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Plutonis: Mar 25, 2011

I like games where I can kill poo poo but also make stuff which to kill poo poo better

# ? Feb 14, 2015 06:14

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# ? May 28, 2024 00:57

Transient People: Dec 22, 2011; "When a man thinketh on anything whatsoever, his next thought after is not altogether so casual as it seems to be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently."
- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

I like games where I can kill poo poo but also make stuff which to kill poo poo better

Anybody mind if I go ahead and emptyquote this?

# ? Feb 14, 2015 06:49

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Ferrinus posted:

EDIT: Craft's structural weaknesses aren't actually shared by other Abilities with robust resolution systems, because those resolution systems generally give you a lot of distinct, mutually-exclusive actions to take all of which have their own subtle/incredible upgrades. Like, Melee's got a lot of dice shenanigans, but some of those are for attacks, some are for parries, some are for guarding others, some are for counterattacks... Crafts basically features a single action, "craft", which you perform repeatedly, and to which every Craft booster can be independently applied. It would've been nice to see some kind of action-based divisions, like this charm helps if you're making a weapon, this charm helps if you're making a piece of artwork, blah blah.

Well there are though, that's what all the different Projects types are. They're divided by complexity rather than type. Some of the categories are best used to make characterful stuff, others are good for outfitting the party, and then there is "get hype" tier of legendary poo poo. Plus you've got materials procurement, which is a process that's spread out all over quite a few different trees with lots of different approaches - and some of it probably can't even be resolved without actually going adventuring for poo poo. Seeing as literally the next book out is a huge equipment catalog I'm sure it will keep developing.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 06:52

Kenlon: Jun 27, 2003; Digitus Impudicus

Once again, it's back to Roadie's trees we go, this time for Bureaucracy. Rather than the rather simple sub-tree layout coming from each root charm, the sub-trees start from the second charm up. Some of them then proceed to join together, but they remain mostly separate.

-------------------------------------------

Without further ado, we're off! I'll start by looking at the two Root Charms.

Frugal Merchant Method: The Solar can instantly identify the quality of a good being sold, but knows nothing of it's value in any particular place or what it is for. Useful enough, but not world-shaking.
Deft Official's Way: This one's a bit more fun. When using the Read Intentions action, the Solar may add their Bureaucracy score in dice, as long as the action is in a bureaucratic context. Not flashy, but I can see a lot of uses.

Now we start on the subtrees - working from the right, we have the Personnel tree. All of these deal with affecting the people working in a bureaucracy, for good or ill.

Indolent Official Charm: Slows a single Bureaucracy action by one degree per point of the Exalt's essence. Days->Weeks->Months->Seasons->Years - this means that if you piss of an Essence 5 Solar, simply trying to get a new parking permit may literally take forever.
Foul Air of Argument Technique: Instead of just slowing an action, this wrecks entire projects. The Solar rolls [Cha or Man] + Bureaucracy against the ability being used for the project. Each success results in (Solar's Essence) in botches on rolls being used to further the project. It's kinda ludicrous.
Taboo-Inflicting Diatribe: Immunizes the Solar's organization against a particular action - has to be specifically defined. Any influence that would cause a member of the organization to take that action can be treated as unacceptable.
Order-Conferring Action: Moves from preventing a single action from occuring, to generally boosting the performance of an organization. The Solar rolls Charisma + Bureaucracy at difficulty 5. Each success gives the organizations leaders a non-Charm die for rolls on the organization's projects. These dice can be used (Solar's Essence) times.

There's some very definite mirroring between the lower and higher-end charms in this tree - being able to ruin projects and organizations before you learn to boost them is pretty nice, thematically.
-------------------------------------------

Next over is a tree that's all about Running Organizations.

Right leg:

Speed the Wheels: This Charm is the mirror of Indolent Official Charm. It speeds projects by a number of degrees equal to the Solar's Essence. Simple and powerful - want to complete a research project that would take a century in mere minutes?
Bureau-Rectifying Method: No one expects the Solar Inquisition! This supplements an internal investigation of an organization, adding the Solar's Bureaucracy in autosuccesses to Investigation and Socialize rolls related to the investigation. While this Charm is up, all members of the organization have an Intimacy of trust towards the Solar (in organizational matters). Useful? Sure. Fun? Meh.

