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I'm a one-note kinda guy! Exalted 1E had a bunch of social and mental influence powers that were ill-defined, rules-wise. Any given power may have some random-rear end resistance roll, and sometimes the writer just forgot to put a resistance roll. 2E attempted to solve this problem by introducing social combat. This way you could have a system for social characters to hang their hats on, and an underlying framework to hook all those social Charms onto. These good intentions are about as good as it gets; it's all downhill from here! "Social Combat" was a very appropriate name, because it was literally physical combat with some traits swapped out. The system operated on "long ticks", aka all its actions had cooldown periods of many minutes. The idea was already a bit iffy in regular, second-long ticks for physical combat, but in social combat (and mass combat which also used long ticks), the system is saying that your attempt to intimidate the guard is going to take 4 minutes no matter how you describe it narratively, or there's just long stretches of dead air between social actions. Intimacies were introduced to reflect the specific beliefs or strong, enduring feelings of characters. Stuff like "My wife (deep love)" or "Meting justice (a painful duty)." Being both the best way to mechanically flesh out your character and a really great way to insert narrative hooks into the system to make a social game actually fun, these of course were made one of the weakest elements of social combat. Without bringing superpowers to bear on them Intimacies are always a less tempting target than the broader, more exploitable and more mechanically advantageous Virtues or Motivation. And manipulating Intimacies is great and all, but social combat "shined" in that it was pretty much mind control. Intimacies, Virtues and Motivation provide a modest bonus to resist influence that goes against them, but in the end the social combat system said "exploit me and you can just make people do stuff." You can just compel people to action. They have to do it, unless it's suicidal or they have magic that makes them view something as equivalent to suicide. (In Exalted 2E no one holds beliefs as dear to them as life itself without magic getting involved!) The way you resist all this emotional manipulation and mind control is by spending Willpower, a relatively scarce resource. Once you're completely out of Willpower you're pretty much wide open to whatever a social character wants to do to you. Willpower was also a vital currency for actual physical combat—for magic folks anyway. And you could automatically and irresistibly end a social interaction by getting handy with the steel and declaring Join Battle! Being drained of Willpower in either arena was basically a death sentence, but social combat was just a safezone setup for socialites to drain you of essential combat nutrients. The whole way the Willpower thing shook out is an outgrowth of creating a social system, and then thinking "What if some goober in a market really, really wants to sell me a baby crocodile? What if I'm in a market full of those dudes?" Now, you might think that the proper response is "unless that goober is using mind rays on me, maybe we just don't need to bust out the social combat rules for me to ignore unimportant everday stuff." Nope! Instead, you spend Willpower to resist, but so long as it's not a magically alluring crocodile salesman you only have to do that twice to refrain from buying a stupid pet that you're going to flush down the toilet like the urban legend factory you are. There was really no advantage to acquiescing to social influence that you would've agreed with anyway. There were superpowers that boosted you up a little here and there, but they were basically locked behind being super high-level and were huge group effects that were consequently made pretty weaksauce to "balance out" their scope. There was only one such power that was unequivocally useful and within reach of normal PCs, and it's hidden in the massive tome of errata for one of the less popular playable types and I wrote it just a few months before we finally got to say "gently caress 2E it's completely busted, here comes 3E!" There was also "mass social combat" which was seriously just like normal social combat, except your two dudes shouting at each other for minutes on end had their cliques egging them on in the background. The one who plays the dozens best demoralizes his opponent's friends and some of them leave. Repeat until they are friendless. This all adds up to a system that encourages murderous rage in response to any and all attempts at social pressure.
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Feb 15, 2013 01:19
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"Yo momma" forms the cornerstone of courtly intrigues in Exalted.
