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General Exalted Thread

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Updated the Lunar Charms, taking some feedback from off-thread into account. Copied them into the Google doc, too.

Wish I could mention this in the Onyx Path forum thread, but I'm still banned there.

Protean Creator Discipline
Cost: -; Mins: Intelligence 1, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: None

A swift-learning artisan, the Lunar effortlessly draws connections between disparate disciplines. Upon purchasing this Charm, the Lunar gains two additional Craft specialties for each Craft specialty she already has. Further specialties may be purchased for 1xp, and take one third of the normal time to train.

If the Lunar knows Memory-Drinking Meditation, whenever she acquires the shape of a character with one or more Craft specialties, she immediately learns one of them at no cost. She may learn specialties she already knows this way; when she does so, she's refunded any xp she had invested in that specialty. If the Lunar also knows the charm Demon Drinking Fang, she gains the above benefit whenever she kills a spirit with one or more Craft specialties. If a Lunar with Memory-Drinking Meditation and this Charm uses Second Shadow Forgery to imitate someone who's shape she's taken, the imitation is perfect and can only be discovered through similarly absolute magic.

Wonder-Weaver Art
Cost: 6m; Mins: Intelligence 2, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Mute
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: None

This Charm supplements a Craft roll that has already been enhanced with a full excellency, granting it double 9s.

An Intelligence 3, Essence 2 repurchase lets the Lunar pay a 1wp surcharge to double 8s instead.

A second repurchase at Intelligence 5, Essence 3 lets the Lunar pay a 2wp surcharge to double 7s instead.

Pattern-Realizing Genius
Cost: 6m; Mins: Intelligence 3, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Mute
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: None

This charm supplement an attempt to build or repair something nonmagical, reducing the time required by two increments on the following chart:

Decades <> Years <> Months <> Weeks <> Days <> Hours <> Minutes <> Seconds

Beast-Slayer's Art
Cost: -; Mins: Intelligence 3, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: None

The Lunar uses the remains of animals, monsters, and bestial spirits that she participated in slaying more effectively when crafting. On mundane projects, such materials never incur a penalty for quality or applicability; the Lunar may make weapons from bone that match any steel blade. On Artifacts, such materials provide one roll more than they normally would.

Shaping Hand Technique / Tool-Emulating Transformation / Matchless Improvisation
Cost: 4m; Mins: Intelligence 4, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Mute
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: None

Perhaps the Lunar sculpts the world like clay, making tools unnecessary. Perhaps she transforms her own fingers into whichever tools she needs. Perhaps she simply makes incredibly good use out of whatever she has. In any case, this Charm removes all penalties for missing or substandard tools from any roll with any Attribute. Truly impossible rolls remain impossible; the Lunar cannot play the flute without a flute. But she can make a crude wooden tube sound like a finely-made instrument, carve stone without a chisel, pick locks without lock-picks, row a boat without paddles, perform surgery without medical instruments, and otherwise make do.

If this Charm is used on an Artifact creation roll, it provides the equivalent of a master's workshop. Although this Charm has multiple names to reflect the multiple ways Lunars do without tools, it is only one Charm.

Skin-Shifting Raiment
Cost: 3m, 1+wp, 1lhl; Mins: Intelligence 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Beast-Slayer's Art, Sharing Luna's Gifts

The Lunar rubs some of her own blood into a freshly-made worn object that she created using the remains of an animal, monster, or bestial spirit that she participated in slaying. She may imbue the object with up to five dots of mutations associated with the nature of the beast used to make it, at the cost of 1wp per dot. The object becomes magical, although not a true artifact; a character wearing it may spend 1wp to have it transform and grant them the imbued mutations for the rest of the scene. A character who received the object via Shining Moon-Child Mark need not spend willpower to activate it.

Inchoate Wonders Realized
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Intelligence 5, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: One story
Prerequisites: Wonder-Weaver Art

The Lunar makes a few quick modifications to an Artifact that she's at least one third of the way through building or repairing. It functions as though finished for the duration of this Charm. If the Lunar attunes it herself, it costs her 5m less to do so.

This Charm may only be used once per story. It does not interfere with attempts to finish building or repairing the Artifact in question. It's not a problem if the ST, or the player, decides to revise the mechanics of the Artifact in between the use of this Charm and its actual completion.

