Dice Exalted Essence: The Young Exalts and the Sea OOC

[Random Word]

Short of using Death of Obsidian Butterflies as a flak cannon to shoot them down as they all try to land on top of her, I can't think of what Ijara might want to do. Having a big attention getting beacon sounds good - better they try to land beside the Exalted than the mortals, and we do have big AoE.

 

[Random Word]

Oh, can I be Building Power while they're flying towards us, and use that for casting at them as they try to land?

 

[jaydude]

So I can’t throw Ishmael?

Oh, at short range you absolutely can. You can also move one range band as a reflexive action.

 

[jaydude]

Oh, can I be Building Power while they're flying towards us, and use that for casting at them as they try to land?

Sure, we can do that if you want. Go ahead and give me an Attribute + Sagacity roll at difficulty 3.

 

[EbonChevalier]

Do we add things like accuracy our initial attack roll and add attack to damage?

 

[jaydude]

Do we add things like accuracy our initial attack roll and add attack to damage?

An attack roll is Attribute + Combat ability + any bonuses or penalties, including your weapon's accuracy modifier. Damage rolls only apply to decisive attacks, and are however much Power you spent on the attack + additional successes on the attack roll + any other applicable modifiers.

 

[EbonChevalier]

Got it

 

[Random Word]

[Five successes on the roll. Not enough to beat Garret's Defense. I'm just gonna go ahead and say that he steals the 1 Power they would've gained at the end of this round.]

Ties usually hit with 0 successes, so for my understanding you were just assuming Psychie would stunt Garret's defense up to 6 so they would miss?

 

[jaydude]

Ties usually hit with 0 successes, so for my understanding you were just assuming Psychie would stunt Garret's defense up to 6 so they would miss?

Garret's base parry defense is 5 ((Attribute + Close Combat) ÷ 2) , meaning the +2 Defense bonus from his Moonsilver Greatsword alone would be enough to avoid this particular attack. Or at least that's how I understand it.

 

[Random Word]

Oh! I thought the Defense bonus from gear only applied when you took a special defense action. I'll go read up on that again.

Edit: Here it is
Pg. 341 - Defense: A weapon’s defense increases the character’s Defense by its rating when taking the defend other or full defense actions.

 

[Rykon]

There are quite a few key differences in Essence versus 3E that are easily overlooked or taken for granted. It took me a while for a lot of these to actually sink in.

• Weapon Accuracy adds successes, not dice, to attack rolls.
• Weapon Damage doesn't apply to withering attacks, instead, it adds damage successes to decisive attacks.
• Weapon Defense, as Random Word pointed out, will only benefit Defense when dedicated Defense actions are taken.
• Soak reduces damage successes on Decisive Attacks, not dice.
• Gaining Power from Withering Attacks generates new power rather than taking it from an opponent. There are a few specific charms that allow you to steal power.
• On that last note, Overwhelming is a minimum power gain for Threshold hit successes on a Withering Attack. So landing a Withering Attack generates, 1 + Higher of Overwhelming or Threshold hit successes.
• With no willpower stat, you cannot spend a will to add a success to rolls. "Will" is entirely a spellcasting resource now.
• Static defenses are not increased by an Excellency and the stunt bonus to defense is rolled. Thus certain defense charms will grant Defense bonuses.
• Onslaught penalties lower Hardness and not Defense.

 

[jaydude]

Oh! I thought the Defense bonus from gear only applied when you took a special defense action. I'll go read up on that again.

Edit: Here it is
Pg. 341 - Defense: A weapon’s defense increases the character’s Defense by its rating when taking the defend other or full defense actions.

Oh yeah, now you mention it, you're right.

Given this, and some of the things that Rykon pointed out just now, I might have to recalculate things across the previous combat round. I'll get onto it tomorrow though; in bed right now.

 

[jaydude]

So I ended up investigating, and here's what I've calculated:

If Most Assured gets a bonus success from her cannon's Accuracy bonus, her attack still misses, only by two as opposed to three.

With two bonus successes, Tuyak's attack hits with one threshold success, giving him two Power and dealing a further three damage to the enemies.

With one of the last four bonus dice replaced by a bonus success, the monsters get six successes on their attack roll. Garret's base defense is reduced to five, and while it's boosted to six via Flow Like Blood, that's still not enough unless Psychie wants to stunt a defense action and get two bonus dice she can use to potentially boost her defense (I can't see anything in the stunt section about being able to use stunt dice to raise static values).

Speaking of Stunt dice, I'm going to retroactively declare that EbonChevalier , Psychie and Sherwood each earned a set of them with their attack descriptions, seeing as I'm already having to recalculate a few things here. Would either of you like to add them to your attack rolls here, or keep them in reserve for later?

 

[Sherwood]

I'll hold onto it for now.

 

[Psychie]

Wow. So many small changes to keep track of. Can I use my earlier stunt to up my Defense to avoid getting hit?

 

[Psychie]

Does this come into effect here?

Battle groups subtract the Full Moon’s Essence from their damage on Step 7.

 

[EbonChevalier]

I’m reserving mine

 

[jaydude]

Wow. So many small changes to keep track of. Can I use my earlier stunt to up my Defense to avoid getting hit?

Tell me about it .

From what I see, there's nothing about being able to simply boost your static values through stunts. I'd say you can roll the set of stunt dice, and any successes get added to your defense value.

 

[Random Word]

Quoth the book:

"When dice are added to a static value, such as Defense, take half the number of dice and round up. Then add that number to the value."

So I'd say a stunt is indeed worth +1 Defense, assuming you can add your two dice to Defense, which I agree is ambiguous.

 

[Psychie]

What about this:

Does this come into effect here?

Battle groups subtract the Full Moon’s Essence from their damage on Step 7.

 

[Random Word]

Damage is Decisive Damage. Like real HL damage. That doesn't help you not get hit, it just means Battle Groups have a really hard time actually hurting you, especially at high Essence.

 

[jaydude]

Quoth the book:

"When dice are added to a static value, such as Defense, take half the number of dice and round up. Then add that number to the value."

So I'd say a stunt is indeed worth +1 Defense, assuming you can add your two dice to Defense, which I agree is ambiguous.

Ah, okay. In that case, Psychie , you absolutely can add your reserve stunt dice to your parry. This boosts it to seven, and thus you avoid the attack.

 

[Psychie]

Ah. I was hoping it would help. So do I need to roll for my defense stunt or just asunder it adds one to my defense?

 

[Psychie]

Ah, okay. In that case, Psychie , you absolutely can add your reserve stunt dice to your parry. This boosts it to seven, and thus you avoid the attack.

Ok. Outstanding.

 

[Random Word]

Okay, page 126: "Stunt dice apply to the rolled action or the stunted defense and do not add to damage." So yes, you can definitely stunt defense, and it definitely adds +1 defense if you apply the stunt dice.