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Feb 15, 2013 02:12
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Glagha posted:While this is a goofy as hell system, I guess some slack can be cut their way because of the PCs of Exalted being of demigod to full-on-god status. I can imagine a crazy charismatic demigod walking into a group of random shmucks and saying "Hey, you all my bitches now" and convincing them to do basically whatever because they got the silver tongue. That being said, it's almost entirely stupid because they don't have a toned down mundane system for social interaction. No, I pretty much just talked about 2E's "toned down mundane system." That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Feb 15, 2013 |
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Feb 15, 2013 07:04
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There was something kind of like that in Exalted's First Edition Alchemicals, the Anticipatory Simulation Processor, but it only let you rewind within a single turn. However, you play out the turn normally until they activate the rewind, then you go back to the Initiative count it was originally "saved" on and everything plays out exactly like last time until the Exalt chooses to deviate. If you had the resources and wanted to piss everyone off, you could do it every turn! Having anyone like that in the playgroup pretty much necessitated keeping careful track of all actions, rolls and outcomes so that you can play everything back up to the point that the Alchemical wishes to deviate from the "simulation", which could amount to dozens of actions and twice that many rolls, all of which may become marginally invalidated and then have to be played out again. And don't forget "rewinding" all the magic juice, Willpower and other things spent by everyone involved, and any other volatile traits of the game. Or you could just tell the guy who wants to buy that Charm to gently caress off and pick something else. This Charm mysteriously did not reappear in Second Edition! That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Feb 16, 2013 |
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Feb 15, 2013 16:49
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Nessus posted:I never read that far in the line but there were two big dicebucket things as I recall. Since the game still unthinkingly apes the usual 1-5 scale that almost all other Storyteller games run on, these ridiculous numbers end meaning jack poo poo except in opposed rolls. But opposed rolls become largely meaningless at the high end unless you meet a foe that can evenly match you. (Most other Storyteller games fumble "throw numbers at it" in a vaguely similar fashion, but not to the same inane scale as Scion.) Strength is the only one that gets an out on this because lifting and throwing is one of the most granular systems in all previous White Wolf games, so it's just the same in Scion. This also wildly exacerbates the rocket tag elements in combat-strong Storyteller. Since it's a rip-off of Exalted 2E a similar problem could've arisen from social influence powers, but these problems are mostly cut off at the knee by a blanket rule of "spend one Willpower to ignore this power." And then of course there's Untouchable Opponent, the gotta-have-it Knack that doubled your Epic Dexterity auto-successes for dodging for the entire scene for 1 Legend. Again, manageable at the earliest levels, but once you hit Demigod anyone with that power just never gets hit in a straight-up fight; sideways tricks are absolutely required, and there are counters to those tricks out there. (It's not a crime to create a source of invulnerability that channels conflict sideways. Untouchable Opponent was just a really, really bad way of doing it. But, then, this have/have-not situation applies to most of the other staple combat powers as basic as physical Epic Attributes.) quote:Most of the 'pantheons' got flavorful and interesting specialized abilities as a sort of 'clan discipline.' For instance, the Japanese pantheon got powers related to speaking to the animistic spirits in things, while the Norse got some kind of brutal death blood magic stuff. As is often the case when you try to cram all possible concepts into a strict numeric hierarchy, this ended up hurting a lot of pantheons. There are lots of redundancies in powers like the Japanese Amatsukami purview. "It's like the last half dozen ranks, only slightly better!" Of course, they're spiced up by the largely random "Holy poo poo this power if exploited right can destroy my game" powers. Some first rank powers let you make sure a perfectly mundane plant survives another day, and others let you featherfall. A first rank Relic weapon gets a one-die bonus, while a Relic with some actual interesting power lets you summon a cadre of ninjas. quote:Greeks got Arete, which let you have the square of your Arete in extra dice on, I believe, whatever skill you chose to take Arete in. Now I do think you had to buy it separately for each skill. That said, Arete (Melee) 3 would give you 9 extra dice to roll, probably on top of a few free successes from Epic Dexterity (of course). Arete 5 would, if my memory is correct, give you 25. In essence, if you were a Greek you got Solar Excellencies. Nope again! Arete was on the same logarithmic scale as Epic Attributes. It just added dice and applied to an Ability. So Arete 3 would grant +4 dice, Arete 4 grants +7 dice, Arete 9 grants +40 dice. Also, you could trade in dice for a reroll on a 2-for-1 basis. This is slightly useful at low levels and becomes farcical at higher levels because the likelihood of you not steamrolling something with as little as a +16 dice bonus is pretty much nil, especially since that kind of specialization probably also means you're getting similar auto-successes from an Epic Attribute too (thereby chipping away at the value of your Arete!). Legend points (MP) were calculated as a square. Which at the high levels again becomes farcical because the vast majority of powers cost 1-3 of your 30+ Legend and last a pretty long time, and they come back at a pretty quick rate because they lifted stunt MP recovery directly from Exalted. That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 11:40 on Feb 17, 2013 |
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Feb 17, 2013 11:38
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Many of the basic ideas behind Scion are pretty great, and easy to latch onto. It's just that the execution of the core three books was close to universally lacking, and not just in its systems. This drags down any further work, ensuring it can't fulfill its full potential regardless of how well-written. But it's such a simple, gameable concept at its core that it remains strong enough to maintain a following. Considering the  devoted to why it and Exalted 2E failed and the developer's awareness thereof, we can expect 2E Scion to rebuild everything from the ground up or build on top of an appropriate system that's already out there.
