Exalted

[velvet raft]

If I discover an unused drawer of spoons somewhere

[tulip folio]

...does this seem too silly for a Quick Character?

Champion of Lethe
3?m
Supplemental
The Ferryman gains Double 9s on a fear-based influence action or attack targeting a character who has soulsteel equipment or the whispers merit. It may intimidate undead who do not normally feel fear, though not other fearless beings.

[velvet raft]

Not in particular

[tulip folio]

Cool. Playing about with that Ferryman idea for a less oblivion focused moderately big ghost

The intent is that it's designed to be like...First Circle Demon big. Which is still Pretty Elite by ghost standards.

[bleak hazel]

bullshit siddie charm of the day: Speared Boar Struggle

AKA "fuck you, we both lose"

every time I start thinking about an unarmed martial arts Sid I immediately go "I need to be beefy so I can use SBS with damn near everything"

[tulip folio]

That half-jadeborn sid I have should really pick that up.

Since she's Unusual Skin 5 (Her skin is literally made of Jade)

And thus kinda tanky by sid standards

[bleak hazel]

this has a similar effect to a reflexive clash except on damage rather than accuracy - you can't afford to lowball attacks against a reflexive clash charm because they'll clash 'em and take the win, you can't afford to lowball withering damage against this because they're just eat it and snap your neck like a breadstick

and obviously Sid ox-bodies can be something like "I have nine -0 health levels" and at that point you can let someone run you through for the tempo

[tulip folio]

...do sids have a 'I heal X times faster' charm? Mostly pondering because -0s heal fast by default.

A multiplier could have you easily regaining your entire health bar betwee fights.

[marsh garden]

i think theirs is deferred wounds?

[velvet raft]

Sids have Mending Warped Designs if they've got an hour in between fights

[marsh garden]

ah, what're the specifics of that one?

[bleak hazel]

yeah, get someone else to tape you up with MWD

they don't have any fast regen themselves

[marsh garden]

I'm waiting to get called for a surgery so i can't look rn lol

[tulip folio]

Also: God fucking corebook.

[bleak hazel]

MWD does take a day

[tulip folio]

'I should check how long health levels take to heal'

[bleak hazel]

general purpose unfucking-things charm

[tulip folio]

'I'll check the healing section...nope'

'I'll check the combat section...nope'

[bleak hazel]

can't fix crippling injuries but everything else is done after a day

or an hour if Enemy of Fate

[tulip folio]

It's in character creation for some godforsaken reason

[velvet raft]

Sids have also got a surprising amount of tech for taking less damage when hit

[marsh garden]

ah, it's a craft charm

[bleak hazel]

I admit between this and Citrine Pox I have imagined Sids At War having a real niche in getting recovery times down to basically nothing

[marsh garden]

interesting

[marsh garden]

is it surprising? that's one of their gimmicks, isn't it?

[bleak hazel]

Sids are squishy little fucks with good active defences, basically

they don't walk around with Soak 20 though, they have to try not to eat it

[marsh garden]

i don't think anyone else has nearly as much Reduce Damage Taken, all the stuff i see is soak/hardness-based mostly

[velvet raft]

They can tank hits pretty well so long as they have motes

You know, that's fair

[bleak hazel]

the downside is that they don't have stuff like the stock Solaroid resistance charm that lets you grow 5 expendable health levels, or Heavenly Guardian Defence to fully gate off getting your head removed

or Lunar/Alchemical bulk and regen

[velvet raft]

Shield of Mars is a hell of a charm, tho

[bleak hazel]

damage they do take tends to stick

yeah but you have to land Shield of Mars and that can be kind of tricky

[tulip folio]

Yeah, my Sid is Disgustingly Tanky for a Sid and she's at...14 passive soak. Which for sids I believe is A Lot but it's not a lot by say, Infernal or Alchemical standards. XD

[bleak hazel]

yeah, Four Seasons Rival is my best fist at Swordsid optimisation and he has 12

Stam 5, Silken Armour 5, hearthstone 2

[marsh garden]

what HS gives soak?

that wood one?

[bleak hazel]

could concievably get 14 if he became a sorceror but he has fuck-all greensid charms

[velvet raft]

Yeah

[bleak hazel]

yeah, Stone of Resilient Bamboo

basically the stock pick for martial artists

[tulip folio]

Oh right, Silken is 5. Sorry, Nephrite is at 15 passive. Which does soak up a lot of hits without some boost behind it.

[bleak hazel]

oh that does speed up healing in some cases

[marsh garden]

i should probably try to find one of those...

is it steady?

or otherwise like, a sculptable hearthstone?

[bleak hazel]

Rival is admittedly me being hit by a Sidereal limit break and going "yeah, fuck it, I can make a build that can fight three DBs at once, lets give it a go"

[velvet raft]

I don't think it's Wild

[bleak hazel]

very few sids have his level of investment in being beefy

(really the pickups he really needs at high essence are Speared Boar Struggle and Dead Spouse Defence but he has zero Brawl)

[marsh garden]

do RDs or any sid charms let you sleight of hand mutations?

i imagine the standard "fuck you +10 soak" combo would be good too

[bleak hazel]

no, the only in-set way to get mutations are expensive high essence charms

like the Sukuna finger one in Occult

[tulip folio]

Yeah, Nephrite has mutations due to 'she was born with them'.

[marsh garden]

no i know they can get mutations

[bleak hazel]

Sids are not good at adjusting away from base-human in that way

[marsh garden]

that's not what i was asking

[tulip folio]

Oh, hiding them

[marsh garden]

i was asking about hiding them

[bleak hazel]

oh, as in hide them?

go larceny and do disguises, I think

RDs won't make your metal skin less metal-looking, people will just go "huh, that bookbinder looks really fucking weird"

[tulip folio]

RDs don't involve rolls so they actually bypass a lot of disguise penalty stuff but then, they don't really hide the mutation, just make it 'normal' for your RD.

[marsh garden]

okay right, since they can autosucceed basically any disguise with a couple charms?

[bleak hazel]

not really

their larceny tree basically stays within the usual maths boundaries of excellencies

nothing like the Solaroid ones with Perfect Mirror and +zillion noncharm sux

[marsh garden]

don't they have charms that stonewall attempts to pierce RD?

[bleak hazel]

no, Resplendent Destinies are basically a complete package on their own

I don't recall any charms that directly buff them

some use them as a resource

I guess the anima-banner-changing one lets you keep your deeb RD on when you flare big

[velvet raft]

RES got in a wyld accident during training and got very lucky and now she has Unusual Hide w/subtlety

[bleak hazel]

the big thing for resplendent destinies is that people aren't allowed to roll to pierce them outright unless the Sid acts out of character

[tulip folio]

Nephrite is half-jadeborn via 'demon midwife mixing up the baby'.

[bleak hazel]

but it's surprisingly hard to stay in-character while doing Sid mission things

[tulip folio]

Nephrite has a go-to argument for her mutations when in disguise.

[velvet raft]

That's why you gotta have a "sid who wears bunny ears" RD

[tulip folio]

'Look how damn good my earth breeding is!' smugs dynast-ly

[velvet raft]

Have RDs for:

• weirdo sid
• dramatic sid

[bleak hazel]

Rival is all base-human, and probably going to stay that way because he likes his dashing hero act

[tulip folio]

Nephrite is one of the practitioners of the kinda Default Sid RD if you're a socialize sid. Yes, she's one of the 'Yes, I'll dress up as a maid to walk in the front door' sids. XD

[bleak hazel]

Rival, as he sees himself:

Rival as quite a few of his enemies see him:

(he is not that pretty, Nanami's cheekbones are outliers and should not be counted)

[tulip folio]

I for one Blame Venus for Weird Optimal Sid Playstyles.

[bleak hazel]

Sids are kind of up there for being a bunch of weird silly guys with a public perception as terrifying hatchetmen

[tulip folio]

Venus: "I have decreed that in order to maximise appearance, a Sidereal must get in the maid outfit, embody the spirit of Gacha Characters and wear the blindfold. It's mechanically optimal. I'm not weird."

[bleak hazel]

some of them are that, but nobody remembers when they were being goofy on-mission

and your Stock Sid RD is going to be a matrix agent

[velvet raft]

I do love that the very first stealth charm makes their arcane fate problems worse

[tulip folio]

My other main Sid, Glacier Jade is a headache/wrecking ball sid.

'Arcane fate means nobody will remember it was me, that means I can get my wanted level as high as I want on-mission'

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah Rival blows off stress by starting random bar fights

at one point that he does not like to talk about he got his nose broken by a mortal

[tulip folio]

Jade likes solving problems by just putting on the RD of a bandit, smashing through a window and starting a swordfight.

[bleak hazel]

don't drink and brawl kids

(do, it's fun)

[velvet raft]

RES blows off stress by hahahaha no she doesn't it's all still in there

25 years' worth of anxiety

[bleak hazel]

honestly compared to most of the sids in the Voy server squad Rival is pretty Nanami in general, in that he's nowhere near a big shot but he's been doing it for a few more years and has kind of hit a rough equilibrium where he's only at 95% of his overwork limit rather than 120

unlike Nanami he is kind of a clown and is not permanently depressed and exhausted

[tulip folio]

Sids seem to have roughly 2 default stress levels 'Way too chill' and 'it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire...'

[bleak hazel]

it's really easy for them to come across as cool, calm and collected even when they're about to absolutely lose it or in fact have lost it ten minutes ago

Limit Break being "push up spectacles until they do the anime glasses flash, then make a terrible decision" helps there

mmm, delicious willpower points

[tulip folio]

...it's kinda funny that Cult EX (Beyond the 5 dot rating) is worse than Cult 5.

[velvet raft]

Like tbc I was envisioning Red Evening Sky Style, aka Severe Anxiety Disorder Style

[marsh garden]

i gotta imagine that the EX +1/day or whatever it is is on top of your X/story

so you're still allowed to magdump if you need to

[velvet raft]

It might be funny if the first charm inflicted some kind of penalty on anyone who is unable to successfully read intentions

[tulip folio]

I'd hope so, as yeah it's 1/scene and 'I tend to have a limited number of scenes I spend a lot of willpower in and quite a few I spend almost none in'

...one of these days I should figure out what SMA Nephrite will go for but considering she's half-Jadeborn Prismatic Arrangement of Creation seems like a 'default'.

