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Transient People posted:Assuming full excellency dice for anything but a Holy Rider build isn't a good idea in general. Mote efficiency is too huge to go overspending like that for anything but extremely important attacks, like counters, clashes and decisives. I'd do something more like, say...Hailshattering Practice (e1) vs Excellent Strike, or EStrike vs Drifting Leaf Elusion, which is generally much closer to how actual fights play out. I would also not assume maxed stats on both sides in general, because Stamina is a bad deal unless you go all-in on Resistance for EGT mote-generation, and Strength offers a bit more bang for the buck plus can be pushed higher (thanks to ISE), but that's honestly quibbling at that point. The main thing is that assuming maxed out pools is something that's pretty heavy theorycraft, at least according to my play experience. Other players can weigh in with their own experiences if they've seen significantly different results, but I've found that motes are too precious a resource to just burn yourself out unless you face opposition that outmatches you. I played the Dawn in my game and tended to full excellency everything that wasn't part of Iron Whirlwind Attack, under the philosophy that it's not mote-efficient to spend any amount of motes on attacks that are likely to miss and defenses that are likely to be penetrated. Part of this was that I was hamstrung by using a heavy weapon though and maybe with a medium weapon I could have afforded to be more conservative rather than seeking to end battles quickly.
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Sep 19, 2015 13:12
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If you're talking about weak enemies and mortals yes, but I fought a lot of stuff like shikaris with 11 base dice, Abyssal Exalted, dangerous monsters, etc.
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Sep 19, 2015 21:19
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Transient People posted:You forgot stunt dice. Your pool should be 14 dice for a Heavy, 16 for a Medium, 18 for a Light. I am not sure what these characters are supposed to be. If you attack a shikari with 14 dice and excellent strike, the shikari can muster 10-11 parry, giving you 24-37% chance to hit which is abysmally awful. If you defend only with your 6 base parry and HSP, the shikari will hit you with 20 dice, giving him a 80-90% chance to hit on an E1-2 Solar. I am quite sure that a shikari that goes all-out will win almost every time against a Solar that spend <6 motes per turn.
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Sep 20, 2015 16:33
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Thesaurasaurus posted:10 is the absolute maximum for a deeb unless they have a source of non-charm defensive boosts - they can't raise any static value by more than one-half (Ability + Applicable Specialty). This is one big improvement over 2e and 2.5e, in which successes or static value buffs only respected dice caps with Excellencies. They can spend a WP to raise it to 11, and some of the DBs have fairly respectable WP pools.
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Sep 20, 2015 21:50
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I'm not sure how this is meant to contradict what I said, the DB will pound the Solar into initiative crash every time because he's holding one hand behind his back and build up a massive init bank which the Solar will have to start full excellency-ing against to avoid being killed.
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Sep 20, 2015 22:00
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Transient People posted:It contradicts what you said because if the DB is going full blast 1v1, the Solar can just *let him* spend himself out and then cancel his Decisive attack and crush him (because he no longer has sufficient motes to defend himself with). Why would you bother overspending when one timely expenditure is all you need to clinch the fight? I'm not sure you're understanding how this actually plays out, try running a test combat. Assuming no other charms, the DB can pound on you, hitting every attack while you usually miss, for 7 whole rounds. It's true that he may miss his decisive attacks - but with 7 rounds to play with, there's a good chance of him landing a fairly devastating one. That aside, while I assume it is at least marginally viable to run a rope-a-dope strategy where you let the shikaris beat you up for 7 rounds while retaining your mote pools to unleash a frenzy once they've depleted theirs, this is a) way different from the original scenario you were talking about and b) a completely ludicrous and massively tedious inversion of how Exalted combat was designed to be run.
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Sep 20, 2015 22:22
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Oh, it's actually 6 rounds. An E2 DB has 44 motes, so if they spend 12 motes (full excellencies on attack and defense) per round and regen 5, they come into round 6 with 9 motes which is enough to launch their final attack with a few motes left over.
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Sep 20, 2015 23:10
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SunAndSpring posted:I'm looking at Brawl charms and I saw Fivefold Fury Onslaught and my mind was loving blown. Am I missing some flaw or can you really throw up to 6 attacks that will get progressively stronger? Holy poo poo Get this: as written, you can use Increasing Strength Exercise to increase the number of attacks you're doing and add +Essence damage to each of those attacks. ISE and the Brawl/Melee attacks are OP on their own but completely broken when combined.
