Exalted

[velvet raft]

FWIW Voy, I don't think people are necessarily in a rush

We like making our action figures kiss enough that if you need to take your time, I think it's not a huge deal

[prisma sun]

They aren't in a rush they just have significantly more time and energy than I do and I don't wanna disappoint people

while also wanting to also play tuoys

[velvet raft]

I personally say take a bit and do a scene or two with Drifts (and not as a quest giver), relax a little

[buoyant summit]

Moonshadow Activities

[merry arch]

yeah my read of things is that we're kind of content creating little storylines for ourselves between now and when The Big Shit Drops so do what you gotta and enjoy playing with ur own touys

[nova yew]

ye

[tulip folio]

Okay, got another of the upgraded Baidak done. The pickaxe hits like an absolute truck but has an accuracy of 'no' against non-mortals.

It's a walking siege weapon that can be pretty damn tanky against mortal level of damage (Most mortals are going to find it nearly impossible to hurt when Bastion Walls is up)

Most of the time in a fight it's going to want to Yeet Boulders because it's not very fast walking places.

And if it can grab someone, throw them too

[fierce star]

yeet a motherfucker at a motherfucker

perfect use of spare bodies

[tulip folio]

That said: In a straight fight against an exalt it's not really the best. The weapons are okay but a blood ape hits harder and has better charm support vs real foes. Defensively, it's tough but not so tough that an exalt can't carve it down to size pretty quickly with a dailklaive.

It's more 'This thing can fight a lot of mortals without concern' than 'This thing is an uber combatant for a 1st circle demon', as a Blood Ape is a better 'I want something to go beat up a dragonblooded'.

If that remotely makes sense?

Actually, adjusted based on that. Making it more 'Yep, I am very good at fighting a lot of mortals' but lost a defensive charm that worked on everyone.

Walking Tower makes it really difficult for mortals to fight as they find it difficult to overwhelm it with sheer numbers.

But won't stop Mr Dragonblooded wandering up and taking it's knees out with a goremaul plenty easily.

[fierce star]

makes sense to me, honestly

[limpid badge]

me: im worried about too many moving parts in an exalted plot
the super-helpful tournament arc:

(writing a story for some friends

[south horizon]

feel that

exalted as a system.means u end up having to worry about a ton more details

[tulip folio]

...you know what would be a remarkably powerful disease to grab for a SMA using Citrine Poxes?

Napaxu

An infected creature cannot use any Charms or other magical effects without spending an additional 1 Willpower per Charm or effect.

[buoyant summit]

What

The fuck

[bleak hazel]

where's that one from, good lord

[wise ocean]

ah yes, poison of turns off your build

[mighty rover]

lol

[tulip folio]

Hundred Devil's Night Parade

Page 145-146

I was thinking 'oh, this is a mortal only disease' until I noticed:

[buoyant summit]

Sorry

detonate?

[bleak hazel]

virulence 2 is pretty easy to shrug, admittedly

you'd want an auto-infect from somewhere

[tulip folio]

Yep!

[buoyant summit]

...

I...

[chilly sluice]

it's not that much crazier than the disease that conscripts your bones into the skeleton war 😛

[marsh garden]

oh my god it's literally just arknights oripathy except acid

[bleak hazel]

the spell that conscripts your bones into the skeleton war was nerfed in full release, which is good

it's still a nice debuff but it no longer forces the target to flurry every single round just to do something

[marsh garden]

we deserve more bonesiders

[tulip folio]

Oh? How bad is it in the final version? I never checked the final version.

[bleak hazel]

decent, it just removed the thing where the enemy is forced to make a misc action to save against the effect every round

now the save just goes off

it's still a polite invitation to build a ton of motes on saves and an excellent spooky scary spell to threaten people with

[tulip folio]

Fair. I'd been pondering that one spellwise.

The Alch one still forces flurries but it Only works on automatons without extra steps.

[marsh garden]

...huh.

is this the only spell that doesn't cost wp?

[nova yew]

huh

[coral wraith]

very likely a typo

[tulip folio]

I hope this seems interesting btw.

[fierce star]

I thik it's cool!

[buoyant summit]

SO

UH

IN THE ABYSSAL PBP I'M IN OUR NEWEST CIRCLEMATE

STOLE HIS MONSTRANCE FROM THE LOVER, AND WE NOW ALL KNOW BY ACCIDENT?

So our DL, the Heron, is

Offering us all of ours?

To not build resentment with the new guy?

And keep our loyalty to her

And keep secret the idea that a monstrance can be stolen?

[mighty rover]

yoooo

[buoyant summit]

WE WERE ALL TOO LOYAL TO TAKE OURS THIS IS SO FUNNY

[fierce star]

man, I wish solars didn't have such sick bones

[tulip folio]

...I also realized exactly what to give the Knight version of the Demon Chess Pieces.

[dense verge]

bone surgery is the dream of all exalted 3e players

[tulip folio]

Knight's Tour (5m; Supplemental; Dual: Essence 2) The Kyosha Baidak makes a movement action without crossing the space between, allowing it to pass through walls and similar obstructions and to bypass environmental hazards and difficult terrain. It can’t cross through barriers that span more than one range band.

Much like in chess, it can get places without going through the spaces in between

[lament owl]

BASED

"But then how will you contact us from long distances :("

[tulip folio]

Also pondering the Base Baidak and pondering if something is too much

Basicly: Give them entirely sub-par charms for a first circle demon but give them -

Connected Pawns: If a spell would summon a Baidak, it instead summons two Baidak. A single binding is required for both. If a spell would summon more than one Baidak, it summons twice that many.

They're very mediocre combatant demons but you get '2 guys who are better than a mortal soldier' per spell instead of 'one really good guy' with a blood ape.

Eh...not feeling it.

Feels like it's a bit mediocre.

I might make them 'expendable' in a different way.

[velvet raft]

Playing around with a Starmetal Alch who uses Thousand Blades, and trying to decide on a Favored ability. Likely candidates seem like Stamina and Wits? Maaaaaaybe Perception?

[tulip folio]

Any particular plans on role outside of 'Combat monster'? Which to be fair: Is a good role.

...oh, I know how to make the base Baidak feel expendable without just giving you twice as many.

[velvet raft]

Sorcery, probably a bunch of stuff from Int charms

Int is extremely jacked

[tulip folio]

Int has a lot of good tricks to it.

Have you considered Perception? It gets you some of the aim-focused combat charms and a chunk of support for your manipulation via the scrutiny charms and the 'see/fuck up spirits' charms?

[velvet raft]

I was considering it, but it doesn't actually have a ton of stuff that's compatible w/melee, and there are actually only two anti-spirit charms (god I love submodules). But lemme take a look at Scrutiny.

[tulip folio]

Back In The Box: If a Baidak is incapacitated by an effect that cannot permanently destroy spirits (Such as Ghost Eating Technique), it is returned to its true form as a game piece. It will reform in one week, unlike other first circle demons. A bound Baidak is not returned to Malfeas when incapacitated this way and remains bound.

New idea on how to make the basic Baidak super expendable without giving you more of them.

A guy with a Size 1 Battlegroup of Blood Apes who all die is pissed because that was like a week or two of summoning you just wasted.

A guy with a Size 1 Battlegroup of Baidak who all get their ass beaten goes 'Eh, I've still got them for 51 more weeks of service'

Does that seem too silly?

[tulip folio]

I also really like Stamina. Stamina has some really nice charms.

[coral wraith]

This rules actually

Fluffy and useful, ties them back to Sigereth

[tulip folio]

The other 'trick' they have is being well...generalist combatants.

They have a bow, they have a blade, they have armour.

They don't excel in any particular sort of combat/their charms don't make them absolute grapplemonsters like a blood ape

But anything a mortal soldier can do, they can do A Solid Bit Better

[tulip folio]

Thermoconductive Ignition Sheath and Toxin Synthesis add a good bit to a melee combatant. Caltrop Deployment I think is also seriously underestimated as a mass combat tool.

[coral wraith]

Similar to Tomescu but being More Just A Dude in exchange for Better In An Army

[tulip folio]

Yeah, I'm thinking I'll make one of their primary actions:

'Seeming Like A Particularly Boring Mortal'

As I mean: This is the fucker.

Just a Pawn-Ass Soldier.

[coral wraith]

LOL

definitely works

[tulip folio]

I think I might also give them a charm to boost one of the single least 'people give a shit normally' actions but one that helps their role.

Resisting Disengage

So if you get stuck in with them, it's hard to stop being stuck in with them.

[coral wraith]

oh sweet

[tulip folio]

...I'm realizing I'm making the D&D 4e Fighter of Demons. XD

En Passant (5m; Supplemental; Instant; Essence 1): The Baidak adds two bonus successes on a Rush or to oppose a Disengage or Withdraw action. If the Baidak wins, the opposing character suffers 2 dice of lethal damage, ignoring hardness.

'Stop moving about and fucking fight'

[tulip folio]

Those who bargain too greedily against Sigereth and cannot pay her debts must give up the last valuable they have, themselves. She remakes them into the baidak, her honor guard, who serve her forever in the Demon City. Baidak resemble the mortals from whom they were made, but their flesh becomes yellowed ivory, stylized and inhumanly smooth, inlaid with an elaborate brazen panoply emblazoned with Sigereth’s mon. All share a uniform height and build, and they move in regimented array, more akin to clockworks than living creatures.

The most basic pawns in Sigereth’s playset, Baidak are almost archetypal soldiers. Clad in heavy armour of steel and brass, armed with polearms and bows, they are easily mistaken for mortals. This rarely lasts for sustained conversations as their lack of initiative and personality betrays the fact they are little more than tools. Raksha in particular find them particularly galling, giving them nicknames such as ‘Kiritos’.

One advantage summoners find with Baidak over many other demons is that they are bound to existence by the power of a second circle demon. This prevents their permanent destruction from all but the most powerful of foes.

[south horizon]

i'm more.shocked by hwo they uh

managed that

how.do.u steal a big metal coffinnwithout the lover finding out

[coral wraith]

hell yeah

[velvet raft]

What you do is, you get a clipboard and a safety vest and hire a Ghoul-Haul (it's like a U-Haul, but with ghosts)

[tulip folio]

I see you're going with the Sidereal approach. Which to be fair: Is a very good approach to most problems.

[velvet raft]

Hey, Infernals also have a charm for it!

And once it's stolen, nobody is going to want to tell the Lover that it's been stolen

"Oh yeah this was stolen on my watch" exploded

[tulip folio]

To be fair, ti's the Lover. She's more likely to do some White Witch bullshit and turn you into a fully aware but unable to ever act again ice sculpture in the middle of her garden.

