Exalted

[marsh garden]

snake is only 2m???

jesus

[bleak hazel]

the willpower is the big one, you can't spam it

[marsh garden]

i know the wp is what matters, but

[bleak hazel]

extremely good charm though

[buoyant summit]

How much soak should I shoot for as a Penumbra standing in the back giving my team and battlegroup buffs?

15?

[marsh garden]

most non-solaroid clashes are like thrice as expensive mote-wise lol

[buoyant summit]

(not natural, notably, I would be wearing heavy armor)

[marsh garden]

15 seems like plenty for a backliner

[wise ocean]

that's the kind of numbers I like to see

[tulip folio]

Generally it's like '10' for combatant and 15 for 'tough combatant'

Soak-wise

[marsh garden]

i've still only got 7 soak on my dusk lol

[wise ocean]

solaroid with spec full excellency at 21 for their decisive, sid spec full excellency at 20 for their withering clash

it's within the confidence gap but

[buoyant summit]

Okay, also keeping in mind my Parry is 2

And Evasion 1

[wise ocean]

(also let's be real double 8s on a decisive to-hit isn't going to be popping up very often)

[tulip folio]

If you get to 20 soak the GM is allowed to introduce a new level of overwhelming that's directly applied to your kneecaps

[marsh garden]

sid pools are pretty ridiculously good

[bleak hazel]

you probably don't want to TN4 this but at the same time it is very rare for a decisive to have more than double 9s

[marsh garden]

it's rare for an attack roll to have more than double 9s inexpensively, ain't it

[bleak hazel]

#1161699000836165714 message

[wise ocean]

double 9s is 13.6 ±3.67

[bleak hazel]

double 9s is rare honestly

[wise ocean]

so 15.6 with a clash-suitable weapon

[bleak hazel]

it's basically just Even Blade

[buoyant summit]

Okay wonderful I'm right where I want to be

Theoretically fragile

If one wants to smack me

But enough of a tungsten ball that sparing the actions to hit me and not

Our Zenith

Or our Horizon with Elfen Lied telekinesis

Is inadvisable

Good

XD

[bleak hazel]

is this ID or a different telekinesis horizon

[buoyant summit]

Different

I am not in a game with ID

[bleak hazel]

actually I suppose I have a telekinesis horizon too but he has Thousand Blades

[buoyant summit]

Lore telekinesis

[wise ocean]

I suppose if you know the guy's not got a Two-Handed weapon (or is dual-wielding) then you can just TN5 it and show up with 15 ±2.86, since they're only getting to 13.6 by WPing an autosuccess on top of their full excellency (while you just get the autosux for motes)

[marsh garden]

yeah i don't think anyone ever beats the average optimized sid on clashes

[bleak hazel]

Tepet Telek is a) easily my most damaged character and b) also my only Exalted Twink, which is odd given the usual aesthetics of cultivators

[marsh garden]

you've got infinity motes to throw out

[buoyant summit]

Oh, notably this Penumbra is a twink

[marsh garden]

and don't need as much wp to get to your maximums

[bleak hazel]

Ligier, but basically only Ligier

[buoyant summit]

A seven foot tall twink

[marsh garden]

and have all of your MA gigatech

[bleak hazel]

Telek is App 3 so he's not like a total bombshell but he's Standard Realm Hero Guy

[wise ocean]

you can beat an optimized sid on clashes unless they're snake, crane, or - of all things - golden janissary apparently

you just need to throw ten billion dice at it, so: solaroid

[bleak hazel]

Notably Pretty

crane is not great at clashes honestly

doesn't have a charm for that

crane is all counterattacks

[wise ocean]

fair distinction

[bleak hazel]

dedicated clash builds show up with a huge stack of hit penalties and go "go on, take a swing" so the excellency gets a bit drowned in all the other stuff

if Guolin knew Snake Strikes The Heel I would genuinely back him against either Rival or Graves if he just kept spamming it because his build is basically just that

[marsh garden]

do you? i'm pretty sure you can give +2 TN to opposing clashes pretty easily

[bleak hazel]

only +1, and that's melee-only non versatile

Sid Melee does put up a good clash build but it's not like, insane next level clash build

you can do the same with martial arts on most splats

[marsh garden]

wait, what was i thinking of that adds the second...?

battles horoscope maybe?

[bleak hazel]

descending battles would do it

or a big prophecy

but those require prep time and interaction with the target

[marsh garden]

ah yeah, and only once per scene

[tulip folio]

Honestly you know what would go hard?

[marsh garden]

it doesn't require much prep time lol

[tulip folio]

Janissary + Crystal Chameleon

Attack penalty form in crystal

[bleak hazel]

Horoscopes are very easy to fuck with because they're Shaping and require specific setup conditions + beating resolve

[tulip folio]

Clash in jannisary

[bleak hazel]

Prophecies are not, you need specific anti-prophecy tech to stop them

[tulip folio]

Both use spears

[marsh garden]

battles is a pseudo-clash, not resolve it looks like

but the spear trigger is just "i walk up to you and argue with you, you are now cursed as fuck"

[wise ocean]

huh, golden janissary also has wound penalty increase. that's funny.

[marsh garden]

oh does it?

only against CoD?

or in general

[bleak hazel]

in fact they all are, I misremembered that

[marsh garden]

ah

[bleak hazel]

but they're still slightly tricky to land against shaping defences

[buoyant summit]

btw, what's the most standard Performance attribute?

[bleak hazel]

Sid Prophecy is something I genuinely believe is horrifically underused and is much better for this

[tulip folio]

Jannisary has a few kinda stinker charms but it's not a BAD style

[buoyant summit]

Is it Charisma or Appearance?

[bleak hazel]

Charisma

but App also works fine

[wise ocean]

toss spear, life-gets-worse approach to add 1 to wound penalty, rush with golden janissary, decisive stab, PCI for another 1 to wound penalty

that's cute

[marsh garden]

i think infernal performance is more biased towards app

[bleak hazel]

the thing about high essence Sid builds is that they tend to Satoru Gojo it

you are absurdly strong for as long as you have everything lined up and then someone blindsides you with something that skips your particular bullshit and you go "ah fuck" and explode

whereas Solaroids and Lunars can bulldoze through problems with beef and stats to a significantly greater extent

[marsh garden]

or you Duck Fate

[wise ocean]

I don't know, I feel if it was less overpriced you could get away with it not being the "only take this if you know you're fighting a lot of CoD" MA

you can't even cheat it out with sid medicine since that's "count as undead," not "count as CoD"

[bleak hazel]

Duck Fate costs a fortune

[marsh garden]

it's like 5m

[bleak hazel]

7m + expensive buying-up-dodge

[marsh garden]

oh, 7's rougher

[bleak hazel]

it's a good charm, it's not that good

solves a lot of problems that are enviro-hazard shaped at least

[marsh garden]

but also duck fate itself is only like, what

three charms? itself, avoidance, absent self

so it's a good dip if you've got your eva tech

oh wait two charms, it doesn't need avoidance

[bleak hazel]

Sid Dodge is not the best for raw combat power, although it's not bad

it makes you extremely meta-level-slippery but doesn't just pile on 5000 non-charm evade like solaroid/lunar dodge does

[marsh garden]

fair, gotta not explode to the first attack before you skedaddle

[buoyant summit]

So, if I am wearing heavy armor which gives me an Evasion of 1 after calculating penalties cuz I have 3 Dex and 3 Dodge

Should I just

go down to no dots in dodge?

And have 0 Evasion, or is that like

A calculation overflow issue that will cause me to explode when hit

[wise ocean]

one thing about golden janissary is that the base capstone is... alright, it spreads around AoE wound penalty increase, that's cute, but it requires setup and also costs a fortune

... and then there's
Mastery: After incapacitating a nontrivial creature of darkness and resetting to base Initiative, the stylist may use Devil-Slaying Spear Dance to roll a rush against all enemies caught in this Charm’s bonfires. She moves in a blur of blinding motion, coming into close range of each rushed enemy and making a decisive attack against him before moving on to the next. Her Initiative doesn’t reset to base until she’s completed all attacks.
She gains +1 Parry and +(Occult) natural soak against creatures of darkness, and +1 base Initiative when she resets after landing a decisive attack against one.
Enlightenment: While fighting in a demesne or manse, the stylist adds ([Lore or Occult]/2, rounded up) to her base Initiative.

[marsh garden]

against unblockables you're kinda super fucked, but picking up some parry shouldn't be the worst thing in the world

[buoyant summit]

Aren't I super fucked anyway with my whole 1 Evasion?

<XD

[marsh garden]

yeah that's what i mean, with 0 dodge you're just resigned to exploding when they unblockable past your parry, but you should grab some parry

[buoyant summit]

fair lol

I shall do that

And put those dots towards something more important

[bleak hazel]

you should have parry, feel free to dump dodge

[buoyant summit]

XD

I have a parry of 2

I have no weapon skills and a guitar in my hands

[marsh garden]

unassailable hellbound majesty is a really good block unblockable

gives you fucking

+wp non-charm parry

[bleak hazel]

primary issue is the same one as the Lunar one: you perfect parry whatever you use this on and then it's down for the scene

but it's extremely strong and perfectly adequate for a backliner

[marsh garden]

oh is it 1/scene?

damn

[wise ocean]

oh, you can also add FJF

if you can get a red greater sign too this becomes yet funnier, but as it is hitting a CoD and then teleporting to everyone in medium range and hitting them for 10 decisive dice pleases me greatly

you can theoretically add even more but I don't think PAOC lets you combo thrown form's benefits into GJ decisives

otherwise you can hit up to 15 decisive dice to Every Undead Within Medium Of A Guy before red sign

... plus (1 agg + (10s on initial decisive roll)), actually

[marsh garden]

god, i cracked infernals back open and i forgot how fucking funny Exodus Beyond Eternity is

"it's sand time for you"

[wise ocean]

furthermore:
Creatures of darkness are burned by this light, suffering (Essence) dice of aggravated damage each turn, ignoring Hardness.
each of their turns? any turns? stylist's turns?

