarmed it would have that boxing vibe

[tulip folio]

How's this seem? Pondering if the 'oh and you win random contests' bit is too situational for the hefty increase in cost over Wearing Red.

[chilly sluice]

So Steel Devil's core gimmick requires you roll enough threshold successes to beat your opponent's defense again, and then potentially again for Triple Attack

And your reward for this is kinda mediocre

[marsh garden]

pain-peko

[chilly sluice]

So if they had 5 defense, you need to roll at least 9 sux to be able to use Double Attack at all

And it makes you add like... Dex and half offhand charge damage for the effort?

Something like that

[marsh garden]

jesus

yeah that does seen pretty irredeemable

[chilly sluice]

I believe I heard something about how the Sid companion might have a fixed Steel Devil?

[marsh garden]

oh, that would both make sense and be cool

[fierce star]

Exigents 2 is already out

MIracles of the Divine Flame

[marsh garden]

oh, it is?

huh, guess my group doesn't have it

[fierce star]

It looks good to me, and I don't think it's a too situational addition given it effectively acts as a willpower surcharge to the first time someone decides to interact with you in a serious manner

[feral cipher]

https://www.tumblr.com/superchat/804761664787480576?source=share

unmedicated & undiagnosed please dont like me or be nice to me

-# #its suqh a good bit #EVIL GANG #tiktok

▶ Play video

Tumblr · Jan 3, 2026, 10:48 PM

[velvet raft]

Huh, I did a search for the exigents companion (because I, too, only just learned it came out) and this review came up and it stakes a fascinating position on exigents as a concept http://www.itcamefromthebookshelf.com/2025/11/exalted-3e-miracles-of-divine-flame.html

tl;dr the Exigents book and Exigents companion are both good enough that they demonstrate why homebrewing an Exigent is really hard and realistically out of the picture for most players

[marsh garden]

i'm sorry this is so fucking peak

i want this

but yeah, that makes sense as a review

[mighty rover]

the "easy mode" for Exigents is like, stealing charm trees from different splats right?

Because I definitely agree that an original full charm tree is way too much to be reasonable lol

[tulip folio]

I should check that out.

Yeah, I'm working on an exalt and I'm like...not even close to E1 playable, let alone later playable.

[fierce star]

same

[velvet raft]

The 16 characters we can play via the two exigents books are great, and are in some ways almost like Chuubo's-style pregens

[buoyant summit]

Starting off strong with the vibes for my JediSid's inspo sheet

:D

[fierce star]

honestly I went into the first exigents book not expecting to like them that much--I was one of those 'we already have godblooded and godly investiture' sorts

but sovereigns absolutely hooked me

[coral wraith]

Steel Devil be like

[south horizon]

Another issue with steel devil

[tulip folio]

Keys do make exalt design easier, at least.

[south horizon]

the guy who wrote it is awful at mechanics

and it shows

SD works nothing like any other MA in any of the books

[coral wraith]

[tulip folio]

Like keys let me easily turn this from a single charm into a bit of a chain without a tonne of extra writing (Though I do feel like it needs like 1 more solid key)

[coral wraith]

Steel Devil is 100% an early concept MA that didn't get any attention or reworking for the final book

[tulip folio]

Offhand charge is unironically unsalvagable unless you change it entirely imo.

As it's just 'what if you wanted to turn your init into Init But Worse'

[south horizon]

yerp

not to mention

the utterly garbarge starting charm

5m to get two auto auxs on a JB roll

[next delta]

Steel Devil should have been the MA with the extra initiative track if any of them

[south horizon]

God

i'm reading it

[tulip folio]

I think you could do a fun way to adjust off hand charge that isn't just shitty init.

[south horizon]

i'm reading it again

and it hurts

i forgot that it's formatted like shit too

[tulip folio]

When you spend init on a Steel Devil Charm, Chopping Attack, Piercing Attack or Gambit, gain that much off hand charge.

Turn it from a resource you give up init for into an EXTENDER on existing init spends.

That's how I'd redo off hand charge as a fundamental concept. From there I'd make it a defence and gambit focused style that uses off hand charge to outlast opponents.

[marsh garden]

what's the going rate for that? the math technically works out, i think, but i imagine that JB is one of those rolls that you just

get a ton of discounts on

[tulip folio]

2m per success is the excellency rate.

[marsh garden]

ahh

[tulip folio]

So 5 for 2 is sub par compared to even generic ability boosters

[marsh garden]

5 made sense to me because an added hit is 2.5x the value of a die, right?

[chilly sluice]

2m per sux is excellency rate

[marsh garden]

or um

a success, i mean

since base rate is 40%

i assume that has to be where their logic was as well

[fierce star]

base rate is actually closer to 50% given double tens

[marsh garden]

oh! right, that would even it out

[tulip folio]

Also dice tricks exist which inflate the value of rolled dice

[chilly sluice]

And excellency is usually the floor for mote efficiency

[marsh garden]

that makes sense

since it's free (except for deebs, fuck you) vs op cost

thanks

[chilly sluice]

A charm needs to either be more efficient or offer other upsides

[south horizon]

another thing

i never noticed

this style is filled with so many

nickle and dime effects

my god

[tulip folio]

Iirc another style is 3m for +Skill dice to JB. So that's 3 for 5 dice before long.

[south horizon]

so many tiny costs that are going to add up

and do nothing to actually helpmyou

hit the damn target

[velvet raft]

Final list of past lives for my adamant alchemical:

• An engineer who, mostly by chance of life circumstances, had the opportunity to work on and with three different metropolitan transformations across three different nations throughout their life. All three experiences shaped their life a great deal, and they died while on the job of the third.
• Extremely pious mendicant friar who journeyed alone across Autochthonia to seek admission to the Godmind. After kneeling in prayer before the Godmind for three days and two nights, it is alleged that his request was considered for 19 whole seconds before being denied, a whole 4 seconds more than anyone prior. So, a holy man. Also kind of an asshole. But a very pious one!
• A factory foreman who had the opportunity to learn the mundane form of Wood Dragon from one of Autochthon's very few deebs, and went on to structure and teach it to the workers between and after shifts, creating solidarity and leading a sort of martial arts revival in their community. Some reference to Jigoro Kano, the creator of judo, who is most notable for developing the pedagogical tools and systems now employed by lots of martial arts.
• Autochthonian Steve Irwin, a ranger of the machine god's wild places who ended up working as a prolific science educator. Possibly with some Carl Sagan vibes as well.

