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General Exalted Thread

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I mean isn't the explicit lack of heretical charms or similar an explicit feature of the Sideral experience?

You need a hammer, but all you have is a corkscrew, a yeddim and a prophecy about Gem's destruction.
 
Shadlith said:
(That being said, 2e Thaumaturgical rituals being off on their own was super useful because it mean that, as a player, you knew that you could enter a Shadowland border with a intense concentration, a ritual, and a drop of blood, while in 3e, it's basically "Introduce a Fact with Lore that this is a thing you can do" and unless both you and your ST have read 1e or 2e and know this is a reasonable thing, no one's going to think to allow that).
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Yeah this is the problem. 3e technically allows for some of the stuff that 2e thaumaturgy could do, but it's treated as quirks of mystical creatures, which doesn't imply, let alone state outright, the various other things 2e thaumaturgy could do - let alone make the worldbuilding statements that 2e's thaumaturgy implied.
 
Shane_357 said:
This discussion on Thaumaturgy and real life 'magic' is in my view at the core of the divide on what Creation is. One camp views it as Bronze Age Earth with magic, gods and Exalts on top. The other views it as a world where magic is baked into the setting to the point that there's a degree of things that we on Earth would consider magical, but the people of Creation just don't. In my view, sure there are hucksters, but the village shaman actually does make talismans that are meaningfully useful to a mortal frame of reference. He doesn't need Charms or Sorcery to do that, he just grabs a bunch of symbolically meaningful components, makes the thing and maybe does a small rite invoking a protector god/ghost/etc. The talisman has an effect, but it does not come from the shaman. He has no 'magic', just as a smith does not have 'smelt'.
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I guess to me is that like....I don't think they ened to work? Or that it need to be something that even is a ritual. It might be non-magic but also a result of the particular place and time. It works there, but not necessairly everywehre. Or maybe some of his talismans work and some of them don't, just like some blacksmiths could smelt steel but also thought they were doing other things that well..they weren't.

Like i said, I'm actually fine with things that ultimatley are multiply realized versions of things someone in Creation's technologcially developmental level doing that are magic to us. I also just don't like, think it need actually produce items I consider special. And it's not just Bronze Age but as i note a few times, some of the fictional settings Exalted draws on, like Tanith Lee's Flat Earth, the Black Company, or the Book of New Sun. These kind of impacted a lot of what I like about Creation.

So again, what I note above on willowbark versus say, soothsaying. You can do a lot of stuff in Creation that looks like the former, but exotic, wtih demense, exotic weird flora and fauna native to Creation, and potentially drawing on aide from local elementals, spirits, or vagueries of Creation's elements. While plenty of people do forecasts and try to fortell the future. Most folks can't, since that's just not what I see as something that you can or even should be able to easily do with enough scholarship. WHich again, is fine. Court astrologers got paid pretty good on Earth even if their astrology was useless.

(As a historical note, astrology and astronomy being separate is something at least some socieites acknowledged and talked on. Mostly the observation of the movement of celestila bodies was something seen at least to an extent as different of how that applied to terrestrial things via events. The timekeeping, observational stuff, and modeling were effective. That it meant anything on the ground wasn't.)
 
Sanctaphrax said:
Seems like the worst of both worlds; a mechanically heavy system with a lot of stuff you need to learn, but no way to represent the guy who knows a rain dance.
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My thinking is that you represent the guy who knows a rain dance by first representing the rain dance, and then having the guy who knows it do that rain dance. Not sure if that was clear, sorry.
 
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So what do you write on the character sheet of the rain dance guy?

Because I think that's the basic question here.

And once you've figured out that, I don't think the rain dance really needs much representing. It's not the sort of thing you need a heavy system for.
 
Shane_357 said:
Access would of course require a grand quest to recover the final extant copies of this anime from the libraries of Orabilis or learning the sutras from interpreting a collection of bodypillows entombed in the grave of a First Age Solar NEET.
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... I'll take my chances with Orabilis. The only mandatory PPE there is a portable means of controlled flight.
 
For me one of the things I like is... I suppose I'd call it dissonance?

