Sun-Touched Dragon King [Exalted/Highschool DxD]

[mrttao]

Do note guys, that it's only punching with Boosted Gear that counts as Brawl - which is normal for Brawl anyways. This doesn't preclude one from using Melee and still benefiting from the physical/magical amplification provided by Boosted Gear.

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heralding_bubble can you please clarify if what kenmadragon said is correct? Is this what you meant with your specific phrasing?

 

[NewWorldrulez]

Really surprise no one chose CRAFT as a favorites ability. This is DXD and the most impressive artifacts besides swords are sacred gears. Issei creating Glorious Solar Bull***t weaponry/objects/artifacts on the level of sacred gears oils bring him a lot of attention both good and bad. This means a whole lotta powerful enemies or allies coming for the new resource. So like tinkers in Worm, Issei would have to seriously train and get a lot stronger to keep his independence and avoid being conscripted into one of the myriad factions/groups in dxd possibly creating his own.

 

[heralding_bubble]

Do note guys, that it's only punching (edit: or grappling or bottle swinging or kicking) with Boosted Gear that counts as Brawl - which is normal for Brawl anyways. This doesn't preclude one from using Melee and still benefiting from the physical/magical amplification provided by Boosted Gear.

Unless Boosted Gear only works for Brawl actions, and cannot be used to amplify the strength of a blow when using a sword or stick in Melee - which makes no sense. The Gear works by amplifying all physical/magical power, so there shouldn't be a reason why it won't also enhance Melee actions.

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heralding_bubble can you please clarify if what kenmadragon said is correct? Is this what you meant with your specific phrasing?

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Yeah, Boosted Gear can enhance Attributes, not Abilities. So you can Boost your Strength or Dexterity by a few Dots but can't Boost Occult, for example.

 

[mrttao]

Yeah, Boosted Gear can enhance Attributes, not Abilities. So you can Boost your Strength or Dexterity by a few Dots but can't Boost Occult, for example.

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How useful is said enhancement compared to the bonuses brawl gives the sacred gear? I am guessing the sacred gear is a magic artifact (gauntlet weapon) and that it benefits from brawl?

 

[heralding_bubble]

How useful is said enhancement compared to the bonuses brawl gives the sacred gear? I am guessing the sacred gear is a magic artifact (gauntlet weapon) and that it benefits from brawl?

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You can use Brawl Charms with it?

I mean it's not a bonus, it's the nature of using a Brawl type weapon, just like using swords or daiklaves or scythes allows you to use Melee Charms, or using a bow lets you use Archery Charms.

Boost is an inherent quality of Boosted Gear and is separate from the Abilities from Exalted.

 

[mrttao]

You can use Brawl Charms with it?

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Is this valuable? enough to offset the apparent superiority of melee over brawl (according to people who seem to know the system)

 

[heralding_bubble]

Is this valuable? enough to offset the apparent superiority of melee over brawl (according to people who seem to know the system)

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Well Brawl is very "Fuck this one guy in particular" and tends to annihilate people in one on one battles, while Melee is more of a jack of all trades master of none except that one Perfect Defence.
It depends on your preference I suppose? Do you want to punch people or do you want to stab people?

 

[Alexander]

Well Brawl is very "Fuck this one guy in particular" and tends to annihilate people in one on one battles, while Melee is more of a jack of all trades master of none except that one Perfect Defence.
It depends on your preference I suppose? Do you want to punch people or do you want to stab people?

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Melee is for multiple opponents, Brawl is for one-on-on battles.

While you can survive in Exalted without knowing much about fighting, in DxD kicking ass is absolutely necessary.

 

[kenmadragon]

Is this valuable? enough to offset the apparent superiority of melee over brawl (according to people who seem to know the system)

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Well Brawl is very "Fuck this one guy in particular" and tends to annihilate people in one on one battles, while Melee is more of a jack of all trades master of none except that one Perfect Defence.
It depends on your preference I suppose? Do you want to punch people or do you want to stab people?