Quenched in Legend
Cost: -; Mins: Intelligence 5, Essence 2
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Inchoate Wonders Realized

While using Inchoate Wonders Realized, the Lunar adds an additional roll to the terminus of the artifact for each of the following that occurs:

• The artifact's wielder uses it to uphold a Major or Defining Intimacy, achieve a major character or story goal, or complete a legendary social goal.
• A character forms a Major or Defining Tie towards the artifact.
• The artifact's wielder is awarded a three-point stunt on an action using it.

If one of those events happens multiple times, only the first occurrence provides an additional roll.

Manifest Miracle Forging
Cost: -; Mins: Intelligence 5, Essence 3
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Pattern-Realizing Genius

This Charm reduces the interval of Artifact-crafting rolls made by the Lunar. Two-dot Artifacts are simply completed twice as fast; Manses and greater Artifacts take as much time as an Artifact rated one dot lower normally would.

Inexplicable Lunar Wonders
Cost: 0m; Mins: Intelligence 5, Essence 3
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: None
Duration: One project
Prerequisites: Manifest Miracle Forging

The Lunar begins to create an Artifact or Manse without defining exactly what she's trying to make. She must decide upon the level of the project and any factors that affect its terminus. Everything else about the project may be left a mystery to other characters, the players at the table, and perhaps even the Lunar herself. Once the project is complete, the Lunar reveals - or perhaps decides, or discovers - what she had been working on the whole time.

This Charm may only be used once per story.

Lunar Blade Reconfiguration
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Intelligence 5, Essence 3
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Wonder-Weaver Art x2

The Lunar transforms a non-legendary Artifact that she owns into raw materials for another Artifact of the same rating. The old artifact is worth five rolls as material. As long as the new artifact is thematically similar to the old one, this Charm also reduces the difficulty of each crafting roll to 0 and allows the Lunar to create it as quickly as a two-dot Artifact regardless of its rating. If the transformation is ultimately fairly minor, like turning a grimcleaver into a daiklave, the Lunar also divides the overall goal number by two.

This Charm may seem like, and to some extent is, a clever way of disposing of a troublesome indestructible Artifact. But using it that way can be hazardous. Curses, uncooperative intelligences, and other such things have an unfortunate tendency to resurface.

The characteristics of a half-transformed Artifact are up to the ST. In general, moonsilver Artifacts tend to remain useful while being transformed, while other Artifacts often behave as though broken. Undoing a transformation, whether partial or complete, uses the same rules as repairing a broken Artifact.

God-Skinning Hunter Art
Cost: -; Mins: Intelligence 5, Essence 4
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Beast-Slayer's Art, Manifest Miracle Forging

When the Lunar uses Beast-Slayer's Art to incorporate the remains of a supernatural being into an Artifact, that being's Eclipse Charms are added to the list of Evocations that can be purchased for that Artifact. Once per story, when using the remains of a Second Circle Demon or another being of truly enormous power, the Lunar may begin a project with a number of automatic successes equal to twice that creature's Essence rating.

Unbound Demiurge's Dream
Cost: 10m, 3+wp; Mins: Intelligence 5, Essence 5
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Manifest Miracle Forging, Wonder-Weaving Art x3

The Lunar refuses to accept the failure of a supernatural crafting project, rejecting the reality of an intransigent world through sheer stubbornness. This enormous exercise of will drains her strength and renders her temporarily vulnerable to attack, but her once-failed project springs back to life. A Craft roll supplemented with this Charm may be applied a project with no remaining Terminus. The first use of this Charm on given project costs 3wp, the second costs 5wp, the third costs 7wp, and so on.

Lunar Charm Notes

Didn't have to do too much this time, since the canon Charms are pretty workable and Indivisible did a pretty solid job porting them over to the rewrite. That said, the number of extra rolls possible in the Indivisible version struck me as a little much. So I changed the effect of God-Skinning Hunter Art. And I cut Many-Phase Insights; it was fine, but I didn't see any pressing need for it to be included. Temporary Artifact Technique, one of my weirder ideas, was left out for the same reason.

I also added two new Charms, Lunar Blade Reconfiguration and Shaping Hand Technique. The former because reforging existing Artifacts is very moonsilver-y and by extension very Lunar. The latter because I think Lunars should be at least as good as, if not better than, Solars when it comes to operating without the right gear.

Apart from that, the changes are mostly rewordings and small functionality tweaks. Most of the functional changes are fairly minor and were made with flavour in mind.
 
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Really just very glad to have 3e Exalted. All the dumb shit I hated from 2e is gone. No more Desus, no more Lilun, no more Lunar bestiality, no more of that weird shit where everyone and their brother has First Age tech despite its alleged rarity. Shit's great.
 
