Exalted General - /exg/

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the lore of the Five Dragon styles is that they were made by the Sidereals specifically for the Terrestrials. I think it'd be a funny joke if the Sidereals worked in Mastery into there so they could giggle behind the backs of Immaculate Monks that they don't know what they're missing. Gameplay-wise it should be fine without Mastery.

Well, it was mainly made to fight Lunars. The Solars were gone; only the Siddies had Mastery. And it would be a pain for a Siddie to learn a style JUST to teach it, since it wasn't worth using. I think that would make perfect sense.

what book was this in? exalted-infernals-malleus-maleficarum.obsidianportal.com/wikis/chernobaalim-the-hounds-of-hell

previous thread

>exalted-infernals-malleus-maleficarum.obsidianportal.com/wikis/chernobaalim-the-hounds-of-hell

I think that they're homebrew. The picture is cropped Guild Wars concept art.

>In order to get this thread going, what are some stories involving Lunars? Either as a PC, an ally to the PCs, an antagonist, or whatever.

I joined a recent game with a Lunar PC; when the original ST later dropped out, I was persuaded to take over and gradually converted it from a STPC to a sometimes-absent party ally.

She was a hiding-in-plain-sight sort of deal most of the time: pose as an alchemist-sage accompanied by a "familiar" (actually summoned) elemental of one of the least dangerous elemental types available, the sandbird that can heal wounds of up to 3L. She'd read stories to it and treat it as an equal and pretend like she wasn't even Exalted, just knowledgeable. She was initiated into sorcery, even carried an official-looking fake Realm-issue sorcery license, but rarely showed that. When she did sorcer, she only publicly used the Earth Servant spell that creates a harmless golem to carry stuff (it can't enter combat). This was all done under a false face (thanks, Courtesan's Possession) and she used her true human form for all of about 10 seconds during the campaign in 2 instances of showing it to PCs she trusted.

She did know the actual Art of Alchemy to keep a good cover up, but most of the potions she offered the party were something more.
Lunar Blood Shaping Technique
> A Lunar must feed her target a taste of the Lunar’s blood. Then, if the target is willing, he takes the shape of one human or animal from the Lunar’s library.
+ Hybrid Body Rearrangement
> A dedicated Lunar can learn to change just part of his body based on her spirit shape or a shape in her heart’s blood library
= RED BULL GIVES YOU WINGS!

(I'm not sure if it's actually rules legal to combine these two Knacks this way, but it was fucking awesome to feed someone blood-disguised-in-potion to give them a temporary mutation instead of a complete transformation.)

Other fun tricks included Life of the Hummingbird + Emerald Grasshopper Form. Fleabite, got yer form.

(cont)

She really wasn't a straight-up fighter with Str 2, Dex 2, and you'd laugh at her in a white room simulation, but she was an unholy terror in actual play. Fleabite, chameleon mutation and size bonus to hide, spamming unexpected attacks from stealth, stunting hiding in the other guy's hair, decent standing soak and an OBT, and of course Halting the Scarlet Flow.

When she ran into a dragon-blood who could just aura up and disrupt the fleabite strategy, she instead turned into an acid-spitting albatross and tormented him by raining acid from above, out of bow range. The accuracy was shit, but she could keep it up all fucking day at no cost.

And, of course, being able to turn into any of the animals or people accompanying an expedition. Sometimes without even killing them. As a chameleon-skinned fly, she could sneak in practically anywhere, knock out a convenient target, take their shape, cause some havoc, and bugger out. Cue unfortunate original target being found and getting accused of being a shapeshifter, only for the havoc to start up again while everyone was watching the form it seemed to have been using last.

One scene I had in mind that I unfortunately never got to play with her was a Training From Hell scenario where she'd turn into various monstrous forms such as a Marilith (or whatever pretentious name Exalted calls its local equivalent) to spar with the newbie being trained.

Yet another Iron Whirlwind Attack combination question.

Leaping Tiger Attack, can totally be combo'd with Melee normally but can it supplement each attack in Iron Whirlwind? I was thinking you could but then I reread and saw this sentence.

>This counts as the character’s movement for the round.

Now IWA lets you ignore the cost of Charms after the first activation but could you chain this together to flash step around like a madman in battle? Or since it counts as your movement could you not use it after you have previously used your movement on this Charm?

>Or since it counts as your movement could you not use it after you have previously used your movement on this Charm?

This one, correct.

IWA lets you ignore costs; it doesn't let you ignore usage limitations.

That's what brought me to question it, now, could you not use Leaping Tiger if you had already reflexively moved?

