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

[tonberrian]

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

Good news! Somebody on the internet has already done that for you! Anydice.com does all your dice rolling math for you.

Mind you, I haven't quite gotten the dice pool mechanics to work yet, but I should be able to soon. I'm not sure if it's my syntax or it's just taking forever. Apparently 19 dice just takes forever to do.

[Kyeudo]

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

If the average was higher than the expected DV, I can see him getting away with it (since then you can just assume the hit). But when you are trying to resolve a lethality problem, you need to show what's really going on to resolve how fast you can be dead.

Probably to make it as baseline as he could.

And he just showed that the baseline can kill you in one action.

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

Yeah, I'm not buying it.

He's using the best shield in the game to put his Parry DV up as high as it will go. Not the best twink, but a twink. Any lesser shield drops that DV rating by 1 (which kills you one attack sooner in his example) and no shield at all drops that DV by 2 or more, depending upon his opponent's weapon.

So, lets start over with the example.

First, let's assume that the goal of our attack is to kill the target outright without making our attack an efficient target for a perfect defense, so we need to spend less than 8 motes on the whole thing. So, IWA averages to less than one mote per attack, alot less if we have Invincible Fury of the Dawn, HTT is one mote, and the new OWTB is three motes. Let's call it 5 motes. We can even tack on two extra post-soak dice with Fire And Stones Strike and still beat our preset limit.

Next, we want to find out how lethal a hit is. So, our Grand Daiklave wielder has an expected minimum damage output of 11L + 5S + 2 (HTT) = 18 dice. Let's assume our victim is wearing a reinforced breastplate. Not the best in the world, but something that you are likely to see on the average opponent. So, his soak is 7L + 2S = 9L. So, post-soak damage is 9 + 2 (FSS) for 11 dice, which will average 3 levels of damage, almost averaging 4. So, now we apply in One Weapon, Two Blows. That's 6-8 average levels of damage or, said another way, this attack will reduce the victim to incapacitated on average. How often? The binomial distrobution says that 50.58% of the time, this attack will generate 7 or more damage successes, effectively killing you instantly. The other half of the time? You start the death spiral.

So, we have determined that taking a hit from this attack is likely to be deadly. So, how likely is it to hit? Let's say that our opponent is using Fivefold Bulwark Stance so we can keep his DV constant across the whole flurry and we'll use Revlid's numbers. So 18 dice vs DV 12. The exalted probabilty table (if I'm reading it correctly) says this happens about 11.5% of the time. For the whole flurry of 6 attacks, though, that gives us a 51.9% chance that we will get hit at least once. If he has Invincible Fury of the Dawn, that chance goes up to 62.3%. So, greater than half the time, this flurry kills the victim if he uses no Charms.

Now, we have some information to work with. So, what do we do with the information? As the defender, we want to defend against this without spending more per attack than the attacker is spending. He's spending 6+ motes per attack, so we want to defend this with 6 motes or less. However, our defensive options are pretty much the same as before the 2.5 errata. Fivefold Bulwark Stance was already factored in here, so Dipping Swallow Defense is pointless. That leaves a Melee Excellency. 6 motes will get us a +3 DV bonus against the attack. This moves the chance of getting hit by a single attack to 1.5%, the IWA flurry down to 8.7% chance of a single hit, and the chance of a IFotD to 11.3%.

So, the end conclusion comes out the same. All those attack boosters does make an attack super lethal if it hits. However, it is unlikely to hit if we have DV 15.

But what if we aren't a DV twinked Solar? Let's say we don't have a shield and instead only have a daiklave. That puts our base DV at 10 instead of at 12. The IWA flurry now kills us 87.3% chance to kill us and the IFotD flurry now has a 93.6% chance to kill us. That Excellency use now only brings these chances down to 32.8% and 41% respectively, numbers which I don't like.

So, it looks like we have a problem here where everyone should have at DV before Charms of 12 if they want to live. I don't like it.

There is only one thing to consider in the next step then, and that is Adamant Skin Technique. Because of its Step 7 activation, we only need to activate it against the attacks that actually are going to cause damage. As long as the chance that any given attack will hit us is 75% or less and we spent no other motes on defense, Adamant Skin Technique will remain just as mote efficient as the proposed offense on average. The probability of any single attack hitting us is much less here, so Adamant Skin Technique is going to be the most mote efficient defense against this offense.

TL;DR version: Either you need to be a DV twink or have AST to survive against IWA + FSS + HTT + OWTB. Welcome to the return of paranoia.

[Ifni]

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.

