General Exalted Discussion IV: Roll Join Debate

[Mr.Bookworm]

Bookworm, you do realize that stunt dice are added directly to DVs, not rolled, right?

That's definitely not what my book says.

*checks Scroll of Errata*

Whups. Er. Ignore that part, then.

A bit of confusion on my part- can a dragon-blood who goes the immaculate monk part grab the style charms right away?

Yes. The Styles appear to have been specifically designed towards that end. All of the Immaculate styles have the Form charm five Charms in.

[meschlum]

Let's take one of the bandits at the start of the adventure. A completely mundane, mortal extra. He attacks Morning Breeze with his sword. She tries to parry with her sword. The bandit rolls 7 dice. He gets extremely lucky, and rolls 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10. Seven successes. She has a Parry DV of 3, and her player does a 2 dice stunt, getting a single success. Effective Parry DV of 4. Raw damage of 10L. She has lethal soak of 1, so, it ends up at 9 post-soak damage. The bandit rolls, and get's lucky again. A 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 7 8, 8, 10. Six damage. Putting her into her final -2 HL. If another bandit gets lucky, she's screwed.

Extras don't get double successes on a 10.

Damage does not get doubled on a 10.

Plus the stunt stuff. It's still possible to get hurt, but requires a bit more luck than suggested.

[DragonSinged]

Let's take one of the bandits at the start of the adventure. A completely mundane, mortal extra. He attacks Morning Breeze with his sword. She tries to parry with her sword. The bandit rolls 7 dice. He gets extremely lucky, and rolls 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10. Seven successes.

If he's just a mortal extra, isn't that only 5 successes?


EDIT: Why do I get the feeling that I'm forgetting to remember that someone was just here?

[Mr.Bookworm]

*facepalm*

Gah, I am all over with the mechanical failures today.

[meschlum]

Sidereal Teacup

An ambitious Raksha once visited Yu Shan, and saw that the true power behind the workings of Heaven was in the tea that was drunk there - especially the cups used for this purpose, as they were as often full of Exalts as they were of marvelous beverages. So it stole a cup and set forth into the Wyld, seeking to remake it into something better.

Now, the owners of the Teacup are blessed with nigh supernatural health and healing powers, and can hide with ease inside it. Sadly, no one ever remembers they were there.

3 dot Oneiromancy
Assumption of Water Form: a really nice teacup
Ordinary Object Conjuration: the teacup fills itself with Celestial Wine, and never runs out.
Fall of Night Shadows the Truth: anyone carrying the teacup openly (or inside it) is promptly forgotten as soon as they are no longer visible.

The Teacup is under the effect of a Translucent Dream Sheathing Technology, which explicitly allows its owner to hide inside it. People wishing to notice the owner must spend 1 wp, and are then at a -4 internal penalty. When hiding or emerging from cover, the owner gets +1 wyld die to appropriate actions.


Is that what you were thinking of?

[Sanguine]

So it would seem that with correct rules in place the Mortal Extra even with his extremely lucky roll misses.

Edit: I love you meschlum, though I think I've seen that particular oneiromancy before.

[Tavar]

There seems to be some kind of inside joke there. What is it?

[Mr.Bookworm]

There's a minor meme that Sidereals hide in teacups.

I have no idea why or how it started, but I personally choose to believe that while you are politely talking to Chejop over tea, he has already hidden himself inside of your teacup and is just waiting for a chance to punch you in the face.

[ShadowFighter15]

*example stuff*

Fair point, I'll make those changes then. And I'll forget about the mechanical mistakes that were pointed out on this page since you got the general point across.

...though actually, I guess most of my advice boils down to "make sure your players understand the combat engine".

Might help me learn the combat engine as well.

Also, looking at the Mistress, she is actually fairly optimized (certainly not paranoia-level, but she's better then the circle). She does have a perfect defense. Her Combo is also pretty nasty. Though this is tangential to the actual point.

I hope that rambling semi-rant helped.

Didn't realise she had a perfect defence, but I'm not surprised she's more optimized than the party - she was pretty much going to fight the circle on her own unless that simulacrum of Barrow Black is tougher than I thought.

Wait what?

That was about my Lunar in Scarlet Eclipse - only reason he hasn't got that already is because I wanted to get a perfect defence and have at least some defence in social combat. A side-effect of which got him Charisma 5.

