I always thought that a long tick was 10 seconds, and that therefore the idea that it took 40 seconds to make a persuasive argument seemed logical. I agree that the average social attack being a 4-minute speech is slightly absurd.
Also: Lix Lorn, note that the Abyssal only has 6 (Dex+Melee), or 8 if he's suffering from the 'not enough death in the area' effect. It looks as though he's not a combat specialist any more than you are.
Also Also: GM, what level of stunt did I get on my attack against the zombies, if any?
Aevy
__________________
Quote:
Franks find that bloodshed and strife
Occupy most of their life--
The proper reward
For serving a lord
While ardently courting his wife.
Aelymar: That was another two-die stunt. Not that it really matters, since you haven't spent any motes or willpower. I also subtracted two dice because you described your attack as enveloping. Either way though, those zombies went down.
Lix: Did you spend willpower? You didn't go beyond your skill dots for your excellency, so I don't see where you lost one that you want back.
I ship you/Anyone./Infernal Gardevoir from outside the playground, by Recaiden//ExtendedSig
Spoiler
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thanqol
It's not normal, of course, and what's actually happening in Comet Kicker's brain is that she's using regular murder as therapy for worse murder. There's a breakdown in the works and all it needs is one good, hard kick.
industrious, since you said this was in Long Ticks, and her fight presumably is in normal ticks, do the rest of us need to wait for anything in particular?
__________________
He fears his fate too much, and his reward is small, who will not put it to the touch, to win or lose it all.
-James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose
Satomi by Elagune
industrious, since you said this was in Long Ticks, and her fight presumably is in normal ticks, do the rest of us need to wait for anything in particular?
Ruling: You can decide either to head to the barracks (I'd rule that once Skandi's offense seems overwhelming, you can head there and Join Battle immediately) or stay in mass combat and open the gates (another action).
Sorry, busy weekend, kinda sprung up on me. Now's the first time I've been able to get online all day. I'll post something soon.
__________________
He fears his fate too much, and his reward is small, who will not put it to the touch, to win or lose it all.
-James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose
Satomi by Elagune
Double post, but I flubbed the roll:Join Battle: (6d10)[8][1][6][3][1][2](21)
__________________
He fears his fate too much, and his reward is small, who will not put it to the touch, to win or lose it all.
-James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose
Satomi by Elagune
Frankly, I think the rivalry/contest for dominance between Child and Skandi is hilarious. Who wants to bet they get a Hero / Lancer dynamic when the party gets put together? :P
__________________
Quote:
Franks find that bloodshed and strife
Occupy most of their life--
The proper reward
For serving a lord
While ardently courting his wife.
Oh well, perhaps he can arrange a couple annoying accidents for the man. Who said being in charge of Fate was a bad thing?
I thought this a bit harsh at first. Then I realized that Child actually means it when he says "annoying", rather than using it as a euphemism for "lethal" the way I assumed when I first read it.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm getting a little too in-character.
__________________
Avatar by Kasanip; see her sketchbook here!
Frankly, I think the rivalry/contest for dominance between Child and Skandi is hilarious. Who wants to bet they get a Hero / Lancer dynamic when the party gets put together? :P
Even better if every so often Skandi forgets about Child, due to fate.
Also, if it does happen, I'm totally imagining us as alternating between Gai and Kakashi.
__________________
He fears his fate too much, and his reward is small, who will not put it to the touch, to win or lose it all.
-James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose
Satomi by Elagune
Even better if every so often Skandi forgets about Child, due to fate.
Also, if it does happen, I'm totally imagining us as alternating between Gai and Kakashi.
Sadly, Skandi will probably end up making his Willpower rolls to remember Child, since I can't see him not making them if they're travelling companions. But that would be amusing.
Also, I see the rivalry, but to be honest I was thinking less of the 'Unknown Rival' feel and more of the sniping friendly insults back and forth arguments-over-leadership competition.
__________________
Quote:
Franks find that bloodshed and strife
Occupy most of their life--
The proper reward
For serving a lord
While ardently courting his wife.
