![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
Tags:
