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Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Too often it's "I'm referencing something else I found funny", with no thought to the audience, medium, or the joke's age. So it goes.

Also they clearly thought 'funny sounding names' would carry the day. I'm pretty sure Kev thought 'Ferkelberg' or whatever was a laugh riot.

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Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Lure of the Liche Lord

Magic Head

Level 5 is all about how Karitamen intends to run his kingdom in the afterlife. As such, it's mostly full of maps, libraries, and mummified scribes. Messing with his meticulously placed wargaming models will slice your fingers off with a buzz saw (this is actually one of the traps). They also come with a permanent upgrade if you're capable of reading his scrolls when you get to the libraries: A +20% to all History and Theology tests about Nehekara as you discover a wealth of well-preserved information. Given how often those skills have been doing work down in the Tomb, this might've been nice to find sooner but it's still valuable here. This is a great upgrade for Ehrl; I'd have assigned it a Talent just to keep the book-keeping clear, though.

The libraries are also full of mummified big cats, and mummified little cats. It's time to talk about Bastethi. These are one of the weirdest potential enemies I've seen: The little ones are actually called Greater Bastethi and are weak, but they're powerful Necromancers with a bunch of the support Necromancy. They'll buff skeletons or other undead (including the Bastethi big cats) and they can summon more undead if left alone. They're also very dodgy (65% chance) but weak and easily punted, like most house cats (if you punt a house cat you are a monster). The normal Bastethi are one of the only monsters in all of WHFRP that is actually stronger Charging you than being stuck in. This is one of the big mechanical flaws in combat in 2e, I think; Charging is really bad compared to the Tyranny of Swift Attack as the combat option to end all combat options, which we'll be getting into more at the boss. Anyway, Bastethi are mildly dangerous foes with Damage 4, high movement, okay wounds, etc but only 1 attack. They're no world beater. Except they attack you 3 times every time they Charge. If I was designing them, I'd have given them Swashbuckler so they could leap out of combat and set up to cycle charge people. They're an interesting monster and I kind of like them.

Also a good chance to talk about encounter design in the Tomb. Every encounter here just about is only one type of enemy at a time and it's really dull. If you're fighting Tomb Guard, it's all Tomb Guard in that fight. Ushabti? Just Ushabti. Greater Bastethi can buff the normal Bastethi but they generally only come with them, instead of normal undead they could also be buffing. They never mix up mooks and elites and the combat design is generally pretty boring. Part of this is because you're supposed to be trying to avoid unnecessary fights, but combat here is lots of grindy Undead fights where everything has Fear, which slows it down more since some players will lose some turns at the start of a fight.

The really important room on Level 5 is Tetrahon's room. Tetrahon was the priest who introduced Karitamen to magic. The two were close friends, and he had always intended for his friend to be entombed with him when he died. The nobles who murdered him were happy to honor that request by having Tetrahon blamed for the death of the King and executed. They then continued to be dicks by chopping his body into a dozen pieces and nailing them to the tomb walls, in an effort to ensure Tetrahon would never find rest. This didn't work as well as cremation, though, and Nagash's spell brought Tetrahon back.

He has been existing as a dozen disembodied parts nailed to a wall for 4000 years. He is surprisingly sane despite this. He is also the only other totally free-willed undead in the Tomb. Karitamen holds no sway over him, because an advisor he had any sort of control over would be a poor councilor indeed. Plus, they're buddies! They met way back when Tetrahon was interviewing people for histories and started working on the Death Scarab's stories, and they became friends over discussing military history together. Then they got to studying magic and the rest is history. History that went pretty wrong once Karitamen became obsessed with Necromancy originally but Tetrahon will conveniently leave that out.

Seeing the PCs, Tetrahon's severed head tries to reason with them. He'll cycle through ancient languages until he hits one they know; he's fluent in Khazalid and Eltharin. If they don't know any of the languages he speaks, he's just a weird, grisly wall decoration. They likely know at least one, though, and if so they get a conversation with the Priest. He's genuinely loyal to his friend and gives a fairly biased history of what happened with the nobles and their betrayal, claiming Karitamen was a mighty ruler and just man brought down by treachery and slander. He tries to convince the PCs to either put all his pieces in his sarcophagus (claiming doing so will let him rest; in reality he'll be able to raise himself fully in a few years) or failing that, if he's friendly he'll suggest you take his head with you. If he's not, he'll suggest the same, so he can spy on you for Karitamen. If friendly, he happily gives you a guided tour of remaining rooms in the Tomb, telling you what they're about and sometimes remembering where traps are to spare you the Search/Perception checks. If you bring his head to Karitamen to vouch for you, it will go well for you. Same if you put him where he can put himself back together. He's noted as someone who can show up several years later as a surprise ally for PCs who helped him. Or an enemy for people who 'put him to rest' and then killed his Lord.

I like him because he's a reasonable enough guy, but he's definitely leaving out that he accidentally helped his friend into his slide into tyranny and obsession last time. Still, how many times do you get to tour an ancient tomb with a severed head guiding you? That's rad. If you destroy the Liche Priest, Karitamen will be just as hostile as if you messed with his family's ashes; nothing you can do will make up for killing Tetrahon.

Level 6 is simple, because it's a booby trap. All of it. It's where the majority of the treasure in the tomb is stored, and contains what I consider the biggest dick move in the book. It is, of course, heavily trapped. That isn't the issue. The issue is that among all the gold and jewels, you're told that there's enough money to make you the richest people in the Empire. But that 'This is WFRP, so it's all cursed and if any character takes more than 500 GC, they will die from a terrible curse some time later.' and also 'If you try to get all of this treasure out and out of the Border Princes, it will earn you innumerable enemies and be a campaign in and of itself'. Those two sentences don't work together, book! There's also no actual in-setting warning about 'you can only take so much gold' or anything. You could loot the offertory chamber upstairs bare of its 14000 GC in treasure without Mummy Curses auto-killing you. This is just kind of a dick move; the simple logistics of stealing all the large objects would have sufficed, as would the traps and guardians.

There's also a giant false final boss chamber with multiple hints and rolls to suggest it is not actually Karitamen's chamber. Entering it starts a sequence of deadly traps, a 4 Tomb Guard fight, and a falling floor into a pit trap. You get a lot of hints not to fall for it, though. A lot. So many that I can't see any reasonable party falling for it. If you do manage to survive it, you find a suit of Best Full Plate intended for Karitamen's eldest son, as well as a Best Shield and Hand Weapon, so decent enough booby prize. I wish they were clear if the Hand Weapons count as the Khopesh from OWA, because a Best Khopesh is actually pretty interesting (having SB+1 but Slow while counting as a Hand Weapon for free parries) and also Khopeshes are silly and fun.

That's pretty much all that's on level 6: Traps, treasure that kills you, and an easy to avoid super murder action sequence. If they just had a warning about the treasure and it wasn't an arbitrary '500 GC each or you die' sort of thing (maybe make the 500 per PC happen to be how much of it is easily transportable, with a warning the larger objects may hold dark powers) I'd be okay with it. It also contradicts how you could steal pretty much everything everywhere else in the Tomb.

Next Time: The Man In Gauze

SirFozzie
Mar 28, 2004
Goombatta!

Dawgstar posted:

Although that's probably more a reference to Mai Shiranui it's still something I hope is gone from 2E.

He mentioned over on the RPG.net thread that there are no gendered qualities in 2E

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Lure of the Lich Lord

Karitamen! The Man in Gauze!

Depending on how you enter, you might be in for a really bruising fight in the room before Karitamen's tomb. Eight, count 'em, eight Tomb Guards set upon you in the antechamber before you enter if you've made the tomb hostile. Otherwise, they watch from the shadows, pretending not to be there.

This is also where you find out what role Slaanesh plays in the plot. See, Slaanesh got a weird little guy from Stirlander to get a magic gauntlet that conveniently happens to let Demons make someone into a living gate to let them into the world. This is what Strykssen wants, not realizing 'I turn into a demon gate' means 'I am loving dead'. It also gives +10 to Str and Tough but you can't take it off and it causes mutation over time like most Chaos treasures. The gauntlet and a magic amulet of Slaanesh were brought into the Tomb for Reasons. The amulet was placed on Karitamen's crypt, sealing him inside; it's a general Slaaneshi +10 WP and Fel amulet (but -20 to saves against Slaanesh, -10 to saves against Mutation, otherwise safe to wear) that just so happens to repel Undead of any kind. Somehow Slaanesh got the weird little guy into the Tomb with both relics so they'd get stuck in here and so Karitamen would stay sealed. This also woke him up and got him to work on unsealing himself, so...good job, Slaaneshi? You all played yourselves.

Really, the whole 'why are these relics in the tomb' part of the plot is pretty weak and I think it only exists because that was the plot of the novel the adventure is based on. The general adventure plot is good but Chaos is definitely the weak point here. Karitamen is protecting the gauntlet because he can tell it's powerful and evil and he hasn't figured out how to break it. He hates that loving amulet so much. He is really mad about Chaos and upset that that horseshit is still an issue 4000 years after his day.

Now, the climax of the Tomb is encountering Karitamen. If you've been friendly throughout the Tomb, he'll greet you and welcome you to his crypt. He's actually really excited that someone finally made it through all the traps and proved themselves worthy, doubly so if you did things to please him during the adventure. He tells his side of the story, asks the party for their help in escaping, and swears that all he wishes to do is restore order and unite the region, cleansing it of Chaos and destroying the Orcs and generally rebuilding his kingdom. He offers the players a Lordship in his new Kingdom if they'll remove that amulet and destroy the wards keeping him in, plus plenty of non-cursed treasure. There's a bit about how 'if they take this, they will be seen as traitors and reviled forever!' that's really weird because so much of the book is building to precisely this option being available.

It's bizarre to me; the whole story has been intentionally building towards there being good reasons to help or fight Karitamen, both. Moreover, he means his offer; he worked his way up from a footsoldier to a king, and he is intentionally looking for the same qualities in the people who could free him. He genuinely wants people of ability by his side, helping him, and he really does respect the PCs and think they're worthy if they were respectful and honorable while navigating his Tomb. It just seems weird to chide the players for considering allying with him when so much of the book was about the possibility and it starts the cascade of weird, bad endings that's coming after this update. So much of the book's setup is so good, but it stumbles at the finish line.

If you pissed him off, or if you attack during negotiations, Karitamen becomes your final boss and he is a loving badass. He'll still probably lose to a geared, leveled up party like Team 2, and he'll especially lose if you play him how they say to play him, but some of his abilities are just nuts. He's a WS 65, SB 5, TB 5 combatant with 4 attacks and a ton of combat talents, plus 41 Wounds. They talk a big game about how he's 'almost immune to mortal weapons but enchanted weapons harm him normally' but there's no mechanical enforcement of that; that's supposed to be reflected in his 'huge' 5 TB. Goran Prime on Team 2 has the same TB. He's also wearing partial Gromril armor but no mail or leather backing, so he's AV 3 on his chest and head, AV 0 elsewhere. He'll take heavy damage in combat if the team can survive melee with him; that's just not enough DR to tank tier 3 characters long.

The issue is his other abilities. The book thinks his Mag 4 and Core Book Necromancy is scary, but it isn't; the frightening abilities are his Aura of Command (-10 to WP and WS for anyone within 8m, passive) and his Domination, which works like the Lahmian ability (Fel vs. WP, and he has a 64% Fel! or else you get Dominated for d10 rounds) except it works in combat. The Lahmian ability knew allowing that in combat would be too broken. This does not. However, according to the 'how to play him in combat' he never actually uses it. If he'd Dominated Goran Prime at the start of the fight with Team 2 he'd have straight won the fight right there.

The other issue is not only does he have 4 attacks, but he has his magic swords. These give him a massive +20 to WS and count as Defensive like a shield, while also causing a 1 damage a round bleed effect that only ends on a Tough-10 save. The Blades of Honorable Demise are crazy powerful. His melee power is nasty. Also, if you kill him, the character who took him out saves with WP-10 or takes 2d10 Wounds, no save. Which was a TT Tomb King ability but seems like kind of a dick move here. Team 1 just has nothing that can tank a guy with 85% to-hit and Damage 6. Team 2's Goran can take some of those hits but needs help against him, but they've got the armor to handle melee and the hitting power to put him down.