[marsh garden]

"turn" in the generic is what ex3 uses as an equivalent of "round" right?

[buoyant summit]

Are there any armor or clothing artifacts that are meant to like

Give you gravitas?

[marsh garden]

does Vainglory work at all there? i don't remember much of what it does rn

[buoyant summit]

Where's Vainglory?

[marsh garden]

aotc

it's a crown

that's also a chakram iirc

[buoyant summit]

Nnnnnope

Vainglory is attacks and stuff

[marsh garden]

ah damn

[buoyant summit]

Sozen almost gets there

But veers waaayyyyyy off into larceny shit

[limpid badge]

hello im going to do my rubestie on running exalted

tomorrow...

my flower-war begins.....

[merry arch]

yippee I'm excited

[limpid badge]

Daring Monsoon (swoon)

[merry arch]

THATS RIGHT

[coral wraith]

maybe I'll get up early to observe some warring flowers

[merry arch]

hell yea

[tulip folio]

Crusade of Hope
Cost: 5m; Mins: Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Perilous, Uniform, Resonant
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Something
Prince Balor fought for all the Wyld's sake. What do you fight for?

When an attack from the wielder or a battle group under her command empties an enemy battle group’s Magnitude, it must enter into a Decision Point, calling upon a Major or Defining intimacy that represents their motivation to remain in this fight. Intimacies of Fear, Enspelled Obedience and Greed are not applicable here, with terrified conscripts, bound monsters and mercenaries easily overwhelmed. 

A battle group that fails to resist add +2 to the difficulty of its roll to resist rout.

Resonant: Units with perfect morale that are made up of Champions of Order or led by Champions of Order must still enter a decision point, unless they are mindless. Those that fail to resist lose the benefits of perfect morale against this rout check.

[fierce star]

goddamn

I like it

[tulip folio]

The idea is that it's not that great against people who Want To Be There.

If you're attacking someone's home, they can defend it just fine.

But a realm legion that's mostly just there because 'I'm doing my time and want to go home afterwards' or demons who's motivation is 'I'm a slave, I don't get to decide!' is more vulnerable.

[fierce star]

Hmm. A non-armor artifact that enhances mind-hand manipulation that is wearable and useable without arms and, ideally, not a blindfold. Torc, tiara, belt, sash, amulet?

[wise ocean]

infernal, power of the mind? gotta be a crown.

give it some presence evos too

[fierce star]

crown could work, but I was considering a torc because like. Maybe it's just the Ex2 iconic slayer's fit, but I associate infernals with celtic fashion a bit?

[wise ocean]

this is fair

[fierce star]

also I think torcs are underrepresented

it's always amulet htis, choker that

the occasional neck corset if you're spicy

[tulip folio]

So I'm doing a silly thing with the Raksha Tier Fae.

Normal Template:
Primary Actions: 12 dice - A Few Things Here
Secondary Actions: 8 dice - A Few Things Here
Desperate Actions: 6 dice - Everything Else

Raksha Duelist
Primary Actions(12 Dice): Swashbuckling, Command, Charm, Feats of Strength
Secondary Actions(8 Dice): Almost Everything
Desperate Actions(4 Dice): Subtlety, Humility, Empathy

Making their secondary actions the 'oh yeah, most things are here'

But making the desperate actions have specific things in them with even worse than normal dice

So rather than giving them secondary areas of expertise, they get areas of notable shitness

Plays a bit up 'Oh yeah, the average Raksha is Better Than You' unless you run directly into one of the Things That's Entirely Outside His Story.

If you encounter a Raksha he's a brilliant artist, poet, socialite, warrior, gateway player, singer, torturer...but if you ask the Raksha who's story is 'Flamboyant Duelist' to sneak or be humble he'll fail it despite inhuman dexterity and masterful skill because doing so is Actively Oppossed To His

Does that seem too silly/weird?

[fierce star]

I love that

[velvet raft]

Hey pnet how would you build an exalt who specializes in going into an explosive-lobbing frenzy

Or really explosive-tossing in general

[bleak hazel]

If I wanted it to be all explosives all the time and wasn't concerned about them being physical, Brilliant Raptor spam sorceror with max WP and shaping rituals configured to make throwing lots of them easy

(may cause issues when the GM eventually throws out something with hazard protection)

[velvet raft]

Ideally, actual physical bombs

… thinking about it, that feels like a missed opportunity for solar craft

And to give solars an approximate energy bolt charm

[velvet raft]

... I'd never noticed before that solars don't have any alchemy stuff. Does anyone have alchemy stuff?

[bleak hazel]

Nooope

There are some Lunar charms that get stunted as "weird potions" and Infernal vitriol corruption but that's it

I have some rules for craft (alchemy) somewhere that I need to formalise

[velvet raft]

This just seems like a no-brainer for something that craft could do

[tulip folio]

It's sorta why I went for it with wanderers

It's not super covered yet

[fierce star]

Alchemicals kind of get into it with their medicine charm

And toxic fog charms

[lament owl]

Geitimians do alchemy but in like, a Taoist way

We don’t have their book yet but they gesture at that in Essence

They have a lot of elixers and tinctures and stuff

Its important enough that they have a universal “autocraft a potion at the start of combat” charm

[buoyant summit]

IKI YOU COOK SO FUCKING HARD AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

do I have your permission to steal this for how I'm running fae in my own game

[tulip folio]

Go for it. XD

[velvet raft]

So, raksha are Stus until you switch the genre on them?

Very Warmain, I approve

[buoyant summit]

We are reaching new heights of dweeb with Avira making her infernal

She is finding the various quotes of the characters she's put on her inspo sheet

[velvet raft]

DWEEEB

I am waiting to do an inspo sheet for my mortal until they are no longer a mortal

[fierce star]

I've never done an inspiration sheet. I'm more used to the old made/saw/played template lol

[buoyant summit]

lol

[buoyant summit]

🐮I am currently talking to Lilith to try and get her to pass a message to her shahan-ya, my Abyssals Lunar mate (the E7 Tomie elder), when those two next meet that I wish to speak with them

And the ST has made it very clear she hates talking to me lmao

[bleak hazel]

local infernal rolls worst craft roll in the southwest, nearly fails basic project to make trinkets

[buoyant summit]

lol

[limpid badge]

he used these trinkets to make a Lintha girl like him more

they’re calling Lintha Cousin Lalah Vae the Most Protected Girl in the Southwest

[limpid badge]

also i had a lot of fun playing a city-father whose face is a bronze mask he's constantly working with his thumbs and forefingers to make it Emote for him

[merry arch]

he was so good

[limpid badge]

His flesh is fossilized coral, pressed and packed into a stone, the first stones that mortal hands laid in a circle to mark the boundary of the firelight- he is the City Father of a truly old city, an old god who resents the Immaculates!

Tran Ze, City Father of Royal Trandao

[prisma sun]

Del is really coralmaxxing lately

[limpid badge]

coral is a good material

its also a city of a seafaring culture so i figured it'd be nice for a community focused god to be themed to coral and bronze, very old materials, very old city (the chance it can spring back to life...)

[buoyant summit]

I can't wait for Ice Unseen and BH to cross paths and maybe swords

Both got that 'benthic power of the deep' vibe

[limpid badge]

BH is themed to dead seabeds, extinct fish, ancient dead! a desert used to be a sea, yah?

[coral wraith]

grinning mask dapping this god up for good taste

[limpid badge]

grinning mask would like tran ze

[buoyant summit]

And Ice Unseen is themed after the benthic horrors of the deep, hunters of the barren hells beneath mile-deep sea ice, atop which rest the arctic desert 😌

Also BH's anima at least seems to be some sort of deathly sea predator, a fitting image to contend with Ice Unseen's own of a draconically warped benthic knifetooth

[coral wraith]

They're literally the least appropriate character for a fighting tournament arc but it's nice imagining the two interacting anyway

[buoyant summit]

What do you mean, they know a martial art winkwonk

[merry arch]

im so pleased with my shithead chud daughter throwing fuckin money everywhere

newest money in royal trandao. she's destabilizing the entrenched power structures by accident because she doesn't know the value of currency

monsoon is becoming our hype woman flapper girl's sugar mommy purely by the merit of "I have so much money and I don't have any clue how to spend it all."

[coral wraith]

1 combat charm

[merry arch]

Monsoon's gonna explode a liminal

[dense verge]

go easy on the liminal their bones arent real yet

[merry arch]

sorry I have to win

[fierce star]

so I'm trying to put together one of those character inspiration sheets becuase they seem to be the Hip Thing To Do

and I'm honestly having trouble comingup wtih six characters I can think of that are part of the inspiration for most of my exalted PCs?

[wise ocean]

I tend to use the sheets more as "ways for people who aren't Me to catch their vibe"

[fierce star]

hmm

[wise ocean]

for example,

[buoyant summit]

lmao

[merry arch]

monsoon's defense pools are scary as hell she's got fucken 7 parry and Yes dodge

and then a bunch of shit she can do keys off dodging attacks... infernal dodge my love

plus i have crystal chameleon and white reaper with my funny artifact spear

she's gonna explode the fuck out of a frankenstein

my horrible awful chud daughter covered in gang tattoos.

isnt she just so charming

[wise ocean]

i-no juri reze
yeah.

[merry arch]

hehehe

she's so fucking awful i love her

jacint and ligier dredged up some illiterate gutter trash from the slums of wu-jian and gave her a house, a cool trident, and the income of a threshold kingdom and she's doing so well.

