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General Exalted Thread

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Kuciwalker said:
Is there a typo here? It's just Workings that require Sorcery, right?
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Ooh, yeah, nice catch. Thanks - I'll amend.

More generally: I need to sit down and spreadsheet out the odds, but I'm a little skeptical of the change to the way Means work. Also I think you've lost what was great about the original Workings system: you could decide where to put something on the basis of "which group of people do I think should be able to do this fairly regularly: Terrestrials, Celestials, or Solars?" But Terrestrials really ought to be able to craft Artifact 2s without reaching beyond their station, as it were.
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It definitely needs some spreadsheeting, yeah.

So, here's my beef with Means: let's say I have a project I'm trying to complete, and I add a bunch more Means - that is, a bunch more things to help me get the job done. Nothing else changes. Which would we expect:
- I can now complete the project faster, and am also more likely to ever actually finish it.
- I am more likely to finish the project, but I am not at all faster at doing so.

We can find degenerate cases where it's the second one - The Mythical Man Month certainly applies - but in many cases, having more money and better tools and applicable Abilities and etc. seems, intuitively, like it should make the job faster. In workings, it... doesn't; more Means means more chances to roll, each taking an additional Interval. That's weird. This was an attempt to fix it.

The math may not quite balance out, yet, which is a perfectly legit criticism - though heck if I know how Artifact-crafting math is "supposed" to balance out - but that's the thing I'm aiming at.

I see your point on the original system; I guess I just... don't care, that much? Like, mortals could do Terrestrial workings, most PC Solars couldn't do Adamant workings, and reaching past your station was absolutely a thing that existed - I didn't really feel it was that useful of a framework to begin with.

(The bigger problem, I think, is that Adamant workings are going to remain pretty inaccessible in general, but Adamant craft projects are not - but this was kind of already a problem, in a world where Solar Workings are insanely hard but Artifact N/As ain't no big thing for a dedicated Solar Crafter.)

(Also, maybe someone can help me understand the logic here: why, by the book, does it cost more XP for a Solar Circle Sorcerer to attempt an Ambition 3 Terrestrial working than an Ambition 1 Solar working? Or am I misreading that somehow?)
 
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Going simple: in my system, if you average 11 successes a roll, say, you need no Means for Emerald Circle, at least (Finesse + 1) Means for Ambition 3 Sapphire, (Finesse + 5) Means for Ambition 1 Adamant, (Finesse + 7) Means for Ambition 2 Adamant, and some additional tricks for Ambition 3 Adamant. Charms adjust all those numbers, obviously.

Contrast the original, assuming Finesse 3 for a moment: no Means for Terrestrial, no Means for Celestial 3, no Means for Solar 1, 2 Means for Solar 2, and 5 Means for Solar 3. At Finesse 5, that's instead: none for Terrestrial, no Means for Celestial 3, 1 Means for Solar 1, 3 Means for Solar 2, and 6 Means for Solar 3.

So that suggests my difficulties are too high, yeah? Seems like the Sapphire/Adamant difficulties need to be cut substantially.
 
Well, if she had a warstrider she might have succeded in slaying the foe. Maybe. I am not really sure i got the identity of the foe right: it was the realm treasury, right? (I am almost sure it wasn't the Treasury, but i am confused and headachey.)

... Hey, couldn't she horribly modify her ship into a dual mode thing part Warstrider part "Warship"?

...No, wait, she has already the double mode with the submarine... triple mode Warstrider/Warship/Warsubmarine?

No, wait, it was the helldragontoddler from hell, right? Well, a musical Warstrider would have helped too!
 
Giygas said:
Well, if she had a warstrider she might have succeded in slaying the foe. Maybe. I am not really sure i got the identity of the foe right: it was the realm treasury, right? (I am almost sure it wasn't the Treasury, but i am confused and headachey.)

... Hey, couldn't she horribly modify her ship into a dual mode thing part Warstrider part "Warship"?

...No, wait, she has already the double mode with the submarine... triple mode Warstrider/Warship/Warsubmarine?

