Character sheets

[bravesirrobin]

admin said:

Also, I'm not happy about splitting BPs in half. If you want a 3-dot speciality in your weapon, you're just going to have to lose half a bonus point.

Otherwise, seems like a cool character. Can you lmk your choices for manse and artifact (even if they're the same as previously stated; I can't remember where they were).

Muh? I thought this was always allowed - you spend a bonus point on specialties, you gain two dots. You put them towards different specialties....

Claiming half bps was just for useful notation purposes. Will rejig if you want.

Artifacts: Fire Dragon Armour (4dot) Hearthstone Bracers (2dot) Weapon: Sai/Daiklave (2dot)

Haven't chosen Hearthstones yet.

[Learned Hand]

You get 1 dot of specialty per bp; you only 2 if its a specialty in a favoured ability (if memory serves - maybe its different for DBs?)

Either way, unless it specifies otherwise I'll rule that the point is spent on dots on one abilty. If that means that you have to waste half of a bp then them's the breaks.

Incidentally, you made the exact same ruling re. Kilik (or at least, I said it sucks that its rarely worth taking a thiid dot in speciality because you could get 2 dots in another specialty for the same cost, and you agreed, rather than suggesting that I take the 3rd dot and then a 'free' first dot in something else)

[oneiros]

Sidetracking for a moment... under the charm cascade restrictions is 6,5,4,4 permissable?

[oneiros]

Or even 6,5,5?

On yet another note, since there doesn't appear to be official errata for MXP:DB - on p165, the description for Clear Water Prana has prereq of Investigation 5 but the charm tree diagram above shows only Inv 4. Which is correct?

[bravesirrobin]

admin said:

You get 1 dot of specialty per bp; you only 2 if its a specialty in a favoured ability (if memory serves - maybe its different for DBs?)

Either way, unless it specifies otherwise I'll rule that the point is spent on dots on one abilty. If that means that you have to waste half of a bp then them's the breaks.

don't remember that. but am happy to go with that ruling. you are correct about bonus point costs.

admin said:

Incidentally, you made the exact same ruling re. Kilik (or at least, I said it sucks that its rarely worth taking a thiid dot in speciality because you could get 2 dots in another specialty for the same cost, and you agreed, rather than suggesting that I take the 3rd dot and then a 'free' first dot in something else)

thought about coming up with an excuse, like 'i was young and foolish then' or saying that i probably just wasn't listening to you. but i decided to man up and admit the most likely thing is i'm predisposed to rules calls that benefit me

i also read the combo rules late last night, and i think i may restructure my combos, since i can't choose whether to use Dragon Graced Weapon/Arrow, but rather I'm forced to use them.

actually i'd quite like a ruling on this. dragon graced weapon describes the effect as causing the target to burst into flames, but says this means the attacks does +4L. dragon graced arrow has the same effect, but says it causes 4 dice of environmental damage. DGA says specifically it can't stack, DGW has no such stipulation. are we gonna take it as written? in this case DGW is a great charm and DGA is mildly useful....

[Learned Hand]

oneiros said:

Sidetracking for a moment... under the charm cascade restrictions is 6,5,4,4 permissable?

Yes. The 2nd '4' counts as your '7'. In 6 5 5 the second '5' counts as your '7'.

For the other queries, I'll check out the books tonight

[Blackrat]

admin said:

Either way, unless it specifies otherwise I'll rule that the point is spent on dots on one abilty. If that means that you have to waste half of a bp then them's the breaks.

Boo. You read my post, right? (Just to check. If you did, I'll shut up.)

I'm never going to "waste half a BP" - I'll just take a full Ability dot instead of the specialty dot 'coz it's the same cost. (I very rarely max out Abilities and then add specialties - Fox is the only exception.) Hence my third point in that post.

Incidentally, you made the exact same ruling re. Kilik (or at least, I said it sucks that its rarely worth taking a thiid dot in speciality because you could get 2 dots in another specialty for the same cost, and you agreed, rather than suggesting that I take the 3rd dot and then a 'free' first dot in something else)

So we all have to suffer? (Yes, I know that's not what you mean really I'd have protested that ruling then, if I'd known about it. Bad BSR.