[buoyant summit]

I'm fucking sorry, what???

[merry arch]

specialty + medium weapon

[buoyant summit]

I forgot medium weapons do that...

[merry arch]

yep

it's fucked up

[marsh garden]

why do they just casually get a defense bonus for no drawback 😭

[merry arch]

idk and I'm not askin cos I'm gonna level with you, if this girl takes a hit she's exploding

3 soak no hardness

[wise ocean]

hold on

it just keeps working

[merry arch]

I have pretty much no doubt that she's gonna get turned into a red mist when she goes up against Lilah's grappler lunar

but in the event that I'm able to get a second ox body and some more dodge charms before then I think it might end up being a bit closer of a match

id really like to not have to turn into a blood tornado to win a fight but alas! the odds are very much skewed in the favor of that happening

[bleak hazel]

the only character in this party who has soak is Telek

[merry arch]

HAHAHAHA

[bleak hazel]

as a former legionnaire he has been inducted into the secret mysteries of Wearing A Fucking Shirt

[wise ocean]

nobody is covering up...

[merry arch]

sorry Monsoon's too hot for armor (non-charm dodge slurppppp)

anyways i have a scar-writ saga shield eventually and a numbers fuckstein to make me some cute jewelry that gives me soak or something

[bleak hazel]

the downside is that Telek is Potential Exalt and most of his combat charms are at about 40% power because he only has one of his eventual five spears

so he is really operating on beef and the ability to be an annoying kiting guy

[wise ocean]

you can acquire exactly Two soak for One Mote

[merry arch]

my game plan is Don't Get Hit cos CC gives a lot of penalties based on anima level and then some cover shenanigans + stealthing

[bleak hazel]

I do have access to Brazen Aegis Rebuke

which I would rather not use but may be necessary if I am getting styled on by people with things like "fully operational combat charmsets" and "the ability to burn lots of motes without flaring"

[fierce star]

I'm considering fluff for an artifact. What concrete, canon information do we have on Adrian, other than his epithet, and that he encircled creation to protect it from the wyld?

[wise ocean]

a fully armed and operational combat suite

[wise ocean]

@tulip folio ?

[tulip folio]

Not the foggiest, honestly!

[merry arch]

i think it's left pretty deliberately vague afaik

freedom lets go, etc

anyways this city's gonna be getting flashbanged by monsoon's anima flaring to bonfire and back down over and over

[bleak hazel]

if anyone actually manages to get Telek into devil-body then the cityfolk will get to figure out what snow is

because his devil-body is one mile wide

[fierce star]

or, hm

maybe SWLIHN, actually. I don't think she suffered fetich death. And MHM is one of her charms.

[bleak hazel]

the reverse of this good old post

[merry arch]

LMFAOOOO TRUEEEEE

[fierce star]

ugh damnit

the idea i had is extra as hell but probably too mch for a three-dot artifact

The 99998th Fire, Yozi Flesh and Blighted Orichalcum Torc (***)
The Three Spheres Cataclysm broke almost all that was known about Creation. It is only by luck and a small miracle that anything survived She WHo Lives In Her Name's attempt to destroy all she had wrought instead of bowing to a hierarchy she did not design. But some small part of one of those spheres survived, lodged on the exterior of Malfeas. During the first age, an enterprising Solar demonologist managed to climb outside the Demon City and find it; a piece of glass barely the size of a thumbnail, an impossibly small portion of something that was once so much greater.

is as far as I got before realizing this is definitely not a three dot

[bleak hazel]

I'm not sure the Three Spheres Cataclysm is a thing in 3e

(which makes sense, it was kind of ungameable)

[marsh garden]

mentioned by one of the writers when this came up a week or two ago, [The Three Spheres Cataclysm] the event happened

but not necessarily by name

and definitely not in the same way

it's just implicitly something that went down

[fierce star]

I quite like it as a background setting element, so I'd probably keep it unless my GM said to throw it away

is that a bad idea?

[bleak hazel]

probably not, I was just not really a fan of "most of the universe was once retroactively deleted by fiat to the point it's a completely different and far diminished world now" as a random background element myself, it feels a little out of scale

[tulip folio]

Seems fine

[bleak hazel]

but yes, definitely 5-dot if not N/A

certainly "SWLIHN threw her spheres at the world in rage and they destroyed a lot of stuff" is totally fine, it's just the same thing as the Contagion where the writers really liked saying "90% of everything went pop"

[fierce star]

I like it as kind of like, creation's first and greatest diminishment. The turning point of things never really getting better, even if most people didn't realize it yet. more or less the first 'real' apocalypse of the setting (as if hte war immediatley prior wasn't apocalyptic enough, I suppose)

[bleak hazel]

I just think it makes the rest of the Primordial War feel very small in comparison, since it's very hard for even a grand mythic feat of whatever to look impressive next to a big white blinky outline where 90% of reality used to be, and it was just kind of tossed out casually as a minor setting detail

make that percentage more reasonable and yeah, sure

[coral wraith]

thats fair I think

the Primordial War realistically should be like

The Big Thing

[bleak hazel]

totally unrelated thing: I noticed this on Bound In Ivy Fetters

So long as the Sidereal lives, the sealed entity can’t escape its imprisonment

which is the Naruto fox/Sukuna finger charm

[coral wraith]

Oh I love Bound In Ivy Fetters

[bleak hazel]

and I'm imagining an excellent Elder Prowess/second phase for an elder sid where they've managed to talk their thing-forbidden-by-Heaven's-will into a general friendly relationship over the course of several centuries and when you finally kill the Siddie not!Sukuna takes over the corpse and goes sicko mode on you for killing their friend

(and then goes back to being a great foe of Heaven, clearly)

[tulip folio]

Prince Balor: "Very little blew up as much creation as me!"

[bleak hazel]

"dude the nuke they shot at you blew up more creation than you did"

[tulip folio]

...I'm pretty sure that's not right. The Balorian Crusade ate a LOT of creation

[bleak hazel]

admittedly it had a really easy time of it because 90% of everything was dead to Overclocked Apocalypse No. 2

but yes, I just refuse to give Balor any credit

sorry friend, you took the opportunity to kick a man who was in a coma and you still lost the moment he woke up and took offence

man the only thing that's bad about Bound in Ivy Fetters is that it has infinity prereqs and nearly all of them are spirit cop stuff

[tulip folio]

Sure but point to a single thing in-creation that could have stopped the great contagion. 😛

All those masters of Citrine Poxes couldn't stop it!

So really you should be thanking Balor. If you think about it!

XD

[bleak hazel]

did Balor stop the great contagion?

I don't recall that

[tulip folio]

All the wyld flowing in mutated people enough there were survivors

...this is giving me a funny idea for that banner's charms.

Give a guy X dots of mutations and X bonus on resisting disease for a bit

[buoyant summit]

You wanna hear the funniest shit Ash?

🐲My weedly, Phys Tert Penumbra

Highest Soak character we've ever made

17 even before I add that one Infernal resistance charm

now, the problem is

Parry 2

Evasion 0

She plays guitar

[bleak hazel]

at least some of that soak is just going to cancelling out all the extra successes people get when hitting you, yes

[tulip folio]

...Dex 1 + heavy armour?

[buoyant summit]

Dex 3 and no dots in Dodge :)

Plus HE, yes

[tulip folio]

That'll do it!

[buoyant summit]

I could

Be very foolish

[tulip folio]

Oh well, this is was Defend Other is for, I suppose. XD

[buoyant summit]

And make it 1/1/5

And just be a brick

[tulip folio]

I do find Terminate Illness very funny in like it's you calling up the god in charge of that disease and telling him to fuck off, this one isn't on the list.

[buoyant summit]

I

am going to be very foolish

and make it 1/1/5

[wise ocean]

I have 1/1/5 on my bureaucracyinfernal

surely no one will ever decisive me

[buoyant summit]

Most Sane Stat Spread

[buoyant summit]

Admittedly I do have relic armor, an army, and my buddies

[buoyant summit]

Oh Ash, you wanna see the inspo sheet I made for her?

It's the best we've ever made

[wise ocean]

sure

[buoyant summit]

Here she is lmao

[wise ocean]

Ah, I saw!

Very funny

[buoyant summit]

fair lol

[bleak hazel]

Actual Lucifer on there is very funny

[buoyant summit]

I had to do it to em

[limpid badge]

The sheer amount of Wyld leaking in made things Different Enough that the Contagion was survivable at least

[tulip folio]

Benediction of the Wyld
Cost: 5m; Mins: Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Resonant
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
In the end, it was not the prayers to plague gods or the masters of Citrine Poxes that ended the Great Contagion. It was Prince Balor, the inflow of wyld energy showing that change is necessary for life.

The Wielder rolls ([Charisma or Appearance] + Presence) to treat wounds, disease or poison instantly and without needing tools, doubling 9s. If this is performed in an area of the Wyld, such as a Bordermarch, instead double 8s.

Resonant: The Wielder can treat a number of characters at once equal to a size (Essence) battle group.

A Pretty Standard Fast Medical Charm but it notably lets you use an entirely different dice pool, so it's better for guys set up as army leaders but might lack usual medical capabilities.

Doesn't give you 'instant cure the effect' but it lets you treat a lot of people at once with minimal support.

[bleak hazel]

Fun effect, although I'd make it Simple so the resonant effect isn't "anyone's medicine tree big heals now get 50x better"

also darkly funny that it cannot in fact cure the great contagion, not that it should

[tulip folio]

...can't it? Have we had the Great Contagion statted somewhere?

I thought supernatural diseases required Magical Treatment but could still be treated like normal.

