Exalted

[wise ocean]

(I understood the purpose but I interpret "ISP" as "Solar")

[velvet raft]

Nah I just meant it in the sense of only taking combat stuff

[prisma sun]

I interpret it as Insane Sclown Possee

[velvet raft]

Teleport to the woods!

[bleak hazel]

someday I will have a reason to use Oedanol's Wheel or Tulat's Tread

Sidbook has great artfacts

[velvet raft]

It does

I also like the gravity nunchucks

Which would be very, very funny to use unarmed through Four Magical Materials Form

I do genuinely love sid ox-body

For being "you are unhurt until suddenly you explode"

[wise ocean]

speaking of ox-bodies, it's fun that infernal ox makes vbos really good against them

[velvet raft]

Ye

[wise ocean]

normally Metal Storm is a lot of motes to attack twice, in effect, but vs. an infernal that has hugely backloaded -4 because of DB, metal storm gets you to hilarious damage territory

[bleak hazel]

also applies to Lunars

[velvet raft]

My favorite thing with Infernal Ox-Body is that if you have Stamina 3+, Pain Tolerance, and any of the several ways Infernals have to ignore small amounts of wound penalties, you are uh

Kind of golden

[bleak hazel]

who are similarly biased to huge health box counts with high penalties because both Lunars and Infernals have charmtech to reduce or ignore the effect of said penalties

Infernals also cheat because Devil-body is all -0s forever

their second healthbar is better than their first

[velvet raft]

Infernals actually kinda like having as many -4s as possible for complicated reasons

And Pain Tolerance makes that manageable

[wise ocean]

honestly Metal Storm on a proper setup can probably just one-shot infernal phase 2

-4 wound penalty because devil body, then additional -1 from sfs, five decisives gg

[marsh garden]

that's only at e5, yeah?

[bleak hazel]

Devil-body replaces the health track, so they're back to -0

[wise ocean]

yeah, but you can also say 3 decisives e3 gg, the interesting part is how infernal ox and the phase 2 means all five of those matter instead of being overkill

[wise ocean]

Does DB interrupt Metal Storm and cancel the rest of the attacks?

[bleak hazel]

no, since the way it works is "press button, gain init equal to wound penalty, fire off (init gained) decisives"

but if they're already in DBA then they're at -0 and it doesn't work

[wise ocean]

metal storm remains the overkilliest of tools

[marsh garden]

if only dark messiah's wrath worked on martial arts charms

then brawlbyssal would be even more fucked

[velvet raft]

It's funny putting together this sid and having basically run out of native charms to take by E3

Handy, for grabbing ten billion martial arts

But funny

[bleak hazel]

average Infernal Thoughts from chargen today:

"hey, I need to make four swords to max out Thousand Blades over the course of this campaign, and I plan to make them from bits of my own soul, so what if every time I soulforge my own demons I buy one Cosmic Transcendence of Virtue"
nothing can go wrong with Cosmic Transcendence of Virtue x4

[velvet raft]

Definitely

Pondering if this alone (as a 4m supplemental evocation) might be worth 22 exp on a character who already has Way Too Much Minimum Damage

Like, okay, Overwhelming 3 + 5 for endings anima + 5 post-soak damage for Demesene-and-Manse form is a lot, but 18 is more than 13

[bleak hazel]

I see you also saw Ligier's entire deal and went "to deal with this I need nuclear punches"

Rival is rocking max power fusion blades instead of actual Overwhelming

[velvet raft]

Oh I forget to actualy paste what "this" is

Evocation from Seven-Star Alignment

Amusingly, I'm not sure any other part of Seven-Star Alignment is worth investing in

[marsh garden]

so i'm probably only like half-done with it rn, but i wanted to put the bits i'm concerned with out to make sure, would one of y'all mind taking a peek at the artifact i'm currently dinkling with?

[velvet raft]

But holy shit +5 damage dice is good

Oh wait I should grab disease immunity

Forgot to stop my own heart

Oh wait I can have 21 minimum damage punches

Sudden Radiance Onslaught is a funny charm

... oh wow, those first two Fire Dragon charms are rad

[bleak hazel]

reroll join battle gets very expensive

but Searing Edge Attack is an all-timer

the fusion blades combo is SEA + Empowering Justice Redirection from Crane, which provides one autosux on withering damage rolls with mastery

so you automatically proc searing edge even against infinite soak + postsoak damage reduction, and then delete 5-7 init

[velvet raft]

I think reroll join battle might be worth it to try to open with a first-round Numberless Blows Technique to get that damage bonus

Maybe

But Searing Edge Attack, yeah

I'm figuring out what to do with my last 22 xp

[buoyant summit]

I wonder what the best SwordAlch build is

[wise ocean]

thousand blades alch

[bleak hazel]

they don't get Mastery, so it's less all-consuming for them

VBOS is very good without mastery

Even Blade isn't bad

you can more or less do whatever

[velvet raft]

Alchemicals can really do fine with just their normal charms

They get some wild stuff

[bleak hazel]

obviously "strongest sword build" is and always will be Single Point unless you have access to Solar or Abyssal Melee

[wise ocean]

thousand blades is less ridiculous without mastery, sure, but they have very good synergy with all the artifacts and their attribute structure

[bleak hazel]

the matchup there is basically "Solar melee wins the clash or parry against the Single Point nova strike a significant majority of the time and then wins easily, a minority of the time the dice go against them and they instantly explode into pink mist"

[wise ocean]

I still can't get over how funny QoKP is for things like that

reflexive clash, if you win they explode themselves, gg

[buoyant summit]

QoKP???

[wise ocean]

unfortunate that you can only get up to 20 dice on it double 10s vs. a decisive that could potentially be more thanks to non-charm dice adders

[wise ocean]

Queen of Killers Pirouette, Abyssal Dodge E3

one of my favorite tech pieces

[bleak hazel]

Crane has something similar as a counterattack, in which case you both explode

I don't generally use it because it's mechanically a bit underspecified, that charm also does other useful stuff that doesn't require active arbitration

but it's fun

[wise ocean]

actually, hm, I should see just how nova single-point can get in terms of decisive clash dice

[bleak hazel]

it does not have tons of accuracy boosting, it just hits extremely hard

[buoyant summit]

I bet Single Point EB is fucking disgusting

'yes I would like to reflexively aim and move towards my opponent while I have two initiative tracks to beat the brakes off of them'

[bleak hazel]

add Sid Melee for more reflexive aims and attack penalty negation

combining anything with single point does improve things but it's already broken anyyway so it basically does not matter

[wise ocean]

oh, @prisma sun found intimacy weaken on punch charm

[buoyant summit]

Sid melee has reflexive aims???

[wise ocean]

Frozen Fears Blossom into Entropic Hoarfrost Radiance in Abyssal Dodge

[buoyant summit]

W h e r e

[velvet raft]

A bunch of them

[bleak hazel]

Sid Melee is all about aiming and full defence

[wise ocean]

charm 1 or so in the tree?

[bleak hazel]

since it's just Soresu

[velvet raft]

I think at least one is Versatile?

[bleak hazel]

it has exactly one, but yes, it's versatile

[velvet raft]

Tragically, you have to take a non-versatile charm as a prereq, IIRC

[bleak hazel]

you can also go get this one so you can aim + social influence if you have to

[wise ocean]

The Death of Joy (+2m): If the Abyssal deals damage, her target must weaken one of his positive Intimacies.
(with a counterattack charm where you roll post-dodge to deal some decisive damage ignoring hardness)

[velvet raft]

Aaaaand that's 1xp left over

On this stupid blender

[prisma sun]

Huh wwuh

[wise ocean]

you dodge a guy, roll to counter-attack, if the counter-attack deals damage he has to weaken a positive Intimacy

it's a weird kind of thing but it is Punch To Lower Intimacy

[chilly sluice]

Abyssal Dodge has some very funny stuff

[prisma sun]

Oh nice

It's just "weaken the intimacy by 1"?

[wise ocean]

Appears like it, yeah

[velvet raft]

WAIT fffffff

I forgot the PAOC secret technique

@bleak hazel Do you happen to have that screencap sitting around?

[prisma sun]

nice

[velvet raft]

And where the hell do I free up 10xp from ...

[velvet raft]

Danke

[wise ocean]

+1 accuracy, so +1 hit die?

5m 1wp seems a bit much considering how many motes you need to spend on unarmed already, but I suppose it does provide a bunch of bonuses over a whole fight if you trigger this at the beginning

[velvet raft]

Yeah, it miiiiight not be worth it here

[bleak hazel]

accuracy is non-charm, which is very nice

but it is a sometimes food

not all styles have easy attack/defence enhancers, for one

[velvet raft]

The auto-success on decisives might even matter more

In this particular case

Since this idiot loves decisive damage that doesn't depend on initiative

[tulip folio]

Dark Messiah had some sauce with shit like Illustrative Overkill Technique.