The other thing is, the How To Use Karitamen section is his big weakness. It suggests he will use his magic if outnumbered, trying to summon undead or use Hand of Dust (a touch spell that does d10 unsaveable wounds) in place of his melee attacks to show off his awesome power. The issue here is twofold. One, Hand of Dust is poo poo next to him just giving you 4 85% to-hit Damage 6 swings with a bleed effect and two, Raise Dead takes 2 full rounds to cast. Remember, if you take wounds while casting a sustained spell like that, you have to make Channel checks or lose the spell. If he spends 2 rounds trying to call for backup, he's going to get shot and stabbed and even his 71% WP isn't certain under that kind of pressure. Plus, sure he has 41 Wounds, but that won't hold up under 6 people beating on him when his DR isn't huge.

This is where we talk about the Tyranny of Swift Attack. His absolute best move is to Dominate a PC and then get into melee and never stop swinging. It's the most action-efficient thing he can do. This is not how you're meant to play him; as I mentioned, the How To Play bit basically never mentions Dominate. Still, his trying to use his magic when backed against a wall actually hurts him, because Core Book Necromancy is a poo poo lore and more attacks would do far more for him than trying to swing around with touch spells. The suggestion he use his Fear spell to scatter PCs is much stronger; that might actually get him what he needs for his actions. This is a problem all across 2e; magic is (outside of Bright and a few other spots like Ice) generally more useful out of combat when it does stuff nothing else can do. In combat, it's okay, but best suited to again doing stuff you can't do without magic (like Father of Thorns' slow-field) rather than trying to compete with a geared fighter's damage output. Similarly, fighters themselves never have much incentive to use any combat action besides 'multiple attacks', because 'multiple attacks' exceeds the bonus of any other combat option.

Anyway, if you do kill Karitamen, you get his swords (which rule just as hard in a PC's hands as his), his Gromril armor components, his Death Mask (attached to a Helmet, provides +10 to Command and Intimidate, +10 to WP), the dagger that killed him (Enemies struck make a Tough-10 save or take 5 unsaveable Wounds), the Gauntlet, the Amulet, and any other magic treasure the GM feels like putting in. The dagger is loving weird, though. It makes a big deal about how it pierces all magic defenses (it'll go right through any Aethryic Armor spell) and also how it 'traps the soul inside the corpse' but it's a Chaos relic. That's...not normally a thing Chaos is interested in doing. Chaos usually wants the souls. Chaos is not usually interested in making Necromancy easier, which the dagger does by design. It has no actual downsides, though.

And with that, we can get on to the proposed endings, which are the worst writing in an otherwise well written book! I'll also be proposing a couple of my own, to show off how I think it could have been done better.

Next Time: Bad Ends

KOGAHAZAN!!
Apr 29, 2013

a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Night10194 posted:

Just how many of these drat swords are there?

I honestly wish there were more. Even after Arms of the Chosen, I wish there were more, because they’re all super specific and rolling up a custom one is a lot of work.

Like, you’re building an Exalt and she’s got this sort of “anti-occultist” theme going on, and you’re like, okay, I’ll get her a sword that fucks up demons, that seems like an easy ask. And so you go to the shiny doohickey shop and you open up the catalog and it turns out the demon-loving sword is actually a lance and, yeah, that’s fi- and also half the charms are about loving up demons from horseback and oh no now this is ten times as much work as you signed up for and who really has the time to write a custom nine-charm cascade for a belt buckle and there aren’t even any proper guidelines for this poo poo aaaaaa

It’s, maybe, super cool that all the important and powerful magical artifacts with storied histories are actually those things, but Jesus Christ sometimes it feels like adding an artifact to your charsheet is as complicated as chargen, in a game where that is already far too complicated.

Roll on Exigents.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

That sounds like more a problem with everything in Exalted being a huge ovecomplicated production than anything else.

Charms seem like a core issue with the entire system because everything is Charms, and more importantly, everything is also ten Charms.

SirPhoebos
Dec 10, 2007

WELL THAT JUST HAPPENED!

I know this is the wrong thread, but why the gently caress aren't Bastehi in Total Warhams? :colbert:

(It's okay, the Khemrian Warsphix is pretty adorable on it's own).

KOGAHAZAN!!
Apr 29, 2013

a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Night10194 posted:

Charms seem like a core issue with the entire system because everything is Charms, and more importantly, everything is also ten Charms.

I agree with the latter more than the former, but yes.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

SirPhoebos posted:

I know this is the wrong thread, but why the gently caress aren't Bastehi in Total Warhams? :colbert:

(It's okay, the Khemrian Warsphix is pretty adorable on it's own).

Every army could benefit from a housecat sitting on top of a big cat using magic to make the cat stronger.

EthanSteele
Nov 18, 2007

I can hear you
For making artifacts, nothing says you have to come up with all the evocations at once. Make your thing with just one and see how it goes. I definitely agree guidelines would be a huge help. Can't wait for the Exigents book.

Kaza42
Oct 3, 2013

Blood and Souls and all that
I... actually really love writing evocation trees for stuff. I've written evocations for artifacts I've never gotten the chance to use. I just love writing them. PM me, I will write evocations for you because I have a problem

Ithle01
May 28, 2013

EthanSteele posted:

For making artifacts, nothing says you have to come up with all the evocations at once. Make your thing with just one and see how it goes. I definitely agree guidelines would be a huge help. Can't wait for the Exigents book.

You don't have to, but it really does help. Like KOGAHAZAN! said, making a character with an artifact feels like making two characters. They really need to come out with Exigents. Arms of the Chosen was a big let down to me because I needed it to do one thing and that's a how-to-make-evocations guide or at least advice. Arms gave almost no advice for designing artifacts beyond 'read all the stuff we wrote for an idea of power level and then design your own'. Except that the power level of individual artifacts varies wildly, Sirresh vs. Gnoman (edit: actually just Gnoman vs. anything) for example, and reading another one hundred pages of charms makes me want to blow my brains out. Even if you do that it's really hard to compare artifacts to get an idea for evocations when each author has their own ideas on what artifacts should do and there's no guidelines for charm creation. It gets even worse when you consider that there are evocations that specifically enhance specific charms and some of those are really good, such as that one moonsilver symbiote armor that makes Increasing-Strength Exercise effectively reflexive at the start of combat.

Ithle01 fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Apr 12, 2019

SunAndSpring
Dec 4, 2013
Yeah, I'd really like to do Arms of the Chosen. Fun book, first chapter is very good.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Kaza42 posted:

I... actually really love writing evocation trees for stuff. I've written evocations for artifacts I've never gotten the chance to use. I just love writing them. PM me, I will write evocations for you because I have a problem
We can't build a gameplay system on your back! What if we don't have plat?

Though "the solution to this problem is to PM a hobbyist on an internet forum operated by a man with no spine - BTW, this costs you ten bucks to get in and ten bucks to be able to PM, which go into the spine fund" does seem about right for this field.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

SunAndSpring posted:

Yeah, I'd really like to do Arms of the Chosen. Fun book, first chapter is very good.

I'll probably be starting covering it by Sunday, I have like two posts more to go on the Core.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Also, I misreported the crazy magic dagger: It's 'Ignores all AP from magical sources' (that would include Runic Armor's bonus AP, or the Von Carstein Ring), 'Deals 5 wounds extra on any blow that deals at least 1 wound' and 'Causes a 1 Wound per round bleed until the target makes a Tough-10 save'. That dagger is dynamite.

I suspect this is one reason relatively few magic weapons and armors have shown up in the games I've run and played in. They tend to be nuts.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG


Part 23a: War’s End

On April 15, 2013, I did something that was either incredibly dumb or incredibly bold: I started reviewing Torg. It's been a long time, I know. I kept getting burned out. I started over at one point. But I pushed through, reviewing the entire setting, every realm, all the main metaplot beats. And now, six years later, it all comes down to this. Enjoy.



This is it. The end of the road. The culmination of five and a half years of metaplot and over 100 books. The Possibility Wars are finally coming to an end.

But how do you do that? Is it possible to wrap up everything that's happened in Torg in a single 130 page book?

Of course not. But by god John Terra tried.

From what I've heard, the end of Torg as a game line kind of snuck up on West End Games. Things had been chugging along well enough, but the thing about the ol' supplement treadmill is that it's not really sustainable. There was a heavy drop in quality in products, and I'm not just talking about the stuff we've seen in the later realm books. Published adventures were railroads, most of the important information about new content was only in the newsletter (which not everyone subscribed to), and WEG refused to move ideas to the new-fangled Internet thing that was becoming big.

The buy-in was a problem, too, especially when the game had been out for a while. Because the setting information in the core set was so light to practically be non-existent, you pretty much had to buy all the realm books to fill in the gaps. Then these books added more mechanical complexity to the game, not to mention the inevitable power creep and all the metaplot stuff in the newsletter (which you couldn't get back issues of, because it was a newsletter), and so on.

There were other factors, of course, like WEG's cash-sink licensed games and failure to pay their licensing fees to LucasArts for the Star Wars RPG that led to the company's closing in 1998. But at the end of the day, Torg was a well that had run dry for all but the usual group of die-hard fans.

As a result, so the legend goes, long-time Torg writer John Terra was told to write the final Torg adventure, the one that'd be a capstone on everything and wrap up all the loose plot threads that had accumulated over the years.

Back when I reviewed Deadlands: Hell on Earth: The Unity, I stated that Unity was a terrible adventure because of the metaplot, whereas War's End was bad despite. Will I be eating my words? Will this adventure be worth it? Will I actually finish reviewing Torg? Only one way to find out!



War's End opens with a page of fiction focused on the Gaunt Man and Heketon, his Darkness Device. The gist of it is that the Gaunt Man has finally had enough of this horseshit and has decided to end the War and make the final push to become the Torg.

For those who don't remember (which is probably all of you), in order to become the multiversal god known as the Torg, you need both a fuckton of Possibility energy (the "spiritual" factor) and a ton of kinetic energy (the "psychical" factor). In order to get the Possibility energy, he plans to use a ritual that will summon all the other Darkness Devices to merge with Heketon and siphon off the P-energy collected by all the other High Lords. He can do this because he knows that the Devices are all fragments of the dark god known as the Nameless One, so he can ritual something up to pull them out from under the other Raiders. As for getting the physical energy...well, we'll get to that.

So that's the set-up. The players won't know this, of course. They're busy being in the Nile Empire to begin with.

Act One: In A State Of De-Nile

Have I mentioned that Torg loved lovely pun titles in adventures? Because Torg loved lovely pun titles in adventures.

Case in point, this is the opening box text for the first scene, "A 'Prophetable' Venture":

quote:

Your adventures of late have deposited you in the city of Cairo, an ancient city filled with modern intrigue. Your band is in the marketplace, where the shouts of the merchants hawking merchandise mingle with the sounds of livestock, and the air is filled with the scents of spices and produce. It is three in the afternoon. Something is odd in Cairo these days; there's an undercurrent of tension as if a storm were about to break. Still, your contacts have no concrete information for you - it's just a feeling they have.

One tent does catch your eyes, though. A gypsy sits before the flap of this multi-colored silken shelter, doing his best to convince passers-by to enter. "Fortunes told!" he shouts. "In these uncertain times, you need to know what tomorrow will bring!" He beckons you to enter.
This is actually a Gaean gypsy from Orrorsh, and is able to hang out here due to a Orrorshian talisman in his tent creating a very small mixed zone. This is Karlo, and if the Storm Knights agree to enter his tent he'll deliberately do a fake fortune telling to see if they spot it. If they do, he uses his True Sight to verify they're actually Storm Knights, then attempt to hire them.

It turns out that a lot of psychics, seers, and assorted fortune tellers have been disappearing lately, and Karlo's mother Agatha and one of his clan mates Valara (both of whom could sense the future) have vanished. He wants the PCs to figure out where they went. He does have two leads (his mother vanished when visiting a silversmith, and his friend was at a club on the waterfront), and can pay.

Assuming the players agree, they can check out one of the two leads. But what if they don't?

Yeah, it's one of those adventures. At least the players have an actual choice on which lead to investigate first!

If they decide to check the docks, they can find a little place called "The Cairene Cafe". They also get jumped by some street toughs for no other reason than to have a fight scene here. If the PCs interrogate them after beating them up, they can learn that Valara did indeed come to this cafe often to dance and roll idiots, and possibly getting the name "Gat 'The Grabber' Grabowski", a guy who specializes in kidnapping.


Asking locals some questions, Nile Empire style.

