Obsidian Shards: Another Reflection

DShomshak:

ENTIRE STYLE: LIMITS OF SHAPING AND DEFENSES AGAINST IT.
I reread Integrity-Protecting Prana and it gives examples such as creating a snake inside a person's stomach or turning his armor to lava. OTOH, it also says that if Wyld effects create something that incidentally happens to be dangerous (the hundred-headed snake with burning chalcedony eyes), IPP does not apply. (No mention of changing the ground under someone's feet, or moving a person without altering him.) This leaves a gray area, of things in between direct attacks and just-in-the-neighborhood menaces. Evoking an environmental effect, I think, goes on the just-in-the-neighborhood side: You don't target a specific person, you just create something and hope that people in the area take damage from it.

Let's look at what IPP specifically says it does:

1) It stops Shaping attacks that directly alter the character in mind, body, spirit, or traits.  Clearly BSFLI, for instance, does not fit this category.
2) It stops Shaping attacks that are unblockable, undodgeable, and damaging.  Armor-to-lava is described as a case where "these effects inflict immediate damage and the character's DV is not applicable."

This is also a fair description of BSFLI.  Therefore, IPP defends against BSFLI.

For comparison: What is the difference between a hypothetical Shaping attack that creates a volcanic eruption that fills an area with white-hot gas and ash; a hypothetical Dragon-Blooded Charm that rips pre-existing magma from the ground to fill an area with white-hot gas and ash; and a hypothetical Sorcery spell that fills an area with white-hot gas and ash? They all create an identical environmental effect. The gas and ash are all equally real and material once they are created. IPP makes a person immune to the first but not the other two?

Yes, assuming that neither of the last two are Shaping effects- the sorcery might be.  In the instant of reality-hacking when the attack occurs, the Solar asserts the truth of his own existence and ignores the modifications some other would impose on him.

Or, you know, flavor it however you like, but yes, those are the rules.  IPP needs to be able to work that way.

Still, it should be difficult to beat the Form.

 
If you're concerned about roll-offs, the simplest solution is to give it, say, (Essence) successes on a roll-off.  I don't know whether that's strictly wise or not, but it would help with your issue.

VANISHED WITHIN THE GLASS: Even if you accept that forced movement can fall under IPP, Vanished Within the Glass can be dodged. By the RAW for IPP, therefore, that Charm does not apply, any more than it protects you against having a bag dropped over your head.

This is true, provided you view it as not affecting mind, body, spirit, or traits.

Incidentally, I think the "it cannot be flurried at all" line in this Charm is redundant.  You can't flurry Simple Charms, and making it Combo-Basic makes it incompatible with Extra Action Charms.

DRAW FORTH ONE SHARD: The Charm does indeed have no clear method of defending against the application, any more than there's a way to stop Technique Mirror from copying someone.

Oh, all right. I'll add the opposed (Willpower + Essence) roll from Evocation from the Mirror. Also, there's that ever-lovin' hypothetical No Shaping Zone.

I suspect the primary question here is, "How does a Solar become immune to this?"

BREATHING ON THE BLACK MIRROR: Yes, it does have to be Storyteller's fiat, unless you throw out the original writer's intent completely and replace it with a whole new Charm. Which you can do, but please don't call it Breathing on the Black Mirror. It disrespects the author.

I do not have a problem with Storyteller's fiat. I realize it's anathema to the strict "gameist" perspective, but -- to turn about what somebody said -- Exalted has Storytellers, not Gamemasters. NPCs having Breathing on the Black Mirror is covered by the same rule a Storyteller should use for every aspect of controlling a world, where he can arrange whatever the hell he wants and can change it on the fly without the players being any the wiser: Don't be a dick.

Let me be clear that I have strong narrativist and simulationist tendencies, and save my gamism for D&D.

On further reflection, I hate this idea for the Charm.  And the reason is simple: in a WoD game, or a Deadlands game, or a Paranoia game, or just about anything else you care to name, ST fiat is perfectly acceptable as an effect.  "Sorry, guys, rocks fall, everyone dies- or at least, your current plans are ruined."

This is not those games.  This is the one game where the GM says, "Rocks fall," and the players reply in unison, "I parry."  ST fiat as an uninterruptable, unpreventable effect has no place in this system- there is always a defense, at least if you're playing at the Solar level.  Now, that may be a defense you don't have- but it's there.  "He uses a Charm and destroys everything you've done, and there was nothing you could have done to stop him," is deprotagonizing on a level that is not Exalted.

More, it's boring: it turns the big final showdown with the Deathlord into one player saying, "Well, I sacrifice myself.  We win."  And that's not good design space- but the fundamental flaw here is that "I bypass the actual conflict resolution system to get the result I want"-type effects are terrible when used on players.  Yes, you can ST fiat without this Charm- but your fiats are bounded.  The players have the power to resist even your fiat, if you're still playing by the rules- you can't strike them dead while they have motes to fuel Adamant Skin Technique, or poison them while they have Immunity to Everything running.  This one Charm is an exception to that- and that is, as an effect, out of place in this game.

I think Breathing on the Black Mirror is an okay charm, but it definitely needs a very close examination and very carefully made bounderies of where it can and can't go. I'm thinking it would be something like the Wish spell in D&D - a lot of potential power, but with some clear limits of where it can go.

AnubisXy

@DShomshak: I really appreciate your shot at fixing this mess. I've discussed this with my group and we've agreed on using most of your fixes.

Dean, I'm loving what I see so far, and I'd hate to see this thing get hung up on BotBM or Draw Forth One Shard. Do you mind if I take a crack at a draft of my own later this evening?

Kukla:

"Shard, use your ultra-expensive death-combo on your progenitor!"
*Shard spends 30 motes and 2 wp on the progenitor*
*Progenitor spends 4m on HGD*
*Both have lost a ton of motes*

Or...

