Dice [OOC] The Best Laid Plans of Gods and Men

[Esbilon]

Esbilon You have 7 BP marked as spent on Abilities, but only spent 6. 35/33 <= 3, 4 > 3 = 6 BP. Congrats, have a free BP.

Thanks for catching that. I added a point of Resistance.

 

[jaydude]

Fine. Scrapped my Lore scope.

 

[Sherwood]

I'll adjust my Specialties in a moment. Thank you.

 

[Random Word]

We may not have all of the i's dotted and t's crossed on characters, but I think we'll get started today regardless. What sort of Sidereals would we be if we let ourselves be stymied in using a thing by a trifling detail like not yet having finished it?

I know Flags aren't in the rules, but it really helps me if you participate in using them! Think of them like the meta-narrative version of milestones from Essence or Motivation from 2e but for players instead of characters. If you were writing a short story about your character, what crucial scenes and story beats would have to take place to tell their story? Maybe you need to lead a revolution that aligns with your values, even if it doesn't align with destiny - or that aligns with destiny but not your values. Maybe you need an awful Solar to challenge your gold heart, and to guide them to redemption along the way. Flags let me know where the story needs to bend and twist to ensure you're having fun, and they let other players know what kinds of scenes you'd like to have with their characters, and how they can help ensure you have the most fun possible.

Early Flags can be introduction scenes - every story needs to open by introducing who our characters are. You know your character, but no one else does, so what sort of scene would highlight them best? Do they need to effortlessly put down a tough and unruly god? Do they need to have already been pulling the strings from behind the scenes to have solved an important problem before it can manifest? You tell me, and we'll make it happen.

 

[jaydude]

I've got a few flags set up, but they were largely intended for stuff further down the line. Then again, it may well be that you decide to start us off during a dramatic moment.

 

[Rykon]

I'm still filling in more final details now that the aftermath of the holidays is beginning to calm down. My biggest challenge has been trying to find artifacts that would actually suit my purposes for this character. All I really wanted was barehanded combat using artifact stats, but I've tentatively settled on Starmetal Razorclaws while I address other areas.

Perhaps with Random Word's permission some sort of attunement clause could allow them to treat all natural attacks as artifact level even if the claws are retracted (it's not like a price in merits and attunement motes hasn't been paid after all). Then again that sort of boost might be better suited to a set of Silk Armor. A nice bonus would be finding an ability to elevate those same attacks to medium or heavy classification.

Outside of crunch, I had already decided Tien would be a Tengese sport-fighter with moderate Gold Faction leanings. Elaborating on that is my first priority at the moment.

 

[jaydude]

I kinda want to take Infallible Messenger, but there's a line from the description that worries me: "...only the boundaries between realms of existence will stop it from delivering its missive". Does that mean I won't be able to send messages up to Heaven from Creation?

Also, while Epiphany's suggested that Shi-Vash use a Dire Chain, I kinda want to give her something that she can conceal on her person for whenever she's out in the open. Her 2.5E version used a Switchklave (Wonders of The Lost Age, pg 76), and while I know they're not a thing in 3E, could she wield a Starmetal one here? In my view, it would be a light artifact melee weapon with the Lethal, Melee and Concealable tags.

 

[Rykon]

I kinda want to take Infallible Messenger, but there's a line from the description that worries me: "...only the boundaries between realms of existence will stop it from delivering its missive". Does that mean I won't be able to send messages up to Heaven from Creation?

I'd never really considered Yu Shan a Separate Realm of Existence from Creation, but it's a fair question I'd never thought to consider before.

My first instinct is mostly with the Underworld and Malfeas being separate as The Wyld can be entered and exited through typical physical traversal. Whereas passage to the Underworld and Malfeas require "extra steps", that can present an impassable boundary.

In that light, passage to Yu Shan at worst is a matter of physically passing back and forth through a gate. I'd assume gods would prefer this accessway remain open to sorcerous communique as heaven's basic operations will be stymied without access to a plethora of convenient communication channels.

If the setting explicitly insisted upon such an arcane nuisance I'm sure one could counter-propose that a prayer-driven telegram service would inevitably get stood up as the alternative. Ironically the kind of discretion needed could very well land that post in the Division of Secrets.

So in short, my take is that Heaven is far more overwhelmed this edition than it has ever been, as well as far more lax. I'm not sure it could afford the handicap of such a fundamental communication barrier without the influence of heaven being so laughably absent from the rest of the setting that it'd defeat the point.

