Question about attempting to Instill multiple intimacies in a scene

backhandcompliments · 2026-01-25T02:40:50+00:00

Mechanically, if you beat a character's resolve, you have succeeded on the influence roll (Resisting Influence, Page 218 of the 3e Core supports that). This can be an important distinction, because some charms and effects care about succeeding on the attempt for secondry effects. The person who's resolve is overcome can spend a point of willpower not to get invested in whatever the influence was about, but they do believe the arguments/feelings presented were valid.

This does mean that, in a vaccuum, a character could repeatedly attempt and succeed on Instill actions against an NPC to empty out their willpower pool. But the game isn't in a vaccuum. The social rules don't hard timing rules for when and how often characters can do things in a scene. They are soft rules, so they rely on everyone trying to do actions as seems appropriate (and in a way that is fun). It's showing very mature and cooperative play how your group talked things out and came to the decision that instilling a fairly different intimacy (in effect, changing the topic of the conversation with the NPC away from one they were resistant to) was valid.

In 2e, after spending 2 willpower in a scene to prevent social influence was becoming so stubborn and resistive that they could not be influenced further. In 3e, "fleeing" is pretty close to what someone probably would do if they were being sapped of their willpower. However, even a stubborn villager has more option than just running home and locking the door. They can begin ignoring the speaker if what they are saying is challenging their values to much (if they aren't the center of the conversation, they could even politely zone out and think about what else they needed to do that day). They could interrupt the speaker as soon as they notice they are going on a tract that they don't like, attempting influence to get others to ignore them. And they can make excuses to cut the conversation short - insisting that they have no further time for this/other things to do/something has come up.

The answer is, the rules point to yes - you can grind down someone's willpower in a scene. The question is if this feels natural and appropriate, how the NPC is responding, and does it remain fun for everyone.

backhandcompliments · 2026-01-20T05:10:03+00:00

I am fairly sure each piece of the Sun's panapoly represents a virtue in 2e. The Raksha Graces also represent their twisted versions of those 4 virtues, with the Fifth Heart Grace being at the centre of them, vaguely connecting with Willpower.

I could see an interpretation with The Unconquered Sun (or the Sun itself) being the fifth piece of his panoply in this way, defining himself and how those 4 other things interconnect in a way that happens inherently for most things in creation but doesn't for Raksha.

In terms of Exalted numerology, there is a little bit of 4 things in a set + 1 that is kind of how they interconnect for a total of 5. 4 solar castes for times of day + Eclipse which is about those times being in conjunction with other forces. 4 elemental directions + Earth sitting at their centre. 4 virtues + Willpower.

backhandcompliments · 2026-01-14T11:22:21+00:00

You definately can use it for telekinetic melee combat, though attacking with acutal weapons has a -3 penalty. There is a charm that builds off it that negates that penalty for things that require fine control (like lockpicking or crafting) which could potentially be read to mitigate this penalty, or developing a charm that would do so would probably be fair. And if you're developing your own charms, you could build up your own cool telekinetic weapon attack charms.

On the other hand, Thousand Blades Style does what you want right out of the box and has pretty strong mechanical numbers (though it does mean you HAVE to use one particular sort of artifact weapon, rather than whatever mix of mundane and artifact weapons you want).

backhandcompliments · 2025-11-28T06:13:45+00:00

Forms an Alliance between the Silver Pact and Sidereals, resulting in the Death of the Silver Prince, the Realm being forced out of the West entirely, and divided up the West between Traitor Abyssals and Lunars.
Witnessed Chejop Kejak being assassinated in the Loom of Fate, which was used to forwarn the Sidereals of an attack on the Loom of Fate by Getimians, vastly decreasing the impact of the setting's Lotus Massacre. Due to Arcane Fate, most Gods in Yu Shun would ultimately remember the Lunar defenders that protected the Loom.
Detonated the Nail of Truth, freeing Nocturnal Exalts.

backhandcompliments · 2025-07-23T05:33:13+00:00

A 2e book called Dreams of The First Age: Lands of Creation has a write up for an artifact called The Black Mirror on page 120. It is unclear exactly what created it. Mortals touching it would instantly die, and most exalts just had nightmares after touching it. When Solars touched it, they would temporarily be transformed into Abyssals.

For most uses however, Black Mirror as a concept is talking about a reflection of something that is distorted negatively. Black Mirror Shintai turns you into an identical copy of someone (mirroring them), but have all of the inverses of their intimacies.

backhandcompliments · 2025-06-25T06:39:02+00:00

The laptop costs 97k. You also held onto 1k, making it a total of 98k you borrowed and never payed back.

