Exalted 203 Social Combat
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- This article focuses on Social Combat in Second Edition.
- It was written by RRimmel with urging from Democritus and has been edited by a large number of wiki residents.
Exalted 203, Social Combat
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Sweet Emerald (Eclipse Caste)
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The Invincible Sword Princess (Dawn Caste)
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They are trying to get into a very fancy dress party that neither was invited to.
Join Debate
The first issue for our heroines is a heroic mortal serving as the Majordomo of the Host of the party. He is under express orders from his liege to not allow anyone inside without an invitation.
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The Majordomo (Mortal)
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The three parties begin by rolling a Join Debate action.
- The Invincible Sword Princess has 10 dice and rolls 5 successes.
- Sweet Emerald has 8 dice and rolls only 2 successes.
- The Majordomo has 6 dice and rolls 4 successes.
His motivation is to appease the host and his intimacy is to the party.
The Invincible Sword Princess goes on tick 0, the Majordomo goes on tick 1 and Sweet Emerald will go on Tick 3.
Tick 0 Presence Attacks
"Don't you know who I am?" began the powerfully built, golden haired woman, as she glanced down her nose as the Majordomo. She was wearing a fabulous floor length dress made of fine blue silk. It was slitted on the side revealing a tremendous amount of her well muscled legs and another cut in the chest exposed a generous amount of cleavage. This coupled with the exquisitely applied makeup and perfectly manicured nails almost concealed the fact that her hands were like iron and her gaze could destroy a man's will. And if it were not for the fact that her companion would give her an endless lecture about diplomacy, she would have already decapitated him.
He sneered, but said nothing. The mortal was wise enough to bite his tongue. And after a long moment the scary angry woman stormed off towards her companion, expertly maneuvering despite the fact that she was wearing heels.
A creature of haste who absolutely hates the fact that she is wearing 3 inch heels at the moment, the Invincible Sword Princess begins the example with a Presence attack against the poor Majordomo.
- Step 1: The Invincible Sword Princess declares a presence attack, her presence attack is Speed 4, Accuracy 7, Rate 2 and will not be enhanced though Charms because she does not know any. She is demanding entrance to the party.
- Step 2: The Majordomo declares a mental dodge, he will simply attempt to ignore her. During this step we need to determine two things
- Relative Appearance, the Invincible Sword Princess is one point higher and reduces his MDV by one.
- Intimacy, Virtue or Motivation, pg 172, reviewing the Majordomo's motivation, the ST decides that it was The Lord who declared that invitations were required and this applies raising his MDV by 3 because letting them in without an invitation conflicts with his motivation.
- His adjusted MDV is now 6. (Base 4 - Relative Appearance 1 + Against Motivation 3)
- Step 3: The Invincible Sword Princess rolls 7 dice getting 4 successes. This fails because his MDV is too high.
Tick 1 Guard Action
Swallowing quietly, the Majordomo quietly reminded himself that he just worked here.
The Majordomo knows better than to try anything here. He might not be Exalted, but he's not stupid and these two are obviously going to be trouble.
Guarding is a speed three action that has no penalty to your DV. It can be aborted, unlike say an attack, letting him wait for a better opportunity to present itself. Otherwise it functions identically to a guard action on page 143 of the core book.
Tick 3 Flurries
Exhaling once slightly in bemused annoyance with her bodyguard and companion, Sweet Emerald looked at the minor problem before them. Pity her sources could not find out more information about this gathering, however such complaints were of little challenge to one with her skills and as such she walked up to the man.
Inhaling sharply, causing her already enticing figure to swell up so that the Majordomo's brow began to sweat, she leaned over slightly and whispered, "My good sir, what seems to be the problem?"
Swallowing loudly, the Majordomo eyed her perfect body for a long moment, clad in the latest fashions from Nexus, she stood like a perfect goddess before him with every curve on terrific display. Her eyes were like emeralds and her intentions obviously so pure... It took him a long time before he remembered and weakly stated, "You need invitations."
Sweet Emerald smiled and the birds sang and the clouds parted. "Oh, I know, it was very unfortunate, we seem to have lost them," she pouted, "And I have been looking forward to this party all year, is there nothing that can be done? You seem to be so very important, can you think of some way to let us in?"
