azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
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General Exalted Thread
- Thread starter Aleph
- Start date
Aleph
Princess of Stabbity
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yup. That's why Exalts have Native Brawl Charms for the Sparkling Unicorn Trachea-Crushing Death Punch that lights up the sky with meteor-light and chokes everyone within four hundred yards by the awesome power of their godly flexing biceps. But making them cross-splat-accessible free-hanging Charm trees means a combination explosion as every Charm in every Style has to be evaluated for balance in combination with every native Charm of every splat that can access it.
Incidentally, attacking people with wind-swords from your musical instruments is Dragonblooded Performance. Because Dragonblooded Abilities are for murderin'.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
The thing that makes Martial Arts charms useful is that it means you don't need to be an Exalt to have some kind of supernatural combat style. A sufficiently talented person could learn charms related to Even Blade Style, or Golden Janissary Style, or whatever.
I haven't compared it to every splat, but I'm relatively confident that the only charms in Undrawn Blade Style at risk of really fucking things up in combination with outside charms are Steel's Flight and Meditation Before the Blow. The former primarily because disarms are powerful, the latter actually in combination with a charm from Golden Exhalation Style (One Eye Follows the Bird increases the maximum bonus from Aim by 3, so it could get up to 12 dice for 6 ticks of Aiming) or Panoptic Fusion Discipline (though only if they actually take an Aim action).
... I need to rewrite the Weapons and Armor section for that. It's a mess and doesn't properly convey what I meant. Also need to fix the wording on a few charms.
I think there are several implicit premises in this that aren't necessarily good. First off, the idea that the only way to have combat charms if you aren't an exalt is Martial arts, which isn't necessarily true. To change this, just give spirit/other similar beings combat charms fitting to their station. Second, that allowing mortals access to Martial arts is a good thing, and currently I'm not really sure that it is. It might be better, in my mind, to allow enlightened mortals the ability to learn and use spirit charms (certainly with some restrictions on access), assuming you wanted mortals to be able to have permanent access to supernatural abilities. Just make enlightenment a bit different, so that any possible enlightenment method imposes restrictions on the way to learn spirit charms similar to how a god's nature does. This would work especially well if you wanted to do more with the mortal turning into spirits that is one possible way to stop being a mortal. Not sure I like that approach myself.
Walker of the Yellow Path
Ho There!
- Location
- The Land of Memes
So a while back, I tracked done every one of Shyft's Exalted Essays that I could find, both here and on SB. Without further ado, here are the links:
Solars
Solar Melee and Martial Arts
Solar Archery and Thrown
Solar War
The Solar Excellency
Solars and Social Combat
Solar Integrity
Solar Performance and Presence
Solar Resistance and Survival
Twilight's and Craft
Solar Investigation and Lore
Solar Medicine
Solar Occult
The Night Caste, Movement, and Solar Athletics
The Tick System, Vision, and Solar Awareness
[URL=http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/general-exalted-thread.44/page-359#post-3313515]Dodge, Solar Dodge, Counterattacks, and Creation-Slaying Oblivion Kick
Solar Larceny or - Moral Relativism and the Chosen Of the Sun!
Solar Stealth
Eclipses, Wide Angle, Close Up and Solar Bureaucracy
Linguistics the Ability
Essence
Movement in the Storyteller System
Homebrew Bureacracy System
I'm planning on updating this as time goes on, so if I missed any, please tell me and link me to it.[/URL]
Solars
Solar Melee and Martial Arts
Solar Archery and Thrown
Solar War
The Solar Excellency
Solars and Social Combat
Solar Integrity
Solar Performance and Presence
Solar Resistance and Survival
Twilight's and Craft
Solar Investigation and Lore
Solar Medicine
Solar Occult
The Night Caste, Movement, and Solar Athletics
The Tick System, Vision, and Solar Awareness
[URL=http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/general-exalted-thread.44/page-359#post-3313515]Dodge, Solar Dodge, Counterattacks, and Creation-Slaying Oblivion Kick
Solar Larceny or - Moral Relativism and the Chosen Of the Sun!