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Feb 17, 2013 12:22
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Goddammit, I should know better, but everyone always calls it logarithmic when it comes up.
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Feb 17, 2013 20:32
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GimpInBlack posted:I've found that.Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is a pretty kickass system to run Scion in. Let us also not forget this! Scion: Hero posted:Characters who do not have a Legend score have a more difficult time lifting huge objects or breaking strong things. Their players must roll (Strength + Athletics) and compare the number of successes to the chart. code:We also learn from this chart that grown men weigh 80 lbs. and someone with above-average Strength and Athletics can just loving punch right through a (presumably) normal wooden door. An exceptionally strong and athletic character who rolls ridiculously but not impossibly well can punch through stone walls and kick metal doors apart. But wait! There's more! Here's part of the "attacking objects using the combat mechanics" rules: Scion: Hero posted:Objects are less vital than humans (and titanspawn and the like) but often tougher. Inanimate targets of attacks have soak depending on their structure and composition, and all inanimate objects have an equal Hardness. This means that attacks that do not surpass the object’s soak/Hardness inflict no damage. Damage against objects, on the other hand, is not rolled. Each die of raw damage in excess of the object’s soak becomes an automatic level of damage. code:No, what we're looking for here is how you attack and damage objects in combat which takes a few seconds, and how that compares to using a feat of strength which can take minutes to perform. Exceptional but still undeniably mundane people will have ratings of 4 in their traits. They will be able to get a +2 dice stunt bonus on many actions. Let's say you have a katana, which adds +1 die to attack rolls, +5 lethal dice to damage rolls (which are unrolled against objects!) and for good measure gives you +1 Defense because katanas are loving kewl. You roll your attack, which is 4 + 4 + 1 + 2 dice. On average you'll get half that as successes, so 5 to hit the non-dodging, non-parrying object. Take that number and add your Strength and your weapon's Damage. With our katana that's 14 lethal damage before soak. You don't roll damage against objects, you just turn your damage dice into successes and subtract their soak normally. You take what's left over and subtract it from the object's Health Levels. When those Health Levels are halved the object is damaged and stops functioning properly; when they are gone the object is effectively destroyed. Here is what we have learned: • A strong-man can probably bend the poo poo out of your gun. • A katana-man will cut your gun in half as long as he can hit it. • A strong-man can probably punch a hole through your house's door dramatically. • A katana-man can cut your loving door out of your house with a single swipe of his blade. • A strong-man who rolls exceptionally well can rip apart a chain link fence over the course of many minutes. • A katana-man who rolls like absolute poo poo can obliterate many chain link fences over the course of a single minute. • A strong-man who rolls one-in-a-million odds can punch a hole in a stone wall. • A katana-man who rolls average can knock down a brick wall over the course of about a minute. A stone wall will take a bit longer. That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Feb 18, 2013 |
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Feb 18, 2013 20:24
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:Maybe this is dumb and groggy, but it always stuck out as weird to me. White Wolf's feat of strength charts have always been stupid, and they can implode under the lightest amount of critical thought. Including "you can punch through X" on the charts was one of the worst things to do, especially in Exalted 2E which had rules for combat attacks against objects anyway (those rules were also loving dumb). Really, you should immediately dismiss the chart when you get to the part about how a yeddim doesn't even weigh a ton.
