OOC Thread: Insert clever title here [Whispers of Heresy]

P

Persell

Ten Thousand Club
Here is a place for out of character chatter and the like.


First issue of minor importance: would you lovely fellows, being rather large in number, be averse to splitting into two groups (and possibly adding another player, so as not to gimp one group)? I rather like the idea, if only because I've never tried running two groups simultaneously, even in groups larger than this, and it could make things a bit easier for me, logistically speaking, but I thought I would make the offer to all of you first and foremost, seeing as it is as much your game as it is mine.


Miscellaneous notes:


OOFFFF Skytongue


008000 Forest tongue


00BFFF Rivertongue


FF8000 Flametongue


0000FF Watertongue


BF8000 Low Realm


FF00FF High Realm


FFFF00 Old Realm
 
Well, in the case we do split:


How would the naration be handled? Would we actually be two groups of solars wandering a zone? or will the other group be an entirely different play? also How would you handle choosing who in which group?
 
The way I envision it, the entire group would have the opportunity to come together, so each character at least knows of the other's existence, and from there, based on common goals or shared interests or whatever else, groups might form naturally. From thereon out, when the groups are apart, they will be handled in different threads, occasionally coming together again at times of importance or necessity. We could also, if figuring out groups in character sounds too messy, figure out balanced parties here and RP the splitting in the IC threads. Conversely, we could also start the two groups apart from and without knowledge of each other (this would require getting the groups sorted out beforehand), with an eventual crossing of paths taking place, whatever that might entail. Either way, it would be the former case you mentioned: two groups of Solars in one area.
 
I see. Now on some chargen questions:


-What is an acceptable number of skill dots to be placed? i tend to diversify my skills a lot, and it doesn't help that i'm playing a Night caste.


-What are the implications of choosing a first excellency over the second excellency and vice versa? Seems to me that it's better to choose a Second excellency when the respective dice pool is already quite high by itself. I may need to review those chaptaers again.


-Regarding Combos: Can you consider the possibility of allowing us to upgrade them, instead of just buying them again? It seems to be a common homebrewed rule, along with the fact that it seems to be a waste of experience, specially for martial artists. Opinions on the matter?
 
Fairly often ST's change the crafting rules since between 1st and second they decided to make 5 different craft skill as well as assorted other crafts. The most common on this web site is to treat craft like a linguistics skill. You gain a new craft type as you gain dots of craft.


Would you consider that option?


Also, two groups isn't a bad plan, we just need different names. One reason for two groups of solars would be the Cult of the Illuminated maybe?


The Bushranger as Sabrina Ailena, Dawn


Jolin as Joleen Ires, Dawn


sssssz as Mosu the All-Bright, Eclipse


Aurellian as Rankin Insoran, Twilight


Sanguine as Takamichi, Dawn


Madmal as Crazy Gonzu, Night


The Wind Listens as Taaron Xourte, Zenith


Domino as a Twilight


I think this would be a good split for a few reasons, everyone should vote on it ofcourse. Mostly because I've tried to split fair combat, fair utility and fair social up. Eclipse tends to be a little weaker in combat than Zenith but I'm also a little stronger in combat than the average Twilight I guess. sssssz and I have some grasp of the rules, Sanguine and Madmal do too so even split of experience I think. Utility wise, Madmal will have the night abilities, sssssz will have the travel and bargain abilities fairly much I think.


My take on things again >.> I'll shut up and let you do your thing Mnemonix.
 
Madmal:


1. Any number of dots is acceptable in a skill, provided a person doesn't overload themselves with fives while leaving the bare minimum in others. Diversifying skills is my preferred method of building a character, but this is Exalted, and a 5 or two does help that epic feel sometimes. I think that answers your question, but if I've misunderstood, let me know so I can answer properly.


2. In my experience, people often tend to go for the 2nd excellency over the 1st simply because it guarantees success. The 1st excellency has a greater potential for pulling off ridiculous successes, but also a greater potential for not pulling through, and as such, is a bit more of a gamble. The 2nd is also a bit more limited in how many can be bought, but it is the more conservative approach, at least the way I see it. The 1st also seems to be taken more often for those skills that have an impact on DVs and such, though it is admittedly more risky.


3. I'd certainly be open to allowing upgrades of Combos as opposed to buying new ones. What are the common house rules on this? Is the XP expenditure then only equal to adding whatever Charm to the pre-existing Combo, instead of paying for each charm in the Combo? Or is it more complex then that?
 
Aurellian said:
Fairly often ST's change the crafting rules since between 1st and second they decided to make 5 different craft skill as well as assorted other crafts. The most common on this web site is to treat craft like a linguistics skill. You gain a new craft type as you gain dots of craft.
Would you consider that option?


