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We small boned persons are vulnerable to exoduses of the mass and panicked variety
TV commentary:
Kings- So this is finally back. I thought it was an interesting show, its too bad NBC is just burning off these remaining eps and has no plans to renew (or so I think). Okay, is it me, or was it totally obvious Abner (I still can't get over Wes Studi's character being named Abner, it makes me think of Family Guy and the lady being all "Abner! Abner! That Griffin boy just killed a plastic reindeer!") was the guy supplying the guns? Even before the ill portent of the candles, I figured it was him. But what the hell, is he blind or something? Did he not notice Silas was holding a knife? I mean, it seemed obvious he had a knife in his hand when Abner came to see him. So I can't believe he didn't see that coming, especially being a 30 year old veteran. I mean, he and Silas look like fierce, hardened old men, so I would think their survival instincts would be well honed. Then again, he did think Silas had gone soft, so perhaps he underestimated his King.
I can see why Jack doesn't trust David. Because while David says he has no plans to be king, fate has an altogether different plan for him, it seems. But even though Jack doesn't know that, for one thing, he grew up in politics, so he's not one to take others' statements at face value, even though David sounds incredibly sincere. Whether he has leadership aspirations or not, the fact is it seems that things keep going quite fortuitously for David, he's the golden boy, not only a rival for his father's affections, but the people as well. And the fact that his sister is enamored with David make his chances of supplanting Jack much easier.
Pushing Daisies- It twas the last ep of the series, I'll miss its verbal and visual cuteness. But wow, they did semi-resolve everything, so its somewhat of a consolation- Chuck and Ned out Chuck to the aunts, so even though Lily found out Chuck is Vivian's daughter and was mad, they made it seem like Chuck's re-appearance was enough to mend that rift up right quick. As for the others, Emerson's daughter finds him, and then Olive and Randy do end up getting together and opening their own business. So its a happy ending all around for everyone.
More Exalted talk: From what I've read of the charms so far, the advantage of the GSP charm set is the fact that it is not tied to any specific ability. Thus, these charms only have an essence minimum rather than a minimum essence and ability requirement. So, one does not need to spread out their ability purchasing and spending points in abilities they rarely use just to be able to get certain useful charms. One should still be encouraged to still have decent scores in skills they use, because while the charms aren't based off skills, they still do modify and attribute+ability roll, so you want to decent score in the skill.
But take the Malfean charm "Green Sun Nimbus Flame". It modifies any physical attack, so rather than having to get enhancement charms for archery, martial arts, melee, and thrown each, the one charm covers them all. The rest of the charm tree works on modifying that enhancement to make it more potent. What's more, a lot of these Infernal charms are permanent modifiers to the way the parent charm works, rather than charms with separate effects that would be quite powerful when combo-ed with the parent charm. As such, "Green Sun Nimbus Flame" becomes a quite potent enhancer to all sorts of attacks, melee and ranged.
But, that being said, its potent, but not nearly as potent as some of the charms Solars and Abyssals get further down their charm tree for melee or archery or what have you. Plus, they have a little more variety of tricks in each skill as well.
So, GSPs charm sets are a little more versatile in that they're not forced to focus on a specific skill based charm tree to the detriment of others. A lot of times, the early charms in a Solar or Abyssals' charm tree are kinda crappy, and its not until they get further down the charm tree to get something good. So a lot of times, one will be focused on certain skills and don't have charm tricks to modify other skills. I think the GSPs, a lot of their early charms are better than the early charms of the skill based charm trees. Conversely though, Solars and Death Knights' upper level charms can be way more powerful, particularly when comboed together in certain ways.
That's not to say the upper level charms of the Infernals aren't extremely powerful. They're still plenty powerful, and potent enough to be a threat to even the most experienced exalt. (They're definitely extremely lethal to the gods/spirits, as the Yozi aren't big fans- the Exalted may have been the ones to take them down, but its the gods who gave Exalts the power to do so) So I think Solars and DKs end up having powerful tricks within a certain set of skills that they favor, whereas the GSPs have only slightly less powerful tricks they can apply to a wider grouping of abilities.
While I think GSPs are quite balanced with their Solar/Abyssal counterparts, they can branch out a little more because their charms aren't linked to specific skills.
Heh, I was reading a review of the book saying it was really good at fleshing out Infernal antagonists, but thought Infernals were a little one-dimensional for PCs because there wasn't enough "internal conflict". But if you're playing such characters, you're supposed to be evil! Who wants to be some namby-pamby wishy-washy bad guy?! I mean, what's wrong with playing a baddie with clarity of purpose, why can't a PC be bad without having to feel bad about it!? Then again, I forget, not everyone is okay with corruption and spreading fear and terror and causing all sorts of havoc and mayhem.
