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More Exaltations
Topic Started: Sep 18 2014, 01:24 AM (3,388 Views)
Soulblazer_87

I had been asked to make a Minion-master Exaltation, and here's what I got so far (well, in about 30mins of brainstorming):

Powers:

Brainwash -essentially, bonus when breaking the minds of prisoners. The rolls are in the Social Combat section of Book 1. Seemed like a good tool any wannabe-Overlord would want to have.

Commanding Personality -Even moar bonuses, this time limited to Social skills Intimidate, Charm, Diplomacy, Persuasion and Command, essentially the 'aggressive' side of Social Combat. An Overlord should have control over his minions -and allies- before they hope to become an Overlord in the first place.

Call Minions -This is where it gets cool; by spending 1 Resource you may summon Swarm Minions equal to your Power Stat. Swarm Minions is a new type which functions as thus; it functions as a normal Minion but only when at least 5 of them make a concentrated attack, thankfully, they are small enough (and incapable enough on their own) that putting 5 of them in a 2mx2m square would not significantly impede their capability. Other than that, TR/DR as usual, with the exception to usual combat being that, if attacked with a normal attack, only one of them dies -but if hit by a AoE (Blast or otherwise) all of them die. Their starting TR/DR would, of course, be 1.

Empower Minion -This is a Power that lets the Exalt spend personal Exp to enhance his minions. 50exp increases the TR or DR of a minion by 1. Minion Leaders (see later) instead get 50exp to spend. Needless to say, should a Minion die, you don't get those Exp back.

Minion Dependency -The Drawback; the Exalt is inexorably tied to their Minions and may not use Resource for any purpose other than Call Minions without a Minion within 2m/Power Stat of them.

Abilities:
1) Promote Minion - The Exalt may promote a Swarm Minion to Minion (removing the Swarm template) as a full-action (at least) by spending 1 Resource.
2) King Of The Hill - I thought of making a Lair-Claiming ability that can be used. The wording would go like "When in an Area you have Claimed for your own, Minions under your command gain +1TR and Minion Leaders +1k1 to Tests". I'd also note that Lair-Claiming is done over-time in an area the Exalt considers their Sanctum, but can also be done in combat by spending a full-round and 2 Resource to claim a small patch of land, temporarily. Otherwise, I might have made an Ability to increase the Exalt's survival, but as a reverse to Minion Dependency; the LESS Minions around, the more power they would get (Bonus either to Resilience or the ability to perform Healing Surge)
3) Promote Minion Leader - The Exalt may promote a Minion to Minion Leader as a full-action by spending 3 Resource. Doing so turns the Minion to a regular Mortal -with statistics and dots and all. Each point of TR and DR becomes a Dot the Exalt can place on the Minion Leader's character sheet. Beyond that, it starts with 1 dot in all Characteristics, 3 for Primary, 2 for Secondary, 1 for Tertiary and, similarly, 5/3/1 spread for Skills. Hey, at least it actually gets Health now!
4) Aura Of The King - The Lair-Claiming ability becomes always effective around the Exalt (in a small area, anyway), or alternatively, I could make it grant a TR/DR/Test bonus to Minions if I go with the Survival aspect of King Of The Hill.
5) Emperor's Law - The capstone would go into effect by letting the Exalt set rules to effect their Lair - be it that Magic is harder to cast, everyone has to tell lies, it is harder to perform hostile actions or that one cannot appear as anything but their true selves. These laws would impose a heavy penalty to anything that goes against them, also probably notifying the Exalt of anyone that goes around breaking their Laws. Of course, what goes for others, also goes for the Exalt.

As Power Stat name, I like 'Dominion', in other words, just how dominating a character is. And as Resource I'm thinking 'Loyalty' to represent how the Exalt's loyal minions would do anything for them. Regardless of Max Loyalty, I'm thinking of using Social Tests (Cha+Command) for example to recover Resource.

Assets:

I thought of these 3, depending on how the character plays;

Breed Rush; Instead of getting Minion Leader, you get the ability to spam EVEN MOAR MINIONS. They'd be low-power, but quantity is a quality of its own.

Warrior King; Improve the Aura range (from, say 4m to 10m) and the ability to also regain Loyalty by Combat actions (whether that is any kind of successful -that is, damaging- attack or Critical damage only, I'm not sure).

Peasant Lord; Improve the rate Loyalty is regained, along with possibly a side-ability to recover 1 Loyalty whenever Loyalty is going to be used (that is, before it is actually spent) by adding a harder TN Social Test.


So far, this is what I've got. It's an Exaltation that can be called BroodParent just as easily as it can be called a Necromancer or a Constructor Bot. By keeping Minions and throwing them at the enemy, the Exalt could have excellent survivability as well as, in the case of more powerful Minions, some quite-skilled Warrior-Ants to get a job done. Note the lack of upper limit of Minion numbers -and I'm not sure I want to add one. Sure, it might seem absurdly powerful when they have time to call up a small army, but they still would need time and expend Resource and Exp, while a Spellcaster with some Energy Balls would obliterate chunks of that army at a time.