Also, two groups isn't a bad plan, we just need different names. One reason for two groups of solars would be the Cult of the Illuminated maybe?
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Regarding Craft, that sounds entirely reasonable to me.


Also, by needing different names, I assume you mean just having a name to distinguish the two groups, yes? Or is there another meaning that I'm not grasping at the moment?
 
Sorry for the lack of clarity. I mean each group will just need a name for referring to us by.


Something like, Team Swift Dawn and Team Shadow Song.


Or less cheesy but Exalted makes cheesy okay if you have enough awesome. :D


I edited in a suggested list of how to split things in that post by the way. Just was balancing things out as much as possible.
 
Well, I'd personally prefer one group, but I'm flexible either way. :)


*needs to get cracking and finish converting text character build into an acutal, like, sheet. >_> *
 
Madmal said:
-What are the implications of choosing a first excellency over the second excellency and vice versa? Seems to me that it's better to choose a Second excellency when the respective dice pool is already quite high by itself. I may need to review those chaptaers again.
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I found this and it made sense to me, so I saved it.

To determine which Excellency is the best to choose for each Ability, consider the situations that you'll typically be in when making rolls for that Ability.
First Excellency is best for those times when your threshold of success (that is, the number of extra successes you get) is important. Combat is a perfect example. If you get a massive number of extra successes on an attack, you get to do a massive amount of extra damage.


Second Excellency is best for when you're making a roll against a set difficulty and it doesn't matter how many successes you beat that difficulty by. Social combat is a good example here. It doesn't matter how many successes you beat your opponent's MDV by, the result is the same: they agree with you or they have to spend a Willpower to disagree. Second Excellency is also good for those times when you absolutely can't afford to botch. Rolls to resist poison are a good example, Athletics rolls to avoid falling to your death are another.


Third Excellency is best for those times when you don't want to spend Essence unless you have to. Stealth rolls for instance, if you spend too much Essence, your anima will flare up and make Stealth impossible anyway. Third Excellency is good for rolls that you'll be making all the time and that you'll usually succeed without help from Charms, but you want a safety net just in case you botch. Awareness or Lore rolls could be examples of this. (Keep in mind you can often accomplish a similar level of subtlety using Infinite Ability Mastery and 2nd Excellency in combination.)


Here's an Ability by Ability breakdown:


Archery, Martial Arts, Melee, Thrown: 1st Excellency - You want the possibility to get huge numbers of successes on your attacks, so you're willing to risk a little inconsistency on defense.


War: 2nd Excellency (+ Infinite War Mastery!!) - The paradigm case for War rolls is a Charisma + War check at a difficulty of your unit's (Magnitude - Drill). Threshold doesn't matter, you just want to beat the difficulty. Also, 2nd Excellency is awesome to combine with Infinite War Mastery because you can use reflexive Charms at any time in Mass Combat and the scene lasts for the entire battle no matter how long it is. Commit some motes at the start of battle and you can effectively beat those Charisma + War checks automatically!


Integrity: 2nd or 3rd Excellency - It depends on how high your Integrity score is and your opinion on defense strategy. Would you rather spend more motes to make sure your opponent's argument doesn't penetrate your Dodge MDV, or would you rather be mote efficient and/or see how many successes your opponent rolls first?


Performance, Presence: 2nd or 3rd Excellency - 3rd if you don't want to glow because you're worried about attention from the Realm, 2nd otherwise.


Resistance: 2nd Excellency - Resistance rolls are always against a set difficutly and failures or botches are usually pretty disastrous. If you plan on spending a lot of time walking through bonfires or something, invest in Infinite Resistance Mastery and/or some natural soak Charms.


Survival: 1st or 2nd Excellency - Threshold matters for predicting the weather and tracking. When finding food or shelter, on the other hand, you just have to beat a set difficulty and you don't want to botch. It's a toss up.


Craft: Combo 1st and 2nd Excellency - High threshold improves your final product, but botching could spoil the whole project. Don't worry about spending that Willpower; Craft rolls are usually made weeks apart at least. That's more than enough time to recover the Willpower before the next roll.


Investigation: 2nd Excellency - Remember how awesome Ten Magistrate Eyes was in 1e. 2nd Excellency is a bit more expensive but gets the same sort of results.


Lore: 2nd and 3rd Excellency - You need two Excellencies to unlock some of the higher level Lore Charms, so use 3rd for the routine academic knowledge checks and 2nd when it's all on the line (like when you're trying to figure out how to defuse the First Age Essence Nuke).


Medicine: 2nd Excellency - Botching can mean losing your patient, take 2nd Excellency and use it.


