FixTheSolarCharmTrees/FivefoldBulwarkStance

Official Charm

Fivefold Bulwark Stance</b>

<b>Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: 1 Scene
Type: Reflexive
Min. Melee: 5
Min. Essence: 3
Prereqs: Bulwark Stance

The character receives unlimited free reflexive parries against any attacks of which she is aware.

Toram's version

As the official version, except:

The character receives a number of free reflexive parries each turn equal to her permanent Essence.

Quendalon's version

As the official version, except that its type is Simple rather than Reflexive.

Official version

1. CrownedSun
2. haren
3. BogMod
4. NatalieD
5. Fifth
6. Clebo
7. Kraken
8. Miedvied
9. tld
10. Grandmasta
11. GregLink
12. FlowsLikeBits
13. Somori

Toram's version

1. Toram

Quendalon's version

1. Quendalon
2. Darloth
3. CorlanDashiva
4. Raindoll
5. HeWhoSpeaksOfDarkness
6. DeathBySurfeit
7. DragoonDrake

Comments

This is one of the two charms (With Flow Like Blood) every Solar wants. There is a huge jump in combat effectiveness as soon as one of these two charms is acquired, and another huge jump when the second one is gained. This suggests to me that these charms are overpowered relative to other charms. Here is my suggested fix; it still leaves the charm quite powerful, but weakens it enough so that it isn't quite the "Must Have" that it is currently. - Toram

Similarly, nothing wrong with THIS charm either. --CrownedSun

Agreed - haren

Further agreed. -BogMod

I don't see why this should be Reflexive; aren't most scene-length Charms Simple? I match this change with making Bulwark Stance Reflexive. - Quendalon

I have to say i think i agree with Quendalon, otherwise Bulwark Stance never gets used (Unless you're really low on willpower). Also, it takes a LOT away from the 'jump the solar with lots of attacks' strategy that is supposed to work. If they can reflexively block them all that turn, and continue for the scene, it makes the strategem kinda pointless.\\

-- Darloth

I don't much care for that strategy. Dramatic showdowns are cooler than leaping out of the bushes. -NatalieD

I'd vote to make this Simple and FLB reflexive - dodge should be better at defense than melee IMO - CorlanDashiva

Agreed. Oh, and while you may not care for that NatalieD, several evil villains, especially those trained to fight exalted, apparently do. It says so in various books that elite groups of troops are often trained to use that tactic... off the top of my head Outcaste and in the errata which involves the Invincible Sword Princess.\\ -- Darloth (Although I agree with the undramatic point... so only for set pieces.)

Problem with the "Jump the Solar with 80 guys" strategy is A)It never works in the movies. B)It involves rolling way too many dice. I just don't want to deal with actually rolling dice againist all those extras: just do some cool stunt to refresh your Essence, acknowledge that a 5 die extra is not getting through a 12 die parry, and move on. If experienced Solars have to worry about mooks, it changes the whole tone of the game. I mean, how many mooks do you see running around TheIliad? - MeiRen

Not to mention, the groups mentioned in the books that use elite groups of troops as a tactic to take on solars, use it as a tactic to take on *freshly Exalted* exalts. If you're packing Fivefold Bulwark stance, you're either a) very combat focused, or b) experienced. You know what we call Very Combat Focused / Experienced Solars? Primordial Killers. - Miedvied

Dodge has enough of a boost in Power Combat to make this change unneccesary. In addtion, Full Dodges are unlimited by rates, so making the persistant parry reflexive and the persistant dodge simple makes more sense. -Fifth

The parrys granted by the Fivefold Bulkwark Stance are not affected by rate either, being as they are all magically granted actions... - Kraken

Yes, I'm aware of that. I'm talking about the "abort to full dodge and activate FFBS" which is a mainstay of Solar melee. Making the dodge reflexive and FFBS Simple makes that tactic much harder and less useful. -Fifth

My apologies for assuming that you didnt. - Kraken

I think that's -why- I decided the other version was better. In my view, being able to do something like that (especially with dodge being more effective in PowerCombat) is rather too powerful. After all, the point about scene-long charms is they take actions to put up... Your tactic means Solar melee specialists basically can get two layers of good quality defenses in a single action, and even do that -before- their init.
-- Darloth

You're talking about the difference of /one/ round of dodges/parries. Hell, not even one round - just the portion of inits that happen to sneak in before the Solar activates the defense. "much harder and less useful" is an extreme overstatement of the changes wrought by making the charm simple instead of reflexive. - Miedvied

Darloth:That tactic has been a Solar mainstay basically since the Core came out - I don't think calling it overpowered applies. It's like calling the Solar social charms overpowered because they rock - it's something they've always been able to do. Re-adjust your perceptions of Solar power level, rather than call it overpowered.