[bleak hazel]

The only thing we know that can cure the Great Contagion is the Solar charm that explicitly states it can cure the Great Contagion, which nothing else does

assuming the GC works as a generic magical disease does is a bad idea because it leads to things like "devil body torments can inflict the Great Contagion" so I tend to just mentally silo it off and assume it's plot device tier unless explicitly stated otherwise, not that this is at all a mandated approach anywhere

[tulip folio]

I always assumed that was just 'corebook having odd wording'. XD

[bleak hazel]

I just think it's the logical approach mechanically as well as very loose inference from the fact only Solar bullshit has that wording

(not that Solar Medicine is that bullshit, it's one of the bland solar trees rather than OP Solar trees)

[tulip folio]

Eh, I'll file this under 'This will likely never matter in a game one way or another' XD

[prisma sun]

Nothing can cure the Great Contagion because all life left alive is descended from the organisms immune to it

silly billies

Herd Immunity wins again, liberals...............................

[bleak hazel]

In an abstract sense I do sometimes wonder if the Ex3 Devs had some interesting space alien logic behind their sense of... narrative permissioning, you might put it. I know they also said "only Order Affirming Blow can cure Autobot" and this strange gulf between "can't do shit" and "can do it by spending some XP on a no prereqs charm" seems like it's left the entire space of "this is an actual adventure" in neither bracket

and I have occasionally wondered what kind of art piece that might indicate, since adventures inferred entirely by apophasis don't work great for a TTRPG as played

I could see it as like, an odd art book where the setting is sketched out entirely by inference from rules blocks

super double extra Moran technique

[tulip folio]

Change is Life
Cost: —; Mins: Essence 2
Type: Permanent
Keywords: Shaping (Body)
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Benediction of the Wyld
A character affected by Benediction of the Wyld can gain (Wielders Essence, maximum 5) mutations by incurring experience debt (p. XX). These mutations are overtly wyld, making their nature as a wyld mutant obvious. A character that gains mutations this way recovers from all ongoing wounds, poisons and diseases as if they had Exalted Healing, though it will not protect against future harm.

[prisma sun]

wait fuck you mean Autocthonian can just be fixed by punching it once

[tulip folio]

And an upgrade that gives people that 'Hey, most diseases can't Kill Exalts' clause for their current ongoing disease but not permanently.

[prisma sun]

what

[bleak hazel]

Most people ignored this because it was very silly

it was a very literal reading of "OAB can cure someone of Gremlin Syndrome" as "well, Autochthon is someone, right" that then had a bunch of stuff written about it as if the only viable save autobot plot was "go find a sunboy"

[prisma sun]

Very Silly

[bleak hazel]

Personally I am fond of the interpretation that "sick and dying" is part of Autobot's inherent nature and curing him would be tantamount to/require fetich death

but of course he doesn't actually have to die of it because Primordial

It also appeals to me on a petty symmetry level that the things that did the impossible and slew the primordials were miracle-weapon-champions forged by the one who is unique in that a) he's the transcendent, boundary breaking engineer and b) he's dying

That harmonises with both parts of his core identity

[tulip folio]

How to make the Sid keep functioning for another couple of turns in battle as an Alch..

[dense verge]

i also like the sickness being more a condition to manage than something that can be completely cured, chronic illness metaphor angles and all that

[tulip folio]

Yeah. 3e seems to be going more that way

As they note there are times when the blight is more of a problem and times when it is less.

It's not a constantly spreading apocolypse, it's an illness that waxes and wanes

[bleak hazel]

"I'm immortal because I defined myself as something that is terminally ill and If I died I wouldn't be terminally ill anymore" is also one of the many cute mythic impossible logics that appeal to me in general

[tulip folio]

Does this seem okay btw? It's a pretty basic 'hey, get some mutations' with the bonus that it sets a Maximum Amount of Sick with many diseases, even if it won't outright cure them.

[bleak hazel]

I vaguely believe I once saw a thing that was like "army of mutated troops" as a 2xp BG upgrade

maybe Infernal War

Perfectly fine effect on one target (see: VEE), I'm unsure on the costing precedent for getting enhanced armies out of it, although it should absolutely be able to do that

[prisma sun]

There's a charm in Lunars that turns people into Beastfolk

[tulip folio]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tTkYxYyKvnnyWKvk2DEo5zNLngDJeb3tO33d2Oq16GI/edit?usp=sharing

Ended up going with the obvious but fun option for the capstone.

Just going 'Fuck it, vaporising a huge area with Balor's Terrible Gaze'

[fierce star]

everyone loves a good magical nuke

[tulip folio]

Yeah. I made it smaller area but a bit more controllable than the most comparable evocation (Only hits a line instead of everything in range). It also doesn't leave big mean AOEs or teleport people about but it does Soulkill them if it incapacitates them!

[fierce star]

love a good dead soul

[tulip folio]

The evocation it's based on does a lot more but is hard to make reliable use of because it's very ally unfriendly.

While Balor's Gaze is more Obsidian Butterflies Cone than full circle AOE, the extra control/ability to reliably use/soulkilling intended to make up for the loss of 'free teleporting', 'Environmental Hazard' and 'Difficult Terrain'

[wise ocean]

it's also not on a warstrider. bonus

(for the non-alchs of the world)

[tulip folio]

Adamant Alch with Banner would be very funny.

'I am both the literal champion of the guy who invented shape and bearer of the banner of the end of shape'

[bleak hazel]

Divergence Overdrive is very much "fuck this general area", yeah

even if you're a Sid you're literally stocking bad luck

[coral wraith]

oof

[bleak hazel]

really cool power though

also I was going back through the corebook for reasons and I keep forgetting Thulio is absolutely fucking huge

[tulip folio]

Oh yeah, it's 100% my goto for 'Evocation basis for a big nuke'

[bleak hazel]

I actually really like Rakan as a character, so I'm hoping the Get thinsplat does him justice

[merry arch]

he looks like todo jjk

[bleak hazel]

and presumably gives him his Strength 5

[prisma sun]

I love his long robes that are painted on his muscles

[merry arch]

he's Huge

[dense verge]

rakan is a character that has been reworked heavily from when he first hit the page. so im excited to see the endpoint of where he's ended up

[bleak hazel]

Silken Thirst Trap Outfit, artifact 4

[tulip folio]

The hairstyle you end up after barely avoiding saturn's blade.

Wait no, that's coolio

[bleak hazel]

honestly aside from the boyfriend thing his corebook lore is pretty dope

so I imagine he'll be much better

[tulip folio]

I kinda like the boyfriend thing but then, I do like really petty sources for big things.

[coral wraith]

holy fuck he's jacked

[dense verge]

mental image for him is dave bautista

[prisma sun]

I do like how he is only the second most jacked guy in this image

[tulip folio]

Sids are Heaven Civil Servants and the Civil Servant Charmset requires Strength rolls. XD

[bleak hazel]

alas he probably doesn't get much use from this one any longer

[tulip folio]

Likely good for keeping Gets in line?

Give them a Job in his anti-heaven army and then make them stick to it

[fierce star]

I need to come up with another baseline get idea since toku actor get isn't canon

[prisma sun]

I really like playing up the unreality or the robbed story aspects of Gets

Countries that don't exist, love stories that never were
Evil time loops

[fierce star]

yeah but I wanted to play a guy who was not some super enlightened martial artist... but he played one on tv

[tulip folio]

Clearly he comes from the Battlestar Autocthonia timeline

[marsh garden]

why not just do an actor

[fierce star]

iki: unfortunately that's an entirely different timeline, and the difference is apparently literally supposed to be just your PC

and it's not as fun without mass media ;.; it' sstill doable, he can just be a stage actor, a thespian, etc, but

[buoyant summit]

Lord he's yoked

Damn

[bleak hazel]

From one of the Devs in the SV thread:

Agents of Heaven has exactly one necromancy spell and I am going to post it now, harvest the dopamine and then ease off on the previews for a while.

Painting the Murder of Crows
Cost: 13nm, 1wp
Keywords: None
Duration: One scene
All that endures of the Cloud-stitched Easel's pigmented dominion are its baleful ink crows, who survived its tattering. The necromancer tears a hole in the world like ripping canvas, through which they might scavenge at her direction.
The necromancer rolls (Perception + Occult), conjuring a flock of ink crows to scour an area around her out to long range. The ink crows will take small valuables, baubles, and money, bringing them back to the necromancer. The necromancer's roll functions simultaneously as a Larceny roll to steal, an Awareness roll to notice any hidden valuables, corpses or undead, and as a feat of demolition to break through glass, jewelry boxes, and other things that seem likely to contain valuables which require a Strength minimum of 3 or less to break. Characters within range also suffer a −2 penalty to vision-based Perception rolls.

Characters who attack the ink crows or are carrying immediately visible valuables are exposed to a recurring environmental hazard with difficulty (necromancer's Occult/2, rounded up), damage 1B, interval 1 minute — undead always suffer this, and suffer 2L damage instead.

If used in combat, the crows converge upon the necromancer to shroud her in a storm of inky wings, granting her the benefits of light cover. Enemies are exposed to the hazard whenever they enter or start their turn within close range with the necromancer, and the difficulty to resist it increases to (Occult).

This spell can be ended early by crashing or incapacitating the necromancer.

Control: The necromancer gains an ink crow familiar with the traits of a raiton (Exalted, p. 570), which can press itself flat as a tattoo on her skin. The ink crow reforms on her body when killed, and she can pay three motes to allow it to slip through locks and other non-watertight cracks.