As it's a Geomantic SMA

[bleak hazel]

it's interesting that Sids really like Cult because their combat power is often heavily willpower-gated

considering they are banned from officially having them

Ayesha Ura has some because of all her elder sid antics

rogue tide-spirits of the Great Western Ocean imprisoned its god, Ocean Father, she sailed the entire West
to bind them in fetters of jade and free their hostage
from his benthic gaol. She traversed the Labyrinthine
Horizon on a dragon’s back to reach the impossible
isle of Forever and ransom back a daughter of Mercury
from its faerie princes. Across Creation, cultures venerate a nameless saint in yellow robes.```

[velvet raft]

I probably need to itemize this a bit more considering it costs 17 motes but you know rolling 30 dice of withering damage seems okay to me

[tulip folio]

...I'm kinda tempted to do a bit of a silly thing with these Ferrymen.

Give them a couple of intro charms from Golden Jannistary. Ferryman's poles are polearms...

And while most of Golden Jannisary isn't great, Rotten Leaf is solid.

[fierce star]

That could be really fun

[tulip folio]

...hmm...does 'Can Materialize but only in shadowlands/in places linked to death' seem unreasonable for an essence 3 ghost? Not full 'can materailize everywhere' like a neph but a step beyond the essence 2 'can appear but not interact with things'.

[bleak hazel]

yeah, kind of pointless to have one that can punch people if it can't show up to do punching

[marsh garden]

i thought all ghosts could materialize in shadowlands, since they're treated as underworldy

[tulip folio]

Nah they're material in the underworld but not shadowlands by default.

[wise ocean]

tbf that Night's build wasn't very impressive, they got the surprise tick 1 decisive attack (she popped charm to turn it to surprise from ambush), hit her, dealt damage, and not only didn't one-shot her, they got owned through wound penalty

[bleak hazel]

She is an E5 earth aspect, you could drop a building on one of those and it would only bruise them and piss them off

the DB elder statblocks really don't do them justice in a fistfight, although Mnemon comes off better than most because it gives her a decent amount of her sorcery and DOT2C

[marsh garden]

oh yeah the QC deebs are kinda wet noodles aren't they

[bleak hazel]

yeah, the DB and Lunar elders got made before they figured out charm combos

the Sids, Abyssals and Infernals are still not quite at the power they'd have if built as PCs but they're a lot closer

[marsh garden]

are the MFS lunars any better?

[bleak hazel]

still no charm combos so not massively so

Sublime Danger is pretty big because she has max-arsenal neutral-MA thousand blades, although to properly represent that arsenal you'd probably want to give her some evocations

meanwhile Feather Drenched has eight combat charms and nearly all of them are E1 basics

[marsh garden]

oof

[bleak hazel]

I am sorry, Feather Drenched, your one charm that grants +6 overwhelming and second charm that grants +6 soak will not save you from Shajah Holok hitting you with the devil lance

[marsh garden]

+6 ovw is at least pretty good for a basic charm yh?

or is it not for lunars

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah, that one is flat 2 motes and scales with Essence so an E6 elder gets a lot out of it

it's just, you know, there's not much in here other than somewhat improved staples and a dedicated mid-essence combat character is going to walk up, press a bunch of E2-E3 buttons and then blow her head off with a doomcombo

basically regardless of splat

[marsh garden]

pain

[bleak hazel]

if you do give her some of those buttons she'll do fine though, she just needs more charms

and she's more brain-focused than combat-focused

[buoyant summit]

Yikes

[marsh garden]

related-ish

how many martial arts does anys syn know?

[bleak hazel]

Yes

[marsh garden]

"all of them"?

or is it just a massive number

[buoyant summit]

Functionally all of them

[bleak hazel]

no Sid knows about Albicant Sepulcher yet and she can't learn sorcerous martial arts because she is not a sorceror of any kind, doesn't have the talent for it

so not all of them

but any that it would be useful for her to learn

[buoyant summit]

Fair!

[marsh garden]

gotcha

[bleak hazel]

functionally she just opens up the MA section of every book and pulls out the charms she needs

[buoyant summit]

Isn't her Elder Prowess like

[marsh garden]

5 smas

[bleak hazel]

all her charms can be worked back to their subcomponents, they're all PC-legit combos

[buoyant summit]

Oh her Elder Prowess requires knowing 5 SMAs

Not that it enters five forms

[marsh garden]

finishing, even

[bleak hazel]

I think someone made a list of all the MAs that implies at some point but I cannot be bothered to find it

she absolutely knows PAOC form but it's not on her sheet, for instance

if you had time you could make an "extrapolated Anys Syn" sheet that gives her every charm and implied-prerequisite that her sheet implies and that would truly be a monster

not least because Blossoming Lotus Lesson right now means she literally has every SMA charm in Sidbook

there are only five SMAs in there

[buoyant summit]

Probably has Melee 5 and MotSE five billion times over

[bleak hazel]

unsurprisingly she fights unarmed most of the time

we know she beat up Sublime Danger with a stick once

well, "fought to a standstill" but it's Sublime Danger, I refuse to believe she is willing to stand still unless you give her several concussions

[buoyant summit]

Tru

[marsh garden]

and so probably has auspicious implement a bunch...

[bleak hazel]

she's also E7 and can boost up to E9 with Soulfire Form, and as such anything with Essence scaling just goes bananas

[buoyant summit]

This makes me wanna make a joke about ADHD as a person who has it but it'd likely not hit right <xD

[bleak hazel]

Anys Syn says Go Get 'Em, Kids

like, you don't even need her for 90% of the setting because her wyld hunt is "a hearth of immaculate grandmasters"

[buoyant summit]

Isn't... she a Bronze?

Oh, a Wyld Hunt she's leading

[bleak hazel]

give those five old bastards 20 extra init each and they'll happily kill damn near anything

yeah

[wise ocean]

indeed, it was mostly a joke about the statblock being The Way It Is

though I had forgotten she did have ignore wound penalties, so she might've actually just eaten 16 damage down to -2 and decided to grit her teeth through it.

[bleak hazel]

she is quite chill though

[marsh garden]

she's only kind of a bronze, yeah?

[bleak hazel]

no, she's very much a bronze, she's just also a martial arts lunatic

[buoyant summit]

Yeah she's a sifu nutjob before she's a Bronze

[marsh garden]

more "we made this mess, we have to keep it from exploding" than "we gotta kill all the solars"

[buoyant summit]

I mean

[marsh garden]

aiui?

[bleak hazel]

it says she is not super committed to the politics but I feel that's kind of putting it on a bit

[buoyant summit]

That's most Bronzes because a lotta the time

[marsh garden]

like she said she wants to mentor solars

[buoyant summit]

A Solar is probably gonna get themselves killed

[bleak hazel]

she's not a politician but she's spent a millenium as one of the top four Bronze elders, she has definitely made her bed by now

[buoyant summit]

aiui that's like, a fantasy of hers

[marsh garden]

ah

[buoyant summit]

She wishes she could train someone who could reach the martial heights a Solar can

That's like

[bleak hazel]

the only reason that she's not Chejop Kejak's attack dog is a) nobody in their right mind would ever give her an order and b) Chejop Kejak is Chejop Kejak's attack dog

[buoyant summit]

A fantasy of hers

She wants to see someone of that caliber go off and be the sicko in the window

[bleak hazel]

"a fantasy" is again putting it a bit strong, she thinks it would be fun

[buoyant summit]

Oh when I say a fantasy that's kinda what I mean

[dense verge]

when chejop wants an attack its that one scene of clone wars with palpatine going to kick darth mauls ass

[bleak hazel]

remember Sids and Sid-tutored Solars are peers in MA prowess so it's not like she has not seen her students go that hard before

[buoyant summit]

'This would go hard'

[bleak hazel]

she is Solar-agnostic

[buoyant summit]

I am trying to say I think our ideas of what Syn means when she would relish the opportunity are sympatico

I just said it wrong

[bleak hazel]

which is, funnily enough, totally compatible with being a committed bronze

although I do think Sidbook perhaps missed a beat or two with having both Syn and Holok being surprisingly un-committed Bronze partisans

[marsh garden]

i mean, i took it to mean "if one of them shows up and I'm in the area, I'll do it"

[buoyant summit]

Damn now I rly wanna make a Lunar who somehow ends up on Syn's radar

[bleak hazel]

tip-off from Sublime Danger

[buoyant summit]

Like Sublime just

Tells girlypop 'yo there's a Pact member I've trained, wouldn't it be fucking hilarious if you did too?'

'For the bit'

[prisma sun]

Lunars having a Hard No on SMAs is a little lame tbh

[buoyant summit]

It does indeed kinda suck

As one whose fav is Lunars, I do kinda get it

We have

[fierce star]

I'd mind it less if solaroids could still only learn the first half of SMAs.

[buoyant summit]

gestures at all our shapechange bullshit

[fierce star]

but I get it and they've never really had SMAs before and still make damn good martial artists in ex3, so I can't complain too hard

[prisma sun]

Solaroids continue to make the setting feel worse....

[marsh garden]

their mote scaling is ass and they don't cap at any sma

[buoyant summit]

mfw we can use all our charms with MAs.

[marsh garden]

i mean lunars just deserve more scaling

[bleak hazel]

Lunars with SMA would just be the best, not even close

[marsh garden]

why do sids have more motes than them at e4+ :(

[bleak hazel]

shapechanging is so much frontloaded power

[bleak hazel]

they don't, they're tied at E5

[buoyant summit]

'Hi I'm a giant goat man with CMOS'

[wise ocean]

There are only two. And you... are no longer my apprentice.

[bleak hazel]

Lunars have more motes for the entire course of standard play except right at the pinnacle

[buoyant summit]

You... have been *replaced.*

[tulip folio]

Alch with SMA can feel the Getter Energy rising, bullshit overwhelming.

[bleak hazel]

Just watched that again and completely forgot that Palp was fully just fucking around for that entire fight, he keeps turning his sabers off and when he gets kicked once he immediately goes "OK, fuck this" and piledrives Maul into the ground.

[buoyant summit]

Wait Alchs have SMA????

[marsh garden]

no

[bleak hazel]

nope

[tulip folio]

No, no..god no

[bleak hazel]

no attribute exalt has SMA apart from Gets, who we think are in fact att-based

[dense verge]

honestly i'd like it better if SMAs were, well, sidereal-only (and gets, i guess)

[buoyant summit]

I was about to get big Moon-Mad

[bleak hazel]

and they lose their standard attribute all-charm-compatibility with MA, they have to use Versatile like Sids

[wise ocean]

he's laughing for a good 40% of it too, guy's just having a great time actually breaking out the sabers for once

it's an exciting walk for the old man

[bleak hazel]

because Mastery + omnicharm compatibility just breaks everything

[tulip folio]

That was a comment on how silly they'd be if they could get it.

