General Exalted Discussion VI: Ascendancy Mantle of the Playground

[Turalisj]

That song reminds me of the Yozi...

[Drascin]

Well, then, just go away. (Please don't go away, I love you and want your children)

Note, though, that this song is a bit spoilery, and he said he hasn't got the game yet, so let's try to stay clear of spoilers.

[Weimann]

I didn't play the game either, but I watched a Let's Play on Youtube. Totally sufficient it for me. Really, the best part about it is the script anyway.

[DeadManSleeping]

Boom (needs a new name)

Kamehameha Wave?

[Turalisj]

Nah, it doesn't fire a blast of energy. It's a sonic boom, nothing more. The most that will happen to someone is that they'll be launched a few yards.

Though, at essence 4, it might need some more kick to it.

[Rikandur Azebol]

Name it ... Fist Roar !

[Gensh]

Maybe something along these lines?

[Xefas]

I suggest something like so-

Sonic (light pause) Bewm
Cost: 3m; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Knockback, Obvious
Duration: Martial Arts in Actions, or Until Expended
Prerequisite Charms: Heaven Thunder Hammer

Obviously, if other characters say the name of your charm without a light pause in the middle, you have to be offended at their mispronunciation.

[Turalisj]

What if I name it.... Saturday Crush.

Also, anyone think of a (serious) way to make it suitable for an E4 charm?

[Yuki Akuma]

Surely you mean Saturnday.

[Recaiden]

Surely you mean Saturnday.

Surely you mean Cecelday.

[Urpriest]

For a more serious answer, Hand's Voice Declaration has a nice ring to it. Plus you can say "Talk to the hand!" when you use it.

[Rikandur Azebol]

What if I name it.... Saturday Crush.

Also, anyone think of a (serious) way to make it suitable for an E4 charm?

Name it as You please, even as I still prefer Fist Roar. Add Piercing quality if You wish to power up it.

[Turalisj]

Why would it be piercing? There's no damage done at all. The only damage is if you happen to hit something sharp.

[Xefas]

What if I name it.... Saturday Crush.

That's a projectile attack, actually. Though, someone should make a Calendar Spirit Terrestrial Martial Art with Saturnday Crush, Double Sunday, Dynamite Moonday, and so on.

[Rikandur Azebol]

You wrote it as a supplemental to ordinary punch, right ? Or I am wrong ?

[BlackMageWins77]

Hello everyone!
I am new to the forums and Exalted in general but I've played a few sessions and it has been really fun so far. I am wondering if the following is possible.
Ritual of Elemental Empowerment + my own fists/Wood Dragon's Claw. I am a martial artist with a sorcery background as well. Can RoEE enhance body parts as I attack unarmed? It would be the Air element that I'm interested in because it would lower the speed of my punches. Thanks for the help.

[meschlum]

Probably not, as it's meant to work on an object. That said, you could empower a set of gloves, tiger claws, boots... As an alternative, there are charms with lower Speed out there, so long as your motes keep up.

Or use Fair Folk.

Wait, what?

The Hand of Blades

Meant as a gift for a promising Ravager, the Hand bestows great martial might to its owner. It usually manifests as an unusual tattoo around the wrist, but when summoned can instead cover the entire hand of its bearer, imbuing it touch with gossamer thin cutting edges.

1-dot Behemoth (requires 3 committed motes and 1 bp to own a Grace)
Assumption of the Person's Heart - the Hand becomes a part of its bearer until death.
Knife Had Dream - if the bearer has Essence 3+, it does +5 damage (aggravated at Essence 5+)
Armament of Flesh - the Hand gets (Essence) to add to Rate, Accuracy, Defense, or Damage (maximum +4 to any).
Surpassing Excellence - the Hand gives +2 specialty dice (stacking with existing specialties) when used as a weapon.

Furthermore, the Hand has the characteristics of a Fine Straight Sword, so it's inherently Speed 4. It can (at will) imbue its bearer's unarmed attacks (with the converted hand) with all its bonuses - for 0 motes.

Net result:
Essence 2:
Speed 4, Accuracy +4, Damage +3L , Defense +3, Rate 2, +3 points
Essence 3:
Speed 4, Accuracy +4, Damage +8L , Defense +3, Rate 2, +4 points
Essence 4:
Speed 4, Accuracy +4, Damage +8L , Defense +3, Rate 2, +5 points
Essence 5:
Speed 4, Accuracy +4, Damage +8A , Defense +3, Rate 2, +6 points (max +5 to a single attribute)

Good enough?


The next upgrades are:
- 2-dot Behemoth: Increase Rate, get other bonuses
- 4-dot Behemoth: Add bonuses to a 3-dot artifact weapon instead of a Straight Sword, for silly stats. Obtain insane soak as a side effect.
- Heroic Warrior Fair Folk: for 0 (or 1) committed motes (and the occasional enemy's soul), stack all of the above on top of your base weapon of choice (instead of a Straight Sword / artifact weapon), such as boosting Wood Dragon's Claw.
- Cataphract: for 0 (or 1) committed motes (and the occasional enemy's soul), stack all the above with the ability to reduce the Speed of your actions by 1, possibly parry unblockable attacks, short range teleport, and a reserve pool of motes to do it all with. If you've got a strong Cataphract, add access to any Terrestrial Sorcery you can imagine. Possibly as often as 5 times per scene - but 2-3 times per season is more reasonable.