Well, it's a Wits+Integrity roll, at a -3 internal penalty. Might be a bit harder for your character.
__________________
He fears his fate too much, and his reward is small, who will not put it to the touch, to win or lose it all.
-James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose
Satomi by Elagune
Yikes. Eleven bonus successes is why I'm pretty sure Exalts are not meant to count as their own complementary units in mass combat (unless you actually have a rank-and-file unit of them, not just special characters)...
Industrious, can we see the results of that attack so I know whether there's actually anyone left?
__________________
Avatar by Kasanip; see her sketchbook here!
Yeah, it seemed a bit odd to me too while I was looking through the mass combat rules.
"Wait Close Combat Rating and Close Formation do what?"
I dunno. Well-ordered, well-trained units can get those bonuses themselves, at which point it more or less cancels out I think. Just grab a fellow Exalt and fight back-to-back instead of as solo units (which seems a bit thematic) and everything will sort itself out.
@The Snark: Seconded. That makes armies completely useless, breaking my suspension of disbelief. Adding elite soldiers well-trained enough not to get into better troops' way results in the efficiency of the unit plummeting.
In addition, the hero special character is essentially 'going twice', once as a character in his unit and once as support to the unit leader.
Edit - Response to Guancyto. I don't think they can. Spoiler'd for number-crunching.
Numbers:
Spoiler
A force of three Solars as a Magnitude 1 special unit is superior to a force consisting of those exact same three Solars and 500 elite troops as a Magnitude 5 unit. The first group can easily manage Drill 5, Might 5 (3 + 2 for artifacts), CCA 7 (Dex 5 + Melee 5 + 4 weapon/specialties), CCD 4 (Str 3 + weapon 7) and Armor 3 (Fine Lamellar).
The second group has Drill 4 ('Imperial Heavy Foot), Might 0 ('A handful of Exalted scattered among a throng of their followers do not impart Might to the whole.'), CCA 5 (Dex 3 + Melee 4 + weapon 3), CCD 3 (Str 3 + weapon 4) and Armor 2 (Lamellar, stats for extras assume normal-quality gear).
Group A's extra CCA, when doubled for close formation, more than balances out the Magnitude bonus to damage, so Group 2's only advantage is extra health levels - which, given perfect defenses and the immense damage done by Mass Combat units, doesn't matter much.
Edit #2 - That number-crunching assumed the Exalts were fairly combat-focused and wielding daiklaives. Give them more than two dots of artifacts and the fight is even more in their favor; assume they're too poor for artifacts and that only one is combat-specialized, and the army might be worth using.
__________________
Quote:
Franks find that bloodshed and strife
Occupy most of their life--
The proper reward
For serving a lord
While ardently courting his wife.
I'm not too fussed about crushing a bunch of unled zombies with ease, but I am a bit worried about the precedent it sets. As pointed out, it sorta makes mortal armies useless - why bother building up an army of ten thousand when a pair of Exalts is almost as good? Possibly better, because you don't have to worry about rout checks and logistics and all that jazz, and the improvement over mortal statistics makes up for the drop in Magnitude. In a game that may feature lots of mass combat, I don't really want "no need for armies, we'll just form up into pairs" to be the usual.
I dunno. I just feel like defeating armies on your own (or as a pair, whatever) should be an epic feat. If it's trivial, it... well, trivializes it. (In other news, tautologies are tautological!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by industrious
I think we can safely say that there aren't any zombies left.
Well, Exalted's mass combat system is more than just a bit ridiculous. I mean, you're better off doing one single target massive damage kill shot, rather than something that, say, hits everyone within range. Bwah?
__________________
He fears his fate too much, and his reward is small, who will not put it to the touch, to win or lose it all.
-James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose
Satomi by Elagune
Not to mention that a Solar who is immune to mortals in normal combat will die almost instantly if you switch to mass combat. Which produces funny situations where a fight against 20 opponents goes from easy to oh-god-I'm-gonna-die just because one of them yelled "Mass Combat!".
