Difference between revisions of "GregLink"

11:07:2005 - So, in submission to my total fandom, I'm starting some notes on /JediExalted

10:20:2005 - Working on a new MA style. Big deviation from traditional styles, in that almost all charms are no-cost permanents. Check it out at [MartialArts/EffortlessMasterStyle]

10:14:2005 - Started working on actually following proper BestPractices, so now I've got a Sorcery/GregLink page

10:13:2005 - So, I really like ExMod, right? But on the Stryck Wiki [1], there's a background for their ExMod setting that isn't listed in ours - "Daemon". It's a cross between familiar and a computer program, resulting in non-corporeal agents working for you. Almost like having a small 'computer' elemental or somesuch at your disposal. Thing is, while I love the concept of having essentially a spirit familiar, the discussion and description isn't that solid. To that end, I've copied it here, so that we all can chat about it. We'll start here: /DaemonBackground

Next question for the Wiki. I've got a character (Alchemical) with the Incomparable Efficiency Upgrade, in which "...the character declares a predominantly physical activity with an estimated duration greater than one turn. This task can be almost anything not related to combat, from writing a letter to digging a ditch to crafting an artifact to reading a book." It goes on to point out that you do said things Essence times faster. My player is claiming that this allows him to run really fast when going extended distances. I'm inclined to agree, for an Essence 3 charm that does nothing but make you do things faster. Anyone disagree? (Comment anywhere you'd like!)

• <b>Comment</b> - by IanPrice - "Not related to combat" is the sticky point here. The question comes up: if you can run really fast for miles, why can't you run really fast for a few meters? If you're comfortable letting the character get a higher movement rate out of the charm, even in combat, go for it. In order to keep the spirit of the charm and not make it too useful in combat, I recommend keeping a very narrow definition. I.e., the movement rate will be multiplied when "running" only - not when climbing, or jumping, or flipping acrobatically, or swiming, or swinging on a rope... etc. Since alternate modes of movement come up insanely often when performing stunts, this would effectively remove the all-around usefulness of the charm in combat, or require the player to get really creative to use it... which is a good thing anyway!

• • <b>Additional Comments brought to you by:</b> Ambisinister - Instead of having it directly increase running speed, why not have it shorten travel time? In the end, he still gets there essence times faster, but having it be the result of him being an effecient traveler as opposed to a fast runner seems more in the spirit of the charm. On a tangenital note totally unrelated to your query, I totally forgot there was an existing charm containing the term "Incomparable Efficiency." I now feel the need to re-name my new martial art.

• <b>Comment</b> - by GregLink - Thing is, I'm perfectly ok with the character running extended distances, really, and I don't see how the question of "why can't you run really fast for a few meters" applies. The charm explicitly notes that the action must normally take longer than one turn. In my head, I picture the Alchemical starting at human speeds, and repeating the same motion over and over, accelerating as he goes - almost like a train speeding up. Hence the mechanical effects...

• • <b>Additional Comments brought to you by:</b> IanPrice - Normally, it takes more than one turn to run, say, twice as far as the character can normally run in a turn. Never underestimate the creativity people will apply to twisting something to whatever use they have in mind at the time. Perhaps you could set a minimum distance that must be traveled; say, farther than the character could run in a turn. Or, you could take Ambisinister's comment, which I do agree with, and apply it to the effeciency of long-term travel. Taking the best routes, resting only as long as necessary, avoiding pitfalls, etc. Given your analogy of a train starting up, I gather that you are thinking in terms of a speed increase of some sort, though.

So here's the thing - people do too much MA, and not enough Brawl. And since I wanted to make a Solar-specific MA, why not make it a brawl tree? It'll add to the brawl world (which desperately needs it), and since brawl and MA are becoming one in about 6 months anyway, it's a good start. I think I'll put a 'style' charm concept in brawl as well, similar to forms. Sure, it's non canon, but it'd be fun, no? Hence, meet the new fun: /RelentlessPursuitofPerfectionStyle

That worked out well. I really like the MartialArts/FourfoldPathtoReadinessStyle, and so I'm working on my next: MartialArts/GentleMasterStyle

Similarly, I really like the ExMod project (gives my brain tons of fun to think about) and while it's a fabulous project, especially the ExMod/SolarDrive stuff, I want to do more to help, especially since I just knocked someone's work on the Solar Firearms charms they whipped out. I'll eventually want to fill something in here, then: /SolarFirearms

Next up, /Artifacts

Finally, I've got some odd ideas on /SolarPerformance and /SolarBureaucracy charms.

Note to the style monkeys: Yes, I know these things don't belong as subpages for now, but I like to work on things here, then copy 'final-ish' versions that have near-completed ideas to the proper locations. Maybe not proper, but I don't feel so bad having things 90% uncomplete in subpages.

