General Exalted Thread
drearyArchon
Chaos Lord Chaos
- Location
- The Floor of Social Sciences
Oh, well in that case I might as well just use a mix of both then. In his 'Id State' he basically does whatever thing catches his fancy without regarding that other people even exist, as it is partially controlled someone whose opinion he cares about (ie, whom he personally has a 3+ Principle to, Ideals and members of respected organizations don't count) can influence his behaviour slightly (either following their suggestion or spitefully going the other direction, depening on the Principle) at least until he gets distracted again.
That's a pretty solid limit break. Going completely flighty and unreliable when things get too real is a pretty good fatal flaw to have in someone.
A well-run kickstarter from OPP
(I kid, I've backed Scion 2e and Trinity both of which went fairly well IMO)
I'd like to see some info on the "fallen" Great Houses. Getting a look at the effects their collapse or destruction, both on the Realm and its satrapies, would give the Realm a dynamism that I felt it always sorely lacked.
Prasad is a satrapy controlled by two former Great Houses, whose main branches became defunct on the Blessed Isle while the Prasadi branches thrived.
Yup. I'm excited about that. Want more than just the one example, though.
AmineHsu
A worm, not a man, scorned and despised.
- Location
- NoVA
I'm probably most interested in this too. Arms of the Chosen showed them generally making a good separation between mechanics and fluff and they see been clarifying most rules interactions (with the one exception (I recall) being written into the core purposefully that way) in the Ask the Devs thread. I considered the whole "natural language- what works at your table" thing the core seemed to be pushing to be dreck so this has been a major improvement imo, so I'm excited to see how they handle a full charmset.
Though I really hope they don't take the easy way and make Dragonbloods be dumbed down compared to Solars.
Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
So as far as homebrew goes, one of the things I've done is balance the three types of Celestial Exaltation.
Solars can learn up to Celestial Martial Arts and Solar Circle Sorcery without tutors for either, but are barred from Sidereal Martial Arts.
Sidereals are the opposite, they can learn Celestial Sorcery and Sidereal Martial Arts without tutors, but are barred from Solar Circle Sorcery.
Lunars can learn either Sidereal Martial Arts or Solar Circle Sorcery, but only one and only with a tutor walking them through it.
A teacher improves your learning rate for all three as well as providing more knowledge and another set of hands to innovate.
This of course, would require balancing SCS and SMA to each other, but I think it would work out well and encourage party diversity somewhat organically.
Please tell me exactly how dumb this is, and note that I use a heavily homebrewed 2e that I edit as we play. We being myself and my friend.
Solars can learn up to Celestial Martial Arts and Solar Circle Sorcery without tutors for either, but are barred from Sidereal Martial Arts.
Sidereals are the opposite, they can learn Celestial Sorcery and Sidereal Martial Arts without tutors, but are barred from Solar Circle Sorcery.
Lunars can learn either Sidereal Martial Arts or Solar Circle Sorcery, but only one and only with a tutor walking them through it.
A teacher improves your learning rate for all three as well as providing more knowledge and another set of hands to innovate.
This of course, would require balancing SCS and SMA to each other, but I think it would work out well and encourage party diversity somewhat organically.
Please tell me exactly how dumb this is, and note that I use a heavily homebrewed 2e that I edit as we play. We being myself and my friend.
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AmineHsu
A worm, not a man, scorned and despised.
- Location
- NoVA
It's not terrible but part of the... paradigm of Sidereals is that SMA is what constitutes their upper tier charmset, which is why non-Sidereals learning it had always been an... issue.
That said, the primary reason given for allowing non-Sidereals to learn SMA is so that Sidereals have super secret techniques to teach their Exalted students. That being the ability for non-Sidereals to learn SMA being a benefit to Sidereals.
Now, the way things are arranged currently don't really fulfil either goal...
I'd I wad going to rewrite the system anyway, I would design all SMA so they started with a potent but not overly so basic effect representing a first tier, a couple charms building up to a capstone representing a middle tier, and another series of charms building to a super capstone.
I'd allow any Exalt too learn to the middle tier (perhaps requiring A DB to be initiated into CMA) and with the right investment perhaps the basic tier to even non-Exalted.
However, as a trade off, non-Sidereals learning a SMA would have to accept an intimacy in the theming of SMA that modifies their behaviour in a very specific way and what's more the upper tier of charms should include effects that either benefit greatly from dealing with people who exhibit that intimacy/behaviour or allow for the easy manipulation of people who exhibit that behaviour/intimacy.
