And let's be real here, charm progression was always, always the most important type of progression.
General Exalted Thread
And let's be real here, charm progression was always, always the most important type of progression.
Roadie
A plate full of blins and a cat nearby.
Edit: See this post.
I think that Evocations will be the new Green Sun Princes for a while in terms of homebrew Charm trees... especially for ones attached to Immaculate Golden Bow, Glorious Solar Saber, or Glorious Solar Plate Charms (sorry, Thrown users, none for you!), the Bargain with Mara shaping ritual, or the Wood Dragon's Claws or Incomparable Body Arsenal spells, since all of those are effectively innate powers that it's impossible for a jerk ST to easily remove from you.
Also, if you're going to really invest heavily into Evocations, make sure to get Lore 5 so you can take Harmonious Academic Methodology, Bottomless Wellspring Approach, Lore-Inducing Concentration, Truth-Rendering Gaze, Sacred Relic Understanding, and two other Lore Charms, then Wake the Sleeper, at which point you can proceed to get half your Evocations free forever.
Unless you invest in Lore, so you can get half your Evocations for free!
For an easy example, if there was more than exactly one Thrown 1 Charm, players would be rather more likely to toss in a dot of Thrown for just-in-case backup or improvised weapon shenanigans.
For me, this also connects back to the lack of all the cross-Ability stuff that was getting errata'd into place at the tail end of 2e, most of which made it way, way more useful to toss in a couple of dots into a couple of extra Abilities and take some low-rating Charms there without it being a waste of XP.
I think that Evocations will be the new Green Sun Princes for a while in terms of homebrew Charm trees... especially for ones attached to Immaculate Golden Bow, Glorious Solar Saber, or Glorious Solar Plate Charms (sorry, Thrown users, none for you!), the Bargain with Mara shaping ritual, or the Wood Dragon's Claws or Incomparable Body Arsenal spells, since all of those are effectively innate powers that it's impossible for a jerk ST to easily remove from you.
Also, if you're going to really invest heavily into Evocations, make sure to get Lore 5 so you can take Harmonious Academic Methodology, Bottomless Wellspring Approach, Lore-Inducing Concentration, Truth-Rendering Gaze, Sacred Relic Understanding, and two other Lore Charms, then Wake the Sleeper, at which point you can proceed to get half your Evocations free forever.
Unless you invest in Lore, so you can get half your Evocations for free!
For an easy example, if there was more than exactly one Thrown 1 Charm, players would be rather more likely to toss in a dot of Thrown for just-in-case backup or improvised weapon shenanigans.
For me, this also connects back to the lack of all the cross-Ability stuff that was getting errata'd into place at the tail end of 2e, most of which made it way, way more useful to toss in a couple of dots into a couple of extra Abilities and take some low-rating Charms there without it being a waste of XP.
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azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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Does it still count as punching us in the face if everyone in the thread does it?
The answer to both of these questions is yes.
Nothing, but if I min-max I want to choose to do so in making the character I'm interested in, not be forced to do so to make a useful character.
My complaint is that the charm spread of the abilities leads me to suspect there won't be nearly as many of the interesting, useful, low-requirement charms that were available in 2.5e.
My complaint is also that I'm expected to jack my Abilities up if I want useful effects beyond "roll the dice and maybe use an Excellency". As I've said, 2.5e had plenty of low-requirement, useful, interesting charms.
90% of the reason I'm planning on getting all 5 of my Dawn's Caste abilities to at least 3 is entirely because of Martial and Martial-Ready charms.
It makes me a little sad that such things weren't available for everyone, but outside of combat charm applications are a lot more flexible, anyway.
(Getting the JB-boosters from Thrown and Archery may be a little excessive, but the mote return from Flashing Vengeance Draw is better than an Excellency and Flashing Draw Mastery has no cost, so WOO!)
(Also, 95% of my reasoning for getting Thrown 1 as my ranged just-in-case option was Joint-Wounding Attack, which is exactly as amazing as I expected.)
Probably not! Why is that such an awful thing?
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Actually, speaking of that, when did JWA get eratted'd to Thrown 1? My errata pdf doesn't have that.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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- He/They
Because I liked them, and feel they provided a significant expansion of options in how you can build your character.
So, to clarify, you're taking the position that all of the following are min-maxing:
"I put five dots in Melee at chargen because it gets me a ton of value for my BP."
"I put five dots in Melee because I want to start with Iron Whirlwind Attack; it looks like fun."
