General Exalted Discussion Thread IX: Errata is Combo-Ok!

[Ifni]

Hmm, let's see... from the perspective of my social-Zenith-who-also-hits-things-with-a-hammer...

-Anima banner *looks at Malefactor anima with extreme jealousy* Although perhaps the added soak against CoDs is more valuable now.
-Hammer/Goremaul/Grand Goremaul no longer Piercing.
-Goremaul comparable in effectiveness to high-quality mundane hammer. Sigh @Singing Staff.
-Shields seem fairly worthless now (because I can't use them in conjunction with my 3-dot Melee specialty).

+Extra successes on social attacks have effects!
+UMI not obvious!
+Free combos!
+Stunting on every attack!

And the changes to Resistance Charms are... a mixed bag, but I can cope. At least it didn't make Iron Skin Concentration a wasted purchase, which I was worried about. I will need a different way to deal with surprise attacks if my game adopts the errata, though.

Is it just me, or is grand daiklave pretty much strictly better than grand goremaul at this point? The grand goremaul has worse speed, worse accuracy, worse defense, worse minimum damage, fewer hearthstone settings, and higher minimum Strength - its only advantage is 16B damage instead of 11L, and given that bashing soak tends to be better than lethal soak, it's not even clear that's an advantage.

Still fairly new to the system, though, so will be interested to see what others think of the errata

[Lord Raziere]

Your kidding me, Luck.

I go through, one of the longest, most unlucky days of my life, and THEN you give me 2.5 errata?

it had better be good, luck…..

*Later*

…..I still don't know whether this is good or not. I'll need to check with others to see if this is good or anything….

[horngeek]

Is it just me, or is grand daiklave pretty much strictly better than grand goremaul at this point? The grand goremaul has worse speed, worse accuracy, worse defense, worse minimum damage, fewer hearthstone settings, and higher minimum Strength - its only advantage is 16B damage instead of 11L, and given that bashing soak tends to be better than lethal soak, it's not even clear that's an advantage.

Still fairly new to the system, though, so will be interested to see what others think of the errata

Keep in mind that before now, the Grand Goremaul was broken by means of very easily causing 1-hit kills.

[Ifni]

Keep in mind that before now, the Grand Goremaul was broken by means of very easily causing 1-hit kills.

Oh, I can believe it. But it seems like they may have overreacted a little (or not dialed down the grand daiklave enough, one or the other), unless 16B really is that much better than 11L. I guess they might be trying to make it so doing the maximum damage is strongly discouraged, but still an option if you really want to. Hmmm.

[Lix Lorn]

It's not strictly BETTER, but in some cases it's more useful. It can knock someone out, instead of kill them.

[Tavar]

As if everything else wasn't enough, the blog's back. Not anything much up yet, and there's no real information on what's going to eventually go there.

[tonberrian]

I'm really digging the CRM errata.

[golentan]

I'm really digging the CRM errata.

You mean the single line?

[Ganurath]

So I'm going to ST a 2.5 game. Mixed group, sandbox that starts off in Kirighast and, assuming the group doesn't pack up and ship out just to mess with me, will be focused in and around Harborhead.

[tonberrian]

You mean the single line?

Yup!

[The Bushranger]

*downloads*
And this comes out right after I finally gathered together all of the 2.0 books.

*prepares to have to retool all his characters*

[Rhyvurg]

Wait, does the inclusion of Ink Monkeys errata means their stuff is official now?

*nerdgasm*

[Drascin]

Wait, does the inclusion of Ink Monkeys errata means their stuff is official now?

*nerdgasm*

It's been forever, actually. Some people liked IM, some didn't, but their stuff always was official. See, for example, how all the Scrolls of Errata since Dawn Solution have come with the IM chargen rules changes.

Anyway, I'm poking over the Siderrata when I have time. Mixed feelings up to now. Some goods, some bads, some happies, and some sads.

[Rhyvurg]

Actually I've seen ST's go either way on it.

[horngeek]

Actually I've seen ST's go either way on it.

Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that officially, Ink Monkeys have always been official.

[The Demented One]

Wait, does the inclusion of Ink Monkeys errata means their stuff is official now?

*nerdgasm*

Ink Monkeys has always been official. Both devs are Ink Monkeys. Every current freelancer is either an Ink Monkey or someone picked by the devs. There's really no distinction between "Ink Monkey material" and "Exalted material."

[Yuki Akuma]

Actually I've seen ST's go either way on it.

I've seen STs ban Scroll of the Monk and Scroll of Heroes.

That doesn't stop them from being official.

STs are welcome to their house rules. But they're still house rules.

[Revlid]

And the new Malfeas Mythos Exultant is crap.