[buoyant summit]

But you see Bees, Solars have to be able to do fucking everything

Except get Enlightenment tags on SMAs

[tulip folio]

'The Collosus enters Prismatic arrangement of creation form'

[fierce star]

I honestly do not mind solars have SMA access... but they should have been capped at the form charm(s)/halfway through hte styles, like in prior editions

[buoyant summit]

Or Void circle I guess

[bleak hazel]

Sid elders are probably more dangerous than Lunar elders by a small margin purely because Sid excellency at E5 goes crazy, but it's a very narrow margin

[prisma sun]

I also would prefer if it was just Sids, but we currently have "Sids, Gets, every Solaroid, and theoretically Deebs"

[fierce star]

I think deebs still just either can't or explode if they do

[buoyant summit]

A Deeb with an SMA would be so fucking funny

[marsh garden]

that's something that's been impossible for deebs tho

[buoyant summit]

There's some hooks in Heirs that make it like

[marsh garden]

it's an impossible thing syn is trying to break the limit on

[bleak hazel]

I admit I am slightly struck by the idea of a Sid elder who is friends with an Adamant metropolis who is his fortress of siditude

[marsh garden]

which is cool

[buoyant summit]

A 'let STs jingle keys in front of their hearths about it'

[dense verge]

at this point its more uncommon to not be able to get SMAs as celestial tier than do

[marsh garden]

wanting to do something impossible is the bread and butter of the exalted host

[buoyant summit]

Like I'm 90% sure one of the intended ways an ST is meant to homebrew the powerup a Deeb gets from that one Ledaal blood magic super-soldier program is

[bleak hazel]

because a) adamant anima hellbuffs Sids and b) creation-side metropoli are based on dragon lines/demesnes, and you can sub-attune to a demesne, which means you can gain maxed out D&M form by attunin to your boy

[buoyant summit]

'You can use SMAs at the cost of having a decade to live'

[bleak hazel]

I don't think that has an intended way

for one that probably means you don't even have time to find a teacher + learn

[buoyant summit]

Fair

[bleak hazel]

I don't think there's anything in 3e about SMA deebs

no exploding

I am reasonably OK with the list of splats that get SMA, although I admit Infernals not having it would have warmed my heart slightly since they're the most Lunar-coded solaroids

and get plenty of other stuff

it's still like sub-500 people who could possibly learn a sidereal martial art, across all of existence

[tulip folio]

I liked the DB who'd mastered all 5 dragon styles and was trying for SMA. He was a fun character conceptually. I personally believe they should bring him back as the origin of the 'meld the 5 immaculate styles' technique coming out in sid expansion.

[marsh garden]

that would slap

[bleak hazel]

and the requirement of being an E3+ Martial Artist locks out basically everyone but Sids/Gets in there because only they get the combat ability shuffle to get them regardless of their combat style

[fierce star]

Hmm. Essence-based celestial-tier exalt that can pick one of sorcery, necromancy, or martial arts and can reach solar level in that, but cannot use the other two at all?

[bleak hazel]

(presumably Gets have those, obviously we don't know but it's likely)

[tulip folio]

Gives him a cool capstone achievement without it actually being sma

[marsh garden]

based on how characters are built, that basically just means all three

[bleak hazel]

like, there are five possible combat ability paths, so that locks out all but around 60 solaroids if we assume that's equally common

[prisma sun]

I do think the more I read the more I think Infernals should be Lunars and not Solars

[fierce star]

( I should say abyssal-tier in necromancy)

[bleak hazel]

the vast majority of those aren't E3, aren't committed enough to learn a whole style, aren't interested or will never find a Sid mentor

[buoyant summit]

intriguing

I assume because of Devil-Body?

[fierce star]

also topple I see dozens of MA + sorcerer or necromancy characters

[bleak hazel]

I'd be surprised if even once the Bishop is up and running there are ever more than maybe a dozen Solaroid SMAists

[fierce star]

it's expensive but it's super super super common

[prisma sun]

Because of their whole deal

Their entire kit is about shape shifting and rage

[buoyant summit]

Fair enough

[tulip folio]

That would be martial arts 99% of the time. As those matter at e1-4

[buoyant summit]

Abyssal-Infernal Solaroid-Lunar mate setup sounds like absolute hell lmao

[tulip folio]

While top tier magic only matters at e5

[fierce star]

yeah that's fair iki

[bleak hazel]

also I'm fairly sure the only existing character with Albicant enlightenment is the Bishop, so if the Sids do get hold of that one they can actually beat the Abyssal host to FULL POWER there

not that it matters

and it's not a particularly good style for Sids

but it's funny

[buoyant summit]

I told a friend of mine about it and they laughed

Cuz they play MMOs so I got to give them the Accurate But a Meme explanation

[bleak hazel]

which is what?

[buoyant summit]

'This is the martial art of being an MMO raid boss'

[bleak hazel]

hmm, maybe I've been underrating this for Sids, there's some shenanigans available for The Gift All Life Is Given

[buoyant summit]

'You have Literal Aura'

[marsh garden]

but do you see solar sorcerers with SMA and c3 + c2?

[bleak hazel]

for Solaroids it's actually very cheap to do sorcery on top of everything else

they have no prereqs to learn it or up-circle so you literally just need occult 5 and 3 charms

[marsh garden]

hm

[bleak hazel]

for non-Solaroids it's a bit of a bitch

the nerd prowess necessary to be a good celestial+ sorceror is usually competing pretty hard with the XP necessary to be a martial arts freak

[wise ocean]

albicant isn't even very good for abyssal martial artists - I was disappointed since it's canonical to Graves's backstory that he studied under the Bishop for a time, but even if he did get SMA beaten into him it's not a useful SMA for his gameplan

maybe it's revealed bishop knows paoc someday, who knows

[bleak hazel]

he can only teach the one anyway

[buoyant summit]

Wait

[bleak hazel]

but it's definitely not a bad style, it's just pretty heavy on the mote costs

also you know White Reaper, it goes great with White Reaper

[buoyant summit]

A Solar with Supernal Occult still needs to be the appropriate Essence, right?

[wise ocean]

yes

[bleak hazel]

yeah

[buoyant summit]

Okay thank God

[bleak hazel]

the two things you can't skip are Circle reqs and SMA

[wise ocean]

Is it? I'll have to double-check, I saw a lot of stuff around "stand still and start screaming real loud" and went hm. well, I'm not sure how all this intimacy and aoe stuff works with what I'm doing here

[bleak hazel]

you basically need one intimacy that is "death fucking rules" and everything else is up to their intimacies

[buoyant summit]

Speaking of the Bishop

[bleak hazel]

"fuck all your wargear" and "no, stay prone you bastard" are universally handy

[buoyant summit]

All the DLs are Exalted ghosts, right?

[marsh garden]

yes

[bleak hazel]

but you do have a lot of AOEs

and yes, they are

[buoyant summit]

Cool

[bleak hazel]

the change for 3e is that they're not all designated Solars anymore

[buoyant summit]

Oh yeah Mask and Walker are Solars

For some reason, and with no evidence

[marsh garden]

not necessarily

[buoyant summit]

My money is on the Heron being a Lunar

[marsh garden]

that was only canon in 2e

[bleak hazel]

Bishop is hinted as being an ex-Sid because of the giant obvious SMA he just invented, Dowager is likely a Lunar because she has a lot of monstrous shapeshifting/hunter themes, the rest you can argue over

[buoyant summit]

Or having been a Lunar sorry

[marsh garden]

i like walker as a deeb

[bleak hazel]

oh, we know one, we know Mask was a Solar if you take chapter fiction as canon, which only some people do

because CK recognises him as Larquen Quen

[buoyant summit]

That would make his Company a reverse Wyld Hunt which is thematically cool so

Maybe, yeah

[marsh garden]

it's several things

the company

his shadowland aura

being a fuckheug Elemental (death) Aura

[tulip folio]

Lover was likely a solar just due to fashion choice

She's still wearing her gold

[marsh garden]

his emphasis on having a bunch of artifacts

which is a deeb thing in my eyes

[buoyant summit]

It'd be hilarious if a Deathlord took their old spark on purpose and just

[bleak hazel]

I think Faffle was a deeb

[buoyant summit]

Made That DK their favorite

[bleak hazel]

they exude deeb energy

[marsh garden]

same

not because they suck

[buoyant summit]

Nah Deebs are great

[marsh garden]

but because both they and the walker are the Army Guys That Jump Your Ass

[bleak hazel]

FAFL has their big fucking warstrider and their big fucking army and they are going to show you why you in fact needed to bring more dudes because this is not a duel

[dense verge]

i like to think mask is a case of mistaken identity on the larquen quen thing because i think not being a solar fits him better. also it reminds me of 2e metaplot

[bleak hazel]

I'm so sad we didn't get stats for the lionstrider

[buoyant summit]

It would be very funny to pick FAFL or Walker's brain about how they feel leading the Exalts they sought to destroy in life

[tulip folio]

...imagine if Lover was an Auroral/Hearteater.