Distortion (10): The ink crows become diluted as ink in water; they are unable to perform feats of strength or act as a hazard, and suffer a −2 success penalty on their effective rolls for Awareness and Larceny.

new birds just dropped

cheap, cheerful, really fun control effect

[buoyant summit]

🐰siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

🦢hehehehehehehehehehe~

I'm taking this

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/mei-mei-jjk-mommy-jjk-shibuya-meimei-shibuya-meimei-walk-gif-12141165699920160327

[wise ocean]

I mean. Tempting even if I have zero larceny dots

actually wait does function as means I just totally skip the Larceny roll

[buoyant summit]

Yep

The Perception Occult becomes

Your result for a Larceny and Awareness roll

[wise ocean]

the combat benefit is quite funny as well for Sid Thrown Creature, since the spell becomes "Light Cover + Extreme Range + L + undead moving to hit me take even more lethal damage + Ratio

[buoyant summit]

which also means this synchronizes with larceny charms which, as a person who's about to ST for an Endings going into Necromancy

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[bleak hazel]

I like it with Field Mouse Rider

Permanent flight enabler control effect

[buoyant summit]

You are going to curse me with this fucking charm in both games aren't you

XD

[prisma sun]

I don't think that works?

Oh wait you get a familiar

then yes

[bleak hazel]

Yeah you use the respawning ink crow tattoo

and Rival has no Ride skill

My bluesid needs a zillion abilities so we'll see if he can remotely fit it in

[buoyant summit]

Also, Misc where did you find this again?

[bleak hazel]

Exalted sufficient velocity thread

[buoyant summit]

the fuck

[bleak hazel]

Mothematics is one of the writers, PFP of Hornet Silksong doing hollow purple

[buoyant summit]

I don't think I am on the server with that thread lol

And when I try and look up that username no one pops up

Eh, whatever

[bleak hazel]

SV is a web forum, not a discord

On discord they're "borb" I think, and aren't in the Ex3 discord any longer

[buoyant summit]

Ah

But yeah this is a cool spell

And Maeve is taking it on her Endings and I cri

You know what would be weird as fuck and probably metaphysically impossible, though

this is Exalted, so who knows

Godblooded Alchemical

[bleak hazel]

yeah that doesn't quite work

concievably you could pull some nonsense with a spirit putting power into the soulgem before they were fired up, but that's rather more difficult than the usual method

[buoyant summit]

Would you believe me if I told you this was me trying to make Hornet Hollow Knight

XD

[velvet raft]

You might be able to do it if the soul’s previous incarnation was a godblood and something something transitive property?

That’s not really how it’s supposed to work but soulgems do have anomalies anyway

[limpid badge]

That Hideous Strength
Slavering Horror-Maw
Unrelenting Hellbound Might
Six-Demon Senses
All-Hunger Rapacity
Instaitable Horror Gourmand
Joy-In-Violence Approach
Unyielding Devil Will
Hardened Demon Flesh
Hardened Demon Flesh
By Pain Reforged
By Agony Empowered
Scar-Writ Saga Shield
Beast of Proud Bearing
Black Iron Flank
lalalala i'm making arby funnier in her charm choices

[limpid badge]

what if i built a princess who was designed to pin people down and messily devour them, while completely ignoring all your attempts to kill her.

[tulip folio]

@fierce star Oh look, a friend for your Infernal 😛

[fierce star]

Friendship comes in many forms

[limpid badge]

i prommy she's normal

put your arm near her mouth. she's normal. she's normal.

[marsh garden]

friend pelican

can trust arm near mouth :)

[limpid badge]

trust arm near mouth!!!

[fierce star]

but i have no arms :<

[marsh garden]

no arms gang

[limpid badge]

don't worry with enough brawl the yozi will give u a new one

[fierce star]

I elect to use mind-hand manipulation instead of brawl because the aesthetics of getting beaten up by a blind girl with no arms who is thinking really hard about how much of an asshole you are amuses me :>

[limpid badge]

i understand. i understant.

arablissa is a resident evil monstergirl you understand

[marsh garden]

oh sick, is she all in on the taste awareness suite?

[fierce star]

I understand ther esident evil monster girls

Topple: taste and touch yeah

[limpid badge]

arby's gone in on Taste bc she needs the Horror Hunger

[fierce star]

Essence-Dissecting Understanding
Mind-Hand Manipulation
  Precision Thought-Force Exercise
  Tool-Transcending Constructs
Six-Demon Senses
All-Hunger Rapacity
  Insatiable Horror Gourmand
Orbit Soul Proxemics
Hardend Demon Flesh
By Pain Reforged
  By Agony Empowered
Murder Is Meat
Scar-Writ Saga Shield
Scar-Writ Saga Shield
Terrestrial Circle Sorcery (Control Spell: Invulnerable Skin of Bronze)

[limpid badge]

insaitable horror gourmand 🤝

[fierce star]

i love the 'turn your super senses on permanently for a cost' charms, I just wish the one for hearing wasn't so difficult

'starving easier' is fine, just eat more 5head, but having to aggressively since everything yelling and louder all the time is kind of unplayable

[limpid badge]

starving easier is the cutest cost

[tulip folio]

It does make 'getting through the 5 day desert' very 'gotta bring some snacks'

[limpid badge]

that's what the followers are for. don't worry about it.

[fierce star]

or just stock up on murder is meat meat beforehand

or both

[velvet raft]

Rather than try to do this beforehand, I'm going to fill this out as the character comes into focus, but :D

[tulip folio]

The vague pondering I got over the vibe 3e Lover has:

Lover Clad In Raiment of Tears: "I have the solution to love, but it works only in the case of spherical mortals in a vacuum."

She's a scientist trying to disprove love

[velvet raft]

Yeah pretty much

Terrifying sorceress-queen who wastes all her time putting people in Saw traps in order to disprove love

[tulip folio]

And then getting salty when she fails and goes 'Ah but you forgot the Mortal Kombat test of love!'

[velvet raft]

I get the impression she mostly succeeds but that the answer will never satisfy her

Like, she's very smart and evil

[tulip folio]

Oh yeah, I'm mostly thinking of the twin swords that are made from lovers who beat every single one of her trials except the 'I'm an E9 deathlord, my combat stats are better than yours' final test.

Which has strong 'I lost so I'm flipping the table' energy.

[velvet raft]

She's exceptionally good at getting people to betray their love, it's just like ... pointless, because she'll always know that she's full of shit

She's got Milton's Lucifer energy

[tulip folio]

I should really make one of these for some characters of mine.

[velvet raft]

I don't see them as binding, just kind of a cute little exercise

Possibly amusing for others

[velvet raft]

"Surely if I put one more pair of lovers that I have every conceivable advantage over into a Saw trap, I will be able to convince myself that I have disproven love"

's why I'm amused by the thought of her having a special antipathy for Venus

... see now I'm imagining that every Calibration, she sends Venus a letter detailing all of the bullshit she's gotten up to, and Venus has never once replied or shown any indication of paying attention whatsoever

[tulip folio]

long letter of abominations against love
'read 08:00 calibration'

[velvet raft]

Venus read the first few out of curiosity and still skims them but mostly just finds the whole exercise exhausting

[tulip folio]

...hmm...now to think up what are the inspirations for Glacier Jade. She's fully formed as a character in my head but working out what inspired her is tricky.

[tulip folio]

Okay, made it!

[bleak hazel]

I recognise none of these besides Kirby, although Kirby is a decent character portrait by themselves

[limpid badge]

yes this correctly cyphers

[tulip folio]

Clockwise from top left: Maka from Soul Eater, Hsien-Ko (A literal hopping vampire), the devourer of worlds kirby, Iris from Megaman X, the Diablo Necromancer and Sabriel from the Old Kingdom series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i2eMjhIAW0 Maka has a rather famous crash out that is basicly 'Whispers Abyssal/Apostate Alchemical.jpg'

[limpid badge]

delicious madness

[tulip folio]

It's also expressly the inspiration behind the 'oh, that's not good' RiRi face I got.

[limpid badge]

dawns.jpg

[buoyant summit]

That's the second time I've seen the person in that blue robe on the left

I should read her book

[buoyant summit]

holy shit

[tulip folio]

The Old Kingdom series is very fun!

[limpid badge]

retribution will follow.... ah.... so tempting...

giving arby a cute tantrum*

-# *many will die

[buoyant summit]

One of my Infernal acid-rocker's inspos being Maul is making me really wanna make a Malfean beamklave

Or, more accurately, have Ionas make one

🦉long-suffering homebrewer sigh /j

[bleak hazel]

found something that makes Rival even better

he doesn't have this but if he did get it I could use the stance shuffle he has to swap 2m for 2i every round

which lets him just steadily ramp up in power when not being pressured, or surge for a big decisive in MOTSE form for extra sux to damage

[wise ocean]

huh, I was expecting you to have this already on the gleam version and he just didn't have it because it's a bitch to afford a greater sidereal manse at chargen

[bleak hazel]

on the E5 version he'll have this I think

I wanted other merits on the actually playable E2 version

so I went soak rock instead

but he can fit soak rock + SLDS into his swords, and it only truly pops off once he's E3 anyway because then it's also spam resetting Deadly Starmetal Offensive by changing forms constantly

which means if he has a mote surplus he can use motes instead of willpower to TN4 his important attacks

[wise ocean]

I'm still fond of that combo with the other rock I came up with a bit ago

integrity charm for Defining Principle that can't be degraded into greater rock that enhances attacks if you're using a charm which aligns with a major or defining intimacy into demesne and manse

completely clean loop as long as you can discern an auspicious prospect relating to the guy you need to kill

[bleak hazel]

you can't actually use this shuffle at E5 because PAOC Form costs too many motes to drop and reup, so you can't have it going with Soulfire Form, but I still like the symmetry of having mote to init, init to mote, mote to willpower pumps all available on the same build

all resources are the same resource

[velvet raft]

The SLDS is very nice, yeah

Maybe even better than Gem of the Rabbit's Sword >_>

[wise ocean]

specifically this thing
which goes crazy with PAOC having 50 things cueing off of essence

[velvet raft]

I'm trying to remember my dream list of Hearthstones for Demesne Emulation

This was on it

The Earth one that helps bypass hardness

And the soak rock

Revolutionary Dog

[bleak hazel]

it was tempting, but I don't have easy definings and the only thing it would really power up for my build in particular is Searing Edge Attack at E5

because Soulfire Shaper puts my effective essence at 7 already so going to 8 doesn't boost the init reward from Soulfire Form at all

[velvet raft]

And SLDS? You also need at least one actual for reals manse to get full benefit from Manse-and-Demesne Technique

[bleak hazel]

(since it's E/2)

[wise ocean]

yeah, you don't have the auspicious combo that makes it basically Yes? Yes

[bleak hazel]

I prefer to keep the expensive hearthstones in physical form and use DEP for utility

I already commit too many motes in combat

[velvet raft]

Ye, going DEP for combat hearthstones makes more sense if using the form charm

[wise ocean]

I get to do it because I'm using the other two form slots on weird shit

[velvet raft]

Oh, it's a good spot to grab the Demon-Banishing Jewel from

[bleak hazel]

Gem of the Wind Blade is potentially funny because now you can literally throw hands

for D&M Form you get Smashing fists, obviously

superb value and easy procs for the damage bonus

[velvet raft]

Is that one Greater?

