Final Fantasy 7 is listed as a source of inspiration.The sf/f divide is a modern lie
General Exalted Thread
Interesting to see what they've done with Resplendent Destinies! The old Astrology system was a total mess (even though I loved the goofiness of 1E) so this... seems like an improvement? Although I hope they kept some of the old Jenna Moran Resplendency powers somewhere, because those were great.
There's this interesting tension in 3E between, on the one hand, the extremely granular video-game-esque nitty-gritty Charms and the more narrative and open-ended mechanics like Sorcerous Workings. I'm not sure how I feel about Sidereal Prophecy yet; it seems to have almost the worst of both worlds. Very nitty-gritty mechanics (the -1/+1 to target number stuff) combined with very open-ended narrative scope. I'd almost have preferred them to have nixed the mechanical bits and let Sidereals just... mandate stuff. Maybe they'll expand on it in a later chapter.
There's this interesting tension in 3E between, on the one hand, the extremely granular video-game-esque nitty-gritty Charms and the more narrative and open-ended mechanics like Sorcerous Workings. I'm not sure how I feel about Sidereal Prophecy yet; it seems to have almost the worst of both worlds. Very nitty-gritty mechanics (the -1/+1 to target number stuff) combined with very open-ended narrative scope. I'd almost have preferred them to have nixed the mechanical bits and let Sidereals just... mandate stuff. Maybe they'll expand on it in a later chapter.
Update: Pattern Spiders and I are officially cool now.
Other hot takes include: I like that you can keep and re-use Resplendant Destinies now, that always bugged me about them in 2e. Even if it gets harder to retain them as your Essence increases, you get to pick which one you lose if you fail, so if there's one identity that you really really want to keep, you just need to be sure you have few ablative destinies on hand when it's time to roll.
Also, although Paradox Spirits are described as "malevolent," their behavior is only described as "unpredictable" and "amoral." They are not deliberately cruel or destructive, and are not called out as being actively hostile to their "parent," or anyone in general, save presumably those that would get in the way of fulfilling their prophecy.
In short, I feel like you could totally accidentally a Paradox Spirit and then befriend it. Achieving this story arc will now be my sole goal should I ever get to play a Sidereal. I have visions ranging from "Chaotic Neutral party member, but a single-issue voter instead of lol randumb," to "overworked and understaffed Sidereal looks at the abomination of warped fate they've created and decides fuck it, they're stretched thin enough to roll those dice on whether it could actually make things worse" to "comedy duo of the Sidereal straight man and their bumbling but painfully earnest sidekick."
My own clone! Now neither of us will be overworked!
*Gets overworked anyways*
But that is actually a fun idea for a 'sidereal' ally/mentor for other splats. This, weird, glitchy clone of a sage/advisor
- Location
- Ottawa
Can we get the cliff's notes on the new mechanical nuts and bolts?
Least gods, maybe?
Or else just atoms and quarks and such.
Both answers have tended to start fights, though. It's true that sci-fi trappings have been one of the big firestarters, but I've also seen fights over the opposite; some people hated the idea of little animistic spirits taking over for the molecules.
Least gods, maybe?
Or else just atoms and quarks and such.
Both answers have tended to start fights, though. It's true that sci-fi trappings have been one of the big firestarters, but I've also seen fights over the opposite; some people hated the idea of little animistic spirits taking over for the molecules.
Character creation is, in broad strokes, the same as other splats. There are notes about appropriate intimacies and backstory details. Sidereals also choose a birth sign and exaltation sign, which are connected to the new prophecy rules and the book explicitly notes that it's fine to leave that choice until you want to engage with those mechanics. Your birth sign can be anything, but your exaltation sign must be from your caste. Sidereals get 8/6/4 as their Attribute spread, and 28 dots for Abilities. Five caste, five favored, with Martial Arts as a free bonus. They get 10 dots of merits and 15 charms.
Sidereals get the Mastery bonus for regular martial arts while they're in that style's Form charm, and if they learn every charm from a style the Mastery bonus becomes permanent. Being in an SMA Form also grants Mastery to everything. There's a section of notes and modifications for some of the core book merits, such as:
Article: Backing
Most have at least two-dot Backing in the Bureau of Destiny. Those without Backing are fresh recruits, under disciplinary probation, distrusted by the bureau, etc. Four-dot Backing at character creation can represent being a favorite or protégé of a prominent elder Sidereal or high-ranking god, or a position secured through bribery, blackmail, or similar means.