 

[Random Word]

I kinda want to take Infallible Messenger, but there's a line from the description that worries me: "...only the boundaries between realms of existence will stop it from delivering its missive". Does that mean I won't be able to send messages up to Heaven from Creation?

Rykon is correct. The Primordials didn't create Creation and Yu Shan, they created Creation. Yu Shan's just a gated community - the post still goes there. Further, you expressly do not need Infallible Messenger to send missives to Heaven. A staggering volume of reports are delivered to Heaven every day, and most of those submitting are not Sorcerers. Every player can communicate with Yu Shan freely, and as a Chosen of Secrets you almost certainly have some ways of communicating with your handlers in the Division of Secrets without leaving any official record. Those engaged in less-than-legal activities in Yu Shan also likely have means of communicating with their coconspirators in surreptitious ways that either leave no record or are carefully concealed within the official record.

tl;dr take Infallible Messenger if you want to send uninterceptible traceless messages almost instantly to anywhere that isn't the Underworld, Malfeas, the Deep Wyld, or some other weird alternate realm like Zen Mu.

Also, while Epiphany's suggested that Shi-Vash use a Dire Chain, I kinda want to give her something that she can conceal on her person for whenever she's out in the open. Her 2.5E version used a Switchklave (Wonders of The Lost Age, pg 76), and while I know they're not a thing in 3E, could she wield a Starmetal one here? In my view, it would be a light artifact melee weapon with the Lethal, Melee and Concealable tags.

Yup, go for it.

Perhaps with Random Word's permission some sort of attunement clause could allow them to treat all natural attacks as artifact level even if the claws are retracted (it's not like a price in merits and attunement motes hasn't been paid after all). Then again that sort of boost might be better suited to a set of Silk Armor. A nice bonus would be finding an ability to elevate those same attacks to medium or heavy classification.

You're violently opposed to Smashfists or God-Kicking Boots are you? The problem with giving unarmed artifact stats without a scene-long Charm is unarmed is compatible with every MA plus Brawl, and can't be disarmed. You've already taken specialties in Unarmed for Brawl and MA, and I'm only permitting those because going pure Unarmed locks you out of artifact weapons. 'Unarmed' has to be the most boring specialty for Brawl possible - maybe trumping 'while fighting' - but as a way of signalling you're eschewing artifact weapons I'm down. I can't even remember what weapons are compatible with Brawl. Brass knuckles and maybe punch daggers?

If you want an artifact weapon for punching, just make lightweight smashfists. You can even name them 'The Calamitous Fists'

 

[Esbilon]

I know Flags aren't in the rules, but it really helps me if you participate in using them!

Thanks. It'd quite forgotten about those. I'm still not 100% sure what you want them to be, but I've added the following under the "Experience" tab of my char sheet:
To see a stranger wearing her family heirloom brooch.
To be confronted with a wholly admirable member of House Ledaal she can't immidiately kill.
To participate in a rap battle style poetry-off.
To encounter time-manipulating magic.

 

[Rykon]

You're violently opposed to Smashfists or God-Kicking Boots are you?

Actually, I'd much prefer that, but my read of things was they wouldn't be considered kosher for Tiger or Snake Style and while White Reaper is technically also on my wishlist at the moment, it's really low priority for this character.

Defaulting to unarmed was merely a decision born from the conclusion that managing the merit and attunement investments for potentially 3 different weapons is more trouble than it's worth just to combo a couple of charms after probably hundreds of xp of investment.

The problem with giving unarmed artifact stats without a scene-long Charm is unarmed is compatible with every MA plus Brawl, and can't be disarmed.

I will concede, the point is to have some common ground with a small handful of styles. Historically, Sidereals were marketed as the splat that were supposed to be good at juggling multiple martial art styles but this edition has made the task exceedingly bothersome compared to what it once was. The writers must have had a lot of misconceptions about how people play this game cause they thought Craft was not only a good model to follow, but to add an entry fee and then also make Craft more "Craft" than it's ever been.

As stated, spending significant chunks of xp to have the privilege to spend boatloads of additional xp for new, sometimes redundant, charms, to then be granted the blessing of paying for multiple artifact merits and attunement is not a tempting prospect in the least. There are also a few MA styles that cannot be used unarmed but that's a pedantic nitpick at obvious hyperbole.

