User Profile

[Lioness]

For my "dip into 2nd edition charms" advice, I thought I'd cover Infinite Mastery and its counterparts because that's potentially bumpy ground.

Defensively a scene length dice adder normally poses little problem, in fact it's a bit on the weak side it means that the PCs will need full excellencies to keep up but successful withering attacks will be pretty common and then a real risk of getting hit by decisive attacks (I had an NPC where I experimented with this and they were out of the fight way before the players made observations about how their foe wasn't getting tired)....

[Lioness]

One way to put more individual NPCs into a combat than you could possibly run at a time is to run the scene as a meatgrinder where new attackers enter the scene as existing ones are removed (probably wise to include a provision where badly wounded attackers who can't really do anything anymore can be declared incapacitated) while the PCs try to complete some objective, like escaping.

Our Sidereal Storyteller did this when we tried to get something from a First Age tomb that was suspended high above the treetops and made of knotted branches, while getting in was easy its defences...

[Lioness]

Are we talking tough battle groups or individual characters? Because rolling 20+ NPCs into one combat is ...not a good plan.

[Lioness]

More accessible in that if learning in an academic environment under controlled conditions doesn't work for them they’re more likely to survive the alternatives....

[Lioness]

I have a variation of this.
If the PCs are attacking a city or major enemy stronghold remember to split your scenes, the entire army doesn't all rush out the city gate under a singular commander then get defeated in about 10 minutes instead you're fighting district by district or level by level. Battle Groups are smaller but there's more fully fledged NPCs who are going to be fighting dirty because they know they're outmatched. Buildings will be burnt down with you inside them, corrosive liquid thrown from roof tops, dangerous animals unleashed to slow down the invaders, civilians taking...

[Lioness]

I run a mixed game and a Dragon-Blooded game, I play in three games with a fourth starting soon....

[Lioness]

When assigning challenges to your PCs its first important to determine your objectives and figure out what you and your players want out of a combat encounter.
This might seem self-evident but it’s useful to question your own motives when running a game because "my players want a bigger challenge" is a different problem to "my PCs are being infuriatingly cocky" or "my players are too damn competitive and its making me feel like a failure" even if in practice those could easily overlap.

One of the easiest ways to make a 3rd edition NPC hit above...

[Lioness]

Can we please not do this here?

[Lioness]

The main weakness of written social influence is that you need to consider your targets because a lot of people in Creation aren't literate.

For example, if I was trying to inspire a satrapy into open rebellion against the Realm. I wouldn't have my leaflets and posters target the population to try and rile them up so much as try and convince the Dynasts that their mere existence is proof that things are already coming to the boil and allow them to undermine themselves....

[Lioness]

The abstract nature of Withering/Decisive attacks affords the Storyteller a lot of control over how a fight like that goes down without overtly fudging events in the PCs favour. I could run 5 starting Solars against 5 starting Solars without a huge risk to the PCs....

[Lioness]

Okay, so Sandact6 has some general stuff about this here. I also have some general stuff to say but I'll need to gather my thoughts.

[Lioness]

I think enhancing sorcerous workings is a viable but such an artifact should impose its own themes and caveats upon the projects.

For example, the Scarred By Nightmares sorcerous initiation has a merit that absolves you of the xp cost for sorcerous workings that never leave the wyld. I could easily see an artifact enhancing workings in a similar capacity where there's thematic limitations being set upon your creations or a unhealthy dependency where its loss or destruction ends every working it enhanced....

[Lioness]

What was the thought process in costing this? The risk of some damage on an attack that doesn't normally deal damage is useful but that's quite a lot to pay up front when the odds aren't in your favour....

[Lioness]

They've got more in common with the First Age elders because Fair Folk are a PC splat and gods are not....

[Lioness]

When I compare Adeimantus to an Unshaped I mostly mean in terms of his narrative role.

In 2nd edition a Shaped Raksha who was going for Custodian of the Perfect City would be encouraged to just arrive throw down an oneiromancy spell to go "this is my perfect city" and people need to spend a bunch of wp/suffer dice penalties to oppose this. While Adeimantus kind of waits for people to come to him (possibly helping knowledge of the city spread through diplomats) and when it reaches critical mass he arrives via a breakthrough in what could be considered act 3 of this story...

[Lioness]

I don't find those particularly useful anymore. Would it be a good thing for Fair Folk PCs to have essentially 50 First Age elders per direction?...

[Lioness]

That's part of why I favoured the Flowing Mind method of training for my quick fix. It was worryingly easy for an Infernal to spend someone else's meta currency on something they didn't particularly want then go "I did you a favour, now you owe me"....

[Lioness]

It's worth noting that Adeimantus is at the far end of the power scale and would probably have been considered an Unshaped in 2nd edition due to his unique relationship with the city of Beimeni-Ta letting him spread his influence like a virus. He's the main antagonist of my Dragon-Blooded game....

[Lioness]

I'm not. I know I can recall the frame of mind I was in from something I wrote more than 5 years ago, but it's never felt polite to me to simply assume that others can....

[Lioness]

After five years does he even remember the reference?