Most Sidereals who're politically aligned with the Bronze Faction or Gold Faction don't have Backing in them. Those who do hold recognition and political power within a faction, giving them a meaningful voice in its decision-making. Four-dot Backing is limited to a faction's foremost elders. It's not available at character creation. Faction Sidereals may also have Backing in the Immaculate Order or the Cult of the Illuminated.
-Each caste has 3 anima powers. An "Auspicious Prospect" activated for 1m that tells the sidereal how some event aligns with Destiny as relates to their caste. Fulfilling an Auspicious Prospect grants a Willpower, subtracts 1 point of limit, and grants a role bonus for splat xp.
Each caste then has lesser and greater Signs of the maidens. The lesser Sign is activated Reflexively for 5m, or for free at Bonfire anima, and the Greater Sign is activated once per story for 20m, and "Takes her entire turn" which I take to be a Simple action, but that could stand some clarification. The abilities are:
-Lesser Mercury: Non-charm bonus dice to movement actions for allies within close range
-Greater Mercury: Teleport herself, her circle, and Essence*2 others within Long range anywhere you're "familiar with" in Creation or Heaven. Has some extra timing and positioning restrictions.
-Lesser Venus: Non-charm dice on influence rolls using positive emotions, and craft rolls for basic and major projects. Resolve bonuses for positive Ties increase by 1.
-Greater Venus: All participants in battle stand down as a psyche effect. To try and start a new fight, they enter a Decision Point and need both a Defining intimacy to cite, as well as Essence or 3 Willpower (whichever is higher). This doesn't apply to self-defense, or attacking people not involved in the original fight.
-Lesser Mars: +1 non-charm Defense bonus, and non-charm dice to War rolls.
-Greater Mars: Make a roll and add that much initiative to herself and all her allies. Base initiative increases by her Essence. Battlegroups gain Might 2.
-Lesser Jupiter: +1 non-charm guile, and non-charm bonus dice to manipulation, stealth, and larceny rolls.
-Greater Jupiter: Allies are immune "to effects opposing their guile" (this could stand some clarification, I think). Non-exalts can't lie to you for the rest of the scene unless they spend 1wp per lie, but if they have lower Essence than the user they can't resist at all. For (Essence days) afterward, you are immune to investigation rolls and scrying magic.
-Lesser Saturn: Add (Essence) overwhelming to withering attacks, and +1 automatic success to decisive damage.
-Greater Saturn: Attacks have lower target numbers on damage rolls, and ignore hardness for the scene. Non-exalts can't take crippling wounds to block damage, and automatically fail most rolls against statuses (poison, disease, etc.) as do medicine rolls to treat their injuries. Enemies slain pass into lethe, but powerful Exalts will need proper burial rites in addition to keep their ghosts from rising.
Arcane Fate wipes people's memory as soon as the sidereal leaves their presence. Nontrivial characters may roll (Wits+Integrity) against Difficulty 7 to resist this. Ties to the Sidereal, as well as long personal histories and so on can add non-charm dice to the roll. Magic that protects against Psyche or Shaping effects can block it. Even if this fails, characters with a Tie to the sidereal can make the same roll again later to regain their memories if they encounter the sidereal again, or at the GMs discretion if the character is given reason to believe their memories have been altered.
Creating a Resplendent Destiny costs 1wp and a miscellaneous action. You can have Essence+3 destinies at a time, and at the end of each story you roll Willpower at a Difficulty of your Essence, where failure means you lose one of your Destinies. You can remake one in a similar role, but not the same identity.
Sidereals can create prophecies. This uses a system very similar to sorcerous workings, but instead of Ambition, you have four factors (duration, frequency, power, scope) that go from 1-5, and that total is multiplied by 5 to get your goal number. There is a maximum value for the combination of Ambition factors based on your essence, and how the prophecy aligns with your birth and exaltation signs, which is where those come in. Finesse is fixed at difficulty 3, and they cost four experience, which are refunded when the prophecy ends or becomes irrelevant. Prophecies get complications from any failure, not just botches. Complications can range from spawning paradox spirits, to getting stuck in a celestial audit. Cooperation, getting gods to cosign on your prophecy, and other stuff like that gets you more Means to gain more rolls.
