Perfect Defenses: Baid-Aid on a mechanical problem?

[Vikingnewt]

(1,5,6,7,4,9,10,10,10,8,9,2,6, ten successes). Unlikely? Gods yes, but perfectly possible.

7 successes... mortal characters do not get 2 successes on a 10...


i also see little downside to regularly beating my players for purposes of good circulation and training.


a stupid player of mine that seemed to think taking ox-bod 3 times counted as adequate defense had his abyssal take a metric shitload of bashing damage from a grumpy old man with robes and a beard in turn causing him to lose conciousness with all but two health boxes filled with lethal damage, and all filled with bashing.


during that combat the grumpy old man used his martial arts (nothing outside of the 5-fold-dragon path) to resist and dodge all of his ill thought out attacks before exploding and laying him low. (leaving him unconcious and leaving a letter pinned to his chest.)


regularly taking damage and having to appreciate that they arent unkillable is a damn good thing, and some of the best fights really are those with all parties coming off with some mean cuts and bruises and a bleeder.


i also feel inclined to point out that even my DB campaign - it takes alot of effort on my part to endanger one of my pc's usually - and that if players are resorting to perfect defences all the time they are failing to realise how much easier it is to remember to use stunts, DODGE dv's and PARRY. then comes hardness and natural soak... even lamellar is pretty good - so that first attacks rarely if ever kill or injure.

 

[Kyeudo]

Right now the number of perfects they can use is limited by their motes, and given the low cost and ease of regaining motes in combat it can be a long time before they have to stop.
But if you place a smaller limiter on them, they do not meet your level of effectiveness for the Primordial War. I think your expectations on how they fought the war is a bit off, but going along with the concept of it being a brutal slug fest then how do you make combat after the war challenging without having perfects be used all the time?

Let's say you are Malfeas and trying to wage war against myriad lesser beings. Do you have a reason to let up? give them quarter? Not send Erymanthoi hordes flooding their position? I've always conceived of the Primordial War as World War II on steroids and acid.

2. Prevent stunting from regaining motes when a perfect is used during that DV refresh.


Forces you to not relay on the perfect all the time, but you can still use it as long as you have motes.

Groups I've played with have never handed out stunt dice on any action you perfectly succeed on, so perhaps my opinion of how much Essence you can regain in combat is skewed.

 

[Greenstalker]

Here's my current plan of attack on the matter:

• Change ping damage to (Attacker's Essence - Defender's Essence)
  
• Increase the cost of perfect defenses relative to normal defenses
  
• Reexamine the Four Flaws of Invulnerability
  
• Enhance Ox-Body Technique to make it desirable to take
  
• Add offensive mote generators to the Charm sets of every Exalt
  
• Add a Solar/Abyssal Charm for ignoring wound penalties
  
• Limit Extra Action Charms to only the attacks allowed by the weapon's Rate.
  
• Add good non-perfect defenses.

I'm currently writing a C# widget to help me with item #1. Why crunch tons of numbers by hand when I can have the computer do it for me?

Ok lets start with issues I see to address.


Changing ping damage to given format is not good since other than perfect defense I think it was another reason how exalted manage to kill primordials. Think about it no matter how long they were training an exalted shouldn't have a essence higher than a primordial and i highly doubt primordials soak were inferior to exalted weapons so how did they beat them? With ping damage. My suggestion is making charms to lower ping damage (at high levels even prevent)


Increasing costs of perfect defense makes them less useful not a good choice for a starter character and not a good choice for later either it will ultimatly make perfect defenses useless.


Four flaw of Invulnerability with conviction errata is already good as it is IMHO. Most of them prevent you use perfect-defense before 2nd or 3rd time he acts. (at least my ST was using flaws like that you can't use charm without matching the flaws condition first and you can only use charm again after you match the flaws condition again, this way compassion flaw rather get used much more than others and perfect defenses for temperance and valor flaw may have easier trigger but need to wait for two actions. For conviction its added errata makes it a nightmare as it is already.) Alternatively a condition similiar to errata conviction can be assigned to other flaws as increasing mote cost of perfect defenses if conditions doesn't met.


Instead of revising it by simply giving every player ox-body technique charm free at the beginning of game on a scale of that players stamina is a better way and it is working rather well.


Stunts already works as mote generator and encouraged to be used maybe increasing stunt mote give away to 3 times rather than 2 will solve this issue if you consider it is not worthy.


I think there was something lessen or prevents wounds penalties need to check it at least there are some defensive charms (shadow over water for example) that ignores all penalties not just wound ones. If you are talking about scene long ones I think I saw some in resistance section but don't have my book right now so I am not sure.


