Nightmares of the Third Age

[QUOTE="Kaji-Oni]Lord-Leafar, then consider me your sidereal handler. Ill spend some time thinking about a personality more complicated then Xanatos Speed Chess. Jay Tee I am a big fan of siddie sail and survival I can pick up a few charms to help navigating. And just for clarification its sidereal training + 50 additional dots? Can I raise abilities higher then 3 without BP?

[/QUOTE]
Yeah it's sidereal training + 50 additional dots indeed. The training doesn't apply to ronin.
 
Ah Sidereal Astrology. I would take a vote on that one, what do people prefers to do? the long and complex one, while more versatile, requires a lot of paperwork or the simple astrology less complex but less versatile as well.


The Astrological charms are unlocked indeed.
 
DTs are much cooler than Akuma. xD


And gods I glance away for an hour and kaboom 3 more pages.
 
Question, would you mind if I take the Soul Mirror daiklave from Oadenol's codex but instead of making it a daiklave, can it be a Dire Lance/Spear?
 
One more thing for the ST and the Sid handlers, being a living Sidereal weapon to be unleashed against the threats of Creation, my character would be a well kept secret in Heaven as the one Abyssal under their command to study and use against the Underworld and it's Deathlords. I imagine him having a minimal backing in one of the Heavenly Divisions (with all the discomfort that brings amongst the majority of it's members), which Division would that be?
 
Ever see the kick-flick 'House of the Flying Daggers'? I'm building the blind dancer with the evil throwing weapons and nasty sorcery.
 
*pays attentions... But fears what this thread will do when I sleep for 8 hours or so.* xD


My sheet is pretty much done. I have left 8 charms and 16bp aside for DT charm considerations. Once I get backstory and First Excellency I will have a clearer picture of where the remaining points to be.


I would use a charmset I'm already building but ... She's in use in a game already. xD Anyway this chara seems to a sneaky information gathering/assassin type using her wicked women wiles. ^^
 
By the way in case of you missed it Myllinia, I added more charms to the solars.


For the divisions it could be many things but, probably the Convention on War, they tend to take care of the all the dangerous stuffs.
 
Simple Astrology is cool with me.


The more I think about it, Solars probably don't need those extra 10 Charms you've given them seeing as they've got 35 BP to net them up to an additional 11 Favored/Caste Charms. I'm eating my own words at this point, I know, but I kind of forgot how much BP was at play. Unless people intend to spend a significant portion on Abilities/Attributes (which is unlikely given how much they've been allotted for base chargen), they'll hit 50+ Charms easily. That will definitely eat into the power of any starting DB, and will be easily on par or beyond Lunars/Sids when you take Charm strength into account. The increase certainly isn't uncalled for, though. How about we split the difference, say 40 Charms even?

Goddamnbatman said:
HORIZON-CRESTING CAVALRY RESCUE is approved.
MANA DRIPS FROM LOTUS PETALS is approved.


All the others just no.
Click to expand...
This is acceptable with me :3. Though, the Archery version was admittedly cool.


So that MA thread you posted is rather old, and none of the SMA's there are relevant for 2.5. That said, there are a number of updates on the WW forums/wikis of SMA for 2.5 - most notably, SGambit has updated four of the SMAs, and Revlid has updated one (but inspired another that has similar balance). Both have also updated the effects of the contentious Student/Elder Sutras found in SotM. My thoughts are as follows:


Both Revlid and SGambit have made working updates that are strong. Their Sutra updates are also solid mechanically. I personally favor Revlid's, because it provides thematically interesting and tangible mechanical benefit, while SGambit's is more along the lines of "blargh, free Overdrive pool that's semi-useless" (note: making this Overdrive pool actually stack with other Overdrive pools would make this benefit significantly more palatable). Both could potentially work the SotM Sutra benefits as well, though Revlid's PAoC style rework would arguably break hard given the already-cheap costs. SGambit's would work feasibly, given the inability of his Sutra's granted Overdrive pool to stack with other Overdrive pools - I would actually have no issue with ignoring his Sutra rework all together and simply providing the SotM bonus were we to use his revisions.