[velvet raft]

You're right, exploding you would be letting you off light

Hence why she never finds out

[tulip folio]

I do like piling up the misery with my Sid who's got a connection to the Lover by establishing things that she didn't kill (And how that is so much worse)

[tulip folio]

I doubt they'll ever be someone super favorite but I'm happy with giving them some more identity than sick bones corebook, which just went 'I dunno, use Animated Statue Rules'. XD

[velvet raft]

Unrelated: surely this is a good use of 13 bonus points

[tulip folio]

'He's more magical materials now than man.'

[coral wraith]

I think a Might 2 Perfect Morale batlegroup of these guys is just rock solid if you're War Manne

[tulip folio]

I really should give the Wanderers their own version where rather than being unnoticed, people just have a hard time going from 'This person is weird and not dressed like any of us' to 'this person is an intruder'. Basicly the first 10 mins of any Dr Who Episode where they go 'I don't know who this guy is or why he's on our secret base but I'm not about to stop him wandering about and staring at our secret plans. That seems like work'

[tulip folio]

Yeah, that's fair. Just go Chunk Up Other Battlegroups.

[coral wraith]

the average thousand blades stylist at chargen:

[velvet raft]

Yes actually

[coral wraith]

:p

[tulip folio]

Hmm...yes or no for this sid having a contact of 'So the Lover hates my clan a lot and I'm the last survivor, so to twist the knife she deathknighted my childhood friend and then brainwashed them into being her loyal servant'. I feel a need for More Suffering.

[velvet raft]

Sounds suitably dramatic

[tulip folio]

The clan in question didn't even really do much but her death knights turned up and did their whole social 'give up hope' thing and her clan went 'no, we don't wanna' despite that.

So she's Salty and wants the last survivor to suffer and give in to despair

Also I'm just a complete sucker for melodrama.

...I'm also realizing that despite RiRi being a very nice and kind person, meeting an Infernal with the eats people charms wouldn't be a immediate 'no' for her.

"Eh, you've got to conserve resources and that's recycling. One of the divine ministers is the divine minister of cannibalism after all."

Domadamod
Divine Minister of Reuse, Repair, Recycling, Cannibalism, Maintenance, Regulatory Stasis, Survival, Conservation, and Noble Sacrifice

[velvet raft]

RiRi: "Look as long as they're already dead"
The Infernal In Question: "uh yes sure definitely"

"I definitely kill them before I eat them"

[tulip folio]

RiRi: "Eh, I suppose dead helps, yeah."
All RiRi Ghosts are Hungry Ghosts.

[velvet raft]

Theorycrafting an alchemical is interesting because the way submodules work means that they can accumulate new powers much more quickly, even if the powers are generally a bit more modest than a full charm

[marsh garden]

...speaking of powers

absolutely malding at the fact that you get 55 bxp with crucible rules but literally the only char option with an odd xp cost is an unfavored ability

[velvet raft]

Yeah

[marsh garden]

merits become 2, specs become 2

there is, as far as i know, no 3-pip price for a new ability

it's just 5xp for nonfavored

[velvet raft]

The odd thing with crucible rules is that I think they are most favorable to attribute exalts, and to ability exalts who want to branch outside of their favored and caste abilities

[marsh garden]

are they?

full-buying a favored ability you had 0 points in is 20xp vs 22, right?

oh wait no sorry, it's 20xp vs 19

dunno how i fucked that up

and nonfavored is 25 vs 23

i think it's more favorable to people that are hard dumping into merits, right?

[velvet raft]

At character creation, I mean

[marsh garden]

ahhh

[velvet raft]

Taking a non-favored from 3->5 at character creation in Crucible is way kinder

[marsh garden]

oh huh, buying a non-favored attribute from 1-5 is 40xp with both rules

[velvet raft]

Yep

[marsh garden]

but favored crucible is 2 more expensive

[velvet raft]

Which gives you less reason to start with a favored attribute at 1 >_>

[marsh garden]

so crucible is overall like 25% more expensive across the board except for WP and merits/specs?

.......and SMAs i guess???

[velvet raft]

The difference being that stuff comes in way faster overall due to the faster XP gain

Under Crucible you can grab a new charm after every session

10/10 as opposed to 5/8

[marsh garden]

OH

i see, i didn't notice the 10xp part

[velvet raft]

Which also lets you spend some XP you would be hoarding for splat charms on other stuff

[marsh garden]

...which is silly, because we did our first session and got 10 fuckin xp

[velvet raft]

So you can reasonably never go a session without bumping something under Crucible

Which I think is definitely intended

[marsh garden]

i do like that

[velvet raft]

Alchemicals are weird because they play much closer to that way with normal XP as well

[marsh garden]

incremental xp gain is based

i love leveling piecemeal

[velvet raft]

To a degree, alchemicals really feel like an entirely different set of design paradigms, which tracks because an alchemical-only game is almost the default expectation

[buoyant summit]

I'm loving the dynamic my jaded as fuck Battles is having with the voyserver's resident sunshine and rainbows character

who is an Endings of all fucking things

Who learned that and went 'I'm the end of corruption and suffering, bitch'

[marsh garden]

...can a character start with experience debt, if they have some method of going into it at character creation that isn't event-locked?

[fierce star]

That is an 'ask your GM' situation

[next delta]

I don't think there is any mechanism to do so by default though?

[marsh garden]

tragic

was looking at sharing luna's gifts as a chargen option to modify what lunar hybrid options i had available to me

it's not exactly a major issue, but i wanted a distinction between what was natural and what was shapeshifting

[tulip folio]

Unending Cycle of Violence (4 Dot)
Soulsteel Monocycle

Era: Rise of New Estasia

Lux's Philosophy of Unity spread through Estasia like wildfire, a Social Darwinist ideology spread from the barrel of an essence cannon. Under his command, great swathes of material were redirected to Militat projects, giving even the most deranged of projects a platform as long as they could promise to slaughter the enemies of the state.

Unending Cycle of Violence is one such creation, a prototype for a Militat Expeditionary Vehicle that can allow soldiers to move as fast as an airship and outflank their opposition. A gyroscopically stable monocyle, the soulsteel saw-edged wheel digs into the ground as it moves, traveling as easily along walls and roofs as they could upon the ground.

The creator of the Cycle of Violence explained his inspiration as such: Existence is conflict. While the airships of Autocthonia are brilliant creations, they seek to travel through the air smoothly and without record. The Cycle of Violence is true to reality as everywhere it travels, enemies will see the marks of their passing and understand that true warriors have been here. Foes will tremble at the gashes torn in their fellows and in their very lands, realizing that attempts to escape the Cycle of Violence are the doomed actions of those without the will to embrace its power.

Silly Exalted Artifact.

[tulip folio]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wSPzeOehUmhde-mLinInCIbClH1_hhqPQNvajwPuPZA/edit?usp=sharing The silly now has a full writeup. Feedback very much appreciated. XD

[velvet raft]

There was a whole thing in 2E about how bicycles were the logical mode of transportation for the chosen :D

... which makes me think about a motorcycle/mount that functions as a 5-dot artifact

[velvet raft]

@tulip folio You have inspired me to write something dumb.

The Raging Angel (•••••), Chimerical Warbike
A peerless First Age rider, the Eclipse caste Knee-Vel the Wicked had a tendency to break his mounts, first in spirit and then in body, as he pushed them well beyond their limits. Realizing that no living mount could survive his cruelty, Knee-Vel ventured to speak with the reclusive Sidereal automaton-maker Saki of Kawa. Having heard of and long-despised her new client, Saki tasked him to bring her materials from the Underworld, Malfeas, the Deep Wyld, and more, in hopes that he would perish. But Knee-Vel survived his quests, bowed but unbroken; Saki, in her boundless hate, did not. After three ceaseless years of labor over Knee-Vel's terrible mechanical mount, she died even as she tightened the last bolt. The two-wheeled war machine she had built — the Raging Angel — went to her customer as it was intended. It was only later, on his first joyride, that Knee-Vel underestimated the raw power of his new mechanical steed (and, the legend goes, the hate Saki poured into it) and was sent face-first into a mountainside at speeds even he could not survive. After a string of similar accidents, no other rider dared touch the Raging Angel, and it was lost during the usurpation.

[tulip folio]

Hahahaha

Sidebar: Monocycles
Monocycles are machines that can be ridden as if they were a mount. Mundane Monocycles have a resources cost of 5 (3 in Autocthonia or Jadeborn communities) and can either be treaded or wheeled, gaining the following effects:

-Treaded: +2 Speed. Travels at 20 miles per hour. They ignore difficult terrain from rough ground.
-Wheeled: +4 Speed. Travels at 30 miles per hour. They treat all uneven ground as difficult terrain.

They require oil, firedust, tiring pedaling or some other method of propulsion and cannot move independently. The Speed Bonus of a Monocycle is halved, rounded down, if it is weighed down by an unusually heavy cargo (Such as if pulling a wagon, though not if carrying a passenger)

Artifact Monocycles generally have a speed bonus one higher than their mundane counterparts, moving  and round up instead of down when carrying heavy loads. They also require no power save for their attunement cost, being able to travel indefinitely. Artifact Monocycles are Autothonian Artiface and have a minimum Artifact rating of four dots.

A Monocycle can be affected by Universal Pilot Key despite being treated as a mount rather than a vehicle. Doing so allows her to apply benefits that would apply to piloting rolls to movement enhanced by the Monocycle regardless of attribute.

I did do a bit of a sidebar for 'hey so how does this thing work'. XD

[velvet raft]

I'm not sure what splat I would orient this to

Infernals seems obvious

[tulip folio]

Infernals are great for that

[velvet raft]

Maybe Infernals + Abyssals

With Infernals I think I'd center it around Hellrider Unity

[chilly sluice]

with Infernals having Mind Hand now, do y'all think it would be reasonable to let stuff like Crypt Bolt et al to also just let you attack with a mental and Lore/Occult?

[bleak hazel]

I was just thinking about writing Abyssal Mind-Hand

I think it would be reasonable to have as custom charms

maybe not to the depth of Mind-Hand, but "press button to brain punch" is perfectly reasonable

[chilly sluice]

just generally a way to do some basic attacks with mental stats, yeah

[marsh garden]

oh, is mhm not reasonable?

i keep seeing people complaining about it not being enough on the ex server, and while i think that's a good thing, looking at it it didn't seem especially egregious?

it just looked pretty good™️

[tulip folio]

I think it's less 'too powerful' and more 'don't want to step too hard on toes'

[bleak hazel]

no Mind-Hand is totally fine, it's just a big selling point for Infernal nerd skills

and a signature SWLIHN power

so I'd not just copy all of it because Exalts are no fun if they're all the same

[marsh garden]

ah

[tulip folio]

Another exalt I could see getting it is alchs. As they've got a very clear precursor charm to it in their charmset.

