General Exalted Discussion III: Weddings Are An Act of Villainy

[Brontes]

Hey, I'm one of the people submitting a character for Tavar's robot/Exalted game. I was thinking of submitting a brawler/martial artist type and I was wondering if there were any good/decent TMAs any of you could recommend. Mind you, I can't use anything from Scroll of the Monk because I lack the book.

[The Rose Dragon]

Hey, I'm one of the people submitting a character for Tavar's robot/Exalted game. I was thinking of submitting a brawler/martial artist type and I was wondering if there were any good/decent TMAs any of you could recommend. Mind you, I can't use anything from Scroll of the Monk because I lack the book.

Gee, you just invalidated more than half the available Terrestrial Martial Arts.

There is Black Tide Style, Shadow Hunter Style and Five-Dragon Style that are generally usable (though Black Tide Style is not very good if you cannot breathe underwater).

[Tavar]

You might try some homebrew ones. Considering you're all mortals, there won't be too many charms.

[Brontes]

Yeah alright, it's less than 16 bucks. Is First Pulse any good? I'm trying to do a smashfist/God Kicking boot-style martial art.

[Yuki Akuma]

The only problem I have with First Pulse Style is that the charm names don't really fit the flavour.

It should be stuff like "Fist-In-Crotch Method" or "Hitting-Them-While-They're-Down Prana".

[The Rose Dragon]

Yeah alright, it's less than 16 bucks. Is First Pulse any good? I'm trying to do a smashfist/God Kicking boot-style martial art.

First Pulse does not consider smashfists as form weapons, mind you.

[Brontes]

Is it because smashfists are the artifact version of the Gauntlet or is it because First Pulse doesn't use artifact versions of anything?

[The Rose Dragon]

Is it because smashfists are the artifact version of the Gauntlet or is it because First Pulse doesn't use artifact versions of anything?

It allows artifact weapons, just not smashfists (or fighting gauntlets, for that matter).

[Sanguine]

It allows artifact weapons, just not smashfists (or fighting gauntlets, for that matter).

God Kicking Boots work with it though.

[Brontes]

Excellent, I figured he'd be slightly bird-like, and I think God Kicking Boots fits that motif.

[Indon]

So, I've been reading in-depth through the Sidereals book. Looking at the section of Arcane Fate, am I right in interpreting that tattooed Lunars are 100% immune to it?

[TheCountAlucard]

So, I've been reading in-depth through the Sidereals book. Looking at the section of Arcane Fate, am I right in interpreting that tattooed Lunars are 100% immune to it?

Not at all - Lunars are only immune to Shaping that affects their bodies.

[Reynard]

Solars can just IPP it away if they know about it, while I've always treated lunar tattoos as protecting their minds as well.

Otherwise they are utterly at useless at Fae-murdering and wyld-wandering, two things which they are (in Fluff) very good at.

[senrath]

So, I've been reading in-depth through the Sidereals book. Looking at the section of Arcane Fate, am I right in interpreting that tattooed Lunars are 100% immune to it?

Not at all - Lunars are only immune to Shaping that affects their bodies.

For clarification, since this isn't clear if you just read the Lunars book, originally the tattoos protected them against both. It was later changed so that it only protected their bodies.

[Sanguine]

Not at all - Lunars are only immune to Shaping that affects their bodies.

Which interestingly could be interpreted to mean that they still run the risk of going crazy from changing into human forms.

[Tavar]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but the wyld taint actually isn't a shaping effect, the defense against shaping is just an useful side effect.

Also, Lunars do have a defense against shaping effects. They just didn't put it in MoEP:Lunars. Because, you know, the quota on how much Lunars need to be shafted.

[Yuki Akuma]

It's in Dreams of the First Age - they have a +2 to defense values and roll-offs I think.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Solars can just IPP it away if they know about it,

No. No they can't. Arcane Fate isn't directly harmful to the Solar, so Integrity-Protecting Prana doesn't apply to it. IPP does have limits, contrary to popular belief.

[Yuki Akuma]

They do have ways to prevent it, just so you know. But it either requires very strange motivations or very high Essence.

[Indon]

For clarification, since this isn't clear if you just read the Lunars book, originally the tattoos protected them against both. It was later changed so that it only protected their bodies.

Wait, so, is this in-character, or a 1st->2nd edition change? If the former, why would the Lunars have downgraded their own tattoos?

It's in Dreams of the First Age - they have a +2 to defense values and roll-offs I think.

