u/waronvirtue

Aloha, all!

Pure mechanics: the Counter Conceptual Interposition Key for this charm it allows you to Clash with it, but doesn't specify whether it becomes reflexive. It seems like charms that use your Combat action when clashing or counterattacking specify they do.

So to clarify: Regardless of what you do on your turn, you can spend 9 motes to reflexively clash an attack with this, dealing no more than Essence damage if successful.

As I prepare to play an infernal in my group's current campaign, Principle Invoking Onslaught is probably my go to decisive attack, here are a few ideas I've had for it. Let me know if they exceed the limit of this absurd attack Charm.

I turn people into paintings of themselves.

I turn people into pigs that explode into fully butchered and barbecued, ready to eat portions.

I create a door that opens in the path a target attempting to kill me or someone else and they disappear into it.
--When I next activate Counter Conceptual Imposition, the door reappears, opens, and the previous target emerges mid attack to damage the attacker and die by absorbing the clashed attack for me.

The target's feet explode into roots that dig into the earth and the rest of them contorts into a tree covered in leaves that immediately take flight as butterflies.

The target becomes ensconced in a SWLIHN style crystal sphere and flies into the sky, never to be seen again.

The target becomes a baby.

The target becomes a harmless mundane beast of some kind.

After offering last rites to a dying person and hearing them pray for their family to have wealth and good fortune after their passing, I blast them into a pile of Resources 4 jade dust.

I'm not sure what to make of this.
It says you can use this multiple times on a character if they express discontentment once, and waive the willpower cost on successive uses this way, and that you can stack it up to essence times. Then it has a Reset rule that says you can only use it on a character once per story?

I think this is a terribly worded way of saying you can respond to only 1 expression of discontentment per character, per story.

But you can grant your own wishes... one of its keys lets you teach charms the target meets the prereqs for and Infernals have a charm that let's anyone that knows it learn Eclipse tag charms and it just says you have to go into experience debt for it.

So at Essence 3 you can just wish you knew Unrelenting Aton's Doomcryer's Decree, and as long as you are 2 charms away from meeting the prereqs, you're solidly on the way to "rocks fall, everyone dies" as a combat strategy (I say 2 charms away because you can use it 3 times on yourself to get to the desired outcome).

I know XP debt can create some issues, but at essence 3 you can jump anyone from 1 in an attribute to 5 instantly. If your table uses training times, and you've banked the XP, that's a major boon. Especially if your ST sets a rough pace to prevent you actually growing in power during stories.

Sorcerous Initiation: Wheel Within the Wheel
The Wheel Within the Wheel Sorcerous Initiation was an emergency measure taken in the God’s Rebellion.  The Divine Forces did not have time to patiently instruct young Exalts and await their enlightenment. 

It was a hazardous means of bypassing the time of introspection many find necessary to expand their personal Essence.  The risk was immense.  Once the occult understanding of how the Heavens rise above Creation was gleaned, the Exalt had to find a similar shape of a Celestial spell in the tapestry of existence and pour their essence into it, making it their Control spell and manifesting its power.  Failure resulted in a violent release of the Sorcerous power, shredding their physical form and potentially damaging their own Essence.

A Celestial or Solar Exalt at Essence 2 can attempt this initiation as soon as meet the requirements for Celestial Circle Sorcery (they have spent the necessary XP to improve to Essence 3 and know terrestrial circle sorcery). First, they must succeed on an Intelligence+Occult roll at Difficulty 7 with the goal of learning how to initiate into the Second Circle.  If they are given any manner of clue the Difficulty is 5.  As the process is highly personal with innumerable variables, even the most explicit instructions fail to do more than the vaguest hint.

When the Sorcerer casts their Terrestrial Circle Spell they must spend the XP to purchase Celestial Circle Sorcery as part of the activation cost, then roll their Shaping Action at +3 Difficulty. This difficulty increases by 1 for each additional round it takes them to gather the necessary sorcerous motes.  

Once the requisite motes are gathered, the Exalt must then choose a Celestial Spell with a thematically similar effect to the Terrestrial spell they had started casting.  For example, if their Terrestrial Spell provided a boost to defense such as Virtuous Guardian of Flame or Invulnerable Skin of Bronze, their Celestial Spell should also provide some manner of defense like Incomparable Body Arsenal.  If they had begun casting Stormwind Rider, then the Spells Swift Spirit of Winged Transportation or Travel Without Distance would be appropriate.   The Exalt must pay its Willpower cost, and begin gathering Sorcerous motes as described above with the escalating difficulty continuing to increase. 

