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View Full Version : Help Me, I feel like That Guy



tribble
2011-05-02, 07:50 PM
I'm currently in an exalted campaign with some friends of mine, and I feel like I'm taking over, hogging the limelight, and generally acting like a special snowflake cretin. I don't want to do this, and I never intended to be anything like that.
I built a Twilight caste doctor with Medicine 5, and no other distinguishing features besides an utter lack of manipulation and fighting ability that would be mediocre even for a mortal. (total dice pool of 5.) However, because I have a distressing habit of rolling criticals, I have so far soloed three bosses and I'm starting to worry I'm getting out of hand.

I feel like I'm turning into one of those protagonists that make everyone else look useless, and I hate it. I wanted to play a support character, and I feel like a scumbag when I'm outshining the Dawn Caste without even trying.

Kylarra
2011-05-02, 08:02 PM
So you're saying that you're fighting bosses with a maximum DV of 10 (14 with stunts I guess) and you're using a weapon of sufficient magnitude to be able to kill them with a decent dice roll for damage and for some reason they're not defending themselves with charms?

we're gonna need more information on just how you're "soloing" bosses, but if it's anything like "lol I have a grand grimscythe and I occasionally hit for the kill damage because they didn't perfect", then I guess "welcome to exalted combat".

Ranos
2011-05-02, 08:10 PM
Yep, welcome to exalted. If you get hit, you're probably dead. Is there a particular reason why the bosses weren't using perfects ?

tribble
2011-05-02, 08:30 PM
So you're saying that you're fighting bosses with a maximum DV of 10 (14 with stunts I guess) and you're using a weapon of sufficient magnitude to be able to kill them with a decent dice roll for damage and for some reason they're not defending themselves with charms?

we're gonna need more information on just how you're "soloing" bosses, but if it's anything like "lol I have a grand grimscythe and I occasionally hit for the kill damage because they didn't perfect", then I guess "welcome to exalted combat".

I use my feet. Not even iron-toed boots, I'm using bare kicks and destroying bosses. My strength is 2, and I do have Hearthstone bracers, so I'm rolling, like, six dice of bashing damage, or I would if I didn't keep forgetting my bracers enhance my damage.

Let me start with the first boss I soloed. We were in this underground dungeon place, basically a D&D style crawl, and fighting a team of Abyssals. The fight is rather dull, until the Abyssals get reinforcements. One of the reinforcements is some dude with a homebrew wooden puppet thing that fights for him, and the other is this guy who comes in with zombies in tow, twirling a grimscythe and bragging about torturing the characters of a couple of players who left the campaign because they couldn't make it to the sessions reliably. I channeled a virtue (compassion) for the first and so far only time in the entire campaign, and oneshot him because I roll too many criticals on my roll to hit, which translates to entirely too many damage dice. I did also stunt the attack in question, which maybe contributed.

The second time I soloed a boss was rather wierd. Some of the abyssals from the last fight escaped and teamed up with another abyssal, a sorceror. Right at the start of the fight, this abyssal froze me in time with homebrew sorcery. I'm like, "whatever", and sit out most of the fight. Within ticks, the rest of the party has destroyed all the abyssals except the sorceress, who casts more homebrew sorcery to make essence clones or something of all four of the abyssals we had killed in the last couple of adventures. Before anyone else can do anything, I snap out of bullet time and rush the sorceress. The ST, who I guess maybe felt bad about delaying me that much with no save or anything, awards me bonus dice because of the conservation of energy or some strangeness, and I flying kick the sorceress in the face. I don't remember if I oneshotted her or needed the second kick, but I killed her outright (though that may be excusable, since the storyteller said she had no essence remaining.I think he may have "forgot" to implement her anima power, though.).

So, in hindsight I realise I may not have been quite as terrible as I make it out to seem, but let me edit in my most recent bit, the one that makes me actually feel bad.