You'll get no disagreement from me, though I'm waiting for the writers to explain the intent behind it. It's entirely possible we're about to get a raft of Malfeas Charms that incentivize/facilitate carrying around lots of unattuned artifacts. Or it might get changed, depends.

I'd expect the wording on attunement motes to be changed for clarity and consolidation, at any rate.

Hungry Tiger Technique + Two weapon, one blow + IWA still one shot anything without perfect.

Interesting. Would you mind if I try to run some math on this?

Assume two Solars, straight out of character creation.
One is attacking, the other defending.

Attacker has Str5, Dex5, Melee5, Spec3, Ess2. He has an orichalcum daiklave, with Acc4, and a breastplate, and gets a two-dot Stunt.
This grants him an attack pool of 19 dice, for an average of 9.5 successes. Let's round that up to 10.

Defender has Sta5, Dex5, Melee5, Spec3, Ess2. He has an orichalcum thunderbolt shield, and a breastplate, so Def6, and gets a two-dot Stunt.
This grants him a parry DV of 12.

The attacker will not hit the defender without luck or spending motes on an Excellency, which the latter can also spend motes on.

The attacker spends 5m, 1wp on Iron Whirlwind Attack, to make six attacks. He spends a further 1m on each one to enhance them with Hungry Tiger Technique, for a total cost of 11m, 1wp.

The first attack is 10 vs 12, and misses.
The second attack benefits from onslaught, and is 10 vs 11. It misses.
The third attack is 10 vs 10, and misses.
The fourth attack is 10 vs 9. Hurrah!

The attacker's raw damage is Dam5L+Str5+1sux (sux doubled with HTT) = 12L
The defender's soak is Nat2+Armour4 = 6L

So the attacker has a post-soak damage of 6L. Which translates into 2 lethal health levels.

The fifth attack is 10 vs 7 (since the defender now has a -1 wound penalty), which will deal a total of 3 lethal health levels.

The sixth attack is 10 vs 3 (-4 wound penalty, -5 onslaught) which will deal a total of 6 lethal health levels, knocking the defender down to his last Dying health level; only direct and immediate medical treatment can save him now.

So yes, if a Melee Solar spends 11m, 1wp on a magical flurry against someone who spends no motes defending themselves, he will kill them. This should not be a surprise.

The defender can spend 12m (stunt-to-stunt fewer motes) on their Melee Excellency to avoid all three of the attacks that actually hit him. Sure, the attacker can spend these motes too; at which point the defender can start perfecting and still come out ahead. This set-up also assumes the defender is using no passive Charms for their defense, while the attacker has already blown four of their starting Charms on this combo alone.

Alternatively, the defender could spend background dots on getting some proper armour. Artifact Reinforced Breastplate is now just Artifact 2, and would reduce the total damage from those three attacks that hit to 5L, and the defender's still standing without any defense-Charms.

So I find your conclusion inaccurate (not to mention very difficult to adjudicate since most combat doesn't take place in a vacuum).

[Guancyto]

Hmm.

One thing to note with the example is that Thunderbolt Shields are parry-based defensive weapons, so they don't seem to benefit from specialties unless those specialties are in shields.

...

Which, now that I think about it, makes a guy using an Orihalcum Thunderbolt Shield for defense and an Adamant Thunderbolt Shield for offense somewhat-viable, and also hilarious.

Hm.

[Kyeudo]

Revlid, you forgot a few things:

Averages are not the actual result. Those first 3 attacks have a non-zero chance of hitting their target (in fact, its a pretty decent chance of hitting).

You forgot to include One Weapon Two Blows in your calculations.

The expected result on a damage roll is one third the dice, not one half.

Why are you using a normal daiklave? A grand daiklave still does twice the damage for one lower accuracy.

Finally, your example opponent is a completely twinked out defensive build. If you need to go that far to survive, we have already discovered the new paranoia scheme.

[Revlid]

-Anima banner *looks at Malefactor anima with extreme jealousy* Although perhaps the added soak against CoDs is more valuable now.

Definitely. The Malefactor anima is extremely pretty, but soak is more important than it was before.

-Goremaul comparable in effectiveness to high-quality mundane hammer.

Yeah. I mean, an orichalcum Goremaul has the Overwhelming tag, one extra point of Accuracy, and two points of damage over an exceptional hammer. Granted, that's nice, but is it 6xp and 5 committed motes worth of nice? It's the exact same difference between a Daiklave and an exceptional short sword.

The issue is that you can't make artifact weapons much better, or they loom back into causing too much damage and splattering everything, and you can't make mundane weapons much worse without them becoming laughably useless. So you're stuck with the most balanced solution, which leaves us with somewhat underwhelming stats for artifact weapons in comparison to their mundane counterparts. But hey, most of them have hearthstone slots, so that's practically a free level-1 artifact, right there.