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Oct 17, 2015 01:26
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Athletics is kind of an insane tree because it has a charm that doubles your withering damage, another charm that doubles your decisive damage, and ISE which breaks everything.
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Oct 17, 2015 01:36
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Nihnoz posted:I'd also like to say: Somebody send Holden Shearer to Time Jail for warping space and time to fit even loving more charms into this stupid rear end book. What the hell. Seriously. There should be like 120 charms max. I don't think a huge charmset is a problem in itself but there's a serious problem with the existing charms being unbalanced, poorly designed or just outright boring. If we had 500 pages of charms that were balanced, powerful and interesting it would be fine.
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Oct 17, 2015 01:57
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Transient People posted:No, it only adds one die of extra damage. Strength does not apply to decisives, which are the attacks that key off your stats to determine how many you launch. Here is the text of the charm, which you didn't read very closely. quote:The Solar draws remarkable strength from deep within her core. For every three motes of
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Oct 17, 2015 02:00
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mistaya posted:Most PC's are going to be like, Essence 1-3, so the bonus to decisive damage is... 1-3? Is that really incredibly broken? If you use the E3 versions of the Melee and Brawl flurries, that translates to 15 or 18 extra damage dice respectively even if you assume the added strength doesn't translate to extra attacks (the number of attacks the flurries create is dependent on your strength). Additionally with the Melee flurry you can enhance all of those attacks with Thunderbolt Attack Prana so that each success deals 2 damage, and the Brawl flurry comes with a built-in +21 damage dice. This means that you can launch decisive attacks with a potential of 40 damage every single turn.
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Oct 17, 2015 03:19
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Stallion Cabana posted:How many motes is this? 9m for ISE at the start of the fight, 5m 1wp per turn for the Brawl flurry, 9m 2wp per turn for the Melee Flurry + Thunderbolt Attack Prana.
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Oct 17, 2015 04:50
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I don't think either of them are bad on their own, (though the Brawl Flurry needs a nerf because jesus christ +21 damage dice for free), but it's the interplay that makes them insane. ISE is still pretty strong because it's 9m/9i for +3 damage on every single attack you make for the rest of the scene.
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Oct 17, 2015 04:57
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Stallion Cabana posted:I mean that's a lot of motes at 5m per turn recover when you kind of also need to defend, though you can argue you are killing an enemy at each turn, plus three willpower is a significant amount. You don't have to spend 3wp, you spend 1wp for the Brawl flurry and 2wp for the Melee flurry + TAP. You can also forgo TAP and just spend 1wp and still be attacking from base init with a potential of 23 damage dice. Really the only reason not to do it is, like you say, Hardness.
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Oct 17, 2015 05:00
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Thesaurasaurus posted:Also a Simple activation, which means a full turn spent doing nothing but hulking out. That's really the biggest cost. Yeah that's also a big factor, though if you're a Melee guy you can just use Peony Blossom Technique and attack anyway. It's actually probably the best use of that charm in the whole game because often using Peony to attack twice isn't that great as you're just frontloading the mote cost and outpacing your regen massively.
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Oct 17, 2015 05:02
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Ferrinus posted:Also, like, sometimes you know a fight is coming and can just use Increasing Strength Exercise ahead of time. I wouldn't allow that first part. When the fight starts a new scene begins, unless it's like a scenario where you use ISE to lift the heavy rock and there's a tyrant lizard under it.
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Oct 17, 2015 05:19
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I'm not sure how it's supposed to work based on the rules but I think allowing characters to stack an unlimited number of Simple, scene-length charms before battle is a bad idea. If there's a good IC reason I'd allow it but if you're just going to let people walk around in Fivefold Bulwark Stance in case a fight breaks out, you might as well just get rid of scene-length charms entirely and make them all indefinite.
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Oct 17, 2015 05:54
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Yeah maybe I was over-reaching a bit. There should be room for the Dawn to dramatically bulk up before leaping off the roof to Brawl down the angry mob chasing him, or for the Immaculate of Fire to enter Fire Dragon Form to intimate her opponents before engaging, because that's cool and fun. What I mainly want to prevent is people trying to cheese the system, so I'm inclined to be sort of strict with it. If that doesn't line up with past editions or the intent on this one, it'd be a houserule.