Artifacts are genuinely unique and important weapons of legend, Magitech is relegated to a minority role in the background, Solars are allowed to be awesome because they're awesome rather than being the baseline everyone else gets kneecapped to keep on top, everyone else is allowed to be awesome in their own right, Lunars have an identity all of their own...

I only came into Exalted with 3e, but the sensation of 2e being a Dark Age is palpable.

And. Above all else?

I could never go back to an edition that didn't have Single Point. :o
 
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I don't think 2E was all bad, but honestly, I eventually realized that the things I liked most from it were the stuff that it had carried over from 1E, and also I think 2E's Paranoia Combat and Ticks were the worst and their death was better for everyone.

Really it's just nice to have a combat system where I don't have to deliberately run antagonists as morons that barely use perfect defenses in order for it to function.
 
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I would like to point out 2e had good stuff. I think Malfeas's and Autochthonia's expansions were interesting since they actually got into new places rather than just over-expanding upon things from Scavenger Sons like the other compass books tended to do. Shards of the Exalted Dream was a great book that I hope the devs release a new one some day, and Masters of Jade was pretty interesting. Also I do regret that Thaumaturgy did get nerfed a bit in the attempt to make magic rarer since I feel that it's a fine enough buffer between "no magic" and "everyone has sorcery and enlightened essence". It's neat for some smiths to have one weird trick for making steel not rust for a few years and so on. But generally I feel like the uncoordinated nature of 2e just let a ton of crud get into the game line that did it a major disservice and garnered a really bad reputation among a lot of role-players, both in terms of the mechanics being all over the place (to the point that some splats were just flat out broken, like 2e Sids) and in terms of frankly objectionable stuff getting in. Hell, I've read some particularly shitty takes from people who miss all the rape and eugenics that some of the shittier 2e authors brought to the table, and while they're definitely a minority in the fandom, it sucks that people like that got attracted to the franchise due to the low standards of the people managing Exalted at that time. I feel like 3e's release pace is glacial, even in an age of most RPGs slowing down and scaling down production, but fuck it, the new devs are good enough at what they do that I'm always eager to see more.
 
It's definitely an improvement overall. I think the generally higher quality of the writing as writing makes it hard to assess what's actually an improvement conceptually, though.

For example, I don't think Desus was a bad idea. I liked the over-the-top gonzo stuff at the higher levels of 2e. And I go back and forth on the 3e Artifact paradigm. But it's a plain fact that both the First Age and Artifacts were written very badly in 2e. And that kinda taints the underlying ideas by association.

If 2e and 3e switched foundations somehow, so that 3e was the gonzo one with all the magic machinery, we might have more or less the opposite opinions on the best underlying concepts for Exalted.
 
Sanctaphrax said:
It's definitely an improvement overall. I think the generally higher quality of the writing as writing makes it hard to assess what's actually an improvement conceptually, though.

For example, I don't think Desus was a bad idea. I liked the over-the-top gonzo stuff at the higher levels of 2e. And I go back and forth on the 3e Artifact paradigm. But it's a plain fact that both the First Age and Artifacts were written very badly in 2e. And that kinda taints the underlying ideas by association.

If 2e and 3e switched foundations somehow, so that 3e was the gonzo one with all the magic machinery, we might have more or less the opposite opinions on the best underlying concepts for Exalted.
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Well, to make sure we're on the same page, are we talking purely fluff in regards to underlying concepts, or are we bringing mechanics into the ring? Because if the latter, then I'm pretty sure no matter how good the writing was, the one with Paranoia Combat and 2e Social mechanics would be the one that would lose.

If we're talking just fluff, then yeah, it's a far grayer issue. For example, I share your back-and-forth feeling on Artifacts, because on one hand Evocations are really cool and are a great way to make unique equipment with its own story, etc., but on the other hand, sometimes I just want an Exalted version of Captain Carrot's sword, where it has no fancy magic or enchantments, but it's damn good at cutting things.
 
On both fluff and mechanics, 3e comes out way ahead for basically the same reason: it fails horribly less often.

But that doesn't mean that de-emphasizing the gonzo, or moving to an initiative-damage system, is a fundamentally good idea. For all I know, 3e might've been as good or better on different premises.
 