Some of my other favorite settings is the Ravnica book for D&D, Eberron, the original Spelljammer and Starfinder. The first two take classic D&D style fantasy and put them in a pseudo-modern type civilization and the later two takes classic D&D style fantasy and puts them in space. To me this helps strip away what's just aesthetic presumptions and shows the meat of what stories can do. After all, if you can do just as good a story about a hardboiled Elf detective on Eberron as a human detective on Earth then it is the story of the hardboiled detective itself that is universal.

Having something like willowbark tea work because of the medicinal properties of wood essence rather than due to chemical properties or soothsaying working by studying what effects happen before fate chugs into motion helps deliver that. It helps get across that this is a world that doesn't play by our rules but which humanity has adapted to and managed to reach a certain level of civilization with.
 
MiracleGrow said:
I been itching to make a set of custom charms for DB's that lets them take on the draconic aspects of the five elemtanl dragons in a more physical way. I remember reading a quest on here where DB's could go full scalie when drawing on their powers and that was super cool. It would be a really simple Essence 1, 2, 3 charm set.

Or it just could be something DB's do straight up. Which is also nice.
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Assuming the Dragon's Blood
Cost: 10m, 1wp,1ahl; Mins: War 5, Essence 4
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: Scenelong
Prerequisite Charms: ???
The Dragon-Blooded lights their blood on fire, and roars their fury to the Heavens, bursting into a shape of immense power. The Dragon-Blooded gains the Legendary Size Merit, adds +3 to raw Withering damage and Overwhelming damage to all attacks her Strength could enhance, gains Hardness 10, doubles her Stamina to determine natural soak, gains Wings 5, and any amount of cosmetic mutations representing her Draconic soul that her player choses to have. She gains a Breath attack, allowing her to make attacks out to medium range using (Dexterity or Strength)+(Thrown, Archery, or Athletics) and Medium Archery Weapon stats via breathing fire, lightning, bursts of scouring sand, noxious gases, clouds of acid, ect, gaining the withering and Overwhelming damage boost provided by this Charm. If she uses Elemental Bolt Technique, she may use it as her breath weapon, using Medium Artifact ranged stats instead of light and gaining the damage benefits of this Charm.

I wrote this in like 10 minutes, sorry for it being kinda messy. I might come back and do some lower Essence Brawl, Melee, and Athletics effects too.
 
So.

The martial arts and sorcery preview is out.
Taking a quick look before I crash.
Only the one initiation currently alas.

Infernal Exalted can learn Sidereal Martial Arts this edition.
The various styles look spooky
Can't remember this from previous editions, but fighting a Sideral counts as them training you to learn Sidereal martial arts. Its the only other way you can learn it without a Sidereal teacher. Not sure if Getiman can
 
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Also,

Throne Shadow + Black Claw style combine really really well for when you want to steal an enemies mooks/followers.
 
<Fina>

Prismatic Arrangement of Creation allows you to steal Anima Powers via Ways of Exaltation, an MA 3, E3 charm.
Well, it allows Sidereals to do that, since you need the Enlightenment keyword. For anyone else, it is just an indefinite dice adder (based off the Caste/Aspect you are emulating) while your Anima Banner flares, disguises your Anima Banner and Charms, and allows proper use of Immaculate Styles.

But for Sidereals? Yep, you can steal the Dawn Anima now, provided you can get familiar enough with a Dawn-caste. Or any other anima power.

And aside from that, it's also just a really nicely flexible dice adder. Adding (Anima) dice and (Anima/2 rounded up) to static values, for as long as you need it, for 5 motes.
A Sidereal should manage to know and emulate a Sidereal of every other caste, or every Dragonblood Aspect. That's dice added to every ability, and often to a combination of two or three useful ones in combination.
 
I love the Emerald Gyre of Aeons style. Screwing about with time is fantastic; you have access to King Crimson The Unwinding Gyre for when you want to confuse people, and its capstone (The Moment that is Murder) is a forbidden technique. The writers absolutely want someone to use it while going, "Forgive me master, I must go all out... just this once!"

Ex3 Sidereals really are every goofy martial arts story come true.
 
From my interpretation you still only get one anima power at a time. You just switch between them.
 
