What powers /should/ we be looking at?

[Measure Zero]

For my character, I find myself drawn to sorcery, Martial Arts (or Melee, I guess) charms, Resistance charms, and Lore charms.  Before I start working stuff out, I would like to know what you (Rob) think would be good for my character to have.  I would like to get a few Lore charms, but most of those seem to require very special circumstances.  Is there any point in going that direction?

[BobChuck]

Well, generally speaking, I'm willing to head in whatever direction the group wants. I will be hurling some nasty things at you and forcing you to react, but how you react is up to you. Also, I don't have any long term plans at the moment, so if there's something EPIC you'd like to work on, let me know.

That said, I don't imagine we will spend a lot of time dealing with complicated governments, open oceans, or Wyld areas, so I would recommend against learning charms for Bureaucracy, Sail, and Lore.

[Measure Zero]

If I built up to getting the Order Enforcing Blow, would you consider tossing more Fair Folk into the mix?  Those are your best bet for adding in crazy monsters.  It could also become useful if we have to save a newly exalted Lunar and bring him out of the Threshold, which is again a good way to get us allied with some Lunar packs.  I think I'm supposed to have my character go to elemental poles to get sorcery knowledge as well or something.  In any event, I can give my character a motivation to go to the Wyld if that's something you aren't afraid of handling.

[BobChuck]

Well, if that's what the party would like to do, that's what we'll do.

However, the Wyld is *nasty*. By going there, you'd be giving me permission to do just about anything I want to your character. Also, everyone would pretty much have to learn that one Resistance charm that keeps the Wyld from turning your intestines into snakes (for example).

[Measure Zero]

The Lore charms take care of that, too.  There's also the option of having us only go to a Wyld pocket in creation, or only having us go to the border lands to fight barbarians or something.

[BobChuck]

My only concern is that some of the other players seem intent on social chars, and the Wyld is definitely NOT a social place. The Fair Folk are nice to others when in civilized creation because otherwise they'd get attacked by armies. If a group of Solars walk in and start (literally) taking control of the Wyld, all bets are off.

[Measure Zero]

Okay.  But since there are no real combat characters (somehow), I think I am going to grab some combat powers.  My plan was to get sorcery abilities for flavor, and add to that the first few snake style charms.  Since you don't want me to go wild with Lore charms, my others will probably be occult charms and either something random or Ox-Body Technique.  I was hoping to round this out with 3-4 Terrestrial Circle spells, but that depends on whether or not your essence commitment rule extend to sorcery with its insanely huge mote costs.

[BobChuck]

Right, the Essence Commitment rule is out. I forgot about the sorcery spells, and effects like Darla's Horse Augmentation Charm. I'm not trying to screw characters over, I'm just trying to fix PoM.

[Measure Zero]

One other thing: how does Invulnerable Skin of Bronze stack with a) armor (do the soaks stack?) and b) Wood Dragon's Claw (does a Wood Dragon's Claw attack count as an unarmed attack?).  The numbers are getting a little crazy and I figured I would get it all straightened out before Saturday.

[BobChuck]

Oh. hah. Thanks for reminding me. There are a couple charms that are NOT available. I'm adding PoM to the list, but Wood Dragon's Claw and that one Snake Style charm that bypasses perfect defenses are both not available. Perfect Defenses are perfect for a reason, and I'm not going to let anybody attack with a weapon that gives +16 accuracy and then shift it THE VERY NEXT TURN to get a +16 defense, all without having to put any points in Artifact. That's not happening.

As for Invulnerable Skin of Bronze, I believe it stacks with natural soak, and does not stack with armor (it's effectively another kind of armor, and multiple armors don't stack). I'm not sure, though; I'll read it over lunch and tell you what I decide.

[Measure Zero]

Oh. hah. Thanks for reminding me. There are a couple charms that are NOT available. I'm adding PoM to the list, but Wood Dragon's Claw and that one Snake Style charm that bypasses perfect defenses are both not available. Perfect Defenses are perfect for a reason, and I'm not going to let anybody attack with a weapon that gives +16 accuracy and then shift it THE VERY NEXT TURN to get a +16 defense, all without having to put any points in Artifact. That's not happening.

As for Invulnerable Skin of Bronze, I believe it stacks with natural soak, and does not stack with armor (it's effectively another kind of armor, and multiple armors don't stack). I'm not sure, though; I'll read it over lunch and tell you what I decide.