[oneiros]

Okay, have got first draft of Cobalt up. In the same vein as BSR, wish he had a bit more in social.

Stuff I wish he had (and why):
Some Integrity (Desperately)
One more point in Presence & Resistance (Effectiveness)
One more point in all favoured (Überness)
More Specialties (Coolness)
Valor 2 (Character)
More Charms (Awesomeness)

[Learned Hand]

blackrat said:

admin said:

Also, I'm not happy about splitting BPs in half. If you want a 3-dot speciality in your weapon, you're just going to have to lose half a bonus point.

Really?? We've never played that before. I don't like it for several reasons:

1. I don't think there's any implication supporting that in the rules. (I may be wrong.)

2. I don't see any reasoned justification for it - if things cost half-BPs, why can't you buy two of them for one BP? Just because they come from different abilities doesn't seem a logical reason to me. It results in the only worthwhile specialty level being 2, which is a bit daft given that the mechanics allow for three separate levels.

3. Most importantly, it will discourage people from taking specialties, which I think is a Bad Thing. It's hard enough to flesh out an Exalted character at the best of times, without devaluing this method.

I hadn't noticed this post before. I'm not aware that anybody has ever suggested it. If they had, every character I ever made would have a 3-dot specialty in their chosen weapon, and a 1 dot in something else. As for your specific points:

1) They never, ever talk about half bps. I would suggest the assumption should be that something doesn't exist unless it is explicitly mentioned. Not that canon is the most important thing.

2) My attempt at a reasoned justification is that it prevents min-maxing (As an experienced min-maxer I know what prevents it!) by discouraging use of a 3-dot specialty in favour of an alternative specialty, or a dot elsewhere.

I think the fact that, as a result of this, the only worthwhile specialty is 2-dot says more about us exploiting the rules to guarantee maximum power than anything else. Am I the only one who has taken 1 and 4 dots, rather than 2 and 3 dots, because the xp to take it to 2 in-game, is less than the xp to take it to 4? Or that matter, 1 and 1, rather than 2 and 0? If I am the only one, then I shouldn't be; it's a neat trick. But I certainly wouldn't complain that the only worthwhile dot distributions are 1 and 5.

Nothing stops us taking specialties in non-favoured abilities (cheaper than raising to 4 dots) or a 3rd dot of specialty without spending the 'extra' half bp. It may well be that our characters should have those distributions. We just think there are more worthwhile ('powerful') distributions of dots.

3) See my answer to (2). There's an argument that we (I'm sorry if this doesn't include you; it certainly includes me and I'm just assuming everybody else is kind of similar) should care less about a single dice than what is appropiate for our characters.

[bravesirrobin]

oneiros said:

Okay, have got first draft of Cobalt up. In the same vein as BSR, wish he had a bit more in social.

Stuff I wish he had (and why):
Some Integrity (Desperately)
One more point in Presence & Resistance (Effectiveness)
One more point in all favoured (Überness)
More Specialties (Coolness)
Valor 2 (Character)
More Charms (Awesomeness)

He looks pretty cool. Noticed a couple of things. Firstly, he seems to have 4 favoured abilities, assume Martial Arts is a mistake. Also, I am worried about is your DVs, i dont's see a solution, but it doesn't seem as though you've got a whole lot of defense.

[Blackrat]

admin said:

1) ... I would suggest the assumption should be that something doesn't exist unless it is explicitly mentioned.

But that's exactly my point! The rules say (don't they?) that you can buy two favoured specialty dots for 1 BP. There's no implication that they have to be in the same ability. Therefore why assume they do? It's like reading "You can buy backgrounds for 1 dot apiece" and inferring "but they all have to be in the same background".

2) My attempt at a reasoned justification is that it prevents min-maxing (As an experienced min-maxer I know what prevents it!) by discouraging use of a 3-dot specialty in favour of an alternative specialty, or a dot elsewhere.

As someone who never min-maxes, I think there are better ways of discouraging it than breaking builds made by players like me. It doesn't just discourage you from taking 3-dot specialties, it also discourages you from taking 1-dot specialties (favoured only, obv). Which restricts your options a lot.