Left leg:

Measuring Glance: Does a Read Intentions action that is automatically successful unless resisted by magic, and cannot be resisted at all by targets with a lower temporary Willpower than the Solar. This action determines the target's strongest or most relevant Intimacy related to the organization they belong to.(If resisted, the dice pool for the action is (any Social or Mental attribute) + Bureaucracy, with the Solar's Essence in auto successes.) Very useful in finding a handle to yank on with social combat.
Enigmatic Bureau Understanding: Enhances Measuring Glance, letting the Solar know if the Intimacy read by that charm has been challenged by some sort of magic. Not what the challenge was, and it only will go off if the person who was read is currently working for the organization in some capacity. This one seems pretty niche to me, but gives lots of opportunities as a GM to let my players know that someone is sniffing around their turf, so I like it.

Upper tree:

Bureau-Reforming Kata: Used as a follow-up after Bureau-Rectifying Method, this charm removes negative magical effects (like Indolent Official Charm) from an organization. But only if the GM thinks the Solar has been thorough enough. Too much handwavium here - this is why there needs to be a system, dammit.
Woe-Capturing Web: Permanent Charm that notifies the Solar if someone drops hostile magic on his organization. If the Solar's player guesses correctly where the magic is coming from, Bureau-Reforming Kata can be used to immediately clear the effect. Once Bureau-Reforming has been used, this charm also allows the Solar to spend motes equal to the motes used to launch the hostile magic, preventing it from expiring before the normal duration is up - and locking the opponent's mote commitment in place.
Omen-Spawning Beast: If the Solar has any magic effects trapped by Woe-Capturing Web, this Charm reveals who cast it.
Infinitely-Efficient Register: Once per story, the Solar's organization instantly completes some project without the Solar having initiated it. The scope of the project is apparently to be adjudicated by the GM - "The more powerful her organization, the better the discovered spoils will be." Great in concept, but the lack of real rules puts this firmly in handwavium territory.

So. Some of this is really cool. The interplay of offensive and defensive magic around organizations? Awesome. But these are really wordy Charms, full of individual caveats and rules - because the entirety of the projects rules consists of four, rather vague, pages. Social Influence has 15. Combat has 28. This is a category in which Exalted 3e fails just as much as Exalted 2e. And that's a drat shame.
-------------------------------------------

This tree is about Influence - with one notable dead charm in the middle.

Enlightened Discourse Method: Scenelong, adds half Bureaucracy in dice to Social Influence related to bureaucracy. Trade, bargains, treaties, etc. Simple. I like simple.
Semantic Argument Technique: Scenelong, adds half Bureaucracy in dice to all Social Influence related to laws or rules the target follows. Also good.
Eclectic Verbiage of Law: Once per season, may use a full Bureaucracy Excellency for free. Really? Seriously? If there was something in the projects system that limited the number of dice that could be used for an entire project, and this bypassed that, I could see it. But as it stands, this is terrible.
Subject-Hailing Ideology: This, though, is almost cool enough to make the previous crap charm worth taking. This lets the Solar use an Intimacy that someone no longer has. At the full strength it held. Need to get a drunken sot of a former general to lead an army? Appeal to the Defining Intimacy of Martial Pride that he no longer has. Need to get the cooperation of a pair of best friends who hate each other now? Reach back and resurrect their Major Intimacy of friendship for just long enough to convince them, and so on and so on. This is great. Not surprisingly, it interacts with the well fleshed out Social Influence system rather than with projects. . .

These are mostly good - and are easy enough for a socially focused character who happens to splash into Bureaucracy to pick up.
-------------------------------------------

What's next over? It's the Market tree. All about enhancing the Solar's ability to find and evaluate buyers and sellers.