Occult: 2nd Excellency - It would be nice if you could use 1st Excellency to boost the attack roll on spells like Death of Obsidian Butterflies, but you can't. Take 2nd for those set difficulty thaumaturgy rolls and occult knowledge checks.


Athletics: 2nd Excellency - For the purposes of lifting and jumping, 2nd Excellency is just as good as 1st for boosting those static ratings. For climbing or falling, you can't afford to botch. For keeping your balance, just take Graceful Crane Stance.


Awareness: 2nd or 3rd Excellency - It depends on your ST's style. If he has you make Perception + Awareness rolls all the time, take 3rd. If he only asks for a Perception + Awareness roll when there's an ambush, take 2nd.


Dodge: 2nd or 3rd Excellency - Like with Integrity, it depends on your defense strategy. 2nd for maximum defense boost, 3rd for mote efficiency.


Larceny and Stealth: 3rd Excellency - Glowing is worse than botching in these cases, and you can't afford to commit a bunch of motes to Infinite Ability Mastery because you might need those motes to power other Charms.


Bureacracy: 2nd Excellency - Threshold doesn't matter when pricing goods, probably doesn't matter when filling out paperwork, and haggling/negotiating/dealing with ornerry bureaucrats is handled by Social Combat. If you need to price a whole market full of goods in a single scene, take Infinite Bureaucracy Mastery. (By the way, you should probably be using Frugal Merchant Method or Insightful Buyer Technique to price goods anyway. Bureaucracy Excellencies just aren't that useful.)


Linguistics: 1st Excellency - Codes are the only thing I can think of that you actually roll Linguistics for. Huge amounts of successes can make your codes nigh-impossible to break, and allow you to crack nigh-impossible codes.


Ride: 3rd Excellency - If you make the roll to control your mount without magic that frees you up to use a combat Charm this action. If you don't make the roll, you've got 3rd Ride Excellency to fall back on.


Sail: 1st Excellency - Threshold matters for predicting weather and sea chases. It probably doesn't for navigating reefs or storms though. I'd be willing to risk failure for the chance of overwhelming success. Botches could probably be fixed with some stunted Craft (Wood) rolls.


Socialize: 3rd Excellency - Subtlety matters more for Socialize than the other social abilities since you use it to read other people's intentions and veil your own. It's also important for mass social combat, but you won't actually be rolling it.


There you go. Keep in mind this is just one man's opinion. I don't claim to be the final word on any of this.
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Given the general consensus, Domino has been added, and two groups will be formed at some point. I will be double-checking sheets for those of you who have them up; if yours isn't up yet, please get it posted soon. If I find anything questionable, I will PM you so your character threads don't have to be cluttered with my nonsense.
 
Mnemonix said:
Given the general consensus, Domino has been added, and two groups will be formed at some point. I will be double-checking sheets for those of you who have them up; if yours isn't up yet, please get it posted soon. If I find anything questionable, I will PM you so your character threads don't have to be cluttered with my nonsense.
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Just thought I would give you a head's up, I won't be able to have a sheet up until sometime tomorrow.
 
Sounds good, Sanguine. I just wanted to give some notice so that we don't have to wait weeks to get this started :P


Still waiting on: Bushranger, sssssz, Madmal, Sanguine, Domino
 
So, since we will be splitting into groups, how do we want it handled? Would you prefer to meet up in-game and branch off from there, or should we hash out who goes in what group now? Aurellian already posted a suggested split, but does anyone else have any thoughts on the matter?
 
The breakdown of the split he suggested seemed about as good as any I think... And based on your own suggestions, I figure maybe starting off as two separate groups that met and move on their own might make for a good starting point.


I mean, to me it seems to be quicker and easier to imagine small groups of solars banding together than one huge cluster gathering together. And then running into each other as they follow their own paths, become aware of one another, but still mostly sticking to themselves.
 
I'm in favor of the split happening as a part of the game. I think that'll be better for harmony among characters within the groups.
 
Sanguine said:
Mnemonix said:
Given the general consensus, Domino has been added, and two groups will be formed at some point. I will be double-checking sheets for those of you who have them up; if yours isn't up yet, please get it posted soon. If I find anything questionable, I will PM you so your character threads don't have to be cluttered with my nonsense.
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Just thought I would give you a head's up, I won't be able to have a sheet up until sometime tomorrow.
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Ditto. And I actually will have it done. Pinky swear. :P
 
Currently working on mine. Aurellian's list was helpful, but i still have a list of "want" charms i need to lower down a bit. I'll probably start with "keeping myself alive"-like charms first.


I do have some knowledge on Exalted by now, but it's mostly fluff-wise. when it comes to numbers, and the system on itself, i'm kind of a sitting duck.


And while i do agree on meeting and then separating, 8 solars of 150 on one region strikes me as a bit off.
 
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