Nearly Invincible Martial Artist

[cyl]

humm... how am I gonna put this...


I did some research when I was making stats for the Moon Devouring Prince the dusk caste champion for the deathlord Lover Clad in... Whatever It Was I built in my abyssal campaign... read the Scroll of the Monk and found the Laughing Wound Style pretty funny... and then... thought... hey... wait a minute...


And I started remembering things about some hearthstones and their efficiency in the martial arts combat...


And I finally found that, someone with the gem of adamant skin (lethal damage becomes bashing) and the Insatiable Slave Stamina charm activated (bashing damage over the -4 health level is just purely ignored, you never get to Incapacitated), an abyssal or any celestial could be quite invincible in combat.


Thing is... it reeeeeeeaaally is going well with the concept of masochism, enduring endless pain from blows in combat because while the character is beat to the death and does not seem to be going down, he still feels pain...


Well, the Laughing Wound Form also reverse wound penalties into wound bonuses, as the crazy masochist martial artist bastard thrives on pain...


The only thing that can put down such a monster is aggravated damage... and then, you still got to hit the guy !


I'm looking forward to make a duel with this character (Lover feeling that Walker's pride is based on martial prowess, what a better way to insult him than ridiculizing one of his deathknight in a duel), but I am really concerned about the impact it would have on my pcs to see an abyssal still fighting while he should be... fully dead.


What do you think ? Is it a little bit too broken ?

 

[Persell]

That sounds great! Provided your interpretation of the the hearthstones and charms are correct, that sounds like an excellent frustration for your PCs.


Two suggestions though.


Go through your PCs charms, spells, artifacts, etc to make sure they can deal aggravated damage. If they can't hurt him, eventually you'll either kill off all your PCs or he'll have to run away (or leave them half dead in the dirt) which can sometimes feel a bit anti-climatic.


Secondly, if he's this hard to hurt, make sure he's not going to kill a PC in one or two blows. If they have a lot of trouble killing him, he will still ping them into the ground.


Can't wait to hear your players' reactions to this guy.

 

[Gtroc]

character in my last game had that style and that hearthstone. it was...interesting. she was not the most skilled in the party, or even the most dangerous, she could have been though. I was kind of glad that game ended before she thought that combonation all the way through.

 

[wordman]

The Gem of Adamant Skin is considered by many to be broken. if I let it into my campaign, it would be extremely rare. On the other hand, hearthstones are a really good way to pump opposition in a way that your PCs cannot steal (without doing a lot of work).


In 1E, a common rules hack was to combine the gem with the lunar regeneration gift that regenerated all bashing damage each turn.

 

[Flagg]

The Gem of Adamant Skin is considered by many to be broken. if I let it into my campaign, it would be extremely rare.

Indeed. It's "Gem", singular.

 

[cyl]

The Freedom Stone's broken too...

In 1E, a common rules hack was to combine the gem with the lunar regeneration gift that regenerated all bashing damage each turn.

WOW... and to say lunars stats were much more higher than they are now... well who needs a high stamina when you got the gift + the gem anyway.
The combat's not finished actually... the only guy that stepped up was one of the only pcs unable to deal aggravated damage. Though I tried to stop him (I heard he's a terrible opponent, and nobody has wounded him with bare hands or short blades !), the guy had a 5dot Valor, and the others had a 2-3, and he was ready to fight all the others to fight the Prince...


Poor pc got scared when he realized he could not win grab rolls, as the Prince started his combat by taking all the punches quickly reaching the +4 wound bonus... and then started to fight back... took hits, but wasn't falling.


After 5 rounds combat my pc realized "hey, I just hit him with what could kill every opponent I've ever met... how come he's still standing, and laughing at me with all this blood on his face ?!"


Then fear came...


Then we had to stop the game... the end last week

 

[Praedoran]

Thanks


I just had to tell my ST about this one since his Abyssal NPC uses the Laughing wounds style as well.  He had a grin from ear to ear of course.


Now I have a feeling there's going to be an encounter with her and my character, since I took out the super NPC he threw at us with a single 86 damage attack.

 

[Cynis Filthist]

The Gem of Adamant Skin is considered by many to be broken.

You're tellin' me, dealing with someone in my group with this hearth... Sincehe already has it, I won't retcon it away.  But future games will have it banned.  Also, I'm just gonna have to create enough bad guys that do Aggrivated damage or overdamage into Lethal


The Freedom Stone isn't too bad, in fact it made for some fun when my Group encountered a 'Ground Squid' in Firewander, it had everyone else in unbreakable clicnhes... then he was like "damn i got clinched... wait.. SLIP!"

 

[Yggdrasil]

There's a simple way to deal with munchkins with some combo involving Gem of Adamant Skin: make someone break the character's manse geomancy. With the manse broken, the gem ceases to function and the group get an epic quest to try to restore the manse. But even if the manse is restored to its former power, the new heartstone may not have the same powers as the old one.

 

[xenopsyllus]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there another MA charm in SotM that allows aggravated damage to be reduced to lethal and specifies that the new lethal damage can be further reduced to bashing? I remembered something to that effect, but couldn't find it the last time I flipped through it.


