Charms that enhance weapons for a scene?

[Heaven's Thunder Hammer]

One of my players, after meeting a deathlord in the last session, has decided the need to make an ultimate daiklaive of undead killing power. He was curious about developing charms that could be embedded in the weapon. As in, as a follow up charm after Glorious solar saber, that rather than creating a new weapon, simply makes one you're using more powerful. I'm not quite sure how to make sure this idea stays balanced, but I don't think it's completely unreasonable. Any ideas?


Edited to add: This is a solar game I'm running. The PC did not fight the deathlord so much as ran away very fast like a scared little girl.  :shock:

 

[Andrew02]

Probably help if we knew what your player was. Best I can figure it, Solars, Lunars, Abyssals, and Sidereals stand a fair chance of meeting a Deathlord and not being dead. Dragon-Blooded might, but that's pushing the suspension of disbelief for me. Everything else I don't know well enough to guess.


Anywho, if your player is a Solar or Abyssal, it'd be pretty easy to make up a charm that was simple, scene-long, and had things like Glorious Solar Saber and Whirlwind of Searing Blows as pre-requisites for a charm that gave your guy a handful of points to distribute in his weapon's stats for a scene. Put a cap on it, if you like, so that he doesn't just dump it all into one stat (though, the charm probably shouldn't be giving him a whole lot of points to distribute anyway).


Maybe a number of points equal to his Essence or Melee to divvy up as he sees fit between the weapon's stats. Maybe Essence + Melee if your game is really going all out.

 

[Haku1]

Nuking People for fun and profit...


*coughs* and points at the charm section and the solar charm 'Golden Swan Benison'. That's one charm you could pick up.


And after that? Get a charm that gives you bonus equal to your essence to accuracy and/or damage for the scene vs... creatures of darkness (which includes Death Lords, but not other exalts).


Piercing effects would also be nifty... like 'Edge of the Hungry Soul' in the charm section. and would be a nice lead up to a armour negating charm.


Also... you should tell your player about combos, using melee charms + athletics + defensive charms + those essence + willpower recover charms. Using well... presence charms to radiate evil solar energies that lower your enemies' die pool...


Or worse comes to worse, do the ultraman sniper trick...


Take 'Blazing Solar Bolt' + 'Thunderbolt Attack Prana (OR leaping tiger attack)' + 'Edge of Morning Sunlight' + 'Excellent Strike' + 'Hungry Tiger Technique' + 'Fire & Stones Strike'. And make sure you're wearing your orichalcum hearthstone bracers.


Now, in the first 2 turns, while you're miles away... boost your strength with Strength increasing execrise. I'm going to assume str = 5 and essence is 3. This would give you a strength of 8.


Now use Unsurpassed Sight Discipline. Congrats, you can now see someone from the horizon.


Then you pop off the combo.... Remember, you're gazing at your target over the horizon, at least several miles away... It's a dream ambush, and chances are it's pointed at your enemy's back. So with no warning, he has to make a roll to be aware of your attack. SAM is not going to be of much help here (you're over horizon or nearly there)... so no canonical perfect defense is going to be of help here. And any attempt  to defend USING charms IF ambush is figured out, the die pool starts from 0 using charms and the attack can't be defended without charms.


You can buy up to Dex + Melee in attack (let's say 5 each), that gives you a base attack pool of 20. This gives you on average, a success of 10... assuming he doesn't defend, you're way our in the bondocks, with the sun at your back... he doesn't defend (he doesn't know the attack is coming).


So... that's 10 extra successes, that gets doubled with hungry tiger. 20 successes to be used for damage.


Now, the damage for Blazing Solar bolt is Strength  8 + Willpower (assume average 7) 7... 15 + 2 (orichalcum hearthstone bracer).


You get a bare minimum of 17 L in damage, it's also aggravated (against DLs). And when you add in the extra successes. It's 37 aggravated at least.


If you're using LTA, that jumps to 74 Aggravated damage before soak, and if you've got some sort of armour piercing/negating attack... he's VERY screwed. and this is before you even use Fire & Stones Strike to buy up to 8 points of damage dealth to him.


Otherwise, if you're using TAP, it's only a mere 37 aggravated damage, depending on how much soak is left (if you have some sort of custom charm that negates armour or makes the attack piercing, he's again screwed). Let's say we use MoW's stats with his 17 Aggravated soak armour. This drops your damage to a poor 20 die pool.


Let's assume you used Fire & Stones and bought up to 8 points in damage, and you roll 10 on average. You're looking at 18A in terms of damage. Before TAP doubles it up to 36 health levels...


Congrats, you've just nuked the Mask of Winters back to the underworld, as he only has 22 points of health before going past incapacitated.


