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So here's my try at rewriting a couple of Charms to ditch legacy formatting, legacy use of Reflexive as a pseudo-Supplemental that originated just as a way to circumvent the combo rules, and ~natural language~. Dipping Swallow Defense (Melee 1, Essence 1) Cost 2m; Keywords none Supplements parry attempt Prerequisites none Ignore all penalties on the parry attempt, except penalties from a surprise attack. If the parry attempt is successful, gain 1i. Excellent Strike (Melee 2, Essence 1) Cost 3m; Keywords Uniform Supplements Melee attack Prerequisites none Add +1s to the attack. Cascade reroll each 1 on the attack. One Weapon, Two Blows (Melee 2, Essence 1) Cost 3m; Keywords none Action Reflexive (Instant) Prerequisites Excellent Strike Requirement You make a withering attack that lowers an opponent's Initiative from greater than yours to less than yours. Make a withering or decisive Melee attack against the same opponent. Agile Dragonfly Blade (Melee 5, Essence 2) Cost 3m; Keywords none Supplements One Weapon, Two Blows Prerequisites One Weapon, Two Blows For the requirement of One Weapon, Two Blows, treat your Initiative as if it was 3 higher. Roadie fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 21:03
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That's beautiful. More please.
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Oct 26, 2015 21:07
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I literally cheered at that charm formatting.
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Oct 26, 2015 21:09
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Ideally, that kind of formatting would explicitly read "make a Melee attack" or "make a non-ranged attack" or similar.
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Oct 26, 2015 21:12
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What is this "natural language" thing people are complaining about?
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Oct 26, 2015 21:14
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Dr. Tough posted:What is this "natural language" thing people are complaining about? Natural Language, IIRC, is when you try to write rules in the way that you talk, but fail at making the rules clear thus muddling the whole thing. Correct me if I am worng.
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Oct 26, 2015 21:19
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Does anyone else think Agile Dragonfly Blade is a terrible, borderline-useless charm?
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Oct 26, 2015 21:20
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Covok posted:Natural Language, IIRC, is when you try to write rules in the way that you talk, but fail at making the rules clear thus muddling the whole thing. Correct me if I am worng. Basically. Sometimes combined with, unintentionally or otherwise, obscuring that the game rules are, in fact, rules to a game.
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Oct 26, 2015 21:22
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Thug Lessons posted:Does anyone else think Agile Dragonfly Blade is a terrible, borderline-useless charm? I would basically never buy it. It seems like a good power to make the innate bonus of a unique daiklave or something.
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Oct 26, 2015 21:24
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Thug Lessons posted:Does anyone else think Agile Dragonfly Blade is a terrible, borderline-useless charm? It doesn't seem very good, especially when you could just buy Iron Whirlwind Attack instead of that.
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Oct 26, 2015 21:45
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Ferrinus posted:Ideally, that kind of formatting would explicitly read "make a Melee attack" or "make a non-ranged attack" or similar. Good point, I forgot that catch with Reflexives. spectralent posted:That's beautiful. More please. Battle Fury Focus (Resistance 5, Essence 2) Prerequisites Willpower-Enhancing Spirit Cost 5m; Keywords none Action Simple (One scene) Requirement You must be engaged combat or attempting to engage in combat. If you make a withdraw action the Charm ends. Your combat-related dice pools are increased by +1d. Your wound penalties are reduced by 1. Your Intimacies related to combat are increased in intensity by one (up to +5 or -4). You can only use social influence for commands related to combat or persuasion that's simple intimidation. Whirlwind Horse-Armoring Prana (Ride 5, Essence 3) Prerequisites Harmonious Tacking Technique Cost 1m to 3m or 5m, 1wp; Keywords none Action Reflexive (Instant) Choose one: - Pay 3m. You send your mount's tack, barding, and up to three weapons to Elsewhere. - Pay 1m per round for up to three rounds. Each round you pay the cost, you call from Elsewhere (in order) your mount's tack, barding, and up to three weapons. - Essence 3+ only: Pay 5m, 1wp. You call your mount's entire set of gear from Elsewhere. You don't need to dismount to use this Charm. If you know Glorious Solar Plate, you can use that Charm for 5m as a reflexive action when you use this Charm. Your mount gains the benefits instead of you. Inverted Ego Mask (Socialize 5, Essence 2) Prerequisites Penumbra Self Meditation Cost 2m, 1wp; Keywords none Action Reflexive (Instant) Requirement An opponent succeeds on a read intentions action against you. You supply false motives of your choice to the opponent's read intentions action. If the opponent also determines one of your Intimacies, you may also supply a false context for that Tie or changed wording for that Principle. If you do, this remains as a false Intimacy for the purpose of opponents' read intentions actions (but not for other purposes) until the end of the story. If you experience Limit Break during that time, you gain it as an actual Intimacy until the end of the story. Dr. Tough posted:What is this "natural language" thing people are complaining about? Compare my version of Inverted Ego Mask above to how the one in the book talks about "piercing Guile" and "uncovering Intimacies" without ever actually saying what action it's talking about. Roadie fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 21:53