Consumer-Evaluating Glance: This lets the Solar instantly know a buyer's budget and intentions with a pretty easy roll (Perception or Wits plus Bureaucracy against Guile). If the target is trying to cheat him, it adds the Solar's Essence to his Resolve for bargain actions. Also lets the Solar know the target's Resources rating, and if they are intending to buy or need to be coaxed into a bargain action.
All-Seeing Master Procurer: This one lets the Solar sit anywhere and make the market come to him. Affected characters see the Solar as the person to seek out for any particular product or information that the Solar wishes. Want to buy or sell a particular thing? Fire this up and you're going to have more buyers or sellers than you could possibly want. I like the idea, but there's no mechanics associated, which is not so good.
Illimitable Master Fence: After one day observing a market, the Solar knows the bureaucracy specialties of everyone associated with that market - even people he's never met or seen.
Ungoverned Market Awareness: Any time someone buys or sells with Bureaucracy or Larceny within the range of the Solar's senses, the Solar knows about it. It's not overwhelming or anything, but any buyer or seller that the Solar wants to find will be found unerringly.

This tree is pretty good if you want to be a master trader, and has definite crossover potential. If you want to shut down a black market, it helps to be able to find it, and locating a target for assassination by detecting him buying a pork bun is a pretty neat one too.
-------------------------------------------

And finally, we have the Ice to Eskimos tree.

Insightful Buyer Technique: Lets the Solar perfectly check how much a good will sell for at a particular market. It has to be a market they know, but they don't have to be there.
Irresistible Salesman Spirit: Boosts bargain actions by making 7's count as two successes. Also gains back a the point of willpower it costs if the sale is successful.
Empowered Barter Stance: Once per day, regain one temporary willpower for succeeding at a bargain action.
Soul-Snaring Pitch: This one is mean. This lets a Solar sell anything to anyone - if they have a permanent willpower lower than the Solar's Essence, there's not even a roll! If their Willpower is higher, it's Manipulation+Bureaucracy with (Solar's Essence) in autosuccesses against the target's Resolve. And it costs (Solar's Essence) in willpower to resist. Daaaaaaaaaamn.

This tree is pretty straightforward, not much to say here, other than that Soul-Snaring Pitch is evil.
-------------------------------------------

Overall Evaluation:
Only about a third of these charms interact with the projects system. And they are some of the least interesting. The best stuff is all related to social influence - Bureaucracy is significantly better than it was in 2e as a charm tree, but the lack of a proper "here's how to handle large scale organizations and projects" mechanic really shows.

EDIT:

Roadie posted:

It would be interesting to see your analysis of Presence.

Since you made those trees, I'll be doing this next.

Kenlon fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Feb 14, 2015

# ? Feb 14, 2015 07:05

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:

Well there are though, that's what all the different Projects types are. They're divided by complexity rather than type. Some of the categories are best used to make characterful stuff, others are good for outfitting the party, and then there is "get hype" tier of legendary poo poo. Plus you've got materials procurement, which is a process that's spread out all over quite a few different trees with lots of different approaches - and some of it probably can't even be resolved without actually going adventuring for poo poo. Seeing as literally the next book out is a huge equipment catalog I'm sure it will keep developing.

The different project types are all about scale and power, not effect. It goes trivial -> big -> artifact -> legendary artifact. However, there's actually no way for one Twilight to be better at making death rays while another Twilight is better at making robots.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 07:12

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Ferrinus posted:

The different project types are all about scale and power, not effect. It goes trivial -> big -> artifact -> legendary artifact. However, there's actually no way for one Twilight to be better at making death rays while another Twilight is better at making robots.

They could take specialties in them! :v:

# ? Feb 14, 2015 07:25

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

I think the issue is the Craft tree is already enormous, and they don't want to put players in a position where the entire party's production is so specialized it becomes boring, or turns Twilights into assembly lines (instead of full-service machine shops, or 3D printers). At the same time there's a lot of room for infrastructure, armaments, gifts, and luxury items for Twilights to be making. Maybe anyone with a Craft charm is already a Renaissance man.

e: To me it seems like being dissatisfied with swords and flails using the same skill or something. It's not really an interesting choice if you'll make weapons versus armor at any given time, but rather whether you're dedicating your most difficult projects to yourself, the Circle or for the community. That seems like a more interesting space for decisions to happen since it goes to narrative choices more than pure optimization - what takes priority?