(Flow Like Blood/Bulwark Stance = Ignore masses of mortals. Except in Mass Combat. Where one dies painfully)
That's sort of the point, though, isn't it? Even a skilled swordsman has trouble fighting twenty guys all at once, unless he's trained for it. Neglecting mass combat completely (like Isa did) should get you in trouble if you're fighting a large organized group.
And it's worth noting that only the Storyteller gets to yell Mass Combat. 20 people is sort of on the threshold between the two: small enough that you could run it normally, but large enough that it would be a pain (seriously, do you want to roll 20 actions?). I think the system is mostly designed for larger armies, which explains this weirdness we've found with low-Magnitude elite units and why it takes several minutes to get anything done.
__________________
Avatar by Kasanip; see her sketchbook here!
The problem is that Flows like Blood and Bulwark Stance are they way to account for it. Mass combat is portrayed as a way to simplify and speed up combat, while giving the same result. It completely fails to do this, or address things like area of effect attacks in a sensible manner.
Industrious, are Lix and I still in combat, and if so who'd tick is it?
__________________
He fears his fate too much, and his reward is small, who will not put it to the touch, to win or lose it all.
-James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose
Satomi by Elagune
Penumbra is just going to continue to rush towards the barracks, keeping to the shadows as she does so.
Bulwark Stance says "I am an unbeatable swordsman. No matter how many opponents I have, no matter how they choose to attack me, I will always show my full mastery." It will defend against a god using Divine War Subordination to coordinate the attack of an infinite number of opponents, but it becomes absolutely useless the moment things switch to mass combat.
The real problem is that it makes no systematic sense. HOW do more extras pose any threat to an Exalt? Especially when you get up to Infinite Mastery, where a (non-heroic) mortal doesn't even have the dice pool to hit an Exalt.
The current authors of the line obviously have different thoughts about defensive charms in mass combat than the original authors did. Check out the Infernals book for example, with charms like Opened Eye of the Hurricane, which acts like an even better Flow Like Blood that also applies huge boni to DVs in mass combat. That is probably the place to start if one wants to correct some of the discrepancies with mass combat.
Edit: An important thing to note about Mass Combat however, is that each level of magnitude for a unit has its own health track. So that group of 5 solars with an army? They might have a harder time of attacking the solo group of 5 at the start, but as their army wears down, it'll get easier and easier, until they are evenly matched. It isn't a great way of representing it... but it is a bit better than "Having an army makes you worse."
Last edited by Incendius : 05-07-2012 at 12:28 PM.
@Penumbra's description: Arguable. At high Magnitudes this is true; at low Magnitudes the odds of a rout instakilling your PC special characters is too high to be worth the risk. Even in that case, though, your troops aren't an asset you want to protect, they're a layer of ablative shielding to be stripped off before you start taking the fight seriously and using perfect defenses.
Also, I actually prefer a situation where 20+ able extras are dangerous to an Exalt only trained in one-on-one combat to a situation where a single charm makes you immune to armies, although I agree that Bulwark Stance/Flow Like Blood ought to give you bonuses in mass combat.
(Maybe negate the enemy's Magnitude bonus to his attack?)
And I agree that AoE attacks ought to be effective in Mass Combat. A slightly unnatural interpretation of the rules might be that they hit all Hero (and the Leader) special characters in the unit as well as dealing damage to the top Magnitude. And, of course, they'd get the bonus in effectiveness when attacking units in Close formation.
Aevy
__________________
Quote:
Franks find that bloodshed and strife
Occupy most of their life--
The proper reward
For serving a lord
While ardently courting his wife.
RSS Feeds: 
Re: The Return of the Scarlet Empress OOC
by Recaiden//
20 people is sort of on the threshold between the two: small enough that you could run it normally, but large enough that it would be a pain (seriously, do you want to roll 20 actions?). I think the system is mostly designed for larger armies, which explains this weirdness we've found with low-Magnitude elite units and why it takes several minutes to get anything done.