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Hey, quick 2.5 question! My group is experiencing a little friction around Wise-Eyed Courtier Method. We don't have a clear idea what it does, and we're a little tripped up by the way that it changes the beliefs of a society without actually changing any one person's mind, as well as the problem of it creating splinter groups who are also affected by the charm. In addition to this, our performance guy is making noises about how it makes him superfluous. Does anyone have any insight into how this charm works, and how it's supposed to fit into the game?
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Oct 26, 2015 21:57
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Dr. Tough posted:What is this "natural language" thing people are complaining about? Alternately, it's when you say what you mean and rely on the reader to assume you mean something sensible and not manually nail down every possible edge case.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:02
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Rand Brittain posted:Alternately, it's when you say what you mean and rely on the reader to assume you mean something sensible and not manually nail down every possible edge case. There's a substantial difference between "expecting reasonable interpretations" and "being flowery enough to literally not even mention the action that a Charm is meant to defend against".
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Oct 26, 2015 22:03
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If you're tired of crafting nonsense constantly to get your silver points, you could just go beat up Gato.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:07
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Rand Brittain posted:Alternately, it's when you say what you mean and rely on the reader to assume you mean something sensible and not manually nail down every possible edge case. Possible edge cases like "the opponent I'm counterattacking successfully hit me".
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Oct 26, 2015 22:18
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Esser-Z posted:If you're tired of crafting nonsense constantly to get your silver points, you could just go beat up Gato. 
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Oct 26, 2015 22:24
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Dr. Tough posted:What is this "natural language" thing people are complaining about? As others have said in various ways, in a roleplaying game context, it means attempts to write things using a structure and syntax that resembles natural speech rather than the legalistic, structured writing of mechanical rules. A lot of people tend to prefer reading natural language because it more resembles the kind of speech and writing they are familiar with. However, its informal structure makes it more prone to ambiguities and inaccuracies than legalistic structures.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:30
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Rand Brittain posted:Alternately, it's when you say what you mean and rely on the reader to assume you mean something sensible and not manually nail down every possible edge case. There is a charm which numerous people struggled to understand the purpose of because it's actual rules are indistinguishable from the natural language around it. Also, charms would take up much less space using the above method.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:31
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Ideally you'd want to do what the designers didn't do and spend the time to go through and keyword a bunch of different abilities (i.e. 'reroll 1s until 1s no longer appear' having its own name, possibly with 'reroll 10s and add them to the total' having another). Add in a "X/scene" thing, too, although I don't know if there are even powers that are limited per-scene but have a limit other than one. Might be able to special case those.quote:Agile Dragonfly Blade (Melee 5, Essence 2) e: cascade reroll is a good name for it, and then 'add Xs and reroll them" is just explode, so that's simple enough.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:34
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LatwPIAT posted:As others have said in various ways, in a roleplaying game context, it means attempts to write things using a structure and syntax that resembles natural speech rather than the legalistic, structured writing of mechanical rules. A lot of people tend to prefer reading natural language because it more resembles the kind of speech and writing they are familiar with. However, its informal structure makes it more prone to ambiguities and inaccuracies than legalistic structures. To me, there's a difference between "language that sounds natural" and "natural language". Magic: the Gathering, for example, started in Alpha/Beta with the latter, and gradually progressed towards the former. Most MtG cards are reasonably intuitive, but have language structured and templated in a specific way so that that "intuition" is consistent and backed by a corpus of (because of that consistency, usually unnecessary) formal rules.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:35