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Feb 14, 2015

# ? Feb 14, 2015 07:28

Mexcillent: Dec 6, 2008

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

I like games where I can kill poo poo but also make stuff which to kill poo poo better

Which game is that which this happens in and isn't an enormous rear end ache monopolizing game time

# ? Feb 14, 2015 07:43

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:

I think the issue is the Craft tree is already enormous, and they don't want to put players in a position where the entire party's production is so specialized it becomes boring, or turns Twilights into assembly lines (instead of full-service machine shops, or 3D printers). At the same time there's a lot of room for infrastructure, armaments, gifts, and luxury items for Twilights to be making. Maybe anyone with a Craft charm is already a Renaissance man.

e: To me it seems like being dissatisfied with swords and flails using the same skill or something. It's not really an interesting choice if you'll make weapons versus armor at any given time, but rather whether you're dedicating your most difficult projects to yourself, the Circle or for the community. That seems like a more interesting space for decisions to happen since it goes to narrative choices more than pure optimization - what takes priority?

The Craft tree would feel less enormous if, like in the other trees on display here, all of its dice adders didn't all stack for the purpose of enhancing the single action you used Crafts for, ever, but instead were somehow divided up by intention or discipline or power added or magical materials exploited or something.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 08:00

Bouquet: Jul 14, 2001

Mexcillent posted:

Which game is that which this happens in and isn't an enormous rear end ache monopolizing game time

Games where the GM and players communicate between sessions (which I have seen happen plenty of times for games where everyone is super excited and/or the time between sessions is longer than people want) or the game runs asynchronously (like the Play by Post games on these very forums).

If the GM and players have exactly four hours per week to get together and no time or interest for the game in between, then maybe crafting or secret negotiations or kingdom management are not good fits and you should stick to your action game paradigm. There are a lot of groups where that four hours per week scenario is not accurate and non-fighting, non-talking activities are of interest to some or all of the group.

Bouquet fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Feb 14, 2015

# ? Feb 14, 2015 08:02

Kenlon: Jun 27, 2003; Digitus Impudicus

Mexcillent posted:

Which game is that which this happens in and isn't an enormous rear end ache monopolizing game time

Mine.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 08:03

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Mexcillent posted:

Which game is that which this happens in and isn't an enormous rear end ache monopolizing game time

Apocalypse World.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 08:15

KittyEmpress: Dec 30, 2012; Jam Buddies

As much as I bitch about craft in 2e, I've had plenty of games where it did work in just fine. And most of the times where it didn't wasn't because it ate up too much real life time, you literally in 2e would make one roll every few weeks of in game time. It's that a lot of fiction in 2e made poo poo too urgent for you to be able to go and sit down and make an artifact, and groups I played with sometimes played to that.

Like, if your campaign is a grand 'solar troupe creates a nation over the course of many years', crafters will work perfectly and fit in great! They're sort-of usable even in 2e!

If your campaign is the Yozis are LITERALLY BREAKING OUT AS WE SPEAK/ the Deathlords are LITERALLY DESTROYING CREATION AS WE SPEAK/ the Fair Folk are LITERALLY CREATING AN ARMY AND MARCHING ON CREATION AS WE SPEAK then no, a crafter wont fit in.

I was in a campaign that lasted a year and a half that had 35 years pass IC. It was a sidereal game and none of us were crafters, but it still happened.

I was also in another campaign that lasted a year and a half almost that took place inside of a single season (so three months or so). I happened to start out as a crafter in that one, but when the ST realized that I'd be basically useless with how the game was going plot speed wise, he let me remake my character as a sorcerer.