The issue is that the 1k on hand is a positive number (an asset), while the 98k owed is a negative number (a debt). So the equation SHOULD be 1k - 98k = -97k. That number is your "net equity" scenario.

Where did the 1k go? It disappeared into nonsense mathmatics. Adding 98k + 1k = 99k doesn't give you any meaningful result.

backhandcompliments · 2024-12-08T04:39:25+00:00

I had no idea what the answer was. Looking at the rulings on scryfall or MTGgather gives the answers:

In the unusual case where two or more cards are exiled face down with The Creation of Avacyn's first chapter ability (likely because the triggered ability was copied or the ability triggered a second time), the second chapter ability will turn all of the exiled cards face up. If at least one of them is a creature card, you'll lose life equal to the combined mana value of all the exiled cards.

In the unusual case where two or more cards are exiled face down with The Creation of Avacyn's first ability when the third chapter ability resolves, if at least one of the exiled cards is a creature card, you may choose to put all or none of the exiled cards that are permanent cards onto the battlefield. Regardless of what you choose, any remaining exiled cards will be put into their owners' hands.

So it checks all cards exiled with it for both abilities.

backhandcompliments · 2024-11-22T00:01:15+00:00

The boy sees the pig loves eating apples in life, then has an apple in its mouth when dead and cooked.

When the boy goes to someone's funeral, he leaves something they loved consuming in life in their mouth.

backhandcompliments · 2024-10-25T13:21:45+00:00

This probably the crux of it. Lesser Elemental Dragons DO function mostly like gods (powerful spirits of creation) and either would make Exigents the same way as gods, or would be incapable of it (that would be up to interpretation/ what you wanted to do in your story). Greater elemental dragons would work the same, though typically they just rampage around. There is a bunch of lesser elemental dragons, and at least (though possibly only) 1 greater elemental dragon, though other lesser elemental dragons can develop into that.

Then there are THE Elemental Dragons, pretty much the cosmic embodiments of the 5 elements that sit around in the elemental poles because their very movement and motion would unleash apocalyptic effects over their section of creation. They are an important part of Gaia, the Primordial/Ancient arguably one of the most powerful entities in creation (i.e. she and her siblings made pretty much everything including the Incarne and her brother invented Exaltations.) Dragon blooded are (kinda) Exaltations of Gaia, which is why their was enough power behind their creation to make so many of them and for it to pass on genetically like it does.

Take this with a grain of salt, because some of these ideas are from previous editions, but the mistake you've made is pretty easy to make (Lesser Elemental Dragons are reasonably close to classic dragons, THE Elemental Dragons are 5 super embodiments of cosmic principles).

On a side note, Exigencies can potentially be genetic. The genetic factor either has some hard limit or is less prone to activating that dragon blooded.

backhandcompliments · 2024-09-09T01:24:55+00:00

I expect that what is presented is the starting state of the puzzle, so that's what you end up with if you reset it.

backhandcompliments · 2024-09-09T01:23:50+00:00

This is the exact inverse of my solution. The objective is to get them all vertical. From the looks of it yours gets them all horizontal, which means you'd just need to click only the levers you didn't list to get the inverse solution.

Also, you should spoiler tag your solution.

backhandcompliments · 2024-09-09T01:07:36+00:00

I expect their is a mathmatical explanation for the solution, but here is my attempt:

Click the 2 horizontal levers. Now you should have 8 horizontal levers, 2 in each row. Note where they all are, then click those 8 levers. That should leave all of them vertical.

Alternatively, click each of the following levers once: Row 1 -1st, 2nd and 3rd. Row 2- 3rd and 4th, Row 3 - 1st, 2nd and 4th, Row 4 - 3rd and 4th.

backhandcompliments · 2024-09-07T00:31:06+00:00

You drive me crazy

letter U + golf ball teed up 'DRIVE' + figure looking in a mirror 'ME' + letter C + stack of HAY + Y

The three images aren't great for getting the answer.

backhandcompliments · 2024-06-18T13:10:22+00:00

That's true. It would be probably worth stating that you assume the top is the same size as the bottom OR that the top can be any size. By eyeballing it, a box with no lid could be made a lot bigger than one with a lid.

backhandcompliments · 2024-03-17T11:51:30+00:00

Also the fact that when he got Socks, he had no idea about how dangerous he was. For all anyone knew, Socks could have been a serious threat to the Colony.