Im not going lie, I feel like the supposed 'downplaying' of the Gonzo elements in Ex3 is massively 'upplayed'.
It's primarily in the removal of mass mortal enlightenment (which honestly is probably a good thing), and a bit more emphasis put on the scarcity and uniqueness of artifacts (but even that gets way overblown) but on the flipside we now have Sorcerous Workings and sorcerers doing stuff like replacing their blood with scorpions.... so it might be a bit... maybe, but it gets way played up.
 
Sanctaphrax said:
On both fluff and mechanics, 3e comes out way ahead for basically the same reason: it fails horribly less often.

But that doesn't mean that de-emphasizing the gonzo, or moving to an initiative-damage system, is a fundamentally good idea. For all I know, 3e might've been as good or better on different premises.
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The initiative damage system is genuinely a good idea, and I think it's one that other games should seek to borrow from. Even as part of an entirely separate game, completely divorced from Exalted as a setting, I feel that both its core combat and social mechanics are good in and of themselves. I would still happily play a game with this engine even if it weren't tied to Exalted.
 
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I think the stripping down of the zanier elements of 2e was necessary to get the setting back on its roots as a hybrid of sword and sorcery and wuxia. I don't really mind anyone who misses the old days of "There's like thousands of people with enlightened Essence in the city and enough artifacts to arm them all!", but it's not my preferred aesthetic.
 
I'm not really talking about mass mortal enlightenment; that never seemed terribly important to me one way or the other.

I'm talking about the sun turning into a giant robot, Solars firing arrows for thousands of kilometers, Infernals turning into entire worlds, everything to do with the Shinma, dinosaurs peeing heroin, Autochthon being rebuilt into a war machine, and the like. The stuff that just seems crazy at first glance.

Sorcerous workings and the like can be used for that kind of thing but usually aren't. And the game seems to expect that they won't be.
 
Deations said:
The initiative damage system is genuinely a good idea, and I think it's one that other games should seek to borrow from. Even as part of an entirely separate game, completely divorced from Exalted as a setting, I feel that both its core combat and social mechanics are good in and of themselves. I would still happily play a game with this engine even if it weren't tied to Exalted.
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I agree that the social system is solid, but I greatly dislike the initiative combat system. To me, it feels less like I'd be participating in combat and more like I'd be charging up my power bar in a mobile game so that I can unleash my super move.

But then, I have yet to actually participate in a game of Exalted of any kind, so for all I know the experience could be very different from how it comes off as read.
 
Sanctaphrax said:
I'm not really talking about mass mortal enlightenment; that never seemed terribly important to me one way or the other.

I'm talking about the sun turning into a giant robot, Solars firing arrows for thousands of kilometers, Infernals turning into entire worlds, everything to do with the Shinma, dinosaurs peeing heroin, Autochthon being rebuilt into a war machine, and the like. The stuff that just seems crazy at first glance.

Sorcerous workings and the like can be used for that kind of thing but usually aren't. And the game seems to expect that they won't be.
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I mean, as far as I knew Beasts of Resplendent Liquids wre still around, the Transforming war machine Sun I've heard is line something straight out of Hindu mythology so while the presentation might change a bit, I really wouldn't count it out.
A e6 Archery charm for rangers measured in meself doesn't seem out of line with stuff we've seen. We know nothing about Intervals, ¿¿¿Shinma???, and the Autochthon War machine was part of a Shard/some apocalyptic premonition/bad end.

And i don't really thing all that (except the beast of Resplendent liquids) really represent the core of all the wacky stuff in Exalted, with areas like the Dreaming Sea being super Gonzo and something added in Ex3.
 
ichypa said:
I agree that the social system is solid, but I greatly dislike the initiative combat system. To me, it feels less like I'd be participating in combat and more like I'd be charging up my power bar in a mobile game so that I can unleash my super move.

But then, I have yet to actually participate in a game of Exalted of any kind, so for all I know the experience could be very different from how it comes off as read.
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Having run multiple games, I would say that combat is much less passive than you initially assume, at least. Building initiative requires engaging the enemy directly, and oftentimes Crashing an opponent is even more significant than unleashing a Decisive Attack.
 
The Withering/Decisive split is my second favourite thing about 3e (Single Point taking first place, because obviously) and it does indeed work fantastically in practice. The main reason it feels weird to look at is the way most games traditionally pay lip service to the idea of health-tracking mechanics being more abstract than "you hit mans mans get less helfy" but never really follow through on it.

