Eldmar/ImpenetrableFireAndSteelVisage

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Impenetrable fire and steel visage

• Circle : Sapphire
• Cost : 20 motes, +10 motes per additional subject and 1 willpower per 2 additional subjects.
• Duration : 1 scene

This spell was created during the First Age as another in a series of co-operative spells affecting only the Solar Exalted. This spell relies on the virtuousness of the Solar Exalts and the blessing of the Unconquered Sun to function. As such it can not be learned by by other type of Exalted. Those Solars who have performed actions deemed inappropriate i.e those lacking in virtue should be extremely carefull when invoking this spell effect.

During the First round of casting a pale golden glow begins to emcompass the subjects of this spell, this light gets brighter over the next round untill at the end of the second round of casting the light merges with the essence being spent and crystalises within the Bodies of the Exalted subjects. This causes the skin to become almost impenetrable and makes the subject stronger, faster and more resilient to damage. The golden glow produced by this spell lasts untill the duration expires and renders stealth almost impossible.

Mechanically the spell confers the following bonuses;

1. Bashing soak : + 18
2. Lethal soak : + 12

3. Strength : + Valor
4. Dexterity : + Compassion
5. Stamina : + Conviction

6. A Hardness rating equal to 6.
7. The subject may soak lethal damage with their full Stamina.

Finally, the spell has an additional effect when facing the minions of Malfeas, Whenever the subject of this spell is struck with a melee attack by the enemies of the Unconquered Sun (inc Ghosts, Demons, Abyssals, Nemissaries etc) the attacker is struck by a backlash of Golden Essence, the attacker takes a number of dice of Aggravated damage equal to the permenant essence of the enscorcelled character being struck, these dice are rolled and applied seperately from the damage delivered by the attack. This effect is not an attack and so cannot trigger any form of counter attack, it ignores armour and cannot be soaked by anything other than charms or spells specifically giving a soak against aggravated damage, or by using an applicable perfect defense (the 'victim of this spell will not be aware of the backlash effect unless he has experienced it previously (story tellers discretion) and HGD does not work against this spell effect). This effect also occurs when the subject of this spell successfully strikes such an opponent doing at least 1 Healthlevel of damage post soak.

This spell may be cast on a number of extra targets up to the permenant essence of the caster at the extra cost in motes and willpower as stated above. It is stackable with armour but not charms that increase soak or Invulnerable skin of Bronze. The soak created by this spell counts as natural soak against attacks that ignore armour / piercing attacks / or charms soakable only by natural soak.

The original version of this spell was 'rediscovered' by a Twighlight of the Second Age, At this time he is the only Sorcerer that has access to this spell, as he is the reincarnation of the First Age Twighlight Sorceress that originally created it. Due to the perils of the Second age Eldmar has done a great deal of work researching and testing a variation of the original spell and now has finally completed it.

Comments:

I must admit that I'm slightly concerned this is a tad overpowered. It might not be, but then again it might be. The issue I see is that a lot of these effects stack - heavily. For example, in terms of Agg soak, we see that we first get a +6. Not too bad. Oh, and we can add our Conviction to our Agg Soak. So now we're in the range of a +8 to a +9 agg soak. With an Agg Hardness of 6. Given that most Agg attacks do very little damage overall (see Snake Style Ultimate, for example), an Agg Hardness of 6 is enough to really stop a lot. In addition, if one is wearing any type of armor whatsoever (say, a simple Llamellar), you're walking around with a 17-ish Agg soak. Pretty solid. Oh, and your bashing soak went up by 24+Conviction(around 26-27, then), and you've got a 24 hardness, so you can be reasonably immune to all bashing. As for Lethal, it goes up by Conviction*1.5 + 12. That's about 16 or so lethal soak, with a hardness of 12. That means some guy with a Daiklave, doing Str+5L, let's say with a Str 5, has to get three success on his attack roll to even damage you. Daiklaves, wielded by brutes, bounce off of your skin, most of the time. Compare to Invulnerable Skin of Bronze, where a Str 2 guy with a Daiklave is guaranteed to get through your hardness. At this point, we're clearly above and beyond Skin of Bronze. So then we point out that this works on another four people the day you learn the spell (your min Essence at the time you learn it is four), so suddenly, you're casting this automatically on everyone in the circle you hang with. Suddenly, your 'weak paper martial artist' is a solid as a rock fighter. And your heavily armored Dawn Caste friend? He's unhurtable. But hey, you just blew 30m and 2WP and two turns to do it, so I'm still not complaining. Though I think at this point you've hit the limit of Sapphire. You then go on to point out that against enemies of the Sun (AKA enemies of the Solars, AKA a common enemy for most Solar-based games), anytime you touch them, or they touch you, or shoot an arrow at you, they take an automatic number of levels of Aggravated damage equal to the subject's permanent Essence, which we've already established is near 4. The way this is phrased, it's auto, unsoakable, non-rolled aggravated damage. Nearly unhealable in combat, and by the wording applicable to Deathlords (Ghosts, ..., Abyssals, etc), you can take down the FaFL simply by having him hit you 12 times. Might be difficult, as you'll most likely die, but you've brought four friends. That means he's got to kill each of you in 2 hits or less, or he'll die in the process. Not normally a problem, but if you're all walking tall with Adamant Skin Technique, he's toast. At this point, we're way over Sapphire Sorcery, and solidly in the realm of Solar (or above!). And we haven't even talked about the attribute bonuses yet, and their effect on your damage, attack, parry, and dodge rolls. And the initiative boost of Compassion+Temperance you're getting. So, there's three main effects. Soak boosting, Attribute boosting, and Darkness-slaying. All three are quite solid powers, especially when you apply them to a whole Circle. One spell that does all three is just frightening to me. Compare, then, to Incomparable Body Arsenal. With that, you get (roughly: +10 Lethal and Bashing soak and hardness, a supply of weapons, +2 Str and Sta, and it's not compatible with armor or real weapons (such as your Daiklave of Awesome+4)). At 10 hardness, we see that a Daiklave with Str 5 will always get through, which is a good thing. We see that we can no longer use our awesome personal weapons. We see that we can't wear armor. We see that we get only small, fixed bonuses to only two attributes. (The minimum attribute bonus from the proposed spell is +2). We get no specific bonus against Agg. We get no ludicrous bashing hardness and soak. We get it for only the caster. And, most importantly, we get it only for ourselves, not for the whole circle. Oh, and while we're at it? We don't get four unsoakable auto-agg against pretty much one of the top two enemy-types in game. Sorry to drop a hurricane on your christmas, but this is Solar circle, if even then... - GregLink, Second-Circle Demon of Crunch