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It's not really a superiority. I mean, in 2e and 2.5 Melee was somewhat better than Martial Arts (Brawl didn't exist back then - all Charms meant for unarmed combat fell under Martial Arts, and were grouped as "Styles") but that was mostly due to the fact that the mechanics made using melee weapons slightly more efficient than Martial Arts weapons/unarmed-attacks.

In 3e, neither is inherently superior to the other. It's just that their charm-trees lead to very different play-styles.

Solar Brawl in 3e is really good at single combat. One-v-one, Brawl is especially geared towards charging at one guy, punching, kicking and beating him within an inch of his life, then moving for the clinch, grappling and squeezing the life out of him, and then tearing the foes head off. Coupling that with the propensity for 3e Solar Brawl (aka Solar Hero Style for the new edition) to be paired with Exalted that favor really Strength and the Dexterity and Stamina to pack it up, Brawl users tend to rack up withering damage and land devastating decisive attacks. But, again, they're only exceptional at single-combat, and tend to be less effective when fighting against superior numbers. Still... if there is only one enemy and you can get in close enough to grapple... that fight is yours. Brawl charms let you go toe to toe with titans, and even giants like the Mask of Winter's Juggernaut... and throttle them to death with your bare hands.

Solar Melee in 3e, on the other hand, is more "balanced". It does exceptionally well in both single-combat and one-vs-many. Its charms lack the singular focus that Brawl has (which is really good at pummeling a single opponent, or grappling the life out of them), but it has greater depth and options. Melee charms could let you store weapons in Elsewhere (hammerspace), summon them from thin-air by creating them from raw-sunlight, refine your staff-fighting till you could hit five guys at once, stab a guy multiple times in an instant, send razor blades of super-heated wind or raw solar energy, counter-attack against everyone at once, defend from impossible angles, shield others from harm, and Parry the impossible (like deflecting Lava... or the Mountain that Primordial just threw at you). Is it the best at any one thing? Not really. But Melee is exceptional at doing a lot of different things.

Both are good. Brawl is fairly focused, but really powerful in that focus. Melee has more options available to you, but is not as overpowering.

Best way to tell the difference is to just observe the Charm cascades... here's Brawl, and this one's Melee.

I mean it's not a bonus, it's the nature of using a Brawl type weapon, just like using swords or daiklaves or scythes allows you to use Melee Charms, or using a bow lets you use Archery Charms.

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One would think that the Gauntlet mode of Boosted Gear could operate akin to a single Red Jade Smashfist...

 

[mrttao]

thanks for the clarification...
well in the case I would rather focus on the 1v1 supremacy. In particular because we have no reason to be a loner. With allies tying up the opponent's allies, while we go for their biggest baddest guy for 1v1 slaughter.

 

[Kieron]

Well, nothing is stopping us from learning both eventually but what to start with can be pretty important.

In this case, Brawl sounds a little better taking out toughs guys out quickly.

Changing my vote with the new info.

[X][Supernal]: Presence
[X][Caste]: Athletics
[X][Caste]: Integrity
[X][Caste]: Lore
[X][Caste]: Resistance

[X][Favoured]: Awareness
[X][Favoured]: Dodge
[X][Favoured]: Brawl
[X][Favoured]: Occult
[X][Favoured]: War

 

[kenmadragon]

thanks for the clarification...
well in the case I would rather focus on the 1v1 supremacy. In particular because we have no reason to be a loner. With allies tying up the opponent's allies, while we go for their biggest baddest guy for 1v1 slaughter.

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True enough, the Zenith caste of Exalted are traditionally exceptionally good at making friends. Though, I will admit that Brawl is king at 1v1 supremacy, it's not the best if you want to help out your allies - Melee charms exist to protect allies and counterattack anyone attacking friendlies within range.

