Dice Shadows of the Setting Sun (OOC)

[Random Word]

I believe Afureru told her troops to stay home because she was going to handle it personally. Her battle group would only get involved if the enemy manage to get around her - presumably by ignoring her and running passed if there was a sufficiently large number of them.

 

[WlfSamurai]

I believe Afureru told her troops to stay home because she was going to handle it personally. Her battle group would only get involved if the enemy manage to get around her - presumably by ignoring her and running passed if there was a sufficiently large number of them.

Yes! You are most correct, as always, my friend.

Let me consider how we roll this out, D. Rex ...

 

[D. Rex]

WlfSamurai

Yup! Random Word is correct. Afureru is indeed handling this group alone with the soldiers there to make sure they don't flee.


As for Embrace! Afureru should be string enough that she could haul around the abyssal no problem. However it would be a handicap, as Afureru wants it that way since she's dying for a fight. The handicap being she can only wield her weapon one handed. (A -3 to acc like when against Sig)


We can skip the battle if you'd like to hold off on messing with battlegroups.


So if I'm looking at it right.

It sounds like a

Size 3 (+3 to attack, raw damage, soak, magnitude)

Average drill (+1 defense)

Might 1-2 (I'm not sure what the horseman are, like normal undead or something more advanced, it would be +1 defense and +might in accuracy and damage.)


Going for default, it might have a health track of 7, +3 from size...

So it would have a Magnitude of 10. Which is basically its initiative score






So, I would need to do 10 points of damage. Then it does a rout check, it then routs or reduces in size by one.




Altogether it should be pretty easy for Afureru. She could take them bare handed. She specialized in this sort of thing. We could skip it or we can use it as a battlegroup tutorial. I dont mind either one.

 

[WlfSamurai]

WlfSamurai

Yup! Random Word is correct. Afureru is indeed handling this group alone with the soldiers there to make sure they don't flee.


As for Embrace! Afureru should be string enough that she could haul around the abyssal no problem. However it would be a handicap, as Afureru wants it that way since she's dying for a fight. The handicap being she can only wield her weapon one handed. (A -3 to acc like when against Sig)


We can skip the battle if you'd like to hold off on messing with battlegroups.


So if I'm looking at it right.

It sounds like a

Size 3 (+3 to attack, raw damage, soak, magnitude)

Average drill (+1 defense)

Might 1-2 (I'm not sure what the horseman are, like normal undead or something more advanced, it would be +1 defense and +might in accuracy and damage.)


Going for default, it might have a health track of 7, +3 from size...

So it would have a Magnitude of 10. Which is basically its initiative score






So, I would need to do 10 points of damage. Then it does a rout check, it then routs or reduces in size by one.




Altogether it should be pretty easy for Afureru. She could take them bare handed. She specialized in this sort of thing. We could skip it or we can use it as a battlegroup tutorial. I dont mind either one.

Let's use the battlegroup mechanics—since, thanks to you, I now remember the whole EFFING point of battlegroups IS to allow lesser enemies be a challenge for Exalts—but let's mechanically roll it all out off-screen. I want to resolve it quick and not have yet a third battle let the scene overstay its welcome.

I really don't think Afureru is going to lose. But, the interesting question is what does it cost her to win?

And to your point, I've never used the battlegroup mechanics. So, it'll be a nice way to make sure I have a good grasp.

For everyone in general: I plan to do some hard scene cuts and keep this moving forward quickly. Skipping time where needed. Let's get to the nougat as you now have seen what's out here. And they're not fully prepared.

Esbilon Rykon Sherwood D. Rex Random Word Teh Frixz jaydude

 

[WlfSamurai]

Let me prepare some posts for the above...

Also, Sherwood , have you decided on which you want:

4 successes.

So, I offer you a choice:

1. This thing keeps you grounded and in the fight. We find out how many rounds you can go with it (or it can go with you).
2. You can get away, but with a complication. Something that makes it a partial success to get away.

I have something specific in mind for #2, but I want you to choose first.

 

[Sherwood]

Sorry, I didn't see the alert for this.

I am going to put up a IC post in a minute.

 

[WlfSamurai]

Sorry, work was nuts this week. Hoping to get some good traction with the game this weekend.

jaydude , are you going to go as Tyree has requested?

 

[jaydude]

jaydude , are you going to go as Tyree has requested?

Probably not, if Tyree can't extricate herself. He doesn't really want to see any Lunars killed on his watch.

 

[WlfSamurai]

Hey, Esbilon , how is Zoya feeling about what she's seen? Both right now with the war-camp below, but also on this little trip? What does she intend to do?

Rykon what about Toun? What is he thinking right now about all this?

D. Rex with Tyree stuck this round in battle with this abomination thingy, I think we'll actually roll the scene with the battlegroup.

EDIT: I'll get you a prompt.