If the Exalt fails to gather any Sorcerous motes on their turn, all of the motes gathered for both spells are rolled as damage dice against the sorcerer.  This damage ignores hardness and any magic that allows soak to be applied to decisive damage.

If the Exalt chooses to take a crippling injury to avoid death, their wound is spiritual.  Their requisite spent XP total to ascend to higher Essence is permanently increased by the amount of damage negated by the wound.  This delays their increase to Essence 3 and beyond.  Full restoration of their Exaltation isn’t possible without direct intervention by their Incarna or their Exaltation’s next life.

Terrestrial Exalts and their equivalents that attempt this practice with the aid of some relic, like the Alabaster Censer or Book of Three Circles, automatically fail.  Artifacts of level 4 and below are shattered utterly and those of 5+ are severely damaged, possibly irreparably.

Celestial or Solar Exalts of Essence 3 or higher have a much easier time initiating in this way, ignoring the difficulty increases to their Shape Sorcery Actions.  

Shaping Ritual: Heaven Over Earth
When the Sorcerer casts multiple spells in rapid succession they can accrue potent bonuses that accelerate the speed at which they cast.

When casting a Celestial Circle spell immediately after a Terrestrial Circle spell, the Sorcerer gains the following benefits.

• Unspent Sorcerous Motes from the previous spell can be applied to the next provided the casting begins on the following turn.
• If the spells are of similar intent like protection, transport, attack, or comfort, the Sorcerer can additionally convert up to their Essence in successful Shape Sorcery dice to 10s.

Other Benefits

• Swift Sorcery (Merit ooo)
  • As part of a tradition of battle ready sorcerers you gain an autosuccess to any Shape Sorcery action you take on your first turn after rolling Join Battle.
• Third Eye (Merit oooo)
  • The Sorcerer’s forehead literally splits to reveal a third eye.  This crystal irised orb grants the following benefits.
    • The eye adds a +1 non-charm die bonus to Awareness, Investigation, and Perception based Occult rolls.
    • The eye reduces the mote cost of any magic that allows the character to see dematerialized spirits or borders between worlds by 1.
• Sorcerous Haze (Merit oooo or ooooo)
  • The Sorcerer’s personal essence pool is in a state of constant flow with the world around them creating a haze around them.  Spirits and other beings sensitive to essence gain a bonus die to notice or track such the sorcerer.
  • At 4 dots this merit converts a number of personal motes into sorcerous motes whenever they roll Join Battle.  The amount of personal essence they convert is equal to their Join Battle Successes. 
  • At 5 dots the Sorcerer can choose how many motes are converted, up to their successes on Join Battle.

Any critique is appreciated. Not sure if this is just all the cocaine talking.

I'm wondering if I can tweak the base combat to streamline some things, withering and decisive attacks especially. Rationale is at the bottom. All feedback is appreciated, especially insight into the collection of charms that would most need ground up rewrites.

The Major changes simplify Withering and Decisive Attacks.  Hardness is merged into Soak, Soak now only applies to Decisive Attacks in two ways, see below.

Initiative
Initiative can also be acquired by attempting combat relevant actions that are not attacks or Gambits.  Begging for your life with a bribe, using Sorcery, moving a boulder to prevent foes from pursuing you, trying to calm things down, attempting to hide, etc.  In combat, all of these actions, successful or not, will accrue initiative equal to the base attribute of the roll you make.  The Storyteller is the final arbiter of whether an action you take is combat relevant.  Special exceptions for the Defend Other and Full Defense Actions are as follows:
Full Defense accrues 3 Initiative.
Defend Other accrues 5 Initative.

Attacks
On your turn, when you declare Attack, you target a foe and decide if it is Withering or Decisive as normal.

Withering Attacks
These exchanges are meant to be expressions of martial dominance that drive a target into a position where they can be critically injured or killed. 

Roll your attack pool (typically Dexterity+Attack Ability+Weapon Accuracy bonus) like normal.

If your attack hits, you steal initative equal to:
your Choice of Damage Attribute (typically Strength) or Weapon Damage bonus + Threshold Successes + 1 (+ any Crash bonus).  There is no damage roll or soak applied at this time.  You gain this amount and the target loses this amount.