[velvet raft]

One may notice that dark messiah form pretty much still exists in brawl

[fierce star]

yeah, all the hero forms got transubstantiated over to their equivalent's brawl, more or less

[velvet raft]

We only need one intimacy where we're going

[velvet raft]

Just saw Moonreaver in Many-Faced Strangers and

Goddamn

[chilly sluice]

that is pretty good

[velvet raft]

It's especially good if you're doing Four Magical Materials Form strats so you can use it with Numberless Blows Technique >_>

[bleak hazel]

making a Thousand Blades spearman who is going to use the Infernal relic corruption stuff in craft to get a bunch of evos and why are there so few good spears

I can make them all Resonant, so that's not an issue, but one of the longfangs is genuinely awful, one relies solely on Clarity and as such doesn't work for non-Alchs and there's only one really good one

Am I meant to be Achilles in this game or not

[tulip folio]

Because it's not a Daiclaive 😛

[bleak hazel]

I can steal the crook from Alchs and easily reflavour it, that has a bunch of Metagaos juice

press button to terraform

[marsh garden]

speaking of longfangs

may i borrow your eyes for a bit, misc? i've got one that i think is mostly done, but i don't know how a couple charms shake out

and i want to make sure they're up to snuff before i commit to writing the fluff and finishing the last couple

[bleak hazel]

I am tad busy today but throw it at me and I'll take a look when I have time

[marsh garden]

thank you, i greatly appreciate it

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KjoM-OIqQ2L-txOwKNFYjRHk12QGHitexi1UHffQMN8

once this is done, i want to make some adamant doohickies...

[velvet raft]

There are not many greater hearthstones that apply directly to attacks

[velvet raft]

... oh my god I never realized just how the interaction here worked

[buoyant summit]

You know

I know this isn't wuxia, but

Zorro Sid?

[velvet raft]

Demesne-and-Manse Form holy shit

[buoyant summit]

I feel like a Zorro Sid has great potential

[velvet raft]

Definitely

Hell, Zorro is basically a resplendent destiny

[buoyant summit]

Ye

[velvet raft]

As is, arguably, his fop persona

[buoyant summit]

What caste would do something like that...

Maybe an Endings?

Revolutionary, end to oppression?

[velvet raft]

Battles

Or Secrets, maybe

TBH I could see a case for any of them

[buoyant summit]

tru lol

[velvet raft]

But personally I'd go for battles

Zorro is a man who seeks confrontation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Beu_X8lklG8

[bleak hazel]

wait what

I did not see that one

[chilly sluice]

I should build out a Sid sometime

[bleak hazel]

arguably a great many Zorro-type heroes are isomorphic to wuxia

[velvet raft]

Ye

[chilly sluice]

Either gaslight maxing Serenities, or Battle/Endings fight Sid

[bleak hazel]

I have always argued that the original Robin Hood and Water Margin share basically all their themes

except Robin Hood has less beating up tigers

[velvet raft]

Hell, various wuxia characters have done "wealthy person who can't be part of the jianghu participates in secret under a masked identity"

That's a thing

[bleak hazel]

the literal, original Invincible Sword Princess was one, in fact

(even if she's not so invincible in that film)

also four-part PAOC Form + Greater Sign of Mars = Base init 13, go absolutely wild on them

base init 15 if you're Anys Syn

[velvet raft]

Yeah, that interaction definitely works, I'd just never thought about it before

[fierce star]

I feel like a lot of emphasis gets placed on the 'differences' and 'incompatibilities' between various genres of eastern and western fiction when those 'incompatibilities' are mostly in the mind when you start boiling things down to icons and symbols but I got called eurocentric for that take before

weirdly enough it was over whehter or not it was okay to have a bayonet on a crossbow for acharacter in a wuxia game

[velvet raft]

You do need a hearthstone from an actual manse

[velvet raft]

There are differences, but a lot are in the specifics and in the iconography

I'd say jianghu is more distinctively wuxia as a concept, but if you take like ... superheroes

Cape society is something in proximity to jianghu a lot of the time

[tulip folio]

What's that third one?

[velvet raft]

The hearthstone merit

Games of Divinity Form is a bit more of a dud, but the other three PAOC forms are each, individually, pretty crazy

I was doing summaries of effects for easier use, and I checked Demesne-and-Manse Form again, and realized that this is what it primarily does if you have a 5-dot manse

[bleak hazel]

assuming you have an applicable rock

which is harder than it looks

[velvet raft]

Yeah, you do need a 5-dot merit to make it sing

[bleak hazel]

bonus points for the special activation rule

I'm not 100% sure this works but if it does hot damn

[velvet raft]

I actually ended up sticking the Lotus Blossoms on there just to get the mote cost up to 15

Because with that, you can use the special activation, get to bonfire instantly, trigger the special activation for Soul-Fire Shaper, and then jump into PAOC form

[bleak hazel]

if you want to go All Decisive Gaming, spam white jade as well

PAOC Form, +7 from Greater Sign of Mars, +3 from D&M form, +3 from 2m white jade

16 base init

red jade for extra sux to damage, WOE for free excellencies

[velvet raft]

My headcanon at this point is that PAOC is Anys Syn Style

[bleak hazel]

every time you hit someone you chunk them for 7 health levels and your init remains exactly the same at "comfortably too high to crash"

[velvet raft]

Just pure martial arts insanity

[bleak hazel]

find a reflexive clash somewhere and spam the everliving fuck out of it

or just a decisive counterattack

melee has one but you're unarmed so you'd need one somewhere else

[velvet raft]

Endings also has virtue here, because the lesser sign provides an auto-success on decisives

[bleak hazel]

Speared Boar Struggle, i guess

it does, but I don't think it approaches the absurdity of Join Battle 2 and +7 base init

you show up, shotgun 55 motes and then just keep whacking people

[velvet raft]

I'm imagining the bit in DBZA where Goku keeps just punching Jayce in the face

[bleak hazel]

Some interesting metaphysical implications to every single punch you throw doing approximately 7 levels of damage

AKA the unbuffed health pool of a heroic human

you have reached the level where heroes are 1hp fodder

(until they doomcombo you because you really need better defence than PAOC provides here)

Hmm

[buoyant summit]

For this Zorro idea should I do melee into an SMA?

[bleak hazel]

There are far worse ideas, certainly

The circle training in the Hopkins Zorro reminds me of Emerald Gyre but any SMA works here, I think

Obsidian Shards has the style

[velvet raft]

The circle training was kind of a vague, not-especially well-researched reference to Spanish-style fencing's circle on the ground, I think

Of existing SMAs ... hm.

Emerald Gyre and Citrine Poxes are both sort of "renaissance man" styles in that they both depend on abilities related to intellectual acuity

I could see CMOS for the sheer trickiness

[bleak hazel]

I like OSOI here

and it has the bonus of allowing there to actually be two Zorros

because it has a shadow clone charm

[wise ocean]

I did because VBOS synergy but I can't get PAOC so I decided to simply suffer about it

[velvet raft]

Gotta use your bear hands

https://tenor.com/X4AQ.gif

The 2e depiction of the artifact-grade unarmed strikes from PAOC was in fact having really long, sharp nails made out of starmetal

[wise ocean]

actually, hm, vbos is an enhancement to the form

can you combo non-paoc forms with paoc forms? Is that a thing?

[bleak hazel]

PAOC form has two modes

[velvet raft]

To a limited extent, at Essence 5

[bleak hazel]

one is "all four PAOC subforms at once"

one is "one SMA form of any kind, then two non-SMA forms"

[wise ocean]

gotcha, I was Unsure

[velvet raft]

This makes PAOC immensely attractive to literally everyone, but it's a big investment

[bleak hazel]

Rival's for instance is Soulfire Shaper Form, Crane Form and a free slot

by default sid melee form but really others are better

[wise ocean]

vbos means you can get up to 21 reset init every time you kill someone as a battles sid, which is every time with 21 reset init

as a dawny solaroid, it's like 17 instead

(bonus at bonfire to base init from caste but it's not as big as greater sign of mars)

[bleak hazel]

downside is that you spent infinite motes putting all those up

[velvet raft]

Yeah, Demesne-and-Manse w/VBOS seems rock-solid

[bleak hazel]

PAOC Form is already 30

[wise ocean]

you don't really need more motes from there unless you also want to full excellency the decisive you're throwing out every turn, life-severing is just 1m 1wp

well, blade is like 4 and also significantly boosts your accuracy and damage on the decisive, so there's that

[bleak hazel]

you're an unarmed PAOC stylist so you probably want Ways of Exaltation up

so 40 motes on scenelongs

44 with silken

and then you spend 20 of the remainder on GSOM

[wise ocean]

not terrible at e5

[bleak hazel]

at which point you max out Join Battle and the GSOM roll and you have.... 0 motes exactly

admittedly you can fight perfectly well on Breath of War but if you get put in a bad spot you have zero breathing room to pay for emergency bailout

[wise ocean]

ah, right, it costs three billion dollars to run sid greater signs on a mote pool of None

[bleak hazel]

they're not committed so you can earn it back, but you don't have soulfire shaper form to turn withering hits into motes if you are using VBOS form

[buoyant summit]

destreza do indeed be obsessed with circles and how they apply to bodily mechanics

Which is not at all how Mask explained them

[velvet raft]

Nope!

[wise ocean]

hm. I think you might want to actually sacrifice the pure base init number to run it as a solaroid in this context for the bigger mote pool and less spend on adding to init (since solaroid init increaser is free, just Be At Bonfire)

since you want to be able to have motes to throw at things like dodging

[velvet raft]

Destreza is all about geometry

Honestly if there were an SMA about math that would be the ideal

Or, you know, swords, but

[buoyant summit]

Yes? And... how that geometry can be used to optimize your body mechanics in a swordfight?

