Difference between revisions of "ExMod/ModernSolarDodge"

Revision as of 00:35, 6 April 2010

Roaring Thunder Evasion
Cost: 2 Motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minium Dodge: 2
Minium Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: None

The Exalt may avoid objects normally too quick to be dodged. The Exalt may dodge bullets, lightning bolts, and so forth using normal difficulties. Normally, dodging such objects would require a Dodge roll at the legendary level. (Or so I'm presuming.) The Charm is made for the loud noise and burst of wind the Exalt makes as he dodges at Supersonic speed.

Friendship with Sound Meditation
Cost: N/A
Duration: Permemant
Type: Special
Minium Dodge: 4
Minium Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Roaring Thunder Evasion

The Exalt changes his relationship with the Speed of Sound from one of agression to friendship. He may always Dodge bullets and other objects, without need to activate Charms. He may do so without causing unusual noise or other disturbances. There is no cost to use this Charm; it is a permemant improvement of the Exalt's capablities.

Light-Speed Thought Response
Cost: 6 motes
Duration: One Round
Type: Reflexive
Minium Dodge: 5
Minium Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Friendship with Sound Meditation, Flow like Blood.

Accelerating not only his body, but his thoughts as well, the Exalt becomes capable of dodging at truly incredible speeds. You may only use this Charm if you have taken Full Dodge as your action for the turn. You may apply up to two dodges to any given attack. (One Dodge presumably comes from your full dodge, the other comes from a Charm.)

Comments

Actually its pretty much assumed you dodge bullets and stuff normally in Exalted I believe. It's in GCGs thusspakes somewhere. You get to ordinarily dodge lightning ballistas and implosion bows and shafts of divine light fired from bows forged from the remains of death behemoths (i.e. Solar Archery) so why should mere bullets be special? - Kraken

But I would assume it would normally be tough: Difficult 5, or Difficulty 3 + the other guy's excess succesuses. Now, you just need one succesus per succesus the other guy got. -MeiRen

But why should dodging a little tiny unmagical piece of lead be so hard to dodge compared to bolts of solar light or blasts of elemental lightning or even 'impossible' things to dodge, like streams of blasphemous words? I dont think bullets being harder to dodge fits the feeling of Exalted, and I also dont recall a similar penalty from the old WoD - Kraken

I don't think it should be impossible, just difficult. GCG's quote was in response to someone saying that an Exalted in the modern setting would just get taken out by a Sniper Rifle. Keep in mind that moving Exalted to a modern setting is going to require a slightly different way of thinking. Lording it over a guy in a tank just isn't as easy as lording it over a guy on horseback. Solars will still be able to do it - they're still Solars, after all - but its going to take them a little longer. At least, that's how I would like it to be. -MeiRen

Nah, you pretty much just dodge versus your opponent's successes. The difficulty in dodging things like guns is that they probably have a really high accuracy ( as do the gods of weather that handle lightning bolt tosses. ) I'd definitely go with a different effect for Roaring Thunder Evasion. That also sort of makes Friendship with Sound Meditation sort of redundant; it's only bonus is the stealthiness, which would make it a Stealth Charm. I think I'd adjust RTE by making it 1 mote and letting it cancel any 'environmental penalties' (which would pretty much cover anything like "it was so fast! +3 difficulty!"), and either make FWSM a stealth charm, or maybe so far as permanent bonuses go... maybe give it a Stealth prereq /and/ a Dodge prereq, and let it add a permanent bonus of your Essence to all Dodge rolls, and to all Stealth rolls. We've seen some cross-tree charms in the castebooks. I have a question about whether Light-Speed Thought Response would let Flow Like Blood grant you *two* reflexive dodges per attack. My gut instinct is to say that two dodges per attack may be a bit much... but for an Essence 4 charm, I may just be being stupidly conservative. - Miedvied

When you have FLB up, the charm is just saving you the essence it would cost to buy up your dodge pool with RitW, while precluding the possibily of any offencive action on your part, and denying you the possibilty of a perfect defence in a combo, which doesnt seem to be that overpowered at all... - Kraken