[buoyant summit]

I don't imagine they'd be very internally consistent, but like

[tulip folio]

That fits her current philosophy really well

[bleak hazel]

this ghost has so many goddamn boss phases

[buoyant summit]

Deathlords are hypocrites a lot of the time, more at 11

[marsh garden]

i think the Eye would be a bit too much of a typecast as a lunar

[bleak hazel]

you can also just change what kind of exalt Larquen Quen was, which also works

I like first age elders seeing deathlords and going "oh it's that motherfucker" because that's cute, but that's not reliant on them being Solars

[lament owl]

I think that Mask is a very Solar Coded Deathlord

He’s very twilight juiced

[buoyant summit]

I keep mentally pronouncing Larquen Quen

As Lar quenquen

And I hate it

<xD

[tulip folio]

Heron...Lunar? Maybe

She's a predator with multiple faces

[wise ocean]

update: okay I thought the enlightenment effects were still just if you were a Sid, never mind, I see the use cases here

big charm tax though, most of this stuff only becomes really useful after you have the whole style

[buoyant summit]

That's my thoughts

Which would also make my ST having her play Lunar matchmaker for our Circle have fun texture

'I wanna see my friends'

'Yes including the Chimeric Elder named The Infinite Anemone, sorry dear'

Me: 'but why tho'

[bleak hazel]

Albicant is a sometimes food but if you're an Abyssal with a compatible style you may as well I think

[wise ocean]

shame that the actual heal on white reaper capstone is a bit anemic, otherwise there'd be a reason to go for Raiton in albicant with it; as it is you're probably only going to want to use "charm that triggers when your enemy whacks you for giga damage and also gives them a new intimacy about how great an idea it is to kill you" with huge resistance investment too

[bleak hazel]

and unlike a Sid you're not triggering 1000 scenelongs and as such have motes free

Sids have committment issues, in that they have too goddamn many

I was tempted to cut merits from Rival just to get him the 4-dot rock that reduces artifact committment by 2

[buoyant summit]

lmao

🐴I forget how many commit charms Fel has

She has at least two

Burn Life and EB form

[bleak hazel]

At that essence level you're probably fine but SMA is full of them

and the smaller Sid mote pool doesn't really appreciate artifact weapon + armour

[prisma sun]

Drifts doesnt actually have that many scene longs

He just has a few martial arts forms

[bleak hazel]

Doesn't he have E3 CMOS? That's at least three more scenelongs if you choose to use them

Web, skywalk and footsies

[buoyant summit]

The ground-based foo-? is shot

[prisma sun]

Oh wait

Correct he does have those

Though web is optional considering he has several other means of Throwing

[bleak hazel]

Web is mostly good for giga defence

+2 NCD from cover and a -3 penalty to hit you is gargantuan

[wise ocean]

hmm

greatest killer attitude + bleeding crescent strike + gentle embrace of the grave has sauce

15m 2wp before excellency on a decisive (so, 25m 2wp, let's be real here):
double 9s on the attack +(Halos) dice vs. lower of Defense or Resolve, +(Strength) raw damage converts to successes, add extra successes on attack as dice of damage, then triple them

[prisma sun]

Damn Sids do have a lot of scenelongs

[bleak hazel]

You can kind of get away with it with their excellencies and efficiency charms but it still stings when Solar Melee shows up and commits 5m total

[wise ocean]

vs. some poor bastard who has Resolve 3 or whatever because he's a melee combatant, you're probably going to just whack him with 20-25HL of damage out the bat

[prisma sun]

I did realize

Solar Melee is really scary and Solar Brawl is really scary and etc etc

but like

if you can just run away and talk to them to death, any half-decent social build is pretty good at just defeating invincible sword princess by driving her insane

[wise ocean]

(2pt stunt, 11 initiative going into the decisive, assuming Resolve 3 on target)

[bleak hazel]

"lower of X or Y" is always a bastard because it's pretty cracked if your target has to boost both at once and it's unclear if they do

[wise ocean]

regrettably you have to do a bunch of instills to get to this point and use the big screaming charm to inspire despair, but still

[bleak hazel]

I think somewhere in Exigents is a sidebar about that but I can't recall where

[wise ocean]

it's not like you really need a damage pool of 44 dice + 5 autosux to kill a guy, that's just the cap-out with an average init

against battlegroups, because White Reaper supplementary and form, this gets even more hilarious

they're also much easier to instill against and automatically tick the "doesn't have a major or defining intimacy to go on living" box

... wait what's raw damage again, specifically

because GKA has the line and also double their effective raw damage for calculating how many extra levels of damage they deal to a battle group

is that just the init pool

[bleak hazel]

I believe so, init plus anything that just says "add X decisive damage"

[wise ocean]

alright, so it'd just add another 11, not combo off of gentle embrace to get to 88 dice

does magnitude damage spill over against battlegroups or is this just the Overkill 30,000 Guys Button

[bleak hazel]

Spills over

[wise ocean]

oh lmao

well! very funny trick, I actually kind of like Albicant now

blow up a not-insignificant part of your mote pool to Remove Size 5 Battlegroup

further update: elite drill, might, etc don't increase battlegroup resolve. funny!

size 5 elite drill might 2 battlegroup vs. One Guy who understands that their resting parry 10 or whatever means nothing because their hearts (resolve 3) are their True Weakness

[bleak hazel]

aha here we are

so yeah, can be clashed, HGDed or have its target number raised by Serenity In Blood, but only the former is particularly reliable if you can't actually raise your resolve very much

[wise ocean]

indeed, and you'd be clashing against a decisive with (Halos) non-charm dice plus double 9s. Not a choice I'd want to take

that said it's a very specific tech piece buried six charms deep in a SMA (nine if you want to get the rest for Enlightenment), so I doubt I'll end up taking it unless I start really hating the very existence of armies

[sick kraken]

Hmm. I'm making an Abyssal for fun, and I have a general question I wanted to ask here. What is a normal amount of occult to have for an Abyssal? I feel like since you spend (statistically) at least some time in the underworld, it's gotta be at least one dot just from exposure, right?

[merry arch]

if you're not planning on investing into occult for charms having a dot or two for fun is valid

but there's also plenty of abyssals that don't have any investment whatsoever in occult. too focused on swording people to death or doing social-fu

[marsh garden]

i imagine it also helps that you're like

surrounded by ghosts that you could have as Allies or Retainers

who are themselves likely to have a hefty amount of occult lore

[merry arch]

delegate your occultism

[marsh garden]

if you just want a wizard you can probably ask your deathlord (or your circlemate, or one of the assorted bozos you've saved if you're a knight-errant) for a necromancer-ghost they've tutored in the past

or for the aid of someone who guards/lives in a sorcerers' afterlife

there are so many ghosts...

[sick kraken]

Obviously the actual amount will vary, but like

Realistically I think with enough time spent in the underworld you'd pick up enough things here or there to have at least one dot

Using the word realistically to talk about ghost wizards is an interesting choice I am making, but I hope my intent here is clear

[marsh garden]

i mean

that doesn't necessarily need to manifest as occult

it could also be lore

[sick kraken]

True, that's actually a good point

[marsh garden]

being around ghost wizards doesn't mean you necessarily know about the wizard part, or the mechanics of the ghost parts

you can say that you just know "oh yeah that's steve, steve needs [x ritual] to be summoned and remembers some tidbits from his life in house ragara"

[sick kraken]

I guess my question is, how much ghost knowledge do you need to go from occult 0 to occult 1?

[velvet raft]

There's not really a clear answer to that, but if you're doing a fighty type you might want to consider a dot or two so that you can grab the basic spirit-murdering charms

[merry arch]

CRB's guidance on what the number of dots represents

[sick kraken]

Yeah, okay, I think it's reasonable to assume an Abyssal has at least one dot of occult

I would expect John Abyssal, the average essence 1 Abyssal, to know what a hungry ghost is

[marsh garden]

oh neat

Gorgon's gonna get some lore in Riders

[prisma sun]

@limpid badge

[bleak hazel]

admittedly this is kind of an odd scale for Exalts - it works fine for mortals, but Exalts and PC-mortals-about-to-exalt tend to have enough dots that they will basically always be unparalleled legends at their primary job and maybe three others too

which is fine, that's how they work

[tulip folio]

Alchs: "Your stats only go to 5?" smugs roboticly

[bleak hazel]

robots can be extra smug since their facial features are not limited to staying the normal human range of shapes

[tulip folio]

Hmm...I do wish that Golden Janissary was better than it is.

[prisma sun]

Its a pretty easy source of agg slap and really good if youre a good guy

[bleak hazel]

it's not devoid of power but a lot of it goes from solid to eeeeh if you're not fighting doomoids today

Rotten Leaf Arrested is good enough that I am considering dipping it on my spear thousand blades infernal though

Rotten Leaf Arrested + a little white reaper for the onslaught negator just as seasoning

[prisma sun]

I will say the amount of enemies that would give you problems that arent doomoids in a campaign where youd get something like that are relatively narrow

Like "gosh I hope the Deathlord doesnt deploy a Surprise Lunar"

[bleak hazel]

it is specially studied by shikari, which is a bit of a rough deal when the two scariest things you're meant to fight are sun and moon boys

admittedly if you are fighting a doomoid it has a lot of juice

[prisma sun]

Well Shikari are by and large fighting rogue gods, fae, and undead

[tulip folio]

Clearly it needs an expansion technique that lets you treat solars and lunars as creatures of darkness. Anathema Burning Flames.

[bleak hazel]

Where-is-doom Inquisition is totally worthless if no Creatures of Darkness are there because it's straight worse than an excellency and then jumps up to being discount Thunderclap Rush if they are (and you have Mastery)

[prisma sun]

Fighting a solar would suck but no style is going to fix that for Deebs

[bleak hazel]

eh, Earth Dragon makes a damn good effort

[prisma sun]

Earth Dragon makes the idea that you can last in melee against a solar for 5 seconds so everyone can shoot it like whitebeard make some sense

[tulip folio]

Where-is-doom would make a lot more sense if enlightened mortals with mote pools but no excellency still existed

[bleak hazel]

Devil-Slaying Spear Dance is really neat, as is Light-on-Dark Shield

[marsh garden]

light-on-dark is pretty fucking juicy

being a withering clash at e2

[bleak hazel]

you just have three useless charms if you want to get there, it's an exactly 50% hit rate style

[marsh garden]

even if it's spenny

[bleak hazel]

Rotten Leaf good, but the form, cleansing flame strike and WIDI are either straight bad or not good at anything but doomoids

I admit I am tempted to grab that first six charms on 1kblades infernal once he has spare XP

since Rotten Leaf absolutely powerbombs people in combination with 1kblades

you fire off an overwhelming 12 spear strike at long range, prone them, crash them and leave them unable to close with you

they spend their next turn lying prone and then the turn after that flurrying getting up with actually doing anything

then you do it again

[marsh garden]

4m for an autoprone is pretty nasty

[bleak hazel]

shows how good smashing is

[marsh garden]

that stops their fucking move

[bleak hazel]

but the crash benefit is just massive

[marsh garden]

hmm

janny doesn't have too many crippling mastery locks

so five charms deep for light-on-dark shield gets you uh

two charms that actually do anything

but they're really good charms

[tulip folio]

I got pondering as I'm looking at stealing some charms from it for the Ferryman quick character I'm working on.

Sculling Oar(Quarterstaff) + Golden Janny ghost.