[bleak hazel]

between MHM and Flying Guillotine we have a good pair of examples for what brain-fight trees look like

[marsh garden]

crypt bolt looked kind of boring to me

[bleak hazel]

short, 4-5 charms, and generally lacking in combat basics effects like onslaught negation, but with some fun tricks

they're for secondary combatants

[marsh garden]

since it was just two charms for basically "two charms of unarmed thrown"

which is neat, but wasn't the cantrip vibes or weaponized whispers i was hoping for

[tulip folio]

Paramagnetic Tether Beam is basicly 'Alch MHM' thematically, it just can't yet do the MHM things mechanically.

It can grapple already. It just can't do all the MHM basics.

[wise ocean]

if anything it feels like alchs should get the Sage nouliths as their nerd weapon equivalent

[tulip folio]

They have Essence Pulse Cannon, though it's not a nerd weapon. They are one of the few cases where an exalts 'blast' is also in their primary combat tree.

[marsh garden]

is it dex or str?

[tulip folio]

Dex. So it's a very good blast, it's just also a blast that hooks into the 'use weapons already' stat 😛

[bleak hazel]

Essence Pulse Cannon is interesting because nobody else can sink that much XP into making their weapon that good

fully upgraded EPC is terrifying

[marsh garden]

i assume it's basically an archery tree in essence?

[tulip folio]

The 'become a siege weapon' mode is fucking terrifying.

As it gives you Constant Heavy Cover and a big boost to damage.

As you just unfold the cannon into an emplacement

[chilly sluice]

you basically give yourself a special ranged weapon, and unlock more tricks with it

[bleak hazel]

yeah, it's an increasingly massive and dramatic arm cannon

[marsh garden]

i do love arm cannons

[bleak hazel]

as far as I know nobody else can everyday carry a siege weapon statline

Alchemicals are really solid

[tulip folio]

...I'm also realizing that Paramagnetic Tether beam is better than I thought for a very simple reason.

It grapples with strength, so it can only be enhanced with strength charms...but the alch grapple charms are strength

[bleak hazel]

you've got powerful MA-compatible combat charms, you've got an efficient excellency, you've got cheap crafting and versatility

...hang on I like them because they have all the things I like about Sids

but attribute flavoured

[marsh garden]

they're kinda a halfway between celestial and solar tiers, yeah?

[bleak hazel]

nah, they're straight celestial

[marsh garden]

ah

[tulip folio]

...actually, I know how I'd give Paramagnetic a small addition to make it the Alch MHM.

[bleak hazel]

like Sids they're a little backloaded - their excellency has Att+Essence as its dice cap, so you get stronger in a very direct fashion as you level up

whereas Lunars and Solaroids are frontloaded

you get Supernal or shapeshifting at E1 and it gets less impactful from there as everything else gets better

[tulip folio]

Kinetic Force Manipulator(3 exp): You can attack with the Paramagnetic Tether Beam as an Unarmed Attack against targets within range.

Done

It can already grapple. This lets you do Other Unarmed Whacking while you are at it.

Letting you use stuff like Electroneural Subjugation Pulse with your Magnetism Beam

[bleak hazel]

I admit I don't know exactly how Battle Alch shakes out compared to other splats but at first glance it's "pretty well"

[chilly sluice]

they have some good stuff in Dex IIRC

[tulip folio]

Do you mean battle as in 'army leader' or battle as in 'combatant'?

[bleak hazel]

like, I know MA Sid generally catches up to MA Solaroid at E3 and exceeds MA solaroid/keeps pace with combat ability solaroid thereafter, but I don't know how Fighty Alch stacks up to Lunars

or Solars or whatever

I just don't have the experience

[tulip folio]

Lunars have some pretty busted animals to work with, so it's tricky but alchs are disgusting martial artists.

[bleak hazel]

alchs have some serious power, yeah

that flurry charm and that onslaught negator charm go insane with most MAs

I would like to see Adamant Alch + Endings Sid teamup

[marsh garden]

ah, so if you're doing martial arts you just shouldn't play a solaroid?

[tulip folio]

Nah, solaroid martial artists are great

[bleak hazel]

no, Solaroids are excellent martial artists, Sids are just The MA Exalt

[tulip folio]

Solaroids just tend to be 'I am excellent at this martial art, end of line'

While Alchs and Sids go 'I am great at this martial art...and have tricks I can use with them too'

[marsh garden]

icic

[bleak hazel]

Solaroids are best at low essence or relatively low/mid investment, Sids assemble this giant doomcombo engine as they invest more at higher essence

generally I'd call them peers

[marsh garden]

what's the draw of a solar MA over a sid/alch then?

other than e1 superiority

[tulip folio]

Simple and easy. You get the most with the least cost

[bleak hazel]

amazing at dipping, have supernal for more power at E1-2-start of 3

since you get mastery guaranteed rather than when in form

so you can go take the starter charms of a bunch of MAs and use them at max power

[tulip folio]

Sids/Alchs can set up big doomstack combos but a solar can just grab A Few Martial Arts Charms and be fantastic at them.

[marsh garden]

gotcha, so they want to focus on JoAT philosophy if they want to not fall behind?

[wise ocean]

and then the solar can also pile into things like their dodge or resistance trees and do those on top of the MA

[bleak hazel]

yeah

[chilly sluice]

generally MA offers you a smaller suite of charms on a Solar, compared to shelling out for a proper combat ability charm suite

[bleak hazel]

I can build a combat sid who can take on Solar Melee, but it takes more investment than the Solar's putting in, that's for damn sure

[tulip folio]

Like to go with an Alch example: Hyperphase Fuel Injector is tricky to make work but if you know you're going into a fight and can pre-start your engine, it's one of the best 'Just make your shit better' charms about.

'I don't have mastery but I have a constant non-charm success on accuracy and damage and I'm constantly gaining free init unless you cut my Glowing Power Lines'

But well...the Solar didn't need the fuel injector, he got more value out of the base martial arts charms.

[wise ocean]

my current abyssal swordguy build is really spooky not even just because he can go so deep into MA supernal so early, but because he can also access a massive set of soak boosters, perfect dodges, dodge boosters, damage negators, and a pile of counterattack options

meanwhile the sid or alch is still building their MA engine

[bleak hazel]

I do want to see a Hyperphase Injector + Auxiliary Battle Consciousness + Autonomous Attack Pattern + Transfinite Ultraviolence alch pop off with martial arts at some point

"fuck it we concrete revolutio now"

[marsh garden]

so what does a solar do to not McFucking Die to a full combat sid? just also be full combat investment and defense spam their way through?

[tulip folio]

As an aside: RiRi is totally getting the Hyperphase Fuel Injector later as getting a non-charm success on all attacks is really nice when you're a combat sorcerer.

Solar over here going 'But I'm the king of sorcerery' while the Alch just puts nitrous boosters on the Obsidion Butterflies 😛

[marsh garden]

with dodge + resist

[bleak hazel]

do the normal shit you're doing

[marsh garden]

but you said that doesn't work

[bleak hazel]

at E5 if you went all MA and they went all MA they're going to beat you up, but if you diversify at all you'll be fine

[marsh garden]

unless i misunderstood

[chilly sluice]

use Solar Melee

[bleak hazel]

Sids are the unquestioned high essence kings of kung fu, but Solaroid combat abilities are strong enough that they can keep up just fine with their native Melee/Brawl/Whatever

[marsh garden]

ah, the sinner tree

[tulip folio]

...to put some just 'providing an example' numbers: A Sid can reach 10/10 martial arts bullshit with 10/10 effort. A Solar can reach 8/10 martial arts bullshit with 6/10 effort.

[marsh garden]

i forgot about that

[bleak hazel]

with MA you want to take a good bit of dodge or resistance and take advantage of your ability to dip into lots of side trees

[wise ocean]

a sid that's 100% MA and an abyssal that's 100% MA will give it to the sid, but the abyssal goes "aight I picked up all the MAs I wanted early with supernal, time to spend all the rest of my time getting a variety of fuck-you buttons from elsewhere"

[tulip folio]

And that leaves a lot of resources to be good at other things.

[bleak hazel]

comparing my E2 Sid build with Ash's E2 Abyssal build, I think it's genuinely a coinflip or down to better piloting

at E3+ I think I can pull it out, mostly because all of his MAs cap out and I get PAOC

[wise ocean]

indeed, plus I have mass-combat investment and Misc's build doesn't

which is another point in why supernal MA is so useful

battlegroups? no!

[tulip folio]

See, when the heroic Sid turns up to the Evil Abyssal Martial Arts cult, he wants to just have a kung fu fight. The Abyssal however got to be really good at kung fu for less effort and he's got the resources to also be able to sick his entire cult of zombie martial artists on you while you try to kung fu him.

[bleak hazel]

I can kind of improvise some with Crane but it's definitely more of a bodge job than just busting out the first three charms of White Reaper at max power

I do not care for White Reaper Form, the Abyssal straight up does not need White Reaper Form

[wise ocean]

oh wait, that reminds me, mastery is always on, isn't it

I need to add that rulestext to my sheet

[bleak hazel]

for you at least

this is most impactful for Revolving Crescent

[tulip folio]

White Reaper's basic intro defensive charm is just so good.

[bleak hazel]

RCT is insane

[marsh garden]

what does it do?

[bleak hazel]

White Reaper is genuinely a candidate for inclusion in Rival's E5 maxed build just off the basis of Mastery RCT

[tulip folio]

Inverts Onslaught Penalties (Up to +5)

[marsh garden]

oh wow

[tulip folio]

So if you'd have -2 from onslaught? Nah, have +2!

[bleak hazel]

mastery takes it from one-attack to turnlong

which makes it one of the best onslaught negators in the game

and it's only a question due to Fivefold Bulwark Stance

[marsh garden]

which ma is that from?

prismatic?

[tulip folio]

There's a reason why when I was going 'Hey, I want to make a Really Defensive Style' I looked at that for something to inspire it over even some of the styles that sell themselves as defensive.

[marsh garden]

tb?

[wise ocean]

I would normally say yes, but:

yeah man just wither a guy 3x in a single tick and then decisive him and his friend

[bleak hazel]

FFBS is Solar Melee

[marsh garden]

oh

[bleak hazel]

press button to ignore basically all defence penalties for the entire scene

I think Abyssals also have it

[wise ocean]

pretty much

[marsh garden]

i think I'll still just eventually pick up bear, but reaper does sound very appealing now

[tulip folio]

I feel a bit bad that I basicly stole Revolving Crescent Defense for a martial art I'm working on but...well...it's a very defensive martial art and RCD basicly went 'yep, this is a defensively powerful style right from the start'. XD

[chilly sluice]

I guess it makes sense White Reaper has a powerful Onslaught negator, since its supposed to be the group fight style

[wise ocean]

either way, point of the matter: solaroid melee trees get absolutely nuts at high essence in a way that sid and alch MAs also do, but the advantage of solaroid MA is that you walk in, get all your combat kits, and then show up to the party with stuff like "here's my two size 5 elite drill battlegroups I'm going to flurry MA + orders at you with" or "here's my maxed-out dodge tree where I steal all your init and spend init as non-charm excellency dice and reflexively clash you whenever I feel like it" or "here's my soak 30 hardness 12 build"

[marsh garden]

right right

how do you get the latter? carapace i assume?

