Quick Alchemical Question

[Flagg]

I don't feel like digging through the book, so I was hoping someone who knew for sure could answer:


Do you have to have prerequisite Charms need to be installed for the Charm that depends on them to work, or does the character merely need to have purchased that Charm previously?


If the former is the case, it would complicate the 'Vat Surrogate Reweaving Technique' protocol quite a bit, since that only swaps 1 for 1.


-S

 

[Haku1]

That's an interesting question that isn't actually stated in the book beyond this...

Prerequisite Charms: These are the Charms an Alchemical must have installed in order to install the Charm. Chosen cannot add Charms to their Panoply unless they have all their prerequisites, either installed or stored in the characters’ Panoplies.

And if it's installed in your body... you can or should be able to use it.

 

[Persell]

And if it's installed in your body... you can or should be able to use it.

yeah, technically. But a lot of Alchemical charms reference the fact that they build on the effects of other charms. The extreme example is the memory-spike and subsequent techniques, but that's the general rationale for needing prereqs installed. Autochthonia setting suggests that prereqs must be installed for charms to work.


imho, the book's writers simply didn't foresee the 'Vat Surrogate Reweaving Technique' problem Still pointed out. Though it does seem odd they didn't put anything in there about not being able to uninstall a charm while charms that prereq it are also installed.

 

[Flagg]

How could such a big oversight have gone unerrata'd?


-S

 

[Persell]

How could such a big oversight have gone unerrata'd?

There's no errata for Alchemicals at all.

 

[Silence In Daylight]

A group I'm in tried houseruling that when a charm gets swapped, all its prereq charms got swapped as well. Lasted all of half a session, before the ST overruled.


 Still, the Weaving protocol, as is, is still a great boon for an Alchemical far away from a Vat, and has essence and WP to burn.


 What are people's opinions on what happens to the charms for which its prereq has been swapped out via Reweaving Tech? Just dead weight?

 

[memesis]

This isn't canon, but it's playable.


If you try to swap Charms in or out such that prerequisites aren't being met, the Protocol automatically fails without a loss of Essence or Willpower, as built-in safety sub-protocols engage to prevent damage to the Alchemical's body.

 

[Sherwood]

If you have a chain of three charms that you want to trade out using the Vat surrogate thing, it seems simple enough to me.  You trade out Charm 1.  Charms 2 and 3 go inactive because their prereq is now gone.  You then trade out Charm 2, then Charm 3 (with time inbetween to regain Essence, of course).


It seems that people are trying to make this more complicated than it has to be.

 

[Silence In Daylight]

Essence and willpower, remember. Plus the fact that some of your charms are dead weight while you're doing this.


Does that make the Protocol bad? Certainly not. It's just not bent or broken (or combat effective in most cases).

 

[Dulio Giovanni]

First Post


Hello and good day to everyone, I'm Dulio and this would be my first post to your forum. Anyways I'd like to help out with your little problem by giving some of my input especially since Alchemicals are my second favorite kind of exalt next to Abyssals.


Anyway your debacle(and correct me if I am wrong) seems to be on whether charm prequisites need to be on the Alchemical per se so that he can use higher tiered charms. Well to anser this question I would say no as the rule on prerequisites as Haku cited only requires that it be on the Exalt's panopoly and not necessarily on his person. In this regard it would be better to look at the panopoly as a computer and each charm as a program that get's progressively better with upgrades that may or may not require the running of its previous incarnation.


An example would be Hyperdextrous Tentacle Appendage which is just a powered up version of Multi-Limb Frame. Only when a charm says so will it be necessary to equip its predecessors an example of such is the Memory Spike charm which is god awful sadistic if you ask me.


Now on the subject of Vat spell, yes it is really that powerful and one of the reasons the Alchemicals totally trashed the Allied forces in the opening days of the Locust Crusade since from a tactical stand point the ability to change weaponry in the field is a great advantage since a seasoned Alchemical could swap in say several copies of the tentacle charm backed with most of the basic charms in the combat tree befroe going into hard scrap then swap em out at the conclusion of the fight for healing and essence regeneration charms then swap back another set of weapons just in case he has to fight new enemies.

 

[Silence In Daylight]

Dukio, take another look at the quoted text in Haku's post. It doesn't say what you think it said.

 

[Dulio Giovanni]

Oh sorry for the screw up made a mistake there.

 

[Viragos]

Ok from Haku's post and hopefully at least more logically emphasised to me.


Prerequisite Charms: These are Charms an Alchemical Must have installed to install the Charm. Chosen cannot add Charms to their Panoply (their stock of charms uninstalled and waiting for them to need them at the vats) unless they have all their prerequisites, either installed or stored in the characters' Panoplies.


The wording of that to me is that to install a Charm by any means, (Vats, Surrogate Reweaving, what have you) The prerequisites have to be there.


The analogy I use so they make sense to me is a computer (sort of) to make your motherboard work you need a power supply, to make your cpu work you need a motherboard and a power supply, to make your video card work, you need a power supply, a motherboard and a cpu. Dramatically oversimplified I know, but it makes the Prerequisite thing make more sense to me. Yes you can whip out your gravity control dohickey and replace it with a high powered kicking module easily enough, but if the high power kicking module doesnt have the reinforced hip joint baseplate there to link into It may connect to the body, but The Alchemicals wont be able to use the kick because hed rip his leg off the first time he tried it and his charms are smarter than that.

 

[Viragos]

Uhhh sorry, didnt mean to kill the thread

 

[Persell]

It was long dead in sept.  don't worry.