[wise ocean]

blade + life-sever is 5m1wp every round, so assuming you have the WP it takes four rounds of murdering people to get up to gsom levels of spend

[velvet raft]

I was saying nope in agreement

[buoyant summit]

Oh

lol soz

[velvet raft]

"Nope! It is not how Mask explained them, like you said"

Sorry, that was unclear

[buoyant summit]

ur fiiiiiine

[wise ocean]

and the extra accuracy and decisive damage dice probably get you to equivalent or better outcome with gsom-sid for equivalent mote spend over those four rounds

17 or so (less if I'm misremembering, definitely not more) + 3 from life-severing + (1+target wound penalty, usually 2, also as accuracy on the hit roll)

[marsh garden]

gsom?

[bleak hazel]

really GSOM is not really your pick for 1v1 combat

Greater Sign of Mars

[marsh garden]

ah

[wise ocean]

yeah, I'm not assuming 1v1 in the first place because vbos requires you to kill people

[bleak hazel]

the big benefit of GSOM is that it applies to your entire team

so you use it either instead of the full personal combat scenelong suite to boost the side for the climactic combat or you use it a good way into a 1vX when you've managed to bank some motes and you need a breather

phase 2

[buoyant summit]

I forget, is the Sid expansion including a sword SMA?

[wise ocean]

no

[bleak hazel]

only SMA in the sid companion is Sapphire Veil

which uses ribbons and whips

[buoyant summit]

Got it

[marsh garden]

i keep forgetting which sid arts are the non-SMA division arts and which are just whole-ass SMAs

they really ain't makin it easy

what are the other three besides violet bier and cerulean lute?

[buoyant summit]

It is a bad idea to make a combatsid that doesn't eventually an SMA, right?

[bleak hazel]

you can get away with it

this is not the case

[wise ocean]

forbidden manse of ivy style for secrets, crimson panoply of victory style for battles, golden barque of ??? for journeys

[bleak hazel]

the Division styles are Violet Bier of Sorrows, Crimson Panoply of Victory, Forbidden Manse of Ivy, Cerulean Lute of Harmony and Golden Barque of the Heavens

which are the five HQs of their divisions

[coral wraith]

My personal tinfoil hat theory, is that the Sid Companion will include a universal secret technique which requires you to finish an MA but gives all its weapons SMA compatibility

[marsh garden]

why is green different

[wise ocean]

lmao that'd be busted as fuck

[coral wraith]

Not really no

[merry arch]

no parasols?

[wise ocean]

Oh?

[fierce star]

so I've been having ap onder about my Aurorals project. I was trying to fit 8/9 (could never decide ifI wanted appearance to always be aspect or not) attributes evenly into a 5-aspect setup. and it just don't math out, the math doesn't math here.

But. What if I took the five themes for the aspects I have--inspiration by action, inspiration by word, inspiration by madness, inspiration by craft, inspiration by ideal--and made them... essence based exalts? with those being their five categories of charm?

[bleak hazel]

Sapphire Veil is the sex SMA and as such you're stuck with sexy weapons

[merry arch]

[bleak hazel]

honestly it was the best designed one in 2e and I am really looking forward to seeing how they port it

because it's the only one from 2e that could be ported rather than wholly rewritten from scratch

some banger charms in there

no pun intended

[buoyant summit]

I will admit I think Zorro would be a VBoS or Even Blade stylist

[coral wraith]

Why would it be busted to enable more MAs to work with Sidereal's Big Thing when that's been like, the no.1 complaint with them?

[bleak hazel]

basically every Zorro training montage is two seconds away from just reciting the scripture of the maiden on the shelf verbatim

[coral wraith]

The fact they're the MA focused splat, yet they're frequently squeezed into very particular ones due to weapon compatibility alone

[bleak hazel]

combat abilities are also good sword thematics, you don't just have to use the two un-broken sword styles over and over

[buoyant summit]

You know... fair enough

[marsh garden]

i was under the impression that sids didn't need a buff to their MA powers

[buoyant summit]

E: OKAY LOOK YOU DON'T GOTTA CALL US OUT THIS WAY BRO <XD

[wise ocean]

Isn't the goal, as it were, for that to be explicit and just have unarmed sucking naturally as a way of balancing giga MA stuff?

[bleak hazel]

Even Blade is a good style, but if you just want to sword the fuck out of people then Sid Melee blows it out of the water

[marsh garden]

considering...everything

[bleak hazel]

the reason a lot of people want a sword SMA is that sword MAs usually can't actually use unarmed

so they are locked out of SMA compatibiltiy entirely

same for Flying Guillotine

[coral wraith]

Considering most all of the SMAs have weapon compatibility, not really? It's only PAOC that's locked to unarmed

[buoyant summit]

The funny thing is I think there is an SMA that uses batons

[wise ocean]

fair enough, in that context - though when it comes to sword MAs, that's, what, just Even Blade realistically?

[buoyant summit]

Which means you can use EB with it

[marsh garden]

and single point

[wise ocean]

Since Steel Devil is unusably bad and Single-Point is banned

[marsh garden]

ah

[buoyant summit]

VBoS and Devil Prince

[wise ocean]

vbos can be used unarmed

[bleak hazel]

VBOS can also use seven-section staffs, which are very usable for SMAs

[buoyant summit]

Tru

[tulip folio]

Seems valid imo

[bleak hazel]

one of the backer requests was apparently "please make Steel Devil good" so it is getting at least one decent secret technique to unfuck its terrible offense

its defence is actually very good

[buoyant summit]

Do you think I need the reminder that much when my colleague cracked my jaw with VBoS with a seven-section /j

[marsh garden]

steel devil is swords only right?

[bleak hazel]

only dual swords

[marsh garden]

cool cool, thanks

[wise ocean]

Nah, I mean that expanding that compatibility to "if you want you can use Medium Artifact Sword with any SMA" seems busted

weapons that have good MA compat, in my experience, seem weaker than standard weapons (with low compat)

[marsh garden]

i have no need to look at it then

[wise ocean]

so if there's a secret technique that allows you to take A MA That Lets You Use Swords and make it compatible with SMAs, swords - which have excellent tagging, defense bonus, etc - are now Really Good At SMA when the things which were Really Good At SMA either sucked baseline (unarmed) or had poor tagging/defense bonus

[coral wraith]

I honestly think the difference is highly marginal and can be compensated for with one or two evocations if it's ever an issue

[wise ocean]

again, just my opinion

[tulip folio]

The defence bonus imo isn't much of a big deal when so many of those styles already have a medium weapon option.

[marsh garden]

i think it's emotionally healthy that swords have one big thing they can't do, but i am steeply biased in this

[tulip folio]

As the defence bonus is from medium, not sword

Greatswords for example are terrible weapons

[marsh garden]

heavy weapon moment

[buoyant summit]

topple out here calling out Sword Likers

(It's me and most of my headmates, we are Sword Likers)

[wise ocean]

I have also been reminded that I have no idea what a seven-section staff is

[marsh garden]

https://tenor.com/view/green-mile-im-tired-boss-michael-clarke-duncan-gif-16875499

[buoyant summit]

It's actually usually a three section staff

[wise ocean]

Yeah, thus why I'm wondering

[buoyant summit]

It's a bo staff cut into three sections linked with chains basically

[wise ocean]

the other four sections seem like they'd just make it horrendously unwieldy at best

[tulip folio]

I think the reason swords and SMA come up so much is swords are in such a unique place with martial arts. Few other weapons have styles devoted to them that also deny unarmed.

So they're uniquely incompatible

[buoyant summit]

I hypothesize the popular name became seven-section because the rare examples that were actually seven sections were harder and thus more impressive to use, and

[marsh garden]

the last four sections are just an inch long each, two on either end

[buoyant summit]

The name is alliterative

[marsh garden]

so they can make it more alliterative

[buoyant summit]

Well

No

A seven-section

An actual seven-section

Is the same length of wood or metal, but seven pieces, not three

[bleak hazel]

"seven-section" staff

AKA Advanced Stick

[buoyant summit]

Yeah

The actual 'seven-section' is

This

[marsh garden]

oh so a whip

[buoyant summit]

A metal whip with a fuckin weight on the end

Much Ow

[marsh garden]

that looks unfun to learn

[buoyant summit]

iirc at least in Shaolin you need to learn two weapons first before you get to touch a whip

[bleak hazel]

Sapphire Veil uses urumis, which are very literally metal whips

or at least very whippy

[buoyant summit]

I don't think that really sells what an urumi is Misc

It's a sword

[marsh garden]

i thought urumis were more bladed than a whip

[wise ocean]

I'm just going to mentally replace every instance of "seven" with "three," I think. Ha

[buoyant summit]

That's as bendy as a whip

[marsh garden]

i mean

[buoyant summit]

on purpose

[marsh garden]

it's not a sword either

because it's whip-length and whip-use

as far as i know

[buoyant summit]

Okay sure

[bleak hazel]

also feature in the most bullshit charm from SVOP 2e

"each time your DV refreshes" is basically "every turn"

[buoyant summit]

what the fuck

[bleak hazel]

elder charms! they were all bullshit

there was literally a solar charm that gave you 10x damage

[marsh garden]

i wonder what they'd stat out for big red's elder charm(s) if they were forced to give her some kind of stat block

[bleak hazel]

giga artifacts, I'd expect

[marsh garden]

(and no i don't want to know what they did in RotSE, i live in terror)

[bleak hazel]

giga artifacts (ebby mind control ring edition)

[fierce star]

well for thing she was ever single aspect except wood

[marsh garden]

?