The Cafe itself is basically a shack with a back room designed solely for criminal enterprises. The bartender will remember that there was a Japanese guy who was "keen on having his fortune told" here the other night, but he bolted just before Valara showed up. Note, however, that the PCs have to make a roll for him to remember this.

Checking the alley behind the cafe (and making perception and find rolls to look for clues) will turn up a torn strip of black silk, a small bangle, and part of a charm bracelet. What happened is that Valara was grabbed by ninjas (oy), but the PCs won't have any way of knowing that. So now they either have to check their other lead or go talk to Grabowski.

Oh, and at the docks there's also a ship called the Aix La Chapelle. This is a red herring; there's nothing on board except 20 P-rated Cyberpapal Church Police and 24 generic Veteran Shock Troops with nothing better to do than wait for the PCs to investigate the ship, because I guess it's funny to waste everyone's time with a long, pointless combat.

Speaking of which, there's something I'd like to remind everyone: Torg does not have mook rules. All 44 of these enemies have full stat blocks and the same three damage tracks (wounds, shock, and K/O status) as PCs. Also, half of them are P-rated so they take less damage and can boost their own rolls. Just something to bear in mind when I point out some of the upcoming combats.

If the PCs chose to go track down Agatha first, they find that the silversmith's store is closed for the day. An old drunk hanging out outside the building didn't see Agatha, but he did find a silver comb she dropped when she was grabbed. Searching the area (again, requiring rolls) will lead to a storm drain with signs of a struggle around it.

Whatever the PCs try to do, they're interrupted by a "warning shot" from an Akashan Monitor squad. They've been dispatched to the area because one of the Akashan's best seers, Lotar Grell, was last seen in this area but is now missing. Assuming the PCs don't return fire (yeah, right), the squad leader apologizes. They're seeking Lotar because the High Council has decided to leave Earth in about a week. Turns out that the Council has determined that sticking around has done more harm than good, what with the Comaghaz virus and spread of bioweapons and the Gaunt Man getting reality trees and all. The squad's leader will ask the PCs if they have any information, and also ask them to pass word along to Lotar if they find him. With that, they go on their own way leaving the PCs free to enter the sewer system.

We'll get to the Akashans leaving in a bit. It's part of another thing that is woven into the book.

The last option to this point was to find and talk to Grabowski. He's a mafioso who hangs out at a speakeasy in one of the many bad parts of Cairo. Getting past the doorman (an Ayslish troll) requires the password "Ali sent me". Using the password gets you in the door, forcing your way in results in a fight against the troll and about 20 gangsters.

Once inside, actually getting to talk to Grabowski involves setting things up through the twin bartenders, Butch and Bozo Smash, a.k.a. the Smash Brothers.

Before you groan, this was four years before Super Smash Bros. first came out. Just sayin'.

Anyway, if the PCs manage to get a meeting with Grabowski, it turns out he doesn't know anything about the kidnappings. Or, at least, these specific kidnappings; he's got eleven people being held prisoner in a secret room off his office. The only information he can give is that he knows someone's muscling in on his racket, and that these don't feel like "normal" kidnappings.

So that's a dead end. If the PCs notice the secret door and free the kidnap victims, they can get a nice cash reward, but that's about it.

Ultimately the PCs are supposed to go down the storm drain outside the silversmith's office. In keeping with 90's RPG design, it's entirely possible for the PCs to fail every check that would point them in this direction.

Once in the sewers, the party has to overcome a bunch of obstacles to get to where they're going. These include whirlpools, a rat swarm (200 rats, insert 5e playtest joke here), mummified crocodiles, and giant mutated spiders. The final "obstacle" is a giant wave of water out of nowhere.

It's impossible to avoid being swept away (gee, that sounds familiar), and everyone has to make a roll to avoid drowning. Assuming someone lives, they encounter some boxed text.

quote:

You stagger, wet and winded, into a large vault, clearly not part of the Cairo sewer system. Gasping for air, your eyes adjust to the lighting, and a shiver of dread runs through you as you hear dozens of swords unsheathing. You look up and see dozens of figures dressed in black, all with katanas.

Standing behind them, a smug smile on his face, is none other than Cairo Overgovernor Wu Han. The mastermind shakes his head at you. "Unless you Stormers have somehow gained precognitive powers, the Pharaoh has no need for you at his grand palace in Thebes. He would tell you that himself, but he is currently holding court there, seeking the counsel of his unwilling guests. As for you ... it seems somehow fitting you should perish in a sewer, amid the rest of the city's filth." He turns his attention to his ebon-clad army and says simply, "Kill them."
Yup, everyone just got dumped into a pulp ninja hideout. Wu Han is a known setting NPC (he defected from Mobius and flipped to Core Earth axioms, got put into witness relocation, then ended up flipping back to Nile Empire), and as such is pretty powerful. He's P-rated, but the 6 ninjas per PC aren't.

This is just a fight scene where Wu Han monologues the next clue at the PCs, as keeping with pulp tradition. Wu Han won't join the fight unless forced, and will bolt out an escape hatch as soon as it looks like his guys are losing. The PCs can follow him, but he triggers a silent alarm before going out a trapdoor that leads to the street above. The PCs have a few moments to search his office (they can find notes about the seers being taken to Mobius' palace, how one Cyberpapal witch escaped Mobius and went to Boston, and how security at the Palace is being lessened to allow petitioners to see the pharaoh) before 40 Veteran Nile Shock Troops show up.

At this point, the adventure assumes that the PCs are going to head to Thebes to save all the kidnap victims from Mobius' evil clutches. So how are the Storm Knights supposed to get there?

Yeah, about that.

The next scene takes place on a train to Thebes. But what if the PCs have their own transport?

quote:

There is also the possibility that the Storm Knights have their own air transportation. If they choose to use it, they will find another two dozen shocktroopers at the airport, forbidding all private planes/gyros/whatever from taking off. If they do get airborne, throw as many Paket fighters at them as needed to bring them down. And where do they crash? Why, right near the tracks of the Cairo-Thebes Express, and the train is coming! A good time to jump on, no?
The PCs are railroaded into taking an actual train. I can't tell if that's Peak 90's Adventure Design or a brilliant piece of satire.

Anyway, the train will always be just leaving however the group gets there, requiring a roll to jump on. What happens if you fail that roll? Good question!

There are Nile troopers on the train, of course, asking to see everyone's papers. People without papers (or who are packing weapons) are arrested and imprisoned in the troop's trai ncar.

The real reason the PCs get funneled here is so they can fight one of the Gaunt Man's agents: a shape-shifting manticore from Aysle who transformed to Orrorsh. He's on the train under the alias "Mr. Manuel T. Koar", and will attack anyone who does anything Storm Knight-ish.

That's it. That's the whole scene.


"No ticket."

The next scene takes place outside Mobius' palace in Thebes. There's the aforementioned petitioners lined up outside, but the bigger attention getter is that the artificial sun/death ray on top of the palace is missing.

The whole point of this scene is to get into the palace. This is the seat of Mobius' power, and as such is crawling with troops, gospog, and God knows how many deathtraps. Hopefully the players realize that fighting their way in is suicide, and either sneak in or disguise themselves as petitioners and bluff their way in.

However they get in, the final scene of this act starts in the palace's courtyard and we get our first real gaint block of boxed text.

quote:

In the courtyard of Mobius' palace is a sight to take your breath away. The circular yard is roughly 30 meters in diameter, with its floor composed of millions of tiny mosaic tiles which make a beautiful rendition of the Zodiac. At the far northern end, a tall, thin, cowled figure sits on a throne. Behind him rests a small bunker, and beside him an idol of a man with the head of a crocodile, made of black obsidian. But even this is not the most arresting sight: Mobius' grand palace is on fire!
Yup, that's indeed Dr. Mobius and his Darkness Device, the Kefertiri Idol. Mobius beckons the PCs forward while telling his guards to lower his weapons. Why? So he can do what he does best: monologue and give away his plans!

quote:

The cowled figure's right hand absently pets the black idol, which pulses with blue and red light. Then he looks up at you and speaks:

"Greetings, Stormers! So glad you could join me for this momentous occasion. No doubt you are here for the missing prophets and sages. Ah, me ... well, they are here somewhere. But they may well die of Cancer before you find them.

"You are most likely wondering why I, the mightiest intellect in this cosm, should undertake to abduct fortunetellers and their ilk. It's quite simple: the mark of true genius is knowing what you do not know. I knew something was amiss in this cosm - very amiss - but I did not know what. I brought the seers here to determine for me what is going to happen, and praise be to Sebek, the poor fools did. And do you know what? It's going to happen in three ... two ... one!"

Before your startled eyes, the Kefertiri Idol begins to shimmer, to fade, and then ... it is gone. Mobius sighs and continues: "It's such a burden being right all the time. Farewell, Kefertiri, you fickle piece of stone. It's over, you know. He's won. The Gaunt Man, that is. He's a genius - almost as brilliant as myself!

"Of course, I don't know the whole story. The last piece of the puzzle was that D'Aramis woman, and she vanished into Malraux's Boston before my bumbling henchmen could grab her.

"Still, I digress. I have enjoyed matching wits with you, Stormers, even if yours are pitiful compared to mine. What makes this truly tragic is that I was winning, you know. I was winning! I would have conquered this miserable cosm, made its inhabitants bow before me, and you, you would have been the lowliest slaves of all!!!"

Mobius pauses, as if trying to regain control of himself. When he has sufficiently recovered, he says simply, "Where was I? Oh, yes, now I remember - so long, suckers!"
With those clues out of the way, a hole opens up underneath Mobius' throne and he drops through, a metal plate sealing behind him.

At this point the fire (which was set by Mobius himself) is spreading to the courtyard. The palace itself has already been stripped of anything of value, and all Mobius' best toys were sent back to Terra (he's insane, not stupid). The PCs now have 15 rounds to find the missing seers, defeat the gospog guards that are now converging on them, and get the hell out of the palace before the whole place explodes.

As stated, there are twelve large tiles laid out with Zodiac symbols around the courtyard. All the seers mentioned so far. plus a few nameless extras, are under the symbol for Cancer as you could deduce from Mobius' obvious clue (to be fair, that does fit his whole "cursed to never know victory" deal). The PCs can try to bust through the steel plate to chase him, but given that it's a foot of solid steel and the fact that Mobius has a head start, it's not really a good idea.

After eight rounds, an escape rocket with Mobius' symbol on it will launch from a hidden bunker, but will explode in mid-air two rounds later. Searching the wreckage will reveal a corpse, but since nobody's ever seen Mobius without his hood, it's impossible to know if it's really him or not. It's not. He had a slave with his approximate build strapped into the rocket so he could fake his death and take a one-shot portal back to Terra.

This ends Act One. The seers explain that they foresaw an "evil man with the power of a god" tearing apart the Earth, and a woman who could stop him being burned at the stake. The PCs get rewarded for saving Karlo's family, Lotar will teach people psionics if they're able to learn them (and chooses to stay behind on Earth rather than go back to the Star Sphere), and now the group knows they need to head to Boston, Massachusetts for the next act.

But before that happens, there's a flash of light, and the PCs find themselves in a courtyard of a German hospital, where three of Terra's famous Mystery Men are talking to Dr. Alexus Frest, Mobius' archenemy.

See, there's a lot of important stuff happening in this adventure outside of the players' stuff. All the High Lords are having their personal stories wrapped up, and the way this is handled in-game is by having some Mysterious Force teleport the group to witness these scenes. Note I said "witness"; they only get to join in on maybe two of these. What these are for is for the GM to read pages of boxed text cutscenes at the players.

Case in point: this scene between Dr. Frest and the Mystery Men is basically getting people caught up with what happened with this NPC, and all of them finally managing to get back to Terra.

Just imagine sitting at the game table and hearing the GM read this to you.



When the scene ends, the PCs are returned to the outskirts of the palace in another flash of light. And while they don't witness it, they have this scene implanted in their minds.


SARILA DIED ON THE WAY TO HER HOME PLANET

Yup, the Akashans just leave. After having nothing to do with anything, after making everything worse, they just go without even an "our bad."

Now the first Act ends. Wasn't that exciting?

--
Three acts remain.

NEXT TIME: My only friend, The End.

Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Apr 12, 2019

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Exalted 3rd Edition: More Than Three Dots

Freedom's Cadence is a 4-dot starmetal chain shirt. It is said that it was made by Gu-Shaiyen, Celestial Daimyo of the Drums of War, who made it in honor of Mars and Mercury, crafting a starmetal hauberk and making it into a sleeveless tunic of mail and yellow silk, with its threads interwoven with strands of Sidereal Essence. The chain rings shimmer in the light even in total sillness, and when worn in battle, it makes the sound of distant, pounding drums. It grants its wearer the power of momentum and forward motion, ensuring that they will finish what they begin. It has a single hearthstone slot. While it comes with lamellar pauldrons, vambraces and fist guards, they are not actual armor on their own.

A Sidereal, Solar or Getimian may pay 3 additional motes when attuning to Freedom's Cadence. This loosens the armor's Essence, causing the entire thing to no longer count as armor. This bonus attunement is ended if you enter Crash. The armor has 5 Evocations from Essence 1 to 3. The first, Stepping Through Strife, gives bonus dice on any attack or social influence against an opponent you've gotten Initiative Break from Crashing for as long as they remain in Crash. However, you get a penalty against anyone that gets an Initiative Shift on you for as long as you are in Crash. The second, Snow-Gathering Elusion, draws forth unstoppable destiny, increasing the armor's soak when you dodge an attack. The third, Destination-Hunting Impulse, causes your Rushes to get bonus successes once you successfully Rush a first time. The fourth, Clear Path Defense, permanently increases the armor's soak by making the armor seek out the foe's attacks to block them. The fifth, Pound the Drums, taps into the spiritual energy of the armor and draws on Gu-Shaiyen's power, increasing the sound of drums the armor makes until it covers the battlefield, which automatically succeeds as an Inspire action on you and all allies, giving all affected bonus Initiative each round as long as they're near you and don't get hit that round. However, you must flurry a miscellaneous action to dance each round to maintain the effect, and it ends if you get Crashed, knocked down or grappled.

Orichalcum Hunting Hawk is a 4-dot orichalcum powerbow. Once, there was a forge-manse named Skyfire, built atop the highest Western mountain. Its master was Shan Irrak of the Golden Forge, famous for his skill with orichalcum. Once, he fell in love with a predator-spirit named Red Wing and made this weapon in her honor - a powerbow carved with the image of a hawk, with ruby eyes and orichalcum claws and wings, all flawless. It was a weapon meant to express his pure devotion and her pure predatory nature. He gave it as a gift, but unfortunately, Red Wing was torn apart when the Fair Folk invaded Creation, and the bow was lost in the chaos of the Wyld Crusade. It has a siingle hearthstone socket on its 'back', where the wings meet.

A Solar that attunes to Orichalcum Hunting Hawk may close their eyes and see through the ruby eyes of the bow when, which ignore all penalties from poor visibility, darkness and blindness as long as your attack has an aim bonus. There are 5 Evocations from Essence 1 to 3. The first, Orichalcum Wings Elevation, causes you to move an additional range band if you use it to attack while at the peak of a Monkey Leap. The second is gained free when you use the bow to stalk and kill a beast or monster that is a challenge for you. It is Cloud-Blending Camouflage, and it causes the color to leech out of the weapon and the user until you become invisibile, allowing you to make a Stealth check and reroll a bunch of failed dice on it. However, it is only usable if you are above the people you want to hide from, though any elevated position is enough. The third is Drifting Hawk Tactics, which you can activate whenever you make more than one attack while in midaid, as long as most of your shots are targeted at people below you. The Charm keeps you in the air the entire time, and you can spend Willpower to move one range band away from your targets due to the force of your shots. The fourth is Golden Talon Strike, which lets you reroll dice on an attack based on how far above your target you are, and you gain Willpower if you hit. However, you can only learn it if you have at least 10 Archery Charms. The final Evocation is Sun-Gilded Hawk Soul, which turns your anima into a giant golden hawk that joins battle as an eagle familiar. At Essence 4, you can spend its Initiative in place of Essence motes to pay for the bow's Evocations. If the hawk gets taken out, it dispappears and you can't summon it again until you hunt and slay a challenging foe with the bow. During such a period, all Evocations get a +1m cost increase, as the bow's spirit is wounded.

Dauntless is a 5-dot orichalcum lamellar armor. It was made for Zan the Invincible, Sword of Heaven, because his circlemates got very worried over his habit of facing massively greater numbers of foes alone. Arem Bear-Arms, one of his circlemates, stole the hair form a hundred men who Zan defeated, giving them to Zhui the Traveler, who used them to make magical fibers to hold together the armor's orichalcum plates, each enchanted with a blessing from the spirit of love for challenge in battle. To this were added great pauldrons etched in Old Realm, tales of triumph in battle, and also a hauberk of orichalcum to wear under the plates. From then on, the Circle was assured that while Zan would continue to fight against overwhelming odds whenever possible, he would have their aid. The armor now amplifies the natural ability of those who revel in combat. It has two hearthstone sockets, one on each shoulder.

A Solar attuning to the armor may pay 4 extra motes to get a bonus to all attempts to lift or break objects and can treat their Strength as 3 higher to see if they qualify to try doing so. Also, it reduces incoming Decisive damage that has a 1 on the damage roll, and when in Full Defense it absorbs rolled 1s and 2s from attacks by battle groups, adding them to the wearer's Initiative, at a cap of 5 Initiative per round. The armor has 4 Evocations from Essence 1 to 3.

The first is Pounding Heart Triumph, which you can only learn (but get for free) when you defeat an opponent or battlegroup that represents a Major or Defining threat. I think this means they represent an Intimacy of that level that you feel threatened by? Anyway. It reduces the armor's soak but gives a bonus to all close combat Withering attacks for the scene, and each time you land one, you can increase the armor's soak a bit until it gets back to its normal value. Second is Taste of Victory Rhythm, which lets you reduce your onslaught penalty against future attacks after getting hit by a foe, and can build in phantom resistance - that is, if you get hit once, use it, and have no onslaught penalty, it still takes two more attacks to give you any penalty at all. Third is Champion's Fatal Strike, which lets you, once per day, ignore all wound and illness penalties on a single attack against a Crashed foe, and regain Willpower if you take them out with it. Finally, Daredevil Bravado Defense lets you reduce the armor's soak and Hardness while using Pounding Hearty Triumph in order to reduce damage from a Decisive attack.

Next time: Black Wind and Volcano Cutter

SunAndSpring
Dec 4, 2013
Instead of doing something good that I like from Exalted 3e, I will instead gently caress myself up and do something bad.

BEHOLD


MIRACLES OF THE SOLAR EXALTED:
OR; OOPS, ALL CHARMS!


The Backstory
This is the second and last book Holden Shearer and John Mørke worked on for Exalted 3e before being fired. Dragon-blooded: What Fire Has Wrought credits them for additional work, but this supplement was what basically sealed the deal on their ousting from the franchise. Holden and John had an argument with the owners of Onyx Path over payment regarding this book. Miracles of the Solar Exalted features both backer charms and charms already written but cut from 3e's core. In an attempt to get more payment for this book, the duo took hostage the next book in line, Arms of the Chosen, infamously declaring that they had scrapped most of their work done for it because it, to paraphrase, "wasn't good enough for their standards". This, predictably, resulted in Richard Thomas firing the two and uplifting Robert Vance and Eric Minton to become the new leads. I have no idea what the hell John's doing these days, but Holden mostly just pretends to be really woke on Twitter despite defending John's sex pest bullshit and has made some Exalted vs Old World of Darkness thing that I have not read.

I find this book interesting simply because it is a microcosm of some of the core issues of 3e under the old leads; really loving bad natural language and wording making charm length expand like a DeviantArt original character, niche charms that really don't serve much purpose bloating the trees, wanking over Solar Brawl, and a smug attitude towards everything. Mors's review of the core skipped over charms, and I do not blame him for it. However, I will go into detail on EVERY SINGLE CHARM of this forty one page tome. I will make myself mad, I will get pissed, I will wonder how the gently caress these guys got in charge, and all for you, dear reader who is probably loving sick of hearing about Exalted! Let's go!

The Intro
We begin with this quote:

quote:

When looking at the backer Charm requests, I saw a need that has been mirrored elsewhere in the Exalted community — an underlying desire to see more overt supernatural power in the fabric of Solar Charms. This need was not verbalized by a single backer, but it came across through the things they had asked for.
This is a loving great way to start this off. Already he's talking about how most Solar charms were boring poo poo that amounted to "Do what a mortal can but super duper good" in core.

quote:

In this tome you will find the power to tame a raging inferno with a song, to blow an airship out of the sky with a single shot from your bow, and to sense whenever your allies are in danger. You will find the skill to strike from the shadows unnoticed, or the power to blaze your aspect from the words and face of another, and Charms so sharp they can “cut god.”
Oh, and Survival Charms, Survival Charms, Survival Charms. Everyone asked for Survival Charms. I also threw in a few bonus Charms and the section below as my way of saying thanks.
— Ø January 14, 2016
Well, at least Survival does go to Essence 5 right now so you don't feel like a complete idiot for taking that over Solar Resistance or something, just a normal idiot. Anyways, this then transitions into, oddly enough, a section about the past lives of the Solar Exalted. Essentially, it mostly just restates knowledge that was in 3e core; Solar Exaltation is passed down throughout the ages every since the Unconquered Sun made the drat things. When an Exaltation sticks itself onto your soul, you get weird feelings around some places that were important to your metaphysical ancestors, remember events from the former bearer's lives, and occasionally horrible sorcerous traps made by the last guy to have your Exaltation will deactivate when they sense you (if they were so charitable to make it so). Also spirits can often tell if you're now carrying the Exaltation of somebody they met before, thanks to that Measure the Wind charm they've all got, and your Lunar bond will seek you out usually. I can only assume this info was far less important than there being three different ways to kill someone with your sword from afar in Solar Melee or a bunch of niche Wyld-Shaping Technique enhancements in Lore, hence why it shows up here and not in the main book where it belongs.

In addition, we got a special thanks section! It starts off bragging about how only 7th Sea's new edition beat its Kickstarter after three years. John Wick actually got his game out the same year he announced it if I recall correctly, unlike certain other developers, so I guess it's deserved. In any case, this section exists to thank the people who backed 3e's Kickstarter and the people who bought the charms now within this supplement in a very flowery way that does not apologize whatsoever for making them wait forever because they spent three years loving around.

Finally, we have a new charm keyword, Apocryphal. This is allegedly used to say the charm is not canon, basically, but mostly as a way for Morke to complain about having to write something for a backer. There's a really long section below saying that these are all unbalanced, too magical or not skill-based enough (apparently lighting arrows on fire with will alone and shaping primordial chaos is skill-based, but these are not), but really, it's just shorthand for "this annoyed the sensibilities of John Morke" as we'll see. Let's get to these charms, finally!

ARCHERY

We begin with one of the only things I actually like from this book, Hanging Judgment Arc. Upon joining battle, you can shoot an arrow into the sky to hang like the Sword of Damocles over a certain bit of scenery or place an enemy is not already at until an enemy crosses it, where it will then descend and attack them with your unmodified attack pool (so 11 dice if you're maxed out), as well as the charm's prerequisite, Fiery Arrow Attack (which adds damage and sets people on fire if you do enough. If it hits, it rolls damage equal to the initiative you had when you shot it, and does not reset you to base. If you pick a specific target when you do this, like saying "Bob, that fucker, does not go past this gate", the attack adds your Essence in automatic successes to the attack and damage, as well as bonus dice to the attack. You have to have enough space to shoot up to do this, and if you are crashed, killed, or don't ever have the charm triggered, the arrow just falls down and sets everything near it on fire.

At Essence 3 and Archery 5, you can spend extra motes to do this out of combat, where the arrow will stay forever until you drop the motes committed to it or it drops on someone's head for 17 damage dice; not even killing you will make it drop. At Essence 4, you can stack this dumb thing (Essence) many times. All in all, I like this charm; I think it's a neat way to deny certain spots to enemies. However, my god is it long, and the commentary for it has stuff that should be in the rules, clarifying that if an enemy triggers the attack in the same spot an ally is in, it'll only hit the enemy, but "whether or not they both catch on fire is a totally
different issue". This motherfucker wrote a rules clarification outside of the loving charm and didn't clarify something else! 4/5, the charm is a useful and neat idea, if wordy.

