Ikselam/Discussion101103
- back to Ikselam
Discussion of news item 10/11/03
Hi ikselam. You've been quiet of late when it comes to the WW boards. 'sup? I dunno if I can agree with you about PAoC, so I just thought I'd mention something in a low-key fashion. PAoC Style is actually a metaphor for enlightenment. Each charm builds on the previous charms, as you discover the "nature of enlightenment" as it were. PAoC Form would suggest a supreme MA enlightenment. The concept is much like how Christians are taught christianity. You learn basic tenets first. You learn not to do this, or that. You begin to put those into practice. Then you learn how those tenets interact and WHY you're doing them. This continues in christian training for a few levels, until you're a priest. It's like the Lunar's odd "evolutionary" tree idea turned on its ear. Having played with these charms in a few arena fights, I think I see why they're done the way they are. Sidereal have low essence pools, and while they can regain essence quickly with MA and "Essence Replenishment" charms, commited essence can't come back. So sometimes, it makes sense to kick up your reflexive charm and commit for a short term ass whooping. They're useful when you don't have the greater sutra, but can instead use the lesser sutra. \\ \\ CPoC form is, for what it's worth, very in genre. I've seen two kung fu movies use that ass-kicking healing charm's idea, I suspect they might even be the basis for it. Really, I think this was meant to be an Atemi style, much like the way snake form is portrayed in many modern kung fu movies and games. In Exalted, chakra maladies and Dim Mak are much more insane, because they're more like fundamental flaws in your being, especially for exalts, since a significant portion of their body and soul is an extra essence construct globbed and glued on. However, I can see your argument. But how can you hate it? The entire tree is like slapstick comedy. "GOT YOUR NOSE!" "GIVE THAT BACK!" \\ \\ As far as I can tell, the sutras are really there for only one purpose, to mitigate the incredible cost of form charms. A sidereal who paid as much as everyone else would rapidly deplete their abilities. A Solar wouldn't. Besides, the Sidereal needed SOME advantage beyond the dice adder limit and XP break, reduced cost is pretty reasonable. Just my thoughts on the matter. \\ -- DaveFayram
I just decided to spend less time on the WW forum for a while. I don't really want to be party to all the arguments about whether or not Sidereal Thing X is over/underpowered, or to pay attention to the recurring stuff that gets my goat. I suppose I ought to be glad that a shift away from Lunar-bashing has occurred, but Solar-bashing seems to be coming back into vogue, and that bothers me. I just felt like I was getting a little too emotionally invested in things over there. I mean, geez, I realized that I was actually jealous of Neph and Mailanka, because of the people who can be relied upon to post "Hot diggity dog, you are so insightful!" every time they say something. When you start feeling annoyed by the fact that you don't have groupies, it's a pretty strong indication that you need to dissociate a little.
I am familiar with the synergy between medicine and martial arts in kung fu movies. My opinion is that Exalted should model it as just that: synergy. To be a really great martial artist, you must learn more Abilities than just Martial Arts. You need Medicine, to do all the cool pressure-point stuff. You need Dodge, to not get hit. You need Athletics, to jump around and flip off walls. You need Endurance and Resistance to not die when the bad guy hits you. And so on. To some extent, I don't have a problem with MA trees being package deals. I do have a problem with them really blatantly stepping on other Abilities' territory. It makes MA look superneat by shortchanging other Abilities, and that is not cool. The last couple Ebon Shadow powers should have been under Stealth; it's not like there were too many Stealth Charms in CB:N! Most of Citrine Poxes of Contagion should have been part of the Solar Medicine tree. The entire right-hand side of Prismatic should have been Lore or Occult. By subsuming these powers into MA trees, other Abilities are shafted. \\ _Ikselam
- Well Ikselam, I might note that if you look at the charms, they all reward you handsomely for having medicine, and to make new illnesses you need to have medicine. To identify them, you'd also need medicine. Besides that though, the Sidereal work differently from everyone else. They don't get more charms. One charm per star, and those charms are chosen by the maidens. Perhaps there is a lost, obscure constellation out there that gives you new abilities (or perhaps one can be made, that'd be fun!), but unlike Solars, the Sidereal only have one place to grow, MA. \\
\\ You couldn't really be a doctor with the CPoC tree, but you have some nifty tricks that could help a doctor. The way I see it, CPoS is training for the physical and spiritual act of manipulating living essence. Now, there are some rote patterns that someone with high medicine devised so that these are combat techniques. However, someone with medicine can use these raw physical skills to concoct truly frightening plagues. \\ \\ Like it or not, ultimately, MA in Exalted is Enlightenment, and Enlightenment is about everything. The ultimately Enlightened man can do everything well. It's a very eastern philosophy. Honestly, I think it adds a lot of flavor to the Sidereal. It also gives the Sidereal much needed combat boost, since their charms are rather lackluster.\\ -- DaveFayram
- There needs to be more than one path to enlightenment.\\
- And there is. MA is the slow, meditative route. All the other abilities will net you better powers quicker in one field. -- DaveFayram