-Shields seem fairly worthless now (because I can't use them in conjunction with my 3-dot Melee specialty).

Why not? If anything, they seem simpler to use with Melee than before.

[Tavar]

Averages are not the actual result. Those first 3 attacks have a non-zero chance of hitting their target (in fact, its a pretty decent chance of hitting).

True.... except averages are used to show average results. Which is generally what's done for examples.

Why are you using a normal daiklave? A grand daiklave still does twice the damage for one lower accuracy.

Probably to make it as baseline as he could.

Finally, your example opponent is a completely twinked out defensive build. If you need to go that far to survive, we have already discovered the new paranoia scheme.

If twinked out means using a shield, non-artifact armor, and no defensive charms...

Yeah, I'm not buying it.

Why not? If anything, they seem simpler to use with Melee than before.

The issue would be that you'd need a specialization in shields, which wouldn't allow you to specialize in, say, Swords.

[tonberrian]

The specialty rule needs to change anyways. It's not broken to allow players to purchase as many specialty dots as they like, so long as they don't stack above 3 dice in any given situation.

Protection of Celestial Bliss is badass, but I would think that costless perfects would be bad for the system.

[Revlid]

Averages are not the actual result. Those first 3 attacks have a non-zero chance of hitting their target (in fact, its a pretty decent chance of hitting).

If I can't use averages when producing a mathematical simulation based off averages, I'm not sure what you want me to use. Gut instinct?

You forgot to include One Weapon Two Blows in your calculations.

I didn't forget. I deliberately ignored it, because it's not supplemental and so can be used on any or none of the attacks. It's a judgement call on each attack whether the chance of hitting is good enough to warrant a three-mote expenditure (pushing the cost of the combo up to a possible total of 29m, 1wp), and I didn't want the hassle of making that call in a supposedly neutral whitebox.

The expected result on a damage roll is one third the dice, not one half.

*slaps head* Of course. Edited, thanks.

Why are you using a normal daiklave? A grand daiklave still does twice the damage for one lower accuracy.

Daiklave is a two-dot artifact, Thunderbolt Shield is a two-dot artifact. Equity between the opponents.

Finally, your example opponent is a completely twinked out defensive build. If you need to go that far to survive, we have already discovered the new paranoia scheme.

My example opponents both have Attribute 5, Attribute 5, Ability 5, Specialty 3, and a two-dot artifact. The attacker needs four offensive Melee Charms, the defender needs no Charms. In what way is the defender twinked?

[Revlid]

The specialty rule needs to change anyways. It's not broken to allow players to purchase as many specialty dots as they like, so long as they don't stack above 3 dice in any given situation.

A further necessary stipulation: no mutually exclusive specialties. The example generally given is Dodge (Armoured) and Dodge (No Armour), but others work.

I'd stack the number of specialty dots allowed to an ability at (Ability +1), with no mutually-exclusive specialties allowed, and any dice granted by specialties capped at 3.

[tonberrian]

If I can't use averages when producing a mathematical simulation based off averages, I'm not sure what you want me to use. Gut instinct?

Weighted statistics. There's a certain percentage that the attack will hit with a certain number of extra successes. I'm not sure how to do it without brute forcing it, mind you, but it's there.

[Lix Lorn]

The expected result on a damage roll is one third the dice, not one half.

O_o
Why?
I've done the maths. Roll two ten sided dice, you only have a 36% chance of getting no successes.

[tonberrian]

O_o
Why?
I've done the maths. Roll two ten sided dice, you only have a 36% chance of getting no successes.

For any given dice, you have a 4/10 chance to get a success. That's pretty close to 1/3.

Remember, 10's don't count as 2 successes on damage dice.

[Yuki Akuma]

Each die has just more than one third of a chance (2:5) to roll a 7, 8, 9 or 10. 10s don't score double successes, so each die gives you roughly two-fifths health levels.

[Revlid]

O_o
Why?
I've done the maths. Roll two ten sided dice, you only have a 36% chance of getting no successes.

The simplest way of getting averages in Exalted is to halve the number of dice thrown, since the Exalted (who you're generally playing as) get one success on a 7-9, and two on a 10. So on 100 dice, you'll get an average of 50 successes.

When rolling raw damage, you don't double rolled 10s (except without magic making it so). This reduces the number of successes rolled out of 100 from 50 to 40. Which is closer to a third than a half when you want to do quick-and-rough calculation.

Weighted statistics. There's a certain percentage that the attack will hit with a certain number of extra successes. I'm not sure how to do it without brute forcing it, mind you, but it's there.

Interesting, but not something I'd want to spend time on in a casual analysis of a fantasy kung-fu fight.