Nova Arrow Attack takes too many words to say you shoot it at a certain point without needing to roll, and then everything in close of that point eats an unblockable decisive attack with an attack pool of the Solar's initiative (max 10) and damage equal to your initiative. If one dude gets hit, your initiative resets. If you just wanna blow up some stuff that isn't people, that doesn't reset your initiative. Anybody hit goes prone and flys out to short, and also loses 1 initiative, and anyone that dodges just falls out of the range band. If you damage a battle group, they take a penalty to their next attack because you hosed up their ranks. This poo poo's just loving awfully bloated, I got the gist of it in one paragraph compared to their two. For instance, they use the term "non-standard decisive attack", which is loving obvious from the text itself, and dick around explaining that people who dodged don't go prone or lose initiative. 2/5.

Hell-Heeling Arrow starts out the same as Nova Arrow Attack, but your arrow instead just sits there until someone within moves (willingly or not) without disengaging at difficulty 5 from it (once at short, twice at close). It explodes in a "non-standard decisive attack" if this is not met (or if you just toss someone into the zone), rolling your Essence + Initiative (max 12) as an attack and doing your initiative in damage to everyone in short with it, and has the same knockdown rules as Nova Arrow Attack. If someone goes prone, you set them on fire. What a dick you are. This one doesn't reset your initiative, but is only once per battle unless you somehow join battle again (which only happens in Initiative Clash or from some Artifact bullshit, IIRC). Still written overly long, and more fidgety and niche than the charm before it. 2/5 again.

Solar Judgment Flare is the last, a big loving Essence 5 decisive nuke. You need high initiative (15+) to use it, but hey, you don't need to aim (although they tell you this at the end of the charm for some reason). If it hits, it does best of three or Essence automatic levels of damage and you can spend 1m to add a dice of damage up to your initiative. You send a big burning line of fire behind the arrow (1 range band per 5 initiative) that subjects anyone in it to a very strong fire hazard and the poor guy you hit with this gets knocked back a range band for every three health levels. If you hit a ship (made of natural materials because I guess artifact boats were already destined to be unkillable at this point), every 3 levels of damage equals 1 hull damage, and if you hit a battlegroup, their next rout check is quite difficult. The commentary for this charm is Morke getting annoyed the backer took too long to make it and settled on something he saw in an anime (Archer from Fate/Stay Night's big attack where he shoots a sword at a guy). Very cool! I give it a 3/5; it's a bit one-dimensional, but sometimes you need somebody absolutely loving dead and this is the charm to do it, and it's written more concisely than the other poo poo here.

ATHLETICS

Strength-Hying Heave is a backer charm that lets you use your move action to throw someone near you a range band up or down. You could probably just do this with Monkey-Leap Technique by grabbing them and move both of yourselves, and for some reason you need to use Increasing Strength Exercise all the way to its max to even do it. If you've got Power Suffusing Form Technique, you can use that and this charm hurl somebody two range bands or a really big thing (the example given is both a horse and its rider) one range band. Morke has the mercy to give this lovely charm a small mote discount if you do this and then adds a Willpower cost on to snatch that mercy away. He spends the commentary saying that with Nine Aeon Thews (a Essence 5 charm at the end of Athletics's feats of strength tree), you could hurl someone THREE range bands or more, but the ally might take fall damage unless they have charms, and says, "This is a good example of how Solar Charms can and do work together in ways that aren’t expressly outlined in the rules." 1/5.

Faster than Self Technique is neat. You go so fast, you become multiple copies of yourself, being every copy and no copy all at once. This makes you a battlegroup of Size (Essence/2, rounded up) and you always have Magnitude 10 despite what Health you have normally, and you attack like you normally would. You can't wear anything but light armor or use any Resistance charm that isn't Permanent (the only ones that are is this charm that gives you more health levels, which doesn't work with this charm, or upgrades to charms that don't work with this charm :v:) or Simple activated before this charm was turned on, and you don't get the benefit of command actions or War charms. You spend 1 mote per round this is up and if your Magnitude is depleted, you roll Stamina+Athletics to stay in the charm. If you end the charm or get knocked out, you take -1 to all your Athletic rolls for three rounds. Once per scene, quite obviously. A cool backer charm (John makes note that he didn't really do much to make this) that makes you tanky as hell and gives you a nice little boost to your attack rolls, as per the rules for Size. 4/5.

BRAWL

Note that these are all charms Morke made for himself. Dude loving loves Solar Brawl.

Swift Strike Prana lets you immediately decisive a guy after you disarm them. It costs a willpower unless you're hitting a trivial opponent. This isn't worth the XP. 1/5.

Heart-Eating Fist is a Essence 5 charm that lets you do a Mortal Kombat fatality on a guy by paying 1 willpower and all of your anima banner. You do a gambit with a difficulty equal to your target's remaining health levels. Success means you rip their heart out. John spends a lot of word-count stroking off to this. If you kill a trivial opponent with it, you scare all the other trivial opponents and then get a willpower back. If you kill somebody that could actually harm you, you heal up to half your Essence levels back and can activate some other charms, including the one following this. I'd like this more if John wasn't obviously getting off to this (the loving commentary just restates what the charm does) and wasting wordcount. 2/5.

Burning Sky Apocalypse Strike is in the vein of Solar Judgment Flare; a big nuke. You make one attack roll against everyone near you (friend or foe) at Initiative 20+. Anyone that gets hit gets Shoryuken'd the gently caress up in the sky along with you, one range band per 10 initiative you got, and takes three dice of bashing damage per band and predictably fall damage. You then launch yourself like a cannonball at some dudes down on the ground up to a range band away and attack them all, doing half your initiative to everybody and ignoring their hardness. You take no fall damage, obviously. This poo poo is so god drat wordy and masturbatory, with so much natural language crowding out the rules, an unnecessary disclaimer in bold that "This part where you Shoryuken them doesn't reset your initiative", and ends with this real loving winner of a comment.

quote:

On Burning Sky Apocalypse Strike
*John lowers an LP of smooth slow “doo-wop” onto the spindle and swishes his brandy around in a shot glass while staring out the window at the setting sun.*
2/5.

BUREAUCRACY

God these are so wordy and useless.

Honor-Instilling Mantra lets your employees cite some of your Intimacies you put into the charter as if they were their own (presumably such fun ones as, "I will Shoryuken you if you steal from me"), so long as they read the thing. This lasts until you change the charter. This takes a paragraph to say that, and the commentary spends another saying that what the backer wanted was far too powerful (making the employees act as the Solar would), replacing it with this effect that really only works if somebody is already loyal to the Solar and is actively paying attention to their rules. Hilariously, there's like two Dragon-blooded charms that do this but way better; one lets you instill everyone with a Defining Principle you have and sets it at Major, and the only way for your subordinates to avoid it is to just quit the job, and the other sets a rule literally in stone (you loving carve it out into rock) that they need a Definining intimacy to even think about breaking it for. 1/5, Solar Bureaucracy sucks rear end.

Pattern-Exploiting Commerce Spirit is one of those weird "do your Celestial thing in secret" niche charms that pop up in 3e sometimes. It lets you mystically guide customers with money problems to you from a city block away, even through hidden doors. You can specify what customers you want based on their Resource rating and what they're looking for ("Resources 5 and looking for a bank", for instance). They will have no idea why they walked into an alleyway, crawl into an open duct, and knocked "Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits" on the door into your sewer bank. John seems to imply in the description for this that he just made this up entirely based off the backer saying ,"I like the Eclipse Caste, I like Bureaucracy."

quote:

The backer’s favorite Caste is Eclipse, and their favorite Ability is Bureaucracy, so I decided to make them a very mystical, extremely useful Charm for Solars trying to operate in the shadow economy or who are simply trying to be very exclusive.

I hope they enjoyed it, I guess. 2/5, it's way niche but also I find the idea of rich people just randomly wandering through a complex series of hidden doors and panels into Anathema & Suns Legal Services's fine offices in the back of a crumbling bath house.

Creation of Adamant Specie takes an ungodly amount of words to say you create a cool coin that tells raksha, ghosts, and spirits a Solar made it, how rich you are, and that the guy carrying it can buy poo poo on your behalf. You have to pay the debt on your Solar Credit Coin within a year and a day, swearing a "Heavenly Oath" to do so (but no words on what happens if you break it). Demons and mortals don't care (The Guild is noted to not take magic coins, and in the commentary, Yozis prevent their servants from doing so because they want you to come into Hell and bargain with them in person, but that's more likely a lie just to kill your stupid rear end). You can walk through the Wyld while holding it without getting mutated. Stealing it gives the thief bad luck, or sometimes it's just too heavy to lift. People not authorized can't use it, and there's some weird poo poo about how if you spend it in market and you're using the previous dumb charm I reviewed, it'll find and lead whoever gets it to you if they meet the criteria you set. This poo poo and the commentary for it takes up a loving whole rear end page. It is also Essence 4 and is beaten by a Essence 2 Dragon-blooded Bureaucracy charm that gives a guy a token that says they're your servant (or a servant of a Dragon-blood) and that they're authorized to negotiate on your behalf AND gives them a specialty in doing so while they have it without any of the stupid restrictions for mortals and demons this charm has. 1/5 gently caress me Solar Bureaucracy is so bad.

Spectacle-Inciting Order
gives you a loot crate. No I'm loving serious.

quote:

If the Solar has established herself as a person of business renown in an area and has a practice or organization that is currently functioning, then she may use this Charm once per season to call a prestigious and strange package to be delivered to a local market or other place of public commerce. This delivery comes to Creation through a spirit court, a raksha court, or from the court of the ancestors, and what is inside will be strange, ethereal, or morbid as matches its source. In any case, the package is wrapped in glorious, scintillating, luminously textured paper, but is magically bound by a ribbon and can be opened by none other than the Solar. The package draws fascinated crowds and it is automatically perceived as something wondrous, a gift from the gods, or something strange and exciting.
You roll Intelligence + Bureaucracy, with no charms added, when you see it to determine its Resources value of what is inside. You automatically know what it's worth the second you see it, but not what is in it. The backer was stated to want a charm to make money in a crazy and unexpected way, so I guess this would do it. 1/5, this is so god drat stupid.

CRAFT

Ever-Ready Discipline Technique lets you retroactively complete a Major project, saying you actually made something just for this occasion. This cannot resolve a conflict entirely, but it can make a tricky situation more navigable. You need to have 15 silver xp banked for some reason, but you spend no Craft xp on this, which is odd. The finished item obviously needs to tie to your Craft ability, so no making a bunker if you've only got Craft (Dressmaking). It can only be used (Essence/2) times a story, and if the GM deems you clever, you get Craft XP. There's advice in the comments that storytellers should reduce, alter, or damage a project if its too effective at resolving a conflict entirely by itself, but otherwise to let the players go nuts. I'm starting to notice a trend where backer charms in which the player had an idea of what they wanted are really good; Hanging Judgment Arc, Faster-than-Self Technique, and this were all defined by the buyer. 4/5, this is very useful and cool.

Next up: Integrity, Investigation, Larceny, Linguistics, Lore, and Medicine

SirFozzie
Mar 28, 2004
Goombatta!
Move generation in Fight! The Fighting Game RPG

So, Fight! comes in a not-so-great tradition of other fighting-style role playing games that couldn't avoid the move trap. You know, the one move that every fighter should have, because it's over powered? or the move that everyone avoids because it's crap? Done wrong, a single bad move can cheapen any fighting RPG just as much as any fighting game (Street Fighter: The RPG and Cartwheel Kick, yes, I am Looking RIGHT at you, why do you ask?). Fight does it's best to avoid this trap by making every special move be based off the same modular system.

The intention for this is to make whatever move you generate not be broken or underpowered, but this comes with a downside that new people to the system are going to look at this and go.. HUH?

Let's break things down a bit and explain why.

Each special maneuver is given a level, based on how difficult/powerful the move is to do. They actually tell you to pretend that you're creating the move in a fighting game, what kind of controller inputs would you require to do the move? That gives you an idea of how powerful the maneuver is. I'll let the game explain.

The philosophy behind Move Levels is based on a system of evaluating the standard controller motions used in fighting games. Basically, the number of controller directions required plus the number of buttons pressed should equal the Special Move’s level. The one important exception to this is that any “quarter sweep” motion (e.g., down, down-forward, forward – the classic “fireball” motion) counts as only two directions rather than three because the rolling motion is easy to perform. This likewise applies to a “half sweep,” which is two quarter sweep motions and thus is reckoned as four directional presses rather than five.