[buoyant summit]

What?

[fierce star]

her redness' elder charm bs

did I misunderstand a converstion/question

[marsh garden]

i was not aware that was indicated in 3e lore anywhere

learn something new every day

[fierce star]

oh no I mean

in ex2

I guess I misunderstood the conversation

sorry

i'll go back tow hat I was doing

[marsh garden]

i'm at a bit of a loss, but there's no need to apologize

[fierce star]

'cause misc posted a 2e charm so I thought the conversation was about 2e elder bullshit

[wise ocean]

it might as well be, they're probably not going to radically change much lore

[marsh garden]

they certainly have radically changed enough lore that i'm skeptical of that assertion

[fierce star]

i'm not sure how they'd do in ex3 but in ex2 there was an elder charm that you could take once per essence level over 5 to get all the powers anda bilities (and discounts) of another aspect

her redness was natively earth but had bought water, air, and fire.

[marsh garden]

sorry, for clarity, i meant 3e

[bleak hazel]

3e big red is fire, hence the name of the splatbook

[fierce star]

right I get that you mean that at this point, but Iwas clarifying why I said what I said, sorry

I can stop bringing up ex2 if it's a pr--wait she is?

but I liked the half twist that she was the scarlet empress because her anima banner was ag iant scarlet ruby

where's that stated, misc?

[bleak hazel]

nowhere clearly but I recall Vance at least discussing it at one point

2e deeb elder charms had some wild stuff

there was one that let a legendary breeding deeb literally beat better blood purity into their descendants at significant risk of death

[marsh garden]

yeah that sounds about right

[fierce star]

I'm not seeing anything in google about this

[bleak hazel]

ah here's the big red multi-aspect one

[marsh garden]

lol

very 2e

"at e9 theoretically the deeb could maybe turn into something of value, like an elemental solar"

[bleak hazel]

ah, here is at least one dev talking about it

[wise ocean]

"at e10 you become Baby Primordial" is kind of fun

[bleak hazel]

average non-solar Dreams of the First Age charm

[limpid badge]

You would think but

It became such a tumour

Couldn’t get a game unless you were willing to write a primordial charmset

[bleak hazel]

it was much worse for Infernals

for deebs that charm was just a cute footnote, for Infernals people were genuinely going "we start the game at Essence 6 so we can get straight into Devil-Tigers, this is now Shit Nobilis"

[wise ocean]

... What?

[limpid badge]

yuuuuup

yuuuuuuup

it was some real shit nobilis for that game where the first thing that happened was all the Yozi Dramatically and Mysteriously Dying

Like at once with no implications, utterly wiping hell clean so the party could just be Devil-Tigers w/o competition

[bleak hazel]

also since Infernals were stated to be able to become Better, Solar Primordials, this meant Solars, as exalts as strong as infernals, were then balanced on the basis that they had to be able to 1v1 Malfeas at high essence

like, literally Malfeas, the dyson sphere

[buoyant summit]

what the fuck was 2e

[chilly sluice]

glazing Solars

[buoyant summit]

This

Is balls and ass

tbh

<XD

[marsh garden]

i think whoever wrote this charm should be covered in honey

[limpid badge]

Glazing Solars and the like, zeroth draft of nobilis

shaping combat…………..

[buoyant summit]

🐴I feel vindicated in the fact my favorite splat is Deebs now

Cuz everything we see from 2e is just

Celestial powerscaling snarlfests

[limpid badge]

Oh it was not great but

it was better than 1e

[bleak hazel]

1e was truly comic book combat in that everyone was immortal

[chilly sluice]

I like Deebs thematically, but their mechanics just turn me away

[limpid badge]

1e put you in concrete shoes b4 pushing u into the deep end (the shoes are Power Combat), 2e juuuust used manacles b4 pushing you in, and 3e does put any weights at all (still pushing u in the deep end)

[fierce star]

the worst part is that hte worst solaroid glazers in ex2 were the ink monkies

... andt wo of them went on to write ex3 core (and most of deebs)

[dense verge]

i think they were booted from the 3e team by deebs?

[limpid badge]

bout halfway thru deebs, i think is the timin

[fierce star]

yeah

they'd gotten most of deebs done iirc

like, first draft done

[marsh garden]

why were they booted, anyway?

[fierce star]

one of them was a sex pest and both of them were habitual contract breakers who couldn't make a deadline

[marsh garden]

ah

that would do it

[fierce star]

H+H can basically be the dictionary definition of overpromise and underdeliver and they were bad people on top of it

[velvet raft]

Oh, @bleak hazel I'm gradually putting together a tactics page for ease of use but other than that this is my PAOC sunderdome submission https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S8Ehy_XiYPQbhbvbNYVmyKrUf9CcdB-EM8MEDzQ-hvs/edit?usp=sharing

It has as much bullshit as I could fit

[bleak hazel]

six ox bodies

[velvet raft]

Oh, yeah, woops!

Will fix that

[wise ocean]

inigo montoya
no sword
no ambidextrous merit

ngmi

[velvet raft]

Inigo Montoya if he just punched people really hard

And was magic

[marsh garden]

okay but inigo montoya is explicitly, emphatically not ambidextrous

you gotta use your bad hand to fight

not your Just As Good Hand

[velvet raft]

True, he's specifically fighting at a disadvantage for challenge and/or to cause his opponents problems

[wise ocean]

This is fair, I realized this after I posted and then decided to not correct myself

[velvet raft]

I discovered Moonreaver entirely by chance but it's a hell of an artifact

I would totally make it a centerpiece for a character

[marsh garden]

i've been obsessing over moonreaver for a few weeks, yeah

[velvet raft]

(It's in Many Faced Strangers)

[marsh garden]

it's so fucking cool

[velvet raft]

On this build, we're specifically abusing it in combination how comically efficient your multi-attacks are with the Centipede capstone

[fierce star]

I keep getting distracted away from building potential ligier-eaters

[velvet raft]

I think this is it for me, I could finish up my citrine poxes guy but I'm just not feeling it

[marsh garden]

is it a sid tanking dissonance or a lunar martial artist?

[velvet raft]

Sid who gets resonance because of Four Magical Materials Form

And gets to use evocations with unarmed attacks :D

This is almost all of my favorite siddie/MA bs on one combat monster

[marsh garden]

ah, right, smas can just do whatever

forgor

[wise ocean]

well, paoc specifically

[bleak hazel]

PAOC in particular has a repository of infinite starboy bullshit techniques

other SMAs are much more tightly themed due to not having the theme of "everything"

[velvet raft]

It doesn't get the really crazy tricks that other SMAs have but it has extremely powerful fundamentals

[bleak hazel]

it has some pretty crazy tricks, to be fair

Essence Disruption and Essence Redirection are such bullshit

[velvet raft]

Yeah, that's true, the Soulfire Shaper stuff is wild

[bleak hazel]

Essence Redirection is the one SMA charm that I think needs a highly specific nerf because RAW it can turn off excellencies and that autowins clashes

basically a perfect defence

(also it costing 2m 0wp in the Form is such nonsense)

[wise ocean]

actually, for the perfect defense note - can you perfect dodge a clash and auto-win it? I'm like 90% sure this is normally impossible, which would make that even more nonsense

[velvet raft]

I guess what I mean is that other SMAs break specific rules with their forms and have absolutely incredible Simple attack charms. PAOC doesn't really do that, it just kinda has a variety of really strong stuff

[marsh garden]

I'm going to be honest, i think SMAs are my least favorite part of exalted so far

[velvet raft]

I enjoy their mechanical weirdness

[wise ocean]

inexplicable, elaborate

[marsh garden]

they feel like a blanket list of powers that say "i do what i want"

[velvet raft]

I also enjoy how a lot of them, even PAOC, are missing sort of fundamental elements

[bleak hazel]

no, you cannot perfect dodge a clash

it does not involve defence values

[wise ocean]

yep, thought so

[velvet raft]

There's really good reasons for a sid to take like 2 normal MAs and 1 SMA, because the normal MAs have the bread-and-butter stuff that SMAs are missing

[velvet raft]

I can see why you'd say that, but what I'd note is that a lot of the bullshit we talk about comes online at Essence 4 or 5, and is a heavy investment in terms of xp and motes/willpower

[wise ocean]

we're not talking e2 stuff because that's kind of self-explanatory at the level we're having these discussions at, these are 7th dan doomcombos that blow out your entire mote pool to break the system

[velvet raft]

When we talk about SMAs we're often sorta reveling in the mechanical weirdness and combo potential, but in practice it'll be a lot more tamped down

If I were playing something close to the build I just posted in reality, I'd probably need between 150 and 250 additional xp to be functional for things other than punching Ligier in the mouth

[bleak hazel]

if you want practical doomcombos take 10 solar melee charms and remove anything below this level of bullshit with ease

(or Abyssal or Infernal, they're all blenders)

[wise ocean]

IMO it goes Solar > Infernal > Abyssal though

[velvet raft]

Infernals are wacky

I like them because they're very strong but a lot of their fundamentals are weird

Like how they don't get Graceful Crane Stance, and their version of it requires them to be running full speed

[bleak hazel]