[tulip folio]

Speardancer Concentration
Cost: 4m, 1i; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Mastery, Uniform
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
Crimson Pentacle Blade excels in the press of mass combat, brilliant cloth fluttering as they step among their many dance partners. Speardancer Concentration cancels all onslaught penalties to the martial artist’s Evasion against a single attack, instead converting each point of penalty into a +1 bonus to her Evasion.

Mastery: This Charm’s duration is extended until the martial artist’s next turn.

I wasn't kidding when I said I basicly stole it 😛

[wise ocean]

resistance tree

[tulip folio]

Honestly, there's a lot of ways but most exalts can hit like 20 soak without much work.

[marsh garden]

terrifying!

[tulip folio]

Crimson Pentacle Blade Form
Cost: 7m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Form,
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Speardancer Concentration, Graceful Tortoise Technique
The Stylist steps upon one of the five points that make up the Crimson Pentacle, bringing its powers to bear against her foes.

The stylist gains the following benefits:
• She may apply the bonus to defence from a shield to both her Parry and Dodge.
• She adds an automatic success to Movement, Rally and Rally for Numbers actions.
• Any attack against the stylist or units they lead from allies, such as getting caught within the area of Death of Obsidian Butterflies or an attack redirected to them by an enemy automatically misses.

Special activation rules: When the stylist successfully lands a decisive attack against a foe within close range of one of her allies, she may reflexively enter this Form.

...does this feel like a worthwhile form? The third dot point is highly variable (It's like Even Blade, where it's got a few versions) but listing all of them made it a bit of a wall of text, so I only put one of them here.

[velvet raft]

IMO it always should have been at least an option

[marsh garden]

i May Be Stupid™ but comparing it to the forms on all the MAs i've looked at outside of core, i feel like it wants like. something with slightly more oomph on the shield bullet?

[wise ocean]

huh, is there any reason not to take at least a mundane shield if you're using a one-handed melee weapon?

another +1 defense seems nice if you're not using the other hand for anything anyway

[next delta]

Any medium weapon will give you +1 defense iirc

Shields only give you a full-defense bonus (in that you can flurry it with non-attacks iirc)

[wise ocean]

They don't stack with a daiklave in the other hand?

[next delta]

🤔 I didn't think so

I think you have to choose which weapon applies to an attack or defense?

[velvet raft]

They do not stack

[wise ocean]

ah, unfortunate.

... damn, I wish I could just stick two-handed on a regular daiklave.

[next delta]

I forgot two-handed wasn't just a property of heavy weapons lol

And I see it gives the same bonus as paired weapons

[chilly sluice]

yep

[next delta]

I think there is an MA that lets you use a one-handed sword two-handed? That one three substyle one

[chilly sluice]

though you can technically dual wield heavy weapons with Thousand Blades

[chilly sluice]

the two handed sub-style of Even Blade lets you twohand any sword IIRC, yeah

[marsh garden]

that doesn't stack, right? since iirc it calls out that you need to be two-handing a weapon to get its heavy clash bonus

[wise ocean]

indeed, it just feels odd to be using a one-handed sword and the other hand's... hanging out. it's not doing anything. chilling

[next delta]

They might as well give a clash bonus to any weapon so long as you don't have two different ones lol

[marsh garden]

i'm doing unarmed :D

light with no dual-wielding, no melee (and so no benefit for shields), and no 2h

[next delta]

Does unarmed give you the clash bonus?

[chilly sluice]

no

[marsh garden]

no

it does not count as dual wielding

no matter how many unarmed attacks you have

[next delta]

🤔 how identical do the weapons have to be? Because it's hard to get two identical artifact swords, ha

[chilly sluice]

just same type

[marsh garden]

paired weapons (which afaik is just daiklaves) count correctly as two

god, it really does always smart seeing how many more swords there are than anything else

but yeah i think short daiklaves are the only paired weapon?

[nova yew]

tbf weapons are mostly just piles of tags

so

making something that isn't a sword is conceptually pretty easy

but yeah daiklaves do occupy a lot of the medium artifact weapons

[bleak hazel]

almost every light weapon comes in artifact 2-packs

[fierce star]

I did make a pair of artifact weapons that were different weapons (a daiklaive and a longfang) that when wielded together gave you the paired bonus becuase they were supposed to be wielded together

[marsh garden]

longfangs are artifact daggers, yeah?

[fierce star]

also I'd like to note that by a strict reading of the rules it does not matter how many extra arms you might have, you can still only wield two weapons at once

[wise ocean]

I was working on an artifact idly in the background that was paired throwing knives + reaper daiklaive that was similar

[fierce star]

spears/javelins, top

[marsh garden]

ah

i thought those were under direlances

[velvet raft]

Mechanically, sure, but I tend to imagine both hands are probably in play practically speaking. Two-handed weapons are sorta “obligate” imo

[chilly sluice]

Direlance is the twohanded heavy version IIRC

[fierce star]

direlances are two-handed spears, yeah

[marsh garden]

gotcha

[fierce star]

hmm, though I may want to rework this artifact, since the capstone evocation is not quite balanced anymore

[velvet raft]

Like I think a longsword is probably just a sword, mechanically, given that longsword techniques do involve a certain amount of one-handing

[fierce star]

now that we know 'give a terrestrial exalt access to a single celestial level spell' is an essence 3 effect, and I had it pegged as E5

[velvet raft]

As opposed to a true zweihander

[wise ocean]

yeah, I'm coming at it from a historical fencing perspective of "it'd be nice to have a hand-and-a-half weapon if I'm not using the other hand for a buckler, parrying dagger, or what have you" but exalted isn't really interested in those distinctions, I suppose

[fierce star]

Seize Heaven's Banner and Ignite The Firmament
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 5
Type: Permananent
Keywords: Dissonant
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Breathing War's Sigh, Enchanted Winds Whirling
Reaching the pinnacle of the calm and the storm, the wielder may learn a single spell of the Sapphire Circle upon unlocking this Evocation. The spell so-learned must be first and foremost a spell of warfare, such as Magma Kraken or Incomparable Body Arsenal. This is considered their control spell, and may only be shaped and cast while wielding both Blazing Sidorei and Jaralf's Banner-Pole.
Dissonant: Wielders Dissonant with Jade cannot unlock this Evocation.

This was made very soon after Dragonblooded came out, so I was probably being al ittle too cautious with it

hmm, but unlike the Sovereign one it doesn't give you limit to cast, so maybe E5 is fine?

but it's also not 'any celestial spell', either

[marsh garden]

e5 vs e3 is a pretty massive gulf tho

aren't most deebs barred from passing e3?

[fierce star]

no?

Nomore than any other exalt is

[chilly sluice]

no, they can increase in Essence normally

their stuff is just overall weaker comparatively

[marsh garden]

huh, i wonder what that sidebar meant then

[fierce star]

a lto of dbs don't because there's a lto of dbs and they tend to die violent deaths early

which sidebar? Do you have a page ref?

[marsh garden]

i'll check when i get home

[fierce star]

ok

'dbs can't get past a certain essence threshold' farnkly sounds like an ex1 or ex2 thing, but I don't remember either having that, so

[prisma sun]

I think it just says that most deebs top out at 3

[velvet raft]

Remember that PC progression is explicitly at hyper speed

So most deebs, in their relatively few centuries, never reach Essence 4 because

Well, they die first

[next delta]

DBs don't live as long as the other splats. So they have to be more exceptional to get to high essence

Though most exalted die before they get high essence I think? Just rarely from old age

[velvet raft]

Yep

I tend to think of it as like

The odds of random death probably start pretty high

And go down with age and power

But they're still present

So the field probably narrows over time

[next delta]

Yeah, that makes sense to me

[velvet raft]

Turnover decreases but numbers decrease at the same rate

Really powerful elders who are Essence 6 and 2,000 years old or whatever are probably the exception

[limpid badge]

oh @tulip folio @fierce star i wroooote a guy by mostly hacking at the blood ape statblock to make my 3dot familiar might i ask a look

current only thought is "do i buff this things feats bc hes a big ogre"

[fierce star]

maybe add it to the charm that gives bonus die on destroying things? let him do like, breakign things as if str 7?

[limpid badge]

Destructive Force (3m or 1i); Supplemental; Instant, Essence 1) Dinner for Two adds three bonus succeses on a feat of strength to destroy an object or obstacle.
Sort of there? I was thinking of just letting him do str 6 stuff since he's been given Giant

purely because i wanted a good way to make it clear he is large for when the infernal parasitizes him and she needs to key off size for Infernal Brawl

4 dots is so much for a -0 health level and some narrative juice

[fierce star]

that's legit

[prisma sun]

Y'know

I feel like we know the least about Conqy now out of all the Incarnae

because of the way the 3e books were written

[bleak hazel]

copying this due to earlier discussions about CK

[limpid badge]

also im cooking

[prisma sun]

Oh whats this?

[limpid badge]

a serial story im putting together for a friend-server

kengan asura in the southwest

[prisma sun]

Thats dope

I was also wondering wat the program was

[limpid badge]

oh, twine

technically for making text adventures but

[tulip folio]

Oooh, that's very fun. He looks like a mean bastard for a blood ape. Horror of the Deep Mires...which of the two gets the dice? Dinner or Arablissa?

[limpid badge]

it helps me organize my thoughts

[limpid badge]

He's got a little better stats n skills, usually 1 extra die here and there, but horror of the deep mires is a specific buff for Arby to use

to help push the resident evil vibes by stunting with her giant horrible ogre that bodyguards

[tulip folio]

nods
Getting some Free Excellency for having him about is very valuable. I've played enough alchs to know how much that can stretch your resource supply. XD

Did you see me doing up Baidoks for demons?

[limpid badge]

i did not!!!

im also glad you like dinner he's a great kroger-brand ammit

supposed to be a big horrible chimera (crocodile, gorilla, jaguar, hyena)

[tulip folio]

I got a bit grumpy over someone saying they were 'too boring' to be a first circle demon when I've always felt that lack of autonomy is the point of them. XD

That's a person who's been stripped of every last part of themselves and turned into a thing

[limpid badge]

nod nod

like the person who bears the game-playing 2cd

[tulip folio]

That's a Baidok, yeah! They were just independently summonable previously.

Baidak, Hell Pawns, Demons of the First Circle
Those who bargain too greedily against Sigereth and cannot pay her debts must give up the last valuable they have, themselves. She remakes them into the baidak, her honor guard, who serve her forever in the Demon City. Baidak resemble the mortals from whom they were made, but their flesh becomes yellowed ivory, stylized and inhumanly smooth, inlaid with an elaborate brazen panoply emblazoned with Sigereth’s mon. All share a uniform height and build, and they move in regimented array, more akin to clockworks than living creatures.

