Difference between revisions of "DragonBloodedResistance/Ambisinister"

Revision as of 21:57, 4 November 2005

Obscuring Cloud of Rubble Invocation</b>

<b>Cost:  1 mote + 1 per ally
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Resistance: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms:: To be announced upon the return of my DB book

With a shout and an essence infused stomp to the ground, the exalt calls forth a swarm of dust and pebbles to orbit and obscure himself and the bodies of his allies. Add 1 to the difficulty of all melee attacks and 2 to the difficulty of all ranged attacks made against those protected by this charm. The exalt may protect a number of allies equal to his resistance score with this charm, all of which must remain within a number of yards eqaul to the character's essence in order to receive its benefits.

Calling the Earth Dragon's Scales</b>

<b>Cost:  7 motes, 1 willpower
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Resistance: 3
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms:: To be announced upon the return of my DB book

The Terrestrial snarls a weave of essence into his his fist and casts it into the ground at his feet. The soil, in response to his command, surges up and across the Exalt, encasing him in armor made from the very flesh of Creation. The armor created byt his charm has a bashing and lethal soak equal to the character's essence + resistance. This armor has a mobility and fatigue penalty equal to 1/4 its soak values, rounded down. The armor created by an Earth Aspect invoking this charm has no fatigue or mobility penalty. The Exalt must have a suitable surface comprised of stone or earth within touching distance to employ this charm.

Pasiap's Aegis</b>

<b>Cost:  5 motes, 1 willpower, or 5 motes, 1 willpower, 1 health level
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Resistance: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms:: Calling the Earth Dragon's Scales

It is said that the Dragon of Earth honored Pasiap by placing a geas on all of his domain that it should rise up to protect his servant whenever he was in danger. Those who follow in Pasiap's footsteps are able to call upon this ancient pack and draw upon the protection it offers. When danger threatens, the land rises up at the Terrestrial's command, interposing itself between the incoming threat and the Exalt. This charm may be activated in response to attack, but only after all active defense attempts have been made. The character rolls his essence + resistance against a difficulty equal to the attacker's essence. If he succeeds, he manages to call up the earth in time, if he fails, the attack presses on, un-impeded. A successful activation of this charm calls up a wall of earth which reduces the attacker's raw damage pool by a number of dice equal to (essence x 2) + resistance. This is considered a soak effect. This can reduce the damage pool to zero. Any leftover damage dice are soaked and rolled as normal. The character must be standing on a surface comprised or earth or stone to employ this charm. This charm may be used to defend anyone within a number of yards equal to the Exalt's essence, but he must also pay 1 lethal health level in order to do so.

Pasiap's Stalwart Guardian</b>

<b>Cost:  7 motes, 1 willpower, 1 health level
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple 
Minimum Resistance: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms:: Obscuring Cloud of Rubble Invocation, Pasiap's Aegis

By paying a greater cost, a Terrestrial may invoke greater protection from the Earth Dragon's geas. Instead of a simple wall, the Exalt summons forth an animate guardian of stone, which takes the shape of small dragon which flies and weaves about the exalt protecting him from danger. Whenver an attack would strike the exalt, roll his essence + resistance against a difficulty equal to his attacker's essence. If he succeeds, the dragon interposes itself between the attack and the Exalt. The dragon has a hardness against all types of damage equal to the character's resistance x 2, and a number of health levels equal to the character's essence + resistance. The dragon heals one health level of damage at the start of every round. The dragon is considered an object for charms or attacks which inflict greater damage to such things, although all damage against it is rolled. If the dragon is destroyed, the charm ends. The character must be standing on earth or stone when this charm is first activated.

Impregnable Bastion of the Body Jade</b>

<b>Cost:  10 motes, 1 willpower, 2 health levels
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Resistance: 5
Minimum Essence: 5
Prerequisite Charms:: Pasiap's Stalwart Guardian

The Terrestrial opens his anima to his Draconic patron and recieves an infusion of celestial essence which transmutes his flesh into Jade. The character must make a charisma + essence roll, difficulty 3, in order to actiavte this charm. If this roll fails, the motes and willpower are still spent. While in this state the character receives a number of benefits: All damage made against the character is converted to bashing before soak is applied, unless that source is capable of damaging one of the five magical materials. Should the character be hit by such an attack, he may soak its damage using his full stamina. Add the exalt's essence to all of his soak ratings. The character now has a hardness rating equal to his essence + resistance against all attacks which cannot damage magical materials. The character is immune to poison and disease while in this form. Finally, the character receives an added benefit based on his Aspect: Air- Add 3 to the speed of all the character's attacks Earth- Reduce all post soak damage against the character by 2 Fire- Add 2 to all of the character's damage pools Water- Add 3 to all of the character's soak ratings Wood- The character heals 1 level of bashing damage at the start of every turn.

