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So, I ran my mouth about Dragon Age and the prose wasn't particularly snappy. My apologies. If I were to do it again, I'd probably cut it down to about half or shoot to be able to include some additional commentary in the same space, but whatever. I'll probably just come back to it later, instead. There's your glimpse of the future for the day.
Today I'm going to go over a scenario, and if you've got an opinion on it, I'd like to hear it because I don't think there's one right answer to it. It is, actually, based on something that happened at the gaming session last night which was generally a very good one - especially compared to the do-nothing sessions of the last few weeks - but, as always, I'm trying to find something to take away from it.
My character is something of a combat wombat. This is, more or less, because Exalted is a pretty lethal system and it can be hard to determine if an encounter is reasonable balanced. In this case, two things happened.
Frank, our ST, more or less has a big, honking elemental dragon appear at a party we're attending. This is a totally legit move, mechanically, and indicates someone we know has put a hit out on the party. Frank is modestly familiar with the rules of the game and has run it for kind of a while. He's aware that my character primarily uses her Dodge Defense Value (DDV), and the rest use Soak. The Dragon uses a power that means nobody can use the DDV, which is a legit power, then uses a breath weapon which can't be parried, which means that the only available defense is Soak.
A dozen bystanders are immediately dissolved in a shower of essence-laden electricity. The other players are fine. I use Water Dragon Form to add an additional 6 to my soak bringing it up to 13.* ST rolls damage where I can't see. Tells me 2 damage post-soak, which gives me a -1 modifier to all actions.
I go immediately afterwards, execute a 3 die athletics stunt to end up 50 ft in the air as a move action, move three tics and because of my speed, go immediately again. I roll 25 dice on a single attack and get 21 successes.** I beat the DDV or PDV, get about 14 extra successes, and knock 12 off for soak and basically roll similarly for damage. I got a 3 die and a 2 die stunt and use Theft of Essence Method to actually come out of the attack with more mote then I started it with. I kill the dragon in one hit. Nobody else gets an action that combat.
Later, and I can't confirm this but I don't have any reason to not believe it, I'm told the dragon would have done 8 damage to me but the punch had been pulled. Punches haven't been pulled in the past, but apparently this one had been. 8 would have put me past incapacitated and on death's door, which would have taken me out of yet another session.
Q&A time. This is pretty much the only combat I've been in since I beat up a mortal a few months ago. The rest of the party has fought dragon blooded, lunars, and celestial beings designed to guard the sun itself and I'm usually driving the getaway car. Everyone was pretty pleased with me offing the dragon, as well, but all that aside, I'm wondering if that combat was kosher.
Basically, it reminds me of the arguments about perfect defenses on RPG.net, because the artifact I'm using was designed with the later understanding of the game in mind - that is, an aggressive character with a little effort can roll a truly ridiculous number of dice to hit. I didn't bother to flurry or anything. That was just a single punch unmodified by Excellencies. My companions roll some pretty hefty dice, but me stacking the Form Charm and the Bracer (which it's explicitly designed to do) results in +9 die all by itself. At the same time, my own temporary soak of 13 would have been completely useless.
For me, the answer is simple. Dump upwards of 5 or 6 motes into that soak until I get the perfect soak charm from Water Dragon. But for players not designed to withstand that kind of punishment, am I making the game too lethal and should we nerf my bracers, or something? Or, if not, should I just ask to take my lumps as they come since I've brought it on myself? I don't know. I've gotten one really cool success story at this point, and maybe I should just enjoy the fact that, for once, I get to be seen as a really bad ass martial artist who hasn't even shown her full deck of tricks yet.
* The numbers are rather academic, but here they are. Stamina 2, Form Charm (allows full Stamina Soak for lethal damage, adds Martial Arts rating of 5 to Soak, can spend 1 mote for 2 Soak for a single attack). So, 2 + 5 + 6.
** Dexterity +5, Martial Arts +5, Specialization : Dragon Claws +1, Stunt +2, Form Charm +5, Claws +4, Perfected Kata Bracers +4, -1 damage = 25. I acknowledge that the successes are totally ridiculous. I rolled multiple 10s, and was a little embarrassed.
Today I'm going to go over a scenario, and if you've got an opinion on it, I'd like to hear it because I don't think there's one right answer to it. It is, actually, based on something that happened at the gaming session last night which was generally a very good one - especially compared to the do-nothing sessions of the last few weeks - but, as always, I'm trying to find something to take away from it.
My character is something of a combat wombat. This is, more or less, because Exalted is a pretty lethal system and it can be hard to determine if an encounter is reasonable balanced. In this case, two things happened.
Frank, our ST, more or less has a big, honking elemental dragon appear at a party we're attending. This is a totally legit move, mechanically, and indicates someone we know has put a hit out on the party. Frank is modestly familiar with the rules of the game and has run it for kind of a while. He's aware that my character primarily uses her Dodge Defense Value (DDV), and the rest use Soak. The Dragon uses a power that means nobody can use the DDV, which is a legit power, then uses a breath weapon which can't be parried, which means that the only available defense is Soak.
A dozen bystanders are immediately dissolved in a shower of essence-laden electricity. The other players are fine. I use Water Dragon Form to add an additional 6 to my soak bringing it up to 13.* ST rolls damage where I can't see. Tells me 2 damage post-soak, which gives me a -1 modifier to all actions.
