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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Bahumat's Avatar

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    Default [Exalted 2.5] Abyssal Archer Optimisation

    Alright, time for me to throw another Exalt into the playground and see what you guys throw back at me. I've been playing a Day Caste stealth archer in my current game, and one of the other players wants to run a little...simulation.

    See, he is blatantly playing it for power fantasy fulfillment. He wants to test out if my character (one of the ones currently most optimised for murdering anyone in range- seriously, we have all of two dedicated damage dealers in a party of about 7-8 different exalts.) can take out his once we hit essence 5, and have functionally completed our characters.

    He asked me to build a 1000xp version of my current character, to fight his. Now, we have slightly different rules for how PD's work, since our GM hates how a single PD can block anything. Thus, in our little world, PD's are trumped by perfect attacks, but you can never launch an attack without leaving a valid PD available. So no unsoakable, undodgeable, unblockable attacks. Any other combination is fair game.

    My abyssals's capabilities are headed towards Martial Arts after I complete a very nasty archery combo, which essentially says 'Perfect Soak or Die'. He's currently got up to the Form Charm of the Throne Shadow style, and has a plot background that gives him access to the entirety (including native) of the Infernal Monster style. I want him to take Prismatic Arrangement of Creation (a siddie style) for its capstone form and very nice underlying charm set, and possibly the Ebon Shadow style for the synergy with the Night Caste's abilities. He's also going to pick up Unconquered Hero's Faith, so even Solar Charms are available for selection, though taking all the martial arts sucks up tons of exp.

    In contrast, the other player is playing a Twilight Caste Solar, with all the cheese that that implies. Thus far we've reigned in his worst excesses, like stupid hearthstones, but being a blatant munchkin who's first course of action is to either social-fu or use sorcery to fix all his problems while becoming immune to damage, at essence 5 with this much exp, he's going to be...challenging.

    The primary issue for this battle is the setting- it's assumed he's had time to set up a Solar Sanctuary and has control of the cities nearby, and is abusing charms such as Memory-reweaving discipline to maintain control of the populace. The task for me, therefore, is to break into a heavily fortified city and murder an equal essence solar. Now, he's primarily focused on defense and will have a large array of sorcery and non-extra minions to throw at me, while I have stupidly damaging and accurate attacks, stealth and surprise.

    My abyssal has high strength and dex but low stamina (fixing with the XP), and has weak social skills, with middling mental skills.

    He has Archery, MA, Melee, Resistance and Investigation favored, and uses a modified powerbow and dual daiklaves as weapons for archery and melee, though he tends not to melee unless it's not a huge concern (the character was designed before I realised having three combat skill favored for a non-dawn wasn't exactly optimal.)

    He doesn't have sorcery, or craft, unlike the Solar opponent.

    I've been toying with just dropping a set of soulbreaker orbs into the area and calling it a day, but given he can just Shape the area back to normal, and the breaker won't necessarily kill him or his stronger minions....yeahhh...see why I'm asking for help?

    So, I put it to you in the Playground. How would you go about selecting charms, abilities, the whole deal, and preparing for being able to murder this bastard you've known for years and years and years?

    Any other information you want to know, as well? I figured a complete infodump would take up the entire page sooo...
    Last edited by Bahumat; 2013-01-31 at 02:30 AM.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Troll in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: [Exalted 2.5] Abyssal Archer Optimisation

    Serious question - how cheesy are you wanting to get, here?

    I mean, you're taking Prismatic Arrangement, so I'm guessing extraordinarily cheesy is a-ok, but I want to make sure.

    My general suggestion would be as follows.

    1) Max out your Stealth.
    2) Use your Perfect Soak or Die combo to destroy one of the Sanctuary statues, causing the whole area to revert to a non-sanctuary state.
    3) Sneak up on the Solar.
    4) Use Sequential Charm Disruption comboed with Distracting Finger Gesture, shutting off all of his Charms and preventing him from taking actions.
    5) Kill the hell out of him.
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  3. - Top - End - #3
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    Bahumat's Avatar

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    Default Re: [Exalted 2.5] Abyssal Archer Optimisation

    My Abyssal is fairly ok to have some cheese, mainly due to the a fore mentioned siddie style. At this moment, my abyssal does not have a complete Perfect defense suite or a paranoia combo. Given how our modified rules work, they don't work as well.

