Revision as of 08:08, 5 April 2010

Glorious Radiance of the Unconquered Sun

Circle: Solar
Cost: 60 motes + 10 motes per bolt

Description

The Great War was over and the First Age was slowly becoming the Golden Age of legends: the Solar Deliberative was restoring peace and justice to the wounded world and Lunars were enforcing their mates commands while the Terrestrials moved to destroy the last enemies of Creation. It was a great time indeed and the Sidereal were smiling to Fate for such benevolecence, but in their hearts they knew it could not last forever.

At last it was one of them that betrayed Creation and swore allegiance to the Yozi: the Fist Akuma brought death and misery in the First Age followed by hundreds Lunars and Terrestrials, her power greater than any Solar and her control of Fate inesplicably strengthened by the will of the Demon Princes. She used her mastery of sorcery, augmented by the Mantle of Brigid, to conquer the East and soon it was clear the First Akuma could end the Golden Age and so the Solars prepared for one last stand.

After months of ascetic prayer a Solar of the Twilight Caste was visited in dreams by his patron, the Unconquered Sun himself. The god spoke to the Exalted and gave him on powerful spell, one to be conjured in safety, but whose effects would stay long enough to stop the Fallen One: that day two powerful sorcerers met on the battlefield and the war was decided by their duel of sorcery. In the end the Twilight called forth his new uncovered powers and stopped the First Akuma sending her screaming darkened Essence in the depth of hells: he recovered the Mantle and built an academy of magic in order to teach not only how to conjure the power of sorcery, but even how to use that power for noble ends.

System

The Solar has to do a ritual of three hours to cast this spell: when the casting is finished, the Exalted shines with holy radiance for one day.

Every living being who approches the Solar must roll Valor against a difficulty equal to half the caster's Essence (rounded down). If passed, the attacker suffers a penalty equal to one-quarter caster's Essence (rounded up). If failed, the attacker suffers a penalty equal to the caster's Essence. If botched, the attacker falls to the ground, stunned, and can do nothing for the scene. This power is not compatible with similar magic (be it spell or charm or anima effect).

Every turn the caster can shoot a blast of pure searing light (roll Perception + Occult to hit with an accuracy bonus equal to Essence) which inflicts 10 levels of aggravated damage plus the extra successes: this attack costs 10 motes, consumes the dice action for the turn and the Solar can only use reflexive charms for the rest of the turn. This attack can only be dodged and not parried.

The Solar can discharge the effect in a display of power: anything, living or not, in a radius equal to ten times the Solar's Essence in yards is hit with solar flares which inflict two times the Solar's Essence automatic aggravated damage. Unlike anything else this damage is soakable only with Essence (not armor, stamina or charms). This ends the spell, consumes all current Solar's motes and only a perfect dodge can defend against its effects.

Comments

While I hate to rain on people's parties... according to the story of Brigid, sorcery only came into play long after the primordial war. - Halloween <- just nitpicking

Wow. I never thought I'd imagine something that seemed to be too much for even Exalted. This sorcery seems far too powerful, even for a Solar Circle spell. The way it's written, a Solar Circle Sorceror (min Essence 5) causes at /minimum/ a 2-die penalty to all who gaze upon her. Conveniently, the 'quarter round up' implies for for pretty much all sorcerors, it's a 2. After all, it starts at 2, and doesn't go up again until you hit Essence 9. Why not just say 2 die? Similarly, the roll itself is quite unbalanced. Valor is (at most) 5, even for the greatest Solar champions. Essence, on the other hand, can go much higher, and the difficulty of the roll starts at 2. Statistics says that even a 5 Valor warrior will fail that about 40% of the time, which is a lot. By the time Essence 6 is hit (not too long after Essence 5, mind), pretty much everyone is gonna need to burn a Willpower not to suffer a 6-die penalty to hit. At this point of the conversation, you can point out that "But hey, as you said, it's an Essence 5 Solar Circle effect. Of course it's cool."