EDIT: Our most recent episode had us defending Lookshy, there's a long story but suffice it to say we were part of the ultimate showdown team BLU, consisting of every exalt ever excluding Abyssals and Infernals and the Realm. The rest of the party sorties outside the walls to fight, I stay inside the walls and play combat medic, because my entire concept is Doctor, and because I was exhausted IRL.
While they're fighting the armies ("offscreen", as they aren't rolling anything at all or getting any description of the fight,) I pass a spot check and see a shadow moving across the ground. I've seen a recurring villian (an infernal) do a lot of shadow-themed stuff, so I put two and two together relatively quickly and chase the shadow. I eventually figure out he's beelining for my apartment, and pretend to lose him so I can suprise him with a dramatic entrance. I do my dramatic entrance and get my front door destroyed, at which point I begin bantering with him like a spandex superhero.

After some gibes are swapped, we start the fight. I win initiative and knock him over, after which we trade blows. He tries to kill me with a debuff combo that would pretty much kill me, except that he can't beat my hardness. (Durability of Oak Meditation, I love you forever.) We exchange blows for a while to no effect, the other players joke that I'm slipping, etc. Eventually, he starts a grapple, which I promptly take over and elect to deal crushing damage. Since crushing damage from clinching deals my strength in damage(with no roll, if we're understanding the rules as written), and I have Orichalcum bracers, I put him into incapacitated really fast.

I don't get to savor my victory, because a seven-foot-tall Slayer comes out of the woodwork and makes with the intimidation. I completely misread the hostage situation and the homebrew magic that is allowing the Infernal to muck about with the loom of fate, and kill the guy, thinking that if he dies, his magic should dissipate and Sidereals should come out of everywhere to waste this guy. They don't. I abuse Durability of Oak Meditation and the knockback rules to get punted out of my house, and therefore get a head start on my "Run like hell" check. This last bit is the only part of the entire session I'm proud of. By this point i have about sixteen motes of peripheral essence remaining.

We ended the episode a couple of minutes afterwards, with the other players having not actually gotten to do much for all of the four hours it took us to do the fight. My bossfight completely monopolised our most recent episode, and I feel like a tool.

Kylarra
2011-05-02, 09:18 PM
So far I'm seeing you hitting people who for some strange reason aren't wearing armor and aren't using charms to protect themselves. All of your enemies should be able to soak your damage to the point where all you do is essence ping, or at least be able to negate your initial 6+some marginal amount of successes with impunity.

tribble
2011-05-02, 09:30 PM
So far I'm seeing you hitting people who for some strange reason aren't wearing armor and aren't using charms to protect themselves. All of your enemies should be able to soak your damage to the point where all you do is essence ping, or at least be able to negate your initial 6+some marginal amount of successes with impunity.

I'm essence 3, so maybe that's contributing?

Kylarra
2011-05-02, 09:41 PM
I'm essence 3, so maybe that's contributing?Well, I'm just saying, you should really have the majority of your damage reduced to 3B. There's no reason for an abyssal antagonist to not be at least using a[n artifact] breastplate (1 dot artifact armor with no drawbacks), which would neatly reduce your base damage to just essence ping basically (it would soak 8B+natural soak).

Also you misread the grappling rules. You have to make a contested roll for each time you want to deal damage so... yeah. That's a rules issue, you should not be auto damaging.

tribble
2011-05-02, 09:50 PM
Well, I'm just saying, you should really have the majority of your damage reduced to 3B. There's no reason for an abyssal antagonist to not be at least using a[n artifact] breastplate (1 dot artifact armor with no drawbacks), which would neatly reduce your base damage to just essence ping basically (it would soak 8B+natural soak).

Also you misread the grappling rules. You have to make a contested roll for each time you want to deal damage so... yeah. That's a rules issue, you should not be auto damaging.

I did make the roll to control the clinch, and I did win it. Should I be rolling the damage for crushing in a clinch?

Kylarra
2011-05-02, 10:00 PM
I did make the roll to control the clinch, and I did win it. Should I be rolling the damage for crushing in a clinch?No, the crush does damage automatically, so we're looking at 4+threshold, but there's still natural soak to compare with so it should be mostly soaked anyway, again discounting the armor that the well funded GSP should have.