I will also concede the disarming aspect never occurred to me because it's almost never come up in the games I've played. So I'll have to keep that blind spot in mind. Still, even in light of all of that (and this edition's cramped design paradigms), I still can't say that I see what amounts to +1 Accuracy, +3 Damage, and +2 Overwhelming as a game-breaking advantage even if an opponent isn't technically allowed the courtesy to spend their action and initiative to remove it.

Actually, now that I think about it... what makes the "scene long charm" the important part here? xp/points are still being spent (ie for the merit), motes are still locked away (ie. attunement), and because it is in fact an artifact it can explicitly be disarmed too. It'd really just be smashfists and/or boots that could be treated as unarmed for the sake of Martial Arts, or weapons that aren't weapons, and therefore no less conceptually egregious than Silk Armor being armor that isn't armor.

You've already taken specialties in Unarmed for Brawl and MA, and I'm only permitting those because going pure Unarmed locks you out of artifact weapons. 'Unarmed' has to be the most boring specialty for Brawl possible

Agreed, but for the sake of getting things done I threw something down to quiet the dial-up noises in my brain and fix it later. So please don't consider those anything more than placeholder filler. Specialties outside of Lore, Craft, and Performance have always been kinda boring territory personally, especially for combat abilities. So if I'd have to consider unique specialties for each martial art purchased as well, I might just swap them to completely different abilities and save myself the headache.

I can't even remember what weapons are compatible with Brawl. Brass knuckles and maybe punch daggers?

Both certainly are, they are the only Brawl weapons out of the box other than Tiger claws. All of them light weapons too, and given 90% of martial arts allow stunting for lethal, they are a little redundant outside of stunt narrative and tags (Piercing and Smashing).

If you want an artifact weapon for punching, just make lightweight smashfists. You can even name them 'The Calamitous Fists'

I really appreciate the gesture, but the title would feel like grandstanding after having the ability to kill a country in a single punch and then losing it to the edition swap. It'd feel too cheap.

 

[Random Word]

Actually, now that I think about it... what makes the "scene long charm" the important part here? xp/points are still being spent (ie for the merit), motes are still locked away (ie. attunement), and because it is in fact an artifact it can explicitly be disarmed too. It'd really just be smashfists and/or boots that could be treated as unarmed for the sake of Martial Arts, or weapons that aren't weapons, and therefore no less conceptually egregious than Silk Armor being armor that isn't armor.

Silk armour being not armour is indeed a relevant precedent. Many Martial Arts already include Charms that grant artifact stats to Unarmed. I don't have Snake and Tiger memorized - do they not offer access to artifact stats for Unarmed? I seem to recall Dreaming Pearl Courtesan did. What about 4 dot Starmetal Smashfists/Perfected Kata Bracers 3.0 with an Evocation unlocked on attunement for Chosen of Mars that says something like, 'If you defeat a significant foe in the Form of a MA, any time you have Mastery for that MA this weapon counts as a Form Weapon for that MA.' Count yourself as already having defeated a significant foe for any MA you know the Form for if you tell us who they were and why their friends are out to get you now. 5 dots if you want to go crazy with very strong MA-mixing Evocations (Cheap Reflexive Form swapping or something? Form Fusing a-la PAoC? Not sure. We'd have to work it out).

I really appreciate the gesture, but the title would feel like grandstanding after having the ability to kill a country in a single punch and then losing it to the edition swap. It'd feel too cheap.

Come now, you must start somewhere. You're E1. I'm sure you'll be punching countries to death in no time.

 

[jaydude]

Rykon is correct. The Primordials didn't create Creation and Yu Shan, they created Creation. Yu Shan's just a gated community - the post still goes there. Further, you expressly do not need Infallible Messenger to send missives to Heaven. A staggering volume of reports are delivered to Heaven every day, and most of those submitting are not Sorcerers. Every player can communicate with Yu Shan freely, and as a Chosen of Secrets you almost certainly have some ways of communicating with your handlers in the Division of Secrets without leaving any official record. Those engaged in less-than-legal activities in Yu Shan also likely have means of communicating with their co-conspirators in surreptitious ways that either leave no record or are carefully concealed within the official record.

Oh? How do you do so? I've only read so much of the Sidereals manuscript.

 

[Random Word]

Oh? How do you do so? I've only read so much of the Sidereals manuscript.

You tell me Write a note and burn it as a prayer? Put a letter in a dead drop location and it vanishes to Heaven? Write a message in the sand, light a votive candle, and wipe it away? Whisper it to a shrine? Whatever you like. You've got the innate power to stunt a message to Heaven as far as I'm concerned. Every member of the Celestial and Terrestrial Bureaucracy must be able to do it, or the setting could not function. If canon makes no reference to such a power, it's merely an obvious omission.