<Fina>

Okay this is completely Essence 5 bullshit but hey, you can do it.
The actual stats are bullshit, but you can put an interesting character concept behind it, because you basically just get a Sidereal who fights best when disguised as a Dragonblood.

Use Way of Exaltation to emulate an Earth Aspect.
Their Anima Power gives you, at Bonfire, +(Essence) natural soak and +1 Hardness.

Then go into Prismatic Arrangement of Creation Form, which allows you to enter one Sidereal Martial Arts Form and two other Martial Arts forms. It also makes it so that all those styles weapons and armor are compatible with each other.

  • Earth Dragon Form gives you +Strength soak, and also bonus dice to Smash attacks and to hit prone enemies.
  • Mantis Form gives you +1 Parry, and adds (Parry) soak and (Parry/2) hardness if you do get hit, and also double 10s against lower-initiative enemies on decisive attacks.
  • Soul-Fire Shaper Form (from Prismatic Arrangement) makes your Essence count as 10, reduces the willpower costs of a bunch of charms by 1, lets you trade initiative whenver you gain any for that many motes, and lets you trade five motes in place of willpower.
Now, put on Heavy Artifact Armor, to gain 11 Soak and 10 Hardness.

Assuming 5 Strength (not raised by charms) and Dexterity 5, Martial Arts 5, a speciality, and a defense rating 1 weapon (remember, it's compatible now) for Parry 8 (with the form bonus), you then have 34 Soak and 15 Hardness without having to spend any further motes.
While using Martial Arts.

And no, Solars can not do this.

Also if anyone is worried abotu this being utterly borked - just limit the soak-stacking from multiple Forms. It's still strong at that point, but you can knock a fair amount of soak off it, depending on how you limit it.
 
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&era System said:
<Fina>

Okay this is completely Essence 5 bullshit but hey, you can do it.
The actual stats are bullshit, but you can put an interesting character concept behind it, because you basically just get a Sidereal who fights best when disguised as a Dragonblood.

Use Way of Exaltation to emulate an Earth Aspect.
Their Anima Power gives you, at Bonfire, +(Essence) natural soak and +1 Hardness.

Then go into Prismatic Arrangement of Creation Form, which allows you to enter one Sidereal Martial Arts Form and two other Martial Arts forms. It also makes it so that all those styles weapons and armor are compatible with each other.

  • Earth Dragon Form gives you +Strength soak, and also bonus dice to Smash attacks and to hit prone enemies.
  • Mantis Form gives you +1 Parry, and adds (Parry) soak and (Parry/2) hardness if you do get hit, and also double 10s against lower-initiative enemies on decisive attacks.
  • Soul-Fire Shaper Form (from Prismatic Arrangement) makes your Essence count as 10, reduces the willpower costs of a bunch of charms by 1, lets you trade initiative whenver you gain any for that many motes, and lets you trade five motes in place of willpower.
Now, put on Heavy Artifact Armor, to gain 11 Soak and 10 Hardness.

Assuming 5 Strength (not raised by charms) and Dexterity 5, Martial Arts 5, a speciality, and a defense rating 1 weapon (remember, it's compatible now) for Parry 8 (with the form bonus), you then have 34 Soak and 15 Hardness without having to spend any further motes.
While using Martial Arts.

And no, Solars can not do this.

Also if anyone is worried abotu this being utterly borked - just limit the soak-stacking from multiple Forms. It's still strong at that point, but you can knock a fair amount of soak off it, depending on how you limit it.
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Solars can hardcounter this at chargen, I'll note, as can anyone with Hardness-cutting Evocations and decent Overwhelming. It's only +1 over the usual passive Defense cap, costs a lot of motes committed, and reduces your flexibility a lot.

The raw numbers are cool, but well into the realm of diminishing returns. It's definitely good, but far from anything I'd consider problematic at Essence 5.
 
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They mentioned a bunch of cool sounding SMAs on the Discord that didn't make it to this book. Were they always supposed to be for the companion book or for Exalted Essence and I just misinterpreted what they were talking about?
 
SMAs are cool, but I must admit that I'm disappointed that the Sorcery section was so short that almost the entire thing was in the preview.
 
