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General Exalted Thread

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azoicennead said:
And why can't players invest in mote recovery, much like they can invest in health recovery, willpower recovery, virtue channel recovery, etc.?
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Because motes are the fundamental currency of the system? Don't get me wrong, WP and health levels are both important (Virtue channels not so much) but things costing a certain number of motes, and the ability to eventually run people out of motes, is the very basis of Exalted combat, and...let's be honest, Exalted as a system is very combat-focused.
 
Salty said:
Because motes are the fundamental currency of the system? Don't get me wrong, WP and health levels are both important (Virtue channels not so much) but things costing a certain number of motes, and the ability to eventually run people out of motes, is the very basis of Exalted combat, and...let's be honest, Exalted as a system is very combat-focused.
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So... Why can't I invest in combat endurance?
 
So, I've been working on something. Still needs some fluff, but here's what I've got:

Bramblewood Warden (Green Jade Thunderbolt Shield, ***)

(I figure the best way to handle Thunderbolt Shields for now is Bashing Melee Shield Smashing - giving them the extra keyword so that they're not strictly inferior to Wrackstaffs.)

Binding Root-Coil (Shining Ice Guardian Technique)
Cost: 2m; Mins: Essence 1; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Uniform
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
As a blow is absorbed by the living coils of Bramblewood Warden, its wielder focuses his Essence through it and into the flora around him in retribution. This Charm is used to enhance an attempt to block an attack; if the Parry succeeds, then the attacker's feet are bound by grasping roots that erupt from the earth, preventing any movement. Breaking free from the roots created by this Evocation requires a difficulty 3 feat of strength, and causes the attacker to lose 1 Initiative every turn he spends trapped.

Grasping Bramble Guardian (Sinuous Liquid Escape)
Cost: 2m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Binding Root-Coil
Should a foe seek to grapple the Exalt, the tangled vines of Bramblewood Warden will leap to his defense. This Evocation allows the character to use (Dexterity + Melee) in a hostile grapple's control roll.

Floral Fang Strike (Howling Lotus Strike + do lethal)
Cost: 3m; Mins: Essence 1; Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
The coils of Bramblewood Warden shift, momentarily revealing green jade thorns dripping with venom. A decisive attack deals lethal damage and poisons its target on a successful hit. This toxin possesses the traits of arrow frog venom (damage 3i/round (L in crash), duration 5 rounds, and penalty -2).

Sapphire Evocations

Emerald Thorn Lash
Cost: 7m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple
Keywords: Uniform
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Floral Fang Strike
Parts of Bramblewood Warden uncoil to rake a distant foe with its thorns. This charm allows the Exalt to make a withering or decisive attack at close range. If the attack is decisive, it automatically gains the benefits of Floral Fang Strike.

Vigor-Leeching Vines
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Binding Root-Coil
This charm permanently enhances its prerequisite; the initiative lost by bound enemies is gained by the Exalt. If the Exalt knows Binding Ivy Blossom, it is likewise enhanced.

Binding Ivy Blossom (Whirling Petal Storm, kinda)
Cost: 6m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Binding Root-Coil
A cloud of Essence-charged pollen erupts from Bramblewood Warden, spurring countless plants to grow and grab at everything nearby. The wielder rolls (Dexterity + Melee); all characters within short range must make a reflexive (Dexterity + Dodge) roll at a difficulty equal to the successes rolled, or suffer the effects of Binding Root-Coil. If this attac successfully afflicts at least two targets, the Exalt gains one point of Willpower.

Living Mandala Defense
Cost: 4m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Uniform
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Floral Fang Strike
With a burst of Essence, Bramblewood Warden momentarily grows to enormous proportions, intercepting one attack and then withering back to its normal size. Once per scene, the wielder may invoke this charm to parry any attack from any source without a contest.

Adamant Evocations

East-Facing Pallisade
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: 1 turn
Prerequisite Charms: Living Mandala Defense
Touching Bramblewood Warden to the ground and channeling a sliver of Essence from the Pole of Wood, the wielder calls a small but stout wooden wall into being before him. The wall appears at close range to the Exalt (between her and an opponent if necessary) and cannot cover more than a 180 degree arc. This wall grants the Exalt full cover without the need for a Take Cover action. Additionally, this charm may explicitly be flurried with a Defend Other action, in which case the beneficiary of that action also gains full cover. At the beginning of the Exalt's next action, the wall crumbles into nothingness.

Garden of War (Kind of like Arrow Hedge Nest)
Cost: 6m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: Scene
Prerequisite Charms: Binding Ivy Blossom
With a surge of viridian Essence, a dense copse of trees and writhing vines erupts around the Exalt. This affects the ground out to short range, rendering it difficult terrain for all characters save the Exalt. Furthermore, the vines actively seek to aid her, interposing themselves between her and her foes, only to slither away when she strikes. This grants the Exalt the benefits of heavy cover, as long as she remains within the affected region. This Evocation may be used only once per scene.

