Are Calabim obvious?

[banditangel]

I've always assumed that when a Calabite uses their resonance, it's obvious that the resonance has been used, but not obvious who used it (IE the Calabite doesn't give themselves away). Thus, a Calabite in the middle of town square could happily set people on fire, and would be a royal pain to track down. The "subtle" modifier to their resonance is simply if they want the damage itself to go unnoticed, such as sabotaging a bridge so it collapses when a truck drives over.

Is this the case?

If it isn't the case, why play a Calabite? Their damage seems on par with a gun, and pales in comparision to maxed-out Numinous Corpus: Acid.

- Banditangel, who is hoping that after five years they finally got the singular/plurals correct....

[Andygal]

Your singulars and plurals look correct to me.

As for your question, if they damage a human or other corporeal object it *does* make disturbance I believe, which can be tracked down to the person that made it, but they can "snipe" at celestial vessels without getting caught.

[Rocket Man]

One nitpick -- Disturbance can be tracked down to the location of the "noise" but not necessarily to a specific individual. If the Calabite has moved or is in the midst of a large crowd, it still may not be obvious where the guilty party is.

[JCD]

Originally Posted by Rocket Man

One nitpick -- Disturbance can be tracked down to the location of the "noise" but not necessarily to a specific individual. If the Calabite has moved or is in the midst of a large crowd, it still may not be obvious where the guilty party is.

According to Core, this is an either/or thing. Which essentially means that the GM has the option of slamming a patented abuse such as this if it was getting outrageous.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by JCD

According to Core, this is an either/or thing. Which essentially means that the GM has the option of slamming a patented abuse such as this if it was getting outrageous.

(Doublechecks book) Why, so it is. Fair enough, JCD. Thanks.

[Acolyte]

With lucky rolls and/or Essence pumping, Calabim can do even more damage with their resonance. More importantly, their resonance can't be disarmed or stolen, meaning that naked and tied to a chair they can still blow things up (of course, the resonance can be shut off by bad rolling, like any resonance). Compared to a gun or a Song it might not be the most damage, but then again, you didn't spend any points on the skill, relic, or Song and can always deal reliable damage. More importantly, it works in celestial form, meaning that you can rapidly rip away at someone's very being if it's exposed. Many of the Calabim Band Attunements offer new and exciting ways to destroy things.

And no, it's not immediately obvious where the damage comes from. As in, the Calabite can point at someone and shout "burn!" and use their resonance to make it obvious who's doing the killing, but they can just as easily just concentrate and then fake shock and surprise like everyone else. It does cause disturbance for almost all the uses of their resonance (any that don't target other celestials or ethereals on the Corporeal plane), but Calabim aren't typically worried about that.

In fact, for as powerful as their ability is, the tiny slap of some weak (usually Ethereal aka usually Berserk or Angry) Discord doesn't make up for their equally weak dissonance condition. There's always going to be SOMETHING in range to damage, and there's no way a Calabite would choose dissonance over breaking an object or another demon. You might say that Calabim would choose dissonance over disturbance, but if things have devolved to battle between celestials the odds are disturbance has begun or is about to begin anyway.

[alexondria]

and some of them- furfurs for example get like a times 3 modifier and I think there is something- not sure if it's an attunement or just part of the package or what- but anyway something that hides the disturbance if loud music is playing

[JCD]

There is this truly gross Song in LC which allows them to continually add their damage until it can rip pretty much anything to shreds. Feedback. Essentially you add the CD of resonance damage and can use it to strike the next thing you hit.

Most characters would be red wind being hit by the proper dice rolls.

However...many GMs overlook inflicting the Discord on them. That is not how it should work.

[Zone]

See, I always thought it was visible, if even a little subtly. Perhaps not with mechanics, but the story of Valefor showing off some entropy lead me to believe that any large events of the resonance wafted off of them like a haze.

Or perhaps that might just be an in-house rule for things like that. Now, granted Big V was a major demon and now a Prince, and they have their own rules, but it was that image that was placed in my head that was how all Calabim acted when they did their stuff.

[Acolyte]

I think Calabim give themselves away unsubtly, in that things are always falling apart around them. And the Discord penalty isn't that huge, considering they DO get points for them (like Lilim and starting Geases).

My question. Should a given Calabite's resonance always have a similar effect, or can the Calabite choose how to inflict the damage at the time of the resonance and make it different every time? I've always felt the latter, but there is some cool-factor associated with the former.