[bleak hazel]

alas only standard

[wise ocean]

there's surprisingly limited greater picks for attack enhancers

and by surprisingly limited I mean there's like. two

[velvet raft]

There's the hardness-reducer and there's one silly Abyssal stone, yeah

[wise ocean]

and both are Decisive

one of the reasons I was excited about lightning prism is because it just barely lets you cheat out both decisive and withering so long as you're enhancing them with a charm and have the right setup

[velvet raft]

I think Crushing Might does apply the D&M Form bonus with withering attacks

But lemme check the wording

[bleak hazel]

Rival's DEM spread is the one that lets you hit immaterial from Sids, the one that filters out airborne mists and toxins, the Far-Seeing Stone that gives you a gopro, the Lantern-Soul Diamond for easy anima concealment and restoration and the Stone of One Voice for AOE translation

which is just a huge utility pile

[velvet raft]

huuuuuh it's a big maybe, imo

[wise ocean]

yeah, the wording is very eyebrow-raising

[bleak hazel]

wait I should get one for violence anyway

because this doesn't specify what form charm

[wise ocean]

correct

[velvet raft]

Ye

[wise ocean]

demesne and manse form is best because it really pumps up the extra damage, especially with lightning prism, but if you're in any form you can just burn motes on 2d of decisive

[velvet raft]

Hearthstones that enhance weapons
benefit the stylist’s unarmed attacks,
See, this makes me think it would apply to withering as well

[wise ocean]

it's one of the "depends on the GM" things that I try to stay away from as much as possible

[velvet raft]

yeeeee

[bleak hazel]

what's a good one to use for your decisive boosting stone

[wise ocean]

either one of the two gk brought up

-hardness or the abyssal reset one

[velvet raft]

There's quite a few if you don't insist on a Greater stone but

Those are the only real options for Greater

[bleak hazel]

actually this isn't a huge deal for Rival because he makes his decisives with a melee weapon anyway, to use melee charms on 'em

but I suppose it's worth one hearthstone slot if only to make Abhorrent Reaper's Fang +2 damage + Kindly Sifu's Quill double X absolutely menacing

[velvet raft]

Demesne Emulation Practice’s damage bonus
increases to (Essence/2, rounded up) for lesser
hearthstones and (Essence, maximum 5) for
greater hearthstones. Her decisive attacks deal
aggravated damage, blazing with raw Essence.
I suppose in full PAOC form, due to SFS, you're only missing out on one die of damage

Since 7/2 round up is 4

[wise ocean]

huh, does gleam run full paoc or is it sfs+crane+a third I'm forgetting?

[bleak hazel]

Gleam is SFS + Crane + Water Dragon, with fists and supplementary Brawl instead of Melee

so the hearthstone is worth it on him

rival has his vast arsenal of assorted weapons + fancy striking style, Gleam is a lot more willing to just Speared Boar Struggle, grapple, neck snap

really I should swap Water Dragon Form out for something else that has unarmed juice because it doesn't do much with Ways of Exaltation up

[wise ocean]

everybody loves vbos form

I am not biased at all

[bleak hazel]

that only boosts VBOS, which I do not remotely care about

Falcon is pretty great here

just for insane grapple control rolls

wait no I can just brawl

pretty decent bonus to everything I really care about

[velvet raft]

Drowning Maiden is very good yea

Not an amazing activation condition, tho

[bleak hazel]

yeah, easy third pick for PAOC Form at least

[prisma sun]

That's a hilarious charm for sids

It's so uncharacteristically straightforward

[velvet raft]

I should play around with making a straight-up brawl sid

[bleak hazel]

I just need one easy condition among the forms I know, since I can use the silken armour to reflexively swap to PAOC form

which means he learns melee or one of the "win join battle" ones

[velvet raft]

Oh are you using the silly moonsilver silken armor

The one that lets you form-swap?

[bleak hazel]

Both Rival and Gleam have that one yeah

Rival likes it a lot, since he's a silversmith so he keeps tweaking the designs with mundane silver thread and paying for fancy fabric

it looks very different to how Gleam had it as the world's shabbiest threadbare cloak

[velvet raft]

I gotta think about what Craft I would take if my character in mortalgame becomes a sid

[prisma sun]

Rival if he isn't killed before E3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC8hmalDkvc

[velvet raft]

Weapon-Switching is good, it's true

[velvet raft]

Somebody already has Cooking D:

[bleak hazel]

alas gunfire is about the one thing his build can't include, but maybe the gun style in Agents will have some juice worth incorporating

third form in PAOC is a freebie on his build and can use whatever

Fire Dragon to enable Searing Edge Attack with hook-swords is tempting but it does nothing good by itself and requires a lot of trash charms as prereqs, White Reaper has drip but little else, so it's really just whatever I think is funky

Even Blade has good passives but has its annoying stance mechanics that limit my ability to use enough weapons to empty an entire reality marble of swords

[velvet raft]

Just Thousand Blades

To have another 5 swords

[bleak hazel]

I have yet to figure out how the fuck 1kblades works with PAOC but I think you need more artifact weapons than Rival keeps around

even if those weapons are assorted random nonsense

Golden Janissary goes pretty hard, and has a neat join battle booster for doomoids

[merry arch]

cooking the soggiest red revel wielder

[wise ocean]

shinji grace kris is Wild

(deltarune) ||roaring knight when||

[merry arch]

HAHAHA

that is kind of the goal. i've built them intentionally to be the fresh exalt variant so they're missing 5 dots of attributes and 5 charms

idea is they are slowly coming to terms with what the fuck they are now and not doing great about it

struggling against the influence of the sword

sickly little ghostblooded they trying to fucking figure this shit out

[wise ocean]

excellent

[merry arch]

i'm giving them an obsession with feeding the sword and im trying to come up with a good illness to give this wretch

[wise ocean]

hemophilia or anemia

[velvet raft]

Both

Somehow

[merry arch]

yeah they have flesh and bone wind as their control spell so they have a new morbid fascination with viscera and gore despite it scaring the shit out of them.

[merry arch]

i was considering smth like that but i also like them having consumption. just an awful wet, racking, bloody cough

i need to read more into disease mechanics cos i don't rly want them to just Get Over It Easy cos of exalted healing n shit

alright fears abated they have a fairly good chance of not getting rid of this shit easily

[bleak hazel]

Can always take it as a Flaw if you want it to stick around

"chronic [disease]"

[merry arch]

ohoho yes yes

[wise ocean]

indeed, I'd put Flaw on if it's a character concept or outright demechanize it

[merry arch]

yeah fairrrr

[limpid badge]

the way i keep staring at Hideous for Arby

[merry arch]

a;bkljfah;d

[fading cypress]

arby let shoat stitch new bits onto u

u get hideous and extra fun parts

[buoyant summit]

Rogier is in my opinion the funniest pull on here

Like yes, yes Chrona and Elric with the weird consumptive magic sword

Rogier lends the morbid curiosity and weird yorny

Well done lmao

[merry arch]

thank u thank u

[limpid badge]

she can already put Hideous on for free but Hideous takes so much for so little i just want arby to be properly scary while not preventing my beloved Weirdos from being susceptible to a resident evil monsters charms

[wise ocean]

sometimes I think about graves threaten pool being cha+perf+spec(sword). what is bro doing

[buoyant summit]

The teahouse scene from Crouching Tiger

Except he's just

killing people

[merry arch]

rogier is communicating the death-obsessed spellblade element of this enby's deal, yknow. they're a bookish and depressed ghostblooded occultist who is deathly ill

[buoyant summit]

Yes

[limpid badge]

does Dinner-For-Two count as exceptional quality tool for Intimidation

[merry arch]

unfortunately the lover saw fit to make them a dusk caste

[buoyant summit]

the morbid curiosity, and then he also likes uh

God what's her name?

[wise ocean]

fia

[merry arch]

fia, deathbed companion

[buoyant summit]

The death's embrace lady

Fia

The Yorny™

[prisma sun]

Shes not even horny shhhhhhh

[wise ocean]

Fia, Deathbed Companion, not to be confused with Fia, of the Rejected Throne

[wise ocean]

quite possibly.