[bleak hazel]

you might as well also have Devil-Slaying Spear Dance if you have mastery

[marsh garden]

i'm not looking at mastery

[bleak hazel]

that's pretty decent tempo even if it is really thirsty on the mote pool

oh yeah, then 2/5

honestly not worth it

five combat charms could be so much more stuff anywhere else

[marsh garden]

rotten leaf arrested is still probably worth it alone

even for three dots

[bleak hazel]

a dip for RLA is solid yeah

[marsh garden]

as long as you're also in white reaper

[bleak hazel]

but four charms gets you to Snake Style's withering clash

[marsh garden]

and/or thousand blades

snake is uhhh

[bleak hazel]

and Snake Form and the first two charms of the style are actually good

[marsh garden]

just 7s staff and hook sword right?

so unarmed-only for mixing those

[bleak hazel]

yeah

but if you want to withering clash you might want to be punching anyway, it's not like you roll massive damage and fists have a higher acc bonus than a single spear does

[marsh garden]

dual-wielding spears gets you to the same acc tho

[tulip folio]

Alternatively since these guys beat up zombies a lot i could give them white reaper...I kinda want the feel that these guys are very experienced more than full of extra supernatural power. XD

[bleak hazel]

dual-wielding spears actually does a little better if you have artifact spears, but that's expensive

(unless you have 1kblades)

I do like that there are a good number of spear styles now

1kblades, Golden Janissary, White Reaper and Crystal Chameleon is a good base

soon there will be Crimson Panoply too, although that's apparently about using everything and the kitchen sink

so it might not be good with something like 1KB

[chilly sluice]

very curious how Panoply is gonna work

and how it's presumably gonna implement switching between the wepaons

[bleak hazel]

I am told it's the boomer shooter style

[coral wraith]

I imagine it'll have a decent amount of team support charms

[bleak hazel]

weapon swap 500 times a second

[coral wraith]

Like SVN

[chilly sluice]

yeah I have also heard it's gonna be ultrakill weapon swapping all the time

[bleak hazel]

I don't think that's ever been mentioned as a theme

[coral wraith]

New Rival MA

[coral wraith]

Weird since it's the Battles MA

They're all about teamwork

[chilly sluice]

possibly some on the Banner?

[bleak hazel]

it's about fighting, it's not about fighting with anyone

[coral wraith]

You can fight for your friends!

[bleak hazel]

it's the house style of the guys whose job description is literally just to beat you into the ground

yeah, but you don't have to

you just have to fight to fight

Violet Bier is "you fight because you want it to lead to Endings", Cerulean Lute is "you fight because you want it to lead to Serenity", therefore what is Battles?

war without end, you don't need your friends there

there may be some banner stuff, but I am told it is the style of people who are more aggro and fighty than average even among martial artists, so I'm not sure it's going to be about buffs

[coral wraith]

panoply theme song
https://youtu.be/Elj4zDLqJvw?si=sSHVw9b1wtQaMTSs

[bleak hazel]

I had considered that for Rival actually

[marsh garden]

thank you war without reason, i love you war without reason

[bleak hazel]

but I settled on this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt6gc3XMC9E

(specifically for the Rival/Graves matchup, because it has that contrast)

[marsh garden]

Event Horizon goes so fucking hard

[bleak hazel]

I'm not sure Panoply will actually be much good for Rival because he basically came to the same place organically with Sids' existing quickswap charm

and uses that to enable a very particular set of nonsense

but I am still looking forward to seeing if there's juice there

at the very least if there's an "after swapping weapons hit hard" charm I can farm the hell out of it

[wise ocean]

for similar "hm, juice?" reasons, when is abyssal companion coming out

[bleak hazel]

probably late next year at the earliest, Sidbook was basically finished in 2023 and we're still probably going to be waiting a few months for the companion now

companions take ages

partly because they're dumb and don't just publish the manuscripts during the wait like they do with real splats

so 50000 kalpas in art direction

[marsh garden]

we should at least be getting previews this month, according to one of the devs

[tulip folio]

Rite of Severance: Ferrymen are immune to effects that would cause them to gain Whispers or be sent to Lethe. Ferrymen treat the Ferryman's oath as a Fetter, despite it being sworn after their death.

Playing about with Quick Character stuff.

[tulip folio]

Black Claw Form Weapons: Schmucks

[fierce star]

Pffft

[tulip folio]

How does Toad Style seem for a Sid?

[prisma sun]

Depends on the Sid

[tulip folio]

I'm pondering it + brawl for my half jadeborn sid.

As she's got unusual skin 5 so her soak is pretty good for a Sid

[wise ocean]

both unarmed, good defense boosts for extremely squishy sid bodies, sounds good to me

[tulip folio]

'Now we shall see the elegant and graceful martial arts of the Sidereals...'

[coral wraith]

unusual skin 5 makes iron-skinned toad go absolutely stupid style

Ah wait it's your base natural soak only

Still solid though

[tulip folio]

...I'm also realising that a good secondary style here is unironically White Veil.

As toad gets boosts vs poisoned people

And White Veil has good poisons/can boost them

That or Black Claw if I want to be Much More Toxic.

But with brawl she likely doesn't want too many martial arts.

[fierce star]

hell yeah poison

[marsh garden]

:D

[tulip folio]

Hmm...brainstorming is difficult. XD

[buoyant summit]

🐮So my GM in the Aby game has dropped the bombshell that

Not only is my Lunar mate an Elder

Not only are they an E7 chimera

NOT ONLY

Are they the former shahan-ya of the ghost ruling one of our city states

They are Lilith's shahan-ya

[marsh garden]

👀

[buoyant summit]

🐮Truly I am paying for my hubristic jokes about how one of our mates would be an Elder

[marsh garden]

lmao, your game's got a lot more going on than mine right now

of course, we're not a ton of sessions in and it's mostly setting up metaplot and some side characters

[buoyant summit]

I am admittedly joining mid-campaign

[marsh garden]

but all that really happened to my abyssal last session was holding hands with a boy and crying on the ground from the blood coming out of my everything

[buoyant summit]

And it's pbp so like

You actually get through the mechanical minutiae stuff faster in pbp than a weekly game I find?

Cuz you all just

text

Throughout the whole week

[marsh garden]

mhm

mine is mostly a session-based text game for now

[buoyant summit]

Oh inchresting

[buoyant summit]

Oh wait is it the Rugame?

[marsh garden]

no

one with some friends

[buoyant summit]

Kewl

[buoyant summit]

"Was John Brown a Zenith or a Full Moon, thread locked by moderators after 1,396,277 comments."

Is this anything?

XD

[bleak hazel]

John Brown is clearly the backstory of an Abyssal

[buoyant summit]

Hm

or an Infernal...

[bleak hazel]

he was very much killed

[buoyant summit]

I thought Infernals also got killed?

Or at the very least have the dying of thirst in the desert moment

[bleak hazel]

technically neither of them die, but Abyssals are exalted in the moment before their deaths, Infernals are just exalted at a highly spiteful low point

[buoyant summit]

I

I don't know what I would call John Brown's final speech, where he lambasts the corrupt power structure that would reward the violence he inflicted if he did so on behalf of the rich, and how his children and himself sacrificed their lives and family for the cause, other than a spiteful low point

XD

Sorry

That came out more aggressive than I meant it

Apologies

[bleak hazel]

sure, but then a demon approaches you and you go into a chrysalis and come out hybridised with demons of hell, rather than being hanged by the neck until dead

that last is very much abyssal territory

[buoyant summit]

lmao fair

I think it would be a very potentially fun 'night creatures in Castlevania freely enter a Godless church' moment

[tulip folio]

Glamourous Overshadowing
Cost: 6m; Mins: Dexterity 5, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Decisive-only, Perilous
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Def Penalty Negator
You've had your chance, get off the stage.

When an enemy misses the Wanderer, they reset to base initiative at the end of the current tick.

Reset: Once Per scene

Keys:

Repetition is not Flattery(Essence 3): The attacker resets to base initiative immediately, potentially ruining further attacks this tick.

Dickhead Wanderer Defensive Trick.

[fierce star]

Oh that is mean

I like it. Maaaaybe needs perilous?

[tulip folio]

Oh, good catch, yeah.

You want people able to step around it by crashing you first

[buoyant summit]

giggling

Iki if you run a test game for these motherfuckers I beg of you

These are so good lmao

[tulip folio]

I do find it funny that these guys through various alterations during design have ended up A) Unironically hopeful and idealistic B) Still very much assholes.

[buoyant summit]

God literally my fucking favorite

[tulip folio]

Like on the resolve front they're very...Anti-Abyssal. Not in that they fight abyssals and more that Abyssals are all about negative intimacies and they're all about positive.

[buoyant summit]

🦢I'm making my Changing Moon self and she is literally just this

[tulip folio]

Smiling In The Face Of Oblivion
Cost: 2m; Mins: Wits 2, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
No matter how many times it is shattered, the wanderer will not allow cruelty to harden her heart.

The Wanderer gains +2 Resolve against influence that would weaken a positive Intimacy. This Charm’s cost is waived when used to protect Ties toward those covered by her Touchstone.

Keys:
There Is Always Tomorrow (Wits 4): The wanderer may use this charm against influence that would instill her with a negative Intimacy or strengthen such an Intimacy.

[buoyant summit]

That's amazing

[tulip folio]

I'm trying to make even the 'this does basic mechanical tricks' charms have some flavour to them.

[buoyant summit]

It has incredible flavor

[tulip folio]

A Bleeding Heart Still Beats
Cost: 4m, 1ahl; Mins: Wits 4, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Smiling In The Face Of Oblivion
Bloodied but unbroken, the Wanderer will die before she gives up on her hope.

When the Wanderer’s Resolve is beaten by an influence roll to convince her to undertake a serious or life-changing task (Exalted, p. 216), she can use this Charm to perfectly defend against that influence. 

Reset: Once per story, unless reset when events prove the Wanderer justified in refusing the influence in a way that benefits or demonstrates a hopeful future or one of her Defining Principles.

[buoyant summit]

Faexalted as Dramatis Personae

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS

Are these Terrestrial or Celestial?

[tulip folio]

Celestial. They're in the Lunar/Sidereal/Alchemical area.

[buoyant summit]

But yeah Iki this shit is incredible

[tulip folio]

The basic idea for them is that they were unfinished exaltations, designed for some lost incarnae or as part of a project that was abandoned. They were left in one of Autocthonn's many caches of experiments...and like 90% of creation, it got consumed by the wyld.

But exaltations can't be destroyed and instead the wyld empowered them, bringing them to life.