Kings- So this is finally back. I thought it was an interesting show, its too bad NBC is just burning off these remaining eps and has no plans to renew (or so I think). Okay, is it me, or was it totally obvious Abner (I still can't get over Wes Studi's character being named Abner, it makes me think of Family Guy and the lady being all "Abner! Abner! That Griffin boy just killed a plastic reindeer!") was the guy supplying the guns? Even before the ill portent of the candles, I figured it was him. But what the hell, is he blind or something? Did he not notice Silas was holding a knife? I mean, it seemed obvious he had a knife in his hand when Abner came to see him. So I can't believe he didn't see that coming, especially being a 30 year old veteran. I mean, he and Silas look like fierce, hardened old men, so I would think their survival instincts would be well honed. Then again, he did think Silas had gone soft, so perhaps he underestimated his King.
I can see why Jack doesn't trust David. Because while David says he has no plans to be king, fate has an altogether different plan for him, it seems. But even though Jack doesn't know that, for one thing, he grew up in politics, so he's not one to take others' statements at face value, even though David sounds incredibly sincere. Whether he has leadership aspirations or not, the fact is it seems that things keep going quite fortuitously for David, he's the golden boy, not only a rival for his father's affections, but the people as well. And the fact that his sister is enamored with David make his chances of supplanting Jack much easier.
Pushing Daisies- It twas the last ep of the series, I'll miss its verbal and visual cuteness. But wow, they did semi-resolve everything, so its somewhat of a consolation- Chuck and Ned out Chuck to the aunts, so even though Lily found out Chuck is Vivian's daughter and was mad, they made it seem like Chuck's re-appearance was enough to mend that rift up right quick. As for the others, Emerson's daughter finds him, and then Olive and Randy do end up getting together and opening their own business. So its a happy ending all around for everyone.
More Exalted talk: From what I've read of the charms so far, the advantage of the GSP charm set is the fact that it is not tied to any specific ability. Thus, these charms only have an essence minimum rather than a minimum essence and ability requirement. So, one does not need to spread out their ability purchasing and spending points in abilities they rarely use just to be able to get certain useful charms. One should still be encouraged to still have decent scores in skills they use, because while the charms aren't based off skills, they still do modify and attribute+ability roll, so you want to decent score in the skill.
But take the Malfean charm "Green Sun Nimbus Flame". It modifies any physical attack, so rather than having to get enhancement charms for archery, martial arts, melee, and thrown each, the one charm covers them all. The rest of the charm tree works on modifying that enhancement to make it more potent. What's more, a lot of these Infernal charms are permanent modifiers to the way the parent charm works, rather than charms with separate effects that would be quite powerful when combo-ed with the parent charm. As such, "Green Sun Nimbus Flame" becomes a quite potent enhancer to all sorts of attacks, melee and ranged.
But, that being said, its potent, but not nearly as potent as some of the charms Solars and Abyssals get further down their charm tree for melee or archery or what have you. Plus, they have a little more variety of tricks in each skill as well.
So, GSPs charm sets are a little more versatile in that they're not forced to focus on a specific skill based charm tree to the detriment of others. A lot of times, the early charms in a Solar or Abyssals' charm tree are kinda crappy, and its not until they get further down the charm tree to get something good. So a lot of times, one will be focused on certain skills and don't have charm tricks to modify other skills. I think the GSPs, a lot of their early charms are better than the early charms of the skill based charm trees. Conversely though, Solars and Death Knights' upper level charms can be way more powerful, particularly when comboed together in certain ways.
That's not to say the upper level charms of the Infernals aren't extremely powerful. They're still plenty powerful, and potent enough to be a threat to even the most experienced exalt. (They're definitely extremely lethal to the gods/spirits, as the Yozi aren't big fans- the Exalted may have been the ones to take them down, but its the gods who gave Exalts the power to do so) So I think Solars and DKs end up having powerful tricks within a certain set of skills that they favor, whereas the GSPs have only slightly less powerful tricks they can apply to a wider grouping of abilities.
While I think GSPs are quite balanced with their Solar/Abyssal counterparts, they can branch out a little more because their charms aren't linked to specific skills.
Heh, I was reading a review of the book saying it was really good at fleshing out Infernal antagonists, but thought Infernals were a little one-dimensional for PCs because there wasn't enough "internal conflict". But if you're playing such characters, you're supposed to be evil! Who wants to be some namby-pamby wishy-washy bad guy?! I mean, what's wrong with playing a baddie with clarity of purpose, why can't a PC be bad without having to feel bad about it!? Then again, I forget, not everyone is okay with corruption and spreading fear and terror and causing all sorts of havoc and mayhem.