The sidereal Great Curse is actually kind of a fun reversal from the Solar version, since given that the Sidereals' thing is hubris, their limit triggers involve stuff like "succeeding despite overwhelming odds" and "Someone the Sidereal has a Tie toward suffers a significant failure or setback because they ignored her advice". Gaining limit also rewards them with a point of temporary Willpower. The Limit break is "Celestial Hubris" and has variations like:
"Conspiracy of Silence
The Sidereal believes that some piece of significant information must be kept secret from everyone she knows and the world at large for their own good. She refuses to reveal it or anything that might help someone discover it on their own, except in hints so cryptic as to be useless. She'll confiscate or destroy any documents or records containing such information and ensure those who already know it won't reveal it, whether by persuasion, coercion, or mind-warping magic. If she must, she'll kill to keep the secret, though she can spare those for whom she has positive Ties.
Duration: Session. This ends if the Sidereal's secrecy creates a significant obstacle to her or her Circle's
goals."
and
"Infallible Seer Arrogance
The Sidereal is convinced that she has foreseen every possibility and planned for every contingency, unwilling to believe that she's capable of making mistakes or errors in judgment. She rationalizes away failures and mistakes and refuses to accept any occurrence she hasn't anticipated, dismissing it as something other than what it seems. She also exhibits a selective memory, remembering the past in a self-serving fashion that omits any errors on her part.
Duration: Session. This ends if someone for whom the Sidereal has a positive Major or Defining Tie succeeds on an influence roll to show the Sidereal how her decisions have harmed him."
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- They/them
To me, a bigger problem is that it all feels like a lot of effort for some fairly marginal gains. There's an inherent tension that arises from the interplay of frequency, duration and how marginal the +/-1 TN feels - you probably want either frequency or duration at 3 in order for things to feel like you've accomplished something actually worth an investment of weeks of work and 4xp, but at that point, you're looking at a minimum goal number of 30, which should take you about a month even if you're reliably able to pull off 10 successes per roll! That sort of timetable requires a very specific campaign structure to work with! This is not really an issue with sorcerous workings, which feel massively impactful - so even if you only manage like 1 or 2 in an entire campaign, you've still got your money's worth -, but for a situational +1/-1 TN that triggers sometimes and maybe does something narratively if the GM feels like it, spending upward a month feels like a lot of hoops to jump through.
slybrarian
Creature of Fable
- Location
- A Far and Sunless Land
- Pronouns
- He/Him
One criticism I have mechanically is that having only five caste abilities really locks character choices down in an unfun way compared to the eight Solars gets. I understand giving Solars more choice, but even knowing that Sidereals will have some weird charm applications only goes so far. I'm particularly looking at Journeys. Ride and Sail tend to be niche in my experience and Thrown feels like one of those things where it's just there because you need five and no other caste has it. Want to have a Ranged Combat character but don't think throwing things fits your aesthetic? Tough, you've wasted 1/10th of your caste/favored abilities. (Or if you're Battles and you'd prefer to have throwing spears instead of arrows, and so on.)
HalfTangible
Only half sane (it's less cringe)
- Location
- Valkyrie, Primus
It does but his point is that the caste abilities would still be wasted.
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
One of the things that I think has only come up in passing on the Discord is every Caste has specific Caste Charms available to every character, and that rounds out holes in the sets. I think they'll do a lot to ease discomfort with the limited Abilities.
slybrarian
Creature of Fable
- Location
- A Far and Sunless Land
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yes, this. There's always going to be a bit of a mismatch, but as a comparison, a Twilight player who has no interest in engaging with the 3e crafting mechanics can choose something like Bureaucracy or Investigation instead, even if they don't plan to put more than a couple points in them.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I believe that at least some of those have been rolled into the regular charmset, in the same way the 3e version of Lunars did that for most of their old Knacks? We'll see for sure once that's available next week, though.
Yes, you get five favoured abilities, so you end up with eleven caste/favoured abilities on your character if you include MA, which everyone gets along with the MA merit for free.
Last edited:
Blaque
Resident Catblob
- Location
- SLC UT
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
First, hi folks. Off-and-on lurker. Moslty poking head in as I saw this duscssion and wanted to add a bit based on text.