Correct.

Well damn, I'm trying to figure out how to murder an Essence 5 Resistance user and that was a good chunk of my damage. I still think I can manage it but that makes it a bit harder.

On a related note, Immortal Blade Triumphant. It converts damage dice to automatic successes, presumably this happens after soak for Withering or Adamant Skin Technique soak for Decisive?

Now how about it's earlier bonus, it gives Stunt bonuses to damage, what if you get a 2 point stunt? That's one auto-success to damage, if you don't get past Hardness does it do anything or does it get through anyway?

So, let me refine this question a bit.

Solar Melee has charms that let you bypass hardness. It also has charms that let you flurry decisive attacks. Everyone makes a big deal out of Solar Melee building up initiative, but they can just go for the kill right off the bat by racking up lethal health levels of damage that bypass hardness and render initiative moot.

Have you found that this is an issue?

Correct for both. The dice pool is reduced by soak, then rolled, which is where dice-to-success powers would happen.

>That's one auto-success to damage, if you don't get past Hardness does it do anything or does it get through anyway?
This one is trickier. By a strict reading, only damage DICE help get past hardness, not successes, and I'm inclined to think the same way, since automatic/additional successes "happen" as/after you roll, separately from the Hardness vs. Damage check.

Not really, because ignoring hardness makes those flurries all the more expensive, and swinging from base is much riskier for Melee than it is for Brawl, not the least of which because its best defense (Heavenly Guardian) comes out of init.

They swing back with a counterattack, immediately crash you, ending the flurry, and then swing again, killing you because you can't HGD.

Shit, I didn't read HGD carefully enough to realize that you can't use it while you're in crash.

I mean, I'm overstating the danger a little, but that's a very real risk of chilling out so close to base initiative: crash is no joke.

Can you use Immortal Blade Triumphant's Decisive attack with Iron Whirlwind? I can't tell if that final paragraph is supposed to be a Simple effect or Supplemental or what.

So you try to kill an opponent with your first decisive always then?

God no. "always" is a very rare thing in 3e's combat engine; the only things that are always good are penalty-negators to Defense, off the top of my head.

Some combatants DO want to make lots of small decisives over the course of the fight, others want a big alpha strike to start and then switch to small decisives to push you the rest of the way, or vice versa to build up a wound penalty and then capitalize on it with a big one.

It's a reflexive function of ending the Charm, and no you can't use it with IWA's cost-break effect.

>Solar Melee has charms that let you bypass hardness. It also has charms that let you flurry decisive attacks.
Yeah but what hardness-ignoring Charms actually work with Iron Whirlwind? The only one is Edge of Morning Sunlight.

>It's a reflexive function of ending the Charm, and no you can't use it with IWA's cost-break effect.
Okay, but can you use it with Iron Whirlwind? Immortal Blade Triumphant says terminating the Charm gives you a "single" decisive attack.

>Okay, but can you use it with Iron Whirlwind?

My read of it is that IBT's release function empowers an attack, it doesn't create one, so I'd let you use it on one of the attacks in IWA, sure.

I'd let you use it on one of the attacks, nothing too crazy about that.

huh. that explains the art

weird it looks like the only one on this listexalted-infernals-malleus-maleficarum.obsidianportal.com/wikis/first-circle-demons

If the Charm is empowering an attack, then should it not count as an attack-enhancing Charm for Iron Whirlwind? It is a Charm whose effects are enhancing an attack.

This natural language is garbage. They should have just keyworded it.

>If the Charm is empowering an attack, then should it not count as an attack-enhancing Charm for Iron Whirlwind?

It does, but that doesn't change the fact that ending a Charm isn't a cost.

If a Charm could only be used once/scene, IWA wouldn't help you there either.

Looking at Blazing Solar Bolt makes me wonder, is it impossible to block without using a charm that lets you block unblockable attacks, or does enhancing your defence with any charm at all mean you can now block it?

The latter.

How do we know that?

What about something like fall damage? Can you use Adamant Skin Technique to soak the damage? That's what its use was in 2E at least. But that deal automatic levels and then extra dice.

Say you can use AST, if you soak all the dice do the automatic levels go away?

Because if it were unblockable and undodgeable period, one of the following would be true:
1) It would be more expensive.
2) It wouldn't say "without a Charm," it would just stop at "undodgeable and unblockable."
3) It would KEEP GOING, establishing "without a Charm that can foo the unfooable."

I don't care what we "know," what's written is what's written. If they intended something else, they should have written something else.