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Yeah, a precisely worded game doesn't have to read "IF X MOTES REMAIN IN YOUR POOL, SUBTRACT THREE, THEN HENCE ADD NO FEWER OR MORE THAN THREE (3) DICE" or something. I mean, look at fourth edition D&D, or, again, magic, which is exactly the kind of vibe Exalted's billion powers gives me. Or warmachine! Or compare Infinity v1 with N3 for how huge a difference tightening up your rules makes, even. There's loads of examples within tabletop gaming.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:39
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spectralent posted:Yeah, a precisely worded game doesn't have to read "IF X MOTES REMAIN IN YOUR POOL, SUBTRACT THREE, THEN HENCE ADD NO FEWER OR MORE THAN THREE (3) DICE" or something. I mean, look at fourth edition D&D, or, again, magic, which is exactly the kind of vibe Exalted's billion powers gives me. Or warmachine! Or compare Infinity v1 with N3 for how huge a difference tightening up your rules makes, even. There's loads of examples within tabletop gaming. Note that Exalted actually does read this way, and will in the middle of casually-described charms drop expressions like [(Stamina+Lore)-(Essence/2)] or similar right on your head. (I made that one up but parentheses and division signs and so on absolutely do come up)
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Oct 26, 2015 22:41
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Ferrinus posted:Note that Exalted actually does read this way, and will in the middle of casually-described charms drop expressions like [(Stamina+Lore)-(Essence/2)] or similar right on your head. (I made that one up but parentheses and division signs and so on absolutely do come up) Oh yeah, that too.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:43
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Rand Brittain posted:Alternately, it's when you say what you mean and rely on the reader to assume you mean something sensible and not manually nail down every possible edge case. No, I'm sorry, there are actual giant holes in current charm rules text that border on "why did I pay for someone to tell me this" rather than "why didn't they develop a Turing-complete rules engine that could handle any conceivable input". Solar Counterattack doesn't tell you if it can save you from damage! That's kind of a big deal! Strawmanning the worst-case scenario doesn't actually absolve you of doing necessary work.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:47
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Attorney at Funk posted:Solar Counterattack doesn't tell you if it can save you from damage! That's kind of a big deal! Sure it does. Or rather, it doesn't say that it does save you from damage, so it doesn't.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:49
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Rand Brittain posted:Sure it does. Or rather, it doesn't say that it does save you from damage, so it doesn't. Are you for real, dude. Like I get wanting to stick up for your friends but holy hell.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:50
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Rand Brittain posted:Sure it does. Or rather, it doesn't say that it does save you from damage, so it doesn't. The damage occurs after the triggering attack's 'result', but before its damage is rolled. Not even 'applied', but 'rolled'. Does an attack's damage still get rolled and applied if, between that attack landing and that attack actually dealing damage, the attacker's maker were to be incapacitated or killed? The book sure as hell doesn't say, and unless I'm to take it you just asked one of the writers for confirmation in order to hand us this piece of official errata, you're just bullshitting me.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:53
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Attorney at Funk posted:Are you for real, dude. Like I get wanting to stick up for your friends but holy hell. I'm pretty serious? Like, the Charm literally does not say anything that implies that you don't get damaged if your counterattack succeeds, so, it doesn't have that function.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:55
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RPZip posted:Add in a "X/scene" thing, too, although I don't know if there are even powers that are limited per-scene but have a limit other than one. Might be able to special case those. Clear Mind Discipline (Integrity 5, Essence 2) Prerequisites: Mind-Cleansing Prana, or any three Martial Arts Charms Cost —; Keywords Bridge Action Reflexive (Instant), 1/day You gain the benefits of Mind-Cleansing Prana, as though you had used that Charm. Seven Shadow Evasion (Dodge 5, Essence 2) Prerequisites Force-Stealing Feint Cost 4m, 1wp; Keywords Uniform Action Reflexive (Instant), 1/scene Requirement An opponent makes an attack against you, or you are subject to uncountable damage. You dodge the attack without a contest, or you avoid the uncountable damage, including any recurring uncountable damage. Recharge Using Reed in the Wind, dodge three decisive attacks from dangerous opponents. Unmatched Showmanship Style (Performance 5, Essence 4) Prerequisites Trance of Fugue Vision Cost —; Keywords Mute Supplements Performance roll, 1/day The roll gains the benefits of Excellent Solar Performance, as though you had spent the maximum number of motes. Recharge Use Performance to achieve one of your defining goals. RPZip posted:reroll 1s until 1s no longer appear Also, what the hell is up with Unmatched Showmanship Style? "Instant Charm with no cost" is definitely a thing in the book, so why is it a Permanent?
