General Exalted Thread
- Location
- Right Where I Am
If you're ever considering writing it up, then know that there's at least one interested party.
- Location
- United States
Make that two.
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
Realized I got a little to over ambitious with my up and coming scene.
Don't read this if your part of my game.
Don't read this if your part of my game.
There might be a fight with a Wyld Hunt vs a group of assassin DB's trying to off important people in the hunt. But its happening in the middle of of a city and I don't yet know if the players are gonna miss it, help one side, or fight both at the same time.
Meaning I could enter a shit show of a fight with 16 different people at the same time. Combat might take two sessions to resolve lmao.
Meaning I could enter a shit show of a fight with 16 different people at the same time. Combat might take two sessions to resolve lmao.
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Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Well, I don't have any active games right now, so let me take a look...
Oh... That's hell you're walking into, a Wyld Hunt vs an Honorable Third Party vs a Player Character Circle? You'll be lucky to resolve it in even two sessions
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
'Honorable third party' is a alliance between Tepet and Iselsi. Tepet is managing to withdraw properly before their legions get slaughtered. As they learned about the Empress being gone way before anyone else did for story reasons.
So its even more of a mess
So its even more of a mess
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
HamSandLich
MEAT WIZARD
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The siren song of Exalted Battlegroups echoes from a nearby airduct
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
Honestly extremely tempting, but my group is the sort to enjoy big ass fights. What I'm probably gonna do is start having people withdraw if it gets to nasty for one side. So I can clean up the battlefield in half by the third or fourth turn.
Darmani
Cast in the name of Pod, Ye Go Ninty
- Location
- Lansing
Misanthropy Overwhelming Nefelibata Keen Equilibrist Yeoman
Brawl 5 Essence 3
Type: Permanent
Duration: Special/varies by actions and stunts
Costs: Physical Actions or benefits from stunts (read charm) or a point of willpower
Prerequisites: Salt Under-hoof Action, Wound Tiger, Dragon Coil, Ornery Sheep Play, Hen checks thigh, Cock's Pulping Hammer, Pugilist's Knuckled Banquet, Ox-Stunning Blow, Brak Asserting Redoubtable Contact, Squealing Avalanche, Thicket Den Duking, Jab Kindling Binking, Twine Rod Wrest Reflexes
From taking a stone up for the fist, branch an arm, persistence for speed, and more the keen mind over all that opposes man from own limits, to setting. You override what or who bars humans success or acclaim internal or without.
First, by finally acquiring this Charm your mastery of yourself is flawless, no attack of Brawl/Ability will be less in a trait than any other. Extending to compatible, improvised, or mid-battle taken weapons (at least for the scene). In fact if able to lift you can wield it, as with the noted capacity, if can move it you may throw it, and if you can notice or perceive you may parry it.
The real power though comes from how helps maximize synergies of circumstance, athletics, position, or more stunts. In place of either awards. This doesn't require more taxing or stringent stunts or actions. Merely what were or could do is used more spectacularly of the Solar pankrator as to others or before achieved such supremacy.
1d stunt / Difficulty 1+ Athletics/1 WPP: Your Brawl ability applicable to the action or attack attempted regardless of target, please be creative, this can also let you defend or attack while engaged in grapples, climbing a ladder, swimming, eating, falling, or would seem preoccupied or indisposed. Not that stunts couldn't before or needed a stunt before more this assures with any stunt or action it is and can be with no regard or focus of that stunt (narrate scene), add own or opponent's weight (Str+Athletics) damage or difficulty to oppose in a physical action or contest,
2d stunt / Difficulty 2+ Athletics/1 WPP: May ignore any penalties to action, including wound or multiple action; or convert full Brawl action/attack dice pool to successes; or double an action (redo, add on, or repeat of separate but same) taken in the same turn; or perfectly negate or bypass counterattacks or hazards or gains and negatives from striking/contact (lava, blade, poison, rubber pendulum, riposting river, tar); or cancel 1 non-sorcery granted or non-scenelength shapeshifting persistent effect (knocking persistent dodger "out their rhythm" making them dodge only as able without FLB or similar- target may reactivate if have the time, action or motes and MUST have successfully made soak-worthy contact) this includes Form charms. You can knock Luffy or Reed or other gifted stretcher back into solid man-shape but not a Lunar out of even a non-true form if it wouldn't cancel/run-out before scene end
3d stunt/Difficulty 4+ Athletics/1 WPP: A single success on the roll means full suxx on action or single applicable succuess on attack, convert as many die as dots in another possibly applicable ability to perfect suxx on an attack (meaning cannot be dodged or parried and immune to defensive tricks, effectively a guaranteed raised minimum result), apply special trait or tag to your action: a common one is flame from the sheer acceleration and precision against the air, but undodgeable, unparryable, Weight equals minimum post-soak damage, holy from channeling the innate quickening of essence the Sun and his siblings enable on the sod of our world to points of contact)
Use of this charm or benefits does not deny access to charm use or combos.
Brak Asserting Redoubtable Contact
or
Bone Argument Ringing Kiai
or
Basseting Attack Reins Kick
or
Braggard Articulating Rapidly Cross-blow
Brawl 5 Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Duration: Instant
Costs: 4 motes
Prerequisite: Salt-under Hoof, Mouse Upper Cut/Bowls Musc-Bull, Hammer on Iron Technique
Rolled and Defended as a physical attack per normal, even soaked. Calculate levels of damage to be inflected on health track. Doesn't actually have to be a kick. Solar may sacrifice the levels of damage to the point of no damage inflicted.
A Social Attack is made as simultaneously created action. That means it is a completely fresh action with other charms or combos use being allowed, prior or other in the turn not mattering for allowance/use, though if spent 1 wp to activate a combo this turn another not needed for the combo or to use/pay for any charms or effects for the social attack.
The level of Ability of your social attack is limited by the number of successes from your Brawl action (the outcome not what is applied).