[merry arch]

i would say yes

[buoyant summit]

does not see how Fia isn't horny

Anyway

Yes

Rogier good pull

XD

[wise ocean]

fia is the yearning for comfort against loss in a world where comfort is completely gone

[merry arch]

thank u i am having fun with reveler not being able to really explain why they're so fucking obsessed with gore after murdering people now. queue them accidentally turning a corpse into a pillar of gore and bone and freaking the fuck out

[prisma sun]

Her whole thing is intimacy not sexuality

[limpid badge]

anyway exalted

[buoyant summit]

Red Revel seems like great Lunar mate npc bait

[bleak hazel]

Rival also has an amazing threaten pool, in his case assisted significantly by the fact most people can't speak old realm and cannot get his terrible jokes

[limpid badge]

Hardened Demon Flesh
Hardened Demon Flesh
By Pain Reforged
By Agony Empowered
Scar-Writ Saga Shield
Scar-writ Saga Shield

her name is arby willnotdie and she orders her soldiers to kill in perfect awawawaw

[buoyant summit]

Seven Shadow Blossom's reincarnation's mate wielding the sword

With Seven Shadow Blossom's soul in it

[bleak hazel]

so they just see an extremely Sword Cultivator looking guy with burning red eyes

[buoyant summit]

Wielding a sword with the soul of their previous incarnation in it

"Oh god damn it"

[prisma sun]

I need to read the maybe sword again

I dont even know if its good

I just know it rules

[merry arch]

it very good

[merry arch]

im tempted to do smth with that for this dusk but im thinking im gonna let my st decide about my lunar mate cos this sog is begging to be stabbed with many knives

[bleak hazel]

watching Frieren

Frieren herself is an excellent Elder Exalt

the right kind of time abyss space alien, albeit a lot nicer than most of them

(Stark is annoyingly loud and frantic so he kind of gets on my nerves despite his solid character arc, the rest of it I am enjoying)

[tulip folio]

Average Limit Break (Not spoilers unless you consider 'Frieren is often immature despite her age' a spoiler)

[bleak hazel]

if I had the budget to pay artists for trivia and/or any actual art skills I would absolutely get someone to do Anys Syn as Frieren

knows every single trick in her discipline, little old lady, presumably eats big food given she gets all her students to cook

[prisma sun]

Anys feels more like Serie than Frieren

[bleak hazel]

haven't got to whoever that is yet

[prisma sun]

You will see what I mean

Frieren to me actually feels more like

The average exalt

[bleak hazel]

I will say that all the food in this show being fifteen times the usual size is funny every time it happens

[prisma sun]

Its a really good bit

[marsh garden]

i love the fucking table-sized hamburg steaks

[bleak hazel]

I think your average exalt is not quite old enough to have developed her wild mix of impulsivity and ancient detachment, at least unless you're an Infernal and have taken a bunch of the self-psychosurgery charms

about half of deebs and presumably a lot of celestials die by age 100, then you just have this long tail of increasingly weird elders because as you get stronger you get way harder to kill and less impulsive, so they die way less often

[marsh garden]

i think frieren is what a current-era solar elder would be like

unburdened by time

unmoored from connections

[bleak hazel]

she feels quite Lunar to me

of the Lilith "yeah I spent two centuries as an owl" type

[marsh garden]

hmm, she feels too emotionally sedate to be a lunar imo

[prisma sun]

I say "elder" but I also imagine that like, a lot of Celestials live to be over 100

Oh Frieren is a Journeys Sid

[bleak hazel]

Sids are constantly Doing Work and as such are constantly colliding their space alien mindsets with reality, Deebs have frieren dorf lifespans instead, Solaroids just got here

[prisma sun]

I brook no debate on this

it's in the name

Titular Journey

[marsh garden]

lol

the journey ended

Frieren at the Funeral (or Frieren: Beyond Journey's End)

[bleak hazel]

Himmel: Sword-Queen's Foretold Blade target

[prisma sun]

BEYOND journey's end it's not an ending if it's not ending >:C

[spring lynx]

frieren is a sid for sure, but thr caste is a bit fuzzier

[bleak hazel]

wait he was literally given a fake hero sword by some portentious literally who that made him decide to go do hero shit

[marsh garden]

and she's kind of ontologically unsiddie, by virtue of being the most jobless motherfucker in anime history

[prisma sun]

looks at every Sid everyone has made for my server

[bleak hazel]

yeah it's why I think Lunar

[spring lynx]

she's on Super Sabbatical

[bleak hazel]

Lunars are absolutely the kinds who will just decide to take two centuries out

and they can be chill

[marsh garden]

she's never been on anything other than sabbatical, and also she's oppositional to the "destined end" part of sids' eventual clocks

my opinion is pretty firmly that

[bleak hazel]

admittedly sometimes because they're Leviathan and have giga depression

[spring lynx]

also like as of 3e there's no actual obligation for a sid to be part of the lotus

[marsh garden]

a Sidereal can be A Frieren

Frieren cannot be A Sidereal

[coral wraith]

hey hey

Grinning Mask is jobmaxxing

[bleak hazel]

both Rival and Mask are employed but Mask occasionally has to drag Rival out of the salaryman bar

[spring lynx]

unless you do a thulio or are someone's handpicked special star they basically let you have a few decades to think about it

[marsh garden]

there are two ends of the scale: wagie fuck and hobbyless behavior

[coral wraith]

That they're both in, but Mask never gets drunk because sesseljae

[marsh garden]

frieren has broken the latter end of the scale

[bleak hazel]

there's a reason he has both Nanami (WORK) and Mittermeyer (literally never seen in the company of a friend without whiskey) on the inspiration list

[marsh garden]

god, i need to rewatch LotGH

been too long

[bleak hazel]

ok they say this but if you attempt to do that for too long as a Sid your destiny breaks from some kind of minor slip and your life collapses around your ears

there's a reason there are no canonical wandering stars and like, 1d4 in Thulio's faction

you can do a mini Frieren and go live for a decade in the woods, but you can never actually be with people as yourself unless you're at work

[spring lynx]

well yeah, that's why they give you the rope, to hang yourself on arcane fate so they can swoop in and give you a place that won't happen to

[bleak hazel]

I admit I was disappointed by the last few episodes but the rest of it is just amazing

[coral wraith]

[bleak hazel]

Ruenthal is pretty good Mask content except he's like, 90% spite and an honour code designed by a modron because he is one of the most Prussian guys in Space Prussia

[coral wraith]

modrons referenced

[bleak hazel]

this has definitely happened once or twice though

[coral wraith]

LOL

absolutely yes

have i talked about GM's long term goals before i forget

[bleak hazel]

probably not in here

[coral wraith]

i've refined em a bit over time; they make a point not to prattle on about it but basically, the thesis they wrote as their final test for their ten thousand paths to heaven is a treatsie on the nature of sorcery and how all sorcerous initiations, all methods of shaping, must have a common ancestry they come from, a posited "First Thread" from which everything branched out. the most controversial thing in it is GM positing that Adamant Circle sorcery isn't actually beyond the reach of non-Solaroids, it's just that Solaroids have an innate connection to that primal root of sorcery and can access the easiest

[prisma sun]

And to that end we have to eat the Unconquered Sun

[coral wraith]

oh nah worse than that

they want to one day go to Malfeas and try and uncover Primordial secrets by plundering Orabilis's glass libraries

this will definitely go well

[prisma sun]

Why do that, the neverborn are right there

we already cracked those tomb-corpses open

[coral wraith]

that went well for all parties

besides, they'd give necromantic secrets

[velvet raft]

Since it went so well, we should do it again with Orabilis

[coral wraith]

yup

[prisma sun]

TRUUUUUUUE

[coral wraith]

stealing Yozi secrets always goes well

[prisma sun]

https://tenor.com/view/limbus-company-true-project-moon-nocturnal-sweeping-intervallo-gif-12673101895845892560

[wise ocean]

crystal voice: necromancy is sorcery and sorcery is necromancy, if you think about. please slit the sacrifice's throat for me, I need to get this troop movement report in today.

[coral wraith]

see: Orabilis genociding an entire 1CD kindred for knowing yozi knowledge

[bleak hazel]

Rival will not come and help but he will catch Mask when he falls out of the sky of Cecelyne after Orabilis sticks him to it

[marsh garden]

alright, buddy, get in the fucking crystal

[tulip folio]

Salina Approves.

[prisma sun]

You know

thinking about it

who were really good Abysssal Reps

[tulip folio]

Salina: "All mortals should have access to Solar Circle Sorcery!"

[coral wraith]

dearly appreciated old chap

[coral wraith]

[merry arch]

apropos of nothing did a quick n dirty photobash of red revel for my sogster earlier and I'm quite happy with it

[coral wraith]

yoooooo

morgott sword but sick as hell

[merry arch]

true

[prisma sun]

I can't find the video

[bleak hazel]

I feel if Rival ever gets to like, Elder Master tier he's going to attempt to revise the teaching of The Spear because he's developed this entire martial philosophy based on a very strange reading of the Scripture of the Maiden on the Shelf and it's worked pretty well for him

[prisma sun]

but the bad guys from Shadow of Mordor

[bleak hazel]

not sure if he has any grand political goals yet

[prisma sun]

the (x) of Sauron

[bleak hazel]

oh yeah those dudes were fun

[prisma sun]

https://youtu.be/KdiRkZJL618

[bleak hazel]

kind of plebs though, they die very easy compared to Ork Captain 42069 who rolled all the good traits

who you will inevitably have to deal with a few times

[prisma sun]

Specifically the thing I remember

is the way the dude runs his sword over people's throats

like the exactly no effort

[wise ocean]

my necrosid's full name, spelled out, is a very elaborate pun about a telescope

[prisma sun]

https://youtube.com/shorts/_k_wQYFeWAM?si=W-dwLiY6QYBmfRSe

This is going to happen to GM

[coral wraith]

LOL

Orabilis: "c'mon buddy. get in the crystal. go on now."