Then we get to the next part. After casting (for three hours), and burning about 3WP and 60 motes, you've got almost 21 hours left while you're essentially the walking lazer-blazter of doom. Which is still good (this is Exalted after all). Thing is, if a Solar can't figure out how to, over the course of 20 hours, regain 60 motes, they're stupid. Even sitting and reading will give them 80 motes back in 20 hours, and that's with no Hearthstones. Any Ess5 Solar is gonna have at least a level 3 stone, if only because it fell on their head. Given that, you're looking at maybe 10 hours before your essence pool is recharged. WP can be regained through any number of means, even if it's just stunting how you're ominously walking towards your target, ready to unload all billy-heck on him, his children, and the landscape in general.

So you walk up, and they're like "Hey, there's that Solar guy that doesn't like you. And look, his Anima is up! He must have just done something really cool. Let's go talk to him." At this point, the Ess5 Solar, who has at least 60 motes in his pool (he did cast this spell, didn't he?) turns, and says "I am the almighty, bringer of all that is death and destruction upon the world. Gaze upon my countenance and despair, for you have brought upon yourselves this wrath." He gets to roll to hit using Per+Occult (we'll assume only a pool of 9 for this) and adds his Essence as accuracy, bringing him up to a pool of maybe 14-ish. Not too ridiculous for a Solar, especially of Ess5, so we continue, and as the Solar misses (lucky for his opponent, he knew that the attack was unparryable, and thought to dodge), and with a damage pool of, oh... 20 aggravated damage dice + oversuccesses, succeeds to absolutely and violently vaporize about 50 feet of reinforced concrete barracks. That's ok though, because he can still use reflexive charms this turn, and proceeds to use a combo of reflexives that allows him to both dodge, parry, and counterattack. After all, all reflexives can make a valid combo. The second round, he hits, and forces the opponent to dodge (mind, a hit is virtually guaranteed death, even in big armor) again. Opponent dodges, and the Exalt hits out with a reflexive counterattack charm this time, that happens to be undodgeable. So sad that the opponent either aborted to dodge for the first launch, or used a dodge charm, and is now a sitting duck.

So the head of the Solar Deliberative, right, comes down, and she's all mad. Captain Death Sorcerer looks up, and says "Oh no! I'm nearly out of motes! What will I do?" and launches a combo featuring Cascade of cutting terror (undodgeable). The HotSD target wisely parries using some super-awesome thing-charm. Oh - did I mention that CaptainDeath Sorceror split her pool this turn? She uses the other split action to launch the super-death-star beam, which is conveniently unparriable. The HotSD, already having used a charm this turn, takes the hit like the super-being she is. Luckily, she's wearing Superheavy Orichalcum Plate, with a total soak of nearly 15L. That allows maybe only 5-8A dice of Agg through. Poor HotSD - that hurt!

Same thing happens this time, though the head of the Solar deliberative is a smart one. This time, she uses a 'hung' parry from a High-Essence melee charm to parry the Cascade, allowing her to successfully use a dodge-charm, such as flow like blood, or some such, to dodge the deathstarray.

To finish this display of almight glory, captain death sorceror finally activates 'supernova' mode, as he has only 1m left. This hits everything within about 50 yards, and does 15 automatic successes of damage - no soak. None. That's enough to kill dang near anything, or anyone. Sadly, only a perfect dodge can help, and the head of the deliberative used a less-than-perfect charm to save motes. No more head of the solar deliberative. But we'll assume that said head was an Eclipse with Sideral training, who winds back time, to try again.

This time she brings her friend, the Infinite Adamant Armadillo, an Essence 9 Lunar. He has 100 Hardness, and 300 Soak. Sadly, the supernova also wipes the floor with him, as it did 15 auto aggravated successes, and that's enough, as he doesn't have many Ox-Bodies (he never needed them), and can't perfect dodge. What's even weirder, is that it turns out the /entire/ Sidereal community was hidden from view 49 yards from the supernova. They all die too.

