Eyes of the Unconquered Sun...wrong Essence requirement?

[The Wyld]

Today I was having a discussion with one of my players and he was upset that a Solar needs an Essence 5 Charm (Eye of the Unconquered Sun) to see through automatic stealth or concealment effects set at a much lower Essence, say 2 or 3 (with a power roll-off).


I can see his point. Lunars and Sidereals have Essence 2 or 3 effects (Eye of the Cat and Supernal Awareness respectively) that can do the same without all the flashy side-effects and massive requirements.


I'm not sure if I should just lower Eye of the Unconquered Sun down to Ess 3 or maybe build a new Awareness Charm for him that grants some sort of automatic effect.


Does anybody have such a home brewed Charm or any advice on this?

 

[Persell]

Well, the Sidereal Charm at least is much more narrow in scope and application. You have to actively be looking for something vs BING I see everything now!


As for the Solar and Lunar Charms. The Lunar one seems about right, while the Solar one does seem too expensive and have too high an Essence requirement. Maybe lower Eyes of the Unconquered Sun to Essence 3 and drop the cost to 6 or 8 motes with no Willpower cost.


BUT I'm really not a crunch-head so I could be wrong.

 

[MrMephistopheles]

I think a charm that does a little bit of what Eyes does at lower levels might be ok. But the problem you run into is that beyond mote efficiency, that charm will pretty much be useless afterward you get Eyes. And I'd say yes, E5 is appropriate for that charm. It's REALLY powerful.

 

[Kyeudo]

Eyes of the Unconquered Sun lets you see through practically EVERYTHING. Fog, darkness, makeup, disguises, all forms of invisibility, even walls and clothing, so long as you can define someone as attempting to use it to conceal something with it. Eye of the Cat just lets you spot invisible things and is about as useful as Spirit-Detecting Glance.

 

[The Wyld]

Eyes of the Unconquered Sun lets you see through practically EVERYTHING. Fog, darkness, makeup, disguises, all forms of invisibility, even walls and clothing, so long as you can define someone as attempting to use it to conceal something with it. Eye of the Cat just lets you spot invisible things and is about as useful as Spirit-Detecting Glance.

Well...its only good with the Solar's normal range of vision so you can't use it to trump darkness, fog, or see through walls but yeah...its a pretty powerful Charm that covers a lot of ground. It makes it difficult to come up with some alternative lower level Charms that do similar things.

 

[Persell]

you can't use it to trump darkness

It flares the Solar's anima to the 16+ level (I think, may be a step lower).

 

[The Wyld]

you can't use it to trump darkness

It flares the Solar's anima to the 16+ level (I think, may be a step lower).

Which is as useful as any other light source for extending the range of a Solar's normal vision. But it doesn't actually let the Solar ignore darkness beyond the range of the light source.

 

[Kyeudo]

If that darkness is hiding something, it does. Same with a wall that someone's hiding behind.

 

[The Wyld]

If that darkness is hiding something, it does. Same with a wall that someone's hiding behind.

Depends on how you want to define "normal vision" I guess. I'm just not too keen on too liberal a definition. If you can see through one wall why not a thousand walls?


Generally as long as a person or thing is in place to interact with the Solar using EotUS then I think they would be valid targets. Men just around the corner waiting in ambush, an object hidden behind a false panel in the room being searched, or a child eavesdropping at the window of the room the Solar is in are valid even though they are technically behind a wall. But is a Solar searches the wrong room while the assassin is hiding under a bed in the next room over? Nah. The assassin remains safe from EotUS as long as the Solar stays out of his room since most people can't see through walls as a matter of course and the assassin isn't in a position to interact with the Solar. Anyway thats the rule of thumb I use for it.

 

[MrMephistopheles]

you can't use it to trump darkness

It flares the Solar's anima to the 16+ level (I think, may be a step lower).

Which is as useful as any other light source for extending the range of a Solar's normal vision. But it doesn't actually let the Solar ignore darkness beyond the range of the light source.

Of course if you're going deep enough into that tree to get Eyes.....a little darkness isn't really an issue.

 

[The Wyld]

Of course if you're going deep enough into that tree to get Eyes.....a little darkness isn't really an issue.

True. Darkness isn't usually going to be an obstacle.