Extra action charms are already limited to weapons rate only solar charms said they can ignore rates in their descriptions and frankly if this happens i can see many people getting orichalcum paired short daiklaves since total rate would be 6 (with one weapon,two blow 8 ) anyway.


Many reflect charms and dodge charms are good. Shadow over Water is really cheap for what it does too and cover the wound penalty part of your previous statement.

 

[Virjigorm]

I don't really get all the argument about spamming perfect defenses and ping damage as a viable way to fight Primordials. What about charms that prevent you from being seen, much less attacked? Charms that invade your opponents' minds, stir their emotions, or skew their perceptions? Preparation and espionage that leads to a cunning double-cross and a dead Fetich? I'd wager that She Who Lives In Her Name and her pyramid of lesser selves were particularly vulnerable to Bureaucracy charms. Do not forget that Solars were not the only ones fighting the gods. Sidereal manipulation made the Primordials more vulnerable and tipped the odds in Exalted favor by forging epic destinies from whole cloth. I see the Chosen of Serenity composing timeless ballads of battles yet to come and rallying the weight of mortal hope behind the Heroes of the Dawn. I picture a few dozen Solars with thousands of Dragon-Blooded soldiers storming the vast body of a rampaging Empyreal Chaos. I also picture a single Lunar grappling the Primordial King's world-body while wearing the shape of a sanity-defying beast forged from the Wyld by his Solar comrades.


If someone wanted to run a Primordial War where the greatest weapons of the Exalted were some cheap-ass perfect parry charms, I think I'd rather do my laundry...

 

[uteck]

We are also overlooking the weapons the Jadeborn made for the first Exalts which were destroyed after the war. These weapons were purpose made to kill Primordials and could even be weilded by Heroic Mortals if the fluff text is to be believed. Yes the Solars were the hammer used to break the hold of the Primordials, but other tools were used and focusing only on the physical combat is too narrow. After all, it was playing the Games of Destany that the gates to Yushaun were opened by the US for his armies.


The whole argument about Perfects seems to be overlooking the Lunars which fought side-by-side with their Lunar mates. How did they survive? Solars are not supposed to be Perfect, just have access to it and they can overextend themselves and run out of motes. And they did get killed during the Usurption, so keep that in mind when you make them all powerfull. The few that survived hid for centuries then died slowly. Even Solar prefection is flawed.

 

[Kyeudo]

Ok lets start with issues I see to address.


Changing ping damage to given format is not good since other than perfect defense I think it was another reason how exalted manage to kill primordials. Think about it no matter how long they were training an exalted shouldn't have a essence higher than a primordial and i highly doubt primordials soak were inferior to exalted weapons so how did they beat them? With ping damage. My suggestion is making charms to lower ping damage (at high levels even prevent)

I forgot to mention that I was keeping a one die minimum to ping damage if your opponent's Essence equals or exceeds yours.

Instead of revising it by simply giving every player ox-body technique charm free at the beginning of game on a scale of that players stamina is a better way and it is working rather well.

Giving out free Charms is not a good solution for the game system, its a shortcut houserule. If giving out additional health levels for a high Stamina is a good idea, then you should just give out health levels for a high Stamina. Cut out the middle man of bonus Charms.


Now, Ox-Body Technique has a problem. When you get the Charm, it doesn't let you do anything you used to do any better, nor does it let you do things you couldn't do before. It only shows its benefits when you would have died but instead almost died. It's an uninteresting Charm to take, even if it is necessary.

Stunts already works as mote generator and encouraged to be used maybe increasing stunt mote give away to 3 times rather than 2 will solve this issue if you consider it is not worthy.

That doesn't do what an "offensive" mote generator would do. Motes from stunting go to keeping your defenses up. "Offensive" motes can't be used for defending, which means there's no reason not to use them for attacking.

I think there was something lessen or prevents wounds penalties need to check it at least there are some defensive charms (shadow over water for example) that ignores all penalties not just wound ones. If you are talking about scene long ones I think I saw some in resistance section but don't have my book right now so I am not sure.

There is only Battle Fury Focus and Bloodthirsty Sword Dancer Spirit for ignoring wound penalties in the Core book. Those Charms come with fairly significant restrictions on what you can do, which is why no one really seems to use them.

Extra action charms are already limited to weapons rate only solar charms said they can ignore rates in their descriptions and frankly if this happens i can see many people getting orichalcum paired short daiklaves since total rate would be 6 (with one weapon,two blow 8 ) anyway.

If you want to kill someone with a thousand small cuts, fine by me. The problem with Extra Action Charms is the 5 attack flurries with Grand Goremauls. Restricting ALL extra action Charms to Rate will keep that from happening, since high damage weapons are also low Rate.