I misread the part about it counting as a "full dodge" and therefore precluding any other actions. In which case, I must reverse my position; it's *under*powered for an Ess. 4 dodge charm. Maybe a happy medium would be something like giving the character a number of extra dodges (which can be doubled with other dodge effects) per round equal to his permanent essence. Potent, but not game-breakingly so. The doubling-up would justify Ess 4, but it wouldn't remove other actions (as Full Dodging would), which justifies it being allowed to break the rules like that at all.- Miedvied

I went back and clarfied what I meant. The idea is to take some of the interesting tactical options mortals use and enhance them so they're of use to the Exalted. What's the point in taking a Full Dodge when you have Flow Like Blood Up? Well, now there's a purpose. Incidentally, the effect is supposed to look a little like something out of the Matrix.
You could Dodge firearms in the old WoD games, although it was a little harder than dodging other attacks. Personally, gun shots should be harder to Dodge than fist attacks. Guns are real real deadly, and I think any modern game should keep that in mind. When guns go off, there should be a strong probablity that people die - just not Exalted people. I like the idea that the Exalted all get out of the way, whereas the Mortals either A)think tactictly, win Iniative, and get cover before the bullets start fighting or B)get turned into pincushions. Requiring a Charm or extra succesuses to Dodge bullets is one way to make that happen. -MeiRen

The WoD system assumed that PC's were only slightly tougher than normal mortals, and people died all the time. Guns are real real deadly - but not really moreso than getting a ten foot sword forged of the gold of the gods put through your chest. In fact, I'd say that guns are more like darts, when you compare them to ten foot swords forged of the gold of the gods. When a gun goes off, there should be a strong probability that people die - and given that mortals in Exalted can't soak lethal, and can't stop bleeding at will, and aren't all super-resistant to infection... they can take a 3L wound and probably die, even if not from the gunshot itself. Which ... is pretty much how it is in reality. Guns don't kill because they ventilate you; guns kill because they tear apart tissue which causes many, many complications (for instance, the average gutshot doesn't kill you by knocking out an important organ; the average gutshot will put you in the hospital, but infection is almost inevitable. Due to the lower concentration of blood vessels around the peritoneum, immune response is weak there, and infection usually follows. Antibiotics, even IV antibio's can't reach the spot, and peritonitis followed by bacteremia ensue. The patient dies from the infection.)
So, anyway, Exalted models mortals being killed frequently and painfully just fine. But Exalts?ExMod/ModernSolarDodge/Exalts/ don't die. Exalts have the choice if being "that fast guy that dodges all the bullets," or "that burly guy that takes 30 bullets to the chest," or whatever path they would pursue in the Second Age - bullets are just tiny little pieces of swords, thrown really fast - and Exalts don't worry about itty bitty sword pieces. Exalts worry about armies of men with itty bitty sword pieces led by their long-lost brother with the Kung-Fu moves and the hip-hop soundtrack. - Miedvied

In the modern world, it's the ten foot gun forged of the gold of the gods which you have to fear, along with its junior mundane companions. That being said, whether guns should be harder to dodge depends on if you are telling a modern kung fu story, where a gun can't kill an ordinary human, let alone a kung fu master, or a gun fu story, where bad-ass gunslingers can mow down mortals with bullets without even looking, in which case harder dodging of bullets is appropriate. - JohnBiles

Yes, but increasing the difficulty of dodging guns increases the difficulty of all guns, not just the big artifact weapons. The big artifact weapons are more lethal because you essentially double all their stats. I think that's fear-worthy enough. That being said, Exalted covers all fu; Resistance charms don't let guns kill normal martial artists, and Firearms charms let your gun-fu master mow down mortals without even looking. In neither case are you referring to *normal* mortals; *normal* mortals get mowed down by bullets in *either* story, because they're mooks. - Miedvied

