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[Sorcerous Overlord]

My Twilight Crafter has a dad and 5 siblings, who are doing allright by farmer standards. His sisters are married off, his brother works the farm and has kids of his own. Young Salazan was discover to be a natural at smithing and so his dad apprenticed him out during a famine.

Salazan hasn't seen any of them in 20 years, but now that he's filthy rich and technically the Duke/Jarl/Daimyo/whatever of their home province he's planning on seeing them soon. He's been sending them money for years to help out.

[Sorcerous Overlord]

Scrollreader I've played almost this exact character in 2e and a different Night in 3e, and I have to say this: its far easier to make Stealth outstrip Awareness than vice versa. Almost no one invests in Awareness enough to catch someone who invests in Stealth. And having been ST for someone who dipped Grapple Brawl, the second you get your hands on someone they are dead and the ST is just rp'ing their turns for the sake of decency. Grapple Brawl is opposed by Grapple Brawl, unlike basically everything else.

Combining Stealth with Grappling means that literally you will never be...

[Sorcerous Overlord]

Poison
Get poisoned
Sleep with someone who will be an opponent
Fight someone who needs to win more than you do
Watch Shang Tsun eat a guy's soul
Realize the tournament is cover for a cult
Realize the tournament is cover for a theft
Do a theft under cover of a tournament
Befriend a noodle cart guy
Realize that noodle cart guy is a master of a lost style
Get jumped before a match
Accidentally reveal that opponent is an aristocrat using an alias
Mistake a grandmaster for a spectator
Realize a friendly stray animal is actually...

[Sorcerous Overlord]

I was thinking about characters who mix Melee with a little Brawl and it got me thinking. My group has a Single Point/Brawler. But then the others are just Melee, Melee + Survival Pet, just Thrown. So really only one of us uses two combat abilities, while another has a combat ability and a pet.

What is you experience?

[Sorcerous Overlord]

Don't let city life fool you, shit sucks real bad in a lot of places. Wu Jian's lower levels are brackish water that seldom if ever gets sunlight and wild spirits run amok. Also don't eat the pork buns.

Shadowlands can be a mixed blessing, kind of. The undead and hungry ghosts and alladem can get out, sure, but for a rare few brave types and exorcists its possible to talk to the benevolent dead, and even trade with them. I made an adventure in a town just like that, most good folk lock up their doors and windows, while a few idiots/badasses brave the dangers of the night in exchange...

[Sorcerous Overlord]

Those are good points. Mostly for attunement and social stealth. I don't think I've ever seen a player disarmed in game, and glove weapons or shoes are usually immune to that. Maybe they light up when you channel your Snake Style essence into them "Green Hand of the Serpent" style. But i'm just spitballing here....

[Sorcerous Overlord]

Numbers are mine. let's address those in order.

1) The topic of this thread is about a merit tax, which is justified entirely on playtest results none of us have ever seen or had a firsthand account of.
2) This justification doesn't match the experience of current players.
3) A meaningless addition, that maxim holds true of almost every system of every rpg.
4) Explaining my rationale to your assertation that MA comboing was a "real" problem.

I feel that further discussion isn't going to be productive since, if I have this right, your stance...

[Sorcerous Overlord]

Going back to Page 1:



Bold emphasis mine. So far these playtest reports are all "Well I wasn't there but..." and "Solar XP". Meanwhile, in this thread, those of us who dropped the merit entirely (myself included) haven't noticed a change in power levels, which is Actual Play Experience. Does anyone have a link to the actual playtesters talking about this?

I don't agree that the argument "well you can dip into many styles" is worth anything because there are no MA 1 dot charms, and only one or two 2 dot charms in each Style,...

[Sorcerous Overlord]

I still have yet to see what actual value the Merit brings. There's really nothing special in MA that requires a tax to balance out....

[Sorcerous Overlord]

Mortals can't do Exalted Martial Arts unless they literally reach enlightenment first to get a mote pool. Otherwise they buy the merit just to punch things in a funny way or use a wonky sword.

[Sorcerous Overlord]

To answer this new question, I'm only interested in Martial Arts that let me do things native charm sets can't do, or it fits a character theme and so I took it for rp.

My ES/Tiger Night yakuza had a shadow assassin thing going on.

My (ST NPC) Lunar Witch of the Swamps used Snake to match her creepy poisons, voodoo, and black magic vibe.

When I wanted to make a badass Dawn wandering swordsman, I used Melee.

[Sorcerous Overlord]

I had a player who did this in our separate mini campaign we ran when some players werent around for the main campaign. He made a Dawn Snake master and... yeah that was it. There was no way to get better at Snake than he was at CharGen. He picked up some Dodge and some non-com stuff like Lore and Investigate, but fundamentally he couldn't get better at actually being a Snake Stylist than he was at session 1, which is a really, really weird thing to think about in a game so heavily inspired by Wuxia....

[Sorcerous Overlord]

I agree. You thoroughly refuted an argument I didn't make though. SP isnt as strong as Melee, but it has a Merit Tax is the point. And as HeavyArms said, its just not *fun* to pay a merit tax, its bad game design.

You buy a 4 dot artifact and you dont just get evocations, you get a totally bomb ass sword out of the deal. Nothing justifies the MA merit and you dont get crackerjack toy with it.

And also, if you arent a dawn then the powerful charms arent available at chargen, and depending on your group its 5ish sessions before you hit E2 and you even unlock form cha...

[Sorcerous Overlord]

I've had a fever for 2 days, gone in the morning but present and rising by lunch. I'm at 38° right now. I'm headed to the clinic to get checked, maybe transferred to a hospital. It could just be heat stroke (i teach in poorly cooled rooms) but there's a chance I've got Corona. I'll let you guys know when I know more.

If you don't see any well bulleted but overall disagreeable posts from me soon, reccomend First Circle Demon for every problem until I get back.

Glorious Solar Sign Off.

Edit
I lived.

[Sorcerous Overlord]

I think its handled very poorly and the Merit Tax is an answer to a hypothetical problem not a real one.

There's basically 2 types of MA: I am a primary fighter and I want a unique splash on a noncom. SP and WR a good examples of Primaries. SVN and DPC are the latter.

Single Point, widely regarded as the most powerful, Surpasses then Ties them Loses to Melee in order of investment. It has arguably the most bang for your buck on a charm-to-power scale but a Dawn SPer is gonna get wrecked by a Melee Dawn. Im too sick to link the Exalted Arena page, but you can find it....

[Sorcerous Overlord]

Considering the kind of stuff Solars usually have stuck to their back, I'd say this is pretty tame by comparison. Especially if you stunt or rp the boomerangs unfolding like a butterfly knife and stacking flat. Or just saying they return to hand as an excuse not to track ammo....

[Sorcerous Overlord]

I needed one for the plot, so i made him a Tyrant Lizard with some Fire Aspect charms and a generous helping of Cult.

Probably not inline with the general Lore but he made for a memorable NPC

[Sorcerous Overlord]

Having run a naval campaign for 2 years with a Sail Supernal, I can unfortunately tell you: none of this will matter because there's nothing that can challenge a Sailing Solar on the Seas, even Sans Supernal. No maneuver or trick changes the fact that Solar excellencies are too powerful for gaining momentum and Sail is all about momentum.

I like what you wrote, but its like giving a swiss army knife to a Melee Dawn fighting a half blind dog.