Many reflect charms and dodge charms are good. Shadow over Water is really cheap for what it does too and cover the wound penalty part of your previous statement.

Shadow Over Water is not really that good. A lucky attack cracks it like an egg. A good defense gives you assurance that you won't get hit without someone expending far more resources than you did. Currently, the only defenses that do that are semi-perfects and perfects, which means we need to work on something.

 

[Greenstalker]

Well for ping damage at least 1 damage is an acceptable solution and it may increase usage of post-soak damage charms like Fire and Stone Strike.


For Ox-body I don't agree with you but since I don't have any better advice I can give I am not stucking up on that point.


For mote generator too I currently don't have a better advice but I see what you mean still making it a charm seems a little contradictory.


No comment on wound penalty charms, I need to look at them more throughly to make one but system encourage to make custom charms so I don't think there is any problem to make some.


For extra actions as I said only solar (and it seems one sidereal charm but it only gives two extra attack for 8m and ofcourse abyssals have mirror of solar ones) ones (didn't look at GSP or alchemical ones yet) says they ignore rate maybe imposing normal flurry penalties to attacks which is over weapon's rate and only for charms state that they ignore weapon's rate will be a better solution than let it only up to weapon's rate (making it only weapons rate also overshadow sidereal charm and making it pretty useless)


Shadow over water is pretty good (I am saved by it more than I count and because its cost was low I manage to put more offensive charms in use) I think but that is my opinion again and like previous one if you want to make new charms system encourage it.

 

[Persell]

I found a 3 house rule system works pretty well for me in solving some of the problems.


Free quasi-combos


all Celestial exalted can activate Ess. charms per actions, so you just need to save a slot for defense charm and can still use offense charms.


Combos count as one charm if you develop them and give you a slight reduction in raising your permanent Ess cost.


No Essence ping damage. Get a weapon with overwhelm if you want more then 1 dice.


if find that this fixes the I don't want to use my charm to attack problem and makes those Dragon blooded fear the Anathema a little more

 

[Kyeudo]

Looking at my ping damage change has gotten me to see that lowering Ping will once again make Twilight Caste Solars and related Exalts become all but invulnerable with a little soak stacking. Anyone have good suggestions on what to do about this?

 

[uteck]

Looking at my ping damage change has gotten me to see that lowering Ping will once again make Twilight Caste Solars and related Exalts become all but invulnerable with a little soak stacking. Anyone have good suggestions on what to do about this?

Change the Twilight cast power? Make it tie into being craftsmen as they were made to be. :roll:

 

[Kyeudo]

Change the Twilight cast power?

Now why didn't I think of that?[/sarcasm]

Make it tie into being craftsmen as they were made to be. :roll:

I don't like to think of the Twilights as only craftsmen and healers. I like to think that once the Occult tree was the size of the Melee tree, full of all the Charms that fell out of use when the Exalted discovered that Sorcery did those faster, cheaper, and more efficiently. You know, like the Solar version of Spell-Shattering Palm that was used to crack Yozi sorcerous Charms and Spells. In my conception, the Twilights were doing the combat sorcerer thing with vastly sped up Thamaturgy and phased-out, semi-sorcerous Charms and then just took up the mantle of Creation's greatest sorcerers as soon as Brigid figured it out.


I'd like to still keep their anima something that is helpful for someone who may feel the need to take a Shape Sorcery action in the middle of combat, but I don't want one that creates invulnerability. Changing the Twilight Anima ability from levels to successes on a dice roll like it was in First Edition is the only thing I can think of, but that doesn't seem like it would do enough to fix the problem of invulnerability in a system expecting ping to be only 1 die of damage.

 

[Virjigorm]

You know, like the Solar version of Spell-Shattering Palm that was used to crack Yozi sorcerous Charms and Spells.

I believe that's actually a Melee charm now...


The only problem I see with the Twilight anima is that they changed it from 1st to 2nd edition. In 1e, the Solar had to spend 5m to use the power, rolled their Essence, and reduced rolled damage levels by the number of successes. This was very useful for staying alive while casting, but too costly to overuse. The concept of full-powered animas being free once you've spent enough peripheral broke the Twilight power and made the rest seem weak by comparison. Unfortunately, the developers chose to roll all the others up the power ramp instead of reining in the Twilight power.


Incidentally, the same problem that exists with the Twilight anima is what's wrong with perfect defenses. They are too cheap and plentiful, and therefor get overused and turn combat into a math game that ends in anticlimax.

 

[uteck]

I modified the Twilight power so it acts as an automatic counter attack to objects. Most mundane items are destroyed by it, and artifacts can be de-attuned as their lest-god is chastised for opposing one of Creations Lawgivers, if the Artifact rating is less then Essence.


