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[BrilliantRain]

Per the Ask the Dev's thread:...

[BrilliantRain]

Can Sorcery be used to heal people?

I ask because I can't remember either 1e or 2e having any sort of sorcerous healing and I know that Exalted doesn't generally allow for super quick magical healing either, but I wasn't sure if this was going to be continued going forward or whether it was an unintended consequence of the spells that people thought were cool and should be in the book.

[BrilliantRain]

Honestly, I don't think there have ever been any Sorcerous Healing spells in Exalted.

[BrilliantRain]

Alternately, examine Death of Obsidian Butterflies, Flight of the Brilliant Raptor, and Wood Dragon's Claw. They're all Terrestrial Circle and they're all attack spells, but none of them invalidate the others. DoOB is a shotgun useful against Battlegroups, FotBR is a single target sniper type spell, and WDC gives you an artifact weapon you can use until you put it down. All useful in different situations, none that are distinctly superior to each other.

And yes, Death Ray doesn't really invalidate them either, largely because Death Ray does such a ridiculous amount of collateral...

[BrilliantRain]

If you want to look at what an "Improved" version of a lower circle spell would be like, I think it's more instructive to examine Invulnerable Skin of Bronze and Incomparable Body Arsenal. They both improve soak, but IBA also grants attack buffs, so it looks strictly superior, except that ISoB costs 10sm less and lasts for a day while IBA only lasts a few hours. So, both have their utility....especially since the two spells stack so you don't have to forgo one to use the other.

That's probably the most important consideration to make really. If you're going to create...

[BrilliantRain]

If I wanted to play a Solar blind swordsman type, which Awareness charms would you recommend to counteract penalties for being blind? Because I don't remember any of them explicitly saying they can handle that and I'm a little confused about which ones I'd need.

[BrilliantRain]

So, it's like the difference between hand crafting a car by yourself (which is hella difficult but theoretically doable) and building the complex infrastructure of oil pumps, pipelines, refineries, and gas stations (which cannot be done by a single person in a human lifetime if it can be accomplished at all) that allow the car to be used as an everyday vehicle, instead of as a rare and delicate wonder?...

[BrilliantRain]

What's ODM Gear?

[BrilliantRain]

3) Sorcery tends to do things in unique and strange ways. Play that up, as it helps this feel properly sorcerous. Don't do things the same way twice. Try to think of something thematic but in a skewed way. Butterflies are viewed as messengers of death in Japan, thus Death of Obsidian Butterflies resonates on some level, even if it's unexpected. Go for the mythic angle but be a bit weird about it. Look at the stunts and Means the Sorcerer used and what they wanted and get rid of your first two or three ideas for how to fulfill that. Talk with the players....

[BrilliantRain]

Incidentally, just because a player goes for Finesse 5 doesn't necessarily mean you should give them exactly what they want either, if what they want seems excessive. Like trying to argue that becoming a were-dragon should be Terrestrial Ambition 2 because "it's basically just a bunch of mutations, right?" and then trying to argue that they get stats like a Tyrant Lizard in their dragon form, because they did Finesse 5 so they get to define it.

Not that I've had this come up, honestly. But it seemed like a useful reminder in the context of this thread.

[BrilliantRain]

When I first read the Working rules part of me wanted to have a character do things such that the Working would have a really high chance of botching, just because having a Working go completely off the rails actually sounded kinda fun....

[BrilliantRain]

From this perspective, I kinda feel like they should have used a different word than "soul" as it has a lot of baggage that comes with it. It creates confusion if you just ignore said baggage.

[BrilliantRain]

Mechanically speaking, roughly how powerful should a Celestial Ambition 2 power be? I mean, taking your example of hypnotic beauty, which of the following might be acceptable:

• Bonus charm dice on Appearance based Social Rolls.
• Bonus non-charm dice on Appearance based Social Rolls.
• Double 9s on Appearance based Social Rolls.
• Double 8s on Appearance based Social Rolls.
• Appearance now rated at 6 and bonus dice for having Appearance greater than opponent's resolve are doubled.
• Appearance now rated at 6 and bonus dice for having Appearance greater than opponent's resolve are successes.
• Anyone

...

[BrilliantRain]

So, something like this:

Enhanced Vision (Superhuman Perception) -> See Spirits (Shaman) -> Eat Spirits (Predation)

As a basic sort of conceptual tree, sort of thing? Obviously there would be more charms in there, I just wanna see if that's the general direction you're going.

Assuming that's right, I'm a little unclear where Shapeshifting comes in? Does it fall under Predation and Symbiosis? Or does it count as a Superhuman Attribute Manifestation? Or something else?...

[BrilliantRain]

[Insert Shut Up and Take My Money.gif here]

More seriously, that sounds hella awesome....

[BrilliantRain]

Are souls really as interchangeable as the rules make it seem? If you use Death to swap Alice's and Bob's souls around, will there be any side effects? Do we know if there are side effects that crop up after you die?

Do animals have souls? If not, what happens if I turn a cat into a human with Life 4? Does the transformed cat suffer soul loss? What if I used Mind 3 to boost the cat's intelligence to human levels? What if I also used the Life 3 Mutation spell repeatedly to turn the cat into something that looked fairly human? Would it need a soul then?

Do other...

[BrilliantRain]

Do beings other than humans have souls? Like, does a cat have a soul?

If I use Life magic to turn the cat into a human, does the resulting person start suffering from soul loss?

What if I just use Mind to increase the cat's intelligence? Does that cause the same soul issue?

[BrilliantRain]

There's a part of me that would want Ahlat to force the two Solars to fight each other. That said, while it might be amusing and actually might be useful if set up as a duel in Heaven, it's unlikely going to help his job.

On the other hand, Ahlat has a trump card he can play that will likely win any battle he wants. The kind of sacrifices someone would make to get a Dawn Caste on their side in a fight would be crazy. And, if said fight can spark a decades long war, well even better.

[BrilliantRain]

Black Water Mako?...

[BrilliantRain]

Upside, it looks like they're running the layout and approval process concurrently.

Downside, there's also a proofing step and final approval step that the book needs to go through before we get it....