[south horizon]

this really bothers me now that i've realized it

yhe entire point of the fuckin style is is getting super hits

[bleak hazel]

Steel Devil does have some good defensive moves, actually

[south horizon]

yet nothing it does

actually helps you do that

[bleak hazel]

It has a second form charm for no particular reason and it's a big ongoing parry buff

[south horizon]

that is true

amd then the capstonr is jist making both forms one form

[bleak hazel]

Unfortunately literally every offensive technique it has is worse than useless

[south horizon]

like

evem something

like an onslaught extender

[chilly sluice]

the funniest part is how the flavor calls it "the lesser of the two forms" and it's way better than the first one

[south horizon]

might actually have helped make.it somewhat usable

[bleak hazel]

My redsid is running around with parry 7 before stunt, Excellency or buffs, double attack technique needs a significantly better than average roll on a full solar excellency to trigger against that guy standing around and doing nothing

[south horizon]

yerp

and forget triple or quadtruple

they should have just

made it do cheap.multinattacks

or something

[chilly sluice]

and all that effort for getting like 5 + charge extra damage

[south horizon]

the funniest is vit avout steel devil

is that the Essence version

is busted as hell

[chilly sluice]

oh lmao

[south horizon]

aoe decisives out the ass

[chilly sluice]

I love how the reward for Triple Attack is getting to add your full charge instead of half

which is just laughable for having to lap their defense three times

[velvet raft]

It really should just be Single Point

[marsh garden]

parry 7? do sids have an easy to grab permanent parry booster somewhere?

in socialize or some shit

[bleak hazel]

No that's stock for all characters

Melee 5 Dex 5 speciality in your weapon gets you 6, and then medium weapons give +1 parry

So stock Sword Dude With Sword is parry 7, all other defences are 6

[marsh garden]

oh

right

i forgot that medium weapons are Strictly The Best

for zero discernable reason, afaik

[bleak hazel]

Paired lights are great for clashes, heavy is for archery and throwing since those replace the usual accuracy track

But yeah medium sword good

[chilly sluice]

Well light has higher accuracy

[marsh garden]

yeah but medium gains more than light or heavy

heavy has the worst accuracy and a defense penalty, medium is in the middle and has a defense bonus

[chilly sluice]

Artifact heavy doesn't have a penalty

It's only on mundane

[south horizon]

Lights are tge best for.offense

Heavy only shines vs big soak

[fierce star]

I appreciate heavy for style points and because often heavy weapon using MAs are good

[bleak hazel]

what dual lights are for is taking a bunch of reflexive clash charms and replacing your defence value with your attack pool

[south horizon]

or just being a sid

[fierce star]

and yeah dual lights are for that and also artifact efficiency since most of the time youc an pick up a pair of artifact light weapons as 'one' artifact

[south horizon]

because lol TN manipulation

[bleak hazel]

eh, sids are squishy, I still want the defence

[marsh garden]

not dw lights is, alas, not that

[south horizon]

fair

[fierce star]

whereas if you want to go like, sowrd and shield that's two different artifacts

(alsod on't do that shields are trash)

(TRAAAAAAASH)

[marsh garden]

wait what. poor shields

[south horizon]

I mean shields are neat ish if ur building for them

and they get morr examples then armot

[marsh garden]

that is a damning pair of qualifiers

[south horizon]

for making neat ones

[marsh garden]

not a positive one

[south horizon]

They're a defensive option

they are very good for that

[marsh garden]

"neat-ish, and only if you build for them" is rough

[fierce star]

you get to flurry full defense! except yo ucan't flurry it with attacks And the shield itself has -2 damage.

I wouldn't say they are 'very good' for that

[south horizon]

I mean they're for doing defensive plays

and u cannuse their defense in place of a dufferent weapon for parry

[fierce star]

I'd rather just have any other medium melee weapon, full defense is just not good

[chilly sluice]

Sids IIRC have a charm for making shields good

[marsh garden]

anyway, could y'all take a look at what's supposed to be the passive for a 5-dot artifact?

[fierce star]

and anyone who says a shield is a purely defensive weapon has never been hit in the face by a buckler

[south horizon]

sure

[marsh garden]

i, again, have no idea how to balance in this system

[south horizon]

no worries

[marsh garden]

and i worry that i've overdesigned it because i keep looking at The Cool Ones

[fierce star]

hot take medium weapons shouldn't get the +1 def bonus, that should be a function of the shield tag and it should scale with size ifyou're going to give them an offensive penalty

[south horizon]

i have been into.exalt3d since lunars

and only barely understand

[marsh garden]

my GM's using a weapon chart homebrew that uses templates instead

so you pick one high stat, one medium stat, and one low stat

Oizys thrives on possessive bonds, and fuels its wielder's vicious jealousy of her comrades' attention. In a given scene, the strongest Tie of loyalty, love, or admiration whose subject it present is considered the Lifeline, and that subject is considered the Anchor. Once per round, when the Anchor makes an attack, threaten, or read intentions roll against a single character, Oizys's wielder may pay 2 motes, branding the target with a blood-black Mark of the Beast. This cost is waived if the Anchor rolls at least 4+ extra successes on the roll.

A living character with at least one Mark of the Beast is battered by visions from Oizys's wailing ghosts, and suffers a -1 penalty to Evasion and Resolve while in close range of its wielder. With four Marks of the Beast, he withers beneath the terrible weight of death's unblinking gaze. He must spend an additional Willpower to resist influence rolls, and up to (wielder's Essence) of his 4s subtract successes on all rolls against undead or the Anchor.

[south horizon]

mhmmm

[marsh garden]

the uh. repetition of 4s is because i think numerical themes are neat and i'm a dickhead that enjoys the death homonym

[fierce star]

hell yeah numerology

lemme see here

[south horizon]

I feel like making it a stackable thing is maybe a bit of a pain for the purposes of tracking

[marsh garden]

unfort

[fierce star]

How long do the marks last?

