TonyC/StoneMonkeyOldComments

Comments

Was the Gem of Perfect Mobility amended to grant true independent actions? Last I recall, it just granted two fully splittable actions, but didn't grant expanded Charm use like CMoS Form does. - David.

I always thought that it did give two fully independent actions without amendment... - GregLink

"[the character] can take two normal actions per turn without any penalties and may divide her dice pools normally to gain additional actions" I will grant that it is possible to interpret that as granting expanded Charm use, but that would be a dramatic enough difference that I think it would be made clear. Besides that, Castebook: Dawn predates Independent Actions, as those were introduced in the Sidereal book. - David.

My opinion: There is no restriction in the actions granted by Gem of Perfect Mobility other than it doesn't stack with extra action charms or other things that gives extra actions. There is no restriction in the actions granted by Charcoal March of Spiders Form other than it doesn't stack with extra action charms or other things that grant extra actions. Therefore, the two of them are the same. In Exalted, the default answer is yes. So unless something explicitly says "forbidden" or "can't do that", I'm going to assume that it's allowed. - TonyC

That's pretty flimsy logic. The CMOS form's actions are very carefully noted as being a new type of action: Independent. That new type of action is carefully defined as being, basically, two turns that happen on the same initative tick. The Gem simply gives two fully splittable actions. It doesn't say anything at ALL about Charms. And the general rule is One Charm Per Turn. Charms, Artifacts and Hearthstones have to say they break another rule before they can break rules. Maybe the Gem of Uberfastness does give an Indie action, but I haven't seen where it says that. So I'm pretty sure it doesn't. - Telgar

Gah, you're right. Now that I have some time to think about it, it is flimsy logic. I'd be better off using the "It's cool" argument. I'm going to let this sit for a day so people can see that my interpretation is not canon, then I'll edit it out. Luckily, the actions granted by the Gem isn't key. - TonyC

Looks pretty scary, but I'd suggest giving him more Artifacts than that; he could have Shield Bracers or Hearthstone Bracers (or Perfected Kata Bracers), and maybe Silken Armour. - FrivYeti

Silken Armor would make all of his VBoS Charms useless, though. (Bearing in mind, of course, that we're not using house rules for this, so Silken Armor still counts as Armor. That is, unless I've overlooked something a writer has said - it's entirely likely that I have.) - David.

IIRC, Nephipal has said that he would consider Silken Armour to be compatible with martial arts and soak-boosting Charms, due to the fact that it is otherwise the crappiest artifact ever. However, he didn't actually write Castebook: Eclipse. - FrivYeti

Well, let's not kid ourselves, these Solars need all the help they can get. Given that it seems rather common to houserule Silken Armor to not count as armor, and that there are White Wolf writers who are in favor of this houserule, it could probably be allowed. That 5/3 soak isn't likely to make all that much difference, though. It might be more effecient to commit those motes to other artifacts or Charms. - David.

Also, during the developer chat, an irritating amount of text was devouted to answering the question for the Jade City game: No, it does not count as armor. It can be used with any (published) martial art. -LeSquide

Stone Monkey is done. Yes, I have 92 XP leeway. Just assume it's spent on all the other things where XP would be spent in actual play. Socialize, for example. Unless I made a mistake, or there's something really big that I'm missing, this is it. - TonyC

Honestly? I'd strongly recommend dropping 18 XP into Endurance 5 and 40 XP into four more Ox-Bodies. Maybe buy some Athletics stuff, just in case. As it stands, I can see a couple of ways for the Lion to brutally destroy him pretty quick. - FrivYeti

Stone Monkey thumbs his nose at Lion's attempt to intimidate him. Bring it on! :) - TonyC

I agree with FrivYeti. I think Mr. Monkey is going to really wish he had those extra 12 health levels after getting tagged by the Lion for the first time.-Ambisinister

You're not going to pop in some charms... on the off chance you get to use 'em? Like... erm... LTA or TAP or Eagle Wing Style? ~ haku who thinks stone monkey does look impressive.

