Feantari
Water Sprite
As a special character you're limited by the unit commander's War.Sherwood said:
[Nightmares of the Second Age] The Daily Scribe
- Thread starter Sherwood
- Start date
JayTee
Eight Thousand Club
If I'm acting as a special unit, I have to use my commander's War rating as my cap.
EDIT: Ninja'd by a Terrestrial! The shame! :eek:
EDIT: Ninja'd by a Terrestrial! The shame! :eek:
Sherwood
Luna's Concubine
Thank you for double checking that. I don't have much knowledge of the Mass Combat rules, so I'll be leaning heavily on the expierence of the group for that.
Arynne
Salmon of Doubt
And I think even solo units require War to be able to act effectively in the midst of the craziness.
JayTee
Eight Thousand Club
I have all my rule books as a PDF, so I can check them at any time for youSherwood said:
Feantari
Water Sprite
PDFs on teh phone ftw!
MaHaSuchi's700
Seducing them all, one Celestial at a time
You are, sorry to say.Sherwood said:
[QUOTE="Exalted Second Edition]Hero: These characters are subofficers who are capable of assuming command if their unit commander dies. Furthermore, heroes may attack other units in close combat as if they were solo units, effectively giving their unit additional (but weaker) attacks. Finally, heroes can break away entirely and take part of a unit with them, transforming the breakaway group into a new unit under their own command. A hero can lend her Close Combat Rating to her unit, using her trait rather than the unit leader’s, but this trait is limited as normal by the commander’s War.
WAR AND COMBAT ABILITIES
Characters, even characters fighting alone on the battlefield as Magnitude 0 solo units, must possess the War Ability to fight effectively. War is the measure of the character’s understanding of the art of organized conflict, which includes fighting in and against formations and attacking militarily significant targets rather than simply fighting random foes. Characters engaged in mass combat have their combat Abilities limited by their War. This means that characters in mass combat cannot utilize a rating higher than their War in Archery, Dodge, Martial Arts, Melee or Thrown. If their Abilities are higher than their War, then substitute War for the higher Ability score. The exception to this rule is those fighting as heroes or sorcerer special characters in a unit. These characters can use their commander’s War or their own, as they prefer, when making attacks. In this way, skilled fighters with no especial leadership ability are often used as the unit’s cutting edge and can make a contribution to the battle as aides to a tactically competent but physically inferior leader.
[/QUOTE]
I hate to say it man, but that's how the cookie crumbles. No one can be the best at everything, and it'd kinda make me feel like I somewhat wasted Ability dots on War if I that were to change. In a worst case scenario you'll be losing 3 dice, provided you spent XP on the first 3 War dots. That's really not that bad, considering how many dice Tiger can throw around.JayTee said:
Sherwood
Luna's Concubine
Well, I never claimed to be perfect. Just really close. 
JayTee
Eight Thousand Club
Sidebar on page 162 of the core:
WAR AND COMBAT ABILITIES
Characters, even characters fighting alone on the battlefield as Magnitude 0 solo units, must possess the War Ability to fight effectively. War is the measure of the character’s understanding of the art of organized conflict, which includes fighting in and against formations and attacking militarily significant targets rather than simply fighting random foes. Characters engaged in mass combat have their combat Abilities limited by their War. This means that characters in mass combat cannot utilize a rating higher than their War in Archery, Dodge, Martial Arts, Melee or Thrown. If their Abilities are higher than their War, then substitute War for the higher Ability score. The exception to this rule is those fighting as heroes or sorcerer special characters in a unit. These characters can use their commander’s War or their own, as they prefer, when making attacks. In this way, skilled fighters with no especial leadership ability are often used as the unit’s cutting edge and can make a contribution to the battle as aides to a tactically competent but physically inferior leader.
Characters, even characters fighting alone on the battlefield as Magnitude 0 solo units, must possess the War Ability to fight effectively. War is the measure of the character’s understanding of the art of organized conflict, which includes fighting in and against formations and attacking militarily significant targets rather than simply fighting random foes. Characters engaged in mass combat have their combat Abilities limited by their War. This means that characters in mass combat cannot utilize a rating higher than their War in Archery, Dodge, Martial Arts, Melee or Thrown. If their Abilities are higher than their War, then substitute War for the higher Ability score. The exception to this rule is those fighting as heroes or sorcerer special characters in a unit. These characters can use their commander’s War or their own, as they prefer, when making attacks. In this way, skilled fighters with no especial leadership ability are often used as the unit’s cutting edge and can make a contribution to the battle as aides to a tactically competent but physically inferior leader.
JayTee
Eight Thousand Club
So, yeah. How about that Martial Arts to War Charm? I'm thinking of flavoring it around a war just being a bar brawl taken up to the Nth level.
Sherwood
Luna's Concubine
Hmmm. I suck at custom Charms. But, if you want to work one out, we can evaluate it as a group to make sure it is balanced.
MrSerious
Posting Addict
I gotta go with MaHaSuchi on this one.
MaHaSuchi's700
Seducing them all, one Celestial at a time
Cmon man, don't try to circumvent the system like that. It's really not cool. It's like making a Social character with Performance and no Socialize and then asking for a Performance Charm that provides Socialize dots on the go. Why even have Mass Combat-related abilities in that scenario? The system suffers from bloat as it is, in that scenario we might as well tear out those abilities and put the Charms in other ones.JayTee said:
Feantari
Water Sprite
Why do you even need to try to get around it? You can just be a special character in our unit of awesome.
Trying to make an MA charm to hack your way out of it would be pretty lame sauce.
Trying to make an MA charm to hack your way out of it would be pretty lame sauce.
JayTee
Eight Thousand Club
If the mass combat system wasn't ass, I might consider humoring it. Until then I'm going to avoid it at all costs.
