New Sidereals Book in hand

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Or, in fact, think like the damned Sidereals have to in the flavor text. People, they're not meant for full bore combat like the Solar and Lunars. They're the behind the scenes guys for a reason.

 

[wordman]

the stuff in SotM seems ridiculously powerful.

You need to compare it to the other published Essence 6 and 7 charms.

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

You do realize that Essence in auto successes is actually better long term than Dragonblooded, and argueably better than Solars (as they only need to raise Essence, instead of Attribute, Ability, and after 5 Essence as well to get the same result). Only the Lunars can do better, and even they can only really do much better in the Physical traits, where they can use the 2nd Excellency, Relentless Lunar Fury and War Form with Devestating Ogre Enhancement to manage 1/2(Ability+Essence+2) in auto successes from Excellencies, and then add an additional auto success on top of that from Relentless Lunar Fury itself. Their social and mental Fury equivalents simply allow 1/2(Ability+Essence) from excellencies in Auto successes, plus one additional from the equivalent charms...since Auto successes supplied outside the Excellencies are not in fact dice adders, and so are not directly capped.


Do Sidereals take the 1st Excellency much? Probably not, except to but off penalties. However, they have a quite solid 2nd Excellency, and their own special Excellency that no-one save Moonshadow and Eclipse caste characters can  get. Essence Auspicious, especially when combined with non-excellency dice adders, should prove rather effective.,,if not all ways costs effective for combat.


One question I have, is whether they gained an Essence Pool increasing charm, like the Solars and the Lunars?

 

[Haku1]

Scary is a Sid who has Dex (5), MA (5), Specialty (3), 7 Leaping Dragons Gem (4), Blade of the Broken Maiden (10), Wood Dragon Claws (8 ) for a total attack die pool of 35. You likely CAN pump this further up if you're willing to do so.


Now boost it with auspicious essence 35 successes are nothing to sneeze at. Of course, going up against a celestial exalt, throwing this will be met with a perfect defense. But never, ever say that a Sid is wussy in combat.


A sid with this and a medley of Sidereal Martial Arts is DEATH! to most entities who can't pull up a perfect defense.

 

[Persell]

At all this at the cost of only 3 willpower and 35 motes of essence. For most siddies this means going bonfire.


-.-


I think if this example even proves anything at all then the fact that siddies are wussies in combat, but that's something they never were supposed to be good at anyway, so its not a problem.

 

[Haku1]

This is thrown up in the final battle where going bonfire is NOT that important. Really.


It's the daiklave in the other chap's hands, that is. ^_-


Also, note that Sids are best done with prep-times... working the angles and jumping someone while they're in the loo or SLEEPING!

 

[Persell]

Going bonfire bites when you want to use some of the more powerful charms and most siddies will not have a lot of motes left after the trick you propose.


Personally I think BotBM will mostly see as midlevel extra killer in my games because other celestials need to be treated a bit more of a tactical approach... and dropping 35 motes into a dicepool doesn't leave you a lot of motes for all those other needed charms.

 

[Haku1]

There Is that... however, there IS another trick available to higher essence sid with SMA.


It's nasty as hell... but allows you to decimate entire armies of DBs and essence users with ease. Against solars/Abyssals, it's not as powerful... but with access to several spirits' essence pools, dropping 35 motes is nothing.  :twisted:

 

[Persell]

Yea, now you only need a couple of allies that got nothing better to do than being your tormented essence battery ^^

 

[Haku1]

allies? what allies? It's familiar(s) time!

 

[Persell]

One question I have' date=' is whether they gained an Essence Pool increasing charm, like the Solars and the Lunars?[/quote'] I've not read all the charms yet, so I've not come across one. What Ability would it be under?

 

[Vanman]

What Ability would it be under?

These are Sidereals. Who knows?


;-)

 

[Jack1]

Yea, now you only need a couple of allies that got nothing better to do than being your tormented essence battery ^^

You also need essence 6/7

 

[Haku1]

Oh... it's not as high as 7... from my recollections

 

[Persell]

I haven't seen any charms over Essence 5, and only a few that high. Most are in the Essence 4 range. Disappointing really, because you'd think they would have higher end charms given that they have more Elder Exalts than any other type.

 

[memesis]

Disappointing really' date=' because you'd think they would have higher end charms given that they have more Elder Exalts than any other type.[/quote']
Sidereal Martial Arts ARE their 'higher end Charms'.

 

[Persell]

I know they have Essence 6-7 MA charms, I meant their regular charms.

 

[Persell]

The high end siddie martial arts are not what scare me, the martial arts 5 essence 4 charms are what I find scary.


Turning immaterial whenever you move for a whole scene for 4 motes without any prerequisites? Yes, please.

 

[memesis]

Turning immaterial whenever you move for a whole scene for 4 motes without any prerequisites? Yes, please.

Particularly since there's, oh, a bucket full of artifacts, Charms and other effects that let attacks work against immaterial beings?

 

[memesis]

I know they have Essence 6-7 MA charms' date=' I meant their regular charms.[/quote']
No, I was serious.  It wasn't a joke.  The Sidereals have the Charms that they have.  And that's it.  They don't get any more.  They don't have the Essence 6-7 Charms that Solars and Lunars can get to.


What they have is martial arts.

 

[Persell]

Turning immaterial whenever you move for a whole scene for 4 motes without any prerequisites? Yes, please.

Particularly since there's, oh, a bucket full of artifacts, Charms and other effects that let attacks work against immaterial beings?

Hey stop bashing it, it is one of my favourite charms!


I am going to have so much fun with the next sidereal assassin I throw at the player characters ^^


Yes, they might be able to hit immaterial beings, but I will still have some good stunting with victory of the cheat and the likes. I need some innocent bystanders for that fight.

 

[memesis]

Hey stop bashing it, it is one of my favourite charms!
I am going to have so much fun with the next sidereal assassin I throw at the player characters ^^


Yes, they might be able to hit immaterial beings, but I will still have some good stunting with victory of the cheat and the likes. I need some innocent bystanders for that fight.

Who's bashing it?  It's a great Charm.  It's not invulnerability, though, and the assassin concept who realizes that will be very successful.  Hope you have fun with the guy.

 

[Persell]

I think you're missing my point. I understand that the Sidereal MAs are what are so scary about them at high Essence levels. I know that in canon they can't make any more charms without approval from the Maidens. We're limited to whats in the book as far as charms go. But there wasn't anything stopping WW from putting Essence 6+ charms in the book.


I love the feel of the Siddies charms and I just think it would have been fun to see a Essence 6 or 7 social charm , for example. Or a high end Larceny charm (steal a city maybe?) or anything. I like the Sidereal's whole masters of Creation changing martial arts, I just think it would have been nice to see a bit more diversity in their high power range.

 

[memesis]

But there wasn't anything stopping WW from putting Essence 6+ charms in the book.

I'm not missing your point.  What I'm trying to convey is this:  the reason Sidereals are masters of the martial arts is that they have nothing else.  The lack of Essence 6+ Charms?  Is deliberate.  They don't have them.  That's not who they are.  It's not an oversight.  It's not a regretful omission.  While you might say "I wish that high-Essence Sidereal Charms existed", having more than a handful of such Maiden-approved Charms would change who they fundamentally are.

 

[Persell]

Siddies are already the only exaltes with published high essence effects and that has caused so many flamewars in the past that I am not really sure why white wolf has done that yet again. They would have saved themselves a lot of trouble if they did otherwise.