Discussions/BreakingTheGame

Right!

Plan 1: The Solars Have Limitless Essence Technique

Requirements: At least two members of the Eclipse Caste. More would be better.

1. First, an Eclipse Caste makes a deal with a reasonably powerful God- specifcally, one that can use Endowment. He arranges for his Circle to perform some service for tha God, in exchange for learning Endowment.
2. Eclipse A teaches the Charm to all his fellow Eclipse Caste members.
3. The Eclipse use their Oathy powers to all mutually agree on the following steps of the plan, to limit mad backstabbing.
4. The Eclipses other than Eclipse A use Endowment on Eclipse A over and over again, until his Permanent Essence is in the 10-15 range. (For this step of the plan, having 5+, or better, 10+ Eclipses would be very helpful).
5. Eclipse A (Hereafter, SUPERECLIPSE) then finds the God they initally learned the Gift from. He uses Irrestible Salesman Technique to offer the God a shiny nickle to Endow and teacher one of his most powerful minions with the Essence needed for and the knowledge of Endowment Charm.
6. The God is then convinced, via IST and a bag full of Shiny Nickles, to burn the rest of Willpower on Endowing one of the Eclipse's Solar companions, as high as he'll go, until he has only one HL left.
7. Steps 4 through 6 are repeated with the God's Endowing minion, until no more Gods with Permanent Willpower remain.
8. Profit! At least two full Circles of Solars in the Essence 10 range. Booyah, bitch! I've got this Bureaucracy Charm, 'Fix Heaven and Earth'! Oh yeah? I've got this 'Kill Every Last Usurper to the Thirtith Generation' Charm i've been working on. Guys, I just discovered a new Circle of Sorcery! ;)

Comments:

Right. Memo to self: Gods will never teach the Endowment Charm in my game. --MF

• Good luck finding a God powerful enough to swing Endowment and stupid enough to be willing to teach it. You jump through flaming red hoops just to get it used on you once. Why are your chances of learning it any better?
• The IST trick is probably the reason gods don't like teaching Eclipse Solars big Charms like Endowment :)

Heh. Probally. But I'm thinking most Gods would be willing to trade the knowledge of Endowment for some major services. After all, keep in mind the core rule of Exalted- anything is possible :)DS

Yes, you can technically do this, if your ST lets you. You can technically do a lot of things if your ST lets you, though. If you want the slightly more ST-friendly version of this, learn Soul Fire Shaper Form and use it first. -- BillGarrett

Well, the whole point of this discussion is red flags to the ST- plans which seem reasonable at ever individual step, but have disasterous results. Thus, game breaking. And good idea, using SFSF first. DS  :)

A neat trick, but not without problems. Endowment can't be used to teach charms, so the subordinate-pumping method won't work (unless the spirit has enough experience and the Eclipse who learnt Endowment knows the appropriate Celestial spell for instant teaching). Also, even if you pull it off, at the end you have a bunch of Eclipses with high Essence and no high-Essence charms -- and an incredibly pissed off bunch of Essence 5 gods for enemies. You can bet every one of those shiny nickles that they will go running to the censors: pissing off an Essence 5+ diety is a Severity 4 offense.

I'm not suggesting Endowment be used to TEACH charms, I'm suggesting the Eclipses learn the Charm Endowment. And why couldn't the minion Gods, with a teacher who knows the Charm (IE, the Eclipse themself) learn it?

As for the trail of pissed of Essence 5+ Gods, that's what Ghost Eating is for. After all, a God's Health levels are directly linked to it's Willpower... *chomp* Or, alternatively, Eclipse Oath Bind them (again, via IST) to never inform a Censor of what you've done. DS

Although this could be used in an abusive fashion, if played right, this could also make a good trickster story. The gods in question will undoubtably bring every resource they have to bear on wiping out these insolent Eclipses. How is this different from going to Yu-Shan, swindling a greater god out of a bunch of powerful artifacts, and going on the run? -- Raindoll

Seconded. I mean, yeah, the end result is pretty damn impressive, but it's not like there aren't *lots* of opportunities for “oh, shit,” moments, nor is this likely to be accomplished in a single game session. Or possibly at all. Like you say, it's a trickster story, and a damn cool one. Sometimes Anansi wins, kicks the UCS' butt, and laughs all the way to the Games of Divinity.

Other times, not so much. ~ VioletCrazyGirl

Mm. Artifacts don't give the kind of powers that Solars can learn with Essence 10, as a rule. That's basicaly plot device powers :) DS

Am I the only one who thinks Endowment should not allow you to increase someones essence above your own? - CorlanDashiva

Thankfully there is the fun stop-gap of, "Now that you all have Essence Fifteen, where you going to get teh xp to to reeeelly use it before someone catches on?" ~ SolVachel

Alternative

This is much more easily done, in a way GCG said is acceptable. Learn Sorcery and demon summoning, then summon demons that have the Endowment gift and get them to use it on you. ^_^ Well okay, I actually wouldn't allow this to be abused either. ^_^ -- BrokenShade

Glick! I'd forgotten about that. Guh. DS

Plan 2: Okay, you've won. What next?

You use Spirit-Binding Pattern on the UCS, then the game's over. See SpiritBindingPattern for details. -- Raindoll

Ah! But the game is never over! Though, at that point, it might be best to switch to another system. ~ VioletCrazyGirl