On a Miss, you still gain an amount of Initiative equal to your Intelligence as your understanding of your enemy’s defenses grows.

Weapon Damage
Mundane Weapons have a damage values of 2/3/4 for Light/Medium/Heavy weapons respectively. Artifact Weapons have values of 3/5/7.

Decisive Attacks
Imagine how your character fights.  Do they plan out their combos and predict their enemy’s counters like a martial chess match?  Do they try to overwhelm with ferocity until the foe’s body or spirit fails them and then pounce on their weakness?  Do they flail around just hoping to get lucky?  However they fight, Decisive Attacks are the moment you’ve been waiting for, checkmate, lucky shot, or the instant a muscle cramps while they try to parry leaving an opening for you to pierce.

Once you declare a Decisive Attack it resolves as follows:

1. Confirm with the Storyteller if your current initiative total is higher than the target’s Soak.  
   1. If it is, roll your initiative pool and deal damage equal to successes.
   2. If it is not, then your attack tinks off their armor but you will gain Initiative equal to your Intelligence.
2. An armored character may convert up to their Soak lethal damage levels to bashing.  This does not reduce total levels of damage dealt and bashing damage that exceeds target’s total health levels will wrap around to lethal (and even aggravated) as normal.
3. Once you successfully deal damage with a decisive attack, you reset to base initiative.

Gambits
Gambits are assigned to various Abilities, so Grapple would fall under Brawl and Martial Arts, Unmount could be any attack Ability or Ride, Disarm could be any attack ability or Larceny, etc. Gambits work exactly like decisive attacks, you just roll your initiative, but they are always a flat difficulty (like Distract) or equal to the target’s defense (like Disarm).

• A Gambit costs a number of initiative equal to its difficulty on a success.  Failing a gambit results in you gaining only 1 Initiative.  
• A character’s Excellencies can be applied to Gambit rolls only if the Storyteller deems the Gambit falls under an Ability for which they have an excellency, such as Disarming with Larceny or or Unmounting with Ride. 
• Weapon tags may broaden their applicability, like a Whip adding Grapple to your melee Gambits.
• Gambits do not deal damage directly but may result in indirect injury. Shooting a chandelier down from a ceiling might knock prone and restrain an ideally positioned target, but the ST may decide it also brains him or sets him on fire.  For secondary complications like this, “charging” the player additional initiative based on the hazard damage is appropriate and if the Gambit deals 3 or more levels of damage their initiative should reset to base.

Grapple
Grappling is a special type of Gambit which works as follows.
When a Grapple is declared, the Grappler rolls their Initiative pool as normal for a Gambit against the target’s choice of their Evasion or Parry.  

• If the target chooses Evasion, move on and resolve the Grapple normally
• If the target chooses Parry and is armed with a weapon, the initiator must use a stunt or suffer 1 level of damage during their attempt.  The damage type is bashing or lethal based on the weapon.  Alternatively, the Initiator may switch to a Disarm Gambit and the target’s defense is reduced by 1. This also requires a stunt or the Grappler suffers 2 levels of damage while grabbing the naked blade or blunt instrument mid swing.  If the Grappler continues with the Grapple attempt, they resolve it normally.

Resolving the Grapple
If the Initiative Roll is successful and exceeds the target’s chosen defense, they are grappled.  The initiator’s remaining initiative is spent purchasing rounds of Control.  Each round of control costs 2 initiative.  The Initiator can purchase no more rounds of control than their Strength Score.  Any remaining initiative can be held in reserve for a later attack or spent immediately as part of a Decisive Savaging Attack, Throw or Slam.  In this latter case, their initiative resets normally.

• Savaging Attack. The Grappler makes a Withering or Decisive Brawling Attack in the form of eye gouge, throttling, even grinding their face into a stone wall. The target has a Defense of 0 against Withering Savaging Attacks.  Decisive Savaging Attacks deal Bashing damage but may deal lethal damage with a suitable stunt.
• Throw/Slam.  The Grappler slams the target to the ground at their feet or hurls them bodily to a point in close range.  The Grappler immediately forfeits all remaining rounds of control. A Withering Throw/Slam is resolved like a Savaging attack against the target’s Defense of 0.  The Grappler steals 2 additional points of initiative per round of Control forfeited.  A Decisive Throw/Slam rolls 1 additional die of damage per round of Control forfeited.  The damage of a Decisive Throw/Slam is bashing and ignores up to the Grappler’s Strength in Soak.  Once thrown or Slammed the target is Prone.  Decisive throws and slams can deal lethal damage if the target is smashed into particularly deadly setting elements like spiked floors, a phalanx of ready spearmen, etc.

