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Exalted OOC thread; For the specific game or Exalted in general
Topic Started: Nov 10 2011, 06:36 PM (6,252 Views)
Vince
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Lord of Space and Time
Kesler
Nov 14 2011, 01:34 PM
If you want, I can post my guidelines for OOC style creation.
That would be nice. I've the write-up for the style I want to make already, but it's rough at best.
"AUTHORIZATION APPROVED!" -Jeff
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Kesler
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Okay, this will be rather long, so bear with me. To illustrate my points, I will used the Lord of the Storm Style I made with one of my players for his Outcaste.

First, come up with the concept that defines the style. For Animal styles this is imitation of said animal, Five Immaculate Dragon styles are emulations of their respective element, and Solar Hero style is Greco-Roman Wrestling on Steroids. For Lord of the Storm Style, it is an emulation of Air in general and lightning in particular.

The first step can (And with players, often does) come after a "I want to do X with MA" moment. This can be useful as it gives you a foundation on which to build, but it can limit your scope somewhat, too. The best thing to do in these circumstances is to take a step back and figure out what concept your desired actions would fit into, and then work from that concept.

Next, look to already created martial arts trees for a similar concept. If I were to make Horse style, I'd use another animal style; Crimson Panoply of Victory would use Violet Bier of Sorrows; for Celestial Dragon might be an inversion of Celestial Monkey. For Lord of the Storms I used Air Dragon Style, for obvious reasons.

Now, you make your own style's Form, capstone and introductory charms, in that order, using the chosen style as a template. This order is VERY important. The form is the focal point of the style and therefore is the closest to the concept. The capstone is where you want to end up, and is therefore the upper bound of the style. Then, the introductory charm is the most basic charm in the style, so it sets your lower bound. Everything else (From my experience) flows into place from there.

So, looking at Air Dragon Form, they gain a bonus to ranged attacks and Dodge DV from the flowing grace of the Air. Lightning is not graceful; it's path is jagged and indirect. What Lightning is, though, is fast and spontaneous. So, LotS Form will increase Parry DV (from faster reaction time), and give the enemy an external penalty to the enemy's DV's from the unexpected nature of the attacks.

Now, the Capstone charm. Air Dragon's capstone is a (MA) actions buff which increases movement speed, increases Dodge DV, decreases speed for attacks, and gives the ability to take extra attacks in a magical flurry. This comes from the emulation of the Hurricane, the "ultimate power" of Air. Based on that train of thought, the LotS capstone should emulate a thunderstorm in as undiluted a form as possible. Thunderstorms don't always have high winds, so no action speed decrease or movement speed and DDV increase. Thunderstorms are relentless and Lightning hits it's target, so immunity to internal action penalties and increase to accuracy of attacks and PDV. Instead of granting you a magical flurry from raw speed, your enemy get's their actions delayed by your attacks (fluffed as convulsions from electrical shocks). Because the mechanical benefits of LotS's cap charm is weaker than Air Dragon's, I remove the bhl damage to even it out some.

Then the Intro charm. Air dragon gives you a scene long buff which makes you able to use the air to see. This makes you immune to mundane surprise attacks and darkness, so long as you are surrounded by air. It's useful, but only in certain situations (bad lighting, people sneaking up on you). So, I will give LotS a magical flurry with the restriction that it can only be used if the previous attack hits and that each attack must be against a new target. This makes It useful, but only in situations where you are fighting large groups of low powered enemies.

Then you fill in your style using the same general structure to the charm tree as the base style. Charm mins should remain the same, and use the costs as a guideline for costs, bearing in mind alterations in the usefulness of the benefits. If the charm is different in scope from the base, like the intro charm above, use charms like it to determine mote cost. The important thing for the construction of charms is to see why that charm does what it does in relation to the overarching concept, and then apply that line of thinking to your concept; this is easier the closer the two concepts are to each other.

For Form weapons and armor, it's best to look at your related style, but with a grain of salt. Animal styles, for instance are rather easy in this respect: Find a weapon that mimics the animal's primary means or attack and make that the form weapon (Horse style, for instance, might use clubs); then allow armor relating to that animal's natural armor (Ox style would allow armor, but Crane style doesn't). This gets harder the more abstract your concept, but it is possible; as with previous aspects of Style-gen, your template style acts as a guideline of reasoning. LotS style is a sword-based style (that was the whole point of making it, to have a sword based CMA that an Outcaste could reasonably expect to be taught), which is nothing like the chakram of the Air Dragon. When in doubt, give no form weapons or generic MA weapons, though I've never had problems with this step.

And that's pretty much it.
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Kesler
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I've posted the circle's collective resources on the first page of this thread. They will be edited as the game progresses and people claim individual items.
Edited by Kesler, Nov 15 2011, 06:37 PM.
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Dietaku
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How much background info should I add for a game for newbies? Looking at it, the thing I love about Exalted; that it has all sorts of neat-o nods to other fantasy and tropes through its HUGE landscape, would also be daunting to new players, especially players that are new to RPGs in general.