He has a good point. This is a fair chunk over celestial circle. Although if you cast it on your circle of 4, it would cost 50 motes and 4 willpower. Even so...
-- Darloth

Not so - note the phrasing "This spell may be cast on a number of extra targets up to the permenant essence of the caster at the stated cost." That's a bit ambiguous, in that I read it as "may be cast on additional targets up to Essence...at stated cost" part implies that it may be done for free (if by "stated cost" you mean "the base cost of the spell", and you only pay for people above and beyond that. I can also see where your interpretation comes from, in that you'd need to pay for everyone, and can only pay for so many. If that's the case though, you really don't need to specify a max number of targets, as the cost becomes prohibitive fast enough that you needn't worry about armies getting empowered by this thing. - GregLink, thankful that Darloth agrees.

ok, so he might need it to read that "This spell may be cast for a cost of... on any extra targets, other than the sorcerer." And guys, that circle of four is 30m +2Will(base), and [10m +1w] x 4, for a grand total of 70m and 6w. it might even be worth that, but definitely at solar. -grypph, used to uber powerlevels.

Actually, the cost reads "+10 motes and 1 willpower per 2 additional subjects", so four total subjects is +20m and +2WP, for a grand total of 30m+20m+2WP+2WP = 50m+4WP (if it's Sapphire) or 50m+5WP (for Solar). And yeah, if it were Solar, and cost as much as you noted, (10m+1WP per additional person) I think I might be able to stomach it. For that much cost, I'd take it, I think. But barely. - GregLink

sorry, 'bout that. my math was a little fuzzy last night. -grypph, not up to crunchiness.

• • Okay, thanks for the input - i think i agree perhaps a little too over powered so i have made some adjustments and brought it down a little. how do you think this looks now with the changes? Eldmar

---

In a whirling circle of gold and sage, a tiny speck of light appears. Straining and tugging, the speck grows larger, until finally, out of the amorphous light, steps GregLink, second-circle Demon of Crunch. In a low and rumbling voice, he speaks... "Almost."

• You've still got to clarify how the auto-Agg thing works, as the way it's written, it's unclear if it's pre-soak, environmental, or 'attack' damage. This is important, as pre-soak means you can soak it, environmental means you can soak it to zero, and 'attack' means you can HGD it, and counterattacks activate in response to it. If it isn't an attack, it must be environmental, no? If it's not environmental, that means it has intelligent Essence pushing it, meaning there's a minimum non-zero it can be soaked to - who's Essence is it? The caster? The character so ensorcelled? The poor target?
• The cost seems a bit odd to me, with 30m + 10m per target. I'd be actually happier with something along the 20m range, or even 25m. Combat spells are usually lower cost than their long-ritual friends, so that you're not tied up with 30+ committed motes in combat. Just for that reason, and that alone, I'd lower the primary cost.
  • Spells do not cause commitment of essence, unless they explicitly say. Currently, this spell commits no motes. As soon as you've cast, you can theoretically regain them all.
    -- Darloth
• Otherwise, I'm much happier with the boosts it provides - getting rid of the Agg-specific defense and the generally Daiklave-proof hardness really really helped.

Turning to the left three times, and muttering under his breath, the luminescent whirlwind appears once more, and with a silent flash of light, GregLink is gone. - GregLink, trying to stunt his comments.

• • Ok I think i have done what you were after, the essence backlash is along the lines of the corona of radiance melee charm which does additional seperately rolled unsoakable agg dam based on the solars essence if i remember rightly..?Eldmar