Combos with Charms of Abilities too high may not be used, language or the condition of senses is no barrier.
At least 1 dot of Ability is always possible from a successful Brawl roll, as well as commands of primal, instinctive, basic nature or result (Flee, Mad, Rage, Doubt, Disgust, Dismiss, Fawn) or erode an Intimacy or Motive for at least the current scene.
Every level of damage sacrificed adds to the 1x multiplier on the success social attack made (0 levels=full unimpaired social action to the target, 1 level = 2x resulting successes of the Social Action, 2 levels = 3x, 3 levels =4x, and so on).
The simultaneous action MAY be sacrificed into a 1-time 2x+(all possible post soak damage) multiplier apply to any other Social Action afterward. Though the bonus is subject to same oppositional Every level of damage sacrifice adds to the 1x multiplier on the succeses social attack made (1 level = 2x, 2 levels = 3x, 3 levels =4x). The simultaneous action MAY be saved as a 1-time 2x+(all possible post soak damage) multiplier apply to any other social attack after. Subject to same oppositional willpower defense with regards to individual themselves (not even a leader can spend wp to lower the multiplier for another Willpower defense with regards to individual themselves (not even a leader can spend wp to lower the multiplier for another)
If the Social Action would run counter to a relevant Virtue at the level the target has, then they may spend Willpower to lower the multiplier by one per point, to a multiplier of zero to completely ignore.
Note: Someone under Limit Break or who has Channeled the relevant Virtue used to in question MUST spend that Willpower, thought the channel-er may simply betray the gift of their virtues, ceasing it if able or take a negative to actions equal in value and duration the channeling benefited them to negate the social attack.
This charm helps to subdue and was especially favored with rebuking recalcitrant spirits or demigods.
Brawl 5 Essence 3
Type: Permanent
Duration: Special/varies by actions and stunts
Costs: Physical Actions or benefits from stunts (read charm) or a point of willpower
Prerequisites: Salt Under-hoof Action, Wound Tiger, Dragon Coil, Ornery Sheep Play, Hen checks thigh, Cock's Pulping Hammer, Pugilist's Knuckled Banquet, Ox-Stunning Blow, Brak Asserting Redoubtable Contact, Squealing Avalanche, Thicket Den Duking, Jab Kindling Binking, Twine Rod Wrest Reflexes
From taking a stone up for the fist, branch an arm, persistence for speed, and more the keen mind over all that opposes man from own limits, to setting. You override what or who bars humans success or acclaim internal or without.
First, by finally acquiring this Charm your mastery of yourself is flawless, no attack of Brawl/Ability will be less in a trait than any other. Extending to compatible, improvised, or mid-battle taken weapons (at least for the scene). In fact if able to lift you can wield it, as with the noted capacity, if can move it you may throw it, and if you can notice or perceive you may parry it.
The real power though comes from how helps maximize synergies of circumstance, athletics, position, or more stunts. In place of either awards. This doesn't require more taxing or stringent stunts or actions. Merely what were or could do is used more spectacularly of the Solar pankrator as to others or before achieved such supremacy.
1d stunt / Difficulty 1+ Athletics/1 WPP: Your Brawl ability applicable to the action or attack attempted regardless of target, please be creative, this can also let you defend or attack while engaged in grapples, climbing a ladder, swimming, eating, falling, or would seem preoccupied or indisposed. Not that stunts couldn't before or needed a stunt before more this assures with any stunt or action it is and can be with no regard or focus of that stunt (narrate scene), add own or opponent's weight (Str+Athletics) damage or difficulty to oppose in a physical action or contest,
2d stunt / Difficulty 2+ Athletics/1 WPP: May ignore any penalties to action, including wound or multiple action; or convert full Brawl action/attack dice pool to successes; or double an action (redo, add on, or repeat of separate but same) taken in the same turn; or perfectly negate or bypass counterattacks or hazards or gains and negatives from striking/contact (lava, blade, poison, rubber pendulum, riposting river, tar); or cancel 1 non-sorcery granted or non-scenelength shapeshifting persistent effect (knocking persistent dodger "out their rhythm" making them dodge only as able without FLB or similar- target may reactivate if have the time, action or motes and MUST have successfully made soak-worthy contact) this includes Form charms. You can knock Luffy or Reed or other gifted stretcher back into solid man-shape but not a Lunar out of even a non-true form if it wouldn't cancel/run-out before scene end
3d stunt/Difficulty 4+ Athletics/1 WPP: A single success on the roll means full suxx on action or single applicable succuess on attack, convert as many die as dots in another possibly applicable ability to perfect suxx on an attack (meaning cannot be dodged or parried and immune to defensive tricks, effectively a guaranteed raised minimum result), apply special trait or tag to your action: a common one is flame from the sheer acceleration and precision against the air, but undodgeable, unparryable, Weight equals minimum post-soak damage, holy from channeling the innate quickening of essence the Sun and his siblings enable on the sod of our world to points of contact)
Use of this charm or benefits does not deny access to charm use or combos.
Brak Asserting Redoubtable Contact
or
Bone Argument Ringing Kiai
or
Basseting Attack Reins Kick
or
Braggard Articulating Rapidly Cross-blow
Brawl 5 Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Duration: Instant
Costs: 4 motes
Prerequisite: Salt-under Hoof, Mouse Upper Cut/Bowls Musc-Bull, Hammer on Iron Technique
Rolled and Defended as a physical attack per normal, even soaked. Calculate levels of damage to be inflected on health track. Doesn't actually have to be a kick. Solar may sacrifice the levels of damage to the point of no damage inflicted.
A Social Attack is made as simultaneously created action. That means it is a completely fresh action with other charms or combos use being allowed, prior or other in the turn not mattering for allowance/use, though if spent 1 wp to activate a combo this turn another not needed for the combo or to use/pay for any charms or effects for the social attack.
The level of Ability of your social attack is limited by the number of successes from your Brawl action (the outcome not what is applied).