 

[jaydude]

We're in a shadowland, right? Do we still take mote regain penalties there, or not?

 

[Random Word]

Nah, 3e did away with that. Everyone respires motes normally everywhere.

 

[WlfSamurai]

Nah, 3e did away with that. Everyone respires motes normally everywhere.

I was wondering myself and thought I was wrong when I couldn’t find it.

Thanks for clarifying!

 

[Esbilon]

Esbilon , how is Zoya feeling about what she's seen? Both right now with the war-camp below, but also on this little trip? What does she intend to do?

I've kinda addressed this in the IC. She's very worried about the war camp, and does not have any idea of how to actually do anything to neutralize the threat, so for now she's following the others.

Right now, she's interested in finding out more about the army and hampering it in any way they can. If she wasn't surrounded by super-human killing-machines (the PCs, not the enemies), she'd be running around looking for allies and possibly sorcerous methods of keeping the dead away.

 

[D. Rex]

WlfSamurai

Between the fight with Sigfrida, would any Essence have been recovered, and would Afureru's anima have diminished a level?

 

[WlfSamurai]

Guys, is there a good reason that you regain 5 motes per round in combat and only 5 per hour outside combat?

WlfSamurai

Between the fight with Sigfrida, would any Essence have been recovered, and would Afureru's anima have diminished a level?

Anyway, that fight was a day or so ago. So, you'd be at full Essence and anima gone.

 

[Random Word]

You regenerate 5 motes/hr outside combat because outside combat if you regenerated 5 motes every few seconds all mote costs for Charms would be trivialized and may as well be dropped. The five motes per round automatic regeneration was added to combat in 3e to solve the 'Stunt or Die' problem of 2e, whereby your only source of mote regen was stunts and whoever ran out of motes first was going to die. The 5m/round autoregen during combat gives them more ways to meaningfully differentiate the cost of combat Charms from one another, without making players puppy dog eyes for Major or Defining stunts every round so they don't immediately run out of motes and, well, die. This allows Charm costs to be defined in the same units (motes) but remain relevant resources across wildly different timescales (in battle (seconds) vs out of battle (hours)).

 

[WlfSamurai]

You regenerate 5 motes/hr outside combat because outside combat if you regenerated 5 motes every few seconds all mote costs for Charms would be trivialized and may as well be dropped. The five motes per round automatic regeneration was added to combat in 3e to solve the 'Stunt or Die' problem of 2e, whereby your only source of mote regen was stunts and whoever ran out of motes first was going to die. The 5m/round autoregen during combat gives them more ways to meaningfully differentiate the cost of combat Charms from one another, without making players puppy dog eyes for Major or Defining stunts every round so they don't immediately run out of motes and, well, die. This allows Charm costs to be defined in the same units (motes) but remain relevant resources across wildly different timescales (in battle (seconds) vs out of battle (hours)).

Thanks for the explanation. I understood the mechanical/combat reasoning. Just weird to square in my head why the timescales change fictionally.

Alas. Doesn't matter.

 

[Random Word]

Exalted is at its core a simulationist system, though it occasionally pretends to be a narrative system. The Exalted are meant to be able to have bursts of superhuman glory, but if they push too hard too long they exhaust themselves and return to mortal baseline. This theoretically helps tie them back to the humans around them. If Exalts regenerated 5 motes/s all the time, and we simulated the consequences in our head, they'd just be able to go at 100% superhuman forever. It would tell a very different story, of energizer bunny exalted that just never ever stop pulling miracles out of their hats every second of every day. At the same time, the simulation needs to credibly handle the fact that the Exalted defeated the Primordials in battle, and presumably those fights weren't over in fifteen seconds, so they added the idea of the Breath of War - Exaltations are weapons, and their power only truly comes alive when their bearer is locked in mortal combat, and so the Exalted could go toe to toe with Primordials for more than fifteen seconds without keeling over exhausted. These are the in-fiction and metafictional reasons the parameters of the simulation are tuned in this way.

 

[WlfSamurai]

Exalted is at its core a simulationist system, though it occasionally pretends to be a narrative system. The Exalted are meant to be able to have bursts of superhuman glory, but if they push too hard too long they exhaust themselves and return to mortal baseline. This theoretically helps tie them back to the humans around them. If Exalts regenerated 5 motes/s all the time, and we simulated the consequences in our head, they'd just be able to go at 100% superhuman forever. It would tell a very different story, of energizer bunny exalted that just never ever stop pulling miracles out of their hats every second of every day. At the same time, the simulation needs to credibly handle the fact that the Exalted defeated the Primordials in battle, and presumably those fights weren't over in fifteen seconds, so they added the idea of the Breath of War - Exaltations are weapons, and their power only truly comes alive when their bearer is locked in mortal combat, and so the Exalted could go toe to toe with Primordials for more than fifteen seconds without keeling over exhausted. These are the in-fiction and metafictional reasons the parameters of the simulation are tuned in this way.