I've considered making it region-specific in order to cut down on other things, but stuff like the Wyld Hunt and the Realm seems necessary evils no matter where I place the game. Any thoughts?
"I believe that normal has been left behind some time ago, my good man."
--Jeff
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Kayen
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Glorious Beautiful Sage
How would a stranded Alchemical fare in Creation without an army behind her? I'd like to try them again, but the whole "Oh, yeah, you need all this infrastructure to be viable at all" is a little grating. Any hints which DON'T involve apostate charms? I'd rather that my robot not get all weird, thank you.

oh, and FYI, check out my new AdEva game thread. Its totally cool and stuff.
"Silence! We will wait for them to transform into their robot before destroying them"
-Prince Garuda, Combattler V
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Kesler
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Dietaku
Nov 15 2011, 11:38 PM
How much background info should I add for a game for newbies? Looking at it, the thing I love about Exalted; that it has all sorts of neat-o nods to other fantasy and tropes through its HUGE landscape, would also be daunting to new players, especially players that are new to RPGs in general.

I've considered making it region-specific in order to cut down on other things, but stuff like the Wyld Hunt and the Realm seems necessary evils no matter where I place the game. Any thoughts?
I'd give a brief synopsis of events, say five minutes, hitting the major events of the setting (the creation of Creation, Primordial War, Usurpation, Great Contagion, disappearance of Scarlet Empress and return of the solars), and then spend some time to explain what the native exalted are and what they do, but not particularly in depth.

Then you should explain the Realm, Immaculate Order and Wyld hunt briefly and in very general terms, because they do cast a large shadow over all of Creation.

After that, go briefly into the history of the area your in since the great contagion. Mainly what major states/ cultural groups are there, how do they react to one another, and to the major inter-regional players (Realm, Confederation of Rivers, Wyld, Deathlords)

The Scavenger Lands is a good place to start for both newbs and experienced players because it's so fragmented that you can't reasonably expect even a native to know all of the political complexities, but it has a rich and varied climate that can appeal to people more in the know.

It's best not to go into things that they shouldn't know, like the nature of the deathlords, the abyssal and infernal exalted, etc. and let that come up in gameplay.

Naturally there are some other things you would have to get into, depending on the exalted involved (e.g. Silver pact for Lunars, BoD for Sidereals). For this reason, I'd keep Sidereals for more experienced players. That said, a sidereal/older (as in exalted several years before everyone else, so more worldly wise, but without extra xp) Solar PC played by a more knowledgeable player would give the newbs an in-game resource without turning to you. Heck, I've even used an NPC GF Sidereal operative as a walking encyclopedia for my players.

Assuming this is not a hypothetical (and you're the one STing ths game), then, if I were you, I'd strongly encourage Vince to step into this role, even to the point of allowing a sid in a solar game (I image he'd be playing with you, and that he wants to play a sidereal; they're kind of his thing). His knowledge of the setting has put me to shame at times.
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Kesler
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Kayen
Nov 16 2011, 12:05 AM
How would a stranded Alchemical fare in Creation without an army behind her? I'd like to try them again, but the whole "Oh, yeah, you need all this infrastructure to be viable at all" is a little grating. Any hints which DON'T involve apostate charms? I'd rather that my robot not get all weird, thank you.

oh, and FYI, check out my new AdEva game thread. Its totally cool and stuff.
It would be hard for them to operate on their own. I'd find it hard to separate the infrastructure from them, since it plays a significant part on what makes them unique.

That said, all that means is that the group has to have a properly built Workshop-manse, which is hard, but not impossible. Also, I'd say that as long as the group has a magnitude 2+ domain characterized as an Large town/city you'll be good. This isn't something that we've done yet, but Vince has expressed interest to me in doing it in this game.

I'd also like to say that, if you want to change characters, your current PC doesn't have to die. Just let me know and I can put them on a bus to have awesome off screen adventures. They'll keep up EXP so you can switch back at any time.
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Kesler
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Now, I have a question to you all: Are you interested in taking over/setting up a dominion?
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Dietaku
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I'm down with taking over a domain. To be perfectly honest, I built Zebran off of an elder Solar NPC I made for another game, who was at open war with the Mask of Winters, so I built him with gathering people around him as something he could easily do.

And now for some thought experiments I've been pondering. First one:

If a Solar sets up a hero cult, and an open challenge to all Wyld Hunt members to fight him is built into his cult's creed, then is it a heresy for the Wyld Hunt to track him down, and thus impossible for DB monks to fight him without being kicked out of the Order?

Secondly...