 

[jaydude]

You tell me Write a note and burn it as a prayer? Put a letter in a dead drop location and it vanishes to Heaven? Write a message in the sand, light a votive candle, and wipe it away? Whisper it to a shrine? Whatever you like. You've got the innate power to stunt a message to Heaven as far as I'm concerned. Every member of the Celestial Bureaucracy must be able to do it, or the setting could not function. If canon makes no reference to such a power, it's merely an obvious omission.

Well, I'm taking a pattern spider familiar. Could it pass messages along to the Celestial Bureaucracy?

 

[Random Word]

You bet it can. If Efficient Secretary Technique is any indication, it can freely teleport to Yu Shan and rummage through your library, so passing a message along is trivial.

 

[jaydude]

Cool.

I'm gonna head off to bed now, but next weekend I'll do my best to get Shi-Vash V2 done.

 

[Random Word]

A bit delayed, but off we go

 

[Rykon]

Come now, you must start somewhere. You're E1. I'm sure you'll be punching countries to death in no time.

But of course. I can wait til it's earned.

Silk armour being not armour is indeed a relevant precedent. Many Martial Arts already include Charms that grant artifact stats to Unarmed. I don't have Snake and Tiger memorized - do they not offer access to artifact stats for Unarmed? I seem to recall Dreaming Pearl Courtesan did. What about 4 dot Starmetal Smashfists/Perfected Kata Bracers 3.0 with an Evocation unlocked on attunement for Chosen of Mars that says something like, 'If you defeat a significant foe in the Form of a MA, any time you have Mastery for that MA this weapon counts as a Form Weapon for that MA.' Count yourself as already having defeated a significant foe for any MA you know the Form for if you tell us who they were and why their friends are out to get you now. 5 dots if you want to go crazy with very strong MA-mixing Evocations (Cheap Reflexive Form swapping or something? Form Fusing a-la PAoC? Not sure. We'd have to work it out).

All else equal, I kinda would prefer Silk Armor-ized variants of Smashfists and God-Kicking Boots even if that unarmed/natural attack status has to be earned through achievement. If that's acceptable should I go for a 4 or 5 dot style write up? Then again, Silk Armor was defined as minimum 4 dot then the Sids book decided to release a 3 dot edition out of nowhere. Whether that will last til the final draft is anyone's guess. Hard to gauge community reception with the forums down as long as they've been.

 

[Random Word]

4 vs 5 dots is totally up to you, but I'd say something as strong as a lite version of PAoC form-fusing is off the table for anything below 5. If you don't even want to go deep into an evocation tree, going for a 5 dot artifact is usually not a good idea. As I understand it, the main difference between 3, 4, and 5 is how crazy you want your higher tier evocations to be.

 

[Rykon]

4 vs 5 dots is totally up to you, but I'd say something as strong as a lite version of PAoC form-fusing is off the table for anything below 5.

I'm favoring 4 mostly because I don't want the artifact to be the most defining feature of Tien's approach to combat, merely a tool to make the broader toolkit more cohesive. Moreover, I certainly wouldn't want to have to homebrew things on the scale of Volcano Cutter or Stormcaller. I don't have the best sense of balance for a project like that given my qualms with the charm space for this edition.

I think it's fair to say that if Tien progresses far enough into picking up multiple martial arts styles and really feels like he needs the benefits of multiple forms at once, he should just train in PAoC style to earn that ability. That'd be well enough into his personal journey as a martial artist to begin the study of Sidereal styles anyway. Though as the player, PAoC particularly got my blood boiling with that opener charm being a pitiful example of what an SMA should look like. I can still look past that albeit with a scowl.

If you don't even want to go deep into an evocation tree, going for a 5 dot artifact is usually not a good idea. As I understand it, the main difference between 3, 4, and 5 is how crazy you want your higher tier evocations to be.

Arms of the Chosen p.18 gives a pretty good breakdown of the artifact tiers and the thought process behind how powerful they should be. With 3-dot being enhancements of the wielder and 4-dot being "create a unique power or playstyle", 3-dot's description best fits my particular whim here. However, the dot tax for a "weapon that's not a weapon" is not unreasonable since it was applied to armor also.