It's that last part that I was missing. I didn't know about the "the Breath of War". It's an interesting concept.

 

[Random Word]

Yeah, personally I like it because of the way it must feel, and how that ties in to the proclivities of most Exalts. Drawing your Second Breath is supposed to feel amazing, and respiring Essence in general feels incredible, so one can only imagine how much more alive Exalted feel when in mortal combat, and how that would naturally drive so many of them towards violent lives and honing the skills those lives demand. It's sort of a neat in fiction justification for why most Exalted are kung fu wizards with extra kung fu. The titan-slaying engines grafted onto their souls are mainlining celestial heroin into their system every time they pick a serious fight. Once they've tasted it a few times, for some their lives probably start to feel a bit empty if they aren't regularly risking their lives in battle.

 

[D. Rex]

Yeah, personally I like it because of the way it must feel, and how that ties in to the proclivities of most Exalts. Drawing your Second Breath is supposed to feel amazing, and respiring Essence in general feels incredible, so one can only imagine how much more alive Exalted feel when in mortal combat, and how that would naturally drive so many of them towards violent lives and honing the skills those lives demand. It's sort of a neat in fiction justification for why most Exalted are kung fu wizards with extra kung fu. The titan-slaying engines grafted onto their souls are mainlining celestial heroin into their system every time they pick a serious fight. Once they've tasted it a few times, for some their lives probably start to feel a bit empty if they aren't regularly risking their lives in battle.

I love this.

 

[WlfSamurai]

Now that I'm in the right effing thread (stupid!):

So, I've take in some explicit—because I asked for it—and implicit feedback about this game over the course of a long while now. And I've probably been thinking about it more that I should for too long.

I really like what we have going and I hope you do to.

(As a note, I'm ALWAYS open to feedback and welcome it. Please, toss out anything on what you think so far or what you like or don't like anytime and going forward.)

Anyway, I think after this set of scenes, I'm going to make a few changes.

1. I'm going to frame scenes harder and sharper, and move story forward quickly. We'll be getting away from the sandbox style with too much open. By harder and sharper, I mean less time setting up the scene. Instead, starting later in the scene and ending scenes much earlier.
2. I'm going to begin direct conversations on our story direction and potential interests in antagonists here in OOC.
3. Skipping forward in time when we don't need it "on-screen". This will including abstracting certain activities "off-screen" so as not to eat up time for our story. And also could include rolling dice for outcomes off-screen, but I'm not 100% on that one yet.

Ultimately, my goal is to focus the game into a story I'm working toward and to keep the group as a more cohesive whole working together. I'll need your help through feedback and ideas. And with lore and mechanics as needed as you guys awesome fountains of knowledge.

Let me know what you think and if that's a direction you're interested in. Or any feedback about it. Or suggestions.

Appreciate you guys all playing and sticking with it. We have a good group here and I'm anxious to see your awesome characters in action.

Esbilon Rykon Sherwood D. Rex Random Word Teh Frixz jaydude

 

[WlfSamurai]

If it was physically possible for a spider to grimace, Makuro would have done so when he saw that Tyree, for whatever reason, was planning to stay and fight. Still, he didn't want to see one of Luna's champions lost to Creation.

As the abomination struck at the Full Moon, Makuro scuttled forward, hoping to try and hide on the monstrosity itself. From there, he'd move into a position from which he could strike this foe more effectively. With its size, the abomination would hopefully fail to notice a mere spider crawling on it.

[Attempting to re-establish surprise, rolling Dexterity + Stealth and claiming a one-point stunt. Since Makuro's currently in spider form, anyone who makes an Awareness-based roll to try and notice him will lose two successes from the roll.]

Spoiler: Makuro Stats

Essence: 1
Personal Essence: 16/16
Peripheral Essence: 29/38

Committed Essence: 9 (Hundred Rings + Shapeshifting)

Willpower: 6
Join Battle: 7
Health Levels: -0, -1, -1, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -4, -4, -4, Inc.
Resolve 4, Guile 4

Actions
Rush: 7 dice
Disengage: 10 dice

Evasion 7 (5 + 2 from Tiny Creature), Parry 6
Soak/Hardness: 6/0 (Buff Jacket, +3 Soak)

You have surprise! The monstrosity is focused on Tyree at the moment. And I think you still have your action since you "went into hiding" when you changed form.

 

[Sherwood]

You have surprise! The monstrosity is focused on Tyree at the moment. And I think you still have your action since you "went into hiding" when you changed form.

Is Tyree up, or am I still holding on Jaydude? I don't want to post out of turn.

 

[WlfSamurai]

Is Tyree up, or am I still holding on Jaydude? I don't want to post out of turn.

No, jaydude has re-established surprise and has his action.