Madwand/Anti-Parryable

In response to my Solar Archery Charm, Death of One Thousand Splinters GregLink posted the following in the Comments section, postulating the existence of a Charm that was "anti-parriable". This isn't the kind of charm I'm looking for in my Solar Archery tree right now, but the mechanic is facinating and worthy of further discussion. This page has been created for that purpose. Comment away! - Madwand

Hey, wasn't me. I just named it. GregLink invoked one of his Second Circle Demon of Crunch special powers, and wrought it from the raw stuff of the wiki. I wonder what spirit charm that counts as...
-- Darloth ponders

Perhaps 'anti-parriable' is the more correct term? Neither is technically a word, so no doubt the scholastic debate on the subject will become the stuff of legends...DeathBySurfeit, pensive

Ah, yes. Ahem. Quite right, and corrected on both counts. Too bad the wiki doesn't have a mechanism for renaming pages, darn it. - Madwand

Discussion

Yeah, I don't think you're going to convince me on a power-level or rules-theme. That's not saying you're a bad person, or that I'm right, just that I can't really stomach something that's such an obvious take-off from thrown. Perhaps if you cleansed your mind for a minute, and re-imagined what kind of mechanics and color text might be associated with such a "...arrows that explode into multiple duplicates..." theme? One idea is below, because I'd never ask someone to do something I couldn't at least try:

Death of One Thousand Splinters</B>

 <B>Cost:  5 motes
 Duration:  Instant
 Type:  Simple
 Minimum Archery:  4
 Minimum Essence:  3
 Prerequisite Charms:  Swift Flight of Shattered Arrows

• As the arrow leaves the bow, it sails towards the target with no indication of any supernatural activity. At the apex of the shot, in a flash of light, the arrow bursts into dozens of smaller, golden shards, raining onto the target with impunity. While the poor target might try to parry, he will find even a normally remarkable parry insufficient, as with every shard he shatters, two more form. If a target attempts to parry this attack, treat the successes on the parry roll as bonuses to the attack roll, rather than negatives. Attempting to dodge the attack is equally futile, as the large area covered by the shower reduces all dodge pools to zero before the effect of charms.

It might be unbalanced, or horrible, but I'm just trying to say that there might be a way to simulate thousands of shards without totally narfing Thrown's trademark charm. I'm also saying that if you disagree with me, that's ok. I'm not the UCS here, just some guy who wants to keep thrown as separate and individual as possible - it gets so little love.
-- GregLink

congrats, you've just made a new CLASS of mechanic... I'd say that charm is anti-parriable... I wonder how it interacts with an automatic but non-perfect defense, such as Impeding the Flow? Would your DoOTS be upgraded into a perfect attack, or just double the successes, or be defended against, or what? It's certainly an interesting new mechanic however, but whoa is it good for a 4/3 charm. I'd say 5/3 at least, and probably more cost. But anyway, I agree that the original charm is a bit too closely copying thrown... If you still want that sort of effect, the cost should be higher, maybe around 6-7m, and perhaps the applicability should be toned down to only be undodgable by any rolled dodge (or any imperfect dodge if you think it needs extra oomph). If I could think of any extra mechanics or flavour to get a differing version with the same effect, I'd suggest it, but sadly I cannot.
-- Darloth

Darloth - Thanks for the congratulations. It's always fun to accidentally invent new mechanics. The trick with "anti-parryable" offenses is that anyone worth their salt won't attempt to parry it. If by "worth their salt" I mean "Has suffered greatly at it's hands before". As for how to deal with other things, I'd claim, since this isn't a perfect effect, that perfect parries would still work. (That's what perfect means, no?) Thus, HGD and such would actually be able to parry it. As for the poor Sidereal, well, in my "anti-parryable" world, I'd claim that it's counted as if they had rolled all successes on their full parry roll. Not nice to the Sidereal, but Exalted is all about cross-mechanics. If you've got someone with a perfect dodge, hit them with an undodgeable. If you've got someone with a really uber 3m super-parry, hit them with an anti-parryable and make them weep. Given that super-parries are so few and far between, and often low-cost anyway, I don't see a real problem with anti-parryable effects being that unbalanced around them. The trick, as the Sidereal, is to recognize that maybe parrying isn't such a good idea. Also, I fully agree with your theory that (Ability 4, Essence 3) is a bit low for such an effect. Thing is, I was trying to demonstrate how it's possible to come up with a cool effect that isn't just a total ripoff of CoCT. Sadly, the one I came up with isn't quite appropriate for the power level he's looking for, but it's something. If you want to steal my mechanic for other charms, however, I encourage it. Always glad to contribute to the body of knowledge out there. -- GregLink

I disagree - I think, since this is not a perfect attack, the usual rule of defense-over-attack would apply, and ItF's nearly-perfect parry would have the same effect it always does. As such, I don't think it's horribly overpowered - nasty, yes, and potentially fatal if poorly handled, but the same could be said for many Charms in the game. If there's any aspect of it that I would express concerns over, it's the dodge penalty - something that's mostly-unparryable and mostly-undodgable seems fairly hefty, and should probably require a Willpower cost of some kind. I'd also buy that 5/3 is a better set of reqs than 4/3. I don't think it's broken, mechanically, however. - Hapushet

It would also be possible to interpret that ItF would have no effect on this charm's attack at all, since this attack can't be stopped by parries, but ItF doesn't involve rolling or successes. This would make sense to me flavor-wise, since the way ItF works is to find the one chance in all of fate in which the attack can be successfully parried. Since such a chance does not exist for this attack, ItF is not applicable.

In any case, some kind of specific reference to perfect and nearly-perfect defenses would be called for in implementing this mechanic every time it is used. Obviously, applicability-trumps like Heavenly Guardian Defense always win, but things like ItF which don't trump applicability are more difficult. I mean, what would you do with Portentious Comet Deflection Mode, which wouldn't reduce the original attack with its successes in the first place? By strict wording, though the successes rolled for that terrestrial charm would be added to the attack, the effects of the Deflection Mode would still stop the attack from hitting if there were at least 3 of those successes.

Specific reference to perfection, if not to individual charms, is probably the best way to go. - IanPrice

Wow. All this discussion, for what was intended to be a throw-away mechanic that was cool. Apparently it was pretty cool. I'm still charging someone with writing up a 'completed' version of the charm, perhaps covering perfection and sub-perfection explicitly, as IanPrice notes. Any takers? -- GregLink ,too busy working on his dissertation

Regarding that challenge, how's this?

Death of One Thousand Splinters</B>

 <B>Cost:  5 motes
 Duration:  Instant
 Type:  Simple
 Minimum Archery:  4
 Minimum Essence:  3
 Prerequisite Charms:  Swift Flight of Shattered Arrows

As the arrow leaves the bow, it sails towards the target, surrounded by a filigree of golden lines. While the poor target might try to parry, he will find even a normally remarkable parry insufficient, as with every shard he shatters, two more form. If a target attempts to parry this attack, add the resultant successes to that of the attack, rather than deducting them. Any effect that parries an attack regardless of successes rolled (this includes perfect parries, such as Heavenly Guardian Defense, and those for which attack successes are irrelevant, such as Impeding The Flow) will parry this Charm.

I've deliberately left out the dodge effect because to have an anti-parry AND a dodge nerfer in the same Charm (that's what Comboes are for, silly) seems patently ridiculous for a Charm at these prerequisites and cost....DeathBySurfeit