I contend that while Brawl is great at 1v1, Melee is still the better option, if only because it still allows for dominate in 1v1, if not as obviously as Brawl would. Like, having a Melee specced Exalt opening up with making an attack using a sword/daiklave (and do note that all the Brawl-based weapons and unarmed attacks are Light weapons, and most other melee weapons are just better stat-wise) for Withering damage, then following up with One Weapon Two Blows to double your damage (it's the Solar "Tsubame Gaeshi"), then ripping into the enemy with Peony Blossom Technique if you've got the anima to expend, and use Fire and Stones Strike to enchance any part of it. At Essence 2, you've got the Iron Whirlwind attack to launch multiple attacks all at once (either single or multi-target)... it's basically unleashing a whole bunch of attacks really fast. Add to that the attack enhancers in Athletics like Increasing Strength Exercise and Thunderbolt Attack Prana as well as the effects of Boosted Gear would make Melee actually capable of the same level of killing efficiency as straight Brawl.

Ergo, my stance that while Brawl would be simple and straightforward, Melee is the superior option. Between Athletics charms boosting the attack, and Boosted Gear amplifying Issei's Attributes to the levels that Brawl would normally operate at... Melee would be far more efficient.

Not to mention that Melee boasts the far superior defenses, meaning Issei can actually defend against those super-strong bosses, because the Brawl charms are kinda crappy when it comes to defending on the off chance you don't land the punches to set up for a clinch. Because if you miss... in Brawl, the defensive charms are nowhere near as good or plentiful as Melee - and Melee also has an actual Perfect Defense. It has both the offense and the defense, as well as the utility to attack at range (for pesky flying opponents - gotta love Iron Raptor Tech and Sandstorm-Wind Attack), in addition to the ability to defend our allies, in the event they're injured (War Lion Stance in general to Defend Other one ally reflexively, Guard-Breaking Technique to disrupt people attacking an ally, Calm and Ready Focus to gain Initiative from defending others), Unassailable Guardian Posture to make that ally protected impossible to attack).

Brawl requires high Strength and Dexterity to maintain it's superior offense, while Melee only requires exceptional Dexterity (because of how 3e works - Dexterity is just that much more useful in combat), meaning even if Physical stats are not Issei's Prioritized Attributes, he doesn't suffer from the lack of them. And what he does lack, Boosted Gear can make up for to further enhance Melee's capabilities.

The benefits of the Brawl tree make use of high stats in the Physical department, even before Boosted Gear. Melee doesn't need them that high to still be equally good, meaning Boosted Gear would make Melee just as capable, and shores up the lack of overwhelming power in Melee (which is mostly better at unleashing ungodly number of attacks instead of singularly powerful ones). Meaning that while Boosted Gear just makes Brawl a bit better at what it normally does, Boosted Gear would actually compensate for what Melee is weaker at, as well as make Melee better at what it does, and make it just as capable as Brawl... but with loads more options and much more flashy tricks.

Another fun fact is that while Brawl is really damn scary... it suffers on the defense if your opponent as a defense that can withstand it for a round. At which point, they've got their turn, and can probably murderize you, while Melee has Counter-attack charms that can make such things painful for the enemy. Not to mention that the wording of the Melee charms actually makes it such that the Solar Counter-attacks occur before the enemy rolls for damage, which means you can launch counter-attack withering attacks to steal away damage from an enemy decisive attack before they actually roll for the damage. Melee is exceptionally good at basically taking on any number of opponents, but Brawl is an incredible gamble in the early-game - if you miss, or the enemy tanks the opening blows, your defenses are wide open on account of the better Dodge/Resistance charms being further down the cascade than accessible in the early-game.

This is not the mention that Brawl also has an ungodly number of charms in its cascade, meaning it's really hard to get to the best stuff because you've got a ton of pre-reqs. Melee has far fewer charms, and they're all good, so it's far easier to gain access to the good stuff, leaving us extremely dangerous in combat with much less investment than Brawl would require, meaning we can branch out to improve other things instead of just grabbing Brawl charms just to meet the pre-reqs for the best charms in the cascade.