The Majordomo considered his importance in the grand scheme of things. He was important after all, and it’s not like anything bad could happen. She seemed like such a sweet girl. "Well, if you just lost them, I do suppose you were invited and you can go on in."
Kissing him on the cheek, Sweet Emerald smiled exuberantly and walked in, the facade vanishing the instant they went beyond his sight. "On to more important game," she stated.
Sweet Emerald is annoyed with her companion, but then again you'd never know that so she simply adopts her sweetest expression and decides to ask a few probing questions and then get past the doorman.
She declares a flurry including an investigation attack and a presence attack. If she had more time she'd investigate him to figure out his motivation and then slip past him, or just use a Charm but she's in a hurry and doesn't want to waste the Essence.
An investigation attack is another type of social attack that is basically asking hard questions and getting meaningful answers, rather than getting someone to do what you want. For example, she can't use an investigation attack to make him open the door unless she has a good stunt.
- Step 1: Sweet Emerald is going to investigate why they can't go in, basically asking that question.
- Step 2: The guard is going to attempt to defend using his dodge MDV, he's going to try to ignore her.
- Her Relative Appearance is 3 points higher than his reducing his MDV by 3.
- After reviewing, this question is not against his Intimacies, Virtues or Motivation.
- This leaves him with a MDV of 1.
- Step 3: Sweet Emerald has 9 dice, reduced to 7 by her multiple action penalty and she rolls 4 successes. Her attack was successful.
- Step 7-8: The Majordomo can now attempt to resist her question, however the result to him is trivial and he declines to bother.
- Step 10: The Majordomo is now forced to tell Sweet Emerald that she has to have an invitation. If he had used an existing intimacy for defense it would become eroded at this time, however he did not and so there are no further effects.
Now that she knows that, Sweet Emerald is going to lie. She declares that she and her companion have lost their invitations and if he would be so kind as to let them in she would be really grateful.
- Step 1: Sweet Emerald lays it on thick trying to get past the thick headed man.
- Step 2: The Majordomo's MDV is 4. He's going to try his best to ignore her again, but she's really pretty.
- Her Relative Appearance is still 3 points higher than his reducing his DV by 3.
- Now, reviewing his IVM, she's really not going against his motivation, she just lost her invitation after all, and he doesn't have any driving virtues, he does have an intimacy for the party and she did forget an invitation so we give him a +1 to his DV.
- He has an onslaught penalty of 1.
- This leaves him with a MDV of 1.
- Step 3: She still has 7 dice and rolls 3 successes, again beating his MDV.
- Step 7-8: Now the question is does he resist the influence or not? He can expend one Willpower and defeat her efforts to get past him, but there can never be too many Appearance 5 characters at a party. He again elects to save his Willpower for someone who's a little more important.
- Step 10: Sweet Emerald and the Invincible Sword Princess are allowed into the party.
Willpower
Now, your ST character can easily expend Willpower every single time that they are affected by a social attack, but they don't have to. Check out Borgstrom's Suggestions on Social Combat for suggestions when and when not to expend Willpower. This author subscribes to the negative impact theory, in other words if the target believes that a social attack will have a negative impact on them they will try to resist it. Otherwise the persuasion attempt works fine. If the two heroines showed up in plate mail armor carrying weapons they would not have been allowed entrance and guards would have been called, but letting them walk in nearly naked with no weapons has all the makings of a memorable encounter.
Consider this, if Emerald had attempted to seduce the extra that would have been VERY good for him. If the Invincible Sword Princess had paid a street urchin a gold coin for the location of the mansion that the party was at, there is no real downside in it for him. There are many situations where failing a social attack does not necessarily lead to bad results.
That being said, that just leaves you with more excuses to have your NPC's be more aggressive with their Willpower and really give the characters a run for their money. The most memorable encounter of your evening should always be with the major NPC's, not with the doorman that you had to blow a combo on just to get past.
Movement
Movement functions 10 times faster in Social Combat than normal, and can be done during social combat so long as they stay in range.