Either way, it's still a combo to be withheld from all but the highest powered games. As a player, I wouldn't do it because it would make the storyteller up the power level of the game to the point where it's no longer fun for the other players.


As a storyteller, it's a fun combo to keep combat monkeys in check without pushing the power level past the non-combat oriented characters.


...


And remember: Just because his body is invincible doesn't mean you can't shred his mind or rend his soul. :wink:

 

[Cynis Filthist]

There's a simple way to deal with munchkins with some combo involving Gem of Adamant Skin: make someone break the character's manse geomancy.

Yup, the manse is in the far south, and they are in Nexus... .that was going to be happening soon.

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

Or...there's always the simple answer. Remove the artifact its set in. Larceny charms FTW. Also useful for putting buff jackets on Sidereals and laughing as their Sidereal Styles become less than effective.

 

[Arthur]

Or inflict some disease on him. Or imprison the character somewhere. Or create long-lasting servitude effects on the guy. Or even use some necromancy to cause death effects. The options are infinite.

 

[Praedoran]

Can't Steal It


Larceny charms prohibit the theft of Artifacts that are in use or attuned, ie. if it's set in Bracers it would not be steal-able (is that even a word?), Exalted are immune to common diseases, asphixiation deals non-lethal, few prisons can hold an Exalted for long, and most social charms have to be initiated in Social combat to be given the time to use.  It's actually a very powerful (broken) combo that can't be easily defeated without specific martial arts charms or sorcery.  That is, unless there's some kind of natural way to cause aggravated damage to a Exalted, but I've not read any yet.


Maybe if you just drop a big enough rock on top of the Exalt, that could act as a sufficient enough "prison" to buy you time to go and destroy their manse.

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

Hells, just grapple them and remove their weapon or bracers. Actual armor's a bit harder for such, but then, Laughing Wounds Style doesn't allow such.

 

[Jukashi]

Remeber that old 1e standby; seal 'em in a block of gold and sink 'em to the bottom of the ocean.

 

[cyl]

Well I did not say a solar could not defeat the guy... a charm with the holy tag could easily make the guy eat his own teeth... but for other exaltd, he would be a real pain !


But yeah, the lock up technique could work

 

[Haku1]

You don't need solars to make 'em cry.


Dragonblooded also have charms with holy tags. Like Refining Inner Blade, which you can pair up with Elemental Lenses for all kinds of fun!  

 

[Arthur]

Re: Can't Steal It

Exalted are immune to common diseases,

Then use uncommon ones. There are martial arts for that.

few prisons can hold an Exalted for long,

Not really. I can easily think of many... the ones in Yu-Shan, Elsewhere, the hidden places in the Labyrinth, the Deeeeeeeeeep Wyld, their own minds (again using sid Martial Arts if necessary).

and most social charms have to be initiated in Social combat to be given the time to use.

Most, not all. Just use hypnotic tongue against him a few times and his wp will end. Even nicer, he'll never know you ever used it on him.

It's actually a very powerful (broken) combo that can't be easily defeated without specific martial arts charms or sorcery.  That is, unless there's some kind of natural way to cause aggravated damage to a Exalted, but I've not read any yet.

Indeed, it's pretty hard to affect such Exalt. I'm not saying it's not, I'm just saying it's possible.

 

[Praedoran]

Too many people are suggesting a Holy attack, I didn't think Abyssal's actually counted as a creature of Darkness.  And while there's a lot of holes in the examples you pointed out Arthur, you're still suggesting rather outlandish schemes to a combat that probably started far from anywhere that's possible.  I just wish there were ways to deal aggravated damage without having to resort to crazy methods involving far off places or abilities a player probably didn't choose.  And Hypnotic Tongue does take a Willpower to activate, it's one of the harder charms to use if you're draining Willpower.


So far, the seal em and sink em approach seems the most sane and easiest.  Because there's one thing the Abyssal probably can't do: survive long without food or water.  Very simple, but probably not easy.


Any ideas on how to bind an Exalt for that long?  Regular ropes and chains probably won't work for too long (but hey!  said character's a Laughing Wounds adept, I'm sure a pretty enough PC can talk em into something kinky )

 

[xenopsyllus]

I didn't think Abyssal's actually counted as a creature of Darkness.

Abyssals are on the short list of what counts as a "Creature of Darkness" (Ex. pg 192).

 

[Praedoran]

Heh


Heh, guess I was wrong on that point.  In my defense though, I was just going by my current ST's designation of Abyssals.  Guess I was too trusting and will have to bring up that point with him.

 

[Haku1]

You wanna do a pattern spider bite on them AFTER you've boozed them up, seduced them and sexed them up.  :twisted:

 

[xenopsyllus]

The "bashing damage doesn't overflow" charm is a simple one, so by winning initiative (or ambushing) you can get in one attack before his defenses go up.

 

[cyl]

Thing is, you're a martial artist, you take your kung fu moves before you make any attack against an opponent... rushing into combat... this just has no flavour to me !


Besides, you just need a combo with it to up your defenses, and there you go !