[prisma sun]

"you're only gonna be in there a week"

[coral wraith]

rare wet dog moment for GM when they cannot avoidance outta this one

[prisma sun]

I do also have it canon that at one point Creature woke up in a mad fit that made him blitz directly towards Sacheverall with the intent on waking him

and it took multiple demonic legions to chain him down until he stopped trying to do so

[wise ocean]

the supreme creature, avatar of the bit

[coral wraith]

beautiful,,,

[prisma sun]

He doesn't speak of the situation (he doesn't remember it but he refuses to let people know that)

Man

How do all the Solaroids have sauce but the Solars

I cannot find the Solar Sauce

[wise ocean]

I think to Get It for Solars you have to genuinely want to be that kind of Big Damn Hero

[mighty rover]

returning god-kings is a fruitful space!

[wise ocean]

They're not complicated, beyond their (still complicated) aftershock effects on everyone around them of being A Big Damn Hero and doing Big Damn Hero Things, but to be a Solar is to be a ray of sunlight

Sometimes that light warms people, sometimes it burns ants!

[prisma sun]

But like!!!
I am he!!!

I am the guy Solars should appeal to!

I love my stock shonen tropes I love yelling my beliefs as I charge up a big punch and I love everyone looking on in awe as I eat half a feast table by myself after fighting the big evil guy

but Solars just like

they fail to hit the nerve in a good way

You know what I think it is

[coral wraith]

my theory on this is because solars have no ties to existing things in the setting where everyone else does, which gives every other splat a great layer of texture

[buoyant summit]

🐴I am literally currently doing my job, Voy

[coral wraith]

while being a very noticeable void for solars

[buoyant summit]

XD

[prisma sun]

I don't even think it's that, because I'm happy to come up with my own jobs

I think it's just like, the way the narrative backs them as the Best and Biggest in a hyperspecific way just makes me bounce every time that the other Solaroids don't really

get

Cuz I understand Protagonists

[bleak hazel]

you know I'm thinking about the LOGH cast, and I'm thinking about Bittenfeld, and Bittenfeld should be the most Solar Solar

[prisma sun]

But I think my least favorite thing ever is an ensemble cast done poorly to service the main character

[bleak hazel]

he's a big angry man with a chiselled jaw who is absurdly good at ship brawling, knows only W+M1 and is charismatic enough that all his men would die for him and form the most elite unit in the series

he's a Dawn

but somehow this just does not work, yeah

[wise ocean]

reinhard is the most solar solar in logh because he rises from nothing and literally remakes the world

the Scale is what tips it and I assume either that hits for people or doesn't (i.e. you go HELL YEAH DUDE or a sentiment more similar to Voy's where it's oh. there's a Main Character)

[bleak hazel]

actually yeah he works but he only works in that role because he is a Str 1 Stam 1 twig who has every social stat and every mental stat at 5

like, I played.... well, I suppose Strachan is more a Ruenthal but I played one of LOGH's many Solars straight up in Battlegroup for like two years, so I should be a real sucker for this

[prisma sun]

Misc did I ever play Battlegroup with you

I can't remember

[bleak hazel]

I think I got into it just as you got out, looking at the Seventh Fleet mission logs

[prisma sun]

I do feel bad I never bought that book

considering I'm in it

[bleak hazel]

I played the most straightforward midrange brawler fleet possible until it became legendary (and meta, whoops)

[prisma sun]

I just played Every Karrakin Ship

[bleak hazel]

KTB gang

[prisma sun]

Viper Squad...

[bleak hazel]

both their BBs are fun as hell since they're both these insane skew builds that shouldn't work but really do, although I flew an Eiland because I was Homeworld Shipyard-brained

I think the main thing I like about Solars is that they're these big plot-causing monads of infinite power, they're your Men With No Name who wander into your small town or your John Wicks who decide they don't want to be enmeshed in your complex web of supernatural intrigue and detente and just tear through the world until they win or someone puts them down

[wise ocean]

you say "most straightforward possible," I humbly posit you had a Creighton and are thus disqualified on a technicality for being slightly above my own fleet's standard of White Bread (Smear of Mustard)

[bleak hazel]

but that's not really how Exalted presents them a lot of the time, because Solars have so much in-setting precedent and a very particular kind of lore that makes them seem a bit too feted for that

[bleak hazel]

in my defence I usually didn't use the Creighton

trip ono gang did very well

[prisma sun]

It makes it sound like "what's the point of the rest of the host" a lot of the time

[dense verge]

i played battlegroup in a pbp game for a while. but nevertheless. solars got so much shilling in 2e that even as someone who only heard about the 2e times secondhand got a distaste for them

them having sick bones in 3e didnt help

[bleak hazel]

I read that PBP game writeup, it was an all time banger that made me very jealous

now I'm in games with like half the cast of that anyway so hey

[dense verge]

plus the rest of the splats have hooks into the world around them while solars feel more like getting thrown somewhere and told to draw conquer the rest of the owl

[dense verge]

still sad that never actually finished, but, life happens

[coral wraith]

thats basically my take yeah

[bleak hazel]

I think there's some decent hooks in "just make a guy, somewhere in exalted, give him some kind of huge brain ideology and then attach generic giga superpowers to him to get going"

[mighty rover]

yeah the wrecking ball

[bleak hazel]

but that's harder to do well than any of the other splats with their existing hooks

[mighty rover]

you're not there to fix problems, you're there to cause them

[bleak hazel]

Solars are like "I have a character, I'm going to make him Exalted (TM) and then we trade solely on the strengths of the character", which is why their powerset is so damn bland

[prisma sun]

see the thing is I think like

Outcaste Deebs do that better

[mighty rover]

I'm not sure that's the case

[bleak hazel]

it can work, but I think it works better and better the less Glorious Golden Fluff you have going on

because every Solar I've seen that's like "I WILL SPREAD THE WORD OF CONKY" is like, snore

no joy there at all

they have to be someone like Jurgen Kaneko who in a different series would have just been a mortal guy who was really good at generalling

someone who is just Reinhard LOGH, the interesting guy with the protagonism package attached literally rather than figuratively because that's what Exaltation is, if you get right down to it, and Solars are the most basic version of that

[prisma sun]

to me Outcaste Deebs feel more engaging than Solars becausue it's less of a given that you are just Gonna Win Eventually

[dense verge]

i like outcaste deebs better for wandering hero because at a glance i'd think that the more limited powerscale on a deeb means you're forced to interact with the existing power structures and conventions of the world at large rather than just waiting to hit critical mass in solarness so you can bulldoze any given problem

[wise ocean]

graves, amusingly enough, I think of as a guy who would've been an incredible solar but Nope, he Isn't

the circumstances of his life meant his realization wasn't what Can Be Done, it's Nothing Can Be Done

[bleak hazel]

you need to know more of the setting to make a good solar than you need to make a good anything else, which is a shame given Solars are splat 1

almost invariably because they don't require several credit hours of Exalted lore and it's not very reasonable to expect every newbie to absorb all of it

[bleak hazel]

I am interested to find out what Graves Backstory actually is at some point

[mighty rover]

This part seems fair

except maybe infernals but maybe focusing on hell politics is easier than focusing on creational ones

[bleak hazel]

I think if Solars came out now under current devs they'd be mostly fine

I might not super dig them but they wouldn't be like, soft exiled out of most games I see

[wise ocean]

I have been seeding notes but so far the only one who has the full tale is Vix for backstory reasons

[bleak hazel]

also I think that Integrity and only Integrity should keep all the lore that is just total solar fellatio because it's hilarious in that context

I AM THE INTEGRITY SOLAR, OPINIONS ARE FOR WEAKER PEOPLE, I ONLY KNOW FACTS

[tulip folio]

It's a minor thing but man I don't like 'You need a special ephemeral quality to learn thaumaturgy/sorcery' in 3e. It seems to exist purely to avoid sorcerers being able to go 'Man, I'd like to teach X people sorcery!' without GM approval, even if they have all the training related charms.

[prisma sun]

I feel it's a setting conceit on why not everyone does sorcery all the time

[bleak hazel]

I definitely remember that being the assumed default back in the "this is EVE Online with daiklaves, everyone is doing motonics physics and optimising in-universe" days, right down to "hey, the rules for Sid Astrology and Necromancy are both awful [which was true], these should literally just be reskinned sorcery that uses the same spells"

I admit my personal favourite is a patchwork hybrid here because this discourse threw off some interesting sparks of fan fluff

[tulip folio]

I kinda just really dislike 'Here is a non-mechanical requirement we won't even spell out or provide any GM guidance on what it would be.'

It feels like a thing hidden for the sake of telling powergamers to fuck off rather than an actual...thing people are supposed to engage with...if that remotely makes sense?

[prisma sun]

I mean what are they gonna do, put a number on it?

[tulip folio]

It feels like a thing that would have been better addressed with GM guidance rather than dancing about it.

But that's not how the corebook works, I suppose

[marsh garden]

i think the GM guidance is also just "it's rare and hard, assume that people can't do magic unless they're Weird"

[mighty rover]

how does the core book present it?

[marsh garden]

you gotta be a sicko to grok spellcasting

[tulip folio]

It talks about 'ephemeral quality' and sorta dances about specifics

[fierce star]

it's a 5 dot merit buried in the sorcery section to do sorcery as a mortal

[marsh garden]

i think thaumaturgy should be universal but sorcery should stay fucked and weird

[fierce star]

supernatural merit, iirc

they were both universal in ex2, but the vast majority of people who did 'spell like't hings were thaumaturges, because learning to be a sorcerer was, uh. Not easy. the five stations and all that.

[tulip folio]

Yeah, it was basicly impossible to mass produce sorcerers in 2e despite it being more spelled out how they work.

As the 5 stations didn't play

[marsh garden]

i think this is good enough guidance as far as the crb goes lmao

it's just fucking tucked away

instead of being easy to search for and part of a larger sidebar

a five-dot merit plus three dots of skill are expensive as fuck as mortal purchases go