Ah, so Lunars would be resistant to the effect of Arcane Fate... probably in the form of bonus dice.

[SurlySeraph]

Neither, it's an errata thing. MoEP: Lunars made it sound like the tattoos also protected their mind, Scroll of Errata indicated otherwise.

[Indon]

Neither, it's an errata thing. MoEP: Lunars made it sound like the tattoos also protected their mind, Scroll of Errata indicated otherwise.

Ah. I'll just not use that bit of errata.

[SurlySeraph]

I've made progress in my ongoing efforts to throw the Omphalos.

If the Lunar Third Excellency can break the dice limits on Charms, which I strongly doubt, I think I've found a way to do it. If not, I still need another 4,778, but because of the amount of multiplying involved I only really need either +80 to Strength or +239 to Athletics.

Spoiler

Show

Start off with an Essence 10 Lunar who has eaten a Strength 30 behemoth such as Vodak; the only thing with more than Strength 30 I've been able to find has its Strength given as "immeasurable," which would be kinda cheating for this exercise.
Now, if I figured out what can stack right, you add on +100 from God-Beast Transcendence, +10 Emperor Ox Expansion, +10 Jade Mountain Form, +10 Body of War Meditation, +6 Prosthetics of Clockwork Elegance, +5 Deadly Transformation Armor, +3 Attribute Specialty, +1 Legendary Strength, +1 Strong Back, +1 Titan of the Streets, +1 Impossible Attribute Improvement, +1 Devastating Ogre Enhancement, for 179. The Full Moon anima power + Tearing Claw Atemi triples it, then the Third Excellency doubles it, for 1074 from strength alone.
If the 3rd Excellency doesn't work that way, you can add +20 from the Second Excellency with Relentless Lunar Fury before tripling, for a final 597.

Then a Sidereal using the charm Reliant Soul Infiltration from Kaleidoscopic Border of Logic Style comes along and possesses our Lunar. Between them, helpers and equipment, and Charms the Sid can have up already, Athletics goes to: +10 base Athletics, +10 from Beauty is in the Eye (another KBoL Style charm), +10 bonus successes from Invisible Motion (an Athletics charms) +10 from an Artifact, + 5 Virtue channel, + 5 Cooperation, + 3 Stunt, +3 Eye of the First Goat, +3 Double-Jointed, +2 Jewel of Youthful Suppleness. This gives you 1,135 if the 3rd Excellency works that way, 658 if it doesn't. Either way, since the Sid has access to the Lunar's charms and abilities, he can then use Yeddim's-Back Method for another doubling, to either 2,270 or 1,316. Finally, he uses Strength of the Mast, the Resplendency that inspired this in the first place, to multiply that by 10 for either 22,700 or 13,160 on his final Feat of Strength.

I don't have the Black and White Treatises, but casting Unity of the Closed Fist for +5 Strength (from 5 participants) might help, and might allow the Sidereal to add in his Athletics Excellency too. And I don't have Alchemicals, but having one around or attaching him into said Unity of the Closed Fist and having him use Synergy-Promoting Upgrade (to increase the possible Cooperation bonus), Hydraulic Musculature Reinforcement (for more Strength), Clockwork Strength Perfection Nodes, Transpuissant Strength Upgrade, etc. might help too. Also using Birth of the Perfect Ego Juggernaut to give the Lunar +10 bonus successes.

[Teln]

Nitpick: UotCF gives the resulting amalgam the highest Strength score possessed by any member of the group, plus one dot for each additional participant. Total bonus of +4.

[Friv]

Alright, I'll go pull out my book. Lessee...

I'm not sure which one you mean. Maybe Dance of the Hungry Spider?

I think that may have been it, but I'd forgotten that it could only be used once per action for its five actions, so it's probably not as bad as I remembered. Alternately, I may have been thinking of Nest of Living Strands, which uses Martial Arts (so you can boost it), and applies a -(successes) penalty to all physical actions and defenses anyone within 50 yards of you takes. Stacking every action. So if you have your scene-length boosts up, you can easily apply a -10 external penalty to all of your enemies, and then increase it by a further -10 per action.

I forgot about the mote-battery part of Water Spider Bite, yeah. Not sure which other one you mean, though Jumping Spider Strike is a one-hit kill on anyone without a Resistance Excellency.

It turns out I was thinking of Maw of Dripping Venom, which is pre-form. Spend 5 motes and hit your target, and he loses 5 personal motes per action for (damage dice) actions, and if he ever hits 0 he falls into a coma and loses the fight. Also, while he is in a coma, you can eat his soul.