They use this action after Sweet Emerald's last social attack to walk into the Mansion, which is a gripping multi roomed affair. Sweet Emerald is taking everything in, but again doesn't want to expend Essence obviously if she can help it.
Tick 9 Read Motivation
This is a particularly important skill for Social Combat as it allows you to read the targets motivations and potentially intimacies. She sees a big target, The Lord's Court.
- Social Units function similarly to Mass Combat units in terms that they have magnitude, however their purpose is radically different. In this example, The Lord's Court functions as a group of extras who are paying complete attention to The Lord and prevent the Solar Exalted from even approaching. Obviously they need to be dealt with.
Sweet Emerald uses a read motivation action to observe The Lord. She has a pool of her Perception 4 + Investigation 5 to beat his difficulty of 7 ((Manipulation 3 + Socialize 4)/2 + Magnitude 3). Odds are not in her favor at this time, so she reviews her personal Essence and expends 6 of her 32 motes of personal Essence to use the Second Investigation Excellency to buy 3 successes. She rolls 5 successes and manages to read The Lord. She discovers his motivation, listed below, and files it away for later use.
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The Lord (Heroic Mortal)
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Social Units
- Now, the ruler is in a Magnitude 3 social unit and they enhance his stats. Fortunately for this example, he is the only one with a Social Unit and therefore we only have to worry about his side of things. With that in place, his MDV is adjusted by the difference in magnitude as well as having bonus successes based on the difference. Unlike mass combat, this ability is a bonus only and having a smaller magnitude does not result in a penalty.
Tick 14 Charms and Presence Attacks
So far we've seen the use of one Excellency. Now let’s look at some actual Charm usage. As detailed in The Lord's intimacies text, we notice that The Lord has a fondness for music and dance, and Sweet Emerald sees an open Piano.
The Invincible Sword Princess actually has a few dots in Performance and she sits down and starts to play competently. All this is just a lead up to Sweet Emerald's Musical Number, plus it gets the Invincible Sword Princess out of the way.
- Step 1: Sweet Emerald invokes the Charm Respect Commanding Attitude as well as the Second Excellency on a Performance Attack. A Performance attack affects everyone who can see it, or in this case listen, and with Respect Commanding Attitude, everyone is paying attention to it unless they can resist the effects. Her Second Excellency simply enhances her rolls. She declares that she is trying to break open the Social Unit so that she can get to The Lord.
- Step 2: The main target is The Lord and his Court, however the ST also secretly notes the other special characters that are on the floor at the time. The Lord is human and has to pay attention to it, which he would anyway as it would affect his intimacy.
- The Lord's base MDV is 7.
- Sweet Emerald's relative appearance is 1 higher than his so he has a -1 penalty to his MDV.
- The attack plays to his musical intimacy for a -1 penalty to his DV.
- He gets a +3 to his MDV from his Social Unit.
- The Lord's final MDV is 8.
- Step 3: Sweet Emerald has 13 dice and 5 bonus successes. She rolls 6 successes for a total of 11.
- Step 7-8: Now The Lord has a decision, he can expend a point of loyalty to resist the social attack or not. He is leery of this, and does expend the point of loyalty to prevent the social effect from occurring.
- Step 10: The Unit's Loyalty drops by one. Loyalty is the functional equivalent to Willpower for a Unit and spends the same way, after the second point is lost no further may unless Unnatural mental influence is used.
Why does he spend Loyalty? Because his people are now paying attention to Sweet Emerald as opposed to their Lord.
Tick 20 is a repeat
At this point we fast forward slightly so that he has expended 2 points of Loyalty, bringing him down to 5. At this point Sweet Emerald cannot further reduce the loyalty of his Social Unit without the use of unnatural mental influence Charms.
Tick 26 Unnatural Mental Influence Charms
Sweet Emerald is doing pretty well here, she has slightly eroded the Loyalty of The Lord's Unit and such is her ultimate objective. It would be considerably easier for her if she could simply use some of her obvious effects, however both Solars are trying to stay low key.
Her next Charm is designed to bleed more Loyalty from the unit. She uses another combo that includes Heart-Compelling Method and the Second Excellency, neither Charm is obvious so there is no obvious display that this Charm has activated.