    Also, I picked Prismatic primarily because of the capstone form. If I really wanted to cheese it, I'd pick a more broken style.

  4. - Top - End - #4
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    Default Re: [Exalted 2.5] Abyssal Archer Optimisation

    Well, the 2/7 filter remains an excellent choice under your modified rules. Push your PDV up as high as possible, and then rely on a perfect soak for when an attack does blast its way through your defenses to end everything and everyone.

    So you've an Infernal Monster / Ebon Shadow / Throne Shadow / Prismatic Arrangement guy, you say? And perfect attacks beat perfect defenses, but can't be unsoakable?

    I have a suggestion, but it's likely to end in house rules to prevent it from ever, ever happening again.

    My suggestion is clinching.

    Specifically, you're going to want the following on top of your martial arts:
    * Atrocity Without Witness (Stealth)
    * Killing Word Technique (Presence)
    * World-Ending Void Apostle (Integrity)
    * Ultimate Inevitability of the Grave (Martial Arts)

    So here's what you do.

    Step 1: Use your Archery to destroy the statue, as previously mentioned.
    Step 2: Also destroy any manse giving him access to a Freedom Stone.
    Step 3: Use your Stealth Charms to ensure that you can get to your enemy past all of his defenses and minions, who will not be appearing in this film.
    Step 4: Activate Atrocity Without Witness, guaranteeing that anyone trying to interfere in this fight is going to have to pay quite a lot of health levels if they can even beat your Stealth.
    Step 5: Activate Ultimate Inevitability of the Grave, automatically engaging in a clinch as a perfect attack. Since clinches can be soaked, this is okay. But boost up your Strength with Infernal Monster and with Inescapable Iron Grip.
    Step 6: You're now clinching him, and he can't speak or be noticed or escape. And your clinch-boosting Charms give you a massive edge, because they're all active for good now. Just use Sequential Charm Disruption on anything he tries, and kill him to death.
    If you like my thoughts, you'll love my writing. Visit me at www.mishahandman.com.

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: [Exalted 2.5] Abyssal Archer Optimisation

    The only issue there is that World-Ending Void Apostle is blocked by having Unconquered Heroes Faith.

    To clarify, you can't make a combo without leaving a perfect block available. So I can make an unsoakable, unblockable attack, or an undodgeable unsoakable, but not undodgeable, unsoakeable, unblockable. Any combination of two, basically, and since Bad Touches bypass perfect soaks....

    As for the strategy as a whole....I like it. I'll have to grab a method of preventing him from forcing intimacies on me though- he has Laughing Wounds, Black Claw and some dips into Prismatic and Arms of the Unconquered Sun.

    Fortunately, Freedom Stone does not exist at the moment in our campaign- the GM hates it with a vengeance.

    2/7 seems like something I can get behind, I already have a perfect dodge, and I have the stats for the perfect soak if I recall. I also have Atrocity Without Witness, though I never noticed the synergy with presence XD. Nice one.

    Apparently he's going to be parking his Solar Statues inside what he calls 'dungeon manses'- effectively, trapped dnd dungeon crawls. I kind of shrug, since maxed athletics and stealth renders any sort of traps kinda moot.

    Also, on Distracting Finger-gesture. I don't think that's combo-ok? So I don't think I can combo it with Sequential disruption, sadly. I'll have to check on that...

    I think I can easily get my PDV safely into the teens without cheese...which is handy.

    Maybe if I have extra charms I can throw it into Mantis style for even more grappling....

    Edit: Also, Ultimate inevitability is essence 6, not 5. So no perfect clinch.
    Last edited by Bahumat; 2013-02-02 at 07:05 PM.

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    Pixie in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: [Exalted 2.5] Abyssal Archer Optimisation

    1. Talk to my character next session on saturday.
    2. Convince her to kill Fawn with you.
    3. Time paradox
    4. ???
    5. Victory.
    God created man as equals, and Colt made them so.

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