It's all kinda theoretical, but I'd do something like that to both fulfil the desire for SMA to be a high level charmset for Sidereals but also for it to be a beanie for Sidereals to use to exemplify themselves ad the ultimate master sifus.
Edit: Not sure exactly what I'd do with sorcery, but I think the control spells and meta-sorcery evocation like Ex3 had done is a good step in the right direction.
That said, the primary reason given for allowing non-Sidereals to learn SMA is so that Sidereals have super secret techniques to teach their Exalted students. That being the ability for non-Sidereals to learn SMA being a benefit to Sidereals.
Now, the way things are arranged currently don't really fulfil either goal...
I'd I wad going to rewrite the system anyway, I would design all SMA so they started with a potent but not overly so basic effect representing a first tier, a couple charms building up to a capstone representing a middle tier, and another series of charms building to a super capstone.
I'd allow any Exalt too learn to the middle tier (perhaps requiring A DB to be initiated into CMA) and with the right investment perhaps the basic tier to even non-Exalted.
However, as a trade off, non-Sidereals learning a SMA would have to accept an intimacy in the theming of SMA that modifies their behaviour in a very specific way and what's more the upper tier of charms should include effects that either benefit greatly from dealing with people who exhibit that intimacy/behaviour or allow for the easy manipulation of people who exhibit that behaviour/intimacy.
It's all kinda theoretical, but I'd do something like that to both fulfil the desire for SMA to be a high level charmset for Sidereals but also for it to be a beanie for Sidereals to use to exemplify themselves ad the ultimate master sifus.
Edit: Not sure exactly what I'd do with sorcery, but I think the control spells and meta-sorcery evocation like Ex3 had done is a good step in the right direction.
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shepsquared
Erratic Aussie
- Location
- Melbourne, Australia
More Cadet and Minor Houses. Also a good idea on what Exalted 3e will be like going forwards.
- Location
- Ottawa
Access to Sorcery and MA is just one aspect of inter-splat balance, and not the most important one. But if you want to equalise it a bit, I suggest starting by giving Lunars a second circle of Necromancy.
I'm curious about how they handled bloodlines. Making different families mechanically different without breaking anything seems tricky, but it would be awesome if done right.
I'm curious about how they handled bloodlines. Making different families mechanically different without breaking anything seems tricky, but it would be awesome if done right.
Something like non-Sids being able to learn up the Form, but the really powerful stuff being deeper than that?
- Location
- United States
When all splats have high essence charms, there's not as much of a need for anyone BUT sidereals to have access to SMA. For the longest time, the only high essence charms in print were SMA.
Ideally, Lunar/Solar/etc e6+ combat charms should be on par with SMA of equal requirements of course.
Ideally, Lunar/Solar/etc e6+ combat charms should be on par with SMA of equal requirements of course.
AmineHsu
A worm, not a man, scorned and despised.
- Location
- NoVA
I mean, yes.
But like I said in my post, the justification given is by being able to teach SMA, Sidereals have this major thing they can offer other Exalts (Solars). So by removing the ability for other exalts to learn SMAs, you're also removing the ability for Sidereals to teach their students super secret techniques they can't get anywhere else....
Like, I see the appeal, which is why I'm suggesting writing and balancing explictly around that idea.
Mechanically, basically.
The idea is the first part embodies some Truth, since this is SMA it can be a fairly esoteric 'truth'. The student is forced to accept and embody that truth to learn the style. But the master has access to a deeper Truth, one that allows them to benefit from (or twist) the previous 'truth'.
Ideally this gives them something to offer to teach others, but also an incentive to do so.
Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
I'm starting from a base of TAW, so Lunars can access that second circle off necromancy from the beginning. I'm balancing the other problems as I come across them.
I've cobbled together a couple things to make this, the Constellations hack is the normal high essence charmset. SMA is a method of using the Loom and internal Essence together to produce results rivaling SCS. This does mean that Sidereal Martial Arts are only useful in Creation, the Underworld, Yu Shan, and anywhere a Sid is at the second level of anima flare, but I consider that a feature.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Would this be a replacement or an extension to Sidereals: Where Fate Has Led?
Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
I have no idea what you are talking about. I'm guessing that is a reference?
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Sidereals: Where Fate Has Led - Google Docs
Whoop.
I really like the style of the charmsets, much more conceptual than straight-forward 'you're better at this now'.
EDIT: For example, Archery's 'Quiver' set has the final charm of Many Missiles Bow Technique, which lets you do so many neat things through the concept of 'always have the arrow you need', like firing arrows of your own blood to heal allies, or creating rains of fire and making it snow. Or just turning an arrow into a giant boulder midflight or a shard of glass, while Grain let's you grow fields of a chosen cereal in seconds (enough for 1 person for 1 day).