[buoyant summit]

Please, tell us more

(We love this shit lmao)

[tulip folio]

Their big thing is intended to be 'Touchstones' instead of Castes.

You pick a couple of locations that really resonated with you and those define your favored attributes

[buoyant summit]

ooooooooooo

Sauce

[tulip folio]

The general thematic area is that they don't have a specific place int he world, hence 'Wanderers'

And they're finding what gives them meaning.

Wanderer Exaltation
Wanderers are chosen from those who have been left with nowhere to go. A child orphaned, a person cast out of their family by kin who won't accept who they are, sole survivors of lost tribes. The darkness of true loneliness envelops them, even in the middle of the largest cities. Those who surrender to it or deny themselves to crawl back to those cast them out find the Exaltation passes them by.

Others find the darkness comforting. A chance to live a new life, decided on one's own terms and bound to no one. Memories of a past that support but do not bind. Those who embrace this chance are embraced in turn, finding in a sudden surge of power that the void was not emptiness but an endless well of possibility.

This endless possibility fills them, giving a moment of wondrous reinvention. Body, mind and soul find themselves transformed into what the wanderer always wishes they were. Who they were is gone forever but a new, wondrous self remains.

Enemies of Fate
With the Wyld flowing within their veins, their tendency to push narrative convention over the decisions of the Loom of Fate as well as several powers that actively defy dictates of the Bureau of Destiny, Wanderers are considered Enemies of Fate. Despite that, however, they are not Creatures of Darkness. They have no ties to the Yozi or the Dead, nor are they the vanguards of the dissolution of creation.

The Immaculate Faith makes no such distinction, calling them creatures of the Wyld or Fae Nobles despite the inaccuracy of such terms. A Wanderer who is sighted blatantly making pattern spiders cry can expect no more quarter from the Wyld Hunt than any Solar or Lunar could.

[buoyant summit]

That last line immediately has me imagining a Wanderer with a Pattern Spider familiar

Bonded by mutual fascination

[tulip folio]

Each of their stats has an 'art' associated with it. Basicly a fancy name/theme like the constelations for sids.

And your touchstone picks your arts as 'caste' abilities.

Example Touchstones

Merlin’s Tower
A massive tree within a vibrant flower field, where locals claim that the Elemental Dragons of Wood once bound a great Fey. She remembers the flower festival, as the carefully arrayed rows of plants are tended to during cultivation each year. She remembers the taste of sticky sweets and the laughter of townsfolk as they worked.
Tie: Joyful Love
Arts: Primal, Tale-Craft

Lookshy’s District of Justice
A cruel joke of a name for a titanic pyramidal bright-indigo crystal grown out of the earth. She remembers the cold nights and the endless silence of the solitary confinement cells. She remembers the empty eyes of those broken, advocates for the Helots and those who refused military service.
Tie: Fearful Hatred
Arts: Dragon’s Ire, Contract

As well as giving you a tie that can't be fully eroded to that place.

[buoyant summit]

These sound amazing

[tulip folio]

The mechanics are giving me a headache but it should work out. Basicly: You pick your two 'Primary' arts and get your 2 main anima powers based on them. There's two lists do you get a 'This is free at bonfire' trick and a more general purpose one.

Hidden Name (Permanent): While her anima is dim, the Wanderer inflicts a −2 penalty on rolls opposing her Guile, Stealth, or disguise.

So if you pick Naming as your second Primary Art you get Hidden Name.

[buoyant summit]

Amazing

[tulip folio]

Dragon's Ire:

Dragon's Wings: (5m; Reflexive; Until next turn): The Wanderer and all allies within close range add (her Essence, maximum 5) non-Charm dice on rolls for movement actions and feats of strength. This is free at bonfire.

Limitless Avarice (Permanent): She adds (Resources/2, Rounded Up) non-Charm Resolve against fear or asceticism-based influence.

The one's for Dragon's Ire for example. If your first choice is Dragon's Ire, you get Dragon's Wings. If your second pick is Dragon's Ire, you get Limitless Avarice.

[buoyant summit]

Very, very cool

Do you have a doc that I might be able to peep?

[tulip folio]

Sadly not all in one place yet but I can put something together after work.

[fierce star]

I really likelimitless avarice

it makes me want to make a wanderer who's like a 40k rogue trader lol

[tulip folio]

Now don't ask me when someone's going to hit you with an asceticism-based influence but still, you get to go 'Hahahah, give up worldly possessions? WHY WOULD I DO THAT?' if it happens

[wise ocean]

+3 nc resolve against fear-based influence 100% of the time from e1 is wild

[merry arch]

fwiw infernals have the same thing but no resources cost required on Cosmic Transcendence of Virtue. i think tying it to a merit makes it less attractive and seems balanced fine for a non-solaroid celestial?

oh wait it's not non-charm

[wise ocean]

indeed, and "can't ever retreat or surrender" is a pretty big drawback

[merry arch]

yeah fair

[tulip folio]

Non-Charm resolve against influence on anima powers can get pretty damn beefy. Alchs have +2-3 right from chargen etc.

[merry arch]

ohhhh anima powers. i am a dog and do not have reading comprehension. oops

[tulip folio]

The Alch one is incredibly broad. 'Doing things that will hurt people I like? Man, do you know how many things will make people I love cry if they hear I did it?'

[buoyant summit]

I would be mightily appreciative!

[prisma sun]

To be fair, that's really broad and also really circumnavigate

Since it's only intentionally

[marsh garden]

and also "harm", which you can argue for a lot of emotional or social harm but that the GM can also weasel at you back

if you keep stretching it

[tulip folio]

I do love Jade Caste as just these giant, friendly fellows who are like the big dog of exalts.

'Strength, Wits, Charisma and huge constant resolve bonuses if it would hurt my friends'

[buoyant summit]

🦢Attributes & Abilities spread for my Changing Moon 'self'

I should probably swap Perception and Int...

[wise ocean]

are you doing sorcery or something

[buoyant summit]

No

🐰My build is gonna, No Moon

[wise ocean]

then you've no use for int at all and plenty for perception, in it goes

[buoyant summit]

🦢So I should hit the 4/1/4

[merry arch]

perception is very juicy.

[wise ocean]

'less you think you're going to be rolling int more than read intentions or other per rolls, yeah

app 5 is also a bit of a brow-raiser when you have str at 3 (vbos loves more strength) and charisma at 4 (assuming you're only doing manip 3 for guile?), but if you're going for Supernatural Beauty™ it's fine as is

[buoyant summit]

I will admit I am suffering from the affliction we have where all our characters must

Be good fighters

I am indeed going for Supernatural Beauty™

[wise ocean]

well, I'll be frank: what is the character concept here

[buoyant summit]

Agitator, spy, and negotiator

[wise ocean]

hm. rough spread

[buoyant summit]

Yeah...

I had the idea that since my spirit form is a waterfowl

My shahan-ya is Leviathan?

If that helps

At all?

[wise ocean]

should be able to get away with 5/5/1 | 5/2/5 | 4/1/4 though, ideally scraping up enough stuff to get presence and socialize to 5 from elsewhere

[buoyant summit]

1 stamina

lmao

[merry arch]

waterfowls are not the most durable creatures

[buoyant summit]

They aren't but also fuck being that squishy is terrifying

[merry arch]

just don't get hit

[wise ocean]

not much of a choice if you're social primary

this is already kind of dumping manip but you don't have the points for it

[buoyant summit]

What if I went 3/1/4 Mental

for 5 socialize 5 presence at chargen with BP

[wise ocean]

works

get some read intentions tech from somewhere

[merry arch]

yea losing a die of jb/ri isn't the biggest loss. like Ash said your character would benefit from a read intentions charm

[tulip folio]

Where di you get that sheet btw? I've been looking for a good sheet as I tend to do chargen entirely manulaly.

[buoyant summit]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pfjmZKzcUqAX9mB58IAEUIFkZr8rq4CvdRRM4kzwwgU/edit?usp=sharing

It's a Google Sheet by Myckou

[tulip folio]

Nice

[buoyant summit]

Also

I'm thinking maybe I don't want Stealth...

[merry arch]

fyi it's missing most of the functionality for alchs. infernals are just missing charms and devil body

[wise ocean]

not a ton of other things to do with your collection of up-to-three-dots chargen points, honestly

[tulip folio]

Oh, I was just planning on doing up a Sidereal with it.

[merry arch]

for sure. just wanted to pass along the word

[wise ocean]

might as well take stealth if you think you'll ever need to hide from people, and iirc lunars have good stealth charms

[tulip folio]

As I've been planning that Half-Jadeborn sid for a while but not put pen to paper for more than basic ideas.

[merry arch]

cooking an alchemical is a pain in the dick with that sheet rn lmao

[fierce star]

I just use .txt/ASCII sheets like it's the 90s still

[tulip folio]

Do Sids have a 'Hit people with strength' charm?

Ah, found it.

[tulip folio]

Working on a Sid, Working on a Sid

Too silly?

[merry arch]

looks good so far to me

[tulip folio]

The mental stats are sorta in a case of 'eh, I don't have plans here. Might as well just spend some early exp getting int and per up to Average and call it good'.

On the Physical/Social front she's a Half-Jadeborn. She's not really great at open emotions and she's got the issue when it comes to mobility of 'weighs nearly half a tonne due to being heavily made of jade but also...is heavily made of jade'.

She's Dex 1 and Stealth 0 but she does have a sneaky infiltration technique.

It's called Gilded Cage Entrapment.

She just goes and Gets A Job There.

She's not actually got toad style but it didn't like me putting in a custom martial art name.

[velvet raft]

In case of a need for physical stealth, sids do also have a dodge charm that lets them get to concealment using Appearance + Dodge immediately after being attacked

[tulip folio]

That's fair. Do the dots look too silly? It's missing things you'd sorta assume most sids have but well, she's designed to be Brawly and Social-y so things needed to be sacraficed.

[velvet raft]

Seems fine to me, sids are a wacky bunch as I imagine them

[tulip folio]

She doesn't actually have Toad style but the style she does have isn't much more sane. XD

[coral wraith]

What actually is it tho

[tulip folio]

An update of an old 2e style.

Orgiastic Fugitive Style
Many martial arts require ascetic calm, discarding all worldly attachments so that they may better cultivate their essence. Masters of Orgiastic Fugitive style call such martial artists buzzkills and ask them to either pass the pipe or put up their fists already. Drawing deep upon the altered perceptions of various intoxicants, Orgiastic Fugitive attempts to reach enlightenment through a hazy door, staggering their way into wisdom unsure of how they reached it.