Each stat is limited by Occult + Essence.  For me, that would be a total of 7.  The spell also allows 15, and not 16 points, and I would assume that at least one of those needs to be stuck in Rate if the claws are going to be used in an offensive manner.  The stat list I would use would be Dam:7, Acc:4, Rate:1, Def:3, with switches when my character can't hit something or when I want him to turtle.  Any given configuration is roughly equivalent to the two-dot Razor Claws Artifact, which I guess costs 5-6 exp under your system (if artifacts still cost exp even if they are gained in play).  Learning Wood Dragon's Claw requires 8 exp in play, a cost roughly equivalent to a 2.5-3-dot artifact.  Instead of completely disallowing it, couldn't you just nerf it a little if it bothers you that much?

About the Snake Style charm to which you refer: it doesn't exist.  The closest the style gets to that is an attack that ignores soak from armor.

[BobChuck]

Actually, White Wolf really goofed up on how to increase backgrounds during play.
see the errata:http://download.white-wolf.com/download/download.php?file_id=523
We will be using option 1.

If you feel so strongly about me not deleting WDC, I won't.

I've looked at ISoB, and it looks like it stacks with both Natural Soak, Armor Soak, and Armor Hardness. This leads me to the following house rule: Sorcery (and Necromancy) charms have their  half of the motes used to cast the spell committed while active.

Wood Dragon's Claw costs about as much as a single 2-3 dot artifact weapon, but it gives you the ability to imitate almost ANY martial arts or melee artifact weapon of 3 dots or less. The spell costs 10 motes to cast, so having half those motes committed while the spell is active is only fair.

Invulnerable Skin of Bronze basically gives you a four dot artifact armor that stacks with artifact armor. Lets compare the two:
Articulated Plate: Soak 14B / 12L   Hardness 08B / 8L   Mob -2   Fat 1
Skin of Bronze:    Soak 12B / 06L   Hardness 12B / 6L   Mob -0   Fat 0   stacks with armor
So, in my opinion, forcing sorcerers to commit 10 motes to this spell while it is active is reasonable.

Can you honestly say that you feel the sorcery spells are perfectly balanced without requiring any essence commitment?

[Thomas Kerwin]

I don't think Invulnerable Skin of Bronze should add to your base soak, it should replace your base soak.  It's like replacing your skin with magical metal.

[BobChuck]

meh. it's a difference of, what, 2B and 1L? Still, it does make a certain amount of sense.

What the heck, i like Thomas's idea.

[Measure Zero]

Actually, White Wolf really goofed up on how to increase backgrounds during play.
see the errata:http://download.white-wolf.com/download/download.php?file_id=523
We will be using option 1.

If you feel so strongly about me not deleting WDC, I won't.

I've looked at ISoB, and it looks like it stacks with both Natural Soak, Armor Soak, and Armor Hardness. This leads me to the following house rule: Sorcery (and Necromancy) charms have their  half of the motes used to cast the spell committed while active.

Wood Dragon's Claw costs about as much as a single 2-3 dot artifact weapon, but it gives you the ability to imitate almost ANY martial arts or melee artifact weapon of 3 dots or less. The spell costs 10 motes to cast, so having half those motes committed while the spell is active is only fair.

Invulnerable Skin of Bronze basically gives you a four dot artifact armor that stacks with artifact armor. Lets compare the two:
Articulated Plate: Soak 14B / 12L   Hardness 08B / 8L   Mob -2   Fat 1
Skin of Bronze:    Soak 12B / 06L   Hardness 12B / 6L   Mob -0   Fat 0   stacks with armor
So, in my opinion, forcing sorcerers to commit 10 motes to this spell while it is active is reasonable.

Can you honestly say that you feel the sorcery spells are perfectly balanced without requiring any essence commitment?

In fact, I would go so far as to say they are perfectly balanced as-is with no nerfs and no requirement of extra essence committment.  Consider the following example:

Du Mi Na prepares to punch fellow sorcerer Lei Ha Wei with his Wood Dragon's Claws/Invulnerable Skin of Bronze-enhanced fists.  Lei has other ideas, and manages to preempt Du's attack with his Emerald Countermagic while Du is still a long ways off.  Now Du has a choice: he can either abort his attack and counter the countermagic with his own (costing 10m and his next action) or he can continue his attack.  If Du continues his attack, all of his Terrestrial sorcery spells currently active are immediately ended.  Du also takes 5-10B piercing (bypasses soak due to armor) bashing damage as well from magical backlash, and his attack is then made as if he had neither weapons nor armor.  If Du wanted to refresh his spells first, it would take him over 75% of his full essence pool to do it and he would have to leave combat (and be subject to interruption, loss of dodge and parry DVs, etc.) to do so.

Note that no non-sorcery charms have this kind of weakness, and none of the artifacts listed can explode in your face so easily.  If I was going for pure combat advantage, I would not want to give my character such a huge and obvious weakness.  The Dragon-bloods do have a freaking magic academy, you know.  Now: compare Wood Dragon's Claws with a 2 dot orichalcum Seven Parts Staff with the Snake Style charm that makes this staff do lethal damage.