Using this formula, a standard fireball (down, down-forward, forward with a button press) is an L3 move. The standard “dragon punch” motion (forward, down, down-forward with a button press) is an L4 move.


So, if you're not used to fighting games and sweep motions, this will be your first problem. I had a couple players who hated fighting games (because they had no coordination with the controller) try to figure out something, and what would be easy for a Shoryuken-master to figure out a move's in-game potential and power was difficult for them.

But basically, you can have 1 element for each special maneuver level. You can gain more elements by taking drawbacks, but when you're done creating the maneuver, the # of elements - the # of drawbacks = the move's level.

So why wouldn't you just make every move super powerful? Well, to actually perform the move, you need a number of control points at least equal to the move's level to do it. Considering the base amount of control you have is 1d6 (although the die size can change based on your abilities), that means you may not have enough control to perform the maneuver often. (If you take damage from an opponent's move, you lose 4 control, or half, depending on what would leave you with a lower total).

Some elements are rather straight forward (Increased Damage, increased accuracy, for example), or adds modifiers to the maneuver (such as Aerial, which can be more difficult to block, although there are moves that counter aerial abilities), and others allow more esoteric effects, such as the Juggle element (which is one of those maneuvers that knock the opponent into the air, allowing for more hits on the combo, before they land with a sickening thud.

Liabilities include less damage, or non-accuracy, for example.

There's about 50 different elements, so I'm not going to go into them all, but it's very robust. (You can even pretty easily create maneuvers that don't really attack the enemy, but instead generate Super Energy (needed to power those uber powerful moves), or even heal your character).

Once you grok the system, it's fairly easy to create a special maneuver, but my players bounced off this to the point they didn't want to play the characters they had just made.

Move Example 1:

Let's take a rather simple move, where your character takes a step forward and does an extended side kick. It's fairly powerful.

The player imagines the input to be something like (Forward) (Forward) (Any Two Kick Buttons), so that would be a Level 4 move (Alternatively, he may just decide, this is how powerful it is)

So, he has four base elements to play with.

He wants the move to be fairly powerful, and that it has a long reach (basically, it's almost a dash style maneuver).

So, the first thing he does, is assigns the Reach Element (which allows him to hit at greater ranges despite it not being a ranged attack). So now, instead of being only able to use this attack at Range 0 (touching) or 1 (standard distance), he can use it at Range 2 or even 3 (with an accuracy penalty)

The other 3 elements he decides raises the damage it does (because he has a strength of 1, his base damage is 1d8, the damage steps advance it like so, 1d8+1, 1d10, 1d10+1

So, he records the final move like this:

Level 4 maneuver RECOIL-LESS RIFLE KICK

(Fighter A) steps forward, spins and throws a powerful extended side kick, his leg whipping through the air with a gunshot like cracking sound.

Accuracy: +/- 0 (Base)
Damage: 1d10+1


So, this is a fairly powerful maneuver that he'll be able to throw a bit more than half the time. He will need at least 4 control (the level of the maneuver) to pull this off. (the character I pulled this from also had a speed of 1 with a bonus of control, so he would roll 1d8 for how much control he would get). It's not super accurate or inaccurate, but if it hits, it'll hurt. (Just to give examples, a Power Level 1 beginning fighter only starts with 30 Life Bar Points, and a midrange Power Level 4 fighter has 60, so even for a mid level fighters, this kick has the potential to take more than 15% off the opponent's life bar, and it's a pretty standard move)

So, why wouldn't you make a super-powerful move and just use it over and over? Because they actually tie having a diverse move-set into how quickly your character advances (If you use a maneuver more than once in the same fight, it only gives half the normal Glory (the XP like stat) it would have generated the 2nd and further times)

Again, if you know about footsies range and baiting an opponent's attack, move creation can be rather simple. Just imagine it in a real fighting game, describe it, and then pick the elements and liabilities that describe it. If your fighting game skill is limited to "Push all the buttons and hope something good happens", it can be very confusing. I am not great at fighting games, but I've watched enough of it to understand the basics, and I grokked it rather easily. Two of my players, who liked Street Fighter RPG because of it's ability to "See move in book, select it, just record modifiers" but weren't huge fighting game fans got lost in this system and never came out.

One thing I should note is in the second edition kickstarter (currently going on), 1 of the stretch goals is "The Big Book of Moves", which is 150 or so prebuilt moves for players and gm's to select. This would make things a LOT easier for new GM's and players. I would even suggest that if you GM this for new players, that you write up something similar, and present them to the players if they want to avoid the crunchy fiddly bits.

SirFozzie fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Apr 13, 2019

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

How the gently caress was 200 pages not enough. What Charms are there even to do!?

SunAndSpring
Dec 4, 2013

Night10194 posted:

How the gently caress was 200 pages not enough. What Charms are there even to do!?

Well, most of it was backer charms, which is a fine enough idea for a Kickstarter tier. The next two splatbooks each have their own books coming out with them (but also have useful stuff like more info on certain locales and societies and war scenarios to play out). It's just that, for whatever reason, we apparently really needed even more Brawl charms and more Bureaucracy charms based off selling poo poo in Morke's reckoning.

megane
Jun 20, 2008



Exalted wants to do two things:

a) be a game where you are a crazy mythic superhero who can do anything you can dream of, in combat or otherwise, and

b) codify literally every single possible supernatural action mechanically.

The astute may notice that these two goals are slightly at odds.

For instance, Morke wants Solars to be able to do this: *dumps towering stack of Kung Fu movies onto desk* But he also refuses to say "players can roll Brawl to do whatever cool fantasy punchman poo poo seems appropriate," because, I dunno, some mixture of a hatred for player agency and the grognard verisimilitude screech reflex I guess. So instead he sat down and listed every single cool move he could find, individually, and if anybody wants to do a cool move he didn't think up yet they have to pay him to print it in this book.

It's the same reason the D&D core book is like 80 pages of spells and 70 pages of literally the entire rest of the game. It's magic! We can't just let players make it up!

EthanSteele
Nov 18, 2007

I can hear you

Night10194 posted:

How the gently caress was 200 pages not enough. What Charms are there even to do!?

200 pages is enough. 99% of these are specific charms requested by kickstarter backers as part of their reward tier.

Thesaurasaurus
Feb 15, 2010

"Send in Boxbot!"

megane posted:

Exalted wants to do two things:

a) be a game where you are a crazy mythic superhero who can do anything you can dream of, in combat or otherwise, and

b) codify literally every single possible supernatural action mechanically.

The astute may notice that these two goals are slightly at odds.

For instance, Morke wants Solars to be able to do this: *dumps towering stack of Kung Fu movies onto desk* But he also refuses to say "players can roll Brawl to do whatever cool fantasy punchman poo poo seems appropriate," because, I dunno, some mixture of a hatred for player agency and the grognard verisimilitude screech reflex I guess. So instead he sat down and listed every single cool move he could find, individually, and if anybody wants to do a cool move he didn't think up yet they have to pay him to print it in this book.

It's the same reason the D&D core book is like 80 pages of spells and 70 pages of literally the entire rest of the game. It's magic! We can't just let players make it up!

I really cannot wait until Mors gets to Lunars who are just so much more sensible in their Charm design.

SunAndSpring
Dec 4, 2013

megane posted:

Exalted wants to do two things:

a) be a game where you are a crazy mythic superhero who can do anything you can dream of, in combat or otherwise, and

b) codify literally every single possible supernatural action mechanically.

The astute may notice that these two goals are slightly at odds.

For instance, Morke wants Solars to be able to do this: *dumps towering stack of Kung Fu movies onto desk* But he also refuses to say "players can roll Brawl to do whatever cool fantasy punchman poo poo seems appropriate," because, I dunno, some mixture of a hatred for player agency and the grognard verisimilitude screech reflex I guess. So instead he sat down and listed every single cool move he could find, individually, and if anybody wants to do a cool move he didn't think up yet they have to pay him to print it in this book.

It's the same reason the D&D core book is like 80 pages of spells and 70 pages of literally the entire rest of the game. It's magic! We can't just let players make it up!

Honestly Exalted could benefit from something like Godbound or Mage the Awakening's improv magic systems. Just say "ok these are the themes of the splat and what they can and cannot do, charms are your rote powers you buy because they're cheaper to do than improv".

Wrestlepig
Feb 25, 2011

my mum says im cool

Toilet Rascal

Thesaurasaurus posted:

I really cannot wait until Mors gets to Lunars who are just so much more sensible in their Charm design.

the solars are always going to have the worst charms since they're mostly just Really Good at things, which is better represented by Higher numbers. I don't like the charms as part of the design but they're more sensible with other splats that have unusual powers.

SunAndSpring
Dec 4, 2013

Wrestlepig posted:

the solars are always going to have the worst charms since they're mostly just Really Good at things, which is better represented by Higher numbers. I don't like the charms as part of the design but they're more sensible with other splats that have unusual powers.

I think 2e got around this problem by having the other splats save for Infernals and Alchemicals suck worse. There was a surprising factoid for 1e where Abyssals were just as popular as Solars simply because they were just as strong but had themes that were interesting (well, edgelordy but interesting). I wonder if this will repeat with 3e Abyssals.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Does anyone actually like Solars outside of their huge mechanical power?

Thesaurasaurus
Feb 15, 2010

"Send in Boxbot!"

Night10194 posted:

Does anyone actually like Solars outside of their huge mechanical power?

For all of my kvetching, I actually enjoy them quite a bit, mostly when they're played as fun myth-heroes instead of grim Snyderverse demigods.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
I would probably like Solars more if they had tightened up their themes more. Granted, it's tighter than 2e, but I feel like each of their charms should tie into some key theme other than "is bestest". Granted, that's kind of their strength, since they're conceptually more flexible than the others. So if you want a simple profession-based concept like Super Doctor Astronaut, they'll fill that gap. But the other splats and their charms tend to inspire concepts, whereas Solars tend to accept concepts.

Rand Brittain
Mar 25, 2013

"Go on until you're stopped."
Solars are the best and most useful splat because their broad theme "human excellence scaling up to mythic excellence with a bit of supernatural yellowstuff" fits a much greater number of legendary heroes than any of the more specific splats that follow them.

It's because they're broad that the other splats get to be weird.

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


^^^^ Yeah that's the common justification, but man they don't need to be in the first place.

When I don't (didn't?) have a concept that was specifically served better by another splat, I was more into Solars. I agree that they've suffered a lot from really boring "just, you know, skillful but more" except when they get mostly boring generic holy fire bullshit. But when their Charms are written with specific stories in mind they're really fun. It's stunning to me that they are arguably worse at this in 3e than 2e.

I won't spoil it, but I hope SAS goes into the forum drama about a certain Sail Charm. It was pretty amazing.

Cooked Auto
Aug 4, 2007

If you will not serve in combat, you will serve on the firing line!






Neotech 2
Part 14: I stand in front of you, I'll take the force of the blow, Protection.




To talk armor in Neotech we must first talk about Penetration. All projectiles in the game comes with a Penetration or PEN value. This is written in brackets before the damage value for each projectile because this game, much like Cyberpunk derives all weapon damage from the ammo. And oh boy are there lots of ammunition types available. But that’s for the next update. So for example Full Metal Jacket 9mm Luger Parabellum ammo, yes they have to give the full name just because, is PEN 4. Which is written as [4] Ob3D6. PEN can never go below 0 and the higher the value is, the higher the power of the round.

PEN is always compared to an object's protection value or SKY. All types of body armor has an armor class, which is a basic value for how well it protects against projectiles.
Oddly enough it makes mention of the armor values in Neotech Offensive in the next sentence instead of just referring to the core book. But it then goes on to say that all the values are determined by the American limits set by the National Institute of
Justice, which is a real organisation for those not aware of it, and using their 2049 revision. According to the book this value is 0101.08 without going further into what that actually means. The armor classes gives a SKY value that is used to determine if a projectile manages to penetrate the armor or not.

So how does this all work then? If someone getting shot is wearing armor or is standing behind cover then you need to first see what the SKY value is and then compare that to the projectiles PEN value. What you want, or don’t want, is the PEN value being higher than SKY.
If PEN beats SKY then the round goes through and is only marginally stopped, damage is reduced by SKY to a minimum of 1. If SKY on the other hand is 0 then the damage is decrease by 1.
If PEN and SKY are equal then the round will go through but is stopped significantly, damage is reduced by half to a minimum of 1.
If PEN is beaten by SKY then the round is stopped by the armor. But you will still get pain points equal to the number of damage dice. But not if you’re wearing non-rigid or semi-rigid armor.