Those who mock this style however, will soon find that they have much more than merely dignity to lose. Orgiastic Fugitive martial artists are masters of intoxicants, not prisoners of them. They have a fantastic understanding of how such things can affect their bodies, and the bodies of those much less well prepared.

Orgiastic Fugitive Weapons: Masters of this style fight with improvised weapons from hookahs or bottles of alcohol. Such weapons are generally treated as improvised clubs or maces, often with Thrown(Short), though a broken bottle would be treated as an Improvised Knife. When they fight Unarmed it is with flailing, seemingly uncoordinated movements that slam the target with their entire body or reel out of the way of enemy attacks like they are stumbling on a rocking ship. Classier users of the style often wield Parasols or Knives.

Armour: It is uncommon for a master of Orgiastic Fugitive to be fully clothed, let alone armoured and thus the style cannot be performed in any armour.

Complementary Abilities: To master Orgiastic Fugitive style requires one master one’s own body, with most practitioners showing a remarkable Resistance. As a style performed in opium dens and bars, Socialize is also a very common skill for mastery.

The OG 'drunken master' style.

Sids are very good at beating you with improvised objects.

Saturnalia Memoriam
Cost: 4m; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
Having attended a pleasant party, there is joy in that memory, and there is strength in joy. Anyone who has tried to take a doll from a child or a bottle from an alley wino can attest to that. In the right mindset, a stiff drink or a good drug can bring those memories vividly to mind, ready to share.

If the stylist deals decisive damage with an attack, her enemy is exposed to an essence-enhanced version of the martial artist's intoxicant of choice. It has Damage 3i/round (Against characters in Crash, roll 3 dice, with the character losing one Willpower per success), Duration 5 rounds, and a −2 penalty.

The stylist can also use this charm to deliver the intoxicant directly to a character within Short range with a difficulty 3 Gambit, instead of attempting to do it alongside damage. For many martial artists, this involves tossing a bottle of their favourite drink directly into the opponent's face or breathing out a haze of intoxicating mist.

The base trick for it is 'Spill essence-empowered booze everywhere, getting people around you just as wasted'

[bleak hazel]

Brawl 5 MA 3 is odd because the way Versatile works is "use your MA rating, supplement with Versatile brawl kit" not the other way around

[tulip folio]

...ah, that's a good point. For some reason I thought it worked both ways.

[velvet raft]

It would be extremely helpful to Brawl sids just starting to use SMAs if it did

But, alas

[tulip folio]

I guess I'll need to spend some more bonus points on 2 more MA then

[velvet raft]

The flip side is that you don't need to start with Brawl 5, since there's nothing versatile that needs it as a prereq before Essence 4

[tulip folio]

Makes sense.

[velvet raft]

The breakpoints IIRC are something like:

• Brawl 1: Tolerant Strife
• Brawl 2: Hostility Acceptance Technique
• Brawl 4: Speared Boar Struggle, Unobstructed Blow, Sacrifice Without Regret
• Brawl 5: Dead Spouse Defense

[tulip folio]

Also in other news: I have 7 -0 health levels. That is An Entire Dude worth of -0 health levels. XD

[velvet raft]

:D

I do find it extremely fitting that the sid version of being extremely tough is just to be entirely unhurt

[tulip folio]

And yeah, Speared Boar was the one I really wanted to get.

[bleak hazel]

Rival also has three stam 5 ox-bodies

no Speared Boar though

I have considered getting it at higher essence just because it's very good even absent any supporting tech, you can just health-level-check people

"eh, it won't kill me"

also a very good combo if you're ever fighting multiple opponents because it lets you be very decisive and just go "OK, I'm removing you and then this is a duel"

[tulip folio]

I also really want to get MDV: Fist at some point.

[tulip folio]

That said: I might shop around martial-arts-wise. See if anything is fun instead. Toad would be fun, though any soak-heavy style would be tempting.

Earth Dragon, perhaps?

[velvet raft]

If you can fit two dragon style forms, you could grab Five Dragon and Exaltation Ways to get MA bonuses from Water Aspect and get Earth Aura at the same time

Is that worth it? Unsure

Toad feels fitting for a drunken master type since you can fluff poisons as alcohol poisoning

And is probably the best style in general for taking it on the chin

[tulip folio]

Also gives you the 'Snorlax Used Body Slam' charm

For maximum humour.

[velvet raft]

Earth is very strong but a portion of its strength is wrapped up in Earth aura

Hostility Acceptance Technique and Optimistic Security Practice both help a ton

Oh! In regular sid charms, there's a bunch of good resilience stuff in Presence. That's a heavy investment on top of performance, but it might be worth considering

Hero's Iron Skin is meh without good charisma, but Someone Else's Destiny is an all-purpose anti-poison charm and Shield of Mars is defensively strong if you can land it

[tulip folio]

That's fair. I should ponder it. I was just kinda in a 'man, all the social things are important and I'm not sure I can afford all of them' area. XD

With me wanting a chunk of socialize stuff and socialize demands manipulation, while app is needed for 'having a functional dodge' etc

[velvet raft]

Sids also have social stuff turn up in odd places

Dodge has a ton of social charms, for instance

I do think it's fun how all five Serenities abilities are useful for their role as The Talky Ones

[tulip folio]

Yeah, it's very fun.

I might pick up some presence later but getting a good bit of socialize felt good for this character. And presence/socialize are super stat-specific

[velvet raft]

Ye

Well, presence does have some strength and stamina-based stuff

And a few things that can use appearance

[tulip folio]

Which is kinda why I ended up going 'all app' for social. It can do a bit of everything due to its nature. XD

[velvet raft]

New ST's characterization of White Wolf game rules: "occasionally baroque mechanics" yeah okay I think we're gonna get along

[light olive]

Would. Me sharing details on my OC yozi again be interesting?

[mighty rover]

yeah!

[light olive]

Probably wont do that tonight. But. She is big unhealtjy iceberg who maybe was married to Mardukth?

Or I guess a glacier

[marsh garden]

https://theonyxpath.com/riders-from-the-sunless-lands-preview-1-the-shape-of-the-underworld/

no player mechanics, but river stuff!

how much of this is new and how much is old-ed/wraith stuff? i'm not overly familiar with wraith

[light olive]

I once hypothesized that it Adorjan got fetich deathed again she would turn into a train

[fierce star]

Old Laws are a wraith/geist thing

[bleak hazel]

pondering a new siddie and wondering if I can get away with 4 charms in Snake, Mantis Style + Brawl Versatile on a mostly non-fightan build

it would have to go unarmed but on the upside that lets me just go ham on the SMAs once I get there

little bit of PAOC for WOE and then CMOS

[fierce star]

a lot of htis is new, though, the underworld changed a lot between Ex1/2 and Ex3

[marsh garden]

i've said this in a couple other places now, but

the hollowed-out bone moon death star floating about the Fallen Spear Empire as a capital city/superweapon goes unimaginably hard

[wise ocean]

Paragon Axehead is such a kojima name

[marsh garden]

i hope they wear an axe-shaped helmet

[tulip folio]

Hellova Entrance
Cost: 2m; Mins: Appearance 3, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Wanderer's Appearance adds bonus dice (Exalted, p. 218) on a non-stealth-based opposed roll with any ability against a character who can perceive her. Her Anima banner immediately flares to Burning, unless it would otherwise be higher.

Reset: Once per scene.

It is up to 3 non-charm dice but it relies on the other guy having a not fantastic resolve and Falcon Style is a martial art that can get +1 automatic non-charm success with its 2m, essence 1 entrance charm if you set it up right.

[bleak hazel]

[Snake Style] I use my fingers to approximate the penetrating fangs of a snake, and then channel the energy in my arm to replicate the poison!
[Real Snake] Cool! Lemme try! wiggle wiggle, wiggle wiggle Hm, I don't have arms.

(from a discussion on Lunar shapes and martial arts)

[bleak hazel]

Clash-Winning Technique, go

[tulip folio]

There is a little of that, yeah.

[velvet raft]

I always remember there was a 2e comic where Swan or whatever his name is was studying Snake Style under a guy with snake legs

And I'm just sitting here reading this going, "hmmmmmmmmm"

[marsh garden]

snake legs as in a lamia body or as in like, a mutant with legs that are snakes

[tulip folio]

Do you think it's too much? The intent was well, the 1/scene and the fact you need 3 more app than their resolve to get the bonus dice would keep it under control.

[bleak hazel]

it's probably fine, although the name made me expect a join battle booster instead

[velvet raft]

Lamia body

[tulip folio]

Nah, though I am pondering a key for it to give you a free Inspire when you use it.

[velvet raft]

Specifically the comic involved Swan following along in some sort of form, including parts where he did kicks

Where did you get the kicks, Swan

[tulip folio]

I didn't really want it to be a join battle booster as that makes it only really usable in combat scenarios.

And wanted it to be more of a general 'Damn I make this look good' thing.

[marsh garden]

intuiting the moves out of following tail-lashes?

[tulip folio]

All The World's A Stage
Cost: 2m; Mins: Appearance 3, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
There is little a Wanderer can bring that is more powerful than confidence, flair and cunning. Failing all else, however, flair will do.

The Wanderer's Appearance adds bonus dice (Exalted, p. 218) on a non-stealth-based opposed roll with any ability against a character who can perceive her. Her Anima banner immediately flares to Burning, unless it would otherwise be higher.

Reset: Once per scene.

Keys:

Supernumerary Directing Motions(+3m, Essence 2): The Wanderer can pay a three mote surcharge to make a reflexive inspire roll against all onlookers.

Hellova Entrance(Appearance 5, Essence 2): If used on the Wanderer's first opposed roll in a scene, she gains 3 bonus dice from Appearance if it would otherwise be lower. If she has Supernumerary Directing Motions, this also applies during that Inspire roll.

Adjusted the name a bit to make it feel more fitting.

[marsh garden]

is the wanderer appearance theme especially performative?

or is this just planned to be one of their subsets?

[tulip folio]

Wanderer Appearance is melodramatic as fuck. XD

Siren Song Methodology
Cost: 3m; Mins: Appearance 3, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Wanderer's voice takes on a musical tone, her suitors falling almost hypnotically under her sway.

The Wanderer doubles 9s on a persuade roll to seduce a character or instill rolls to create or strengthen ties based on desire for her. A character that can hear her voice is considered to have a Minor Intimacy that supports this influence.