No, wait, it was the helldragontoddler from hell, right? Well, a musical Warstrider would have helped too!
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It was Aiko, yes; her BITTER RIVAL FOR SASI'S AFFECTIONS AND TIME. I was making a funny. :p Though no, turning her ship into a transforming warstrider would defeat the point of keeping it maintainable with high-end Third Age/recovered Shogunate tech, and she has hellstriders for that anyway.

Also, hee.
Aleph said:
Aleph: Hmm. She may come up with a name for that specific style of patterning she's starting to use as a signature. You know, the abstract one that brings to mind waves and wind and mangroves.
Aleph: Well, it's not a single pattern. More a style like, hmm... like Celtic knots. Many different types, but distinctly recognisable as that "family" of art.
EarthScorpion: Mmm, yes.
Aleph: Latin, I think. Some combination of the Latin words for "wave" and "wind". Named in the Malfean style.
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So yeah, Latin and Hungarian failed me, so as a third resort I went for Greek, and found κύμα/kýma and αέρα/aéra. Which work very nicely together! So yes, Keris pretty much has invented/is in the process of inventing this as an Expression style, and is going to teach it to, like... everyone who works for her and makes things for her (lol her Saatan women's group including it in silver thread in their Jupiter's Embroidery undergarments).

... honestly, I think Keris's "signature style" is one of the subtle things I'm really proud of. The way that unlike how a lot of crafting characters seem to turn out; her stuff is incredibly recognisable and all really thematically linked, because it's all vitriol-silver and kymaaeran patterns and hellish alchemy. It's the sort of thing that totally works as a plot hook for the hypothetical "circle of generic-Good hero Solars" game where she's the antagonist (I design so much of her like this) where they encounter what seems to be a one-off assassin or something with this intricately patterned sword who's targeting someone they're protecting, and then a dozen sessions later find a ship full of pirates which has the stuff all over it, and it crops up with increasing frequency as they wander closer to her territory and eventually leads them back to her when they decide to go see where it's coming from.

I also realised while writing it up as a style that she's totally going to make sure it's possible to hide messages in it in a sort of thieves cant. ¬_¬ Which, uh. Means I accidentally a heavy metal band logo font. Dammit Keris.

Kymaaera Style (Expression)
An art style themed around abstract representations of the wind and waves, often with root or branch-like overtones that conceal hidden messages. Reminiscent of Southern styles, there are subtle similarities to certain forms of Hellish art in the flowing lines and bold strokes, and those who remember the beauty of the ancient Lintha might compare it to a partial reinvention of their aesthetics. Kymaaeran patterning can be painted or drawn, but is more often carved or etched - in its purest form, it is always engraved in silver. It serves as a unique identifier of its inventor; Keris Dulmeadokht, who uses it as a signature in much of her work.
1: +1 to find messages hidden in kymaaeran patterns.
2: +1 when carving or engraving kymaaera in silver.
3: -1 Difficulty to conceal a message from those not familiar with the artstyle.
 
Irked said:
Ooh, yeah, nice catch. Thanks - I'll amend.


It definitely needs some spreadsheeting, yeah.

So, here's my beef with Means: let's say I have a project I'm trying to complete, and I add a bunch more Means - that is, a bunch more things to help me get the job done. Nothing else changes. Which would we expect:
- I can now complete the project faster, and am also more likely to ever actually finish it.
- I am more likely to finish the project, but I am not at all faster at doing so.

We can find degenerate cases where it's the second one - The Mythical Man Month certainly applies - but in many cases, having more money and better tools and applicable Abilities and etc. seems, intuitively, like it should make the job faster. In workings, it... doesn't; more Means means more chances to roll, each taking an additional Interval. That's weird. This was an attempt to fix it.

The math may not quite balance out, yet, which is a perfectly legit criticism - though heck if I know how Artifact-crafting math is "supposed" to balance out - but that's the thing I'm aiming at.

I see your point on the original system; I guess I just... don't care, that much? Like, mortals could do Terrestrial workings, most PC Solars couldn't do Adamant workings, and reaching past your station was absolutely a thing that existed - I didn't really feel it was that useful of a framework to begin with.