What I meant was that every subsequent crush attempt would be contested.

tribble
2011-05-02, 10:04 PM
The attempts were contested. The problem is that I kept rolling high on my clinch rolls, which gave me even more damage. This last villian was supposed to be a sneaky bastard type of antagonist, and I'll admit he played the party like a pro the first time he appeared. (He posed as a DMPC to take advantage of my metaknowledge. I didn't see it coming in or out of character.) I get the feeling he wasn't supposed to be good at combat, maybe, but neither was I.

Kylarra
2011-05-02, 10:14 PM
If he wasn't supposed to be good at combat, he shouldn't have initiated a grapple honestly.

Basically what I'm seeing is that you're hitting essentially lightly armored skirmishers who have low soak. So the only thing you've got going for you is being the one lucky enough to hit the paper bag to make it go pop.

conaniscool
2011-05-02, 10:20 PM
Clinch roll? What kind of game has rules for bowel movements?

TheCountAlucard
2011-05-02, 10:22 PM
Clinch roll? What kind of game has rules for bowel movements?Apart from FATAL, you mean? :smalltongue:

A little more seriously...


clinch
v. clinched, clinch·ing, clinch·es
...
v.intr.
1. To be held together securely.
2. Sports To hold a boxing opponent's body with one or both arms to prevent or hinder punches.
3. Slang To embrace amorously.

A little more seriously still, I'd like to point out that even clinch damage isn't automatic; otherwise, Dragon Coil Technique would be a hell of a lot more deadly.

Jerthanis
2011-05-02, 10:42 PM
So basically, you roll well and have fought not-particularly-powerful-warrior enemies so far, yet have prevailed, and so feel like you're hogging limelight.

It seems like situations have rolled out to let you get more use out of your abilities than you can really regularly expect. Durability of Oak Meditation only gives 8 Hardness, which a mortal chopping sword wielded by a guy with a 3 strength shatters with impunity. Since it provides no protection whatsoever when it isn't absolute, if you were to get hit for 7 damage, you're fine, but 8 and you risk death in one blow. Your opponent initiated a grapple and was either inexpert or unlucky enough not to totally obliterate you, and paid the price of fickle fate.

Fight anyone with armor and Dex 5 Dodge 5, 3 dice in specialties, essence 3 with an artifact weapon of any kind and you'll long for the days when you felt like That Guy. My advice is "just wait, it sounds like you're just running a lucky streak or your ST is playing to your strengths to make you feel like a badass. Enjoy it while it lasts, Exalted combat eventually loses its luster."

If you feel as if the rest of the group hasn't had the same opportunity to show off, you should simply mention such in private to the ST, cite your awesome moments and say you're comfortable letting other people get their time in while you enjoy a spectator position.

Arbane
2011-05-03, 01:15 AM
What's been said. Also, remember that if you're a Celestial Exalted, you ARE a Special Snowflake. There are only about 699 people in the entirety of Creation who can even REMOTELY claim to be as cool as you. The Gods have decreed it.

tribble
2011-05-03, 08:41 PM
So basically, you roll well and have fought not-particularly-powerful-warrior enemies so far, yet have prevailed, and so feel like you're hogging limelight.

It seems like situations have rolled out to let you get more use out of your abilities than you can really regularly expect. Durability of Oak Meditation only gives 8 Hardness, which a mortal chopping sword wielded by a guy with a 3 strength shatters with impunity. Since it provides no protection whatsoever when it isn't absolute, if you were to get hit for 7 damage, you're fine, but 8 and you risk death in one blow. Your opponent initiated a grapple and was either inexpert or unlucky enough not to totally obliterate you, and paid the price of fickle fate.

Oh, I'm aware of this, I just bought adamant skin technique for just such an occasion, and I just realised it wan't DOOM I used on the huge guy to get myself bounced, it was Spirit Strengthens the Skin.