- Step 1: Sweet Emerald declares her Love Me Gently combo, using the Heart-Compelling Method to make everyone love each other, she can declare virtually any emotion but with her experience in seduction, changing everyone into a lusty mood is in her best interests. She buys 5 successes with her Second Excellency.
- Step 2: The Lord is now realizing that something is definitely wrong and he can't just passively let these two keep hammering on him, but now is not the time for it.
- The Lord's base MDV is 7.
- Sweet Emerald's relative appearance is 1 higher than his so he has a -1 penalty to his MDV.
- The Lord is suspicious so the attack plays against his Temperance Virtue for a +2 bonus to his DV.
- He gets a +3 to his MDV from his Social Unit.
- The Lord's final MDV is 11.
- Step 3: Sweet Emerald rolls 13 dice, gaining a total of 7 successes plus the 5 she already had for a total of 12 successes.
- Step 7-8: Now this unnatural mental effect causes an intense emotion unless the defender pays 2 Willpower to resist its effects. The Lord did not need to pay any Willpower to resist natural persuasion attempts because he has already expended 2 Willpower, using Unnatural persuasion is the only way to further reduce his Willpower pool. The Lord considers but allows the effect specifically because he anticipates a worse effect than simply making everyone randy.
Dragon-Blooded
While it is true that The Lord has no chance versus the powerful Solar Exalted, even if he does not know who they are, he is not so stupid as to not keep a powerful adviser nearby. In this case, this adviser is Quiet Earth; a unique Dragon-Blood who is known for having 4 in all of his stats and abilities.
Joining a Debate in Progress
- Quiet Earth actually began on Tick 26 with a Join Debate action and rolled 3 successes. Checking versus the reaction count of 5 so he first moves during tick 28.
Scene Length Social Charms
- While Sweet Emerald has been carefully hiding her presence as a Solar Exalted, it is in Quiet Earth's best interests to act like a Prince of the Earth and he comes out swinging. He opens up with the Charm Auspicious First Meeting Attitude granting him a +2 dice bonus on all Presence or Socialize rolls during the first encounter. More importantly it tells him as the Story Teller is obligated to tell him how his social attack affected the targets MDV, either positively or negatively. This is handy because no one is required to relate their DV's during combat, simply if the attack hit or missed.
- Next Quiet Earth Activates Voice of Mastery which is a scene length Charm that allows him to add his Essence into most social combat Charms. He is still capped at 7 dice in most situations (his Ability + Specialty) and of course Quiet Earth's specialties always apply. It also increases his parry MDV by 1/2 his Essence.
With that, Quiet Earth looks like this:
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Quiet Earth (Earth Aspect)
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Tick 28 Exalted Social-Fu
Now that we have a good idea of what Quiet Earth can do, let’s check to see what he actually does. We base our NPC's attitude on his motivations, virtues and intimacies. He is suspicious that Sweet Emerald is either God-Blooded or at least more than she appears. He hopes that she is an Anathema, so she can be slain and hopefully the Realm can use this to its advantage.
However, he does not know this and needs to find out before he can go any further, after all if she is just another pretty face, Sweet Emerald would make a fine concubine, or at least a fun toy, for some young Dynast back in the Realm.
Quiet Earth decides that the easiest approach is to get Sweet Emerald out of the room, so he attempts to seduce her using Warm-Faced Seduction Style which increases his Socialize ability by 5 for the attack, assuming the attack is seduction. At this point we will realize that Socialize is used against groups and not individuals and so the author MEANT to say Social Attacks, otherwise we'll be going all Cynis on everyone.
- Step 1: Quiet Earth declares Warm-Faced Seduction Style, which only really increases his dice pool by 1 due to his other scene lengths, however it does permit him to seduce targets that might otherwise be resistant to his efforts and so it’s still handy. He appeals to her beauty and love of music.
- Step 2: Sweet Emerald now has to actually defend, after all Quiet Earth could sweep virtually any mortal woman, and most men, off of their feet. Fortunately she is a Solar Exalted, which gives her some options. She decides to go simple for the time being and activates Temptation-Resisting Stance increasing her MDV by 4 for the duration of the scene.