Keys:

Blind To All But The Song(Appearance 5, +2m): The Wanderer can pay a two mote surcharge to have a character affected by this influence suffer a penalty of (her Essence) to Awareness-based rolls to pay attention to anything or anyone other than her for as long as they can perceive her.

Rose Tint Hides Red Flags(Appearance 5, Essence 2): Her targets can't use Intimacies based on caution, fear or hatred to bolster their Resolve against this influence or resist it in a Decision Point.

Wanderer Appearance is kinda the 'being a social asshole' of the social trees.

Charming, Psyche effects and warping people's names to fuck with them.

Sobriquet Spinning Naming
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Appearance 3, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Shaping(Fate)
Duration: One Story
Prerequisite Charms: None
There are few things as key to one's identity as their name. Gently twisting the names a figure is known by, the Wanderer can change how the world sees them.

The Wanderer grants a short nickname, sobriquet or epithet to a character in short range, rolling (Appearance + [Linguistics or Socialize]) against his Resolve if he’s unwilling. 

An affected character finds that this new name comes to mind easily with all who meet him, even if they have no knowledge of him. If the Wanderer describes a Heptagram scholar as a Rake, he will find people whispering that he must have charmed his demons with talents other than sorcery, while a tactician called 'The Dull' will find people assuming the worst of his capabilities. This is treated as a Minor Intimacy for all who encounter him, unless they have an existing intimacy that would oppose it (Those who already believe the Tactician is brilliant will not also believe he is an idiot) or if the other character spends 1 willpower to ignore the effect for a scene. Trivial characters may not spend willpower this way.

By default, this nickname will last one story, unless undone prematurely by magic like Order-Affirming Blow (Exalted, p. 334) or accomplishing a Legendary Social Goal that defies that nickname. 

Keys:

Libellous Rumour Mill (Essence 2): Mortals and non-exalted beings with lower Essence than the Wanderer treat the nickname as a Major Intimacy instead of Minor.

Spider-Convincing Words (Libellous Rumour Mill): The Nickname reverberates even upon the strings of fate. If an affected character would fail a non-combat roll where failure would reinforce that reputation (Such as a tactician believed to be Dull losing a game of Gateway), the failure becomes a Botch, unless he spends 1 willpower.

Eternally Reverberating Reputation (Essence 2): The Wanderer may commit the motes for this charm Indefinitely, allowing the nickname to outlast a single story. With Essence 3, the Wanderer can have the charm's duration be Instant once per story, sustaining the nickname forever without committing motes.

The general intent for Wanderer Appearance is like 1/3 'Helen of Troy, if she wanted to cause the war', 1/3 Siren singing people onto the shoals and 1/3 'Sure it's not true but wouldn't the world be so much better if it was?'

It's working with Names and Raw Emotion, a lot.

[marsh garden]

unrelated. looking at thousand-forged dragons for expected reasons, and i'm now wondering

what is the funniest hearthstone to stack 25 of with this

also, with these two in the same book, did the olddevs really weigh one soak & hardness 3 as that much more expensive than +2 committed motes, it being completely temporary, and taking up an entire evocation?

like jesus christ why is the earth one so much worse

[tulip folio]

It also costs the god damn exp to get the evocation

Like that's not even a passive effect

It's 'you can unlock this, I guess'

So garbage

[marsh garden]

what does Hardness 3 even reliably protect you from other than deeb aura, in a world where the crafter of the team can make a 3-dot chain shirt or some shit?

why is it +2 motes and an evocation and not even an indefinite evocation and explodes if you get decisived

am i missing something? is 3 hardness really that impactful and rare?

or is it as bad a deal as it looks

[tulip folio]

No, it's just as bad as you think

[marsh garden]

wow these are also terrible

...huh, there really aren't as many hearthstones as i thought

[tulip folio]

The 'this does nothing but can awaken an evocation' hearthstones are so bad, with a few rare exceptions

[marsh garden]

hm. i wonder how many of them would be good at submodule xp levels?

"awaken this for 3/6/etc. xp"

[tulip folio]

I feel like you could get away with 'unlock the first one for free' for 90% of them.

[marsh garden]

i'm thinking of the control spell one

[tulip folio]

3m for +3 raw damage is...literally just Strength Excellency damage rates.

That's fair. The control spell one is a fair bit better.

[marsh garden]

the key of mastery

but like, that's still an entire spell's worth of xp

[marsh garden]

ALSO WAIT I JUST FUCKING NOTICED

LOWER OF E OR 3????

oh my god they're fucking trolling

[tulip folio]

Yeah. They're like...terrestial martial art tier.

And even then, there's better terrestial martial art charms than that for raw damage.

[marsh garden]

hell, you can just use the deeb excellency on a withering attack

[tulip folio]

Hell, Claw-Fist lets you reroll any failed die on the damage roll. Burning Coal Fist gives you (Lower of essence or 3) exploding 10s

which is way worse

[marsh garden]

it's not even double 10s 😭

anyway, entirely unrelated question

been flopping back and forth, and how viable is it with full athletics to just hard dump dex? do most splats have enough movement tools to not get stuck, as long as they have the ath pool to not instantly explode when proned?

ik lunars can replace dex on defense but not on hit

i believe sids can also replace on defense but not hit?

since they've got app + performance for dodge and either stamina or perception for parry

alchs have a million replacements, solaroids have str to hit/parry

but are these enough alone, or is dex still super necessary for combat movement (excluding alchs)?

[tulip folio]

I think it depends a chunk on the splat in question. Alchs can 100% do it. Sids can likely pull it off. Lunars can likely go 'eh, making up for it with a transformation'.

The Sid I'm currently working on hard dumped dex.

[marsh garden]

yeah alchs can just rely entirely on str/per for combat if they want

oh huh

is that because you're relying on sid melee's Aim tech?

or do they have an acc replacer i missed

[tulip folio]

Yeah, they've got an aim replacer!

It's in Battles Charms

Lets you use Strength

Judicious Application of Force

[marsh garden]

ah, i see

[fierce star]

Lunars can get str to attack with natural weapons, unarmed attacks, and heavy weapons

[bleak hazel]

tonight on Anys Syn Fights Things: I sat down to make an unarmed sid build and realised that a mildly motivated Anys Syn can get Ligier's full excellency + willpower hit rate against her down to sub-20%

I will not be bringing even the normal xp budget E3 version of that build to a game but it is very funny

old lady stands perfectly still, removes the entirety of the surrounding landscape and replaces it with a shadowy web of spiders, cannot be struck

[marsh garden]

...i'm gonna be real, i've been misreading deadly claw blow as a parry replacer this entire time somehow

dunno why reading steel paw style first just discombobulated me

but yeah, with dex replacers (or, for a sorcerer, just some way of getting decent Defense), how generally problematic is tanking dex?

[bleak hazel]

the main thing you need is some kind of movement

[marsh garden]

i know it's the everything stat, and it's more expensive to dump it than it is to just be good at everything, but

[bleak hazel]

this is pretty doable on an off-combatant but on a dedicated fighter you'll need some stuff to move you range bands so you aren't just stuck rolling 8 dice + 6 from solar/lunar excellency at absolute best whenever someone tries to kite you

that's adequate for most builds but if you're going Heavy Weapon Smash then your entire value proposition is being in melee with people

[marsh garden]

right

[bleak hazel]

although if you're a lunar or alch you can just whip out a bow if you have to

or a sling or whatever

lunar charms care not what weapons you use, although Str charms can't be used with firewands since they don't calc damage with Strength

combat sorcerors tend to be either noncombatants or ranged builds anyway so they don't give a damn

[marsh garden]

so the characters i'm broadly looking at this for are an "everything-but-dex" abyssal, Moonreaver Werewolf, a dualcasting tertiary phys abyssal, and (depending on how things go with the prospects) a hearteater

[bleak hazel]

if you're a primary combatant Lunar... just take Dex, you have so many attribute dots and it gates a lot of your great combat charms anyway

for the Abyssals you have access to lots of schmovement in athletics and good dex replacers so that's probably a pretty good candidate

or of course the sorceror who doesn't really care about being fast

[marsh garden]

i was planning on keeping dex at 3 for the lunar

[bleak hazel]

at that point the last two points of dex cost less than what you're spending on replacing it

[marsh garden]

fair

[bleak hazel]

well, they cost slightly more XP in most XP formats but they're also like a zillion times better

and free up charm XP for charms

[tulip folio]

Alchs get around the mobility issues becuase notably they get a 3xp submodule to transfer mobility to strength on the 'hit things with strength' charm.

[marsh garden]

yeah, i noticed that

alchs don't give a shit

they can do ranged/def with per and melee/movement with str

[marsh garden]

or def with stamina

plenny 'o options

[bleak hazel]

Giant Wall of Soulsteel: "yeah I was a contender to go pro but I developed some mobility issues. I'm only slightly faster and more agile than peak human athletes when I really try, the rest of the time I'm merely at amateur sprinter levels"
Physiotherapist: "really not sure what I can do for you there, sorry"

[marsh garden]

str should be movement in general

what do you mean having calves the size of tree trunks doesn't make me run better

[bleak hazel]

currently making a very fun unarmed MMA siddie and the only real downside is that he really wants dex, str and stam all at max

[fierce star]

movement should be the average of dex, str, and stam

nods sagely (this is a shitpost)

[marsh garden]

lol

i see we're starting fistfights today

[fierce star]

in fact why don't we play gurps

[bleak hazel]

also wow, anydice makes this mathhammer so much easier

since it can specify arbitrary dice

output 1d{0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 2} named "STd10"

cute trick for me, an idiot who cannot code, thank you whoever the hell made this

[marsh garden]

i tried to use anydice a bunch when first learning the system math and breakpoints

but it exploded when i tried to go too high on die counts

[bleak hazel]

seems to handle 40 dice pretty well for me

[marsh garden]

damn

[bleak hazel]

and that is way more than you'll effectively ever need

[marsh garden]

it broke at like 25

when i was trying to use it

sad

[velvet raft]

So I'm in a game where we're starting as mortals

And we have specifically opted to leave the question of our future exaltations unknown

Apparently the ST does afterschool program TTRPG stuff professionally, and originally ran this campaign for a group of high schoolers who knew absolutely nothing about Exalted

[marsh garden]

that's very cute

[velvet raft]

Meaning he was legit able to hit them with "oh yeah you're Anathema now"