>Certain attacks, particularly attacks modified by some Charms, are unblockable, undodgeable, or both. An unblockable attack bypasses Parry entirely, necessitating an application of Evasion to defend against. Likewise, an undodgeable attack bypasses Evasion. Using an attack that’s rolled but both unblockable and undodgeable is a difficulty zero action.

Unless a Charm says you can use it to block and unblockable, you're out of luck it completely bypasses the Defenses.

I think you misunderstood.

My point was that decisive damage with a success-booster looks like this:

Step N) "I have X damage dice." not "I have X damage dice and Y auto-successes."
Step N+1) "Is my X damage dice > Hardness? If Y, baller."
Step N+2) "I roll my dice, adding Y auto-successes, achieving Z successes in total."

That's why Hardness doesn't account for automatic successes.

Fall damage (and envirohazards in general) don't care about soak or hardness to begin with, so it's moot; even if you COULD soak the fall damage dice, that wouldn't make the levels go away, because it'd roll its pool of 0 dice and add Y successes anyway.

The attack is only unblockable while the condition "the Defense has not used a Charm" is true.

Once you use a Charm, ANY Charm, it ceases to be an unblockable attack, and so you don't need a perfect.

>I don't care what we "know,"
You misunderstand, as you just explained how we know that what you say is the case. When the writing for Charms is purposefully obtuse, we need to be able to explain why our interpretations are right. So relax, I'm not calling you a faggot or anything.

My bad, dawg.

Please quote me something that says any Charm can block an unblockable.

I just quoted text that says it bypasses Parry completely, you CAN'T apply any Charms on it, you don't get the chance.

UNLESS you have a Charm that explicitly says it allows you to block the unblockable, such as Heavenly Guardian Defense.

>some Do want to make lots of small decisives

And if they did, why waste time building init when it's going to reset anyway?

Granted, I alternate between "ambush, re-establish surprise" and "grapple" myself. But if you're looking at spamming melee and aren't looking for that big cut, then I'm not certain that I see the incentive for making withering attacks.

>Please quote me something that says any Charm can block an unblockable.

There isn't one, because that isn't what I said, you obtuse idiot.

Blazing Solar Bolt says
>Blazing Solar Bolt can strike an opponent from short range, ignores hardness, and cannot be dodged or blocked without a Charm.

The CHARM establishes that it's only unblockable/undodgeable until the defense uses a Charm. "without a Charm." Not "without a Charm that can block the unblockable," or even just "cannot be dodged or blocked," period. "without a Charm." Any Charm.

Activate your Excellency? You're using a Charm, and so BSB's own text says now it can be blocked and/or dodged.

>And if they did, why waste time building init when it's going to reset anyway?
>I'm not certain that I see the incentive for making withering attacks.
To have a buffer against your enemy's withering attacks, and to slow down HIS init gathering.

There's a huge difference, to the small-decisives style of combat, between being vulnerable to insta-crash 1 turn out of 3, and being vulnerable to insta-crash all the time.

By the same token, by not making any withering attacks at all, you've (more or less) doubled your opponent's damage potential against you. Death by a thousand cuts doesn't work if your opponent races towards "splatter you across the pavement" before you can even get to 500.

Depends on if you can get an early edge in, but I see that initiative can be important depending on how you fight. Particularly if an opponent can both attack well and has high hardness.

Guys! While playing Stellaris I found where Holden is! Siriusly.

Don't just sit there, survey that shit.

I am on route with both my fleet and science ship.

So, if I ant to build a Dawn Caste and not take War. What abilities (dodge/resistance/awareness are a given) should I take for the best synergy?

That's a lot of Holden...

Holden didn't have much to give.

Weirdly appropriate.

Is that big enough to put a city on?

Almost certainly. If it's big enough to even be visible on the map it's probably big enough to support a city-state or two.

Probably, it's about 130 miles tip to tip and about 18 miles at the widest.

We sure do a lot of combat theorycrafting here. We should have thread-built example characters to fight with to see how it works in practice.

Good.
Follow up, is it close enough to the border of the map that i could BS wyld influenced animals being a thing around there? My idea is for squids that have incredibly vibrant neon ink that the citizens harvest and sell

Definitely. Even if it weren't close to the border, there's wyld incursions all throughout Creation; leftovers from the Balorian crusade, or just random weakenings in Creation's stability.

And even if there isn't any actual Wyld LEFT, its after-effects might still persist. A bloodline of cattle that just never bred out the third eye the Wyld gave them.

Go ahead. Nexus has a section of Deep Wyld in it after all.

Armor-Eating Strike. Which incidentally happens to be the best hardness-ignoring charm

Getting to ignore between 1 and 7 Hardness for 1m is pretty good.