Sidereal: "Shard, use your ultra-expensive death-combo on your progenitor!"
Solar Shard: "No, Siddie, we both know he'd just HGD it. We're better off whittling him down slowly together."
Sidereal: "Listen to me!!! Just use the ultra expensive mote-draining Death Combo!"
Solar Shard: "Look, either you want to fight this battle with me or I'm going to start using 'Sagacious Reading of Intent' or 'Elusive Dream Defense' on your orders."
Sidereal: "...fine. Come on."

Irked:

2) It stops Shaping attacks that are unblockable, undodgeable, and damaging.  Armor-to-lava is described as a case where "these effects inflict immediate damage and the character's DV is not applicable."

This is also a fair description of BSFLI.  Therefore, IPP defends against BSFLI.

"Unblockable & Undodgeable" is not the same as "Enviromental." Those terms have very specific rules associated with them, none of which apply to Enviromental Effects or BSFLI.

CrownedSun:

"Unblockable & Undodgeable" is not the same as "Enviromental." Those terms have very specific rules associated with them, none of which apply to Enviromental Effects or BSFLI.

But per Infernals, a damaging environmental effect generated by some character's Charm use is also a physical attack.  This particular physical attack makes no provision for defense against it via DVs, and is therefore unblockable and undodgeable.

Thus, it still applies.

Irked is wholly correct. Weaponized environmental effects are still attacks and can be perfect-defend'd as such.

Irked:

But per Infernals, a damaging environmental effect generated by some character's Charm use is also a physical attack.  This particular physical attack makes no provision for defense against it via DVs, and is therefore unblockable and undodgeable.

Huh, *finds that sidebar again*. So it is. Kinda stupid, but that's okay. If I didn't have to get ready for a game in 40 minutes, I might go into this a bit more as to why I find that counter-intuitive.

Still, seems to me that makes Environmental Effects kinda... pointless. Especially if you're going to distinguish between charm-based ones and natural ones rather than have them all work the same way. Not like it's hard to make an unblockable undodgeable attack (with a roll and everything!) that affects everyone within a certain radius, after all. Which coincidentally wouldn't make all the charms that make Exalted immune to Elemental Damage kinda useless.

But that's just me and we're moving away from discussing the rules as given. In this case, anyway, I'd just remove the Shaping keyword and make it clear that you can perfect against the damage. It's not like Sandstrike Blast is defend-able against with IPP.

Sandstrike Blast also doesn't create big honking mirrors once it's done.  To me, that suggests Shaping.

Maybe the creation of the Big Honking Mirrors is Shaping, like Sandstrike Blasts' willpower drain, and something like Chaos-Repelling Pattern would reinforce Creation sufficiently that the Mirrors wouldn't survive past the invocation of the Charm. But the actual damage doesn't have to be a Shaping Attack, in which case IPP doesn't protect.

CRP does not work that way.  Can the Charm work in Creation?  Then CRP is useless.

If the mirror creation is damage-dealing, immediately effective, shaping, and proof against DVs, then yes, IPP stops it cold.  That's what IPP says it does.  If it is not any of these things, then it won't.  The Sidereal could, for instance, shape mirrors into existence first and then throw them, but that's a different Charm.

Eh, I still don't agree with that interpretation of IPP. Enviromental Effects might count as "Attacks" for the purpose of Defense, but that doesn't mean that they count as Shaping Attacks necessarily OR that they count as Unblockable or Undodgeable absent those particular terms used in the description of the attack. I.e., the sentence "The Charm also protects the character from any undodgeable, unblockable Shaping attacks" actually means something very specific rather than "anything that can be defined as an 'attack' and isn't able to be defended against."

Do you consider "Falling Damage" unblockable and undodgeable, after all? Or can you just not defend against it?

Moreover, I don't think its the intention of IPP to stop Environmental Damage caused by Shaping / Wyld effects or to treat them as "Attacks" in this fashion. It quite explictly doesn't stop external threats, after all, and numerous effects in the game use that weakness in IPP's defenses.

In which case, IPP fails entirely to stop this attack, as it's not directly affecting the Solar nor is it an "unblockable/undodgeable shaping attack" or any such. The only argument to the contrary involves a quote from another book, released far later in the design sequence, which relates not to IPP at all but to Enviromental Attacks. The conclusion that argument leads to actually leads to IPP defending against pretty much anything you can apply the Shaping keyword to.

Which is to the contrary to the charms text, both flavor and rules based.

Irked:

CRP does not work that way.  Can the Charm work in Creation?  Then CRP is useless.

Not...  entirely.  I would argue that CRP still at least goes into an essence roll-off against charms and effects specifically intended to impose a non-Creation state on Creation -- for instance, Chimerical Ascension.  I seem to recall a short piece of fiction by Neph on first-age Solar craziness where it blocks an exploding PSV (because the PSV tries to assert the rules of the Wyld, and CRP asserts that the area around you follows the rules of Creation.)

The only charm here I could see it likely to do anything with is the sucked-into-a-mirror one, though, where (assuming you view the inside of the mirror as some odd Elsewhere) the insides of the mirror have to follow the rules of Creation (but do they already?  What are things like in there?)

Irked:

CRP does not work that way.  Can the Charm work in Creation?  Then CRP is useless.

Oh and...

I'm aware of this. But if something can't work in Creation, CRP will stop it. What exactly applies in which category is really up to the Storyteller, honestly, and I can easily see a viewpoint where CRP would allow obsidian shards to fly through the air and slice through people but would ensure that the big honkin' Obsidian Mirrors don't remain after the charm is invoked but instead fade away like all the rest of the shards. Which, note, do fade away.

But I tend to err on the side of "this charm is useful and does do things occasionally" in the case of CRP.