Yeah, the personal sadface was because I've been making puppydog eyes at my ST regarding a Singing Staff... and the four-dot artifact is not obviously better in combat than a mundane Exceptional hammer, because it doesn't get the orichalcum bonuses (it gains Overwhelming and has 1 extra damage, but is 1 worse on two other stats). MM bonuses seem like a bigger deal now, due to the comparatively lower base stats.

I mean, yes, most of the reason to get a Singing Staff has nothing to do with melee combat, but still - the fact that it functions as a goremaul seems to imply that hitting people over the head with your world-shaking wonder is normal and expected

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.

I do see the problem. Just a little sad that the solution seems likely to encourage less "this is my legendary artifact weapon" and more "committed motes are for suckers, just use mundane weapons, they're cheap" (although you are right this is modulo hearthstones, if you have a manse). I guess it does help Resources with respect to Artifact, but you only need one person in the Circle to have mid-high Resources to equip everyone.

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

Others have covered this one; yeah, specialty limits. Although people on WW were suggesting that you could take a Sword-and-Board / Two Weapons specialty, so maybe that would work.

EDIT: @Kyeudo: thanks for the analysis. Hmm, I was thinking soak + Resistance tree might be a viable non-perfect defense here, but that Overwhelming 4 on the grand daiklave + One Weapon Two Blows means Adamant Skin Technique is always going to be a better deal if they're using Fire and Stones Strike (since their minimum post-soak damage is 12 dice per hit, if I understand correctly, and reducing that with the new Spirit Strengthens the Skin and Iron Skin Concentration is going to be too expensive). So, basically it's the 2/7 filter again, only more expensive? If you can break the flurry, that would help a lot as well, but I guess the case here is assuming you can't get away.

[Kyeudo]

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?

Every heard of a probability? See my rework of your example.

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.

Then use it on every attack. Makes the decision easy, as I did above.

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

That's a noble curtousy that will not be extended to actual play.

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?

Your choice of shield gives him a DV at least 2 points higher than the norm.

[Madwand]

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

TL;DR version: Either you need to be a DV twink or have AST to survive against IWA + FSS + HTT + OWTB. Welcome to the return of paranoia.

Actually, if you still have an doubts about paranoia, here is the efficient way of kill:
One Weapon Two Blows (3m)
Hungry Tiger Technique (1m)
Sun-Sword Concentration (1m)
flashing edge of dawn (free)

Perform damage steps three time.
Add attack successes twice.
Piercing, ignore armor hardness.

Ps. I agree that combat errat is step in good direction, and after few first test fight (which I was too laze to write down step by step) combat is somehow better.

[Revlid]

And he just showed that the baseline can kill you in one action.

A Solar with maxed Strength+Dexterity+Melee+Specialty and an artifact weapon is the baseline?

He's using the best shield in the game to put his Parry DV up as high as it will go. Not the best twink, but a twink. Any lesser shield drops that DV rating by 1 (which kills you one attack sooner in his example) and no shield at all drops that DV by 2 or more, depending upon his opponent's weapon.

Shockingly, yes, someone defending against a character using a level-two Artifact to attack is worse off if they don't have a level-two Artifact to defend. It's not twinking to use an artifact shield against an artifact sword.

First, let's assume that the goal of our attack is to kill the target outright without making our attack an efficient target for a perfect defense, so we need to spend less than 8 motes on the whole thing.

A fair enough premise..

So, IWA averages to less than one mote per attack, alot less if we have Invincible Fury of the Dawn

Aaaand let's slow down there, shall we? At max Dexterity, IWA grants six attacks. It costs 5m, 1wp. 1wp is equivalent to 4m. So the actual cost-per-attack is more along the lines of 1.5m each.

HTT is one mote, and the new OWTB is three motes. Let's call it 5 motes. We can even tack on two extra post-soak dice with Fire And Stones Strike and still beat our preset limit.

Okay, so that's 5 Charms you've given the attacker, right?

You're currently running at a total of 7.5m per attack.

Next, we want to find out how lethal a hit is. So, our Grand Daiklave wielder has an expected minimum damage output of 11L + 5S + 2 (HTT) = 18 dice. Let's assume our victim is wearing a reinforced breastplate. Not the best in the world, but something that you are likely to see on the average opponent.

You're really doing this? You're really going to put a combat-focused Solar up against an "average" opponent as a display of how lethal combat is?

I'm not arguing that lethality has been completely fixed, but a Solar with half his starting Charms, Attributes and Artifact dots put into splattering people should be able splatter people. He should be able to do so really well.

Claiming it's "twinkery" when someone puts up a Solar with half his Attributes and less than half his Artifact dots (and no Charms) put into avoiding being splattered as an equivalent example of defense is a bit... weird.