 

Disengage
Disengaging is the default assumption for movement in combat.  When a creature attempts to move out of close combat, enemies can reflexively attempt to stop them by rolling Dexterity+Athletics agains the moving creature’s Evasion.  A creature can choose to dedicate its combat action to Disengaging.  If it does it rolls Dexterity + Dodge and adds successes directly to its Evasion total.

Notes:
“Velma hits him with a shovel” is a trope this supports.  You can play a combat averse nerd with a high Intelligence, and every time your throwing dart or walking stick misses you’ll still gain a fair amount of initiative. Assuming you don’t get shoved in a locker, by round 3 you could have 18 initiative to give someone a whack.

Charms and effects that inflate soak are great, however, they will continue to feed your foes initiative and as the pools increase, the more costly they’ll be to completely shrug off.  This feels good to me.  Tanks will reliably tank for 4-5 rounds and then start getting their heads caved in if the foes aren’t being dealt with sooner.

As successful withering attacks now always result in initiative changes, but those changes are always the same number between attacker and target, bookkeeping should be made a little easier.  If an attacker does 5 withering and crashes the target, he goes up by 11 and the target goes down by 11.  Crashes are less crippling as misses still accrue initiative to pull you out of the hole.

Armored characters are way less likely to die outright. Even if they do get meteor attacked, the armor rolls down the damage type, but they can be incapacitated just as easily.  This makes taking prisoners or having NPCs wake up on the field after a few hours to return in some later story a lot more likely.

There’s a sorcerer player at my table. they have a dozen spells but I feel like the only one I ever see in combat (and in fact the only thing they do in combat) is Obsidian butterflies. are there merits to other spells I could point out or is this the intended play loop?

Aloha!
I am under the impression that the Strength increase from the eponymous Charm might count as dice added from charms and therefore apply to dice caps. Or am I wrong and it actually raises your Athletics Dice Caps. Given the scarcity of doubles charms in the Athletics tree (I think there's a double 9s near the capstone), bumping the dice cap doesn't seem unreasonable.

Any insight is appreciated.

the Solar Craft charm Design Beyond Limit references Emerald, Sapphire, and Adamant Evocations.

is that just an artifact from earlier versions or is there a tier breakdown somewhere?

Aloha!
Like it says in the title, what dice pool should I use.

I'm leaning toward Craft as Salvage magical materials from buried battle ground is the thing.

Some might say this is a leadership project, but does it have to be?

If you're an architect and you're building the mine, shouldn't your Craft Charms be applicable to the excavating? Then you treat it like a Superior or Legendary Project and you can finish it in a few months.

Aloha!

I'm firing Exalted on all cylinders today, so I figured I'd try to get a sense of the Craft XP cost of building a Resort Town in the desert.

I figure it's a Superior Project. I'm not raising manses or working with magical materials, it's just a big major project with maybe a few smaller major projects.

I'm not a civil engineer or civic planner, let me know if I'm missing anything:

1. Geomancy
2. Sewers
3. Foundations
   1. Residential homes/apartments
   2. Short term residential Inns/hotels
   3. Food storage
   4. Restaurants/Cafes
   5. Salons/Retail fixtures
   6. Import/Export locale
   7. Walls
   8. Other Entertainment
   9. Baths
   10. Government Building/Vault
   11. Bazaar spaces
   12. Ore/Gem Processing and Sorting
4. Walls and Ceilings for above list
5. Miscellaneous creature comforts (furniture, art, etc)
6. Waste Treatment

I want to break it down into Stages, like say
Stage 1. create the Foundations with Alchemy and Architecture (fusing sand into desired shapes), then the sewers around the foundations.

Stage 2. Actually erect the buildings

Stage 3. Add the guts of the buildings like counters, furniture, water slide for the bath house, other design elements to make it fancy and livable.

Would that be 3 Majors for each building or just Superior for the Whole town each time?
Any thoughts are appreciated.

I‘m playing a Craft forward Twilight. we just took a year of Downtime during which I make it a point to do no cost home repairs for the people of a poor neighborhood in Chiaroscuro.

I have a Defining Intimacy of “Elevate the Weak” these small acts uphold.