[marsh garden]

oh, oops, i had that somewhere but forgot

must've been deleted at some point in shuffling

[south horizon]

I think making it just one mark may be better, but you can have [ess or 3 whichever is higher] marked may be better

[marsh garden]

tentatively, after a scene spent out of the artifact and wielder's sight

[marsh garden]

ah, that's a shame, i'd tooled a few of the evocations to care about and consume stacks

[south horizon]

scene long effect seems good though i think conceptually(at least as currently iterated) it feels like an 4 dot

oh

i thiught it was just thr attubement

[fierce star]

I was going to say this is a decen attunement as long as you like, peg the evocations off of it

[south horizon]

if u've built.charms around it already would need to see those to get a proper feel

ye

my main issue is just tracking

which isn't like

awful

but it can cause issues if you lose track mid-combat

[coral wraith]

Sids do shields good

[south horizon]

i'm also wondering if this is mesnt to be

a combat artifact

or a social artifact mainly

because as written, leans a lot towards social

[marsh garden]

it's intended to be a support artifact, and blends both

[south horizon]

mhmm

but ye, try it out to see if you like it but over all

seems neat

Also, personally

i'd use the strength of the intimacy for scaling of the penalty

might be a bit on the stronger side but also, you're relying on getting a specific number on a die so that helps to balance out the downsides

like

[marsh garden]

the scaling of which penalty?

[south horizon]

damn there isn't a good die roller here

the success removal one

[marsh garden]

ahh

right, that makes sense

i didn't have it capped at all at first, but i wasn't sure if that was too generous

based on some of the charms i'd seen that go "blah blah up to X 1s reroll"

[south horizon]

intimacy based sux removal would be extremely strong in most cases but it's reliant on getting a specific number

yeah do keep it capped

just to keep it from getting to wacky

but ye, it takes a while to build up(though charms could change that), costs about 8m over that time

also is there a reason it's specifically -1 evasion and not -1 def

nothing wrong with that just what made me think it might have been more leaning to social

[marsh garden]

EYES FOR ONLY ME
Cost: 2m; Mins: Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Withering-Only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: None
When the wielder attacks a Marked character, she adds (Lifeline) to the raw damage of the attack. If it deals any damage, the Anchor gains 1 initiative, then may remove any number of Marks from the target to gain that much initiative.

GRACIOUS GIFT OF TEARS
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: None
Prerequisites: Eyes For Only Me, Blood-Drinking Palm
When using Blood-Drinking Palm against a Marked character, the wielder adds (Lifeline) to the maximum motes she can drain, and may choose to grant half the drained motes to her Anchor, rounded up.

SEETHING JEALOUSY
Cost: 3m; Mins: Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: None
When the Anchor attempts an Inspire, Instill, or Threaten roll, treat the target as if he had a minor tie of fear or unease towards the wielder and a minor tie of fear, fascination or respect toward the Anchor. If the target already has both Ties at Minor intensity, they count as Major Ties instead.

Reset: Once per scene. Using this Charm against an enemy with four or more Marks waives the cost and doesn't count against this limit, but removes four Marks from the target.

YOU CANNOT HAVE HER
Cost: 4m1w; Mins: Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Perilous
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Eyes For Only Me
The wielder may use this Evocation when the Anchor is Crashed, instantly appearing at his side in a flurry of anima. She immediately Marks the assailant at no cost, and takes a Reflexive Defend Other action. If the wielder crashes the assailant on her next turn, the Anchor triggers an Initiative Shift.

[marsh garden]

uh, i wasn't sure if it was too powerful for a relatively free, plausibly scene-long static malus

[south horizon]

fair nuff

[marsh garden]

so i erred on the side of caution, even if i'd prefer defense lmao

[south horizon]

it's art 5 but ye, never hurts to be careful

it already does a lot

and feels more evocative of a playstyle

[marsh garden]

if you think i can get away with a full def shred, i may try to push it in, but

[south horizon]

I don't think you need to, especiallyblooking at these charms

[marsh garden]

this was, i thought, a decent statement for flavor and what little i understand of balance

[south horizon]

so

[marsh garden]

(well, initially i was toying with "-1 to either parry or eva and resolve or guile, chosen by the target" but phrasing and presentation would be way too wordy, the effect would be way too finnicky, and it'd be annoying to track)

[south horizon]

important notw about the perilous tag, those are "typically" charms with iniative costs

i don't think only

[marsh garden]

(but i wanted it as "they can only concentrate on a couple things at once because there are ghosts fucking screaming at them")

[south horizon]

ye i think that would be adding

way too much choice to an.effect that proca extremely.often

[marsh garden]

really? most of the ones i saw in abyssals while leafing through were pure mote costs

[south horizon]

i coyld be wrong but and it's not purely on those, but i want to say it makes the majority

been a minute

[marsh garden]

...i am seeing a lot more initiative costs than i remembered, but

[south horizon]

gotcha

[marsh garden]

i at least saw a bunch that weren't

[south horizon]

ye, i think ur def using it properly

looking at these examples

[south horizon]

but yez this seems very neat for a mad dog bodyguard type character

would def need to see it in play and also, a query

how does this work for aoes

is it 2m to mark every target once?

or 2m per target

this is especially important for social if ur chosen anchor utilizes performance

[marsh garden]

i believe i worded it correctly, i phrased it as "makes a...roll against a single character"

[south horizon]

ah, missed that

[marsh garden]

which is at least intended to be one target only

and i assume that works

[south horizon]

ye

then ye, again, tracking feels like the biggest issue for this as an effect

[marsh garden]

i know we've got a (Horny Time sid) performer in the party, but i don't have a positive tie to her at the moment lol

[south horizon]

aa it's adding another layer of mental overhead

[marsh garden]

hmmm

[south horizon]

but if you're fine with that as a player, go for it

[marsh garden]

that shouldn't be too much of an issue, because i'm the one tracking it

[south horizon]

ye

[marsh garden]

not foisting that on the GM

do you have any suggestions for possible changes to the charms?