Most melee weapons lack a PEN value so in that case SKY is directly subtracted from the damage roll. Unless the damage is crushing because then the damage is SKY x 0,5 against rigid or semi-rigid armor.

So why the armor classes then? Well the book states that its partially because body armor is already defined by the same classes that they use and partially helps roleplaying.

Neotech posted:

So instead of saying:
“How much does this vest protect then? Uuh… it has a armor value of six, pretty good then!” the GM can, as a clerk, say “This is a superb armor that got armor class I by Weapons and Bullets International – as you know it can handle a full metal jacket 357 round at one meters distance! And furthermore…”.
A bit more fun than going on about technical numbers right?

:jerkbag:
Help, my hand can stop making jerk off motions as I’m writing that. Coating it in fluff is all fine and dandy but in the end the player is still going to need to know what how well it protects them from being shot at by corporate ninjas. So either you’re going to rattle of some numbers unless you’re telling them to look it up in the book afterwards. Or maybe I’m getting too harsh on the book but it still feels like a weird thing to go on about in the middle of rules. Either way, armor classes range from IA to V with a SKY value of 3 to 12. There is also a mention of what kind of FMJ ammo they’re meant to resist with IA meant for 5,4mm FWD and V meant for .50 BMG rounds. Anything above SKY 9 is only available as non-rigid so we’re most likely dealing with armor plating in that case.

Then there’s a couple of special cases however, because there absolutely has to be a difference between no SKY value and SKY value of 0. Leather armor has SKY 0 which decreases all projectile damage by 1. Projectiles with PEN 0 also gets their damage halved. Leather armor on the other hand has a SKY value of 5 against melee weapons.

Our first optional rule deals with wearing multiple layers of armor. Usually you only wear one type of armor on each body part but you can decide to wear several layers, even if that quickly gets cumbersome. You’re not allowed to stack non-rigid or semi rigid armor on top of rigid armor. Each extra layer outside of the inner layer only grants half their SKY value, rounded downwards, to the effective SKY value. Wearing multiple layers also affects Initiative with the outer layers SKY times 2. For armor without SKY, such as leather, it’s weight times 2.
Armor can also be reinforced with ceramic plates. One of the suggested types is steel, which is something I’m not sure hasn’t be used for a long time because it’s far too heavy and cumbersome compared to ceramics. But I could be wrong about this. Reinforced armor increases SKY with 1 and increases weight between ½ to 1½ kilograms. Initiative is also decreased by 5.
Body armor can’t resist damage forever before whatever they’re made of gets worn out. If the wearer gets hit by a projectile that has a PEN of 2 or more they can chose to roll an Ob2D6 roll. If the value is below the SKY value then it gets decreased by 1.

Then there’s talk about solid cover and them having SKY values as well that decreases a bullets PEN value. If PEN hits 0 thanks to this then the bullet is stopped so putting as many things between you and the shooter is a very good idea. We also get two different tables, one for dealing what kind of SKY values certain material get based on their thickness. For instance concrete that is 1 meter thick gets a SKY value of 18 while Pinewood only gets 10 PEN. As well as a table dealing with the SKY value of various objects, a human body has Ob1D6 SKY while a full trash can has SKY 2.
Would’ve expected an average value for a human body in this case and oddly enough no mentions that the table is just a set of examples to be used by the GM as before.

Finally we get a whole page of various kinds of armor from jackets, to vests and helmets. I find it odd that they’re listing a US Army Steel Helmet, since that has most likely not been a thing in use since the late 80’s, and not a PASGT kevlar helmet. The rest are just random names that doesn’t mean all that much. Feels like you could’ve generalized this list. Especially the ballistic vests have multiple with the same armor class and type with the only real difference being weight. There isn’t much difference between a DuPont Kev-B vest and a Toshiba Lifeguard-II in terms of rules other than the latter costs 255 euros compared to 229 euros. They’re both Class 2 flexible vests that weight 0.9kgs and that is it.
So why are they there? Who knows.

Part 15 - Whoops

Suddenly squeezed in between Armor and Weapons we have the fumble charts for no real reason. My PDF doesn’t even list it as a separate entry. The header is also called critical success and fumble but beyond the rules for those being mentioned again there isn’t any tables for when you roll extra well. Instead we get five different fumble tables meant for combat. It’s not even in the middle of the boo, the tables just show up on page 127 to 129 without much fanfare.

As a reminder for a roll to be considered a fumble if 2 or more dice show as 6’s on the first roll before any eventual Ob rerolls have to be done. The dice result also needs to be higher than the relevant skill ranks. If neither of those criterias are fulfilled then it’s just a failure.

The book admits that Neotech is a system where fumbles are fairly common, especially at higher difficulty levels, the effects tables are not technically meant to kill or seriously hurt you. But you can still be killed by indirect consequences from the fumble, like dropping a grenade by your feet. The GM is encouraged to also improvise, to come up with results that doesn’t coincide with the situation that the character is in. If you’re prone you can fall down again for instance, unless I suppose the GM considers the floor to have been weakened somehow…
Or the GM can just reroll, which for some reason the book calls in the worst case. I guess the writers simply enjoy watching PC’s getting hurt.

So we have five different 1D10 tables. All of them have pretty much the same entries but in various positions. The book really seems to love having you sprain your ankle. That decreases your FÖR för a number of days. Or entangle yourself in your clothes. Otherwise they all really boil down to you either being unable to do something for the rest of your turn or you gain points in pain or trauma. When it comes to ranged weapons you can also risk shooting someone else. Some of the effects are kind of silly. For weapon tables there is a chance of dropping your weapon or missing really hard. During which you are supposed to look like an absolute idiot as a result as you look around for your weapon or your missed shot. You can also shoot yourself in your foot, something I think might be hard to do in a normal firefight but it’s a table result. That can also happen with thrown weapons, with grenades apparently automatically explode once that happens going by the vague wording. A fantastic reason to never use hand grenades at any point in this game. You can even be such a klutz with a firearm that you fall and hurt yourself and damage your weapon and lower your initiative.
Fun times!

I hate fumble tables and these are no different. They’re just an excuse to make a character look like an idiot, or in case if you throw a grenade, hurt yourself and others. With the dice system being as bad as it is I can imagine even hard rolls will for a very long time create a veritable string of failures and it’s far more likely that character will end up hurting themselves more than whoever they’re fighting. But perhaps the same can be said for NPC’s too because I’m not seeing any mentions that they’re exempt from rolling on these tables as well.

Next time: Bang bang, he shot me down.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Exalted 3rd Edition: I AM FREE TO TELL OTHER STORIES

Black Wind is a 5-dot soulsteel skycutter (read: boomerang). It was forged in the early First Age as a weapon to terrify traitors and criminals. It has a yard-long blade, and it gleams red in the light of the sun. It has a single hearthstone socket on its left side. Its surface is glossy and plan, until blood touches it. Then, the faces of the hundred murderers whose souls were forged into it can sometimes be seen, soundlessly screaming beneath the red and black. It was first wielded by the Night Caste Shih Azen, veteran of the Niobraran war, in the days before the Solars had completely conquered the world. Many saboteurs and assassins fell under the low keening blade of Black Wind. Shih Azen hunted traitor gods, mortal conspiracies, prehuman cannibal cultists and Exalted criminals, and those who inherited the blade after him continued this tradition of vicious, deadly justice until the Usurpation. Since then, it has been in the hands of assassins. It was sealed away 110 years ago by the master killer Sesus Choran, who hid it in a cave deep in a frozen Northern Demesne, warded behind ropes washed in sacred oils and hung with prayer strips. He was convinced that the blade wanted him dead, resenting being wielded by a Dragon-Blood, and could no longer bring himself to use it, for fear that it would kill him.

A Solar that attunes to Black Wind finds that when it deals Lethal damage on a Decisive attack, the arc of blood it trails in the air becomes a frozen blade that arcs with it, increasing the damage of its Withering attacks. All of its blood blades evaporate into red-black Essence after the blade is not thrown for two consecutive turns, and it can have no more than five blood blades at once. This benefit is, obviously, not gained from damage dealt to bloodless foes. The skycutter has five Evocations from Essence 1 to 4.

The first Charm is Life-Drinking Resurgence, which you can't buy but instead get for free the first time you use Black Wind to kill a non-trivial foe in direct support of a Major or Defining Principle. It permanently enhances the blade, so that whenever it kills a non-trivial foe with a Decisive attack, it gains two blood blades, not one. The second is Dark Life Detection, which you gain for free when you successfully investigate a killer and then kill them with Black Wind. It gives you a bonus to all Awareness rolls to detect the main target of any investigation you take via evidence-gathering actions and to all Investigation rolls to examine or find evidence left by a serial killer (as determined by the GM). Third is Seven Traumas Technique, which you cannot buy with XP but instead get for free when you use Black Wind to kill someone whose death satisfied both a Defining Principle and a Defining Tie simultaneously. It lets you expend some of your blood blades to increase a Decisive attack's damage.

Fourth is Errant Orbit Scythe, which can't be bought with XP but you get for free the first time you get 5 blood blades at once after hitting Essence 3. It lets you expend your blood blades to make multiple Withering attacks at once. The final Charm is Soul-Reaving Release, which you can't buy with XP but instead get free when you use Black Wind to kill a serial killer whose killings offend or defy one of your Major or Defining Principles, and it can only be used at the "definitive conclusion" of a successful investigation. What it does is let you throw the weapon into the sky. If the culprit is within ten miles, the blade will try to murder them. If they are a trivial foe and outdoors, it returns with blood blades and some severed body parts (usually including hte head) trailing after it. If they aren't and it can't kill them in one blow, it either returns with only blood blades and maybe a severed limb or it returns empty-handed. If the target is well-guarded, indoors or otherwise inaccessible, it returns with some evidence of their location. This is not a rolled attack unless the target is a PC or very important NPC. At Essence 5+, if you know your target is a powerful supernatural being or too well-guarded, then instead, you may draw out the souls of the 100 murderers in the blade, causing them to manifest as 100 blood blades in Black Wind's wake, which smash down onto walls and ceilings, kill guards and otherwise clear a path for the blade to attack the murderer. You must then kill 100 murderers with Black Wind before you can use this ultimate power again.

Volcano Cutter is a 5-dot red jade grand daiklave ('really loving big sword'). It was made by the Twilight Urashai, who spent long years contemplating the power of the Solars and yet also the danger of the terrible foes they had to fight. He sought out a powerful Eastern demesne at the bottom of a natural bore, where he built a Manse from sun-heated metal and smoking stones to channel the elemental power of fire into a forge, for the sole purpose of making a single weapon. He warded himself with many powers to prevent the heat from destroying him in his inverted volcano-manse, and he forged the most destructive fire daiklave produced in the First Age, his final answer to monsters. When it was completed, he dismanted the forge and rebuilt the Manse into a temple to house and feed the power of his creation. Volcano Cutter proved a wild blade, unruly in the hands of any but a Solar, and even then only giving its full power to those whose technique was equal to its love of destruction. After it turned a hundred battlefields to ash in the process of the taming of Creation, it was returned to its temple-manse, where it still remains. Only one being dwells there now, the spirit of earth and flame named Javarajati, who was conjured to be its attendant and seeks to return the blade home when its owner dies. She has done this five times since the Solars passed from the world, and none of those five wielders were equal to the blade. Volcano Cutter's core is polished white jade with orichalcum bands, and the blade is a massive, single-edged piece of red jade that tapers to a curving point, with a second grip mounted on the back for control when stabbing or slashing in close quarters or to more easily stab the earth and draw it back out. The blade has two hearthstone sockets, one on each grip.