The most basic pawns in Sigereth’s playset, Baidak are almost archetypal soldiers. Clad in heavy armour of steel and brass, armed with polearms and bows, they are easily mistaken for mortals. This rarely lasts for sustained conversations as their lack of initiative and personality betrays the fact they are little more than tools. Raksha in particular find them particularly galling, giving them nicknames such as ‘Kiritos’.

One advantage summoners find with Baidak over many other demons is that they are bound to existence by the power of a second circle demon. This prevents their permanent destruction from all but the most powerful of foes.

So I did them up as a Proper Demon.

I also had fun adding an element of 'Hey, so even without autonomy, no demon is entirely safe'

Intimacies:
Defining Tie: Sigereth(Obedience)
Defining Principle: “It is forbidden to win by cheating.”

Traits
Automaton: Automatons are immune to poison and disease, and have no need to eat, drink, breathe, or sleep. As a general rule, they treat all social influence as unacceptable, unless following the orders of their master or faced with magic such as the Dawn Caste anima power. Automaton battle groups have perfect morale.

Soldiers of Sigereth: The Intimacy created by binding a Baidak is Major instead of Defining. Baidak use their full dice pool and ignore Onslaught Penalties while affected by The Game is Real.

they have intimacies that rank higher than the summoner's binding

[limpid badge]

HEHEHEHEHEEEEE

that's very juicy

[tulip folio]

Them being called boring also made me go 'You know what else got called boring' and just made them D&D 4e Fighter Demons. XD

Mobility Charms
En Passant (5m; Supplemental; Instant; Essence 1): The Baidak adds two bonus successes on a Rush or to oppose a Disengage or Withdraw action. If the Baidak wins, the opposing character suffers 2 dice of lethal damage, ignoring hardness.

They are genuinely really hard to escape from if they get engaged with you.

A Blood Ape will just murder them 1v1 but if you want Expendable Soldier Demons they are very good for that.

Baidak use the Combatant First Circle Demon template with the following changes:

Primary: Senses, Soldiering, Pretending To Be A Particularly Bland Human (Such as an Isekai Protagonist)
Secondary: Feats of Strength(Can perform strength 3 feats), Strategy, Command

I made 'soldiering' just actively one of their dice pools for that rather than trying to spell out 'the things soldiers do day to day'.

I'm still mid-way through doing up the Promoted Pawns. As in 2e they had very distinct variants.

Behold: A miniboss squad.

Rook, Knight, Bishop, Pawn from top to bottom.

The Rook and Bishop were easy to make work. The Knight is proving surprisingly tricky as he's got not a heap that's unique to him beyond 'being the pawn but cooler' but I don't want him to be just Better Pawn. XD

So I'm pondering of playing harder into the Chess theme and making the Knight not 'Best at standing and taking a beating' but instead much more 'Oh god, how did he get there?'

Knight's Tour (5m; Supplemental; Instant: Essence 2) The Kyosha Baidak makes a movement action without crossing the space between, allowing it to pass through walls and similar obstructions and to bypass environmental hazards and difficult terrain. It can’t cross through barriers that span more than one range band.

Fateful Fork (10m, 1wp; Reflexive; Perilous, Uniform; Essence 2) When the Kyosha Baidak misses with an attack, before losing Initiative it can use this Charm to give it target’s player a choice: either the Kyosha Baidak adds 3 non-charm successes to the attack (Potentially turning a failed attack into a success), or the Kyosha Baidak may reflexively move one range band and reroll the attack as a surprise attack against an enemy of its choice. Reset: Once per scene

There we go. Knight's Fork lets them be a Real Asshole.

[coral wraith]

starting to plug away at doing interesting sorcerous MAs

Stormwind Rider Form
Cost: 10m; Mins: Martial Arts 1, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Form
Duration: One Scene
Prerequisites: Stormwind Rider

The sorcerer roars into the Stormwind Rider words forbidden from all elements save Air; and so, the two become one, the caster buoyed aloft by howling zephyrs.

The stylist gains the following benefits:

- She retains all the movement benefits of being mounted upon the Stormwinder Rider; its out-of-combat speed, Wits+Occult for all combat movement actions, the ability to use Zephyr Rush, and so on. She can't be dismounted, can't carry passengers or cargo, and is considered to have light cover from attacks originating outside of close range.
- Her unarmed attacks project blasts of wind, counting as an artifact light weapon with the Bashing, Martial Arts, Reaching, and Disarming tags. Her attacks use (Intelligence + [Martial Arts or Occult]), and she can't use any other weapons in this form. Disarming her causes her to suffer a -2 penalty on attacks until the end of her next turn.
- She can dodge using Intelligence instead of Dexterity, bending the air to her will. When she successfully dodges an attack, she can reflexively move one range band.

Special activation rules: When the stylist successfully casts Stormwind Rider, she may reflexively enter this form.```

(only usable unarmoured, notably)

[tulip folio]

Oooh, very fun.

[coral wraith]

basically imagining some DBZ shit with this one

[velvet raft]

I like it

Hm, do y’all think a sorcerous MA covering multiple similar spells would make sense?

[coral wraith]

Thank you! Could use cleanup since it's a first draft buy it's a start

[marsh garden]

so do we know if Sorc MAs usually just their form and 1-5 other charms, or are they gonna be full MA size?

or do we not know yet

[tulip folio]

We're pretty small they are smaller by default

[coral wraith]

Mmmaybe?

[tulip folio]

But martial arts can themselves vary

I mean, the immaculate ones break a lot of 'normal design rules' for example

[velvet raft]

Like if part of it was ISOB, and then at higher essence it went on to be about Incomparable Body Arsenal + ISOB?

[tulip folio]

Seems fine

[coral wraith]

Oh that'd be cool

[velvet raft]

Possibly with secret techniques for other body-transforming spells?

[fierce star]

Hmm. Pondering seafaring hero style. I want them to use gaff hooks as a weapon, but i'm not sure if it should just be 'polearms' as a style weapon or if I should make a custom one. It'd basically be something like a dire lance but with disarming, maybe? And not being one handed when mounted. For the artifact version, obviously

[velvet raft]

Hmmmmm

• SMA based on Incomparable Body Arsenal
• Requires at least two charms from a normal Sorcerous MA that has one charm related to each of five different Terrestrial Circle spells, each related to armaments and each themed to one of the five elements (ISOB, Wood Dragon's Claw, Impervious Sphere of Water, Virtuous Guardian of Flame?, and ... I dunno for air)

[tulip folio]

Do you think this is too mean for a demon?

[velvet raft]

I am concerned that Fateful Fork may be too much

Knight's Tour seems fine imo

[fierce star]

Fateful Fork is once per scene

I think 1/scene it's fine, as ultimately it gives the player control of what hpapens

[tulip folio]

That's the vague concern. It's a very toned down version of an exalt charm but even heavily toned down, the effect is powerful.

The charm it's based on is autohit rather than some bonus successes, has a much bigger range it can affect and an ambush rather than a surprise attack on their friend.

[marsh garden]

also e4 and costs wp tho

which i assume matters a lot more on an exalt than a mook demon designed to be bought in beer can twelve-packs

[tulip folio]

Oh yeah, hence the heavy toning down.

[tulip folio]

The base version before it gets the knight upgrade actually has a similar sort of trick but not 'HEY FUCK YOUR FRIEND'

Clockwork Precision (5m; Supplemental; Withering-Only; Instant; Essence 1) When one of the Baidak's withering attacks misses, it can redirect it into glancing blow, adding three successes to the attack roll. This can turn the miss into a hit, but it deals reduced damage. The attack is reduced to minimum damage.

Getting basicly an exalted version of Reliable 😛

If they had artifact-tier weapons, this would be very scary.

As it is...their minimum damage is '2 in melee, 1 at range'

But it does still mean they tagged you/can nibble away at your init

[velvet raft]

@tulip folio I missed the base version if you posted it, but I'm curious: does it have some kind of promotion mechanic?

Since chess

[tulip folio]

Yeah, though it's not on them personally. It's on the 2nd circle they are tied to.

[velvet raft]

Gotcha. I was thinking specifically in the fashion of a pawn promoting when it reaches the end of the board

Also, random Kejak thought: Kejak is an exceptionally opinionated food critic, and publishes undercover reviews under a pseudonym I'm not feeling clever enough to come up with right now

[tulip folio]

Victory-Promoting Rule (4m, 1i; Reflexive; Instant; Essence 6): Whenever a Baidak incapacitates a non-trivial enemy or deals enough damage to an enemy battle group to cause it to lose one or more points of Size, Sigereth may use this Charm to promote it to a champion. It is replaced with a Kyosha Baidak, Fers Baidak or Sang Baidak, which may immediately roll Join Battle. If the Baidak was part of a Battle Group, it also becomes a seperate character to that Battle Group.

I rewrote this for Baidaks being a Real Demon Type now

[velvet raft]

Wild thought: make this an Eclipse charm, but keep it at Essence 6

Just as like a "mechanics making a narrative statement" sorta thing

[tulip folio]

Hah, fun.

I'm also dangerously tempted to make up a demon to fill a missing spot in the lineup.

[velvet raft]

Legendary Elders of ages past have probably learned to do this

[tulip folio]

A Baidak that lasted so long and kicked so much ass it ascended beyond its nature and is a second circle demon now.

The Queen piece to Sigereth's King.

[fierce star]

👀

[velvet raft]

Yes

I like it

You could even say it's technically still a first circle

It's not a 3CD's soul or anything

But it's such a badass that it's functionally a 2CD and can't be summoned with terrestrial circle magic

[tulip folio]

Yeah, I might go with something like 'it is so interwoven with Sigereth's power that terrestial magic can't summon it'

[velvet raft]

Actually, do we know if it's possible to use Demon of the First Circle to summon a specific First Circle Demon?

[tulip folio]

I don't think you can, though it's unstated

[fierce star]

I'd rule 'yes, but it has to be one you've summoned before or one you have a specific onnection to', so like you can research a way to summon a specific Agata, or you can resummon an agata that you've summoned before

[tulip folio]

...wait...I'm doing up a martial art based around spears and mass combat.

And I'm doing up a queen chess piece that needs a cool way to stand out above lesser ones.