...Also, the other Exalted/DxD quest this site was host to (the God-Harem King one) had their Issei go the Brawl/SolarHeroStyle tree for their combat stats, and it caused problems down the road with how it interacted with charms utilizing Boosted Gear/Ddraig's powers, IIRC.

So, in the interest of being interesting and original, I suggest the Melee route because the Brawl one's been done before, and a ton of other Exalted fics/quests I've read have gone the Brawl route and I can't remember one that's done Melee before.

TL;DR: I explain that while I do admit Brawl is really good at single-combat beatdowns, I feel that because Issei has Boosted Gear, Melee is just as good as Brawl (and better due to it's versatility, and fewer Charms/pre-reqs) at single-combat, and perhaps more useful in team-battles on account of the War Lion tree helping defend allies, while still dishing out the pain. Not to mention Melee has less charms to learn so we can spend more XP on other stuff, and the weapons/artifacts that use Melee are just stronger than the Brawl ones. Plus... God-Harem King already did the Solar Hero Style (aka Solar Brawl) thing and did it to death. Let's be original, while still looking damn cool and effective. Because everyone knows Heroes Prefer Swords!



For those new to Exalted 3e, here's an excellent explanation of the combat mechanics. It's examples also show why I vastly prefer the Melee route over the Brawl route - while the punching and kicking are exactly the same as swinging a sword in most senses... the truly powerful Brawl charms are those that employ grappling, and grappling is a nightmare more complicated than traditional Melee, and involve loads more dice rolls and other complexities.

 

[mrttao]

[x] kenmadragon

Fair enough... also punching is overdone.

Well, nothing is stopping us from learning both eventually but what to start with can be pretty important.

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We are choosing favored, which gives us XP cost discount in that tree. realistically we would be using the one we vote for instead of both.

 

[Kieron]

[x] kenmadragon

Fair enough... also punching is overdone.


We are choosing favored, which gives us XP cost discount in that tree. realistically we would be using the one we vote for instead of both.

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Oh, that's different then.

[x] kenmadragon

And also, I'd always taken the iconic Zenith to be like Panther and his style was pretty badass.

 

[mrttao]

Incidentally, I really feel that 3e picking of supernal, favored, and caste skills at char gen has undermined the whole freeform nature of the system, as well as punish newbies and roleplayers. Unlike DnD where you have classes, in exalted you always had a freeform system where you get XP and spend it on whatever you want. Your caste and exaltation type could give you a discount on some charms, but that was it. 3e on the other hand really pushes hard towards making min maxing mandatory, making it far more punishing to make a suboptimal choice in chargen, and limit the flexibility of character's growth routes.

 

[wasprider]

[x] kenmadragon

 

[kenmadragon]

We are choosing favored, which gives us XP cost discount in that tree. realistically we would be using the one we vote for instead of both.

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Eh. There's nothing saying we can't spend the time to raise Brawl dots to 3+ once we have Melee up to snuff, and a dip into the Brawl cascade can actually benefit a Melee build, just as dipping into Melee can help a Brawl build.

For example, Thunderclap Rush Attack explicitly states that it doesn't have to be used with a Brawl attack. Similarly, Dipping Swallow Defense is something a Brawl focused character can easily meet pre-reqs for, and helps with their Parry defense.

And also, I'd always taken the iconic Zenith to be like Panther and his style was pretty bad

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Panther is badass, but the reason Panther went for Brawl was because he was a pit-fighter, and made his name by killing a man with his bare hands. It won him his freedom, and made him famous, so he had Brawl (Martial Arts in 2e) at 4 dots and Melee at 2 in his write-up for 2e in Scroll of Exalts.

But the original Iconic Zenith was Wind, the Immaculate Apostate. Wind was a badass who had 3 dots in Martial Arts and 3 dots of Melee (with a Specialty in Slashing Swords!). Dude had charms in both Melee (Hungry Tiger Tech, OWTB, 1st Excellency), as well as the first two charms in the Snake Style tree, but his specialty made using Melee with swords a touch more efficient.