[Friv]

I have no idea why or how it started, but I personally choose to believe that while you are politely talking to Chejop over tea, he has already hidden himself inside of your teacup and is just waiting for a chance to punch you in the face.

IIRC, it started during a discussion on the White Wolf forums in which someone was adamant that if his Solar character ever stepped foot in Yu-Shan, an army of Sidereal assassins would leap out and murder him, and they would be everywhere. They would be behind the trees. They would be in the alleyways. They would be in his teacup.

[DragonSinged]

Meschlum, I don't know if it's intentional, but I think you may be slowly giving me some sort of Wyld mutation.

This is what I get for dismissing Shaping defenses.

[Sanguine]

IIRC, it started during a discussion on the White Wolf forums in which someone was adamant that if his Solar character ever stepped foot in Yu-Shan, an army of Sidereal assassins would leap out and murder him, and they would be everywhere. They would be behind the trees. They would be in the alleyways. They would be in his teacup.

Which is kinda silly if you think about it. After all their are only a hundred Sidereals, barely an army in their totality, and not all of them have problems with Solars. Then you consider the fact that they have actual jobs to be doing and that not all Sidereals have the capabilities or temperaments of assassins. Also how are they that prepared for the Solar. Do they just sit around waiting for Solars to come into Yu-Shan so they can ambush them?

Still, the idea of Sidereals hiding in teacups is just so amusing that it's probably worth whatever foolishness spawned it.

[Qaera]

What is the significance of having 300 Solars/Lunars and 100 Sidereals? They always seemed kind of... arbitrary.

[Sanguine]

What is the significance of having 300 Solars/Lunars and 100 Sidereals? They always seemed kind of... arbitrary.

It's how many Exaltations were made. Without Autochthon and the appropriate Incarnae working together to make more of them it form a hard cap on Exalted. As for why less Sidereal Exaltations were made...no idea. Also in the current age there aren't 300 Solar there is somewhere around 150.

[DragonSinged]

From what I remember, and this may be wrong, Autochthon offered the Maidens more Exaltations, but they declined, saying they only needed the 20 each.

[golentan]

Also, creating sidereal exaltations weakens the loom because it involves grand strands of really important events that will then never happen. As I recall the cost benefit was heavily on the side of minimizing the number of sids to the minimum needed to get the job done.

Also, on the subject of siddies and adamant castes that was going on last few pages, a fun thing to do with sids is to point out the role the adamant caste plays in autocthonia, point out the one for one mapping of exalt types, then casually drop a mention of Oversight into the conversation and waggle one's eyebrows suggestively. Instant paranoia. I know I've said it before, but it still never gets old.

[ShadowFighter15]

It's how many Exaltations were made. Without Autochthon and the appropriate Incarnae working together to make more of them it form a hard cap on Exalted. As for why less Sidereal Exaltations were made...no idea. Also in the current age there aren't 300 Solar there is somewhere around 150.

Yeah, there's only 150 Solars around in the Second Age. 100 of them got turned into Abyssals and the other fifty ended up as Infernals.

*waits for the inevitable Infernal-related comment from Xefas*

EDIT: Oh, and Mr. Bookworm? Just remembered another mistake in your combat example earlier: Morning Breeze is a dude.

[meschlum]

So it would seem that with correct rules in place the Mortal Extra even with his extremely lucky roll misses.

Edit: I love you meschlum, though I think I've seen that particular oneiromancy before.

Eh. 5 successes against DV 3 + 2 from stunt means a hit, I believe.

And yes, variations on the teacup theme occurred when I set forth to recreate Celestial and Sidereal martial arts with Fair Folk (it works). However, dealing with deja vu is a bit more of a challenge.

The City Outside of Time

The orderly progression of time, from beginning to end and ever marching forward, is one of the most insulting impositions of Creation upon the Fair Folk. It is the responsibility of the Creation-born to correct this mistake, but the Raksha are ever ready to assist those who wold come into the fold.

The approach of the City is always the same, eerily familiar, yet never expected. First, the land of the hated Primordials seems to quiver with awareness - for in the Wyld thought and landscape are one - then the sensation fades. A moment of confusion follows, or precedes, and then the City is manifest.

Those who walk away from it find their steps lead back whence they came. But that property is nothing special, a minor trick poorly copied by a deposed Emperor in other, warmer, climes. No, the nature of the City is to warp time itself. No games lasting five days, no. Such simple tricks have no value within the City's embrace.