- But you will never get the broad, category-spanning powers that MA gives. As you said, MA is portrayed in game as being the way to enlightenment. That is the justification used for why its Charms do the goofy things they do. Other abilities do not share this quality, except possibly Occult with its access to Sorcery. I think too much attention is payed to making MA all things to all people, when that effort could (and, I assert, should) be directed toward making up neat stuff for all abilities. My complaint with MA revolves around my conviction that current trends in MA Charms reflect poor design decisions, rather than any failure to understand the in-game rationale behind those Charms' existence.\\
Don't worry Ikselam! I'll be your groupie! In a totally heterosexual way, that is... -- Sigilistic
See, the thing is, I think having groupies is tacky. I like being praised (duh, everybody does), but I don't want to encourage sycophantic behavior (which is just embarassing for everyone involved). Not to mention that I can't realistically cast stones, since I'm not the greatest in the world when it comes to offering positive feedback; I need to do unto others a little more before I can start complaining that they aren't doing unto me (without feeling like a whiny little prima donna, that is).\\ _Ikselam
While I agree with you in not completely liking CPoC, it isn't exactly for the reasons you describe. Rather, it's because it's a style that impliitly is open at the base rather than the top, which is weird to begin with, and often the real features of the Charms (like the healing Charms) are hidden... Spirit and Body Purification Touch can erase memories; Perfect Reconstruction Method knocks people unconscious in transcendent ecstasy. These are strong, subtle effects. The tree is frightening in the broadness of its effects, but observe the massive costs they incur! It takes three kinds of spiritual illness to learn how to craft them, and doing so is not easy. Practically every infectious power requires a Willpower to use. Frankly, this bothers me because the style is not 'complete' in the way that CMoS is; you can't just be a Citrine Poxes stylist, you have to be a Tiger (or whatever) master who happens to know infectious powers.\\ - FourWillowsWeeping
I feel that PAoC is too over-the-top... given its requirements. Knock everything up into the Essence 6-8 range and I'd be much more sanguine about the power level and the overlaps. Personally I feel that Ability overlap should be more extensive, not less, at the upper levels, just not necessarily confined to Martial Arts. Want to develop the Wound-Excising Kata for Melee that cuts away wounds to leave healthy unbroken flesh? Or the Linguistic Charm Tongue of Creation that lets you talk to the little gods of raw materials to gain bonuses on Craft rolls? Sure, why not? On the other hand, a Charm that lets you smash Solar Circle Sorcery... I'd be a bit uncomfortable seeing that in Occult or Lore, let alone in Martial Arts. - Quendalon
Another thought on "exotic" MA: One way to make these seem less ridiculous would be to require something like "at least one Ability X Charm with Essence prereq Y"; make Sids learn their whole Medicine tree before learning CPoC, or an Occult tree before taking PAoC. I don't think that Spell-Shattering Technique is broken for what it does; the minimum difficulty for breaking a Solar spell is 8, after all. It's not easy for a Sidereal to get his hands on 16 dice. I hold, personally, that different Exalts should have different models for their upper-level Charms; your Solar model of ability synergy is great, but it wouldn't work for Lunars or Dragonbloods, and we'd need a wholly different Charm structure to postulate super-advanced Sidereals.\\ - FourWillowsWeeping
Oooh, I like that. Just require the student of a Style that leans heavily on some other Ability to have Ability equal to the MA requirement, where the Ability is whatever is most appropriate for that Style. Since all the Sidereal Styles seem like they'll be starting to have bleed over between their super-Styles and what other Exalts would do with another ability. Martial Arts are how the Sidereal would learn to do a lot of strange things, after all- they can't just build Charms anywhere else.
Plus, it lets you solve some of the overlap in certain Celestial Styles named Ebon Shadow Style. :) - DariusSolluman
As I've said, I strongly dislike requiring double Ability requirements in Charms of any kind, since it blurs certain important distinctions (do Styles that suddenly require Abilities other than MA become non-universal?) and leads to confusion, but I certainly think you can have nebulous Charm requirements like "any Essence 5 Stealth Charm".\\ - FourWillowsWeeping
What is so bad about charm overlap, anyways? And why is PAoC so bad? It's the weakest and least obnoxious of the 3 inner schools. -- DaveFayram
I just stated what's so bad - it's messy in terms of rules, especially with Eclipse-types. If you require that an MA style require Medicine 5, does it become a Charm tree dependent on a specific Exalt type because it is no longer "just" MA? If you say that Glorious Fist of Disharmony requires Perfection of the Visionary Warrior, then can you learn and use it even though you'll never have access to prayer strips and thus the usage of the previous Charm? When a Charm has two Ability requirements, do you get the favored discount if it's favored by just one Ability, or only if by both? What about elemental attunement? PAoC, if you ask me, is pretty neat; I'd have liked there to be less redundancy and less of the silly transformation effects... "Look! My fingernails turn into starmetal daiklaves! R0xx0r!" but it's full of neato powers like addicting people to your coolness and possessing people's weapons.\\
- FourWillowsWeeping
- back to Ikselam