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Oct 17, 2015 06:28
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PurpleXVI posted:Well, being able to activate your Simple charms ahead of combat would reward a party that lures the unprepared enemy into an ambush or otherwise gets the drop on them. So, if you want to reward that sort of behavior, you should definitely let them get off at least one of their Simple scene-long combat charms before the fight starts proper. I'd probably reward that using the ambush and surprise rules.
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Oct 17, 2015 06:42
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SunAndSpring posted:It seems like, judging from the description of the MA form charms, they want you to activate Simple charms after you've joined combat. Like, what's the point of tacking on all those conditions where you can reflexively activate a form if you can just say "I ASSUME CRANE FORM" as battle starts? Also keep in mind most of these are combat stances. You don't walk around an ancient tomb in Crane Form "just in case" or hide behind a wall while you assume Fivefold Bulwark Stance, these are things you do once the fight actually starts. However, one thing that I think would be fine is, if both parties are facing off and have an equal number of Simple charms they want to activate, (like a form or stance), just let them go ahead and do it before the battle starts rather than having both of them waste a turn. Ambushes granting forms could be okay in some situations too, like a surprise attack from a Wyld Hunt in full dragon forms, but those should be special events that flow naturally rather than a constant concern.
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Oct 17, 2015 07:17
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I don't know where you're getting the 5-10 minutes thing from, the problem is specifically that these are described as scene-length. If older editions had explicit (and short) durations that headed off the problem that would actually be a great solution but it simply isn't there in the 3E rules.
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Oct 17, 2015 16:21
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Ferrinus posted:The book specifies that a "scene", particularly a combat scene, is 5-10 minutes long. No, it doesn't. Here's what it says: "a scene might be as short as a few minutes or as long as a few hours."
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Oct 17, 2015 16:26
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We're actually sort of saying the same thing, which is that you can't walk around in Crane Form because by the time you actually get into a battle it's a new scene. The difference is that I'm just specifying that the transition to combat usually creates a new scene unless a specific set of circumstances come up that make the new scene start very shortly before combat.
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Oct 17, 2015 16:29
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Ferrinus posted:Definitely, but - if you know you're going to be fighting in the next few minutes, I think it's obviously possible to power up first. Like, if you're preparing to kick down a door or you know that the riders are about to crest the hill or whatever. Which is why IAS is even more of a problem than it looks - unless the party's constantly getting jumped, it hasn't even got the "well it takes a turn" balancing factor going for it. Right which is why I want to houserule it. You're right that there are deeper problems here but I'd rather just nip it in the bud rather than redesigning the game. I actually got the "combat starts a new scene" idea from an offhand comment by my old GM when I asked him if I can ISE before battle. Fans posted:Doesn't that go against what Scene was intended for though? You're probably right. It's a metaphor borrowed from film and ultimately the stage. But I don't think "combat is a new scene" is a problem in that respect because there's enough background that it's understandable, like how in a James Bond film the guards rushing in would entail new music, a shift in cinematographic style, etc., or even like borrowing from JRPGs where you explicitly shift to a new perspective when a fight starts.
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Oct 17, 2015 16:51
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If you're getting into five distinct fights on the way to the throne room you're probably running into mote problems regardless. However in that situation I'd just consider all the fights a single scene, even though they probably shouldn't be either under my houserule or common sense, (showing up in the throne room for a showdown with the Tri-Khan would definitely be a new scene in film).
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Oct 17, 2015 17:27
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Ferrinus posted:I don't think the ability to pregame fights by turning on your form-type charms or whatever is a problem that needs to be nipped in the bud - IAS is just too famn synergistic with certain other effects. I think the narrative weirdness of having your poo poo turn off in response to others' actions is more glaring than the increasing pressure to make time to power up as your experience level increases, although that COULD be my familiarity with pst editions talking. I don't find it weird at all because I grew up playing Final Fantasy and having to cast Haste every fight. Is there something wrong with that perspective? Anyway you're right that forcing people to turn off their charms would be awful but I'm really trying to just tell people that they can't crabwalk around the ancient tomb in Fivefold Bulwark Stance just because the rules say they technically can.