Combos with Charms of Abilities too high may not be used, language or the condition of senses is no barrier.
At least 1 dot of Ability is always possible from a successful Brawl roll, as well as commands of primal, instinctive, basic nature or result (Flee, Mad, Rage, Doubt, Disgust, Dismiss, Fawn) or erode an Intimacy or Motive for at least the current scene.
Every level of damage sacrificed adds to the 1x multiplier on the success social attack made (0 levels=full unimpaired social action to the target, 1 level = 2x resulting successes of the Social Action, 2 levels = 3x, 3 levels =4x, and so on).
The simultaneous action MAY be sacrificed into a 1-time 2x+(all possible post soak damage) multiplier apply to any other Social Action afterward. Though the bonus is subject to same oppositional Every level of damage sacrifice adds to the 1x multiplier on the succeses social attack made (1 level = 2x, 2 levels = 3x, 3 levels =4x). The simultaneous action MAY be saved as a 1-time 2x+(all possible post soak damage) multiplier apply to any other social attack after. Subject to same oppositional willpower defense with regards to individual themselves (not even a leader can spend wp to lower the multiplier for another Willpower defense with regards to individual themselves (not even a leader can spend wp to lower the multiplier for another)
If the Social Action would run counter to a relevant Virtue at the level the target has, then they may spend Willpower to lower the multiplier by one per point, to a multiplier of zero to completely ignore.
Note: Someone under Limit Break or who has Channeled the relevant Virtue used to in question MUST spend that Willpower, thought the channel-er may simply betray the gift of their virtues, ceasing it if able or take a negative to actions equal in value and duration the channeling benefited them to negate the social attack.
This charm helps to subdue and was especially favored with rebuking recalcitrant spirits or demigods.
- Pronouns
- she/her
An idea I've considered for Exalted battle groups to make them more viable/interesting is that suffering magnitude loss ejects individual Exalts from the Battle Group (who might be appropriately weakened to reflect that at minimum you beat them up enough to separate them from their friends).
HamSandLich
MEAT WIZARD
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Talisman of the False Sun (Artifact 2)
Wrought by one of the Deathlords, these artifacts take the form of orichalcum trinkets shot through with miniscule veins of soulsteel; rings, chokers, piercings, torcs, earrings, etc. Each talisman contains within it a tiny gem that burns with cold white light, a fragment of one of the Underworld's failed suns. For most, these baubles are simply ornamentation. Their true purpose is only made clear when attuned by a Deathknight.When an Abyssal attunes to a Talisman of The False Sun for 1 mote, their anima and castemark are shrouded in an illusion that makes them appear as if they are one of the Sun's Chosen. Magic that would discern their nature(such as Measure the Wind) automatically identifies them as a Solar of the corresponding caste, and the outward effects of their charms and anima powers lose their deathly aspect unless such things are impossible to mask (such as raising the dead), appearing instead as if expressions of Solar arete. Additionally, magic to identify Creatures of Darkness and Enemies of Fate instead fails to identify them as such.
This disguise is neither perfect nor permanent. The Abyssal is still subject to the limitations of the Trappings of Death and the talisman does nothing to hide any trappings the Abyssal dons. While magic that would explicitly identify them fails, magic effects that target Creatures of Darkness or Enemies of Fate (such as charms that deal aggravated damage to them) still function as normal. Every time the Abyssal's anima rises a level above Dim, onlookers may attempt a Perception + Occult roll at a Difficulty of 3 + the Abyssal's Performance to discern the truth beneath the glamour. The illusion immediately fades once the Abyssal's anima reaches Bonfire or the Abyssal experiences Limit Break and does not resume for one day. Additionally, donning the illusion immediately forces the Abyssal to roll 2 Limit Dice.
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I am looking to start a game of 3e with some friends who I am currently running Kingmaker 5e for, but I was wondering how do I get them into the system and the setting? There's no player's guide and unlike say Call of Cthulhu theres no Quickstart you can get from their website to just handout to players and tell them to read it. And then setting wise they need to know at least a little setting information compared to most 5e stuff(for example if they are solars they would need to know that the biggest religion in the world considers them to be evil).
Is it always recommended for new players and groups to start out as Solars? I was thinking that dragonblooded might be easier to plan for if they were lost eggs.
Is it always recommended for new players and groups to start out as Solars? I was thinking that dragonblooded might be easier to plan for if they were lost eggs.
HalfTangible
Only half sane (it's less cringe)
- Location
- Valkyrie, Primus
You don't have to, no. (I've said before I think the Solars make a good start for a new group but it's not required) Solars are in the corebook, but you can tell them you'll be playing Deebs instead. Give them a brief overview of what the Exalted are and the Deeb's place in Creation from their own perspective. Tell them stuff about the game's initial premise and what you'll generally be doing. If you're doing a Wyld Hunt, for example, explain what a Wyld Hunt is. If you're doing the War in the West, give a brief overview of Peleps and V'neef's brewing conflict. Wanna deal with the deathlords? Explain, well, *the deathlords*. That sort of thing.
They'll still need the corebook for a lot of the systems involved, but you don't necessarily have to make the game about Solars.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
There actually is a little handout to get started! Specifically, Heirs to the Shogunate has one for all the major DB polities + outcastes, so at the back of the book you have a two-page handy reference. This gives a lot of the vibes and mechanical framework to start.
For the setting, I like to start with "the world is big and complicated, but don't worry about it, let's focus on where we're starting the game" and then giving something like that two-page handout but for the local area. This one you'll often have to make yourself, though.
It's okay to start with whatever splat you think will catch people the most; they all have upsides and downsides. Solars are broad and relatively conceptually simple, but their Charms are confusing. DBs can be finicky and often require a bit more setting work because you probably are 'plugged in' to your family/House/whatever set-up, etc. If you have a great idea for outcaste DBs, go for it.