The same moments repeat themselves, over and over. When newcomers wander inside, they are trapped within the loop - the first few times they might retain some awareness of having done things before, but they are soon assimilated. The dead rise once more, houses deconstruct themselves, and all comes back to the instant the City deigned to touch Creation.

Exalts often prove resistant to the workings of the City, slaughtering the mortals they find under the false belief that they face unreal copies - only to find them alive and as real as ever, trapped in the loop and being slain over and over. Or they seek to escape, forcing their way past the bounds of the City, only to return - or vanish into the nothingness of Elsewhere as they slip outside of Time completely.

Still, Gaia's plaything prives resilient, or the Fair Folk tire, and the City will vanish, leaving an empty waste behind - for when time reasserts itself, it is quite wrathful.


The City's Gaze
2-dot Behemoth
Assumption of the City's Heart
Imposition of Law (memorizing architecture and people)
Surpassing Excellence (Perception + Awareness for people)
Surpassing Excellence (Perception + Awareness for architecture)

The Gaze has a simple function: it manifests itself over the land that the City will claim, and memorizes its contents. People, geography, all the details that matter. Once it knows enough, the City manifests.

The City's Walls
3-dot Oneiromancy
Assumption of the City's Heart
Waypoint Knife
Manacles of Virtue (augments the Way Grace)
Unwanted Obsession Provocation Technique (gives penalties to remembering things - such as where and how one was turned around)

Extremely potent yet terrifyingly simple, the Walls simply prevent all Creation-born from leaving the area that the City will claim. When they seek to walk away, their paths bend back inwards, so the Walls are always outside. Under the cover of its Walls, the People of the City find the secrets of time and space much easier to unravel.

The City's Gates
1-dot Oneiromancy
Assumption of Earth Form (a large gateway)
Fall of Night Shadows the Truth (going to the Gate, passing it, and returning)

The Gates of the City bear a minor bit of Wyld power upon them - so that all who pass within them forget, instantly and absolutely, that they have come through.

[u]The People of the City[/i]
1-dot Adjuration
Assumption of Dreams and Passion (disguise as a Creation-born)
Gladdening Visage

The People of the City have long ago sworn to overcome the constraints of Time, and so they they are seen by mortals as time displaced copies of those who enter the City. However, as they do not bear the weight of Creation, they are the true originals of which Creation-born are only copies.

Breaking the Clock's Shackles
1-dot Adjuration
Worker's Gift

When the People dedicate themselves to their existence beyond Time, they find that the Shackles grow lighter, imbuing them with ever growing amounts of power.

The City Outside Time
3-dot Chancel

The City contains a fairly potent Freehold, and a truly impressive Beacon. Within its confines, countless Diplomats and Workers toil ceaselessly to overcome the restrictions of Time.

How does this work?

The Eyes manifest and memorize the people and landscape. Inside the City, a few waypoints are set aside to create perfect replicas of the land outside. Once this is done, the Walls and Gate appear, the latter placed around the entrance to the City.

The Beacon within the City draws forth all Creation-born within 15 or so miles, the area covered by the Walls. Thanks to the power of the Walls, this call is nearly impossible to resist (one attempt per day with 15 automatic successes). As the captivated Creation-born pass within the Gate, they forget they came through, and find themselves within a replica. In the meantime, the People copy the new arrivals, and replace them within and without the Gate.

Inside the City, the Seneschal has bewildered the waypoints, so leaving them is difficult as well. The General rearranges the waypoints so that the copies of the land outside loop into each other - and, potentially, are completely cut off from everything but one another.

Each Creation-born who steps through the Gate is assigned one or more of the People, who forge a Way Grace for her and shatter it as soon as possible. This ensures that the Creation-born's memory goes back exactly one scene, facilitating the temporal loop. The People then begin to copy the actions of the new arrivals, replacing them if and as they die. The Shackles ensure that the People have all the gossamer they need.

New arrivals to the City are drawn into the Gates, forgetting they ever came in. Since the land on the other side is identical to the one they just left, there is no reason to suspect anything unusual has occurred. They wander onwards, and find people repeating the same actions over and over, while the skies themselves reset. For a while, they can act freely, then they forget and are caught in the loop.

If they manage to escape, they arrive in another identical place, with the same people doing the same things. As if nothing had happened. If they kill someone, that person is replaced in the next loop by one of the People. If they try to find out who is Creation-born and who the People are, the People have an automatic success for looking like the real thing (which the real ones don't).

