"You Post was quoted already and I ain't gonna delete it."
General Exalted Thread
It makes sense that, from a Lunar perspective, the bond that some Lunars have to specific Solars would be called The Solar Bond.
In the same way I expect that, from the Solar perspective, the bond that some Solars have to specific Lunars would be called The Lunar Bond.
The only reason why it wouldn't be called out would be that they are in two different books, for some asinine reason no doubt related to the several hundred Charms that were stuffed into the Solars/Core book.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Sure, but my preferred interpretation is to give Lunars a Lunar Bond feature in their charmset that lets them dedicate themselves to specific individuals as a statement of the transcendent passions of the Argent Madonna, and leave it open who those bonds are. Forget Solar Mates - Mortal Mates! Demon Mates! Ghost Mates! Bondmates are just A Thing Lunars Do!
QafianSage
Ascending Ape
- Location
- United Kingdom
That was a thing in TAW, wasn't it?
Azrael
Sakura Saber
- Location
- Throne of Heroes
It was.
Which shouldn't surprise anyone, Imrix was one of the people involved in TAW.
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- Location
- Singapore
..... a question. Something I observed.
Are terrestrial spells equivalent to essence 3 charms?
Ok. Let's look at things:
Eagle wing style = azure chariot. Both can fly. But one can bring along other people, while the other can be out in combos.
Opening doors. Door evading technique or lock opening touch = violent opening of closed portals. So.... the end state is the same. But different ways of getting to it.
Solar excellencies, craftsman needs no tools, and crack mending technique is replicated by incantation of effective restoration.
Are terrestrial spells equivalent to essence 3 charms?
Ok. Let's look at things:
Eagle wing style = azure chariot. Both can fly. But one can bring along other people, while the other can be out in combos.
Opening doors. Door evading technique or lock opening touch = violent opening of closed portals. So.... the end state is the same. But different ways of getting to it.
Solar excellencies, craftsman needs no tools, and crack mending technique is replicated by incantation of effective restoration.
- Location
- Texas
Probably not a very useful model for looking at things, in my opinion.
I mean, Essence 3 charms for whom?
Essence 3 Solar charms are generally better than Essence 3 Dragonblood charms, but both DBs and Solars can use terrestrial sorcery. And sorcery can do stuff that's not in theme at all for any particular exalt. Solars probably don't get a charm that summons a sphere of water to block attacks, at any essence level, but that might work as a DB charm. DBs are probably never going to get a charm to explode into a cloud of birds and fly around. Could Lunars? Maybe? Is that an Essence 3 Lunar effect? Probably not? A god of birds might get that really cheaply, though, I feel.
Also, which Essence 3 charms? Because you could easily have an Essence 3 charm with five prerequisites, and that's a different sort of investment from an Essence 3 charm by itself.
So, I think trying to find an equivalency between charms and sorcery is not crazy, but it's going to give you more noise than signal if you try to apply it to creating new spells or balancing spell and charm effects.
- Location
- Ottawa
Exalted should strive to avoid ever establishing equivalences between what different splats can do at different Essence levels. Once you do that, you've lost the primary benefit of having splats in the first place.
- Location
- Singapore
Yes, but everyone can cast terrestrial spells. Just not, like use restoration to repair a wall. Charms are more flexible. Spells are more grand.
Imo, the only real mechanical point of having different splats is to have multiple instances of bloated Charm sections.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
It was a thing that was floating around in the collective Lunar Discourse, and TAW picked that route, yeah.
- Location
- Ottawa
And the value of that is that you can do different things with different Charm sections. If the DB Charmset is just the Solar Charmset with all the Essence prereqs increased by 3, there's no point in having them be separate.
Jon Chung
=][=
It's not inherently a bad idea to standardise things that are amenable to standardisation, like dice adders. The more you do this, the more space you have left to do things that are actually unique, rather than have to repeat yourself over and over again.
Peanut-007
Hat or Hair? America decides.
- Location
- Maryland, United States of America
Besides, we all know the place to copy the Solars charmset but with less fun is in Abyssals not Dragonblooded.
I think it was Minton that first put the idea to paper (well, forum post) in the main forums? But yeah, it seems the obvious thing. Except then you'd have a splat that is not primarily defined by their relation with Solars and that is heresy.