"I put five dots in Melee because my character is supposed to be a legendary master of the blade."
"I put five dots in Melee because I had a couple spare BP and I thought, why not?"
Really?
Well, that's rather different from what you've been saying. And it's a much more reasonable complaint than "it forces everyone to min-max". And yes, it does make it harder to branch out and grab useful charms from new abilities (with a few notable exceptions, like Destiny-Manifesting Method). Perhaps the developers decided that it wasn't something they wanted to encourage. You'd have every right to be disappointed by that, but it wouldn't be inherently unreasonable. Or perhaps they decided to keep the corebook rich in high-ability charms to make "fives are super-important" obvious to new players, and then introduce low-ability charms in later books. Also reasonable. Or maybe they just decided that low-ability charms were a price worth paying to reemphasize the importance of high abilities for solars.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
It'll be interesting to see how the Terrestrials and the Exigents handle it. It would be nice if they had a larger number of low charms, as it could make it easier to be a generalist from one of the other splats.
Fortuna
Court Astrologonomomancer
I don't think I've seen these essays you refer to - links?
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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- He/They
No, but when 61% of the charms require 5 dots in the ability, I expect to see people pick up 5 dots in an ability because there's a charm in there that requires 5 dots and is important to their character concept.
There's a difference between "I put five dots in Melee because I want to be good at Melee" and "I put five dots in Melee because my character concept requires this charm that requires five dots in Melee".
My complaint is that I expect people to pick up "legendary master" levels in abilities that are tacked on to their character concept because that's how they can make it work.
It's almost like I take issue with multiple facets of what I've seen of the design!
And... Honestly, I don't find any of those points compelling enough to justify literally 61% of the charms being Ability 5.
There 454 of 737 charms that require Ability 5. Feel free to check my math (also, thanks @Eukie for doing that because it's been super useful for making the point of my issue). They could have kept half the charms at Ability 5 and that would have provided another 85 charms to spread out to lower Ability ratings!
Emphasizing that having 5 dots is important is one thing. Leaving anyone with less with minimal choice in methods to actually demonstrate how awesome they are without being capable of peak feats is something else.
Here are the ones I have links to: One, Two, Three, Four, Five.
Fortuna
Court Astrologonomomancer
Mine don't have it either, but Anathema shows that JWA have Throw 1, Essence 1, hmmmm.....
- Location
- Cyberspace
So, I browsed the basics of sorcery, and I have to say I *like* shaping rituals more then I thought I would. They give a lot of flavor to a sorcerer for relatively little crunch - not unlike those sorcerous initiations that were kind of tacked-on charms that we saw with Infernals. Gathering power and then releasing it makes sorcery *feel* like "manipulating the essence of the world", and it also places mortal sorcerers in an interesting picture as not even needing to have motes of their own to accomplish what spells are available to them.
Counterspelling (and distorted being added in) also helps with that feel of a battle between sorcerers being more of a tug-of-war then a dodgeball match. Unravel this spell, but twist that one to actually turn it against them. With the shape sorcery mechanic, in addition, sorcerous duels don't come down to "who has more motes" - save for the need for Willpower, you could easily have a duel that lasts through the day and night.
Haven't perused the actual spells, but shaping sorcery I like a lot better then what we saw in 1st and 2nd edition, where sorcery sometimes felt like just a different kind of charmset. Martial arts still has that problem (which is why I find it a pity in a way that techniques that could be enhanced with essence lost out to martial arts charms), but there's still a different feel at least.
Counterspelling (and distorted being added in) also helps with that feel of a battle between sorcerers being more of a tug-of-war then a dodgeball match. Unravel this spell, but twist that one to actually turn it against them. With the shape sorcery mechanic, in addition, sorcerous duels don't come down to "who has more motes" - save for the need for Willpower, you could easily have a duel that lasts through the day and night.
Haven't perused the actual spells, but shaping sorcery I like a lot better then what we saw in 1st and 2nd edition, where sorcery sometimes felt like just a different kind of charmset. Martial arts still has that problem (which is why I find it a pity in a way that techniques that could be enhanced with essence lost out to martial arts charms), but there's still a different feel at least.
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
in 2e, Solar Themes are:
- Chosen of the Sun, which gives them access to
- Holy Keyworded Charms
- Sun-themed magic.
- Extensive autosuccess effects.
- Human Heroes, which gives them access to
- Human actions taken to conceptual, miraculous levels. Pick locks perfectly- pick them without tools. Forge a sword from sunlight. Everything a Solar does is at it's core, a human action, with more of it's necessary elements stripped away, leaving 'The Solar' and 'The Task' as the only elements.