Infernal Melee is more blendery and considerably less tanky than the other two

trades a lot of the absurd parry for more swings and Green Sun Nimbus Flare

[velvet raft]

I have not actually looked at infernal melee

I love how much archery is about rage and hatred

[bleak hazel]

it's less distinct from its Solar equivalent than some Infernal trees but the differences show up more because Solar and Abyssal Melee are functionally identical

and they're all very stock effects

[velvet raft]

They could have made the rage and hatred tree melee or brawl, but they made it archery, and I adore that

[bleak hazel]

notably Infernal Melee is very short on accuracy and withering boosters

Just Make More Decisives

[velvet raft]

I should give it a read

[fierce star]

I hear infernal archery has a lot of kimbery in it

you know, milf's acid arrows

[velvet raft]

XD

But yeah, and some lightning and weather magic

[tulip folio]

Requiem for Aurora (5 Dot)
Adamant Dragon Sigh Wand
Aurora was universally beloved. From the Dragon Kings, to the Jadeborn and even the remnants of the Ereta'een, there were none that bore him malice. So when the Incarnae was destroyed and his chosen corrupted, it was a knife to the very soul of all who had known him. Requiem for Aurora was not originally known by that name, having been crafted by a Jadeborn artificer as a secret gift for one of Aurora's exalted. That Auroran unfortunately fell in the Incarna's defence before the weapon could be completed, a fact for which the Jadeborn never forgave themselves. The artificer renamed the weapon in mourning of their friend and the god they served.

Requiem is a Dragon Sign Wand with a dark frame and a barrel of brilliant adamant. With each shot, it reflects the light of the firedust through that barrel, creating coronas of shifting rainbow light. With a heartfelt prayer, one can call up a fragment of the Incarnae's light, the weapon lashing out with brilliant bolts of the northern lights themselves without shot or powder.

Special: Airglow Prayers - While the wielder's anima is at Burning or higher, this weapon loses Slow and requires no ammunition.

Requiem for Aurora is a sorcerous relic (Exalted, p. 470). While it was originally designed only to allow its wielder to initiate into sorcery, the death of Aurora has filled it with deep mourning and allows it to instead initiate its wielder into Necromancy, though not both Sorcery and Necromancy.

[tulip folio]

Mirror Flower Rhapsody
Cost: —; Mins: Intelligence 5, Essence 3
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
The Wanderer dances along the line of the ethereal and the real, pulling dreams and people across that barrier.

When the Wanderer undertakes a sorcerous working, she gains the following benefits:
• Each 10 she rolls adds a non-charm die. 
• Once per story, she can waive a working’s experience cost if that working is related to Medicine, Alchemy or Wyld power. She can easily shield a town from an oncoming plague, brew a mutagenic potion or conjure Féth fíada to ward her sanctuary.
• Her mastery of chaos allows her to freely reduce the Finesse of her Working mid-working without gaining automatic botches.
• She may her Initiation into sorcery as one level higher (Such as Celestial instead of Terrestial) while working within areas of the Wyld, such as Bordermarches. Workings that benefit this way cannot stand under the harsh rules of reality and will fade away if they cease to be within an area of the Wyld.

Playing about with Wanderer charms. Weaker than the Infernal Equivalent 90% of the time (Infernals can get a lot of bonus means/terminus/their exp cost waiving has no limitations) but they can uniquely avoid the penalties for pushing beyond their limits...as long as they're okay with that working never being able to leave the Wyld.

[bleak hazel]

doing some armchair theorising on the bus about how to take on Solars and it really is like trying to deal with this meme incarnate

the highly specific restriction of "not only do you need to be able to handle Melee/Brawl's infinite output, you need to be able to do it from tick zero of any given fight because of Awakening Eye and Thunderclap Rush" makes it kind of a puzzle situation

I think there might be some kind of tech in having a reflexive clash ready to go a Smashing weapon, so that ideally you can smack them when they zoop in from midrange and knock them back to break the flurry

doesn't save you if they're at bonfire and can Peony Blossom -> Invincible Fury of The Dawn, though

the actual method here is to wear them out, but I don't want to sacrifice 1d4 deebs to the glowing golden blender

[wise ocean]

though, lol, technically still solaroid

perfect dodge first attack in flurry, counterattack with full excellency, Prone

then there's the other charm that lets you jump away, and they're Prone, so they just have to lie there and seethe

[mighty rover]

owned

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah you can't move while prone, that's very smart

lots of other ways to get prone on a counter so you just need a leaping dodge and some luck

deebs have Hopping Firecracker but they're damn short of ways to avoid getting hit by a Solar who really wants to

[velvet raft]

IIRC there is solaroid tech for rising from probe reflexively in dodge

[wise ocean]

quick ctrl-f for Prone actually has surprisingly little of it in the solar charmset

reflexive prone rising is in e1 ride but only for the solar's mount

... huh, that's really weird. solars don't have reflexive prone rising, abyssals do

[velvet raft]

I assumed solars had it too

[tulip folio]

Core!

[mighty rover]

they know a little something about getting back on your feet after being brought low

[wise ocean]

solution: the one true weakness of solars is kicking them in the legs

[fierce star]

Jimmy 'Big Jimmy' Jimmyson, better known among his fellow Secrets sidereals as 'Jimmy Kneecaps', who has develoepd an entire martial arts style around breaking solar's legs.

[velvet raft]

Jimmy: "... so you see, solars are a lot like horses: strong, but actually too strong for their own skeletons to withstand—"
Chejop: "jimmy what the fuck are you talking about"

[mighty rover]

In every way horses and solars are the same

[velvet raft]

• evil and intimidating solar

[mighty rover]

https://tenor.com/view/uma-musume-takeshi-maenami-tm-opera-o-movie-beginning-of-a-new-era-gif-462168251692281496

[velvet raft]

Yeah that's true

She is a solar

Gold Ship, on the other hand, is a sid

[mighty rover]

Explain that one

[velvet raft]

Weird charmset

Dropkicks people

https://tenor.com/inMxUzrku.gif

Strange combat dances

[mighty rover]

true!

[velvet raft]

Depicted above: Charcoal March of Spiders Style

[bleak hazel]

Isn't this how the superhuman's knees in Uber worked

[velvet raft]

I have no idea

[bleak hazel]

a series that only has the tiniest venn diagram overlap with any of Exalted's themes but I still sometimes reach out to for inspiration for deebs

because something appeals to be about all the elegant dances of blades occasionally being interrupted by "so, you get all your boys, and you stomp the fucker into the dirt in the middle of the night"

fighting Solars (1)
(spoilered for some blood because Uber is an all-crippling-injuries kind of comic)

Fighting Solars (2)

[wise ocean]

excellent question, I definitely remember reading it but can't recall whether knees were a thing

I do recall that line of sight was the whole thing for the eye lasers like this

[bleak hazel]

yeah, Uber is superhumans-as-wargear whereas Exalted is extremely not

but there is sometimes this throughline of "Exalts were made as godslaying superweapons, and you can use them purely as beatsticks if you absolutely have to"

[fierce star]

A friend once described the Exalted as 'a bunch of swords pretending they could ever become plowshares'.

[velvet raft]

A bunch of sword/plowshare hybrids whose ability to function as plowshares is fundamentally inseparable from their ability to function as swords

[prisma sun]

Isn't that just a hoe

[velvet raft]

maybe but you can’t just call exalts that

[fierce star]

I'll call Cynis whatever I damn well want

[wise ocean]

update: yeah, the knees thing is a plot point

[tulip folio]

Defying Death's Gravity
Cost: 4m; Mins: Stamina 4, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Uniform, Perilous
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Thing
Death is not a fundamental force of the universe but a construct crafted into creation's bones. The Wanderer's spirit of freedom is no more defined by this than gravitational forces.

The Alchemical can use this Charm after being hit by an attack, before the damage roll. The Wanderer rolls (Stamina) dice, with each 10 she rolls adding an additional die. Each success on her roll subtracting one success from the damage roll.

Alternatively, the Wanderer can perfectly defend against uncountable damage. Against recurring sources, the Wanderer becomes immune for the rest of the scene.

Keys:

Winter-Defying Flame: When the Wanderer reduces damage from an Undead, Necromancer, Abyssal, Chosen of Endings or similar creature, the attacker loses motes equal to the successes rolled. If more motes would be lost than the attacker has, she suffers dice of lethal damage equal to the remainder, ignoring hardness.

Unbreakable Lifeline (+1 wp, Essence 3): For a surcharge of 1 willpower, this Charm's duration is extended until the start of the Wanderer's next turn, applying to each instance of withering or decisive damage she suffers during that time.

More wanderer tinkering.

[bleak hazel]

hmm

pondering what SMAs my dead elder sid would have actually known and I am considering giving him Sapphire Veil entirely for kicks, since people were talking about it and I feel it is interesting commentary on a guy who was ascetic even by the standards of Chejop Kejak, he literally had the asceticism sorcerous initiation

Young Shogunate Gleam being a bit of a maniac is kind of in the background of his deal

[bleak hazel]

I really like this one, in fact more than The Center Must Hold, which I presume was your model

this is a really cute charm that I am now strongly tempted to put on my artisan infernal's armour when he eventually makes it

also rare "fuck you siddies" rider on Winter-Defying Flame, which is just funny

[tulip folio]

It's a downtuned but widened version of Vault of Undying Triumphs, as the inspiration.