Incidentally, I really feel that 3e picking of supernal, favored, and caste skills at char gen has undermined the whole freeform nature of the system, as well as punish newbies and roleplayers. Unlike DnD where you have classes, in exalted you always had a freeform system where you get XP and spend it on whatever you want. Your caste and exaltation type could give you a discount on some charms, but that was it. 3e on the other hand really pushes hard towards making min maxing mandatory, making it far more punishing to make a suboptimal choice in chargen, and limit the flexibility of character's growth routes.

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It's been that way since 2e in my experience. It's a White Wolf game, they're always like that.

Though, I find it the opposite - I felt that 2e pushed much harder towards making that min-maxing mandatory. It was absurd, the level of min-maxing required to stay afloat in combat, even in the early game. 3e felt much more free-form to me, because it was a bit more forgiving, and you could still do things, even if you weren't optimized to the gills. Did min-maxing help? Sure, but it never felt like you were going to lose even if you didn't.

Of course, that's all predicated on your character playing to their strengths. Someone who was a skilled bureaucrat and doctor who recently Exalted and is still Essence 1 probably shouldn't be expected to slay a troop of Erymanthoi all on his lone-some, and walk out unscathed. They're probably more suited to a political campaign, or perhaps a suspense or thriller.

But since we, as the players, know that the Highschool DxD setting is broken as balls, and that Issei will inevitably wind up in combat, it behooves us to have Issei be combat capable from the get-go, and only get more capable as he goes along.

Plus, we're almost definitely picking Presence as our Supernal - the optimal choice for a combat build would have been Resistance, which would make Issei almost unkillable with early access to those tanky charms. But we picked Presence because it was both useful to have, and it suited Issei as a hot-blooded and flashy hero. It's a style choice, and is luckily also a good optimal one for Issei. It also informs his gameplay style - if Charisma+Presence doesn't solve your problem with social-fu, then resort to violence.

Still... if only to escape the inevitable retribution of the Fallen Angels, and prove ourselves skilled enough to survive the early stages of the Quest where we're still kinda mortal, it would behoove us to min-max a tad to give Issei a head-start in becoming survivable and able to deal with super-powerful foes.

Not to mention that buying high stats in char-gen is cheap. It's a White Wolf game, after all. Get those 5 dot Abilities at the beginning, because they're expensive as hell to get later, even if they are Supernal/Caste/Favoured. It's far easier to learn other Abilities from scratch later one, because purchasing 1, 2, 3 dots is fairly cheap in comparison to going from 3 to 4 dots, or 4 to 5. It's sadly unavoidable to min-max, if only because it's just that much more efficient and makes the game less likely to murderize you in the first three sessions, and get a few dots here and there in the more fluffy options. But unless you build your character in a way that runs counter to the type of campaign being played, the game's not as harsh if you don't min-max (though, being Exalted, you need at least one combat Abilities as Favoured/Caste if only to not die the second combat breaks out).

It's just the nature of the beast, I'm afraid. Doesn't mean one can't be sub-optimal later on once one has min-maxed enough to succeed and is able to keep up with their foes.

 

[mrttao]

Eh. There's nothing saying we can't spend the time to raise Brawl dots to 3+ once we have Melee up to snuff, and a dip into the Brawl cascade can actually benefit a Melee build, just as dipping into Melee can help a Brawl build.

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Sure, we can dip.
I meant to say that it will only be dips rather than fully developing both paths.

 

[the DragonBard]

The problem I see with raising Melee is that, for one thing, Boosted Gear likely counts as a Brawl type weapon, not a Melee type. Unlike Kiba, Issei can't pull swords out of thin air (too early to get that charm) and doesn't have Ascalon yet.

So, for those who want Melee, why not go with Brawl first, and Melee when he can use it better?