Miedvied:Actually, I'm not talking about one round - or just the inits that sneak in. If FFBS is reflexive, it doesn't take up your action. That means you can abort to full dodge, giving you a pretty damn nice stacked defense. If it's Simple, not only do you miss those first actions, but you can't do anything else - the only defense you get is the parry. This significantly reduces the power of Solar Melee defense, and I don't really see how you can argue otherwise. -Fifth

FFBS is a Scene-length charm. Making it simple reduces the Solar's ability to stack his defenses only for the first round of combat; it'll already be up for every following round. In the second round, he tosses up his FLB, and thereafter he's got his reflexive parry and reflexive dodge vs. everything for the remainder of combat. All you've done is stop him from doubling up his defenses for the first round of combat; he'll still have them both up and running by the second round. You seem to think that making FFBS simple makes all of it's parries simple; it does not. It's parries stay reflexive; only the charm becomes Simple. The Solar's defense stays the same - the reflexive parry/reflexive dodge stacking is simply delayed by one round. (And even then, it's only delayed assuming that FFBS and FLB are /both/ simple /and/ combo'd... outside of a combo, they can't both be activated in the same round anyway, and in a combo, if even one of them is reflexive you can activate them both in the same round.) The only thing you've accomplished is not letting the Solar abort to full dodge on the same round he activates FFBS; that's weakening a charm for *one* round. The charm is activated for every round thereafter, during which he can abort to dodge every single round if it makes his day. The word "significantly" has no role to play in this conversation. - Miedvied

I understand that after the first round, the charm will act the same whether it's Simple or Reflexive. However, it is the first round that concerns me. That's when Solars are weakest. Sure, if everyone gets, say, 3 turns of powerup time, who cares what type it is? But it does matter what type the charm is if the Solar is ambushed. Solars are very powerful with all of their persistants available. Hitting them and not giving them powerup time is one of the best strategies to kill a Solar. As currently written, FFBS + abort to dodge is one of the few good defenses against this, other than using a large combo every turn. And because the first turn is so critical, I think the word, "significantly" can and should be used in this discussion. Also note that neither FFBS or FLB can be comboed - only charms of instant duration are comboeable, and therefore all persistant defenses are out. If you activate FFBS and it's Simple, you do not have /any/ other defenses that round, barring indefinite effects such as Protection of Celestial Bliss.

As a second point, I would like to point out that changing the type to Simple means FFBS balances poorly against the Martial Arts persistant parry that was printed in the PG, which is also reflexive. Solar Melee should be superior to Celestial Martial Arts, and changing the type to Simple means FFBS would be much weaker than its equivelent. -Fifth

On a complete side note. In my current Exalted campaign I've ruled that a character cannot have both Five-Fold Stance and Flow Like Blood on at the same time. This prevents the defensive natures of the those two charms from stacking into something really disgusting. Since I'm not planning on them fighting Primordials anytime soon (a situation which most certainly would call for both being active, along with some other one's too), the ruling has been given understanding with my players. -[Sardon]

First, ambushing Solars is a joke - it's something that works for mooks against newly-born Exalts. Being made aware of all ambush attempts is an Awareness charm available to *every* sort of Exalt, Solars included (Surprise Anticipation Method, Awareness 3, Essnce 2, 1 prereq charm). Second, as I said before, only inexperienced or extremely non-combat focused Solars get taken down by ambushes - neither of which are the ones likely to have FFBS; if a character has FFBS, he's either experienced or combat-focused, and either way is not a character that should be taken down by ambushing mooks. Third, the first turn is not that critical - if your Solars live or die within the first round of combat, and they're not facing Celestines, something has gone horribly awry. Last, if you activate FFBS and it's Simple, you don't have /any/ other defenses that round... you're still reflexively parrying everything that's coming at you, with a minimum melee of 5. That is hardly an inadequate defense, against most anything short of another Exalt. And another Exalt is probably spending the round getting his own defenses up, 'cause he's facing down someone who's got Melee 5 and the majority of his charms invested in Melee. - Miedvied

However, what an ambush can do, is keep a Solar 'off balance'. If they dont have their scenelongs up you can force a Solar into a choice of 'put up scenelong' or 'keep charm usage for perfect defences'. Sure by the end of the first few rounds you might be tired out too, but if you put your scenelongs up before the ambush, you'll still be on top. So the first round can be of real import. If the Solar ca'nt abort to dodge and throw up fivefold bulkwark, his defence is reduced to the point where it becomes relatively easy to injure them and/or stick charms that cause a lasting hampering to them in the first round, as they can get a maxium of about 12-16 dice, which combat focused Exalt types can work about without much difficulty. Thats why ambushes can work on Solars. And that is why making fivefold bulkwark simple does reduce its effectiveness - Kraken

