Segev
2020-05-15, 02:33 PM
This is a bit of an off-specialty question for this forum, but I haven't been able to find answers elsewhere. In Exalted 2E, there is a style whose writeup tone I will avoid using despite finding it hilarious in context called White Veil. It's all about concealing deadly martial arts while feigning genteel conversation.
The first Charm in the style is Birdsong Over Blades, which allows the practitioner to engage in martial arts attacks and choose to do no damage, but still get on-damage effects off. Aside from utility with getting on-damage effects past almost-impossible-to-damage targets, this is useful because it explicitly calls out that the victim who takes no damage doesn't even know he's been afflicted with the rider effects.
However, one of the effects it says it still inflicts is wound penalties. These are tied directly to health levels; specifically, which health levels you've got filled determines what your wound penalty is at. (If you've filled your -1 and two -2 health levels, you're at -2 wound penalty, because your current last-filled level is a -2 health level.)
Now here's where I need other Exalted players' expertise: assuming this style wasn't written by somebody who had one specific Charm from another style entirely in mind, how do you inflict wound penalties without inflicting damage? How do you determine what health level it's filled to when no damage is inflicted? Do you roll damage anyway, and assume it fills to there? But then you could Incapacitate or Kill with this despite doing no damage, and that seems counter to the design of the Charm, which is about setting up people without it being obvious.
The Charm also says, at the end, "Some effects use the number of health levels lost to determine their extent, and for such purposes, the damage done is zero." Which strongly implies that you don't roll damage for any reason.
Is there something I'm missing about how to inflict wound penalties when you choose not to roll damage? Is this something the writers or the Ink Monkeys addressed and I just can't find it?
The first Charm in the style is Birdsong Over Blades, which allows the practitioner to engage in martial arts attacks and choose to do no damage, but still get on-damage effects off. Aside from utility with getting on-damage effects past almost-impossible-to-damage targets, this is useful because it explicitly calls out that the victim who takes no damage doesn't even know he's been afflicted with the rider effects.
However, one of the effects it says it still inflicts is wound penalties. These are tied directly to health levels; specifically, which health levels you've got filled determines what your wound penalty is at. (If you've filled your -1 and two -2 health levels, you're at -2 wound penalty, because your current last-filled level is a -2 health level.)
Now here's where I need other Exalted players' expertise: assuming this style wasn't written by somebody who had one specific Charm from another style entirely in mind, how do you inflict wound penalties without inflicting damage? How do you determine what health level it's filled to when no damage is inflicted? Do you roll damage anyway, and assume it fills to there? But then you could Incapacitate or Kill with this despite doing no damage, and that seems counter to the design of the Charm, which is about setting up people without it being obvious.
The Charm also says, at the end, "Some effects use the number of health levels lost to determine their extent, and for such purposes, the damage done is zero." Which strongly implies that you don't roll damage for any reason.
Is there something I'm missing about how to inflict wound penalties when you choose not to roll damage? Is this something the writers or the Ink Monkeys addressed and I just can't find it?