EDIT2: Also Awareness has the 'Crow' which also has tons of fun thematic connotations. Everything in the doc is really neat and it includes a good description of Yu-Shan, some artifacts, some Getimians, some Martial Arts and some fun splat mechanics.
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Jon Chung
=][=
You can't do that, because they don't balance each other in the way you are suggesting they do. If you want to encourage party diversity, the easiest thing you can do is to equalize everybody's experience point costs, such that everyone uses the Solar XP table. This means that people will buy new shit at roughly the same rate in real time, and as long as the new shit they buy is sufficiently shiny, they won't get pissed off.
I suggest removing high essence charms entirely, including SMA, and thus not having a problem with SMA. Note that the primary use case for high essence charms such as SMA is as a weapon wielded by angry NPCs to smite uppity players with. If looked at with that lens rather than the "how cool would it be if my character could do X" lens, it quickly becomes obvious that a lot of high-essence bullshit needs to be removed.
That aside, if you want to bring the other two Celestial Exalt splats up to Solaroid level, MA/Sorcery access isn't going to cut it, because the power gap between the splats is mostly a trend in their charmsets, rather than anything as easy to deal with as sorcery tiers. If you want Solar-level Lunars able to make as much impact as Solars on the geopolitical level, you need to go identify what Solar-level capabilities the Lunars are missing and add them to the Lunar Charmset one by one, for example.
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- Location
- Gladstone, OR
Hmm... Setting aside SMA for the moment, you could probably also take the time to tackle the Sidereal's place as 'Ancient master/teacher of secrets', and figure out what that means both narratively and mechanically.
Like, you're poking at the trope that the Sidereal teaches you techniques, I.E. Charms and to a lesser extent Spells. The only real teachable Charms in the setting are Martial Arts Charms... but should they be?
Speaking for myself, in a sort of holistic rough draft, you want to ask if Sidereals should get All the mentor tropes, the Best ones, a specific flavor of them, and so on? And then to dig down further- how would you define a teacher, mechanically? Or the act of training (and/or spending Experience?)
In a functional 'run the game' sort of space, you want there to be places and people who know things that in turn can be used to drive player actions. That No, you cannot independently recreate the entire Solar charmset from first principles- at least not in any practical amount of time. That even the Salinian Working only makes it possible, not a foregone conclusion that you will rediscover a spell lost in deep time.
So the idea of 'teacher' should be expanded to 'record' or similar, in that it incentivizes PCs to raid Wyld Hunt/Immaculate Archives for ideas on what they CAN do. Mechanics like Past Lives could be depreciated insofar as to prevent them from being island-enabling teaching aides, or costed appropriately.
And then you start asking about what each splat does.
For example, I personally want to say that Solars, within their thematics, are best teachers, full out. They can teach anything. But, here's the trick- they can't do everything. In this hypothetical example, the Solar is not the wizened master handing out eldritch secrets of old. Instead they are the expert tutor, the master of the cognitive sciences, the guy with the really good drug formulations, and so on. If they're not uplifting masses for their great works, they're pushing the limit of personal instruction.
Lunars, by contrast, could teach by folly and caper. They're all about transformation- of an event into an experience that shapes the subject. I prototyped a charm ages ago that touched on this idea, and the short version is that basically the training effects hinged on gaining or transmuting an intimacy as part of the process. "Pride goeth before the fall".
Dragonblooded teachers and teaching magic is largely rooted in the idea of making more Dragonblooded. Depending on how you want to approach their charmset,this could be either a statement of their timeless 'soldier' spread, or their more modern 'decadent noble' spread. (Ideally the same charm can do both, so you see how it worked a either extreme).
Sidereals- they're the tricky ones. Because see, the thing that sets them apart from Solars, Lunars and DBs isn't their magical natures- it's that they have an unbroken and uncorrupted history to draw from. They have libraries.
So you're not really invoking Sidereals for any intrinsic ability the teacher has* - just that he has access to Heaven and all the perks therein.
* The only intrinsic ability Sids have is SMA, which IS why you'd want to be taught by one.
Which leads me to my point and why I rambled on about teachers in the first place- ghosts, gods, and demons. Any of these classes of beings should be able to teach you not only martial arts charms, but native charms. Either because they saw them used in life, or had them in life. We already see this at least in passing with the Deathlords, setting aside how poorly they're mechanized and articulated. You should be able to, as a Solar, walk up to the First and Forsaken Lion and ask for tutelage in the old ways of glorious warfare. (I don't think you'd just be able to walk though...)