Agreed!
Edit: Someone should really have told that to whoever decided to make a zillion and one Charms that are just dice tricks.
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
I actually had the chance to ask Vance why there were so many dang charms- and the answer was basically 'Because of Supernal, and how we want the measure of a character's competence/divergence in how many Charms they have of that Ability.'
2e's small trees of comprehensive Charms apparently made it too easy for 'character concept overlap'. So their core design goal was making sure that everyone had enough Charms to start the game as Distinct, and remain distinct for as long as possible. I think this was... not executed well. And there are a lot of unfun knock-on effects to this in 3e's progression model.
I can see why they'd want to avoid that problem, since it's something that did in fact irk me about 2e.
Unfortunately, I agree that they botched the execution. In some ways I think it got worse.
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
My opinion as a designer is that bigger, chunkier Charms are better, (not 'charm is a subsystem' but more 'This charm has a decisive, impressive effect on the game, making it's purchase worthwhile').
Like, setting aside their specific mechanics, Solar Socialize in2e is in my mind a better 'charm tree' because the 'scope' of Wise Eyed Courtier Method and the like is clear, concise and large-scale enough to feel impressive. Same with Solar Stealth, War and so on. A few abilities needed some love, and I have no qualms against reasonable expansion of the design space, but 3e's charm trees just feel like an aethematic MMO grab-bag mess.
'a big charm' is better because it usually denotes some large swing in competence or is a New Option in and of itself. Like- if you counted the # of charms in any edition that are 'New Actions' instead of 'Enhances existing' or 'Modifies Existing', you'd be surprised probably.
The other factor in 3e design is that it's written with an eye towards counter-play, which I think is... a frustrating step- not backwards. But not forwards either. 3e is written with an eye towards there being more procedural gameplay instead of emergent or consequential gameplay. The 'game' cares more about resolution processes than it does about results- so the knock-on effect is this: in 2e you had Charms that basically end-run around a system, but they put you firmly in the position of 'I can act on these powers and create drama'. In 3e, the charms are written with them being contested in mind, so the 'drama' is in do you win/succeed.
To use stealth as an example again- 2e Stealth is 'I don't need to play out the infiltration of shadow moses, I can just sneak past everything below a certain weight class and fight all the bosses instead'. 3e stealth is 'I have to sneak through all the genome soldiers, all the traps and hazards, and THEN fight the bosses'.
The beauty of 2e Stealth is that it's a filtering mechanic for competence and meaningful opposition. The game was about ignoring mortals- not in the sense of devaluing them, but in raising the value of screentime for meaningful competition.
dude, they're very aware that some players dislike this design. But lots of other people really, really do like having a zillion charms and many dice tricks to choose from and combine. It's not a point of obvious wisdom that fewer charms = better. It's a trade-off, you get people who don't like lots of Charms more interested, while losing the people who like how Charm interactions in Exalted work and who enjoy having more varied, distinct builds.
QafianSage
Ascending Ape
- Location
- United Kingdom
While we're talking about the merits and lack thereof of 3e's charm setup, might I briefly hijack the discussion? I'm looking to introduce some friends to Exalted 3e soon - I'll be running the game - but I was worried that the multitude of charms in the 3e core would be too much. I went snooping around the interwebs and found a set of houserules and simplifications that look solid to me, if somewhat lacking in some of the flair present in the 3e charms (BlueWinds' house rules & Simplified Solar Charms - Onyx Path Forums).
What I'm really after is some advice here: Do you folks think it's reasonable to use the simplified rules and charmset and then add more charms from 3e core as we go, focusing on charms that do 'new things' rather than lots of random dice tricks?
What I'm really after is some advice here: Do you folks think it's reasonable to use the simplified rules and charmset and then add more charms from 3e core as we go, focusing on charms that do 'new things' rather than lots of random dice tricks?
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Some people like BlueWinds' stuff (I tuned out pretty quickly so I can't comment to it), but since it aims at simplifying everything I'm not sure it will interact well with throwing in actual 3e Charms as you go.
My recommendation, if you do intend to use Ex3's written mechanics (I like them a lot, but yeah the Charm list is overwhelming) would be to simply ask your players for their character concepts and skills, and then make their chargen Charm picks for them, so they don't have to contend with the overwhelming amount of options.