Inspirations come from games such as StarCraft (ZERG RUUUUUUUSH), Disgaea (Promoting Minions) and even Fable.

Ideas/Opinions/Criticism?
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Eisenritter
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Old Iron Knight
...Why am I thinking that this one should be taking a bit more after Theion or Darkseid, and be more about exalting yourself upon the backs of your lessers (i.e. everyone else)?
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Soulblazer_87

No idea, but feel free to post up any update/change you think would get you that. Or an AEF.
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Soulblazer_87

Once more for clarification purposes, pending Book 3:

Alternate Exaltation Features, or AEF for short, are different options to the traditional Exaltation. Once chosen, the character does not belong to the original Exaltation, but rather to a different, very similar, but at the same time unique Exaltation. Though they might be confused at first sight, they are fundamentally different. Selecting an AEF must be done at Character creation when selecting the Exaltation and costs nothing to do so. However, once selected, it may NOT be changed. Additionally, ALL features of the AEF, beneficial and not, replacing the original Exaltation's features. One may not select to keep or not some or change their minds after the Exaltation has been decided. Lastly; a character with an AEF may NOT select exaltation Assets from the original Exaltation -only those of the AEF may be selected, unless the AEF itself has no Assets of its own, and therefore they are one and the same.
Edited by Soulblazer_87, Feb 15 2015, 04:15 AM.
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Eisenritter
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Old Iron Knight
So, gonna go ahead and try this again now I've got the concepts divorced.

Nephilim. Allegedly means "those who have fallen," first used in reference to the children of angels and mortal men. With that in mind, I'll be taking it back to my original idea, that this is an exaltation similar to the Dragonblood, the union of mortal flesh and daemonic blood. Whether by forced implantation (a la Claymore) or accident of birth (Dante, InuYasha, etc.), you are a Human (or Elf, or Ork, or whatever) with the flesh and blood of a daemon in your veins.

The Nephilim's ability to draw upon her daemonic blood is her Awakening (think ADAM), and the flow of power resulting from it is Ether (EVE). The primary inspiration is the third Solaroid exaltation, the Infernal, and the main theme is a similar daemonic transhumanism, colored by your choice of asset; the spawn of a daemon aligned with Khorne might become a brass-skinned daemon-warrior brandishing an oversized hellblade in each hand, while one aligned with Acererak might simply grow a pair of horns and start manipulating objects with her mind. Much more like the Chosen than a Daemonhost.

I would very much like to have its advancement tied to taking an asset, similar to Soulblazer's Psylord, but that might be a little unfeasible with the massive list of assets that would have to be made if it takes the Chosen route...
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Soulblazer_87

What you're saying, sounds a lot to me like something I've already made here. Just make an AEF of it and you should be done, right? I mean without going too much into creating yet another Exaltation. Or make an AEF of the Chosen -with its own Assets and stuff.
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Eisenritter
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Old Iron Knight
Regarding the comparison to your Demonblooded, do please recall our... debate, regarding Kythons/Zerg/Tyranids/what-the-hell-ever. To be blunt, I simply don't like how that frame works, and honestly I think this can be done without making a BIY exalt like that.

As for the Chosen AEF... the Chosen's power stat is "Faith," which already isn't very fitting to call what's powering, say, Teresa of the Faint Smile. It's powered by Devotion to and Favor from whatever power it's aligned to, where the heroic child of one would be more inclined to rail against it. If I were to make it an AEF I'd actually be more inclined to start from the Dragonblood... which I'll probably go ahead and look into, now you've got me thinking of it.
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Soulblazer_87

Demonblooded's point was making a 'BIY Exalt', a kind of different approach to the whole shebang. However, what I was pointing out was more along the lines of the actual background and Power Stat abilities, rather than 'permanently spend Resource to get X'.

You can be a Chosen that is faithful to an ideal rather than a specific diety, if you want (Chaos Undivided, for instance). What my main issue is that, you try to copy an anime character straight into a DtD game instead of being inspired by said character. Why would you have to exactly have the specific abilities of 'Teresea of the Faint Smile', instead of being inspired by the character and adding a bit of your own? I might have gotten a bit confused by your previous post though, I admit. Still, an AEF would be easier to implement and cut down a lot of the work for Book 3 (if it is included).
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Eisenritter
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First, Abbadon the Despoiler or Archaon the Everchosen would be a Chosen of Chaos Undivided; they get power from all of the Ruinous Powers, instead of just one.

And Teresa was the counterpoint; she, or really any Claymore, is someone I would point to as an example of what a Nephilim is. The Chosen's ultimate source of power is external, and the amount of power he can draw on from that source is limited by his belief in and devotion to that source. The Nephilim's power is internal and inseparable, limited only by her awareness of it. Whence the shifting gears and going back to look at what I could tinker with re:Dragonbloods for it.

Mind you, there's probably a lot more that'll end up changing than can reasonably be called an AEF for that result, but I'll burn that bridge once I've crossed it.
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Soulblazer_87

I was making the point that there are actually Chosen who don't focus on just ONE Ruinous Power.

Internal power? Sounds like Paragon to me. Or Dragonblood.
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