General Exalted Thread

[VagueZ]

So how do people feel about Supernals changing between incarnations?

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I am totally on board with it.

It emphasizes the person over the impersonal Exaltation. It's not that this Exaltation grants (or only seeks out) people with the ability to become peerless archers. It is a Solar (or variant) Exaltation. These are the people who can reach the superhuman peak of their skills.

Why shouldn't someone discover that their previous incarnation was a great occultist, but they're the best linguist that their Direction has ever seen? Why shouldn't an Exaltation that favors great warriors Exalt a refined rapier duelist who has to engage with the fact that their last incarnation was a bare-knuckle brawler who hated using weapons that weren't their own body?

All of those sound like great hooks, and they all emphasize that the person who became Exalted had their own unique spark of greatness that can be more easily shone with the power of the Unconquered Sun behind them.

 

[Kingfisher]

So how do people feel about Supernals changing between incarnations?

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I just kind of consider that a default assumption; different people will necessarily tap into different capabilities of a shard.

Gotta be honest about my own biases, tho: my personal preference is for there to be zero connection between an exalt and the prior holder of their exaltation. I'm fine with the idea that a current "incarnation" might tap into a previous Solar's memories as a result of impressions upon an unmaintained shard, but I don't like the idea that they would be in any ways the same person. (I am fine with people in setting believing this, however.) I just feel like that cheapens the heroism a little bit.

 

[HalfTangible]

*shrug* I can see it and if that's your buzz go for it but I respectfully disagree. The supernal is something you get from the Exaltation; it's in no small part thanks to the memories of your previous self that you have the skill you do. You are a legendary swordsman or sailor or doctor reborn into a new age. Yeah, you're in the driver's seat now, but you're still that legendary hero reincarnated; it's one of the things Solaroids/Celestial exalted have that stands out from the rest. The echo of who they were should be there.

It doesn't mean you don't have a spark of greatness of your own. Your build is still yours. Your favored abilities are yours. Your dots are unique to you. Etc.

With the transistion from Solars to Abyssals I feel there's more wiggle room (in no small part because caste abilities change between the two) which put me on the fence about it here. But that might be because I went from Medicine to Awareness specifically.

(Side note, the humble and somewhat oblivious Solar who was ultimately so focused on her work she lost touch with everyone she cared about other than her Mate and a Sid that probably liked her getting flipped on its head into a proud, arrogant royal who can see anything and practices a twisted form of noblesse oblige? That part I love. Inverting the sort of person to use the shard as much as the powers themselves.)

 

[mothematics]

Essence also has some wonderful summaries of Exalted locations, with an eye towards gesturing at some of the real-world inspirations in ways that might help you ground them in something you already know.

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I do believe most(?) of those locations are also written up in full in 3e proper, at least for the Essence core book.

 

[Blaque]

So how do people feel about Supernals changing between incarnations?

It's something I've been mulling over for a while. The GM of my current Abyssals game (which i am thoroughly enjoying, to be clear) discussed some stuff about my past Solar incarnation, and one of the details that came up was that while my Abyssal is ridiculously arrogant and proud, his previous incarnation was a more humble doctor from the south. My character (the Prince) took Awareness as his Apocalyptic, while his previous incarnation had the Medicine supernal.

And it got me thinking, because my assumption has been that Caste and Supernal stay the same between incarnations, but your specific build can change, and especially your favored abilities.

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I'm perfectly fine with it. I personally like that the Exaltation, while coming with memories, isn't htat person. You are part of a legacy of individuals who have bore that Exaltation, and you kind of add your name and deeds to its chronicle, so to speak. I have a Dawn who's been kind o fthat since her 1e version as focusing on different Abilities in the two prior Exaltations I have in her backstory. This is just an extra feature to do that with in 3e for me. The first one was a frontline war leader with shield and protected her troops (Resistance), the second is a late First Age general known for full commitment to the utilization of artifacts in doing war (War) to protect her nation, and the modern one is a sellsword bodyguard who has made a career defending her charges to make up for failing to protect her homeland (Melee). They ahve a dfense them to them, sure, but how they went at that is different and I think forcing htem to all be say, Melee Supernal, wouldn't do a lot to that. Same like I have no qualms having their animas being different, since to me that is a manifestation of the person you are now, not you being subsumed into a different identity.

Second point: Solar charms needs more flavor and I was thinking of juicy things to do with the virtues as secondary effects. I don't think I have the free time or inclination to rewrite the full charmset, but I was considering things like letting you channel intimacies that fit a virtue for extra dice (I think 2e had something along those lines?) and giving the castes themes based around them a bit.

Iunno. 3e's biggest problems are baked into the core but even if it were a perfect system the Solar charmset needs some love too.

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There's honestly a lot of stuff in the Essence PG I think would be a good baseline for poking at the Solar Charms a bit more.

 

[Sanctaphrax]

There are some Solar Charmset rewrites kicking around, one of them by me. I'd say they generally improve upon canon.

But I've never felt any desire to bring Virtues back, and it kinda surprises me every time I'm reminded that they exist in Essence.

So how do people feel about Supernals changing between incarnations?

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It never occurred to me that anyone might expect them to stay the same.

