Thus Spake Zaraborgstrom/BlindingTheBoarComments

Comments

I'm going to respectfully disagree with Rebecca here. Going mano-a-mano with a Solar in single combat should be exactly the situation that a Sidereal should dread the most. Unless my impression of the Sidereals is mistaken, their strength lies in their tremendous ability to attack problems indirectly from the shadows, to choose the place and time of the fight, and to avoid any conflict that doesn't suit them. Direct slugfests are what Solars and Lunars are for, and giving Sidereals a charm like Blinding the Boar is akin to giving Solars Avoidance Kata. IMHO, of course. - Toram

Not to pointlessly argue, but note that Rebecca said a lot more than just "fight the solar in single combat..." She noted, "by just standing there, slugging it out, ignoring the penalities, and not pulling any fancy tricks of your own." In a way, think of it like this. This is a charm that allows a Sidereal to do very well against clumsy simple and brutally straight-forward opponents who really have nothing to do except swing there and take a hit at the Sidereal. I can see that as being very fitting to the Sidereal 'theme' of sophistication. -- CrownedSun

The trouble is that forcing a finesse or "trick" fight puts the opponent on the Sidereal's turf; that's the sort of fight that the Sidereal is going to excel at anyway. In my opinion, the balance should be such that in a toe-to-toe bewteen a Solar and a Sidereal, the Solar should have a strong edge, because going toe-to-toe is what Solars do. If a Sidereal wants to take down a Solar, they should need to fight indirectly and keep it from becoming a direct beat-down. Hence, I think that this charm is covering up a Sidereal weakness that shouldn't be covered up. - Toram

I see balls-to-the-walls no-holds-barred let's-get-him combat as Lunar territory, and even they have tricks. And Sidereals are supposed to be about equal to Lunars, in general. Solars to me aren't about being able to be badass enough to stand up to you one on one; they're SKILLED and PRECISE and AMAZINGLY GOOD enough to go up against you one on one. That accounts for having lots of nifty tricks, that enable you to stand up against all kinds of opponents. And that's where I see this charm as being weak against. It's not like people haven't proposed lots of good strategies for Solars dealing with this charm; bouncy Solar Ball, for instance. There are certainly others; for instance, grab Thunderclap Rush Attack and get the opponent in a clinch and then start using Dragon Coil Technique:P\\ In fact, the way I see it Sidereals are the second-strings to Solars, as far as having nasty combat tricks. --CrownedSun

And let's say you want to take the Sidereal against the other side. They go Blinding the Boar. It throws all the potentials of the Sidereal against an Abyssal, but what if the Abyssal reduces that down. Basically, it's overwhelming them with too much information, but what if the potential futures of the Sidereal suddenly droped. Let's say they have a dice pool of 13... the Abyssal subtracts all but one away. They went from being able to get anywhere from a botch to 26 successes to botch to 2 successes. That's cut down the info alot. Considering, I bet an Abyssal could make a sort of perceptive Charm based on reducing penalties based on how much the Sidereal's pool was penalized. All by reducing the potentials to a few of only the worst cases. - haren

The real balancing factor of Blinding the Boar (or so we have been told) is that it is a Stealth Charm . If the Sidereal uses a lot of essence (when she uses 11 peripheral) then the Charm ceases to work ... so if the Sidereal powers up AFTER using Blinding the Boar, or tries to pull off a Combo, she loses the effect of this Charm. ^_^ -- BrokenShade

CS: On the first point, I wholeheardtedly agree. As to the second, however, no. There is absolutely no possible way you can convince me that a Siddie is supposed to be the equal of a Lunar in combat. Combat is damn near the only schtick Lunars have left (since they blow at everything else and will avoid learning Charms like the plague anyway). Plus, hasn't it always been a Big Deal that a Full-Moon can stand up to a Solar in a one-on-one fight? - SMK

SMK, I don't think this does allow a Sidereal to stand up to a Solar, unless the Sidereal finds a way to do so without blowing enough peripheral Essence to drive his anima high enough to negate Stealth Charms. Against a Solar, I don't think that is going to happen. ^_^ -- BrokenShade

Falcon - It's a Simple charm, so you need to win initiative - without using any other charms - to use it, and even then it only lasts five turns. Personally, if I was a Sidereal in combat with a Solar, I'd dodge like hell until I won initiative (which may never happen), use Blinding the Boar and run as far away as I could possibly get. Yeah, you may be imposing an 8-die penalty on your Solar opponent, but most will still be able to pull 10 or so dice to attack you or defend themselves with.

It's not a question of the Sidereal being the equal of the Lunar in combat (though I would note that they're in about equal /positions/ in terms of power, with the Sidereal being roughly as powerful overall). That is manifestly untrue, in the end. It's a matter of this particular trick, which utterly destroys those who have no real strategy other than "attack something really hard until they fall down!" is particularly effective against Lunars. Since a large amount (but not all) of Lunar strategy IS pretty much attacking REALLY HARD. The Lunar might very well be badass enough where he can ignore this charm, amdittedly, but it's designed against THAT kind of opponent. --CrownedSun

BrokenShade - yeah, that's kinda what I was saying. I don't think a Siddie really can stand up to a Solar at comparable experience levels one-on-one (except with BotBM, which I hate... but I digress).\\ CS - ah, my bad. I though you were talking specifically about combat when you compared the Siddies to the Lunars. I damn well hope that a Siddie is nowhere near a good combat match for a Lunar of comparable experience, though I don't really know how they stack up against one another. From what I understand so far, it's a matter of whether the Siddie manages to do something stupidly nasty to the Lunar with astrology before the Lunar manages to do something stupidly nasty to the Siddie with a claw. - SMK