 

[mrttao]

The problem I see with raising Melee is that, for one thing, Boosted Gear likely counts as a Brawl type weapon, not a Melee type.

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This has already been confirmed by the QM. Boosted gear IS a brawl type magical weapon and will not count towards melee. However, the boosts it give will raise our stats and will apply to melee.

Unless it is an exceptionally powerful artifact when used to hit people (I am not referring to its boosts, since they apply to any weapon equally), then we can just acquire a suitable melee weapon. I had asked for clarification on that but so far I have not noticed an answer.

So, for those who want Melee, why not go with Brawl first, and Melee when he can use it better?

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We are not voting for initial charms, we are voting for our talents. Talents result in having an XP discount to improve, this choice is forever.

The plan is to dip into whichever one we don't choose, we just primarily will be focusing on the tree we have an XP discount in. The vote for melee is a vote for a long term commitment to melee, not short term.

 

[kenmadragon]

The problem I see with raising Melee is that, for one thing, Boosted Gear likely counts as a Brawl type weapon, not a Melee type. Unlike Kiba, Issei can't pull swords out of thin air (too early to get that charm) and doesn't have Ascalon yet.

So, for those who want Melee, why not go with Brawl first, and Melee when he can use it better?

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The way that character advancement works in Exalted 3e? It's not incredibly efficient. Once you pick your Favoured Abilities, you can't change them. So, long-term makes picking Melee now better, because it lets us improve the Abilities and buy its charms cheaper.


Also, you can use Boosted Gear as a Brawl weapon... but Boosted Gear can only be worn on one hand (until you upgrade it for the full-armor set). So even if it operates as an Artifact Red Jade Smashfist... it's not a pair, so to benefit, you'd have to have Issei constantly stunt to only use his left-hand to benefit from it's stats as an Artifact, because everything else would be using mortal tier stats for light weapons.

Not to mention that of the Essence 1 Melee Charms, only 3 of the 11 Charms actually require you to be using a Melee weapon (Solar Counterattack, Call the Blade, Summoning the Loyal Steel). So, even though we progress through the Melee charm tree, we can still apply Melee charms to unarmed combat with the Brawl ability until we either get Glorious Solar Saber or find a cool enough Daiklave (or other artifact weapon, but let's face it, Issei'd probably hold out for a daiklave because Heroes Prefer Swords!... as well as the euphemism for his D) to just constantly store Elsewhere with Summoning the Loyal Steel. Or just grabbing an iron pipe, and then storing that Elsewhere. Or literally just use Athletics with a Stunt for a Feat of Strength (or Agility, for that matter) to improvise a weapon out of something nearby, like a mop or a tree branch or a frying-pan.

In short, there's nothing wrong with starting with high dots in Brawl at the onset. But having Melee as Favoured means it's easier to raise up and buy Charms for. And since we're not a Dawn caste, we don't really need a ton of combat charms, so Melee's smaller charm cascade is easier to budget with.

Though, now you've made me wonder what it would take to convince Kiba to give us a magic Sword indefinitely... or atleast until we find a better one... It'd probably require Issei to fight Kiba in a practice duel or something, while using Harmonious Presence Meditation and Tiger's Dread Symmetry to convince him to lend one of his Swords to Issei until Issei can grab a better one as loot, or until Ascalon.

 

[mrttao]

Though, now you've made me wonder what it would take to convince Kiba to give us a magic Sword indefinitely... or atleast until we find a better one...

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by convince do you mean mindrape with glorious solar social fu?

 

[SwiftRosenthal]

by convince do you mean mindrape with glorious solar social fu?

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Solar social fu is not mindrape. It's just being superhumanly convincing.

Abyssal, Alchemical, and many types of Infernal (especially SWLIHN's, Adorjan's, and TED's) social fu, OTOH...

 

[kenmadragon]

Unless it is an exceptionally powerful artifact when used to hit people (I am not referring to its boosts, since they apply to any weapon equally), then we can just acquire a suitable melee weapon. I had asked for clarification on that but so far I have not noticed an answer.