After a while, only the People will remain. When no one new comes into the Walls, it's time to move on to the next place where the City will manifest, looking oddly familiar...


Good enough for making things look familiar? It does call for a full blown noble (probably a Luminary with a Way Grace and a little Ring - Furious Maelstrom Craft is extremely useful to the Seneschal) with Artifact 4 to pull off. Some amount of Retinue is recommended as well. Eight Corner Ring Binding is helpful for gossamer supplies, and Heroic Diplomats and Workers should be sought out.

[The Rose Dragon]

Yeah, there's only 150 Solars around in the Second Age. 100 of them got turned into Abyssals and the other fifty ended up as Infernals.

Approximately 150. Considering that not all the Solar Exaltations were trapped within the Jade Prison, that we don't know the exact number of Exaltations the behemoth captured, and that some Solars have been turned into Abyssals afterwards but not the other way around, it might well be more or fewer than 150.

[ShadowFighter15]

Approximately 150. Considering that not all the Solar Exaltations were trapped within the Jade Prison, that we don't know the exact number of Exaltations the behemoth captured, and that some Solars have been turned into Abyssals afterwards but not the other way around, it might well be more or fewer than 150.

Ah, didn't think of that. Thanks for correcting me.

[The Rose Dragon]

The only precise number when it comes to the fate of Solar Exaltations is that 50 of them are Green Sun Princes. Even saying 50 of them ended up as Infernals is imprecise, because there might be akuma among the Solars, which would drive the number higher.

[Xefas]

*waits for the inevitable Infernal-related comment from Xefas*

[Kylarra]

Eh. 5 successes against DV 3 + 2 from stunt means a hit, I believe.

Still a miss actually. Attacking is made against a difficulty 1. 5-5 = 0.

[Mr.Bookworm]

The only precise number when it comes to the fate of Solar Exaltations is that 50 of them are Green Sun Princes. Even saying 50 of them ended up as Infernals is imprecise, because there might be akuma among the Solars, which would drive the number higher.

If we only go by the canon characters we've seen, there are 51 Infernals (50 GSPs+1 Solar akuma), 102 Abyssals (2 converted Solars), and 147 Solars.

That is, of course, almost certainly inaccurate.

Also, I was rereading the Daystar's entry, when something struck me. The Daystar can cause every single extra in Creation to run indoors by activating Righteous Devil Form. No idea what you could use that for, but it could be fun.

Also, any thoughts on what Vermilion Clouds of Sunset style would be like? It almost certainly would use fighting chains as a form weapon, but I'm trying to think up an appropriate thematic for the Daystar. Maybe something about loyalty (the Daystar is a dog, after all)?

[Cyborg Mage]

No collateral damage that way. Killing thousands in an attempt to wipe out, say, one circle of elder Abyssals/Infernals would probably mess with his whole 5 Compassion thing. I never said it wasn't a perfectly accecptable sacrifice, but...

EDIT: Life, perhaps? In the real world, the entire foodchain does depend on the sun. Perhaps also death, because- well, "Vermillion Clouds of Sunset", and we all know what the sun in Exalted actually is...

[Tavar]

There's also the issue that he promised them that he wouldn't go and use his powers against his chosen. And even subverted as they are, the abyssals still carry solar shards. So he's have to break a promise. Possible, yes, but not good.

[Cyborg Mage]

Well, if he both kills his (corrupted, psychopathic and destructive) champions AND half the population of Threshold, that's not good either. Also, the Daystar's powers are not nessecaarily his own. He just owns the thing, and possibly powers it. [/Loophole]

[masterjoda99]

On the sidereals in teacups thing, I think it may also have to do with the God Ways charm in Prismatic Arrangement of Creation SMA style, which lets you dematerialize and possess objects, i.e. how the sidereal gets into the teacup in the first place.

Also, every time I see one of meschlum's raksha works, my resolve to play sidereals or infernals (or really, my resolve to play not-a-raksha) weakens considerably, even with the infernal advantage of nuclear telekinesis.

[Sanguine]

Eh. 5 successes against DV 3 + 2 from stunt means a hit, I believe.

As Kylarra pointed out you are wrong on this point sir. Other then that simply brilliant. Though I admit I was expecting a way to actually mess with time.

[Lix Lorn]

Meschlum is so awesome. xD

I also keep seeing things and going 'Oooh I wanna play a Siddie! Shame they're broken. :('