Solar Stealth
Eclipses, Wide Angle, Close Up and Solar Bureaucracy
Linguistics the Ability
Essence
Movement in the Storyteller System
Homebrew Bureacracy System
I'm planning on updating this as time goes on, so if I missed any, please tell me and link me to it.[/URL]
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Carrnage
Human
- Location
- New Zealand
i wonder if Gem has any colours standing out...
samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
Been idly working on some homebrew. Linguistics is kind of underplayed in canon, but I've got reason to believe that knowing multiple languages is going to be rather important for the game I'm in. (And by RAW, you can only ever learn six major languages before essence 6)
Ten Hundred Insightful Words Meditation (2.5E)
Cost:-(1m) Mins: Linguistics 4? E3? Type: Permanent
Keywords: none
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisites: Excellent Emissary's Tongue
The Chosen of the Sun may express the most complicated of ideas using the most basic of concepts. When the Solar achieves the required successes for Excellent Emissary's Tongue, they may reflexively commit one mote to temporarily learn that language. As long as the mote is committed, the Exalt is considered to know that language for the purposes of all language dependent effects, including making and defending against social attacks.
Yes, this name of this charm was inspired by this comic and this book
Ten Hundred Insightful Words Meditation (2.5E)
Cost:-(1m) Mins: Linguistics 4? E3? Type: Permanent
Keywords: none
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisites: Excellent Emissary's Tongue
The Chosen of the Sun may express the most complicated of ideas using the most basic of concepts. When the Solar achieves the required successes for Excellent Emissary's Tongue, they may reflexively commit one mote to temporarily learn that language. As long as the mote is committed, the Exalt is considered to know that language for the purposes of all language dependent effects, including making and defending against social attacks.
Yes, this name of this charm was inspired by this comic and this book
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Purple is in right about now...
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
Keep in mind "six major languages" means you know almost every language spoken.
There are:
Realm (ie Center), Air/Fire/Water/Wood (ie Directional), Old Realm (ie Gods/Elementals/Demons), Riverspeak (ie Common), Earth/Rock (ie Under Creation), Low Realm (Center for peasants) and Tribal Tongues (ie, anything not mentioned above).
Having Linguistics 5 in Exalted is the equivalent of speaking every language spoke in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and South America. (But not say, aboriginal Australian).
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So, an improved, Solar version of Language-Learning Ritual?
Let's see, one mote instead of five, indefinite instead of one week, and instant instead of taking an hour. Yeah, that sounds about right for upgrading a Dragonblooded Charm to a Solar version.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
It also requires a roll with a difficulty of 5-10 in the examples instead of an hour of meditation, is Linguistics 4 Essence 3 instead of Linguistics 2 Essence 1, and requires 4 previous charm purchases instead of 0.
Given that we're dealing with the equivalent of Old English for Riverspeak and a language from outside Creation entirely, I think it's still something useful for us.
Ah. I was going off memory, and didn't even look at the requirements, just the effect. You'll probably want to make it easier to get and use, then. Possibly even to the extent of making it a straight upgrade of LLR, with the full no roll, A2 E3 no charms setup.
samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
You left out Guild Cant, which is supposedly a major trade language. Low, High, and Old Realm, four directional tongues, Riverspeak, High Holy Speech, and Under. That's eleven languages, and Tribals are four per dot since the major languages are supposedly language families.
Gem is a Maidensdamned rainbow. There's red and yellow and green and blue and purple and black and a slightly different shade of green, and white, and gold and bronze all over the place.
I'm going to go read that charm, when I get to a spot where I have my books.
FaeGlade Plural
Semper Legens
- Location
- Land of Bureaucracy
- Pronouns
- Plural/They
In 3E, languages are turned into 1-dot merits and are no longer tied to Linguistics in any way (other than writing). You can learn four local languages instead of one of the big ones.
Which finally solves the silliness that learning your fifth language was much harder than learning your third, but also makes Language-learning charms somewhat redundant.
Strange Tongue Understanding is a Linguistics 3 Essence 1 reflexive 1 mote charm. You need to activate it for every complex sentence, or for every three or four simple sentences.
For the 8 XP it costs to learn this charm, you could learn three more directional languages or 12 local languages (at 9 XP), so often that'll be simpler given the size of Creation.
Fortunately, this charm can also be used to lower somebodies Guile by 1 by using extremely elaborate expressions, hiding your true intent in a statement. So it stays relevant even if you speak every language.
Mingled Tongue Technique (Linguistics 5 Essence 1) actually does more than let you speak or understand a language - for one scene, you can speak is a language that is understood by speakers of multiple languages at once. You reflexively spend 4m, 1wp and any two languages you know turn into a third language which is understood perfectly by everyone who speaks at least one of the base languages. You can add more languages for 3 motes each.
So yes, you can be the perfect interpreter and translator at Essence 1.