- Step 3: Quite Earth rolls a total of 18 dice gaining 15 successes! This should allow Quiet Earth to seduce just about anyone in the entire world.
- Sweet Emerald has an Appearance 1 greater than his, increasing her MDV by 1.
- Emerald declares that she wants to resist this attempt with her Temperance, Quiet Earth does not know enough about Emerald to invoke any of her intimacies or virtues and certainly nothing about her motivation. She further increases her MDV by 2.
- Emerald had a scene length Charm active that increases her MDV by 4.
- Emerald's total MDV vs. this attack is 17, the attack fails.
- Step 7-8: Sweet Emerald declares she has fallen deeply in love with Quiet Earth. But alas she has to stay here and play with her partner for the amusement of The Lord.
Lying, and the Lying Liars who do it
Quiet Earth has no ability to determine if his Charm actually worked or not. He can tell if it didn't work by the fact that she suddenly backed away or otherwise resisted, but it looks like the Charm worked. But it didn't.
Quiet Earth's player gets to make a Wits or Perception plus Investigation versus Sweet Emerald's Manipulation + Socialize to determine that she's veiling her intentions, in other words lying. Emerald is and furthermore he's pretty sure she is. However, Quiet Earth doesn't want to invest too much essence into his investigation of this and only expends 2 motes rolling a total of 15 dice and gets 8 successes. She's a great liar and expends 4 motes to roll 17 dice and rolls 9 successes.
Quiet Earth the character has absolutely no idea that she hasn't completely fallen under his influence, at least for the moment.
Tick 32 Why sometimes success can be failure
Quiet Earth thinks that he has Sweet Emerald under his sway, after all he is very persuasive. However, he needs to get her away from her partner so that The Lord will be happy with him and so he can have some quality alone time with her. Fortunately he has a Charm that just might help
- Step 1: Quiet Earth uses Brother-Against-Brother Insinuation to separate the couple. He has to use 4 motes of essence to increase his dice pool as his current scene length Charms do not assist in Manipulation + Socialize rolls. He gets to add in his Essence as successes. He targets Sweet Emerald, who's attempting to sing, and the Invincible Sword Princess, who's attempting to play the piano. This attack can only be dodged, and he has to declare it as such. He attempts to argue against Sweet Emerald's motivation, he lucks out and mentions that he will open a museum for the poor of this town.
- Step 2: Sweet Emerald can only use her dodge DV. It has a base of 10.
- Her Relative Appearance increases her DV by 1.
- Her Scene Length Charms increase her DV by 4.
- Playing to her motivation decreases her DV by 3!
- Playing against an intimacy (Invincible Sword Princess) increases her DV by 1.
- Sweet Emerald's Final MDV is 13.
- Step 3: Quiet Earth rolls 19 dice and gets 4 automatic successes, getting a total of 17 successes!
- Step 7-8: He succeeds and this time Emerald is forced to spend a Willpower to avoid the effects. This also raises her limit by one. Now, unlike the seduction attempt, she doesn't quite know what the expected result of this Charm would be. She guesses that it is supposed to make her upset at her companion and does so.
Now, versus the Invincible Sword Princess the results are nearly identical, save that she is completely immune to it because her Essence is greater than Quiet Earth's.
The Invincible Sword Princess does not even acknowledge that the Charm was used and now Quiet Earth has his smoking gun. He knows that she is something terrible and almost definitely an Anathema or at least worthy of a good killing. Of course, he also isn't sure that Sweet Emerald hasn't just been manipulated by the vile Solar. She's so sweet.
Tick 36 I Accuse You!
Quiet Earth now moves into a full bore Performance attack here, accusing the Invincible Sword Princess of being... the Invincible Sword Princess.
Why Performance and not another type? Basically Performance affects everyone within range allowing him to make a big showy declaration that stops the ball and makes everyone aghast that she would have possibly moved into the party.
However, we still need to make a social attack because it’s not obvious that beneath that size 6 dress and its revealing midriff that the Invincible Sword Princess is all that invincible. After all, the Invincible Sword Princess never leaves her weapon and she's currently not armed. Again, Quiet Earth is basically telling everyone that the Piano Player is a demigod who has slain thousands. It is a bit hard to swallow.
