Character Creation

[johandenerad]

Those both look cool, though the endings overlaps significantly with Icaron. I like the ninja battle more. I'll go with whatever you miss out, though the idea of 'spirit chastising bureaucrat-sorcerer', all the with social fu, terminal sanction and MA if need be, is an appealing one. Ennico could easily be that if I took the Solars out of his background. Hell, I suppose they could still be there, and he could advise Solars on how to beat on the Terrestrial Bureaucracy to advance Heaven's ends.

In short, I'd like it if you went for the stealthy type, but I'm still happy to fill in whatever gaps are left.

[bravesirrobin]

I don't think the endings would overlap with Icaron much - pretty much just the occult ability. I could post my concept for the endings and you guys can see what you think.

[johandenerad]

And craft, investigation and sorcery (you have the same spell).

Anyway, here's my idea, which does just overlap in occult (and not the sorcery part).

Attributes:

Str 2 (4xp) Cha 5 Per 3
Dex 4 Man 4 Int 4
Sta 2 App 3 Wits 2

Abilities:

Journeys: Thrown 1
Serenity: Dodge 2, Linguistics 3, Performance 2, Socialise 3
Battles: Presence 4 (1bp)
Secrets: Investigation 1, Lore 3, Occult 5 (2bp), Stealth 2
Endings: Awareness 3, Bureaucracy 4 (1bp), Integrity 3, Martial Arts 4 (1bp)

Backgrounds:

Acquaintances 1
Allies 1 (God of Terrestrial Re-assignment)
Artifact 2 (Starmetal Serpent Sting Staff)
Backing (Convention of Wood) 3
Backing (Convention on Essence Wielders) 3
Connections (The Violet Bier) 1
Celestial Manse 1
Salary 3

Colleges:

The Rising Smoke 5
The Sword 3

Virtues:

Compassion 2 (3xp)
Conviction 4 (3bp)
Temperance 4 (3bp)
Valour 2

Essence 4
Willpower 8

Charms:

Favourable Inflection Procedure

2nd Performance Excellency

Shun the Smiling Lady
Cash and Murder Games

Impose Motivation

3rd Occult Excellency
Mark of Exaltation
Telltale Symphony
Incite Decorum
Unweaving Method
Willing Assumption of Chains

Prior Warning
Expected Pain

2nd Bureaucracy
Icy Hand
Terminal Sanction

Unhearing Dedication (4bp)

Secrets of Future Strife (10xp)
Blade of the Battle Maiden (10xp)
Joy in Adversity Stance (10xp)

15bp spent
64xp spent

[bravesirrobin]

Yeah, that was pretty much my concept too. Nice build.

The first character that LH posted was his previous concept, and yes, you're correct there was huge overlap with Icaron. That was one of the factors that led to the change.

[Learned Hand]

It's a good build. O has ruled against having more than one charm of VBOS. I would think 4th excellency + an artifact weapon should do the trick, and frees up two charm slots. You and Yours Stance and Life without Compunction are both hilarious and would work well with your character (imagine a spirit under the effects of YaYS, being offered a contract via WAoC). Heart Brightening Presentaion Style gives you both socialise and presence excellencies, which could be useful

I suggest we use him. In that case, it make sense to either have Icaron + my battles, or my original concept (possibly modified to remove occult overlap) + BSR running a stealthy kind of guy.

BSR?

[bravesirrobin]

Not really attracted to the stealthy guy. So if you're happy with that one LH then let's move forward with this model.

[johandenerad]

Wanted to steer clear of LWC and YaYS, just because they are a bit crazy good. But if I can only have the one charm from Violet Bier, then I guess that's where those two'll go. Was waiting on getting HBPS until we'd started, but I guess I could get it now, drop Unhearing Dedication maybe. Incidentally O, if we can't have more than SoFS to start with, I'm likely to just save up and buy BotBM straight away so unless you want to ban it outright (which I wouldn't complain if you did), there's not much point me not being able to start with it.

[oneiros]

I'm really loathe to simply outlaw a charm tree, even something like VBoS. Given that combat is not going to be frequent, the charm prob won't see a great deal of use and it makes sense for your char.

I guess what I'll say is that first four charms of the style are fine but form charm and upwards are 'strongly frowned upon' (not that I really expect anyone to seriously be considering taking them beyond JiAS).

[bravesirrobin]

I still think the easiest way to fix BotBM would be to bring it back under the normal rules of Sidereal Dice adders. So it's a pretty meaningless charm at ess 2 or 3. nice at ess 4 and 5 and great at 6 and 7. i still don't understand why it's written as breaking the restrictions.

[oneiros]

Actually that really does sound like a good fix, so I think I'll rule that instead of max being [Dex+MA] (which is stupidly good), the max is [Essence].

This does have the drawback of the bonus to Parry DV not being so good but I don't think I can realistically say that instead of adding to the pool, it adds directly to DV.

Though, since my Exalted rules-fu is still not brilliant, would this mean that you can effectively add [Essence]×2 dice in combo with 1st MA Exc (assuming no penalties)?

[bravesirrobin]

Yes - except that BotBM dice should clearly count as dice added from charms and therefore not be allowed to stack with 1st or 2nd.

it basically turns BotBM in to a scene long 1st excellency, still a nice charm just no longer stupid powerful. i personally would then also take 3rd and 4th MA excellencies, both of which would work well in combination. but combination without the need for a combo.

[johandenerad]

That's a good fix, but I'd make it cost 1wp rather than 2. The not needing to combo thing probably isn't worth the extra wp. That makes it still powerful, but not stupid, like before.

[oneiros]

Okay, I'll think about that and probably let you know tomorrow. Or we could be sad and talk about it at the party tonight when we're all together

Oh, and I guess you should go ahead and change character sheets in that thread when you're sorted.

[johandenerad]

Will do.

Talk about rp at a party?

What else were you planning to talk about?

[oneiros]

I'll be showing up with U and JP so the 'K' word is bound to be prevalent for most of the evening