Assuming I manage 3 such acts a week, is that ~450 Silver Points?

I don’t see anything stating you don’t get Craft xp during down time except for one Charm that explicitly says you don’t get the free XP that charm gives you each day.

Update: I had completely missed a section of Rewards for Superior Projects that can (once you reach that success trivialization level of Charms) can net you more Gold Points than you spend to Finish. I officially revoked my request to discuss this with the ST as my recalculation put me up over 100 gxp which should be more than enough to finish all my down time superior projects.

does this combination work together or is Ox-Stunning Blow a flat 1 round penalty?

by my reading, Falling Hammer doesn’t extend other character’s inflicted onslaught penalties, but it says nothing about additional onslaught dependent penalties. so it feels like a chocolate and peanut butter combo to me.

Anyone know better?

aloha!

Is there a cut off for feeding your older content specific augments to the newest?

game offered me the option to burn my rage skulls on my K-Rad augments from Argo but now it doesn’t. is that a bug?

Are a Lunar’s tattoos visible in beast and DBT fur patterns?

if yes, are there trace amounts of moon silver in the fur that grows out of the tattoos? knowing Lunar tattoos are part of their body and definitely regenerate like skin, hair, and fingernails.

if you give a Lunar a Mohawk, does their animal form also have a Mohawk.

assuming haircuts transfer only if the lunar wants, could you shear a sheep lunar’s DBT form for a full coat the. have the lunar swap back and forth for another full coat?

understanding you’d need to spend all of your near immortality to get a few bars worth of moon silver this way, could you instead weave a moon silver infused barding for a mount other than the lunar themself in beast form?

if yes, could the lunar attune the barding for the mount even if someone else rode it?

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So I have a bunch of ideas for a new godly familiar for my Solar PC.

#1. Seven Swords Magistrate. I go beat up the 7 greatest mortal swordsmen of an area. Then I charm up a god using the spirits of their swords.

#2. Black-Blooded Martyr. I merc a 1st circle demon and then use it‘s essence to create a spirit that exists solely to be an occult battery. given my sorcerous awakening type the black blood is actually Ink.

#3. Estrangement of Eye and Hand. A god of pickpockets to bless the orphans I support.

which one should i make?

Mask of Unavoidable Truths

artifact 4

mounted on this hellsilk hood is a moon silver mask so thin it is barely translucent. the mask always displays either a comic smile or tragic frown though these may or may not reflect the wearer‘s true feelings.

once attuned it merges seamlessly with the wearer’s face allowing them to mimic the facial appearance of a another creature. this grants 1 to 3 non-charm dice to stunts to impersonate the figure if other magic or tricks are used to explain gross physical differences like lost limbs or radical changes in height or weight.

As a gift for a particular Lunar, the artifact’s true power awakens if attuned by a practitioner of Silver-Voiced Nightingale Style. Such martial artists may treat their Kiai attacks as Arifact thrown weapons And the 1st Evocation is awakened.

Infinite Onomotopoeia Utterances

Cost: 1mote or 4 motes 1wp

type: Reflexive

keywords: Mute, Crippling, Dual

The mask hears and reinterprets typical human approximations of sounds and recreates the sound as it was written in the skein of Creations working by the ancients themselves. For 1 mote this grants the wearer 3 non-charm successes on manipulation rolls for which perfect recreations of sounds is beneficial (like covering for poor stealth or providing a distraction).

The magic can even transcend artistry to become reality when invoked full throatedly.
when the bearer activates this charm for 1 mote as part of a Kiai, the can repoace their shout with such an utterance, replacing some of the raw damage with unexpected impact. Words like BAM, POW, or CRASH can send the target flying one Range Band away or knock them Prone.

For 3motes and 1 willpower the wearer can use a particularly vicious word as part of a Decisive attack like SLICE, FWASH, or CRACK and inflict an exceedingly deadly attack. A Slice might amputate a particular limb, Fwash cause them to burst into flame, while Crack might be the sound of thunder as they’re struck by lightning. The wearer adds their Essence as damage dice and the damage is Aggravated.

later Evocations allow you to whisper Kiais along threads of wind,

bury a Kiai in casual conversation and delay its damage as a resonating word that will kill them later

repeat a target’s argument back to them but make them feel like the meaning is exactly the opposite (this can come from grammatical or semantic shenanigans or tone. either way,it can erode strong intimacies or invert minor ones.

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