The fun part? None of this goes away when facing foes dressed in cold iron.

[TheCountAlucard]

Contrariwise, you could spring for jade hearthstone bracers.

[Turalisj]

Contrariwise, you could spring for jade hearthstone bracers.

But that would be too easy.

[Rockphed]

Contrariwise, you could spring for jade hearthstone bracers.

Ultimately, I think going questing to get ANY of meschlum's creations from the wild is thematically better than the normal process of acquiring hearthstone bracers. Yes, even the very silly ones that eat your soul and produce cheese and wine.

[Xefas]

Preliminary thoughts on Fatexalted. It has some promise, I think, though it could obviously use a bit more content and definitely a cleaning up of the text and layout. Its kind of painful to reference. (It's not meant to be done yet, so this is certainly not a mark against it.)

Still, I completed my first session goal of throwing a zombie extra so hard that it caught fire and exploded (if I'm doing the math correctly on the number of successes I rolled) with enough force to nearly level a sizable city. It's not perfect, but it's a start.

[golentan]

Okay, so nonsense I did for fun.

This is assumed to occur at Essence 5. Fiend Caste uses their Anima power to learn the Dragonblooded Medicine tree. With five purchases of Hardened Devil Body the fiend has 27 health levels (28 counting incapacitated, which will come up again in a moment). Now the Infernal activates Jade Crucible method by spending a willpower, 2m, and 55 lethal health levels (28 Lethal and 27 wrapping around into Ag due to By Agony Empowered). Rolling Essence + Medicine, boosted by an excellency, he rolls 20 dice. On average, 10 successes. This is on average 550 additional essence to do with as he chooses, which can exceed his normal pool expires at the end of the scene. From here on the possibilities are basically unlimited. I personally like the idea of activating the Godspear.

Alternately, 270 motes on average combined with Ego Infused Pattern Primacy will allow full regeneration and reactivation every 27 minutes, or faster until willpower taps out using Instant Healing (which is mote positive on average).

By essence 10, the potential mote pool has grown enough to put primordials to shame. 95 health levels + 20 average successes comes to 1900 motes, with shenanigans involving Ego Infused Pattern Primacy still being available.

[meschlum]

Toss in Sundering the Gates of Death (Fair Folk charm), to convert all your lethal damage into bashing, at any time (maximum once per fortnight). Which adds 50% to your capacity, or so.

And health levels granted by mutations are easy to get - stack as much size as you can (it's cheap via Adjurations and Assumption of Bestial Form at Essence 6+ (4+ with some investment in Ring via Heart Stopping Numinous Power)) for another Essence * 4 HL or thereabouts.

Combine with at-will Celestial Wine to heal all your damage for 0 motes, 0 willpower (Outward Facing Oneiromancy), and Infernals have an excellent reason to bef(r)iend a few Fair Folk.

[golentan]

Bah. I'll see your Essence x4 and raise you.

If using Mutations, Devil Tyrant Avatar Shintai allows for 8 purchases of Gargantuan at Essence 5 (for 80 additional health levels), up to 160 additional health levels at essence 10, each of which we naturally count twice for purposes of Maximum Mote Power.

[meschlum]

Stacking rules, so only (Essence) purchases apply.

Or (Essence+2), if done via Fair Folk charms and Heart Stopping Numinous Power. Meaning 70 HL (vs 50) via Gargantuan and Fair Folk (requires 4 committed motes, get 6 1-point mutations and 7 points worth of mutations extra) at Essence 5, or 120 HL (vs 100) and 5 committed motes at Essence 10.

Not that it really matters, of course.

[golentan]

Devil Tyrant Avatar. Explicitly breaks those rules: unless the mutations are explicitly mutually exclusive with the other mutations in the stack, they *will* manifest and that is the *only* way they don't manifest.

[Urpriest]

So in a few campaign journals and PbPs I've seen it mentioned that Fiends can suspend oaths sworn with their own anima power. My copy of Infernals only says that they can suspend Eclipse and Moonshadow oaths, and further that they can only suspend oaths sanctified by beings with less Essence than theirs, which seems like it would rule out suspending their own oaths. Does the Scroll of Errata change this? Otherwise, what am I missing?

[golentan]

The general understanding I've had of it is that since the Fiend Anima power specifies that the oathbinding is mechanically identical to Eclipse and Moonshadow oaths, the circumvention is applicable. Also, there's something so thematically appropriate about making a faustian bargain with a fiend only to find it only applies to her when she wants it to.

[Turalisj]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215843

Trying to see if I can get anyone to run this crazy idea of mine.