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Well, it kinda depends on what you're looking for. There's a table here where someone listed all the Weapon types, but each weapon also has it's own unique "Tags" which modify the base values or add some additional functionality. Unarmed is a Light Mortal, with the tags for Bashing, Brawl, Grappling and Natural. Swords vary, depending on whether they are Straight, Slashing, or Chopping (Straight has the Balanced, Slashing is the same with a stylistic difference, and Chopping lets you trade defenses for damage), but are typically Medium Mortal weapons.

A Smashfist as a Light Artifact weapon, and has the Bashing, Brawl, Smashing and Worn tags on it. Since it lacks the Grappling tag, you can't use its stats for any kind of grappling gambits, but it does let you attempt a knock-back style gambit.

While not immediately available, it is most certainly possible to obtain a Medium Artifact from a fallen enemy, wheedle one from Kiba, or just straight up be awesome until reaching Essence 2 to qualify for Glorious Solar Saber which lets one craft a Daiklave out of pure essence and willpower.

Or purchasing the dots for the Daiklave, and then just saying that we pulled it out of Elsewhere when first using Summoning the Loyal Steel, and that the sword used to belong to the shard's previous host.

by convince do you mean mindrape with glorious solar social fu?

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Solar social fu is not mindrape. It's just being superhumanly convincing.

Abyssal, Alchemical, and many types of Infernal (especially SWLIHN's, Adorjan's, and TED's) social fu, OTOH...

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That's one of the things I love about 3e. Social-Fu for Solars isn't Mind-Rape anymore! Granted, it never was, but the way the social system in 2e and 2.5 were designed, it might as well have been. In 3e, Solar's are just inhumanly persuasive, intimidating, seductive, and beautiful.

Just ignore Mind-Wiping Gaze and Hypnotic Tongue Technique...

But yeah! No Mind-manipulating here! Just being so gosh-darn appealing that you can persuade people do things they probably wouldn't have thought about otherwise! And even then, they'd probably be okay with it, because you're not forcing them to do anything - you just helped them see things your way!

 

[mrttao]

That's one of the things I love about 3e. Social-Fu for Solars isn't Mind-Rape anymore! Granted, it never was, but the way the social system in 2e and 2.5 were designed, it might as well have been. In 3e, Solar's are just inhumanly persuasive, intimidating, seductive, and beautiful.

Just ignore Mind-Wiping Gaze and Hypnotic Tongue Technique...

But yeah! No Mind-manipulating here! Just being so gosh-darn appealing that you can persuade people do things they probably wouldn't have thought about otherwise! And even then, they'd probably be okay with it, because you're not forcing them to do anything - you just helped them see things your way!

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Eh... being supernaturally persuasive can be argued as a form of mindrape.

 

[Kieron]

I know that Heros Prefer Swords and all but isn't The Unconquered Sun's personal weapon actually a spear?

A Halberd or a Glaive might make for an interesting alternative weapon...

 

[kenmadragon]

I know that Heros Prefer Swords and all but isn't The Unconquered Sun's personal weapon actually a spear?

A Halberd or a Glaive might make for an interesting alternative weapon...

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Melee is Melee. Whether you're using a sword, a spear, a dagger, a club, or a whirling chain-blade, it's all Melee.

Also, Exalted Melee tends to write with the assumption you're using a sword (the fluff text for charms has several references to the Solar and their sword, iirc). If only because in 1e and 2e they were relatively the most "average" of the Artifact melee weapons, and the Daiklave is incredibly iconic to Exalted as a game in general.

Honestly, reading Sol's stat-block in Glories of the Most High is kinda fun. There's a lot of subtle jokes here and there. Like in his Abilities, it's interesting to see what dot-levels Sol Invictus' stats are at, and like an Incarnae ought to be, they are absurdly powerful.

