[Exalted] Sacrificing Minions For Fun And Profit

[Weimann]

Pawn Guards Black King
Cost: 2+m (2+m, 1wp) Minimums: Presence 3, Essence 2 Type: Reflexive (step 2)
Duration: Instant
Keywords: Combo-OK, Compulsion
Prerequisites: Any Presence Excellency

When swords seek to cut the flesh of a Deathknight, they must first cut through the swarm of her minions. This charm targets one or more mindless undead within (Essence) yards of the Abyssal. She rolls her (Manipulation+Presence) against a difficulty of (the undead's Essence) if it is uncontrolled or (its controllers DMDV) if someone else is controlling it. If she is already controlling the mindless undead, the charm automatically succeeds.

The Abyssal may pay +1m to target an additional mindless undead beyonf the first with this Charm, to a total maximum of (Essence). Doing so still only requires one activation roll against the highest difficulty in the group. Mindless undead already under your command will obey regardless of any other outcomes.

The Deathknight may command the mindless undead to reflexively take a Defend Other action (Scroll of Errata, p.9) against one attack. If the mindless undead for any reason is unable to take the action, the Charm is wasted.

At Essence 3, the Deathknight may pay an additional +1wp when activating this Charm. Upon doing so, subsequent activations in the same scene no longer counts as Charm activations.

Omnicidal Sacrificial Tactics
Cost: -- (+1m) Minimums: Presence 5, Essence 3 Type: Permanent
Duration: Permanent
Keywords: None
Prerequisites: Pawn Guards Black King

The hand of death guides all creatures to their inevitable end. This Charm upgrades it's prerequisite, allowing it to target self-aware undead and living creatures for a +1m surcharge per invocation (not per targeted creature). The difficulty of the activation roll in such cases is always the target's DMDV. This effect counts as unnatural Mental Influence which costs 1wp to resist.

[Recaiden]

I feel that it should key off of Charisma rather than Manipulation, given that they are mindless undead. Also, Omnicidal Sacrifice Tactics could be allowed to affect undead with a mind as well, but that's not completely in line with the fluff sentence.

I'm concerned that it might be too powerful, as a mass of zombies (which is easy to come by for many) can block a lot of attacks, even if destroyed by them, for not a lot of motes in the defence. Of course, they're not doing anything else at the time....

The second half of the charm is somewhat confusingly worded. Does it give an innate ability to command the Undead to defend one for the remainder of a scene, or does the command last one scene, and not count as a charm even at the beginning activation?

That aside, I like the idea of the original. Not so sure of the upgrade, but then it is easily resisted, right? More often a willpower-burning technique, maybe?

[TheCountAlucard]

I find it amusing, then, that you could use this Charm to defend yourself from a horde of zombies attacking you by making the same zombies defend you. :smalltongue:

The Essence 3 upgrade is pretty nice, too. :smallcool:

[Tavar]

Considering that it's 2 motes per defended attack, it's not that cheap.

Though, I'm not quite sure how the upgrade works with that.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Being blunt, this is broken.

Remember, Defend Other lets the defender take the damage for you. This is a 2m perfect defense (when 3m is the absolute lowest it should go), and given that an Abyssal can pretty trivially have hundreds of undead under her control, there's not much of a drawback to using it. This makes the scene-long version even more broken.

OST is actually worse, because it lets you Willpower ping your enemy to death (you're a social-focused Abyssal) in the middle of combat, cheaply. And if they fail to defend against it, they die instantly.

Noooooot sure how to fix it. Let me think on that.

[Weimann]

I feel that it should key off of Charisma rather than Manipulation, given that they are mindless undead.I took the (Manipulation+Presence) dice pool from Command The Dead (MoEP:Abyssals, p.145), which allows you to command mindless undead completely until the next sunrise as a Servitude effect.


Also, Omnicidal Sacrifice Tactics could be allowed to affect undead with a mind as well, but that's not completely in line with the fluff sentence.Fair point. I shall fix that.


I'm concerned that it might be too powerful, as a mass of zombies (which is easy to come by for many) can block a lot of attacks, even if destroyed by them, for not a lot of motes in the defence. Of course, they're not doing anything else at the time....I'd like to compare it to Command The Dead again, where you pay 5m and then +1m per additional undead to command them until the next sunrise as a Servitude effect. Then, you can simply tell them "if man with big stick comes, stand between me and big stick" and there you have it, all for free. The benefit of this charm is that can be activated more readily in the heat of battle (Command The Dead is Simple and Combo-Basic), but has the drawback of needing to pay the cost for each attack. That said, I will consider raising the cost to 3m, but I'm not sure.

Fun fact: now when I look at the stats in the core book, I find that zombies don't in fact have a PDV, which they need to Defend Other. Thinking about it, I'm not even sure what undead are considered "mindless". I must clearly do more research.