[south horizon]

I'm just talling from a play experience that exalted already has a lot of tracking already

[marsh garden]

er.

evos

yeah i appreciate it

i just like stackin' 'n' trackin'

[south horizon]

off the dome, nothing immedieately jumps out aside from these effects feeling a bit. . . conservative for an art 5

[marsh garden]

it was an art 4 and i didn't want to uh

[south horizon]

i don't have a proper idea on how to punch them up, but the o ly evo that is not doing something that you can already do is the one that lets you teleport over to ur anchor

[marsh garden]

jump to explosive changes before knowing whether anything was flawed

[south horizon]

gotcha

ye this def feels right for an art 4

[marsh garden]

i wanted to work on the passive and make sure it was a functional baseline

[south horizon]

and personallyz i think.it's fine to keep it as such if u don't have an explosive idea for it

[marsh garden]

but honestly, i might keep it as it is if this is fine for 4-dot and then expand on them later

because this is a fresh artifact

[south horizon]

ye

[marsh garden]

completely new and bespoke

[south horizon]

Art 5s are flashy but nothing wrong with a solid artifact 3 or 4

[marsh garden]

well, i wanted 5 because i want to be able to grow (into) it

[south horizon]

I think 4 is fine for that

it gives you plenty of space to play with

[marsh garden]

...how reasonable is "inflicting positive Ties in people when i maim them"?

[south horizon]

depends on the viiibes. And do u mean crippling effects specifically or just dealing damage

[marsh garden]

depends!

i was mostly just thinking "hit a significant base wound penalty"

but like, hurting people to instill (my ties toward the Anchor) into either me or them is something that i wanted to dick around with

i just have no idea what layer to start approaching that on

[south horizon]

Can work ye.

again, fits the mad dog bodyguard archetype

[marsh garden]

this is exactly what i'm going for lmao

but yeah, if you have any suggestions on where to look (or just directly aid on where to start) for that kind of upgrade, I'd appreciate it

i want it to be something that changes over time, but i just do not have the framework to engage with it mechanically

[wise ocean]

One of the top-level Abyssal Melee charms actually does Basically Offhand Charge, tbf

[buoyant summit]

This is

Probably Dumb And Not Worth Doing

But

I feel like there's real potential for an Exigent for whom the God's.... deeeeaaaaaaath????

Well, in the sense of the idea I have more

subsumption

Is an explicit part of how their shit works

And the Exaltation is kind of a combination of the spirit of the Avatar from AtlA and Moorcock's Eternal Champion

And it's got an overall 'genre-savvy tragic folk-hero' vibe

[marsh garden]

oh, that's neat

so like

[buoyant summit]

You are haunted by knowing you are part of a long line of ghosts in the making

[marsh garden]

there was "a successful Exigent petition" a long time ago

and then the god became that first Exalt, and keeps passing on that eventual possession?

[buoyant summit]

Who gave their lives, often thanklessly, to solve terrible woes

Kiiiinda

The God has been reduced to an almost dead state

Not even slumber

They are borderline catatonic and only awaken in times of great duress or when it is time to find someone new

[marsh garden]

ahhh

[buoyant summit]

And even with that awakening, they're not

A Person?

Have you played Tears of the Kingdom?

[marsh garden]

jup

[buoyant summit]

They act like FUCKING SPOILERS ||The Light Dragon. They are driven by an animal instinct to Their Duty.||

[marsh garden]

nice

[buoyant summit]

Oh, have you played Morrowind as well?

It's the Nerevarine but as a swiss-army prophecy hero

And Azura is dead from creating your powers so you can't even complain to her

OH THE ETERNAL CHAMPION 'VERSE WAS PUBLISHED BY WHITE WOLF IN THE US ISN'T THAT SERENDIPITOUS <XD

[marsh garden]

haha

[fierce star]

I need to go back and finish the Strider exigent at some point

for when you just want to explicitly be a super robot mecha anime protagonist

(they're the chosen of Charkaid, God of Warstriders. He is also the warstrider they start with.)

[buoyant summit]

That's

Fucking Cool

[bleak hazel]

the weird thing about shields is that half the time when you build for them you don't go sword and board, you use the Sid/Sovereign charm that a) lets you flurry things better and b) removes the damage penalty on your shield and then just beat people with an artifact shield like you're Captain Realmerica

I think Four Seasons Rival is literally the only character I've seen who is mechanically incentivised to go sword and board

[fierce star]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/150xLxZvB6cjjtRSh9Z1t29ORi-r_N496_ydS3yjraos/edit?usp=drivesdk if you wanna have a read, it's a little bare bones right me

[bleak hazel]

and he still has a charm that lets him reflexively swap the shield for a second sword for clashes and then swap back again after

[buoyant summit]

This is so cool

[fierce star]

thank you!

like I said, quite barebones and i'm still like

fiddling with charm power level. My intent is 'solaroid tier in a warstrider, celestial tier outside' but it has been drilled into me multiple times that trying to reach solaroid scales is a fool's errand

[bleak hazel]

it's doable but it's a giant bitch, especially if you want your basic charms to not just be neat copies of Abyssal trees

and that's quite hard to do here

have you considered letting the player pick Chark's weapons? there are a few heavy armour compatible styles and it would be a shame to be deprived of Live Wire Warstrider just because he doesn't come with whips

[fierce star]

So funny thing is the like

very first craft charm was going to be 'change his weapons to any artifact weapon for a scene'

with a (key! thank you infernals!) at E5 to make it permanent

err, E3

[prisma sun]

@bleak hazel I need your opine

How do you feel about Falcon/Nightingale/Crane as a set of MAs

[bleak hazel]

falcon has a very particular style, namely hopping up and down like a deranged pogo stick to do smash attacks, and the other two aren't super into that

but it does depend on what kind of exalt this is going on

and how deep you're going into each

[marsh garden]

question: are there any follow-up charms that make a committed (scene-long or indefinite) charm Permanent?

[prisma sun]

A CMOS thrown sid

[bleak hazel]

hmm

CMOS/Falcon has some juice, but I don't think you can get Kiai in there without spamming Unweaving Method

[prisma sun]

The Kiai is mainly for style

[bleak hazel]

Smallest possible SVN dip for style then

Crane is the one I can't really work in there

I love it, but it's got a different highly particular gameplan than the other two

[prisma sun]

I honestly am looking more of like

"This is my offense style, this is my social style, this is my defense style"

Instead of hard comboing everything into one big mama jama

[bleak hazel]

You might prefer something like Brawl for defence then

Crane looks very defensive but it's actually about making infinity counterattacks, the parry buffs by themselves are relatively minor

[south horizon]

not typically

[marsh garden]

pain, was trying to get wording guidance on replacing a charm with a permanent equivalent

[south horizon]

only example that comes to mind is infernals with their enhanced sense charmd

[marsh garden]

oh

[chilly sluice]

Solars also have a similar thing for Awareness improved senses

[marsh garden]

that works perfectly, this would be for a sense charm lol

[chilly sluice]