Old Topics

So here's the latest question/topic. Supposing you've got a starting character, whose only goal in the game is to make money, without bringing the Wyld hunt down on himself. How would you do it? /MakingMoney

As everyone needs one of their own, I present /TheTwelvePathstoReadinessStyle

Question about Celestial-Level versions of the Terrestrial MAs? /CelestialTerrestrialMA

Some /EnduranceCharms I'm working on

An old discussion about WSAV -> /DiscussionAboutWSAV

Comments

So GregLink ... Any chance you'd be interested in STing the BrigandRansom/TrialByFire duel? ~ BrigandRansom

Actually, I've heavily considered it, but really can't. I'd love to get involved, but with my dissertation deadline coming up fast, I'm hesitant to give myself the diversion. Sorry man, I'd love to, but I'll have to bow out. - GregLink

A question has come up amongst my local gaming crew regarding the charm Safety Among Enemies. The question, can you generate a two die dodge with Flickering Candle (I think that's the dice adder), and then use that as the dodge action required by SAE to function? I'm seeking a fresh perspective, and I value your opinion. Couldn't think of a better way to contact you than posting on your user page. Sorry for the clutter.-Ambisinister

I realise I'm not GregLink, Second Circle Demon of Crunch, but doesn't Safety Among Enemies require a roll? I've checked, and it does... it says "instead of a standard dodge" which strongly implies you need a full-pool action to roll, or at least the remains of one. I know what I'd do... I'd make it run off of whatever dodge-pool was enabling it rather than just resetting it with dex + dodge... maybe a cap at that is in order, but, feh. Could be taken either way, but I hope my opinion is helpful in some way. PS, sorry for cluttering your userpage GregLink!
-- Darloth

First off, bonus points for contacting me. I love requests. Now then, as to the doing of the answering. As you and your friends have no doubt noticed, these charms are horribly written. Tons of ambiguity. And I hate ambiguity. So then, I first make the announcement - anything I say is merely my interpretation of a badly written charm. Since there's no 'clear' way those charms work, there's no canon way that you can hold over anyone's head. They're just badly written. Having said that, my theory: SAE is a reflexive charm, just as, say, RitW is. As such, it can be used without an action - it is not supplemental, and as such, requires no action to use. At the same time, it does note that "Rather than rolling a standard dodge...", which implies that, as a Dodge charm, this is a dodge action, preventing other dodge-type effects from working. Thus, you can't expect an Eclipse with this charm to be able to use their Flow Like Blood roll and this charm against the same attack. This would also prevent you from activating Flickering Candle, which would normally give you a dodge. Next up, it specifies that there is an activation roll of Dex+Dodge. This is not a dodge, this is an activation roll, and as such, things like Hearthstone bracers and the Power Combat +Ess to all dodge attempts would not apply - those are for dodges, not activation rolls. Consider for a moment, as an example, a SAE-like melee charm. You wouldn't expect to add your +Defense bonus from your weapon to the roll, would you? Just as that, you don't get bonuses for these things. Also of note is that you're rolling your Dex+Dodge, not an actual dodge roll. Thus, there's some question as to whether or not Flickering Candle could be used to supplement this roll, as Flickering Candle is explicitly "for this Dodge attempt". However, due to the use of capitalization in FCM (flickering candle meditation), the charm is applying to any pool using the Dodge ability, not to any dodge attempt, and as such, it should apply. Having said all this, then, the overall answer and theory I have would go as follows: "You don't need an action for SAE - it grants one, as a reflexive charm. The roll is an activation roll, and as such, is a pain to get extra dice added to. It also prevents you from using other things that grant dodges, such as your action, Fire form, or Flow Like Blood. Otherwise, it is an awesome charm. Note also that it is not perfect, so a perfect attack will still hit the intended target as nothing short of perfection stops a perfect attack from doing what it should."

It may not be the interpretation you wanted, but that's how my inner-crunch demon reads it. I still don't think that makes it a good charm, but as a reflexive, it doesn't need an action unless it specifically says "supplements" in the text, or something like it, as in Hopping Firecracker Evasion, where it notes that "...when he succeeds in dodging an attack...". If any other crunch demon wants to chime in, you're welcome, as I'm by no means claiming I'm always right. This is just my attempt at being very strict in interpretation. If anyone else can provide counter-arguments, I'm happy to hear them. -- GregLink, oh, and Darloth, it's cool. My userpage is ugly as sin anyway.

Oh, and some more things. As a Dodge action, it's not a dodge, meaning Hopping Firecracker Evasion can't be used with it. -- GregLink

Firstly, thanks to you and Darloth. Now, I had no desired interpretation. The lot of us have been combing over the charm trying to figure out how to make it go and have been traveling in the same ruts and coming up with nothing new. You have at least provided something new. As it stood, we never treated it as a standard dodge, no dice adding, no bracers, just dex + dodge. As to whether or not this counts as a 'dodge pool' for the purposes of Flickering Candle, I say no. The only way to add dice to an SAE activation roll, in my opinion, would be through charms that explicitly raise your dexterity or dodge rating. Where we were getting hung up was on that "instead of a standard dodge" qualifier. Our current patch is basically what Darloth suggested. If we were to run with your theory, it begs the question: are we happy with the terrestrials having a 3m, full pool dodge charm (or at least a close facsimile) that is more effective than Dipping Swallow Defense and the like?-Ambisinister