There is hardly a point in changing a charm in order to specifically allow a Solar to be put off balance in round one of combat if he's facing a combat-focused exalt and fails to succeed at his Perc roll to spot the ambush. That's such an absurd line of coincidences that it has no impact on game balance, outside of "Look, I have a single loophole-like situation which I can exploit to screw my player! Yay!". If someone's looking to hit the target Solar that badly, buy up some Super-Duper-Stealth charm and get in a free attack; it amounts to the same thing. - Miedvied

Well actually, its the proposed change of making it simple that is the one that allows them to be put off balence. I'm not saying wether this is bad or good, I'm just saying that the first turn can be important. Its not exactly a 'single loophole', merely one of the best ways of taking down persistant defences - dont let the person get them up. While Suprise Anticipation Method protects the character vs. the opening shots of the ambush, I dont believe that as written the charm precludes the possibilty of a couple of Dragonbloods using ordinary stealth and just hiding in the bushes over there as the solar wanders past. Yes, the Solar is (even without SAM) highly unlikely to be suprised enough they can't act or anything so extreme as that, but still they dont have their persistants up. The same situation also applies with assasins through the windows at night, which given the lives soem Solars lead is hardly so improbable a situation as to be absurd... - Kraken

Yes, but assuming that the Solar will get caught by surprise by character's potent enough to pose a threat (as I said, "...facing a combat-focused exalt and fail[ing] to succeed at his Perc roll to spot the ambush..." and lacking the awareness charm, and having specifically to get jumped in such a way to throw off his combat routine by one round... that /is/ a long line of coincidences. If it happens once or twice in an Exalts career, it's par for the course. If it happens six times, it's the ST unable to get past the Exalt's defenses any other way - which means the ST's doing something wrong (if a Solar doubles up on FLB and FFBS, he's saying, "I want my character not to get hit in combat. I'm paying the points to make it so. Challenge me some other way.")

As for getting their persistents up... again, we're talking about one round of difference. Do I toss it up instantly, or do I toss it up round 1, and start my attacks round 2? This isn't even an issue if the character succeeds at his PErc roll or has SAM up; unless you only let your characters roll or get made aware the *moment* they're being attacked ( in which case, you've gone out of your way to make the perc roll and/or the awareness charm useless ), then they're still going to get that defense up before combat starts.

Sure, a Stealth-charmed combat-focused Exalt might be able to ambush the solar. And even he is only going to get one round of advantage off of this. And if the ST tried it on me *two* games in a row, I'd throw my biggest fatsplat at his head, because he's bending the game to exploit a weakness in a charm. Then I'd buy SAM, and he'd have to come up with some *new* way of getting a one-round advantage over me.

Giving the ST a one-round advantage in a very, very specific situation is not balancing the game. It's creating a loophole solely for the purpose of letting the ST exploit it, and that's not fair to the players. End of story. - Miedvied

I dont see 'Wyld hunt ambush' or 'Exalted Assasin' as being that uncommon...not something that happens every session by any stretch, but not a bizzare line of coincidences. And I agree most of the time its still most sensible to just stick your persistant up anyway (and indeed I like the rules the way they are that lets you do that. though with cascading parries now part of the rules, the same situation could work if FFBS was simple and FLB reflexive, but thats a different debate) but there are points when this will screw you. and it will screw you more if you can't abort to defence as you stick them up. Which as you might note, I'm in favour of letting players do...

I do tend to view SAM as 'you are made aware at the moment'...otherwise why all that stuff about how you might stab your lover? If it wasnt instant you'd get time for reasoned judgement and not running your love through. Also all the perception rolls to spot ambushes all refer to first turn penalties, so I assume they are also pretty much concurrent with the attack, though I'd give my players a general awareness roll to spot the hidden party before they made a hostile move probably. In addition, nothing stops the players attempting to do the same to some Solar or Abyssal adversary, though I will conceed this is probably less common... While yes, someone who has invested in persistants is saying 'I don't want to die! look, see, here are the points' I will still try and challenge their invulnerability at times, the same as I would with any area a character has invested heavily in. Besides, you make it sound like twin stacked persistants is the Solar's only method of survival...how did they survive up to now if they can't manage without them? I dont set out to screw my players at every turn (my players will attest the dice does that often enough without my help) but as to throwing them a curveball every once in a while? - Kraken

Yikes, I go away for a while and look what happens.