Single Voice Kata seems pretty pointless in the light of that. For 1 scene, 5m 1wp, you speak a language that is intuitively understood by everyone, but they can't answer you in the same language. Great if you ever run into anyone who does not speak any language you are familiar with, but that is pretty unlikely and it only allows one-way communication.
Excellent Emissary's Tongue is the "instant language learning" charm and needs Essence 3. As long as you keep 6 motes committed, you speak and understand one language. But you take a -3 penalty to social influence unless you have a week of practice. On the other hand, you learn the language for free after a season of having this charm committed.
@samdamandias , this is pretty much your Charm except it needs Linguistics 5 and 6 committed motes instead of just one. But it also comes with eventually learning the language
Which finally solves the silliness that learning your fifth language was much harder than learning your third, but also makes Language-learning charms somewhat redundant.
Strange Tongue Understanding is a Linguistics 3 Essence 1 reflexive 1 mote charm. You need to activate it for every complex sentence, or for every three or four simple sentences.
For the 8 XP it costs to learn this charm, you could learn three more directional languages or 12 local languages (at 9 XP), so often that'll be simpler given the size of Creation.
Fortunately, this charm can also be used to lower somebodies Guile by 1 by using extremely elaborate expressions, hiding your true intent in a statement. So it stays relevant even if you speak every language.
Mingled Tongue Technique (Linguistics 5 Essence 1) actually does more than let you speak or understand a language - for one scene, you can speak is a language that is understood by speakers of multiple languages at once. You reflexively spend 4m, 1wp and any two languages you know turn into a third language which is understood perfectly by everyone who speaks at least one of the base languages. You can add more languages for 3 motes each.
So yes, you can be the perfect interpreter and translator at Essence 1.
Single Voice Kata seems pretty pointless in the light of that. For 1 scene, 5m 1wp, you speak a language that is intuitively understood by everyone, but they can't answer you in the same language. Great if you ever run into anyone who does not speak any language you are familiar with, but that is pretty unlikely and it only allows one-way communication.
Excellent Emissary's Tongue is the "instant language learning" charm and needs Essence 3. As long as you keep 6 motes committed, you speak and understand one language. But you take a -3 penalty to social influence unless you have a week of practice. On the other hand, you learn the language for free after a season of having this charm committed.
@samdamandias , this is pretty much your Charm except it needs Linguistics 5 and 6 committed motes instead of just one. But it also comes with eventually learning the language
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You'll note he actually has the really bad Charm with that same name from 2e as a pre-req for his.
Salty
Shadow Cabal Assumptor Supreme
- Location
- Sun, Moon, Talia
- Pronouns
- I/Me
Thing about this is, if you speak a language everybody understands but nobody can answer you in, you basically get to win Social Combat for free. Want to instill an emotion? Nope, sorry, can't understand you unless you take that 3 dice penalty to attempt to express yourself through body language.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
Keep in mind that, in this context "supernatural" only means "involves charms". It doesn't mean a mortal is going to be as good as an Exalt (or even a spirit); their mote pool maxes out at either 20 or 30 motes, 70% (14m or 21m) of which requires spending a wp to access for the scene (leaving 6m or 9m always available).
So, combat charms. For things that go beyond "hit him with some magic", Spirit charms don't provide much. In fact, spirit charms in general don't have much in the way of templates for combat charms, and require significantly more work to differentiate them than, say, giving one Orgiastic Fugitive Style and one First Pulse Style; those two mortals will have significantly different mechanical effects, making the difference between them more noticeable than just being Mook 1 and Mook 2. Hell, there's a noticeable difference between to people using clubs when one uses Ill Lily Style and the other uses Jade Mountain Style.
Why would it not be a good thing to allow mortals access to Martial Arts? Not all, certainly, but I don't see why a mechanical lever saying "this is a thing you do in this style" is a bad thing to give them. Look at First Pulse Style; it starts off with a charm saying "you're always ready for violence", followed by a charm that says "you usually start the violence", then charms that say "you sacrifice your defense to act faster", "surprise attacks against you are met with violence", "your strikes slow your opponent", and "you act quickly but open up your defense".
This isn't something that's properly captured with Spirit charms. It's not something that can be easily captured in the Style system, either.
Enlightenment is definitely something that needs some work. I agree with that. But one of the basic parts of wuxia (one of the inspirations for Exalted) is that - compared to a non-practitioner - kung fu actually does give you superpowers, which Aleph was saying it doesn't.
I don't need words when I have the power of interpretive dance!
At last my years of training have paid off! Woe to the fools who doubted the power of interpretive dance, for my time has come!