So, there has been a lot of discussion over the years about the problems with VEE and ways it could be fixed, but I've always only seen it just described. Since I'm both trying to run a campaign and am working on a crossover story at the moment, I decided to actually write it out. I'd really appreciate some criticism because it's both way too long (that's just an issue with my writing that I'm aware of and am trying to fix) and probably has issues I haven't seen. This is 2e/2.5e, just for clarification.
Consider this a first draft - right now I'm thinking about dividing it up into several separate charms, but I'm not really experienced enough to know which portions of it would actually be worth the opportunity cost of a solaroid charm. The obvious solution would be to make the VEE just do the 'you can indebt people thing' and have the training and other effects as upgrades to it.
Consider this a first draft - right now I'm thinking about dividing it up into several separate charms, but I'm not really experienced enough to know which portions of it would actually be worth the opportunity cost of a solaroid charm. The obvious solution would be to make the VEE just do the 'you can indebt people thing' and have the training and other effects as upgrades to it.
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- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
For 3e Dragon-Blooded, Heirs to the Shogunate actually has a very handy "Dragon-Blooded Intro Reference" document intended to be something you can give to new players. It's a useful summary of the major setting elements that matter for them. Pages 266-267 have information for outcastes in particular.
People sometimes overstate how unfriendly to new players things like Dynast games are. I feel like encouraging your players to be complete randos from nowhere the way you might Solars is kind of burying the lead on what's most compelling with them. To me, Dragon-Blooded are a lot more interesting in their own right when you lean into the themes of family, legacy, and lower-case d dynasty. There is a certain kind of player who will be scared off by too much setting information, but it was honestly one of the main things that actually grabbed me once I started digging into it, when I first got into this game. There are also a lot of fun outcaste groups and things like Realm cadet houses now that explore these themes while not being as massive as the Scarlet Dynasty. Like, as an example, even though it would be a really weird way to get into the game, I think that a Heaven's Dragons based game set in Yu-Shan would be pretty accessible to new players. Taking troubleshooting jobs from various gods, doing some light crime, supporting the enclaves they grew up in (or not — what are the consequences if so?). And you wouldn't need them to know that much about Creation proper unless they're actually like, going there.
In general, I think that when it comes to introducing new players to Exalted, the best thing you can do is compartmentalise. Here is the high level setting, here are the things you need to know for this game, here is information they need to know about the part of the setting the game takes place in, maybe encourage them to be from at least the larger region and provide them with information specifically about it. Pick a part of the map, pick a setting pitch, and worry about getting your players excited for the place they're going to actually be playing in and the kind of things they're going to be doing, and work outward from there as needed.
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- Location
- Washington, USA
All I changed for my own houserules was removing the open-ended self-training option - or rather, requiring additional charms and conditional circumstances for that: https://docs.google.com/document/d/...L5t_fMQfw/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.6b9sglmp3egl
As for the proposed version you've got there... I think you nerfed it too far. Requiring multiple weeks per dot, while only being able to target one person at a time, makes it clearly worse than existing celestial training effects in many common cases, and it's lost a lot of the thematic distinctiveness of a "miraculous wish-granter." Seems like the main effective utility of it might end up being to, first, trick someone into technically qualifying as a member of your cult, then doom them by demanding travel to far corners of the world to train randos on an unreasonably tight schedule.
In particular, I'm confused what the point is of requiring a roll to convince someone you're able to provide a given service, independent of their willingness to accept. What's the OOC benefit, the critical incentive gradient or inherently desirable game-state, which comes from having that potentially fail - and even on a success, requiring the infernal to make an overt, conventional social approach rather than acting as a subtler plausibly-deniable force of spiritual temptation? Seems simpler and better to just leave the revelation of possibility as an absolute effect. Solars (2.6)
I mean, the purpose of that roll is that you'd need to actually be able to convince someone that you can provide a service, because the entire point is that the whole 'wish granting' aspect of it is the problem, and that it's more about deals and needing to provide it. Removing the Miraculous Wish Granter aspect is the majority of the point here. I don't really want to refer everyone back to the long arguments five to ten years ago in this specific thread but I based it largely on those discussions. It provides a massive buff to those rolls specifically to make it trivial to convince a total stranger "oh, yeah, I can totally make you more beautiful, just give me a week with my special skincare treatment." The revelation of possibility being an absolute effect is not a thing I'd even considered was a thing people could do. I'll definitely take that under consideration.
Still, good to have some feedback - any version of VEE that grants wishes is one that's kind of completely incompatible with the premises this is being based around, of course, but given how few actual training charms there are it wasn't entirely clear to me whether it was actually substantially weaker than the two Tiger Warrior charms, which can provide a much more limited set of abilities to a larger group of people in the same amount of time and are two separate charms. It's closer to four charms when you include the Solar Lore equivalent.
Making VEE no longer mechanically broken isn't that hard, as you've demonstrated. Making it into a thing that doesn't inherently destroy stories? Less so.
Do you have another celestial charm that accelerates training of any individual person to balance it against? I know infernals and solars pretty well, am a bit fuzzy on sidereals, and know next to nothing about canon lunars and Alchemicals these days, so if there's an example out there I'd appreciate it.
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- Location
- Washington, USA
It... kinda doesn't, though? Those bonus successes count against the dice cap, so it's effectively just a narrow discount on the second excellency. There's nobody you could persuade with that bonus who you couldn't plausibly already reach with the prerequisite charms.
For the native Sidereal set the obvious thing to reach for is the Iron Drill Exercise resplendency in the college of the Captain. Works for any skill, can train a dot per week up to the sidereal's own rating, targets a few dozen people at once. Not limited by XP debt, but there's a lifetime cap, so it's best reserved for students who've already hit the 4-dot cap from solar or lunar training charms.
As for "instant" training, main one is in Crane Style. Doesn't have the Training keyword, so it can't push into XP debt in the first place, but one-on-one instruction can provide dots or specialties in Martial Arts, and even charms, inside an hour - effectively the same timescale as original VEE. The ink monkeys Throne Shadow expansion Secret Lesson Revelation also seems extremely relevant.