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Feb 26, 2013 07:50
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Crosscontaminant posted:You might also reasonably ask by what means the character is creating fire. It's been a while and I don't know where my books are, but I would be surprised if the size and intensity of the light source doesn't factor into things. A single match just doesn't have the impact as self-immolation! quote:If your intent is to use a spell, you need to stop - you're probably using GURPS Magic, which is never a good idea because that entire subsystem is terrible. Maybe you're setting yourself on fire because you're in a game using GURPS Magic? 
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Feb 28, 2013 12:25
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As I got closer to the end I became certain that this was some horrible fanwork from the dark recesses of the internet. Haha  Ettin posted:Stand on an outcrop for an hour, and if anyone thinks you're not a statue, you have to murder them. This is the best one. quote:Just straight-up gently caress a corpse. More than once, that's a plural! quote:An obedience is typically an hour-long ritual that must be performed daily... I picture groups whose top-priority objection to this is not the corpse-loving, but that it takes an hour and you guys have, like, a dungeon to get through or a baron to assassinate or whatever.
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Mar 6, 2013 11:03
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Hey, a statue could hold a book! I'd be more impressed by someone managing "float through a sewer" while reading.
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Mar 6, 2013 11:16
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xiw posted:Good luck turning the pages of your spellbook! Also, good luck getting out of the straightjacket at the end of the hour. Wear a tight chain bracelet on your ankle. Tie it to a tree and leeeeeean out while reading your spellbook. These demon lords are suckers.
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Mar 6, 2013 11:20
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Look, some of the demon lords just don't go in for all that flamboyant corpse-loving. They prefer a subtler pervert for their worldly servant.
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Mar 6, 2013 11:52
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Tardcore posted:Is +1 to saving throws really worth having to hook up with a skeleton over Craigslist to have a JO session over his model trains? whydirt posted:I mean if you're going to do it anyway, why not take the bonus as a freebie? It's not really worth it, mechanically, since most of these saving throw bonuses are pretty specific and as small as they can be. It's a kind of incentive design that rewards accounting sheet bullshit or role playing what you would've done without the bonus anyway because that's the character you wanted to play. Other classes that don't get incredibly specific role play bonuses are left out in the cold thanks to not being designed for exacting niche interests. It's a lot like many games' experience bonus for role playing. What the gently caress else were you supposed to be doing, given the chance? Oh, and it also provides some validation for players who want to thrust their creepy fetishes onto others too socially awkward to tell them to get the gently caress out.
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Mar 6, 2013 15:32
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Vampire: The Requiem posted:Exposure to small amounts of sunlight or fire, at a safe distance or under the character’s control, hardly ever provokes Rötschreck. A vampire might step away from a person light- ing a cigarette, and she might prefer to stand well back from a screened-in fire in a fireplace, but she doesn't panic. Nor does a TV or movie image of a sunny day rouse her Beast… much. If someone jabs a lit cigarette at the character or a flashbulb goes off in her face, however, it might be a different matter. On top of that you can accumulate the necessary successes over time to suppress major sources of frenzy like sunlight streaming through a nearby window.
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Mar 21, 2013 12:50
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I could swear that those values were framed in the book as basically "disposable income" which is why you buy chainswords and saint relics with it instead of formula for your new baby.