2e Crafting wasn't good or what I'd call amazing, but it wasn't an 'enormous rear end ache monopolizing game time'. Write up an artifact you want to make, show it to the ST, ST reads it either on their own time away from the game table or while someone goes to pee/get food/while someone is trying to get a 3die stunt and emoting for 20 mintues, says yes to it, and then you make a single roll at the end of the session, and start tracking how close to done it was.

Unless you mean 'game time' by 'in game time' which I mean yeah, it takes loving forever to craft in character. It seems like it still does, but even crafting that takes 5 minutes (banging out an iron sword, cooking some food) is enough to get you some benefit for later on, at least.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 08:31

MiltonSlavemasta: Feb 12, 2009; And the cats in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
"When you coming home, dad?"
"I don't know when
We'll get together then son you know we'll have a good time then."

I do kind of like that the 3e crafting system encourages an Exalted crafter to be regularly working on basic, medium-scale and grand projects all at the same time and makes it....sort of a pain but not totally horrendous to track all of that.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 09:14

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Wait, wait, hold on. Can I use the crafting system to produce artifact-level meals?

# ? Feb 14, 2015 09:46

Bedlamdan: Apr 25, 2008

Nessus posted:

Wait, wait, hold on. Can I use the crafting system to produce artifact-level meals?

Correct.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 09:57

KittyEmpress: Dec 30, 2012; Jam Buddies

Nessus posted:

Wait, wait, hold on. Can I use the crafting system to produce artifact-level meals?

Yes. There is nothing saying you can't, just that it will use Craft (Artifact) paired with Craft (Cooking) in RAW. If the crafting guidelines fit with 2e, then temporary one use artifacts like food count as having a major flaw. It's also awesome.

I'm currently working on a Twilight who refuses to make 'barbaric creations' like weapons or armor. She'll totally make you a meal that will make you super strong or heal all your wounds, or knit you a nice artifact scarf, but gently caress your barbaric murder tools.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 09:58

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

This is the new face of 3E crafting. I withdraw my complaints.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 10:22

Plutonis: Mar 25, 2011

Mr. Maltose posted:

Apocalypse World.

Real game.

Nessus posted:

This is the new face of 3E crafting. I withdraw my complaints.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 15:26

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Now that y'all mention it, one-shot/disposable artifacts like meals, bombs, etc. are another thing our existing rules don't quite cover. Logically, they should be easier to bang out... but how much easier?

# ? Feb 14, 2015 15:37

bartkusa: Sep 25, 2005; Air, Fire, Earth, Hope

Eclectic Verbiage of Law seems useful in a game where an in-game month passes for every 30 minutes of play-time.

But what, other than crafting, encourages play at that pace?

# ? Feb 14, 2015 17:34

Attorney at Funk: Jun 3, 2008; ...the person who says honestly that he despairs is closer to being cured than all those who are not regarded as despairing by themselves or others.

bartkusa posted:

Eclectic Verbiage of Law seems useful in a game where an in-game month passes for every 30 minutes of play-time.

But what, other than crafting, encourages play at that pace?

Zoomed-out organizational practices like governance, diplomacy, running a cult, etc. all could. The real difference is that it's frequently very hard to encourage artifice at the timescale that everything else happens at whereas you can easily make a conventionally-paced scene or story out of, e.g., a diplomatic summit or a religious festival. Literally, the problem is that Rome wasn't built in a day.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 18:02

Mendrian: Jan 6, 2013

Personally I like the Reign approach where a season or so passes between games.

Of course that's just another vote for using Reign for the zoomed out organization stuff. If somebody could find a way to make Bureaucracy, Socialize, Linguistics, Lore, War, and a couple of others interact with the Company rules from Reign we'd be golden.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 20:13

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Attorney at Funk posted:

Zoomed-out organizational practices like governance, diplomacy, running a cult, etc. all could. The real difference is that it's frequently very hard to encourage artifice at the timescale that everything else happens at whereas you can easily make a conventionally-paced scene or story out of, e.g., a diplomatic summit or a religious festival. Literally, the problem is that Rome wasn't built in a day.

Even if Exalted magic could build Rome in a year instead of centuries, that's still a non-trivial amount of time.