Working on the charm, give me a bit
Working on the charm, give me a bit
MaHaSuchi's700
Seducing them all, one Celestial at a time
Yeah, but the problem is he can't use the unit commander's War rating unless he attacks in place of the commander. Assuming that Storm and Aurora will be commanding, we'd need a third unit with a third commander for him get a chance to do that, and even then that commander needs War 6 (improbable) in order for Tiger not to lose dice.Feantari said:
I can't say I blame you, the system is far from perfect. But it does work, and I really can't support you in trying to circumvent it. There's a reason this kind of Charm wasn't already created in the first place.JayTee said:
Arynne
Salmon of Doubt
Alright. So the Lunars will be scouting, spying (since Skadi can eat the hearts of goblins and take their shape) and sabotaging as much of the baddies' stuff as they can. Sound good?
MaHaSuchi's700
Seducing them all, one Celestial at a time
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?311159-EXALTED-Removing-War-cap-in-mass-combat-with-charms&p=6922068#post6922068
This post sums up my opinions on this quite concisely. The War cap doesn't represent your ability to kill people well. It represents your ability to effectively eliminate a large group of enemy troops. With less War, you have less tactical capabilities and knowledge, and therefore you'd go about taking out the unit in a roundabout way - hence the ability cap. Why should a Charm in another ability have the power to circumvent that?
This post sums up my opinions on this quite concisely. The War cap doesn't represent your ability to kill people well. It represents your ability to effectively eliminate a large group of enemy troops. With less War, you have less tactical capabilities and knowledge, and therefore you'd go about taking out the unit in a roundabout way - hence the ability cap. Why should a Charm in another ability have the power to circumvent that?
Feantari
Water Sprite
[QUOTE="MaHaSuchi's700]Yeah, but the problem is he can't use the unit commander's War rating unless he attacks in place of the commander. Assuming that Storm and Aurora will be commanding, we'd need a third unit with a third commander for him get a chance to do that, and even then that commander needs War 6 (improbable) in order for Tiger not to lose dice.
I can't say I blame you, the system is far from perfect. But it does work, and I really can't support you in trying to circumvent it. There's a reason this kind of Charm wasn't already created in the first place.
[/QUOTE]
Eh? No? Special characters can still take their actions without impeeding the commander. Otherwise what would be the point. Relays would be completely ineffectual, sorcerers would never do anything, etc.
I can't say I blame you, the system is far from perfect. But it does work, and I really can't support you in trying to circumvent it. There's a reason this kind of Charm wasn't already created in the first place.
[/QUOTE]
Eh? No? Special characters can still take their actions without impeeding the commander. Otherwise what would be the point. Relays would be completely ineffectual, sorcerers would never do anything, etc.
MaHaSuchi's700
Seducing them all, one Celestial at a time
Yes, you're right - but they don't benefit from the unit commander's War rating in those instances. They can either act as solo units OR act in place of the commander, directing attacks and such.Feantari said:
Now, there's no reason we couldn't have a couple Dragon King commanders leading smaller units for Tiger, et. al to run around in. It's a patchwork solution because those units won't have strong War Charms to keeping them together when the crap hits the fan, but it does solve the War issue (though not wholly).
JayTee
Eight Thousand Club
Keep in mind, Supreme Martial Instinct lets you substitute your highest combat rating for any other, including war, for one roll .This charm will be more specialized (MA=>War only) and more expensive in exchange for being longer lasting (one scene/battle/whatever)
Feantari
Water Sprite
"Hero units may attack other units in close combat as if they were solo units effectively giving their unit additional attacks." -162 of core
See then the sidebar on war and combat abilities: "The exception to this rule is those fighting as heroes or sorcerer special character in a unit. These chracters can use their commander's War or their own, as they prefer, when making attacks."
See then the sidebar on war and combat abilities: "The exception to this rule is those fighting as heroes or sorcerer special character in a unit. These chracters can use their commander's War or their own, as they prefer, when making attacks."
MaHaSuchi's700
Seducing them all, one Celestial at a time
Yes, War has that exclusivity of being an all-encompassing ability. That's how it was devised in 2.5 in order to give it more utility and fit the Dawn theme of being combat supremacists better (see Ink Monkeys . It still requires War 4 and costs 1m, 1wp per action.JayTee said:
MaHaSuchi's700
Seducing them all, one Celestial at a time
Yes, it does say that. It also says this:Feantari said:
Emphasis mine. You can act in place of the unit leader, say if you're an Exalted hero in a mortal commander's unit - you're obviously stronger than him, so he does the stragterizing (ahem, technical term) and you do the killing. However, in a different circumstance, you're an Exalted hero in an Elder Exalt commander's unit, and he'd rather be getting up and personal with them himself. So you have two options: you can breakaway with some of the unit, commanding it yourself or letting a subofficer command it while you do the killy bits; or, you can stay with the unit and act as a solo unit, 'cause no Exalted Commander ain't gonna ever hold down a strong independent Hero like yourself.Exalted Second Edition said:
Unless I'm seriously, terribly off in my understanding of that passage, that's how it goes.
Feantari
Water Sprite
[QUOTE="MaHaSuchi's700]
Unless I'm seriously, terribly off in my understanding of that passage, that's how it goes.
[/QUOTE]
This.
That last bit refers to the special character boosting the unit stats based on his or her stats (Close Combat Rating).
That is not what is being discussed in the earlier highlighted passage.
Unless I'm seriously, terribly off in my understanding of that passage, that's how it goes.
[/QUOTE]
This.
That last bit refers to the special character boosting the unit stats based on his or her stats (Close Combat Rating).
That is not what is being discussed in the earlier highlighted passage.