That should settle things for crunch, though even having to address this particular scenario still seems bizarre to me. There's so much momentum behind the idea that Sidereals casually study and create martial art styles yet, there's not a lot of follow-through to doing it well from the very inception of 3E. Even with two styles that were explicitly used as examples for blending techniques, they have no common "weapon" aside from bare hands. Then again, the writers didn't seem to think the martial artists that have the option to use a weapon might want to from how the published artifacts turned out (it's taken 5 splats counting Exigents to get a single official write-up for a seven-section staff as well as hook sword). I just hope they can be convinced to put a deliberate effort into supporting arsenals for martial artists going forward when evocations and sorcery are easily the biggest wins of the edition.

 

[Random Word]

Though as the player, PAoC particularly got my blood boiling with that opener charm being a pitiful example of what an SMA should look like. I can still look past that albeit with a scowl.

Deadly Starmetal Offensive? That's possibly a really strong E5 Charm that one unfortunately learns at E3 depending on your reading. At E3 it's 'Have a 1wp1m rebate on all Forms you cycle through this battle, plus one freebie.' At E5 it's almost the horrors of Infinite Ability Mastery all over again if you can continuously meet the criteria for new Forms every turn and have PAoC Form up, depending on whether you read 'swap for a new Form' as 'activate a Form Charm'. That would be 1wp3m every round.

 

[Rykon]

Deadly Starmetal Offensive? That's possibly a really strong E5 Charm that one unfortunately learns at E3 depending on your reading.

I mean, getting to E3 without starting there is exceedingly rare to begin with. Then managing the miraculous feat of having a game survive that long only to have your reward be the privilege of spending premium xp (Keep in mind, SMAs cost more in XP than regular charms or spells) for a mere 5m discount on an Excellency as a Solaroid or worse, a 1m 1w as a Sidereal only highlights how insufferably dull this edition's charmset is that it can only exercise creativity in the arena of how best to flirt with your dice cap.

They want it to grow massive starmetal claw nails, fine. Then give natural attacks the piercing tag and at least +1 Overwhelming for the scene! Enhancing a basic die roll is for CMA openers, not SMAs! Even the very suggestion that one could ever consider cheap excellencies as a "really strong" effect in mid-late game 3E should be a damning indictment on a great failure that has taken place!

At E5 it's almost the horrors of Infinite Ability Mastery all over again if you can continuously meet the criteria for new Forms every turn and have PAoC Form up, depending on whether you read 'swap for a new Form' as 'activate a Form Charm'. That would be 1wp3m every round.

Horror? IAM? There are far more horrifying things from past material than scene-long excellencies. I'd even go as far as to say that I still think 2E's paradigm of generalizing the most mechanically boring effects a splat specializes in was the right call. It promotes an environment where any word count used on an actual charm created something evocative that enabled the character to do or achieve something they weren't able to do without that specific charm (or at least it should have). Having 5000 ways to burn 5 hours at a table on a single combat turn is not a recipe for success in my book.

 

[Random Word]

This is clearly a touchy subject for you, and not something I care strongly about, but worth considering is Five Magical Materials Form reduces DSO by 2m to 3m (and grants persistent "Her unarmed attacks gain artifact traits (Accuracy +5, Damage +10B/3)"). So for a Sidereal that's a 3m Charm that buys you up to 1wp8m worth of stuff, potentially every turn if PAoCF counts as activating a Form. Depending on how the timings work out, it's possible reflexively activating FMMF resets DSO, getting you two discounted usages back to back even without PAoCF. A Charm that grants 2 wp 10m each fight is arguably quite a strong mechanical purchase, especially when 3e combat is generally over in a few rounds and involves burning every resource you have as fast as you can to win. 1wp5m per turn is clearly insanely strong, but I don't dispute that's an easily contested reading.

I don't really see how adding a Charm that says, 'All your excellencies are free from now on' is all that helpful for saving word count. If you're simply saying you dislike dice adder and dice trick Charms, I generally agree, but bringing back IAM won't get rid of those.

I don't think any combat Charm can really be good enough (except possibly Breathing on the Black Mirror) if your primary concern is that 3e combat takes 5 hours per turn! If that's your experience, I strongly recommend against choosing Chosen of Battles! Would you like to switch Castes?

 

[Rykon]

This is clearly a touchy subject for you, and not something I care strongly about,

This is fair and I have ranted far too much. For that I apologize. I will just briefly address the question and the issue of my primary concern. I'm personally fine with a moderately complicated flow to things like combat, so no I don't think a switch would be needed or helpful in this case. I just wish the quality of the underlying game was worth the consequence of how unapproachable it has become both to new players and some more experienced ones I used to game with.