- Step 1: Quiet Earth has declared a Performance attack, a big flashy accusation of the Invincible Sword Princess. While technically everyone in the room is affected, we only really need to worry about The Lord, Sweet Emerald and the Invincible Sword Princess. The ST declares that the same dice roll will be used against all three targets to expedite the process.
- Step 2: We will resolve the Invincible Sword Princess first. She declares a Dodge MDV, she won't even acknowledge the attack.
- Her relative appearance is one point lower, -1 MDV.
- Quiet Earth plays against her Motivation, he says that she is the greatest sword fighter in the world. -3 MDV.
- The Invincible Sword Princess declares her Intimacy with Emerald, increasing her DV by 1.
- Her final MDV is 7.
- Step 3: Earth rolls a total of 21 dice and gets 12 successes.
- Step 7-8: The Invincible Sword Princess expends one Willpower to bite her lip and say nothing. She doesn't want to ruin Sweet Emerald's plans by revealing herself.
Now, Sweet Emerald gets the same treatment, the exact same speech was given to everyone after all.
- Step 2: Sweet Emerald is going to use her Dodge MDV.
- Her Relative Appearance is 1 higher, increasing her MDV by 1.
- While she is in the target range none of her intimacies, virtues or motivations are hit.
- Sweet Emerald declares her Virtue of Compassion, oozing support for her long time friend in such a scurrilous attack increasing her MDV by 2.
- She has a scene length Charm increasing her MDV by 4.
- Her total MDV is 17.
- Step 3: Quiet Earth has already rolled 12 successes, and fails against the iron wall of Sweet Emerald's ego.
Against The Lord, the other actual target, we have a different situation.
- Step 2: He also declares his Dodge MDV, because it’s higher and when in doubt go with your best number.
- There is no relative Appearance adjustment.
- The affect plays against The Lords Motivation of not getting killed subtracting 3 from his DV.
- The Lord doesn't examine his intimacies, or virtues for any buffs. If it could kill him he wants to know about it.
- His magnitude increases his MDV by 3.
- The Lords total MDV is 10.
- Step 3: Quiet Earth has rolled 12 successes and convinces The Lord that the Invincible Sword Princess is here... and she kills everything.
- Step 7-8: The Lord doesn't expend a Willpower, no sane man would, and he instead calls his guards. They move onto the scene as another social group and surround the Invincible Sword Princess, but do not attack.
Tick 37 Demigod on the Move
Sweet Emerald has been somewhat lax here, and for good reason. Quiet Earth has just played right into her hands. Unlike regular combat, you don't need to know where everyone is at every possible instant. For the past several minutes Sweet Emerald has been waiting patiently for her opportunity, and now that its here she's going to take advantage of it.
Sweet Emerald executes a combo that includes Heart-Compelling Method, Memory-Reweaving Discipline and Mastery of Small Manners. Memory-Reweaving Discipline allows her to rewrite the past, in the minds of the people present at least. Heart-Compelling Method will up the targets sympathy factor considerably. Mastery of Small Manners is a handy little buff that provides a few good stat bonuses in the right areas.
Her targets are Quiet Earth and The Lord, mainly The Lord.
- Step 1: Sweet Emerald is using a powerful non-obvious Solar Performance Combo to obliterate her competition. She is explaining to them that the Invincible Sword Princess has always been a good ally to this kingdom, a lie and a falsehood but quite convincing from Emerald's pouty lips.
- Step 2: The Lord, who is easier to resolve, will go first. He has no Charms or combos.
- Sweet Emerald's Appearance is effectively 6 at the moment giving him a -2 penalty to his DV.
- Sweet Emerald plays against his motivation, Quiet Earth is out to get him after all -3 to his DV.
- The Lord doesn't both to use an intimacy or virtue, he's confused.
- The Lords magnitude is 3, however that is reduced by one by the Solar's Charms.
- The Lord's base parry MDV is 7, the final MDV is 4.
- Step 3: Sweet Emerald rolls 23 dice and gets 12 successes, exceeding The Lord's MDV by 8. While that is typically not important, a 1 point success is the equal to a 15 point success, many Solar Charms assign the resistance difficulty based on the number of successes.