Hmm. It is late and i am out of steam.
Like, you're poking at the trope that the Sidereal teaches you techniques, I.E. Charms and to a lesser extent Spells. The only real teachable Charms in the setting are Martial Arts Charms... but should they be?
Speaking for myself, in a sort of holistic rough draft, you want to ask if Sidereals should get All the mentor tropes, the Best ones, a specific flavor of them, and so on? And then to dig down further- how would you define a teacher, mechanically? Or the act of training (and/or spending Experience?)
In a functional 'run the game' sort of space, you want there to be places and people who know things that in turn can be used to drive player actions. That No, you cannot independently recreate the entire Solar charmset from first principles- at least not in any practical amount of time. That even the Salinian Working only makes it possible, not a foregone conclusion that you will rediscover a spell lost in deep time.
So the idea of 'teacher' should be expanded to 'record' or similar, in that it incentivizes PCs to raid Wyld Hunt/Immaculate Archives for ideas on what they CAN do. Mechanics like Past Lives could be depreciated insofar as to prevent them from being island-enabling teaching aides, or costed appropriately.
And then you start asking about what each splat does.
For example, I personally want to say that Solars, within their thematics, are best teachers, full out. They can teach anything. But, here's the trick- they can't do everything. In this hypothetical example, the Solar is not the wizened master handing out eldritch secrets of old. Instead they are the expert tutor, the master of the cognitive sciences, the guy with the really good drug formulations, and so on. If they're not uplifting masses for their great works, they're pushing the limit of personal instruction.
Lunars, by contrast, could teach by folly and caper. They're all about transformation- of an event into an experience that shapes the subject. I prototyped a charm ages ago that touched on this idea, and the short version is that basically the training effects hinged on gaining or transmuting an intimacy as part of the process. "Pride goeth before the fall".
Dragonblooded teachers and teaching magic is largely rooted in the idea of making more Dragonblooded. Depending on how you want to approach their charmset,this could be either a statement of their timeless 'soldier' spread, or their more modern 'decadent noble' spread. (Ideally the same charm can do both, so you see how it worked a either extreme).
Sidereals- they're the tricky ones. Because see, the thing that sets them apart from Solars, Lunars and DBs isn't their magical natures- it's that they have an unbroken and uncorrupted history to draw from. They have libraries.
So you're not really invoking Sidereals for any intrinsic ability the teacher has* - just that he has access to Heaven and all the perks therein.
* The only intrinsic ability Sids have is SMA, which IS why you'd want to be taught by one.
Which leads me to my point and why I rambled on about teachers in the first place- ghosts, gods, and demons. Any of these classes of beings should be able to teach you not only martial arts charms, but native charms. Either because they saw them used in life, or had them in life. We already see this at least in passing with the Deathlords, setting aside how poorly they're mechanized and articulated. You should be able to, as a Solar, walk up to the First and Forsaken Lion and ask for tutelage in the old ways of glorious warfare. (I don't think you'd just be able to walk though...)
Hmm. It is late and i am out of steam.
Peanut-007
Hat or Hair? America decides.
- Location
- Maryland, United States of America
Which is a real shame for what's supposedly the mysterious mentor/heavenly aid archtype. Sidereals should be able to teach through subtlety and secrets allowing the student to learn something without even realizing they are being taught a lesson. A Sidereal is the wise old man by the side of the road whose words inspire the hero to some great and deeper understanding without ever having to spell things out. It should be less sitting someone down for a lesson and more manipulating someone in a way that makes them learn.
"You thought you were trying to take my staff but you were actually learning martial arts." Is an anime and mythical trope that totally fits with how Sid's operate.
Instead they get Training Mandate's in War to give temporary power ups to groups and that's about it I think.
- Location
- United States
I have the idea that sids should be able to act as trainers for ANYTHING, even things they don't actually know, as long as they can couch the teaching in something they do know. A sidereal who teaches swordsmanship to a Solar, Lunar and class of Dragonblooded can teach the Solar and Dragonblooded Melee Charms, and the Lunar can learn Strength and Dexterity charms. A sidereal can teach a character how to properly trim a Bonasi, and the student learns bureaucracy and socialize magics from that. A sidereal holds a dance class and you can learn athletics charms. You meed a sidereal for massage and the lessons can crystallize into resistance charms.
To me, that sounds cooler than sids being all martial arts, all the time.
edited to add - this should be an innate skill all sidereals get, not locked behind a charm
To me, that sounds cooler than sids being all martial arts, all the time.
edited to add - this should be an innate skill all sidereals get, not locked behind a charm
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