The Loom as described in CFC is more about forecasting the availalbe futures that fate allows, and then using those forecasts to determine destinies for Heaven to implement. Destiny reinforces Creation against the Wyld, but it is not necessary for Creation to function, nor is the Loom the ultimate source of Creation's causal cohesion.
In general I like this for a few reasons. First, it as noted by others makes it so that gods have ability to implement agendas and such. Second, it means that you don't worry about why things not dictated by the Loom don't just break everything always. And Sidereal Charms and ability to portend the future is something that can go beyond this stuff.
To add to this bit here, the Loom doesn't even determine physics as of the 3e take. Creation's causality is pretty self-contained and the rules are like...matter interacts and does things. It's like the realm world save what the stuff is made out of might not be the same if you dig deep enough. It isn't like 2e since causality isn't least gods doing little ritual jigs to do things. A brick cures in a kilm because that's what dirt, water, and fire do with one-another.
The Loom as described in CFC is more about forecasting the availalbe futures that fate allows, and then using those forecasts to determine destinies for Heaven to implement. Destiny reinforces Creation against the Wyld, but it is not necessary for Creation to function, nor is the Loom the ultimate source of Creation's causal cohesion.
In general I like this for a few reasons. First, it as noted by others makes it so that gods have ability to implement agendas and such. Second, it means that you don't worry about why things not dictated by the Loom don't just break everything always. And Sidereal Charms and ability to portend the future is something that can go beyond this stuff.
- Location
- The North
tfw the rules for starting as an Experienced Sidereal still put you 15 sessions away from getting Sidereal Martial Arts >.<
What's so wrong with encouraging people to start their games with all the cool iconic martial arts moves? Well, at least you can use those 15 sessions to save up a bunch of Sidereal XP to buy multiple SMA Charms at once. Maybe you can have a scene where you retroactively reveal that you've known Sidereal Martial Arts from the getgo, you just haven't had cause to show the world your true power until now...
What's so wrong with encouraging people to start their games with all the cool iconic martial arts moves? Well, at least you can use those 15 sessions to save up a bunch of Sidereal XP to buy multiple SMA Charms at once. Maybe you can have a scene where you retroactively reveal that you've known Sidereal Martial Arts from the getgo, you just haven't had cause to show the world your true power until now...
Come now, clearly it's because as an experienced Sidereal, it's finally time for your mentor to get murdered by his mysterious and previously unmentioned rival, driving you to go on your Kung-fu journey to master the Secret Techniques that will allow you to avenge them.
Last edited:
- Location
- an unseen void
- Pronouns
- Any
has there ever been a white wolf game where the "experienced" XP levels made any sense? i can't think of any!
Gosh, with liberal use of Resplendent Destinies a single Endings Sidereal could be the slain mentor of so many people... Imagine what happens when one Exalts and realizes they weren't actually dead.
Double down, new Resplendent Destiny to pretend to be a ghost.
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
Announce its stage 2 of their training and spin kick the apprentice in the head.
- Location
- Ottawa
Oh, wow. That's a big change.
Used to cost a permanent Essence and Willpower, IIRC. So it was hardly ever used. But we'll probably be seeing a lot of Greater Signs, now.
Ah, good.
Arcane Fate in 2e was fiddly, complex, and too easy to resist. This sounds way cleaner.
Difficulty 7 is kind of wild, to be honest. Maybe it's too much. But I'll take that over 2e Arcane Fate. Rolling (Essence) times against difficulty 1 with a -3 internal penalty was, frankly, a silly system.
Also sounds refreshingly simple. 2e Resplendents had a lot of baggage that, as far as I can tell, was of little practical benefit to people's games.
This sounds a little fiddly, though, particularly given that each character has two special astrological characteristics.
Did they keep the whole "worse in groups" bit?
They've got 11 / 25 Abilities favoured; I don't think they have anything to complain about. Whatever you want to do with your character, you should have enough favoured slots for it.
And being locked into stuff you don't necessarily want is, unironically, a key part of the Sidereal experience. "Your powers are awesome but highly specific and often inconvenient" is a common elevator pitch for them.
A "wasted" caste ability is, I think, the kind of hassle Sidereals should have to deal with often.
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
One exalts?
Use destinies and be the dead mentors of the entire mixed circle.
"Yes. You are all my favourite. Except the Abyssal, that's why I tried to kill her.….She's standing right behind me, isn't she."