- Leaders
- All of their organizational magic and mental-influence effects.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Welcome to Sidereals melee. *grumble*
So yeah, az is totes correct here. Chariot has Martial arts 5 because it's more or less obligatory for Sids, and Melee 5 because Meditation on War syncs so well with throne shadow. (Harmony of blows is basically just XP tax). This is a thing that happens.
Jon Chung
=][=
I don't hate the idea of players using powers that invoke narrative fiat in general. I have a problem with powers that invoke narrative fiat in this context, namely, an otherwise mechanistic, process-driven, extremely rules heavy system with a multitude of exception-based powers, particularly given the in-setting stakes involved with the powers in question.
Such a system demands a high level of buy-in from gaming groups, particularly in the case of the GM, who is obligated to know how the thing works so he can construct everything else in the gameworld apart from the PCs' sheets. The unspoken, expected return for spending the time and effort to learn a complex, heavy system is that the system itself provides enjoyment through engagement on the game layer or setting-emulation resolution layer. Should a system not deliver either of these things, a question arises: why did our hypothetical gaming group bother learning this (and, y'know, paying the game company for a 600-page doorstopper tome plus extra supplements) if it has zero to negative utility? Clearly not worth it.
My view is that this particular kind of system, with this kind of buy-in, does not mix well with the prospect of throwing around narrative plot fiat mechanics balanced by social contract, because the presence of such things is more likely to cause problems than in, say, Fate, which is a much friendlier context for them.
Do you seriously think the one a season cooldown on God King Shrike or the (negligible if you build for it, apparently - taking this board's word for it since I still don't have the enthusiasm required to go out, find the leak and read it) XP cost of Dual Magnus Prana matters in the slightest? Do you think Creation-Slaying Oblivion Kick would have been fine if we put a once a year limit on its usage, and Zeal would be OK if we charged Masky McMask or Falafel 10XP every time he tried to use it? Because that's cold comfort in the aftermath of their uses. Creation is still, well, kicked to death. Your entire circle has still been Zealed. gg, no re. The fact that Ketchup can't Kick again for a year or Masky lost 10XP is kinda unimportant.
Yeah, I don't think "I can flawlessly destroy any city in existence on the face of Creation with no possible defense or counter from my work desk once a season, note no possible defense or counter" and such is "the kind of epic feat that highly-talented Solars can sometimes do", is the thing. Or rather, it shouldn't be, and if the game is saying it is, we have a problem.
If this is the kind of epic feat that highly-talented Solars can sometimes do, then, well, if my PCs' Circle has made highly-talented Solar enemies and has infrastructure that can be blown up, why is it not blown up? One can't simply go "because that would be a bad story", because we have established by the existence of this effect in the book (by your own words) that this (and things like it) is a thing Solars are supposed to do. So I have a choice now: are my Solar antagonists all retarded and unable to figure out that blowing up your enemy's base with a flawlessly auto-successful attack is a good idea (which would not be a good story), or is this not a thing Solars do (and the book happens to be huffing paint)? Not fun, that.
Or, let's look at this from the other angle, and posit my Circle of highly talented Solars has this capability and we want to snipe our enemies' capital cities off the face of existence one at a time, once per season, as this would be a very useful military advantage. I can simply use my mighty GM fiat authority to declare that this isn't acceptable, but hey, apparently wiping cities off the face of existence is a thing you're supposed to do, so I'm kind of being a dick here. Not fun? And a bit of a waste of space of that Charm given that neither side is allowed to use it.
Or, let's make it worse and say I do posit that my Circle's Solar enemies are in fact retarded, while not stopping my own PC Circle's city-razing efforts. This now looks like a farce, the sort of thing that should be accompanied by Benny Hill. Not fun. Why does this thing exist?
And "I can build robo-Solar duplicates of myself which require no commitment or upkeep that apparently are so good in terms of emulation of my personality and Solar magical power they can make the greatest Solar detective on the face of Creation look like a rube with no possible defense or counter" and "I can destroy any city on the face of Creation with no possible defense or counter from my room (hurr watch me nuke the Imperial Manse)" are good statements to make about the people who have them?
TBH, not seeing a lot of difference here. City-Killing Oblivion Punch (with a 1 Season Cooldown!) is certainly smaller in scope than Creation-Slaying Oblivion Kick, but it's just as impossible to stop and almost as irritating, as an example. If either of these things would have been released in Dreams of the First Age, would either of us have tried to defend them as not that bad?