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Apr 17, 2013 23:50
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 Stand back everyone, I took System Mastery (Exalted) as my first level feat! Onslaught penalties only apply per flurry, so Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack won't actually give you much advantage there. You do have the opportunity to go completely balls out nutty on your first flurry, though, since your target ain't refreshing their DV before you. Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack itself is actually pretty hosed up and barely usable as-is. And we never errata'd it! (I did do a rewrite years ago that was far more functional, but then the Charm becomes much less a candidate for this thread.) It doesn't have a Combo-keyword, so that means you can't actually use it with any other Charms. This opens you up to death by having no meaningful defenses available when someone with more interesting Charms swats you. It's also not Stackable, so its effects aren't cumulative. It's still bullshit, but not bullshit enough to stun-lock someone for an entire fight.
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May 16, 2013 22:45
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axelsoar posted:Wait, the gently caress? you activate it during your attack, not the enemy's? I guess that makes more sense as a step 1 charm, but Christ that charm is even worse than I thought. Not really? The rule book explains this pretty sideways, but you're not absolutely required to be going through the steps of an attack to activate a reflexive Charm on the step its Type indicates. There were enormous furors over this on the Exalted forum for years because of the poor interactions of reflexive Charms and the steps of combat. Looking back over Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack, it's even more hosed up in specific ways than I recalled. It says something about "at the beginning of the action" but doesn't specify whose action it's talking about. Best guess is the attacker using the Charm? It also follows up with some horrible 1E-equivalency drawing that doesn't make any sense, restricting the actions the target can take even after the wait period of the Charm has lapsed. Lucky for the target, these restrictions mostly prevent you from taking those actions that no one bothers with in combat anyway. The one exception is that it technically prevents you from moving, which I doubt was intended. Weirdly, it only prevents you from moving after the wait-time part of the Charm lapses. But this all hardly seems like Murphy's rules. This is just one hosed up Charm that doesn't have much weirder setting implications than the whole hosed up combat system.
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May 17, 2013 09:56
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DontMockMySmock posted:I thought the CR for an ordinary character was less than their level. After all, they're supposed to be a challenge for ~4 characters of a level = their CR. Surely, no one thinks that a level 17 character is a challenge for four level 17 characters? They may even say that somewhere in the books, but they also consistently rate standard character options roughly as CR = level anyway.
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Jun 15, 2013 09:27
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I'm pretty sure you can only do it once per scene, after rolling a regular failure. That's still pretty bad, though.
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Nov 19, 2013 03:12
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Pidmon posted:Sorry, hang on, where does it say the coins are SOLID gold/silver/bronze/unobtanium? I always figured that they had a tiny fraction of the required metal in them and filled up the rest with something that polishes nicely? Old gold and silver coins tend to be relatively high purity pieces of their respective metals, because they were considered the wealth themselves and not a representation of some abstract idea of value. It can be safely assumed D&D coins operate on this principle, and for simplicity you can probably extend this to coins of other metals. That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Dec 15, 2013 16:49
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Splicer posted:Alternatively, in-game you can pull a gold coin out of a thousand year old tomb and then go spend it in the nearest podunk village for its exact value. Either it's pure gold or there's been a single system of representative coinage in use since the world was formed. Considering the various ways to directly relate a gold coin to
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Dec 15, 2013 17:18
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Free Triangle posted:In Pathfinder a ranger can apply his favoured enemy bonus to anyone, unfortunately this has a minor side effect: Does paladin smite work against any outsider, or is whether an outsider is evil not determined by their alignment? Or is there something else to it?
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May 12, 2014 12:10
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Eox posted:In Pathfinder, Improved Familiar lets spellcasters with familiars get stronger little buddies with spell-like abilities, like a tiny dragon or a fiendish tumble pig. Most of these options are limited by your alignment, however one is notably usable by anyone of any moral character: I don't see how this is Murphy's.
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Dec 22, 2014 00:24
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Oh duh. Yeah, that's pretty good.
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Dec 22, 2014 00:40
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I would totally just take the flaming head, then dress my character as Link and go around all tense looking, whipping around to make sure where the skull is every once in a while.
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Dec 22, 2014 04:53
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 21:24 |
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Really? I could've sworn oozes, etc. in 3.x were immune to trip and backstab.
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Mar 8, 2015 03:44
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