(and they also get to cheat and recover the committed cost)

[marsh garden]

i'm trying to modify Countless Grasping Phantoms to-

wait shit

i should just look at mind-hand manipulation

oh wait, it's all about stat replacement

damn

forgot about that for a moment

[marsh garden]

...okay, what possible Essence and conditions would be reasonable to make "you can replace a number of the target's rolls equal to his wound penalty with 4s"? i understand that this is a monstrously powerful effect with no brakes, so I'd love to figure out what kind of pacers or conditions would make it feasible

i assume the wound penalty bit is already doing a bit of work there, since it's death spiral stuff that gets more useful the less necessary it is

or i guess "more powerful the less useful it is" would be the right phrasing

[south horizon]

personally, i wouldn't because this is.double.dipping i to the penalty the artifact already inflicts

[marsh garden]

reasonable

i wanted it as a more generic reactive thing than another hammer into Marked targets, but yeah that's

probably better suited just adding more ways to mark

[south horizon]

mhmm, more ways to mark or more ways for the marks to be spent

You ever play Rogue Trader crpg?

[marsh garden]

i have not, just watched runs

[south horizon]

The vibe of this feels similar to the exploit.mechanic on the operative class so that felt.like a good point of ref for how to utilize them

[marsh garden]

I'll go badger my RT sicko friend

[quiet garnet]

Torn between Ascendant and Penumbra for my friend's Infernal campaign.

Reading The Traitor Baru Cormorant is giving me ideas.

[marsh garden]

MASTER'S MANY HANDS
Cost: — (+10m1wp); Mins: Essence 2
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Countless Grasping Phantoms, Field of Fell Dreams
Oizys's wielder permanently gains the benefits of Countless Grasping Phantoms out to its usual range. The ghostly hands are ordinarily dematerialized, but can be reflexively made tangible for one scene with a ten-mote, one-willpower surcharge. While materialized, the wielder's aura of writhing hands has the effects of a Field of Fell Dreams, and she can make unarmed attacks and grapple gambits against characters within this aura. Whenever she deals decisive damage, she gains one necromantic mote for every two health levels of damage dealt, rounded up, as the ghostly talons tear wisps of soul away. If the wielder manually casts Field of Fell Dreams while the hands are materialized, her aura increases by one range band, to a maximum of long.

yea or nay?

too early? too much?

[south horizon]

i think any effect that makes another charm.permanenr

should be e3 minimum

but that's a personal.feel

[marsh garden]

gotcha

if that's not like, a firm statement on balance and just a texture-and-philosophy thing, i'll wait in the hopes of getting extra opinions on that

but i will definitely keep it in mind

other than that, how does it look?

[south horizon]

wjat is the effect of.field.of.fell dreams

[marsh garden]

ivory spell

[bleak hazel]

reflexive sorcery is usually out, I could see that at high essence level but at 2-3 I'd make it Simple

guaranteed cast but you have to pay

[marsh garden]

gotcha

no notes other than that?

[prisma sun]

What would you say combos well with cmos then?

[bleak hazel]

Sid Melee can Enlighten into it for an excellent clash build, Live Wire has to take the armour off but has insane dual whip accuracy and damage, Falcon is fine with fists and footsies, Sid Brawl has an excellent Versatile defensive tree and any knife style uses CMOS fine with artifact weapon compatibility

if you just want to not die when getting punched, use Brawl and Resistance, Dead Spouse Defence is only the third charm into Brawl and the two prereqs are solid damage mitigation

Tolerant Strife for onslaught negation + those

grab Speared Boar Struggle for memes

maybe Unobstructed Blow

[south horizon]

a few rhatbi will get into on like

an hr

[marsh garden]

gotcha gotcha

thank you for the help

[south horizon]

🫡

[prisma sun]

Keep in mind that my sid has an artifact with the passive that it counts as a form weapon for any martial art

So its a pair of gloves that serve as smash fists all the way

[marsh garden]

oooh

is it like, shapeshifting gloves infused with moonsilver, or gauntlets that you do unarmed stuff with, or are you summoning blades of light or something?

[prisma sun]

Unnarmed stuff

It is a starmetal pair of gloves called the Ten Finger of the Maidens

[marsh garden]

nice nice

[prisma sun]

And as they are infused with the very foundations of what being a martial artist is there is no martial arts beyond them

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah just go wild then

if you totally waive compatibility you can basically do what you like

[marsh garden]

think I'm about to pass right out, so if you could ping with anything you up posting, would be appreciated so I can look tomorrow

[south horizon]

Okay so to break.this charm.down into all the things it allows:
Makes CGP permanent with bo downsides
Makes CGP count as dematerialized which thus allows it to interact with dematerialized beings as well as making them invisible
Lets you essentially cast Fell dreams spell as a charm which means it can't be distorted
Lets you use unarmed attacks and grapples at medium range to long range for essentially free
this has the effect of also making the area around you a hazard that is likely to force enemies prone and penalize them getting up
Makes said unarmed attacks also generate necromantic motes at an extremely generous rate considering abyssal Brawl as a tree

[bleak hazel]

ah fuck I missed the long range punching ability

[south horizon]

I assume.the dematerialize bit is an unintended bit if interaction with rules, but even puttingnthat aside, i think this charm does way too much in one package. I think if you want to keep these effectsz you'd need to cut this into like, 3 charms.

and even with that in mind, i think it would need tweaks because allowing free Ranged unarmed attacks and grapples at medium to long range is extremely brutal, especially given that prone and grapple defense/action penalties will stack

[bleak hazel]

yeah that's an E3 sidereal martial arts charm by itself

(rain of unseen threads)

[south horizon]

Even if you make the materialization effect a non-flurried action, this is.still a lot of effects stacked onto one charm, no matter the essence level

Now, for more personal quibbles, I don't like the idea behind this charm, especially for this artifact. The swerve into mixing necromancy and abyssal charms doesn't really.feed into.anything else i've seen for it thematically, nor does this really mesh well with the two chosen effects. If this was an artifact completely focused on this combo, maybe, but as a branch off the core it feels extrenous.

I also don't like an artifact modifing a native charm and a spell in the charm in the same instance, especially within the same charm. Again, feels like.an effect that needs a focused artifact for those kind of effects.