Mind, each of the singular effects, alone (increased difficulty to hit, cast ahead of time and recharge, laser-rays, and supernova) each, on their own, aren't /totally/ obscene. It's cool to think of a sorceror who casts a lingering spell (Celestial circle, perhaps) that can be 'activated' at will, later, when necessary. It's cool to think of death rays for 10+ motes a shot, that do a lot of damage. I'd prefer 10Agg each, not 20, but that's just me. Even a massive spell that levels the castle you're standing in is cool - even if it does a lot of damage - perhaps 20 dice worth? Something soakable, at least? Not auto successes? But one spell, that does them all, and lets you recharge before you unleash this wrath, that's just obscene.

After all, with a little bit of effort, said sorceror can kill for a few Willpower regaining hearthstones, and cast this spell every morning upon waking. Or just before bed. Whatever. And proceed to walk around, ready to unleash pure, violent, liquid death that even an Essence 6 archer can only dream of. All for 10m per shot, no WP cost. Doesn't take your charm for the turn. You can attack, and force a dodge/defense, and still have full control over activating an all-reflexive combo later, if you need to. And finally, when you're having some serious trouble, you can guarantee that everything within 50 yards that doesn't have at least 16 health levels is dead. And that doesn't even cost motes! or Willpower!

Compare and contrast to the rune of unspeakable hate. It doesn't require three rounds to cast, and almost certainly doesn't kill your opponent - maims quite well, though. It also maims you nearly equally. This, on the other hand, can level structures, destroy armies, and absolutely eradicate Exalts, for no permanent cost to you, and in the case of the supernova, even when you're running on Empty. At the end of the day, you stand up, climb out of the crater, and think to yourself "What idiot would ever learn rune of unspeakable hatred? This is so much more effective, and is really fun and easy!"

So yeah. Sorry to launch a series of Class-5 hurricanes at your parade, but I'm a little concerned that this spell is drastically overpowered. Perhaps if it required you to commit all 60 motes, and 3WP? And change the damage from {20A dice and 15 Auto Agg} to {15 Agg dice and 7 Auto Agg}? That way it'll kill most anyone without Ox-Body, and severely weaken others. The charm thing I can get over (using charms and hung-spell in the same round) as long as the attacks made with this hung-spell aren't essentially certain doom for anyone, even if they're in Superheavy Orichalcum plate. - GregLink

Hi Greg! And thank you for your input! I've lowered the bolt damage to 10A+successes and the blast damage to twice the Solar's Essence: this should make the spell more balanced. I believe that a combat spell of the Solar Circle should be awesome (Gaia Rebuke, a single target spell, deals 150L of damage), but this has more than one effect and it allows the Exalt to strike without casting time so it has to be more balanced. What do you think about a spell that allows the Solar to just strike with bolts of solar flares for one day? How much damage for that? - Samiel

Well, the biggest issue I had really wasn't one of being able to shoot beams for a day. I kindof like that. It was one of them both being unparryable, and doing tons of Agg damage (which is actually a rare thing in Exalted). I'd say that if one was able to shoot one beam per round, given that a good melee person can crank out like 12L per strike, at 5 strikes per round, that even a 10A (dice) wouldn't be unheard of. Now, if you really wanted to make life simple, I'd say just go with Lore charms. After all, it's canon that Lore charms can allow you to fire 'bolts' of your element, which in this case is plasma (that /is/ what the Sun's made of, no?). If you're willing to go non-Agg, down to lethal, I'd even suggest that something Gi-normous, like 25+L could be possible, if you went high enough up the Lore charm tree. You are, after all, talking about an Essence 5 charm to compare to a Solar spell. Also, I wanted to say that you took my little hurricane quite well. Sorry to be so rough, but I've been at work a lot lately, and am obviously a bit cranky. So yeah - good work on not taking offense. - GregLink