1+1=

[fierce star]

MARITAL ARTS DEMON

[chilly sluice]

I think that's Neoma actually

[fierce star]

wait shit

I did a typo

[marsh garden]

what rollers do y'all use to calc things, if any?

the one google showed me can't double more than 10s and doesn't show rates like anydice, but anydice seems to explode and shit itself when i use large pools

[velvet raft]

The discord bot I've seen used seems legitimately solid

It's easy to add the various standard dice trick elements

I'm sure there's stuff it doesn't cover but

[merry arch]

https://github.com/strass/exalted-roller/blob/master/README.md
this is the dice bot i see used a lot

[marsh garden]

damn, i was hoping for something like a specialized anydice that could tell me expected rates of [x hit count]

but thank you

[velvet raft]

Ah, for percentages and predictions and whatnot

[marsh garden]

yeah

i looked at the 10 str Feats of Destruction and they all seem like shit that should be more doable than they are, so i wanted to look at success rates for them for assorted splats at full investment e3

[next delta]

It is mildly weird that the core book says no difficulties above 5 and then has the feat of strength rules have difficulties above that. I also don't really understand why it has both strength minimums and success minimums

[prisma sun]

Yeah it's weird

[next delta]

(though the no difficulties above 5 is silly and the most obvious thing to change)

[marsh garden]

"no difficulties above 5" when a fresh out the womb e1 solar or lunar hits a dice pool of 23 is

something

[next delta]

23? Where does the extra 2 come from (attribute + ability + specialty + ??)?

[marsh garden]

t1 stunt, right?

[bleak hazel]

Level 1 stunt

[next delta]

Oh, right fair

[marsh garden]

24 with exceptional equipment

[next delta]

(plus an autosuccess from willpower if you really want to go for it)

[marsh garden]

wait wp gives you free hits?

[bleak hazel]

I believe basically every celestial can max out the feat of strength meter but the level of investment requires varies a good bit

[marsh garden]

is that 1/roll or can you theoretically just shit out all your wp at the same time?

[tulip folio]

Considering demons tend to use European names and this is for a Queen Chess Piece, I'm dangerously tempted to use Cassia as the name. The hypothetical goddess of chess invented by Hieronymus Vida.

[next delta]

I believe it is 1/roll

[bleak hazel]

Burning willpower to add one success is 1/roll

[next delta]

It would be funny if any starting exalt could do the hardest (non-strength, non-opposed) feats on will alone though, ha

[bleak hazel]

A lot of really high powered magic also has "big feat of strength/demolition" attached, so you meet people who know big necromancy or Jumping Spider Strike and can just slam out a S10 feat like that

[marsh garden]

oh do they? i was looking for ways to hit 30 pre-stunt, but wasn't thinking about (non-adamant) magic

[prisma sun]

There's no sorcery that buffs feats of strength

just stuff that gives you free feats of strength

[marsh garden]

ah, shame

[bleak hazel]

You're unlikely to roll 30 dice on most things, but other non-charm sources of successes like double X and reroll X are very common in FOS trees

[prisma sun]

Crafting is built different

[bleak hazel]

the feat of strength rules have some fiddly things, like how the strength requirement for doing a feat is different from the number of dots of strength you have

they're perfectly usable it just means the charms for that involve more fucking around than they need to

also noting this one down for future use in evocations and similar

[fierce star]

How do we feel about introducing new but non-exotic weapons for martial arts? I'm seriously considering just statting up gaffhooks and gaffpoles for seafaring hero style, because I always love a sailor with a gaffpole doing bullshit wuxia moves

[tulip folio]

Seems legit.

Could always go 'Can use X as Y weapon' if you want it to be more than just that singular martial art.

[bleak hazel]

I always prefer making them counts-as existing weapons or improvised weapons

because then you don't end up with strange orphaned stuff and people can steal existing artifacts to make them

[fierce star]

a gaffpole would effectively be a poleaxe -chopping +disarming, and a gaffhook a khatar -piercing + disarming I htink

[bleak hazel]

I feel at least one of these is a hook-sword

[velvet raft]

I agree with Misc on avoiding orphaning, so personally I'd add a clause to either the weapon or the MA creating further compatibility.

[fierce star]

the martial art does use hook swords as well

Seafaring Hero Weapons: Seafaring Hero uses a variety of weapons; whips and fighting chains, as well as improvised versions. Short swords, chopping swords, and hook swords are all common, as are ship's gaffs--both handheld and on a pole. Unarmed attacks with Seafaring Hero are sweeping, wave-like motions that contain more energy than they seem, all the better to strike against water's resistance. Unarmed attacks with Seafaring Hero may be stunted to deal Lethal damage.

what I currently have

(heh. Seafaring. current.)

[velvet raft]

🥁

[tulip folio]

Short Swords, Chopping Swords and Hook Swords basicly goes 'oh yeah, I can be combined with 90% of the armed martial arts easily.'

But yeah, I would unironically go 'A Ship's Gaff is considered an X for martial arts compatibility' on the weapon.

A Small Fuckery Of Tags is rarely notable enough to be a super powerful gamechanger.

[bleak hazel]

the one you do have to be a bit careful about is Smashing because it's surprisingly mean

[velvet raft]

Fewer than you'd think, tbh

Even Blade, VBOS, and Devil Prince for chopping; Even Blade and Fire Dragon for short; Crane, Snake, and Centipede for hook

[bleak hazel]

also can I just remark how much fun Holistic Arsenal Methodology is?

because I mostly use crane for counterattacks, I can keep a hook-sword in one hand and then use Sid Melee + PAOC Enlightenment to swap through an insane array of secondary weapons to do whatever

[fierce star]

you forgot one gkat

steel devil :>

[bleak hazel]

he has a fighting chain as an armwrap, a metal-reinforced straw hat to work as a shield and a metal cylinder in the inside of his robe that he grabs and uses as brass knuckles

[fierce star]

dragged into the dungeons

[bleak hazel]

plus a few others

[velvet raft]

I did forget that, it's true

I think the big weapons for being compatible with many styles are seven-section staffs, knives, and batons

[tulip folio]

For some reason I thought hook got more than that, huh.

[velvet raft]

Yeah, so did I for a while

[bleak hazel]

they are all really good

[fierce star]

honeslty same, for being an MA-only weapon it doesn't actually have a lot of MAs

[bleak hazel]

Snake and Centipede are rock solid martial arts for just straight up fighting people

[tulip folio]

Ah yes, Knives the 'This is secretly a ranged martial art' weapon.

[bleak hazel]

very few tricks, just beatdowns

[velvet raft]

Batons too!

Batons can have the thrown tag

[tulip folio]

...even blade is a ranged martial art. XD

[velvet raft]

Is Even Blade usable with batons?

[tulip folio]

It is!

[fierce star]

one of the variants is, the one that's like, hit 'em with the sheathe

[tulip folio]

It notes that sheathes are used as batons by it.

[marsh garden]

oh, is that what using shit as batons means?

[velvet raft]

I might look askance at using that to access ranged stuff, personally

[bleak hazel]

batons are also really nice holdout weapons if you can juggle a bunch of weapons because they're both throwable and smashing

[velvet raft]

But yeah, fair enough

[bleak hazel]

and nothing says you can't make a smash attack from range so you have Tech

[tulip folio]

...actually, they bring a really important tool to even blade.

[next delta]

Wait, does smashing work on a thrown attack? Because lmao

[bleak hazel]

clonk

[velvet raft]

Just gonna throw this stick at you really hard

[fierce star]

so... stat up gaffhooks as khatars with disarming instead of piercing, and polegaffs as poleaxes with disarming instead of chopping, note they can be used as khatars and poleaxes respectively, which adds... obsidian shards and... uh

nothing

there are no martial arts for poleaxes/halberds

[next delta]

End them rightly (with your entire sheathed sword)

[velvet raft]

Ebon Shadow is katar-compatible

[bleak hazel]

just use the existing polearms and spear statblocks for any similar weapons

they desperately need more MAs anyway

[marsh garden]

alas, not a sword

[tulip folio]

If you use anything but Short Daiklaives with even blade, Baton gives you a light melee weapon for clashes, which is fun.

[marsh garden]

so ass blassum and no joy

[bleak hazel]

also fucking Fighting Chains

have so many tags

[fierce star]

i... am nto seeing it, gkat?

sais, tiger claws, knives, fighting chains

[velvet raft]

Huh

Must have been thinking of tiger claws

Oh, yeah, tiger claws have crazy good compatibility

[tulip folio]

Right, Tiger Claws and Katars are legally different weapons.

[velvet raft]

TBH I would treat A Big Axe as identical to a scythe for system purposes

[fierce star]

also statistically, tiger claws are worn and katars piercing

[velvet raft]

They fill the same role, and there are no Big Axe styles, so

[marsh garden]

white reaper is the polearm style, it's true...

[fierce star]

Mostly this is my Historical Weapon Autism (TM) hitting me with 'but poleaxes and gaffpoles would not be used in the same way in a fight, they should have different tags since you wouldn't be chopping with it, it doesn't have a blade suitable for chopping'

[velvet raft]

pat pat

[bleak hazel]

OK, Rival's weapons:
2x hook-swords (worn openly)
1x small shield (also worn openly)
1x metal-reinforced hat that can serve as shield (parasol stats)
1x edgy-looking second belt usable as whip
3x metal batons tucked into pockets in robes
1x war-fan (used as normal fan, worn on belt)
1x normal hatchet (also on belt)

I think I've covered all my bases short of having an Emergency Support Tetsubo

[marsh garden]

the fucking sun hat shield...

the classic

[bleak hazel]

a hatchet maybe

for chopping tag

[velvet raft]

Melee into PAOC is a classic for a reason

[bleak hazel]

I like to think the batons mostly show up as those metal cylinders you hold in your fist in a martial arts movie to hit harder in a vaguely shady fashion

just quickly flips one out, decks you with it and then throws it at your friend

[marsh garden]

that reminds me

i'm fucking flabbergasted that tonfas aren't a statted weapon

[velvet raft]

I think the intent may be that batons covers them

[marsh garden]

the word tonfa literally doesn't even show up in a book other than arms i think

[velvet raft]

Just like, considering some of the styles that use batons

Like mantis

[marsh garden]

that makes sense!

but still

literally the only mention of tonfas in the entirety of 3e

is a pair of short daiklaves

that are bladed tonfas

[velvet raft]

They're an easy Niche Karate Weapon to forget, really

[marsh garden]

it's not even a baton artifact

[velvet raft]

Since a tonfa is a short grain-threshing pole

[marsh garden]

oh wait sorry it's in MFS not arms!

[next delta]

Hmm, how does this work with combo melee/thrown weapons. The mote cost is waived when going melee-only to the combo weapon (but not the other way around)?

[marsh garden]

it just fucks me up hard

[velvet raft]

Oh the hungering fangs

[marsh garden]

yeah

[prisma sun]

I do think tonfas are just batons

[marsh garden]

the only mention of the word tonfa in the entire system

[bleak hazel]

I believe so, although I'm dodging this essentially by pulling out Melee weapons, using them and then swapping back to the hook-swords

which are MA-only

[prisma sun]

This is the same object

[velvet raft]

Yep

NGL these seem like more than short daiklaves to me >_>

[next delta]

Oh, that was not the type of baton I was imagining, lol

[bleak hazel]

when you want mantis blades but don't have the time to cut your arms off

[next delta]

Short Daiklaives still have to be long because exalted artifact rules lol

[tulip folio]

Cassia, The Empty Queen, F̵̤̃͝i̷͈̾̇̈́r̶̖͕̺̀s̴̟͌̋͝t̷̰̱̒͘ Circle Demon
The Baidak are without identity, their personhood stripped from them by Sigereth. These demons serve at her will, obedient tools empty of all but despair and obedience. What does it mean, then, when one disobeys?