Personally, i think a better way to go about this is to make it so that the CGP can exude from their anchor as well and if you activate the Join.battle effect, every revealed target will become marked

That feels like a better design space to play off of and better feeds into the guard dog mentality you seem to be going for

Alternatively, if you really wanma havr the field interaction, i'd just make it so Marked foes take an added point of penalty while within the aura from both effects

and maybe some other benny like the difficulty to.get up from prone being [either -3 or number of Marks on.target, whichever is greater to a maximun of Lifeline+1]

10sm is already extremely cheap casting cost, you don't need to toss in an SM generation effect to get value

in either case, it definitely should be an e3 level of effect minimum

[south horizon]

The above seem.a fair break down and alternative options?

[coral wraith]

hey @tulip folio , you have a perroneles statblock written up, right?

[tulip folio]

I have one that's like...80% done and I'm off sick today, so I can finish it up given like...an hour...if you need one?

[coral wraith]

oh!

yeah a buddy of mine in the exalted pbp server was fiending for a statblock (and tbh my character would like one too lmao)

it would be awesome if you could so no rush, especially if you're sick

[tulip folio]

Sure. I've got it mostly sorted. I will admit, my take on them is a bit more corrupt-y than older versions are. Like they've always had 'they try to get the wearer on the Yozi's side' before but never really had mechanics for it.

[coral wraith]

i mean thats p cool!

[tulip folio]

Traits
Living Armour: A willing character can wear a perronele as armour, a process that requires 1 minute of very intimate connection. While worn as armour, the Perronele cannot be targeted individually by attacks and cannot take actions unless expressly noted. The character wearing the Perronele benefits from Light armour with no mobility penalty. It's soak and hardness is based upon the intimacy of the wearer to the demon, granting armoured Soak (3 + the value of the highest positive intimacy the wearer has to the Perronele or a group they belong do), as well as Hardness (1+ the value of the highest positive intimacy the wearer has to the Perronele or a group they belong do)

Basicly my take on them has the defence they provide scale by how much you care about the Perronele.

So if you don't give a shit they're...okay...but the more intimate (Emotionally) you are with them, the better armour they are

But that also means you're caring more about what the demon says

[tulip folio]

Query: Do you or him have the infernals PDF? Just checking if I can refer to the templates in that or if I should write out all the stats.

[coral wraith]

her, actually! but yes I do ill chuck it your way

[tulip folio]

Oh, I already have it. This was more about 'If I use the templates, will you guys have enough info to work with'

As if you didn't have it, I'd be leaving people in the lurch going 'Okay but where's the rest of it?'

[coral wraith]

[tulip folio]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xkXdfdzwCZbYb1Dwekt72qg_Uw8Mq81Ayv1eg_NWEr8/edit?usp=sharing There you go. Top of the first circle demons section.

It's using the courtier template, not the combatant template as despite being armour, they don't really fight

But it does make it very good at whispering in people's ears.

[coral wraith]

Wahey!

[tulip folio]

Traits
Proficient Linguists: Perroneles speak Old Realm as well as all common languages. It can translate spoken words for its wearer, though does not grant them the ability to speak or read languages.

It also has this!

Which gives it a big use for sorcerers even outside of 'not getting stabbed'

I went with 'common languages' rather than 'all languages', as it won't naturally know a random cipher or an autocthonian dialect but it will easily translate for most large places in creation.

[coral wraith]

thats sick

thanks Iki!

[tulip folio]

Happy to help. @fierce star oh and you wanted them done. Finally got finished.

[fierce star]

yaaaay

the quintet is now complete

[tulip folio]

...pondering a thing for a martial art, defensively.

It's a shield-prefering martial art, so I'm pondering if this makes sense on a clash charm:

If you use a Shield for this Clash, it uses the accuracy of a Light Melee Weapon for the Clash.

Going 'Oh yeah, you're gunna be eating the damage penalty for a shield on the clash but you might as well be better at negating the attack than with other medium weapons'

[buoyant summit]

Pondering

Demon Slayer type stuff

Elemental Dragon MAs

But With Swords

[fierce star]

either treat it as a light weapon or let you treat it as if you were paired for the purpose of clashes, maybe, iki

[limpid badge]

Yaaay okay perronelles now i can make my infernals armor/aide-de-camp

[fierce star]

the latter probably has some Bullshit Techniques youc an pull with that in other charm trees

[tulip folio]

Oh yeah, @coral wraith did you see the other exalted NPC project I've been working on? Automatons that players can summon instead of demons or elementals.

[coral wraith]

yes! that;'s real neat

[tulip folio]

Cool. Should have the latest one done some time today (An automaton musician). From there I've only got like 2 left (Automaton tiny stabby assassin and Celestial Circle Big Automaton)

[coral wraith]

[tulip folio]

The assassin should be fun as it's a tiny glass Cannon with the usual 'Tiny things don't hurt big things well'

But has:

Throat Slitter: The <Name> does not reduce it's damage against Larger targets if making Surprise Attacks.

It REALLY wants ambushes

[marsh garden]

okay! thanks for the feedback. so, to break this down by piece, because i'd like to keep at least a couple of these effects within the artifact tree, at least

• the reason for the stretch and overcomplication of effects is that Oizys is a: an explicitly bespoke work for the PC and b: a set of prosthetics (that's also half an unarmed artifact itself)
• i suppose it was definitely getting overly cute, but part of the initial concept (that i just didn't really have the framework for before going through all the books) was some kind of specific interaction between the two things in the abyssal book that describe themselves as "countless grasping hands" for the PC, who's already a necromancer and pugilist
• and so, to make sure i'm understanding this correctly: if i want to keep most of these pieces, it's going to have to be three-ish evocations over E2-4 with these things segmented off as their primary benefits?

[south horizon]

something to that effect for the latter

[marsh garden]

so one of the concerns raised was that the initial permanence has no downside, yeah? so making the axial charm on it "CGP permanence with a firm downside and a secondary upside" would start to bridge this problem's narrative issues?

[south horizon]

I mean that was less a concern and more

"this is a thing this charm is doing"

[marsh garden]

ah

[south horizon]

ye the initial.list is just show casing every effect that you have in thr charm as written

Most charms and evos do one, maybe 2 bespoke things, or provide a list of effects u xan choose from, so I figured that the mainnway to tackle the charm.is to pick out all the ways it interacts with the systems in play

[marsh garden]

right right

[prisma sun]

I have done crafting

https://i.imgur.com/0RBrTOx.png

[marsh garden]

waog

[south horizon]

yerp

das do be the crafting

[marsh garden]

so (assuming/acknowledging that i have other things that i want to piggy-back off of CGP being permanent), the effect segregation could look something like

• initial charm, e2: permanence, permanent penalty to visual awareness, can activate CGP with a wp cost to place it on the anchor?