I think whoever said that making bullets harder to dodge should be done by making gun stats better has it right. Attack the problem, if you think it's a problem, with a system that already exists! Don't generate useless rules clutter. - willows

That was me. About gun stats. - Miedvied

The point is, Exalts should be able to Dodge bullets, Mortals shouldn't be able to. You can either do this by giving Exalts a Charm that says "you can Dodge bullets" or you can do it by just saying it in the gunplay rules "Mortals can't dodge this, the same way they have all these other problems." Maybe the latter approach works better.
But you shouldn't make it harder for Mortals to Dodge bullets by increasing the Accuracy of Firearms. Why? Because Firearms arn't accurate. At least, not when two mortals go at it. The hero's guns are accurate, at least when fired at Mooks. -MeiRen

I really disagree with the "The difficulty in dodging things like guns is that they probably have a really high accuracy (as do the gods of weather that handle lightning bolt tosses)" sentiment. Guns are not accurate, even in the hands of professionals. They are deadly. But they are not deadly because they're guaranteed to hit you. Supposedly, something like a million bullets were fired in WWII for every one soldier killed.
Obviously, you can't effectively dodge a bullet. But all you really have to do is dive and pray - which may be the way to look at these Charms. They let Exalts dodge bullets and then do something afterward. Bullets are much, much faster than arrows. And even Chow Yun Fat, in the modern Hong Kong supercop/assassin genre, can't dodge bullets. So maybe it's not appropriate to use the "kung fu movie" defense in defending bullet dodging sans Charm. It depends on the feel you want. Are Exalts, simply by virtue of their heroicness, uber-badass in a modern setting, or slightly less badass? I think that's the question in a nutshell.
As for the Charm... Well, look, in a modern setting, every Solar's gonna take that Charm, right? I mean, that Charm is even more indispensable than Ox-Body Meditation. Otherwise, if you brought a daiklave to a gun fight, you gotta skulk behind cover like the rest of the weenies. I think we can turn to the wisdom of GCG's game design - if it's something everybody's gonna take, then just give it to them... or don't make it possible at all. - DigitalSentience

If you bring a diaklaive to the gun fight, you parry bullets. This is how it works in Exalted. Unless someone's under the impression that real-life mortals can dodge or parry arrows, either. - Miedvied

I would personally figure that dodging bullets, like catching a sword with your bare hands, requires a stunt but not a Charm. I would also say the same about dodging lightning and other superfast attacks. This incidentally also has the effect of putting a hard line between normal mortals and heroes in terms of who gets killed easily by guns. - Ben-San

Ben's got the nail hit on the head. You seem to immediately think "guns are deadly and hard to dodge! We should reflect that in making it impossible for mortals to do so!" Except, you know... this is an Exalted game. Increasing the diff. to dodge across the board affects Exalts more than it does mortals - mortals are being mowed down by the bullets anyway. Any mechanical disadvantage affects Exalts more than it does mooks; mooks will die at the end of the scene, Exalts will go on to do another hundred scenes. So keep in mind that you're not "balancing" anything; you're making Exalts less cool. If you want to make Exalts less cool, that's your business, but that's not Exalted. - Miedvied

I agree, Ben's got the right solution. Except I would want to say "requires a stunt OR a charm." Because there's got to be some way to not have to come up with a new stunt every time you want to dodge a bullet, or it will get old eventually. -MeiRen

Just say bullets cannot be dodged except with charms. Stunts by definition allow characters to do the "impossible" and bend the rules - with a properly done stunt, you could already do that. No exception for stunts is necessary. -Fifth

Exalts already dodge bullets. See RighteousDevilStyle beginning on page 253 of the Player's Guide. No charm nor stunt required. Mortals dodge bullets the same way they dodge swords; by anticipating the attack. You keep an eye on the guy with his finger on the trigger, the same way you keep an eye on the guy with his hand on the hilt. If they don't start moving before the weapon, be it sword or bullet, they will get hit unless something interposes itself. Now, parrying bullets, that takes an Exalt. $.02 &Arafelis