Revlid has completely reworked Prismatic Arrangement of Creation into something that is different in many ways from the original Style. It appears well balanced (though it appears weaker than the original style), and arguably more flavorful in every manner conceivable. The style he inspired, Viridian Mantle of Adulation Style, is also quite balanced and incredibly flavorful, though admittedly appears designed for an NPC or big-bad Sid rather than PC usage. Additionally, both styles utilize the Dynamic Form Transition feature seen in the now-defunct Cobra Style (how I miss it so :( ) and Ivory Pestle Style. While the conditions seem balanced, as well as the mechanic itself, that's for you to decide upon. Of course, both use Revlid's update to the Student and Elder Sutras. If Revlid had revised more styles beyond PAoC, I would be on board with his revision 100% and the named SGambit wouldn't have been mentioned whatsoever. However...


SGambit, on the other hand, has updated four styles: Prismatic Arrangement of Creation, Obsidian Shards of Infinity, Charcoal March of Spiders, and Quicksilver Hand of Dreams. Save QHoD, I have reviewed all of the SMAs extensively and can honestly say they immensely improve on the styles, bringing them up to 2.5 standards for mechanics while mostly remaining true to original mechanics and themes. His PAoC, in particular, is heavily inspired by Jon Chung's PAoC revision that you can find a link to in the MA revision thread you linked me to on the WW forum. My only complaint (aside from my grievances with his Sutra revision that I aired above) is that he never revised Crimson Patterned Battlefield Style, which happens to be my favorite SMA, hands down. Two more styles were created in similar style to SGambit's revisions by a forum user named Beron the Grey, utilizing SGambit's Sutra revision: Defiant Warrior Style and Implacable Huntress Style. While both appear to be relatively balanced at first glance, I can't offer significant commentary on this. They are both built to be thematic extensions of the CMA Virtue styles, with Virtue prerequisites for learning the style in general (similar to non-MA ability prerequisites for Styles, such as Archery 2 for Righteous Devil). Both also involved their respective Virtues to varying extent in the mechanics of their Charms, though Implacable Huntress does so to a much larger and more interesting degree.


In review, I can't really decide which I prefer - SGambit's or Revlid's rendition. Looking at stylistic approach alone, Revlid wins hands down with an absolutely gorgeous SMA that arguably fits the idea of a Prismatic Arrangement of Creation better than the canon style itself. In addition, his Sutras are wonderfully sound and naturally compare to the Enhanced keyword well.


SGambit has created excellent revisions that remain true to the original styles, but more importantly he has made several revisions while Revlid has only made one. From this standpoint, SGambit's revision is more preferable simply because it offers a more interesting long-term selection from which I or other SMA users could draw. Additionally, his balance approaches would be easier to utilize as guidlines for revising the untouched SMA (most notably Scarlet Patterned Battlefield) should we one day consider to do this.


I could really go either way, but I'm leaning towards SGambit's revision. If you were to choose Revlid's revision of PAoC, I'd have no complaints, but we'd have to figure something out for other SMAs at some point. My initial plan was to have my character start with a CMA and PAoC both in their entirety, and I definitely would like to move into another SMA in the not-so-distant future. We could quite possibly use Revlid's PAoC and SGambit's other SMAs, though we'd have to work something out with the mish-mash of Sutra revisions. This is a lot to digest, so feel free to take your time on it.
 
This looks interesting... still accepting players? Not sure what I'd want to use, so a few feeling-out questions.


Are you using the default Solar Hero Style? Or a rewrite along the lines of Chung's Fist of the Daystar (updated to 2.5 here)?


No Alchemical PCs? Were all eight nations hostile to Creation, or only the first one to make contact?


Lunars are by-the-book Lunars? It looks like it, but I have a great fondness for the Terrifying Argent Witch project.


I might like another Infernal, but the idea I have for it may be too similar to the one I'm using in another game... of course that one seems to be stalled at the moment, and it'll probably never get as high level as this one seems to be, so that may not be an issue!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 5 (members: 0, guests: 5)
Back
Top