- Step 7-8: Normally resisting influence requires one Willpower, unless the Charm says otherwise as is the case for both of the heavy hitters in our combo.
- Heart-Compelling Method requires 2 Willpower to resist. The Lord grumbles and expends the Loyalty.
- Memory-Reweaving Discipline requires 1 Willpower to resist per scene.
- It is a Performance attack and the defender ALSO has to resist the performance portion of this, however that is natural persuasion and he has already expended his Willpower for this it is not applicable.
- Because it’s a combo, you can't resist part of this, its all or nothing. The Lord does, expending a massive 3 loyalty from his pool, reducing him to 2 loyalty!
Tick 41 Linguistics and Written Attacks
To cement her case, and before Quiet Earth can respond, Sweet Emerald presents The Lord a letter explaining everything. It was given to her by one of her Circle Mates who has Linguistics 5 and has prepared a special document for The Lord.
Linguistics attacks are written and use Linguistics in place of Appearance.
- Step 1: The big scary letter. It is a combo letter including Flawless Brush Discipline, Twisted Words Technique and the Second Excellencies for Linguistics and Performance. It is an attempt at unnatural mental persuasion, and a very good one at that. It states, in short, that the Invincible Sword Princess is here to save you, the Realm is trying to take over and only we can keep you at some level of independence, finally it inspires him to yell this to the heavens if he agrees.
- Step 2: The Lord chooses his Dodge MDV, it’s still higher.
- Step 3: The Lords Dodge MDV is 7.
- The Linguist rank on the letter is 5, giving it a 3 point bonus over The Lord's 2, reducing the DV by 3.
- The Letter plays to his motivation, reducing his MDV by 3.
- The Lord's unit still raises his MDV by 3.
- The Lord's MDV has been reduced to 4.
The Letter has two basic components:
- A (Charisma + Performance) check which rolled 10 successes, from Flawless Brush Discipline.
- A (Manipulation + Performance) check which also rolled 10 successes, from Twisted Words Technique.
- Step 7-8: The results will be hideous here. The Lord has a mere 2 Loyalty to resist the Charms and the letter has two components that both requires 3 Willpower to resist.
- The Emotional portion of the Charm, Flawless Brush Discipline, causes The Lord to fall in love with the Invincible Sword Princess and what she represents.
- The Compulsion/Illusion portion caused by Twisted Words Technique causes The Lord to hate the realm and fear their armies will invade soon(and put him out of a job).
He CANNOT resist this, he does not have enough loyalty. He MUST accede to the demand that reduced him to Zero, which was a demand that he love the Invincible Sword Princess and Hate the Realm. This does not go against his motivation, at which point he would not be required to do it.
- Afterwards: Now the loyalty of the Unit is reset. It goes from a magnitude 3 unit to a magnitude 2 unit. It now has an intimacy towards the Invincible Sword Princess. As per part of the requirements, he shouts out to the heavens his support for the Invincible Sword Princess at which point...
Eclipse Anima Effect
Sweet Emerald needs but to shake the hand of the individual, or touch hands of the parties involved, for her anima to kick on. She shakes his hand, thanking him for his support. There really isn't a time frame for shaking hands and so seeing as it is dramatically appropriate, she is able to do so during her action.
This causes her anima to flare up, it’s obvious she's a Solar now and The Lord doesn't care much. Quiet Earth, still recovering from his performance, is now surrounded by a room full of hostile guards. That alone is trouble, the fact that the Invincible Sword Princess is here as also... well, that's for another time.
Fin
Fluff text still needs added and as well, some of the examples need clarified. If something isn't obvious please list it on the discussion page. If something is wrong, flag it on this page and then note it on the discussion page.
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The Exalted 20X Classes | |
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Exalted 201: Second Edition Combat
Exalted 203: Social Combat
Exalted 205: High Level Showdown
Exalted 207: Strategies for More Effective Gaming
Exalted 209: Spellcraft
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Exalted 202: Mass Combat
Exalted 204: Mandate of Heaven
Exalted 206: Artifact Crafting
Exalted 208: Practical Charm Building
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