Mother Theresa types

[Kyrn]

I've been reflecting upon the numerous threads dedicated to the massive power of this Exalt and that demon, and the niftiness the artifact of doom can do that I've seen over the years, and I thought about the potential for good an Exalt has.  Case in point, I've got an idea for this medium experience Orichalcum Alchemical loose in Creation, possibly in Nexus.  I began allocating various charms and such, was browsing through the book, and came across the Nutriment Recycling Engine.  A one dot artifact, easy enough to make for a dude packing Abstract Abacus Implant and Synaptic Accelerator doohickey with the Ori anima effect and Intelligence 6.  


Now, what is a being, seeing starving, hardworking, poor people for the first time going to do?  I think he's going to feed them.  Granted, it'll taste like chalk, but no one in Nexus is going to starve to death from now on.  


Of course, the fact that selling the excess tablets to militaries across Creation could fund the purchase of a manse and its subsequent transformation to a Vat complex at the center of a mighty fortress was merely an afterthought.


Any one else ever use their superpowers to actually change the Age of Sorrows?  Instead of, you know, beating stuff up and seducing chicks and making vast political schemes.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

[memesis]

Any one else ever use their superpowers to actually change the Age of Sorrows?  Instead of, you know, beating stuff up and seducing chicks and making vast political schemes.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

There are several ways to be a "do-gooder", and I have seen it happen in my games (which was nice).  The general problem you run into is that many people in power benefit from oppression, and challenging that tends to make them come after you with swords.  So sooner or later you will probably see some fighting.

 

[Jakk Bey]

Jakk's party spent an long ass while rebuilding a village that the Queen of Fangs rained fire upon.  We had to fight her Lieutenant, but when the fire started raining from the sky, the village's population was safe below the ground, in the shelter we'd made for them.  Then, we rebuilt the village, using a lot of Charms and a lot of skill, and a wee bit of Sorcery to remove the acidic taint of the Queen's Sorcery.  


There's also the whole thing with Jakk looking to free the slaves of Gem, and work to getting rid of the whole practice throughout the Creation.  Of course, this does put him somewhat at odds with the Guild, most of the Dragon Bloods, and a good many kingdoms throughout the Threshold, but Jakk started off as a gladiatorial slave, so he's a wee bit one sided when folks come down with the economic arguments.  And while they're looking at taking down Gem by force, eventually, and using it as a base of operations to bring Thorns back from the grip of the Mask of Winters, it comes down to freeing the slaves, and saving their families and friends from the forces of darkness and oppression.


Jakk is a Dawn Caste though.  Pointy sticks are what he's really good at.  He's not a bad thief, and he certainly does redestribute wealth very well, his sorts of reforms are a bit simplistic.  Doesn't mean that he and his merry band won't help a farmer with their groves, or search for lost children, but let's face it, when you run into a Dawn Caste with a Grand Daiklaive strapped to his back, most folks' first reaction is to either A) Plead for their lives in abject terror, or B) Grab pointy things and try to hit him before he does it back.


Jakk's merry band do a LOT of good deeds, in part to erase that whole Anathema thing, and for the most part, they convert a hefty percentage of the forces sent against them, and that includes DBs now.  Jakk's gotten to the point, where he refuses to inflict Lethal damage against Mortals, and that means that he's Stunt-tastic in dealing with Extras, but when you can take down forty or fifty Mortals, whip their asses six ways from Sunday, and cook them an Apple Brown Betty in celebration of their joining your cause on that Sunday, then you're batting pretty good.  


Most of the take when they rob from the Realm goes the communities they travel in, and our Sorcerer does a lot of free medical care and judicious use of Spells and Craft in each town we visit.  While Jakk's no Wong Fei Hong, he's just as often seen throwing up Increasing Strength Exercise to do field work or haul wagons and such.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

We did some good things once in a private game which I miss dearly. My Solar companion, Loyal Road, was a damn nice fellow, and would help people haul wagons and plant their crops for the season, almost everywhere we went. We also made new kinds of watermelons and such. Hell, he became Loyal Watermelonseed >.> everywhere we went he planted some for farmers. It was great. We always made seasonal rounds to make sure we brought in the harvest for all our friends.


Good times.

 

[Persell]

We're never good. I think monly a single character so far, out of ten or thereabouts, had a Compassion over one.


And that guy left a poor villager who tried to steal some food for his family to freeze to death up in the North. The rest were either sociopathic assassins who love killing, gruff demon- hunters who doesn't care whether any villager or whatever get caught in the way, and a Dragon- Blood, who, well, was pretty much nothing.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Wtf, why is it everyone goes for one Compassion? Seriously, people WONDER why the Solars got their asses burned when the Usurpation happened? It's because everyone had one compassion. Every Solar chosen by the sun is some sociopath with delusions of grandeur, wanting to take over the world. Hmm...I think I'm gonna go throw in my lot with the Bronze faction.


At least Kejak and the others have two to three compassion, they CAN feel.

 

[Silence In Daylight]

It all depends on how the Compassion is routed.


 I can completely see an explanation for, say, Kejak having Compassion 5 and being responsible for all of the actions of the Bronze Faction since the Usurpation--he sincerely believes that his decisions led to the minimum amount of suffering occurring to the least number of people.


 Rationalization is a bitch.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

I understand that, but seriously I've seen so many PCs with compassion 1 and I could give a damn how someone "routs" that. It's compassion 1, group of people were dying from a plague, so my PCs simply burned their village, not because they were saving others, but because it inconvienced them. Needless to say, I was appalled, so I sicked the hounds on them.


Seriously though, why the fuck does everyone need their min maxed three dots in two virtues, that don't matter and they won't play up anyway? This is why I don't run for a lot of the people I used to. Jaded? Perhaps I am. I just think if you take ones in any Virtue, you come up with a damn good reason, in my group anyway. Not just, "I'm an assassin."

 

[The Mad hatter]

because, people see the mechinal effects for the other virtues and not the effects for Compassion and so learn towards maxing their other virtues

 

[Kajata]

I often struggle with virtues (I don't min-max though) because when you're trying to create a legendary hero, you kinda want him to have nice high virtues, and, well, so what if your compassion/temperence is 1?  You've got valor 4 goddamit!


I think that can be what gets to some people; the desire to have high virtues in some things, as opposed to the desire to have low virtues.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

I can understand that, it just makes me twitch in anger sometimes when some of my players are twinking, but then again...I have been called vengeful. I usually take my twinkers and put'em through the grinder to give them proper visual on the world. They may be a God-king, but by God they're still mortal in some ways.


It's like we've always said, ST-ing is one man's war against a group of wandering adventurers.

 

[The Mad hatter]

i try to keep all my virtues at 2 or so and just sink more points into 1 or two of them, this way they are rounded individuals, but remain with core drives to sorta push their personalty

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Exactly, people don't know how to do that where I played. It was infuriating. They all saw more experience and stat bonuses, so I just plotted their twink deaths.

 

[Kajata]

The hard thing is, when you look at the description in the book, people WANT their Dawn Caste to be able to face down the undead without fear, or be more than "quite compassionate".  They want to appear legendary.


I know that a character with valor 3 can face undead without wetting themselves, but the players want their characters to not even FEEL scared or anything; Conan stylie.

 

[Flagg]

That's easily fixed by spending bonus points.


-S

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Indeed, one of my players actually did something rather awesome concerning virtues, blows me out of the water in retrospect, even though it was xp conservation later on...it fit his character greatly. He placed all fifteen bonus points in his Virtues. An extra five dots, he made a sword and shield paladin for my game. Was quite cool.