If you want a nerfed training effect that's less "evil genie," more "cult indoctrination," maybe check out From Eggs To [Element] Dragons in the Thousand Correct Actions.
So, we have a Resplendent destiny (that also trains many people at a time) and a bunch of stuff from Scroll of the Monk? That's...well, I'm not surprised I did not know that they existed, because they don't in the versions of the game I've actually played or thought deeply about - and this isn't an insult to you or your version of the game, it's, if anything, probably closer to what most people play than anything I've ever played.
From Eggs to Element Dragons is also literally just another, more complicated, more expensive, and inferior version of Tiger Warrior Training, so all it really shows me is that my original 'delegated' version of it was allowing mortals to infringe directly on DB charmtech, and even my current version probably does to some extent. I'm not sure if an Infernal should have the ability to make any cult member of theirs capable of training an individual as fast or better than a DB does an army, except with way more options, because there's nothing to stop you from (once you've snowballed a little) sending out two hundred of them to train two hundred students.
To be clear, though, no, it's not about cult indoctrination or whatever. It's about putting people in your debt - that's the part of this charm that actually fits Cecelyne. Making unfair deals with people whenever they express a desire. The ability to trap anyone who expresses any desire for anything in an eclipse oath if you can grant it to them is the main effect of the charm. The instantly granting wishes part is both toxic to narratives and kind of out of place, especially as you go further and further down her tree. The training part is just because I'd prefer a solaroid exalt improving people's traits through their own time and effort to not need to dedicate the same amount of time and effort as a mortal, but a version of this charm that doesn't explicitly enhance training is still a very powerful effect, and I'm pretty sure that's what it does in Kerisgame.
It seems like there aren't any actual 'train an individual person' charms to compare it to outside of a very weird MA charm that probably shouldn't exist. Also, to be clear, that charm lets you perform a day of training in a minute, giving two months of training per hour, and VEE grants what could be four or even five months over the scene - those are not at all similar timeframes. But I actually do like the version you misremembered - making it into an hour or two would probably be more appropriate.
Your thing about being able to fuck with your cultists by forcing them to go train people on the other side of the world also made it clear I need to edit that to make it clear that all the penalties and things only apply if the has agreed, unless it's your Demand from their VEE. Glad you noticed that, because that was a major mistake.
Oh, and thanks for correcting the whole 'dice added by charms' thing was misplaced. I'm going to go with your previous Perfect effect suggestion, but it is important to know.
Thank you so much for the help. I'll revise it tomorrow, and see what still needs fixing.
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- Location
- Washington, USA
Crane style is in Glories of the Most High: Maidens of Destiny. Nothing I cited is from Scroll of the Monk.
I think you're getting the wrong message from that. Power-Awarding Prana lets actual Solars loan out their own charms to mortal subordinates. If your training effect takes multiple weeks per dot AND can only target one person at a time (while still costing 10m 1wp per use, and... I'm not sure how exactly the instant duration and sorcerous keyword are supposed to interact with an ongoing active effect that can't even get started until after some social actions have resolved?) and has all those other limitations, it's weaker than any other charm-equivalent training effect I can think of on the critical "how soon will these recruits be ready for action" metric, and less efficient besides.
Within that intended use, it's got serious shortcomings compared to e.g. Thoughtful Gift Technique or Drowning In Negotiation Style from the DB Bureaucracy tree. Bigger stick to threaten with in the event of noncompliance, sure, but also considerably less you can ask for, and no good reason for the other party to agree. That seems like it would soon collapse into pixelbitching exact-words gotchas, taking credit for stuff that was going to happen anyway, and similar un-fun pettiness, rather than the grandeur of Faustian bargains for "terrifying and wondrous miracles."
Teaching someone the fifth dot in Martial Arts with Humbling Enlightenment Commentary takes 24 minutes, because a week of training only involves six days of actual work. Teaching them a specialty that way takes 18 minutes. Providing either with VEE takes a scene before the trait becomes available, which (based on anima flare decay rates) is typically about 20 minutes, but explicitly has enormous potential for variability. Twenty is right in the middle of the 18-24 range, so that sounds "effectively the same" to me. Months per dot would have to mean attributes, or Essence, which Humbling Enlightenment Commentary can't train at all. What exactly are you saying that I misremembered?
- Pronouns
- she/her
It depends. Some players who choose Solars can end up feeling adrift if they don't connect with the setting. Dragon-Blooded or Sidereals can be a better fit for those who enjoy diving into lore and working within an established structure. Many recommend Solars because they came to Exalted after growing tired of games where their characters feel like they're just running errands for the truly powerful.
Darmani
Cast in the name of Pod, Ye Go Ninty
- Location
- Lansing
Solar Charm
Binkying Adroit Duking
Brawl 5 Essence 3
Type: Extra Action
Duration: Until Fail to Move 5 feet*(1+ x WP spent) at turn
Costs: 6 motes + Variable Willpower (starts at zero)
Every five feet move grants Brawl Action. These actions are unpenalizable and always applicable but are only Brawl Ability (and possible bonuses and specialties) pool-size to be rolled. These actions can be used regularly, to supplement any action against a foe or against any attack in range or incoming. Actions can pre-emptively parry for an ally or target, supplement any parry or attack freely as well as can parry or attack anything without further harm to Pugilist and who they support even from their nature or rejoinder.
The gain of actions can increase by Wits for every wp that may be reflexively spent but this increases how much distance you must cover to maintain charm. At the top of a turn this can be reset to lower amount but you sacrifice your bank of 'jabs' to only what the new, lesser, rate would have gained you last turn losing all others.