Oh, but you see, it isn't better than DSD and the like. First off, terrestrials are known for their low pools. In this situation, you're looking at a poor terrestrial with a max pool of 13. Since almost no other charm works with it (I don't see a Terrestrial "rating" enhancer anywhere, but can easily imagine a Solar one), you're stuck needing 4 successes, which is actually quite difficult to get all the time. With 8 dice, you really only average those 4 successes. With 13, yeah, you average 6, but that's it. No better. So you're still failing around 30% of the time. In that 30% of the time, you take the full impact of the attack yourself, with no 'lessening', like in DSD, which would still peel off 3 successes, and would also have things like +Essence and hearthstone bracers added onto it. Even then, you can always DSD (part of the Solar schtick is ignoring situations and just walking through them). In the Terrestrial case, here you are, no way to improve your 30%-ish chance of total and absolute failure, burning 3m of your tiny pool, and ... what's that? The intelligent Anathema are letting one guy fight you at hand to hand, and the rest are just slaughtering your men, more than 3 yards from you? You can't even use the charm because some Anathema bastard is using a melee charm to throw his huge frikking Daiklave at you? And you thought melee was only for close range. Essentially, by going with SAE, you're hoping that you've got control of the territory, and that if they hit (and they will, a surprisingly large amount of the time) that you won't die from the absolute and utter devastation that a totally undefended Solar attack will do to you. -- GregLink

The only thing I'd disagree with ya on, Greg, is the interpretation you put on perfection. Unless the attack is perfect in that it's undodgeable, I'd say that SAE sidesteps the "hits even without enough successes" with its target-change maneuver (as you noted just now, it does not reduce successes). Now, since there's plenty of Solar undodgeable attacks, some of which are also perfect the other way, there's plenty of ways to steamroll. Combat is where power levels are closest to each other, and remember the Terrestrial shtick of "nasty little tricks." Which is the only reason they ever beat Solars at all, since the Solars expect to steamroll without thinking about it. - IanPrice

And thus the magic of the wiki. I'm happy to let both Ian and my opinion stand as valid, as it depends on your interpretation of the perfect effects. In particular, that arrow will always hit with at least one success, no matter what happens. To me, that says it'll hit the intended target, no matter what happens. Ian, of course, sees it another way. Either way should work for your game however, so I'm happy to see both presented. - GregLink, who, if he had the chance, would purge all ambiguity from the books. And he could do it too!

Ah, but if there was no ambiguity, we'd be playing a computer game, not a table-top roleplaying game. - IanPrice, who is also happy to let both interpretations stand as valid.

I apologise again for bringing more clutter to your userpage, but I need the opinion of a Crunch Demon again. How do you feel about the artifact crafting rules from S&S? The ones about a character actually craftig an artifact in game, that is. Incidentally, is there another way to get in touch with you aside from your user page? If it's not something you want to pop on the wiki, I'm active over at the WW exalted forum (as Ambisinister as well) and you can PM me over there.- Ambisinister

No, my userpage is perfectly fine by me. Also, I don't really use any other forum, so this is pretty much it. This and emails directly to me, but I'm a big fan of keeping things in the open, so here works fine. As for S&S, I'll go so far as to say "I like it". It's a bit heavy on time between rolls, which is a pain, but I quickly rectified that in-game by having a character with both CNNT and a clone of the Alchemical charm "Incomparable Efficiency Upgrade". Since CNNT gives you about an 8X speedup, and IEU gives you an (Ess) speedup, depending on how you add them, you're either about 11X faster than 'normal', or you're 30X faster than normal. Either way, months quickly become days in such a situation, which I like. To me, the biggest part of Artifact crafting is the obtaining of reasonable rules, and reasonable components. As for the rolls themself, the difficulty gets a bit high for my tastes, especially when you start seeing things like difficulty 7 rolls. The problem, however, is that by dropping that, you start to have real problems. In particular, there's a permanent craft charm that's been suggested by (Neph?) that reduces all Craft difficulties by 2. Sounds great in theory, but in practice, it means that Level 5 artifacts are much more acheivable, and that those same artifacts can much more easily be modified to have reduced essence costs. While many of the artifacts in the books claim to be level 5, they're no where near it. At all. Those are really level 3 artifacts, in most cases (sometimes level 4) that have had their effective cost raised to account for their lower-than-should-be commitment costs. A real S&S level 5 artifact looks like this /SeedOfAutocthon . As a side note, I do take some very minor liberties with the system, allowing two "+4 attribute" purchases and a "+2 Attribute" purchase to result in three +3's, across the board. I also do not exploit the ability bonuses as far as I can, adding 3 where I could add 4. In practice though, this is the kind of thing you can build, and if a PC builds something like it, he can easily (over time) work that 25m commit down to 2-3m, making this artifact a monster force in your campaign, and, rather frustratingly for you, easier for him to build future artifacts. -- GregLink

Hmmm, I was hoping you could help me out. I'm a little stymied on some mechanical solutions over at Level 5 Artifacts. If you've got any ideas to help me out in my trouble spots (as indicated in the comments section) That'd be great.-Ambisinister