None know the original name of Cassia or her mortal life. Some say that she was a princess, used as collateral for her father's debts to the player of games. Others say that within that ivory breast beats an exaltation, not merely a mortal heart. What they *do* know is that she cost the player of games a prize match.

Seemingly just another of the many Baidak who have carried Sigereth to her games in the past, she was witness to a game against a priestess. The priestess' god was a terrible gambler and had lost a temple in Yu Shan itself to the Player of Games...along with the promice of every soul that served him there. She barely knew the rules and had no experience but it was the only way she had to save her home and her friends. There is no way she should have won. 

And yet, Sigereth lost. At a pivotal moment, the Baidak carrying her box was instructed to finish the match and did do...by moving their most crucial piece into a place that not even a beginner could miss. Sigereth raged but...fulfilled her end of the bargain, after having one of her rooks bring its hammer down upon Cassia and abandoning her in creation.

Since then, Cassia has been heard of by many. An inhumanly tall woman of ebony and brass armed with spear and shield, her placid and unmoving face rent with a large crack that reveals a single eye that shines with purpose. None are sure the goal of the Empty Queen but she is clearly laying the opening moves of a game that is intended to end with the death of the game master herself.

[marsh garden]

yeah short daiklave is greatsword

[tulip folio]

I wrote up a first(???) circle demon.

[marsh garden]

straight daiklave is anime greatsword

[velvet raft]

Ooooooooo

[marsh garden]

grand daiklave is a bigger buster sword

[velvet raft]

She's so cool

[tulip folio]

I went with her look being Ebony and Brass because Sigereth's pawns are ivory. They're the white pieces.

So she's the oppositional queen piece.

[velvet raft]

Nice

[bleak hazel]

move that is also cool you can do with thrown smashing weapons: enemy is running away, you throw a baton at them, knock them prone and flurry it with a rush that autosuceeds

halt, criminal

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/simon-pegg-nick-frost-edgar-wright-hot-fuzz-cornetto-trilogy-gif-15351929

[bleak hazel]

I suppose that would be kind of cracked if you actually built for thrown and could knock people around at maximum range

extremely bullshit kiting approach

[prisma sun]

Hey guess what Drifts can do

[marsh garden]

i can't imagine this is an intended feature, based on everything i've heard from y'all about Don't Enable Bullshit Kiting

"oh yeah engaging in combat outside of cqc takes a lot of setup, or you could just pronespam them from range and catch or leave at will with a single weapon"

[bleak hazel]

given the second weapon in the standard weapons list has both Thrown (Short) and Smashing it's hard to imagine thought was dedicated to it

personally I will not do this against players unless it would be cool for both parties, but it's a hell of a trick

[bleak hazel]

I know the Journeys style in Agents of Heaven was specifically balanced around not being able to Smash people and then when they realised there was a hearthstone that let anyone do it they had to go adjust some shit

I choose to believe that in-universe this was Drifts launching a guy through the back end of the training hall

[marsh garden]

agents of heaven?

is that the upcoming sid supplement?

[chilly sluice]

IIRC yes

[bleak hazel]

yeah, the supplements for each main splatbook are all given a flowery name for the splat in question

Lunars are Many-Faced Strangers, Deebs are Heirs of the Shogunate, Sids are Agents of Heaven, Abyssals are Riders from the Sunless Lands

[marsh garden]

i just wanted to make sure, since i know it's not out yet

[bleak hazel]

not sure what the Infernal or Alchemical ones are called

and solars don't have one because we threw MOTSE in the memory hole

[tulip folio]

...silly pondering: A charm that gives your throw weapon smashing but it moves them one range band closer instead of further.

Just full GET OVER HERE

[bleak hazel]

Sids have this, or at least a mechanical approximation of this that doesn't allow prone spam

lots of movement tech in sid thrown

I think Abyssals might have it too but maybe I'm misremembering

I know someone had a kusarigama type thing going on

maybe I should give Rival one of those too

[marsh garden]

it's in sepulchur, not Abyssals actual, but yeah

there's a drag

[bleak hazel]

ah that'll be it

[marsh garden]

passive vortex that yoinks people

but you can't move in it

[chilly sluice]

yeah it's the doom aura

[marsh garden]

i appreciate that the doom aura gets even bigger with the capstone

[chilly sluice]

Albicant Sepulcher is really funny, because you mostly just stand around menacingly while your gigantic doom aura kills things

[marsh garden]

it's peak

[velvet raft]

It starts with get over here and then there's an upgrade charm that lets it push instead of pull

Notably both versatile

[chilly sluice]

the funniest part to me is also that the reflexive condition on the Form is someone taking a swing at you and missing

[marsh garden]

IT'S PEAK

[chilly sluice]

and then you get to reflexively activate most of your shit in response

[marsh garden]

LITERALLY JUST THE STAND THERE AND AURA FARM STYLE

you've got like two more auras

and then a couple simple charms that you can also just activate reflexively to just go Me When I Fucking Get You at them

[bleak hazel]

I think it's functionally all simple, at least when used on your turn

it's a raid boss style, you do one thing per round that the raid has to react to

[marsh garden]

i think it's like 50/50?

a bunch of em say they're simple but then can be chained with each other

even as on-turn effects

[bleak hazel]

demon roomba is great

[tulip folio]

It's intimacies are great.

[chilly sluice]

the evil puppet can't look cute very well 😔

[bleak hazel]

eh it's as good as your average human

I choose to believe this hits the average cuteness of a normal-looking human doing a sarcastic "nya" pose or similar

just obviously not committing to the bit

[tulip folio]

Meanwhile the Chad Wirewool Sheep have it as a Primary action. 😛

[chilly sluice]

very important

[bleak hazel]

actually can you post the whole statblock/lore section for those?

I would like to send them to someone

[tulip folio]

Sure!

[chilly sluice]

The tiny version can sit on your head 🥺

[tulip folio]

They turn up in multiple sizes because there's a lot of different sizes of pipe.

[chilly sluice]

They also remind me of Rainworld slugcats every time

[tulip folio]

They've got no real offensive charms but they're designed to be a very 'You summon this to have a helpful friend more than an army' machine spirit. Toxic Purification Protocols is the Big Thing as they make it 'You can go on adventures into toxic areas even if not every player has toxin resistance stuff'.

...man, I really don't want to put someone on another discord on blast but christ I'm watching someone argue that it's cool and fine for someone to try to get out of doing a fight with Ligier by summoning him underwater and letting him drown.

[bleak hazel]

"tried to drown the sun" is exactly the kind of feat of hubris that gets you an ironic death in every myth ever

[wise ocean]

ligier instantly flash-boils the ocean, creating the Steam Cloud That Kills You, gg

[bleak hazel]

so I encourage someone to try this and end up dueling him in a short-range-band-radius dome of superheated steam, the rest of the water held back by his radiance

[tulip folio]

People have tried to argue that and they've gone with 'nah, I did the math, he can't do that enough to get away' and it's like...mate, you are trying to do science in exalted. Alchemicals has an entire sidebar to stop this shit.

[mighty rover]

the pattern spiders think it's funnier if he kills you

[tulip folio]

Hey @bleak hazel. The new Devil Prince Sword Style is technically a Ranged Style for Unweaving Method.

Hatchets have Thrown

[bleak hazel]

@tulip folio

[tulip folio]

Hahahah, 100% the sort of steel wool that inspired them.

Now imagine people harvesting wool to make clothes from that 😛

[limpid badge]

see i would think it would be [bitcrushed bleat]

[south horizon]

Devil prince + Hungry ghost for max fear

[fierce star]

Hrm, I know it exissts but I can't remember off the top of my head, what's the going essence requirement/price for 'make a smash attack with any weapon but you follow the enemy to the new location'?

[south horizon]

that feels like e2-e3 since it's both smash attack and movement tech

[tulip folio]

Man, it does irk me a lot that so many of the 'Ever so slightly magical animal' animals are off the table for lunars.

Being able to turn into a Gem Seeker would be really cool.

Look at these cute guys.

They are tiny lizards that Eat Gems.

[velvet raft]

I had never previously noticed that Night-castes get Ride as a caste ability

[velvet raft]

Simhata are pretty cool.

[nova yew]

I picked it up for my night caste’s supernal actually

Cus she’s got a thing with riding an agata so

Felt fitting

Nyoom

[velvet raft]

Oh huh, I was considering making a Simhata-riding Night >_>

[velvet raft]

This thing is pretty rad

[marsh garden]

what book's that in?

oh

arms

dunno what it's not in the index then

[velvet raft]

I was just looking for a longfang, but this one is rad

Has an inexplicable anti-poison charm!

[marsh garden]

that makes sense

despite being a disarm-heavy artifact, it's also about both fire and has a narrative Fuck Lunars vibe

so not dying to random infiltrators' poisons or shapeshifters' venom makes sense to me

[nova yew]

Makes sense for green jade too

[velvet raft]

Yep! The whole weapon concept is that it's a wood-elemental spear that you light the head of on fire

I love it

[nova yew]

Oh that’s dope

[velvet raft]

Night-caste Simhata-riding spear-thrower who can't read, or Zenith-caste Simhata-riding spear-thrower who can't read ...

How much do we want to glorify the UCS

omg shit's amazing

[marsh garden]

wait holy shit d5 4L hazard? god damn

that's a pretty respectable one

oh simple, not supplemental

remind me, do motes spent on charms with anima costs still re-flare your anima, or no?

[next delta]

It is only against battlegroups fwiw. Kind of weird you can't reduce the flames by more than one per rally action though

[next delta]

I haven't read the book in awhile, but my vague memory is that it isn't addressed?

So I think yes?

[velvet raft]

Yeah, I think the answer defaults to yes

It's a funny artifact because it starts out as being personal combat-oriented, and then it gets some mass combat evocations at higher Essence

And it has a lot of disarm stuff centered aesthetically on wood and fire

[chilly sluice]

Also only against size 2 or lower, until E5

[velvet raft]

Reading? No, we don't need your reading here. We need WAR.

[marsh garden]

that's a lotta 5s

[velvet raft]

Yeah, the number went down for merit dots :D

@bleak hazel What Solar War charms should one specifically avoid, if trying not to break the mass combat system?