I think the fact that, as a result of this, the only worthwhile specialty is 2-dot says more about us exploiting the rules to guarantee maximum power than anything else. Am I the only one who has taken 1 and 4 dots, rather than 2 and 3 dots, because the xp to take it to 2 in-game, is less than the xp to take it to 4? Or that matter, 1 and 1, rather than 2 and 0? If I am the only one, then I shouldn't be; it's a neat trick. But I certainly wouldn't complain that the only worthwhile dot distributions are 1 and 5.

I don't think I've ever done that And there's a difference between something being worthwhile because it's the absolute optimum once you've tweaked your character to the limit and something being worthwhile because otherwise you're losing points in that one stat for no reason.

Nothing stops us taking specialties in non-favoured abilities (cheaper than raising to 4 dots) or a 3rd dot of specialty without spending the 'extra' half bp. It may well be that our characters should have those distributions. We just think there are more worthwhile ('powerful') distributions of dots.

3) See my answer to (2). There's an argument that we (I'm sorry if this doesn't include you; it certainly includes me and I'm just assuming everybody else is kind of similar) should care less about a single dice than what is appropiate for our characters.

It doesn't include me I always try to create balanced characters, and as a result I often end up less powerful than the other PCs. Now I'm being penalised even for the unique-ness I'm trying to inject into my character. Result: I can't afford to be less powerful than the other PCs by any greater a margin, so I'll just not specialise. Boring! And frustrating, particularly given that there's no implication that this is canon.

If you want to discourage min-maxing, then I'm wholeheartedly behind you. But I'd much rather you did it by looking at a character sheet and saying "less min-maxing, please" than by blanketly disallowing a rule that I'm not exploiting. Especially as this really doesn't go very far to prevent min-maxing - as you say, it's only one die; if anyone wants to power-game, it's still easy to do so.

[bravesirrobin]

I have min-maxed hugely in the past. I still have a tendency, but I'm trying to restrain myself.

The thing that sparked this off was the 5+1 Dodge and the 3+3 melee on my character. I have reassigned to be 5 Dodge and 4+2 Melee. The bonus dodge was multiple enemies - so was more for using Safety Among Enemies (one of my most favourite charms ever!) than overwhelming power.

I don't know if this explanation supports BR or LH, but I wanted to say it.

[Learned Hand]

You've *never* min-maxed? Have you forgotten Eric?

But I take your point that you're generally a lot better at avoiding it than me and BSR.

We should probably skip on any further debate on the correct interpretation of the rules. In the interests of funsies (which trump canon anyway) I'll rule that (a) you can use 1bp to buy dots in specialities from separate favoured abilities but (b) the 3rd dot in a specialty costs 1bp, favoured or not.

This satisfies me that min-maxing is still difficult, because it stops you taking a 3rd dot in a specialty without thinking. I hope it satisfies BR that specialties are still worthwhile, particularly if they're spread out.

[oneiros]

bravesirrobin said:

He looks pretty cool. Noticed a couple of things. Firstly, he seems to have 4 favoured abilities, assume Martial Arts is a mistake. Also, I am worried about is your DVs, i dont's see a solution, but it doesn't seem as though you've got a whole lot of defense.

Thanks. Yeah, the MA is a typo. Problem with spies is that they need to cover so many bases skills-wise. Am tempted to drop Inv down to 3 to get another speciality - maybe in dodge. Is it feasible to allow a chakram to parry if i took a +1 dodge speciality??

But yeah, DVs are an issue on all fronts with only the Dodge excellency to shore them up. Am going to have to try stunting my dodges but plan is also to not put myself in a position where I am attacked. Aim is to cover you guys from afar and use Whirlwind Defense and anima power to deflect range attacks.

Alternatively, I'm considering a short daiklave (to go with the Infinite Jade Chakram) so I have a decent close quarters attack and defence option for PDV. Any other suggestions gratefully received.

[Blackrat]

Fine by me. That compromise occurred to me after I'd posted, in fact, but I thought I'd let you reply before suggesting it

Eric - fair point. I can't remember exactly what I did with his specialties - but I suspect his Melee was probably 5+3, yeah. A special case, though, I think you'll agree - especially as I didn't enjoy RPing him anyway so I won't be min-maxing again any time soon

Thanks, LH.