Viridian Serpent Jungle
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: Decisive-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Garden of War, Emerald Thorn Lash
With a threatening hiss, the vines in the Garden of War sprout fangs and strike the Exalt's foes. This charm allows the Exalt to make one decisive attack against each foe in the area affected by Garden of War. The player divides the Exalt's initiative between the attacks when she activates the charm, for the purposes of determining the damage of each attack. Each attack must have at least one initiative allocated to it - if there are more foes in the garden than the Exalt has initiative, she may not use this charm. Furthermore, these attacks automatically enjoy the benefits of Floral Fang Strike.
 
Sucal said:
..

Designing Evocations is harder then I thought. Trying to work on Evocations for a black Jade and Tyrant Lizard buff jacket thats meant to enhance familars/those you train/teach. All I have for that though is 'Can train spirits with familiar charms as an emerald level evocation'. Stupid Twilight Anima, can't even be taken with Supernal Survival
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A charm that lets your familiars benefit from the soak of the buff jacket as if they were wearing it.

A charm that makes your familiars huge. Like a Tyrant Lizard.

Etc etc.
 
So, why do all Exalted Charms have ridiculous names that don't appear to have any naming system underneath them or clear-cut connection to their functionality?
 
azoicennead said:
So... Why can't I invest in combat endurance?
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In 2e?

Because combat endurance is already way to high. Or not high enough. Its kinda binary like that.

Right, more detail. Basically, the cornerstone of the Paranoia combat was that you could could gain more motes then you could spend, while maintaining perfect defenses. Even in 2.5, which murdered the shit out of that paradigm on a few levels (mostly cranking up perfect costs and stabilizing combat mote income) combat still would take ages as mote pools whittled down. Generally speaking, if you have significantly greater mote income then your opponent, you are going to win that fight. Its probably the most sure indicator I know of, combat wise.

So both sides need it, or thing escalate to unfair extremes, but if you allow to much investment, you loop back to the Paranoia Combat issues, not to mention its a one true path to victory, and man, fuck that. Even as is in 2e, combat can take a long time as mote pools wind down. Or someone has something you can't counter, and you can drop them in short order. See: binaryness.

(Out of combat regen is a different thing altogether, and there a quite a few methods in 2e of jacking it up massively. Honestly, given existing charmtech that lets you store overdrive motes for a day, converting them at a premium to normal motes at the end of a fight scene isn't a massive deal.)
 
Kylar said:
Right, more detail. Basically, the cornerstone of the Paranoia combat was that you could could gain more motes then you could spend, while maintaining perfect defenses. Even in 2.5, which murdered the shit out of that paradigm on a few levels (mostly cranking up perfect costs and stabilizing combat mote income) combat still would take ages as mote pools whittled down. Generally speaking, if you have significantly greater mote income then your opponent, you are going to win that fight. Its probably the most sure indicator I know of, combat wise.

So both sides need it, or thing escalate to unfair extremes, but if you allow to much investment, you loop back to the Paranoia Combat issues, not to mention its a one true path to victory, and man, fuck that. Even as is in 2e, combat can take a long time as mote pools wind down. Or someone has something you can't counter, and you can drop them in short order. See: binaryness.
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In-combat mote regen is important, I agree. This is one reason I'm testing the 3e mechanic for mote regen and stunts in my game.
I was mostly asking about combat endurance over multiple battles - i.e. battling through a fortress - instead of a single battle.

Kylar said:
(Out of combat regen is a different thing altogether, and there a quite a few methods in 2e of jacking it up massively. Honestly, given existing charmtech that lets you store overdrive motes for a day, converting them at a premium to normal motes at the end of a fight scene isn't a massive deal.)
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This is what I'm trying to understand. Yes, it gives you an advantage over someone who lacks the charm. That's what permanent charms do. They make you notably better at something. "It gives an advantage" should not be an argument against being able to invest in something, because that is literally the reason you invest in charms - to get an advantage.
What's next, arguing that Fire and Stones Strike should be removed because it gives lets you bypass soak? Or is that an acceptable place to invest for an advantage?

notanautomaton said:
The character's familiar is already a tyrant lizard. I don't want to know what a tyrant lizard that's twice as large would be able to do.
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He Grimlock, King!
 
azoicennead said:
He Grimlock, King!
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That's an idea for the next Tyrant Lizard familar she picks up. With Salina after all that would give her a potential breeding pair... After she gets herself half a dozen or so squirrel familars.

MJ12 Commando said:
A charm that lets your familiars benefit from the soak of the buff jacket as if they were wearing it.