&era System said:
But for Sidereals? Yep, you can steal the Dawn Anima now, provided you can get familiar enough with a Dawn-caste. Or any other anima power.
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Eh? No you can't. The condition is:
While emulating a different Caste of the stylist's Exalt type.
So you can emulate a Battles as a Sid, but not a Dawn, because they're not your Exalt type.

Edit: Unless "Exalt Type" means Terrestrial vs Celestial I guess, but that seems... unlikely?
 
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Shadlith said:
Eh? No you can't. The condition is:
While emulating a different Caste of the stylist's Exalt type.
So you can emulate a Battles as a Sid, but not a Dawn, because they're not your Exalt type.

Edit: Unless "Exalt Type" means Terrestrial vs Celestial I guess, but that seems... unlikely?
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If so, that'd be really good for the purpose of balance because otherwise, holy shit, this would break so many things.

As an example, if you could stack the Dawn-Anima on top of the Battles-Anima (specifically the Greater Sign), you'd stack two effects that increase your Base Initiative. Both scale with Essence too, and Soul-Shaper Fire Form sets your Essence to 10 for calculations. So your base initiative would be 23 (or more with other effects), which would just be too much.

We really like Ways of Exaltation as a charm, especially for it's flexibility that just opens up a lot of roleplaying concepts. So we don't want it to be broken.
So the reading that "Exalt type" here refers to (what you yourself already are), rather than what you picked with the charm to emualte, is a much better one. And probably also the obvious one, guess that happens while quickly reading through things.
 
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Shamefully, I must double-post (please forgive me!) to ask if anyone else thinks Prismatic Arrangement of Creation Style is too strong? I feel like there's quite a few questionable decisions made. Soul-Fire Shaper Form (10m, 1wp) is disgusting on Sidereals/Getimians for one reason: it grants Essence 10 for the purposes of charm calculations. If my understanding of the rules is correct, this means all charms that say something like "this adds (higher of Essence or 3)" or "(Essence) dice" or things related to that have become utterly insane the second you pop that form on. For instance, it turns Hostility Acceptance Technique (Brawl charm, 4m to reduce Initiative damage taken by higher of essence or 3, enemy still gains initiative from doing damage, and the charm is Versatile, so any unarmed martial artist can use it) from a strong mitigation trick to something that will utterly end an enemy's ability to crash you (especially since Prismatic Arrangement also has a charm that gives you [Essence + (Lore or Occult)] soak). You figure one's optimal play in all scenarios for all abilities as a Sidereal is to pop Soul-Fire Shaper Form before you start firing off your charms.

Also inexplicably nasty is Astrology Interruption Method; for 1m and 1wp, you end any Fate Shaping effect on someone and give them immunity. No contested roll, just poof, immune to most Sidereal/Getimian tricks. Furthermore, for that same cost, any ability roll you make can be enhanced so that any effects that increase your TN or would decrease an opposing roll's TN (such as the Sidereal Excellency) are negated. This fundamentally means that many Sidereal/Getimian offensive and defensive techniques are completely nullified; I usually don't use "mechanics = lore" on a 1-1 basis, but holy shit, you figure Sidereal-on-Sidereal or Sidereal vs. Getimian fights would be absurdly lethal because of this style's existence. I'm open to hearing counter-arguments for why any of this isn't busted, but from my current perspective, this is all absurd and should never make it to final draft in this state.

EDIT: Note that this all gets more insane if you get the capstone, the style's eponymous Form charm. In addition to having the benefits of Soul-Fire Shaper (10 Essence for calculations, -1wp cost once per round to select charms, can turn Initiative gained from withering attacks into motes, can spend 5m in place of a WP), you gain the other form benefits! Four Magical Materials Form turns your fist statline into that of a light artifact weapon, reduces its prerequisite's (the magical materials charms) costs by 2m, lets you ignore crippling effects, and use Evocations you learned through artifacts if they're one of the Four Magical Materials. Demesne-and-Manse Form lets you manifest a hearthstone that grants (Essence, maximum 5 thank god) post-soak withering damage or raw decisive damage for 4m committed. You're smacking people around with fists that hit as hard as any grand daiklave ever could, and you'll never run out of motes in a fight. You commit 30m and spend 2wp if you go into PAoC Form, but who cares.
 
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