I go immediately afterwards, execute a 3 die athletics stunt to end up 50 ft in the air as a move action, move three tics and because of my speed, go immediately again. I roll 25 dice on a single attack and get 21 successes.** I beat the DDV or PDV, get about 14 extra successes, and knock 12 off for soak and basically roll similarly for damage. I got a 3 die and a 2 die stunt and use Theft of Essence Method to actually come out of the attack with more mote then I started it with. I kill the dragon in one hit. Nobody else gets an action that combat.
Later, and I can't confirm this but I don't have any reason to not believe it, I'm told the dragon would have done 8 damage to me but the punch had been pulled. Punches haven't been pulled in the past, but apparently this one had been. 8 would have put me past incapacitated and on death's door, which would have taken me out of yet another session.
Q&A time. This is pretty much the only combat I've been in since I beat up a mortal a few months ago. The rest of the party has fought dragon blooded, lunars, and celestial beings designed to guard the sun itself and I'm usually driving the getaway car. Everyone was pretty pleased with me offing the dragon, as well, but all that aside, I'm wondering if that combat was kosher.
Basically, it reminds me of the arguments about perfect defenses on RPG.net, because the artifact I'm using was designed with the later understanding of the game in mind - that is, an aggressive character with a little effort can roll a truly ridiculous number of dice to hit. I didn't bother to flurry or anything. That was just a single punch unmodified by Excellencies. My companions roll some pretty hefty dice, but me stacking the Form Charm and the Bracer (which it's explicitly designed to do) results in +9 die all by itself. At the same time, my own temporary soak of 13 would have been completely useless.
For me, the answer is simple. Dump upwards of 5 or 6 motes into that soak until I get the perfect soak charm from Water Dragon. But for players not designed to withstand that kind of punishment, am I making the game too lethal and should we nerf my bracers, or something? Or, if not, should I just ask to take my lumps as they come since I've brought it on myself? I don't know. I've gotten one really cool success story at this point, and maybe I should just enjoy the fact that, for once, I get to be seen as a really bad ass martial artist who hasn't even shown her full deck of tricks yet.
* The numbers are rather academic, but here they are. Stamina 2, Form Charm (allows full Stamina Soak for lethal damage, adds Martial Arts rating of 5 to Soak, can spend 1 mote for 2 Soak for a single attack). So, 2 + 5 + 6.
** Dexterity +5, Martial Arts +5, Specialization : Dragon Claws +1, Stunt +2, Form Charm +5, Claws +4, Perfected Kata Bracers +4, -1 damage = 25. I acknowledge that the successes are totally ridiculous. I rolled multiple 10s, and was a little embarrassed.
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I was going to come back and edit the entry, but you already commented so I figure there's no reason to come back and try to make it snappier.
Basically, I just figured, "I'm pretty much the only person at the table that either enjoys how Charms work or even statting out a character. I've been casually written out of almost half the stories while I'm literally sitting at the table watching it happen. I've physically written stories to explain why my character is like she is and had everything that I've done run through a fine tooth comb to make sure I'm not bullshitting. At this point, even if I *am* powergaming, fuck it. I've been constantly told I don't know what I'm talking about so now, even for a moment, I'm getting mine."
I kind of feel that I only have agency for as long as I continue to take Frank by surprise, but who even cares anymore. He's seen me be able to stunt and make a vanilla attack, but almost nothing else I'm capable of. I'm sure I've got some tricks still up my sleeves.
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And I did a flip. I think if the table around you erupts in applause, that might qualify you for 3 dice. Plus, it was as much of a "Weston gets to attack something for once!" applause as much as anything, but I'll take it.
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My only issue with that build is it sounds, from my (very) limited reading of it, like you do a lot of damage but if you fought yourself you would die unless you went first. That scenario is always problematic as a GM to me, and those tend to be the characters that die when I run because I cannot challenge them without risking one shot killing them. Either the character might die instantly, or will defeat everything out of hand. I could, of course, be misreading it.
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Basically, if she suspects there's going to be trouble, she activated Water Dragon Form is appearing to be militant isn't a problem or she doesn't care or uses Defense of Shining Joy if it might or she does.
DoSJ bumps her Dodge DV up by 3 to 10, which isn't amazing, but it's solid. Water Dragon doesn't bump her DDV whatsoever, but in conjunction with her Bracers makes her static parry defense value 13 and increases her soak to 7/7 with the ability to dump essence to increase soak by a 2-for-1 basis in her favor.
That's not counting Duck Fate/Avoidance Kata (both been used in the past), Melee's Impeding the Flow, or if she has a day to prepare, the weird but effective combination of Perform's Harmonic Completion + Air Dragon's Sight.
Basically, we've been playing quite a long time with an ST who, all complaints aside, has been very generous with experience, and I went with a defense first mentality.
The problem with this particular event is that our ST deliberately used an attack that could neither be dodged nor parried, forcing unarmored characters to use the weakest defense in Exalted and one that Sidereals are notoriously poor at (low health levels, few options for soak). Unless I buy up to Essence Vortex for perfect soak, I'm left to dump a ton of essence into my soak on Step 2, hoping that I picked the right amount.
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