[Tavar]

That's a noble curtousy that will not be extended to actual play.

You also aren't playing in a vacuum. Obviously, this means that this whole analysis is useless.

[Revlid]

That's a noble courtesy that will not be extended to actual play.

"Here is a white box match between two equal opponents to prove that lethality has been reduced by the errata."
"Characters won't be completely equal in real games, therefore your example is invalid."

*slow clap*

Your choice of shield gives him a DV at least 2 points higher than the norm.

And my attacker's choice of weapon doesn't give him higher accuracy and damage than the norm?

And Invincible Fury of the Dawn is Essence 4, isn't it? At that point, I can just grab Seven Shadow Evasion and Cobra and Mongoose Defense and pop off an action-long defense against your grand daiklave. That requires a total of four Charms, and costs 10m, as opposed to the five Charms and 29m, 1wp you spent on your flurry.

[Kyeudo]

A Solar with maxed Strength+Dexterity+Melee+Specialty and an artifact weapon is the baseline?

I can get it at chargen. Yes.

The Dawn Caste in most of your games probably did exactly that and you know it.

Shockingly, yes, someone defending against a character using a level-two Artifact to attack is worse off if they don't have a level-two Artifact to defend. It's not twinking to use an artifact shield against an artifact sword.

I'm pointing out that you intentionally gave this guy the highest DV you could come up with without using Charms. My analysis then shows just how important those 2 points of DV are to your survival. They are a 30% swing in your odds of surviving.

Aaaand let's slow down there, shall we? At max Dexterity, IWA grants six attacks. It costs 5m, 1wp. 1wp is equivalent to 4m. So the actual cost-per-attack is more along the lines of 1.5m each.

I'm not so sure if that is the actual going rate anymore. Sure, back before this errata, you needed to recover at least one willpower and 4 motes per round to survive, but now you don't need the combo. With Willpower 10 being extremely cheap to aquire at chargen, one willpower may not actually be worth 4 motes anymore.

The oppourtunity cost of a willpower is certainly 4 motes, but the value of a Willpower is how much you would give up to have it. I'm not so sure that the value is still at 4 motes.

The example attacker can perform this attack routine 10 times before running out of willpower. Can the victim defend against it 10 times before running out of motes? Yes, but only if he is DV 12 or using Adamant Skin Technique.

Oh, and I think I should mention Overdrive Charms here. Any Overdrive motes you can throw into this will make it cheaper to use than to defend against unless you are using Adamant Skin Technique.

Okay, so that's 5 Charms you've given the attacker, right?

I also gave the defender Fivefold Bulwark Stance and a Melee Excellency. So, 4 Charms for him.

You're really doing this? You're really going to put a combat-focused Solar up against an "average" opponent as a display of how lethal combat is?

I'm not arguing that lethality has been completely fixed, but a Solar with half his starting Charms, Attributes and Artifact dots put into splattering people should be able splatter people. He should be able to do so really well.

Claiming it's "twinkery" when someone puts up a Solar with half his Attributes and less than half his Artifact dots (and no Charms) put into avoiding being splattered as an equivalent example of defense is a bit... weird.

Alright, I can rerun the numbers with the opponent in orichalcum superheavy plate if you want, but all that will prove is that to survive in Exalted Combat you need to put half your starting Charms, Attributes, and Artifact dots towards not getting splattered. Which means we are still sitting in the same place as before the Errata, only with Adamant Skin Technique as the only decent perfect and armor more valueble for staying alive.

And my attacker's choice of weapon doesn't give him higher accuracy and damage than the norm?

Not significantly.

And Invincible Fury of the Dawn is Essence 4, isn't it? At that point, I can just grab Seven Shadow Evasion and Cobra and Mongoose Defense and pop off an action-long defense against your grand daiklave. That requires a total of four Charms, and costs 10m, as opposed to the five Charms and 29m, 1wp you spent on your flurry.

IFofD isn't really necessary. It's a 10% increase in lethality, but the baseline speaks for itself anyway.

[TheCountAlucard]

The Dawn Caste in most of your games probably did exactly that and you know it.

Just doing a quick double-check... nope, not even once.

My first Dawn Caste did have Ability 5 and an artifact weapon, but he had Dex 4, Strength 4, and only two specialties.

My second and third combatative characters both have Dex 5, but no artifact weapons and no excellencies, either; one had a three-dot specialty, but he also had a Strength of only 3.

Lemme check games I played in, in which I wasn't a combatant...

Nope. Our Dusk in that game had Dex 5 and Ability 5, sure, but he didn't invest any specialties into the weapons he wielded, nor did he wield any artifact weapons.