[bleak hazel]

depends on whether you specifically want to be opposed by enemy generals in the strat maneuver phase or whether you just want to have a fun fight afterwards

and whether you're allowed to houserule bits of the core war rules

[next delta]

Just be resonant and do lots of damage (or pick off the last point is magnitude lol)

Though if you have enough damage to reduce a size 5 BG err, size, you don't really need to be setting them on fire, ha

[velvet raft]

I think there should be giant Mice of the Sun

Hm … 3-dot Simhata with mice of the sun powers …

[chilly sluice]

the big mouse that makes all of the rules

[velvet raft]

Yes

You see my vision

[fierce star]

Hrm. 12 charms to a normal MA? 10?

actually they're usually less aren'tthey

[marsh garden]

9 or 10 i think?

all the ones in many-faced strangers are 9, i know

[bleak hazel]

9-10

ones that end at E3 are almost universally 9

I think some of the ones that end with an E4 capstone are 10 charms

[fierce star]

Hmmm. E1/E1/E1(Form)/E1/E2/E2/E2/E3/E3/E4(Capstone) then maybe for seafaring hero. Now ot just, uh. put charm ideas to paper, lol

[velvet raft]

The Form is almost always the last E1 charm

You’ll have 3, or more rarely 2, charms before the form

[bleak hazel]

sometimes 4, as in VBOS

one per non-Saturn maiden

but that's an outlier

you can also have E2 forms, plenty of those

[velvet raft]

What is it other than Crane or the Dragon styles?

[bleak hazel]

Single Point

[velvet raft]

Aha

Dragon Styles have 2-3 E1 charms, 1-2 E2 charms, and then an E2 form

But they also have charms all the way up to E5

So they’re weird

Most styles then have 3-5 E2 charms after the form, and 1-2 E3 charms

There are also trends in the layouts of the trees, Snake being pretty representative

[marsh garden]

exaltcord's resistance to the idea that DBA is stronger than other anima powers confuses me

i'm not crazy, right?

[velvet raft]

DBA?

[marsh garden]

they seem so much more powerful than any other single anima power, including solar/abyssal Bonfire stuff and the greater signs

devil-body

[wise ocean]

it heavily depends on circumstances - dragonblood anima is

[marsh garden]

(apotheosis)

[wise ocean]

ah

[velvet raft]

Oh

Yeah no they're wrong

The Devil Body trades having a versatile and interesting anima you can use a lot for a 1/story super mode

[wise ocean]

I was thinking of the most reasonable option, which is the complex situation that's comparing deeb anima and its heavily circle-based nature to the solaroid dawn stuff that's single-guy-focused and also scales much harder later into essence when you have more motes to spend on more charms that have reset conditions

[velvet raft]

My hot take is that Devil Body is the least interesting part of the Infernal powerset

[marsh garden]

i see

i really like devil bodies!!!

[wise ocean]

devil-body is complicated because you can make a pretty average devil-body or Legendary Size AoE Shaping Effect

[marsh garden]

super modes are cool

and they give narrative permission for uh

deranged shit

[wise ocean]

and the latter is obviously way out of scale with everyone else

[marsh garden]

(and also mechanical power)

[velvet raft]

The charms are so good, the non devil-body anima powers are so good, but devil bodies just ... bore me. I like the idea conceptually but I feel like it should be realized with high-essence charms

[marsh garden]

and i just don't really get the resistance to "yeah i really want something like that for abyssals too, because it's obviously insanely strong and also extremely flavorful and also can be invested in and also does radically unique stuff"

[wise ocean]

oh

yeah it's reasonable to have resistance to that

[velvet raft]

The funny thing is that Abyssals do have something like devil body in Void Circle Necromancy

[wise ocean]

indeed, you make yourself into a raidboss

[marsh garden]

i saw that spell! it's very cool

but it's also e5

[velvet raft]

Like, my default when I play around with an infernal has been to forget devil body is there

[marsh garden]

huh

i don't think i could ever ignore a phase 2 lmao, i make or grab those every single time i can in any system i'm in

mostly because i tend to put my blorbos into Peril™

and i like letting them skitter away

[velvet raft]

Part of it is that the bread-and-butter of Infernals is so good

That's what captures my imagination

[marsh garden]

it is all super flavorful...

and powerful

i think lmao

[velvet raft]

Martial arts with minimal amounts of power tied up in mastery effects ... hm.

VBOS, I suppose

[bleak hazel]

infernals power-wise are basically Abyssals with BOSS attached at E1, they're pretty nuts

it is very cool, though

[velvet raft]

It just, I dunno, when I'm here making my cool archer/sorcerer who summons giant aquatic animals and tentacles and whatnot, Devil-Body isn't adding a ton to that conceptually

I appreciate that it does more for a lot of folks

I just find it kinda uninteresting in relation to what I actually want the character to do

[marsh garden]

second social roll of the campaign...

waow

[tulip folio]

Very Social

[coral wraith]

I mean, the onus is kinda on the player to engage with it, no? They're manifestations of your innermost self-concept, a personal truth about yourself revealed

[merry arch]

as a narrative device it fucking whips so hard

[tulip folio]

Hmm..redoing the Jadeborn Geas into something less shitty and unfun to play with. Keeping them with a limit system but a very different one.

The Shattering
The cruel shattering of the Jadeborn at the direction of the Solar exalted has damaged the alloy that Autochthon forged. Where previously their Fae and Earth sides were in harmony, their shattered souls flow unevenly and become unbalanced without care. When emotional turmoil or stress pushes this beyond a tipping point, one of their sides attempts to seize control, affecting both themselves and the world around them. The effects of the Shattering is called Imbalance and is measured the same way that Limit is.

Does this seem conceptually okay for Jadeborn? Being Fae who were shaped into beings of structure and earth by Autocthon, then shattered by the solars?

[marsh garden]

before i start poking at the idea in earnest, is there anything (i would assume in sids or infernals) that lets you tear out someone's heart to start influencing it directly?

[bleak hazel]

I don't think so, although Sidereals have the inverse

Heartless Maiden Trance lets you swallow your own heart to make you resistant to a bunch of stuff

expensive, though

[tulip folio]

Is 'dead' an acceptable type of influence?

[velvet raft]

Black Claw involves tearing out someone's heart and killing them

[south horizon]

Actual closest bit is like

The One jigsaw diseass with the Citrine poxes SMA

oh

[south horizon]

look at Laughing Monster in lunara maybe

[velvet raft]

Btw if you’re interested in this independent of Exalted, Fable of the Swan by Jenna Moran is an entire novel centered around this sort of magic

(It’s also a power set in Chuubo’s)

[fierce star]

hmm, there was Laughing Wounds style from ex2. I don't think it's been updated to ex3 yet though.

[coral wraith]

Murder-Wind Cacophony 
Cost: 5m, 4i, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 3
Type: Simple
Keywords: Mastery, Perilous 
Duration: Instant 
Prerequisite Charms: Howling Breakneck Surge 

Though Adorjan's voice will never be known to the world, the dust devil's fury may give the stylist's enemies some idea.

The stylist's zephyrs scream in rage, extending out to close range. They're an environmental hazard with difficulty 4, Damage 4B or 4L (Stylist's choice)/round. This doesn't affect the stylist or her allies, as they command the winds to their whim. 

Thus enraged, the winds strain to wreak Adorjan's will on the world. The stylist can use Intelligence + Occult for feats of demolition out to close range, using her Intelligence to determine her effective Strength.

Mastery: The stylist adds 1/2 her Martial Arts rating to her Intelligence for feats of demolition rolled with this charm, rounded up.```

Silent Storm Severance
Cost: 10m; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3
Type: Simple
Keywords: Mastery, Terrestrial, Decisive-only, Perilous
Duration: One turn
Prerequisite Charms: Murder-Wind Cacophony

All at once, the roaring howl of the stylist's zephyrs cease. Demons know well what this heralds; "Adorjan comes! Adorjan comes!"

The stylist selects any target she can personally perceive, up to extreme range, and dematerializes into her winds, ending her turn as she slips into a meditative focus. Until her next turn, all sound made by her winds cease, and her Defense is reduced by -2. If she is crashed before that time, the stylist materializes and this charm ends with no effect.

At the beginning of the stylist's next turn, she materializes and launches herself into close range with the target at such speed, she doesn't count as crossing the space between, no matter the distance. She makes a single Decisive attack against him that strikes with the concentrated force of the Silent Wind, adding (Intelligence) damage dice. She doubles 10s on the damage roll if she crossed at least one range band, and doubles 9s if she crossed at least two.

Mastery: The stylist moves faster than the eye can follow; her attack is unblockable.

Terrestrial: The strike counts as the stylist's attack for the turn.```

more stormwind rider style charms

it's become more explicitly adorjan themed over time, which is going into the fluff, and i plan on changing the name to reflect that

[velvet raft]

I am always in favor of adding more demonology to sorcery

[coral wraith]

yeah, the flavour is basically "sorcerers gleaned insights, words without form, from being within Adorjan's winds (because they are stupid) and eventually, used these "formless words" to twist terrestrial winds into a lethal force"

[tulip folio]

I'd perhaps limit it to percieving personally

Just to avoid 'Hey, I have one of the scrying spells'

[coral wraith]

oops

[tulip folio]

Times to yeet myself all the way across creation. XD

[coral wraith]

lmao

[tulip folio]

Like i'ts funny but Travel Without Distance is a celestial tier spell and a very valuable one 😛

[coral wraith]

yeah, my bad there

[tulip folio]

Eh, not a major problem

Right now I'm pondering Where a Thousand Forged Dragon or Volcanic Earthwalker (Hundred Devil's Night Parade) falls relative to the various tiers of demons/the Underwold Behemoth.

[velvet raft]

HUH

That's really good

Especially as a versatile charm

[tulip folio]

It's great with all those archery martial arts IF I HAD ANY.

XD

[velvet raft]

Well, there's Righteous Devil, at least?

And it's usable with Unweaving Method

[bleak hazel]

Would go gangbusters with Crimson Panoply

if we had it

as a supplemental there is the potential for chugging about 6-7 willpower in one go to fire off a whole volley of unblockable, undodgeable OSOI attacks

which is probably a tiny bit expensive but hey, people will definitely die

[velvet raft]

We will name this combo: So-Many-Directions Arrows

Crimson Panoply is the Mars Style in the companion, right?

[bleak hazel]

yeah

the one with a very attractive set of form weapons

[velvet raft]

Hot take: it should involve turning arrows into swords and spears and stuff mid-flight

[bleak hazel]

bows, spears, shields, khatars and [unspecified]

I have a theory that there will be a fifth one because it has representatives of four Battles constellations but nothing for the Banner

[velvet raft]

Banner is … Presence?

Anyway what I’m hearing is: yaaaay another Unweaving Method-friendly style

I don’t know why I’m so obsessed with this

[bleak hazel]

War, actually, Presence is the Shield

I think style-wise it's about doing lots of combo attacks, so it might not favour only having UWM, but I have absolutely no idea on the specifics

[velvet raft]

What if War was grappling?

The original, most primal tool in the human arsenal for fighting, and still one of the most natural and effective