DrLovemonkey's Holistic Lunar Review

[DrLoveMonkey]

Well swaying grass doesn't require aura it just helps. Fire just gets access to most of dodge and actually presence. Which gives you access to aura of invicibility. Use snake form and combine and you have a really good dodge.

Hmmm, I actually think it does require Aura. It has the Aura keyword which reads as such:

Aura: Aura Charms can only be used while the Dragon-Blood is in the Elemental Aura that matches its aspect. An Aura Charm can’t be used in the same instant with Charms of other elements, unless those Charms have the Balanced keyword.

Aura of Invulnerability could certainly help, although it also ends if the DB gets crashed, so they have to make sure that doesn't happen. Again, it's an Aura charm too, so you need to use it on your second turn. If they've also got heavy armor and ISoS though then maybe they could survive two or three of the Lunars withering attacks. If the Lunar young anyway, at higher essence Ferocious Biting Tooth and Divine Predator Strike are going to let you slice through that soak.

I'm a bit wary though of saying that a DB can get an edge by stacking native charms with MA or Evocations or something though. I think it's true, especially with some of the corebook styles, but if I start doing that I also have to start letting the Lunars in the combats have MAs and combine with animal forms and stuff, and I think the Lunar is coming out ahead in that. The bear abilities in the last fight alone were insanely good.

[Epimetheus]

Hmmm, I actually think it does require Aura. It has the Aura keyword which reads as such:

Aura: Aura Charms can only be used while the Dragon-Blood is in the Elemental Aura that matches its aspect. An Aura Charm can’t be used in the same instant with Charms of other elements, unless those Charms have the Balanced keyword.

Aura of Invulnerability could certainly help, although it also ends if the DB gets crashed, so they have to make sure that doesn't happen. Again, it's an Aura charm too, so you need to use it on your second turn. If they've also got heavy armor and ISoS though then maybe they could survive two or three of the Lunars withering attacks. If the Lunar young anyway, at higher essence Ferocious Biting Tooth and Divine Predator Strike are going to let you slice through that soak.

I'm a bit wary though of saying that a DB can get an edge by stacking native charms with MA or Evocations or something though. I think it's true, especially with some of the corebook styles, but if I start doing that I also have to start letting the Lunars in the combats have MAs and combine with animal forms and stuff, and I think the Lunar is coming out ahead in that. The bear abilities in the last fight alone were insanely good.

Oh, hmm that's true. I didn't quite realize that till now. Still dodge and presence has a pretty good tech in fire aura. Also, half the point of MA is that they get stronger abilities than their native charms which is why they can use aura to boost MA. Also, an essence 1 lunar and an essence 5 db have different levels of access to styles.

[DrLoveMonkey]

Oh, hmm that's true. I didn't quite realize that till now. Still dodge and presence has a pretty good tech in fire aura. Also, half the point of MA is that they get stronger abilities than their native charms which is why they can use aura to boost MA. Also, an essence 1 lunar and an essence 5 db have different levels of access to styles.

Yes, that they do. I'm sure that there is some combination of effects that work out in the DB's favour, but they will be extremely rare. Even a powerful and high essence DB will not want to fight a purely dedicated Lunar combat monster at Essence 1, unless they're like chargen Essence 1 with a limited number of charm picks, but even then maybe not. He's experienced, he's wildly powerful, but the Lunar just has too many ways to punch up over his head and tear his arms off. Or grapple smash him right through a solid granite support pillar. Or a number of other things I will be looking at in the next big section.

Of course, it's a DB that you're fighting, if you challenge a powerful Essence 5 Dynast to an honourable 1v1 duel to settle the matter of who owns your territory, you're probably going to end up fighting his entire circle and dying horribly. I also wouldn't go into a fight thinking it's in the bag. A combat focused Lunar will never have to worry about losing a fight to a Claw Strider because of a couple bad rolls, but they absolutely could to a powerful DB.

[Alpharius]

I could try running a few more white rooms later where I use 2 younger DBs against one Lunar, but I'll have to tone back the DBs attributes at least, because I think it's unreasonable for a young DB to have 5s across the board

I'm not going to hold a gun to your head for this, but I feel like if you're running a DB game a couple lower essence but decently capable warriors ganging up on a Lunar might be worth seeing how a few combat builds do, if you're willing to poke that stick. I have some gut feelings on the way this would go, after running a DB game for a bit under a year, but am kind of curious if those get replicated in an actual combat test.