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Oct 17, 2015 17:43
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KittyEmpress posted:Then don't let them do it in your game! But it's not something that everyone has to abide by, and it's also not something you have to enforce every time! Why is everything so black and white? Give me one good reason why I can't activate Fivefold Bulwark Stance right before the Dawn kicks in the door to the ninja hideout. Or one good reason why I can't use Strength Increasing Exercise before I jump off the tower and slam into the middle of the rioting crowd? One besides 'well because then you could walk around like that for hours!' Here is the reason why you can't do that normally: because it encourages people to game the system in a truly lazy way to avoid the (intended) restriction that Simple charms bring. If someone roleplays around that restriction in a way that's fun, interesting or dramatic then great, I'd be happy to ignore it, but the problem comes in when this becomes the rule rather than the exception. If these charms were meant to be something you could do automatically, they'd be reflexive. Attorney at Funk posted:The thing is that you're not going to write a rule that solves this specific problem without unpacking or re-evaluating any of the other system assumptions or charm mechanics that works better than just being like "don't do that" as one human being to another. The sidebars that admonish people to use common sense aren't wrong, they're just insulting. I hope it just doesn't come up but I really want something that's fair and consistent, which is hard because I'm playing Exalted.
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Oct 17, 2015 17:59
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Ferrinus posted:That's why my first inclination is to make it explicit that any combat relevant charm lasts ten minutes from activation and just leave it at that - that way people can't do as you say but always know what to expect. Maybe I'm going for the wrong approach, because the general objective of what I want out of this is "combat charms are activated in combat, not before". Maybe just saying that is enough.
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Oct 17, 2015 18:09
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Attorney at Funk posted:It really grinds my gears when a game expects you to engage in collaborative fiction with the designers to pretend the rules of the game work. It can't be helped.
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Oct 17, 2015 18:13
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Ferrinus posted:Frankly it might be best to exploctly buff players and their quality of life: after rolling join battle, before anyone acts, every combatant is explicitly allowed to then on whatever buffs they want, in the same way they're explicitly allowed to draw their swords. (Or, alternatively, they're allowed to put on a Form typr charm, and most other 'buff' charms are declared reflexive in general) This would be fine, but I'm already planning on buffing the players the same way my old GM did: PCs stunt while NPCs don't. Since we both know how narrow the statistical margins are on to-hit this is already a massive advantage and I'm cautious about adding to it. I could see a reciprocal system where forms and other Simples activate for both sides on combat start however.
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Oct 17, 2015 18:38
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Ferrinus posted:Yeah, the same would be true for enemies with access to scenelong stuff (and simplified enemies would be statted to account for the fact that their 'full' character sheets actually feature it). This might be the best solution because I'm not convinced the system is well-designed enough that Simple charms add enough tactical depth to make up for the narrative (and for that matter in-combat) hassle they create. Unfortunately it does preempt creative tricks like Peony Blossoming out of ISE to save a turn.
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Oct 17, 2015 18:49
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What is IAS anyway?
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Oct 17, 2015 20:01
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Bless of the Essence User
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Oct 17, 2015 20:31
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Fans posted:I suppose the real question is, does anyone bother to activate Simple charms in a fight? Because that sounds like a good way to get slaughered, buffing up and giving them free time to just wail on you. You often actually have a free turn if you engage from a distance. Also you better loving activate Fivefold Bulwark Stance or Flow Like Blood if you want to live.
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Oct 18, 2015 00:27
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The rules section is 80 pages of a 900 page PDF, so less than 10% of the leak is rules. Lmao.
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Oct 18, 2015 01:43
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I'm kind of dumbfounded by including not only charms but the loving monster manual section as "rules". Like for real dude?
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Oct 18, 2015 02:22
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They are rules but they don't make the game harder to play because you can ignore the vast majority of it.
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Oct 18, 2015 02:37
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:Before you make the argument that you can ignore most of the charms in a game where they represent a significant amount of the character customization available to you, I'm going to preemptively tell you this is going to be a stupid hill to die on over the next page and a half. If ignoring non-caste/favored is truly a no-go then I'll switch to my backup argument that most of the charm text is fluff. Which is a problem in itself but a different one.
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Oct 18, 2015 02:49
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Fans posted:Ride and Sail are still separate abilities, I used to say this because thematically they're really similar, but when you look at the charms they're actually quite distinct. Ride's charms mostly focus on in-combat mobility and allowing your mount to fight, whereas Sail's charms are about narrative mobility and naval combat. If anything, you should probably combine Ride with Survival because animal husbandry fits a lot closer than seamanship with what Ride does. The parts of Survival that are actually related to survival can get folded into Resistance instead.
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Oct 19, 2015 15:16
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