A Solar that attunes to Volcano Cutter gets its first Evocation free, and may spend 3 extra motes when attuning to be able to gain additional Initiative on any Withering attack made with the weapon that has no 1s in the roll. The sword has 5 Evocations, from Essence 1 to 4. The first Charm is Grand Eruption. Once learned, each time you attack with Volcano Cutter, the blade gains motes for each 10 rolled and each set of 7, 8, 9 and 10 rolled. It can store no more than 10 motes, and these can only be used to activate Grand Eruption; you cannot use your own motes to do so. The Charm causes the blade to glow with power as you stab it into the ground and send forth a pulse of elemental Essence, causing a fiery eruption under a foe. You can choose if this is a Withering or Decisive attack, but it knocks the foe prone if it hits, and it can only be used if you and the target are both on the ground or the first floor of a building. The attack leaves behind a field of steaming, burning, volatile ground that fills an entire range band. This is an eruption point, and it lasts the entire scene. Eruption points build Initiative whenever you make a Withering attack with Volcano Cutter, capping at 25 Initiative. Anyone that enters an eruption point with 5+ Initiative immediately takes its full Initiative as Decisive Lethal damage, as the point erupts into a pillar of flame, resetting to 3 Initiative. Eruption points burn incidental scenery above them and may detonate to damage tactically important scenery if put under them by other Evocations.

The second Evocation is Pregnant Flame Exhumation. You sweep Volcano Cutter across the ground to gather up essence, then use it to hit someone. You can use this whenever you step into an eruption point, drawing it into Volcano Cutter before it detonates. If you do, your next DEcisive attack gets extra damage based on the eruption point's Initiative. The blade can contain only one eruption point at a time. Third is Magma Burial. You strike the ground of an eruption point with the blade, causing a controlled Essence geyser that sends you into the air towards your foes. You use this when you step into an Eruption Point, preventing it from detonting and instead moving up to 2 range bands to make a Decisive attack on whoever you like thee when you land. If you hit, the target goes prone, and either way you touch the blade to the ground and place the eruption point wherever you landed, though it cannot detonate until after your next turn. If you use this on an eruption point with 15+ Initiative, you leave it in place where you started as well, though it resets to 3 Initiative, and the new point you make starts at 3 Initiative.

Fourth is Caldera Reconfiguration Stance, which can only be used once per scene and only if two or more eruption points exist on the field. You roll Melee and then shift any eruption points anywhere within six range bands of you up to two range bands in any direction. Those caught beneath the new locations must make a reflexive Dodge check against your roll to avoid the points and move out of the way. You also may create a new eruption point at 0 Initiative, splitting it off from one of the relocating points. Finally, Pyroclastic Holocaust Judgment, which can only be used if there are at least five eruption points on the field with at least 25 Initiative total between them, and no more than 3 range bands seperating them, and you must be in Medium range of at least one of the points. If more 25-Initiative points exist within 2 range bands of the primary detonation chain, they go off too. And what the Charm does is cause you to call on the temple-manse's power, plunging Volcano Cutter into the ground. The ground under each eruption point shines, then explodes. EAch affected point expldoes, hearling fire and lava four range bands into the sky and hitting everything in Short range around them and all range bands between affected points. Trivial foes and incidental scenry are obliterated, while non-Exalted foes of significance take 40 dice of Lethal and Exalts take 25 dice of Lethal. However, this power drain damages the temple-manse, and the Charm cannot be used again until the manse is repaired. If left to work alone, Javarajti can repair the damage in a season, but it can be done much faster with a geomantic architect's help.

The End

Join me next time for Arms of the Chosen!

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


So since the Abyssals are just Solars except really gothy, can they attune to everything like the Solars can?

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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wiegieman posted:

So since the Abyssals are just Solars except really gothy, can they attune to everything like the Solars can?

short answer: nope.

megane
Jun 20, 2008



I actually think Solars do have a solid theme in theory. Ignoring the actual rules for a moment, Solars are supposed to impose law and justice upon the world and scour away lies and corruption. They counter subterfuge and sorcery with brute force; even the Night caste isn't a sneaky trickster so much as Batman. Their magic bullshit lets them dispel illusions, make people speak the truth, resist darkness and mutation and the Wyld, beat up zombies, inspire peasants to stand up and fight bravely, that sort of thing. They're paladins.

The problem is that this theme is only occasionally borne out by what Solars actually get in practice, which is mostly just shitloads of dice. Look at the charms in SunandSpring's post up there; basically all of them are just "spend motes to win super hard at _____." Neither the devs nor the backers cared if these things played to the Solars' theming, they just wanted a thing where you punch a guy so hard he catches fire and so do all his friends!!! Whoa!!!!! Time to swish my brandy and look at the sunset!!!!!!!!

It is, again, the same problem had by wizards in D&D; if your design for a class is "they're suuuuper powerful and great and here's a zillion things they can do!!" you end up making a dull, formless lump of dice.

SunAndSpring
Dec 4, 2013

wiegieman posted:

So since the Abyssals are just Solars except really gothy, can they attune to everything like the Solars can?

Abyssals are only Resonant with Soulsteel. They're neutral with everything else. I think this is the trade-off they get for actually having infrastructure to serve them unlike Solars, who just spawn into the world confused and full of golden anime powers.

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SunAndSpring
Dec 4, 2013
Miracles of the Solar Exalted, part 2! More charms!

INTEGRITY

Emphatic Aegis Discipline, made based off someone asking for a charm that lets them sense when their closest allies are in peril, lets you connect to someone who shares one of your Defining Principles who you have a Major or Defining Tie to, and feel their physical and emotional pain (although not on a 1-to-1 basis; if your friend loses a leg, you'll know they're hurting but won't be debilitated by the pain. If they're in a place you've been, you'll know it immediately and get bonus dice to find where they are if you don't know it. At Essence 4, it costs like 2 motes less for a total of 3. If you've made Eclipse Caste oaths or sorcerous geasa, you'll know where those guys are to so long as you've bound yourself to one person with this charm. Couldn't he just make it so you always know where they are? 2/5, niche yet again.

Strength From Conviction Stance lets you cite something you lost upholding one of your Principles, like an arm, a job, a friend, or so on when you're in a decision point so you can resolve it without paying a willpower or even just citing an intimacy. Only once per story but it is reset by resisting two influence attempts regarding that Principle. Morke rambles about how the backer wanted something to represent an individual who has paid dearly for but still supports their views, and how this charm is super deep. It's not, really; it's a perfect defense for social stuff, basically. 2/5, so very very dull and so very high Essence for something that could work if it were a starting point.

INVESTIGATION

Fetich-Tracing Eye gives you a single success on a roll to find poo poo stolen from you. Some poor person paid for this. 1/5.

Truth-Rendering Attitude is cool, however. You can interview a witness about a crime who attempted a case scene or profile character action and get a psychic vision of the crime scene or person being profiled as if you were there. You can use your Investigation excellency to solve it from there and Judge's Ear Technique to detect any lie told, but can't use any Simple charms or charms that require you to directly handle evidence. This was based off a backer's request to do remote investigations through their subordinates, and honestly I think it works better than just using your underlings as a camera. Morke mentions making this charm mute to offset its "great price" but it only costs 3 motes so it wouldn't make you start glowing. Weird relic of a prior write-up or him being a smug rear end? You decide! 4/5, this is something I would actually buy.

LARCENY

Criminal Seduction Method lets one add their Essence as bonus dice to convince someone who has an Intimacy you know of you could use to leverage them to do crimes with you. Why is this weak poo poo Essence 2? Again, some poor person paid for this. 1/5.

Sun-Stealing Shadow Spirit lets you case a place in about an hour or so, varying on how difficult the place is to get into; a tea shop would be difficulty 1, a mansion a Guild prince has private security for difficulty 3, and the Imperial Vaults difficulty 6. If you beat the difficulty with a Perception + Larceny roll, you can introduce a fact about what weaknesses the place has in its security (gaps in the guard patrols, broken locks, a corridor where the defense automatons can't see), and every 2 threshold successes lets you introduce one more. This charm mentions unlike introducing facts with Lore, a Storyteller can't reject what their player proposes with this. If the structure is judged to be completely flawless in its defense (which would be difficulty 10 and probably only for something like the Imperial Palace), the player still gets to find at least one flaw if they beat it. If you use this with Master Plan Meditation, you can spend six points from it to retroactively bullshit your way out of one problem you're in, such like a guard, a trap, or so on. I find the latter part a little wanky, but this is shockingly a good Morke original that basically lets you be a good little Batman clone. 4/5.

LINGUISTICS

Soul-Drawing Pattern lets you write down a description of a person with certain traits you want, setting down their appearance, skills, social Ties, and a Major or Defining Principle. If someone meets those criteria that's within a day's travel, they are compelled to just walk to where you wrote this within the day. If an exact match isn't within distance, the next best fit will come. It's up to you to figure out who it is, though, and you've got to convince them to do whatever you want. This is weird and feels more like a Sidereal charm, honestly; for all Morke's blustering about Solar charms only being about pure skill, this sure involves none of it. Also the description weirds me the gently caress out, knowing what I know of Morke.

quote:

On Soul-Drawing Pattern
A neat little power, giving you anything from a helpful lawyer to a hot date.
Uh, 2/5 for the charm and 0/5 for Morke's weird bullshit.

Indelible Solar Script lets you speak glorious golden graffiti onto a surface, making a message "no longer than two breaths" (thanks Morke, I love natural language) and bigger the more Essence you have. You can slap your Linguistic charms (even the Simple ones, which become Reflexive) onto it. The first time anyone sees it, they get the big social whammy you've woven into the message. The message is permanent for as long as you commit motes; it bleeds through paint, burns through covering, and basically the only way to get rid of it is to smash the surface its on, kill the Solar, or Terrestrial sorcery it away. By spending a willpower, you make it more of a pain in the rear end to remove, gouging it into rock and making the sorcerous working to get rid of it even harder. I can see this being useful to piss off the local Dynasts by painting the local indestructible manse with "gently caress THE EMPRESS, GUILLOTINE EVERY DYNAST" with your insanely efficient Linguistics charms. I'll give it a 3/5.

LORE

Soul-Light Spreading Discipline is a backer charm that lets you turn your scholastic Followers into a Cult, turning 1/2 of your dots in Followers into 1 dot of the Cult merit. It's a bit eh in terms of effect (all Cult does is give extra willpower), but I like the flavor of becoming a Buddha or Confucius type religious figure. 3/5.

Cloud-Wreathed Scholar lets you introduce a fact while pursuing the goals of someone you have a Major or Defining Tie you have or a goal of your Circle, even if you've already introduced one. The charm says you can only use it if you perceive "a need for [your] expertise, and only if it pertains to the events at hand." Which is, uh, basically any time. 2/5, what's even the point of this.

Hundred Sages Focus is just confusing. You stare at something real hard and you can name the difficulty and background need to introduce a fact. Why this wouldn't be "my background" and "difficulty 1" every time is beyond me. Morke writes half a pages worth of meandering prose about how he builds his games for his players and how this charm is based off how he would make notes about what difficulty the tasks he had would be at and what Lore background one might need to solve them. This feels like a botched attempt to let the player takes the reins of the story, and it really shows. 1/5.

Legend-Spirit Convocation lets you use Wake the Sleeper (which awakens Evocations from an Artifact) on a mundane weapon or piece of armor, giving it a single evocation and a passive power. It has to be a favored weapon or armor of yours, and you can give someone you have a Major or Defining Intimacy towards this for their weapon. This is basically worthless, considering how much better artifacts are compared to mundane poo poo, and this is what someone who asked for a charm that expands on what Wake the Sleeper could do got. Just awful, I'd die if I was the one who got this foisted on me. 1/5.

All-Knowing Enlightened Sovereign lets you roll a Lore check on something that would be too outside of your Lore background to know about, once per story unless you reset it by studying what Lore topic you challenged with this charm. It takes far too many loving words to say this (there's poo poo about how this wouldn't tell you the difficulty you need to win but I thought this game was supposed to be transparent about difficulties?), and makes up terminology that doesn't exist ("challenging a Lore difficulty"). Morke caps it off with this poo poo:

quote:

On All-Knowing Enlightened Sovereign
Seems like a no-brainer. Or should we say all-brainer?
2/5, at least if you can decipher what the gently caress this means, you can get something useful out of this.

MEDICINE

Time-Halting Flow lets you commit 15 motes to keep somebody in what amounts to cryogenic suspension; they stop aging, any poison or disease stops, their current injuries don't drive them into a worse condition (although if someone attacks them, they'll still be injured by that and might wake up), and they are basically in a coma. It's basically a last ditch effort to get an injured or ill person to a place where you can heal them. If someone with a Major or Defining connection to the person wants to, they can wake them up. It's alright, I suppose, although this situation probably won't come up often. 3/5.

Next time, Melee, Occult, Performance, Presence, and Resistance!

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