(The bigger problem, I think, is that Adamant workings are going to remain pretty inaccessible in general, but Adamant craft projects are not - but this was kind of already a problem, in a world where Solar Workings are insanely hard but Artifact N/As ain't no big thing for a dedicated Solar Crafter.)
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Solar Workings really aren't that inaccessible. In fact, honestly, according to book-rules they are a little too easy, IMO, given the length of the High First Age (although that's just me being grouchy). A Solar Circle sorcerer can complete a Finesse 5, Ambition 3 Solar Working with just 10 Means. That's difficult but by no means impossible to acquire. This is for fiat-level changes to the universe's metaphysics.

(Also, that's only assuming a 1-point stunt on each roll. If you manage to swing a 2-point stunt instead, you only need 9 means.)

Were it not for the explicit prohibition, a Solar initiated into merely the Terrestrial Circle could also do this working with just 10 Means, by accepting Finesse 1. At Finesse 1 the Solar Circle sorcerer needs only 7 means - that's a piece of cake, just get a big manse, you're done.

If you want an effect to let people pull off a working faster, have it reduce the interval directly - having the effect change the difficulty of the extended roll has really huge implications for success math. As it stands, Workings generally take similar-ish amounts of time to complete anyway (if you aren't reaching beyond your Circle), within about a factor of 2. I think that's fine, for sorcery. It's probably not good for Bureaucracy and Craft where we have intuitions about how long stuff takes, but for pure "well and then magic stuff happens" it seems reasonable for everything to take 1-10 weeks.

edit: here is the chart for my very-slightly-modified system, which is generally within about 1 means or so of the original math. The columns "Solar 1/3/5" represent Solars initiated into Terrestrial / Celestial / Solar circles.
 
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Aleph said:
It was Aiko, yes; her BITTER RIVAL FOR SASI'S AFFECTIONS AND TIME. I was making a funny. :p Though no, turning her ship into a transforming warstrider would defeat the point of keeping it maintainable with high-end Third Age/recovered Shogunate tech, and she has hellstriders for that anyway.
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Not if you made it into a tecnorganic horror capable of repairing and reshaping itself! (You might want to get a lunar chimera or two to make it)

Of course, it would probably require another N/A rating just by itself, would make faint everyone of weak mind, and would completely shot any sublety that the ship mighty still have.(Peoples inside the horror may also mysteriusly disappear, but that's positively homely for the avarange demon) Also the future Alchemicals might band against you with higher gusto than avarage.
 
Soo... Infernal Charms? Infernal Charms.

Kimbery

Cost:0m-3m
Keywords: Combo-ok, Sea
Duration: One-Scene
Prerequisite Charm: Mother-Sea Mastery
No one is a graceful as Kimbery, as there is no one alive to disagree. This charm is the same as Graceful Crane Stance, save that if costs nothing to activate while near or on a body of water that qualifies for the Sea-Keyword. This charm automatically upgrades at Essence 3; an Infernal may pay a surcharge of 3m to gain the effects of Feather-Foot Style.

A repurchase at Essence 3 changes the duration to Indefinite.
So your basic super-human balance charm tweaked so that it follows the Infernal's charm design of automatically upgrading and the effect becoming more permeant to go with the whole transhuman angle that is one of their main attractions. As it is a Kimbery charm it becomes more powerful near water, or in this case cheaper, so away from an appropriately sized body of water it is about the same as the normal Solar charms it is designed after in terms of cost, but it gets cheaper while in Kimbery's element.

I made this to A) better utilise Kimbery's grace themes found in her excellency, you are a well balanced sea creature who is never not graceful and who gets even more effortlessly graceful while near water, and B) my friend and I found Adorjan's zoom- zoom schtik annoying after a while, though my other players enjoyed quite a bit, and this was a way for players who didn't invest in Adorjan to develop some means of supernatural grace and balance. Though I will admit that I think it needs another prerequisite charm, but I don't know which one, maybe it should also require her Excellency as well?