To be fair, learning ways to use swords to disable or hurt people also doesn't have any connection to superpowers.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
Nor does being persuasive, sailing a ship, riding a mount, indulging in skulduggery, shooting a bow, commanding an army, knowing things, being athletic, etc.
But nobody complains about those giving you super-powers, because... they only give Exalts superpowers?
It bugs me that people forget that Creation is a place where being exceptionally good at those things does actually give you superpowers.
EDIT: For example, someone with Strength 2 and Athletics 2 can jump 4 yards vertically. That's 12 feet, or 144 inches. The current record is somewhere around 50 inches. The same Creation human can jump 8 yards horizontally, which is 24 feet. This is about the world record for a long jump (currently 29 ft, or just shy of 10 yards).
The book suggests cutting these values in half for a "gritty" game. This gives us a vertical jump of 6 feet (72 inches) and long jump of 12 feet. This is still solidly superhuman, given that this is a somewhat athletic person with average strength.
If we make this person a trained athlete that lacks exceptional athletic talent but is rather strong (Strength 3, Athletics 2, Kangaroo Style +2), they have a vertical jump of 7 yards (21 feet) and long jump of 14 yards (42 feet), thoroughly shattering both records.
If we make it "gritty", they can jump 3.5 yards (10.5 feet) up and 7 yards (21 feet) horizontally.
Someone who is exceptionally talented (Strength 3, Athletics 3, Kangaroo Style +3) can jump 9 yards (27 feet) vertically and 18 yards (54 feet) horizontally. "Gritty" rules drop that to 4.5 yards (13.5 feet) and 9 yards (27 feet).
This is all following the rules for the Style system, by the way; without it, you could have a guy who can jump 3 stories straight up without a specialty.
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Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
Actually what makes Martial Arts useful is that they are prepackaged combat styles which require little to no though for players and STs to invest in.
Instead of having to buy a cloud of Charms from three to five different abilities, you invest in a single Charm tree with a predefined path that, when complete, gives you a total combat style. Or that's the idea. Lots of Martial Arts Charms did not, in fact, fit this ideal because those sucked and missed the point.
Martial Arts was supposed to be worse compared to straight ability because it could do all sorts of things the other abilities did but worse. You got second rate dodge and parry and soak and attack Charms because if you wanted first rate Charms you invested in Melee and Dodge and Resistance.
And the fact that the trees were self-contained was a benefit, because it reduced the players need to think too hard about what they were picking up next. You got, what, one to three choices in a style at any one time and those rapidly closed off. So a character who invested twelve Charms into a single Martial Art should have a complete combat suite they can fall back on without having to pour over dozens of Melee and Brawl and Archery and Thrown and Dodge and Resistance and Integrity Charms.
And for STs they are a blessing, because it means you can say "Snake Stylist" or "Fire Dragon" and you were done designing an opponent. Thus, because each martial art had its own theme and method of fighting, you could build "Generic Dragonblooded Monk" and drop one of five styles on him and suddenly you had five unique opponents at your fingertips for one fifth the work. And multiple that by an order of magnitude if you allowed the "Monk" to have heretical styles of Terrestrial Styles.
Well, yes, that was my point exactly. Aleph was saying that the Style system she and ES are using is more like real-life martial arts, because in real life martial arts doesn't give you superpowers. And I was like "well duh, neither does anything else, including any of the other stuff that does give exalts superpowers".
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Of course it doesn't. But you don't get superpowers in exalted because you learned ways to hurt people. You get superpowers because you have an exaltation, and those powers are expressed in ways to hurt people.
Not sure why you felt the need to reiterate that regarding strength or specifying charms.
As for the spirit charms thing, yes, currently the current Spirit charm system is lacking. That doesn't mean that a poor system for spirit charms is an inherent part of the system. And if you're going to restrict people to the powers that exist in the splat, it would be logical to assume that anything meant to fight is going to have their own combat charms.
The issue about martial arts is that the divide between martial arts and the other combat abilities is extremely artificial. Especially the way martial arts are set up: a student of a martial arts school, until they get enlightened, aren't any different from other fighters, and they might not even be able to use the specific weapons of their school with martial arts if they don't get the form charm. They also somewhat complicate things for mortals, because it makes powerful mortals very pigeonholed.
Wuxai is an inspiration for Exalted. But it is only an inspiration, not the inspiration. And while there are old masters in such places, generally they either don't seem too supernatural(remember that even mundane skill usage is very not real-world standard in exalted) or they don't actually teach their supernatural methods to many others. Thus, styles, which are largely mundane. In this view, the old masters who have supernatural power would be exalted.