[bleak hazel]

as it should be

(re: crafting)

[marsh garden]

• second, e3 or e4 charm just for the "turn your aura into field" effect (which was intended to be treated entirely as the spell, and so distortable)

(i'll have to figure out how to word that)

[coral wraith]

craftgar strikes

[south horizon]

Personally, i think subverting the need to cast the spell to activate it

even if it is the same effect

just doesn't feel like a very interesting design space imho

[marsh garden]

• a third follow-up charm for any buffs to that that i'd add?

i see

[south horizon]

No to mention that the spell is already pretty strong so adding innthe ability to also treat it as added range for your unarmed is a bit crazy

[marsh garden]

ah, i thought that making it Short range instead of Medium would cut down on that some

[south horizon]

Being able to freely use melee at ranged, especially stuff like grapples is a very strong effect

[marsh garden]

and the fact that you don't get the willpower back (and i thought it being a relatively cheap spell meant that it wasn't that busted)

[south horizon]

most effects that do that often have it as an instant effect

[marsh garden]

gotcha

i saw a few artifacts with range extenders, so i kind of assumed it wasn't that out-there of an effect

[south horizon]

not all of them, but it's just something that is typically strong on it's own or with a smaller added ebenfit

than a constant aoe hazard field that also knocks people prone if they fail the save, and makes getting up harder

it's not that out there, it's just again the context of this being added on to a spell effect

[south horizon]

it's not busted for a spell, but it's still a really good spell.

[bleak hazel]

being able to punch at range with melee combat trees is priced very highly

[south horizon]

a constant hazard that has a difficulty of about diff 3-5 can really do a number on people

[bleak hazel]

medium range martial arts is the entry charm of an E3 sidereal martial art for a reason

[marsh garden]

ah, uhhh

spiders?

[bleak hazel]

anything above that is right out: the core rules attempt to prevent kiting by forcing ranged attackers to either Aim for a round or use expensive charms to bypass that when striking at longer ranges

[south horizon]

and that is doubly true for letting you do stuff like grappling

[bleak hazel]

if you have a charm that says "I can punch you from Long" you bypass that completely and can now go entire fights happily backpedalling while unloading an entire melee tree

[south horizon]

especially when it doesn't restrict your ability ot use charms in any way

[marsh garden]

gotcha

[wise ocean]

hm, that actually makes me wonder if mind-hand practice into Bear Style has any sauce to it

grapple a guy from Long and then start savaging the shit out of them

[south horizon]

Mind hand has the issue that you have a -3 to any roll to do that

not the worst restriction but still a restriction

and to use charms with it from anything not lore, you need to be using a form weapon i believe

[bleak hazel]

combat trees do not work with mind-hand, because brain is neither unarmed combat or a form weapon

[south horizon]

Mind Hand is a very bespoke kind of effect for 3e and thus, kinda janky in it's interactions

[marsh garden]

oh, does "doesn't suffer the usual penalties" not also refer to the -3 they're getting for fine movement?

[south horizon]

it does not

but that was more

[marsh garden]

gotcha

[bleak hazel]

mind-hand is its own self-contained combat setup for nerds, rather than something to extend other trees

[south horizon]

" You can't use bear with the telekinetic grabby hands"

[wise ocean]

Can't grapple the guy and then swap over to MA?

Since it drags them to you

[south horizon]

That's kinda tricky in that you switch from grapplign them with your mind hands

to your real hands so. . .

[bleak hazel]

theoretically you might be able to but I would really skew towards "no, the weapon you use to make the grapple is the weapon with which you maintain the grapple"

[south horizon]

https://tenor.com/view/soso-gif-18415516675238991064

it's a funky interaction there

[wise ocean]

the jank hath arrived

[south horizon]

indeed

[bleak hazel]

if you want to do that you need to grab, throw and then grab them again with your other martial art

which is not a bad strat in itself

[south horizon]

ye, just a lot of work

[marsh garden]

okay, so what i'm getting is that if i want to keep "smack people in my aura" it should be an extra mote and/or wp cost on top of actually casting fell field?

[bleak hazel]

it should be its own charm at higher essence with a fairly steep price tag

[south horizon]

^

[marsh garden]

its own charm at higher essence was something that i already said, yes

thank you, though

[south horizon]

i wouldn't combo the two specifically and just

have an effect that does an aura that ties more so to what the artifact is doing inherently

because as written, the artifact doesn't really do a lot with necromancy or occult so it feels like a weird segway

[marsh garden]

the thing is that i want to do those as a follow-up, and it's the narrative space of the two things that are both described as "countless grasping [undead hands]" on a hands-based artifact for a character that'll have both of them

it was like, part of the formative artifact conceit, it's just one that i don't know how to add

i'm happy to cede to all of the other criticism, as long as it's acknowledged that "this is a narrative breach" is not intended to be true

[south horizon]

i can't really help there because I fundamentally don't think the concept is a healthy design space.

That said, if you want to do ranged punching, i would prob make it something more like what melee has

[marsh garden]

now, making that baseline work with the rest is sounding like it's going to be more and more of an issue

[south horizon]

where if you wanna do it, you gotta pay a cost each attack you make

rather than a scene long effect

[marsh garden]

which part of it do you think isn't a healthy design space?

[prisma sun]

Craftgar makes my brain feel good

50 is a nice number

[south horizon]

tying the ranged punch effect to the spell

[bleak hazel]

efficient craftgaring is fun

[south horizon]

you're comboing two very strong effects that also make it so if someone loses against one, they're also likely losing against the other

[bleak hazel]

question: how does your craftbyssal have Shadow Circle at E2

[south horizon]

and also have a stacking penalty system being applied to them throughout

[prisma sun]

He's E3 I just gotta update his sheet

[bleak hazel]

ah

[prisma sun]

Since I used his Experienced base and then forgot to update it

I think originally I might have just cheated though

[bleak hazel]

unfortunately World-Slaying Arsenal Epiphany is too many goddamn charms in for Crimson to start with

which is a shame because the name is a banger

going to skew Crimson a bit more towards the Bureaucracy side since you already have Craftgar on lock

he'll have some crafting powers but more on the artwork side of things

[marsh garden]

okay! so your biggest issue would be mitigated at least if the whole bit for CGP was just "e3, can make attacks out to aura (short range, without another buy) as a high-mote + wp cost" and no overlap with the spell that's also being cast?