Like I said in my previous post, this logic can be used to excuse just about any problem in the game that we have ever seen in its publication history. From the perspective of someone who's spent a lot of time talking about mechanical problems in the game which look remarkably like the sort of Charms people are talking about in this thread, this kind of argument makes me, let us say, negatively predisposed to this product without even having read it.
Feel free to do so, it's useful data.
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- Pronouns
- she/her
I don't think they make much difference for NPCs.
The Storyteller arbitrates everything and decides what is or isn't appropriate for a given character to know or have prepared for.
The kind of ST who wants the antagonist to have enacted their master plan thirty-five minutes ago doesn't require a charm framework to enable it.
I guess my question is, how do you take into account "my character is smarter and better prepared than I ever could be, so she would have thought to take measures against this even though I, the player, did not" without having retcon mechanics like DMG and so-on?
Also, would DMG be more acceptable if it had some clause that said "if you are subject to [sufficiently powerful detection magic] that could distinguish whether you are using this charm, you must choose whether or not to activate it. If you so choose, you must pay its cost, but its effects will not activate until you would be killed. If you choose not to, you may not activate this charm until the next time you spend time in your workshop." That way, you can still say "lol i'm a doombot" if you get ganked outta nowhere, but people with good enough magic can tell whether the dudebro they're about to shank is real or not (so you don't wind up with someone getting told "lol your super-perceptive character stabbed the wrong lady!")
Also, would DMG be more acceptable if it had some clause that said "if you are subject to [sufficiently powerful detection magic] that could distinguish whether you are using this charm, you must choose whether or not to activate it. If you so choose, you must pay its cost, but its effects will not activate until you would be killed. If you choose not to, you may not activate this charm until the next time you spend time in your workshop." That way, you can still say "lol i'm a doombot" if you get ganked outta nowhere, but people with good enough magic can tell whether the dudebro they're about to shank is real or not (so you don't wind up with someone getting told "lol your super-perceptive character stabbed the wrong lady!")
Accept that this is just game and that some things are more important than simulating every minutia of a character's competency?
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
A lore charm that lets you prepare a talisman of resources 4-5 XP in advance, without saying what it wards against. Dun Dun Dun, go go
Hell a survival charm that reveals you had a cache in the area already.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
By letting the PCs win.
No, seriously, you let them just win. Here is how I decide if my PCs plans will succeed. I listen to them make the plan, and then that plan succeeds. I throw a handful of complications that players have to improvise around, but generally speaking I just let them out smart the villains. I occasionally throw in a few rousing moments of NPC teeth-gnashing and fist shaking at the brilliance of the PCs undermining their carefully laid schemes.
It's much like how I just throw some plot hooks into the air, watch as the PCs discuss them among themselves to try and figure out what the bad guys are up to, and then have the bad guys scheme be whatever the players cooked up.
Only game mechanics required are a poker face and a willingness to allow the players to succeed.
earthboy
(verified ape)
- Location
- NYC
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I feel that retcon mechanics can be fine, but they need to be balanced against an opportunity cost.
Also, for the purpose of communication, I'd like it if retcon mechanics started a bit smaller and scaled up (all the way to Doombot, if that stays in the game).
- - -
As an example of a (hopefully decent) retcon mechanic which is small, a thing I did in Shadowrun was allow the players to shop retroactively, so they wasted less time optimizing nuyen before every run. There were some restrictions:
- You spend some money before a run to create a "retro-account". The account lasts for the duration of the run.
- The money you spent is gone even if you don't empty the retro-account during that run.
- When retro-shopping, you pay double.
- You can only retro-buy any particular item once per run.
Obviously this wouldn't work verbatim in Exalted 3e, due to differences in money mechanics, but it worked well for my group, and it saved us a lot of time in terms of avoiding indecision paralysis.
A similar-sized thing suited to E3 might be something like... you spend some downtime Crafting, and gain a fixed number of "retro-Craft" successes which you can spend over the course of a story. When you spend them, it's because you were working on a thing all along.
At that point, why spend money on a game?
I dunno, I like the idea of earning a victory by using the rules to win a game in spite of the risk of loss. I guess you could be so good at faking it that your players can't tell the difference, but I'm not that good.
Also, sometimes players are surprisingly competent. I'd like it if that competence meant something -- if they were always going to win, then their cleverness and competence is basically ignored, since incompetence would have worked just as well.