Initiative damage as a paradigm, however, genuinely and competently creates a gamefeel where you're playing powerful, skilled warriors fighting each other on even terms. Jockying for positioning and momentum, trying to build sufficient advantage to capitalise on an opening. Rather than both parties always being chunky meat pinatas having a big, dumb slapfight.

Not that you can't do the meat pinata thing if you want to. Stamina-favoured Lunar called, they think that quiver full of arrows you emptied into her back makes her look positively dashing.
 
SunnySprings said:
I think the stripping down of the zanier elements of 2e was necessary to get the setting back on its roots as a hybrid of sword and sorcery and wuxia. I don't really mind anyone who misses the old days of "There's like thousands of people with enlightened Essence in the city and enough artifacts to arm them all!", but it's not my preferred aesthetic.
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Speaking as a fan of many of the zanier elements of 2E?
As far as I can tell, those roots never existed. Not as many fans of 3E characterize it anyway, which is more a sword and sandals thing.

And I actually did take a look at 1E.
It's setting influences list Tanith Lee AND Final Fantasy, Glen Cook AND Gene Wolfe. Sean Stewart and Moorcock.
Ninja Scroll and Streetfighter. It was previously linked to the backstory of Mage.

2E has it's problems, to put it mildly.
Social sytem. Paranoia Combat. Mass Combat. How warstriders didn't work.
But I much prefer most of it's background setting elements to what I've seen of 3E thus far.

IMO, 3E's sorcery is an unambiguous good.
Great work there, whoever took throwaway elements of 2E and elaborated them into a subsystem that shines. Some of it's new setting setpieces are very nice as well, like the city with the sorcerer living in a tower impaling a behemoth.

Parts of underpinnings of the Martial Arts system are great.
Not the whole buy a Merit thing, which is a silly speed bump best ignored, but the conceit that MA charms are an evolution of mundane fighting styles you can learn in a dojo. Things like that helped flesh out the setting IMO, and worked.

It's treatment of thaumaturgy is terrible in my opinion. Its emblematic of a key setting element that didn't have much actual gameplay relevance, but that underpinned much of the setting itself and how it worked.
And it was ripped out with apparently little forethought because Reasons.

Furthermore, 3E's general design philosophy turns me off. Like way off.
Double 7s and 8s, double 9s, exploding dice, conditional triggers, the deliberate complexity.

The whole effort to make the system as obtuse and impenetrable as possible as professed by the then-designers permeated everything in the core, from nickel and diming of what used to be straightforward Excellency effects and charms, to the deliberate effort to make basic setting elements like motes vanish in a setting that has had relatively continuous recorded history for millenia.

I don't begrudge DB and Lunar fans their joy. Lunar fans in particular.
But the core book established markers that I at least, have trouble getting past
Sorry. That just kinda happened.
ichypa said:
I agree that the social system is solid, but I greatly dislike the initiative combat system. To me, it feels less like I'd be participating in combat and more like I'd be charging up my power bar in a mobile game so that I can unleash my super move.But then, I have yet to actually participate in a game of Exalted of any kind, so for all I know the experience could be very different from how it comes off as read.
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Thought I was the only one who got that impression.
Especially combined with the charms that you can only use once unless you recharge them by meeting some sort of condition.
And the entire Craft subsystem's grind.
 
I've enjoyed 3e combat well enough, but it didn't wow me.

AmineHsu said:
I mean, as far as I knew Beasts of Resplendent Liquids wre still around, the Transforming war machine Sun I've heard is line something straight out of Hindu mythology so while the presentation might change a bit, I really wouldn't count it out.
A e6 Archery charm for rangers measured in meself doesn't seem out of line with stuff we've seen. We know nothing about Intervals, ¿¿¿Shinma???, and the Autochthon War machine was part of a Shard/some apocalyptic premonition/bad end.

And i don't really thing all that (except the beast of Resplendent liquids) really represent the core of all the wacky stuff in Exalted, with areas like the Dreaming Sea being super Gonzo and something added in Ex3.
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The Dreaming Sea doesn't seem very gonzo to me at all.

As for the crazier stuff I listed before, well, H&H were quite clear that they were moving away from that stuff. And that seems to have set the direction for the line. I guess it's always possible for the crazy to be added later, though.

uju32 said:
Speaking as a fan of many of the zanier elements of 2E?
...
Furthermore, 3E's general design philosophy turns me off. Like way off.
Double 7s and 8s, double 9s, exploding dice, conditional triggers, the deliberate complexity.