 

[ichypa]

And some things start at Essence 3.

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Yeah, I figured. Alas.

 

[Critian Caceorte]

So how do people feel about Supernals changing between incarnations?

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I kind of have a middle of the road approach: I also view Supernals as drawing on past life expertise to pull powerful techniques off, but I'm perfectly fine with it changing between incarnations, so long as there HAS been a past incarnation for that Supernal Ability to draw knowledge from. So if you have Supernal Melee, and your past life has Supernal Awareness, that's totally fine as long as ONE of your previous Incarnations was well known for their melee capabilities.

 

[Bel]

I kind of have a middle of the road approach: I also view Supernals as drawing on past life expertise to pull powerful techniques off, but I'm perfectly fine with it changing between incarnations, so long as there HAS been a past incarnation for that Supernal Ability to draw knowledge from. So if you have Supernal Melee, and your past life has Supernal Awareness, that's totally fine as long as ONE of your previous Incarnations was well known for their melee capabilities.

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Yeah, but if your Solar Supernal ability is drawing from past memories, the question then becomes...what of the first generation Solar's for the Divine Rebellion, who had no previous incarnations? Did they just not have Supernal abilities and people were shocked when a second generation Solar (after some died in the fighting) pulled out the abilities of the previous incarnation? Did the 'skill' needed for Supernal come from the Great Maker, Gaia, The Unconquered Sun or somebody else?

...which yes, it being a bit pedentic...

Perosnally, I just assumed Supernal talents changed incarnation from incarnation, rather than 'there is always 12 Solar Shards (or Abyssals or Infernals) who are Supernal in this ability'

 

[OctarineShrike]

Assuming a Solar was exalted for an incident involving one of their skills in their caste's favored list, and that their supernal skill is the skill they're strongest in of their caste's skills, and probably their skills in general... you could always just say it's hyperaccelerated learning by exalted standards in that specific field and that even Solar Exaltations can only handle accelerating a persons learning that ridiculously in one skill and it chooses the persons strongest skill to do it for at the moment of exaltation.

 

[samdamandias]

That's the kind of killteam you muster for Deathlords.

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So about that...

We went back to Thorns, and once again made the Mask of Winters have an incredibly bad day. (With some assistance from the Silver Pact, Ma-Ha-Suchi is going to be so confused when he gets back to the Nameless Lair)

This time, Mask of Winters didn't come close to true final death, he just got cast far across creation and had his power base completely stripped away.

Also there's a small Malfeas cult because our Infernal was being a Distraction Carnifex while I and the Lunar ran around gumming up the works, Prince of Glory through trying to assassinate more necromancers and I through using some artifacts and a couple spells to portray myself as a much scarier necromancer than the Mask and intimidating half the ghosts into siding with me.

Ruination of Sanctity didn't even try to make the cult.

He just got people cheering by showing up and blowing up undead while green and glowing and screaming "BLOOD AND SOULS FOR MY LORD MALFEAS!" for a few days in a row (This is especially funny as Ruin has no love lost for the Brass City)

E5 Getimians are terrifying
I used Sketch the Landscape to make it so there are no Shadowlands in Thorns.
Just took a brush and a map and did magic photoshop and POOF! no shadowlands.

Basically any time I show up to Thorns the Mask of Winters has a Really Bad Day.
The first time: He gets embarrassed as a skilled necromancer flips him the bird and runs. Not too bad, but certainly annoying.
The second time: Mask comes thiiiiiiiis close to true final death
The third time: The Mask has never been in control of Thorns.

Incidentally, our next stop is Yu-Shan because me doing that to Thorns ought to have set off roughly every alarm system on the Loom. Yet nobody showed up. (This may be related to a probable double-digit count of dead Sidereals after Whitewall)

Swtiching gears a bit, but how's ExEss? I feel like I hear a lot about certain charm sets being bad (Gets mostly) but is the base system good? I remember really liking the Hard Bargain and Venture Systems but not being blow away by much else

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I've been playing a Getimian for a couple of years now. And yes, some of their charms are bad, but it's also just as much there was no clear vision of what Getimians should be like. Shadow intimacies are a really neat idea... that doesn't go anywhere.

Some of the E5 stuff previewed in XSPG? Yeah, it's Sidereals 1e levels of "Nobody gave thought to Adversarial use". There is, quite literally, no counterplay to ZA WARUDO Complete Focus short of alpha-striking a Getimian so hard they do not ever get a turn.

Controlling the direction of gravity out to extreme range? Yeah, there's ways to deal with that. Maybe not ways that everyone has, but it's something that can be reacted to.
Alternate methods to fuel casting spells? Sure, Shaper of Secret Forces lets you get off the spell a bit faster, but I've never managed more than three spells in a combat scene anyway.
Glitching the Loom of Fate to noclip through walls? It's much less annoying than Avoidance Kata.

Just... fuckin' completely removing a mountain? A city? Adding a whole-ass riverine system? You can't stop it, there's almost no way to fail the Craft roll. (Devious Cartographer is much simpler, it just does a social attack on anyone who sees the map to think the map is accurate. Sketch the Landscape makes it so the edited map is actually accurate.)