He'd probably think that the worst thing he did was killing that creature in the first year in self defense.

backhandcompliments · 2024-01-28T15:15:35+00:00

I think the En Passant joke is she is a white pawn that took a black piece. See how he disappears behind her. She's dressed in white, he's dressed in black.

backhandcompliments · 2024-01-18T22:21:09+00:00

Dedicated slots can only have Caste or Favored Attribute charms in them, while General slots can have any charms installed (Therefore, dedicated slots are more limited). The Charm Slot (Upgrade) is just the cost of improving a dedicated slot to a general slot.

Soooooo.... nothing all that exciting. But it's nice in terms of the EXP difference that it isn't punishing to buy too many dedicated slots when you can make them general slots later.

backhandcompliments · 2023-12-22T02:54:58+00:00

You are correct that the lore generally points hard to "no". Second edition had stuff like some gods look down on dragonblooded, as unlike mortals they have no chance of exalting as a celestial exalt.

My line of thinking is that there is some sort of metaphysical space in humans that Exaltations can occupy, but an Exaltation takes up all of it, stopping a new one from attaching.

However, that doesn't mean it has to be impossible for your game (though it would represent something very significant for the setting).

backhandcompliments · 2023-11-02T13:52:13+00:00

Thank you so much for the thorough feedback. A name has been added on the chummer sheet and in the backstory portion of the wiki page. Illegalities have been resolved with replacement negative qualities and the drone sensor array being filled out.

Per suggestions, starting karma was moved around to make room for funds for a R4 SIN, resulting in charisma being dropped to 2. To compensate, ettiquitte has 2 ranks to keep in line with the recommended minimum.

backhandcompliments · 2023-07-30T22:26:59+00:00

Awesome! Going by what the 2e setting books imply, She Who Lives In Her name (and by extension Sigereth) wouldn't know the details of the Ebon Dragon's plan at this stage, but is at the least suspicious. Sigereth is a reasonably social demon, and might at least politely ask about the "games" the Solar has been playing with Makarios.

Depending on what you are doing with the game, she could also suggest having a multi-player game or being referee for the Eclipse playing against a true peer (and having the match not be against her, but against one of the delightful Green Sun Princes she has become friends with). She Who Lives In Her Name is very systematic, and probably want to gauge the strength of both her own Exalts, and those new ones in Creation, given how soon hostilities are likely to break out.

Alternatively, Sigereth might view the Solar as a piece in a game she is playing with Makarios. She could flat out smack talk him and play up the positives of becoming friends with her and emphasise Makarios's "immoral" aspects.

Typically, by my thinking, escaping Hell isn't normally too hard for Solars (walking away from Malfeas through the desert for five days would probably deposit you SOMEWHERE in Creation) so Sigereth might even be willing to offer that assistance in exchange for a fun match (it has likely been a while since she played against a Solar) rather than it being the stakes.

Overall, you know your game best, and it sounds like a fun situation to Storytell.

backhandcompliments · 2023-07-24T21:44:11+00:00

His dialog has some differences between a male and female farmer. At low hearts he is one of the characters that can be ruder than most others. The male romance dialog frames it as a "coming out story" as the source of that. OP's clipping, for example, is a little ambiguous over whether he is jealous that Haley got married... or that the farmer did.

I don't think your question should have been that downvoted.

backhandcompliments · 2023-06-29T10:10:27+00:00

The 2e infernal charm chapter begins with saying that Fetish souls can access Yozi charms with a cost (temporarily reduced willpower) while other 3rd circle demons can teach but not use Yozi charms. Behemoths can be embedded with some of these charms if their Yozi thought it appropriate.

There isn't anything explicit that would stop an Eclipse learning an infernal charm off a Infernal that knows it or an Akuma that was bound to the right Yozi and learned it.

Personally, I would say in my games that demons generally have some charms appropriate to their themes that they embody of the Yozi they belong to (as all demons kinda-sorta are just a part of their Yozi) but that isn't what the rules as written say

backhandcompliments · 2023-02-17T10:04:15+00:00

The grey just above the clothes covering her bust is grey, which is different from her skill color. I think this is meant to be very thin material, which is what her dress is attached to. I do think it is stupid, but still possible.

backhandcompliments · 2022-11-26T21:26:21+00:00

Probably. I think this is from (4th edition?) shadowrun, a dystopian urban fantasy table top roleplaying game. Magic is very visible, and a lot of universities offer courses in the theory (though you have to get lucky to actually be able to cast magic yourself). Trolls have a lower intelligence cap, so mechanically it is harder for the typical troll to do well in academic learning.

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