***


This is assuming you just use the core book charm rules without the range limitation on Blazing Bolt Attack. found in the Player's Guide.


Or you could... you know... use one of my older charms to make it ultra destructive when you face off against the DL, but you need to be of at least essence 5 to use it. But at least you know that no one else is going to jump into the duel you're having with the end boss... and he's taking massive ping damage per turn... while his throne room BURNS!


Purity of the Sun's Flames


http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/wiki.pl?SolarSurvival/Haku


And yes, Solars can be monsters....

 

[Heaven's Thunder Hammer]

Wow Haku, thanks for the info.

 

[Haku1]

Mum... I forgot to add the bonus from Edge of MOrning Sunlight, which gives a bonus of Essence to attacks vs creatures of darkness...


So... that'd be yeah... a tad over kill. ;;

 

[Joseph]

Re: Nuking People for fun and profit...


First of all, this twinky combination clearly fails simply because there's no reasonable Storyteller in the world that would allow Blazing Solar Bolt to zap someone from miles away, REGARDLESS of whether or not you can see them.  I could use a Sorcery to see someone from across Creation, but I wouldn't let Blazing Solar Bolt shoot them from 30,000 miles away regardless of that fact.  


On that note ALONE, this super-long range ambush clearly fails; readers should beware that Haku, while enthusiastic, has just about zero common sense.  That said...

So with no warning, he has to make a roll to be aware of your attack. SAM is not going to be of much help here (you're over horizon or nearly there)...

Surprise Anticipation Method makes you aware of ANYTHING that is a threat, regardless of where that threat originates from.  The Charm can fucking alert you to INVISIBLE PEOPLE, it sure as Hell is going to alert you to a huge beam of light zapping towards you in time for you to block it.

so no canonical perfect defense is going to be of help here.

Even if you were right about how Surprise Anticipation Method works (you aren't; it would make you aware of the attack and allow you to treat it as a normal assault), there still ARE canonical perfect defenses that work against unperceived attacks.  For example, Serenity in Blood, the Sidereal perfect parry, lets you block attacks you are not aware of.  Know the rules before you cite them.

And any attempt  to defend USING charms IF ambush is figured out, the die pool starts from 0 using charms and the attack can't be defended without charms.

Almost any Exalt is going to make the roll that allows them to use their Charms in defense, then they'll just hit their perfect defense.  As such, they don't even NEED Surprise Anticipation Method really, because as long as you make Wits + Awareness with 1 success, your'e aware of the attack and can defend as normal.  Solars, Sidereals, Abyssals, and Lunars will each perfectly avoid.  You might get lucky enough to hit a Terrestrial, though even they could theoretically Safety Among Enemies it.

You can buy up to Dex + Melee in attack (let's say 5 each), that gives you a base attack pool of 20. This gives you on average, a success of 10... assuming he doesn't defend, you're way our in the bondocks, with the sun at your back... he doesn't defend (he doesn't know the attack is coming).

Except, again, any being with Charms can still defend with those Charms as long as they make their Wits + Awareness roll, because they'll be aware of the attack.

So... that's 10 extra successes, that gets doubled with hungry tiger. 20 successes to be used for damage.

Or actually probably zero, because they'll have made their roll and perfectly defended.

You get a bare minimum of 17 L in damage, it's also aggravated (against DLs). And when you add in the extra successes. It's 37 aggravated at least.
If you're using LTA, that jumps to 74 Aggravated damage before soak, and if you've got some sort of armour piercing/negating attack... he's VERY screwed. and this is before you even use Fire & Stones Strike to buy up to 8 points of damage dealth to him.

YOu don't understand how Leaping Tiger Attack works.  Leaping Tiger doubles after soak, but before rolling.  Thunderbolt Attack Prana doubles after rolling.  In neither case is the damage doubled BEFORE soak.  Your grasp of the rules is pretty damn shaky in this post.

Congrats, you've just nuked the Mask of Winters back to the underworld, as he only has 22 points of health before going past incapacitated.

And he'll only take 0 damage, because he'll have made his roll and perfectly defended.

This is assuming you just use the core book charm rules without the range limitation on Blazing Bolt Attack. found in the Player's Guide.

The core rules DO NOT give Blazing Solar Bolt an unlimited range.  They don't explicitly LIST a range, but that's a stupid reason to assume it lacks one.  All the PLayers Guide did was elaborate on common sense.

Or you could... you know... use one of my older charms to make it ultra destructive when you face off against the DL, but you need to be of at least essence 5 to use it.

No one uses those Charms because they're all overpowered to the extreme, and clearly made to exercise twinkery in a very particular fashion when combined.