I'll probably be doing my own before too long, but that would be less white room and more viciously slamming my PCs against a char gen Lunar in a Wyld Hunt more so than anything.

[DrLoveMonkey]

I'm not going to hold a gun to your head for this, but I feel like if you're running a DB game a couple lower essence but decently capable warriors ganging up on a Lunar might be worth seeing how a few combat builds do, if you're willing to poke that stick. I have some gut feelings on the way this would go, after running a DB game for a bit under a year, but am kind of curious if those get replicated in an actual combat test.

I'll probably be doing my own before too long, but that would be less white room and more viciously slamming my PCs against a char gen Lunar in a Wyld Hunt more so than anything.

I might have to conscript some of my players to help out with that if that's the case. I could do maybe 2 young DBs vs 1 Lunar, but I'm not confidant I could do like, a Lunar and a battlegroup vs 4 DBs.

[Maseiken]

Speaking of DB Synergy in combat, just glancing at Harnessed Firestorm Assault, I can see some truly horrific synergy with the humble Distract gambit.

[DrLoveMonkey]

Speaking of DB Synergy in combat, just glancing at Harnessed Firestorm Assault, I can see some truly horrific synergy with the humble Distract gambit.

Do you mean by distracting 3 times in a turn, or by being the beneficiary of a distract gambit and unleashing 1.5 times that in damage?

[BrilliantRain]

Just as a note, you might want to consider going back and trying an Earth or Fire stylist, since I think there’s somewhat a dearth of Water Aura defensive charms at the moment, so one of them might do better.

Also, do the DBs just lack charms that say ”this charm may be activated after the roll?” I don’t remember that being especially prevalent in Lunar charms either.

[DrLoveMonkey]

Just as a note, you might want to consider going back and trying an Earth or Fire stylist, since I think there’s somewhat a dearth of Water Aura defensive charms at the moment, so one of them might do better.

Also, do the DBs just lack charms that say ”this charm may be activated after the roll?” I don’t remember that being especially prevalent in Lunar charms either.

I’m actually thinking of just spinning this off into an Arena thread since people seem so interested.


I also feel like I might still not be clear what I mean. It isn’t that Lunars/Solars have a ton of charms that they get to activate post-hit, although they do have some. It’s when they activate offensive charms and then miss, those motes are wasted. Like for example if you launch an attack with Essence Dousing Wave and Drowning in Blood Technique, that’s 8m 1wp that you’ve put up front on an attack that’s probably going to miss, being decisive, so you’re spending motes on effects that will probably not trigger.

On the Lunar/Solar side of things, they can dump like 15 motes into a big combo attack and be reasonably sure that it will land. It’s less of a gamble, and for the DB the fact that theirs has a lower chance of success doesn’t come with the compensation of a more powerful effect.

[Zeesun]

It sounds like, from your sample set so far at least, Solars and Lunars approach/are at combat-power parity. In light of how powerful Solar charms (particularly with Supernal) seem now that we have some reference points, that's seriously impressive. It has interesting implications for how interactions between the splats will go in-game as well; it's one thing if Solars are generally expected to come out on top of one-on-one fights against Lunars with equivalent investment in combat charms, but another if that isn't the case. Hell, with light to no investment it might even be the case that Lunars are straight-up more powerful than equivalently invested Solars. It also sounds like there's a notably larger gap between Lunars and DBs than there is between Solars and Lunars, fightin'-wise.

[Ghosthead]

It sounds a bit more like that's the way you might want it to be, for tradeoffs to be more about consistency than sheer power of attacks comparing DB / Solar / Lunar - if it's about both then you'd end up with a lot of "not tall enough for this ride", where DB just never win at all (1-on-1), while if it's mainly about consistency, sometimes it happens, mostly it doesn't?

You've kind of used an Essence 5 DB here; does that imply that Essence 2-3 DBs would fare much worse, or is it more that they'd fare about the same (same kind of levels of probability or win or lose), simply because DBs tools don't really scale much up to Essence 5 in ways which are useful for this matchup? I guess my bias would be to be a bit more sanguine about the latter than former.