The whole effort to make the system as obtuse and impenetrable as possible as professed by the then-designers permeated everything in the core, from nickel and diming of what used to be straightforward Excellency effects and charms, to the deliberate effort to make basic setting elements like motes vanish in a setting that has had relatively continuous recorded history for millenia.
...

...

Thought I was the only one who got that impression.
Especially combined with the charms that you can only use once unless you recharge them by meeting some sort of condition.
And the entire Craft subsystem's grind.
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Well, the old 2e standby of searching the net for a homebrew system loosely based on the canonical one works for 3e too. Homebrew scenes's not as healthy as it was back in 2e but it's still got answers for stuff like bad reset triggers, excessive dice-trickery, and Craft. (I guess you probably already know that.)

In a way, the unforced errors like giving a Charm a pointlessly arcane reset condition are less of a problem than the arguably good decisions. It's easy enough to fix or remove a reset condition; it's not so easy to bring magitech back. And the just-plain-bad bits are more likely to have already been fixed by some fan you've never met or heard of.
 
I actually really like the Dreaming Sea, and if it counts as gonzo, then I want more gonzo, please.

I don't think it's gonzo though, although in order for me to consider something gonzo it would have to at least approach the bar of "Chanta is utterly pacifist except the one time a year that they all flip out due to the machinations of magical nanobot hive-mind gods."
 
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I'm kinda shocked there's people saying 2e is easier to grasp than 3e. In my mind, it's just easier to tally the 9s counting as 2 successes now if you use this charm than, uh, whatever the fuck was happening with 2e combat. I think my gripe is they didn't do enough, tell the truth, to get rid of the multi-attack nonsense. They're limited to a maximum of 5 attacks at the very least, but I really don't wanna fucking count up all my dice and what not, the GM' s gotta tally up the penalties from each attack and wound I inflict, and so on. If I had the way of it, any multi-attack charm would just be one attack roll applied to multiple targets or an attack that reduces the enemy's defenses significantly to represent your flurry of blows.
 
@Sanctaphrax

These look good, especially with the changes you made. I admit that I had a lot of extra rolls, largely because I had difficulty coming up with other rewards.

Protean Creator Discipline
I have some misgivings about this charm requiring other charm purchases to be something else than a weaker Arete Shifting Prana, especially when Memory Drinking Meditation is Intelligence 3 to ASP's Craft 1. The incentive to kill people for their skills as part of the base charm was also part of the whole 'Lunars are terrifying monsters' theme.

God-Skinner's Art
How many Second Circles or the like are there that qualify as a monster or bestial spirit? I really like the bit about Eclipse Charms.

Shaping Hand Style
This charm seems a bit weak. Looking at pre-existing charms that let the player ignore the penalties for not having the proper tools, that effect is never seen as worth a charm purchase on its own, and the cost seems to be about 2m or less. Contagion Curing Hands in Solar Medicine costs 2m, but also adds (essence) successes to the roll, making it an extra mote efficient excellency with a free benefit. Your version of Craftsman Needs No Tools applies a 2m discount if the Solar has proper tools. The Lunar Dexterity charm Snake-Finger Style costs 5m and removes the need for subterfuge styled actions, but it also Double 9s on a bunch of subtle actions and the tool replacement is mentioned in the last sentence of the charm. Something 1m less expensive for tool removal alone seems over-costed.

One way of improving the charm that strikes out at me:
Give it a Protean effect that let's Lunars in shapes that don't have hands complete actions as if they had hands and human-level dexterity. The dog can pilot a boat, the parrot can shuffle cards, and the rat can cook a gourmet meal.

Another suggestion:
Increase the duration to Indefinite and let the Lunar keep acting without tools as long as the charm is active. Craft and Medicine take place on a dramatic, hours long timescale. Snake-Finger Style supplements shorter actions, but is also a strong dice-trick. As is, this charm can burn through a lot of motes in a scene that takes place in a shorter time-frame, and that's a lot of scenes that involve any possible tool use.

There's a charm in Appearance called Glance-Oration Technique that let's the Lunar pay 4m to make a single social influence action without the need for words or a common language, which is similar to forgoing the need for tools. The charm after it Perfect Symmetry, lets the Lunar use GOT for free while it's active and is scene-long. Shaping Hand Technique had the same Attribute minimums as the latter charm, but isn't as powerfully as being able to make silent, language ignoring social influence rolls for a scene. I suggest Indefinite rather than scene-long because Shaping Hand Technique supplements dramatic actions and those can go on for a while.

Sorry if I rambled.
 
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