Notes:
*sigh* I already can hear the "but but this steals from Adorjan charms." More we're both stealing from the same concept of speed blitzing for lesser full force of accuracy or a bunch or rapid punches in pursuit (especially as can circle or perimeter or interweave in movement). Plus this is in contrast to a charm I swore I wrote and posted all over the place allowing you to "charge up" attacks from sacrificed movement or actions Called Wound Tiger Method. Mainly I LOVE the concept of Brawl being the "Joey" of abilties. add in trade ups, gambling, and using system stuff that isn't about pure excellence ignore but master/changing it to hit hard.
Basically making or creating some charms with names alluding to Chinese zodiac and "applications of strength and might like out of tales, movies, and folklore" even as basic and informal as Float like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee.
Binkying Adroit Duking
Brawl 5 Essence 3
Type: Extra Action
Duration: Until Fail to Move 5 feet*(1+ x WP spent) at turn
Costs: 6 motes + Variable Willpower (starts at zero)
Every five feet move grants Brawl Action. These actions are unpenalizable and always applicable but are only Brawl Ability (and possible bonuses and specialties) pool-size to be rolled. These actions can be used regularly, to supplement any action against a foe or against any attack in range or incoming. Actions can pre-emptively parry for an ally or target, supplement any parry or attack freely as well as can parry or attack anything without further harm to Pugilist and who they support even from their nature or rejoinder.
The gain of actions can increase by Wits for every wp that may be reflexively spent but this increases how much distance you must cover to maintain charm. At the top of a turn this can be reset to lower amount but you sacrifice your bank of 'jabs' to only what the new, lesser, rate would have gained you last turn losing all others.
Notes:
*sigh* I already can hear the "but but this steals from Adorjan charms." More we're both stealing from the same concept of speed blitzing for lesser full force of accuracy or a bunch or rapid punches in pursuit (especially as can circle or perimeter or interweave in movement). Plus this is in contrast to a charm I swore I wrote and posted all over the place allowing you to "charge up" attacks from sacrificed movement or actions Called Wound Tiger Method. Mainly I LOVE the concept of Brawl being the "Joey" of abilties. add in trade ups, gambling, and using system stuff that isn't about pure excellence ignore but master/changing it to hit hard.
Basically making or creating some charms with names alluding to Chinese zodiac and "applications of strength and might like out of tales, movies, and folklore" even as basic and informal as Float like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee.
So, did not actually get around to revising it today, but
I'm somewhat okay with it becoming a way to do so with enough work on the Infernal's part to actually put together that kind of organization with that many people fulfilling that many requests and constantly burning motes and WP to do it (a modern E3 infernal in 2.xe has a lot of ways to randomly pull together absurd quantities of willpower over the day) but it's more a thing I think would/should probably require expansion charms turning the whole affair/cult into a ponzi scheme to enable and that's why the realization that my original (before posting it here) delegated training times were comparable to what a DB can train an army within struck me as concerning. I was fully aware that it was not what you were trying to convey even at the time, from the context surrounding it.
The whole 'little reason to agree' thing strikes me as another miscommunication. Like...the reason to agree to "Do you want your dad to recover from his illness?" is that you do. The reason to agree to "Would you like a glass of water" is that you do. Characters only get to realize there's a major danger to resist on a subconscious level and it requires paying the same amount of WP as resisting mental influence when you don't actually need to beat their MDV. Beyond that, outside of things that fundamentally require their cooperation to fulfill - like training someone in something - if they just say they want something / are unhappy with a thing without your prompting, unless fixing that thing through anything but wish-granting magic would require you to get them to consent to some training or treatment, that is agreement, the same as any version of VEE, just without the charm magically cutting out the need to do anything to fix that dissatisfaction other than spend 10m1wp. It doesn't make you a genie or a miracleworker it makes you the person that grants minor requests while accruing incredible power over everyone around you that you can call in at any time, while also allowing you to apply the same principle to more substantial requests when you want to / when it is beneficial to you.
If that's not what the current wording of what I posted on here says, I need to rectify that. Thank you again - this one is actually a major issue/ambiguity/editing fuckup on my part that I really appreciate you spotting for me. I went through like six different versions of the charm and if some requirement for agreement slipped in (writing this reply is kind of as much of my time as I can afford to allocate to this right now so a close reading of what I posted is not in the cards atm; got unexpectedly busy after spending most of the afternoon fucking around earlier) that's an error I need to correct.
If you instead meant that there's little reason to agree to a demand via VEE, I mean, the 'reason to agree' is the sense of incredible doom that will befall them if they don't, which they are aware of. I don't know that a powerful and absolute sense that they will experience incredible consequences if they disobey is 'little reason.' It's definitely not intended as a social influence charm to make people like you or want to agree to things you ask of them, it's intended to strangle your friends, allies, and acquaintances in invisible chains of debt and obligation that they can only break if they're willing to fucking die (there's charm that changes the penalty to basically guarantee death on a combat roll at the worst time) or experience something comparable, which they know (albeit in a vague way) the moment a Demand is given. There's not really supposed to be much of a carrot, there's just "hey, you owe me, and you're intrinsically aware of this fact and the fact that there will be incredibly serious consequences if you do not do whatever I ask you to."
I also don't really know how it compares at all to the DB charms cited. It doesn't really provide any way to find out what people really want - infernals have other charms for that at this point, and they're Homebrew Kimbery stuff - because what people want is completely irrelevant to VEE. You don't grant people what they want, you grant them whatever they said they were unhappy about, and in exchange you can make them do anything short of kill themselves, or just hold that capability over their head (while accruing interest, since there is a charm for that). They're not really competing pieces of charmtech because they do very different things and Infernals already have their superior version of that specific DB Bureaucracy charm.
The one with a formal contract you cannot be UMI'd into with much weaker consequences is comparable, I guess, but in the way I'd expect a DB charm to compare to a solaroid charm that occupies similar territory. It's much easier to trap someone in VEE debts, there are fewer restrictions on how you can do it, what you can compel them to do as a result has far fewer limits, and the consequences of not following through are much greater, without the former really doing anything better or as well as the latter. Except, since it's an infernal charm, it's not contracts or agreements but any statement of dissatisfaction with themselves or the world that can be remedied.