[prisma sun]

I am gonna try and do more sid sword stuff come wednesday

[tulip folio]

Vault rolls Full Armour, which is gunna be 11 if you're using it. Come on, you're wearing heavy artifact armour

[bleak hazel]

oh, that's their version of Adamant Skin Technique I think

but you have accidentally produced something that looks a lot like this

[tulip folio]

But this version works on withering and is a bit cheaper to make up for having a lot less raw dice

[bleak hazel]

which I believe is a sign of excellent balance

I think yours is a little better because "take 25% less damage" is sometimes a bit unreliable and flat "reduce by ~2.5" is usually going to be a larger chunk of an attack, and the scenelong repurchase is definitely really handy

[tulip folio]

The big thing winter is designed to beat up is Undead Battlegroups. As they don't have motes to lose, so they always eat the damage. XD

[bleak hazel]

but Sids are squishy so whatever

also it's just fun to have negate-uncountable on your 4m tank-it-up charm because it lets you get nuked and go "nah" really casually

"nah, I had a meeting"/"nah, nukes aren't in genre"

[tulip folio]

Just casually juggling soulbreaker orbs.

[bleak hazel]

I might make yours decisive-only since it's rather better than most withering damage reducers like Hostility Acceptance Technique

and fairly easy to just keep rolling

but I adore the 1wp extended mode, because fuck IFOTD

[tulip folio]

1 wp is likely a bit cheap but also: Come on, dropping a huge multi-hit is a bit too good* so I'm okay with giving it a dedicated counter.

[tulip folio]

That's fair

[bleak hazel]

I keep finding new interesting tidbits while searching the exalted server for old dev clarifications

Chejop MA

all quite fitting for him I think

[tulip folio]

Mind if I run some thoughts on merits past you?

[bleak hazel]

go wild

I'm applying for conferences and that is boring as hell

[prisma sun]

Whos she in this regard?

[bleak hazel]

Mnemon, since people were discussing how much she knows about Sids

[prisma sun]

Ah gotcha

[bleak hazel]

(enough to politically maneuver against them, she's not going to comically underestimate CK in that sense, but Sids are not exactly public about their martial arts soupification capabilities)

[tulip folio]

Basicly: Resources as a merit isn't great. People like having it but very few of the things that really matter in exalted can be purchased with resources. It's not useless but 5 dots in resources isn't going to do as much for someone as 5 dots in influence or 5 dots in Manse.

[prisma sun]

Mnemnon upon seeing all that bullshit: https://youtu.be/J-LE4QldsDY?si=EhBx4oliG2bhPHsc

[bleak hazel]

"I am sorry, you invited me to negotiations but this appears to be a 50/50 cross between Cynis' finest drug trip and an AMV"

[prisma sun]

Mnemnon's....

Earth?

Right

I cant remember

[bleak hazel]

yeah

E5 earth deeb w/ big sorcery

[prisma sun]

Her and Ragara both being earth is pretty funny

[bleak hazel]

and apparently enough combat charms to fistfight a Night caste which was pretty cool

[tulip folio]

On that front: It's odd that her redness is apparently now fire caste in 3e. She was Earth previously.

[prisma sun]

My two eldest chuds

[tulip folio]

Her caste won't really matter in a game but it feels a bit like someone went 'Oh, with that name she must be fire caste' without double checking.

[prisma sun]

I mean her design was always fire coded

Even besides the name

[bleak hazel]

she's Whatever Works since it was left out of the book, but the 3e devs are at least vaguely down for Fire

personally I like it because she has a very Fire Aspect way of governing

she's decisive, volatile, not massively wedded to tradition and got the job because she decided to do something downright suicidial in order to be the Big Damn Hero

(and look where that got her)

[prisma sun]

I also dont recall what her caste was listed in RoTSE

[tulip folio]

Earth

[marsh garden]

5-dot resources is like, mostly for nation-scale economical influence yeah? things like throwing your big meaty wallet around for armies, expansive mundane works, and trade deals as opposed to personal-scale treasures or other rare Exalt luxury?

[prisma sun]

I mean i also think its much more likely the exalted devs just changed something they didnt like and not that they never pulled up the single most infamous exalted book of all time

[marsh garden]

or could Resources also interface with things like Jade mines?

[prisma sun]

5 resources is a king's income yeah

[marsh garden]

how would y'all tackle that as a merit

"control of a Magical Material mine" sounds like it should be resources-related to me, but

[prisma sun]

Jade is specifically a resources thing

Like it tells you how much you get

[marsh garden]

oh right yeah, the currency

[tulip folio]

I've got a Lunar with Resources 5. She's got a Magic Fae Bag that never runs out of gems. She's also got a wanted poster in Yu Shan for fucking up economies by just Creating Wealth.

[bleak hazel]

Res 5 is, almost by definition, "I have a huge physical resource base" in every case but Heavenly salaries, where it amounts to the same thing but lensed strangely

so you definitely have land you own, major income streams, a bunch of guys working directly or indirectly for you

[marsh garden]

how much does that translate to in artifice-level wealth?

i don't really understand how "large" the assorted jade denominations are

physically, that is

[prisma sun]

They tell you

In core

[marsh garden]

oh god alright

i'll go look for that

[tulip folio]

Artifacts are kinda Off The Scale for resources. Like in theory you can commission but there's no real 'price' for it.

[marsh garden]

no i don't mean buying artifacts

i mean jade income for making artifacts

[bleak hazel]

if you have Res 5 you can definitely put enough jade together to make artifacts out of

[prisma sun]

Ya

[marsh garden]

(or other metals, acknowledging those are rarer)

[bleak hazel]

It takes approximately five talents of a magical material to build a grand daiklave.
according to, of all things, Wyld-Shaping Technique

[marsh garden]

i'm going to kashit myself, thanks misc

[tulip folio]

'I have a Beating Gods Over The Back Of The Head In An Alleyway Business, I have endless starmetal'

[bleak hazel]

this seems like a bit much but a grand daiklave is a fucking buster sword so everything else is presumably cheaper

[tulip folio]

(This doesn't work in 3e)

[marsh garden]

so definitely a bit less for -

yeah

[prisma sun]

Its even more ironically

[bleak hazel]

and you make artifacts out of magical material alloyed with other stuff in most cases

[prisma sun]

Because you are being taxed for being a wimp and not getting a buster sword

What are you, stupid?

Get a big sword

[bleak hazel]

jade can sometimes show up as a whole block but even there it's usually alloyed

[marsh garden]

so like....a white jade mine, resources 3 is "a talent per year"

[bleak hazel]

the only weapon called out as a pure starmetal blade is the Forgotten Blade, which is a ludicrous indulgence

[marsh garden]

so i guess resources 4 should be the absolute minimum for a mine with an active vein

[coral wraith]

im sorry you need how many??

[prisma sun]

5

[marsh garden]

and resources 3 would be like "one that's mostly tapped but discovers fragments or small veins once every few years"

[bleak hazel]

Resources 4 to make one grand daiklave a year, apparently

[marsh garden]

whereas resources 4 says 4-6 talents/year

[bleak hazel]

which is why my infernal is going to need to get his money up

[coral wraith]

320 pounds of metal to make one fucking sword

🆗

[marsh garden]

meaning i guess like, one fresh vein every couple months

[bleak hazel]

well, a normal artifact sword is like 60 pounds of metal that is merely super-light because of magical attunement

if you want a comically massive anime megagreatsword then that actually seems plausible

[prisma sun]

https://youtube.com/shorts/OmcvTEynArQ?si=Fz9SDA8Hmc5wlrdJ

[bleak hazel]

although I wish they gave the material requirements for a normal fucking sword instead

[marsh garden]

okay cool cool, trying to figure out how much the Creation alch i've been dicking with would need to like

have a supply of white jade

[marsh garden]

fuck you, swords only and buster swords only

ALSO EXCUSE ME

A TALENT IS 55 POUNDS?

JESUS

[prisma sun]

Yeah

[merry arch]

in any other circumstance I would say my character could probably help but Monsoon unfortunately is very attached to her fuck you money

[bleak hazel]

Tepet Telek, First Armiger of Hell doesn't even have any minions yet, he has a huge house, Res 2 and a dream

[coral wraith]

64, actually

[marsh garden]

oh god

the roman talent was 70 pounds

[prisma sun]

Which is why Jade is a somewhat shit currency

[bleak hazel]

spent all his merit dots on hearthstones because I wanted to engage with the Moving Different combo

[marsh garden]

oh does core or something actually say what its talents weigh?

thank god

[prisma sun]

Yes

[bleak hazel]

(gem of swift strike + move between targets without disengaging charm + Burning Branch)

[prisma sun]

It has like 2 pages of currency lore

[marsh garden]

ooh

which pages?

[bleak hazel]

core page 77

[marsh garden]

i love money lore

[bleak hazel]

it's very good

[prisma sun]

And with that knowledge I sleep

[marsh garden]

gn

i wish i was sleeping lmao

alas, 3 am wakeup be upon thee

[bleak hazel]

this is useful for artifact work

[marsh garden]

oooh

[bleak hazel]

Telek is presumably working mostly with jadesteel since he's getting the unlimited arcane power from hellish materials

[coral wraith]

Jade is a dogshit currency but its dogshit for a reason

[marsh garden]

jade dust is good enough for artifacts

i see i see!