The second half of the charm is somewhat confusingly worded. Does it give an innate ability to command the Undead to defend one for the remainder of a scene, or does the command last one scene, and not count as a charm even at the beginning activation?Each command lasts for a singe attack still, but you no longer have to spend the charm activation to issue them, just pay the motes.


That aside, I like the idea of the original. Not so sure of the upgrade, but then it is easily resisted, right? More often a willpower-burning technique, maybe?Well, it's a bit situational, isn't it? If you know that the attacker won't chose to strike you instead but continue through to the Abyssal, maybe it's worth to save the Willpower? It's a valuable resource after all. I don't think the choice is always obvious.


Remember, Defend Other lets the defender take the damage for you. This is a 2m perfect defense (when 3m is the absolute lowest it should go), and given that an Abyssal can pretty trivially have hundreds of undead under her control, there's not much of a drawback to using it. This makes the scene-long version even more broken.Correction; the attacker can choose to target the defender and attack him instead. He can also chose to continue targeting the defender's ward, in this case the Abyssal, in which case the defender simply provides a DV bonus. It's only a perfect defence if the attacker makes it so.


OST is actually worse, because it lets you Willpower ping your enemy to death (you're a social-focused Abyssal) in the middle of combat, cheaply. And if they fail to defend against it, they die instantly.Again, it's the attacker's choice. It's assumed that your team mates will not start PvPing all of a sudden.

[aetherialDawn]

Broken? I wouldn't say so.

A mass of cultists is as broken as this. Heck, if one is fairly nice to one's followers, I can get twenty-five followers for 2 XP less than this charm!

Now, there are a few limits to this charm! For one, there's only so many zombies one can have that close to you.

For another, Unblockable Attacks.
The zombies can't block the unblockable, so it hits right to the Deathknight. One had better have a different PD in mind!

Unexpected attacks also apply, of course, in the same way - the zombies can't detect them even if the Deathknight can.

The above post is also completely right as regards the fact that the zombies can bypass the defense, but I point out that the scene-length version is +1 PDV per zombie. Still fairly nice for a non-charm-dice bonus.

Oh, also, area-of-affect attacks. I forgot those. All your zombies got burned up and so did you!

[Mr.Bookworm]

ICorrection; the attacker can choose to target the defender and attack him instead. He can also chose to continue targeting the defender's ward, in this case the Abyssal, in which case the defender simply provides a DV bonus. It's only a perfect defence if the attacker makes it so.

*facepalm*

I misread Defend Other when I was looking it up for this. My mistake. That's fine then, yeah.


Again, it's the attacker's choice. It's assumed that your team mates will not start PvPing all of a sudden.

This, though, is still pretty not-good. The issue isn't the potentially suicidal order, it's that it's a cheap mental attack that you can use in combat time.

[Weimann]

Added a +1m surcharge for Omnicidal Sacrificial Tactics.


Now, there are a few limits to this charm! For one, there's only so many zombies one can have that close to you.

For another, Unblockable Attacks.
The zombies can't block the unblockable, so it hits right to the Deathknight. One had better have a different PD in mind!

Oh, also, area-of-affect attacks. I forgot those. All your zombies got burned up and so did you!This is correct. Thanks for pointing that out since I hadn't thought about it so I didn't have to.


Unexpected attacks also apply, of course, in the same way - the zombies can't detect them even if the Deathknight can.I'm not sure, but I think that if the Abyssal detects the surprise attack and activates the charm, then it wouldn't be a surprise for the defender either. After all, they must know what attack they're ordered to intercept. There might be some rules mongering about this, though. I'll look into it.


The above post is also completely right as regards the fact that the zombies can bypass the defense, but I point out that the scene-length version is +1 PDV per zombie. Still fairly nice for a non-charm-dice bonus.Maybe I'm completely stupid, but I just can't make heads or tails of this sentence. Could you restate it for the less literate, please? :smalltongue:

[Weimann]

This, though, is still pretty not-good. The issue isn't the potentially suicidal order, it's that it's a cheap mental attack that you can use in combat time.Yeah, I know. It's not really kosher. I really do wish they wouldn't have Willpower as a very limited and very critical resource in both physical and mental combat.

Still, consider: the mental influence here can only be used in a very specific way. It's not like I give free reigns to order them off a cliff or anything, and unacceptable orders still apply, so if the Abyssal tries to pull you out in front of someone you know will let you soak the attack, you get to refuse for free. What's more, often it will be your friends who you will defend the Deathknight from, so accepting the UMI doesn't actually have many bad effects for you, again assuming no spontaneous PvP.

There is a simple way of saving yourself some wp here; just give the Abyssal her DV bonus. It sucks, but does it suck more to give up your wp? If that's actually a real choice, then I find the charm to be balanced.

I have recently began thinking that maybe these kinds of combat-time mental influences with very specific and regulated effects can be worth exploring.