Mendrian posted:

Personally I like the Reign approach where a season or so passes between games.

Of course that's just another vote for using Reign for the zoomed out organization stuff. If somebody could find a way to make Bureaucracy, Socialize, Linguistics, Lore, War, and a couple of others interact with the Company rules from Reign we'd be golden.

It works really well for Ars Magica, but Ars Magica has also kind of been engineered around several major assumptions which Exalted is not, such as "people live in clubhouses of wizzards with broadly similar internal structures, even if sometimes these structures are part of a flying building attended by skeleton warriors on hippogryphs."

# ? Feb 14, 2015 20:30

RiotGearEpsilon: Jun 26, 2005; SHAVE ME FROM MY SHELF

Kenlon posted:

Eclectic Verbiage of Law: Once per season, may use a full Bureaucracy Excellency for free. Really? Seriously? If there was something in the projects system that limited the number of dice that could be used for an entire project, and this bypassed that, I could see it. But as it stands, this is terrible.

Not arguing that this isn't terrible, but you overlooked one important part of the charm: the charm resets, letting you immediately use it again regardless of how much time has passed, if the Solar aids in the success of a particularly difficult project "as determined by the storyteller".

# ? Feb 14, 2015 21:45

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Ferrinus posted:

Now that y'all mention it, one-shot/disposable artifacts like meals, bombs, etc. are another thing our existing rules don't quite cover. Logically, they should be easier to bang out... but how much easier?

More like sorcerous workings imo.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 00:52

Kenlon: Jun 27, 2003; Digitus Impudicus

RiotGearEpsilon posted:

Not arguing that this isn't terrible, but you overlooked one important part of the charm: the charm resets, letting you immediately use it again regardless of how much time has passed, if the Solar aids in the success of a particularly difficult project "as determined by the storyteller".

"As determined by the Storyteller" is the worst sort of handwavium.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 01:05

Ronwayne: Nov 20, 2007; That warm and fuzzy feeling.

"gently caress it, you figure it out."

# ? Feb 15, 2015 01:11

RiotGearEpsilon: Jun 26, 2005; SHAVE ME FROM MY SHELF

There are times and places for it.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 01:12

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

RiotGearEpsilon posted:

There are times and places for it.

I would say that if the context is not "here is your explicit permission to break our rules if you want," it should be framed with examples. There's a difference between "Your Funk meter refills completely during significant periods of downtime, breaks in the story, or similar points at the GM's discretion" and "your Funk meter refills completely, whenever your GM thinks it's appropriate."

# ? Feb 15, 2015 01:37

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Kenlon posted:

"As determined by the Storyteller" is the worst sort of handwavium.

I feel like it'd be worth analyzing things assuming that any "up to the GM" conditions never trigger.

EDIT: Unless they're bad for the PC in which case they always go off.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 01:45

Ronwayne: Nov 20, 2007; That warm and fuzzy feeling.

Zereth posted:

I feel like it'd be worth analyzing things assuming that any "up to the GM" conditions never trigger.

EDIT: Unless they're bad for the PC in which case they always go off.

Gygaxian Naturalism, in my Exalted?

# ? Feb 15, 2015 02:07

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

Does somebody have an objective measure for significance that I don't know about?

# ? Feb 15, 2015 02:13

Bouquet: Jul 14, 2001

Getting away from discussion of a book that does not yet exist, here is your opportunity to play some Exalted using a rules system that has many fewer flaws than Exalted (regardless of edition). I'm running a PbP game here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3701026 using an extensive hack to the HERO System 6e. Even if you don't like PbP, I'd love for you to check out the work I've done, especially if you've ever played a HERO game and might be able to offer feedback.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 08:05

Roadie: Jun 30, 2013

Here's some Martial Arts.

Snake Style

Tiger Style

Single Point Shining Into the Void Style

White Reaper Style

Ebon Shadow Style

Crane Style

Silver-Voiced Nightingale Style

Righteous Devil Style

Black Claw Style

Dream Pearl Courtesan Style

Steel Devil Style

And, for a blast from the past, here's the entirety of Solar Hero Style from 2e.