Cost: 5m; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK,
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Sea-Within Veins Prana
The living essence of all things pulses like a lighthouse on the shore for the Demon-Sea and those who study her ways; while this charm is active an Infernal can sense all living things and animate dead around her in a circle of (Essence x 10) yards around her as their essence thrums like the beat of a drum, automatically revealing their presence and giving the Infernal an understanding of their Essence score and the type of essence they have. This Radius Expands to (Essence x 20) yards while in a body of water that qualifies for the Sea-Keyword, the liquid medium serving as a better medium for the Kimbery's senses. If magic would attempt to hide one's presence from the righteous fury of the Kimbery, this charm provokes a roll of [Perception + Awareness] used as a dicepool with the Infernal having (essence) Automatic Success.
Basically a nifty sense charm, I used Invasive Exteroception Technique as a balancing point and made it so that it performs better under water as is expected, nothing groundbreaking here.

Cost: —
Mins: Essence 3
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Intolerable Burning Truths: Hate Springs Eternal, Trust is Naive
The Great Mother loves with all of her heart, all over her being, each and every droplet in her infinite sea contains endless love, the reverse is also true. This charm permanently upgrades the Infernal's ability to channel their compassion, granting success instead of dice and allowing them to channel compassion to hurt those they have a negative intimacy towards.
Yeah, I think this is too powerful. I mean Adorjan has a similar effect and so does Revlid's SWLIHN charm-set, but I think I should include a weakness of some kind but I'm coming up at a lose for one that isn't entirely crippling.

Sorcery

Celestial Circle

Devil-Slave Empressment
+30m
Target: Essence x 2 First Circle Demons
This spell functions exactly like Slave-Spawn Summons save that it summons up to (Essence x 2) First Circle demons, it can only be used on the New Moon at night and that the binding roll is made against the demon with the highest Essence score within the group, in case of a draw use the strongest demon their. There is no prohibition on the variety of demons summoned; a harem of Neomah can just as easily called to service as a small squad of Blood Apes with the Living Armors that will protect them, or a work crew of Harenhal and Demjen to mass produce high quality equipment for their army.
Wham bam, a spell to summon more than one FCD, it doesn't require a ritual because until Third Circle Demons start getting involved. I think it's balanced, you can only summon eight demons at a go at first and that isn't in itself going to overthrow a nation.
 
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Honestly, for the "summon a group of First Circles" one, I'd go with:

Emerald: Summon one First Circle at night.
Sapphire: Summon one Second Circle or (Essence/2) Magnitude First Circles on a new moon.
Adamant: Summon one Third Circle or (Essence/2) Second Circles or (Essence) Magnitude First Circles at Calibration.

This is for Essence, not Enlightenment, and I would probably cap it at Essence 5 so that Elders can't fuck everything over because screw those guys. So yeah, you can pull out a demonic raiding party of ~50 demons once a month with Sapphire Sorcery, or an army of ~500 once a year with Adamant. Which are helpfully in the same ballpark as the number of demons you'd get just from summoning one a night for that length of time anyway; this just lets you do it all at once.

That, or just literally have it be "as many as you'd get if you'd summoned one a night for that long" and have it be 28 with Sapphire and 450 with Adamant (though fifteen Second Circles in one go with Adamant is probably unbalanced).
 
Just gonna throw out a think I had on the topic of Great Houses of the Realm Trading. What says it's the exalts that are trading? Demographically, most of the Great Houses should consist of mortal patrician. So it's entirely possible for trade to be considered something perfectly acceptable for a mortal patrician to do, but not something a dynast should dirty their hands with. That would still lead to house Cynis having it's riches based on trade, since the DBs would still have a stranglehold on the clan finances which the mortal merchants would contribute to.

I can't actually remember any Canon NPC DB Dynasts who were merchants, IIRC they were all either in the Military or in Academia.

Just a thought tho'.
 
Aranfan said:
Just gonna throw out a think I had on the topic of Great Houses of the Realm Trading. What says it's the exalts that are trading? Demographically, most of the Great Houses should consist of mortal patrician. So it's entirely possible for trade to be considered something perfectly acceptable for a mortal patrician to do, but not something a dynast should dirty their hands with. That would still lead to house Cynis having it's riches based on trade, since the DBs would still have a stranglehold on the clan finances which the mortal merchants would contribute to.