But what they listed for his Specialties in the 2e ruleset? His Bureaucracy is 6, but he's got a +1 when dealing with the Celestial Bureaucracy in general, and a +2 when Ruling the Universe. Damn, that's quite the statement. Like, it's such a fact that the Unconquered Sun's job in the bureaucracy is Ruling the goddamn Universe, he's got it as a bloody Specialty.

Sol also has 6 in Craft for Air, and Fire, but only a 3 in Earth... but Craft (Earth) has a +3 Specialty when it comes to building temples of himself. Obviously, Sol knows what's important when it comes to building monuments and buildings.

He's got a bunch of other Specialties that fit his character and role as the Unconquered Sun and God of Excellence, like his Specialty in Exaltation and the Games of Divinity, as well as in Integrity Against Exalted, as well as Uncovering Corruption and the one about Matters of Cosmic Importance. Not to mention his absurd level of skill with the Godspear of All-Searing Noon (+3 on both Melee and Thrown when using the weapon), though this is less absurd then his clear ability to break the actual rules of the game by having both Integrity and Melee... at 11 Dots.

But what struck me as the most hilarious? His Ride Specialties: Greater Elemental Dragons, Jouten, and Luna.

The Dragons one makes sense when read straight - he's good at riding things, but is also really good at handling the most dangerous of mounts like the Greater Elemental Dragons.

But Jouten and Luna? It confirmed my head-canon when I first read it that the Unconquered Sun was a frequent participant in Luna and Gaia's relationship, intimating it was really a kinda menage-a-trois. Because when the Incarnae have "Ride Specialties" for things that aren't actually mounts? It's obviously a euphemism, right?



Though, given how much all of Glories was written up with White Wolf-isms (ie tying Mechanics to Fluff in a way that makes them frustratingly inseperable), it's likely that the Unconquered Sun and the rest of the Incarnae are very different in the 3e. Especially the Unconquered Sun, now that Virtues are no longer a mechanical thing, so he's likely got a vastly different looking stat-block which probably makes him much, much more powerful. Though... I imagine he'll still probably have a bunch of the same Specialties.

 

[Lifelink]

It's far more interesting to go looking through Boosted Gear's locked abilities than using it for a gauntlet anyways. Penetrate *which laughs at defenses) and the flames that can burn even gods that God of the Bible had sealed away. There's also taming the Juggernaut Drive into something more stable like Vali did for his Divine Dividing gear. Even unlocking its potential (hopefully not creating a pervert epidemic this time around) earlier.

 

[mrttao]

Also, Exalted Melee tends to write with the assumption you're using a sword (the fluff text for charms has several references to the Solar and their sword, iirc). If only because in 1e and 2e they were relatively the most "average" of the Artifact melee weapons, and the Daiklave is incredibly iconic to Exalted as a game in general.

Click to shrink...

Honestly, calling a Daiklave a sword is kinda misleading.
They are huge anime style "swords" that are more akin to a flattened axe

 

[kenmadragon]

Honestly, calling a Daiklave a sword is kinda misleading.
They are huge anime style "swords" that are more akin to a flattened axe

Click to shrink...

Eh. You're not wrong...

Though, I think 3e has kinda toned down on how large Artifacts are. Now, most artifacts just look like somewhat larger versions of their mortal counterparts. At least, the Light and Medium ones tend to. The Reaver Daiklave and the Heavy Artifact weapons are just plain absurd in size. The Reaver's length is fairly practical (4 ft long), but it's width of a foot is absurd. And don't get started on the sizes of any of the Heavy Artifacts...

Though, I personally tended to use the images of Noble Phantasms from the Fate series to qualify what Artifacts might look like when I'm lacking ideas... They're fairly cool looking, and it's easy to see the parallels a lot of the times. Like, Excalibur is a Daiklave (though I prefer the Fate/Proto version of the sword), Lancer's Gae Bolg is probably a Longfang, and Archer's favored swords are Paired Short Daiklaves.