Next time is Evocations.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 11:33

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Man, the martial arts are pretty drat Real. I'm glad they bit the bullet and just decked each and every one out with Celestial-only and Solar-only special effects.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 18:27

Attorney at Funk: Jun 3, 2008; ...the person who says honestly that he despairs is closer to being cured than all those who are not regarded as despairing by themselves or others.

Ferrinus posted:

Man, the martial arts are pretty drat Real. I'm glad they bit the bullet and just decked each and every one out with Celestial-only and Solar-only special effects.

How does a chargen martial artist compare to a chargen swordsman? (in terms of both combat options and raw power) How does the Supernal Ability change this?

Put another way, would it be most appealing to you, in the abstract, to be a Melee fighter, a Supernal Melee fighter, a Martial Artist, or a Supernal Martial Artist?

# ? Feb 15, 2015 18:46

Plutonis: Mar 25, 2011

Ferrinus posted:

Man, the martial arts are pretty drat Real. I'm glad they bit the bullet and just decked each and every one out with Celestial-only and Solar-only special effects.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 18:49

Transient People: Dec 22, 2011; "When a man thinketh on anything whatsoever, his next thought after is not altogether so casual as it seems to be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently."
- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Attorney at Funk posted:

How does a chargen martial artist compare to a chargen swordsman? (in terms of both combat options and raw power) How does the Supernal Ability change this?

Put another way, would it be most appealing to you, in the abstract, to be a Melee fighter, a Supernal Melee fighter, a Martial Artist, or a Supernal Martial Artist?

Do you want an actual practical analysis of this or to laugh at Ferrinus? Because I might be able to help with the former.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 20:48

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# ? May 28, 2024 00:57

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Attorney at Funk posted:

How does a chargen martial artist compare to a chargen swordsman? (in terms of both combat options and raw power) How does the Supernal Ability change this?

Put another way, would it be most appealing to you, in the abstract, to be a Melee fighter, a Supernal Melee fighter, a Martial Artist, or a Supernal Martial Artist?

My first impressions are the same ones we've heard from other people - martial arts are no joke, and seemingly comparable to "real" charm trees in power while being very distinct from "real" charm trees in their focus and operation, such that a Melee character is going to envy a Single Point character and vice versa, and each would definitely be aided if they simultaneously had access to the others' skill set, but actually accessing the others' skill set is just inconvenient enough for each one that they can't do it trivially and therefore aren't forced to just to do no-brainer optimization.

In general, it looks like martial artists get more narrow, gimmicky power compared to non-martial artist flexibility. The differences aren't as extreme as I make them sound, because even non-MA charm trees have clear gimmicks (Melee gives you lots of extra actions, for instance), but when an MA style makes up its mind to do something it tends to go in hard and immediately, and the difference that e.g. Shining Point Form makes is a lot less subtle than the difference Excellent Strike makes.

RE: having a supernal ability, there are clearly a few "starter" styles whose form-type charms are available at Essence 1, and then more esoteric or advanced styles whose form-type charms only show up at Essence 2. It doesn't seem like the latter are more dangerous overall than the former, but they are more vanilla. A starting character will be able to buy, like, ~six charms before they automatically jump to Essence 2, assuming they buy nothing but, so unless you're absolutely set on starting with Righteous Devil or something I don't think practicing non-supernal MA will really hurt you... and since as far as I can tell none of the MA charms actually go above Essence 3, you'd end up feeling kind of silly about it unless a helpful supplement came out nice and quick.

Regarding sorcery, I think 3E is the first edition of Exalted in which I'd be excited to play a sorcerer rather than just to meet or ally with a sorcerer in-game. The wyld-themed shaping ritual where you pull motes from ambient emotions is OP, though - there needs to be a cap on the total sorcerous motes you can store at a given time, if they're going to last a story. Also, I can't believe how incredibly lovely the heptagram's sample Lore-based ritual is.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 21:51

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