[bleak hazel]

there is a reason there's a metric fuckton of jade stuff around

[coral wraith]

Only Deebs and their assignees can trade in jade

(legally)

[bleak hazel]

you can also use trace elements, a lot of starmetal artifacts are mundane mats engraved or trimmed with starmetal since it's rare as hell

[coral wraith]

Its one of many ways of enforcing the social strata

[bleak hazel]

the only starmetal in Rival's swords is actually in the hilts, the blades break and get reforged a lot as part of their whole deal

[tulip folio]

Hoard-Lounging Tyrant
Cost: —; Mins: Strength 1, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Wanderer understands the true power of wealth, of the dominion it allows one to wield upon those without.

Upon purchasing this Charm, for each dot she has in Resources, the Wanderer gains a point of Hoard. At the start of each story, she may convert those dots in Hoard into dots in one of the following Story Merits until the end of the story: Followers, Retainers, Command. She may leverage her wealth to gather mercenaries, to impress potential minions or to bribe agents of heaven.

With Essence 3, the Wanderer can also Hoard dots to gain Allies, Contacts, Cult, and Mentors.

She may not trade away or willingly discard any merit granted to her by her Hoard, for her pride would never allow it. Hoard lost by the unintentional destruction of her merits (Such as the death of a Mentor) recover at the rate of 1 point at the start of each story.

The thing I was pondering about on the Resources front. There are other charms that let you Gain Story Merits briefly but this one is A) Based on your Resources B) Requires you to define it at the start of the story.

[merry arch]

I do genuinely love that she's making fucking 12-20 talents of jade a year and is too stupid to know how to throw that kinda wealth around. they're calling her the newest money anyone's seen

[marsh garden]

jesus christ

[bleak hazel]

I feel this would be even funnier if I knew how fighting games worked but it's still pretty goddamn funny

[bleak hazel]

is it literally just like, on a pallet somewhere

how does this money even work, what's she doing to get all of it

[marsh garden]

lmao

[bleak hazel]

3CD agenda bribery?

[tulip folio]

Just use the talent as a Heavy Artifact Weapon.

[marsh garden]

she has no currency except a comical pile of jade

[merry arch]

Jacint is helping her out. he gave the new mass murderer in town a nice gift and told Zsofika to teach her how to murder nicely

[coral wraith]

https://tenor.com/view/breaking-bad-huell-kuby-money-gif-11592261321841660711

monsoon

[merry arch]

genuinely

[coral wraith]

(and her money)

[merry arch]

it's good her manse was already furnished, otherwise it'd be on some male living spaces + crypto guy stylings knowing her dogshit taste

[marsh garden]

• the House Ragara vault guard, thinking they're safe
• the devious Abyssal, throwing whole bricks of jade as improvised artifacts

god

imagine a sid with fucking auspicious implement just lugging around a wheelbarrow of jade as their attuned artifact

"i've got one evocation per brick"

[tulip folio]

...see, I'm thinking that and now I'm remembering Abyssals have both 'I am so fucking rich' charms and dedicated improvised weapon thrown charms.

[marsh garden]

oh my god

[merry arch]

abyssal bureaucracy is so fucking funny

[marsh garden]

you take bureau, the Ruined World Armament tree, and then thrown supernal

[tulip folio]

This becomes your Literal Combat Plan.

[marsh garden]

and you Crimson Gala Massacre people with your fat stacks of money

"welp. looks like bribery's failed"

[tulip folio]

notes down planned abyssal

[marsh garden]

that or the dude from kill la kill

[merry arch]

anyways. this dumbass was living in like. an 8'x4' shoebox of an apartment for most of her adult life. she has no fucking clue how to decorate shit. and truthfully she's not going to learn. she's got more important things to be doing (being a self-absorbed murderer)

[marsh garden]

based

[tulip folio]

...huh, the charm lets you use strength for attack.

[marsh garden]

yeah!

increasing accuracy, even

because it doesn't carve out that you can't

unlike all of the others

i've also been looking at a Dex 1 Thrown Supernal abyssal

just using that fuckass charm

my problem is that i don't think abyssals have a way in that tree to reflexively ready improvised weapons

so it'd need to come from an evocation, probably

[tulip folio]

...do Abyssals have a 'parry with strength' charm? I imagine so.

[marsh garden]

yeah, two

brawl for unarmed/heavy, melee for medium/heavy

[tulip folio]

So this character could pick up some melee, parry with a parasol and Railgun Jade Bricks at people, all with strength.

[marsh garden]

indeed

and because of the ability replacement clauses, you can use thrown charms on the attacks, thank god

and the only RWA charm that isn't e1 is Shrapnel Rain Demolition, so you can just get all the wacky social ganking thrown charms fast

and just annihilate the annoying asshole sitting at the other end of the ballroom with your dinner table or a nice champagne bottle

it's just kind of a shame that Improvised Assassin's Trick doesn't stack in any way with Ruined World Armament

except for the surprise attack clause

[merry arch]

really am imagining Jacint basically just telling a bunch of his goons that they're 'under new management' and that's kinda how she's making her money. she's got a shitton of 1cds and slaves generating passive income for her.

[marsh garden]

the real grindset

[merry arch]

monsoon hitting hell with her podcast about how money and murder set you free

[tulip folio]

...aww...supernal thrown requires Dawn. I know the caste abilities are better in 3e than in previous editions but man solaroid ability sets are still bloody rancid when it comes to 'I would like to fight'.

[marsh garden]

ah rip

dawn-only is tragic

the dawn anima effects are so fucking lame it's unreal

i'm continually crushed every time i have to look at them on my dusk lmao

instead of having the interesting ones in daybreak

or at least the interesting one, the teleport

[tulip folio]

I'd maybe go for this character Beuro-Primary and just pick up the thrown/athletics stuff as favored

Get the 'I am the richest fucker' charms

[marsh garden]

that makes sense

on the other hand...

step outside for a drink

tear the banister out

hurl it at some poor bozo inside

everyone thinks it fell from the fucking ceiling or something

i'm very glad that the unique half of abyssal thrown is just being a murderous spy

[coral wraith]

abyssal version of white veil

[marsh garden]

i wish it was all that, frankly

[coral wraith]

just fuckin clonk em

[marsh garden]

or like, being Gambit

[bleak hazel]

man, so many fun demons to play around with and so few merit points for Mentor

[marsh garden]

since you can just huck playing cards at people

[tulip folio]

I'm really dissapointed that Days don't get Thrown. XD

[marsh garden]

yeah

[bleak hazel]

I guess I will stick with actually using the social system to get Priboysl to give me nice things

[tulip folio]

Thrown is the 'be a fucking ninja' style for Solars and Abyssals.

[marsh garden]

it's weird that the stealth one doesn't get the Stealth Combat ability

[tulip folio]

On the plus side: Beuro lets you get Soul-Dominating Debt at chargen.

[marsh garden]

true

[marsh garden]

i also appreciate that infernals were allowed to mix their caste abilities up

...except azimuth lol

but like, that makes sense

it's the Killing People caste

you get the Killing People abilities (incl. awareness, which for infernals is also killing people, and war)

[marsh garden]

i do wish that this one was like, E+1 max 5 at least

for the compel

i get that it's meant to hit trivial characters for your level, but i don't think there's a single mention of characters with 2 or less wp

nonetheless, the actual charm is goated

really hope the companion adds more to it

[tulip folio]

How does this seem btw?

[marsh garden]

i have no idea how good it is, but it's neat

i feel like "use your Resources 5 to hire people" is like, broadly within the intended use case though, right?

i would have thought that something like Command, at least, would be easy to "naturally" leverage resources dots for

[tulip folio]

It would but this lets you do it without downtime/effort. So you could do this and then also do it normally.

[bleak hazel]

just realised that my infernal is actually fine without Larceny investment as long as he doesn't flare because a dude from the Blessed Isle in trimmed armour, carrying a big jade spear and speaking High Realm is just going to be read as Average Deeb

niche benefits to not going for orichalcum

[marsh garden]

ahhh

that makes sense

[marsh garden]

spruce yourself up with a dot of mutations for the hair or stone skin or some shit

and you just look like you have aspect markings

one dot Unusual Hide (jadelike stone skin on your hands)

[bleak hazel]

he might pick some mutations up later because he's doing some cultivation grindset stuff and that might involve, say, meditating in Metagaos to let it scour away his impurities and so on

but right now he's just some guy

[tulip folio]

...I'm realizing my main Infernal is likewise going to mostly come across as 'average deeb'

'Hey, we've got an angry asshole in a pointy hat with bound demons calling you names and throwing about obsidion butterflies'

That's just Heptagram.jpg

[marsh garden]

well

i don't think a heptagram sorcerer is an average deeb

[bleak hazel]

this guy is a dynast, just one that didn't exalt as a dragon-blood

a demographic massively overrepresented among celestial exalts, possibly because they are extremely salty

[tulip folio]

Makes sense. Loviatar isn't that. She's a nobody. She is also Lot's Wife levels of salty.