[Maseiken]

Do you mean by distracting 3 times in a turn, or by being the beneficiary of a distract gambit and unleashing 1.5 times that in damage?

The latter was my thought, on the assumption that a melee specialist with that much essence is probably the most dangerous person in the room, but if there’s an IMmaculate stylist available then absolutely they could use those distracts, still a handy charm (I hadn’t even thought of HFA as a source of gambits, intriguing.)

although my thought was that in the context of a wyld Hunt you’d benefit from more than one distract before you unleashed the fire and fury. So to speak.

It’s not just the initiative, those distract gambits are still applying onslaught. They don’t even need to be especially good at combat to be helpful. Even a non-exalt will most likely have enough i from their JB to contribute an attack that the anathema should Really spend to avoid. Assuming even One hits, it’s about +3 to your eventual damage rolls, plus the onslaught for every attempted distraction.

On top of that, you need Fire Aura to use it, right? Well, that limits you to the second turn of combat, but it doesn’t mean the first turn is boring. I’d advise focusing on Guard and Defend Other though, which leaves you plenty of room to use your many, many Fire based parry charms. Assuming you’re a Big Target (you’re a high-essence melee specialist so you probably are or can be), you might get the chance to use Fire Incites Water to a Riot of Clouds, but that would be pretty risky. Mostly you just want everyone to hold on to their JB result, then delay so all the distracts are happening before HFA and HFA is before the enemy resets.

Obviously all this is melee focused, but even if you need to close distance, there’s some fire charms in athletics that can help you out. They key thing is that your target doesn’t want ANY of these things to happen, and has to either spend accordingly or pick and choose. Their best Defense against HFA is Hardness, but even if they’re significantly armoured you probably also have Dragon Soul Burst and you’re already prepped to build an aura for it.

ANYWAY I won’t do any more DB stuff here. Will gladly contribute to an Arena/theorycraft thread.

[Iceblade44]

I've been reading a few stuff on Lunars and I thought I should ask how the comparison is. That is, on a Social bureaucracy/leading/war side. How do Lunars compare to Solars, the kingdom makers or DBs who function well in having an already established society. What are the differences, pros, and cons with having a Lunar at the head compared to the other two?

[DrLoveMonkey]

I've been reading a few stuff on Lunars and I thought I should ask how the comparison is. That is, on a Social bureaucracy/leading/war side. How do Lunars compare to Solars, the kingdom makers or DBs who function well in having an already established society. What are the differences, pros, and cons with having a Lunar at the head compared to the other two?

I'll get to that right after I finish their combat styles. The short version though is that Lunars actually seem to be able to forge nations out of nothing a bit better than Solars can. They're also great at being a nation's protectors, and enforcers, as well as their beastly god-kings. Where they fall short on the Solar end of things is that once at the head of an organization they just don't have the same kind of total control that a Solar has. Also there's the ever-present factor that a Solar at Essence 1 can use the Essence 5 Order Conferring Action to just snap her fingers and create sweeping changes and a creational bulwark. For warfare Lunars are actually much better unit commanders as well, oddly enough. Solars are better at the strategic warfare aspects, but Lunars have them beat by a mile when it comes to directly giving orders.

For DBs there really is no comparison. The Lunars effects are simply more powerful and far more grand. Where the DB charms target specific bureaucracies that they own, like, I dunno, the Corvus Date Packing Company, Lunars can target entire cultures with a single action. In warfare it's not even remotely close, DBs have nothing on Lunar generals. Lunars train faster and better, beat them in strategic warfare, ignore things like not having supply lines, and then simply empower their troops to divine levels of strength.

[Dagurasu]

For me it makes sense the Solar approach in War is broader, to command the whole army, to control the whole battlefield, the big picture. The Lunars have a more focused approach to their troops, their orders, and how to use them to destroy the enemy. Different approaches but equally valid and powerful. It's a way of making them feel different. The Solars are also better at training troops.
Apart from a couple of Lunar charms that combined are excessively powerful and can kill almost anything in an action, but I imagine that they will be modified in the final version.

In the social aspect the Solars certainly have a huge control with Bureaucracy, the Lunars have far fewer tools to deal with organizations if I remember correctly, mostly limited to harming their functioning. The Solars, while improving their efficiency, protect them from interference, can have an enormous control over each of their components, etc ...