Again, see how it's used in Kerisgame with questions like "do you want to get out of here?" for an idea of what a version of the charm without any actual significant buffs to your capacity to to fulfill people's requests looks like and why it's still a pretty powerful solar charm in and of itself. Or, rather, look at ES' examples from Kerisgame from the discussions I based this on, they come up pretty much immediately from searching the name of the charm in this thread.
The whole 'something trivial' category in the version posted is supposed to include things like 'can you pass me the remote' and 'can I have a glass of water?' or asking someone in a dangerous situation with you 'do you want to get out of this?' I just put relatively little focus on it because, to me, the way to use things like that and how to fulfill them were 100% obvious while the way you'd go about curing someone's sick parent or making them win an election were not. This is another reason I'm glad I posted this here, and I appreciate your perspective just because it's so different from what I assumed would be obvious, which means it clearly is not obvious and major rewrites to not just its capabilites but to convey the intention of the charm are necessary.
I'm kind of okay with a martial artist past the form charm in their style who spent their XP on a charm that can only train martial arts possessing the ability to train someone in martial arts more quickly than a version of VEE can train Literally Anything for the same reason I was initially okay with a solar who purchases four separate charms in Lore and War being universally better at training large groups of people than an infernal with VEE is at training one, particularly as it's in addition to the ability to bind anyone who says almost anything you can actually accomplish for them, as if they'd made an Eclipse Oath agreeing to do anything you want.
Once again, thank you for all your patience and consideration. This has actually been incredibly helpful - I clearly have nerfed the training effect too heavily, not emphasized the main things a person would usually actually do with the charm nearly enough (in my original document there's even a note at the bottom about how that aspect is literally an afterthought because it's just so simple and obvious and clearly that is not the case), and also have just been generally a bit of a dick in this discussion. Glad I didn't go through my revisions in the morning like I intended to. Will hopefully get back to you with something more appropriate before Saturday.
But yes, to be clear, this is not a general purpose replacement of the charm for everyone who recognizes the charm is broken but still want to be able to make Faustian Bargains with Terrible Miracles and play an evil genie, it's a response to very specific criticisms of the charm built around the very specific premises about cecelyne and hypothetical more thematically appropriate and narratively satisfying versions of the charm, which can be found in this thread with the search function pretty easily. It's just one that is supposed to provide a write-up that other people who agree with those sentiments but are still using a 2.x system for their games can actually implement, and one that also accepts the premise that an infernal probably should not have to dedicate all of their time for weeks to improve someone's traits even if they can't wish them better. What needs repairs is communicating this better and ironing out how much time is appropriate for a solaroid charm that trains a single person in Literally Anything, which I've been convinced probably needs to be less than this.
Ah Well, thanks for clarifying that I'm completely wrong. It's kind of hard to search where stuff came from in Exalted 2e in 2025 when it's outside any main book and when the name has been used since (or at least a bunch of 3e people seem to be talking about different effects with the same names) and it turns out relying on LLMs' surprisingly broad knowledge of where shit comes from in Exalted (it can usually provide page numbers for anything in a major book, and at least the correct book for almost anything else) is an extremely fallible approach. This is just a straight fuckup on my part I have no good excuse for and I would like to apologize for it; thank you for your correction, I'm very sorry, both for getting it wrong and mischaracterizing your source and for being so flippant, rude, and generally operating with a wildly misplaced arrogance. Honestly, thanks for your patience in dealing with me up to this point, it's way more than I have any right to expect.
I mean, comparing it to Power-Awarding Prana (when one involves committing motes for the duration and the other is a long-term sorcerous effect) doesn't necessarily seem appropriate, especially because they're not just loaning out their charms but the mortal needs to pay XP they don't get back to learn solar charms, but yes, it's absolutely supposed to be the worst way of training an army because having the capacity to train an army with it at all is more 'a potential unintended side-effect I'm watching out for' than something it's supposed to enable. Training armies of mortals really is not inside any of the Primordials' themes, and training individual ones is only arguably within a few of them.
I'm somewhat okay with it becoming a way to do so with enough work on the Infernal's part to actually put together that kind of organization with that many people fulfilling that many requests and constantly burning motes and WP to do it (a modern E3 infernal in 2.xe has a lot of ways to randomly pull together absurd quantities of willpower over the day) but it's more a thing I think would/should probably require expansion charms turning the whole affair/cult into a ponzi scheme to enable and that's why the realization that my original (before posting it here) delegated training times were comparable to what a DB can train an army within struck me as concerning. I was fully aware that it was not what you were trying to convey even at the time, from the context surrounding it.
That's the exact intended use-case, yes, which allows you to ask any one non-impossible task that takes less than a month to do of anyone. I feel like we're repeatedly miscommunicating at one another about what I (and Aleph/revlid/ES as of several years ago, and a bunch of other people over the years) think Cecelyne is about and what the charm is for. It's definitely not supposed to enable Terrifying And Wondrous Miracles, or Miracles period. I do not know that I could have been be more clear about that one. It enables you to bind anyone who expresses any dissatisfaction you can remedy in inescapable chains of debt; that's the intended purpose, any help in actually achieving that are just gravy I sincerely appreciate you helping me to hammer out.
The whole 'little reason to agree' thing strikes me as another miscommunication. Like...the reason to agree to "Do you want your dad to recover from his illness?" is that you do. The reason to agree to "Would you like a glass of water" is that you do. Characters only get to realize there's a major danger to resist on a subconscious level and it requires paying the same amount of WP as resisting mental influence when you don't actually need to beat their MDV. Beyond that, outside of things that fundamentally require their cooperation to fulfill - like training someone in something - if they just say they want something / are unhappy with a thing without your prompting, unless fixing that thing through anything but wish-granting magic would require you to get them to consent to some training or treatment, that is agreement, the same as any version of VEE, just without the charm magically cutting out the need to do anything to fix that dissatisfaction other than spend 10m1wp. It doesn't make you a genie or a miracleworker it makes you the person that grants minor requests while accruing incredible power over everyone around you that you can call in at any time, while also allowing you to apply the same principle to more substantial requests when you want to / when it is beneficial to you.