How about games I've run...

A Slayer in my Infernals game does have an absurdly-high Strength, but as I look, it's largely the result of having acquired the Huge mutation. He does have a grand daiklave, but he doesn't have a three-dot specialty for it. I'll admit, he's largely built for splattering people over the wall, but when one nears the 200-experience mark as a combat character, it's hard not to.

The other Slayer's devoted even less of his XP to combat. He's actually gone the social route.

[Delusion]

Everyone is talking about combat, but has there been any changes to social combat to make it actually work?

[TheCountAlucard]

Everyone is talking about combat, but has there been any changes to social combat to make it actually work?

Yes. Now overcoming a person's MDV by a substantial amount actually means something.

[Tavar]

Natural Mental influence no longer can Will-tap you, and Social combat also now accounts for successes over the MDV. Oh, and since Willpower is less of a need, Social combat no longer is no longer as much of a risk in general.

[Guancyto]

Although extreme social-fu does more to your willpower bar now, nobody will ever make the tortured but all-too-frequent argument that "reducing my willpower is reducing my lifebar therefore it is hurting me therefore JOIN BATTLE" again (because you don't need it to combo any more).

This is a huge victory for the good guys.

[KaganMonk]

If it truly is a new combat paradigm, I vote to call it Kyeudoan Combat for 2.5. Give Chung a break.

[Madwand]

Although extreme social-fu does more to your willpower bar now, nobody will ever make the tortured but all-too-frequent argument that "reducing my willpower is reducing my lifebar therefore it is hurting me therefore JOIN BATTLE" again (because you don't need it to combo any more).

"He can change me into slave with 2 sucessful attacks, therefore JOIN BATTLE!"

Just doing a quick double-check... nope, not even once.

But from my expereriance combat focused character take 5+5+3 and charms from melee. I also build all of them this way.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I did playtest 2.5e combat for Solars (I was too lazy to write it step by step).

It is better. It has a space between "perfect or die", this is you can be harm, or take some damage before being dead. Or even force to use more diverse tactic that "I hit him with Grand Killstick".

1)Iron Skin concentration Solar take away final dice of ping damage - it is surprisingly good.
2) Glorious solar plate gives you superheavy plate at cost of 5 motes 1 wp. Shield with 7 motes and 1 wp. You should take it.
3) archery is still uber-good. Lack of wp surcharge for combos (not a suprise) balance in nice way lower ping.
4) EGT is not that bad.
5) new stunts rule hurt; when you get hit by 3 opponents and get 1-dice from each defense it was 6 motes; now it is max 2. Staying mote positive is quite impossible now.

I still need to test higher xp Solars. Like 200-300 xp.

[Lix Lorn]

Petty maths argument within

Spoiler

Show

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.

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.

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

As I said, I've done the maths for this and I can tell you that if you roll ten dice, you will get slightly more than 6 successes, on average, even without doubling tens.
You have a 40% chance of a success on 1d10. On a second d10, you have a 40% chance.
You have a 60% chance of not getting a success on the first time. 40% of that sixty percent, you'll get one the second time.
(40% of 60 is 24, to save you the time)
Which gives you a 64% chance of getting at least one success on two dice.

[TheCountAlucard]

"He can change me into slave with 2 sucessful attacks, therefore JOIN BATTLE!"

If you didn't at least spring for Sagacious Reading of Intent, let alone a proper social suite, you probably deserve to be enslaved.

Also, if it's natural mental influence, you'll only have to pay Willpower to resist him once, for the entire scene. And if his buddies gang up on you to try and continue the coersion? You'll have a bonus to your MDV.

Moving right along...

But from my expereriance combat focused character take 5+5+3 and charms from melee. I also build all of them this way.

Congratulations.

5) new stunts rule hurt; when you get hit by 3 opponents and get 1-dice from each defense it was 6 motes; now it is max 2. Staying mote positive is quite impossible now.

Or you could try and get a better stunt... failing to get a two-die stunt is your own fault, really.

[horngeek]

Also: are Sidereal Charms actually fixed?

[TheCountAlucard]

Also: are Sidereal Charms actually fixed?

Somewhat; they're far, far better than they used to be, anyway. They have a Shaping defense, soak-boosters, better Medicine... oh, hey, and Violet Bier of Sorrows Style is usable.

[Dragnar]

So. I got a terrible idea. And then did it anyway.
Phantom Brave Charms!

[tonberrian]

Petty maths argument within

Spoiler

Show

As I said, I've done the maths for this and I can tell you that if you roll ten dice, you will get slightly more than 6 successes, on average, even without doubling tens.
You have a 40% chance of a success on 1d10. On a second d10, you have a 40% chance.
You have a 60% chance of not getting a success on the first time. 40% of that sixty percent, you'll get one the second time.
(40% of 60 is 24, to save you the time)
Which gives you a 64% chance of getting at least one success on two dice.