The infusion of celestial essence if more than the Terrestrial's body can safely handle and he pays the price for calling upon it when the charm ends. The health level cost is in aggravated damage and is payed once the charm is over. This can kill the Exalt. Further, the character suffers a -2 penalty to all actions for an hour after the charm ends. This is a fatigue penalty and can be countered by charms or effects that deal with fatigue. If the character does not wait a full week between activations of this charm he cumulatively increases the difficulty of the charisma + essence roll by 1 for each pre-mature activation.

Comments

Good color, good flavor, and the vast majority are solid. Only two to three real concerns to mention.

• Calling the Earth Dragon's Scales & Pasiap's Stalwart Guardian: Why do Earth-Aspects get a cheaper-yet version? I'm not super-familiar with DB charms, but it seems odd to make it cheaper yet for Earth Aspects. Could just be me. Especially when the difference can be as significant as a Health Level. It turns what is a strong charm into a weak one (or vice versa), heavily biasing things. Then again, I note that I'm not super familiar with Terrestrial costs, so I could be out of line.
• Imperishable Flesh of Stone: Seems a bit powerful, especially in non-Power Combat games. I mean, this one charm could really turn the battle against Celestials pretty heavily. That's a powerful effect in such a setting. Perhaps a higher Essence requirement, or a significantly upped cost? It gets worse if you imagine stacking it - imagine a circle of Earth-Aspects with this, lowering each other's damage by 5 before each fight, all for only 12m each. Yeah, that's a lot of their pool, but since they could all be starting chars (friends from school, or perhaps cousins), reducing post-soak by 5 is a lot. If you're wearing armor (and what Earth-Aspect isn't?), that means you'd need to be doing upwards of 20 damage per hit to have a chance at getting through that stuff. That's a lot.
• Pasiap's Aegis: What the? Did I just see the words "This is a perfect effect" in a Terrestrial charm? Now, I'd still be highly saddened and disturbed if this were a Celestial, but in my opinion, and from what I know about charm construction, the words "perfect" shouldn't appear in any non-Solar charm unless they're immediately preceded by "This charm has no effect against a ".

I agree with GregLink about the reduced cost for Earth Aspects. They already have a reduced cost in that they don't pay out-of-aspect surcharges on the Charms. Thats about as reduced cost as Charms get for a specific user.
Aside from that, I find myself feeling sort of..eh about everything. I don't really object to your mechanics for anything except Pasiap's Aegis which needs to decide if it's perfect or not. It's perfect but it doesn't work fully? What's with that? Perfect means perfect not perfect when it works but not when it doesn't. That's just...weird.
I also feel these are not really that inspired, they're just giving the DBs access to mechanics that other Exalts have like Glorious Solar Armor and the Starmetal 5MM effect.
My final suggestion is to streamline your charms. They're all very long and complex where they should be fairly short and simple unless they have a massively complex effect and, really, none of these do. You've just worded them so they seem complex.

Note: Obscuring Cloud of Rubble is definantly not worth the motes. Ever.

- Telgar

I'll be the first to admit this is not the strongest charm set I've ever come up with, but that's why I post this stuff for you guys to tear apart. Now, onto the charms:

• Obscuring Cloud of Rubble Invocation- The charm used to do more, I neglected to change its cost. With that fixed, I still think the charm is useful. When making DB charms I always take into account combat with non-celestial exalts. Boosting difficulty to hit greatly reduces the number of hits you take from extras. Combine this charm with a shield and you can wade through hordes of cultists on the way to fight the big anathema cult leader with very little effort expended.
• Imperishable Flesh of Stone- Is totally an unimaginative speed bump. I felt that there should be a damage reducer in DB resistance somewhere and that was my first attempt at crafting one. My original notes for Pasiap's Aegis had it functioning in a completely different fashion that was bulky and unhelpful. After revision, PA became my damage reducer and IFS became obsolete.
• Calling The Earth Dragon's Scales-It is just another armor charm, true. But I feel that the DBs need a better soak boost option than the one that raises your stamina by 1 in their resistance tree. I'm totally open to suggestions that will give this charm some individuality. Right now its filling a hole, which is what I need it to do. For GregLink, the cost is the same for Earth Aspects, so I'm not sure what you're referring to.
• Pasiap's Aegis-As mentioned before, this charm use to function in a drastically different fashion, and there were some holdover's I missed after its initial revision. The perfect line was one of them. It has been remedied.
• Pasiap's Stalwart Guardian- I wasn't sure if the charm merited a health level cost at all. My middle ground was to make it cost a health level for everyone but earth aspects and see which balanced better. Feedback as to whether or not you think the HL cost is a good idea or bad idea would be great.
• Impregnable Bastion of the Body Jade- No one really had anything to say about this, so I have little to say in response.

Telgar, if you could point out which descriptions in particular you found to be bulky, that'd be extra helpful. It all seems fairly clear to me, but then I wrote the charms. And of course, thanks for chiming in. Like I said before, I'm just as happy with "These charms blow and here's why" as I am with "Dude, I totally love these." I'm a big fan of contructive peer group criticism. -Ambisinister