Fight anyone with armor and Dex 5 Dodge 5, 3 dice in specialties, essence 3 with an artifact weapon of any kind and you'll long for the days when you felt like That Guy. My advice is "just wait, it sounds like you're just running a lucky streak or your ST is playing to your strengths to make you feel like a badass. Enjoy it while it lasts, Exalted combat eventually loses its luster."

If you feel as if the rest of the group hasn't had the same opportunity to show off, you should simply mention such in private to the ST, cite your awesome moments and say you're comfortable letting other people get their time in while you enjoy a spectator position.

Yeah, okay, I'll do this.

ajkkjjk52
2011-05-04, 11:34 PM
Unless I misunderstand the OP, the issue here is not the mechanics of this character but a more RP-focused fear that you're overshadowing the other players. And yes, as the thread title says, we all know that guy who makes the other players feel like spectators.

So, first of all it seems like you're just rolling pretty well in clinch situations. There's no reason to expect it to continue, but I guess you could switch dice with someone, or break a mirror while throwing a black cat under a latter seven times.

But let's say that, misunderstanding Exalted (which it doesn't seem like is the case), you did somehow accidentally build an unarmed uberwarrior who is making your dawn-caste buddy look like chopped liver. Despair not! If you want to turn over the stage in combat, just make some roleplaying decisions that lead to suboptimal strategizing.

For an example, in a game I ran recently (not Exalted), it was clear before we even began playing that one character, an unarmed barbarian, was significantly more optimal than the other party members and could probably solo the rest of the party a few times over. So the player went and bought himself a sword and shield, and began playing his character as one who beleived he was a fighter, but in the grip of rage became less so. So he spent the first two rounds throwing his shield and then his sword (ineffectually) at his opponents. Sometimes he would spend a round in the middle of combat gloating over the body of a fallen foe, or breaking off a piece of scenery to use (briefly) as an improvised club. He still kicked a significant amount of butt when he wanted to, but the result was that the other party members got to do their thing, and it also strengthened his character concept a lot.

An option more reasonable for a doctor might be to spend the first turn or two begging everyone to try to reach a peaceful solution before giving up with a sigh and going to kick the boss' head off again.

TL;DR: If you want to be less effective, don't nerf your character, nerf your characterization.

Pisha
2011-05-05, 04:54 PM
I don't know anything about Exalted mechanics, but I do have experience with characters feeling overshadowed (or feeling like they're overshadowing others) in combat.

One way to deal with it is to get a feel for the other characters' capabilities, and try to form plans that use everyone's skills. Maybe you take on the main guy and they take out his minions? (Or vice versa - the other characters gang up on the big bad while you clear out the rest of the battle.) Or develop a great combo attack that only works if everyone participates.

Another is to specialize your combat skills. Get one or two attacks you're really good at, but don't focus much on anything else. At that point, it's up to your ST to provide a balanced combat, where sometimes you're well-suited to take on the threat and sometimes you're just not.

Alternately, you could just specialize in combat, period. I don't play Exalted but I do play White Wolf games in general, and sometimes it's ok to have a character whose main role is to be the combat monster. If that's you, go ahead and shine in combat - you're supposed to. Just remember to take a backseat and let the other characters do their thing in non-combat situations.

Or, y'know... run with it. In one of our old games, our least combat-effective character was forced into solo gladiatorial combat at the very beginning of the campaign. Due to ridiculously good rolls on her part (and bad rolls on the other guy's), she came out of it looking like Fighter McFightsalot. Despite knowing, ooc-ly, that she was not built for combat at all, IC-ly we all decided she must be the party's new tank. When she tried to protest, we'd laugh and tell her to stop being so modest. It was all pretty hilarious, and we still talk about that character to this day. So... if you're just having a string of luck that makes you look more powerful than you really are, have fun with it! Would your character get a big head and strut? Or would he try in vain to convince his friends that he's really not a fighter - no, really, he's not - and they should not keep putting him in the front line? Letting your friends see the humor in the situation makes them a part of what's going on, and can help avoid bad feelings.