We have 2 Sidereals, named Aleph and Bet respectively. Aleph is a Chosen of Serentiy Bronze Faction guy heavily into Archery and a Master of Wood Dragon style. He has the capstone of both and is a man who believes that snipers really do "Reach out and touch people." He is, as a discple of Ketchup Carjack, also a total a-hole, but there ya go. Bet, on the other hand is a GF Chosen of Journeys heavily into Throne Shadow Style, as she feels she needs to support her Solar allies quietly (Unlike other GF Sids I've seen.) For flavor's sake, she's on her way to Gem to prevent a circle of Solar PCs from blowing up the city; a chore she earned due to a bad bet she made as a novice. She has a DB ally with her, and the form charm active on the DB, so he is guarding her at all times. Now, Aleph , seeing the duo, fires a pair of shots using a combo. One is a conceptual arrow using the Archery capstone to fire the idea of "My Ally" to make the DB into a new tool to wield against Bet. He then lets loose the Wood Dragon soul killing attack to finish Bet off. The DB is hit with the archery charm, and because of the guard other action he is taking, would be hit with Aleph's soul killer arrow. HOWEVER, the DB uses Safety Amongst Enemies to interpose Bet between him and the attack, now considering her an enemy. Now, assuming this all occurs and I understand the charms right, who does the attack hit, as Throne Shadow's form makes the DB guard Bet, but Safety Amongst Enemeis forces Bet to take the hit as she is moved into the attack's path. Vince says its a moot point, as if Bet favors resistance, she has access to a counter charm which would redirect the attack at Aleph immediately, but it made me wonder to no end how this would play out. Your take on this?
Edited by Dietaku, Nov 16 2011, 05:03 PM.
"I believe that normal has been left behind some time ago, my good man."
--Jeff
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Kesler
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Dietaku
Nov 16 2011, 04:02 PM
And now for some thought experiments I've been pondering. First one:

If a Solar sets up a hero cult, and an open challenge to all Wyld Hunt members to fight him is built into his cult's creed, then is it a heresy for the Wyld Hunt to track him down, and thus impossible for DB monks to fight him without being kicked out of the Order?

No. The Cult of the Illuminated stresses proper reverence paid to terrestrial deities in the same manner as the Immaculate Order. The Immaculate Order considers the Cult to be heresy, but they have a non-heretical practice. In the Solar's case, it would not be heretical to track him down, because it is part of the monks duty as per the Immaculate Order's dictates to do so.

BUT, if you worked a specific ritualized form of combat into your Cult's tenants and then tricked an Immaculate into fighting you in this manner, it would count as a one-dot legitimate priest performing ritualized prayer which is LOTS of power. Then if you killed him, it would count as a human sacrifice at the end of the ritual, which would multiply it even further. I would say that, if you did this (including killing the monk), you would get a +1 to your cult rating from residual power for the next month.

Dietaku
Nov 16 2011, 04:02 PM
Secondly...

We have 2 Sidereals, named Aleph and Bet respectively. Aleph is a Chosen of Serentiy Bronze Faction guy heavily into Archery and a Master of Wood Dragon style. He has the capstone of both and is a man who believes that snipers really do "Reach out and touch people." He is, as a discple of Ketchup Carjack, also a total a-hole, but there ya go. Bet, on the other hand is a GF Chosen of Journeys heavily into Throne Shadow Style, as she feels she needs to support her Solar allies quietly (Unlike other GF Sids I've seen.) For flavor's sake, she's on her way to Gem to prevent a circle of Solar PCs from blowing up the city; a chore she earned due to a bad bet she made as a novice. She has a DB ally with her, and the form charm active on the DB, so he is guarding her at all times. Now, Aleph , seeing the duo, fires a pair of shots using a combo. One is a conceptual arrow using the Archery capstone to fire the idea of "My Ally" to make the DB into a new tool to wield against Bet. He then lets loose the Wood Dragon soul killing attack to finish Bet off. The DB is hit with the archery charm, and because of the guard other action he is taking, would be hit with Aleph's soul killer arrow. HOWEVER, the DB uses Safety Amongst Enemies to interpose Bet between him and the attack, now considering her an enemy. Now, assuming this all occurs and I understand the charms right, who does the attack hit, as Throne Shadow's form makes the DB guard Bet, but Safety Amongst Enemeis forces Bet to take the hit as she is moved into the attack's path. Vince says its a moot point, as if Bet favors resistance, she has access to a counter charm which would redirect the attack at Aleph immediately, but it made me wonder to no end how this would play out. Your take on this?

It would hit Bet. Defend other would allow Bet to use the DB's PDV as a defense, and if the attack still succeeds, the DB may CHOOSE to have the attack's target transferred to (him/her/it)self. But, assuming that happens anyway, the Defend Other target switch occurs at Step 3, while Safety among Enemies occurs at Step 5, so it would switch to the DB, then back to Bet. And Bet would only be able to use Shield of Destiny (that Resistance Charm) if the DB did not shunt it over with Safety among Enemies, since Shield of Destiny works on Step 4. UNLESS Bet has Storm's Eye Stance (Sid Resistance Cap charm), which would be able to operate as late as Step 8.

So, it would be Bet (from DB target shunting) or Aleph (from Bet shunting target to him).

Also, Planetars were here, Chejop Kejak is an asshole.
Edited by Kesler, Nov 16 2011, 07:35 PM.
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