Miedvied, just a quick question: if the difference in power level is as small as you say between it being Reflexive and Simple, then why does it need to be changed? If being Reflexive isn't overpowering... then why does it need to be made Simple, if (according to you) there is little or no practical difference? -Fifth

As far as I can tell, Kraken is arguing that it needs to be changed, Miedvied is arguing that it doesn't need to be. -- ReallyBored

Quite right. My position is that it isn't overpowering, and doesn't need to be changed. If you look up to the votes, my name is on the list for keeping the official version. -- Miedvied

As far as I knew, I was argueing that while it wasnt overpowered it did make a difference if it were simple or reflexive, a difference that could cost a solar his life, or at least make an easy fight a lot harder. I'm all for keeping the official version. - Kraken

So in other words, we're all argueing for the same thing, but we're argueing with eachother about our arguements? -Fifth

That would appear to be the case. go us! - Kraken

I dont see this charm overpowerful as the official version, it is a Solar combat charm. -- tld

I was the one saying it should be simple, but I didn't even have to be -around- to have my point argued.
...
Thanks guys! (and girls)

On a slightly more useful note... I think it should be simple because solar melee is too wide. Yes, solar melee defenses should be damn good... but why should they be better than dodge, an ability which does -nothing else- except defend? All the really nice solar close combat attacks are in melee too, so I don't see any reason it should get the easiest to use AND most effective defense charms. That's what I meant when I said overpowered, not that it was simply 'too powerful' for solars to have. I'm in favor of making Flow Like Blood reflexive, and I have no problem at all with people using that and then aborting to parry. Rate automatically makes that solution slightly less efficient anyway, allowing for good defense, which is still destructible with a sheer volume of massively good attacks, at which point you can be sure you're either supposed to lose for plot purposes or your ST is indeed an evil git.
-- Darloth

If it's made Simple, it gives experienced Exalts something to do with Bulwark Stance (Blaque's version, at least), namely buy them time until they can safely put Fivefold Bulwark Stance up next turn. Making an Exalt stall his opening into combat ubarness because you've jumped him on initiative kinda makes sense, and doesn't immediately result in mass Exalt slaughter, either. Also, I don't see eye to eye with the idea that just because a Charm is Solar or in the core rulebook makes it automatically balanced or 'cool'; it's cooler if a character isn't forced to pick a particular Charm by a particular point, because doing otherwise is stupid...DeathBySurfeit

My thought is that Melee has so many charms so that it can be a benchmark. It's something reasonable, with a lot of charms, of all three types (offensive, defensive, and 'other'), and with it, you use it as the Solar benchmark stick. Melee has like 20 charms, Dodge, 6 (or is it 5?). At the end of the day, if you think Dodge charms need to be better, make your own. That's the magic of dodge. With only a bit of effort, you can make your own superior charm, whereas in Melee, you've got this huge structure of benchmark around you boxing you in. By purposely making FLB simple, there's room for a 5/3 charm that has FLB as a prereq (thus making it higher on the tree) costs just a wee bit more to do it reflexively, even in response to things you can't see coming. Alternately, you can easily start coming up with an entirely new dodge tree that gives autosuccesses, rather than dice. By the time you hit the FLB/FFBS equivalent, it could be reflexive scene-long, and give an automatic reflexive dodge at Dex pool, plus Dodge autosuccesses. After all, dodging should be better than Melee, and we've got tons of Melee benchmarks, right? I don't know, I'm just thinking that, as a 'numbers guy' who games, Melee is the best benchmark we (and the later authors) have, so yes, everything should be measured by Melee, as it is defined to be the set standard. - GregLink

Personally, also like the official version, and would just make FLB reflexive also. As it doesn't matter that much, an serious threat can get through anyway, it's mostly just eating attack success to prevent an auto-kill. Honestly, I think this depends on how much of a difficulty you want to make surprise. Also, as it stands, SAM isn't all that usefull. Bulwark Stance is just worthless and shouldn't exist as written. -FlowsLikeBits

I think I've just figured out the design decision behind this after building a Water Immaculate. Where's the Power Twinkery page again, he is rather silly. Anyway, one of the problems with Scene-Long Simple charms is getting to your initiative to use them. And you can't combo a Scene-Long with a reflexive Instant defense. So with knowing FFBS and Flow Like Blood (9 charms), you can use FFBS when you are attacked before your action to be able to defend without affecting your use of a PD. In the second round, you already have that persistent defense so you can wait until your action to put up Flow Like Blood. -- Somori