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Oct 26, 2015 22:55
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Ferrinus posted:The damage occurs after the triggering attack's 'result', but before its damage is rolled. Not even 'applied', but 'rolled'. Does an attack's damage still get rolled and applied if, between that attack landing and that attack actually dealing damage, the attacker's maker were to be incapacitated or killed? The book sure as hell doesn't say, and unless I'm to take it you just asked one of the writers for confirmation in order to hand us this piece of official errata, you're just bullshitting me. Well, I guess it wouldn't happen if they died, which is a situation I hadn't considered. I mean, who's going to roll the damage dice if they're dead?
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Oct 26, 2015 22:56
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And I'm pretty sure in previous editions it was explicit about what happened in that case.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:57
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Rand Brittain posted:Well, I guess it wouldn't happen if they died, which is a situation I hadn't considered. I mean, who's going to roll the damage dice if they're dead? Who, indeed? And yet, if we look at it another way, we might imagine that since the attack still hit, and happened, we're to understand that the damage is going to get rolled in any event and that the only reason Solar Counterattack specifies timing in the way it does is to make sure that any wound penalties or other impairments caused by the attack won't affect the counterattack itself. Which is it? Well, it'd probably be sterile and oppressive to know.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:59
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Ferrinus posted:Who, indeed? And yet, if we look at it another way, we might imagine that since the attack still hit, and happened, we're to understand that the damage is going to get rolled in any event and that the only reason Solar Counterattack specifies timing in the way it does is to make sure that any wound penalties or other impairments caused by the attack won't affect the counterattack itself. Which is it? Well, it'd probably be sterile and oppressive to know. This is probably the most reasonable answer, on, reflection, since the Charm doesn't say that it prevents damage under any circumstances and mutual kills in melee duels is A Thing in the source material. Asking people about it, it was pointed out to me that it probably takes place between getting hit and getting damaged so that your counterattack roll isn't penalized by the wound penalties you're about to have.
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Oct 26, 2015 23:08
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Rand Brittain posted:This is probably the most reasonable answer, on, reflection, since the Charm doesn't say that it prevents damage under any circumstances and mutual kills in melee duels is A Thing in the source material. "Probably"?
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Oct 26, 2015 23:16
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"Probably" is not an acceptable answer from rules produced by allegedly professional rules-producing people.
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Oct 26, 2015 23:19
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Zereth posted:"Probably" is not an acceptable answer from rules produced by allegedly professional rules-producing people. It wouldn't hurt the Charm to have it either say it doesn't prevent damage, or to explain that the timing is so that you don't take wound penalties on your attack (which would have the same effect), but I still think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.
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Oct 26, 2015 23:20
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The key word in your post is "interpretation", since that's all we have. There's your original interpretation of "dead men don't roll damage dice" but there's the competing "getting hit means taking damage" clause to worry about and they cannot both be true. When people get annoyed by that awful You Figure It Out sidebar they are not just raising a fuss because Aw Shucks Exalted Fans Sure Are Excitable* it's because the writing is unclear and the developers are aware enough to joke about it instead of addressing it. *Ugh Calde fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 23:22
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It's also why natural language is really bad. Again, "The Solar’s words feed the audience like a nutritious meal and hydrate them like water from a fresh spring." turned out to be rules text. That was a surprise. That's the kind of flowery language which is routinely thrown into charm for no real reason. Only the absence of any other obvious benefit made people look at that and go "Oh, I guess it literally feeds people and that's the mechanical effect?".
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Oct 26, 2015 23:24
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Roadie posted:There are a bunch of 1/scene and 1/day ones. Roadie are you planning on continuing this for all of the Charms?
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Oct 26, 2015 23:26
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