Given that personal mote pools are (a) tiny and (b) tend to be spent early in fights, this Charm can easily and quickly slaughter anyone you hit.

Jumping Spider Strike and Pattern Spider Bite are both also one-hit kills, but they're really expensive, so within the framework of Exalted combat, they are sadly balanced.

Is Glance and Stride that bad? The vision distance rules on p. 135 of core make it really suck in anything but broad daylight, and there are plenty of ways to go really fast by Essence 4. I take your point, though.

There are, but they almost always require heavy investment, whereas this requires nothing. It's also astonishingly few motes to use - compare to sorcerous teleportation effects, or any Solar Athletics effect. And yeah, it's not as powerful at night - unless you have any sort of magic to give you clear vision, which is really easy to get ahold of.

I dismissed Victory of the Cheat as another mass combat effect I'm never going to use, but I can see reading it to let you teleport everyone you can see to anywhere else. It's vaguely worded even by SMA standards.

Victory of the Cheat can actually end mass combat instantly in your favor, that's how powerful it is. You can teleport the leaders of every enemy unit to the center of your units, where they get cut to shreds by your troops. Alternately, you could just scatter each of their units across a ten-mile area, turning each military force into a horde of solo units that are overwhelmed and destroyed one at a time as your functional unit rides across them. And while Essence-users can resist it, their armies can't.

And as a side flaw, if the enemy army is made up primarily of Essence users, the rules call for a roll-off of you against every single enemy soldier, one at a time.

Oh, and I forgot Without Strategy Arrangement, which is free perfectly unexpected attacks for a scene, plus avoiding a lot of the attacks coming your way, inexpensively.

[Tengu_temp]

EDIT: And now that I think about it, with that Warstrider fix (including the health levels), a Chosen of Serenity who uses Lover's Oath to marry a Royal Warstrider with a maxed AI would do alright. 15 extra motes (if you use the strider's motes to pay for attunement), 10 extra Willpower (5 if you use the chargen errata), and 30 extra health levels. It'd cost 13 background points, but that's worth it.

And now we know why Setsuna from Gundam 00 was so hax.

[senrath]

So, I'm trying to homebrew up a sword and sheath combo artifact, and here's what I've come up with. I'd like some feedback on it.

http://pastebin.com/bevFbiZq

[Reynard]

So. Solar Stealth.

Has anyone found, homebrew or otherwise, and Solar Stealth charm that either works and/or is actually stealthy?

I know of two published ones, Invisible Statue Spirit and (that city one from RotSE that I can't remember).

But no others.

Also, there is this hilariously broken but surprisingly fitting homebrew Charm, which is the epitome of Solar Stealth's current philosophy.

I suppose the real issue is "How do you make stealth charms for Exalts who are often seen about being ALL ABOUT THE GLOW"

But Solars real theme is being beyond the pinnacle of human capabilities. They do things turned up to 11, through brute force and skill. But their charms for Stealth are shouting IGNORE ME with the entire force of their being, which doesn't seem to be appropriate.

[golentan]

Hmm. I have a question about Puissance Mimicry Intuition. I know it can only be activated when Nemesis Self is up, and the duration is "Until Calibration"

What I'm wondering is whether the two interact. If I Mimic someone's charms and then decide I'm sick of being their nemesis, do I still know their charms until next calibration? Could I be a "Mocking Student" for one scene and walk away with a new charm (which it seems unless I'm misreading I bypass training time for learning permanently as a fiend if I choose to shell out the XP)?

[Indon]

But their charms for Stealth are shouting IGNORE ME with the entire force of their being, which doesn't seem to be appropriate.

Honestly, this seems like a really awesome Solar stealth charm. Doesn't make you actually invisible at all - in fact, is Obvious and flares your anima. But it forces people to ignore you as an unnatural mental influence!

Hmm. I have a question about Puissance Mimicry Intuition. I know it can only be activated when Nemesis Self is up, and the duration is "Until Calibration"

What I'm wondering is whether the two interact. If I Mimic someone's charms and then decide I'm sick of being their nemesis, do I still know their charms until next calibration? Could I be a "Mocking Student" for one scene and walk away with a new charm (which it seems unless I'm misreading I bypass training time for learning permanently as a fiend if I choose to shell out the XP)?

Charms with a duration require you to keep the essence cost committed for the duration. You can cancel the charm by uncommitting the essence. If the charm's cost is reasonable, I'd rule you could keep it up until Calibration.