A charm that makes your familiars huge. Like a Tyrant Lizard.

Etc etc.
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That's a thought, but the make my monster grow charm already exists. Did some thinking currently, this is what I have now.

Emerald:
Can train spirits
Grants half the wearers soak to familiars


Sapphire
Reduces cost of Rituals used on Familars
Can train humans with familiar charms (Ninjas!)
Allows multiple familiars to be trained at the same time for the same cost (requires that Lore charm)

Admant:

Pokeballs
Full Soak/movement rate increase
Shares Magical Abilities between familars
Familiars can learn spirit charms!
 
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Roadie said:
So I realized something as regards the sort of general pointlessness of thaumaturgy in the leaked material, in terms of mechanics (spending 3xp to learn how to spend 1wp to double the size of a single loaf of bread at a time? really?), in the inelegance of having it alongside all that sorcery stuff, and in the general weirdness of "mortals can learn to be a sorcerer, but they can only use thaumaturgy if they're born with it".

If you add (a) a learnable 1-dot Merit that requires Occult 1 and allows Terrestrial Circle sorcerous workings of Ambition 1 (and nothing else), (b) a learnable 3-dot Merit that allows Terrestrial Circle sorcerous workings of any Ambition (and nothing else), and (c) very minor "Ambition 0" Terrestrial workings ("officiate a wedding properly so the participants are more likely to have a child", "baptize a child to give a bonus against spirit possession for a year", etc) that have a goal number of 1 and a base interval of a day instead of a week... you've basically just replaced thaumaturgy entirely without needing the dumb point-sink of individual rituals and without needing an extra mechanic just for them.

It even keeps the "minor magic uses of existing skills" vibe from 2e because Bob the Wizened Old Shoemaker with Occult 1 is going to have a small enough pool he'll be leaning on his higher Abilities as Means as often as he can.
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Doubling a meal several times a day may be petty by the standards of the Exalted, but there are plenty of starving peasants who would kill for such inhuman potency.

Ignoring the issues of niche protection, plot hooks, and secret knowledge, the fundamental flaw in your proposal is that Sorcery is obscenely more powerful than thaumaturgy when it comes to infrastructure. A thaumaturge may be a village wise-man, but an incompetent, lack-witted sorcerer will quickly be ruling the village and all the nearby villages should he care to do so.

Ambition 1 terrestrial workings include the ability to conjure armies of menial servants and ward crops against every conceivable pest and disease. This is not a trivial thing to hand out. Ambition 2 workings can hybridize plants. Ambition 3 workings can make fields always deliver bountiful harvests.

Make these widely available among the peasantry and a Green Revolution of sorts is almost inevitable. While Salina would probably be delighted, this doesn't really fit with the tone of the setting.
 
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Sergarr said:
So, why do all Exalted Charms have ridiculous names that don't appear to have any naming system underneath them or clear-cut connection to their functionality?
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Name in Asia are always flowery like that, Wuxia have name for techinques like Six Meridians Divine Sword, or a crossbow's name in mythology is translate roughly as Marvelous and Bright Golden Claw. And since Exalted take inspiration from Asian so you get pretty names for Charm like that instead of Shoot Lighting Bolt and Thrown Yeddim Flurry.
 
Jen said:
Name in Asia are always flowery like that, Wuxia have name for techinques like Six Meridians Divine Sword, or a crossbow's name in mythology is translate roughly as Marvelous and Bright Golden Claw. And since Exalted take inspiration from Asian so you get pretty names for Charm like that instead of Shoot Lighting Bolt and Thrown Yeddim Flurry.
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It also works a lot better in Chinese or Japanese because you have one or at most two characters per word.

A Chinese translation of Exalted would be interesting.
 
Anasurimbor said:
Doubling a meal several times a day may be petty by the standards of the Exalted, but there are plenty of starving peasants who would kill for such inhuman potency.
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Sure, but I bet they'd rather kill for Resources 5, which costs the same amount. Also, it'd be hard for a peasant to use it multiple times a day. Willpower recovery is much harder than it was in 2e; sleeping gets you a flat 1, and level 2 stunts are much harder (i.e. not trivial to do on every action). Second Bread is just singularly unimpressive. Now, some of the other rituals are much more interesting - potentially worth the 3/5 experience for an Exalted sorcerer, even.
 
New Kerisgame session up, in which Keris finds out that she can actually be rather good at this "social influence" thing if she does it the right way.