I can't actually remember any Canon NPC DB Dynasts who were merchants, IIRC they were all either in the Military or in Academia.
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I mean, you could do that. But... Why would you? Why should the Dragonblooded frown on mercantile interests? Their whole society is explicitly geared towards "whatever a Dragonblood wants to do is The Right And Harmonious Thing To Do." For something to be beneath them is to relegate it to being filthy and unclean, not fit for anybody to do.
 
Also, why would a Dragonblooded Great House be famous for something that it's dragonblooded don't have any part in. You're basically saying that the mortals are more important to the house than the Exalted at that point, which is kinda questionable.
 
Irked said:
Going simple: in my system, if you average 11 successes a roll, say, you need no Means for Emerald Circle, at least (Finesse + 1) Means for Ambition 3 Sapphire, (Finesse + 5) Means for Ambition 1 Adamant, (Finesse + 7) Means for Ambition 2 Adamant, and some additional tricks for Ambition 3 Adamant. Charms adjust all those numbers, obviously.
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I would strongly advocate against eliminating Means, since they're what allows Workings to engage the rest of the game rather than "I lock myself up for a few years and the world changes to my will", at the same time, at the upper end, too many Means also spoil things, since it's basically a full blown story hijack(which is narratively appropriate yes, but makes for a poor game if your project dominates the whole group's activities) to collecting the stuff you need for the Working by then.

Maybe scale the NATURE of the Means? Quantity is easy, but doesn't help the game, an Exalt working at the appropriate scale invests nothing but time to get the raw quantity. Quality should be much better.

Taking Bureaucratic Means for instance, if you want a driver's license, all you need is the test for the license as the Means(or substitute the appropriate bribe or forgery). If you want to restructure a company department, you still just need a few Means, but you're looking at obtaining hostile performance reviews or evidence of malfeasance, but you still only need the one to get it started, even if you'd prefer to have more because you want extra rolls to beat the required successes.
 
Keeping in mind that I am dead tired and going to sleep after this:

Imrix said:
I mean, you could do that. But... Why would you? Why should the Dragonblooded frown on mercantile interests? Their whole society is explicitly geared towards "whatever a Dragonblood wants to do is The Right And Harmonious Thing To Do." For something to be beneath them is to relegate it to being filthy and unclean, not fit for anybody to do.
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Because I like the setting and want it to work? Also, keep in mind that creation and the Realm is not a capitalist society, it's a very heavily militarized bronze/iron age theocracy. Which, IIRC are notorious for saying that mercantile interests are lower than military interests. The presence of sorcery and the ruins of the First Age together explains why Academia is respected. And I would dispute that the Immaculate Order is all about giving DBs a blank check, it says they are paragons of moral virtue and right behavior, but it has a lot to say about what said right behavior is, and House Cynis notably only qualifies thru religious doublethink. So if the Realm inherited a culture from the shogunate that relagated merchant enterprises to mortals, then it's entirely plausible that there would be relatively very few Exalt Merchants from the Realm.

C.o.S.a.R said:
Also, why would a Dragonblooded Great House be famous for something that it's dragonblooded don't have any part in. You're basically saying that the mortals are more important to the house than the Exalted at that point, which is kinda questionable.
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Demographically, they should be. There should be a lot more human patricians in a Great House than actual Dragon Blooded.


-

Going to sleep now. G'night.
 
Aranfan said:
Demographically, they should be. There should be a lot more human patricians in a Great House than actual Dragon Blooded.
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Demographically Solars, Lunars, and Sidereals and pretty much ever single exalted shouldn't matter at all and simply be unimportant footnotes to any organization they're in. They also don't have a culture that actively exults their important.
 
So how confused are any Lunars likely to be when they hear about Keris' Chimaeran Style? :V
 
Don't Water Caste DBs have a bunch of charms that only make sense if trade is a thing they do?
 
grommile said:
Don't Water Caste DBs have a bunch of charms that only make sense if trade is a thing they do?
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Yes. As befits a navy-loving global hegemon, the Realm loves its Water castes - and trade is a big thing for them.