If that's not what the current wording of what I posted on here says, I need to rectify that. Thank you again - this one is actually a major issue/ambiguity/editing fuckup on my part that I really appreciate you spotting for me. I went through like six different versions of the charm and if some requirement for agreement slipped in (writing this reply is kind of as much of my time as I can afford to allocate to this right now so a close reading of what I posted is not in the cards atm; got unexpectedly busy after spending most of the afternoon fucking around earlier) that's an error I need to correct.
If you instead meant that there's little reason to agree to a demand via VEE, I mean, the 'reason to agree' is the sense of incredible doom that will befall them if they don't, which they are aware of. I don't know that a powerful and absolute sense that they will experience incredible consequences if they disobey is 'little reason.' It's definitely not intended as a social influence charm to make people like you or want to agree to things you ask of them, it's intended to strangle your friends, allies, and acquaintances in invisible chains of debt and obligation that they can only break if they're willing to fucking die (there's charm that changes the penalty to basically guarantee death on a combat roll at the worst time) or experience something comparable, which they know (albeit in a vague way) the moment a Demand is given. There's not really supposed to be much of a carrot, there's just "hey, you owe me, and you're intrinsically aware of this fact and the fact that there will be incredibly serious consequences if you do not do whatever I ask you to."
I also don't really know how it compares at all to the DB charms cited. It doesn't really provide any way to find out what people really want - infernals have other charms for that at this point, and they're Homebrew Kimbery stuff - because what people want is completely irrelevant to VEE. You don't grant people what they want, you grant them whatever they said they were unhappy about, and in exchange you can make them do anything short of kill themselves, or just hold that capability over their head (while accruing interest, since there is a charm for that). They're not really competing pieces of charmtech because they do very different things and Infernals already have their superior version of that specific DB Bureaucracy charm.
The one with a formal contract you cannot be UMI'd into with much weaker consequences is comparable, I guess, but in the way I'd expect a DB charm to compare to a solaroid charm that occupies similar territory. It's much easier to trap someone in VEE debts, there are fewer restrictions on how you can do it, what you can compel them to do as a result has far fewer limits, and the consequences of not following through are much greater, without the former really doing anything better or as well as the latter. Except, since it's an infernal charm, it's not contracts or agreements but any statement of dissatisfaction with themselves or the world that can be remedied.
Again, see how it's used in Kerisgame with questions like "do you want to get out of here?" for an idea of what a version of the charm without any actual significant buffs to your capacity to to fulfill people's requests looks like and why it's still a pretty powerful solar charm in and of itself. Or, rather, look at ES' examples from Kerisgame from the discussions I based this on, they come up pretty much immediately from searching the name of the charm in this thread.
The whole 'something trivial' category in the version posted is supposed to include things like 'can you pass me the remote' and 'can I have a glass of water?' or asking someone in a dangerous situation with you 'do you want to get out of this?' I just put relatively little focus on it because, to me, the way to use things like that and how to fulfill them were 100% obvious while the way you'd go about curing someone's sick parent or making them win an election were not. This is another reason I'm glad I posted this here, and I appreciate your perspective just because it's so different from what I assumed would be obvious, which means it clearly is not obvious and major rewrites to not just its capabilites but to convey the intention of the charm are necessary.
Fair enough, I clearly misspoke and in a way that mischaracterized you, fairly rudely at that. I apologize for that. On the other hand: part of what I'm saying here is that, Humbling Enlightenment Commentary cannot train things like that; VEE very much can, trivially. Benchmarking a charm that allows you to train Martial Arts quickly against a charm that allows you to train Literally Anything A Human Can Theoretically Improve At in the same amount of time and only talking/thinking about the things the former can do when it also just provides a specific degree of acceleration strikes me as pretty weird and maybe inappropriate.
I'm kind of okay with a martial artist past the form charm in their style who spent their XP on a charm that can only train martial arts possessing the ability to train someone in martial arts more quickly than a version of VEE can train Literally Anything for the same reason I was initially okay with a solar who purchases four separate charms in Lore and War being universally better at training large groups of people than an infernal with VEE is at training one, particularly as it's in addition to the ability to bind anyone who says almost anything you can actually accomplish for them, as if they'd made an Eclipse Oath agreeing to do anything you want.
Once again, thank you for all your patience and consideration. This has actually been incredibly helpful - I clearly have nerfed the training effect too heavily, not emphasized the main things a person would usually actually do with the charm nearly enough (in my original document there's even a note at the bottom about how that aspect is literally an afterthought because it's just so simple and obvious and clearly that is not the case), and also have just been generally a bit of a dick in this discussion. Glad I didn't go through my revisions in the morning like I intended to. Will hopefully get back to you with something more appropriate before Saturday.
But yes, to be clear, this is not a general purpose replacement of the charm for everyone who recognizes the charm is broken but still want to be able to make Faustian Bargains with Terrible Miracles and play an evil genie, it's a response to very specific criticisms of the charm built around the very specific premises about cecelyne and hypothetical more thematically appropriate and narratively satisfying versions of the charm, which can be found in this thread with the search function pretty easily. It's just one that is supposed to provide a write-up that other people who agree with those sentiments but are still using a 2.x system for their games can actually implement, and one that also accepts the premise that an infernal probably should not have to dedicate all of their time for weeks to improve someone's traits even if they can't wish them better. What needs repairs is communicating this better and ironing out how much time is appropriate for a solaroid charm that trains a single person in Literally Anything, which I've been convinced probably needs to be less than this.
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