I had a long post talking about this, but the forums ate it. The gist of it was yes, your math shown here is right, but it's not translating up into higher dice pools like you think it does, and you should check out Anydice.com to see how the probabilities play out.

[Revlid]

So. I got a terrible idea. And then did it anyway.
Phantom Brave Charms!

There's a good idea behind Soul Sacrificing Determination, but the current iteration is overpowered and then you die.

Compare Death's Army Awakens to Arise and Slaughter, and ask why the former is a Presence Charm. Consider making it an upgrade of some kind to the latter Charm.

Soul-Consuming Feast is crazy-strong. I mean, for one thing you've basically allowed the Abyssal's to carry around ([target's Essence x 2] x [Essence]) offensive motes at all times, which don't count toward his Overdrive pool maximum. Note that, in 2.5, only three Charms exist with the Reactor keyword, two at Essence 6, one at Essence 5; Charms that give you raw motes are much much rarer and more exclusive.

I'm aware you're changing I Will Not Fail, so I'll just note that the repurchase just saves a bit on Excellencies, and suggest you use something like Phoenix Renewal Tactic as a point of reference. Cool concept, though.

[Lord Raziere]

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.

Also, you can play Captain America now.

my only worry is that dodge-meisters might've been screwed over, and that you might have to start cooking dodge-soak charms to make dodging a viable
alternative in the current system.

[tonberrian]

Also, you can play Captain America now.

my only worry is that dodge-meisters might've been screwed over, and that you might have to start cooking dodge-soak charms to make dodging a viable
alternative in the current system.

Why? WORDSWORDS

[Revlid]

So I started a request thread, which I will check in the morning. Good night!

[Dragnar]

Yeah, not at all surprised those charms still need work. After all, I drafted these while half-asleep, haven't changed them since, and made them more to emulate the abilities from Phantom Brave than anything else. Though, I'll be making changes to make them usable regardless.

Spoiler

Show

There's a good idea behind Soul Sacrificing Determination, but the current iteration is overpowered and then you die.

Well, it's not nearly so OP if you only activate 1/2 iterations of it. And not as lethal either! Each activation costs 5 motes, and only produces 1 per tick. It does still last entirely too long, producing several times the motes put into it by the end, but it is at least a slow drip with fewer, instead of a rapid race toward death. (And that at least is intended. If you push the charm to it's limits, you had BETTER finish the fight fast, or else all those motes won't save you. But regardless, it needs nerfed.)

Compare Death's Army Awakens to Arise and Slaughter, and tell me why the former is a Presence Charm. Consider making it an upgrade of some kind to the latter Charm.

Well, the pre-req I gave it summons ghosts. This summons a ghostly army. Arise and Slaughter creates a zombie army, instead of just serving to call on ghosts you had already made loyal. It's an admittedly similar effect mechanically though, and I might try and make this one more unique, but it's fluff fits(I think) in presence far better than war.

Soul-Consuming Feast is crazy-strong. I mean, for one thing you've basically allowed the Abyssal's to carry around ([target's Essence x 2] x [Essence]) offensive motes at all times, which don't count toward his Overdrive pool maximum. Note that, in 2.5, only three Charms exist with the Reactor keyword, two at Essence 6, one at Essence 5; Charms that give you raw motes are much much rarer and more exclusive.

Indeed. This is partially due to me writing the charm AS I read 2.5. But that's really no excuse, and I'm aware it's horribly broken ATM. I'll probably kill the ability to save souls, and just make it an overdrive charm granting (essence x 2) offensive motes per kill and a 10 mote pool. (Though, to be fair. It's just as hax now as Sprout, the character it's based on, was in the game!)

I'm aware you're changing I Will Not Fail, so I'll just note that the repurchase just saves a bit on Excellencies, and suggest you use something like Phoenix Renewal Tactic as a point of reference. Cool concept, though.

That was. Actually a comment on the name, not the charm, whoops. But then again, these are all subject to change, given how little thought went into balancing them. That does sound like a good idea for the repurchase though.

[Lord Raziere]

Why? WORDSWORDS

Because I don't know how to get a high Dodge DV.

[Tavar]

Why? WORDSWORDS

Shields now no longer help Dodge DV's, which eliminates a standard DV booster.

[tonberrian]

Shields now no longer help Dodge DV's, which eliminates a standard DV booster.

And Essence still compares well to Defense values. I'm not seeing the issue.