What really confuses me is the people who seem to want to neuter the Realm and Water Aspects in order to preserve the Guild. It's not for the sake of "setting integrity" or "not changing things", because they're having to significantly change the Realm to "protect" the Guild. It's not for the sake of getting better antagonists, because that set up involves nerfing both the Realm ("Durr we are global hegemon with extensive overseas holdings that no do understand importance of mercantile commerce") and the Guild ("Durr we are mortal led organisation what are meaning that our leaders dice pools are not competitive with Exalts").

The solution is, as usual, to smash the idea that the Guild is a global megacorp in an iron age world as being "really super dumb". Then you hand the "unified" bits of the Guild to the Nexan Guild, who get to be an actually cohesive regional organisation that's firmly part of the Confederacy of Rivers, have a solid political viewpoint, actually have a functional secret language, etc etc. Then the rest of Creation gets totally different cartels, merchant princes, trading empires and the lot that aren't part of some "Guild" that has to be both a Unified Solid Trading Block That Never Breaks Rank And File and an Amorphous Decentralised Phenomenon That Has No Central Leadership To Target depending on what the current situation is.
 
veekie said:
I would strongly advocate against eliminating Means, since they're what allows Workings to engage the rest of the game rather than "I lock myself up for a few years and the world changes to my will", at the same time, at the upper end, too many Means also spoil things, since it's basically a full blown story hijack(which is narratively appropriate yes, but makes for a poor game if your project dominates the whole group's activities) to collecting the stuff you need for the Working by then.

Maybe scale the NATURE of the Means? Quantity is easy, but doesn't help the game, an Exalt working at the appropriate scale invests nothing but time to get the raw quantity. Quality should be much better.

Taking Bureaucratic Means for instance, if you want a driver's license, all you need is the test for the license as the Means(or substitute the appropriate bribe or forgery). If you want to restructure a company department, you still just need a few Means, but you're looking at obtaining hostile performance reviews or evidence of malfeasance, but you still only need the one to get it started, even if you'd prefer to have more because you want extra rolls to beat the required successes.
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Not sure if I'm reading you right, but I didn't eliminate Means, for exactly the reason you suggest - I like the effect they have on the story, just not the "well-equipped projects take longer" aspect. I just changed them from "more rolls" to "lower difficulty."

"You need no Means" is just a mathematical statement: five rolls at base difficulty is enough to get the job done, for the smaller projects. This is much more true in the original game.
 
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Irked said:
Not sure if I'm reading you right, but I didn't eliminate Means, for exactly the reason you suggest - I like the effect they have on the story, just not the "well-equipped projects take longer" aspect. I just changed them from "more rolls" to "lower difficulty."

"You need no Means" is just a mathematical statement: five rolls at base difficulty is enough to get the job done, for the smaller projects. This is much more true in the original game.
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I mean the floor of minimum one Means(which in your system, was reducible to 0), and then later on, the rather large number of Means for higher projects.

Number of Means isn't really a good determinant of how difficult a task it, so much as how much screentime it should be taking up to get done. Considering acquiring Means which aren't already at hand would take a session or two each, that's how much table time each project is worth.

Large numbers then, don't add a thing to gameplay in terms of difficulty, only inconvenience.
 
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Aranfan said:
Yeah. Now that I am my awake my response would be: Why can't the mortals of an organization contribute to its reputation?
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They can, it's just that...

a) The Realm, as an empire run for Dragon-blooded by Dragon-blooded, with a religion that raises the Dragon-blooded above mortals in every respect, is not going to be hugely interested in hyping up the achievements of mortals beyond "wow I bet he'll be Exalted in his next life" or "wow he serves the Dragon-blooded really well".

b) Any ambitious mortal trader is buggered (possibly literally, depending on their Appearance score) the instant they bump into a Terrestrial with a Bureaucracy Excellency, much less any Charms. I mean, a DB with Intelligence 2, Bureaucracy 2 (+1 Trade) has an average intellect and basic professional-grade business training, with some specific experience in trade. Their effective dice pool for setting up a trading business is 8, which is equivalent to the smartest mortal in the world with notable expertise in business management. That's before non-Excellency Charms. Any house that sends their mortals to trade is not giving it their all, and will be outdone by the houses that do.
 
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