PS the right way includes bribery and shameless use of "I'm innocent and sympathetic" UMI auras.
samdamandias said:
And I would be honored if you would do a writeup of the Sages Upon Shoulders.
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Katibin, the Sages Upon Shoulders
Demon of the First Circle
Progeny of the Virtuous Scribe

The Virtuous Scribe is dedicated to spreading proper behaviour and eliminating vice. To this end Loramae created the katibin; the sages upon shoulders. Each katib is a small, armless humanoid figure with rapidly fluttering butterfly wings and no discernible gender. They rarely grow taller than four to six inches, and always come in pairs; sitting on the shoulders of their host or fluttering up to whisper into their ear. Though they are often annoying, they are blindingly fast, and attempts to capture, swat or drive them away will generally meet nothing but empty air and a chiding for one's failure of Temperance.

Katibin are made to advise their hosts on matters of Virtue, but their understanding of the concept varies from pair to pair. In Malfeas, katibin usually learn their Virtues from their progenitor, who echoes the Whispering Pyre's greater good and unbiased clarity, but young neomah-made sages can be taught other interpretations, from Adorjan's lethal philosophy of detachment to the Unconquered Sun's peerless examples. Katibin twins are diametrically opposed to one another. One is always stark white, with black eyes and black wings. It sits on the left shoulder and preaches Compassion and Temperance - or at least its understanding of the concepts - into the ear of its host. The other is black, with white eyes and wings and rises from the right shoulder to speak of Conviction and Valor.

Advice was not the only thing the katibin were made for. Occasionally, when their host commits an act of terrible sin or moral fortitude, they will rise and leave their host behind for a time; flitting off to report to Loramae so that she can enter the deed into her ledgers and mark vice or virtue against their name. If summoned and bound, they will instead report to their temporary master on the worth or wickedness of their servants. Should one katibin of a pair die, the other will inevitably go insane; no longer constrained by its twin's contradictory urges. The maddened sage will indulge its unchained whims, spending all its time in uncontrolled Limit Breaks associated with its preached Virtues until it meets its end.

Sorcerers summon katibin - carefully selected for their specific understanding of virtue, if they are wise - to bestow upon their subordinates; often binding one sage of a pair to stay silent while the other whispers unmitigated Valor into the ear of a soldier, or Temperance into that of a treasurer. The tendency of the sages to report acts or violations of high virtue is also useful, and by paying close attention to their whispers, a sorcerer might become more virtuous themselves. Katibin can flit from the prison of the Yozis when a person with no strong moral beliefs is met with a crisis of virtue, and begs for someone to advise them.
 
@Aleph
Maybe I misunderstood the rules, but wouldn't every commoner in Creation qualify as a "person with no strong moral beliefs," and thus let the sages out very frequently?
 
beowolf said:
@Aleph
Maybe I misunderstood the rules, but wouldn't every commoner in Creation qualify as a "person with no strong moral beliefs," and thus let the sages out very frequently?
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Mechanically, that would probably be people with remarkably low Virtues, rather than just average ones. Even if not (eg, if it's "no Virtues above 2), they still need to be met with a crisis of virtue and beg for someone to advise them to meet the condition. And just meeting the condition doesn't guarantee a demon will escape, it just gives an opportunity. I tend to balance First Circle release conditions against things like blood apes, which can find their way out of the demon realm by listening for the sound of the last drop of blood of a mortal species of creature falling to the earth, or neomah, which are called into Creation by the mingled tears of parents crying over a stillborn baby (and who promptly offer to use it as raw material to make them a living one).
 
And keep in mind, by the 'at least one Virtue at 3+' measure, plenty of people would meet that.

What would be rare is someone without strong virtues wanting advice, yes.
 
Aleph said:
Mechanically, that would probably be people with remarkably low Virtues, rather than just average ones. Even if not (eg, if it's "no Virtues above 2), they still need to be met with a crisis of virtue and beg for someone to advise them to meet the condition. And just meeting the condition doesn't guarantee a demon will escape, it just gives an opportunity. I tend to balance First Circle release conditions against things like blood apes, which can find their way out of the demon realm by listening for the sound of the last drop of blood of a mortal species of creature falling to the earth, or neomah, which are called into Creation by the mingled tears of parents crying over a stillborn baby (and who promptly offer to use it as raw material to make them a living one).
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OK, so, I forgot about the neomah, but even if you go with the far more open reading that the blood apes qualify for each individual (because that sounds like it's literal meaning is referring to an entire species as a whole losing it's last drop of blood)... eh, I guess the two are equally likely then, because while total exsanguination is quite rare without something trying to get the blood, I suppose moral crises harsh enough to make someone beg for advice agree as well.
 
I am currently winning my fight against the vile coding of the dice roller i am creating for the third edition, but i could use some help: can someone list me all the charm which alterate the dices in any manner?

I could do it by myself, but i would probably miss something(Except for awareness, which is chock full of reroller, unreroller, ultraroller, recursive rollers and probably many other rerollers)
 
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