[bleak hazel]

Tepet Telek was doing fine, at least by mortal standards, he had a cushy position as a Legion armourer, a Wood Aspect girlfriend who was absolutely cheating on her husband but whatever and enough spare time to write anonymous political invective on the side

unfortunately he's a Tepet so he got sent to Futile Blood and his girlfriend got kicked offscreen through a couple of trees by the Mammoth Avatar

this was how he acquired a really nice green jade spear at least

he is now stealing her gimmick and becoming the Hellish version of a sublime armiger

[tulip folio]

Fun fun. Loviatar hates slavery and she'll enslave as many supernatural beings as it takes to end slavery.

[bleak hazel]

Telek has no strong opinion on slavery but he's perfectly happy to engage in productive self-improvement by summoning random first circles and murdering them as craft mats

I really like this one

you kind of want to use it on everything, because it gets you so much more juice

and the upgrade means that he can easily get a 30% discount on his artifacts by stabbing a 1CD to death

[tulip folio]

Loviatar: "Look, I only enslave demons, that's not fair to me."
Also Loviatar: Occult primary with the 'Turn mortals into demons' charm.

[bleak hazel]

he is not yet strong enough to try it on 2CDs but I'm fairly certain that if given the chance at E3+ he might

although killing second circles for eclipse charms is a pretty poor deal given how few eclipse charms most statblocks have

[tulip folio]

The GM let me do up some custom keys for 'turn people into demons'

[marsh garden]

and how useful 2cds are...

[tulip folio]

Which is fun

[marsh garden]

those mfs are so cracked

i really hope we get more QC templates for good elementals and ghosts

[tulip folio]

I'd kinda love to see a template for like 'hey, this is an old ghost'

Not mad like a nephrack but like 'this guy didn't die last week, you've got a couple of century old ghost'

As we have stats for Basic Ghosts.

[marsh garden]

i'd also like an updated nephwrack statline tbh

since the core one is...core

[bleak hazel]

killing 2CDs is generally considered a bad idea, people get pissed at you for that

[marsh garden]

and because they didn't have necromancy, isn't clear on whether the "average" nephwrack is a dualcaster

[bleak hazel]

but at the same time Makarios is a really annoying bastard

[marsh garden]

or casts 2c necromancy

[bleak hazel]

and has four good eclipse charms

[tulip folio]

The big thing I'd kinda love to see? A statted up twin monarchs aligned ghost. Just flat out steal oWoD Wraith Ferrymen if they wanna. XD

[marsh garden]

that would be really neat

[tulip folio]

As most of the big ghosts we have are Oblivion-aligned

And that's rather different themes

[marsh garden]

specific deathlord faction ghosts would also be nice

Lion Honor Guard, a martial artist under the Bishop, a pyreflame preacher under the Bishop

shit like that

but also gimme more elementals :x

[tulip folio]

Ferrymen were fun. Ghosts who had undertaken a ritual that meant they would never pass onto reincarnation so they could stay behind and act as guides for others/help other ghosts come to terms with their regrets.

They were Scary Fuckers are while most ghosts kinda just peter out after a few centuries and fade, they stuck about and kept growing with the blessings of each ghost they helped pass on.

They were also rabidly anti-soulforging (Because oWoD had Soulsteel because at some point WoD and Exalted were supposed to be the same setting) as those forged can never pass on.

You could entirely bring them into Exalted and nobody would even notice they were out of place.

...dammit, now I'm tempted.

[bleak hazel]

convenient aesthetics are available from the Ultrakill ferrymen, too

if you mess with them they are allowed to wreck you with exactly one spoonful of martial arts

[tulip folio]

I'd likely do up the 'base' Ferryman as like E3. Which is like 'That's a pretty big ghost' but not like 'That's gunna fistfight a Nephrack on his own'

Still beats the pants off the average war ghost though.

...silly pondering for a charm. Give them a Counterattack with:

[marsh garden]

to be fair

the average war ghost is an e1 loser

[tulip folio]

This attack can strike material beings.

So while they're not going to be Always Hitting Material Beings, if an exalt uses the 'hahah, I can punch a ghost' they can go 'AND I CAN PUNCH YOU RIGHT BACK ASSHOLE'

[marsh garden]

on the upside, it's way easier to get twenty war ghosts to jump a dude than twenty blood apes...

i don't remember, do infernals have a charm to summon 1CDs in force or is it "just" their spawning pool one?

[bleak hazel]

there's a solar circle spell for Many Demons

[coral wraith]

Army of the Old Gods, yeah

[bleak hazel]

but in general necromancy is for massive armies, digging up specific knowledge and predictable mindless servants, demon summoning gets you a giant toolbox of less predictable weirdos

[marsh garden]

and specific knowledge tbh

[bleak hazel]

I still think demons are stronger overall but you can't make twelve octavians like you can twelve TCGs

[marsh garden]

also necromancy doesn't have any good spells for making a big army, i think

hundred shade breath is cracked enough already, though

[bleak hazel]

Skeletal Horde is basically the first necromancy spell

[coral wraith]

I mean, Raise the Skeletal Horde does literally that

The only restriction is bodies

[bleak hazel]

Sure, zombies suck, but they're also free and last ages

[marsh garden]

aren't they poor drill might 0?

[bleak hazel]

and you can just throw that spell out there rather than taking an hour out of your day every evening to summon demon

Might 1, I believe

[marsh garden]

ah

[bleak hazel]

average drill if control

Also totally fearless, which is a cheat code against most mortal armies

[coral wraith]

yeah, the fact they fight to the death means they just go so much further than any mortal soldier

[bleak hazel]

They lose to equipped and trained mortals but then you just cast the spell again and the exhausted and terrified mortals have to fight all their own casualties

[coral wraith]

oh yeah that's actually a very notable advantage

it's not a ritual spell

[marsh garden]

ahhh

[coral wraith]

so you can just bring in reinforcements mid-fight from, as misc said, your enemy's corpses

[marsh garden]

i was told when first checking it out that it's mostly a War Guy Spell, but i didn't realize that means that it's just got a ton of sleeper hits for the war guy on top of the obvious bodies-on-demand benefit

[bleak hazel]

That spell also scales hard with essence, at E1 it's nice and at E3 you're just throwing out entire zombie armies that you can use for whatever

they don't get tired, so they're fine pack animals

It's just that they're quite bad against individual opposition strong enough to flat out not care about a bunch of shitty zombies and that tends to include anything that can threaten Exalts

You either go War and stack a zillion buffs on them or you straight up use them as fodder and manpower

[coral wraith]

If you're War Andy you almost certainly have ways to get bigger dudes too

[bleak hazel]

There's a reason Abyssal War includes the tree to train elite mortal troops too

[fierce star]

I think it's funny that my planned next/main Infernal charcter is an awareness-primordial azimuth who mostly fights with telekinesis and kicks, because she's harmless

[tulip folio]

I think people also really underestimate being stinky.

[bleak hazel]

Abyssal Medicine can make battlegroups of corpse-soldiers which are your proper combat undead, peers to battle-ready troops

[tulip folio]

Battle groups gain no bonus on this roll and a lot of mortals don't have a resist disease or other applicable pool

[bleak hazel]

Abyssal War tends more towards elite mortal troops supplemented with infinite zombies as fodder and to carry all the real army's stuff

[fierce star]

apparently not having lore primordial makes MHM a bad idea s your main combat option but... eh?

[bleak hazel]

They presumably have a pool, it's not just an autofail

[tulip folio]

So mortals fighting zombies lose a point of magnitude the moment they engage and -1 on all rolls as they heave up their guts

[fierce star]

still seems viable enough

[tulip folio]

Oh yeah, it's not an autofail but it's not a notable pool so it's not a likely success on difficulty 2.

[bleak hazel]

but your average mortal is what, Stam 2 Res 0-1 and probably not cool enough to stunt?

[marsh garden]

the necroalchemy bullshit does look good...

i wish we had some decent examples of what that would look like as a Working, though

as opposed to an abyssal thing

[tulip folio]

Battleready troops getting -1 attacks/movement/rout for the entire scene makes them kinda sad. Not enough to drop them a lot but zombies running about and making everyone sick can add up.

That and they just are a lot of 'This guy is utterly expendable'. XD

I like zombies

They suck but they suck in fun ways

I've had fun with a group of zombies just doing Defend Other on a squad of mortals they were working with.

Being a Literal Meat Shield throwing themselves onto swords and blocking arrows for the guys who matter more.

[bleak hazel]

Truly expendable fodder is quite hard to get in Exalted, even demons are actual people and although your average sorceror probably doesn't care much about their sesseljae or erymanthus burn rate they are all individuals who don't respawn

[marsh garden]

minor update to my own game: i've been having a blast with my horrid thing that should not be depressed teenager, whose most recent interaction was holding hands with a raksha another boy and creating life being the catalyst for a minor wish-granting artifact

(it's a magic quill that's supposed to help him express his feelings)

((he cannot read))

[velvet raft]

Thinking about making up SMAs as usual >_>

• Student's Scripture of Loneliness

Once there was a smiling maiden ...

... who revealed nothing to her foes.

All the world was her enemy,

and so no one knew her.

In all things, she was untouchable;

in all things, she was alone;

in this, she found safety.

• Master's Scripture of Loneliness

She defeated all her enemies,

and took off her mask,

just to find it was her own face.

"You have never been alone,"

the mask told her, still smiling.

"I have always been with you."

[marsh garden]

which one's this scripture for

[velvet raft]

I just made this one up

[marsh garden]

oh neat

is it for one you're brewing or just scripture thoughts in general

[velvet raft]

I might try to brew it

Maybe