I thought about both LTA & TAP. Initially The Calm After has TAP, but after thinking about it, I erased it. There's no need. If The Calm After works, Lion's paralyzed, at which point Stone Monkey can pummel him at leisure. As for Eagle Wing, it's nice, but with the two turn set-up, Stone Monkey has no time to activate it. Also, I think an artifact tetsubo needs to be used two-handed while Eagle Wing requires one hand. - TonyC

Why not buy up to the Adamant body charm? Which if you use in conjunction with the essence recovery charms available to Solars could net back some essence if he does get hit. This is of course if your defenses fail. You might also want to let Stone Monkey have Ebon Shadow's distracting finger... it's a neat charm that allows people to SLOW down their opponents, and it -stacks- with multiple uses on the same person. Sure, you'd need to spend ALOT of essence to reduce the Lion's initative below 1, but it's doable.
~ Haku who really does want to see some Solar winning...

Because getting hit is really really a last resort for Monkey. Quite a bit of Abyssal charms do bad things when they actually connect, regardless of damage. As for Ebon Shadow's finger charm, there's style weapon compatibility issue. Also, usually charms don't stack with itself unless the text specifically says so. Check the Abyssal Athletic charm Spider Pounce Technique, for example. If you let it stack with itself, it gets ridiculous. Still, maybe it will stack if it comes from two people. - TonyC

Point... the trick is that you only need a free hand to do the finger trick, it's reflexive and instant and triggered at the start of the turn, and has NO text stating it can only be used ONCE on a single person or that it can only be used once per turn. No, I'm not joking. It can be defeated by reflexive or extra action charms or combos. Also note to defeat the Lion's init would require... oooh... at least 4 or 5 applications, which costs 8-10 motes, if it's not part of a combo.
~ Haku

I don't have the Night Caste book on my at the moment, but I would say that using repeatedly on the same person wouldn't stack. Just applicability in general, that. - FrivYeti

I would suggest you take a read of the night caste book first before saying no ~ haku

To those people who keep saying "Get more Ox-Body". Please stop. I know Ox Body is neat, but I do know what I am doing. Yes, if Lion hits Stone Monkey at full strength, Stone Monkey is dead, but to do so he needs to get past a perfect dodge, a perfect parry, and a combination of charms that's pretty much a perfect soak. If Lion pulls that off, either Stone Monkey is out of motes or Willpower, or Lion has this super trick combo that I couldn't predict. Either way, it doesn't matter how much Ox Body Technique Stone Monkey has, he's dead. DEAD. - TonyC

Now, for Distracting Finger Gesture Attack. There's the one activation per instant rule in the PG. Meaning that one person can't just activate that charm over and over again to eat the opponent's turn. Possibly if the whole circle does that, the effects will stack, as you could read that as multiple attacks, but I don't intend on doing that. The no-splitting benefit is great already. - TonyC (who did the math anyway and figures that 5 people doing Gesture Attack is at most -25 to init, which won't affect Lion at all)

Well... given that the lion's init is 16 (raw) + varan's ruin 14, for a total of 30... the thing is... it's ONLY 30 IF he uses that weapon in any given round. Also note that if you can drop him down to 5 init + whatever he rolled... you do get the jump on him. Also, when running the Lion, it should be noted that he DOES have 'sample' high essence charms with effects and costs listed on page 285 and they SHOULD be considered and made part of any hideous combo. Supplemental melee charms that can only be defended by perfect effects for 5 motes sounds good and nasty doesn't it? ~ Haku

The "one activation per instant" isn't new in the Player's Guide, it first showed up in the Errata, and mostly applies to things like instant soak-boosters, instant parries, and things like this that actually occur at one "instant" in combat. Multiple applications of Distracting Finger Gesture Attack don't have to take place at the same "instant" in combat. I think what Haku (I think that's who it was) was suggesting was to activate it several times in a row, rather than several times at once. Under a rather twinky reading of the rules, this could work, and since we're going for a rather twinky reading of most rules in order to give the Solars a shot, well, it might be worth considering. - David.