[prisma sun]

Infernals can have one Craftgarr

Waking Smith is an abyssal for now

[marsh garden]

so then i just need to find something else somewhere else to make "these two are literally the same thing" fit

[bleak hazel]

so is Crimson, he's Cultivation Sauron

besides, I want Shadow Circle once I get there so I can make doom golems

[prisma sun]

Oh woops

[bleak hazel]

and that fits best as Silver Prince's most enterprising and mutinous merchantman

[coral wraith]

i was thinking of pushing Grinning Mask to E2 but i think its funny for E1 Andy sid to be hanging with people at higher levels with the big brain

[bleak hazel]

we do little a political assassination

[prisma sun]

I appreciate people with E1s

[south horizon]

i'd say that again, you don't need to make it super costly if you have it function closer to something like the ranged melee charm

[marsh garden]

which one is that?

[bleak hazel]

Crimson's manse and auction house are explicitly totally safe neutral ground that he extends to all parties, even the haters and losers

[south horizon]

and, personally, I'm not for ranged grapples but that's an ST reliant choice there

[bleak hazel]

but that doesn't mean he won't try to gank said haters the moment they leave

cultivation auction tropes are in full effect except the part about it being crashed by protagonists

(unless it's funny)

[south horizon]

abyssals has slashing ghost talon, and Infernals has kissed by hellish noon

[marsh garden]

ah, thank you

[south horizon]

having it be a consistant cost to make an attack that also doesn't combo easily with some of the wackier multi attacks of brawl

makes for a healthier way to get the effect you want

[marsh garden]

i see

[south horizon]

and again, i'd tie any added benefits you might give the charm to the marked system you've got going on

[marsh garden]

admittedly, i don't think i'm going to have most of those multiattacks, but

[south horizon]

Indeed, and they're not needed to be effective.

my POV is less focused on character and build and more just on general exalted combat interactions what I notice in the combo you have set up

[marsh garden]

gotcha

it's a helpful one at least, thank you

[south horizon]

Being prone inflicts penalties, being grappled inflicts penalties, getting hit constantly by a hazard is gonna eventually wear peeps down, especially if they have to spend motes consistently to not get knocked down

[marsh garden]

right, it's just that when you're spending all the resources and actions for these anyway, i'm not super sure when it starts to shake out as too efficient

it's hard for me to find that line

i suppose at least the transgression issues means these things are more in line for an arti 5 lol

[south horizon]

It is, like many things, kind of a matter of fine tuning and also, testing stuff out. I'm looking at things from a very zoomed out semi-worst case scenario vibe, not so much in me expecting you to abuse things like that but just " these are the things I'm noticing and that I would argue away from." I'd reccomend if you've got someone willing to run the ones with you

to just play test the artifact out in some test combats

[bleak hazel]

"I stack 5000 ongoing penalty charms" is a fairly common way to become a real bastard

[south horizon]

yeeeeeaaaah

there is no upper limit to penalties

[bleak hazel]

there are quite a few ways to do it already, so as long as you don't make anything more efficient than what currently exists you're probably good, but since you can just run straight up an artifact's tree without needing to have a particular martial art or whatever it pays ot be a bit careful

[prisma sun]

One of our sids is doing that build right now

It's like 5 -1 penalties

[coral wraith]

Violet Bier is very good at doing that

[south horizon]

sounds like a sid

[bleak hazel]

(the classic here is the Anys Syn Special at high essence: Nest of Living Strands, Obsidian Shards Form, Snake Form and then hit the enemy with a bunch of aggregated poison charms)

[south horizon]

VIolet bier is very funny

[marsh garden]

my group's got a violet bier sid, yeah

[bleak hazel]

enemy is at -7 to -9 to hit you, you have cover and then you stack more penalties from poison

[south horizon]

because it's so win more as a style but when it works, it works very well

[marsh garden]

violet bier endings and then...idk if our secrets has any MAs

[bleak hazel]

many other ways to do it that do not require E5 SMAs but Syn has all those combos preloaded as one of her strats

so it's notable for her

[south horizon]

but yeah, my main advice with building anything is that ultimately, testing it out

is gonna give you better knowledge on what to do and what not to do then just trying to lab it mentally

[marsh garden]

i believe she's asleep right now, and i posted the other version to pre-approval already, so i'd definitely like to at least get a working order of "oopsie doodle this should be more sane" before i try to steal more time

but yeah, fair, the axiom applies everywhere

[wise ocean]

everyone loves violet bier, as is right and just

[south horizon]

experience with hazards is what made me realize that a diff 5 on a hazard

[marsh garden]

testing beats everything

[south horizon]

is actually a really big problem for most people

[marsh garden]

well, within context i'm also only int 3

[south horizon]

because not everyone invests in resistance

[marsh garden]

so i'm not worried about that at the moment

[south horizon]

int 3 still means on avg

someone needs stam 3, res 3

not including any other issues they may have

and it's not uncommon for people to just not super invest into resistance

[marsh garden]

ah

[south horizon]

and QCs, notably tend to lack that kind of roll more often than not

[marsh garden]

well, that one's just how the spell works so not much i can do about that

[south horizon]

ye, i'm not saying it's an issue

[marsh garden]

oh

[marsh garden]

i'm not sure how to take this, then

apologies

was this just saying it to say it's good?

[south horizon]

ye

[marsh garden]

because it sounded like "this is a problem that must be changed"

[south horizon]

nah, that was more me making an anecdote of

" people under sell resistance and QCS don't have good stats agaisnt hazards that often"

because exalted kinda has a like

psychology issue that you often roll so high in the stuff you're good at

that you can kinda become blind to how hard those numbers can be to hit if you're not spec'd

[marsh garden]

ah.

the dnd 5e saves problem.

[south horizon]

it's something I saw with the new spell that came out with infernals

with people saying " how is this meant to be used"

when it's an orb of goo that you can stick to a person, than stick t a surface and, before they can even try to remove it, they need MAX STRENGTH minimum

to attempt it

and they can't use their hands