Perfect weapons work a bit better, since by their nature they are in tune with the Harmonies of the Sun, but do not last a second time.

 

[Moonstone Spider]

I did a short probability study of what happens when you use the improved natural soak rule I suggested upthread. Here's my results of pitting a dex 5/sta 3 character against a dex 3/sta 5 character using those rules:


Stamina Guy


Melee 5


Stamina 5


Dexterity 3


8 dice pool before accuracy


Natural Soak 15/10/0


Armored Soak 24/20/10


vs. Piercing 20/15/5


Parry DV 5 w/fist


Dexterity Girl


Melee 5


Stamina 3


Dexterity 5


10 dice pool before accuracy


Natural Soak 9/6/0


Armored Soak 18/16/10


vs. Piercing 14/11/5


Parry DV 6 w/fist


Each character is wearing a generic (no MM bonus) artifact reinforced breastplate. I swapped weapons for a few tests and assume a minimum strength needed to hold each weapon.


Weapons as follows:


Test 1: Each character uses a generic Daiklaive. Damage is +8L. Both characters reduce damage to ping. There is no advantage to high Stamina once that happens, and every advantage to a higher dice pool, so Dexterity Girl wins. I don't really even need to calculate the dice for this one.


Test 2: Grand Goremaul


The gamebreaker Grand Totem Pole inflicts it's crazy 20L/5 damage. In this case, the stamina guy actually still almost reduces it to ping, taking 6L minimum. Dexterity girl, however, is left soaking at least 10L on each hit.


At 12 dice per roll, Dexterity Girl misses 20.97% of the time, and hits Stamina Guy with 5 successes 16.36% of the time for 6L damage, 6 successes 16.83% of the time for 7L, 15.46% for 8L, 12.6% for 9L, 8.94% for 10L, 5.57% for 11L, 3.06% for 12L, and 1.49% for 13L. The rest of the probabilities are all well under 1%.


Space fails me to explain the messy equation I used to lump all those into an average (partly because it's spread over a spreadsheet in about ten rows of calculations. Suffice to say that all added up, I get an average damage per attack of 3.299L. So basically 3-4L a hit.


Stamina Guy is striking with a smaller dice pool, against a higher DV but a much lower soak. He misses a full 53.21% of the time, and hits at levels 16.51% for 9L, 13.1% for 10L, 8.81% for 11L, 5.11% for 12L, 2.57% for 13L, 1.12% for 14L, 0.43% for 15L, and 0.14% for 15L. If you're wondering why I lumped everything under 1% for the Dexterity girl but not Stamina Guy, it's because I need the same level of success calculations in the same number for both sides for the equation to work fairly. The same calculation gives us a total of 2.71L damage for Stamina Guy hitting Dexterity Girl.


My conclusion is that my 3x/2x soak rule will not be sufficient to make a stamina monster equal to a dexterity monster. It does bring them far closer in power level, however. The downside is that weaker weapons do all ping all the time and there's very little reason to pull a daiklaive instead of a fist, outside of hardness issues. The optimal weapons below massive damage dealers will be whatever has the highest accuracy. The second problem is that missing 52% of the time isn't any fun so I personally would want high dex anyway.


I judge that also adding -0 health levels equal to Stamina would make them very near equals, the extra two health levels would largely negate Stamina Girl's damage advantage over several hits, since she does only around half a box more damage that would make them equal across 4 hits, and either character will die in about five hits.


There is the issue that this is a very simple test with no charms, no MM, no stunts, etc. However, adding in those factors will dramatically complicate things, and I feel that getting the core mechanic fixed first is more logical than trying to include every variable from step 1.

 

[uteck]

And that points out the flaw of using extra success to add damage dice, since it puts strength second or third in order of importance in determining damage, depending on the type of Exalt.


Getting rid of that rule will reduce the lethality and need for Perfect defenses, but then it makes high soak almost imposable to penetrate. Do you reduce soak as well, put some limit on it, or rely on Ping spamming?


Or do you allow soak monsters to wade the field like some juggernaut? There are descriptions of battles from the middle-ages were armies of knights fought all day and only one life was lost due to falling from his horse. Machiavelli in his History of Florance has a good example. Then you need a coordinated assault to breach the defenses and take the person down, sort of like a sworn circle of DBs with a few legions to take down a lone crazed first age Solar.


PILE ON STINKY!


Jump him or somehow pin arms and legs, while another begins removing armor one or another to get to the chewy center.

 

[Brickwall]

Jump him or somehow pin arms and legs, while another begins removing armor one or another to get to the chewy center.

Oh, my.