Both it and Iron Whirlwind are Essence 2 Charms though, so you can't use them both until at least ten sessions in with your group.

Question for anyone running or thinking about running. Do you (or will you) give an explanation in universe as to why the party is exceptional even among other Exalted? Or are they just exceptional because they are player characters?

For me, just the latter. Its not a big deal because i'll advance their closest rivals at almost the same rate

If you have lots of Downtime it might not even be an issue

youtube.com/watch?v=Q1xAOzbmSWA

NPC Solars are exceptional too, but only in ways that nobody sees or cares about unless they're direct and primary antagonists.

For a game set in the south, the Bull may unify the north under his rule, but it's outside the scope of the game until the players decide to challenge him.

What's race like in Creation?

I know people from the South have brown skin and there are panda people, but with the art style that's all you can really tell. Is everyone vaguely asian or are there actual ethnicities as we know them?

There's ethnicities, yes. You can tell where someone is from by looking, both in a broad directional sense (South vs. North) and in a more regional sense (native Gem-ites probably look different from native Delzahn).

The vast majority of Creation is some shade of brown, though; West, East, and South all noticeably so.

>"He can't tell a pure blooded Coral Islander from a filthy fucking mongrel Wavecrester"
>"Hey, you Easterners all look alike to me with your green hair"
>"Fucking slant-eyed, blonde Haslantians..."

Cultures and ethnicities generally correspond to certain directions. Asia - Centre/Realm. South - Africa. East - The Americas. North - Continental Europe. West - Pacific Islands. As you get into more specific locations, it gets shaken up, but it's a good starting point.

Most of the time they're not. I generally have notable NPC's grow roughly alongside the PC's

They explain it in the book here

>stat block for qt smith goddess removed
shame. Also miss that big statue guy who defended some town in the wyld.

How come Archery is the only combat ability that ties in combat prowess with your Intimacies? I wish Melee and the others also made more use of you fueling your strength with your Intimacies. There's a Charm or two in each ability that deals with it, and I don't think that's enough.

I bet that was meant to be replaced with the current animated statue statblock

FUCK
I JUST REALIZED MOUSE OF THE SUN ISNT THERE ANYMORE
TRAVESTY

>MOUSE OF THE SUN ISNT THERE

Good.

figuratively who

So for 3e how would you rank the following tactics so far:

>Melee spam flurries
>Ambush and re-establish surprise
>Grappling, grappling, and more grappling
>Sniping with archery/thrown plus archery/thrown
>Soak/hardness monster

An abstract concept denoting a question of personhood.

>Melee spam flurries
Rank 1 - Obliterates 98% of potential enemies with the right charm setup
>Ambush and re-establish surprise
Rank 5 - Unreliable, has many potential answers, more useful as an opening than general combat style.
>Grappling, grappling, and more grappling
Rank 3 -Solar grappling is very strong, but as a decisive gambit with several activation conditions, isn't as all-around powerful as the latter two ranks
>Sniping with archery/thrown plus archery/thrown
Rank 4 - Would be higher, but needs to be coupled with Ride for maximum cheese. Still potent as is
>Soak/hardness monster
Rank 2 - Very reliable and consistent, if unexciting

Archery has two charms that tie combat prowess with intimacies. Brawl has one, melee has one

The ambush/surprise one has been pretty solidly used in my current game by our Supernal Stealth Night with I think all the charms, now, in Ebon Shadow Style. Granted, it falls down a bit when he is fighting someone alone, but when enemies are too busy to look for him Stalking Wolf Attitude is pretty nice thing to hang around with.

>with the right charm setup
And what is the right Charm setup?

Can you guys give some good ideas for what kind of Wyld creatures and raksha would be on a Western Japan-like island?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legendary_creatures_from_Japan

What kind of fucking question is that?

Butterfly effect.

What's the most impressive chain of consequences your players have created through poorly-considered (or even well-considered) actions?

Invincible fury of the Dawn, increasing strength exercise, and armor-eating strike is the basic setup.

The idea is to use ISE to increase both base damage of every attack and also the number of attacks. This the only truly broken combo in the game.

What would you change to make it not broken?

Other than banning flurries

I would cap the number of attacks at 5.

Not him, but flurries don't need to be capped. To flurry past a flurry breaker or counterattack, and to push enough dice to crack an opponent's dv consistently burns up so many motes that I'm willing to let someone bust their wad just for the resource difference it leads to in terms of essence and willpower.

How do I add mutations to Anathema?

How do I get my own bondage nun?